Mary Did You Know?

 

4^th Sunday of Advent

Cycle B

Mary, did you know?

You’ve probably heard that popular song by Mark Lowry and Michael Green. It pops up on the radio and Pandora this time of year, and it asks questions that sound sensible. Mary, did you know your little boy would walk on water? Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation, would one day rule the nations? Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?

Those questions seem sensible to us because we hear them from our perspective 2000 years after the events of Jesus’ life. We have the benefit of 2000 years of pondering and wrestling with the reality that God became man. Countless thinkers and theologians have given us insight as to who this person Jesus was and is, and we know all the details of his life and purpose through the gospels and Church teaching. We know how the story played out. But Mary couldn’t see the future. She didn’t have the complete picture. The gospels for her were her everyday life. She had no idea how God would choose to fulfill the promise he made to her that day through the angel. She probably had no idea what it meant that her son would be called holy, the Son of God. She was no theologian or rabbi. She didn’t know the particulars, nor could she make the connections. And yet she trusted in the promise. Her cousin Elizabeth greets her later with “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled”.

And she said yes. I don’t believe she could have answered any other way.

The angel’s greeting disturbed her. He described her as being full of grace. A curious description, don’t you think? Have you ever heard anyone else had that attached to their name? It wasn’t “Hail, Mary of Nazareth” or “Hail Mary, Betrothed to Joseph” or “Daughter of Joachim and Anne”. Hail, full of grace. We all have God’s grace in us, because grace is simply the presence of God in our lives. Everything is grace, in a way, but Mary was full of grace. It wasn’t just something she had, it was who she was. The Lord was with her, but in a way different than you and me. It was as if she was invaded by the Holy Spirit from the moment of her conception. The absence of the burden of sin gave her a clarity of understanding and of purpose that no other human being has ever had.

We see the invasion by the Holy Spirit and the presence of God in people’s lives often in the scriptures. Moses with the burning bush. The prophets Elijah, Jeremiah and Isaiah. Jesus himself at his baptism. Each time the grace of God seems to overwhelm them and compels them forth on their mission. The fullness of grace in Mary would naturally direct her decisions. Mary never seems to doubt. Hers is a simple acceptance and a sense of wonder at it all.

What would your life be like if you did not suffer the burden of sin? What different decisions would you make? How much closer to God would you be? How would that affect your own family? Just because Mary was conceived without original sin doesn’t mean she did not have the capacity to sin. She was human, after all. It was the fullness of grace within her and her closeness to the Father that helped her to choose not to sin. That’s really not any different from you and me. We are free to make the same choices she made.

Grace is a gift from God, and Mary had done nothing to merit God’s favor, except just be. She was favored simply because she existed. Like we all are. God doesn’t look at what we have or haven’t accomplished when he smiles upon us. We are all wonderful in his eyes, and worthy of his favor simply because he wants us to be worthy. He makes us worthy. I mean, really, what can we ever offer God in return for what he has given us? Isn’t that the supreme arrogance?

Look at David in the first reading. He was the greatest king of Israel. He had conquered all his enemies and made Israel into a nation to be reckoned with. So naturally David wanted to show his gratitude for what he had been given. But God didn’t want David to do anything for him. In reverse, God wanted to give David his greatest desire, a long dynasty. He wanted to give him more and more and more.

 

When we are faced with the unconditional loving gifts we are offered by God, how do we react? Do we think, well, it’s about time. I’ve been praying for years and years and have lived a holy life. Of course God favors me. Or are we like Mary, completely stunned that God has even noticed us? Perhaps you feel especially worthless this year. Maybe you’ve lost your job or someone close to you has gotten sick or even died. Just because God favors us doesn’t mean life will be easy. Just because Mary was without sin doesn’t mean she would not suffer. Jesus was also without sin yet he still suffered as a result of sin in the world. Both Mary and Jesus made the choice to follow the Father’s will, just as we all do.

 

Mary was full of grace because we are all full of grace. Mary was favored because we are all favored. What made Mary extraordinary was that she was ordinary. She did nothing to deserve this. We can do nothing to deserve what we receive. God did not ask her if she wanted this. He just stated that it would happen. He didn’t even ask her for her reply. She just gave it. God knows what is good for us, he cannot give us anything that is not good, so why would he ask our permission to give us anything? And we are not called to give him our permission, only our acceptance of his many gifts.

 

So, did Mary have full knowledge of what was happening to her and what that meant for the salvation of the world? Who knows? It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that Mary, like us, made a decision to follow the will of God given her particular level of faith and the grace that had been given her. In that way we are just like her.

 

It is interesting that in the week just before we celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation in the incarnation we revisit where that promise was first given to a young girl, close to God and full of grace. This was the week that Mary had been anticipating those long nine months. It was all about to come true.

 

Mary said yes, and nothing would ever be the same again. Her life was changed forever, and so was ours. “Blessed are you who believe that what was spoken to Mary by the Lord would be fulfilled”.

 

 

The Divine Right of Kings

 

Feast of Christ the King

Cycle A

Nancy and I have been binge watching monarchies lately, particularly those in Great Britain and France around the reigns of Henry VIII and Louis IV. We love period pieces, and the stories are so well written and made real because they are based on actual events. This was the time of the Divine Right of Kings, the belief that the sovereign derived his mandate and power directly from God, before he was even born, and that the king was accountable to no one but God. To love the king was to love God. To oppose the king was actually a sin against God. That reasoning removed all restraints on the king’s power, and each monarch seemed to draw more and more to himself as each fell deeper and deeper into tyranny. And tyranny, as it always does, was eventually overthrown by violent revolution.

 

What keeps striking us is how the people of those times reacted to the tyranny they experienced. The people seemed to love their king no matter what he did. They rarely attributed the evil he did to him but to his counsellors. No matter what horrible things were done to them they would not blame the king because the king was acting by the will of God. God had chosen him, so he was above blame.

 

The people looked to the king to be the instrument of God’s mercy and God’s punishment. They saw him as a benevolent father figure who gave and took away like the God of the Old Testament had. They expected the king to provide for the common good. It was his responsibility to see that they were fed, housed, and had the basic necessities of life. If they did not have these things it was the king’s fault. If they did it was because of the king’s bounty. Their own personal responsibility was taken away. It was not theirs to be their brother’s keeper, but the king’s. The king was the final judge and arbiter, and oftentimes that judgement seemed completely arbitrary. Loyalty to the king was the most important thing to them. Any hint of disloyalty was met with cruel retribution.

 

And the absolute monarchs were isolated from their people. They stayed within their own courts and never really had contact with the common people. They dismissed the suffering of their people because they never saw it firsthand nor experienced any want or need themselves. They never saw the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick or prisoners. They had no compassion for them outside of their need to believe they were loved by their people. They lived in manufactured bubbles. I think very much like many of our secular and religious leaders today.

 

Each year we have different readings for the Feast of Christ the King, and this year we hear the famous passage from St. Matthew’s gospel about the final judgement. Matthew 25 is one of my favorite passages. We hear of how the king will judge everyone at the end of the age. Judgement is reserved to the king, and this king is truly the absolute monarch, but his judgement is different from the absolute monarchs of Western civilization. Whereas the kings of the Middle Ages judged arbitrarily according to loyalty to the crown, our king puts judgement squarely our interactions with other people. The kings of old were seen as the providers of good to the people. Our king sees us as having that responsibility also.

 

The differences between our king, Jesus Christ, and the kings of old are many. Our king did not live in a bubble, surrounded by courtiers and sycophants and removed from the people. Rather, he lived and moved amongst them, living as they did, simply and poorly. His courtiers were not aristocrats and wealthy noblemen but simple people, tax collectors and prostitutes. He experienced hunger and thirst, sickness and nakedness. He was a prisoner himself. The image we have of our king is the good shepherd, not the autocrat, and our king truly did smell like his sheep.

 

And whenever he encountered someone who was suffering, he first healed them, then redeemed them. He took care of their physical needs first; then he showed them the way to eternal life. By lifting them up out of their misery he freed them to be able to accept him as their Lord and savior. He never imposed his will upon them, even though he had the power and authority to do so, he simply called them to discipleship. To our king, absolute power manifests itself in compassion and mercy. That is the example he left us, and it is by that example we will ultimately be judged.

 

It’s easy for us to make excuses for our responsibility to our fellow human beings. It is easy to delegate it to the state, or to someone else but ourselves. We too often live in our own bubbles, concerned mostly about ourselves, or our immediate families and group of friends. What has always bothered me about this gospel passage is that the people whom the king judges harshly are not bad people. They are not going out and oppressing people to cause their hunger or thirst, nakedness or imprisonment. And it doesn’t even matter that they are unaware of their neglect. In fact, that makes it worse. It is the sins of omission that are judged the most harshly. Ignorance is not an excuse. Apathy is the worst sin. To our king and judge in this passage, your intent and motivation is not important. Did you help others or not?

 

In these days of pandemic we are becoming even more and more isolated from one another. We are living in artificial bubbles, some of our own creation and some imposed upon us. At times like these it is easy and natural to focus on our own situations and not upon those of others. If we don’t see it on the news or on the internet or social media it isn’t real to us. We jump from crisis to crisis and so are unaware or ignore the fact that so many people are hurting and need our compassion, prayers, and assistance. And so many times it is we ourselves who require that. Yes, we are all hurting, but we must not allow that to be an excuse or reason to not reach out to others. Jesus didn’t give any exemptions to loving our neighbor as ourselves, he just said to do it.

 

The monarchs of the Middle Ages claimed the Divine Right of Kings from God, and their absolute power led to horrible suffering for their people. Jesus actually is the Divine King, and his absolute power has freed us from sin and eternal death. He has absolute power and authority, yet he submitted his will to that of his Father. He asks us to do the same. He asks us to show compassion and mercy to everyone we meet, just as he does. He holds us up to the same standard that he held himself to. And just as his submission to the will of God led to his glorification, so will our submission lead to ours.

 

 

 

Balancing Act

 

29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

It is serendipitous that this gospel reading falls during an election year, and especially these past couple of weeks, when the question of faith vs. the law has been foremost in the news. How are people of faith to live as faithful citizens? Are we to separate our religion from our citizenship? Can there be a true separation between church and state for us? What does that really mean? Can we truly put our faith in one box here and our interactions with the world in a box over there?

Is it acceptable to pay the census tax? The Pharisees were really asking Jesus if it were acceptable for the Jews to submit to Roman authority. The two great symbols of Roman oppression were the Roman army and Roman taxes, both of which were overwhelming and ever present. A sign of allegiance to the Roman empire was the payment of taxes. To resist paying was treason. That is one reason why tax collectors were so hated. Not just because oftentimes they cheated and got wealthy off their neighbors, but because they were seen as Roman sympathizers, traitors to their people. And so, the Pharisees were asking Jesus if it were ok to commit an act of civil disobedience, rebellion actually. If he said yes they could turn him over to the authorities. If he said no the people would turn against him.

He said to repay to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s. Was Jesus telling them to practice separation of church and state, to offer dual allegiance both to the emperor and to their God? Was it ok to serve two masters? Was he telling them that it was ok to support the emperor, but only on the outside? Sort of like, throw the coins in the basket, but cross your fingers behind your back?

Jesus was practical about it. The Roman occupation was a reality, and he understood that earthly authority had its place, but God’s people were to ultimately submit to a higher authority. The kingdom his followers were to be subjects of was not of this world. It was in the world but not of it. Yes, we have to submit to earthly authority, if for no other reason than it allows societies to organize themselves safely, but we are not to offer our ultimate allegiance to it. That is reserved for our true king and creator. I think Jesus was preaching a rebellion of the spirit and of the soul. His message from the moment he began his public ministry was “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand”. In that message and mission he refocused our allegiance where it truly belonged. To Him.

This is a tough duality and is often really hard to balance. Do you choose your faith based upon your politics, or are your politics determined by your faith? If there is a political position or law that is contrary to the gospel, what are we to do? If a law is immoral, are we called to observe it anyway or are we called to change it? Are we called to resist it or even overthrow it? The questions are even more basic than that. Where does law come from? There is God’s law and there is human law. Where does morality come from? Is it a human construct or does it come from the creator? These questions were actually the basis of the Declaration of Independence, and they are the questions of conscience we all must face.

Why would faith in God be contrary to human law in the first place? Flip that around. Why would human laws be contrary to God’s law if they are just? If morality comes from God, then justice also comes from God. Therefore, laws that are just must conform to the law of God if they are to be moral and good. This may be hard for some people to grasp, but it's important. Catholics don't hold their positions on moral questions because of "deeply held religious convictions." Rather, they are held because of the conclusions of right reason applied to the understanding of the Natural Law. To be a good citizen means to live in the world but to order our lives around the moral and the good, and we do that best through the eyes of our faith.

In Gaudium et spes, the great Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World from Vatican II, the fathers stated, “The Council exhorts all Christians, as citizens of both cities, to perform their duties faithfully, in the spirit of the gospel. It is a mistake to think that, because we have here no lasting city, but seek the city which is to come, we are entitled to evade our earthly responsibilities…But it is no less mistaken to think that we may immerse ourselves in earthly activities as if these latter were foreign to religion…”

Jesus gave us the great commission to go and make disciples of all nations, and to do that we must teach them everything he has commanded us. We are to be active in the world and actually convert it. We are to spread Jesus’ commandments of loving God and our neighbor. We cannot just compartmentalize our faith and our interactions with the world. Our faith must be our interaction with the world. We have a responsibility to society and to one another. We cannot simply remove ourselves. We are our brother’s keeper. Jesus is the truth. We are to testify to the truth.

Two opposing positions cannot both be true. Either one is right and the other wrong or they are both wrong. To what truth do we adhere? I know plenty of people who have left the Catholic Church because they do not agree with this or that teaching. They go and find a church that agrees with them rather than take the time to really understand what the church is telling them. Because it is easier to do that than to admit that me might have to change our views and change our lives. It is oftentimes easier to render unto Caesar.

We are approaching one of our greatest privileges and responsibilities as citizens in a few weeks – voting. We exercise this privilege as citizens of the world. How we vote should be exercised as citizens of the Kingdom of God. As mature Christians we must vote our conscience, but that conscience must be properly formed. Again, do you choose your politics based upon your faith? Everyone has a conscience, but if you do not knowingly and willfully form that conscience society will do it for you. And we Catholics should turn to our church to help us form ours.

St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." Jesus Christ established his church on earth upon his apostles and said that the Holy Spirt would always be active in and through it, until the end of time. He gave his apostles authority both in heaven and on earth. “What you bind on earth is bound in heaven.” He declared that he and his church are one in the same. He said, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects Him who sent me.” And the one who sent him is our king. And so, the Church has the moral authority to help us form our consciences.

So, whether you have made up your mind on how to vote or not, take some time to check your conscience. The US bishops put out a good guide for voting called Faithful Citizenship that you can find on the USCCB website. It is very balanced and does not endorse any political party. It does, however, state some truths of our faith as they apply to the public square that we should all consider and adhere to. Give to Caesar by voting. Give to God by voting with a properly informed conscience.

How would the world be if we truly lived as subjects of our true king? How would your lives and the lives of those around you be changed if you and I truly lived according to the two greatest commandments? The world fears the rule of God because it threatens earthly power and licentiousness. We do not.

What is Caesar’s are material things. What belongs to God is our souls.

We submit to authority but understand who the ultimate authority is.

We must work for justice in the world because we know who the ultimate judge is.

God himself is intimately involved in the world, so we are intimately involved.

The rule of Caesar is flawed and temporary. The rule of God is perfect and eternal.