Is this fair?

My granddaughter, Ava – the most beautiful in the world – is 20 months old.  She is speaking more but has yet to learn the four-letter word that strikes terror into a young parent's heart.  That word is "fair."  The problem is that in a two-year-old's egotistical world, fairness is: "If it's not mine, it's not fair."  Ava may not know the word, but she knows the theory.  If you take something from her, she indignantly pulls the pacifier from her mouth and flings it to the ground, crumples onto the carpet and lays out spread-eagled as if she has been crucified!  Oh, the unfairness of it all!

As the toddler reaches preschool, we try to inject a sense of sharing with others into our child's concept of fairness.  I'll call this the "one for you, one for me" school of fairness.  Then our children grow older and start playing games.  With games, there are rules.  Being fair becomes “follow the rules.”  If you work hard and play fair, you’re a winner, whether the score is in your favor or not.

We take this “play hard, follow the rules” sense of fairness into our adult lives.  If you work hard, if you follow the rules, if you keep your nose to the grindstone, you will get rewarded.  And the rewards tend to be proportionate to the effort.  "An honest day's wage for an honest day's work," "You worked hard, you earned it."  And if you slack off and break the rules, you will get nothing, at best, punished at worst.  

We're quite proud of this civilized, “quid pro quo” approach to fairness.  We believe it is just – everyone gets their just desserts.  Even if it doesn’t work out that neatly all the time in real life, ultimately karma prevails.

It is a fairly small leap to carry this concept from the material realm – the world in which we live – to the spiritual realm – the kingdom of heaven of which we are.  If I work hard, if I say the right prayers, if I obey the commandments, go to Mass every Sunday, then I earn my heavenly reward.  In fact, we may even commingle the material and spiritual worlds together, assuming that our path to spiritual success is marked by our well-earned success and growing wealth here on earth.

We forget the Lord’s words to Isaiah – “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your thoughts and my thoughts above your thoughts.” (Is 55:9)  Then we hear Jesus in this morning's Gospel.  (Mt 20:1-6)

Our valued sense of fairness isn’t at all important to Jesus.  He tells us bluntly, this is not what “the kingdom of heaven is like.”  Jesus does not want us to settle for human fairness in divvying up our finite goods.  He calls us to divine mercy and unlimited, infinite, super-generous divine love.  And each one of is promised precisely the same share of God’s love – infinite love for everyone!  No matter what we’ve done or failed to do.  We cannot earn more, for it is already infinite.  We cannot earn less, for it is unconditional; we can never lose it; for it is eternal.  We need only accept God’s generosity.  

In a sense, the kingdom of God’s concept of fairness is more like nursery school than like our grown-up, adult world.  We teach our three and four-year olds to share with others since they obviously haven't done anything to warrant all of the toys that they have.  The toys have simply been given to them.  Similarly, God's love is given to us.  It is pure gift, pure grace.  By definition, it cannot be earned or deserved, it can only be accepted.

We earn nothing, yet we have everything.  Having everything, we need nothing.  Needing nothing, we can share this superabundance of love with others.  We look at others not as competitors for the finite goods of this world, not as opponents whom we must overcome through hard work or bombs and bullets, but as other children of God – our brothers and sisters who are loved by God and cared for by God, precisely as we ourselves are loved and cared for by God.

We look on others not as an inconvenience, a drag on society, a scourge that needs purged, but as a gift from God, as one for whom the hope of eternal life shines as brightly as we pray that it shines in ourselves, as one whose right to life comes not from human laws or institutions, is not determined their good or evil works, but is from God's very hand.

And He calls each of us to care for these lives, to support these lives, and to cherish these lives as our very own.

For Christians, fairness is stewardship.

For Christians, fairness is preference for the poor.

For Christians, fairness is unconditional love.

Hail Holy Queen

From the earliest centuries of the Church, we have honored Mary as queen, recognizing her role as mother of our king, Jesus, who is son of Mary and Son of God.  Virtually all of the Church Fathers lauded Mary as queen, particularly after the fourth century councils that declared Mary as the Theotikos, Mother of God.  Some of our most ancient hymns venerate Mary in this role – “Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above” has always been one of my favorites.

In a sense, when we recognize Mary as queen, we are echoing the words of the angel Gabriel, the words of Elizabeth, and the words of Mary herself.  As we recall from Scripture, both Gabriel and Elizabeth declare Mary as “blessed among women.”  (Lk 1:28, 42)  Mary then prays that though she is merely God’s lowly servant, “…all generations will call me blessed.” (Lk 1:48)

But why is she so blessed?  Why is so right for us to honor her as our queen?  Is it because God somehow loves Mary more than he loves us?  Is there really some ranking in heaven where the great saints are somehow more “one with God” that those who perhaps just weren’t that great? 

But this would contradict our faith that God’s love is unconditional, infinite and universal.  God loves all creation – even fallible you and fallible me – with precisely the same love as God loves Mary.  Rankings and titles are things us finite, world-bound humans do.

Yet, it is still right to honor Mary as Queen.  For Mary is not only the mother of Jesus, the Mother of God.  She is also our perfect model of response to the love of God.  It is through Mary’s perfect obedience to God’s will that salvation was made available to us.  For Mary did not pray as I often do – may your will be changed – she prayed perfectly, as Jesus would teach us to do – may your will be done.   “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.”  (Lk 1:38)

Mary prayed that God’s will be done despite the great personal danger it entailed for her.  She remained faithful to this prayer despite the great suffering and pain she endured listening to the people scorn her son, torture him, and crucify him.

But there is more.  As she if our model of perfect prayer, she also becomes a paragon of intercessors.  After all, if we wish someone to pray for us, what better person to ask than the one whose prayer is perfect? 

Mary, perfect pray-er, Mary, Queen of saints, Mary, Queen of heaven and earth, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.

Hail, holy Queen enthroned above, O Maria.

Hail, Queen of mercy and of love, O Maria.

Triumph, all ye cherubim,

Sing with us, ye seraphim,

Heaven and earth resound the hymn:

Salve, salve, salve Regina!

It's not fair!

My granddaughter, Ava, is about 19 months old now and more and more intelligible words can be heard.  However she has yet to learn that four-letter word that strikes terror into a young parent's heart.  That word is "fair."  The problem is that in a two-year-old's egotistical world, fairness is "If it's not mine, it's not fair."

As the toddler reaches pre-school, we try to inject a sense of sharing with others into our child's concept of fairness.  I'll call this the "one for you, one for me" school of fairness.

Finally, as our child grows us, we try to instill a more sophisticated, quid-pro-quo sense of fairness.  We teach that if you work hard, if you follow the rules, if you keep your nose to the grindstone, you will get rewarded.  And the rewards tend to be proportionate to the effort.  "An honest day's wage for an honest day's work," "You worked hard, you earned it."  

We're quite proud of this civilized approach.  In fact, one might call this concept "the American way."  While far from perfect, America has long epitomized the "land of opportunity", the road to social mobility, better than perhaps any other culture in the history of the world.

It is a fairly small leap to carry this concept from the material realm to the spiritual realm.  If I work hard, if I say the right prayers, if I obey the commandments, I earn my heavenly reward.  In fact, we often comingle the material and spiritual worlds together, assuming that our path to spiritual success is marked by our well-earned success and growing wealth here on earth.

Then we hear Jesus in this morning's Gospel.  (Mt 20:1-16)

Our valued sense of fairness isn’t at all important to Jesus.  He tells us bluntly, this is not what “the kingdom of heaven is like.”  Jesus does not want us to settle for human fairness in divvying up our finite goods.  He calls us to divine mercy and unlimited, infinite, super-generous divine love.  And each one of is promised precisely the same share of God’s love – infinite love for everyone!  No matter what we’ve done or failed to do.  We cannot earn more; we cannot earn less; we need only accept God’s generosity.  It is pure gift.

In a sense, the kingdom of God’s concept of fairness is more like nursery school than like our grown-up, adult world.  We teach our three- and four-year-olds to share with others since they obviously haven't done anything to warrant all of the toys that they have.  The toys have simply been given to them.  Similarly, God's love is generously given to us. 

We earn nothing, yet we have everything.  Having everything, we need nothing.  Needing nothing, we can share this superabundance of love with others.  We look at others not as competitors for the finite goods of this world, not as opponents whom we must overcome through hard work, but as other children of God who are loved by God and cared for by God, precisely as we ourselves are loved and cared for by God.

We look on others not as an inconvenience, a drag on society, a scourge that needs purged, but as a gift from God, one for whom the hope of eternal life shines as brightly as we pray that it shines in ourselves, as one whose right to life comes not from human laws or institutions, but from God's very hand.

As Christians, fairness is stewardship.

As Christians, fairness is preference for the poor.

As Christians, fairness is unconditional love.

Growing down

When our children were very young, both of their sets of grandparents lived 400 miles away, in opposite directions.  Thus, Mary and I took many long car trips to visit the grandparents. 

Our strategy was to pack the care the night before, get up before dawn, try to put the kids in the car without waking them up, and hope that they’d sleep all the way there!  Of course, it never worked.  Most times, before we’ve barely left the street, you know what we heard from the back seat.  “Are we there yet?”  Who teaches them that?  We’d ignore them, but then it would only escalate, “Look, there’s a McDonald’s, can we get something to eat.  Oh, and are we there yet?”  And again.  And again.

In frustration, I’d turn around and tell them, “Grow up.”  It’s what we want our children to do, to grow up and be like us – learned, responsible, upstanding adults.

Today, we hear Jesus praising his Father for revealing the kingdom, not to the learned and the wise, but to the childlike.  (Mt 11: 25)   Mark reports Jesus telling us that unless we are like the children, the kingdom of heaven cannot be ours.  (Mk 10:15)  Here I am telling my children to grow up, to act like an adult, and Jesus is telling me to grow down, and be like the child.

What Jesus knows is that children have an amazing capacity for faith, for the understanding that there is great mystery in the world, and powerful forces that are much beyond their understanding.  The sun comes up in the morning and they see God at work.  A garden is in full bloom with all the colors of the rainbow and they see God at work.  A bedewed spider’s web sparkles in the sunlight, and they see God at work.  Simple things, yes, but to a child, they are visions of God.

And then they go to school.  They learn lots of things, just as we did.  Soon they learn so much, they think – as we often do – there are no mysteries, for they know it all.  And if we can’t explain it and understand it, then it can’t be true.

Then there is Jesus – a man who was born like us, who looked like us, ate like us, laughed when he saw something funny, cried when he saw something sad, bled when you cut him, and died when he was put on the cross – and one of the first things we teach them is this man is God.  They seem to grasp it quite easily.  But oftentimes, it is not so easy for us, educated as we may be, those of us who pride ourselves on our understanding of all things.  This just doesn’t make sense.  Perhaps we try to rationalize it all, make it more palatable to our sense of logic.

We forget that St. Augustine, who reminds us that if we know anything completely, understand it thoroughly, it cannot be God.  We cannot wrap our finite minds around the infinite God.  If we have allowed our pride in learning to lead us astray, we must grow down to accept the ineffable mystery of God.

And so Jesus tells us the we must grow down, be like a child, hold fast to the faith and a sense of mystery that when we see Jesus, we see God, when we know Jesus, we know God – certainly not all there is to know – but we know God.

Today, we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a title given to the Blessed Mother in her role as the patron saint of the Carmelites.  The Carmelites are an ancient religious order who began as a group of hermits living on the slopes of Mount Carmel in the Holy Land.

 

A century or so ago, a young French girl became a Carmelite nun.  She was a true child at heart, and in her short life – she was only 24 years old when she died – and in her writings, she has inspired millions of people to retain the simplicity of a child’s faith.  Today, we pray with St. Therese of the Child Jesus, the Little Flower, that despite our great learning, we remain humble and childlike in our openness to the mystery of God; that we might follow his Son and enter the kingdom of heaven.

Yielding a gazillion-fold

In life, progress rarely happens in a straight, uninterrupted line.  Even when things seem to be going our way, we often make two steps forward only to find ourselves retracing one step back.  And when things aren’t going so well, we may even find ourselves making one step up only to fall two steps down.  On my really bad days, I am like the White Rabbit in Wonderland – the hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

Today’s readings offer us hope that such is not to be our ultimate fate.  Isaiah states that as certainly as the rains water the earth, God’s word will prevail. (Is 55:10-11)  Paul insists, that despite our creaturely limitations, despite the sufferings which we endure, salvation and glory beyond our wildest imaginings is the ultimate fate of the children of God. (Rom 8:18-23)  And Jesus takes our normal experience and turns it on its ear. (Mt 13:1-9)

For Jesus, even three steps back does not matter.  When we take one step forward living in the fertile ground of God’s word, of God’s way, that one step is worth thirty, sixty, or even one hundred steps.  To put this in the perspective of Jesus’ listeners, they would have known that typically, the yield for the well-planted seed would have been seven or eight times, perhaps ten times at the outside.  Jesus is promising a yield that is beyond imagination.  If Jesus related this story to us today, he might claim that the fertile ground yielded a gazillion-fold.

So where do we find this fertile ground, this agent of the gazillion-fold yield.  For Isaiah, it is in God’s word, in Paul, it is the revelation of God.  There are saying the same thing.  The fertile ground is Jesus, the Word of God, the perfect revelations of God.  When we walk with Jesus, our lives bear abundant fruit.

Yet, our culture insists that God or Jesus is not the answer.  I find myself depending on my own hard work, my financial success, scientific advances, and self-righteousness to build security, happiness, and the good life.

On the hard-packed path where I often find myself, I think that I can protect what I own by shutting myself off from those who I see as taking from me.  I pass laws and build walls to keep these people from coming into my life, from invading my space.  Yet in jealously protecting what I consider mine, my heart becomes as hard as the path I walk.  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

Among the thorns, I believe that in my anger, as righteous as I feel it to be, I can strike out at others in revenge for what they have done to me or mine.  Yet my vengeance becomes another’s motivation to strike me even harder.  As I sow the wind, I reap the whirlwind.  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

In rocky soil, I buy into the theory that creating bigger and better weapons will keep others from using weapons against us.  I think that we can make weapons “smart” enough that only those who we intend to kill are killed.  Yet wars persist; innocent people die.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

This is the futility of our creatureliness; this is the hard-packed, rocky and thorny soil that yields nothing but more agony and pain.  There is another way and we do not have to look far back in history to see those who have shown us that way, whose lives have been lived not on the fast lane but in the fertile land.

Dorothy Day worked for most of her adult life in destitution, struggling to live a life of non-violence, love, and trust in the God who gives life.  As a result, many thousands are fed each day and many thousands find the only warm bed they know in the houses of hospitality which Dorothy Day founded or inspired.

Dr. Martin Luther King looked the evil of racism in the face and offered peaceful resistance, a vision of brotherhood, and his very life.  As a result, millions of minds have been changed, a nation was moved.

Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela fought apartheid not with terrorism but with God’s word, and today apartheid in South Africa is but a bad memory; today South Africa is a nation struggling to uncover the brutal truth of its past, to reconcile those who were once enemies.

Pope St. John Paul II, by letting God’s love and mercy show through him, helped to gain freedom for many, many millions who had lived under the oppression of Soviet rule.

Each one of us has the same power that enabled Dorothy Day, Dr. King, Bishop Tutu, Mr. Mandela and Pope St. John Paul to accomplish great things.  God will work through each one of us, but only if we allow Him to do so.  Trust in God, live in the fertile soil of Jesus, his Word, and we, too, shall yield thirty-fold, sixty-fold, one hundred-fold…perhaps even a gazillion-fold.

Summer Reading

I am confident that God – at least occasionally – speaks to me in a very direct way, just as he speaks to all of his creation.  More frequently, God also speaks to me through other people.  I may not always hear his words, and sometimes I may hear but not listen, but God speaks nonetheless.  God speaks that I may draw closer to him, for his desire for me, as is his desire for every person on earth, is to be one with him.

That’s the good news.  The bad news is that the devil also knows how to speak to me, both directly and through other people.  And his purposes are truly nefarious, for he wishes me to forget about God, to put absolute faith in my own ability, to limit my sight to what can be gained – and lost – in this world, filling my mind with wants which are always just out of reach and fears that seem ever so dire and imminent.

I am like the boy with an angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil on the other, but they are both invisible, so how do I discern whose words I am hearing?  Today’s readings give us a couple clues.

Jesus uses the metaphor of trees bearing fruits (Mt 7:15-20) – you can’t get good fruit from bad trees or bad fruit from good trees.  Therefore, listen to those people (or words) which bear good fruit.  By their fruit you shall know them.  This is logical advice.  We walk through an orchard in the winter and cannot tell what trees we are looking at, but walk through in the fall and the answer is obvious.

Jesus, St. Paul, and St. Peter all use this metaphor.  Jesus tells us that we bear good fruit when we remain connected to him, the life-giving vine (Jn 15:5).  Perhaps, most famously, St. Paul tells us that when we are led by the Spirit, we bear its fruits, principal among them love, joy, and peace.  (Gal 5:22)  So look for the good fruits, and we will be attuned to the good words.

Our first reading (2 Kgs 22:8-13) tells of “a book of the law” that was discovered in the temple during the reign of King Josiah.  On hearing the book read to him, the King realizes the wayward way of the people and institutes a great reform to bring the people back to Yahweh.  As a result, Josiah is rightly considered one of Judah’s greatest kings.  So what was this book that so inspired him?  Scholars agree that it was a version of the book we now call Deuteronomy.

This book is written as a series of discourses by Moses to the people as they are about to enter the Promised Land, describing for them the history of their reception of the law on Mt. Sinai – we hear again, as we heard in Exodus, the Ten Commandments.  But Moses goes on to fill in some of the blanks in the law, explaining the rationale and importance of following the law to the people.

What we learn from this is that if we are to discern God’s words from the devil’s, an important resource is the God’s words as we have them in the Holy Book.  We must be familiar with the Bible.  And it seems to me that the best way to become familiar with a book is to read it.

A few days ago, a friend of mine on Facebook posted a request for summer reading suggestions.  She received lots of suggestions and I learned of some of my favorite authors who have written new books.  But it also prompted me to think of Bible reading for the summer.

Now, the Bible is a bit much to handle for a summer, eh?  But, I’m thinking I – and you – can handle the Gospels this summer.  This would not require a marathon of reading.  Just reading two chapters a day – ten minutes at most of reading with another ten or fifteen minutes to reflect on the reading – it would take a week to do Mark, and about two weeks for each of the other three – Matthew, Luke and John.  That’s seven weeks!  Sounds like a summer to me.

And at the end of the summer, my guess is you might be at least a little bit better at discerning God’s words from those of the devil, for you will be much more intimate with the Jesus, who always bears the best of fruits. 

One

When you watch a college basketball or football game on TV, what happens when the camera scans the sideline or fans after a big play?  Almost invariably, someone on the winning side will point a finger to the sky and chant: We're number one!

Of course, we don't really believe that silly claim, as the other team's next big play shows it to be false.  Yet, we generally smile at the display, perhaps wishing it to be true if we are on that person's side, perhaps looking forward to a turnabout if we are opposed.

The bottom line, however, is that these claims of position and place are part of our everyday lives.

We rank ourselves against others based on the schools we attended, the jobs we have, the houses we live in or the money we make.

We rank ourselves against others based on our gender, the color of our skin, our age, the countries we are from.

And we may even rank ourselves against others based on the number of Masses we attend, the length of our prayers, the devotions we perform or the sins we don't commit.

What Paul told the Corinthians 1900-odd years ago, what he is telling us today, and what this solemn feast is all about, is that this need to rank and compare is fundamentally, diametrically, radically opposed to our faith.

For our faith tells us and the theologians explain to us that this sacrament of the Eucharist involves two "ontological changes."  Now, "ontological" is certainly a five-dollar word, one that theologians love to use, but it simply means "real."

The first "ontological" change is one we have known since our first instructions: the bread is changed to Christ's body and the wine changed to His blood.  But this change is truly based on faith, for we see no change to the elements, we taste no change, we smell no change, we simply believe.

The second "ontological" change we may not think about as much, yet it is much more demonstrable than the first.  For we believe that as we partake of the Eucharist, sharing the one loaf and the one cup, our community undergoes a change.  We become, as Paul says, one body.  (1 Cor 10:16-17)  When the eucharistic minister presents the host to us and states "The Body of Christ," our "Amen" asserts that not only has the bread been changed, but we - as a community - are also changed into the Body of Christ.

And with this faith, our community changes from one based on rank to one based on equality, from one based on competition to one based on mutuality, from one based on retribution to one based on reconciliation, from one based on power to one based on love.  We turn to the other, rather than the self.  We become one with each other, and thus one with God.

"We're number one!" - Not hardly.

"We're one!" - with the grace of God, most assuredly.