30th Sunday Ordinary Time B

Mark 10:46-52

October 28, 2012

Every three years Bartimaeus' story is proclaimed in church.

Preachers all over the Christian world tell how he, the blind beggar of Jericho, was cured by Jesus as he made his way to Jerusalem.

They will say all sorts of nice things about him• about how he had real faith and recognized the Savior on the road. About how he, even though he was blind, he had more vision than the disciples.

He is called a model of Christian discipleship

But think about how difficult his life must have been.

He suffered many indignities in his lifetime; people probably laughed at him when he would fall over something, looked the other way when they passed him by,

 even said the reason he was blind was because of some sin his parents had committed.

People can be so cruel when they have a mind to be.

But of all the indignities he had to bear in life, the one that really got to him was that nobody ever knew his name.

They called him Bartimaeus, which means "son of Timaeus."

It was like when some kids are called Junior or Sis instead of their real name.

Or when you get a nickname when you are little, or at school, and that becomes your name.

After all, who wants to wake up at sixty and still find themselves being called Sonny?

To make matters worse, when Matthew and Luke borrowed his story from Mark, they dropped even the name Bartimaeus from their telling of the story.

In Matthew, he became "two blind men," and in Luke he was simply called "a blind man."

So, you see, he knew what it meant to be not only blind but nameless, a nobody.

He must have become very sensitive to how he referred to people.

So, when he heard a great commotion one day about Jesus of Nazareth passing by, he, who had no name of his own, called Jesus by an ancient and royal name: "Jesus, son of David."

That bothered many in the crowd.

Even good people, even pilgrims, don't like to hear the truth; they don't like to hear truth named in detail.

That's why they tried to shut him up.

Jesus stopped not just because he called out to him but because he dared to call him "son of David."

He dared to remind him that even though he was heading to Jerusalem where he would suffer and die on the cross, he was not alone, he was somebody, he was the Messiah, he was not just the carpenter's son, he was God's Son.

Bartimaeus must have known it's not always easy for anyone to speak the truth.

Some things never change; people still try to stifle those who dare to speak the truth.

Many times people tell us not to tell the truth under the guise of "keeping it a secret."

There can be times when there is a real value in secrets.

But there are times when the truth is also twisted under the cloak of secrecy.

It takes a lot of courage for all of us to talk about topics that have been cloaked over for years: racism, sexual harassment, child abuse, economic injustice.

When we do, we face the same humiliation Bartimaeus faced in the crowd that day.

Like back then, people will mumble things like: "Shut up!"

"How dare you speak out?"

"You are a nameless little nobody in the crowd."

"What right do you have to tell me what I should and should not do?"

We don't have to spend our lives constantly telling people off.

That's not telling the truth.

That's living out of anger.

But, when those special moments happen in our lives, like the one for him that day at the gate of Jericho,

those special moments when we know we have to make a choice,

when we have to speak the truth,

when we can't worry about what people will say,

but only worry about what we know God wants us to do.

It's those moments when we, like Bartimaeus, need to have the courage to name the evil, or the injustice, or the truth, and speak out in the name of God.

28th Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle B

Mark 10: 17-30

October 14, 2012

Prudent preachers tend to avoid today's Gospel.

The wise will preach on wisdom: "I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. . . . I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her" (Wis 7:7-8).

Or they will leave the last half of the Gospel passage alone, and focus on the rich fellow whom our Lord looked on and loved.

But a homily on "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" ?

That's difficult!

But the issue has to be faced.

But to face it intelligently, I suggest we do three things:

(1) recapture some biblical background, to put the passage in context;

(2) uncover what Jesus himself had in mind when he spoke this way about riches;

(3) ask what all this might say to us today.

First, some biblical background.' Little wonder that "the disciples were amazed" at Jesus' words, were "exceedingly astonished" (vv. 24, 26).

Not only because it seemed from his words that no one could enter the kingdom. What complicated their effort to understand was a powerful Jewish tradition, part of the air they breathed:

Wealth was a mark, a sign, of God's favor.

Remember how "the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning"? God gave him "fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen those He loved.

Wealth was part of life's peace, life's fulness.

Now what did Jesus say to that revered tradition?

He reversed it rudely, brutally.

"You cannot serve both God and mammon".

Jesus also said: "Anyone of you who does not bid farewell to all he has cannot be a disciple of mine" . This is raw language indeed.

It's hard to nuance that.

There is another side to it—a side to Jesus that makes us hesitate about his harsher words.

As far as we know, he never told Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary, or Zacchaeus, or Joseph of Arimathea to give up all they had.

Well now, will the real Jesus please stand up?

Which is it to be, no riches or some?

I'm afraid the real Jesus, especially in Luke, is more complex than the TV preachers suspect.

On riches, there is the radical Jesus and there is the moderate Jesus.

There is the Jesus for whom wealth is "totally linked with evil," and there is the Jesus who counsels a prudent use of possessions to help the less fortunate.

There is the Jesus who tells some people to give it all away, and there is the Jesus who advises others to share what they have.

There is the Jesus who stresses how selfish and godless the rich become, and there is the Jesus who experiences how generous and God-fearing his well-to-do friends can be.

There is the Jesus who forces us to choose between money and God, and there is the Jesus who loves a rich man who keeps both his wealth and God's commandments.

What might all this say to us today?

The radical Jesus poses a perennial question: What rules my life—the camel or the kingdom?

On the other hand, the moderate Jesus fixes my eye on something splendidly positive. I mean the gift I have in anything I possess, anything I "own."

Ultimately, whatever is mine (save for sin) is God's gift.

Even if it stems from my own fantastic talent, that talent itself owes its origin to God. But a gift of God is not given to be clutched; it is given to be given.

And there lies its glory, there its Christian possibilities.

The theology I have amassed through fifty-nine years is not just my theology, packed away in my personal gray matter for my private delight.

It is meant to be shared—at times even refuted!

Each of us is a gifted man or woman—gifted in more ways perhaps than your modesty will admit.

It doesn't matter what your specific possessions are: millions or the widow's mite, intelligence or power, beauty or wisdom.

What the moderate Jesus tells us is to use your gifts as he invites or commands us to use them. To some he may say: Give all you have to the poor and come, follow me naked.

To others: Share what you possess; use it for your brothers and sisters.

Use your power for peace, your wisdom to reconcile, your knowledge to open horizons, your compassion to heal, your hope to destroy despair, your very weakness to give strength.

Remember, your most precious possession is yourself

Give it away ... lavishly.

To do that, we cannot stare at the eye of the needle; we have to stare at our Lord.

If we look too long at the needle's eye, trying to get our personal camel through it, we may despair.

How can we ever reconcile our riches with God's kingdom, our possessions with Christ's command to let go? " I don't have an answer for you.

It's hard enough for me and I constantly struggle with it.

Each person has to struggle.

What I do know about me — and my faith tells me it's the same for all of us — is that we cannot do it alone. But Jesus offers hope for all of us.

With men and women," Jesus noted, "it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God"

27th Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle B

Mark 10: 2-16

October 7, 2012

The Gospel tells us bluntly as it can that marriage is supposed to last.

But experience tells us that, tragically, it doesn't always.

The pain of divorce has touched most of us personally and directly, and many others indirectly through our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, even our parents.

When we look at American marriages in 2012 the picture is bleak.

The divorce rate has soared to over 50 percent.

What are the reasons for this?

I'm not sure, but I have some ideas.

I see people entering marriage, hoping that they will be fulfilled by the other person.

People enter marriage, knowing of problems, but believing either they or their spouse "will change."

 Couples become pregnant hoping a child will bring them closer together.

When this doesn't happen they are tempted to break up or stay in the situation but look for fulfillment or excitement elsewhere.

And then, there are couples who have grown apart from one another or grown in different directions.

And none of these problems will go away by merely declaring it a law that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

That's not the problem with marriage these days and we all know it.

The truth is, a failed marriage represents a human tragedy for everyone involved.

The pastoral responsibility of our church is to participate in healing and not come across in a hard-hearted way.

By the time most couples resort to divorce, the rift between them is too great for reconciliation.

As a church, we have been working hard to counsel couples contemplating marriage to work at gaining basic respect for each other and the ability to negotiate differences before they get married.

Other programs aim to help couples and families strengthen their commitments to each other or to help single parents rear their children.

None of these programs can help those who fall into the category of the "hard hearted," those persons who lack compassion and refuse to make a change of heart.

Jesus was looking at the selfish individualism of the Herodian court when he made his comments in answer to the Pharisees, question

He was not telling a battered woman that she and her children must risk physical and psychological torment every day just to avoid divorce.

By treating marriage as grounded in God's creative love, Jesus removes it from the realm of law. He did not think new laws would create the spirit in which disciples would live out his teaching.

Sometimes people think that Jesus is merely the product of a stricter society.

In fact, the legal protections around marriage were much more individual in his day than in ours.

The questions he poses about a hard-hearted or utilitarian view of marriage are still crucial for our reflection,

not because we want tough laws against divorce, but because we seek to help Christian families become what God intended them to be.

Our church needs to find better ways to support families, especially those families who have gone through the pain and suffering of a break-up.

26th Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle B

Mark 9:39-43,45,47-48

September 30, 2012

Our readings today challenge us to examine the quality of our own discipleship.

Is following Christ at the core of our being, something too precious to be surrendered lightly?

Or is our Christianity merely a matter of taste and convenience, something we shelve at the slightest difficulty or inconvenience?

Belief that is easily set aside cannot be the faith that Jesus calls for among his disciples.

The Holy Spirit gathers us this Lord's Day to on these difficult questions and others:.

Who belongs to Christ and who should be excluded?

Jesus offers a straightforward answer. "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 invites us 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, are they speaking for God, working for God, acting as prophets?

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 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."

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."

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.

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

Here and in a thousand other places is your turf—not by Pope Benedict's or Bishop DiLorenzo's permission, not by your pastor's permission,

not because you have to fill the gap and do Jesus's work until we can find more men to wear Roman collars.

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

On this day, the readings remind us that we have obligations to one another as well.

We should not wait for a time of personal crisis to look for support from others.

Neither should we assume that the way we live our lives is merely a private matter

Everyone around us is either better off or worse off than we are, depending on the kind of "salt" found among Christians and their communities.

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

To paraphrase Moses' words:

"may the Lord bestow his Spirit on us all."

May he empower all of us to do his work.

25th Sunday Ordinary Time: Cycle B

Mark 9: 30-37

September 23, 2012

In a way, the deaf man with the speech impediment points to something in ourselves.

He points to our own difficulty in hearing the message of the gospel as it is proclaimed in our own time.

Each of us is in continual need of being healed of our own deafness—not the physical deafness of the man in Mark's gospel, but a more critical illness::

our inability for hearing with the ears of our souls.

We go through life struggling to hear the Word more clearly.

Because if we cannot hear the Word clearly, we cannot proclaim it clearly or live it out well in our daily lives.

Learning to listen in this way to what God is saying and, of equal importance, what our neighbors—family members, coworkers, church leaders—are saying, is a lifelong discipline.

Two words pertaining to hearing can help us with this discipline: the words are "absurd" and "obedience."

Both words have to do with hearing and listening.

The first word, absurd, comes from the Latin roots ab and surdus or absurdus, meaning literally "from deafness" or "completely deaf'

Something is absurd when I am deaf to its meaning.

To many people in our world, the words we will soon declare in our confession of faith, the Creed, are simply absurd.

They have no meaning.

And if we are honest, we have to admit that sometimes they sound a little absurd to us as well.

The atheist, for presumably sincere and complex reasons, finds absurd the notion of a loving God who, out of love for you and me, would send his son into the world.

Such a person is impeded from hearing the voice of God in the words we proclaim. His or her deafness is as real as that faced by Jesus in the gospel.

And what about ourselves?

Do the words we recite in the Creed seem absurd to us?

Of course they do. Why?

Because they are such huge thoughts!

Anyone who says they are not a little hard of hearing when it comes to the great truths we proclaim is not being honest with you.

We are all impeded in our hearing of the Word of God, not because we are insincere or because we do not try, but simply because of the magnitude of the task.

We go through life begging Jesus to heal our deafness a little more, to remove a little more of the impediment, to help us to listen and truly hear what God wants us to hear.

And how does the cure work?

 Is it done with spitting, with touching, with a loud groan?

No, it happens through obedience, the second word I mentioned before.

Obedience also has to do with hearing.

The word "obedience" comes from the Latin roots ob audire, meaning to listen closely or thoroughly.

Most of us don't like the concept of obedience

But obedience does not mean something that is imposed on us against our will; it does not mean "my way or the highway."

It means to listen with the heart; to cultivate such a deep stillness of heart and mind that we hear not only what is being said but also the Spirit's more subtle whisperings.

Obedience means spending time with God in prayer, reflecting on the Scriptures, meditating on the Creed, until we begin to savor the words we repeat so mechanically Sunday after Sunday.

Obedience is practicing lectio divina, the ancient practice of reading Scripture in a prayerful reflective manner

It means a disciplined prayer life—the Liturgy of the Hours, centering prayer, the rosary — doing this in our homes with our children, as a matter of practice.

All of this is obedience.

It is firm commitment to a life of deep listening.

And gradually, over time, in subtle ways, obedience changes us.

The life we follow, the gospel teachings we proclaim, the dogma we declare—these things no longer seem absurd. Our deafness is gradually healed.

Our speech impediment is removed and we can proclaim to one another in our own words,

"He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak".

23rd Sunday Ordinary Time: Cycle B

Mark 7:31-37

September 9, 2012

In a way, the deaf man with the speech impediment points to something in ourselves.

He points to our own difficulty in hearing the message of the gospel as it is proclaimed in our own time.

Each of us is in continual need of being healed of our own deafness—not the physical deafness of the man in Mark's gospel, but a more critical illness::

our inability for hearing with the ears of our souls.

We go through life struggling to hear the Word more clearly.

Because if we cannot hear the Word clearly, we cannot proclaim it clearly or live it out well in our daily lives.

Learning to listen in this way to what God is saying and, of equal importance, what our neighbors—family members, coworkers, church leaders—are saying, is a lifelong discipline.

Two words pertaining to hearing can help us with this discipline: the words are "absurd" and "obedience."

Both words have to do with hearing and listening.

The first word, absurd, comes from the Latin roots ab and surdus or absurdus, meaning literally "from deafness" or "completely deaf'

Something is absurd when I am deaf to its meaning.

To many people in our world, the words we will soon declare in our confession of faith, the Creed, are simply absurd.

They have no meaning.

And if we are honest, we have to admit that sometimes they sound a little absurd to us as well.

The atheist, for presumably sincere and complex reasons, finds absurd the notion of a loving God who, out of love for you and me, would send his son into the world.

Such a person is impeded from hearing the voice of God in the words we proclaim. His or her deafness is as real as that faced by Jesus in the gospel.

And what about ourselves?

Do the words we recite in the Creed seem absurd to us?

Of course they do. Why?

Because they are such huge thoughts!

Anyone who says they are not a little hard of hearing when it comes to the great truths we proclaim is not being honest with you.

We are all impeded in our hearing of the Word of God, not because we are insincere or because we do not try, but simply because of the magnitude of the task.

We go through life begging Jesus to heal our deafness a little more, to remove a little more of the impediment, to help us to listen and truly hear what God wants us to hear.

And how does the cure work?

 Is it done with spitting, with touching, with a loud groan?

No, it happens through obedience, the second word I mentioned before.

Obedience also has to do with hearing.

The word "obedience" comes from the Latin roots ob audire, meaning to listen closely or thoroughly.

Most of us don't like the concept of obedience

But obedience does not mean something that is imposed on us against our will; it does not mean "my way or the highway."

It means to listen with the heart; to cultivate such a deep stillness of heart and mind that we hear not only what is being said but also the Spirit's more subtle whisperings.

Obedience means spending time with God in prayer, reflecting on the Scriptures, meditating on the Creed, until we begin to savor the words we repeat so mechanically Sunday after Sunday.

Obedience is practicing lectio divina, the ancient practice of reading Scripture in a prayerful reflective manner

It means a disciplined prayer life—the Liturgy of the Hours, centering prayer, the rosary — doing this in our homes with our children, as a matter of practice.

All of this is obedience.

It is firm commitment to a life of deep listening.

And gradually, over time, in subtle ways, obedience changes us.

The life we follow, the gospel teachings we proclaim, the dogma we declare—these things no longer seem absurd. Our deafness is gradually healed.

Our speech impediment is removed and we can proclaim to one another in our own words,

"He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak".

22nd Sunday Ordinary Time: Cycle B

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

September 2, 2012

One of the things I struggle with most in my life these days is selfishness,

 and I think I am not so unlike most people.

A call comes in the middle of the night, someone has just been taken to the hospital, and my first reaction is: “But I have a long day ahead me tomorrow and I need my sleep.”

A call interrupts my working on a talk I have to have ready in an hour and I ask “Why now?”

Of course, after waking up, or thinking about it further, my feelings change.

But the fact remains that my first thought is too often only about me.

One of the most basic human responses to anything new is to ask, "What's in it for me?"

We would like to think our motives are pure and our interests are for others, but there is often a nagging voice reminding us that selfish desires are never far from the surface.

That said, we all know heroic individuals who care for sick spouses or children,

People who go to faraway places to give those in need their time and talent

or people who stay at home and do the same in their local neighborhood.

That's what makes them heroic.

There is nothing in it for them;

They are drawn by bonds of love, faith or by a desire to create a better world.

There are at least two ways we can hear Jesus' words in today's gospel. The first is as a strong challenge about social justice.

National boundaries mean nothing to God.

All people are equal in God's sight,

We cannot look at the Muslims or the Arabs and say: “They belong to the devil,” or “They are not civilized,” or “They are not as good as us.”

All people are equal in God's sight, so the banquet Jesus refers to has implications for how we share the riches with which we have been blessed with others in the world.

The poor, crippled, lame and blind of our world are the majority of God's children who mainly live in the Third World.

They are our brothers and sisters.

At the banquet of life Christians are called to give priority to the needs of these people, not only because they have a just claim on our resources, but also because they can't do anything for us in return.

We can’t just say about those on welfare “They are just lazy,” because most are not.

Millions of our families in the U.S. are living only one paycheck away from being on the streets.

Or one serious illness from being homeless because, yeah, they have jobs, but not ones that pay enough for insurance.

Looking at these people and recognizing that they both need and deserve our help – and helping them, either directly or through the money you give to church or charity –

Helps us because they help purify our motives.

We give not expecting to get back.

When we link our concern, time, talent, career, and money with these children of God, we tame that nagging question, "What's in it for me?" with a firm reply,

 "Very little—except God's justice."

A somewhat comforting angle to take on this gospel is more psychological.

Many of us, when we come to God at any time, try to dress ourselves up to look better than we are!

This gospel reminds us that at Christ's banquet, however, it's not the poised and perfect who are most welcome, but the vulnerable.

It ‘s not the pure and holy, but sinners and the impure.

What does this mean for us who pray and celebrate the Eucharist?

That God embraces those parts of us that are in greatest need of his love and healing—where we are poor, crippled, sinful, blind and lame.

We know this it is true because if Jesus is telling us to host the poor and broken at our tables, then as the perfect host he must do exactly the same with us at this Eucharistic meal as well.

When I was a child we referred to our finest clothes as our "Sunday best" and we wore them proudly to Mass.

Not only did we look good, we acted the part as well.

Everyone was on best behavior for the entire church to see.

Now, I have nothing against dressing with care and behaving well at Mass; it can be a sign of our self-respect, our courtesy toward others and our devotion to God.

But God cares more about what's going on inside us.

We can never hide from God, especially at the Eucharist because we have been invited to be here,

Not as we would like to be, but as we are.

At the Eucharist it’s the poor, the broken, and the lost that are most welcome.

For Jesus, meals were times of celebration and an inclusive fellowship that foreshadowed the inclusiveness that awaits us all in God’s kingdom.

The last supper, therefore, not only pointed ahead to the eternal banquet, but  also it reflected on Jesus’ meals with the disciples, Pharisees, crowds, and outcasts in Galilee,

And with us at this Eucharist.

It is ironic that the greatest crisis the early church faced was not the delay of Christ’s second coming,

But the burning issue of whom one ate with.

This is still a burning issue in today’s church.

We find all kinds of reasons for denying others the right to eat with us at Eucharist.

All the time denying the fact that Jesus turned no one away.

Perhaps it’s time we learned new table manners.

Perhaps it’s time we learned Christian table manners.