Musings about Jesus

Gospel: Luke 9: 7-9

Herod is curious about Jesus.  He has heard a lot of things from various places about Jesus.  Herod considers a variety of theories.  He hears from some that John has been raised from the dead.  Others say Jesus is Elijah or one of the prophets.  Herod keeps trying to see Jesus, but from behind the walls of his palace, not out in villages where Jesus is.  When Herod finally does see him, Jesus is under arrest and will say nothing at all to Herod.  

How similar we are to Herod!  We have proposed all sorts of theories and theologies about Jesus.  We have reconstructed and re-created his life - all of which carefully crafted to suit our preconceptions and biases.  We have spun all these webs from within the safety of our own palace walls.  We say that we are eager to encounter Jesus, as long as it is in a warm fuzzy experience or in the tabernacle where we have placed God in a box.  

Jesus is found in the villages outside our palace.  He is healing sick people, liberating people from their demons, feeding people at table.  Jesus is the sick person, the prisoner, the poor and marginalized, the immigrant and refugee, the average person on the street - all people we seek to avoid.  Today is a day for us to leave our palaces both physical and mental in order to find Jesus in the same places we found him in the Gospels.

To Cure and Heal

Gospel: Luke 9: 1-6

Jesus sends out his disciples to undertake a simple mission - to cure people of their infirmities and heal them of diseases of all kinds.  The mission is the same one in which Jesus has been engaged, a mission that involves direct encounter with people in their homes, the marketplaces of villages, the fields and seashores where they work, and on the margins where outcasts are consigned.  In short, Jesus goes out and meets people wherever they are in order to heal and cure.  

In this work we have no permanent home and no possessions either.  We are to be utterly dependent on the hospitality of others and the providence of God.  Does all this resemble in any way the work of the modern church?  Nowadays the focus of "mission" is filling pews and financial coffers, and we have a great dependence on a vast array of possessions that we find necessary to complete the "mission."  We measure success of the mission in attendance data and financial reports.

This Gospel portion strikes the modern person as quaint.  We do not take it seriously at all.  Yet the original disciples and the early church did take it seriously, for it was the way Jesus himself lived and undertook his mission while on earth.  When we replace direct encounter with others with performative liturgy and mass media people become an abstraction and transactional agents rather than images of God and the neighbor we are called to be with in their hopes and fears, in their joys and sorrows. 

What Matters

First Reading: Proverbs 21: 1-6, 10-13   Gospel: Luke 8: 19-21

Today's readings dispel two very popular false beliefs in religion.  The first is the idea that our sacrifices and liturgical performances are the most important things in the spiritual life - that these are the key to salvation.  The first reading reminds us that it is doing good, being merciful and loving to the poor and needy is what matters most in the life of religion.  Our sacrifices and liturgies only matter if they help a person to do good and show mercy to others.

The second false idea is that lineage back to Jesus, either through blood lines or some unbroken tradition, is what matters in our salvation.  Jesus rejects this idea, stating quite plainly that what matters is doing the will of God - performing the deeds of mercy and loving kindness toward others - is what matters in life.  These blood ties and apostolicity only prove ancestry.  They say nothing at all as to whether you are a good person or not.  

A great many people who put their trust in liturgical finery and tracing links back to Jesus malign the poor and marginalized, create large numbers of migrants and refugees that they then spurn and reject.  So many who talk of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist deny his presence in other human beings.  The primary presence of God on earth and God's primary temple is in every human being.  To show mercy and loving kindness to others is the authentic liturgy and worship of God in the world.