Sunday Readings

Mercy Me

This is so strange. I know they say separation makes the heart grow fonder, but explain how that works. To be closer I cannot be so near. Alright, good fences may make good neighbors and, sure, house guests past a few days can become uncomfortable. But when we speak of God, can this be true? Does God really listen to the tax collector because he’s so rarely worshipping? Does God ignore the Pharisee who goes beyond what God asks us to do? Why be good if God listens more to the bad?

Do you notice that strange regard with which so many view the pagans of today? We are shunned to silence when some one is described as ‘more Christian than folks who go to Church.’ We hear this parable and leave saying that hypocrisy is worse than infidelity. Doing wrong is not half as bad as failing to be right. And all of these evaluations miss the singular point of the parable.

What distinguishes the prayer of these two extremes is a quality that is the only true starting point not just of prayer, but of love. This is the quality of meekness. It is the honest, humble and truest admission of the way things actually are. It is the strength of character brought under control and presented before God. The Pharisee was a good guy who tried to live and follow God’s word. The tax collector was a weasel who became a pawn of the oppressive Roman government for his own profit. But his prayer was meek because he knew what a slime he was. The Pharisee could find little in his comparison with others to lead him to that same place. And in this dichotomy, we find the content of prayer that pierces the heaven. This is the prayer of and for mercy.

Last week we considered praying for things and God answering or not our intercessions. But this mercy prayer is so much more. The loving kindness we pray for is no mere laundry list of wants and desires. It is a cry of the soul for the love we too often live without. It is a plea for redemption when we have sold ourselves short. Mercy makes right what we and the world have made wrong. The Pharisee needed to discover his need of it. The tax collector had to get a new job to keep it.

Some of our modern hymns love to congratulate ourselves for being who we are. The world tells us if we believe in ourselves we are unstoppable. The prayer of mercy is something quite different. It reigns in our overblown egos and worships a God greater than our accomplishments. It sees our needs and not our positive thinking. It is strong enough to be helpless before God. Mercy is counter-cultural when the culture orders us to be self-reliant, self-possessed and independent. The world says that when life has brought you to your knees, just stand up on your own. Mercy says that is the best place for you to be in order to rise.

Think about what you are doing here. You are before your God, calling upon Him as the creator of all things. You have to be strong enough to put away your fantasy of the supreme ego and admit that God, not you, controls the world. That takes a strength of soul to be humble. And from that place, our prayer is heard.

Sr. Faustina once said that those who have the greatest need for mercy also have the greatest right to it. This need is universal without exception. Fallen human nature does not know how to stand before God. Actually, that’s the problem. We try and stand on our own virtues when we should be on our knees. I remember hearing of a Church without kneelers because the pastor felt it was inappropriate for Christians to ‘grovel’ before God. Mercy says that those who love God know how strongly they need to do just that.

Sunday Readings

Without Ceasing

My nephew Jack clearly loves life. He thoroughly has enjoyed the year and a half he’s been given so far. It’s clear that things like sleep (as his parents will attest) keep him from experiencing all these great, new things. There’s just too much living to do. As time moves on, all babies loose a bit of this. Children get bored. Teenagers grow apathetic. Adults are caught in the ‘same old, same old.’ And yet we cling and fight to hold on to what we can. A favorite shirt, a broken toy, a ratty blanket – these are signs that we haven’t given up just yet. We are hounded by the fear that one day it will all be gone. The wallet stuffed with money will be empty. The strongest muscles will turn flabby. The dearest friend will move away. We want some things to be immobile and to resist both time and space. And despite our best efforts, these things and these relationships just float away. Persistence and perseverance can appear an empty promise from those who while urging them, can’t seem to live them.

When it comes to prayer, we often find this very true. In prayer God doesn’t seem to count our efforts too much. And because He doesn’t, we give up. Or we stop meaning it. As a child, I remember hearing certain names being prayed-for on the sick list. And then I briefly heard those same names on the deceased list. I guess God didn’t listen, did He? Persistence seemed of little value because despite our perseverance, things didn’t work out, did they? If we stayed with this one experience, God, we could say, failed. We may even go so far as to break off our relationship with Him and say that He just ‘wasn’t there for me’ when I needed Him. No one can honestly talk about God answering our prayers if we do not openly and fearlessly admit that not all our prayers are answered. That means that, yes, we can all be disappointed in prayer. God didn’t show up for work and we claim the right to fire Him. We can tell every one without regret that God does not always let us grab on to the life that, like Jack, once excited us.

And that is correct. But it is wrong to say that God does not always hear our prayers. And there is a difference. Moses held up his hands and the Israelites were winning. Joshua and Hur helped him so that Israel would win the day. In other words, God heard Moses’ prayer but not without the help of others. The unjust judge – who is totally unlike God – listens finally to the persistence of this annoying person – just to keep her quiet. Would a good God be less? Would a gracious God refuse a good thing because there was no one there to help? If prayer is a matter of getting what want (at the moment) from God, then yes, we have to annoy God into granting it. We have to do things in a certain way and follow through with the help of others in order to get our way. Here’s the fun part: Jesus never says this actually works. Persistence in prayer is so much more than nagging the Holy Trinity. And knowing that human tendency to hold on or give up, He asks if when all is said and done, will faith still be found?

We have to ask it of ourselves. In our desires through life, are we content that God often sees fit not to give us what we think is fulfilling? Do we believe in a God who gives us good things or a God who is goodness itself? Do keep asking for God’s healing more than a relationship with the source of Life? Do we really know the God who is the recipient of our prayers? God is not Santa Claus, the lottery or a rich uncle. God is God. I am amazed at folks who don’t know Him and yet are ready to blame Him for not giving them what they want. It’s like a complete stranger accusing you of stealing from them. But even religious people have to confront that their prayers seem to go unanswered. The difference is that the believer knows they are in fact heard. God does not always answer but He always listens. Morgan Freeman, in Deep Impact, says that ‘God always hears our prayers, even if the answer is no.’

It takes faith to say that and to believe that. We reach out and try to grab the good things of life like my nephew and we literally come up empty-handed. Do we stop and give up, pouting that we have been thwarted and denied by a conspiracy of opposition stemming from a capricious and cruel God? Or do we reach out, again and again, like a persistent toddler? That toddler has a natural faith that is persistent and perseveres despite a brief history of disappointment. A super-natural faith is no different.

Is that what Christ will find in us?

Sunday Readings

Thanks & Worship

Before long, every store, every yard, every catalogue will be filled with Christmas decorations and gift ideas. This used to start only when Thanksgiving had finished. Now it begins the day after Halloween or even earlier. Is this just pure greed? Or crass commercialization? Or is it something deeper? Let me toss out an idea here: All that makes up the pre-Christmas rush is an excuse for receiving gifts we will [mostly] never be grateful to have received and know that we have done nothing to deserve them. It can be our annual Personal Fundraiser and when it is, it has nothing to do with God.

Now don’t get me wrong; I love all the chintzy stuff and the tacky decorations. But as this whole thing gets earlier and earlier, it really does become a financial boom or bust based on the capricious finances of Santa Claus. And as it does, the Reason for the Season begins to get lost until God has nothing to do with it. You may be thinking, as you hear this, that I must have taken out the wrong homily or maybe I was looking at the readings for December. I’m right here in October and it is too warm for an autumn without the Yankees after last Monday night.

What we have here is all about gifts. These healing gifts are given in the First Reading and the Gospel. That’s the ‘gifting’ part of it. But the message has more to do with worship. The gift desired and received is appreciated only by worship. It is not a vague giving thanks as a feeling or feeling grateful. It is not the forced gratitude of a mandatory note to grandma for the bunny slippers. This gratitude goes to the heart and responds in the language of the soul, the words of worship. Naaman wants to take a bit of the Holy Land back with him so he can worship the God of Israel even in the land of other gods. The Samaritan kneels at the feet of the Master who is a foreigner to him. Their gratitude, highlighted by their membership outside the club of the chosen people, is expressed in adoration of God. Jesus notes that the others did not worship. They may have felt lucky or even thankful, but they never took the next step. Or perhaps, like Naaman originally tried, they would offer something other than their hearts as a payment for their healing. Before we being the anticipation of the ‘Holiday Season’, we are challenged to ask how do we respond to the gift of healing mercy and forgiveness.

Do we try and barter with God? Do we offer Him a prayer or two and leave it at that? Do we presume to be recipients of His grace as if we are owed it? Are we content to be in the Kingdom but feel little motivation to worship its King? Remember the thank-you from some one who understood the love that came with the gift you gave. Remember the deep gratitude you’ve felt when some one gave you something you really valued. That’s the gratitude of the scriptures. It’s a thankfulness that looses itself as it tries to communicate itself. It is the real thing. It has none of the trappings of the annual rush to create a ‘Christmas Magic’ that never existed but attempts to substitute for a real gift.

In the Book of Revelation, St. John sees heaven as an eternal jubilee of thanksgiving in worship of the redeeming Lamb of God. Gratitude of the heart is too big for mere words and needs to bow down in worship. That is why the Presence of Jesus Christ is so strongly communicated in the Eucharist because it is the Greatest Thanksgiving we can make. It is the greatest prayer in thanks for the greatest gift of all. What we get out of Mass depends on what we bring to church. If the Eucharist becomes for us a tired obligation and a real bore, it may be because we feel no need for thanks. But when we begin, just even begin, to appreciate the grace of God in our lives, we respond like Naaman, like the Samaritan, like people destined for the glorious company of saints on high.

And that is some future to be thankful for.

Sunday Readings

Increasing Faith

A few years ago, Cal Ripken was honored for something unusual in our world today. He was honored for showing up to work. A player with the Baltimore Orioles, the nation was impressed because he did what he was paid to do. His loyalty was rewarded by the acknowledgment that he was one of the few who did. We could say, in the most basic sense of the word, that Cal Ripken had faith in his team because he was loyal to his role on it. And this is a pretty good idea of what Jesus was trying to show His disciples.

Faith is a matter of loyalty before it embraces the Mystery. It is the most ordinary of things that most human beings can handle. For example, you have faith that the sun is rising on the other side of the world even if you can’t see it from here. Or you have faith that the lights will come on although you are not at the Con Ed plant running the generator. You have faith that your family loves you and that God exists. Most people can handle that. It’s got to be something more that the disciples are trying to reach. They asked for an increase in something more difficult.

Faith is a long-term thing. It is not instant nor are its rewards. Just because I say I believe in God does not make me immediately a saint. It is foolish at best and arrogant at worst to think that a person can admit there is a God and by that singular action, believe that every negative of life will be wiped away as if it never existed at all. That is what I call the “thermo-nuclear religion” that holds one brief, bright moment will change everything.

But how can we blame that? We live in a world without waiting. Banking, lotteries, marriages – all are instant. Why wouldn’t religion be as well? You hear it in the demand of the believer: ‘Don’t give me theology; give me Jesus!’ In other words, give me a faith without complications, without mystery, and give me the rewards of it here and now. And to be honest, who wouldn’t want that? Who wants to go through a spiritual adolescence if there is another way? We’d rather shine in a World Series moment of glory than schlep to work game after game. If every little thing we do well in the contemporary world demands a certificate and a parade, a daily faith with little fireworks is not going to be attractive.

Faith is a gift from God that finds its home in the human experience. And like so many other good things in life, it is something that requires time to grow. Here is the problem. Faith – in order to grow – requires patience. It requires that we suffer the needed time to mature. And this is a real suffering for people who can’t stand to wait. Patience is not our best quality and few of us do it well. So where do we find this faith that loyally stands at attention?

There is, needless to say, no quick fix here. But I think our model can only be God Himself. In His mercy, He allows us to grow and make mistakes. He more than tolerates us growing in grace as we move through the months and years. If we ask for an increase in faith, we are asking a powerful and bold thing. We are, in effect, asking to undergo the experience of patience. Imitating the patience of God Himself, we tolerate our frustrations and dry periods - and those of others. Faith is tested by life in the best way possible. It is proved true by all the falsehoods we create. And, guided by grace, we grow in loyalty to a God whose fidelity to us is absolute.

I know this all rather heady. It is ‘out there’ somewhere. Some folks never need to question their faith and others accept it simply as it is. But I think they are the few, graced souls not in the majority. Most of us have trouble just holding on to a basic loyalty to God never mind going deeper. But here’s the good news: God knows this. God really does know where we are in this faith journey. As long as we show up, as long as we try to be a part of this faith, God is working and leading us. Be grateful for where it has so led us and ask for grace for what lies ahead. But for now, leave your faith in God’s hands. Don’t worry where you are because in the Kingdom, you’re there already. It may be clear or hazy, feel strong or weak, but what matters most is that we have been brought by grace into this relationship with a patient and loving God. And that alone is a faith to move mountains.