The Good Deeds Defense

Gospel: John 10: 31-42

Not for the first time do Jesus' enemies pick up stones in order to put him to death.  Jesus defends himself by pointing to his good deeds - for which of these would you put a man to death? How is it possible for an evil man to perform good deeds for others?  The ultimate blasphemy against God is to put to death someone who is good and who only performs good deeds.  

Jesus does not engage in the fineries of verbal apologetic.  Both in this reading and at his trial his only defense is his good deeds.  The modern verbal apologists defend their craft as it is how they earn a living, but what is it that is being defended, and who is being convinced by mere words?  Is it really about 'defending the faith' (as if it needs it from us) or is it about our own egos and convincing ourselves of our decisions because our faith is weak?

Good deeds done in silence are the necessary and sufficient defense against those who would attack us.  They are the only complete apologetic and evangelization programs, for they alone are the authentic programs of Jesus - deeds of mercy and loving-kindness to heal a broken world and to show forth the mercy that God has extended to us in our lives.   

Obedience vs. Love

Gospel: John 8: 51-59

Obedience is often proclaimed as the most important aspect of the life of religion - obedience to God, obedience to superiors.  That such an emphasis has been placed on obedience over the centuries provides yet another indicator on how the church fails when faced with things like the Holocaust or the sexual abuse crisis.  When obedience trumps all other things, then great evils are perpetrated and allowed to continue.  

Jesus is greater than Abraham in the mind of the Gospel of John.  This is because love is greater than obedience.  Out of obedience Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Isaac; out of love Jesus becomes the ram offered in place of Isaac.  Love is a greater principle than obedience for it always seeks to offer oneself to serve and help others rather than offering others up to be sacrificed out of some obedience.  

Our Lenten journey is a time of discernment, the discernment of love that seeks to offer oneself in service and offering to others.  How is God calling me today to offer myself in service to the care of others through works of mercy?  How am I called to obey the promptings of love God has placed within me to use the talents God has given me to show love, compassion, and mercy to others in our world?  

A Permanent Place of Belonging

Gospel: John 8: 31-42

Our desire for belonging and meaning is only satisfied in a place of love and of knowing that this love is permanent.  One of the worst experiences of ancient slavery was the knowledge that one had no permanent home; that was taken away from them and lost forever.  Slaves could be bought and sold at will.  Every slave desired to be a child of the household, as children had a permanent place in a household.

But even children could lose their place in the household.  The child could choose to leave the household forever, as we saw in the Prodigal Son story, or parents could disown a child and take away the security of the household from them.  This was the case of the man born blind whom Jesus healed and who found himself without a permanent home any longer.

But in the family of God a child is never disowned.  Even the prodigal son who turned his back on his home was sought after by his father who never stopped loving him.  And the bitter older son too heard the words of his loving father: "Son, you are in my household always!" Here in the family of God we find belonging and meaning in permanent love.  It is our task as Christians to create such communities of belonging here on earth, places where no one is disowned, no one neglected, all are seen as children of God. 

Belonging and Meaning

Gospel: John 8: 21-30

Every human being seeks belonging and desires to be part of an authentic community where they are accepted and welcomed.  We seek to find relationships with others built on mutual respect, love, and truth.  These communities and relationships provide us with an authentic sense of safety as well as deep meaning in our lives.  This is what it means to belong to what is above rather than what is below.  When people fail to find such authentic community in one place, it is quite normal to find them seeking it elsewhere.

We ought to find such places of belonging and meaning in our families and faith communities, in addition to other places in our world.  It is no wonder that people often retreat into self-created realities and solipsistic worlds of their own when they try and fail time and again to find authentic belonging and meaning in the world from places where they ought to find it.  The sense of loneliness and alienation people feel is all too real.

It is our task to create authentic communities of belonging where mutual respect, love, and truth are the cornerstones of our communities - communities of belonging to what is above rather than what is below.  Repentance for our failure to do so is the first step to the creation of such communities. Living lives of mercy extended to others is the crucial next step.  This is the Lenten journey to a new community.     

The Woman Caught in Adultery

Gospel: John 8: 1-11

A crowd brings a woman caught in the very act of adultery before Jesus for judgment.  That only the woman is brought for judgment is itself suggestive; the fact that this reading is paired with the story of Susannah who was unjustly accused is even more suggestive.  Jesus intervenes on behalf of the woman, just as Daniel had done so for Susannah.  Both the just and the unjust are spared from sentences of death.

Today we are to see ourselves in the place of Susannah and this unnamed woman in the Gospel.  There are times in our lives when we are unjustly condemned and accused when we were in fact innocent.  Like Susannah, our response is to suffer the injustice rather than commit an injustice.  More often than not, however, we are like the woman of the Gospel, guilty of some sin or other in our lives - every sin being an act of adultery against God.  We are in need of God's mercy and we find it in the person of Jesus.

Imagine being this woman of the Gospel, freed from sin and spared from the horrid death by stoning.  How did she go about her life afterward?  How do we go about our lives knowing we have been in her place in a very real sense?  If we have been forgiven much and spared a horrific fate, how much more should we extend mercy, forgiveness, and loving deeds to others.

God Will Help

Gospel: John 11: 1-45

Jesus does not perform signs and miracles to prove anything or to demonstrate power.  Whenever Jesus does intervene in the life of a person it is out of love and concern for people.  That fact is evident in the fact that Jesus weeps in today's Gospel when he visits the house of Martha and Mary and discovers that Lazarus is dead.  It is this concern that moves Jesus to action in today's story.

The name Lazarus means "God will help." Lazarus does not ask to be raised from the dead in today's story, and he will certainly die again for good later.  What, then, is at work in today's miracle? Martha and Mary are devastated by the loss of their brother; they are unmarried women, and not having the help and protection of a man in ancient society makes them vulnerable to to destitution and exploitation.  In raising Lazarus to life again, Jesus becomes the "God will help" in the lives of Martha and Mary who need it a great deal.  

All of us are in need of God's help.  All of us have experienced a feeling of death in our lives.  God has helped each one of us in many ways, and now we are called to be the help of God in the lives of others.  Today's Gospel is a reminder of those facts - that we have been helped by God, and that we are to be the help of  God in the world.   

Where Our Choice Lies

Gospel: Luke 1: 26-38

We are often given the impression that Gabriel comes to Mary announcing the coming of Jesus and seeking her permission for this to take place.  But read the story again: the angel is not asking any such permissions.  Mary will conceive and she will bring forth the coming Messiah.  God has already decreed it to be so.  

What Mary has to decide is how she is going to respond to this call and mission.  Will she receive it and carry it out with love and joy, or will she be like Jonah and seek to run away from it, grumble, and complain the whole time?  We could certainly understand if Mary had trepidation at this announcement: how are you going to explain to your intended spouse that you are pregnant and that it is from God?  What will people do if I am found pregnant before our final nuptials?  Mary has much to fear, but she accepts with joy and love.

We too have the same announcement given to us.  We have no choice in the matter: we are called to bring forth Christ in the world as well.  The only question is how we will accept and carry out this calling.  Will we do so, like Mary, in joy and love, or will we seek to run away from it, or deny it, or complain the entire time?  Today's feast is a day for us to reflect on how we have thus far accepted and carried out this mission, and how we will seek to do so in the present and future. 

The Threat of Jesus

Gospel: John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30

In the Gospel of John the plot against Jesus starts from the very beginning of his public life.  As we see in today's Gospel, Jesus is forced to enter Jerusalem secretly for festivals, keeping his ministry largely in Galilee.  What threat does Jesus pose to the religious and secular powers of the world?  

The law commanded Israel to care for the outcast, marginalized, and the foreigner.  Throughout history prophets were sent to remind the people of this obligation, all of them being vilified and executed.  Those in power do not want to be reminded of the existence of the outcast and marginalized and their obligation to care for them.  For it is those in power who have created the existence of outcasts and marginalized peoples.  

Jesus comes in the prophetic tradition and directly ministers to those on the margins, outsiders, and foreigners.  As with the prophets of old, this ministry stings the conscience of those in power, as it should to us as well.  Those in Jesus' day chose to silence the voice of the holy one through execution rather than repent.  Lent is our call to choose the road not taken - to take the road of repentance rather than the well-worn path of denial and silencing through violence.  We repent by taking part in the works of love, mercy, and compassion to those on the margin, following the example of Jesus. 

Star Witness - Words or Deeds?

Gospel: John 5: 31-47

We human beings love to hear ourselves talk.  Most of the time it is for our own benefit and not for anyone else's.  This is often true in the realm of religion where reams of paper are spent on works of theology and apologetics that are - more often than not - designed to convince ourselves and our own insecurities rather than anyone else.  

Jesus engages in verbal disputes with his opponents, but time and again he returns to a theme in today's Gospel: the works Jesus performs speak for themselves - works of mercy, love, healing, and compassion.  These are what attract people to the mission of Jesus, a mission into which he invites us all to full participation - to perform the works of mercy to all people everywhere.  Let the works speak for themselves.

Lent is our time to recommit to the works of mercy and to silence - to let the works speak and not ourselves, to do the works in humility and quiet.  This is a great act of faith.  We will be tempted to engage in useless polemic and apologetic that only serve our own egos and demonstrate our insecurities and lack of faith.  But if we engage in silent practice of the works of mercy in humility, we trust that those alone are our only reliable witness before God and the world. 

The Judgment Test

Gospel: John 5: 17-30

Today's Gospel on the judgment of the son seems stark until we place it in the context of Jesus' larger lessons and images on the topic.  When we hear the term judgment we think of all sorts of things where we fall short.  We don't know the finer points of theology or liturgical practice.  We have a myriad and laws and rules and we don't follow all of them.  We have our sins with which we continually struggle.

But recall the passages of judgment with which we are familiar:  the sheep and goats of Matthew 25 where judgment is about caring for the least ones in their need; the parable of the rich man and Lazarus where the rich man was condemned for failing to care for the poor man; the parable of the Good Samaritan where the fundamental question is: who was neighbor to the one in need?

God knows we all sin and are in need of mercy.  God provides that mercy to us with only one condition - that we show that same mercy to others.  And that is the sole criterion of judgment.  Have we sought God's mercy for our sins, and have we shown mercy to others in our life? 

The Sabbath is the Healing

Gospel: John 5: 1-16

A lame man, having been so for 38 years, sits day after day by the healing pool, unable to put himself in the waters.  Even more astounding, each day for 38 years no one has been willing to help the man into the waters in order to find healing.  Then one day, which happens to be the Sabbath, Jesus comes by and heals the man and sends him on his way.

The Pharisees object: why could this healing not have taken place the next day After all, he's waited this long for a healing; what's one more day?  But the logic of Jesus is quite the opposite: if the man has been in this condition for so long, why should he wait one more day when it is perfectly fine for him to be healed on the Sabbath?

The healings of Jesus on the Sabbath day are suggestive, however, of a deeper idea: that the whole ideal of Sabbath is itself our healing as human beings.  A day of rest, leisure, family, community, and reflection.  And the Sabbath years that bring relief to the weary land, cancellation of debts, restoration of property, the correction of long injustices.  If we but lived the Sabbath ideals we would indeed find healing for ourselves and our communities, for the Sabbath itself is our healing.

Joseph and the Call

Gospel: Matthew 1: 16, 18-21, 24

Whenever God calls someone in scripture to a special task, it is always to something difficult and arduous.  God never calls someone to a life of ease, pleasure, or serene.  Consider the trials to which Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets were called to lives of great difficulty and opposition.  Today's feast day once again reminds us of what it means to be called by God.

Joseph is an ordinary man engaged to an ordinary woman.  In marriage we are called to help bear the burdens of our spouse and children, setting aside our own preferences and ideas for the good of others.  Joseph discovers his intended is with child; he has an idea on how to fix the problem, but his remarkable silence leaves him open to hearing God suggest another path, one that will help his spouse and her child, but one that will lead to greater hardship for him.  Joseph accepts the task and enters into a calling of great hardship thereafter: being a refugee in a foreign land because the civil and religious leaders have colluded to do harm to the child; a life on the run, and a life of poverty under harsh Roman occupation in Galilee.

Our lives are not unlike Joseph's.  We are ordinary people called by God to a life lived for others.  Our one great possession - a life with Jesus - will be threatened by the same forces of the political and religious powers of our day - and life will bring us trials and torments.  But if we seek the silence of Joseph, we too can be open to the promptings of God that will guide us through these pitfalls and provide us with peace of soul as we carry out our humble vocations of service to others.   

Seeing and Sinning

Gospel: John 9: 1-41

It was a common belief in Jesus’ time – a belief that continues to persist in our time – that physical maladies like being born blind was an indication of God’s punishment and a mark on that person that they are a sinner.  In the case of this man in today’s Gospel, we might well beg the question as to what sin a child in the womb could commit that would cause one to be born blind.  Leaving that aside for the moment, the act of physical healing was then thought to indicate that sin was removed from that person’s life.

Enter Jesus, who comes and heals this man on the Sabbath, a forbidden and sinful action.  How is this possible that, in the eyes of the Pharisees, that a sinful action of a sinner in Jesus could heal this man of blindness and remove this man’s sin?  The answer lies in the fact that there is no sin whatsoever in being born bling; it is just something that happens and is not a reflection in any way on a person’s moral status.  What is more, the act of healing on a Sabbath is also not a sin.  An act of charity and mercy can never be sinful. 

The man born blind acknowledged his sinfulness, even though his blindness is in no way related to that reality.  But it is in owning that sinfulness and desiring healing from it that we come to see in a spiritual sense.  The Pharisees could not in any way recognize this fact, for they do not see themselves as blind in either a physical or spiritual sense, i.e. they do not see themselves as sinners.  And therein lies the real blindness and the real sin in the world. 

The great sin, the great blindness lies in our willful failure to recognize that we – all of us, every human being – are guilty of sin and in need of God’s forgiveness and mercy.  Those who claim to see – to have all the answers, to be a “faithful” Christian – are, like the Pharisees, still blind.  The only “faithful” Christian – the one no longer blind - is the one who is ever conscious of their need for God’s mercy and accepting of God’s invitation to show mercy to others through forgiving others and concrete acts of mercy extended to others continually. 

I, Publican!

Gospel: Luke 18: 9-14

The first movement of any authentic prayer is to acknowledge our true status before God - I am a sinner in need of God's mercy.  It is an impulse inspired by the first message of the Gospel: repent, for God's kingdom is at hand.  So in today's Gospel the publican prays rightly and comports his posture and position in the temple rightly, bowing low before God and in the court of the Gentiles, far from God's presence.  

By contrast the Pharisee offers no real prayer at all.  His words are antithetical to the Gospel, for he praises his own merits and looks down upon the rest of humanity. He sees no sin in himself, but only in others.  His posture and position in the temple reflect his arrogance, standing as an equal to God in the position of the priest who alone can be in the holy of holies.  

The status of every human being is that of the publican.  We are all sinners before God in need of the Lord's mercy, but also open to receiving it and then extending mercy to others.  The greatest sin is to think otherwise, to be the Pharisee who believes themselves to be the "faithful" believer looking at everyone else as in sin but not themselves.  Lent is a season given to us as a yearly reminder that we are all publicans, all in need of God's mercy, all called to be mercy to others. 

The Greatest Commandment

Gospel: Mark 12: 28-34

Our idea of loving God is often akin to a dog performing tricks or chasing a stick for its owner.  The dog does the trick and looks to see if the master is pleased or has a treat for it.  How often do we have this very view: that we perform certain deeds, rituals, or behaviors and look to see if God is happy with us and will reward us with some good thing.

Jesus links the love of God to the love of neighbor.  We love God by loving our neighbor.  Throughout the scriptures we hear the injunction: It is mercy I desire and not sacrifice.  God gains nothing from sacrifices nor from any supposed acts of love we claim to do on God's behalf.  But we are to be merciful to others because God has been merciful to us, mercy being the singular act of God to us.  

If we seek to be like God, to imitate God, and to seek perfection, then the one and only way to do so is by showing mercy to others - to forgive, to provide for others in their needs and meet those needs in concrete and specific loving deeds.  The only way to love God is to love neighbor.  If the rest of our faith life is not directed toward living a life of mercy then it is of no value whatsoever.

Choosing Sides

Gospel: Luke 11: 14-23

"He who is not with me is against me."  Cultural warriors and partisans of every age will seize upon this line of Jesus, take it out of context, and apply it to their cottage industry, cause, political agenda, regime, or institution of every stripe.  The irony of that phenomenon is that the full context of Jesus's statement convicts anyone who seeks to use the phrase in this partisan way.  

Jesus expel a demon from a man, then uses the event to teach a deeper lesson.  Imagine a man fully equipped with all his weaponry set to defend himself and household.  His reliance is upon his weapons and his strength.  But there is always someone stronger than us in the spiritual realm.  Reliance on our own possessions and self will only lead to possession once again by a much more powerful demon than the last one, for this new demon is our very self - our ego, power, reliance on possessions.  

It is only the person who has reliance on God alone who can withstand the demons in their life.  For if the household of our soul is filled with God alone there is no room for demons of any kind.  But if we seek to use Jesus as a partisan weapon for our political and ecclesiastical power, we are already possessed by a demon.  If we are with Jesus, we are relying on God alone as he did.  If we are not, then our reliance is on self and possessions, and our attachments are to power and ego. 

Law and Intrinsic Evils

Gospel: Matthew 5: 17-19

What are we to make of Jesus' words today, telling us to obey the smallest commandment of the Law?  After all, the Apostles did away with obeying most of these laws and even more serious ones like the dietary laws and circumcision in order to accommodate Gentile converts.  Jesus himself violates the law several times in the Gospel for the sake of a greater love and principle.  What, then does all this mean?

Some will argue we are to follow the divine command theory of ethics and obey whatever God says.  This would make ethics arbitrary and intrinsic evils nonexistent as God could, and has in Old Testament stories, commanded heinous things.  Others will say we should obey whatever religious leaders tell us to do, but we have seen all too painfully how well that works, i.e. not well at all.

At the end of the day we have only the law of love and the example of Jesus as our guide.  Our ethic is based on virtue and not deontology, seeking to imitate the life and example of the morally excellent One who lived by the law of love in all things.  This way of life demands a constant discernment that is rigorous and trying at times, but represents the only authentic way of the Lord Jesus.   

Moral Calculus

Gospel: Matthew 18: 21-35

How many times must we forgive our neighbor?  Seems like a reasonable question.  People take advantage of us, annoy us endlessly, and the human condition can only take so much.  We have our limits, and it is far easier to give up on someone than to invest in their moral improvement after all.  Can we really be expected to have that much patience?

Jesus asks us to consider the question from another perspective:  how many times do we ask God to forgive us of our faults?  How often do we return to God time and again confessing the same sins over and over again, begging for God to forgive us yet again?  And we fully expect God to do so!  If we expect God's mercy and forgiveness each and every time we sin, then we too must do likewise with our fellow human beings.

We often seek every occasion to be at war and conflict with our neighbor.  It is, after all, good for business, TV ratings, and political advantage.  But it creates a toxic world and high body counts.  Jesus forgave his executioners, those who denied and abandoned him, and even the one who betrayed him.  If we make no effort to imitate the Lord Jesus in our own lives and show mercy to others, we have no claim on being one of his followers.

A Gift for All

Gospel: Luke 4: 24-30

There are many people who are convinced that faith cannot exist in the world without their own constructs and programs.  Some argue that a certain culture is necessary for faith to come into existence, while others insist that their faith formation program is the essential sine qua non of faith's existence in the universe.  Today's Gospel reading disabuses us of such vanities and idolatries.  

Jesus presents to us the example of the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Leper from Syria.  Both of these foreigners have faith in the word of the prophet spoken to them, and both receive relief from God.  An entire foreign city - Nineveh - accepts the word of the prophet Jonah and repents, receiving God's mercy and pardon.  

Faith can exist in every place and time, for it is a free gift of God that is not in any way dependent on us in any way.  We do not create it through some culture; in fact, that culture becomes itself a false god.  It does not come about through some program, which also becomes of itself an idol of our egos.  Faith is ultimately a mystery of God that is not in any way controlled by human agency.  It is a gift given to us all that we may accept, open, and share through deeds of love and mercy.  Or it may be refused or abused to the detriment of its recipient and others.   

God is Found on the Margins

Gospel: John 4: 5-42

In today's readings we encounter an important realization: throughout the scriptures God is encountered beyond the city walls by those who would ordinarily be excluded by humans from having contact with God.  Cities are the domain of human-made laws both civil and religious.  Like the walls of the city, they seek to circumscribe and limit human experience of God to its own categories and place and for specific people.  And yet every encounter with God takes place outside the city to outcasts - Moses the murderer at the bush, Elijah the heretic on the mountain.  

And the Samaritan woman at the well.  She encounters the Lord Jesus on the outskirts of the town; she has to bring the townspeople to Jesus, just as people went out to the desert to encounter John the Baptist.  There they discover the water of eternal life and the realization that worship of God is not confined to place or people, but is accessible to all everywhere.  And this outcast foreign woman becomes the first evangelist to bring the Good News to her people.  

We who would seek to limit God to particular places and for particular people take note! The only ones we will succeed in excluding from God is ourselves.  God is found on the peripheries among the marginalized, and to them has been entrusted the task of revealing God to us all.  

"Faithful" Christians

Gospel: Luke 15: 1-32

Fun fact: prior to the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical reform, the parable of the Prodigal Son was never part of the lectionary of the Roman liturgy.  Catholics never heard this Gospel proclaimed prior to the 1960s.  

It is perhaps in this light that focus might be applied to the elder son who remained in his father's house.  Was he more "faithful" than his brother who led a wayward life? The older son took his father's love for granted and was indifferent to it.  Worse still, he held a demeaning attitude toward his brother.  The Father had to rebuke the elder son, telling him he ought to rejoice at his brother's return.  The elder son was as sinful as his brother, just a different set of sins.  

And yet the Father invites the elder son to the banquet of mercy so that he might be reconciled to his brother - the Father who had brought a retinue of servants with him in search of the prodigal reminds his older son that, in spite of his sins, he too is always a part of his household.  

It is tempting to see ourselves as "faithful" Christians when we only focus on our time spent in our father's house.  We become complacent and smug, comparing ourselves to the wayward and of course always coming out victorious in such comparisons.  Yet, like the Pharisees, our self-righteousness is our undoing.  We have our own set of sins, our own need of approaching the banquet in repentance.   

Reapplying A Parable

Gospel: Matthew 21: 33-46

The Parable of the Tenant Owners has traditionally been used as a polemical piece of replacement theology, i.e. the Church replacing Israel as the locus of the kingdom of God.  Given the fact that the Church has fared no better in being good stewards of God's vineyard, we might do well to set aside this triumphalistic interpretation and consider the parable in a different light.

Let us consider the vineyard as the soul of an individual person.  God has created this garden within, cultivated it and made it good.  God then entrusted it to us so that it might bear fruit and retain its beauty.  From time to time God visits this vineyard, reminds us of its worth and mission.  But we have let it go to ruin.  We seek to cover over its neglect like our first parents in the garden.  We grow indignant at these reminder and rebel, but the vineyard is too far gone; we cannot repair it of ourselves.  What are we to do?

As this parable is patterned on the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, we find the solution.  Restoration of the garden is had through reconciliation and forgiveness.  We return to God with all our heart to find food for our souls.  The vineyard is restored by God's healing hand, our original beauty and dignity restored.  This is the message of Lent, the time for us to restore our vineyard and once again bear fruit for the kingdom. 

Lesson Learned?

Gospel: Luke 16: 19-31

In the Mosaic Law God commanded the people to care for the poor and specific duties were laid on the people to do so: the tithe and gleaning of crops were set aside for the poor; the sabbath and jubilee years were instituted to correct injustices and care for the poor; the commands to care for the poor and the foreigners because Israel had been poor and aliens once before.  

But the people did not do so.  They neglected and took advantage of the poor.  Many died because the people had failed to heed these commands and be heedful of the duty to social justice.  God sent the prophets to tell the people to repent and to be just toward others, but the prophets were ignored in every time and place, so the land was taken over by empires.

Jesus' words in today's Gospel ring true: they would not believe even if someone were to rise from the dead.  Lazarus sits in our midst, outside our cathedrals and episcopal mansions and lavish chancery buildings.  The poor are a secondary concern of the Christian community, though our official teaching says otherwise.  Lent is the time of the prophets calling us back to our primary focus of religion and the sole criteria of our final judgment.   

Talking Past Each Other

Gospel: Matthew 20: 17-28

For the third time Jesus tells his disciples about his impending arrest and execution at the hands of the political and religious leaders of the day.  In the previous episodes, the disciples would object to this lesson, and Jesus would then rebuke them.  The source of their objections are found in today's Gospel, as the disciples are not really listening to what Jesus has to say.

Instead they are arguing among themselves as to who is most important, who will occupy the seats of power and authority in Jesus' kingdom.  See, they still think Jesus' kingdom is a political one where Jesus is a king with an army and they the disciples are powerful people of importance.  This is why they object to Jesus' mention of arrest and execution: it goes against their own preferences and preconceived ideas and self-importance.

How often do we complain about God not listening to our prayer! But here we have the counterpoint: God is speaking to us through Jesus about living a life of service to the point of death for others, but we are not listening.  We are too self-absorbed with our desire for power, our squabbles with others over our self-importance, our own preconceived ideas of a Christianity that is about political power and not of service to others.  Lent is our time to turn away from these idolatries we have to self, power, and delusions of grandeur and to recommit to a life of mercy and humble service to others. 

A Reliable Tour Guide

Gospel: Matthew 23: 1-12

Anyone who has traveled abroad knows how important it is to have a reliable tour guide, someone who can help us navigate in a place unfamiliar to us.  This guide provides helpful suggestions for sightseeing, restaurants, and places to buy souvenirs or specialty items.  A good tour guide knows the needs of her tourists and provides for them with exceptional care.  

In today's Gospel Jesus is that tour guide for us pilgrims here on earth.  He points out to us what we should follow and what we should avoid, reminding us that God alone is our father and teacher, God alone is our reliable guide through life.  Jesus provides for us a sure and certain method of discernment in being able to hear God's voice and to follow it throughout our lives.  

For God's voice is a simple one: it is a call to love.  It is an invitation to accept the mercy God extends to us by repenting of our sins, and it is an exhortation to be an extension of God's mercy in the world by being merciful to others by forgiving others and providing for their needs.  It is imitating the example of God in the person of Jesus, for all other teachers and all other examples will fail us.   

Do Not Judge Others

Gospel: Luke 6: 36-38

"Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.  Do not judge others."  Seems like a simple command from Jesus, and yet everywhere we find judgment and condemnation against others.  What is more, an array of arguments defending such acts of judgment and condemnation is legion.  It is this very vitriol of judgment and condemnation justification that would lead to the condemnation and execution of Jesus.  

So much is written about justifying condemnation and judgment of others, but so little of it is directed toward ourselves.  Jesus makes clear that the only judgment we are to render is against ourselves.  Our own conscience is the only one we are qualified to examine and judge, not anyone else's.  The entire message of the Gospel is twofold: repentance of our own sins, and show mercy to others.  Our repentance has no value if we ourselves are not merciful.  

Lent is a time of focus on the mercy of God, but not just mercy for ourselves.  It is, perhaps more importantly, a focus on the mercy we are to extend to others in specific and concrete ways: feeding others, visiting others, liberating others, welcoming others, forgiving others.  This is how we show love for God - by loving others and showing mercy to all.

An Oasis of Consolation

Gospel:  Matthew 17: 1-9

Consider Peter today on Mount Tabor and in the context of his life.  Just prior to coming up the mountain of transfiguration Peter is rebuked harshly by Jesus, who calls him a Satan for rejecting the idea of Jesus dying on the cross.  In a few months or so Peter will deny Jesus three times and run away from the scene in fear and shame.  But in the midst of these failures, Peter experiences this one moment of blessing, this little oasis of joy in the midst of his struggles and failures.

The mountain of God is often an oasis of faith in the midst of life's struggles throughout Scripture.  It is the place where Moses encounters God in the midst of a grueling journey through the desert where he encounters nothing but hardship.  It is the place of refuge for Elijah as he seeks a place of hiding from the forces of Baal who seek to kill him.  He finds God's presence on the mountain in the soft, gentle breeze.

Today is a day for us to reflect on our own moments of transfiguration in the midst of our lives of struggle and failure.  It is our day to recall little moments of spiritual oasis where God's presence was powerfully felt, consolation given, awe and joy experienced.  For these are the moments that will sustain us and keep us moving on our journey to the reign of God.

Love is Perfection

Gospel: Matthew 5: 43-48

God provides good things to all people.  Rain and sun benefit everyone regardless of moral status, but it is not merely accidental causality.  Jesus tells us that it is because God loves all of us whether we seek to be his friends or not that he provides these good things to everyone.  God's goodness to us is not contingent on our goodness but only on God's love.  

Jesus tells us that our love must be like God's.  We are to love and provide good things to all people, friend and enemy.  We are to turn no one aside in our work to provide good to all people.  There are no worthiness tests or preconditions.  We provide that good to others unconditionally and without discrimination.

How can we refuse charity to anyone when God has provided it for us all?  How can we deny the ultimate good of communion with Jesus himself to others when he made himself available to and ate with all? To seek perfection is to seek to love all in the way God loves us all and provides good things to all people. 

Love Everyone - No Exceptions

Gospel:  Matthew 5: 20-26

It is a temptation of every human heart to find people to exclude from the commandment to love our neighbor.  Some would confine this rule to citizens of one's own country, thereby excluding foreigners and aliens.  Others would limit this love to those who deserve it, i.e. those like them or those they get on with.  Such was true as much in Jesus' days as it is in our own times.

However, the entire Gospel is one long teaching on the fact that loving one's neighbor admits of no exceptions.  In word and deed, Jesus taught this very truth.  He ate meals with people and healed people from all backgrounds, all walks of life, all races, creeds, genders, and sinners of all types.  He forgave all those who did him harm - his betrayer, his denier, his abandoners, his executioners, everyone - even when they did not seek forgiveness.  

To be a follower of the Lord Jesus is to strive for this love each and every day.  It is to attempt to create communities where this love is encouraged and practiced - looking for the beam in our eye and not the mote in our neighbor's, running out to be reconciled with our neighbor and not looking to excommunicate or exclude them from communion, offering bread and fish and not stones and serpents to a world hungry for love and compassion. 

The Rule of the Heart

Gospel: Mark 7: 7-12

If you are part of a system with a myriad of laws and rules one might wonder what is the thread that keeps them together - what is the most important rule that can help us keep all the rest? What is the core value that provides a foundation for all these rules.  Jesus provides that answer in today's reading: the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do to you.

This rule is found in every culture of every time and place.  It can be found in China, India, African cultures, indigenous cultures of every continent on earth.  The law of God is found in the heart of every human being; it is not the product of a particular culture.  It is inherent in the fabric of the universe; it is the fundamental element of morality and ethics.  

In a very real sense Jesus is present in every human life through this law, by the very fact of being itself as God's presence is found in every existent thing, and by the fact that human beings are made in God's image and likeness.  Herein lies the Good News that brings together every human being of every culture and place.  It is in the human heart, the field where the struggle lies, the stage for the drama of human existence. 

Signs and Sycophants

Gospel: Luke 11: 29-32

In every age religion is dominated by the seeking of signs and wonders and the following of cults of personality.  From the time of Jesus through early Christianity to our own times we find the creation of these cottage industries of self-interest and self-justification that pass for religion while authentic faith through the following of Jesus is mentioned only in passing.  

Why do we seek signs and rush about to follow particular preachers?  In almost every case it is because we seek a sign to justify ourselves and the decisions we have made.  We follow a particular pastor because he or she confirms our own beliefs and biases in what they say or in what particular brand of worship they employ.  

Only the sign of Jonah is given to us: a message of repentance for our sins that we must take up, and a life of mercy extended outward to others in response to receiving God's mercy.  It is a sign of humility devoid of self-interest and self-justification.  It is the way of the Cross, and to resurrection.