Sunday Readings

Face Value

In that great classic, Citizen Kane, the mystery of ‘Rosebud’ – Kane’s last word – is solved when the sled he played with as a child is thrown into the fire. Amid all the accumulated treasures of the wealthiest man in the world, this beat-up toy was his most valued possession. The tragedy of the story is one of a man looking for what he could never buy. On the other hand, Charlie finds the golden ticket in the slightly creepy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and has the treasure given to him. And then there’s Lance Armstrong who found a strength within him that was honed and disciplined by his experience of cancer. These are all stories of those who sought, worked for and received what they treasured. They are wonderful examples of the three images of the Kingdom we find in today’s Gospel. And the message of the Kingdom preached by Jesus is the announcement that hope is now not a happy wish for a really great future. It is the badge of honor lived by those who are reborn in grace.

If our expectations of life can be quite grand, God’s are simply unreasonable. He sees a potential in us that we find hard to believe. He has given us a life that is no treasure hunt but a banquet of seemingly unlimited selections. But as Maime once said, and I’ll clean it up a bit, life is “a buffet and most poor souls are starving to death.” The pearl of great price just doesn’t fit in with our rhinestone collection. We don’t like the location of the field and miss the buried riches. We haul ashore the great catch of fish and lament that it is too much work. We are fickle in a self-destructive way. But thankfully God shows us the great opportunities of each day when we dare to include Him in the schedule. When are hearts are directed and our minds disposed to the will of God, all things really do work out to our benefit.

For example, waking up in the morning. We can stop right there. Another 24 hours given for living. Each day is a blank paper ready to be written. Whether work or vacation, it is the present moment bursting with possibility. Another example is the people in our life. Everyone of them – family, friend or foe – is there by the providential will of God. Even the creeps who stole my GPS and iPod are there because God allows it. And you can object that this is merely an opiate. You can say that the desire for the good can change our view of reality to make it so. And that is the accusation always cynically leveled against the optimist – by the pessimist anyway.

But seeking the treasure is no shallow optimism. In God’s Kingdom, there is always something of great value among all that we can call worthless. That’s how sinners are converted. Without this ‘divine optimism’ no could do good because we all do wrong. No one could change, no one improve. We would be subject to the unending tyranny of popular opinion and public morality. What is important in life would be subject only to each individual in the world. There would be no buried treasure because we would not treasure what we cannot see or hold. We would not value a pearl if we did not have it to begin off with. We’d never believe that hard work would pay off in the end.

But God says there is a value to and in life. Maybe it’s not what we would select but it is what God has chosen. It is the peace in midst of suffering and deep gratitude when things go well. It is knowing the nearness of God when comfort seems so far away. It is the joy of being accepted among friends God has given. It takes a God’s-eye view to readjust our thinking especially when there is so much and so many telling us what is and is not valuable. No ‘Top 10’ list will ever tell God what’s ‘in’ and what’s not.

One of the great messages of today’s Gospel is that we should never take anything or any one at face value. I don’t mean that cynically but optimistically. God is working even if our limited understanding can’t see it. A generous God is never cheap. No experience is without the opportunity of grace provided that we have chosen to receive it. Discovering that is a true gift and the key to all others.

And it is one that is worth it all.

Sunday Readings

Good Enough

You sometimes hear disappointed people say that they “expected better.” In some cases, they have some justification. On the other hand, too often they expected something other than what is reasonable. Sure we have high expectations and we should. That is how we improve our lives and our world. We are spurred on to more and can make life better for others. But we defeat ourselves by the strange way we envision a perfect job, a perfect family and even a perfect soul.

But isn’t that goal of all this religion? Shouldn’t we at least make the effort to be without sin or anything else that is not of God? Well, before you go out partying like you never have before, let’s consider this Gospel. The wheat is mixed in with the weeds. We can all admit that there is good and evil in the world. We may not like it, but there is bad in there with the good. The best of intentions are sullied with the worst of ego and selfishness. Hearing the call of God must mean that these lesser qualities need to be uprooted through discipline and self-denial. Yes, we must avoid and cease sinful behaviors and stop making excuses for them. But we still have to deal with the underlying causes. We see the temptations and desires within us that seem to inspire our imperfections and we have the same urge as the worker in the Gospel today. If we dare to try our faith, we are horrified at our own weakness. We are shocked that we would even think we could do something that bad. After all, we expected more.

I hope this doesn’t sound too negative. Actually, I’m hoping it’s the opposite. If we expected a pure goodness in every aspect of our thinking and acting, we’d be on a fool’s quest. No seminar, no religion will ever be able to accomplish that. Nor should it. Regardless of how zealous or enthusiastic, the worker is ordered to do the opposite. The worker is told by the Master not to pull up the bad so completely that the good is ruined in the process. The worker is told to be something we are not very good at. We are told to be tolerant of ourselves.

Tolerance is extolled as a modern virtue. It usually means putting up with others and what they do in name of civil harmony even if we have to pretend that we like it. Actually, it is the hallmark of civilization. Tolerance in the Christian sense goes a bit deeper. It doesn’t have to like what is unlikable. It doesn’t call what is bad good or what is good, bad. It listens rather to the harvest Master who allows the bad in order to save the good. This is divine tolerance, a sacred patience. God permits the evil of life but never condones it. This permission is for freedom of soul. It is liberty to be human not license to be a wrong-doer. God is the master and we are the workers. He knows that our misguided attempts at unreasonable perfection can be hurtful to ourselves and others. We can too easily pull up the good while trying to root out the bad. To put it another way, we can throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The Master says, “leave it be for now. I value the good over the bad. I will let it go for now in a merciful hope that grace will be stronger.” This is the mercy of a God big enough to allow us to make a mistake. We worship a God so holy that He can see our humanity with all its beautiful dreams and horrible nightmares. Christmas is our proof of that.

So go easy among all the rough spots. Don’t be shocked at your faults because you have no right to be. God knows them AND God loves you. He doesn’t love the flawless you or the most perfect you. That person does not exist in this world. Maybe in the next - but certainly not here. The real humanity we share is what St. Augustine called a corpus mixta – a mixed body. Angels are pure good, demons are pure evil. We are neither. And it is this inconsistent, imperfect and often unreliable humanity that God loved so much He shared in it Himself.

And if it was good enough for God, it must be good enough for us. Do the best you can but don’t try and be the best. God already is and is merciful enough not expect us to be. He is content just to love us.

Sunday Readings

Whatawaste

A few days ago, I was up north and passed a series of farms. They had already been cut and harvested. The next crop was already growing in. Was it fruitful and bountiful? Well, you’d be asking the wrong person. I have no idea of these things. But I see another field, if you will. I hear stories of those who once sat in Church or went to a school. I see their Facebook pages and discover what jobs they have. I even see some of their names and faces on the evening news. And this is not my experience alone. I hear it from other priests, from teachers, community leaders and a host of others whose life work is to influence the lives of others. It does not take long to ask the question the listeners of this Gospel must have asked – was it a waste? Where’s the product? When we look at all the activity of the Church, we wonder if it is all for nothing. When we consider the care of the sick and elderly we as a church or a family provide for both loved ones and unloved ones, is worth it?

From our earliest experiences, we are evaluated. As babies, we learn to act for the happy response of parents as we negotiate the difficult path of eating with a spoon. We are trained to work and look for a certain grade over another. We crave the notice our boss and the proof of it in a paycheck. So it would be natural to see our faith through the same lens.

And many do; many take it personally. It is an occupational hazard for anyone who takes seriously the Gospel call to bring the Good News to the world. The small band of disciples who followed Jesus were so limited and seemingly ineffective. We can change the packaging of the Gospel only so much to try and reach others. We can sing a different tune but have to remain faithful to the original lyrics. But it remains the common Christian experience that not everyone believes even with the best of efforts to introduce them to grace.

Sure some efforts seem to pay off if only in the short term. We say that it’s better than nothing, right? Like a pastor thrilled that the Church is packed on Christmas and Easter, that’s a start - he thinks - but the next week proves how deep it was. And then there are those glorious moments when we see a deep and long fidelity that clearly is not dependent on situations. These are the souls who know the glory of God in good times as well as bad.

These are a contemporary version of the four types of soil in the Gospel today. We often are called to ask what type of soil are we as we hear the message of Jesus Christ. This is a good self-examination. But maybe we can look at another aspect tied to our receptivity as well. Perhaps we can put ourselves in the place of the sower and discover our wasteful God.

From our productivity point of view, God is wasteful. He throws His grace and love in all directions. He shows mercy to the repentant scoundrel and showers His goodness on people who never think of Him. And to make matters worse, He asks us to do the same. He calls us to be kind to the nasty. He asks us to forgive those who have no intention of ceasing their vicious behavior. He gives us the command to be as wasteful as Himself. His word goes forth like the rain and it accomplishes what He alone has intended for it. The problem is ours. We have other ideas and they’re really quite good, thank you very much. It’s just pretty clear that they happen to not be the ones God has chosen to act upon.

So what do we do? How do engage in a crusade that is not going to work?

Again, all this is from the human point of view. What we are really dealing with is a matter of faith. As Mother Theresa taught us, God is looking for fidelity, not success. The growth and the product are His and His alone. We are appointed to the work – that’s all. Like the sower, we put our hand in the seed-bag, toss, and move on. We do not look back or forward but concentrate on the moment. Regret is the luxury of those who have a right to do so. Worry is the domain of those who have the power to bring the future into reality. We are not God and are supposed to do what we are given.

Yes, we use the intelligence and ability that God has given us but we never confuse them with the power to make grace happen. It is humbling to work under these conditions. We have to surrender our best as we are called to what we think is useless. We have no problem admitting there is a God; we just have difficulty figuring out what He’s doing. Faith is the call to let God be God. It is the challenge to do what is best without seeing how it all works out. We reach out to others in faith and put it all in God’s hands. And by the sheer goodness of God, we try to see “what is incomplete is completely in His hands.”

The Jesuits have a great saying: “pray as if it all depended on God and work as if it all depended on you.” This is a good description of the sower’s mission. It equally all depends on God and on us. How and who and why are His alone.

And in those moments when we are discouraged by what we can think is little more than a complete waste of time, just remember one thing. We are people of faith because others may have thought the same thing. We stand on the shoulders of discouraged giants and – by grace – we join them.

Sunday Readings

Rest

While one of people’s favorite readings from the Gospel, today we can see a truly practical application. This is the July 4th weekend and millions are actively engaged in the attempt to do nothing. All the parties and planning are aimed at relaxation and celebration, ostensibly in honor of our nation’s providential foundation. But here’s the thing: many will neither relax nor celebrate. Stores are hawking sales and home improvement projects. Cars are caught in traffic burning expensive gasoline. And before you know it, it will be the ‘back to school season’ and the World Series. Few would call this or any other holiday weekend, “refreshing.”

But we are a society, we are a world, deeply in need of refreshment. Whether we live or observe harried modern lives, we have to admit that busy is not always better. We are not advanced by doing too much. And our expectations for traditional places and events of recreation have been transformed into electronic and instant encounters of gratification. No wonder we need more long weekends. We need vacations to recover from our vacations.

Have you ever heard Sunday as being a ‘day of rest’? Tell that to a soccer mom or a hockey dad! Tell that to a family that plans home renovation or students who have homework! So it is obvious that if we cannot take a day off we can’t be very good at taking a few more. If that is the present state of things, should this homily be a diatribe again a modern pace of life or the Christian expenditure of leisure time? Actually I hope not because refreshment is not a matter of schedule. It is a matter of the soul.

Jesus invites His disciples to come to Him and be refreshed. He is, by His own words, “meek and humble of heart” and that is where, how and why we will find rest. If our faith is to touch and form all the areas of our life, than our need for refreshment has to be open to this. But like the vacations we find so exhausting, we have to redefine what we are talking about. It’s never easy to apply even the best of wisdom to the care of the soul but we need to try. We need the rest.

Jesus says that He is ‘meek’. We hear this word and think of a doormat. It can be seen as that sweet and timid disposition that allows others to take advantage of us. But the word really means a strength of character under self-control. It’s like the power of one of those flash floods of a few inches that can move an 18-weeler. Meekness is a conviction rooted in the soul that has decided what is central and important. It is the control of desires and ego that allows us to do God’s will and receive His blessings.

Humility, another characteristic of the Savior, is the acceptance of reality as it really is. It is the most reasonable of expectations and the appreciation of the best of things as they are. It allows us to focus on the grace of the present moment instead of mourning or lamenting what is not. Humility rejoices in a relaxing sail on a little Sunfish without crying that we do not have a 76-foot yacht. It is rejoicing in the roasted chicken and not angry that it is not filet mignon.

Jesus offers us refreshment of soul and not merely a break from the daily routine. To make the deep decision to accept it and to realistically receive it is a peace we know by grace. With all the media selling us and telling us what we need to relax, Christ is off us something more. Faith calls us to declare our personal independence from the wearing and destructive stresses that burden our souls. The refreshment of grace is offered to us who too often are heavily laden with anxieties and sins.

I’m sure that some will think that this has been a pious reflection on spiritual comfort and consolation. That’s true, but when we think of the cardio-vascular and other physiological effects of stress on the human body, this is clearly not “out-there” or irrelevant. We are grateful to live in a nation that was founded on the freedom of each person to live – protected by law – in the liberty of pursuing the goods of life. True refreshment of soul is one of these. In Christ, we find it if we choose it. And in that freedom we pray:

Jesus meek and humble of heart,
Make our hearts like unto Thine.

And, heatfully we pray, God bless America