Sabbath for Whom?

Gospel: Luke 14: 1-6

Consider this scene on the Sabbath.  Pharisees invite Jesus to dinner and an ill person comes upon the scene.  Will Jesus perform work on the Sabbath and heal the person or not, the prohibition against work being in the forefront of their minds?  But for whom is this prohibition for? Who benefits from this leisure?  Surely it is not the women and slaves preparing meals and cleaning up.  Apparently such a law and leisure is only for the Jewish menfolk.

No doubt it is a good deed to feed someone at table, to provide hospitality and food for another.  Surely it is a good deed to heal someone of their ailments as Jesus does time and again on the Sabbath and on every other day of the week.  Certainly it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath day is our reminder of the good that God has done for us, and a reminder of the good we are to do for others.  Jesus provides Sabbath rest for the ill person who labored under the burden of illness for so long.

The mission of Jesus in every place he went was to provide healing, liberation from demons, and nourishment to people at table.  That work never ceases, for it is the work of Sabbath.  The Sabbath was given for healing, liberation, and nourishment of body and soul.  Let everyday be a Sabbath in carrying out the work of the Lord Jesus for those burdened by illness, possession, hunger, and thirst.  Let our good works never cease for those in need of mercy and love. 

Why Kill Jesus?

Gospel: Luke 13: 31-35

The Pharisees tell Jesus to flee Galilee, for Herod seeks to kill Jesus.  We might well wonder why - what threat does Jesus pose to Herod or any other person in power as we will later see?  Jesus himself provides a defense here and later before the chief priests that is centered on his good deeds.  He has cast out demons from people and performed healings of the sick throughout the entire region.  How could anyone find such things threatening?

Possession and illness in ancient times were not just physical maladies.  They were also moral categories.  Such people were sinful and unclean - how else to explain such things in a person's life?  When people are deemed sinful and unclean then political and religious leaders have power over them.  When people are healed and delivered from their demons, that power over others no longer exists.  Hence the threat Jesus poses to those in religious and political power.

Jesus did not come to institute a religion that wields power over others.  He came to call people to accept God's mercy in their lives and to bring that mercy to others through healing, liberation, and nourishment.  Jesus did not sell timeshares in a pew each week for an hour or so.  He invited us to follow him, he sent us out to do what he did in performing healing and deliverance for others through lives of simplicity and loving kindness.   

What's the Question?

Gospel: Luke 13: 22-30

Jesus never answers the questions that are addressed to him in the Gospels, often because we ask the wrong ones.  Today people want to know how many will be saved, and Jesus does not answer it as it is unimportant and irrelevant to our lives.  We still want to know the answer to that question, and we waste endless amounts of time creating exegesis to answer a question that Jesus himself does not answer for us, highlighting our own lack of understanding about what is important in Christian life.

And what is important is what Jesus stresses in today's scene - how it is that we might be saved.  First, we are to enter by the narrow gate, meaning we should have very few possessions and attached to nothing.  Then, we are to enter in the daylight, doing deeds of light and not darkness.  These deeds of light are the works of mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick and imprisoned, welcoming the stranger.  

Salvation is about those two things - simple, unattached living and extending mercy to others.  That is the whole of the Christian life.  It is not about a catechism quiz, nor is it about club membership or liturgical preferences.  Our entire Christian life is about living a simple life with no attachments, and providing mercy and loving kindness to others, just as God has shown to us in our lives.  These are the sole points of focus for our lives.

Ordinary People

Gospel: Luke 6: 12-16

Despite various legends that are unable to be verified, the apostles were ordinary people with ordinary backgrounds and professions.  They come to encounter Jesus and their lives are changed, as is the trajectory of their lives.  Instead of fishing on the lake, they find themselves in various lands of the Jewish diaspora seeking to encourage other people to live as Jesus taught and did in his own life.  They went about healing people, delivering them from their demons, and feeding them, just as Jesus did.

We do not find the apostles erecting large buildings and selling time shares in pews for an hour each week.  We find them instead organizing small communities dedicated to living as Jesus did, encouraging people in their own ordinary lives to carry on the way of living that Jesus embodied in extending mercy and loving kindness to others.  Their lives would in turn inspire others to live similarly in their own places and professions of ordinary living.

We honor the memory of the apostles best when we too carry on this work of mercy and loving kindness, when we go about seeking to heal, liberate, and nourish others in our daily life.  They do not need statues and shrines in their honor.  They need us to live as Jesus taught and lived, as they taught and lived in his name.  And the world we live inhabit today desperately needs us to live in this way as well.  Today is a day for us to reflect on how best to do that in our ordinary lives.

A Day for Healing

Gospel: Luke 13: 10-17

There is great irony in today's Gospel story.  The Sabbath was instituted by God as a day of healing and restoration, a day of liberation from the drudgery of work and the curse of Adam.  It was intended for resting in God, allowing God's healing to animate our tired frames.  Yet, the Pharisees object to Jesus healing someone on the Sabbath day - not the first time they have objected so.  They object to a person being healed on the very day intended for our healing and restoration.

This incongruity is what happens when the legalism of religion overtakes its spirit.  The Pharisees, and we as well, have reduced the Sabbath to an obligatory attendance at a religious service, and heaven forbid if anyone in need should come before our assembly to ask our help and upset our liturgical regimen.  We do not see the liturgy as part of a larger healing and restorative part of the Sabbath day.  We do not see it as part of our obligation to be healing instruments for others in the world.  

Today is a day for us to reflect on how we might make the Sabbath a day of healing.  We might reflect on how God calls us to be instruments of healing in our world today.  What concrete expression of healing can we bring to the world in our actions?  This was the work Jesus brought into the world, the work to which we are called as disciples of the Lord.  How might we bring Sabbath and Jubilee to others as Jesus did? 

Rearranging the Chairs

Gospel: Luke 18: 9-14

The ancient Temple of Jerusalem was a series of concentric circles.  In the middle was the holy of holies where only the high priest could enter.  This represented the presence of God on earth.  Nearest this sacred place was the court of Jewish men.  Behind them was the court of Jewish women, and finally in the very back was the court of the Gentiles.  Each place represented one's proximity to God both physically and spiritually.  It was a very segregated society.

But in this parable of the Pharisee and Publican Jesus does away with all of these circles and reduces them to two.  The Pharisee places himself physically near to God, but his prayer and heart are far from the Lord. By contrast, the Publican places himself physically far from God, but his prayer of repentance places his heart in the very holy of holies itself.  The old categories of class and gender are done away with.  What remains are the two categories of the self-righteous Pharisees and the humble penitents.

Today is a day for us to reflect on which category our prayer and heart are found.  Is our prayer that of the self-righteous Pharisee whose works and status have no real value before God though we boast of them? Or is our prayer that of the tax collector who is ever before God seeking mercy and hoping to extend such mercy to others in his life?  All the other categories of our invention do not matter.  There are only these two in our places of worship.   

Second Chances

Gospel: Luke 13: 1-9

An orchard farmer has a lot at stake in the outcome of one of her trees.  To have a tree not bear fruit is a loss of production, but it also means time and space wasted.  Making the decision to cut down an unproductive tree is one the farmer does not really want to make, for it means replacing it with a new tree that will take even longer to come of age and bear fruit for her.  So the orchard farmer will try anything to help that unproductive tree to bear fruit.

Such is the image of God that Jesus gives us in this parable.  Each of us is a tree in God's orchard, and it is our task to bear fruit with lives of mercy and loving kindness.  When we fail to do so, God's first reaction is not to cut us down and throw us away.  It is to continue to provide us the nourishment we need to bear fruit.  That is also God's second reaction, and third, and fourth.  God will continue to be present to us, working with us, until our dying breath.

For our part, we must consider our response to God's continual love for us, and we must consider how it is that we deal with other human beings.  Do we regard other people as expendable, deplorable, illegal, unredeemable, executable, deportable?  Or do we see people as children of God, an image of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit - full of potential, worthy of love - just as God sees them, just as God sees us?  Let that be our reflection point today. 

Moral Blindness

Gospel: Luke 12: 54-59

Jesus asks us the rhetorical question - why are we unable to judge what is right in the times in which we live?  We can forecast the weather and foresee all sorts of other things, but we cannot - or will not - rightly interpret the signs of our times.  We are blinded by our hypocrisy.  We have created one set of ethics for others while an entirely different set for ourselves and our tribe.  We are more than ready to hold others to account while exonerating ourselves and our tribe for the same moral crimes.  

The modern era thinks itself better and morally superior to past ages, though little empirical evidence can be brought forward to justify such a claim.  The same atrocities abound, the same hypocrisy, the same double standards.  We Christians make triumphalistic assertions on the moral superiority of the Christian system, but again finding little in the way of supporting data.  The mass graves of children at indigenous missions and Irish laundries, the sexual abuse crimes, the coddling of tyrants and a host of other evils suggest otherwise.

But what we do have is the example of Jesus against which our actions can be measured and judged.  Found wanting each day, we can and must strive to do better.  We can and must model our lives on the Lord Jesus alone, not on ideologues and religious charlatans.  Jesus reminds us in today's Gospel that it is within our power to judge what is right and wrong.  We have the capacity to discern the signs of our times. We have only to do so - to repent and to follow him in a life of mercy and loving kindness to others.

Responses to Love

Gospel: Luke 12: 49-53

We often associate love with unity and bringing people together, and certainly love has that effect.  In attending weddings and other events where love is celebrated we see the power of love to bring people into harmony and unity.  However, for as many people who come together to celebrate love, we also find as many people who have the opposite reaction to love.  How many novels and stories tell the tales of animosities that react negatively to love in the world.

It is this dynamic to which Jesus refers in today's Gospel.  He comes to cast the fire of love on the world.  He goes from place to place extending that love to others through healing, liberating, and nourishing everyone without distinction or discrimination.  And we see the different reactions to his good deeds.  Some respond with love and unity.  Others respond with bitterness and hatred which ultimately leads to his arrest and execution.

Consider the reaction in our world to people who seek to care for immigrants, migrants, refugees, the poor, and the marginalized in our midst.  Some are inspired by such love and come together to care for those in need.  Others, however, show hatred toward the marginalized groups and those who care for them.  We might well find ourselves stunned and perplexed by this phenomenon in the world, its existence is certainly empirically verifiable.   

The Servant's Task

Gospel: Luke 12: 39-48

The task of the servant is a simple one in this story: to distribute food to all in the household of the Master.  It is to feed and nourish those assigned to us by the master.  And those who belong to his household is the entire human race, every single human being.  The master's household is not some segregated elite clique.  It is everybody, and it is our task as servants of the Lord to nourish them all without distinction.

The minute we begin to create categories of who belongs and who does not we become like the abusive servants in today's parable.  We regard some servants as unworthy.  We show favoritism.  We create different rules of ethics to express our biases.  The household then becomes a place of abuse and division.  It is no longer the place of welcome and safety intended by the master who created it, and those abused within its walls seek safety and welcome elsewhere.

The task of the servant is exactly the work Jesus undertook in his own life.  We went about healing, liberating, and feeding people without distinction, without discrimination.  All were healed, all were liberated, all were fed.  He set not categories of worthiness.  He openly rejected the human creations of the clean and the unclean, the foreigner and citizen, the chosen and the unchosen.  Jesus chose all because God created all.  It is our task as servants to follow the example of the Lord. 

The Servant-Master

Gospel: Luke 12: 35-38

In the ancient world it was unheard of that a master would serve his slaves at table, that he would allow them to recline while he served them.  That idea was simply unthinkable in the traditional master servant paradigm.  This paradigm formed the basis of how religion was understood by the ancients.  Human beings were the servants of the gods who could - and did - command their subjects to do whatever they wanted.  It was never the case that a deity served human beings.  

But now along comes Jesus who upsets the traditional paradigm.  In today's reading he has the master serve his servants at table.  He allows them to recline while he provides for their needs.  God has come to serve humanity, to bind up its wounds, to heal its infirmities, to liberate it from its demons, to nourish it at table.  God does this in the person of Jesus who takes upon himself the role of servant, even stooping to wash our feet at table, the most abasing act of servitude known.  

Jesus gives us this new model in order to inspire humanity to a life of service for others, to instill the love of neighbor that is so lacking in humanity.  Many will rise to this occasion and live as Jesus does.  Others will invent alternative Christianities that demean the poor, abuse the immigrant, migrant, refugee, and marginalized peoples.  The authentic disciple follows the example of the Lord, who was servant to all peoples in all places and situations.   

Unassuming Greed

Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21

A casual observer would be shocked to discover that Jesus teaches against greed and the hoarding of possessions after witnessing how his alleged followers live.  Houses filled with endless possessions, so much so that storage units are needed to store what we cannot fit in our homes.  Domiciles awash in material goods that one does not even know what is contained therein until forced to liquidate these vast empires of things.  

And all the while in our world exist the poor and hungry, the naked and homeless, the refugees, migrants, and immigrants that we have created as a result of our greed.  We amass possessions and deprive the poor of the basic necessities of life.  We go to war over our possessions, creating refugees in dire need of safety.  We exploit other nations to increase our national wealth, thereby creating migration, and yet we do not in any way want to help them in their need.

We have within our own homes the means necessary to significantly help the poor, and yet we refuse to do so.  We continue to stockpile possessions and both perpetuate and exacerbate the problems of poverty in our world.  We think it someone else's duty to help the poor while we continue to steal from them through our greed and selfishness.  One day we will find ourselves in the position of this farmer in the parable, and what will we say?

Prayer in Despair

Gospel: Luke 18: 1-8

The choices Jesus makes for images in parables are striking.  Consider today's story of the poor widow and the unjust judge.  The widow is a person who is utterly powerless.  She has no status as a woman before the law, and as a widow she is doubly powerless.  She is not connected to a man who would have at least status, and she is poor so she has no means of influence or consideration among those who regard wealth as important.  

What is worse, she stands before a man who, as a man, has status before the law.  Moreover, he is the decider of law and the fate of others before it.  And above all he has no consideration for justice, being described as one who does not fear God and who has no regard for human beings.  The woman cannot even appeal to notions of goodness or to God before this mean, the only recourse she might have in swaying the judge.  

But she comes before him time and again and makes her appeal.  Hoping against all hope, in the midst of utter despair, she continues her plea until she secures the verdict she needs.  Is this not our status in the world?  We live in a world of great hopelessness at times.  We could very well just give up and say what's the use, living out our days in despair.  Or we could be like this poor widow who continues to live in hope, who never ceases in her plea for justice and right in a world that cares little for such things. 

Being Disciples

Gospel: Luke 10: 1-9

If your parish spent lots of money to a "Christian" media empire for a toolkit on discipleship, they overpaid.  In today's Gospel portion Jesus provides the toolkit in just a few sentences, and it is rather simple.  It is the task mission of the disciple to do two things: first, to go from place to place proclaiming peace.  Second, to go and heal others of their infirmities.  That's it.  That's all there is to being a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

In this life of discipleship we are to live simply, not having many possessions, and we are to be mutually supportive, eating at table whatever we are given.  In that table fellowship we provide an image of the presence of God among others, just as the three messengers were to Abraham.  It is this presence that brings peace, healing, and comfort to other people more than any words we may utter.  In fact, it is just this calm presence alone that proclaims peace to others.

Discipleship is not about creating media conglomerates, nor is it found in empire building or political and ideological demagoguery.  It is rather found in these simple things that Jesus himself did: proclaiming peace, healing others, liberating people from their demons, nourishing others at table - all done more through calm presence in a life of humble service rather than in a plethora of words. 

The Net of Hypocrisy

Gospel: Luke 12: 1-7

Hypocrisy is a fairly common malady, one we readily find in others, but somehow never manage to discover in ourselves.  It is a sin that Jesus repeatedly warns his followers to avoid as it is so very difficult to extricate oneself from.  Hypocrisy is also a sin that causes great scandal to others, leading to a general decline in social morality.  This sin contains so much empirical evidence that it requires little in the way of introduction or evidentiary citations.

We can avoid the sin of hypocrisy by preaching little and doing much.  We have our own many sins for which we must atone and repent, so we begin there.  Once we rise from the regenerative waters of reconciliation we then follow the Lord and imitate his work by extending mercy to others - healing those who are sick, liberating those in the grip of demons, nourishing people at table fellowship.  We perform all these deeds without saying a word.  

If our times have taught us nothing it is that hypocrisy cannot be cured by calling it out.  It is a demon deeply attached to our pride.  Our only recourse is to simply follow the advice of the prophet Micah: to act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  This was the way of the Lord Jesus.  It must be our way as his disciples, as those who wish to avoid the deadly net of hypocrisy ourselves, as those who hope to lead others out of the snare.

False Idols

Gospel: Luke 11: 47-54

Many churches are filled with images of saints and of Jesus himself.  It is said we have them in order to inspire us to the life of holiness they lived.  But how often do our churches with all this artistic finery feel more like museums to the past rather than places where holiness and imitation of the Lord Jesus are our primary focal points.  How often is it the case that other idols and images are the real driving force behind modern religion rather than the Lord Jesus himself?

More and more we see the incessant preoccupation with ideology, with the currying of favor with the rich and powerful as the driving force in modern Christian life.  People choose their congregational attendance based on these concerns rather than seeking to imitate the Lord Jesus.  When churches and their attendant institutions are more interested in memorials and statuary to a contemporary political ideologue rather than defending the dignity of the poor, marginalized, immigrants, migrants, and refugees, we know we are a long way from the life and example of the Lord Jesus.

The words of Jesus in today's Gospel portion are as relevant to our times as to his own.  The false promises of the desert of temptation are continually set before us.  That which the Lord Jesus rejected we readily accept.  We eagerly choose Barabbas over Jesus; we continually put the Lord to death again and again when we neglect the poor, malign the immigrant, refugee, and migrant, when we perpetuate an unjust and merciless death penalty system.  Woe to us...

Institutional Religion

Gospel: Luke 11: 42-46

Institutional religion has not changed much since the time of Jesus.  It has only changed names, places, and costumes, but the essential points of note in today's Gospel portion remain the same now as they were when penned.  We might protest that such is not the case, but our protest is rooted only in our own prejudice.  We are Christians after all.  We are not like those other people from whom we originated.  We bear no likeness to that!  Don't we?...

Clerics of today love to sit in the prominent places in church buildings, and they love being seen in public wearing their ecclesiastical finery.  They continue to lay heavy burdens - financial and otherwise - upon others while enjoying the comfortable lifestyle to which they have grown fond and accustomed.  And they will condemn others without fail for their sins of the flesh while finding every opportunity to excuse and cover up those of the clerical establishment.  

If we are looking for the causes of secularism and the decline of religion, we need not blame the devil or communists or liberals or freemasons or other nonsense.  We need only blame ourselves.  All that Jesus rejected in the desert we have gladly accepted in his name - the power, the wealth, the prestige - and we wield it without shame or mercy.  We are so blind with power and wealth and prestige that we cannot see the hypocrisy, or hear the voice of the Master calling us to repent.  Woe to us...

Getting Clean

Gospel: Luke 11: 37-41

"Give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you."

As Pope Leo XIV recently noted, almsgiving is a dying practice in modern Christianity.  Social justice types do not have any regard for charity at all, suggesting that justice alone will cure poverty.  More conservative types argue that the market will solve problems of poverty, and who are the deserving poor anyway?  But neither of these are Christian positions in any sense at all.  Almsgiving is the most fundamental act of the Christian life.

Most almsgiving, as early Church writers have noted, is really not charity at all but justice.  Most of us have way more than we need, and to stockpile possessions and money as we do is really a theft against the poor who lack what they need to just exist.  By giving away our excess we are evening the scales and providing for the poor what is their due as human beings.  Yet, we cannot even manage to do that easy piece of almsgiving, let alone practice actual charity.  

We think cleanliness is about physical dirt or sexual purity, but Jesus does not refer to these at all.  The cleanliness we must have is from self-interest, greed, and the hoarding of possessions through our selfishness.  That is what makes us unclean, and it is only through almsgiving, justice, and charity can we ever hope to be cleansed of that which makes us impure and unclean.  Let us strive to return to the ancient practice of almsgiving, for the care of others and the cleanliness of our souls.

A Single Sign

Gospel: Luke 11: 29-32

People demand signs from Jesus, but only one will be given to them, one they do not want to have, for it is the one Jesus announced in his home town of Nazareth at the very beginning of Luke's Gospel.  It is what Jesus refers to as the sign of Jonah.  Many think the sign of Jonah refers to the resurrection of Jesus, but that is not Jesus' meaning at all in the context of this passage and this Gospel.  It is much more jarring and controversial.  

For the sign of Jonah is the fact that foreigners and people regarded as outsiders will repent and come into the family of God while the alleged chosen people of God will not.  Jonah preached repentance to a great foreign city of Nineveh and they repented, all while God's prophets were being put to death by the chosen people in Israel.  Such will be the case in Jesus' time as well.  He will be put to death by the religious leaders in collusion with the powers of the world, while Samaritans and others repent.

It is no different in our times as well.  We see the religious leaders of our age in alliance with the powers of the world, doing untold harm to the poor, immigrants, refugees, migrants, the marginalized, and the sick.  They deride and attack those who show any opposition to them or any compassion on these unfortunates.  The sign of Jonah is ever present in our world.  The call to repentance, to mercy and care for others is the sign, the only sign given to us to heed.  

Where to Go?

Gospel: Luke 17: 11-19

Imagine being this Samaritan man who has just been healed of his leprosy.  He has lived as an outcast from all people due to his condition, the only community he has is fellow lepers like himself, all of whom are of Jewish origin.  Now he finds himself healed of this infirmity, and Jesus commands you and the others to do what is required according to the law - to go show themselves to the priests so that they can be restored to society and be made whole again.

But you the Samaritan have a problem.  You can't go to Jerusalem because the priests there will not regard you as clean because you are a hated foreigner.  And you can't show yourself at Mt. Gerazim either because your priests will not accept the fact that you were healed by a Jewish rabbi.  And your former friends who are Jewish will no longer regard you as a colleague, for though you are healed of one uncleanness of leprosy, you are still an unclean foreigner who is now an outcast among outcasts.

So, you do the only thing you can do - you return to Jesus and give thanks for being healed, and you attach yourself to his company, for you know that he alone is accepting of all people.  He does not regard you as an unclean foreigner.  You are welcome in his presence and at his table.  You only hope that his followers in the future will be as welcoming and accepting of you and other unclean foreigners as Jesus has been.  You can only hope...

Blessings for All

Gospel: Luke 11: 27-28

It is a common belief, as found in this Gospel passage, to say that a person is blessed because of some quirk of fate or for some privilege afforded a person that no one else can achieve.  This woman in today's Gospel states that Jesus' mother is blessed for being the one to bear him and nurse him in this world.  Indeed, we have an entire cult of Mary that continues this idea of blessing that is rare, a gift only given to the very few.

But Jesus rejects this notion entirely.  He reorients the idea of blessing, saying that it is those who do God's will are the ones who are blessed.  It is not based on some random event or a privilege given to just a few.  It is, instead, something that everyone can acquire and earn.  Blessing is entirely understood by Jesus as something based on our actions and choices.  Every person can be blessed of God if we but choose to accept the will of God and carry it our in our lives.

Everyone has the ability to bear and bring forth Jesus into the world.  We do this every time we perform deeds of love and mercy to others as he did while on earth.  We do this when we extend healing to others, help them be liberated from their demons, and feed them in body and soul.  By these deeds we do God's will, by them we bring forth Jesus into the world again and again, by them we too become blessed by God.   

Evil Beliefs

Gospel: Luke 11: 15-26

We are surprised to see the reaction of the crowd to an objectively positive good in this story.  Jesus liberates a person from their demons, and the crowd sees this deed as driven by evil.  It is an utterly irrational conclusion, and we are shocked by it as readers.  An observer of our reaction to the story may in fact be equally surprised by our reaction of shock.  After all, do we not see this same phenomenon day in and day out in our world?

We find people deride food and humanitarian assistance to developing countries.  We see crowds of people demean and scorn refugees, migrants, immigrants, and foreigners of all types.  We encounter people lusting for an objectively unjust death penalty system and calling it pro-life.  And all of these things come from people who claim to be Christian, who claim to follow the one who healed and welcomed all people, refusing none, the one who liberated people from their demons regardless of identity. 

Jesus attempts to reason with the crowd - with us - to no avail.  People will believe what they want.  What, then, is to be done? Sometimes the only thing that can be done - to suffer this moment with dignity and grace.  That is what Jesus will ultimately do in his passion and death.  That is what the martyrs have done in every time and age.  That is what we are called to do in this moment of powerlessness in a world possessed by its demons of ideology.  

Getting What We Want

Gospel: Luke 11: 5-13

Jesus tells us plainly in this passage that God will give us whatever we ask of him.  This passage is often cited as one to provide comfort for those looking for answers and needs.  Just pray and God will provide it.  But what happens when that does not happen? The family who prays that a loved one be cured of cancer, but no cure comes.  The poor person seeking work or life in another land, only to find no work and a land inhospitable to him.  The prayers for ungranted lottery winnings and Super Bowl outcomes...

There is no easy answer to this dilemma, one that is faced each day in hospital rooms, hospice bedsides, the classrooms of small children.  To reply to someone that sometimes God's answer is no is to completely overlook what this passage is saying and what we do when we cite this passage.  Such an answer does not provide any comfort to the person in grief and in need, especially when in some instances that need can be relieved by people and by church communities that often refuse or fail to do so.  

But perhaps the simple act of entrusting ourselves to God, of coming to realize we do not control the universe or very much at all for that matter - perhaps that is the value of the exercise itself.  In coming to realize what we do have control and agency over and what we do not we grow in wisdom, we grow in our relationship with God and each other.  Let that be our takeaway, and let that be our posture as we make our way in the world as pilgrims, not permanent settlers.   

Teach Us To Pray

Gospel: Luke 11: 1-4

When the disciples approach Jesus and ask him to teach them how to pray, they were likely unaware that the very request is a prayer itself.  What Jesus provides as an answer has come to be known as the Lord's Prayer or the Our Father, but in actuality his answer becomes the second half of the prayer uttered by the disciples.  It is God's response to our desire for communion and conversation with God. If our request to know how to pray is the first part of prayer, God's response is surely the second.

In this response to prayer that Jesus gives we find one single theme that we hear as the authentic voice of God in our lives: love.  The term 'Abba" is a title of love for God.  Our desire for daily bread - communion with God and others - is a desire for love.  And our desire to be forgiving and merciful is an impulse of love.  The entire response of Jesus is a reflection of his own life of love lived for God and for others.  It is our life as disciples of the Lord.

So as we engage in prayer, we can make the request of the disciples our own, and we then come to listen to God speak to us in our heart.  That voice of God calls us to love and mercy.  It calls us to communion with God and others.  It invites us to meditation and imitation of the life of the Lord Jesus who was love incarnate in the world.  It is an ongoing reflection on how we are called to show love and mercy in concrete ways in our life. 

What Must I Not Do?

Gospel: Luke 10: 38-42

How often have we been hosting a gathering in our home, and we became so busy and preoccupied with various details of the meal, drinks, desserts, and such that we never took the time to talk with our guests? It happens quite often, and we often regret that series of events after the fact.  We find that we only had time to say hello to our guests when they arrived and to say goodbye to them when they left.  While our guests may have loved the food, they would have preferred your company.

To a great degree, that is the point Jesus is making in today's Gospel passage with his friends Martha and Mary.  He reminds us that the most important aspect of hospitality is the simple presence we should make with our guests.  Acknowledging their presence and honoring it with our attentive presence is the most fundamental aspect of human interaction that is the most ignored and overlooked, especially in our frenetic times.  

This fact has a spiritual dimension as well.  We often make busy in our prayer time with all sorts of exercises and activities we call prayer, but we are so consumed with these details that we fail to be present in prayer.  Just the simple presence of being with God is enough.  That is the most basic element of prayer, just as it is for human interaction.  If we but take the time and discipline to be present before God, the rest will take care of itself. 

What Must I Do?

Gospel: Luke 10: 25-37

The lawyer wants to know what he must do in order to inherit eternal life.  The answer is to be like the Samaritan in this story Jesus tells - to care for those on the margins, those who are sick and dying.  The Samaritan did not stop to consider the man's racial or ethnic identities.  He did not see if the man had lawful status or not.  He did not look for any other reason to exclude him from his circle of care and concern.  He simply provided healing to this man in need.

On the other hand, the alleged religious people - the keepers of Temple ritual - did not hesitate in finding some reason to not help this poor man.  No doubt they regarded their religious duties of Temple worship as being more important than caring for the man.  They felt that maintaining ritual purity and performing the Temple rituals as prescribed was the way to inherit eternal life.  They may have even regarded their own safety as more important than helping this man.

A building made of stone cannot be saved by the use of oil and wine.  They are not living things with an eternal destiny.  God made only one temple of worship dedicated to him - the human person.  To provide oil and wine in order to heal, liberate, and nourish others in need is the only path to eternal life, the only authentic worship in spirit and in truth.  And to do so without freely without regard to a person's identity is the way of Jesus.  

Increase Our Faith

Gospel: Luke 17: 5-10

The disciples come to Jesus and ask him to increase their faith.  Like many things people say to Jesus, it is ignored or used as an opportunity to say something else.  Here, Jesus does talk about an increase in faith, but not in the way the disciples wanted.  He first states that if you had even a modicum of faith you could do great things, but you do not.  He then states that the person of faith is like a servant who merely does their duty without seeking any reward or accolades.  

The disciples are wanting the reward without doing any of the work.  They want the baby Jesus magic to just give them a strong faith, much like an unfit person wanting a well-toned body without hitting the gym.  Faith is like any virtue.  It is acquired through habit, through trial and error, through a long process of working at it.  We cannot expect to have faith or any other virtue present within us without working at it day in and day out.

Jesus came into this world as an ordinary human being who over time lived an extraordinary human life.  That is the normal course of things for every human being who seeks to live a life of great faith.  There are no short cuts, no placebos.  We are merely servants of the Lord here to do our daily duties in faith, not seeking reward or exception.  If we ask for an increase in faith, we must then kneel down to wash the feet of others as the Lord Jesus himself had done.

Seeing the Good

Gospel: Luke 10: 17-24

Jesus had sent out his disciples to do the work that he has been doing: healing people of their illness, delivering them from their demons, nourishing people at table, extending peace and reconciliation to all they meet.  The disciples now return from that mission, and they are rejoicing that they have had success in this work.  They were able to see people healed, liberated, nourished, reconciled, and this brought great joy to them.

Jesus calls and send us out to do the same work.  It is our task to find those in need of healing and provide for them according to our talents.  We are to look for those possessed by demons and liberate them however we may be called to do so.  We are to seek the hungry and lonely, providing them food and presence.  We are to extend reconciliation and peace to all we encounter in the mission the Lord Jesus has sent us out to do.

And, each day, we are to rejoice in the good that has been accomplished.  We must celebrate with those who are healed, with those who are liberated, with those now fed and nourished.  We must give thanks to God for these great deeds and for being part of these joys with those who have received them.  This is the work of the disciple, and each day it brings great joys that lead us to give thanks to God and to have great joy always.

Woe to Us

Gospel: Luke 10: 13-16

It is an odd Christianity that claims to believe in mercy while insisting on the perpetuation of an unjust death penalty system.  It is a perverse religion that claims biblical belief while maligning and exploiting immigrants, refugees, and migrants.  It is an abomination before God to claim the name of Christian while deriding and depriving the poor and marginalized of access to health care, shelter, and food - all things the Lord Jesus provided to people without question or qualification.

The woes that Jesus speaks to his generation are woes that echo through the ages to every time and place.  Those woes were uttered to those who claimed the name of God's chosen people in a religious community that appealed to tradition as its defense of its practices.  Those same woes now echo in our time to a religion claiming to be God's people and who appeal to their traditions in order to continue these atrocities in our own time.  

If we observe the decline of religion - the shuttering of church buildings and the waning attendance at services - and we do not at all look at the utter incongruence of our actions compared to those of the Lord Jesus, then woe to us.  We who fail to repent of our sins, who seek blame upon the various scapegoats we create to deflect blame from ourselves - woe to us.  We who cast statuary to the ideologues of our day in defense of our culture of death - woe to us.  

The Guardians

Gospel: Matthew 18: 1-5, 10

Time and again Jesus sets before us the presence of children to serve as a model for the Christian life, and to warn us about having any harm come to these children in the form of any violence or scandal.  How are we doing on that score?  For all the talk we have about caring for children, the report card remains very poor in our actual results.  The violence and scandal that children experience in our world continues unabated in our day.

Some see in this Gospel passage some reference to abortion, and yet those who would make that claim have little concern for the exploitation of children for sex and labor profiteering.  They have little regard for the genocide of Gaza or sub-Saharan Africa where children are directly targets.  There is actual glee at deporting young children unaccompanied back to countries torn by violence, or keeping them in unsanitary cages indefinitely separated from their families.  

If we ourselves are not willing to be guardians and protectors of children, then today's feast has no meaning other than to shift our responsibility on to beings of another realm.  Today's reading and feast remind us that we are the first and primary guardians of children in our world, that Jesus has left us with this responsibility to them, and for all our talk about having an "adult faith", it is the faith of children, the faith in children, that is our model for Christian living. 

Making Excuses

Gospel: Luke 9: 57-62

So many people claim they want to follow Jesus.  Everything is great until some inconvenience arises, or something uncomfortable takes place that leads us to look for an excuse, something we think is more important than following the Lord.  On the face of things it might be hard to imagine such a thing, but upon closer inspection we find that it is quite common for us to devise a reason or two for backing out of the journey with the Lord.

Do I really have to love my enemies? Yes, yes you do.  Do I really have to personally engage with the sick, the poor, the possessed, the hungry in order to help them?  Yep.  But that person is illegal or unworthy of my help!  No, no they are not.  They are all God's people deserving of love and care.  But they're unclean, not of our company, and ought not be in our presence!  And so were you when I came among you and invited you to table.

We find so many different ways to avoid walking with the Lord.  Very often we pretend that we actually are walking with the Lord and justify these attitudes we have toward others.  We somehow manage to do the exact opposite of what Jesus calls us to do and what he himself did, and somehow we find a way to call that discipleship or Christianity.  Today is a day for us to reflect on whether we are actually following the Lord and imitating his example, or whether we are about something else entirely.