Eighteenth Sunday Ordinary

Eighteenth Sunday Ordinary
July 31, 2005

"Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! (Isaiah 55: 1-3). "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves."... and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves... They all ate and were satisfied. " (Matthew 14:13-21).

The prophet has a vision of a new age in which God's lavish generosity, without any cost to us, will know no bounds and will be available for all people. Jesus has compassion on the crowd of people listening to him, and provides a meal to go along with his words.

This story of the "loaves and fishes" can be understood on many levels. The least amazing is the physical aspect of multiplying a small amount of food to feed everyone. This is much more than the magical story of our childhood. The story is also Eucharistic: food given from the hand of God directly, nourishing soul and body. It is a story of divine compassion for people hungry for food, life and truth.

Jesus' disciples don't quite get it. They want to send the people away to fend for themselves, while they themselves stay securely close to him. There may be a lesson here for those of us who similarly consider ourselves close followers of Jesus. Those who are closest often miss what is right in front of them. The disciples appear to have been concerned with how little food was available. Jesus saw it as an opportunity to share what was available with everyone. A little bit becomes an abundance. What was limited and precious becomes copious and free.

Fear that there will not be enough seems to be rooted in our human nature, perhaps part of our anxiety that we will not survive. Not enough food. Not enough truth. Not enough love. Not enough room. Not enough eternity. Most of us have acquired these very worldly anxieties which work against our spiritual lives and frustrate our desires. This story reminds us that this is not God's perspective. There is enough for all of us, even when it does not appear to be so. What if we were able to adopt this perspective in our personal and corporate lives? A little love, a little compassion, a little understanding, a little patience, a little generosity, a little courage, could bring forth a quite remarkable transformation within and around us.

Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary

Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary
July 24, 2005

"Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong." (I Kings 3: 5-12). "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field... and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Matthew 13:44-52)

Solomon prays for wisdom and understanding of right from wrong rather than a long life, wealth, or power over his enemies. The irony is that Solomon was the wealthiest and most powerful king Israel ever had. Jesus continues to instruct his disciples on the kingdom of God with metaphors about its value. He promises that those who listen and understand will be "like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old".

I remember back in the golden age of my childhood, idling away summer days reading my three foot-high stack of comic books (which would now be worth a fortune) and speculating with my friends and my younger brother Steve about what we would do if we had three wishes. We thought it was very clever to have enough foresight to use one of them for additional wishes. The wishes were usually similar to things which enticed Solomon: no more school or work, lots of stuff, freedom from death, and power over other people, especially my current enemies. The seduction of these childhood wishes is that we want them without any work or sacrifice.

One of the most difficult aspects of my situation came early on, when it occurred to me that the end of my life might not be as far off as I had planned. I was tempted to pray for a restoration of that anticipated future. We routinely pray for health, safety and prosperity, more often than we do for the treasures of discernment and of where the kingdom of God is to be found. Solomon by choosing the more difficult path of wisdom for himself was given the privilege and responsibility for making judgments about this for others as well.

There is a saying to the effect that where our heart is, so is our treasure. What we pray for is a reflection of what we regard as our treasure. In this sense we often get what we pray for, and then wonder why life seems unaccountably empty. We perhaps should be more careful about what we desire and pray for, lest we be disappointed by the result. Theologies (such as those often encountered in highly "successful" evangelistic enterprises) which promise a payoff of prosperity in exchange for contributions of prayer and money seem to miss Jesus' point. Success in the kingdom of God is not measured by financial prosperity, health or any other "rewards". The spiritual life of God's kingdom is its own reward. It is only attained when we decide that everything else is useless, and worth the cost of all our other treasures.

Sixteenth Sunday Ordinary

Sixteenth Sunday Ordinary
July 17, 2005

"... Your might is the source of justice; your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all... those who are just must be kind..." (Wisdom 12:13-19) '... if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; (Matthew 13 24-43)

The Wisdom author reflects on God's power and benevolence, associating power with justice and leniency, and drawing a parallel between this and a prescription for human behavior. From God's point of view strength and justice are not associated with punishment and retribution, but with love and forbearance. This might not be a bad thing to remember in this age of indiscriminate, apparently deliberate attacks on innocent people. It should however cause us to reflect on our own tendencies toward political and religious fanaticism, the conviction that we are right and everyone else is wrong and that it is our duty to purify the world. Precisely the mentality of terrorism.

Jesus instructs about the kingdom of God in parables, comparing it to a field of grain choked with weeds, a tiny mustard seed or a bit of yeast in a mass of bread dough. The disciples naïvely ask the master if he wants them to destroy the "weeds", meaning those who apparently reject his teaching. Jesus' answer is consistent with the passage from Wisdom. He says essentially to leave it all alone until his Father decides on the right time to allow the weeds to be separated from the grain. It is not for them to take this decision into their own hands. Who knows what will happen between now and harvest time.

Jane has created a beautiful English style garden in our yard against a backdrop of large fir and oak trees. Once upon a time I spent much energy trying to keep this little quarter acre of woods "under control". Now the weeds (grass) are high enough to provide food and cool shelter for a family of deer. Jane and a friend spend countless hours pruning and weeding her garden to keep it looking great. She recently remarked that she had forgotten to enjoy it fully during the brief spring blooming, so intent was she on making sure that everything was just right. Maybe there is a lesson here. What are undesirable "weeds" at one time and place may not be so at another in the kingdom of God, as in the garden. Sometimes we must allow time to discern the difference instead of jumping rashly to conclusions about what is and is not desirable. The spiritual life is full of such ambiguities The kingdom of God, within and around us is not always served best by pursuing our manias for order and purity. Better to leave the final sifting for the Most High.

Fifteenth Sunday

Fifteenth Sunday Ordinary
July 10, 2005

"We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now... we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." (Romans 8:18-23) "... the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it...." (Matthew 13: 1-23)

St. Paul continues his thoughts about body and spirit with that wonderful line about all creation "groaning" for completion. Jesus tells the parable of the seed and the sower.

We Christians have only recently begun to catch up with St. Paul in realizing that renewal and rebirth applies to more than human beings. We are only a part of God's creation. It is only in the last several hundred years that we have become capable of saving or destroying our habitat. Our own sacred earthly envelope of life is indeed "groaning" under the weight of human pressure to survive and prosper. We have a short window of time in which to cooperate with, or frustrate, the divine plan for renewing the face of the earth.

Only a few short years ago I was a poster boy for late midlife physical fitness. When that all changed, I learned that I must adapt or die. I was fortunate enough to have some advance notice that my life would become one series of adaptations. Running and walking more slowly and carefully (I still have dreams in which I'm walking -- very carefully so as not to fall); living in a wheelchair; relying on others for every daily need. Someone remarked to me early on that I would "rediscover the pleasures of infancy". True enough, along with the anxieties which accompany it. It would be easy at any point to just decide that I'm done with adapting. But I know that this would mean choosing death, something I'm not willing, or maybe even able to do. Are we, or the earth we love any less dependent on each other than I am?

The seeds of unpredictable changes in personal life and our world fall indiscriminately. It is up to us to provide an environment where they can take root and grow into something permanent. We are all faced with the challenge to adapt to new circumstances personally and as a species. Sooner or later all of us must face the reality of deteriorating strength and health. Perhaps also we must question whether we are entitled to use up the earth's resources anyway we like for the sake of our own selfish definition of prosperity. Even in eternity we do not leave our bodies behind. Our destiny is to be renewed and perfected. In fact, in a certain way, every time we adapt to new physical and spiritual challenges, we recognize how this process of completion is happening at this very moment. The final adaptation is to accepting the reality and inevitability of death as the beginning of something new and perfect.