Fear No One

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jer 20:10-13

Rm 5: 12-15

Mt 10:26-33

Cycle A

Fear no one.

For the first time in my adult life I am truly frightened. The perfect storm of pandemic and social unrest and the polarization of our society are taking a toll on me, on my psyche, and on my soul. You may be feeling the same way. I try to find peace but it seems that every news story, every conversation, everything I see, read, and hear bombards me with over-the-top fear, hatred, and anger. I cannot escape it, even in prayer, even in my closest relationships.

Terror on every side, the prophet Jeremiah says! I have never seen such fear and anger before, and it’s getting harder and harder to make sense of it and cope with it.

When you were little, did you ever get woken up by thunder, really loud thunder that seemed to shake the house? And were you frightened by it? Did is terrify you? What did you do? I think most of us ran to mom and dad’s room and jumped in bed with them.

We ran to mom and dad because we felt safe there. We didn’t actually think that they could make the thunder stop, we went there because we knew we would be held and stroked and reassured. We trusted them to make everything alright, because they always made everything alright, didn’t they? And for me as a child, mom and dad’s room was special, it was different than my room, it smelled differently, it was always sort of dark and warm. I rarely went in there during the day. Sort of like a church. And I remember running to the door, then slowly creeping in there in the dark, hearing their breathing, hesitating a bit, and then climbing in, usually on Mom’s side, to snuggle in.

We all need to feel safe, to feel loved, to feel protected by someone stronger than us when we are frightened.

But, how do we handle our terror when mom and dad aren’t there? Where do we go to feel safe? What if we have to deal with our terrors on our own, with nowhere to run to, no one to snuggle down with, no one to smooth our hair, kiss our brow, and tell us everything will be alright? What if we are alone?

So many people are in that situation right now, aren’t they? They are terrified and have to deal with their fears all by themselves, on their own. One of the worst things about this pandemic is that we are isolated from one another. We cannot run to mom and dad, in fact, we have to be isolated from them even more due to the risks to them. Many of us turn to technology like virtual meeting rooms and social media, but that’s not the same, is it? We need that physical contact, not just audio visual contact. We need to be held and fussed over and consoled. Touching a screen is not the same as touching another person.

So, we have been placed in stress like we’ve never known before, coming from every direction. How can we cope? What do you do in times of great stress? Do you turn to prayer? Do you try to pray more often, or harder, or for different things? Have you prayed for others and asked others to pray for you? And have your prayers brought you peace? Or do you turn to your intellect, and collect data and facts to support your thinking or opinions or positions to reassure you that you really are in control of the situation? Does that give you control? I think that is a large part of our fear, of my fear. The sense of losing control.

But we are never really in control, are we? God is, whether we like it or not. And that should console us. Jesus says today to fear no one, but more importantly, he says “trust me” and “acknowledge me”. We are so very valuable, so precious in God’s eyes that he will never cause us to be harmed. Even if we lose everything we have here on this earth, even if we are killed, we really haven’t lost what is most important to us. “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

But how can you trust a God you cannot see? How can you go beyond saying and praying the words to a place of true peace in the midst of the whirlwind all around you? If it’s hard enough to trust our fellow human beings, who we can see and hear and touch, how much harder is it with our invisible God?

Well, I guess it’s a lot like running to your parents’ room during a thunderstorm. As a little child you didn’t question your mom and dad’s love for you. All the things they had done for you before - feeding and clothing you, holding you, laughing with you, cleaning up your messes – showed you that they were trustworthy. And as a little child you really didn’t have much choice in the matter; you couldn’t do all those things for yourself. So, you had to rely completely on them. Therefore, it was almost instinctive for us to run to those people when we were in dire need and afraid, because they had been so trustworthy in all those other things. You didn’t question it, you just accepted it.

As we grow up we are taught to be more and more self-sufficient, to make our own decisions, and take care of ourselves. We may turn to our parents from time to time for advice, but eventually we become fully responsible for ourselves and our actions. Sadly, many people lose sight of what it means to be a child, both of our parents and of God. We value our own independence over everyone else, and become more and more self-centered. Many people become estranged from their parents and especially from their God. They actually grow out of God and replace their love and reliance upon God with love and reliance of the self or upon the tribe.

And so I can understand why so many people today are angry and hateful and destructive…they are afraid and have no one to run to. They have been so used to relying solely on themselves that they cannot admit that they are not in control and will never fully be in control, and that it’s alright to not be in control and to need to rely on the help and comfort of someone stronger. It’s not just alright to want to run to your Father’s arms, it’s what the Father wants. Jesus told his disciples “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Maybe that’s what he meant and how we are supposed to think and behave.

On this Father’s Day weekend I think it’s good to reflect on what it means to be a good father, and how the role and image of a father should and can be one for all disciples. How can we all, but especially we men, be trustworthy models of our heavenly Father, to help those closest to us live peacefully during these trying times?

First, pray. If you haven’t been praying, start. If you have been praying, pray harder. Pray for peace. Pray for strength. Pray for wisdom. Pray for forbearance and patience. Pray for all those gifts of the Holy Spirit by which the world will be healed. Prayer is the solid foundation upon which all else will stand or fall.

Second, live within yourself. Realize and accept that there are a lot more things in this life you cannot control than you can. You cannot affect much of what happens to you, you can only affect your reaction to it. Try not to worry about things you cannot control. Most of all, see yourself as a little child who must rely on someone stronger. This will lead to humility and reduce or eliminate your fear.

Third, unplug. Take a break from all the negativity that bombards you. Turn off the phone and the TV and read a good book with a strong reinforcing message of love. Heck, read the bible! Have a long conversation with your spouse. Play a game. Find a way to re-ground yourself without distractions.

Next, connect. Keep coming to Mass every week. Stay in touch with people in your church community. Join in the daily coffee talks with Fr. Gray to laugh, converse, and get a jolt of inspiration along with your caffeine. Remember, where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am among you.

Finally, be kind. Fr. Gray last week spoke of kindness, which is based upon love. Kindness is such a strong way to show your love. Be kind to those closest to you. Be kind to those who disagree with you. Be kind to strangers, especially. Be kind because that is how people know they are loved. Kindness removes people’s feelings of loneliness and fear. Kindness to others allows them to be kind to others in return. Our kindness can bring a sense of the divine to those who have lost their trust in God.

The most common phrase in the bible is “Fear Not”, “Be Not Afraid”, or “Have No Fear”. May we all trust that message from the Lord so we can become the type of people the fearful run to for comfort, solace, and strength.

E Pluribus Unum

3^rd 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

The United States of America. One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All. E Pluribus Unum – Out of Many, One.

There is strength in numbers. There is power in unity. This has been proven time and again. The 13 colonies ditched the Articles of Confederation and joined together under the Constitution because there are some things that can only be done by a unified nation. National defense, consistency in laws, a strong economy.

People always come together under common beliefs, values, and goals. That is not a coincidence. That is one way we as human beings image God. One God, three divine persons. There are many parts, but one body in Christ. A house divided against itself cannot stand. One bread, one body, one cup of blessing.

We hear today the prophecy of Isaiah regarding Zebulun and Naphtali, how the people in darkness have seen the light. You may recall that when the Israelites left Egypt and settled in the promised land, they did so according to their tribes – the 12 tribes of Israel. 10 settled in the northern part of the land and 2 settled in the south. King David was the first to unify the tribes into one nation, however, after his reign the kingdom split into two, Israel in the North and Judah in the south, each with their own kings.

The Assyrians invaded the Northern kingdom of Israel in 721 BC and carried the 10 tribes there off into captivity. One reason Assyria was able to do this is because Israel and Judah were no longer unified, and therefore were weakened. The remnant that remained in Israel intermarried and assimilated over time with various foreign groups. Two of those tribes were Zebulun and Naphtali.

Unity and purity of belief have always been two of the most important values of the Jewish people. They have worked very hard to maintain their particular identity as God’s chosen people by not intermarrying and assimilating into the cultures they have inhabited. Those who did were considered unclean and were to be avoided and even shunned. That is why the people who lived in Zebulun and Naphtali were considered to be in darkness. They had been cut off from the unified nation, they had defiled themselves by assimilating. They were impure and were therefore were without hope. They were considered Gentiles, not Jews.

That area is also known as Galilee. And it was no coincidence that Jesus chose to live there, chose to begin his ministry there, laid the foundations of his church in the apostles there. Jesus did not simply desire that his church be unified with him in all things, he actually said that he and the church are one in the same thing. He prayed, “that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”  And he left us the greatest sign and creator of unity in all of history, the Eucharist.

But maintaining unity is difficult. We hear St. Paul say today,

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you agree in what you say,
and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.

From the very beginning of the Church there have been divisions. We hear today that the Corinthians were already taking sides, this one following Apollos, this other one Cephas, and yet another Paul. And it’s a natural thing to do. We do it ourselves. We prefer this priest or that, this pope or that, this politician or that. And I think that we follow them because they agree with us. Their worldview parallels ours, and that makes us feel justified and important.

Human beings have always joined themselves in factions, usually based upon what we feel best serves our interests. We naturally are attracted to people and movements that coincide with and reinforce our own beliefs. Ironically, in this way when we group ourselves with others we do it for completely selfish reasons. It really isn’t about the group, it is about us.

And I think the most destructive thing about this tribalism is that typically it moves beyond just identifying with a specific group to vilifying and demonizing people outside the group, who do not agree with our worldview. Factionalism often leads to arrogance and discrimination and closemindedness. It can ultimately lead to violence astonishingly quickly.

So, St. Paul is understandably frustrated. Didn’t they get it? It wasn’t about a human being’s thoughts or teachings or eloquence. It was about Jesus. It is about God. The one person who can truthfully claim that it is all about him is Jesus. The deeper your understanding of your discipleship, the more you become like Jesus and the more he becomes the center of your life.

It’s like a cup of water. It can only hold so much. If you fill it with something else the water must be displaced. The more we let Jesus fill our souls the less space we ourselves will take up.

I think that’s what the apostles experienced when Jesus called them by the seashore. Their lives were filled with the cares and simple joys of their everyday lives. Like us, they were focused on themselves, even though they were devoutly religious people. Their belief in God was very important to them, but it wasn’t everything. They needed to make more room in their lives for God.

Jesus had one consistent message throughout his earthly ministry – “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Sometimes he referred to the Kingdom of Heaven, like today. Either way, the message is the same, for them and for us. I think we all too often think of God as being somewhere else. God is in heaven, a place we have some foggy idea of. Every now and then we are aware of God’s presence in our world; when we reach out to him in our distress, when we thank him for something wonderful that has been given to us, when we see the beauty around us in nature and in one another. For most of us, we move through awareness and unawareness of God.

Jesus is telling us something different today. He is saying that God is not somewhere else, he is here. And he is immanent, here at this very time in our lives and active in history. There are some people who view God almost like a celestial watchmaker. He has fashioned an unimaginably complex universe, set it in motion, and then lets it run by itself with no continuing interference from him.

But the reality of the incarnation – God become man – refutes that belief. Our king is so involved in our lives, in every area and fiber of our lives that he chose to become one of us. He is intimately a part of who we are and who we are destined to be. We are fully human when we rally around our king. We are fulfilling our destiny when we subjugate our will to His.

Jesus urges his disciples to be united around their king. But it’s so much more than just being subjects of the king. No matter how benevolent an earthly king is, there is still always a degree of separation between him and his subjects. Jesus said that our unity with our king is so much deeper, the lines of separation destroyed.

We are unified around our king. He is and should be the center of everything in our lives. It is difficult I think for us to submit to our king. As I said before, we gravitate towards those who agree with us. With God it’s different. We should not rally around our king because he agrees with us but because we agree with him. We are subjects, not the king ourselves. It is easy to forget that sometimes, especially in our self-centered society.

Remember that the beginning of Jesus’ call to us is the word “Repent”. We are to first and foremost get our relationship right with our God. We need to realize that we all have the need to repent, to change, to turn from our sinfulness and re-orient ourselves to God each and every day. And the best way to do that is to participate in the Mass, to partake of the one loaf and the one cup, to become one with Jesus body and blood, soul and divinity. To become Jesus active in the world today. To become what you eat.

Just as Jesus fulfilled the prophecy by bringing the gentiles and the outcasts back into union with the chosen people, he does the same with everyone who seeks him. The kingdom of God is at hand, and it is one kingdom. It is one kingdom of hope and of peace, and it is achievable and real.

Leave behind your tribe. Leave behind your faction. Leave behind anything and everything that causes division and strife in your church and in your life, and switch your allegiance to the King.

That is the one path to being truly happy in this life and in the kingdom to come.

Gaudete!

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Gaudate Sunday

Cycle A

I woke up this morning in the middle of a Hallmark Channel movie. I live in a small town away from the hustle and bustle of the city. A gentle snow was falling, the house was warm and quiet and decorated for Christmas. There was a tree and ornaments and stockings hung on the fireplace. There was hot coffee and warm blankets, a beautiful woman at my side (although she’s not a blonde) and a dog at my feet. It was like I was living in a snow globe.

That’s what we have come to expect from Christmastime. And that’s how I categorize it. The secular season I call Christmastime. The religious observation is Advent. And every once in a while the two seasons connect, but oftentimes not.

Advent is different from Christmastime. Both are all about anticipation, but what we are anticipating in each is very different. Both set expectations, but one will never fully satisfy. One is looking forward to a day, a single day, and the anticipation is mostly around what we are going to receive. Christmastime is about an experience, one that will soon end. Advent is looking forward to what that first Christmas day put into motion. The incarnation of the Lord paved the way for eternity. The first coming of the Lord set in motion the second coming.  The birth of Jesus was the beginning of something that will never end.

Christmastime as the world now celebrates it is empty. It is never really like we image it should be. My house will never be a beautiful as in a Hallmark movie. The problems in my life will never be neatly wrapped up and resolved in the same way they are in an hour and a half on TV. And we never seem to be satisfied. It’s like the anticipation of little children. They are not excited about the day as much as about what they will receive that day. Have you ever seen it? They are so excited with this present in their hands, but as soon as they open this one they are looking to the next, and the next, and the next. They tear into their presents to see what they are and then push them aside so they can get the next one. And two weeks later, many of the toys will be forgotten, meaningless, nothing special. It seems to be a metaphor for life in the US in general. Disposable joy.

And Christmastime ends abruptly once Christmas day is over. You see it driving down the street the day after Christmas, with all the Christmas trees lying on the side of the road or, here in Park City, piled up at various empty lots around town. We must set aside this holiday to prepare for the next. On to New Year’s Eve! Break out the Valentine’s candy!

For those who understand the season of Advent, Christmas day is not the end but the beginning. If we celebrated it correctly, we would wait to put up our decorations until Christmas Eve, then keep them up until January 12 for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. That is the true liturgical Christmas season. But we start preparing for Christmas sometime around Halloween – that’s when the stores start putting everything out – and very rarely do we see or hear any reference to Jesus and the incarnation. It’s all Santa Claus and Elf on a Shelf. You can now go the entire season and never hear a Christmas carol that mentions the Christ child.

But today is different. Today is Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of rejoicing. We have been preparing our hearts and minds for the true meaning of Christmas, and now the end is in sight. We have been observing Advent, not Christmastime, and it’s time to stop and contemplate the wonderfulness of the gift we are about to receive. It is now time to rejoice because the finish line is in sight. Not presents and festivities but the greatest gift of all – eternal life with Jesus in heaven. We look forward to our salvation, when Jesus Christ returns in his glory and all creation is made new again.

The readings today speak of justice, of setting things right again. When sin entered the world the result was suffering, pain, and brokenness. When the Son of Man returns in his glory everything will be made whole again, as the creator has always intended it to be. It is good and necessary that we stop today and focus on the prize, because it is difficult to see the summit sometimes when we’re down in the weeds.

We speak of peace on earth, goodwill towards all, and we know deep down that that is what we truly crave. The peace of the Lord is different from the peace of the earth. We long for a time when there is no strife or war or suffering or broken relationships, because we feel the anxiety and pain that those things cause us. We seek relief from our suffering. The peace of Jesus Christ is deeper than that and is not dependent on any outside influences. The peace of the earth is the absence of something. The peace of Jesus Christ is the restoration of everything. It is the peace of Adam and Eve in the garden, who had their every need and desire provided, and had the contentment of children, walking hand in hand with their father in paradise.

In fact, Adam and Eve had no wants and desires, because they lacked nothing. They didn’t even know what a desire was, because they had never experienced want. That’s what heaven will be like. That’s what Jesus promised would be restored to all of creation. There will be no regrets of the past and no worries for the future. There will be no blindness nor deafness nor feebleness nor fear. Everything will just be as it intended to be. That is true peace.

Jesus began the work of restoration in his earthly ministry. It was not an accident that he was a healer. He was not just alleviating his children’s suffering as a loving father would, he was restoring them to their intended state. He was reconciling the world to himself. Just as infirmity entered the world through sin, the natural outcome of the messiah’s reconciliation would be the alleviation of suffering. John the Baptist understood the scriptures, and that is why Jesus answered him the way he did. Jesus wasn’t just offering his works as proof that he was the messiah, he was telling John that the prophecies of hope were true, and he was the fulfillment of them.

The peace of Jesus Christ can be present in your life even as you are experiencing earthly sufferings. It is a paradox that your sufferings can actually bring you that peace. Many of us know people who have that peace in the midst of suffering. I think it is because they have completely surrendered themselves to the Lord, as Jesus did. Jesus submitted to the will of his father and had no attachments to worldly things. He never thought about his own needs because he trusted that his father would provide everything he needed. That trust extended to the cross itself, and the resurrection was vindication of that trust. And Jesus was glorified because of it.

That is our future, if we are persistent in our anticipation. We focus on these things for these four weeks of Advent every year, but we are called by Jesus to live that anticipation every day. We have been given the great promise of hope, and we must live as people of hope. We start by holding that hope in our own hearts. If we do, that hope will naturally extend out from us to our families, our friends, our community. That hope will renew the face of the earth. That hope is cause for great rejoicing.

Gaudete!