Trusting Like Children in Our Heavenly Father

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Today we are given some beautiful images about how we should trust God instead of worry about all the other stuff out there.

You know, I think we find it difficult to trust God and his plan for our lives simply because we often don’t understand it and can’t (so to speak) “see it” until we’ve gone through it.  Whereas with all the other things we can see them pretty clearly.  The tangible things, the stuff that the word “mammon” refers to, are right before us and easy to understand, and perhaps more tempting, very easy to control and manipulate.  We feel like when we use things, we are in control of them, even when they tie bonds to our hearts.

The world tells us to be afraid.  So many people thrive off our fears.  If you get someone afraid of something, it’s much easier to sell them the false “antidote” that can calm their fears.  Just like when Peter looked at all the waves, taking our eyes away from Jesus can easily fill us up with fear.

Our patroness, however, is a profound example to us of trusting the God we cannot control, cannot fully understand, and often cannot see.  Saint Therese knew she was “little” she was weak, unfit to match up to the great souls of church history and of her modern world.  But she also knew that God was a loving father, and so in order for her to become greater than all those great souls, she only needed to trust in her God, make herself small, and raise up her arms to be picked up by him to great heights.

I once heard a father speak about his little daughter’s courageous trust in him.  She was standing on the table at home and when dad came into the room, she geared up for a jump toward him.  Not paying too much attention, the father had his mind on something else as he got close to her.  She leaped toward him and he was able to gather her in.

If an earthly father loves that much, how much more with your Heavenly Father?

And if a child has that much trust in her earthly Father, how much more should we have in our heavenly Father?

Lord, help us to keep our eyes away from the stuff around us that gives us false hopes and fake trust, and turned toward you with confidence in your tender care for us.

God's Wisdom in A Divided World of "Enemies"

Last week we spoke about how the wisdom of God is different from human wisdom.  We learn today a bit more about just how different that wisdom is when Jesus continues his authoritative interpretation of the Law given to Moses.  He seeks to transform our lives in a deeper way than the past, to heal us at the source of our spiritual disease.

The wisdom of this world, of our culture here in 21^st century USA, is often a wisdom that falls way short of what we were created to be.  Our American culture is so much a “dog-eat-dog” society, where we are all competing for the limited goods and successes that are available, so every other person around us is an obstacle to be overcome.  The ways of the world say “get even” (“an eye for an eye”) and then “get ahead.”

Every one of us has experienced this false wisdom in our lives and in our own hearts.  I remember being bullied a little bit as a Freshman in high school.  Was I ready to “love my enemy” in that situation: not so much.  I kinda wanted to get even, or at least to have the guy brought down, humiliated, and put in his place.  I was looking for immediate and direct justice, and there was no love in my heart at the time.  Years later I found out that the guy ran a red light and now has to live with the fact that he killed someone by his bad choices.  I can only imagine what that might do to someone.  I now pray that God helps him to change, to heal, and to bring God’s mercy and forgiveness to others.

God’s wisdom is different: “offer no resistance to evil.”  How does that help?  What could that possibly do?  A lot.  It can transform an entire society, one person at a time.  Just ask Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.  They put this gospel lesson into practice in a radical way: forcing “enemies” to realize the common humanity that they share by not running away and hiding in our own little bubbles.  Rather, no matter how difficult it is to keep this encounter going, look them in the face, show them who your dignity, force them to see how horrible their actions are.  Perhaps then they will come to their senses, realize their own failings, and be transformed.  May God help us to be people of communion in the midst of a society that often fails to encounter those who are different from us, our so called “enemies” who are actually our brothers and sisters.

“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  This is the ultimate challenge that God offers us.  And Jesus gets more specific on how to do that, which only makes it more difficult: love your neighbor as yourself, even to the point of loving your enemies.  Come Lord Jesus, feed us in this Eucharist, and help us to love as you love from the Cross.

Chesteron and the Wisdom of God

There are some ways that Jesus makes us feel really good, but there can be other ways He really challenges us and makes things difficult.  Today might be one of those days for us, because in this Gospel, as we look into the mirror that his words are, Jesus shows us how imperfect we are precisely in the obvious ways we fall short.  It’s not like he brings up things to us that we didn’t know beforehand.  It’s something that is burned into our hearts, our conscience convicts us of them so clearly.  We can say Based off this pure and simple wisdom, without a doubt that we don’t measure up again and again, and that isn’t fun to face.  But hey, ultimately it’s worth facing.  Because I’d rather live in reality than fantasy, wouldn’t you?

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

This “common sense” phrase of G. K. Chesterton helps us to come to grips with the fact that the message of the Gospel doesn’t always comfort us, but sometimes convicts us, and it helps us to live up to that calling.

In the second reading today, Saint Paul speaks of a wisdom today that is beyond “the wisdom of this age” but that does not mean it is not accessible to us thanks to the Spirit.  God’s wisdom is given to us.  This is a great gift, a great treasure.  But at the same time, it is also a great responsibility.  This wisdom must be nurtured and cultivated.  We can foster it through the things we read, watch, or listen to, and how we reflect on them.  This is what the writer of Sirach has done over his lifetime, and what G. K. Chesterton did through his, and what we ourselves are called to do.

If we aren’t careful to nurture the wisdom God has given us, we will fill our minds with what Paul calls the “Wisdom of this age.”  It is a false wisdom that, in a new way or an old-fashioned way, allows us to be comfortable with our distance from God.  It is rationalizing.  “Open your mind,” the world’s wisdom says.  But Chesterton, in his common sense way of thinking, reminds us: The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

The wisdom of the world says, “we don’t need the laws of old to guide us.  They are holding us down. Etc.”

Chesterton’s wise reply: In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

The Spirit convicts us and teaches us and guides us.  Conscience is the voice of the Holy Spirit.  Let us not kill this voice of the spirit that convicts us, or we will also kill the only voice that can guide us along the path that saves us from ourselves.  For if we kill the voice of God, then there are only two other options to listen to: ourselves or the voice of the enemies of God.

Let us never give up, brothers and sisters, on the way God has for us, for the two options before us are fire and water, death and life, and every moment of our lives, we choose one or the other.  Come Holy Spirit, and help us to foster the wisdom of God, that we may choose water over fire, life over death, even when it is most difficult.

homily - Salt and Light for Western Society in 2017

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We continue this week with the next part of the Sermon on the Mount which Jesus began last week with the Beatitudes, showing us our destination as human beings: poverty of spirit, meekness, purity of heart, hunger and thirst for righteousness, peacemaking, mourning (in the suffering that love often requires) and even being persecuted for the sake of righteousness.  This is our goal, and now today we have that summarized in one three beautiful images: salt and light and a city upon a hill.  This shows us how the Christians operate in their unique time and place and the gift they are to be for their world.
Salt is called a preservative because it keeps food from going bad.  It protects the good and fights away the bad, as far as edible food is concerned.  However, salt is not too valuable in itself nowadays (though at the time of Christ it was quite valuable): but its worth was and is revealed when we have something good that we want to protect.  Christians are called to do the same: preserve the good of our society and culture.
Light, like salt, is not about itself but what it provides toward other things.  It shines into the darkness and overcomes it.  So too must Christians bring good to where there is not sufficient good - to overcome evil with the power of good.
A city upon a hill was a witness to life, to unity, to the common good that people were created for.  Christian communities must lift up and unite their cultures, contrary to the evil of volatility in our culture which is driven by the sake of consumer attention and increased revenue.  Old media and new social media cultivate an environment that perpetuates itself in this volatility.
So HOW CAN WE CHRISTIANS BE SALT and LIGHT IN OUR CULTURE TODAY?
I see three ways that our culture really doesn’t get the Gospel
1. FORGIVENESS
a. We have to be people who value forgiveness because in our society we don’t see enough of it.  We don’t see people ready to ask for forgiveness because there are so many who don’t give forgiveness.  We need to be people that say “that was wrong but I will allow you the space and the love that you need to change and grow and move forward from this.”  We must recall the words of the Our Father – “as we forgive those…” and the words of Christ from the Cross – “Father forgive them…”.  And we must live these words in our world, including making use of the sacrament of Confession.
2. SUFFERING (PAIN)
a. Secondly, our society really struggles to understand suffering.  We so often get sucked into and wrapped up in the black hole that pain is, that we allow it to consume us.  So much more for those who do not have faith, who do not know that there is a God over all of it and greater than this suffering.  We need to show them how to carry the Cross because Jesus has done it before us.  The stations of the Cross need to be carried in our hearts.  We need to show them that suffering has meaning, and that Jesus can make their wounds something glorious and transform them with the power of love.
3. WONDER (MARVEL) – G.K. CHESTERTON and my cousin Leah
a. Enjoy the beauty of life – nature, people, and especially a life well-lived.
b. Grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. – G.K. Chesterton
People / money Simplicity / stuff-chasing Humility / Pride & Boastfulness Peace / hustle & bustle Taking back Sunday (boycotting Super Bowl parties – just kidding!) Love & Life / Evil & Death
ALL THREE OF THESE ARE SERVANTS OF JOY –
If people don’t know how to forgive, If they don’t know how to go beyond their pain to a deeper meaning, if they don’t know how to “stop and smell the roses” as they wonder at the goodness of life, then joy dies really fast.   Christians must witness to a joy in a quiet life of wholesome goodness that builds our world up from beneath the radar.
And that Joy doesn’t come from a human source, but is EVANGELII GAUDIUM as Pope Francis says, the joy of the Gospel.  Joy because we know that God is in control, that he has won the battle, that his love has conquered sin and death and no pain can compare with the eternity that is ahead of us in heaven.
And all of that Joy, brothers and sisters, is found here in the Eucharist.  Here we see Forgiveness, the deeper meaning of suffering, and the marvelous beauty of God’s work in Christ.  All of this is present here in the Mass.  Let us ask Jesus to strengthen us from this Mass so that we can be salt and light for our world today.

Homily - Beatitudes as Our Goal - Saints as guides

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God of surprises

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Just like we celebrated this past Christmas, God is indeed a God of surprises.  He writes His story of salvation in ways that we don’t expect.  Indeed God has a way of keeping us on our toes, and He shows up where we would least expect Him.  Sometimes God gets our attention in big ways, and perhaps many of us can think of times when we were saved from danger or had a brush with death.  One family story about this comes from a summer vacation when I was 10 years old. 

So yah, sometimes there are big ways that God sends us a message that no matter how bad things may seem, he is there with us in the midst of it (even if that still means a broken leg or 18 stitches).

But more often that not, God shows Himself in small, simple ways, that are still just as surprising or unexpected.

That is the point of the “land of Zebulon and Naphtali” in today’s readings.  These lands are the region around the Sea of  Galilee, and are thus the far northern part of the promised land, but had long before the time of Christ been completely wiped off the map.  About a century later other Jewish tribes settled there, but by the time of Christ it was considered backwater territory, and hence the reason for the scathing question of Nathaniel: “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  And this is once again how God surprises us, for indeed the greatest gift of all comes from the unexpected territory of the north: Jesus of Nazareth.

And he doesn’t come with radiant light and power, but he hides it underneath human flesh, for 30 years, and then finally starts with the humble phrase that puts no attention on Himself: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Repent and believe the Gospel.”

The point of all this is simple for us: What is my Zebulon and Naphtali?  Where do I think God could never be found?  What part of my past do I think dead and lifeless, incapable of being redeemed?  Where in my life (and in my world) do I say “what good can come from that?”  Very often we may find ourselves surprised to find Jesus there, calling us to believe in the Gospel because His Kingdom is at hand.

Saint Paul today speaks how we are all united by one thing: baptism into the Cross of Christ Jesus.  Let us never forget how unexpected this God of ours is, especially in this most shocking and wondrous sign of our faith here at the center of our Church, and never drain the Cross of its power.  It is there at the Cross, in dying to ourselves, that we find our true Zebulon and Naphtali, and the Lord of History meets us to bring us His Kingdom.  Amen. 

Baptismal Call - Saints

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As we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord last Monday (not on Sunday this year), so now today we are presented with the Gospel of John’s version of the Baptism of Jesus, which only appears as something John the Baptist describes after the fact, explaining to the disciples his own testimony, “bearing witness to the Light” of the World, that Jesus is indeed the Lamb of God, but most important of all, as we heard in the last line: “He is the Son of God.”  You see, of all the titles of Jesus, this one is different, and indeed the greatest, because it gets most perfectly at the essence of who Jesus is.  He is the only-begotten Son of the eternal Father, and thus God Himself and co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

It is in the Baptism of Jesus that his mission is first made known.  It was before now a secret kept by a select few to whom God had privately revealed it.  In their deep personal prayer, Mary, Joseph, (and perhaps his parents) Simeon, Anna, and John the Baptist (and probably his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth) had a sense of what Jesus was sent on earth to do, but now John whispers this well­-kept secret in a few symbolic phrases to his closest disciples, who now will become Jesus’ followers.  He is the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and thus be made known to Israel.

Baptism gives a mission to Jesus.  And thus it does to us.

I was fortunate to do my first baptism here last Sunday.  And this Sunday I am to be a Godfather for a local family’s child.  And even more, my sister Katie had her first child, a girl named Therese Rose after our patroness, the Little Flower, and after Mother Teresa.  What a gift.  God is so good, and new life is a blessing.  But baptism, my friends, is a calling, a calling Saint Paul makes very clear in the beginning of his 1^st letter to the Corinthians.  Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are called to be Holy (saints).

We are called Christians, little Christs, little anointed ones (“baptized with the holy spirit”)

1.      Priest – Adam (Moses/Aaron/Levi)

2.      Prophet – John the Baptist

3.      King -  David

The saints help us to flesh this out.  They bring the Bible to life in our world today.  They are like adding sound and color an old silent film, it makes everything burst out at you in a new way.

Read their lives, even in the book we might have chosen for Christmas (watch films about them – n.b. some are better than others!)

My saint = Rose of Lima.

We all have Mary, Joseph, and Therese, and our baptismal & confirmation names.

Let them show you how to live out your baptismal call, to be what you were made to be.  It’s not a secret anymore, you are a little Christ, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and meant to be a Saint who brings the Gospel to life in our world today.