Thirty-first Sunday Ordinary

Thirty-first Sunday Ordinary
October 30, 2005

"Has not the one God created us? Why then do we break faith with one another..." (Malachi 1: 8-10). "We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children..." (I Thessalonians 2: 7-13). "... do not follow their example... For they preach but they do not practice" (Matthew 23:1-12)

Jesus again scolds the religious leaders of his day who are more interested in how they look and in imposing moral and religious obligations on others rather than looking to their own inner lives. These are serious words for those of us formally designated by the church to interpret the word of God. I recall earlier in my adult life being quite enthralled with this role and the visible trappings which go with it: special ceremonial garments, titles and privileges, and being seen. I also remember in my youth, after a very difficult year of discernment, being told by a religious superior that not wearing my monastic garb was the reason for my deciding to return to secular life.

It is easy to be seduced into thinking that religious and spiritual authority comes from what we wear or are called. It is also true that religious symbols can have extraordinary power to evoke profoundly spiritual responses from within us. It all depends on how we use them. Practicing what we preach, maintaining the connection between the visible and invisible, does not come quickly or easily for any of us. Neither does discernment about when and where to give or withhold respect for authority.

St. Paul's compares himself to a nursing mother, implying a much different way of thinking about religious and spiritual authority. Pastoring one another is like being a good mother. Mothers nurse us with what they have within themselves, their "spiritual milk". Their authority is only as effective as their love We all deserve to give and receive nourishing milk when it is accompanied by genuine warmth, care and support. It is very difficult for any of us to give what we don't have.

Interpreting the meaning of the gospel is as much a matter of living what we preach to each other as it is imparting a correct way of thinking. We "break faith with one another" when we fail to link these two aspects of spiritual and religious lives. We cannot avoid the fact that inconsistencies between who we are and what we say are immediately obvious, usually to everyone else first. In this regard it takes a while to be ready to listen to what we do not want to hear. Let us pray for open minds and hearts to receive from the word of God and each other what we need to hear along with what we want to hear.

Thirtieth Sunday Ordinary

Thirtieth Sunday Ordinary
October 23, 2005

"I love you, Lord my strength... my rock, my fortress" (Psalm 18). "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart... love your neighbor as yourself... The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." (Matthew 22: 34-40)

Jesus is again approached by people who want to "trip him up", with a question about "the greatest law". They flatter him with useless titles hoping he will be seduced into saying something he would regret. His response establishes the central principle of Christian life, the "law" of love. This is a revolutionary religious and spiritual concept. Instead of a hierarchy of who or what we should love first, second and third, he places love of God, others and self all on the same level. We cannot love God without loving others; we cannot love others without loving ourselves. The three loves interact, each enabling the other two. The priority is with all of them simultaneously. God is as much within and among us as above and beyond. The choice is whether or not to desire to live our lives based on this law of love.

In actual practice, of course, this becomes a considerably more complicated matter. We are accustomed to thinking that we should love God first, others second and ourselves last. Indeed, many of our theologies and spiritual traditions suggest precisely this. Some of us live much of our lives feeling guilty and inadequate that we cannot make this principle work. We only succeed in demeaning ourselves and feeling profoundly guilty. We can develop a "martyrdom complex", ultimately producing anger and bitterness that all of our efforts to place other people's needs above our own have left us unloved and unappreciated. "I gave up everything for God and other people and got nothing back". Something deep within us seems to rebel against placing ourselves last.

It is true that others, naturally looking out for their own interests will, often without realizing it, either reward us for placing their needs above our own. Other times we may fail to earn their respect regardless of how much we try to do for them. This is a "boundary issue", the tendency to say yes when we should be saying no, or indeed to say no when we should be saying yes. It will feel awkward, selfish and unnatural when we start to reeducate ourselves to be more sensitive to feelings of unfairness and exploitation. We can learn to say no to physical, emotional and verbal abuse, exploitation in employment or misuse of religious authority. We have a spiritual right to ask for help without inordinate strings attached. Spiritual maturity is learning how to love God and others, and ourselves. It does not have to be one or the other. Love should set us free as well as bind us together with ties of mutual support. When it does not, it is a counterfeit of the real thing.

Twenty ninth Sunday

Twenty Ninth Sunday Ordinary
October 16, 2005

"I am the Lord, there is no other." (Isaiah 45:1-6) "We give thanks to God always for all of you" (I Thessalonians 1:1-5) "Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." (Matthew 22:15-21)

The prophet Isaiah succinctly expresses in this vision the essence of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith in the one God, creator and Lord of heaven and earth. In spite of our many differences there is still this fundamental confidence which should keep us all on the same page. The miracle is that this Great One knows and cares about each one of us individually by name.

Jesus fends off hostile questioners who try to lure him into a political quagmire. Any answer to their question would have placed him too close either to the Roman backed authority "(Herodians") or to advocates of violent rebellion against them ("Zealots"). Jesus neatly avoids the trap by answering vaguely that legitimate civil authority has its place in the kingdom of God. He does not say what that place is. In fact, somewhere hidden in his answer is a paradox, certainly not lost on his enemies. Everything belongs to the Most High. All that the civil authority claims as its own ultimately belongs to the one God. There are no "separate but equal" dominions, earthly and heavenly. Nor does Jesus endorse a theocracy where the state enforces religious principles. We should not confuse any civil authority, no matter how apparently religious, with the reign of God. Political parties and governments lie somewhere within and outside of the kingdom of God. They are always subject to the universal principle of justice for the poorest and least powerful.

The passage from St. Paul brings to mind the central role of gratitude in the spiritual life. Gratitude is an acknowledgment of our dependence on God, one another and the earth I was recently included in a study of attitudes about assisted suicide because I have ruled it out as an option for myself. The overwhelming majority of those who choose this do so not to avoid intractable pain but because they associate physical dependence with loss of dignity, meaning and purpose. Independence (as recent natural disasters have demonstrated) is one of the great illusions of our time. The universal sacramental web of natural and personal connections sustains us every moment of our lives. We do not always attend to how dependent we are on these connections until we are threatened with losing them.

You for whom I'm grateful receive these little weekly offerings in partial repayment of my debt of gratitude to you. You may not be aware of the warmth and security which your generosity of spirit and time provides for Jane and I. You appear to me nightly by name in thought and prayer. Thank You!

Twenty Eighth Sunday Ordinary

Twenty Eighth Sunday Ordinary
October 9, 2005

"On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoplesa feast of rich food and choice wines," (Isaiah 25:6-10) "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son." (Matthew 22:1-14)

The prophet Isaiah envisions a messianic age when all the earth's people gather in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount at a great banquet of abundance, peace and unity. This is one of many passages in the Torah and Prophets in which Yahweh's chosen people are the instrument of a transformation of all human history. There is only one God, known by many names. The human family is the family of God. God is going to be there for all of us. Everyone will be invited to the banquet.

Jesus uses another parable, a royal wedding feast, to describe the kingdom of God. The king (the Most High) invites worthy guests to the wedding of his son. But they either ignore the invitation or kill the messengers. So he destroys their city and invites the "unworthy" homeless from the highways, "the good and bad", and the wedding banquet is filled. Even then, someone appears who is not suitably dressed and he is promptly tossed out on his ear. This seems like a contradiction. Why would someone be considered unworthy just because he or she is wearing the wrong clothes? Isn't that part of being unworthy, not having the "right" clothes?

Jesus seems to be saying that in the kingdom of God as we know it right now, the "good and bad" are not so clearly distinguishable. For now we must live with that ambiguity. Maybe this is less a reference to good and bad people than it is to the paradoxical mix of right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, good and bad in every human soul. The two will be separated only when the kingdom reaches its final destiny. Nevertheless, even now we do have a choice about whether to put on the right garments so that we can be recognized as belonging to God's people.

What are the right clothes necessary to be admitted to the banquet of the kingdom of God? Perhaps they are the appropriate state of mind, What would this state of mind be? Surely it would be an attitude of grateful acceptance that everyone has a place at the banquet. Certainly it would include a perception of our own unworthiness as a condition of being worthy. This is perhaps the way we are to take the closing statement, "many are called but few are chosen". The paradox is that few of us can embrace our own unworthiness and are quick to declare the unworthiness of others. We are admitted to the banquet unless we steadfastly refuse to wear the garment of unworthiness.