Sunday Readings

Number Games

Teachers often say that there is no such thing as a dumb question. And for the most part, this is true. There may be dumb students, but few dumb questions! And in the list of questions, this one is a real winner, isn’t it? Lord, will only a few be saved? Consider the context of the question: Jesus is heading up to Jerusalem to die for the sins of the world. And in some schlock little town, a real hole-in-the-wall, that question comes up. And away we go!

Let me assign a motive to the question and the questioner. And let me rephrase it in a modern and (a more universal) way. The questioner is concerned that he and his crowd are in and others are out. He wants to have assurance that he is saved and others are damned. There is always a mix here of insecurity and pride. We would ask today who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. Tell me, Jesus, if I’m doing things right and just to make sure of it, tell me who is doing it wrong. Highlight the contrast and just let me know.

Some take this to the extreme. They believe that everyone – good, bad or boring – is shut out of the Kingdom if they don’t follow things as they do. If you say this prayer or not, do things this way or not, will determine your eternal destination. It seems, on the surface, that way to heaven is tell the world to go to hell. It is not attractive as well as ugly. It is a dumb question of who is saved because as long as I am, who cares? It’s the ultimate ‘I told you so’ and a very loud ‘ha-ha.’

But Jesus knows this tendency in people. He knows we can be weak and unsure – even if we are people of faith. It lurks there and we need to admit this.

Okay, thanks, Father, for the psychology lesson, but what exactly is Jesus’ answer?

The first answer is a good one. He says, in a modern term, who cares? He says that the answer is not found in a number because that will never be your concern. You strive for that narrow gate of living the Gospel and you will not have these numerical concerns. Sure the easy path is there and it seems that more pilgrims are taking it than yourself. But never you mind. You road will be all you should be concerned with.

Secondly, don’t be fooled. Don’t think that mere religious association will do. Don’t look for your membership card at the pearly gates; look for Jesus whom you will have known long before you get there. My religious parents can pray for me but God wants me to know Him as my Father, not just as a friend of my parents. Grace is given; it doesn’t rub off. Some one I knew never went to Church but would ask me to bless her raffle ticket at the big Festival. And when I refused, she tried to get me at least to touch it. Association and superstition are really they same thing. It’s not about getting into heaven and avoiding hell as much as it is the way of the cross. Jesus is making it clear that we cannot be worried about where we’re going if we are not headed toward the cross.

And the last answer is that we are headed toward a final point. The door will be closed and the gate locked. Some don’t like this and think that it won’t happen. They come up with ideas of universal salvation without the cross or even believe in the ‘Great Do Over’ of reincarnation until you get it right. Jesus says that we have a final place on this journey before the Throne of God. We are not haphazardly bouncing around with the hope of hitting the button and winning the prize. Love may be unreasonable but never irrational. God wants the best for us and has a plan for us. Christian discipleship, especially in the difficulties, is that narrow way that is hard, but it leads us straight to His heart.

The question, then, is not how many are to be saved or am I in one of the celestial lifeboats of God’s grace. The only question we truly have is the one answered by the gift and the call from the God who recreates us in that grace. We hope all will see this and make heaven their final home when traveling days are done. But Jesus says that we need to keep our focus and let the rest be the Father’s concern.

So no more dumb questions. Just look to the Answer Himself.

Sunday Readings

A Muddied Truth

“Father, I thought religion and spirituality was supposed to make the world better and help people to get along with each other.” This is heard so often you’d think it was true. If there one thing that religion does not do it is to bring peace to the world. Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘peace.’ You do not have to go far to find places and people of conflict who seem to use religion as an ever-continuing cause of division. We can begin with the macro-view and note the Crusades, the Jihads, the Intifadas and all the rest. And we can look more locally - within our families and communities – for more visceral expressions of this fracture. So why does this good thing, this promise of eternal fulfillment, bring or become the flashpoint of so much distress?

Ask Jeremiah. Or Jesus. Or anybody who actually believes in something worth believing.

Jeremiah faithfully preached a message from God and was thrown into a muddy hole because of it. Jesus was executed because He embodied it. Martyrs suffered because they believed it. Social reformers have been assassinated because of it. “It” is not a program or a club. ‘It’ is simply the truth and this is one thing no one is really all that interested in hearing. It means that God has a way and all-too-often this is one we would rather not take. Our plans and our ideas are preferable to some Divine order that causes friction with others who also believe their way is better.

So let’s go back to the idea of religion as a peaceable glue holding together the fabric of human society. That idea is preposterous at best and dangerous at worst. What they mean is that no religion will make the truth shine to brightly and disagree with any another – especially the faith we have in our own way of doing things. If doctors and nurses have the first principle of their profession of ‘do no harm’, the first principle of modern religion should be the same: ‘say nothing uncomfortable or offensive.’ And yet, even as we hold hands and teach the world to sing this modern hymn of a world united, people are still ripping each other to shreds in the name of their beliefs. The moderns keep screaming we are all the same and their audiences nod in vapid agreement. The only folks who are not listening are training their hearts and minds to make a better bomb. The very calls of the contemporary progressives to a level spiritual playing field are the prime targets of the people who do not believe they even have the right to exist. In certain places, the annual conflict of the ‘Christmas Play’ vs. the ‘Winter Celebration’ doesn’t happen. They just kill those who even try.

So if these divisions are the cause of violence in the world, it should come as no surprise that they would be present at home. People reject faith and despise truth. Let me give some examples. The first is all-too typical today. A couple want to get married in a balloon at the Super bowl. The local priest says ‘no’ because that’s not an acceptable place for a wedding. The bride and groom to be leave the rectory huffing about ‘this is why they don’t go to church anymore because the church is not accommodating to modern life.’ They will tell you, with a straight face, that this is way they themselves do not go to Church anymore. I ask them if they have, with their incredible powers of prognostication, any tips on who will win the next Super bowl. I tell them that they seem to already know the future so I ought to get in on it. I mean, when they decided not to go to Church long before we refused their dirigible nuptials, it bespeaks a prophetic ability not seen since the Old Testament.

But the silliest example of this happened a number of years ago when I was at a wedding reception. Well into the cocktail hours, a gentleman asked me (in a severely slurred voice) if I was a priest. Tempted to say ‘no’, I resisted and said ‘yes.’ He told me that he does not go to Church anymore because he had a problem with Papal infallibility. I replied by asking what her name was and how long he had been cheating on his wife. And I was not wrong. Nor did I go to too many wedding receptions after that. Most people’s problems with Sunday morning have more to do with Saturday night!

Speaking the truth in charity is a religious ideal but not something welcomed in many places. But because it is the truth, it has a power of good that keeps it alive. And that energy is not found in our agreement with the truth. It comes from Somewhere else. Or better, Someone else. It will divide our conscience as well as our world. Jesus was a realist who prepared His disciples for that profound and particular aspect of faith. He knew that the opposite of faith is not doubt but indifference. The modern forces arrayed against faith do not seek to outward destroy it but subtly render it empty. It is garnished with the platitudes of universal meaning while the meat is quietly removed. The best way to silence the Church is not to shut it down but embarrass it. And sadly, that has worked in many places and with many people.

Standing up for our faith can bring us down. Moving forward can leave us stuck in the mud. And when we go against our own sins and weaknesses, we can have a civil war within our hearts that is dramatic. But the fire of truth, and the eternal light it shines, is more than our divided hearts can ignore. It is a blaze that consumes the dross we throw on the great reality of grace. And in the heart of Jesus that desires this flame of mercy to burn, we find our own hearts.

Sunday Readings

Merry Christmas (?)

One of the “trade secrets” of my profession is to have a few, regular things we do or say that will cause folks to remember us. One of mine was to wish people leaving Mass a ‘merry Christmas’ every single Sunday of the year. And it worked. I receive a slew notes when I left St. Augustine’s fondly remembering me wishing this in July and August. Hey, I was just following the cards’ advice and keeping the ‘spirit of the season’ throughout the year. Well today’s readings may seem like that yuletide greeting. Why are we hearing an Advent reading in August? Why are we being told to ‘watch’ and to ‘prepare’ for the coming of the Son of Man?

Well why not? Are we so foolish to allow our vigilance to go on vacation with Santa Claus? Is the need to be mindful of God’s actions given a reprieve and an eight-month package to Aruba? Does God take the summer off?

Not at all. Every Sunday we gather to celebrate this Sacrament which was instituted by Christ in anticipation of that day of glory. Every Mass – as St. Paul says – proclaims the death of the Lord until He comes. So in the slothful heat of summer, we can take this as a wake-up call to think of eternity and the glorious majesty of the Judge of all.

But folks, this is the easy part. It would be a great religion if we all just looked down the road and aimed our sights on the future. That, campers, is not our faith. It certainly does not exclude it but urges us to something a little more difficult. It calls us to see the appearance of God here and now.

At the Passover, the people of Israel were told that they would be safe so long as they marked in their homes and in their lives what God was doing all around them. Jesus sees His disciples gathered to do the same thing. They were to be in readiness but not anxiety. They were to be prepared but go about their lives. They were to look to Easter even if Good Friday had not seen its sunset. They were to be there even it was not here.

A cynic would see this as a trick or a lie. The more dubious would claim ‘it’s not fair’ and walk away. And we should honestly ask why bother being on heightened alert when we really shouldn’t fear in the first place? Why doesn’t God just reveal Himself and knock off all the games?

Is that what we really want? Do we really presume to be capable of seeing the Presence of God? I think not; we humans just can’t take it. And God knows that. In the exercise of our desires, we grow. In a Twilight Zone episode, a man dies and wins every card game, gets every girl and has everything he wants immediately. But he is sad and frustrated. His desires have no challenge or opposition. He has ‘no fun.’ He complains to his guide that he didn’t think heaven would be like this. His guide laughs and says, “who told you this was heaven?”

Love without longing is a bore and faith without struggle is a waste. Our God still moves, still passes over us today. The countless manifestations of His presence are seen by those who have eyes to see. The Master knocks at the door of the human heart in a constant (and often annoying) routine that is too easily dismissed out of habit. But God is among us. Emmanuel has come again. Be watchful; be ready.

And may the truest joy of that wonder be the mystery which guides your life like a bright star on a dark night.

Oh, and yes, merry Christmas!

Sunday Readings

Gimme More

On the way over to Lourdes, I went through security I had to remove every piece of metal on me. That meant my cross, my ring, my belt and my Roman Collar. Well, to make a long story short, when we got to the hotel, I found that I had left the belt and the collar on one of the planes or buses. They were gone and I do not expect to see them again. Oh, the tragedy of it all! No, it is not a big deal nor am I without ‘backups.” In fact, because of the uniform we wore over there, I actually did not need them.

But I was upset. Something of mine was gone. I took it as a personal insult from the natural order of the world. What was once so near and solid had vaporized in the trying furnace of modern air travel. Again, this is not a big deal nor is it the first time this has happened to me or to so many others. Big or small, cheap or expensive, we seem to have a problem with letting anything go. But, when it comes down it, we all will have to one day, sooner or later.

A lot people, usually the ones who have more than enough themselves, will chime in with standards at this point: You can’t take it with you. Material things are not lasting. The best things in life are free. And while all that may be true, we still get more than a little annoyed when it is one of our material things. So why do we do this? Why do want more and hold on to stuff we don’t need?

Listen to the man in the parable today. He has a single and often repeated question: What shall I do with what I have? There’s nothing wrong with this or making future plans. But the point of this parable is to change the question: wisdom calls us to ask not what shall I do but what does God want me to do? What is the will of God when it comes to the things I have? Some people mistakenly think that material things – and especially the really nice things – are somehow evil in themselves. This is a heresy because a God who is good cannot create evil. Any really good dinner should prove that! But what we do with these good things is another matter entirely. I have the suspicion that those who think all material things are evil have more a problem with their own idea of God than with what He has made.

So how do we reconcile the two or is it just an excuse to live with what we want while thinking we’re still okay? If so much of this life is transitory, is it really a Christian idea to say that we should enjoy and even celebrate them? The answer is a thunderous ‘yes.’ Even while appreciating and perhaps even missing the things we once had, we can be grateful that they were once ours even if it was fleeting. We can truly enjoy the beautiful things of life and maintain a proper perspective on how long they will last or at least be ours. The key to this is to read the words of Ecclesiastes in the light of the Gospel. Enjoy and celebrate the grace of the present while honestly viewing how transitory these very moments are.

And we don’t like that, do we? We’d much rather build and hoard for the future even at the expense of the present. Many of the better things we want come from a place of dissatisfaction with what we have or sadness at what we have lost. This is the truest definition of greed. And there are poor people who are far more greedy than the wealthiest CEO. Being rich is not bad in itself and being destitute is never a good thing. But the caution of the Gospel goes beyond these simple socialist platitudes. It says that God is worthy of respect and those who are cheap with Him do so at their own peril. And those whose desire for more closes their hearts and wallet to those who have less are really desecrating the temple of the living God.

No, we honor God in our service to those whose weakness reflects His own glory. So enjoy what you can with gratitude. Be ready – by grace – to let it go. But give God the best of what we have and who we are. That will be the riches of eternity that do not fail or fade and that you will not loose on an airplane.