The Important Thing

As we near the end of the liturgical year, our gospel readings (Lk 21:5-19) seem a bit scary…fire and brimstone stuff – wars and insurrections, famines and plagues, temples being destroyed, and Christians being persecuted, spurned by their families and friends, and ultimately put to death.  Where’s the love?

Often I tend to set these readings aside, to compartmentalize them as written in a far distant time to a much different set of people in a much different culture.  I read them as apt descriptions of what was going on in first century Palestine, but of much less relevance to me living in twenty-first century America.  But this “historical” look at Scripture is a spiritually dangerous path to tread, for Scripture is the living word of God, as relevant to our salvation today as it was to the apostles living and eating with Jesus.

Today, we hear the disciples marveling at the magnificence of the Jerusalem Temple, but Jesus admonishes them that, in time, there will not be one stone atop another.  (Lk 21:5-6)  Most scholars agree that Luke wrote this gospel about 85 or 90 AD, when the memory of the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was still fresh in many people’s minds.  Thus, it is easy to think that these words of Jesus were simply an accurate prediction of this tragedy.  Temple destroyed, prophecy fulfilled, end of story.

But it’s not the end.  Jesus was saying much more.  Jesus warns his first disciples – and us – that whenever we place our faith in anything on earth, a material thing, a human person, or a human institution, that faith must crumble, as all things on earth ultimately do.  It may take some time, but all earthly things must come to an end.  Their journey must end in death.

Today, death seems to be a larger and larger part of our culture, for many seem to have replaced trust in God with trust in mere earthly people, eartly institutions, earthly solutions.  We abort babies because we have lost trust in God’s ability to provide us the strength and resources to raise more children.  We are obsessed with guns, many of which are designed specifically to kill other human beings, because we have lost trust in God’s protection.  We kill the infirm, the criminal and the enemy because we have lost our trust that God’s love is more potent than our drugs and our drones, more powerful than our bombs and bullets.  We focus our efforts on changing laws because we have lost our trust in God’s power to change our hearts, to break hearts of stone and give us hearts of living and loving flesh.  We live fear of our physical safety because we have lost trust in God’s promise of eternal life.

Jesus goes on to say how his followers will be called before the governors and kings, forced to witness to their faith, and some will die for his name.  (Lk 21:12-19)  Again, I recall the early martyrs of the church, many of whom, like Paul and Ignatius of Antioch, were called before Caesar himself to testify and to die.  That was then, but certainly not so in our more enlightened time.

Yet, here in America, we are being called up before governors and, if not kings, congressmen and Presidents, called up to testify to the faith that we share, the values we hold and the principles by which we live.  Though we respect the rights of others to not believe what we believe, respect their right not to hold our same values or live by our same principles, even accepting that our beliefs and values and principles may put us in a distinct minority, we must, as the early martyrs did, persevere in asserting our first and most important duty to hold firm to our faith in God, to live our values, and to be true to our principles, whatever the consequences.

We persevere in our living witness even if we find it hard to come up with the words for our defense, for Jesus himself stands with us today and until the end of the age, while the Spirit will certainly give us the words we need.

Jesus ends by promising that by persevering in faith, by persevering in trust, we will secure our lives, for we will live forever and ever, with Him and with all the saints in the kingdom of God.

Trust in God, and all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

What are we waiting for?

For the past several weeks, we have been in an intense period of waiting.  Like we do so often in life, the wait has been accompanied by a counting down of the days until the big day.  On Thursday night, the wait ended!  Stars Wars is back!

Of course, in the Church, out Advent waiting doesn’t end until this coming Thursday evening.  But what exactly are we waiting for?  Christ lived and died, as I saw on a clever church sign, long, long ago in a Galilee far, far away.  So we wait to celebrate that event, yet it is not simply a birthday celebration.

Our readings tell us why our celebration is worth the wait. The prophet Micah describes the Messiah not as simply one who brings peace, but one who is peace – “He shall be peace.”  This is the peace with which Jesus lived his life, the peace with which he laid down his life, and the peace that he breathes into each of his disciples when he first sees them after he rises from the dead.  It is the same peace that, before the Eucharist, the priest extends to all of us, and which we – perhaps much more casually and thoughtlessly than we should – extend to each other.

It is not a peace that ends all war, ends evil, and ends all violence in the world.  It is not a peace that guarantees our bodily safety against those who wish to harm us.  It is much greater than all of that.  It is a peace in knowing that God has taken on our human nature to show us a love that conquers all fear, despite the fearful things that continue to surround us.  It is a peace based on our assurance that God, in his great and provident love, will surely provide us with all that we truly need.  If we really understand the profound nature of this peace, our sign of peace would be much more than a simple greeting.

And, as we hear in the Gospel passage, this profound peace leads to profound joy.  The greeting of Elizabeth hints at this joy.  Even more, the depth of this joy is shown by the reaction of John the Baptist, who even in Elizabeth’s womb, leaps for joy at the presence of Jesus in the womb of Mary.  And that presence is the source of our profound joy.  For Jesus did not just live and die long, long ago in a Galilee far, far away, but remains with us today, tomorrow and every day, here, there and everywhere.  

Thus, it is God himself who guides and inspires, strengthens and encourages us.  It is God himself who loves us despite our sins and failings; God himself who celebrates our successes and mourns with us in our losses.  Christian joy transcends our highest highs and our lowest lows.

As we come to the end of Advent, our season of patient waiting, may our celebration of Christ’s coming into the world fill us with profound peace and joy, now and forever, Amen.

Hot Sausage and Mustard

Our reading from Isaiah this morning (Is 25:6-10) brings to mind the opening of the movie, Oliver.  “Food, glorious food, hot sausage and mustard…”  Juicy, rich food, indeed!

Throughout the Bible, food is seen as a sign of God’s providential love.  Through Isaiah, God images heaven itself as a great and bountiful feast of juicy, rich food and choice, fine wine.  Jesus uses this similar imagery in several of his parables. 

The miraculous feeding with a few fish and loaves that we also just heard (Mt 15:32-37) is the only miracle – other than the resurrection of Jesus – that appears in all four gospels.  In fact, it appears six times, for both Matthew and Mark relate two occasions of this miracle. 

In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the first of the works of mercy which the Son of Man considers a marker of those who were to be admitted to the kingdom was, “when I was hungry, you gave me food.”

In an economy of subsistence agriculture, desperate, life-threatening hunger is just one bad harvest away.  Virtually everyone in Jesus’ day would have known times of extreme hunger.  Thus, the presence of food was an occasion to give great thanks and praise to God.

For me…not so much.  Like the air that I breathe, food is just there.  I’ve always known that the next meal is only hours away; snacks are even closer!  In a very real sense, I take food for granted.  And this is my great loss.

For whenever I take anything for granted, I begin to think that it is my right to have it.  I deserve it.  I’ve earned it by my hard work or my goodness.  Ultimately, this becomes true of everything that comes my way.  I deserve the good food, the big house, the fancy car, the warm clothes, and all the comforts of life.  And if I feel that I deserve everything I have, why should I be grateful?  Who would I need to thank?

When I am completely lost in this world of ingratitude, I find that I even take my life for granted.  I wake up in the morning and immediately start thinking of all the things I must do, the people I must see, and the places I must go.  I’ve taken for granted, of course, that the day would be there, and that I would wake up to live this day and be able to work on my oh-most-important tasks.  I have taken my life for granted.

My ungrateful world, while seeming at most times to be a most warm and pleasurable place, is actually cold and discomforting, for at its center is a stony heart, shut off from the love of God.

When someone threatens what I take for granted as my just desserts, I become indignant and angry.  I strike out at those who threaten me or take what is mine.  And yet I am never satisfied with what is mine, for I see others who have even more.  Why is this more not also my rightful due?  I become grasping and greedy as I crave to have the things that others have, the things that I don’t have, yet must have. 

Advent is a season to reawaken my heart to God’s great love, to break the chains of ingratitude which bind my heart in selfishness and greed.

Advent prepares us to celebrate the greatest gift we could possibly receive, a greater gift than life itself.  In a few short weeks, we will celebrate the gift of salvation, of God-become-man, God sharing our humanity that we may share God’s divinity.  We could not have done this by ourselves, and we did not do anything to deserve this wonder, for this gift was tendered “while we were still sinners.”  It is a gift of unimaginable, unlimited, unconditional love.

Opened up to gratitude, we become even more aware of this great love God has for us.  A virtuous cycle ensues. 

Aware of God’s great love, we begin to see our very life as a gift from God, an occasion for thanks and praise.  We begin to see our possessions as precious not because they are our right, or because they make our life more pleasant or easy, but precious because they are gifts from our all-loving God, the source of all happiness, the source of all joy.

As see our lives and our possessions as precious gifts, gifts which God continues to provide to us each and every day – the day itself being God’s gift – we become generous in sharing these gifts with others, serving Christ who comes to us each day in the guise of one of his children in need.

In sharing God’s love today, we prepare ourselves to receive the culmination of God’s gift, the promised final coming of Jesus, bringing the fullness of God’s kingdom to earth.

This time of year, we wish people a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.  We don’t seem to have a similarly apt adjective for Advent.  Here is my thought:

Have a most grateful Advent.

And the winner is...

Almost every day, a battle rages inside me.  It is a desperate battle: two forces opposed to each other in a battle to the death.  They have been fighting since I was old enough to know who I was.  They will be fighting until the day I die.  At that point, one will win, one will be vanquished.  The question is: who will win?

The first force is very powerful.  It causes me to consider other people as my competitors, vying with me for material wealth, for earthly success, and for the love and esteem of others.  It causes me to be envious when others have more than me, jealously protective and greedy when I have more than others, condescending and arrogant when others appear less worthy than me, hateful and vengeful when others hurt me.  It fills me with fear that I may fail to get what I deserve or lose what I have earned.  It blinds me to God, makes me oblivious to His constant presence to me.  It’s ugly.  This force is pride.

Paul begs and exhorts the Thessalonians, as he begs and exhorts me, to act in ways that are pleasing to God, for Jesus will soon come again with all the holy ones.  Yet, when pride has the upper hand within me, I am clearly not acting as Paul suggests, not acting as Jesus asks me to act; I am simply acting as pride dictates.

However, the contending force within me is also very powerful.  It makes me compassionate towards others, generous and kind in sharing whatever I have.  It gives me courage to love even those who act with hate towards me.  It makes me humble, aware of God’s infinite and unconditional love for me, aware of His great gift of life, aware of His constant presence and help.  This force is gratitude.

It is fortuitous that our liturgical season of Advent – a season when we consider our readiness for Jesus’ second coming – usually begins in the same week that we celebrate Thanksgiving.  For the more I can be grateful for the gifts God has given me, most importantly, the gift of infinite, unconditional, self-emptying love He demonstrated for me on the cross of salvation, the more likely I am to act as He wishes, the more likely I am to see Him as my Lord, my Savior, my source of ultimate happiness and joy, the more likely that gratitude triumphs over pride.

I pray that during this Advent that God fills me – and he fills you – with the strength and awareness to turn every occasion of pride into one of gratitude, to create in me and to create in you an attitude of gratitude.

I pray that if and when my hard work is rewarded, I will remember that God gave me ability to work hard.  Thank you, God, for health and stamina.

I pray that when I do anything good, I will remember God’s goodness which inspired me, God’s grace which gave me the talent and opportunity.  Thank you, God, for your inspiration, for my talent, and for the opportunity to serve you. 

I pray that when I am loved by others, I will remember that I do not deserve their love, yet God loves others so much, they share that love with me, showing me the great love God has for me.  Thank you, God, for your infinite love.

I pray that when I am threatened, I will remember that it was God who saved me from sin, God who brought me safe thus far, God who will lead me home.  Thank you, God, for your mercy and your faithfulness.

And I pray that when the end comes, pride dies and gratitude wins; that I realize it was not about me or my efforts; that it was Christ who died, Christ who is risen, Christ who will come again. 

Stand erect with heads held high, for our salvation is near at hand.  Thank God.     

The Net of Gratitude

In one its declarations at Vatican II, Nostra Aetate, the Church insists that all humans form one community, for we are all from God and we are all destined for God.  Despite quite different teachings, we believe other religions often “reflect a ray of that truth that enlightens all men.” The Church encourages us “to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions.  Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians.”  (Nostra Aetate 1-2)

This teaching seems in sharp contrast to much I have seen on social media, particularly in the past week following the tragedy in Paris.  All Muslims are terrorists.  All Muslims are dedicated to the destruction of everything that is not Muslim.  The Koran demands the killing of all infidels.  The generalizations keep increasing in vehemence, frequency, and certainty.

Surely, we have witnessed some Muslims who are terrorists.  Surely, we have witnessed some Muslims who wish the infidel world much harm, and we have suffered grievously from their efforts.  Certainly, there are verses in the Koran which offer encouragement to those who follow this path.  And yet, this is not the whole story.

Recently, I came across a counterpoint to much of the screeds I have seen, a “ray of truth” that gives me confidence in the ultimate wisdom behind Nostra Aetate.  It is also quite timely, for it concerns gratitude, that virtue we honor in a particular way today on Thanksgiving.  It was a poem by a thirteenth-century Persian Sufi – in essence, a Muslim mystic – named Jamal al-Din Muhammad Rumi.  It goes like this:

Giving thanks for abundance

is sweeter than the abundance itself:

Should one who is absorbed with the Generous one

be distracted with the gift?

Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence;

Abundance is but the husk,

For thankfulness brings you to the place where

The beloved lives.

Abundance yields heedlessness;

Thankfulness brings alertness:

Hunt for bounty with the net of gratitude.

Given how long I tended to procrastinate as a child when writing thank you notes for my Christmas presents, it’s obvious that I didn’t really get the opening couplet.  How could giving thanks be more important than the gift?  But of course, the giver must be more important than the gift, for the giver cannot give anything greater than itself.

Rumi understood my problem, as he explains in the next couplet.  I let the pleasure of the gift distract me – and the more abundant the gift was, the more distracting its pleasure – I let it distract me from the giver.  I let it distract my heart from gratitude.

And without gratitude as the soul of all of my beneficence and the soul of all my good works, the abundance that I have received from God, the abundance I try to share with others, are simply the husks, or, as Jesus would describe it, the chaff that is thrown into the fire to be burned.

But when I am thankful, I am brought to the place where my beloved lives, the One who has provided me with the abundance that has been my life, the One who is so much sweeter than the abundance, the One who is the infinite and all-loving source of all abundance.

Rumi closes by reminding me not to be dulled by abundance, for without gratitude, mere abundance dulls our hunger for that which is so much greater.  In our perceived satiety, we become heedless of others’ needs, heedless of our own need to be with the One who truly fills us with all that is good.

By gratitude awakens us, alerts us to our source and to our destiny, the One who is all good, all loving and all provident.

Hunt for the One with the net of gratitude.   Thanks be to God.  Amen. 

Living in the Kingdom

Jesus said to the crowd: “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name.  It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.  You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death.  You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed.  By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” (Lk 21:12-19)

Clearly, this is not one of those warm, fuzzy, God-is-love gospel passages.  And the timing of the message adds fuel to the fire.  Here we are about to join with family and friends to give thanks for all of God’s blessings, and we hear that we will be seized and persecuted, turned against by those closest to us, even put to death in some cases. 

Uncomfortable though the message may be, we hear it more than once from Jesus.  For example, the final beatitude is “blessed are the persecuted.”  How can this be?  An easy out is to assume that Jesus is simply telling us a basic fact of life.  In a world of sin, meeting up with evil is inevitable, and everyone who lives in the world must endure at least some pain, suffering, and, yes, even death.  Our lesson, then, is to simply live in the hope of our final union with God, when all pain and suffering will vanish.  In the meantime, offer up our own suffering, help those who we see suffering, and all will eventually be well.

However, when I accept this interpretation, I have, in a very important way, missed Jesus’ point.  The key words in the passage – as they are in that final beatitude – are “because of my name.”  This persecution is not inevitable simply because we live in a world of sin and death; it is heaped upon us because while we live in this world, we are not of this world.  We are not simply to live in the hope that all will be well, but, in that very hope, we are also to live as if the kingdom has already come.  We are to live on earth as we will in heaven.

This is a very tall order!  Jesus tells us not to live as if the world around us is all we have. We are not to live as if our lives are bound by time and space.  We are not to live as if all resources are finite and all love is conditional.  We are not to live as if our happiness depends on our ability to live longer and healthier, our ability to possess more things, our ability to make more friends, or our ability to create more powerful weapons.

Rather, we are live in a world of infinite goodness, treating our limited time here on earth as a mere prelude to an eternity of life with our all-provident God.  We are live in a world of unconditional love, as God loved us by giving us his only Son, and as God continues to shower this unconditional love down on us and on all of his creation to this very day.   We are to live, as we were reminded this past Sunday, not bound by mere earthly government and authority – no matter how just and fair that authority may seem – but with Jesus as our King.

In very concrete terms, Jesus describes what this life looks like.  Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, forego violence, fight evil with good, be meek, merciful, mournful, be a slave to all, place complete trust in God for protection and sustenance, forgive seventy-seven times, and give without counting the cost.

The cost will be great, for living in the kingdom defies all common sense.  It contradicts the very obvious physical and temporal constraints of this world.  As a result, it makes many people – those who only think in terms of the world – very, very uncomfortable.  So uncomfortable, that it seems to threaten their very being. 

We see this dissonance quite clearly in the reactions to the Syrian refugee crisis.  While the Pope and the bishops insist that charity should drive us to assist in any way we can, many others insist that our primary duty is not love, but self-preservation.  And since it is almost impossible for us to sort out with certainty the dangerous from the benign, it makes sense – in a world in which God is not to be trusted – to simply keep the problem at arm’s length, or even better, at ocean’s length.  Those who would follow the Pope’s "ludicrous" thinking are, at best, idealistic fools; at worst, they are as dangerous as the terrorists themselves.

For me, the choice is clear – I either embrace the persecution that comes from living in Jesus’ name, living in Jesus’ kingdom, or I bind myself to a world of finite resources, limited time, and transitory pleasure – a world that doesn’t need God, a world of hell.

Choose the Kingdom, reject Hell.

Already but not yet

Last night, while we were out to dinner, Mary noticed that the lamp sconces were festooned with Christmas wreaths.  In other news, radio stations are playing Christmas carols 24/7, and Pumpkin Spice is out, Christmas blend is in.  We haven’t even celebrated Thanksgiving yet and Commercial Christmas has begun!  Oh well, 'tis the season.

Sometimes our readings at Mass seem just as out of kilter to us as Christmas before Thanksgiving.  Here we are, getting ready to thank God for all of the wonderful gifts he has given us, and we in this country have certainly been gifted with unimagined plenty.  Then we turn to the quiet preparations of Advent, and only then, with lights blazing, hearts filled with joy, and the air ringing with carols, we will celebrate the coming into the world of our salvation in the innocence of the baby Jesus in the stable.

But this morning, as prepare for a season of joy, we hear Daniel and Mark 13 at Mass…the “fire and brimstone” imagery of Jewish apocalyptic writing…a time unsurpassed in distress, the sun darkened, stars falling from the sky, Jesus coming as an almighty judge to gather the chosen and damn the wicked, etc., etc., etc.  Ouch.  Where’s that “Joy to the World” or “Silent Night” or “O Little Town of Bethlehem” now?

In its wisdom, the Church forces our attention away from the comforting warmth of family gathered around the table laden with the turkey and trimmings of a Thanksgiving feast, the bright joy of remembrance of that first Christmas morning.  For it is easy for us to become complacent and think that Jesus saved the world some two thousand years ago, what more need we do but celebrate the coming of the kingdom?  In just a few short days, many of us will enjoy an abundance of gifts that are surely signs of God’s grace and his kingdom. 

In our complaisance, we can lose our sense of the kingdom to come where true, absolute, and eternal joy and peace reside.  This is the source of our Christian hope, that even though we know not when, we know not where, we know not how, Jesus will come again and all things wrong will be put right, not just for now, but for ever more.

This “already but not yet” tension has been with us since Jesus first came into the world. The kingdom is here, “at hand” as Jesus proclaims in the very first chapter of Mark, yet is “to come in glory” at the end of time.  Our readings today urge us to reflect on how we live in this “already but not yet” stage.

As we were horrified to hear just a few days ago, Satan seems intent to force us to dwell in and obsess in the “not-yet-ness” of our time.  In fact, he would rather we forget the “already” altogether, to write it off as pious foolishness.  He would rather we despair completely in the “not yet” and assume it will be nevermore. 

The tragedy in France compounded for us the horror we felt most personally here in Newtown not three years ago, and the horror the world felt some fifteen years ago on 9/11.  How are we to appreciate the “already” when we seem to be buried in and blinded by the “not yet?”

Fred Rogers gives us a clue.  Fred McFeely Rogers was the creator and host of what is perhaps the greatest children’s television show ever produced – Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.  He also happened to be a Presbyterian minister, and part of the appeal of his show was the richness of Christian spirituality which pervaded each episode.

He gave us a pearl of wisdom that helps us see the “already” especially in times where we are blinded by and lose hope in the “not yet.”  As he tells it, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things on the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.’”

And doesn’t that resonate with us here in Newtown.  Take a moment – or, as Fred Rogers would say – “close your eyes for ten seconds and think” – think of the reverence in which we hold the first responders at 9/11, many of whom gave their lives that day and many of whom are still dying today from their efforts during the recovery.  Think of the gratitude we felt – and still feel today – for the thousands upon thousands of people throughout the world who offered us material and spiritual support after 12/14.  Imagine the doctors and nurses in trauma centers in and around Paris these past few days.  Imagine the people rushing to the aid of friends and strangers as bedlam descended on Paris.

Where you find the helpers, there you will find faith in the “already.”  

There you will find hope in the “not yet.”

There you will find the light which darkness cannot overcome.

There you will find God.