St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church :. Homilies

The world in which this Easter is celebrated has problems with resurrection. It has problems with anything transcendent: anything it can’t see, buy, control, or understand. This life is all there is. You only go around once. Grab all you can for the thrill of it. Enthralled and entertained by skills of indulgence talk of heaven and the suggestion that there is something beyond this life seems oddly out of place and to some inappropriate. We want to make good sense of our faith as Christians especially to those who think our beliefs are outdated. But our discourse and conversation is hardly ever about forgiveness, redemption, heaven and hell. If someone would ask us about our church or our faith, we might start talking about how friendly it is, how beautiful the church is, how wonderful the choir, or how big the gym and inclusive the programs might be from softball and soccer to quilting and healthy living.  To think, talk, and act this way leaves us on a collision course with what we are really doing in here in worship Sunday after Sunday. If we ever give serious thought to the reality we claim is taking place in this assembly around this altar, we might run for cover, or cover it up. There is something more astounding and profound happening here beyond warm fellowship. There is something more profound going on here than stirring music and crafted thought-provoking homilies. The act of our liturgy is more significant than this homily or their music. The act of our liturgy is more significant than this building, it’s style or decor, but that fact does not seem to be sinking in or widly believed for let something go wrong or something more interesting come along, leaves us to count the missing. What we do here is about our salvation and our destiny or it is nothing it all. It is the pledge of eternal forgiveness. Communion is not mere bread for earthly bodies. Quite the contrary, it is nutrition for transformed bodies. It is what sustains pilgrims on their way out of and beyond this life. We eat this body of Christ who has died and risen so that we might die and rise. We celebrate Easter with Eucharist because this is the promise of an eternal banquet. We celebrate Easter with Eucharist because on the night before He died he asked us to do this in memory of him. We celebrate Easter with Eucharist because he said: “Unless you eat flesh of the Son of Man and drink  his blood you shall not have life in you.” We celebrate Eucharist because every celebration of Eucharist is Easter for those who are celebrating and proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes in glory.  We are a people who believe that there is more than meets the eye. There is more than the earth in all its might, more than our projects and exploits in all their splendor, and therefore, there is more to us than what we can buy and consume just as there is more on this altar than bread and wine. There is more to that empty tomb than met the eye of those who looked into it. They found nothing. Not only did they fail to find the Body of Christ, they did not find death either which is what they expected. So that discovery was a surprise; it did not fit in to their expectations and it changed everything. That empty tomb was more empty of death than it was of Christ. What they failed to find was death in a tomb. It isn’t there anymore.  There is a little detail in John’s gospel that feeds our imagination and faith. It is the matter of those folded up cloths. Unlike Lazarus, who comes forth from his tomb wrapped in burial cloths that needed to be untied so he could go free, the burial cloths of Jesus are left behind. They are folded up neatly, not ripped and left in haste by anyone who might take the body. Jesus comes forth from that tomb in a totally new kind of life, leaving behind the rags of his old life. That woman, Mary Magdalene and Peter are slow to believe. The other disciple, the one Jesus loved the Gospel says, saw and believed. What did he see, or what does “seeing” really mean? The other disciple with Peter was a man of love which always allows us to see what others do not see. True Resurrection faith does not arise from seeing and believing in an empty tomb but from meeting God in the Scriptures and knowing that God is love. As long as there is love, there will be life. As long as there is love, there will be forgiveness. Those who love Jesus Christ are drawn to mourn his death, only to learn that he lives with them in a way that trascends their hopes because there is always more than meets the eye. There is more to us all than what others can see. Say “Amen” to that someone! This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad!

Every three years we pick up the Gospel of Mark during the Easter’s Vigil. In the morning it will be Luke. I always like the Easter text from Mark because it doesn’t tell us much. I think that’s better, because it leaves us wondering. It leaves us open, and a little more free to image what’s next. Luke has Jesus all over the place that day. He’s at Emmaus, then drops in to the upper room, then he leads them out near Bethany and Asceneds: all in one day! John tells us that on that morning, Mary Magdalene, weeping beside the tomb, meets the gardner, or at first she thinks it is the gardner, then later in the day Jesus shows up in a locked room, and the Thomas story begins. Later there is an incident at the sea, and finally Peter has a remarkable moment with the Christ he had denied three times. Matthew doesn’t have as much to say about the details of the resurrection as he does about the consequences of it in terms of disciples being commissioned and addressing the false rumors that the body of Jesus had been stolen.   The first version of Mark’s gospel, the earliest was a problem for some early believers becasue it stopped with what we just heard. So over time, there were at least three well-known conclusions added to Mark’s text, and one of them is still included in our Bibles, but always with footnotes alerting us that those last verses were not Mark’s. In Mark’s original plan, Jesus is just gone. He is out there somewhere. Mark tells nothing of an Ascension, and he never says how Jesus appears to those who believe in him. He just leaves it wide open, and I think that is an invitation to a wonderful adventure.   When you live with and believe with Mark’s Gospel, you are not going to get all side-tracked and distraced wondering what the Risen Christ looked like or sounded like. You don’t get all curious about how he walked through locked doors yet still consumed food.  You don’t sit and wonder why Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize him as she sat weeping by the tomb, and what Thomas actually did after being invited to probe the wounds. All of that is of no consquence or interest when you start with Mark’s Gospel.   Moving into the spirit of Mark’s resurrection, we are left to wonder, just when and just how we are going to meet the risen Lord. One thing becomes remarkably clear by the time all four Gospels get put together: Jesus comes to everyone who has been his disciples. And when he does, they get a job, a commission, a vocation: call it what you will, but everyone who meets this risen Lord is assigned a task. If you look through Matthew, Luke, and John, you begin to see it. They are sent to Baptize, to Teach, to Forgive, to carry the news, to feed the sheep of the Shepherd, to break bread in his memory, to receive the Holy Spirit, and to love oneanother.   Tonight sitting by the glow of Christ, Light of the World, Christ risen in glory, we must catch some of the spirit of Mark’s wonderful adventure and be open to what is next to come. For you who are about to descend into the grave, the tomb, of a font, something new is in store. You can’t know and I can’t imagine right now what it is; but God has something for you or you would not have found your way into this church. This night is a beginning. It is not the end of your initiation. For you who will be anointed with Chrism by the power of the Holy Spirit, something is going to happen with and through you. You not only will meet the risen Lord, there is every reason to believe that you will reveal that risen Lord to someone else.   You cannot, you may not, be a disciple of Jesus Christ without taking up a share in his mission. You sit now in the assembly of God’s people, a people who have their own stories of what God can do and has done. Around you are people whose lives have been broken by failure, sin, and sadness. But they are here having crawled out of tombs of lonleliness and disappointment, having found forgiveness and hope in the Gospel we share and the sacraments we celebrate. It’s an imperfect church of imperfect people, and it is right where you belong. By your gifts, your faith, and with your vision, we shall all move closer to that perfection found in the Risen Christ.   “This is the day the Lord has made!” is the cry of this church today for everyone across the face of the earth. Realize that these ancient rites are happening in every land, among every people on the face of this earth tonight, becasue something has happened on this earth, and something more is yet to come. What we know is that there was and there still is an empty tomb. Because of what happened in Jerusalem, every tomb is now empty: empty of death. That is what they could not find in that tomb. It was not just the body of Jesus of Nazareth missing. There was no death. What was not in that tomb was death itself. This is the news we share by proclaiming the Risen Christ. This is the hope we proclaim to you. Death is gone, vanished, conquered, finished. This is the meaning of an empty tomb. My prayer for you is that this discovery will not leave you paralyzed by fear, but on fire with the joy and hope, the peace and the courage to live in the constant expectation that you will see the risen Christ, and he will come to you.  

There is some really bad thinking going around, and it’s been around for years. I would like to put a stop to it. I doubt that there is time in my life to make much of an impact upon the whole world, but I would certainly like to stop that thinking here, with you. I’m not sure where the idea came from, but I think we started it as a way of finding some comfort and an excuse for the Passion and Death of Christ. There is one thing about us that is consistent and sure: we don’t like to take the blame for much. We do like to pass it on. When it comes to the shame of Christ’s death, it’s been going on for years. Blame someone! For awhile it was the Romans who got the blame, then in the shameful years of anti-semitism, it was the Jews, then we get more informed and sophisticated and we blamed Pilate, the Chief Priests, the Scribes, the Zealots, or the Pharasees. We just have to blame someone. It makes us feel better.   Then at some point in pious history, someone decided that it was God’s will, and no matter what, Jesus had to die, becasue God wanted it that way. Now I ask you, who in the world, the real world would want to get involved with a God who kills people or a God whole likes human sacrifice? The Greek Gods were into that, the Romans liked the idea, but somewhere along the line in our God’s relationship with us, perhaps around the time of Abraham, God said, “No” to that and suggested a Lamb; and from then on things got quite different in terms of God’s expecatations, and our understanding and response to God. Finally, you may remember, God said: “It is mercy I desire.”   My point is, Christ did not choose to be crucified. He chose to be faithful no matter what it meant. The simple fact is, if you listen carefully to the Passion Narrative, human beings freely choose to kill him.   There were all kinds of people involved in this. They were all powerful: Pharasees, Peter, Judas, Pilate, Herod, James and John, the Chief Priests. Eveyone had a part to play in the death of Christ, and many of them could have stopped it. To the Pharasees, Christ was impure. He broke with their tradtions. The Pharasees were not bad guys. They were truly religious people, but they were complacent and satisfied. They had fallen into the trap of assuming that anyone who challenged them was an enemy. There is something wrong with that thinking.   Judas, inspite of what lots of people think was probably acting with good intentions. He just had his own idea about how things should be going and decided to put Jesus on the spot and force him to show some power. The problem that got in the way for Judas was simply that he was too narrow and caught up in his own ideas, closed to any other options. There is something wrong with that thinking.   Peter? He was simply afraid, and in a moment of panic said the wrong thing. Fear does terrible things to people and makes people do terrible things. And then there was Pilate. He is simply above it all, interllectualizing the whole thing with philosophical questions about “truth”. When pushed, he does what many choose to do when pushed, he does nothing at all, thinking that by doing nothing he will be in the clear.   All of this assumes that the death of Christ is something in the past, and that these behaviors are not stll going on. It’s easy to excuse ourselves and think, “Well, I wasn’t there. This all happened a long, long time ago.”  But we all know that Calvary still goes on every day. It is repeated in far off dictatorships and in the heart of cities like our own where drug infested neighborhoods tear families apart, and gang murders happen every day killing innocent young people. The real tragedy is that we might allow ourselves to think that Clavary and its cast of characters appeared only once in history. We’re there, and we can’t hide. We’re Peter when we deny our faith in the office or the neighborhood  or at school because we’re afraid of what people might think of us if we speek up against injustice. We’re Pilate when we’re afraid of the boss, or just don’t want to get involved. If you can quit the blame game, you can find yourself in today’s version of Calvary. The best hope is that we might be like the weeping women, or Simon of Cyrene, or Joseph of Aramathea, but we’re in there somewhere.   My friends, the cross was raised because no one stopped it. There have been too many croses raised on too many hills and outside of too many towns. What becomes good about this Friday is that we realize it does not have to be this way. This world need never be so small and full of hatred to let it happen again. We must this night challenge this heartlessness so that two days from now we can again be called to live in a world full of mercy, compassion, and courage, with the hope that the Resurrection promises.

This world is full of people who are always pushing and shoving to get ahead, to be first, and be number one. Their dignity and what they perceive to be their rightful place is all that matters. A sense of privilege and rights marks our public discourse and our politics. We get offended when we are not recognized or do not get the honor or thanks we think we deserve. We are caught up in the “pecking order” syndrome. If the service is slow we get mad and complain, if the line is long we jump around to get better treatment.   We know that even the apostles were working the system of their time talking among themselves to see who was going to sit where and have the best place of honor. I suspect that they were all getting a little impatient with the progress of the Kingdom Jesus continued to talk about, waiting for that great day of victory when Jesus would finally reveal himself in all his power and glory. Then they would really be set, and everyone would finally know who they were. They even tried to work that system once by keeping those little children from getting too close to the MAN!   I suspect that Jesus was getting a little weary of all that, and so there in the quiet intimacy of dinner in that upper room, he probably drew them close, leaned forward and said: “I want to tell you something really important, something essential to my message, something you must understand if you are ever going to carry on my mission.” With that, I think, he gave up on words. He had talked and talked to them, using parables, signs and wonders of all sorts and they still were not getting it right. So, in one last effort, he resorted to action rather than words. In a moment of quiet intimacy, Jesus teaches once more that there is only one kind of greatness and that is service. Then as now, the world is full of people who want to stand on their dignity when they ought to be kneeling at the feet of everyone else. “Do you realize what I have done?” he asks after his silent lesson.   We can only imagine what was going on in their minds. They had come into Jerusalem triumphantly. They must have been sure that now it was finally going to be revealed, that now this “Master” they had come to recognize with such power was finally going to show the world what real power was all about. In the context of that meal, they had  remembered the power of Moses splitting the sea, his victory over the armies of Pharoah. This new Moses they had followed so carefully was surely greater than the old Moses.   But what he did in fact was give them bread and wine, and wash their feet. And when he finished, he told them to “Do this in memory of me.” That was the proclamation of divinity Christ had come to Jerusalem to make. It was not what they expected. It must have struck them as completely foolish to see this man who calmed the storms of the sea, fed thousands with five loaves and two fish, giving sight to the blind, and calling a dead man out of tomb now wrapped in a towel on the floor washing their feet.   For us too when all the final revelations are complete it is a challenge and hard to grasp that God - God Almighty would get down on the floor, crawl around in the dirt, touch dusty, dirty old feet, wash them clean and dry them. Imagine that! God the creator, who with one word brought light out of darkness, dry land out of the sea, threw the stars into the heavens, is now on the floor washing feet.   This, my friends, is none the less what he had to say to us and how he revealed the truth about greatness, about divinity, about power and about authority. All of that has only one purpose: service of others; a willingness to get down and get dirty, to reach out and touch the feet of another, rub them, wash them, dry them.   Why is it we always want to act like God with our wrath, judgements, and power, but we don’t want to act like God and get on the floor? It’s a question we will have to answer in the depth of our own hearts prompted by the depth of our faith. The fact of the matter is undeniable, our God gets on the floor. It’s a long way from heaven, a long way from that shining glory we like to imagine. God has countless angels ready to do God’s bidding and fulfill every command; but no angel got on that floor. No angel washed feet, no angel was broken and shared.   This is not just something to think about. It is something to believe in and it is something to act upon, and when we do suddenly we shall awaken the real divine image in which and by which we were made, and then we shall know why.

It is so ironic! The people reject Jesus and choose Barabbas whose name in Aramaic means, “Son of the Father.” Rejecting the real son, people choose a false son. How could that be? How absurd it was to choose a thief, one who takes over one who gives! What was wrong with those people? We know what was wrong with the Chief Priest, the Elders, Pharasees, and Scribes. For many otf them He threated their power, their influence, and their security. But the people? Where were the 5000 he fed, the throng who crowded into homes and synagogues, who chased him around the countryside and across the Lake? For that matter, where were those chosen ones? Silent. Absent. Intimidated by what? A pack of loosers?   Ironic too is the way we like to leave this story in the past and proclaim, read, and study it today as though it were a peace of literature rather than the living Word of God. “Barabbas” in Mark’s Gospel is not the only “Son of the Father.” This church is full of the Father’s children, and there are way more besides. We are not here telling a story out of the past nearly as much as we are describing the days in which we live. Many are still threatened by the Gospel. Their power, influence, way of life, possessions, and values are called into question by a man who arrived on a beast of burden. Don’t miss that important detail. Many are still silent and absent who have quickly grabbed, enjoyed, and accepted the free gifts given to them. When it comes time to bear witness to the giver of those gifts, they are somewhere else either too busy or simply too lazy.   Ironic too is the absence and silence of those who were chosen and called, those to whom the Will of the Father had been revealed: the Will that so desired forgiveness, charity, and peace. Bold at first, they are suddenly intimidated by this crowd angry when they do not get what they want. You know that is, another “sign”. That’s what they want, because that’s what they have been hanging around for all the while: signs and wonders. They come when they want something and get angry when they don’t get it. So, they choose Barabas.   If we can stand to think about it, this story we live and proclaim still goes on chapter after chapter, and so does Christ at the center of it teaching, revealing, living and dying.  Perhaps we can make some new verses to this old story. Perhaps in the next telling we shall not be silent when a crowd makes the wrong choice, perhaps we shall know better than to choose one who takes over one who gives. Perhaps we might be less threatened by the gospel that challenges our values and possessions. If it causes us to be derided by friends, mocked, scorned, ridiculed, and maybe even feel abandoned by God, we shall be in good company. For at that point we have every reason to cling to the sure and certain hope that having chosen what is right, having remained faithful to the promises we have made, we shall rise with the one who has come riding not on a proud warrior’s horse, but astride a beast of burden like a servant. In too many ways, we are Barabbas, children of God, set free while the real Son of God suffers and dies. Wondering what that can mean might lead us deeper into the mystery of this Holy Week.  

Lent 5 - March 25, 2012 - Dcn. Cumby

Lent 4 - March 18, 2012 - Fr. Chamberlain

Lent’s Third Sunday leads us once more into a reflection on Covenant. Today a third and last old covenant is revealed and offered through Moses. This time there are conditions beyond the covenant of Noah and Abraham. God’s gradual self revelation now becomes exclusive, direct, and personal. God has a part in the covenant, and people who wish to be God’s own have a part. God promises liberty, land, prosperity, God’s special care and love. What is expected of the people who wish to be God’s own is what we find in today’s readings.   What we hear in the Book of Exodus reading is not a set of recommendations or suggestions. We hear the absolute conditions, non-negotiable expectations of what God will look for in a chosen people. The arrangement is obvious: God at the top. These are God’s rules, not ours. When we make our own rules, we make ourselves god, and that’s where Adam and Eve got into trouble. Over the centuries, Israel learned the importance of ordering their society in relation to God and others. This was the key to building and maintaining a great nation, as well as a holy nation before God. When Jesus comes along, he synthesizes these expectations of God into a simple and concise format: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”   Now the age in which we live admires those who with clever intent find a way around the law, every law. Their example is tempting to the point that we feel justified and proud of ourselves when we find loop holes and ways to get around the law excusing ourselves with a wink and a nod from doing what is right. What is “right” then becomes what is easy, clever, and least demanding. Ancient Israel considered the law a form of wisdom gained from reflection on life. This wisdom from insights is what led to happiness and what did not. They cherished this law as much as the Greeks cherished their philosophy.   In bringing the law to its fulfillment, Jesus he showed us that external observance is not enough. He called for a commitment that is deeper, that goes to the heart of our covenant with God. In cleansing the Temple, Jesus did not destroy it, he cleansed it. In the stories of John’s Gospel, what Jesus does is never the point. It is what Jesus is that John wants to reveal. In today’s Gospel story the point is not a conflict with money-changers or Pharisees. The point is that Jesus is the new Temple. Jesus is where the human and the divine meet, not in Jerusalem’s Temple.   This truth is what makes this place so holy: not marble or gold, candles or incense. What makes this place holy is that here the divine in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ meet the human in you and me. It is for this reason that we come here with reverence and awe, in need, and in thanksgiving, in joy and in sorrow, in faith and hope. It is why being anywhere else when the divine presence comes to us is such an unimaginable disregard for this sacrament. It is here in this covenant that we become what God has made us to be. The place is irrelevant. It can happen here, in a tent, on the back of truck, in the simplest of places or the grandest of Cathedrals but what happens is the Eucharist, the covenant in which God and God’s people dwell together, and we become what God wills and desires.   I am coming to understand in these years of my life what an ancient Christian writer once said: God does not see what we have done, or what we have thought. God only see what we will become. The only way to go to hell is to fail to become what God has willed and desired us to be. What Jesus gave his life for was the will of the Father, not that he should die, but that we should all be one as he was one with the Father and the Father with the Son. Here we become one, when we leave behind our private little lives to come together as God’s people. Here we enter into the new Temple: the Body of Christ, and in that Temple, we become what God has from the beginning wished us to be. That will not happen if we are somewhere else. To let this happen while we are absent is to place ourselves outside of the covenant, alienated and distant from the divine. In an age and time of individuality and a “do your own thing” style of life, this sounds a bit odd and perhaps silly. In that way thinking, the life, the words, and the Spirit of Jesus sound a bit odd, impractical, and silly.   We run the risk of becoming a people given to exceptions and excuses. Individuality, personal choice, and private fulfillment dominate our moral discourse. We are becoming utilitarians and libertarians. No wonder commandments that disregard pleasure seem cranky and unpleasant. We are mocked as being guilt ridden, but the truth of the matter is, there is no guilt anymore. Real guilt leads to healing reconciliation, growth, and reform. We have made exceptions to every commandment. There are more excuses for killing others than you could sit here and count, and that is only one example: revenge, security of our way of life, are our latest excuses. It’s still killing. We are uncomfortable with all the commandments, and we should be. Law, duties, and responsibilities make us uncomfortable. What is wrong with that? There are some who seem uncomfortable with any law they have not cooked up, but this is a matter of nobility and greatness.   Which is greater and more noble, a spouse who is faithful because they are content, fulfilled, and happy, or the spouse who is faithful in the midst of difficulties, sickness, or hurt? Which is greater? Someone who stays alive because they enjoy living, or someone who continues to live in pain and sorrow because it is their duty to honor the gift of life God has given?   We must be true to what we are no matter what. Remembering what we are and who we are as God’s people, God’s chosen ones, is what will lead to the fulfillment of God’s will. All God wants is that we be his and his alone; and in fulfilling that wish and will, we shall become one, loving one another as much as we love ourselves. For some that may seem foolish, but God’s foolishness is wiser than our schemes. We will always struggle with this, but since Jesus has promised to remain with us, we can look to him to heal our guilt, and be our joy and our strength as we share in his victory.

The first reading last weekend that opened the word of God for our Lenten Sundays was the story of Noah. Today the story of Abraham speaks to us, then will come Moses, Cyrus, and finally Jeremiah. Central to our prayerful celebration of Lent is the truth and the reality of Covenant. This holy season begins with the first Covenant and ends with the final Covenant on Holy Thursday. As we work our way toward that Holy Night when the God makes his final covenant with us through the Body and Blood of his Son, we shall remember all the covenants that have taken human kind deeper and deeper into the mystery of God’s love for us. The story of Noah is a story of salvation and recreation. It is the story of life’s triumph over death for the obedient faithful. It is a story full of promise through which God is revealed as a promise maker and promise keeper. Nothing is asked of Noah in that covenant. There are no conditions. It is pure gift. It simply introduces God’s promise, and with rich powerful images that speak to every Christian sensitive to the symbols with which we speak, water covers the earth, sweeps away all that is evil, and creation begins a new with God’s promise that death will never come again.   Today it is the story of a father and a son that reveals to us a God who will provide. It is about way more than Isaac’s death. It is about the death of us all. Abraham is not the first nor the last to be put to test. He is not the first asked for a sacrifice, and neither is Isaac. Each of us is required to make Abraham’s sacrifice. We must all face letting go of our most beloved person, task, accomplishment, possession, or joy. Everything dear to us, everything we love, everything given to us by God is subject to death; it’s own and our own.   The essence of the story is this: “Is God good?” and “Will God Keep the Promises?” It is the question that will rise up in our face every time we are separated from what we love. The death of a spouse, a child, a parent, a brother or sister puts that question right in our faces: “Is God good?” We lose a job, we lose our home, we lose our dignity to old age or some terrible illness that robs us of our independence and freedom, and there is one question: “Is God good?” and “Is God going to keep God’s promises?” A physician says to us: “There is no hope, nothing more to do.” and the question in front of us is: “Is God good.”   Abraham is our “father in faith” because he embodies the final act of faith that all of us must make. We all make sacrifices, and we all stand before the terrible separation from all we hold most dear.   The point of remembering this profound yet simple truth is that our God does the same. “This is my beloved Son.” God says from afar. “The only begotten” one of a kind, is not held back by God. God does not ask what God has not done. God asks for mercy, God give mercy. God asks us to forgive. God forgives. God asks us to sacrifice and serve. God sacrifices and serves. God makes a promise, we make a promise. If God keeps that promise, then we shall keep that promise Just about ten days ago we marked our faces with ashes that remind us that we are going to die, every single one of us. We are going to be separated from one another and from life itself. The simple message in those ashes is: “Get ready.” We also marked our faces with a cross because by that cross we know we shall live. The simple message of that cross is: “Get worthy of it.” which is exactly what this season of Lent is all about: getting ready to die, and getting ready to live forever.

Lent 1 - February 26, 2012 - Dcn. Jacobson

We make today a profound and important declaration. It is one that goes contrary to much that this world would profess and hold to be important. Everything in our western world and in the pagan culture in which we find ourselves insists that we are different, individuals, unique, special, and can only find our true identity by doing something no one has ever done before. It proposes that this is greatness. The consequence of this is killing us and driving us further and further apart. The more we believe this, the more we begin to think that no one knows what we’re going through; no one has ever felt what we feel before or faced the challenges we face. The growing individualism in which we find ourselves pushes us further and further apart, contributes to the ideological conflicts that divide us, and make us more and conscious and competitive demanding our rights without a thought of how those so called “rights” might diminish the rights of another. This condition is just cultural and outside of us. It is an interior experience as well. Spiritual Individualism is just as great a danger. It is exactly the thinking Jesus confronts with the warning about doing things in order to be seen. This is the hypocrisy Jesus condemns: the doing of things in order to be judged by what is seen. It sets us apart. It suggests that we should be judged by externals, and that what we do for others to see is really the measure of our goodness. Today we say “no” to that. Today we shall all look alike because we are all alike.  What we say today is not: “Look how different I am” but rather, “Look how we’re all in this together.” We all shall have to answer the same fundamental question: “Is your life meaningful given that fact that it will eventually end?” By showing the mark of death, we proclaim the possibility of life. Unlike those who want to be judge by the external things that they do, we seek to be judged by what is in our heart and how that is revealed by what we say and do.   In all the ages of Christian tradition and Catholic custom, no one has yet come up with a better way of purifying the human heart and revealing the best that is in one’s heart than by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Together these three challenge every bit of individuality and individualism that might creep into us. They lead us to experience our utter dependence upon God challenging forever the idea that we are somehow on our own and able to do anything we desire. They turn us toward each other and everyone else’s needs, and we are reminded in a radical way that we are our brother’s keeper, and we are not in this world alone. In a world that whines and complains, hoards and hides, tempting us to believe that we are number one; God says: “I am number one.” We have nothing to whine and complain about if we would just look around. We have no right or reason to hoard and hide unless we think that God has finished providing what we need. We have it all to provide for others. Recognizing that we are not alone is what we must remember today. So we shall make ourselves look like because we are. We must heed the warning and hope to be judged by what is in our hearts, not by what we do; but we must use these days to purify our hearts so that what is in them is good, noble, and worthy of children of God, and then what we do will match what is in our hearts. Then we shall have found the Truth and we shall be living in the Truth. Let us begin to purify our hearts, to turn toward one another in sincerity and in love, and help one another through difficult, uncertain, and frightening days by standing together as one in prayer, in service, and in sacrifice.  

This weekend, as we move quickly into the Season Lent and still adjust to a new calendar year, I want to give you a “State of the Parish” address with some pastoral commentary leading up to the publishing our annual report which will appear on the web site before the end of this month. I am prompted to do this for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I am leader here, and every now and then a leader needs to take a good look ahead and look back to make sure someone is there. I have done that over the last several weeks, and I want to tell you what I see. My opinion is that the past is not nearly as good as what lies ahead if you will get reenergized, refocused, and renewed for the journey which is what Lent could do for us. When I look back this it what I see. Fewer and fewer people are looking ahead and willing come with us. Some are along for “the ride” so to speak, meaning they want a “free” ride as long as it’s easy. Some are bumping into things that get in the way because they didn’t know what to expect. Some have gone back and given up. Some were not prepared for the journey and they are confused and long for what they think were better times in the past (Like those who murmured against Moses in the desert when they didn’t like the diet.) Here are some facts that lead me to say those things. Three weeks ago the church in this country celebrated a tradition that has made Catholicism in the United States great: Catholic Schools. At each of the Masses, I called up all the children from this parish who attend our school. The total number of children who came forward at all three Masses was 77. I had the deacon count at each Mass. There are more 215 children from this parish who claim to be Catholic at All Saints School. That means 138 children did not attend Mass that Sunday here at Saint Mark. Where were they? I know where many of them were: at home, in bed, or playing computer games. I hear confessions of children, and it frightens me when they say: “Father, I’m sorry I didn’t go to Mass.” What frightens me comes when I ask why and they tell me that their parents wouldn’t bring them because they were too tired or too busy. What frightens me is that Jesus said that anyone who messes with the conscious of a child and causes them to sin should be drowned with a mill-stone around their neck. It is the strongest language in all the gospels. We are spending an enormous amount of money to have that school for what? For 77 our of 215? There is a problem here, and it is not simply at the school; but that is the easiest place to see it. There are 121 children in Religious Education and 215 in the school for a total of 336. The roles of this parish count more than twice that number. Where are those children? What does it mean, I wonder, when a couple stands at that font as you see them do about 39 times a year and promise to bring their children up in the practice of the faith? When are they going to start? I’ll tell you when, in the 7th year of the child’s life when they want something: First Communion. Then half the children come to us not knowing how to say the Hail Mary! There are 3000 members of this parish according to the roles; but of course the roles are a mess because on 50% of you responded to repeated pleas in October and November to update the data. Why only 50% If there are 3000 members of this parish, why is Sunday attendance averaging around 1200? How has Sunday Mass attendance become optional? How in world can anyone stay home when the Body of Christ is being broken and shared at this altar? How can anyone say they are too tired to give thanks in face of that crucifix! I’ll tell you why. There is no faith, and what concerns me is that where there is no faith, Jesus will work no wonders. There is evidence of that in the Gospels. What I see when I look back is that we are living in a world that not only does not believe in Jesus Christ, it does not believe in sin. Of course, without sin there isn’t any need for Jesus except for some entertainment and a curious distraction now and then. That was the problem there in Capernaum in today’s Gospel. They liked the miracles, but as soon as he said anything about sin, trouble broke out. When I look back what I see is that many have perfected the “blame game” - you know how it goes: it’s always someone else’ fault; and with that they have sunk so far into denial that sin and guilt, conscience and repentance are little more than the subject of late night comedians who mock us with their jokes and their laughter. You know what Sister George taught me: “A guilty conscience is God talking.... better listen.” Of course if you don’t have a conscience, you’re deaf. I wonder, but I’m not sure which came first, the collapse of our responsibility for personal sin or the the overwhelming sinful nature of our corporate/communal sin with which we now live so comfortably with systems of injustice and evil. So we shrug off the corporate and moral decay of business and finance while tolerating theft, lies and cheating as simply the way things work. I think it is just the tip of the ice berg that is about to sink western civilization as we have known it. That we give a wink and a shrug to sexual exploitation, consider the bombing of women and children as justifiable casualties in a mad effort to preserve our way of life that many would consider immoral and ungodly just rolls off of us. That our children cheat and lie, and that some adults teach them to do so means nothing. The message our children are getting is that there is no sin. The biggest sin for a child these days is getting caught. In this community soccer, basketball, or football practice or the other games with which we amuse ourselves are more important than prayer and worship. This is curious in face of the First and Fourth Commandments. That someone might sit here not be too sure of what those Commandments are only makes my point. Like the Israelites making their way to the promised land, we are making our way through pagan territory. We must not let the gods of this territory turn our face away from our destination nor should we sacrifice our children to their gods. I intend that strong image and language. With many exceptions, but not too many, the children in this community are over-indulged and privileged. Parents in this community be vigilant to protect their children from this plague. I hear children talking all the time about their feelings, and way too many parents are always protecting their children’s feelings without every teaching their children to have a concern about the feelings of anyone else. Children, hear me. Listen to me, if you pay more attention to the feelings of others, you are gong to be great and noble. Thick skin and a soft heart are a lot better than thin skin and a hard heart. Decide what you want. One will make you lonely, desperately lonely. The other will bring you Joy and more friends than you could ever imagine. One more observation about the state of the parish. We are not growing very fast right now, and some will blame that on the economy. The collection income in the 12 months of 2011 was $50,000 less than then the previous year. Now in fact that is less than the collection for three Sundays, so maybe it doesn’t mean much except to confirm that we are not growing much right now. Other things are growing, and nothing costs less. In tune with the times, the expense side of the budget was wisely cut last year, and we are paying our bills and meeting our obligations, but we are not growing, and we are not fixing things that break. Look up at the lights. They are not burned out. The computerized lighting system has failed after 11 years of constant use. The new one will cost about $50,000. Get the comparison? How many of you turn off and on the lights in your kitchen by going into the closet of a bedroom or into the garage, and flipping the circuit breakers?  That is what we do here now to get the lights off and on. Our construction loan this month will finally go under $3 Million Dollars. Ten years ago it was $5 Million. In a parish this size, that debt should be gone and should not pose any problem. Look at the cars in this parking lot - the make and model. Why that debt is still such a burden that consumes almost 50% of our income every month leaves me speechless. The first debt at this parish with less than 300 families was gone in less than 5 years. As with so many things, there is always this thinking that it’s someone else’s responsibility or problem. I can’t live that way, and I can’t lead that way. Now let’s look ahead. In three days Lent begins. The season of repentance is a season that amounts to nothing if you don’t believe in sin and forgiveness. Yet this church will be packed with people who want their Ashes, as though receiving the ashes does not come without accepting the responsibility for conversion and change. To claim the Ashes is to claim the sin that they signify. To expect forgiveness without any  intention of changing the behavior that brings one to seek forgiveness mocks the forgiver. This season must to be a time of very intense self-examination and very real renewal for this parish and for each of us as individuals. If we are renewed, this parish will be renewed. It is dangerous to think and feel that any of us is doing as much as we can and so have no need to pursue greater and deeper growth. When we tell ourselves that we are doing all that we can we drift. We drift away from the very instruments for personal renewal that God provides for all of us in His Church, notably worship and penance. The truth of the matter is, none of us is doing all we can do. The Gospel today is not the story of a paralyzed man. It is the story of Jesus who forgive sins as easily as he heals a cripple, and it is the story of some people who have faith. Please note that it is their faith that Jesus compliments and acknowledges. It is because of their faith that a man gets up off his mat. When I look ahead, I see this parish and everyone of it’s members up on the roof bringing people to Jesus. That is not going to happen if the people of this parish do not see the needs of others, and demonstrate their courage and their faith in what God can do. “Faith” in biblical languages is the same word we also use for loyalty. It is time for some faith expressed in loyalty. Running around town from one parish to the next to find the most convenient Mass time so that you can do all the things you want to do and still not miss Mass is disloyal, and more seriously, it turns the Eucharist into a private devotion whereby you get to Mass, but your community is not strengthened and encouraged by your presence. This town is notorious for “floaters” as the leadership of every parish in the county calls them. Those who are here one week and gone the next -- off to get what they want without any inconvenience. Some are at St Thomas or St Joseph today and they might be here on Ash Wednesday. According to national statistics, one third of catholics attend Mass once a month, so that third of our parish is relaxing at home right now or taking the places we want in a restaurant in about 45 minutes. Do they need this message? Of course, but they won’t hear it. Do you who are here with me need it?  I think yes, both to encourage not to be at home next week, but even more to so be aware, challenged, and ready to stand as Catholics against those who will not. We have in this desert a tough time. We need to stick together. Our values are under attack. Our traditions and customs by which we pass on the truth of our faith are not widely respected, so we simply must do more: do more to embrace, to call, to encourage those who are week and short on faith. We must pray for them, look for them, and welcome them. Perhaps if there was a bit more joyful personal attention to them when they are here, they might realize how rich, how wonderful, and how comforting and blessed we are to be here. Don’t you suppose that’s how that man on the stretcher felt? Those friends of faith could have found all sorts of easier ways to get their friend to the Lord. They could have run and yelled: “Fire, everybody out!”. They might have simply served up some free food outside that would have emptied the room. Nobody every passes up a free meal.... Yet, they did it the hard way and it brought them the best news they could have ever hoped for: “Your Sins are forgiven.” Let’s get ready for Lent: a time of renewal, of grace, forgiveness and new life.

Ordinary Time 6 - February 12, 2012 - Dcn. Jacobson

Remember what we discovered about Jesus and his dual role in Mark’s Gospel last week? He is both Teacher and Exorcist. As we spend this year with Mark’s Gospel pay attention to how often Mark will insist that the work of Jesus is driving out demons. Unlike the other Gospel writers, Mark sees the greatest miracles of Jesus in terms of his conflict with evil and the consequences of evil. So today Jesus has left the synagogue today, and he goes immediately to where people live. His life, his work, his presence is among the living, and there he finds suffering and sickness.   There is an important detail here that we ought to keep in mind. It is the fact that there is a difference between disease and illness. Disease is a malfunction of biology. It is chemical thing that affects an organism. Plants get diseases. Illness on the other hand is much more far reaching because it disrupts human life, relationships are ruptured, and identity is lost. Curing is aimed at disease. Healing is aimed at illness. Jesus is a healer, and so are his followers, the church. We have no idea what diseases people had who came to Jesus, but we know what afflicted them, and we know what he did about it.   Sickness or possession then and now isolates and alienates people. It takes them out of their proper place, their role, their very identity. It is not hard to see the correlation between sickness and possession and sin. The consequences are the same. Sin breaks relationships. It takes us out of our proper place, our role, our identity, and so it is an easy leap from healing to forgiving, a change we shall soon see in Jesus, who, in healing often begins to say: “Your sins are forgiven.” The point is, the presence and action of Jesus is not just to cure, but more than that: it is to heal what is broken, relationships. When he raises up Peter’s mother-in-law, she immediately resumes her proper place. She goes back into her role as servant.   This is still the opening day for the ministry of Jesus. It is still chapter one in Mark’s Gospel. He has been in a synagogue and in a home. He has been teacher, exorcist and healer. But this is not all he has come for, and it is not all he will do. We have no idea what happened to that man in the synagogue after his exorcism. We do know what happened to the woman in this Gospel. The fever leaves and service begins. God’s service to her becomes her service to others. She is not only cured, but she is healed. In this woman, service is not menial work. It is the hallmark of the new humanity that Jesus came to establish: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”   Curing sickness, driving out demons restores individuals to family and community, to the circles of love that grieve at loss and rejoice in reunion. As the ministry of Jesus unfolds in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus avoids the distraction of popularity. He attracts crowds. To the disciples this means success. Fame and notoriety drive Peter and his companions to hunt down Jesus. Jesus however, called followers, not fans. What he does, these cures and exorcisms are signs of a new revelation of God. They are manifestations of a spiritual revolution.   Suffering is an invitation to heal our alienation from God and neighbor. The healing may or may not result in a cure. If a cure does happen, then there is a struggle to persevere in the healing that was begun in sickness. The Gospel begins with cures and exorcisms, restorations to health. The Gospel must eventually lead to personal transformation leading us into a deeper, more profound and life giving relationship with one another and God. It must lead to conversion, a change of life, of heart, and of soul. That conversion will lead us to service and deeper into the mystery of human suffering, the likes of which Jesus endured to lead us and show us. Unlike many other stories of exorcism or healing that lead us into the identity of Jesus, this story is not so much about proving the identity and power of Jesus as it is the story of one human being doing whatever is in his power to ease the suffering of another human being. You don’t have to be divine to do that.

Two weeks ago the Gospel led us to consider the first recorded words spoken by Jesus. Byron led us to reflect even more upon them last week, and today we hear the first miracle story in Mark’s Gospel. It is important for us because it directs us toward what is to follow. Days ago when I sat down with this gospel, I was fascinated by this sick man wondering what in world he was doing in that synagogue. Given the way that society was arranged, I am surprised he was allowed in. He was sick. He was unclean. He was disruptive, unpredictable, frightening, and it seems odd to me that he would have been there. When I got nowhere with wondering about that, two things came to mind: it’s not about him; and when it comes to people being possessed by evil spirits, they were more comfortable than we are. This whole idea spooks us. It is an idea we would rather not talk about unless we’re sitting around a camp fire and want to scare someone. It is the subject of movie thrillers to be viewed late at night, and always with someone else.   But evil and possession is exactly what this story is about. The the first miracle story is a conflict that casts Jesus in the role of an excorsit. In Mark’s Gospel, there are more exorcisms and references to exorcisms than in all the other Gospels. Mark casts Jesus in two ways: a teacher and an exorsit. We get that in this story becasue of where it takes place: a synagogue. It is in the synagogue that teaching happens, and Jesus is there both as teacher and as exorcist. Through these exorcisms, Mark will lead us not just to the revelation of who this man is, but to a growing awareness of who we are in relation to Jesus.   In this conflict story the crowd simply comes to wonder who he is. They do not make up their minds. They go away wondering where he got the power he has, becasue they can tell it is unlike any power and authority they have ever seen. In a later conflict story, they will continue to wonder, but among them will be some who have decided that his authority comes from: “Belezabub” or “Satan”. But that is going to come later. What gets their attention and causes their wonder is that he simply speaks and the evil spirit obeys.   At this time in human history, all illness was considered a possession, and exorcists were to them what doctors are to us. The exorcists of the time worked hard to cure and expel the evil. They would use incantatons and all kinds of dances, and herbs, potions, and tools to drive out the evil. They would sometimes even beat and scream at the person they were curing. Jesus does non e of that. He has no formula or incantation. He invokes no higher power or authority other than his own. He says: “Be still.” “Quiet”. “Come out.” This is the cause of great amazement. Jesus accomplishes by his word what others might spend days or nearly kill someone trying to accomplish.   Making matters more amazing is the fact that he does this without any reference to the Law or the Prophets. Teachers and Exorcists at that time always based everything they did on the scriptures. This made him a controversial figure. He did not behave like every other teacher. In fact we get a further and more clear sense of this when we remember the Sermon on the Mount with his repeated use of the phrase: “you have heard, but I say to you.....” He is claiming personal authority relying not on the Law and the Prophets nor on any other Rabbinical figure.   Now we like to think of Jesus as teacher, and we are programed to think of ourseleves as his disciples. I believe that thinking only of Jesus as “Teacher” and ourselves as “Disciple/Students” is to get only half the gospel. Mark would have us also see Jesus as “Exorist” leaving us to be the “Posssessed.” We must not shy away from that idea and cannot afford to refuse the role. We are possessed. We need the exorcist. We are possessed by all manner of evil that leaves us helpless and disoriented. We are possesed by materialism, consumerism, selfishness, all kinds of idiologies that compete with Gospel values. We are possessed by infidelity, immorality, laziness and pleasure. We are addicted to commercialism, technology, poronography, gambling, alcohol, drugs and way more besides.   It would be well for us to take seriously our own possessed condtion for none of these evils is cast out easily. A month from now Lent will be begin. There will be no better time to call upon the exorcist, and perhaps letting His Word set us free. What he says to that man in the synagogue, he still says to us: Be Quiet. Be Still.