Second Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent
December 4, 2005

"... With the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” (2 Peter 3:8-14) "I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1: 1-8).

The Gospel of Mark begins with this description of John the Baptist as a prophetic figure modeled after Elijah, complete with long hair and stern, ascetic ways, promising the divine wrath and retribution on a sinful world. By contrast, Jesus turns out to be a much different kind of prophet, without their dramatic flair and bent for asceticism. Instead, he consistently directs attention away from himself and toward his heavenly Father's tender love and forgiveness. Jesus' baptism will go beyond the purely symbolic water of John's, to bring us into the very life of the Holy Spirit.

The letter attributed to (though not written by) Peter includes the wonderful passage about the contrast between the human experience of time and God's. We are meant to take this reference to a thousand years and a day as a metaphor for this contrast. God's eternity is not time extended into an infinite future. It is an eternal present.

I am celebrating six years since I was diagnosed with ALS. It seems like a lifetime has gone away and that this is an entirely different one. It is difficult to remember what it was like, except in an occasional dream when I'm walking or driving a car, to be able to move anything but my head. What was it like to be "independent"? Was it really so, or did I just dream that? It seems that most of us experience something similar whenever we try to imagine former ages of our lives. Who was that person who was a child, a teenager, a young adult, middle-aged, sick or well, happy or sad, strong or weak, wise or foolish? Perhaps this is already the beginning of our experience of eternity.

On Thanksgiving weekend my children and grandchild, and the extended family of my friends were all here because we love each other. I felt their warmth: my five-year-old granddaughter massaging my fingers and checking on me frequently to make sure I'm OK, all of their gentle touches and conversation from getting me up in the morning to getting me in bed in the evening. The Messiah is here in flesh and blood.

There is no "time" between the promise and fulfillment of God's coming. From the perspective of eternity, we are not "waiting" for anything. It is already here. We have already died and been taken in to the eternal life of Father, Son and Spirit. We don't have to wait until December 25 for this promised Messiah.

First Sunday Advent

First Sunday of Advent
November 27, 2005

"No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him. O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands." (Isaiah 63, 64)

The prophet Isaiah has a vision of faith in a God who creates and cares for us endlessly. This imagery of the Father as the potter and creation as the clay holds many possibilities for understanding this mystical relationship. For the ancient peoples pots were an essential item of survival as well as objects of artistic decoration of. Much of what we know about daily life in ancient times comes from unearthed vessels of all sizes and shapes. Our universe, the earth that supports us and we ourselves are like that, incredibly diverse, unique and intricately interconnected.

We vessels of God are made to hold things, most especially each other. When we do we serve the very purpose of our creation intended by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless we sometimes are empty pots longing to be filled up with love, the only content that will really satisfy us. I remember climbing up hill in Rome made entirely of broken pieces of pots discarded by the ancient Romans. In extreme cases we might even feel that our vessel has been smashed into many pieces. These are the times when our most powerful prayer comes from what we lack, without any perceived love, useful thoughts and deeds, entirely dependent on the love of God. This kind of prayer has the best chance of bringing about our realization of how much the Father loves us.

Vessels are not simply utilitarian. They are also created to be beautiful, mirroring the beauty of their creator. Every time we affirm the beauty around us, within us and in one another, we are reflecting the image of the Most High. Unlike pots, however, our beauty is not only on the outside. We are beautiful at the deepest level of our being, the only part of us which God sees.

Creation is not a one-time event. Our own bodies and souls are always changing, the divine potter re-creating them every day, just as certainly as the entire universe is also in a continual state of being created. My own loss of physical powers seems to go hand-in-hand with this experience. As something old and outdated is going away, something new and beautiful is being born.

An infallible mark of the spiritual life is the habit of being grateful. It is a time to be grateful for those who hold us when we are empty and broken. This is also a time of anticipation of being renewed and created again. We are entirely dependent on God's visitation and creative power. The most powerful position is one of dependence and patient waiting for our creation to be completed.

Thirty-fourth Sunday Ordinary

Thirty-fourth Sunday Ordinary
November 20, 2005

"The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy," (Exodus 34:11-17). The last enemy to be destroyed is death... so that God may be all in all" (I Corinthians 15: 20-28). "... When the Son of Man comes... he will separate them... the sheep on his right, the goats on his left" (Matthew 25:31-46).

This week's passages offer a contrast between God's gentle nurturance of the weak and vulnerable and harshness toward the "sleek and strong". What are we to make of Jesus' repeated references to punishment for "the goats"? Sheep had a reputation for vulnerability, goats for aggressiveness and independence. We have often taken the image of the smoldering trash dump (gahenna) as a literal description of a physical place of eternal punishment. Not even the poet Dante believed that the Inferno was anything more than creative license to describe the world he lived in. We have a tradition that eternal life can be achieved simply by fear of this punishment. It does not seem to have done much over the centuries to dissuade us from all manner of personal and corporate evil. Perhaps because it is not really believable. Could it be that there is something worse than unending physical pain? There are other ways to understand the ultimate consequence of pursuing a life devoted to power and self advancement.

It is very difficult to put ourselves in the place of others consistently enough to imagine what their lives of weakness and privation must be like. In many cases this inability to empathize derives from not wanting to confront our own emptiness and powerlessness. Gahenna is not a punishment, anymore than eternal life is a reward. Both are consequences of decisions we make to accept, rather than fend off, our own diminishment The separation of sheep and goats is happening as we speak. Gahenna, like the kingdom of God, is right here where we live. What could be worse than living with alienation from ourselves, other people and God as a permanent condition which we have created for ourselves? The question is how long we want it to continue. There is a surprisingly short period of time in which to decide.

St. Paul is reflecting on our destiny when the final enemy, death, will be destroyed and God will be "all in all". I have been blessed with a continual loss of capacity for independent functioning, forcing me to embrace my own insignificance in the great sea of humanity and creation. My life is more full than I could have possibly imagined it could be when I was "independent". We are all atoms of God's life, extraordinarily important to the whole but not by ourselves. Diminishment of our sense of self-importance is the central focus of a spiritual life. The only thing that can separate us from each other and God's love is a decision not to accept that we belong with the lost, strayed and injured.

Thirty-third Sunday Ordinary

Thirty-third Sunday Ordinary
November 13, 2005

"... Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize... Give her a reward for her labors, and let her works praise her..." (Proverbs 13). " For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." (Matthew 25:14-30).

Jesus tells a puzzling parable about two servants who invest their master's considerable wealth, doubling his income and earning his trust. A third person, given less because he had less ability, hides the money out of fear, making no profit for the master. The first two are rewarded, the third is deprived of what little he had. Hardly seems fair, this poor guy was just being careful. The lesson seems to contradict most of what Jesus usually said about the rich and poor.

If the master is the Most High and the gifts of the Spirit, then the story encourages us to take chances with what we have been loaned, and give back more than we receive, increasing its "value". The principle is as true in the realm of the spirit as it is economics and finance. No risk, no reward. We risk losing everything in the hope of spiritual fullness now and in eternity. The first two servants are wise in the way of the spirit. The third is excluded because of being either too cautious or too lazy with the gift of God's life.

A friend of mine has an interesting alternative interpretation. The "master" and the money is the politics and economics of power and wealth, the third servant becomes the hero of the story by refusing to play the game and being excluded from the tangible rewards of "success". This person understands that profit for some often is impoverishment for others. Again no risk, no reward. Either way, the story is true. Brilliant.

Proverbs praises the "worthy wife". Whether or not this is a politically correct sentiment, I am especially touched by it. It can as easily be applied to the male half of the partnership. Perhaps it is only after more than 35 years of marriage, and being tested by a debilitating illness which has profoundly changed the carefree retirement we thought was in our future, that I fully appreciate Jane's willingness and personal strength to go through this together. It seems that we have both decided to risk it all for the sake of something more permanent and satisfying. We have not had to wait for some "afterlife" to receive back what we were willing to lose. I do not hesitate to compare her favorably to this ideal spouse of old. Consider this my "city gate" where I announce her virtues publicly. She is my divine gift and undeserved reward. My goal is to be hers as well.

Thirty-second Sunday Ordinary

Thirty Second Sunday Ordinary
November 6, 2005

"She (Wisdom) makes her own rounds, seeking those worthy of her..." (Wisdom 6: 12-16). "The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise...." (Matthew 25: 1-13).

Jesus tells the story of young women, attendants to a bride waiting for the groom to arrive at the bride's house to escort her to her new home with him. They all fall asleep with their oil lamps burning. Some of them have the foresight to bring extra oil with them. By the time the others, who did not, obtain more oil they are too late to be admitted to the wedding feast. This is a story about the wisdom of being prepared and the foolishness of neglecting to anticipate the unexpected. None of the girls could stay awake, but some of them were smart enough to prepare for a long wait. Divine wisdom made her rounds and found some of them worthy of her. As a close friend of mine has said to me many times, "them that has, gets". Those who act wisely seem to receive more wisdom.

Matthew intends this story to be applied to being prepared for Christ's coming again at the end of time. Note again the warning not to try to predict when it will be. Believers of that generation were sure it would happen within their lifetime. Unless I missed something, it has not happened yet. The second coming seems to have been postponed indefinitely. Not so for us as individuals. All of us will be meeting God face to face quite soon. Divine wisdom counsels us to begin early, like the girls in the story to be prepared for her coming.

There is an art to doing this without undue anxiety about all the awful things that might happen between now and the end. Wisdom reveals that what we most often fear never happens, and what we fail to anticipate can indeed occur. Recently I have had conversations with several people with "terminal illness" who are living with the reality that our lives as we know it now will soon be over. What makes any of us foolish enough to think that we are not terminal? I find in these conversations a combination of dread and peace about what St. Paul called the sleep of death.

We all are sometimes suddenly, sometimes gradually, awakened from the forgetfulness of sleep. Divine wisdom teaches us by the experience of the unexpected. What kind of condition will she find us in when she makes her rounds? Like the wise young women, it behooves us to be prepared. We are all going to sleep and we will all be awakened to a new and fuller life than we could have possibly imagined.