Current Homily

Clearing The Soul’s Lens

Over the last week and a half I have been changing my vision. It’s been a fascinating process full of contrasts, with significant gains and losses. I’m still adjusting to this new way of seeing the world, noticing colors and textures I was blind to before. But I’m no longer able to read the page in front of me without a significant correction! Some of you may have had this experience when cataracts were removed from your eyes. It’s a simple procedure, really, but for some of us it drastically changes the look and feel of the world around us. For me this past week has been a continual meditation on Light and the often-overlooked reality that it is the contrast between darkness and light that makes the experience of both so profound.

In this same week we have been squeezed through a tiny crack in our nation’s cosmic door where denial and darkness seems to have prevailed. It has been wrenching to watch, to hear, to hold a flimsy thread of hope at the same time knowing the dark forces were formidable and likely to triumph. Holding on to hope is a difficult task in these dark and seemingly darkening times. We need perspective to face the present moment in history. We need to alter our vision and remove the cloud from our lens if we are to be what Jesus calls us to be—salt of the Earth, light of the world. It isn’t enough to claim these titles here in church then go into the world leaving the Gospel behind—shaking our heads at the next proud face of darkness. Our task is to BE the Light, to BE the Salt. How do we do that when our hearts are grieving, as we watch values we hold dear trampled and see the ongoing oppression of peoples and exploitation of earth’s resources with no regard for the future of our planet? How do we stay in the game with hearts open, kind, non-judgmental, generous, honest—all the virtues of Light? Is it even possible to flavor this soup when the ingredients are so bitter and rancid? The even bigger question, though, is how do we continue believing our thoughts and actions matter, that our attitudes make a difference in the larger scheme of things? In fact, how do we believe what Jesus tells us—that we are “Salt of the Earth,” and “Light for the Nations”—except for a fleeting moment? Maybe just while we’re sitting here today? (more…)

My Own, My Beloved

“You are my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.” These words from the prophet, Isaiah, are echoed in the words Jesus hears at his Baptism on the banks of the river Jordan: “This is my Own, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests.” Isaiah’s words are taken from the first of his four “Servant Songs,” poems often referred to as “Songs of the Suffering Servant.” All four Gospel authors, as well as Paul, have connected these songs to Jesus. His life and teachings were seen as the fulfillment of all the prophecies in Scripture that envisioned a coming Messiah, and his crucifixion and death drew an even deeper connection for them between Jesus and the “suffering servant” of Isaiah.

This first of the four Servant Songs was written after the Babylonian exile. Prior to the Exile people in Jerusalem were leading a rather materialistic and prosperous life. The external rewards of wealth, status and power focused their energies and attention on themselves and their personal goals, much as they do with us today. The covenantal relationship between Israel and God were far in the background for most people. Their self-absorbed, pleasure-seeking attitudes left them isolated and disconnected from each other. It was tearing the fabric of who they were as a people to shreds. The result was a destructive imbalance that threatened everyone and everything. Families were affected. The local community was affected. Even the world as they knew it was affected. (more…)

Mary Is Advent’s Icon

Listen to these words from St. John of the Cross:

If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road pregnant with the holy, and say: “I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart, my time is close.” Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever, as she grasps your hand for help. For each of us is the midwife of God, each of us. Yes there, under the dome of your being does Creation come into existence eternally through your womb, dear pilgrim—the sacred womb in your soul, as God grasps your arms for help; for each of us is God’s beloved servant never far. If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street pregnant with Light and sing.

Our Advent stories ask us to enter the mystery hidden in the depths of our tradition. It is the mystery of a wild man on fire with the Spirit, out there in the dark and threatening wasteland urging us to stop posturing, get rid of our armor and become open to the spirit so God can enter our lives. It is the mystery of Mary’s unqualified “yes” to a bizarre, life-changing invitation spoken by an angel, and her ability to recognize God’s presence in that moment and throw caution to the wind in her response. John the Baptist is the figure who seeks our attention. His loud and insistent voice announces the approach of a new reality, one so awesome we are put on alert! This isn’t business as usual—we need to prepare! What we are preparing for is birth. These are the final days of pregnancy. We are preparing a place for that new life that is on its way. We are making space in our hearts and in our minds—a space of welcome—by clearing out those attitudes and ways of being that stifle our ability to love deeply and unconditionally. We are getting ourselves ready for an even deeper love.

Mary fills the long, dark hours of waiting. She is pregnant with the Divine Child whose immanent arrival John announces. She is often hidden behind the scenes in feast days that rarely happen on Sundays, but without her there would be no story at all. (more…)

Amazon Mirror

Today’s readings are difficult to hear, especially the story from Maccabees. We might even wonder why this retelling of torture should be appropriate at Mass, even though the developing belief in resurrection is featured here. And we might bristle at the Gospel’s reminder of patriarchal priorities that see women as simple instruments, there to insure that men have heirs. Women themselves are rendered non-persons by the law these Sadducees are referring to—necessary to its objectives but otherwise simply property. Jesus doesn’t address that law, we might notice. The concept of resurrection is the issue here, for the Sadducees and for Jesus. The belief had been developing in Jewish tradition long before Jesus came on the scene. We inherited that belief and it was reinforced through Gospel accounts of Jesus’ own life, death and resurrection. The Church wants to remind us of this belief that is central to our tradition and our faith, and so we have these readings today.

But we can also listen to these stories through our own set of lenses, lenses set in frames that critique power dynamics in all their many forms, whether appearing in society, government, church or even the family. Such forces of oppression threaten our world in ways unimaginable to first century people living in the Middle East. Our issues are global now and our beliefs and experiences as human beings are all over the map. So it may be especially uncomfortable here, in church, to be reminded again of the devastating schemes played out against individuals, whether imposed by the brutal intentions of empire, enforced by social standards or instilled through religious rules and dogma. It probably isn’t what we come to church for! But here we are and, like a book that drops from a shelf and opens to a page in front of us, the annihilation of sacred personhood is something we are asked to look at today. (more…)

No Outsiders or Insiders

The former biblical scholar, Patricia Sanchez, told this story in her commentary for Celebration magazine three years ago. It involves children on their way to school in Johannesburg not long after the ending of apartheid in 1994. They had known segregation all their lives and now the rules had abruptly changed. Changes in mindset and social patterns though take time. As they rode the bus to school an argument broke out about who was supposed to sit where. One student said, “blacks in back; whites in front.” That led to a huge quarrel that began to rage through the bus. At the next stop the driver pulled over and stopped the bus. He got up and faced the group. “There are new rules in place,” he told them. “There is no more black and white, no more segregation. We are, all of us, experiencing a new beginning. We are all green with new life.” With that he returned to his seat. Before starting the engine a small voice behind him piped up and said, “Dark green in back, light green up front.”

Prejudice dies hard. And when the rules of engagement change there is often a backlash. Waves of resentment about lost privilege are unexpectedly released and, sooner or later, they catch up with the change agents. We see this happening all around as once marginalized voices find the courage to tell their stories and begin to show up at the table. We see it as displaced cultures turn up at our door needing food, shelter, and medical care. We see it in the backlash against Pope Francis by some bishops, cardinals and powerfully connected groups and individuals calling him a heretic. Inevitably the people classified as ‘outsiders,’ by whatever dominant culture, are met with anger, hatred, arrogant dismissal and, often, violence. (more…)

Lost and Found

I imagine most of us have had the experience of being lost at one time or another of not knowing where we are in relation to where we’re trying to go. That’s one form of being lost. It can be annoying, but we can look at a map, stop for directions, even get help with our phone. It’s not a big deal. It’s just frustrating. Eventually we find our way. But REALLY being lost is another thing. Really being lost is more like being on a hike in the wilderness in winter, losing your compass and all sense of direction, and knowing your survival is at stake if you can’t get oriented and find your way back to the trailhead. What is it to be lost THEN? The one lone sheep who has wandered away from the other 99 in tonight’s Gospel is that kind of lost, and it has no instinct for finding its way back. Left on its own, it will not return. It is only the shepherd’s love-driven search that stands between its survival and its immanent death. Can you identify with that bewildered and terrified lost sheep? Have you ever felt that alone, that stranded and vulnerable? (more…)

Let the River Take You

Jesus shocks us into attention today by telling us to turn our backs on our families and everyone we love, or we cannot be his disciple! This is a statement very few of us can swallow. Turning our backs on family and loved ones makes little sense to most people, and it seems the very opposite of what the Gospel commands! How can we love our neighbor and ourselves and, at the same time, turn our back on those who are closest to us—those we love, those who often present us with our greatest challenges around loving? It’s a conundrum until we realize Jesus’ first-century Palestinian listeners aren’t disturbed by his words. This is a familiar style of speech to them. It is used to underscore and emphasize a point, increasing the importance of what is being said. No one in the crowd would have taken him literally to mean they should renounce (or hate!) their families and loved ones. So what is Jesus saying, then? What is his point? I think it comes down to the message he delivered to Mary Magdalene when he spoke to her before the empty tomb that pre-dawn morning following his crucifixion. “Don’t cling to me,” he said. Don’t cling. “If you will follow me you must let go.” Clinging is a fear-based response to the threat of loss, and all change brings loss. Clinging is the opposite of freedom, and disciples must have freedom. Jesus’ final words to Mary that morning were “go and tell my sisters and brothers all I have told you.” Go and tell; spread the word. We must have freedom to move, freedom to think, freedom of mind and heart if we are to be given a mission and trusted to carry it out. Detachment from anything that would hold us back, therefore, is an ongoing requirement for every disciple. It is an uphill journey for most of us and, in many ways, detachment is the central challenge and theme of every life, conscious or not. (more…)

Open to Winds of Change

When we talk about ‘faith’ probably most of us imagine we are talking about religious beliefs. But the theologian Paul Tillich would say that even            supposed non-believers believe in something. It may not be God but it could be nature, science, a set of principles or even something like the free market economy. We humans need a sense of containment and belonging in order to feel secure in this world, so we look for something or someone larger than our own small selves to believe in, to rely on, and then put our ‘faith’ there. But this is not the meaning of ‘faith’ in our readings today. Sr. Mary McGlone, who writes the Scripture column for the National Catholic Reporter, says “faith is not a belief in something…[it is a] radical openness to whatever God is bringing about.” She says “faith is a verb,” an action word. It keeps us moving and open, “ready to be taken by surprise, and to be led in ways [we] could never anticipate.” This is what we see in the story of Sarah and Abraham leaving their home country to wander in the desert for 40 years, not knowing where they were going except to some “promised land” they ended up never seeing. Still, they believed their descendants would get there because they trusted God’s promise. Faith as ‘openness to change’ is also what we hear in Jesus’ words to his friends as they walked with him toward Jerusalem. They didn’t know where they were going either, but they trusted him, which opened them to whatever God was bringing into their lives through him. They left the security of knowing where they were headed even when, at times, they begged to know the future, wanted concrete answers, and sometimes resisted where Jesus seemed to be taking them. Their world was changing dramatically just as ours is today. It was changing on a smaller scale, perhaps, than ours, but first century life in Jerusalem and the surrounding region was full of tension. Religious and political earthquakes were brewing that would completely destroy a way of life that had been in place for generations. In less than 40 years after Jesus died the Temple in Jerusalem would be gone, demolished by the Romans, and the ancient Jewish system of worship would abruptly die. In the midst of such disruptive forces threatening to befall the region Jesus tells his friends not to live in fear. He addresses them as a “little flock”, setting them apart from the mainstream because of their faith in a God who calls them beyond their comfort zone into an unknown future. (more…)

Who Is My Neighbor?

We come together as God’s People each month to be fed as the Body of Christ with the Body of Christ. We come to feed each other, to support and encourage each other during what, for many of us, are very painful times. And this is good. In many ways we need each other more than ever now. We listen to words from our Scriptures, words we’ve heard many times before, and they invite us to think about our lives and our world in another way, a way that leads toward heartfulness, hope, faith in an overarching plan we cannot see but can dimly sense when we put fear aside. And those ancient words come alive if we let them. They dance through our minds and unsettle our hearts. Deep questions surface, and we may begin to ask with interest, “what is God calling me to, calling US to, here and now?” Sometimes we sit with that question and remain clueless, forced to wait for Spirit to reveal a hint, or guide us toward a next step in discovering an answer. But sometimes in simply asking that question an image or thought pops into our mind, and we instantly KNOW the answer. At those times the answer can be terrifying because it requires a change we aren’t ready to make. Instead of being like Mary when Gabriel came with a message and a question, we aren’t ready to say “yes!” We may even dismiss the thought or bury it for a few days, weeks or decades! I’ve done that. Maybe you have too. Change is scary, especially if it threatens to upend just about everything you’ve come to know and depend on.

Scripture challenges us to think in new ways and to grow, to become more and more who we are—God’s Family, God’s People, God-infused people. And Scripture reminds us of who we are, individual cells in God’s Body which is made visible in Christ. Does that seem extreme? If so, listen again to Paul’s words. The Body of Christ taken as a whole, he says, is the “image [the face] of the unseen God.” In other words, we can SEE God only if we recognize the face of God in what God has created—nature, creatures, people, the earth, the world. All of this created reality, taken together, Richard Rohr calls “the Christ Mystery.” In this he builds on Paul’s theology; he isn’t making up something new. (more…)

Building on Hope

In Seasons of Our Joy, Arthur Waskow writes: “Seven weeks of seven days. Day by day, week by week, the community watches the spring grain grow, watches with hope and with anxiety. Day by day, week by week, the community moves forward from the moment of freedom’s first explosion—[the Exodus] moves forward with hope and with anxiety. Will the earth succeed in unfolding its fruitfulness? Will we succeed in finding new truth and [exercise] our freedom?” It is “a season full of hope [and] a season full of anxiety that hope may fail.” It was the question in ancient Israel. It is the question of our culture today. Liberation from slavery under the Pharaoh in Egypt had taken Moses and their ancestors deep into the desert where they wandered without hope for years. Many died—even Moses—without seeing the Promised Land. The Jewish people remember—hope can fail. Jesus’ followers—those early disciples—also remembered. Seven weeks of seven days following Passover they awoke each morning remembering the horror of the crucifixion. On Shavuos, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of First Fruits, they gathered in one room. Jesus had appeared to them the evening of his resurrection and had breathed onthem, his own breath, his life. “Receive the Holy Spirit” he told them. He offered them freedom, liberation from the bondage of fear and hopelessness. He offered his Peace, offered them Hope, and gave them a way out of anxiety and despair. Receive the Spirit, he said. She will teach you about forgiveness. What you forgive you let go. What you don’t forgive remains within you. The choice is yours. (more…)

On An Evolutionary Track Toward Inclusivity

Who can we trust? How do we know who to follow? When new information and novel ideas enter the culture should we consider them even when they threaten what our family and our ancestors have always thought and believed–what seems ‘right’? What if it also threatens our sense of who we are as a people and our purpose for being, our place in the world? This is the predicament of the Jews in Antioch as they listen to Paul and Barnabas speaking in the synagogue one day, then observe crowds of Gentiles getting excited about their message the following week. Paul is actually including these Gentiles in God’s “chosen people”! He is telling them, as well as his Jewish listeners, that God is making ALL of them a light to the nations and a means of salvation to the ends of the earth! To the Jewish mind this is heresy. Even more than that, it is a threat to their primacy in God’s plan. It is a threat to everything they’ve known, their history, their suffering, their purpose and place as God’s “one” people. This isn’t what they expect a Pharisee to be saying, and it is appalling to see Gentiles rallying to these words. This is THEIR tradition after all, and both Paul and Barnabas are simply giving it away. In their fury and jealousy they rally the city’s leaders and boot Barnabas and Paul out of town, maybe believing they can erase from memory what has already been said, eliminate the excitement already felt, and defuse the threat to their exclusive identity as a group.

But the Spirit can’t be shuttered or controlled. New beliefs, new realities surface in every culture, every institution, every age. They overturn a group or culture’s sense of order and its need to feel significant and safe. This happened in the church during and after Vatican II, and it’s happening today under Pope Francis. People and institutions once trusted have become the arbiters of change. Where are the guides when those we’ve depended on are either gone or seem to have betrayed, or are betraying, everything we hold dear? This is where we are now on a global scale, culture to culture, society to society. It’s where we are in this country, where we are in this church, where we are in our relationships and our families. It is the basis of accusations against Pope Francis and the challenge posed by populist leaders world-wide. In many ways we are lost sheep without a shepherd, on our own and frightened, angry, searching for someone to follow, someone to lead us out of this mess of uncertainty and fear we find ourselves in. And wherever we look what see are people as confused and overwhelmed as we are, even when some have ideas that sound promising and worth pursuing. Who and what do we support? Who do we follow? (more…)

All of Us–One Family

While it was still dark she came to the tomb. It was open. She didn’t dare look inside, but she knew he was gone. Her first thought—someone stole the body. She ran to tell the others. On her word, the men got up and ran back to the tomb. They went inside, one after the other. What she had said was true; the body wasn’t there. Both saw the remaining linens—the cloth that had covered his head in one place, the burial cloths in another. Seeing these, the second man believed…something. What was it he’d said to them before? Something about his work? his death? three days?? What was it…? Aaah…! The men returned home and the question lingered…what had happened? Where was the body? Grief-stricken, they sat, traumatized, teary-eyed. Silent.

Mary went back to the tomb. She bent down to look in. She saw the angels, but in her grief and confusion there was only one thought: they were the ones who had taken him away. She wanted to know—where did they take him? Where did they put him? Her blind resolve focused her intent—she was driven to care for him. Even now, especially now, after what she’d witnessed. In her mind he wasn’t yet quite dead. He needed her. She needed to see him. In that liminal space between reality and unreality, it was too soon to think of him as gone. His physical being was still the touchstone of what was real, and his absence unimaginable.

She turned from the void of the tomb, of emptiness itself, and saw someone standing there. She was still in that altered state, unable to see through the cloud of grief and disbelief. The events of the last few hours were so bewildering. Very little made sense, or seemed real anymore. She assumed the person standing there must be the gardener. Then he said her name. It was the one real thing—her name. Without thought she turned to face him, not only physically but symbolically and spiritually. She turned from the void of grief, from the incomprehensible tomb, and when she did she saw Life and Love standing there. “Teacher!” she said. (more…)

God’s Training Wheels

Of all the liturgies we celebrate each year, this one today is possibly the most unsettling. We move from a celebratory mood, exalting Jesus as royalty as he makes his way into Jerusalem then, once there, we witness his agony, humiliation, and torturous death on Calvary. And for us it all happens in a matter of minutes. It can be disturbing and disorienting to undergo such a polarized shift of mood in so short a time.The first time I experienced this liturgical whiplash I wondered if the Church simply ran out of Sundays and had to double up on its rituals to make the timing come out right for Easter. That was a long time ago, but I reflect on that memory today and remember how confusing it was for me—and troubling. It wasn’t until years later that I finally realized why it bothered me! This liturgy mirrors life. It asks me to face and calmly accept the juxtaposition of highs and lows that occur over the years, and often in rapid succession. It encourages me to see the very fact of that ever-revolving cycle as God’s training wheels helping me connect with my core, learn to achieve balance, and finally move with steady grace over the bumps and through the curves ahead. It’s all about growing the soul and learning to love and to trust God, myself, the others I meet on the path and finally the world God made and keeps remaking throughout generations of time. (more…)

Journey Toward Jerusalem

There is only one season in the Church calendar in which we are so clear about our lives being a journey, and this is it—Lent. For 40 days we walk toward Jerusalem with Jesus, through the ups and downs of his life as he meets social outcasts, antagonistic religious figures, people who are sick, crowds of onlookers, and his own puzzled disciples. And as we walk with him, his life and his experiences highlight our own. The people he meets are like us in so many ways. Some are humble. Some are arrogant. Some are greedy. Many are ill, physically, mentally, spiritually. He engages them all and sets an example for us to follow. In Lent we take stock of our readiness. We assess what holds us back, examine the attitudes we bring to our challenges, and face the flaws of character that lead us toward self-centered behaviors. It is a particularly difficult season if we forget we are loved and that our one and only job on this journey is to become better and better at loving others as well as ourselves. Loving ourselves is its own challenge since satisfying the desire for comfort, pleasure, and a sense of our own power can seem like love. Sometimes it is and sometimes it falls into the category of self-indulgence. Sometimes it disintegrates into addictive patterns. There are fine lines here that require awareness in order to tease them apart. What is healthy for us builds up the family and the community. What is unhealthy for us is also unhealthy, even oppressive, to those around us. Love is an open path asking the ever-present question—who will this choice serve? Does this behavior, this attitude, this thought-process serve the greater good of everyone or does it serve only myself? (more…)

Here I Am! Send Me!

A young woman in her late 20’s had a question for Amy Dickinson of “Dear Amy.” She wrote: “Lately it seems I have been hearing people say obnoxious, racist, and/or just ‘wrong’ things more often. I’ve always been a very quiet person. I’m terrible at speaking to strangers. However, whenever I hear something and don’t say something, I feel awful….I’d really like to get better about this, because I feel like I am not only not helping, but my silence is making things worse. Could you help me?” The experience she’s describing isn’t unusual. It doesn’t happen only to people who are shy. We can call it ‘bystander guilt’ and cover a whole host of circumstances, like failure to challenge a rude comment, or stand with someone who is being verbally abused. This young woman recognizes her silence as a betrayal of values she holds dear, such as tolerance and respect for others. Saying nothing makes her complicit and she desperately wants to challenge the degrading words. In her urgency perhaps we can hear the spirit within her nudging her toward speech. The God who calls Isaiah in our first reading is also calling her, helping purge her guilt and shame, so she can find and use her voice.

Her question underscores the words of Isaiah as he stands before God wrestling with his own failures. “Every word I’ve ever spoken is tainted! blasphemous even!” he says. “I am a person of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips. I’ve used words that corrupt and desecrate! yet here I am standing before the Just One who created the universe! Woe is me! I am doomed.” Guilt and shame overwhelm him as he recognizes that the disregard and contempt he has shown toward others has, in reality, been directed toward the Creator of the world, the Creator who isn’t separate from creation. Disrespect of others is profound disrespect of the God who made them, the God who is within them, the God who is embedded in all things. Everything and everyone is HOLY because God is HOLY. All the earth and all its creatures are filled with God—God’s glory shines in and through them all. (more…)