Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Salted with Fire © Jan L. Richardson

September 27, 2015

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The Holy Spirit gathers us this Lord's Day to ponder difficult questions.

Who belongs to Christ and who should be excluded?

Jesus offers a straightforward answer.

"Anyone who is not against us is for us." (Mark 9:40)

Jesus' words deserve repeating.

"Anyone who is not against us is for us."

They can be hard words to live by.

Each of the readings for today's liturgy invite our gathered assembly to become more aware and appreciative of the Spirit of God at work in others, even those we least expect.

Both the first part of the gospel and the first reading are saying,

Look, some other people seem to have the Spirit, or are they speaking for God, working for God, acting as prophets, or confronting evil and replacing it with good?

They are not one of us so should we stop them?

This is a classic "them" or "us" scenario.

It is the old tension between the Church as a "club for saints" or a "hospital for sinners."

The answer from Moses and Jesus is No! Cheer them on!

They are doing God's work and God sometimes takes the spotlight away from us and gives it to others.

The differences between churches furnishes an example.

Because Christianity is divided into many churches, it has been difficult for their members to say good things about each other.

For many Protestants, Catholics were idol worshippers.

And Catholics considered everyone else to be heretics.

A "them" and "us" mentality:

had Christian churches through the centuries paid more attention to today's Scripture, efforts to find moral and religious common ground would not have been so long in coming.

The disciples of Jesus were just like the rest of us.

They thought they had a monopoly on truth so they tried to stop a man who was performing miracles because he was not of their company.

Jesus replied in no uncertain terms.

"Anyone who is not against us is for us." (Mark 9:40)

He states the same principle even more strongly in John's gospel.

"I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold." (John 10:16)

Apparently Jesus did not limit his friends to his close circle of followers—and neither should we.

Jesus' response is tolerance and acceptance.

He adds some important comments, such as, a person does not have to do much to be on Jesus' side.

He tells us that even if a person only "gives you a cup of water to drink

because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward." (Mark 9:41)

Jesus welcomed as a friend any person who does the most menial deed as an act of love.

Remember his description of the great judgment?

He numbers among his friends those who had given a drink of water to the thirsty, given clothing to the naked, given bread to the hungry, and given shelter to the homeless.

Simple deeds like these are ways of befriending Jesus.

Jesus said, "'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:40)

Anyone who is a helper or a healer is a friend of Jesus.

But how can we call helpers and healers friends of Jesus if they do not profess his name?

It's one thing to say all Christian helpers and healers are friends of Jesus regardless of their denomination.

It's another thing to say that Jesus recognizes all helpers and healers

whatever their faith or the lack of it.

How can that be?

The great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner speaks of "anonymous Christians,"

those men and women who are doing the work of Christ without ever hearing his name.

Jesus is our friend, but like any friend, he wants our friendship in return.

He want us to be helpers and healers just as he is for us.

Here and in a thousand other places is your apostolic turf—

not by papal or episcopal permission, not by patronage of your pastor,

not by filling the gap and doing this work until we can find more men to wear Roman collars.

Here we are the Church, by God's gracious calling and the power of our baptism.

To paraphrase Moses' words,

"Would that the Lord might bestow his Spirit on us all."

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Image: JESUS MAFA. Jesus welcomes the children,
from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

September 20, 2015

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When I was beginning high school and was still on the first pages of my brand new Latin book, we read a simple story - our first in Latin.

It was a tale about a poor but noble widow named Cornelia who was visited by two of her friends.

Now the friends were described in Latin as femina superba, which sounds like "superb women," but in fact is best translated as "haughty witches."

From the moment of their arrival, these arrogant ladies flaunted their fine gowns and all their costly jewelry - rings, necklaces, and brooches.

Finally they looked down their very long Roman noses and sneered at their hostess. "Now tell us, dear, where are your jewels?"

Cornelia nodded serenely and looked to the other side of the room.

"There are my jewels," she said, smiling at her two young children.

Right on the mark!

It is hard to get our values straight and even harder to keep them straight.

 The apostles make that all too clear in Sunday's gospel as they walk along with Jesus and argue about which of them is the most important!

Is it the fisherman? The tax collector? Or perhaps the future betrayer?

They're all small fries but still they argue about who's the most important!

We all want to feel like winners and look like winners.

We all want to be somebody.

And so, very early on, we try to figure out what it takes.

In the beginning we're pretty sure a shiny, red tricycle or a Barbie with all the outfits would do the trick and make us feel important and whole on the inside.

Of course, it doesn't.

And before long our world gets bigger and bigger and we need sports cars and designer clothes, power boats and electric gates, board memberships and pictures in the paper to persuade ourselves we're important.

Or maybe we go for prizes: a little gold star on my paper now,

And a little Oscar for the mantelpiece later.

I remember when I was working at Notre Dame.

I bought a new MGB convertible.

I would drive down the street with the top down and people would look at me and I was thinking how great I was!

What a feeling!

But whatever our gimmick, it never quite works, never quite satisfies.

As nice as all life's goodies can be - and they can be pretty terrific ­they never leave us feeling quite whole and full on the inside.

Instead, after a while we find ourselves feeling a little sad and maybe even a little betrayed by life.

God loves us very much but knows we're slow learners.

So God helps us get our values straight by letting us feel the sadness that comes when we've invested our hearts in things that cannot fill us full;

 the sadness that comes when we've planted our gifts in fields that can yield no fruit.

Through that sadness and restlessness God is calling us, urging us to plant our hearts and invest our gifts in the only place where they will grow and bear fruit and make us real winners from the inside out.

God urges us to invest our gifts in one another, and to become, like Cornelia in the story, real jewel makers.

It's our opportunity for happiness, our chance to become real winners: by becoming jewel makers.

Let's not let this chance pass us by even one more day!

Twenty-fourth Sunday Ordinary Time B

September 13. 2015

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I remember one wedding I presided at.

The bride was pale, the groom was shaking, and both had forgotten everything they'd practiced at the rehearsal.

Finally the moment arrived, and I asked the big question: "Do you, James, take Heather here present to be your lawful wife?"

With a shaky voice the groom responded, "I do???"

"Nice try, James," I said . "Now, could you try it without the question mark?"

In Sunday's Gospel Jesus is urging us to try life without the question mark.

He's pleading with us not to settle for half a life, but to be fully in­vested and hold nothing back.

Listen to what he says: "Whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."

He's warning us about our ingrained habit of hedging our bets and holding back, keeping our eye on the nearest exit, and always making sure we've got a way out.

Now that's a great survival strategy for investors, and poker players, and, but it's a recipe for failure at the core of life.

For if our real life work is to help one another grow into masterpieces, then nothing less than our best efforts will do.

Nothing less than investing everything we've got in building up God's kingdom within us and around us.

To let our fears cause us to withhold any part of ourselves from our life's work is a recipe for lifetime failure, sadness, and isolation.

Holding tight to what we've already got is a sure formula for dying from the inside out.

Jesus is telling us we have an alternative - lose our lives in order to save them.

It seems a strange paradox, but if we've been paying attention, we've probably already discovered a bit of how it works.

Just one example: At times we've all had the experience of connecting intensely with someone w trust.

As we talked to that person and listened, it was as if the whole rest of the world fell away and ceased to exist.

We forgot about ourselves, our image, how we looked, and whether we were hungry.

For a few moments we gave our whole attention, we gave away our whole self to the other.

And, in return for our gift, we found that we had become more on the inside.

The pattern repeats itself in every part of our life:

When we give our best self into any moment, into any interaction, and hold nothing back and let all that is secondary fall away, we find to our surprise that we become more, much more.

It is that "something more" that Jesus wants for us.

Twenty-third Sunday Ordinary Time B

Image: Emily Schaffer. South American Potluck,.from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

September 6, 2015

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A young student went to his rabbi with a question.

"Rabbi," he asked, "how can we tell exactly the moment when night has ended and day has begun?

Is it when it's so light that we can no longer see the stars in the sky?"

"No, my son," said the rabbi. "That is not how we tell that night is ended and the day has begun."

"Then how can we tell?" asked the boy.

The rabbi spoke softly. "We know that night has ended and day has begun when we look into the face of the stranger next to us and recognize he is our brother."

With God there is no night but only day.

God looks at you and me seeing a much cherished child and never a stranger.

There is nothing in us ­nothing about us - that God does not see, and yet even on our worst days, God's attitude towards us never changes:

"You are my dear boy, my dear girl; I love you, and I'll never give up on you, never call you stranger."

For those of us who have come face to face with our frailties and have seen and named our sinfulness, those words of the Lord are both comfort and healing, "you are my dear boy, my dear girl, and I'll never give up on you."

But those words are more than comfort and healing for us.

They are also God's mandate to us.

God, with gracious hospitality, has welcomed every single one of us inside a circle of love and left no one outside.

God is asking us to do the same, to make the habit of hospitality the foundation of our lives:

"As I have welcomed you into my life, so must you welcome one another and call no one

How different every part of our lives could be if we refused to label anyone "stranger."

 How different the way we'd drive and do business and even celebrate this liturgy.

How different life could be if we said inside our heads, "I don't know her name, I don't know who he is - and I probably never will - but I do know she's my sister, and he's my brother.

And I cannot call them strangers. I cannot fail to value them."

How different life would be!

So let us pray for one another:

God grant that the night will end for us all. In his light may we look upon one another's faces and see there brothers and sisters to be welcomed and cherished always! Amen.

Twenty-second Sunday Ordinary Time B

Image: Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985. Le Cantique des cantiques III (detail), .from Art in the Christian Tradition, 

a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

August 30, 2015

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"This people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me." (Mark 7:7b)

In 1990, the group Milli Vanilli caused quite a music controversy.

The duo of Rob and Fab had exploded on the pop music scene.

They had five big hits, including three number one songs.

Then it was discovered that they weren't really singing on their records or at their concerts—they were simply lip-synching.

The actual vocals were being sung by two former American soldiers who just didn't have the "look" the record producer wanted.

People in the recording industry were outraged, and Milli Vanilli had to give back the Grammy Award given to them for Best New Artist.

In today's gospel, Jesus says that the Pharisees, like Milli Vanilli, were doing an Old Testament lip-synch.

They were mouthing the appropriate and necessary words, but they were not doing the hard work that God requires of all of us.

Jesus quoted Isaiah's prophecy when he spoke to the Pharisees and the Scribes saying, "This people honors me with their lips

but their hearts are far from me." (Mark 7:7)

Would he say the same of us?

Let's suppose that Jesus Christ was in this church right now, sharing this celebration with us.

We would certainly want to show him that we are fully participating in the Mass.

But wait! Jesus is here with us in this place of worship right now.

If we are merely lip-synching our way through the Mass, we become the twenty-first century Pharisees.

We become the Milli Vanilli of the Mass.

The "lip service" the Pharisees were accused of sounds like us when we come to Mass out of habit, bringing our bodies but leaving our hearts at home.

Our challenge is to bring our hearts to Mass each and every time, and to pay more than lip-service to Jesus.

When we say the Creed, there should be no doubt that these are the things we believe in as Catholics.

When we say the Lord's Prayer, there should be no question that we give

our praise and thanks to God, and that we will forgive others as we ask for forgiveness from God.

When we receive Communion, we should say, "Amen," and truly mean that we believe we are receiving the body of Jesus Christ.

And that we are willing to be the Body and Blood of Christ to others, willing to give ourselves to their needs.

The Christian Social Union was very much annoyed because there were some evils we really should avoid and so they sang another hymn

to help the unemployed.

—G.K. Chesterton

This is lip-service religion.

Chesterton was not knocking prayer, or hymn singing.

But prayer that has become a mere moving of the lips, when there is no change inside us, is hollow.

When there are no deeds in the world that show that Christians live here, we, too,  have become Milli Vanillis in our faith.

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Twenty-first Sunday Ordinary Time B

Image: Trinity Church, Boston - Stone Carving.
from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

August 23, 2015

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Many attempts have been made to explain this mystery.
The early church simply affirmed that the risen Christ was with them at their celebrations of the Lord's Supper, but during the Middle Ages laborious attempts were made to explain how and when Christ was present in the sacrament.
It was in this period that theories such as transubstantiation were forwarded.
Transubstantiation is the belief that somehow the very substance of the bread and wine is transformed into the substance of the flesh and blood of Christ, even though the outward appearance of the bread and wine remain unchanged.
The medieval church began to affirm that when the priest lifts the host and says, "Hoc est corpus meum" (that is, "This is my body"), the bread is miraculously transformed into the physical presence of Christ.

Protestant reformers, while affirming Christ's presence at the church's celebrations of the sacrament, were disturbed by such interpretations.
To them, such interpretations reduced the sacrament to alchemy, a form of sacred magic.
It is telling that the phrase “Hoc est corpus” was later transformed into the familiar magician's incantation "hocus-pocus."

Unfortunately, many people assume that if they do not believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation, they do not believe in the real presence of Christ at the Lord's Table.
But today there seems to be wide consensus in both Protestant and Roman Catholic circles that the manner and means of Christ's presence cannot be captured by this or any other explanation.
Christ's presence is real in this sacrament, but the manner and means of that presence may remain mysteries to us forever.
The ways in which Christ is present at this meal are not mysteries in the same way that a magician's pulling a rabbit out of a hat is mysterious.
If we were to examine a magician's hat and insist that he repeat the act again without his cape, then we might very well understand how the feat was accomplished.
But the mystery that is present at Christ's table is forever beyond the reach of explanation.

It is more like the mystery of love.
Where does it come from? How is it sustained? How does it sustain us?
We will never fully know, but the power is no less real because of our inability to explain it.
It is nothing less than the mystery and the power of Jesus made real and made available to us.

In our cerebral approach to religion, we often assume that the most important religious truths can always be reduced to words.
But just as an art critic once observed about great art, the part of the sacrament that really matters is the part that will forever remain beyond the reach of explanation.
Sacraments are important, in part, because they take us where words cannot go.

There are times when we can be particularly grateful that the presence of Christ is not something that can be grasped only by the intellect, that such a presence can be experienced by other means.
A woman suffering from dementia who cannot hold a point in a sermon long enough for it to make any real difference can still hold the cup of blessing to her lips and receive the presence of Christ.
A child for whom theological explanations are about as incomprehensible as molecular biology can still receive the blessings of this table.

Occasionally, I will hear someone say that children should not receive communion until they fully understand what it means.
When I hear that I always think, "At what age is that?
Who can claim to fully understand all that the sacrament means.
John Calvin, after a long dissertation on the sacrament, summarized his understanding of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper by saying, "I would rather experience it than understand it."

How is Christ present in this meal?
We cannot fully know.
Such close love is always a mystery.
But his presence is no less real for all of our inability to explain it.
What we can do is seek the mysterious blessings of the table and receive the profound gifts of a profound God.
For all who receive the presence of Christ, John's affirmation is good news, indeed:
You are what you eat.

Twentieth Sunday Ordinary Time B

Image: Lamp of Wisdom.
from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

August 16, 2015

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Real change is always hard for us.

And facing up to what we really need to change is even harder.

That's why the Eucharist is so important to us.

The Eucharist is our power source: food for our spirit.

It gives us energy for the tough journey we're on and it keeps us going. But, even more important, it's medicine for our spirit, the ultimate heart medicine.

When taken as directed, it has the power to cure what's sick in us, and to heal what's wounded.

But it isn't magic.

We have to take it as directed.

That means we have to receive the Lord, not just into our hands or on our lips, but all the way into our inmost being.

And doing that takes close attention, inner quiet, and a great deal of trust.

But when we do welcome the Lord in that way, there, deep inside, with all the doors unlocked and all the nooks and crannies open, the Lord lights up our darkness.

Deep inside us, heavenly warmth and light help us see and know God as absolutely devoted to us, utterly delighted at our successes, and anxious to see us get better, and happier, and more whole.

What powerful heart medicine God is for us.

He doesn't just make us feel better.

By his kind presence he gives us the courage and the confidence to look at what needs to be done and to see where we need to change, and not just close our eyes or look away from our unfinished work.

Change is always hard but it becomes possible for us when we trust the Lord enough to come into our hearts, shine a warm and kindly light on what we need to see, and take us by the hand and lead us where we need to go.

And that happens when we receive the body and blood of the Lord without distraction or barrier.

So let us pray for one another:

May God help us to receive Jesus' holy body and blood, not just in our hands and on our lips but in the depths of our heart.

And as we share God's company, heart to heart, may we be transformed into his likeness. Amen.