Becoming Like God

Gospel: Matthew 6: 7-15

In our first parents' fall from paradise, the serpent tempted them by saying they would become like gods if they ate of the fruit, having knowledge of good and evil.  The sin was not in becoming like God but in the particular attributes of God we seek.  The desire for omnipotence and omniscience are what we desire and it leads to our ruin.  

But our life is indeed to become like God, and if God is love then our becoming like God is to love as God has loved us.  The point of our prayer life is precisely this. In giving us a prayer to say Jesus repeats and emphasizes its core message: to be merciful as God has been merciful to us.  This is how we are to be like God - by extending his mercy outward to others in the world, by forgiving others and providing others with the material works of mercy that is our judgment day charge.  

If we are honest with ourselves, our emphasis in the Lord's prayer is in God giving us daily bread and leading us not into temptation - God doing things for us.  But that is not the emphasis Jesus puts on the prayer.  In this season of mercy given to us we recommit ourselves to this way of selfless love that Jesus provides and is.   

The Final Exam

Gospel: Matthew 25: 31-46

The final exam is not a catechism quiz.  It is not a membership qualification check, nor is it based on attendance at or adherence to particular liturgical expressions.  In fact, it is not even based on belief in God or not.  The final exam is based solely on on whether we have or have not loved our neighbor in specific, concrete ways: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned, welcoming the stranger.

What is more, this love is to be directed to every human being, for all our brothers and sisters, for all are children of God made in his image and likeness.  To attempt a distinction in order to exclude another from love is to fail this final examination.  There are no worthy and unworthy, friend or enemy, citizen or alien.  There are just people whom God loves and whom God requires us to love.

The fact that Christian life is concentrated so little on these elements of the final exam and so much on other things tells us all we need to know about the decline of faith in the world.  We may look for bogeymen and scapegoats, but it is we who are the goats, and not in the good way.  Lent is our time to refocus on what really matters and put aside that which is peripheral.  

The Daily Struggle

Gospel: Matthew 4: 1-11

"The desert is not big enough for two." - Nikos Kazantzakis

The desert represents the world in its totality and full reality.  It is a harsh place of struggle; it is also the place of ultimate encounter with God.  The desert cannot be avoided; it must be entered in order to encounter God.  In both the life of Israel and Jesus this truth had a geographical reality to it: from Egypt to Israel, from Galilee to Jerusalem one has to pass through the desert in order to arrive at the place of ultimate encounter with God.

The trials in the desert are not one time only events; it is a daily encounter that we must ultimately face alone and by ourselves.  Yes, we have the community of the Church with us, but fundamentally each one of us must face this struggle ourselves, face this encounter with God alone.  Religion is only a preparation for this encounter; it is not the encounter itself, for the encounter takes place within each individual person.  

The forty days of Lent remind us that the encounter with God in the desert is a daily occurrence, that God alone is our source of support and strength in the struggles and trials of the desert.  "The desert is not big enough for two" - we must go there, like Jesus, alone, relying solely on God in this harsh place. 

The Call - It's For You!

Gospel: Luke 5: 27-32

Imagine being Levi in today's Gospel.  You are at your daily routine: your work, your everyday life.  Some of your activity is good and just; some of it very much not.  Your particular brand of sin is despised by many other people.  But along comes this rabbi Jesus and he asks you to follow him - no conditions, no prerequisites, just go and follow him.  So you do.  Later that day you find yourself hosting a dinner for Jesus and all sorts of people come at your invitation - people just like you.  

All of them come and dine with Jesus; none are excluded.  They come for different reasons and motives. Some share in your joy; others are curious and want to know more.  Yet, all are fed.  Even Pharisees who despise you come and they raise objections to you and all these others dining with Jesus.  You observe Jesus defending you all; it is only the Pharisees who find themselves unchanged by the meal with Jesus.  

This scene is not hard to imagine.  It is church on Sunday.  People come for all sorts of reasons to encounter Jesus.  Some are joyous and repentant; others are curious; still others think they're the only ones who deserve to be there.  Yet all are fed, all encounter the mystery of the Lord.  And as long as the relationship and encounters continue, change and transformation can happen in our lives.  So we continue to come - to maintain the relationship, to hope for transformation in our lives, to follow the Lord imperfect though we be. 

When You Fast

Gospel: Matthew 9: 14-15

 "When the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast." But when is it that we are not in the presence of the Bridegroom? Did Jesus not say that he would be with us until the end of time? Is not God present in the world at all times by God's very nature?  The kingdom of God is undoubtedly in our midst even now.  If this is the case, when, then, should we fast, if ever?

God is ever in our midst, but are we in God's presence? When we sin we remove ourselves from God's presence, and we feel this absence in our hearts and souls.  It is at these times that we must fast.  But in what does this fast consist? As the prophet Isaiah states, the primary fast is to abstain from sin: to put away injustice, to care for the poor and needy, banish oppression, and care for our own - and all people are our own!

This fast is not merely a seasonal activity: we are to abstain from sin at all times, and we are to continually go about performing the deeds of justice and mercy.  For sin is ever a reality in our lives; it is our constant struggle and enemy.  The season of Lent is a reminder; it is like spring training in baseball, getting us ready for an entire year of striving to win in the spiritual life through intense practice and discipline.

The Way of Selfless Love

Gospel: Luke 9: 22-25

Christianity is divided because many of its adherents have adopted the Gospel of self-interest.  One version of this Gospel is that of personal salvation and the acquisition of merits.  Here, the Christian life is like a Pac-Man game where we gobble up pellets of merit in order to achieve personal salvation for ourselves.  The cross is merely a symbol of vicarious sufferings we impose on ourselves to acquire more merit for ourselves.  It is entirely a self-directed approach to the Christian life that bears no resemblance at all to the life of Jesus.

Another version of the self-interested Gospel has the appearance of care for others.  It preaches a message of organizing people and money for political power to affect change in the world.  It asks us to advocate for the self-interest of affected groups but for the purpose of acquiring political power and influence with little mention at all of the common good of all people.  It too bears little resemblance to the life of Jesus.

Today's Gospel and the season of Lent are a reminder that the Christian life is an invitation to two things: to repentance in accepting the mercy of God in our lives, and to become an instrument of God's mercy in the world, a life of loving service and care for others that has no concern for self but only in the good for all people.   

Wearing the Ash

Gospel: Matthew 6: 1-6; 16-18

Ash Wednesday is here again, a day when many attend church services and are eager both to receive ashes and to display them for all the world to see.  It is a way of telling others that we have been to church today, that we are faithful Christians who have done our duty to begin the season of Lent as we ought.  All this in spite of Jesus' command in today's Gospel: keep your works of mercies in secret.

And what is more, the ashes do not at all signify that we are faithful Christians, but rather that we are not! To receive ashes today is to acknowledge that we are sinners, that we are ever in need of God's mercy, and that we are to be an instrument of God's mercy to others in the world.  It is to remember that we are mortal, that one day we will die and that our bodies - of which we are so enamored and preoccupied -  will return to dust and ashes.   

Today begins a season of recommitment to the works of mercy, a deepening of mercy that should ever be a part of our Christian life.  What we give up in fasting we are to give to the poor, and what we atone for in our lives we may have forgiveness and mercy toward others.  

Tree Fort Theology

Gospel: Mark 9: 30-37 

If a neighborhood has a tree fort, inevitably children will create a club for this tree fort.  They will define membership as to who belongs and who does not, and for a while they will have meetings in the club.  And just as inevitably the club will come to dissolution over who is in charge and who is most important.  Based on this dispute, the membership rules will be modified to exclude those on the opposite side of the dispute, and further splintering will make the original club nonexistent.  

Does all this sound familiar? In today's Gospel Jesus rebukes his disciples for having this very dispute as to who was most important, a dispute that will be repeated in every time and place in Church life.  Is it any wonder people do not take the life of religion seriously when most of our energy is devoted to the retention of power and so little to the work of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus went about caring for those in need and solely for that purpose.  He avoided crowds and commanded no one spread news about the miracles he performed.  The miracles were solely for the help of those in need.  If we imitate the work of the Lord Jesus and devote ourselves entirely to the care and love of others, then the disputes of the self-important will not consume us and lead us to ruin.  

Idolatry of Self

Gospel: Mark 9: 14-29

Jesus comes down from the mount of the transfiguration and encounters a crowd engaged in conversation.  A boy possessed by a demon is unable to be cured by Jesus' disciples, and a frantic father is desperate for a cure for him.  How similar is this scene to the one about the Golden Calf! Jesus goes away to the mountain and right away the disciples fail.

The disciples are unable to heal the boy because they forgot the source of all healing lies in God alone.  They relied on their own abilities and person, which always and everywhere leads to ultimate failure and the demons remain among us.  Jesus rebukes everyone in the story for their lack of faith.  It is only the father of the boy who recognizes his failure in this area and begs for an increase in faith.  

How often does this happen in our individual and communal lives! How many people go without help because of our indifference or smug discipleship that relies on personal charisma or charm and none at all in faith and love? If we rely on paid independent consultants to decide whether and how to help people, then healing will not take place, and the demons will remain among us.  To imitate the Lord Jesus is the only way to healing and salvation for all. 

Love and Communion

Gospel: Matthew 5: 38-48

In the commandment to love our neighbor there has been the continual human tendency to exclude people from this requirement.  Often it is based on race, or creed, or hatreds, or biases, or many other categories we invent to exclude someone from God's communion.  But Jesus makes clear that neighbor means whoever is near you, and since we are all children of the one God then we are all brothers and sisters and so everyone is near us, everyone must be loved by us.

Even so we continue to invent ways to exclude people from God's love and our own.  We continually hear the calls to exclude people from communion, and the practice of excommunication is still practiced - this in spite of the fact that Jesus ate at table with all sorts of people: prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, Pharisees, lawyers, Judas himself.  Apparently we know better than Jesus as to who is in communion and who is not.

But let us take heart that in spite of the behavior of humans we can never be separated from God's love.  Even when we sin and fall from grace God is ever wandering the highways and byways in search of his prodigal, the feast ever at the ready.  For God is forever and always love itself, and we who seek to be divinized and transformed into God must strive always to be this love in the world. 

Our Transfiguration

Gospel: Mark 9: 2-13

Mount Tabor is a very steep ascent that overlooks a verdant green valley known as the field of Armageddon.  For centuries this field has been the anticipated climactic battlefield between Israel and its enemies, the place where the Messiah would once and for all vanquish the enemies of God's people and restore the kingdom of Israel.  This is, in fact, what Jesus does for us in this scene of the Transfiguration.

On Mount Tabor we come to see Jesus as he truly is - his real identity and meaning.  We also, in seeing Moses and Elijah - come to see the entire Biblical tradition in its proper light in Jesus.  Mount Tabor is the place of our transfiguration, our divinization, the place where our enemy is conquered.  For our enemy is ourselves, not anyone else, and we conquer through this steep ascent up the mountain to encounter the Lord.  

Once we have experienced this transfiguration and divinization we are more ready to return down the mountain to continue on in Jesus' ministry of mercy extended outward to others.  We are ready to help others ascend the mountain so that they too might be transfigured and divinized, ready to engage in this work of love and mercy.   

Bearing the Cross

Gospel: Mark 8: 34- 9: 1

It has been said that there are as many Christianities as there are people, that we all seek to make God in our own image and likeness.  No doubt this statement is true, especially in light of today's Gospel wherein Jesus makes it clear that one cannot be a follower of his without taking up the cross for themselves and bearing its burden in their own lives.

Crosses are an ever present symbol.  They are in churches, homes, and on our person as jewelry.  But we see the cross as something for Jesus, something he did so that we did not have to endure it.  This idea gives us license to create a Christianity of our own making, one that caters to our self-interest, that endorses our biases, preferences, political beliefs, and need to have all things our way.  

But the Lord Jesus took the form of a slave and endured the death of a slave upon a cross likely built by a slave.  He calls us to be slaves and to endure the cross of slavery as well - to be servants of mercy in the world.  To accept the cross is to accept the mercy of God for our sins, and to become the mercy of God extended outward to others in a life of selfless service and love. 

Something Completely Different

Gospel: Mark 8: 27-33

So much of Church life and the professional evangelizing industry is all about proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah and the self-promotion of the Church to the world.  It is a world where money and power are pursued and pushed toward ourselves in this constant cycle of self-promotion and shouting of Jesus name in the public square through TV ads and media empires.  

But then we read today's Gospel.  Jesus asks us who we say he is.  We say, "The Messiah," and he replies in the affirmative.  But then he strictly orders us to tell no one.  Tell no one that Jesus is the Messiah.  What are we to do? We've been conditioned to believe that's what Christianity is all about.  But we are wrong and we now have to reimagine what it is to be the Church.

What would it look like if we actually lived as Jesus asked: to seek repentance, to accept the mercy of God, and to then go and be mercy to others in the world through a life of loving-kindness and caring deeds? What if, instead of teaching people to say who Jesus is to actually live as Jesus lived, to teach others about how to live a life of mercy extended outward to others?  The simple reality is that judgment day is not a catechism quiz; it is a reflection on how much we have loved.   

Zero Advertising Budget

Gospel: Mark 8: 22-26

In today's Gospel Jesus performs a remarkable deed.  On the surface of things another healing seems like an everyday occurrence for Jesus, but the way in which this story unfolds is what is remarkable.  First, a crowd brings a blind man for Jesus to heal.  Jesus then takes the man away from the crowd and, alone with the man, performs the healing.  He then instructs the man to tell no one and to not even go back into town.

Time and again we find Jesus commanding us to tell no one about our healing.  We are not to make a spectacle of these things.  We are not to have elaborate media empires or Super Bowl ads.  The only response Jesus asks of us is to be a humble servant who is an extension of God's mercy to others in the world.  We ourselves are to show mercy to others through our care and love of others.

If we follow the advice of Jesus, then real transformation and change take place within us and within the world.  We are set free from the bonds of selfishness and vanity, and so are others.  But if we choose the path of spectacle, crowds are created along with cults of personality.  Ego and self-interest are perpetuated and no transformation at all occurs - just another spectacle to be exploited for gain.  Let us choose the path of Jesus and heed his command to remain humble in life of mercy given as gratitude for mercy. 

Shopping Tips from Jesus

Gospel: Mark 8: 14-21

Avid shoppers know that not all products are created equal.  Some are of better quality than others, and a wise shopper will know over time through experience which products to buy and which ones to avoid.  That same shopper will also know which stores are more reliable and trustworthy to patronize and which ones are not to be patronized because they cheat their customers and provide poor quality products.  

Today Jesus gives us a bit of shopping advice when it comes to yeast, here meaning the motivation for providing food for others.  The Pharisees and Herod provide food for people, but their motivation for doing so is to ingratiate themselves with the masses, to elicit their support in order to consolidate power and exert control over people.  That must never be the yeast or motivation of followers of the Lord Jesus.  Our motivation must always be for the good of others alone with no considerations of self-interest on our part at all.

Love alone must be the guiding star and principle of genuine care and outreach to others.  That is the good yeast that leads to authentic transformation.  The yeast of self-interest is illusory: it is puffed up but it has no staying power and will eventually flatten and disappoint.  Always seek after the good stuff, the yeast Jesus provides that raises everyone up and leaves no one behind. 

Here's Your Sign: Stop!

Gospel: Mark 8: 11-13

People come to Jesus all the time - in our day as well as his own - seeking a sign, some spectacle and wonder that will cause them to believe in God.  But this is not faith.  It is an insecure person who wants to continually be reassured of their own belief system through entertainment religion.  It is holding God hostage to our own need for sparkly shiny things.  It is an attitude of selfishness that has nothing to do with authentic faith and religion.

All of us have already received the one miracle necessary: the forgiveness and mercy of God in the person of Jesus.  This sign is both necessary and sufficient; everything else will pass away.  But Jesus has one condition for us in giving this gift of mercy to us: we ourselves must become instruments of mercy in the world.  We must show mercy to others by concrete acts of care and love for others.  If we live this life of mercy extended to others, then we will indeed see wonderful and marvelous things.  We will see reconciliation, forgiveness, and an outpouring of love that will transform the world.

If we ask for signs, Jesus will not give signs to us.  But if we seek to be the sign, the sign of mercy and reconciliation in the world, then that will be given to us and we will see marvelous things indeed.  A selfish faith can never see signs.  Only a faith that is selfless and given for others can see the wonders God has in store for a life of mercy.

The Real War

Gospel: Matthew 6: 17-37

Little boys love playing war and soldier.  How often will we find them pretending to be fighting off enemies, making gun and explosion sounds as they fight on in a war they believe to be all too real.  Those young boys grow up and invent real wars that are in themselves just as illusory as the ones they created at age five.  We imagine people far away from us as our enemy when in fact they are not.  We create culture wars at home with another set of enemies that in reality are not so.

We do this because we do not wish to fight the real war, the only one that matters, the one that makes us realize that we are the enemy of ourselves.  It is the battle within our very hearts and souls from where arise all sorts of evils.  We can claim to keep the commandments because we have not killed anyone or committed adultery.  But Jesus asks us: who among you has not had murderous thoughts about one's neighbor, who among you has not had lustful thoughts about a man or a woman?  Now the room grows quiet...

It is much easier to wage vicarious imitation wars against imagined enemies than it is to wage war within ourselves, to admit that we are the enemy, we the ones who need to be conquered, we the ones who must submit to the Lord.  Today we are reminded of where the real war lies, and who the real enemy is.  Let us not be distracted by all the false wars, but instead let us wage the real one, the only one that matters.   

Feed Others, Literally

Gospel: Mark 8: 1-10

It is true that Scripture contains multiple senses in which to interpret a text, though the literal sense remains the most fundamental.  When another sense comes to eclipse and replace entirely the literal sense, we can be pretty sure that we are far afield of what we are meant to be doing in that passage.  Such is the case with today's Gospel reading.

The only times Jesus ever asks us to give everything we have is in caring for the immediate needs of others: spend yourselves to the point of exhaustion healing and caring for others, give all the food you have to feed the hungry.  We are not to look and see if what we have is sufficient to meet the need; we are to feed others in a very literal sense.  What we have is never enough, but if we give all God's miraculous work will make it sufficient for all.

This passage does indeed have Eucharistic elements to it, though sadly many will take that sense alone and spiritualize the passage, giving allowance to those who would neglect and ignore the needs of the poor in our world.  If we cannot see Christ present in the poor and hungry, we cannot claim to see Christ in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine.  If our participation in the Eucharist does not bring us closer to others and more avid in providing for their needs, we partake of the Lord's table unworthily.  

We, the Deaf and Mute

Gospel: Mark 7: 31-37

Today's encounter between Jesus and the deaf man with a speech impediment is like many other healing stories.  Jesus heals the man of his infirmity and then orders everyone not to speak about it to anyone.  This encounter today, however, comes with a touch of irony.  Consider: a man unable to hear or speak has as the first thing he hears a command not to speak about this event in his life.  

But it was not just the man who received this command.  Everyone else in the crowd was also given this instruction, and all failed to heed it.  Would it have been better for the man to remain as he was and to not have these abilities?  Not at all.  The point is that we human beings have these abilities as gifts of God and we have a corresponding responsibility to use these abilities with wisdom and not for our own foolish pursuits of pride.  

Even more deeply, silence that is a matter of our choice comes with it the ability to encounter the Lord, to hear what the Lord has to say to us in our lives.  In so doing we gain even greater control and power over these gifts given to us by God, we gain greater wisdom that leads us to greater closeness and union with God who is our greatest good.

Re-Righting History

Gospel: Mark 7: 24-30

The encounter between Jesus and the foreign woman in today's reading is a shock to us.  Jesus seems rude to her by our standards, but there is a lot happening in this passage as it is not merely an encounter between Jesus and a foreign woman.  It is also an encounter between Jesus and the entire history of Israel that he seeks to exorcise of its demons.

Jesus enters the region of Tyre, a region that Israel had conquered through a campaign of genocide.  The foreign woman is Greek, a people whom Israel undertook a bloody civil war during the time of the Maccabees.  Israel's history had been marked by violence as the primary solution to its problems and enemies.  However, in this story the woman is able to heal her daughter through faith in the one true God. This faith would now be the tool - the only tool - for healing and salvation.  

It is through faith that healing comes to us.  It is through faith that all forms of difference among peoples is overcome.  Never again will discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender or any other category be a part of religion in the mind of Jesus.  For he calls all people to one human family through this faith that will also enable us to overcome our demons of today, of yesterday, and of the future in the healing of this woman's daughter.   

The Point of Authentic Religion

Gospel: Mark 7: 14-23

The false practices of cottage industry religion are always around us.  They would have you believe that the source of all your problems are external things - material objects, association with "those people", and a host of other boogie-men.  Their solution is to buy their book or this amulet, or send them money so they can defeat the bad guys and the forces of evil in the universe.  Cottage industry religion is always self-interested profit seeking.  

The truth, however, of what authentic religion consists of is given to us today by Jesus.  It is not a popular message, for the enemy of our faith is ourselves.  It exists within us and it is there and there alone where the struggle is to be had.  No one wants to hear that they are the problem.  It is much easier to have the problem moved to some scapegoat, and that vicarious activities will remedy matters.  But alas that is not the case.  

The only way to authentic holiness and religion is to engage in the struggle of ourselves within.  Cottage industry religion leads only to further secularism and loss of God.  Once it is realized for the sham that it is people turn away from religion altogether and lose faith entirely.  But if we engage in the struggle Jesus tells us to undertake we will find salvation, freedom, and authentic religion. 

Meaning and Intention

Gospel: Mark 7: 1-13

Why do we do the things we do? We have all sorts of unconscious rituals - some are personal, others are communal.  Most of the time we are not even aware of these things until our routine is upset or someone comes along to question our practices.  Then we are forced to confront them and develop some internal intention and motivation around them.

This dynamic is present in today's Gospel.  Here Jesus questions the Pharisees on their practice of purification rituals because the Pharisees in turn question Jesus as to why he and his disciples do not practice them.  If these rituals are tied to an internal motivation to purify our hearts and minds, these can be good practices.  But if they are merely ends in themselves that only promote our self-righteousness, then they are not healthy.

Consider the Christian use of holy water to bless ourselves.  Its original intention was a daily reminder of our baptism and recommitment to our baptismal vows, similar to the Jewish practice of the Shema.  However, most Christians are not conscious of this and it has become a superstitious practice or more bizarre practices.  Today let us consider our own individual and communal rituals and consider their meaning and our intention in using them.  If they move us closer to God and others, if they make us more loving and merciful, then we keep them.  

All Were Welcome, All Were Healed

Gospel: Mark 6: 53-56

Today's reading is a reminder of how expansive Jesus' ministry of mercy was in his time.  The region was a diverse one at the time time with both Jewish and Gentile residents.  Consider that those who came to Jesus for healing all had various feelings and internal motivations for doing so, but all wanted an encounter with the Lord Jesus.  All wanted to be healed.  

It is worth noting that no one is turned away.  There is no selective process of meting out who is worthy and who is unworthy to approach the Lord.  All are provided with an encounter with the Lord, all are healed without qualification.  How often did Jesus chastise those who would seek to prevent and deter those who sought an encounter with him.  

This passage is instructive for us who often seek to exclude certain people from an encounter with the Lord.  It is also instructive for us in meditating on the mystery of God's relationship with people.  We ourselves only have access to our own relationship with God, and most of us know it so superficially and ephemerally that it has little meaning.  Yet we would seek to pass judgment on God's encounter with another soul! We who are unworthy ourselves would dare to say to others that they are so unworthy that they cannot encounter God at all.  May we seek God's healing mercy in our lives, and may we be a bridge for others to access that mercy as well. 

Salt and Light

Gospel: Matthew 5: 13-16

The entire Sermon on the Mount has as its foundation the Beatitudes that Jesus gives to begin the sermon.  As Jesus goes through his preaching on various aspects of the law we are continually left wondering how to carry out this way of living Jesus proposes to us, and the Beatitudes will be our continual reminder and answer to that question.

So in being salt and light in the world, we do so in living out the Beatitudes - by repenting of our sin, accepting the mercy God extends to us, and then being instruments of mercy in the world by concrete acts of love and compassion to others.  In this way we provide preservation and seasoning to the earth and light for a world often in the throes of darkness.

But what if salt loses its savor? Can it be restored? In ordinary salt, the answer is no, though it would have value in composting and soil nutrition.  But in the analogous human life the answer is yes - our salt can be restored by recommitting ourselves to the Beatitudes, re-experiencing the mercy of God and being that mercy again to others.  We can always return to the Father's house at any time. 

A Crowded Field

Gospel: Mark 6: 30-34

The Super Bowl is finally here.  Two teams and their fanbases have realized their hopes and dreams.  Thirty other teams and fanbases have had their hopes dashed, and they are in the midst of a massive bloodletting:  coaches are being fired, players are being jettisoned, and angry mobs are taking to sports radio calling for more blood to avenge this disappointment.  A crowd that had only weeks ago filled a stadium to cheer on its paid gladiators now calls for their death.  

Today we find the crowd following Jesus from place to place.  Jesus had fed them, healed them of their infirmities, and taught them many things.  He even empowered twelve others to do the same in order to meet the needs and demands of the people.  And yet it was not enough.  What did the crowd want? They have an expectation that Jesus is the Messiah who will overthrow the Romans; that would solve all their problems.  

But Jesus does not meet that expectation.  He comes to free us from sin so that we may overcome all other forms of oppression ourselves.  The crowd will become disappointed and they will seek a scapegoat, a victim, someone to blame for their disappointment and loss, someone upon whom they can vent their vengeance and anger.  This will be Jesus.  This crowd, so eager in following the Lord for so long, will turn on him and kill him.  But Jesus' death will be his ultimate act of feeding us, healing us, and teaching us as it will bring new life to the world. 

Sparkly Shiny Things

Gospel: Mark 6: 14-29

Herod is much like the crowd throughout the Gospels. Both are bedazzled by wonders and spectacles, but the deeper reality of their significance is of no interest to them.  Their interest is only surface level entertainment and self-interest.  When a deeper value comes in conflict with it, they are more than willing to sacrifice the life of a human being so as not to be disturbed in their entertainments.  

For this reason Jesus trusted neither the crowds nor those in authority.  When it was Jesus' turn before the powerful he refused to perform a miracle.  The miracles and signs were not entertainment, nor were they ploys to enroll people into a belief system.  They were concrete expressions of God's mercy in the world, and invitations to us to be extensions of God's mercy in the world for others.  

It is easy for us to condemn Herod from afar, but how often are we like him in our faith?  What are we like when Jesus does not perform miracles or spectacles? And when they are performed do we see the deeper reality they convey, or are we merely along for the amusement like children at a circus? If we too are willing to sacrifice human lives for anything whatever, we may be more like Herod and the crowd.  Let us instead embrace the mercy of God found in the miracles and strive to be instruments of mercy in our world for others. 

Shine in our Hearts, Shine Through the Darkness

Gospel: Luke 2: 22-40

Today's feast of the Presentation of the Lord, or Candlemas, recalls to our minds the event of the infant Jesus being recognized by Anna and Simeon in the Temple of Jerusalem.  The feast is also a reminder and an invitation to find the presence of Jesus in other people - people we might overlook and who have unexpected roles in people's lives.

Anna visited the Temple everyday and was known to be a prophetess by many.  Simeon was a simple man who also visited the Temple daily and went about humbly in his Temple devotions.  Both were probably considered odd and eccentric.  Consider the following:  the woman who attends Mass daily lights candles, and says her rosary at the Marian altar everyday; the man who volunteers daily in the parish food pantry and who cuts the lawn for the parish.  Both are a little odd and eccentric, but they are most likely our modern day Anna and Simeon.

We do not consider these people to be of great importance.  They don't play professional football or do anything else we consider important.  We overlook them and dismiss them day after day.  But Jesus is present in the temple of their bodies, his light shines forth in their lives like today's candles - a soft, humble unassuming light of welcome.  Today let us look for that light in each and every person we meet, and we will keep today's feast rightly.   

Prophets and Honor

Gospel: Mark 6: 1-6

Jesus experiences in his hometown what all prophets encounter in their vocation: rejection, alienation, and eventually execution and death.  The prophet carries with them a message that is of its very nature countercultural and unpopular.  Prophets are not sent to foretell the future; the future is a natural outcome and consequence of present activities and events.  

Prophets have as their mission the calling back of people to right relationship with God and with others.  It is a call to be faithful to the original covenant we made with God, the call to love and justice.  By its very nature this calling back is also a call to repentance, for we have all sinned in our relationship with God and others.  It is also a call, in accepting God's mercy, to extend this mercy outward toward others through deeds of love and care for people of all types and places without distinction or discrimination.  

This call of the prophet rubs against our ego, self-interest, and biases.  We come to realize that if we accept this call of the prophet that it has implications for the way we live and how we order our societies.  We find it much easier to kill the prophet rather than to initiate the change needed within us and within society itself.  Can we break this cycle? Today God calls us once again to return - to accept his mercy and extend that mercy outward to others.