Love At First Sight

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A

Is 8:23-9:3-1
Ps 27:1,4,13-14
1 Cor 1:10-13, 17
Mt 4: 12-23

It was love at first sight.

Do you believe in love at first sight? For years I didn’t. I thought that love is too complicated to fall into so casually. Love is not a thunderbolt that strikes you, it comes only through gaining knowledge of another person over time, which eventually turns to trust and then to love. Anything else is just infatuation. And yet for Peter, Andrew, James and John it was love at first sight. All it took for them to leave their jobs, their families and the lives they’d built for themselves was one look at Jesus. Their love at first sight was life changing and everlasting. They never went back to their old ways of life. Everything had changed for them in an instant.

The political and social commentator Dennis Prager wrote a couple of articles recently on the subject, “What do men and women want?” He started with what men want most, and he made the point that what a man wants most of all from the woman he loves is to be admired. At first I thought that was a bit shallow, but then I thought that maybe he was right, and I could relate to it. We men work hard to make a name for ourselves, and we look for acceptance and kudos most from those whose opinion we value the most. He then followed up with what a woman wants most of all. I figured it would be love, love, love, because women are all about love. Or jewelry. Prager said that what a woman most wants is to be loved by a man she admires. Men want to be admired by those they love, women want to love someone they admire. Sounds perfectly complementary. But I think it is a bit too restrictive. I think we all want to be admired by those we love, and we all want to be loved by those we admire. It’s not a gender thing. It’s universal. When we are loved by someone we admire it raises our self worth. If someone so special loves us then we must also be special, and everyone wants to feel special.

And that explains a bit about why those fishermen could leave hearth and home and follow someone they had just met. There must have been something special about Jesus’ manner, how he carried himself, how he spoke, the way he looked at you, that compelled people to follow him. We have a word for it – charisma. And I think that special thing was a pure and unconditional love. Along with a complete knowledge and understanding of who they were and what they wanted. When Jesus looked at them they looked into the eyes of love himself. With no judgments or preconditions or baggage. Just love. And that must have been overwhelmingly attractive.

It was love at first sight for Jesus, too. He asked those fishermen to follow him because he loved them from the moment he first saw them. He loved them because he admired them, too. He admired them from the moment he conceived his first thought of them, before their parents or grandparents were even born. From the beginning of time. He admired them because he knew them from the womb. He knew all their strengths and weaknesses. He knew all their joys and fears. He knew who they had been and who they were destined to become. And all that knowledge shone forth in his eyes as he greeted them on the shoreline.

That look of love was only the beginning. When Jesus invited the apostles to follow him he didn’t sit and talk to them awhile about who he was or what he was all about, or leave them with a little pamphlet to read. He simply went on his way and left it up to them whether or not they came after him. His invitation was not to follow him intellectually, it was to leave their old lives behind completely and live the life he had chosen. He didn’t ask them about their pasts or backgrounds. He didn’t care about their sins or shortcomings. He wasn’t worried about where they had been. He was interested in where they were going. He never judged them, but he challenged them. When they left their old selves behind they were called to a life of action. And that action led eventually to their martyrdom. Just like Jesus.

Jesus came upon James and John mending their nets. They were not fishing, they were preparing to fish. They had been preparing to meet Jesus their entire lives, without knowing it. And Jesus took them where they were in their stations in life and turned their vocations into discipleship. We also have been preparing to meet Jesus our entire lives, without knowing it. When we finally encounter his look of love we are also called to discipleship. And he calls us where we are, as who we are. If we are educators he calls us to be teachers of men. If we are doctors he calls us to be healers of men. If we are mothers he calls us to be nurturers of men. If we are fathers he calls us to be providers and protectors of men.

He calls us all in his own way, and he doesn’t just leave us with a pamphlet, or a bible, or a DVD. He simply says, “Come, follow me”. He doesn’t care where we’ve been, he’s only concerned where we are going. He looks into our eyes and knows us. He admires us for who we are. All he asks is that we look back into those eyes of love and accept that love and admiration.

But then we have to walk along life's shoreline and call others to him in exactly the same way.

Look What He's Done For You!

Mass at Midnight

Christmas Eve

One of the best things about the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve is that there are no more commercials on the air urging us to buy something. The stores are all closed. It’s too late. If you haven’t bought it by now, too bad. All that’s left is the Christmas music on the radio. When you leave here tonight you will drive home through a world at peace. Most folks are at home in bed, there’s very little traffic and things are quiet. It’s a good time to reflect and be at peace.

For weeks we’ve been bombarded with conflicting messages. Retailers are telling us to buy, buy, buy. The secular world is trying to completely remove all religiosity from Christmas. It’s all Santa and no Jesus. Or it’s Kwanza or Festivus or the Winter Equinox or whatever. There’s the war against Christmas and the battle for Christmas. We have been struggling to keep Christ in Christmas. And we try to keep things in perspective, not letting the kids, and ourselves, get too greedy or selfish. We try to keep the focus on others and remember that it’s the season for giving, not receiving. It’s the season for greed and the season for benevolence. Give to the poor while we give to ourselves.

But tonight, it’s ok to be selfish. It’s okay to think it’s all about us. Because it is. We think Christmas is all about Jesus. But Christmas is all about us.

Do you think God became man for his own sake? Do you think he needed to come down here in the dirt with us? The Word did not become flesh for his own benefit. God didn’t need to become man. What good would it do him? What kind of a life did he give himself? Was he a prince? A rich man, powerful and majestic? No. God became the lowest kind of man. He wasn’t born in a palace. He was born in a filthy stable surrounded by dirty animals and dirty people. He grew up in a nothing backwater town in a nothing backwater province in a small, insignificant country that was basically enslaved to one of the cruelest regimes in all of history. He surrounded himself with lowlifes and losers, crooks and prostitutes. He never owned a home. He had few possessions. What good did it do him? What did we ever give him in return for his generosity? What could we ever give him to pay him back?

Jesus didn’t do it for himself. No, God became man only for us. Just like a poor father who takes on a second job cleaning toilets so that he can afford to buy his kids some decent Christmas presents, God emptied himself and took on the form of a slave so that we could be with him. He became one of us so that we could become like him. He didn’t have to, he wanted to.

One thing in all the stupid, materialistic Christmas commercials is true, however. And that’s how the emphasis is on getting that special someone that special gift and then waiting in anticipation for their reaction when they open it. Make sure you get just the right gift or they won’t like it, and then how would you feel. I think we who give have just as great an anticipation as those who receive. It’s not just the children who are anxious to open their gifts. We parents are anxious for them to open them, because we want to see the look on their faces when they do so. I think God is the same way with his children. It’s like he’s saying, “Look what I’m giving to you! Look what I’ve done for you! Do you like him?” And he’s hoping to see that look of joy on our faces when we see the gift.

And who were the angels singing for? They didn’t sit around the stable singing to the baby Jesus. They weren’t happy for him. They knew this wasn’t exactly a wonderful experience he was going through, wrapped up against the cold in the straw. They knew it was a great day for humanity. They saw the supreme value in the gift that was being given us. They knew the necessity of the gift. And they were just so excited they had to tell someone, anyone. So they went to the first people they could find, the shepherds, and they just had to blurt it out. “Look what he’s done for you. For you. Isn’t it awesome?” Sort of like when one of your kids comes home and breathlessly tells you, “Did you see that the neighbors got a new car?”

And they knew how it would end. Those same angels who were rejoicing in Bethlehem would be weeping at Calvary. They knew this child would be rejected, scorned, tortured and killed. But tonight it does not matter. Because the gift is still the gift. The gift is wonderful and meaningful and perfect whether you like it or not. Whether you wrap your arms around it and make it your favorite, the one you just can’t put down, or if it’s the one you drop to the side while you open the other presents. It doesn’t matter. And God is the ultimate re-gifter. He will take the same gift of himself, and keep on giving it to you over and over again, until you accept it and love it. He won’t even change the wrapping, he won’t spruce it up or change it so that it’s more attractive to you. He’ll just keep giving it to you. And hopefully someday you’ll receive it and love it as it is and keep it with you always. Because he wants to receive you and love you and keep you with him always. And then he wants you to re-gift it to someone else.

For a child is born to us, a son is given us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.
His dominion is vast
and forever peaceful,
from David’s throne, and over his kingdom,
which he confirms and sustains
by judgment and justice,
both now and forever.

Family Ties

The Vigil of Christmas

What a God we have!

We have been anticipating the coming of Christ into our lives these past four weeks. Tonight we hear the promise fulfilled. Emmanuel. God is with us. But what kind of a God do we have who felt it necessary to come as he did, or to even come at all? And what kind of people are we that we are so very loved?

Every year at this vigil Mass we hear the long genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew chose to begin his gospel with this genealogy to show his listeners that Jesus is the promised messiah, the Son of David who has come to set Israel free. Matthew wanted to show the royal lineage of Jesus, but he also wanted his listeners to see the humanity of Jesus, to relate to him as a man. Because Jesus is just like us, and we are just like him. He is a king, but he is also a beggar. He is exalted on high, but still has all the baggage of the past we all seem to carry around with us.

God has chosen to get right down with us in the dirt. He chose the method of salvation for the human race from the very moment human nature failed. He chose his people, and he chose a specific family line to be born into. God chose to be so very close to us that he shared our very human lives with us. God has chosen to insert himself into our everyday lives, just where we are. God chose to share in our humanity, with all its ups and downs, love and violence, joy and pain. He could have inserted himself in history at any point in that long genealogy. He could have been born a prince in any one of those royal households. But he chose instead to be born of a very poor young girl in a very poor village in a backwater province in a forgotten country. In a stable. In the dirt, where most people spend their time.

You can’t pick your family, but Jesus did. And the family he picked is just like any other family. In it are some of the greatest figures in Jewish history, and also some of the most reviled. There are kings and adulterers, wise men and murderers, heroes and harlots. They lived in times of plenty and times of want, times of peace and times of war. For the most part life was a great turmoil for them, and they struggled to keep sight of the hand of God guiding their lives. Just like us. We have all sorts of folk in our families. Both saints and sinners. And they’re all coming for Christmas dinner. We may or may not like them very much, but they’re our family, and we’re all in this together.

We all go through times of joy and times of turmoil. We are buffeted by the events of our days, and we sometimes wonder if God is really there for us. Is there at all. At times of struggle we sometimes think that God has distanced himself from us. We look hard but cannot find him. Sometimes we hide him ourselves, covering up his presence in a mountain of inconsequential stuff. The routine of our lives, the quest for more and more material goods, our own personal pain and suffering. But if you look at Matthew’s genealogy, look at the lives of the people in Jesus’ history, it is at the times of greatest peril that God has been most strongly present. He has always been there when we needed him most. It is out of our most challenging times that our greatest saints emerge.

What a God we have, who came to save his people from their sins. He came to offer us a glimpse of heaven. He came to show us that no matter what we’re going through, there is always hope. There is always forgiveness. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Because no matter what unsavory characters were among Jesus’ ancestors, no matter what horrible wars and exile and famine and death they had to endure, at the end there’s Jesus. In the end there’s always Jesus.

Well I hope you can see that the first Christmas was anything but idyllic, anything but perfect, anything but comfortable. I do not deny that there is a place for sentimentality but, truth be told, our sentimentality often sets us up for disappointment. We want Christmas to be Hallmark perfect. And then Uncle Joe shows up at Christmas dinner drunk, and son Ben is away in Iraq, Mom died last June, and instead of snow, it is warm. But guess what. Jesus wasn’t found in a perfect Christmas either. If you’re looking for a perfect Christmas, Jesus is not there. He is in the imperfect one. He’s in your actual Christmas not your imagined Christmas.

Find him there.