St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church :. Homilies

If you did the assignment I gave two weeks ago, you will have read the entire Epistle to the Thessalonians and refreshed yourself with a tender, sincere, joyful, and life-giving message from Saint Paul. The Epistle is a challenge to a sober and fearful relationship with God. Laugher in the company of another is sure sign of the depth of friendship. We all laugh the loudest and longest when we are around those we know well, love, and treasure. A people who really love God and trust in God’s love for them are going to find humor, and smiles, and laughter even in prayer. I’ve always suspectedd that those who only run to God in some crises would have a hard time with this. When I was little I thought of God as the great problem solver, who would fix up my problems if I used the right prayers, repeated them in the right sequence, or prayed hard enough. God was like the cosmic gum-ball machine. If I put the right prayer in the slot, out would pop my good fortune. After failing a few tests in college and graduate school over which I had prayed more than studied, I got over it. What I’ve learned as I get older is that it’s fun to call friends when something really wonderful happens or when I’m laughing at myself over something foolish that I’ve done or said. They like those calls a lot better than if I would only call when I need somthing. Our relationship is a lot better.   Thinking about and remembering things that make us happy, make us laugh leads to gratitude, and living gratefully is likely to keep us joyful throughout the day. If all you can think about and for that matter pray about is how bad everything is and how much trouble you have there will be no gratitude, and then there will trouble. “Rejoice always” says Paul to the church at Thessalonica. It was a church just like us that lived in the midst of human suffering and injustice having every reason to NOT be joyful. This makes me think of the great American spirituals. Listen to this: Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen Nobody knows but Jesus, Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen: Glory Hallelulia. Sometimes I’m up sometimes I’m down Oh yes, Lord. You know, sometimes I’m almost to the ground Oh yes, Lord. What a lasting sign of great faith in the African American Christian is this legacy in their hymns. These are not songs of passive resignation, they are freedom songs of joy consitent with divine revelation: Glory Halleluia! they sing in the midst of slavery and misery. How can they do that except that they are in love with God and live in faith.   Joy, deeper than happiness, is a virtue that finds its foundation in the knowledge that we are loved by God. It does not mean that suffering does not bring sadness, and that injustice is not wrong and evil, but it does mean that suffeirng is not the last word in the life of Jesus or for us. That knowledge leads to Joy.   Joy, Prayer, Gratitude are what Paul urges us to practice. They are bound together. Joy springs out of a grateful heart, yet Joy can lead us to gratitude. Our joy over good news moves us to gratitude and it moves us to prayer. In Joy we want to be with God. Sharing a joyful life gratefully in prayer is what brings us to this holy place. Yet as soon as I begin to think this way, I begin to wonder: “Why is it that churches fill up when there is a disaster, and are half empty when things are good?”   Half the problems I listen to as your pastor come from evil, injustice, mean, and sinful behavior. The other half come from taking ourselves way too seriously and lacking a sense of humor about how silly we really are, how we get things all out of proportion, and let little things seem ten times bigger and more important than they really are in the grand scheme of things. Humor and Humility are very close friends. Those puffed up Pharisees in today’s Gospel were taking themselves way to seriously. Jesus pokes a little fun at them with their widened phylacteries and their great long tassels, and in their pride they can’t take it. With that the message is lost on them. It cannot be so with us.   Joy, Prayer, Gratitude are important virtues, and each supports the other. When one is missing, the others fade away. Prayer awakens gratitude. Gratitude leads to Joy. Joy leads to prayer; and this is Paul’s simple advise to us today given nearly two thousdand years ago. We still need to hear it.

Ordinary Time 30 - October 23, 2011 - Dcn. Jacobson

It is the oldest book of the New Testament. It was written justs 17 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. You would think that Christian people would know it as well as any of the gospels and quote verses of it by memory, hold up signs with chapter and verse numbers as one sees on occasion for John and Romans, but that never happens. Most people cannot even pronounce the name of it. I can’t count how many times I have heard well-meaning but unprepared lectors stand up and say: “A reading from the first letter to the Theologians.” The same readers by the way think Paul wrote letters to Philadelphia! Perhaps the fact that the First Letter to the Thessalonians is only proclaimed on seven Sundays out of 156 Sundays in the three year cycle of our Lectionary contributes to our ignorance of this gem. It is not proclaimed nearly as often as Romas or 1 Corinthians both of which we hear 34 times over the three year cycle. I don’t know what this means in the mind of those who arranged the lectionary, but I do know what it is doing to us. Being pounded for offences, hearing short clips of serious theological rhetoric leaves us all longing to get the second reading over as quickly as possible so we can stand up for Alleluias and dive into the Gospel where there is something to imagine and wonder about. Now three of the seven occasions to hear 1 Tessalonians occur this month, and I do not want the opportunity to draw upon this most ancient wisdom to slip away. So today I want to turn your attention back to the second reading on this first of three Sundays. Two weeks from now I will speak of it again. In the meantime, I want to urge you to take up 1 Thessalonians at home and read it and read it again with this knowlege. The city is still there in modern day Greece. When Paul was there, it was politically a Roman city for two hundred years, but very Greek in culture. It was the capital of the province of Macedonia. A port city on the Aegean Sea made it a very complex mix of cultural, commercial, and religious influences. Paul, Silvanus and Timothy came there, and their preaching was effective in turning hearts to Christ. It did not take long for the Jewish leaders to rise up and throw the apostles out claiming that they were causing an “uproar.” After a short time, Paul sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to see how things were going among the convert/christians, and he sent Timothy with this letter. Today we heard the greeting. There is no heated theological debate going on. There is no error or misconduct to correct. There is simply encouragement for a holy life. Toward the end of chapter five when you do your reading, we will come upon a verse that is the heart of this Epistle proposing three things that will nurture and sustain holiness in life. He says: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumsstances: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” In light of this, I wonder why in a culture of plenty where there is so much to satisfy us -- wealth, clean water, food to waste, medical achievements, technological advances, way more entertainment than a balanaced life needs is there so little joy and so much sadness, depression, and anxiety? Why are mood altering drugs as common as asperine in our medicine cabinets? Our society has succeeded in multiplying pleasures, but it has difficultly in generating joy because joy is a spiritual value. It is a sure sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thomas Aquinas thought that Joy was the most noble human act. We are drawn to joyful people, and I believe it is because we are always drawn to God. Joyful people can lead us to God. For the past several weeks, we have been laughing at ourselves at Mass as we stumble along through a few minor changes of langauage; and the laughter is good. This is a celebration; but often it doen’t look like it. Sometimes I wish there was a huge mirror here and you could see what I see. Paul speaks to us today, just as he did to the Thessalonians. The Joy he looks for and calls for in us is not shallow silliness, but a deep and confident way of looking trouble in the face and of laughing it away. The Gospel today is a perfect example for us. The topic of taxes sets us up for a squint eyed examination of a controversial and divisive issue. Wouldn’t you like to hear the Tea Party, the Democratic Party, Republican Party, and Independents give you their read on this Gospel? I’ll bet in the end the giving to God ends up being the pocket change that’s left over! So you read today’s Gospel and you have to smile and maybe laugh at those silly Pharasees in league with their own enemies, the Herodians. Jesus catches them red-handed with Ceasar’s coin! You can almost see those standing around laughing as the Pharisees and Herodians realize they have been caught with that coin they should never have had in their pocket. The trappers have just been trapped! Joy springs from gratitude. When we recall things, events or people for which and for whom we are grateful, our joy increases. We are in this place today to remember, and to give thanks. How could we leave here without more joy? As I read and re-read 1 Thessalonians this past week, I began to remember my great Jesuit training for which I am so grateful everyday. And then I remembered this: There’s a barber in a small town. One day he’s sitting in his shop, and a man walks in wearing a pair of sandals and a long brown robe with a hood. The man, very thin and quite ascetic looking, sports a short beard. He sits down in the barber’s chair. “Excuse me,” says the barber. “I was wondering, why are you dressed like that?” “Well, “says the man, “I’m a Franciscan friar. I am here to help my brother Franciscans start a soup kitchen.” The barber says, “Oh, I love the Franciscans! I love the story of Saint Francis and how he loved the animals. I love the work you do the poor, for peace, and the enviornment. The Franciscans are wonderful. The haircut is free. And the Franciscan says: “Oh no, no, no. We live simply, and we take a vow of poverty, but I do have enough money for a haircut. Please let me pay you. “Oh no,” says the barber, I insist. This haircut if free!” So the Franciscan gets his haircut, thanks the barber, gives him a blessing and leaves. The next day the barber comes to his shop and finds a surprise waiting for him. On the doorstep is a big wicker baskest filled wih beautiful wildflowers along with a thank-you note from the Franciscan. That same day another man walks into the barber’s shop wearing a long white robe and a leather belt tied around his waist. When he sits down in the chair, the barber asks, “Excuse me, but why are you dressed like that?” And the man says, “Well, I‘m a Trappist monk. I’m in town to visit a doctor, and I thought I would come in for a haircut.” And the barber says,, “Oh I love the Trappists! I admire the way your lives are so contemplative and how you all pray for the rest of the world. This hairtcut is free.” The Trappist monk says, “Oh no. Even though we live simply I have money for a haircut. Please let me pay you.” “Oh no,” says the barber. “This haircut is free” So the Trappist gets his haircut. Thanks him, gives him a blessing, and leaves. The next day the barber comes to the shop, and on his doorstep there is a surprise awaiting him: a big baskest filled with delicious homemade cheese and jams from the Trappist monastery along with a thank-you note from the monk. That same day another man walks into the barber shop wearing a black suit and clerical collar. After he sits down, the barber says, “Excuse me, but why are you dressed like that?” And the man says: “I’m a Jesuit priest. I’m in town for a theology conference.” And the barber says, “Oh, I love the Jesuits. My son went to a Jesuit high school, and my daughter went to a Jesuit college. I’ve even been to the retreat house that the Jesuits run in town. This haircut is free.” And the Jesuit says, “Oh no. I take a vow of poverty, but I have enough money for a hairtcut.” The barber says, “Oh, no. This haircut is free.” After the haircut the Jesuit thanks him, gives him a blessing, and goes on his way. The next day the barber comes to his shop, and on his doorstep there is a surprise waiting for him: ten more Jesuits. There you are, my friends: joy, laughter, and humor are unappreciated values in a spritiual life. They are desperately needed every day. With a smile and some laugher, you can face any evil everyday of this week and nothing will get you down. Do your homework: read 1 Thessalonians before the end of the month.

There is more to think about in these ten verses of Matthew’s Gospel than would be required for a PhD Thesis. 1) It is the third encounter of Jesus with the Scribes and Pharisees in just two chapters 2) The parallel between this story and a previous one that told of people being called to work in the vineyard are too obvious to dismiss. The violence toward the messenger/servants is the same. The persistence of the principal character is there too. The openness to anyone and everyone is consistent in the stories as well. So Matthew obviously would have us read these stories against one another. In his typical abrupt and clear way, he concludes with a one-liner that sums it all up: Many are invited, but few are chosen. With this line, we are left to reflect upon the details of the story.   As  child, I would hear this Gospel every fall. Matthew’s Gospel was the principal source of Gospel readings at Mass for years and years as I was growing up. It was not until the 1970s that we began using this three year cycle with the other Gospel writers added in. So many of us older Catholics simply grew up with Matthew. Year after year this story would be told, and I would wonder about these details and think how unfair it was to treat someone who was invited at the last minute so harshly.   It wasn’t till I got into the seminary course of Matthew’s Gospel that I figured out that for Matthew this is the Robe of Baptism, and there is something deeper going on here. In that time and place, when you got to the banquet, the “King” would have opened a great wardrobe for the guests, and everyone would have been supplied a suitable garment.   This is not about the King except to reveal his desire to have everyone at the wedding. For Matthew, as the allegory of this story unfolds, this garment is the robe of Baptism, and this man in the clever plan of Matthew represents some of the baptized who have been invited to the banquet of king; an image of God’s reign. Each of these details represents different groups. The religious leadership of Israel is represented, and they decline the invitation and make light of it. They act in the presence of Christ as though nothing important is happening and they just go on about their business. Some go beyond ignoring. They are violent toward the messengers, or servants who might well be for Matthew, the apostles. As always, their violence leads them to a violent end. It is always so. They destroy, and they are destroyed in the end. Then others are invited: an indiscriminate guest list. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to come. There is no requirement. What seemed at first to be a banquet for the privileged and chosen becomes a feast of beggars. When they come in, they put on the garment, the only requirement which is offered by the king. Remember those words in the Rite of Baptism when we robe our babies and converts saying: “Today you have put on Christ.”   This garment signals a readiness to understand and act on the teachings of Jesus. The invited must make them their own. In a sense, as one commentator suggests, the guests are the bride at this feast. Notice that there has been no mention of the bride at all, only the Son, the groom. The guests then are invited to become one, to unite with the Son, and in that union, they must bear fruit: justice, peace, compassion, mercy. But there is one who even though invited and present has not put on the garment, and as Matthew says: as soon as he is noticed, there is silence. He is and remains silent.   Something happens at that moment, and a story that began as a judgement against the leadership of Israel becomes a cautionary tale to Christians. Just belonging and just showing up is not enough. Just sitting at the banquet silently is not acceptable. Hearing the call is the first step. It is not the final condition. Everyone of us is chosen as a bride for Christ. It is an ancient name for the church: the “Bride of Christ”. Hearing the call is easy, wearing the garment, marrying the son is difficult. This idea of marrying the son is a way of speaking about the Christian adventure of spiritual development. As a church we carry the mystery of Jesus Christ. When we enter the church through Baptism, we enter into he mystery of Jesus Christ, but to enter is not the same as being in full communion.   In this story, and in this room there are some who even though they are present have not quite made themselves a bride of Christ, That man in the story thought he could come on his own terms. He did not put on the robe. He wanted to do it his way and have it his way. Matthew suggests that we must come to the banquet on the terms of the host, and that we cannot remain if we want to have it our way; and for those invited silence in the face of this truth leads to disaster.

Ordinary Time 27 - October 2, 2011 - Dcn. Jacobson

Ordinary Time 26 - September 25, 2011 - Abbot Lawrence Stasyszen

A story of envy leads us deeper into this Gospel today. We could spend all kinds of time exploring the ideas of Justice with talk about equal pay for equal work. We could study the details of this text noticing that the landowner has the foreman do the paying. There are curious details about what each group is offered: one group is offered the usual day’s pay, and another is offered “what is just.” The last group is offered nothing. However, all those details and more only stay on the surface while we need to go deeper into this story that comes right after Peter asks Jesus what the disciples are going to get out of his mission; what they are going to get for their sacrifice and work.   The whole parable is a challenge to an attitude and an expection that God owes us something. The grumbling group thinks that they are the center of everything, and the parable makes us uncomfortable because it exposes us when we quietly and inwardly side with those grumblers who evaluate everything that happens from the point of view of their own comparitive well-being. They think they are special because they worked all day, so the owner owes them big time. Whatever protects and promotes them is good, and they like it. But if someting happens that makes them equal to others, they begin to whine and complain that it isn’t fair. The first hired complain because the salary difference or the reward did not benefit them. Their real problem is that they value themselves by comparing themselves to others: bad business! Even more so, they think they deserve something special.   Here lies a deeper meaning to this parable. What matters is not what we get. What matter is that we work in the vineyard. The problem addressed in this parable is idleness. Doing nothing is what the owener is concerned about. He keeps going out to those who are doing nothing and calling into work. That is his concern. Notice that there is no mention of wage for the last hired, he just wants them to get productive in his vineyard.   A world of envy and it’s inhabitants can never get to the truth of this parable. They are only concerned about getting what they deserve. We are called to a world of abundance and goodness. In that world, we who work in the vineyard get the usual day’s wage, just enough for today. Our prayer calls it “daily bread.” We are, in the end day laborers doing God’s work. We have no job security at all, and here we see the heart of this parable. We are dependent upon a call everyday and we have no claim on God. But each day we respond to God’s call to work in the world. We must avoid Peter’s mistaken assumption that by sacrificing a lot, we are going to get a lot; and that those who give up the most will get the most. It is not going to be that way. We never hold God in debt and God never owes us anything.  We have to get that right.   Working in the vineyard of this world for God is not a burden for which we deserve some just reward, but a privilege. If we have responded early, we are not treated unfairly, we are favored. I once read something by St Teresa of Avila who put it this way: “We should forget the number of years we have served him, for the sum total of all we can do is worthless by comparison with a single drop of the blood which the Lord shed for us.”   Jesus told this parable on his way to Jerusalem where he would be handed over, suffer, and die. When we finally begin to do some of God’s work in the vineyard of this world, we might stop thinking it’s all about us and what we’re goint to get out of it and what God can do for and give us.  Then we might concentrate more seriously on what we really owe God, and that might well stir up a generosity in us that is more remarkable and surprising than what we see in the owner in this story.

Ordinary Time 24 - September 11, 2011 - Fr. Boyer

As I said last week, there will be no "homily" on the sacred texts this week and next since I felt it would be most helpful to explain some changes that are coming up in the English Speaking Church at the end of November with the First Sunday of Advent. I want to begin introducing these changes to you now so that when the Holy Season of Advent comes we will all have become more comfortable and be less consious of the changes at a time when we need to be more focused on our prayer in that Season. We are a church of ritual, and respeecting and understanding ritual behavior is important. Surprises and interruptions are never welcome in rituals. In fact, anything that interrupts the ritual brings that prayerful activity to a halt. The purpose of ritual behavior is to free us from concern about what to do and why or when. It allows us to be God conscious rather than self consious. Knowing what to expect, what to say, and when to say it is essential for ritual behavior. I was quite surprised last week when taking a survey by hand at each Mass to discover that nearly half of you are unaware that something is coming: a new translation of our prayers at Mass. That discover made it all the more obvious that I ought to spend some time with you this week and next explaining what is coming. In 1963, the Second Vatican Council revised the Liturgy of the Western Rite or Roman Rite Church and affirmed the use of the “mother tongue” which we have called “the vernacular”. The council established a Latin Language text which was to the basis for every language group to work from, and the Council entrusted to each national conference of Bishops the right to oversee the translations which Rome would then approve. The English speaking Bishops of the world established an International Commission on English to begin the work. It took ten years to complete the work and have it all approved. Now keep in mind that English in South Africa, in India, New Zealand, Ireland, and especially Oklahoma is quite different making the work most challenging. The guiding principal for the translations was technically called: “dynamic equivalence” which simply means that the goal of the translation from the standard text in Latin was to come up with the overall sense and meaning of the text in the most modern English for each place. It is helpful to understand that this principal guiding translations was only used and applied for English. Other languages did not use this principal. They stayed more strictly and closer to the literal translation of the Latin. Now we all know that language changes over time. The various words can take on new meanings never thought of a generation or two earlier. We can all think of examples of how new words come into our language and how other words simply begin to change meaning. Think of words like “cool”. For my grandmother, it was a description of temperature. Now it is an affirmation of value as well. Because of these changes over time in the meaning and use of words there is need to make adjustments from time to time re-examining how a  translation passes on the original text. We are living now through one of those times. In 1998 35 years after the first translations began the same International Commission using the same guidelines went to work to study the text and produce a more up-to-date translation. When the work was finished and sent to Rome, it was not approved, and there followed a serious re-thinking of the original idea of “dynamic equivalence”.  In other words, should this commission be giving us what they think the Latin text should mean in English, or should the translation give us what the Latin text literally says when translated into English. Let me suggest a couple of examples of how “dynamic equivalent” works or doesn’t work. In Spanish people say: A Dios, and the dynamic equivalent in English could be “BYE BYE” or “See you later” but that really isn’t what it says. It is “sort of” what it means, but it isn’t what it says. Now translating A Dios into English by the new guidelines it would say: “To God” Another example: the French often says: A Bientot which some might think means: “Good bye” or “Farewell” when what it really says is: “Till later” which has a very different meaning since “Farewell” has a finality about it that is not intended. “Tell Later” says and implies that you are going to see one another again fairly soon. Since 2002 work has been going on with this project, and it has been completed and approved. This will not be the last translation, or is it the final one. Some of us older folks remember other translations, and sometimes things will sound familiar. Such change is a part of growth and life. The English Speaking Bishops Conferences have established the First Sunday of Advent, November 27 as the time to begin; but for several reasons in this country we are going to begin using your parts prior to that time. Each parish will be free to choose when it will begin to do so, but it has been recommended that we do so before Advent so that that we will have become more accustomed to these new words and not distract ourselves with something new during the Holy Seasons of Advent and Christmas. For one example, the words of the Gloria are different. But since we do not sing the Gloria during Advent, the first time you would be expected to sing it would be at Midnight Mass on Christmas which obviously would be disturbing. So we are going to begin using your parts of the new translation now and my part will change with Advent.   One of the most interesting consequences of this new translation is that all the English Speaking Churches throughout the world will now be using the same translation. That was not the case with the first or1963 translation. Mass in India or South Africa or in New Zealand had different translations than we did. We will now all have and use the same translation where ever English is spoken. I suppose we could see that this is one more consequence of globalization. Our English language is becoming more and more unified as communication systems bring us all together. Now another consequence of this translation style is that there will be more words, because now every word in the original Latin prayer is translated into the English. The consequence is then: more verbal unity in the English Speaking church, more words, and more similarity to the translations of other language churches. Changes for you will be few and simple. Changes for me on other hand will be quite a challenge, but that’s my challenge, and I have been practicing. You will have a card with your prayers and responses on it, and you will need to use it for awhile, but I suspect that in no time at all, they will disappear. Some of your texts will be simple and easy, and I suspect you will adjust without a thought. A couple of others will take more attention, and that is not a bad thing. We all know that rattling through memorized prayers for years and years often results in the prayer being said thoughtlessly and carelessly. So we have a chance to pay attention again to what we are saying and what we mean as we pray.   At the beginning of Mass in what we call the Introductory Rites, there comes the first of your changes. I will greet you with the words: “The Lord be with you.” and you will respond: “And With your Spirit.” Then when we move into what is now called; “The Penitential Act” there will remain several optional prayers chosen at the discretion of the priest. The prayer that begins: “I confess to almighty God…” will be slightly changed with, as I said earlier, more words that more literally translate the Latin. In the old translation we said: “that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words”….. Now you will say: “that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, therefore…..” This new translation speaks to the seriousness of our sin and the sincerity of our contrition. It offers a more humble way to collect ourselves before stepping any further into prayer. The Gloria, that great hymn of praise that we sing with all the church will be quite different with new words – bringing into English all of the words in the universal text in the Latin. It will not be hard, but there will be new music. The introductory rites conclude with a prayer sometimes oddly called: “The Opening Prayer.” It’s hard to tell if it’s opening the Mass which has already opened, or closing the Introductory Rite. In effect what it really does is move us from the Introduction and Penitential Act to the Liturgy of the Word. All of these prayers for every Sunday, every feast, and every special occasion have been re-translated. What you will notice is a very different kind of English: less folksy and more elevated or formal. It marks the dignity of the occasion and the place. When it comes to the texts of Scripture, there will be no changes, and the next change in your text comes with the Preface opening the Eucharistic Prayer and the Hymn: Holy, Holy, Holy. Next week, I will speak a little more about these changes, and we will take a little time to learn a new setting in the new translation of the Gloria and the Holy. For now, let us begin: The Lord be with you……………….

Anyone who has ever stood up in the face of injustice or evil knows only too well the risk involved. The powers of this world are formidable and not easily intimidated. Anyone in the military knows that if you speak up when a superior is doing something wrong, you’ll pay for it. Women in the workplace know that if they stand up against sexism and harrassment they will probably end up out of work. The examples are as numerous as one’s experience and imagination. Jesus knew this too. Speak out or stand up against the Romans, or their collaborators within Israel, and there would be dangerous trouble. It did not require some kind of extraordinary insight to know that if he kept on with his mission he was going to pay for it, and everyone knew how the Romans handeled anyone who upset things or challenged their imposed status-quo. So did Peter, and so he puts himself in opposition to what Jesus perceives to be the Will of God, and he gets called out for it. Jesus has taught them how to pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom on EARTH as well as in Heaven. This is politically, socially, and religiously dangerous. He has taught them out pray, how to act, and now he proposes how to think.   A new way of thinking is what Jesus proposes. It is a way of thinking that puts God’s will  first no matter what the consequences, no matter who objects, or what the danger may be. This way of thinking goes against this world’s way of thinking. People who have internalized this world’s thinking must learn to deny themselves, meaning deny this way of thinking if they are going to follow Jesus. People who think like this world avoid suffering at all cost. They seek pleasure and comfort, security and power. These thoughts have to be replaced by a different way of thinking. Disciples of Jesus cannot just reluctantly take a slap or two along the way, they must lean into this, or take up the cross not simply have it put on them. They have to go for it with full knowledge that this is the way into the depth and richness of real life.   What is coming to birth in Peter and his companions which must include you and me is a deeper, divine life that is far better than the shallow, superficial, temporary life this world of preseige, security, and social position has to offer. This earthly world is a poor substitute and a lot less than what Jesus Christ has to offer. This following Jesus means sacrifice and service based on a hierarchy of values that will not tolerate trade offs for anyting less than nobility, grace, and the divine.   History is full of noble people who have stood up and made a difference bearing witness to what they believe. They have lived a lonely life of confrontation and conflict with this world. They say things like: “I just could not let it go on.” or “I could not live with myself if I didn’t do something.” They all paid a great price because when it comes down to attacking and criticizing practices and behavior that are unjust, wrong, unfair, and contrary to the Kingdom of God, it gets bloody and tough. Point to  financial abuse, and you’ll be out of work and money.   Be clear about what Jesus is saying here. The only suffering Jesus is speaking about is the suffering that comes from embracing his way of life and mission. Any other suffering, especially suffering that comes from injustice is to be resisted and stopped. Self denial is not about giving up chocolate in Lent or any that shallow stuff. It is about a deliberate choice to loose ones self in Christ and take on Christ’s way of thinking and acting. It is about making Christ’s identity my own. This does not center on suffering, but on love expressed through service and bringing forth of life and joy and peace!   The first level of this Gospel story is self evident. Standing in the heart of Roman territory and Herrod’s palace, Jesus talks about what is going to happen to him because of the way he has challenged the oppression and injustice of that rule. At the second level, Matthew’s church is under persecution at every turn because they have stood up against evil and power and authorities that have told them to be quiet and just blend in with the way things have always been. They have been expelled from synagogues and they were considered to be an illicit religion targeted by Roman oppressors as well as by some Jewish communities that blamed them for the troubles. So they tell this story. Today we tell it again because we hunger for a deeper more meaningful life that we have heard about in Jesus Christ. We live in a world that is shallow and selfish, powerful, unjust and abusive. To remain silent in the face of anything that is wrong because we are afriad of what it may cost us is to give that wrong an even stronger hold upon us. It will cost us our soul even if it saves our silly shallow lives. Sins of omission are killing us and trivilizing our faith more so than anything we are doing.   There is a dangerous possibility in true discipleship that terrifies us, and we look for the easy way out, but that will not do for those who want to be and are called to greatness, holiness, and fullness of life. Today Jesus takes us aside like he did Peter to explain once more that a deeper and better life is possible and awaits us.

We are still in a fascinating part of Matthew’s Gospel, and next week continues from the same chapter. This Jesus of Nazareth is still on the loose (so to speak) ignoring every boundary and boarder. He has moved from Pagan Caananite territory to Pagan Roman territory today as Matthew situates this powerful scene in a most unlikely place. This is an important detail. Even the fact that this event is located “in the region of Caesarea Philippi is important. It does not say that he was in the city, because in the city of Caesarea you could not see that it was built upon a huge rock escarpment in what is now called the Golan Heights at the base of Mount Hermon. So in that region one could see that great 100 foot high rock wall upon which was built a temple and a city around it....I hope you are beginning to get this connection of images. Caesarea Philippi was a new name given by the Romans for an ancient place where earlier the Greeks had built a temple to their Shepherd God, “Pan”. The Romans came and named it for their god: Caesar. Now Jesus comes to this place, to this enourmous rock out of which, by the way flows a spring that is one of the major sources of water for the Jordan River! Let your Catholic imagination work on those images. Now in the place of the god Pan and in place of the god Caesar comes the God and Father of Jesus Christ. In the region of Caesar’s city comes the City of God built on a different rock, a human rock. In this place that stands for so much earthly power in the minds of those apostles, a new power is handed to them; a greater power. In that place Jesus handed to them the one tool, the one power, that opens the way to peace and gives access to the divine. It is the power of forgiveness. Human kind has never in all its history found a way to bring peace. Nations have built up armies and arsonals, and armed themselves with every conceivable tool and never found peace until this moment when Jesus handed over the one tool that opens the way to peace: forgiveness. Work your way through the levels of this Gospel as I have taught you so often. With these images, you can understand the first level: what Jesus was doing. By the time Matthew wrote his Gospel, the Romans had unleashed a devistating and crushing blow to Israel from that very mountain, and everything was in ruin. Matthew’s church looks at the devistation as says: “We have a new rock upon which to build the city of God, the church, the source of life and forgiveness.” At the time Jesus asks Peter the question of his identity, things were quite the opposite of our time. Nowdays people seem to think that their identity is found by being different, disconnected, individualized. It’s as though we can’t seem to find out who we are until we are seperated from everyone and everything that in truth gives us an identity. At the time of Jesus, one’s identity was clear and established by one’s connection to others. Outside the family, outside the tribe, ourside the clan, one did not exist. Jesus is looking to see if Peter and the Apostsles have gotten it right about the identity of Jesus; and they are close. Not close enough, but that gets cleared up later. At the second level of this Gospel, after Pentecost, it is now clear to them who Jesus is, and now it’s time to establish who they are. The gates of this netherworld have been opened, but they hold the keys to another world; and the key is forgiveness. Today we have to live in the thrid level of this Gospel, and the question is still asked: “Who do people think we are?” “What are they saying about us?” The answer to that question lies in the way we use the key we have been given, the tool to peace. Who do people think we are? PEACEMAKERS! What are they saying about us? SEE HOW THEY LOVE ONE ANOTHER! We still hold the key and we know in our hearts that forgiveness is the only way to peace, and that the lack of it is all that can keep us from passing through that gate. We can see that the refusal of others to forgive us just as devistating as our refusal to forgive others, and so the gate of peace is still closed to us. Peter is not the only one who knows the identity of Jesus. In fact, evil spirits and A Caananite woman had said if first. Peter is not the only one who receives the blessing, and in two more chapters, the authority to bind and loose is given to the whole church. This is about who we are, and what we have been given. This Gospel raises more than the question of the identity of Jesus. It raises the question of our identity. It will not be found by individualized private persuits. The very identity of Jesus is found in his relationship to the Father, Moses, the prophets, and the Holy Spirit. The identity of Matthew’s Church is found in their relationship to one another and to Peter and his companions. Our identity is found in this place around this altar. For us who are alive in the spirit, Peter is not like some after-life security officer who hears and judges our request for entrance. Peter is the new human being revealed in Jesus, and he discovers best who he is by experiencing forgiveness after his cowardly denial. We must stop thinking about power, and begin to discover our weakness. We may not hold unforgiveness over any others. We must loose and we must bind. This loosing we are called to might well mean getting free of the force of this earth, or the force of evil and death so that we might be free to engage or bind ourselves in whatever gives life and  loosen ourselves from whatever contributes to death. Think big, people of God. Think about who we are. Think about what this Church is and what great power has been given to us. Think about the blessing Jesus has spoken over us. No earthly power has revealed this to us. What are we going to become because of it, and when we understand that, what are we going to do with it except celebrate the Reign of God that begins when we open the gate of forgiveness and peace.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in the narthext with a group of people after some meeting, and there was some reference to this Gospel text in our conversation. The one who brought up the text expressed considerable surprise and shock over the way Jesus is portrayed by Matthew, and I sent a little prayer of thanks to Matthew saying: “You did it! After all these years it still works!”   This Gospel is not simply about that woman. If it were, she would have a name, but she is nameless. It is just as much about the disciples as it is about her. The real confrontation here is not between Jesus and the woman. It is between Jesus and his disciples. He is confronting their attitude. He knows them. They are a product of their age and their culture. Their prejudice and racism toward this Canaanite woman is inconsistent and at odds with the Reign of God Jesus has come to announce. He will not tolerate their attitude and their behavior. He is an obsticle to that Reign of God.   So what he does is show them what they look like. He imitates their behavior back to them. He becomes like a mirror to them and shows them what they look like and what they sound like. He plays into their disgusting racism and prejudice. It’s as though he says: “Come on guys. Show me how much disgust and loaving you have in you. Show me how you think you are so special and so privileged.” It works, they do it! “Get rid of her.” “Send her away! Send her back home where she came from!” (Forgetting that they are in her home, in the region of Tyre and Sidon, and not getting the point that Jesus is at home everywhere and pays no attention to boundarys and boarders.)   As soon as he gets them to say what they really think and feel about her revealing how far they are from faith and embracing the Reign of God into their lives, he drops the Good News on them: praises her faith (not theirs), grants her request (not theirs), and leaves them standing there probably with their hands over their mouths and eyes wide open thinking: “Ooops! Something is wrong here, and it is not her.”   Time and time again, I have said to you from this ambo: three layers to the Gospel. We may not stop until we get to the third layer. The first is the historical incident that Matthew recalls. Since it also occurs in the Gospel of Mark, we can be fairly certain that something like this actually happened. The second is the layer of Matthew’s time when the Jewish Christians were having a hard time embracing Gentile converts, with the thought that they were special and the Reign of God was all theirs: an attitude that finally boils over when Peter and Paul get into it over how “Jewish” the Gentile converts must become. The third layer is how we hear and how we tell this Gospel. In the telling today, Jesus still speaks, and we must take the couage to both admit we are these disciples and look at how he mirrors our attitude and embarrassses us with our prejudice and privilege. There are social and political implications at every level of this gospel. They are undeniable and unavoidable. A Jew crossing that border is a social and spiritual transgression and a political issue. A woman from that side confronting a man from the other side in her territory is unimaginable at that time. It is socially and politically outrageous! It more than rocks the boat. It shakes up everything: politically, socially, economically, and spiritually. For you see, Faith has something to do with all of those things.   Where ever this Gospel is proclaimed today, disicples of Jesus Christ must hear themselves again both in the attitude and the words of the apostles, and see themselves again mirrored in the words and attitude of Jesus. There is no avoiding or denying the reality that this Gospel scene is being lived today everywhere in this world. London burns last week, and people die from the heat here in Oklahoma without air condition while the privileged build walls and close briges and gates to keep those Canaanites from having what the priviledged think is their own. We are living this Gospel scene. We tax the poor and the growing nearly poor so that the privileged can entertain themselves. Tax money builds stadiums and arenas for games that most of those taxed cannot afford to attend. Of course they are tricked into voting for these projects with the promise of jobs which turn out to mean sweeping up the arena floor in the middle of the night at minimum wage which is below the poverty level. Meanwhile we have no money for education and no money to loan to our young people who want and need that education. We avoid addressing immigration issues because it may mean a change in our attitude and behavior toward those who are differenct from us just like these apostles in the Gospel; and so we say: “Send them home.” This is not what Jesus says. This not how it works in the Reign of God. That woman, that foreignor, that poor person who had to ask someone from outside to help her got what she needed right then. Jesus did not say: “Just wait till after the end of the world. Then everything will be alright.”   This is a hard Gospel to hear and even harder to preach. The easy way would be to go all pius and tell you it’s about perservering in prayer and send you home with a prayer book; or turn it into some kind of sermon on her faith never questioning ours. Well, I do not think we cannot afford to take the easy way out or look for the least difficult meaning as a way of avoiding what the Gospel asks of us: change, conversion, justice, openness to the Reigh of God today. If we refuse this real meaning of this story, we may very well end up being in the role of that woman one day, and then instead of mercy, we’ll get a taste of and hear the sound of our own words spoken then to us: “Send them away.”   Great faith in great people is the sound of voices crying aloud again and again and again and shouting loudly for justice. The priviledged can either get defensive and hold tighter to what they have for the time being, or they can pay attention to Jesus who was also privileged with great gifts and great power.

Ordinary Time 19 - August 7, 2011 - Dcn. Jacobson

Ordinary Time 18 - July 31, 2011 - Dcn. Sousa

There is a problem withh the language in this part of Matthew’s Gospel, and the longer it goes un addressed, the longer we shall miss the point. Speaking and thinking of the “Kingdom of Heaven” sets a trap that leads us to think of a place, and that gets us talking about “getting to heaven” as though we were going some place. That is never a proposal found in the Gospels. These parables are not about a kingdom which is a place called “Heaven.” The term: “Kingdom of Heaven” is just Matthew’s preferred expression for what Luke and Mark call: “The Kingdom or Reign of God.” What this refers to is a relationship, not a place. We ought best to think about being in not going to... Outside of this flesh, outside of this earthly existence life is better imagined as a realtionship. Living In God, living with God, being in the perfect, unending, fullest relationship or “life” with God is our calling. This is what God invites us to experience, and when Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is at hand, he means that we can do this now. We can live the “Reign” of God now. We do not have to wait until we’re dead.   To get deeper into the meaning of these parables, I found it helpful to pay attention to the verbs. Line them up and think with me about what is being said: In the first parable: “buried, find, hide, sell, and buy. Then in the second parable: search, find, sells and buy. The two parables in a way summarize the experience of all of us when it comes to our faith and life in the reign of God, that is to say, in an intimate, loving relationship with God. Some of us just suddenly find the faith that God has buried, while some of us have to search for it. Either way, the first action on our part is to FIND. It is the first act from us. God has already done what God is going to do: “bury” or “give” or “plant” however you want to think about it or whatever word you want to use. Jesus uses them all.   However we discover God’s gift of what Jesus called “friendship” requires a response from us: sell and buy are the verbs in both parables. For some this discovery comes by surprise, some sudden awakening or realization; for others it comes after long searching. Either way, upon discovering a realtionship with God, which is a gift we can do nothing to earn, we act to possess and maintain that gift above all else.   Think and remember what it was like when you found the love of your life. Nothing and no one could get between you two. Nothing anyone said or anyone did could have or would have been more important than the person you loved most. When we experience that kind of human love with another human being we would sacrifice anything to hold and maintain that realionship. It is romance at it’s finest! It is also, I believe, part of the way God has made us to begin to move deeper into the mystery of why we are here and what it is God asks of us. That experience of human love and the heroic sacrifices it can stir in us is the first awakening of what these parables address: our relationship with God.   I think the passion and depth of human love is the first awakening of our abililty to be embraced and enter into Divine love which is what Jesus would call: “The Reign of God.”  Our thirst and our desire for love is never satisfied with human love - there is always more, and the best of human love becomes the doorway into Divine Love: a love that is best found when two are together as one in perfect love and unitiy of heart and soul.   Listen then to these parables as love stories. FIND love of God in your life. SELL or get rid of anything that keeps you from owning that love and possessing that fullnes of life with God.         As this portion of Matthew’s Gospel and these parables come to a close, the last counsel he gives is a reminder that we shall be judged not by one another but by our use of the gifts we have been given. If we have found the treasure and the pearl of God’s love and if we have been caught by Jesus the fisher of people we will be judged by how we have continued this revelation.   Understanding this means we shall be wise in putting together the new and the old. It is way of going and growing deeper in faith. When you buy into this, you are going to sell off anything that is contrary and useless for moving forward and deeper into the mystery of God’s presence and powerful love. I believe that this is what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about: an ongoing process in this life of putting together the new and the old, of finding, of selling, of buying our lives, of reinventing ourselselves in the light of God’s ongoing self revelation. There is a treasure in this field called “life”. Finding it, possessing it, owning it, claiming it, keeping it will always mean selling off and giving up something else that is not as worthy.   Jesus asks: “Do you understand this?” My own response is: “Yes, I am beginning to understand.” I hope and I pray that your response is the same: Search, Find, Sell, Buy, and then Live forever in God’s Love. That is the Kingdom of Heaven.