News from Sophia Christi

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)