Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Patience

As a boy, whenever I was nagging my mom for something that just didn’t seem to be coming to me as quickly as I though it should, her response was, “Remember, patience is a virtue.”

Today, we live in a culture which treats patience as a vice.  We cannot wait for anything to be done without working on at least one or two other things.  We check our email while eating lunch at the desk and listening to music on the iPod while responding to texts on the iPhone.  Smelling the roses is out; multitasking is in.

We turn on the TV and are bombarded with the concept that our lives cannot be complete until we have the latest this or the latest that.  Fortunately, we can buy it NOW.  No money, no problem!  Charge it.  Stores are closed, no problem!  Go to the web or call the 800-number NOW!  Operators are standing by.  What are you waiting for?  This is a limited time offer.  Your very happiness depends on your response.  Act now or you lose.

As is true in so many things, Scripture and our faith give us a much different message.  Patience, Paul tells us, is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22).  It is closely tied to the theological virtue of hope, our confidence that God’s will is directed to the salvation of all of his creation, despite the apparent setbacks and obvious pains that we experience living in a time of already, but not yet.

The fruit of patience allows us to bear these pains and setbacks with the mercy and love which Jesus showed to those who opposed him, even to those who killed him.   Again, Paul reminds us that this patience characterizes the love that is the foundation of our lives as Christians, for love is patient, love is kind (1 Cor 13:4). 

Yet we easily lapse into impatience as our knowledge of God’s will is never completely perfect.  Oftentimes, like the blind man in today’s passage, our sight is a bit fuzzy, only seeing “people like trees walking.” (Mk 8:22-26)  Now, we see in a mirror, dimly, not as we shall see when we are face to face with God (1 Cor 13:12).

We are also hampered by our human sense of limited time, while God operates above and beyond time.  As the blind man does today, we must wait patiently for God to work out his plan in our lives.  We remember, as the psalmist and St. Peter tell us, that for God, a thousand years is like a single day (Ps 90:4, 2 Pt 3:8).

Outside the walls of this church, the maelstrom of daily life awaits us...the strident cries for more and more, for faster and faster, for now, now, now.  What can we do?  You have already taken a great step.  You’ve carved out time in your day for communion with God, communion with each other as church.

How else can we separate ourselves from the maelstrom?

Our readings today give us a clue.  James insists that we be “doers of the word and not just hearers…one who acts…cares for widow and orphans in their affliction” (Jas 1:19-27).  In Psalm 15, we are asked to climb the mountain of the Lord, not harming our fellow man, not taking up reproach against our neighbor, walking blamelessly and doing justice.

In all these things, simple acts of kindness and mercy and justice, we can practice the patience that God has for each of us; the patience that Jesus demonstrated for us by his life and by his death; the patience that is the fruit of following the Spirit who guides us and dwells in us.  And with that patience, we find true happiness, true satisfaction, true joy.


Don’t worry.  Be patient.  Be happy.     

Saturday, February 15, 2014

From Civility to Holiness

I am eight years old and my mom’s birthday is coming up soon.  I have a dollar or two saved up from my allowance so I ask her what she wants for her birthday.  She says for me just get along with my brothers, stop fighting and arguing with them and she will be happy.  Get along with my brothers!  This is too much.  I’m thinking: why can’t I just do what everyone does and buy something or make something.  Isn’t that good enough?

Of course, that is one of Jesus’ points today (Mt 5:17-37).  Just following the law, doing what everyone else does, isn’t good enough.  It’s good to follow the law, as Jesus says, not the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law and anyone who teaches against the law will be the least in kingdom of heaven – it’s just not good enough.

Without law, society as we know it would be impossible.  We prefer not to live in chaos and anarchy, but they are the only things possible unless society agrees to some set of laws.  Laws are the basis of all civil societies.  Jesus knows that.  But Jesus wants more.  Jesus does not call us to be civil; he calls us to be holy.  Holy cannot be legislated, for holy is in our hearts.  Holy is in our souls.  Holy does not come from Congress or the President or the Supreme Court.  Holy comes from God.

Jesus shows us the difference.  Of course, we should not kill one another, it’s unlawful, and we are subject to judgment.  But anger, calling names, or thinking badly of one another is not against the law, yet it is unholy.  It subjects us to the judgment of God.

One of the most important parts of the Jewish law – perhaps even the most holy part – described the laws of sacrifice, of bringing gifts to the altar of God.  Yet Jesus puts true holiness – reconciling with one another, loving each other as God loves us, forgiving one another as God forgives us – as a necessary prelude to bringing gifts to God.  It is this day-to-day holiness which is our best and truest gift to God.

Of course, holiness is a much higher bar than mere civility and following the law, a concept I understood even as an eight-year old boy wanting to just buy a present for his mom.  Instead, she wanted what Jesus wanted – holiness.  Imagine that, my mom may not have known the Sermon on the Mount by heart, but she certainly knew it in her heart.

Fortunately, while holiness seems hard, that’s an understatement.  It is impossible for us to be holy just by trying hard or just by obeying the law.  But it is very possible to live holy lives with the grace of God, a grace that God showers down on us with abundance. The only way to be holy is accept that grace.  This is faith.  This is the faith that saves us.  This is the faith that helps us realize the holiness, the godliness that is within us.  This is faith that gives us the courage to obey the law.

This is the faith that allows us to meet the challenge that Jesus will lay down for us at the end of Matthew 5 – “So be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48)

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Light of the World

Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of baptizing the cutest baby in the whole wide world.  

Okay, I admit that this is a purely subjective opinion, merely the boast of a doting grandfather, for the young girl I baptized, Ava Marie Gordon, is, in fact, my granddaughter.

However, in some mysterious and hard-to-pinpoint way, Ava is blessed with particular combination of features that people perceive as singularly beautiful.  For example, a few months ago, I was waiting in the car for Mary Kate, who is Ava’s mom and my daughter, and Ava to come out of Starbucks.  From the door to the car, Mary Kate was stopped by two separate people marveling at how beautiful Ava was.  Mary Kate told this happens almost regularly – perfect strangers go out of their way to comment on how beautiful Ava is.  In a way, it can be a bit disconcerting.

I’m guessing that Mary and Joseph felt like this as they came into the Temple.  Today, we call this feast The Presentation of the Lord, but there was actually no law that a first-born male child must be presented at the Temple.  There was a consecration of first-born male child, a dedication of this child to God, (Ex 13:1-2), but it did not require an animal sacrifice or presentation at the Temple.  On the other hand, a woman was required to undergo a purification ritual forty days after giving birth to a male child that involved an animal sacrifice to God (Lev 12:1-8).  In Jesus’ day, this sacrifice could only take place at the Temple, hence Mary was the reason for attending the Temple.  Naturally enough, Joseph and the baby Jesus were with her, but they were, according to the law, mere by-standers in this visit.

However, no sooner do they enter the temple, than the small baby becomes the focus of attention.  Simeon and Anna – total strangers to Mary and Joseph – come to praise God for the wonder of this young child!  (Lk 2:25-38)  And what praise they had!  Simeon calls Jesus a light of revelation for the Gentiles and glory for his people, Israel.  From this proclamation, we also call this day Candlemas, a day on which many churches, in a tradition that reaches back over 1500 years, bless the candles that will be used during the coming year.

Light is one of the most common metaphors in the New Testament.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus describes himself as the light of the world (Jn 8:12) and in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus insists that we, as his disciples, are also to be the light of the world. (Mt 5:14)   In the baptism ritual, each of the newly baptized receives a candle lit from the Easter candle, symbolizing that through baptism, they have been enlightened by Christ.  They are now, like all of the baptized, children of the light (1 Thess 5:5).  They now carry the light that the darkness cannot overcome (Jn 1:5), the light that Simeon proclaimed to Mary and Joseph (Lk 2:32), the light that brings salvation to the world (Acts 13:47).

May this light of Christ burn brightly in Ava Marie Gordon, and may it burn brightly in each of us baptized in his name.


Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.