The Journey Continues
The Resurrection of the Lord: The Mass of Easter Day
Luke 24:13-35
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040526.cfm
There are several readings that can be used for today. This reading from Luke is for the afternoon or evening Mass. It does not have the encounter at the tomb, but two of the disciples’ encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus and sharing a meal in Emmaus. When Jesus walks and talks with them, they do not recognize him. This is a solid theme with the resurrected Jesus, he wasn’t easily recognized by his appearance but through his actions. There was something very different about Jesus.
In their conversation on the road, the disciples tell Jesus all about Jesus and the recent events that occurred. Jesus then in reply explains the prophecies throughout scripture and how it foretold of him. I imagine this conversation to be like Jesus at the temple. Like with the temple elders, they thought they had something to teach Jesus, but Jesus ends up being the one who teaches them. In today’s gospel, the two disciples experience something similar to the elders.
Now, when they arrive in Emmaus, the two disciples invite their new friend to stay with them and share a meal. They are being hospitable to this stranger that they befriended on their seven-mile journey. When they sat to eat, Jesus blessed the bread, broke it, and they knew it was him. They didn’t recognize him throughout the journey or in the words he shared, but in the breaking of the bread, in the sharing of a meal.
While we have our masses, our religious celebrations, our scripture, our prayers, our sacraments, what’s even more common is the meals we share. If you are gathering with family and friends at a table during this holiday, look around the room. How do you all know each other? What connects and ties you all together most deeply? Is it your religious practice and interpretation of scripture? Is it in your debates and arguments? Is it because you always agree? Is it because you are all the same? Or is it in this fellowship, in the sharing of the meal?
We may share in our faith, share in our work, share in our activities together, but where we see the Lord is in the sharing of the meal together. It’s a time to break from the hustle and bustle of life and be truly present with one another.
My theater company just finished the run of a show on March 22nd. As is customary, we had the cast and crew stay and teardown the set and clean-up the theater. This group was able to deeply connect as regularly happens over the weeks leading up to production and the production itself. It all gets intense at the end, and by the time you think you’ve got the hang of it, it’s over. This group had numerous good-bye gifts for one another. I was the assistant director of the show. As we were finishing up the work, I asked the director if we were going to go to the usual Mexican restaurant after the work was done, per our company’s tradition. Given that it was a newer cast, he and I thought we could get away with just going home for much needed rest. We checked in with the rest of the group and found out the two of us were the last to know that Mexican was on.
The food was the same, but the company was different. Even for those of us who have gotten together after shows in the past, we are now different given the growth and change that happened since the last time. We were able to reflect on recent events and think about what is to come next with us together and us apart. In the parking lot, we lingered with hugs, good-byes, and hypothetical plans that may or may not occur. We were about to return back to life as changed people, but, for that moment, we were in the transitional liminal space together holding on and trying to capture the moment.
The time Christ spent on earth between the resurrection and ascension was such a time and place. In Jesus’s tradition, it was like a Shabbat meal. Life has been completed, but life still continues. The mission was completed, but the mission still continues. The journey was completed, but the journey still continues.
We transition. We transform. We grow.
We die, we rise, and we ascend.
He is risen.
He is risen indeed.
Hallelujah.
Too Much To Wait
Holy Saturday At the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter
Matthew 28:1-10
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040426.cfm
When the angel speaks to the women, the angel starts with the usual phrasing of “Do not be afraid.” The angel shares the news about Jesus’s resurrection. He refers to them looking for the crucified Jesus, but Jesus is not just crucified now but resurrected. The angel gives them directions to let the disciples know that Jesus will meet them in Galilee, the place where he spent almost all of his time in ministry in this gospel. Galilee was important because it was a region that was a melting pot of Jews and Gentiles. Jesus was bringing God beyond the walls of the Jewish faithful, but still rooted in it. The ministry that the disciples will carry is both within Israel and beyond it.
While the angel gave women notice, and the women were headed to share the news, Jesus encountered them. It wasn’t enough for just the angel to share the news with them, but Jesus did as well. I like to imagine this as Jesus breaking protocol. Jesus was to meet everyone together in Galilee, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to reunite with his friends so he met them when they were on their way. He was eager to be back with them. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son or the bridegroom seeking wedding attendees. Jesus wanted reconnection after what he went through; a journey back to his friends and loved ones.
God finds a way to us in our liminal spaces. While we may know and anticipate an encounter with God at mass, prayer, scripture reading, or other forms of daily devotion, God finds us when we are on our way. God seeks and desires the encounter with us. Not just when we start on the journey or when we reach our destination but throughout the space in between.
Even after the resurrection, Jesus couldn’t wait. Jesus had to visit with the women who checked up on him. Jesus is reaching out to us too. Not once we’ve accomplished something, not once we’ve helped our neighbors, not once we’ve said the right prayer or participated in sacraments, God is wanting to encounter us now when we are enroute to such things. While God is the Alpha and Omega, God is also the here and now. God wants to be with us at this moment. God’s not waiting for us to get it just right or to have the exact right and perfect belief system. God encounters us now, on the bad days and the good; when we fail, when we succeed, and everything in between.
As with the women in today’s gospel, God loves you too much to wait so let’s not feel the need to wait either but welcome God in the here and now.
God Is Dead
Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
John 18:1—19:42
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040326.cfm
In college, I became very fascinated with continental philosophy. One philosopher I liked a lot was Fredrick Nietzsche. Even though a lot of people are very critical of him and his critique of Christianity, a lot of his ideas, philosophies, and criticisms have helped form and grow my faith. One of his most famous quotes is, “God is dead.” The excerpt if from Gay Science Book III section 125:
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife, - who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event, - and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!"
In this passage, it is commonly believed that Nietzsche is speaking about the age of enlightenment when individuality and reason began to superseded faith-based understandings of the world. During this period, humankind began to subscribe more on the scientific method of understanding over superstition or because God said so, the church said so, or the Bible said so.
Nietzsche’s philosophical dilemma was to find value in existence without resorting to blind-faith or nihilism, or that existence is pointless. Where Nietzsche lands is that one must live one’s life in such a way for the betterment of future generations. He also spoke of the optimal life being one where a person is willing to infinitely repeat one’s life over without any regret or any remorse. To live a truly good life is to fully accept your decisions and how you dealt with times of suffering and thriving that you would ultimately be willing to repeat all of it without any adjustments.
“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!” To these words of Nietzsche, I say , “Yes, we have and so did Jesus.” Jesus saw that people of his day were misguided in their understanding of God. They put God in the position of being otherworldly. God had different rules. God could order the murder of others, but we had the ten commandments that outlawed it unless God ordered it. They lost sight of their God because of their overt focus on the law. Jesus’s God was not otherworldly. He referred to God as Abba, as “father” or a more accurate translation would be “dad.” God for Jesus was familial and relational.
As far as the law and prophets go, Jesus took it a step further and went to the source of where the law and the prophets were pointing, to the Abba behind it. As is written in 1 John 4:7-8, “Let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” The Abba behind the law and the prophets is Love. God is love. We often lose sight of that. The law and the prophets do not supersede love, love supersedes the law and the prophets. Thus, Jesus summed up the law and the prophets to loving God and loving others. Jesus was killing an idea of God where the law and prophets superseded God. For Jesus, God transcends it. God is not going to ask us to do anything that God doesn’t will. God is going to do what God wills and God is calling us to the same. God’s will supersedes all our religious practices and creeds. Our practices and creeds should be a means to it, when they aren’t they lose their intended purpose. Jesus subscribed to his tradition while pointing to the deeper message behind it.
Jesus wanted us to believe in Abba, the love behind his religious tradition, the law and the prophets. For that, we killed him. It was something that we weren’t willing to accept. It’s not that anything changed, Jesus was pointing to what was there, hidden in plain sight, but we couldn’t see it. We wanted the law and prophets so we could judge. We wanted the law and the prophets so we could exclude others. In paraphrasing the gospel, Jesus says to us, “Why can’t you see the truth? You’re using these things to do the exact opposite of their intended purpose! Now, wake up! Love God and love your neighbor, that’s it! The rest of it is noise.” So we killed him because we didn’t want to hear it.
I don’t believe Enlightenment killed God. It killed a false image of God we had put in place. Reason points to God as much as faith should. God’s imprint is throughout history and we misunderstand it. We use our images of God to our own ends and own means. But, we are called to destroy these idols, our false images of God, to gain a deeper understanding. The gospel points us in that direction. On Good Friday, we tried to kill a new understanding of God that was always already there. But, that understanding, in human form, was resurrected in three days. May we continue to kill our false gods to resurrect the God that has universally always been here, new and refreshed within ourselves!
The Washing of Feet
Holy Thursday-Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
John 13:1-15
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040226-Supper.cfm
“Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus uses this phrase with the breaking of bread and raising of the cup, but not with washing of the feet. Those six words, in a way, separate what we made into a sacrament and what we did not. The washing of feet is not a sacrament, but numerous churches do this as part of their Maundy Thursday celebration. It is even something that the Pope does in memory of what Jesus did.
The first thing that Jesus says in the passage, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” Jesus is stressing the importance of servant leadership. We are called to take care of each other in community. We shouldn’t be separated by class or authority.
When Peter pushes back and says that Jesus will never wash his feet, Jesus responds, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” As he does in the gospel of John, Jesus moves from speaking practically to speaking about spiritual matters. In this sense, he’s expressing that he has the ability to cleanse us. Jesus is the means to salvation. I think there is something more literal here as well. Jesus was showing Peter the example of how he should act and how he should be by washing his feet. The inheritance that Jesus was speaking about was the act of taking care of others. Building upon the servant leader theme, Jesus is saying, I must do this for you so you do it for others. It’s not enough for Jesus to tell them what to do, he must be the example. Jesus was one to call his followers, not just in words, but in his example. The teacher must humbly take care of the student.
Peter then reacts and tells Jesus to wash all of him. Jesus responds, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.” Jesus was expressing the practicality in all of this. There wasn’t the need for a full bath because the act itself is what needed to be taken on. Bathing wasn’t the delivery of inheritance, it was the act of humbly taking care of the needs of others. As the gospel writer expresses, not all of them will understand it or get it because Judas has other intentions and wasn’t fully present to receive the lesson.
Jesus then concludes, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
We are to take care of one another. In one of Jesus’s last actions with his disciples, he wanted to send the message home. No one is above one another. We all must take care of each other as equals. We must even lower ourselves in our societal positions to be servants to one another. It’s the legacy that Jesus wanted carried on after him. To love God and love your neighbor is to take care of one another.
Lonely Fellowship
Wednesday of Holy Week
Matthew 26:14-25
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040126.cfm
Some days are harder than others. On the surface things may look special and significant, but internally there is loneliness and struggle. We made the last supper into a tradition, into a moment of deeper remembrance of Jesus. The sacrament that Jesus instills is healing in the Christian faith traditions. In Catholicism, it’s the body and blood of Jesus and our participation in it is the communion of saints. It connects us back to Jesus, the disciples, and all who have participated in Eucharist throughout history, into the future, today, and outside of time. It unifies us.
How must it have been for Jesus? It was the last supper. It was a seder meal; one of unification, belonging, and redemption. Jesus was there among the disciples, knowing what was about to happen and the role that each of them was going to play in it. One last meal with friends; one who would betray him and another who would deny. Most of them wouldn’t be present for him through it, but even those who were, I’m sure his scourge and crucifix were isolated, lonely experiences. This last supper as well would have been a very lonely experience even amongst friends.
While it wasn’t his house, he was the host. He was there at the meal not fully for himself, but for his friends. Ultimately, I imagine he was feeling pretty alone. Even in the presence of others, he was alone. He took the time to create something tied to his tradition, something that was new, and something that would also be unifying. In the Catholic tradition, it is celebrated daily throughout the world. We connect the meal back to what it means for us, but I can imagine for Jesus, the man, did not have all of that. To know one’s distance. To not have anyone to confide in. To not be understood. To be left outside and put apart in the company of others. To be alone amongst friends. To not have anyone who could truly empathize, knowing what you have to do and wishing someone was there with you in it, but knowing that they aren’t and can’t fully be. They will be eventually, but they aren’t right now, as is the case for all of us.
I imagine that when we separate ourselves from God, that is what it is like for God. Always present, but absent. Separation from God is hell, a hell of our choosing. Jesus went through it too, both from God and from us. Jesus felt the absence, the loneliness, the isolation, and he held it and let it linger. He experienced it and he let it be. He still did what he needed to do and was there for those he loved. He was there for all of us. He was there for Judas as he was there for Peter and the other disciples. He gave of himself at the meal and made himself present even when it was challenging for him to do so. Jesus made the space for those he loved.
Find some time today and meditate on the loneliness of Jesus in his final week. Sit in that lonely fellowship in the presence of your God who got to know it and still knows it as well.
Forgive Seventy-Seven Times
Tuesday of Holy Week
John 13:21-33, 36-38
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033126.cfm
Jesus lives by forgiveness. In today’s gospel, he recognizes to Judas what he is about to do and to Peter what he is going to do. In the gospel of Matthew, Judas already knew what he was going to do. There was some form of premeditation. It says in John 13:2 that the devil already induced Judas and then in verse 27 that Satan entered him. The term Satan in Hebrew and devil in Greek mean the same thing, accuser. The terms were used in legal settings like the term “prosecutor.” The term was often used or associated with a false accuser. It was not always the name of a nefarious entity. That evolved over time. The serpent in Genesis was not originally understood as Satan, but the concept evolved over time. Similarly, the concept of eternal life and heaven were also later developments in the Jewish tradition.
In a way, there was a need to show that there is a part of us that accuses and how it can just come over us. That need for us to accuse is something that we can easily personify as with the devil, but it is still us. We have the ability to come up with options and choose which one to take. There are drives to follow the divine and drives to follow the accuser in us.
Jesus personifies the divine approach. Judas and Peter both were Jesus’s friends and disciples. He chose them even though he knew where it would lead him. He chose them anyway. He knew one was going to hand him over and another was going to deny and turn his back on him. Both of them had intentions of doing the right thing in their own way. Jesus forgives them both and does not hold resentment or condemnation. Jesus lets them both know what he knows, but he doesn’t accuse them. He still loves them regardless. In Matthew 18:22, Jesus says to forgive your brother 77 times. This is how Jesus treated his disciples.
With Peter, Jesus says you will not follow me now, but you will follow me later. While Peter denies Jesus in the gospel, he doesn’t remain in that state. Eventually, Peter chooses not to deny Jesus which ultimately results in his death by crucifixion as was also the case for Jesus.
Jesus lived by what he preached and he expects us to do the same. Jesus calls us to follow both his teaching and his actions as they are one and the same. His forgiveness was/is an embodiment of the divine as it is also a calling for our humanity. God does not desire us to do anything that God doesn’t already do. We may fall short, but the option is always there. God is just waiting and wanting us to fully embrace it and forgives us when we don’t. So when others wrong us or we wrong ourselves, God wants us to do the same. May we learn from it as Peter did.
Generosity and Gratitude
Monday of Holy Week
John 12:1-11
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033026.cfm
A friend of mine and her husband have recently fallen on harder times. He has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. It has been a life altering change for them. She is her husband’s primary caregiver and is trying to do the best for him which can be very challenging. She looks for what the right decision is and the best way she can support him and often feels like she is falling short. I can’t imagine what it’s like for them, and everything that they are going through.
Recently her husband’s family decided to hold a fundraiser and a celebration of life event to help support them. The event had a great turnout. She’s also been invited to special Alzheimer’s fundraising and awareness events as a recipient of the much needed aid that they provide. They received support from friends, family, and the broader community.
My friend and her husband have always been very generous. They contribute a lot to the community. They are giving of their time, talents, and treasures for others. For people that have lived a life of generosity, it has been hard to accept the aid of others. They appreciate the support and care, but it’s difficult to be in need especially when you are used to being people that others have leaned on, are always there to support, and know how to make others feel special and valued. But now, it’s their time for others to have the opportunity to be generous back to them. We all have our time of need, and we need to be willing to accept it and be grateful.
The kingdom of God is built on generosity. Sometimes we are the giver and sometimes we are the recipient. None of us can do it alone. We all need to be there for each other. There will always be the ones in need and sometimes that is us. People need an opportunity to give. In today’s gospel, Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." We need to accept the giving nature of others. We are not intended to do it alone. As willing as some people are to give, they need to be willing to receive as well. Sometimes it may seem like too much, or that it could have been better used for something else, but, alas, we must accept graciously. God’s grace is active in gratitude as it is in generosity. We are called to both with one another and with God. God’s kingdom is built on generosity and gratitude.
Matthew 5 to the End
Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion
Matthew 26:14—27:66
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032926.cfm
Jesus lived by his principles to the end. We often look at Jesus’s death as being necessary for the forgiveness of our sins and the redemption of the world, but Jesus makes it very clear in Matthew 5, that we are not to be retaliatory because God is not retaliatory. Sin is not a remedy for sin. If you should not murder, why would God make it necessary for salvation? The Father did not need the son’s blood.
In Matthew 5:38-48 Jesus expresses how extreme his approach was to those who sinned against him and that he was calling us to the same:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Our traditions tend to look past these passages as hyperbole, but what if they are not? We have Thomas Aquinas with his just war theory in the Suma Theologica where he defines that a war is just if it’s done by a legitimate authority, for a righteous cause, and with righteous intent. Jesus clearly speaks contradictory to this. Within this gospel where is there room for this?
Jesus lived by these passages to the end. He did not offer resistance, he turned the other cheek, and he loved his enemy as himself. He let the sun rise and fall on the bad and the good and the rain on the just and unjust. Jesus may have anticipated redemption from God on the cross, thus, he says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” But, God’s redemption transcends one’s death. Jesus’s death and resurrection speaks of the commitment and truth of his words. Why do you think the first followers took a non-violent stance and accepted their own martyrdom? They seemed to get the message, so why don’t we today?
Jesus died for his principles, and in dying for his principles, he died for all of us, enemy and friend alike. Like the sun and the rain, he died for the just and unjust, the good and the bad. He died for and because of us. His death is to teach us to live by his teachings and principles regardless of the outcome. It is the right thing and the true bringer of the kingdom. Violence begets more violence. Like Jesus, we need to be the exception that truly drives change.
Leo Tolstoy believed in the message and wrote the book, “The Kingdom of God is Within You”, about it. Mahatma Gandhi read that book and was inspired to non-violently protest against the British Empire. As a Hindu, Gandhi was inspired by the message and example of Jesus as understood by Tolstoy. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. learned that this book influenced Gandhi, so he read it and was inspired to his non-violent approach to advocate for civil rights. Jesus, Gandhi, and Dr. King left lasting impressions that inspired great change in the world. I would argue that these three people were bringers of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is calling us to do the same. Jesus not only told us what to do, he shared and gave his life as an example for us to do the same. So, let’s do the same.
Retributive Justice
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 11:45-56
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032826.cfm
To be in captivity or occupied by another nation’s control causes a lot of anxiety for a group of people. They lack freedom and are in search of hope for a redemption of their people. It’s not an easy place to be in. The Jewish people had a long history of occupation and captivity, and their God gave them times of deliverance. It’s amazing through all of it that the Jewish faith and people remained through it all. They knew what it was like to be a nation without a nation and a nation with a nation. They knew what it was like to wander the desert without a homeland, to be in servitude in another land, and to be in servitude in a land they believed to be their own. Their scripture provides stories of when they thrived and when they were persecuted and how God remained true to them throughout these different times.
In today’s gospel, Caiaphas, the high priest, gives the leaders hope that their fate is about to get better if they have Jesus put to death. He prophesied that Jesus was not only going to die for the prosperity of the nation of Israel but his death would lead to the gathering of dispersed children of God. For them, what Jesus was doing was very displeasing to God and was causing a schism within the people. If they were to end Jesus, it would return them to how things should be, a unified people in the right relationship with God.
How often do we scapegoat people or groups of people today? We desire a God of retributive justice, but Jesus offers something different. We’re the ones who associate retribution with God. Jesus tells his followers to not resist evil people with evil, to turn the other cheek, and to forgive and show mercy in place of retribution. In my opinion, that’s part of why we killed Jesus. We want retribution and Jesus was offering love your enemies. We wanted exclusiveness, and Jesus offered inclusion. We wanted stoning and persecution, and Jesus gave us mercy. We wanted hierarchies and prestige, and Jesus offered the last shall be first and the first shall be last. How can you have justice if you're setting the guilty captives free? How can the world work if people aren’t punished?
Agape love, or unconditional and sacrificial love, is hard for us to comprehend. To most of us it even sounds heretical. It’s good enough and easy enough for God but doesn’t apply to us. In the kingdom God is calling us to, it is enough and it cannot exist without it. Yet we remain always pushing against it, and God keeps calling us to wake up. God seeks our transformation, not our punishment. God’s justice is likewise transformative, not retributive.
Doing God’s Will
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 10:31-42
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032726.cfm
If it points or leads you to God, it must be doing something right. There is an issue with false prophets and ones who use the divine spark as a means to a selfish or a power-gaining end. Jesus, though, is always referential to the Father, not his own means and his accord. Jesus keeps saying, let the actions and the words stand for themselves. You don’t have to like him to know and observe that he is doing God’s work.
With this challenging audience, Jesus addresses that the what and the how are more important than the who. The who becomes significant by the what and how. You know the “who” by what they express and show. We are all created in the image and likeness of God, but what we do with that image determines if it is made known. We are created uniquely and loved by God and we can choose to let God’s presence be known through what we do and how we act. Jesus was saying you know his connection to the Father through what he does.
Jesus always let that image and presence be known, thus he was an extension of the source. We too have such a capacity. It’s not a means to an end. It’s not a vehicle to gain more power, respect, accolades, recognition, material wealth. It is the value in and of itself. If it’s used as a means to another end, it loses its actual value; it’s putting something else above God. We can accidentally stumble upon it, but more often than not it takes a lot of work and reflection. I can be loving as a means for acceptance, but then I lost the truth behind being loving. Love is the means and the end. It starts with love, ends with love, and is love along the way. To do the will of God is to be with God.
Glorified by God
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 8:51-59
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032626.cfm
When Jesus was asked, “Who do you make yourself out to be?”, he answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me,of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’“
There are a lot of ways we glorify ourselves and how we identify ourselves. Our identities come with a sense of pride and judgment and opinions from others. There are all kinds of these judgments. We do it with gender, race, age, sexual orientation, ancestry. I always thought my heritage was primarily German so I identified it and the good attributes about German people and none of the bad. When I took an ancestry test and found out I was far less German than I anticipated, it took me some time to process that change in identity.
I live in St. Louis area and everyone from the area wants to know where a person went to high school; it’s a way to size a person up. It lets them provide judgments about social class. It sounds very innocent, but it comes with a lot of baggage. We also make presumptions about birth order and form judgements about others depending on their birth order. We do this with generations, income, organizational associations, hobbies, health, appearance, profession, etc. It’s hard for us to go beyond how we identify ourselves and how we identify others. Ask yourself the question asked to Jesus, “Who do you make yourself out to be?” Take a minute and truly reflect on it: who do you make yourself out to be?
Ultimately, we put a lot of value in how we identity ourselves and how others identify us. It can be a driver of a lot of our actions. But, what if we could give that identity over to God. Let go of the control, the performances, the playing, the attire, the styling and just let yourself be. No matter what you put on yourself, it pales in comparison to God's image of you. That image is who you truly are, not what you layer on top of it. That person is who God glorifies, but we’re keen to play roles and play into expectations we place on ourselves.
As we approach the end of this Lent, let us try to connect with the core of who we are, free from our presumptions and projections. Let us learn to just be in our unique creation, ever trying to grow and expand it in loving relationships with others and God.
Mary, did you know?
Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Luke 1:26-38
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032526.cfm
Today is nine months before the birth of Jesus. So in the midst of Lent, we have “Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord” or the date that Jesus may have been incarnated. This year it falls on the Wednesday before Holy week. In four days, it will be Palm Sunday, in eight days we’re celebrating Maundy Thursday (the last supper and the washing of feet), Good Friday with the crucifixion in nine days, and Easter with the resurrection in eleven days. What a time to pause and reflect on where Jesus’s earthly journey began at the annunciation between Mary and Gabriel! All the things that happened in Jesus’s life are about to conclude with the passion of his last week and the continuation through the resurrection.. Mary had no idea when it began on what all it would entail, but she entrusted herself to God’s will to allow it to happen.
Out of nowhere today, my youngest son started singing “Mary, Did You Know?” I have no idea as to why and it was just sang the opening verse, but it called to mind the significance of today. Four years ago, I played a pastor in a production of “Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” and then a little over a year ago, I filled in for the role of father in it to help a friend who ran into some hard times. The director of both shows is a good friend of mine and we used a recording of “Mary, Did You Know?” during the pivotal scene when the troublesome girl playing Mary realizes the importance of Christmas. The recording here is not the one we used for this production, but one with the children of the person who originally recorded it, the Shininger family, a very talented group of individuals.
Like the character in “Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” our journey to God is one of transformation. It’s not just one transformation, but it is continual and ongoing. God is never done with us. Like with Mary, we don’t know exactly what we are committing to when we start the journey. Things don’t tend to go exactly how we had planned. There are different ups and downs that could never have been expected. Opening ourselves up to God, we will grow in love through that process and help others to do the same.
May you find some time today to reflect on this experience for Mary. What it must have been like for her at the beginning of this journey, raising Jesus, during his ministry, living through his emotions and suffering during Holy Week, and experiencing Jesus’s resurrection. There’s a lot there to process for anyone that knew Jesus, but think about what that must have been like for his mother, one that was connected to him in the flesh.
“Mary, did you know?”
You can learn more about Steve Shininger here:
https://www.thebash.com/dance/steveshiningertheshinsingsorchestra
https://www.facebook.com/groups/143368840989/
I AM
Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 8:21-30
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032426.cfm
“I am who I am” is what God responded when Moses asked God for a name. It signifies God as the creator of all or being itself. In ancient times too, there was a thought that having a deity’s name was to have power over it. The Hebrew God didn’t give such an opportunity. God was nameless and referenced by what God was.
So when Jesus says “I AM” he is referencing the God of Moses and putting himself in that context. Jesus is proclaiming his divinity in this gospel, a divinity through his relation to the Father. Jesus is one with the creator of all because Jesus does the will of the creator. Jesus says, “...I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
To do the will of something is to be one with that thing. There are a lot of things we can give our will over to: addiction, power, glory, recognition, accomplishments, material, our own ego. Jesus found a way to go beyond all that and do the will of God. We too should aspire to do the same. While we are not perfect, we can examine our life and take breaks from the things that dominate and drive our lives. We can pause to see if we are putting them above God or if they are just something that we do. To follow Jesus is to strive for the same, to align one’s will with the Divine.
Let it linger
Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 8:1-11
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032326.cfm
It’s so easy to feel the need to stand up and fight injustice. There is a time and a place for it, but fighting fire with fire can often cause more fire. Condemnation is more likely to cause more adversity, not transformation. Transformation requires space for realization and change. Violence and admonishment can lead to more conflict, but transformation requires trust and patience. Trust that what needs to be transformed is ultimately correct, and trust that the ones requiring transformation will be open to a shift in their belief systems and posturing.
It’s the core of non-violent protest which tries to illuminate the suffering caused by societal and institutional sin. These protests put forth a hope or trust that the dominant group will wake up to their shortcomings and the impacts of their actions. It finds some form of equality within the humanity in the dominant and persecuted group. It gives the space for the dominant group to realize the humanity of the other and to treat the other with equality through the transformation of their worldview. Making this space and having patience with it is very difficult. There is no guarantee in results as it puts trust in one's enemies to wake up.
Jesus shows this patience in today’s gospel. He doesn’t admonish those who want to stone the woman found in adultery. He at first draws in the sand to let them calm down their righteous anger. He let it linger. He let it breathe. He let the boiling water ease into a simmer. He then speaks and gives it even more space when he goes back to drawing in the sand. The elders are the first to ship their behavior. Those who have been around awhile and who desire to keep the peace were the first ones to give up on their anger and condemnation of the woman. Their example then leads to the others to follow. Truth will find its place. The light will overcome the darkness not through condemnation or eye for an eye justice, but in letting it sit and be. Let the light and truth do its work. Deep down most people want to do the right thing.
The woman in the story too didn’t need the persecution of the crowd to be transformed, but the compassion and mercy she found in Jesus. She already had her own guilt and shame. One’s suffering is enough to transform, it doesn’t require the condemnation of others. We too often resolve ourselves to condemnation because we see it as justice, efficient, and driver of change. Jesus offers another way driven by truth, patience, and mercy. The divine side of others will welcome the transformation and the light will ultimately overcome the darkness. If it doesn’t, it’s on them; we have given the opportunity and created the space for it to happen.
We can create the environment for a seed to grow. We can give it fertile soil, water, and the right amount of sun, but the plant must decide if it will take those conditions and grow. That transformation requires patience for the plant, you can’t force it. Our transformation is no different. We must be willing to let go and let God work.
Hours in a Day
Fifth Sunday of Lent
John 11:1-45
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032226.cfm
This is a long gospel reading and there is a lot that can be unpacked about it. The passage I am focusing on in this reflection is John 11:9-10:
“Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”
Jesus said these words when the disciples questioned him wanting to go back to the area where people wanted to stone him. We are not our greatest and our weakest moments all the time. We can get angry and lose our temper. We can become sad and have breakdowns. We can be compassionate and critical and judgmental. There are a lot of hours within a day. In the story, Jesus uses this to show that those who want to stone him, aren’t just existing for the moment to stone Jesus. It may have been a desire for them when they were with Jesus last, but that doesn’t mean that’s how they are all the time.
We say that we are sinners because we’ve sinned, but we’re not sinning 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year. There is both light and darkness in a 24 hour period, and as the year cycles the amount of light and dark can vary depending on what season we are in. If we do this for sin, why don’t we do this for the times we are righteous? Why don’t we do this when we examine and talk about others? We have a propensity to focus on the darkness. This focus may be for good reason as it is a mechanism to protect ourselves as the disciples were wanting to protect Jesus in today’s gospel.
Our focus on the darkness can get the better of us. And it does get the better parts of us. It often impedes us from doing the right thing. It can also drive us to doing the wrong things. In presuming we are evil or bad, we are more likely to continuously reproduce it. If we focus on it in others, it can do the same for them. We can repeat the mantra to ourselves that we are a bad person. Even in mass we say the Confiteor: “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” Confession serves a purpose, but it isn’t all sin or all about sin. We all still have moments in the light.
To truly fight darkness isn’t about getting rid of the darkness, but in increasing the light. Darkness is only destroyed by increasing the light. To focus on the darkness can cause us to lose sight of the light. We need to make space for the light, to make space to see light in ourselves and in others. It takes a lot to lose all the light.
In many of the gospels, Jesus shows people their light when the world only showed them their darkness. In seeing that their light was recognized and seen, they were transformed. Yes we are sinners who have sinned, but we are also righteous people who have done righteous acts. God makes space for us, so let us make space for God.
It’s not fair
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
John 7:40-53
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032126.cfm
Today’s gospel mentions Galilee a lot. The gospel writer of John really showcases Galilee as the area that welcomed Jesus and his ministry, and Jerusalem and the central place that despised Jesus and sought actions against him. Galilee is what you might consider as backwoods. The region was full of small agriculture and fishing villages that were heavily taxed by Rome. These areas too were heavily a melting pot between Jews and Gentiles.
The book of John has Jesus’s ministry start here with the ministry of Cana and includes miracles here like the feeding of the 5,000. It juxtaposes Jesus’s ministry as being for the people and the seat of religious authority in Jerusalem. Jeus was bringing the worlds of the Gentile and Jew together so this would have been fertile ground for that. In this gospel, the Pharisees question Jesus’s authority and reference that Jesus can’t be that special given where he is from and how that does not align with prophecy.
The gospel also shows that there was jealousy as to how people responded to Jesus. The guards are condemned because they are influenced by Jesus. I think the Pharisees wished that they were received by the community the way Jesus was. You can sense that they definitely thought that they were more deserving. On the surface, they appear to do all the right things. But those who focus on the surface, don’t always see the spirit that lies underneath. Jesus does not fit their image on the surface, but he is seen and known by people who were living authentically.
It’s easy to fall into the same trap as the Pharisees. We act in a certain way expecting certain results from others. When we see others who we see not putting forth the same effort as we do getting better results, we are prone to despise them. But ultimately, we’re not in competition. When it comes to matters of faith, it doesn’t matter if we are the ones who lead someone to conversion or it’s someone else. The important thing is that the person was converted. We’re not in competition. God is calling us to build the kingdom together. A house divided against itself can’t stand
Festival of Ingathering
Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent
John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032026.cfm
During Jesus’s time when the temple still existed, there were three annual pilgrimage festivals where Jewish people were to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem if they were in the area and able. These festivals were called the Shalosh Regalim. The first one was Passover (in remembrance of the redemption of the Jewish people from Egyptian captivity and the planting of barley), the second one was Shavuot (in remembrance of the revelation of the ten commandments to Moses and the wheat harvest), and the third one was Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles (in remembrance of the exodus journey through the desert and the fruit harvest). The last one was the event that Jesus attended in today’s gospel.
This festival lasted for 7 days and involves people building huts and staying within them. The holiday has two significant symbolic meanings: Protection and Unity. For Protection, the holiday reflected on and asked God for protection as God did throughout the journey in the desert. There’s a focus on the uncertainty in life and that God must protect us for us to survive. This is also timed with the fruit harvest, because a lot could go wrong and the people desired the protection of their harvest.
For Unity, it gets a little more complex than that. For unity it involves the taking of the Four Kinds, dwelling the sukkah (hut), and joy. The festival overall is joyful focussing on communal happiness that transcends our own selfish wants and desires. It includes being welcoming not just to family and friends, but to all classes, outsiders, strangers, orphans, and woods. It’s focused on uniting all segments of society.
The joining of the four kinds was a symbol of deeper unity. The four kinds are different spiritual classes based on knowledge and good deeds. The four kinds are combinations of these: knowledge but not good deeds, knowledge and good deeds, good deeds and not knowledge, neither knowledge nor good deeds. When these four kinds are bound together they show unity and oneness amongst the diversity of people. It symbolized integration beyond connection where the scholarly are integrated into one group with the ignorant.
The sukkah takes the unity even further by symbolizing that the entire nation of Israel could be within one single sukkah leaning on the protection of God. The sukkah symbolizes the entire person, warts and all. To say the whole nation of Israel is within one sukkah is to say everyone belongs. It symbolically shows that we are all one and unified together as one person.
So, the significance of today’s gospel would have resonated more with people familiar with the Jewish traditions within Jesus’s time. Jesus was being rejected at a unification festival. People wanted to kill Jesus while they were celebrating their unification and that everyone belongs. Jesus was made an outsider. Jesus’s response too would have been taken very harshly as he was saying that they did not know or understand God: the reason they were celebrating the festival, the one for whom they are recognizing protection from. This was not the joyful encounter, the celebration of unity, or the gratitude and prayer for divine protection. Jesus was showing that their connection to God and their fellow people was strictly nominal and not real. The realness behind the tradition, the spirit of it is more important. They could disagree with Jesus, but he was still part of the sukkah and a unified member of the four kinds. Their behavior was of ultimate rejection. This gospel for me celebrates the tradition and the spirit behind. It calls out that that spirit was somehow lost along the way. While what Jesus was offering was new, it was also there all along. God’s revelation was within their tradition, the people just lost sight of the deeper meaning of it.
We continue to experience this tension today. May we learn from this festival and recognize our deeper unity and integration with one another. Everything belongs. Some of the things we may reject, might just be an instrumental part of our salvation and a revelation from God.
Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukkot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Pilgrimage_Festivals
Nurturing the Future
Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Luke 2:41-51a
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031926.cfm
The Passover feasts at the Temple in Jesus’s time included tens of thousands of people. Luke says that it was something that Jesus and his family did every year. While there were a lot of people, I’m sure there weren’t that many children of Jesus's age that lingered around afterwards engaging with rabbis and other Jewish leaders. And I’m sure none that were impressing the gatherers with their knowledge and understanding. With the way the gospel tells the story, it sounds like it was an exploration and a sharing of faith. Both Jesus and the rabbis had things to learn from each other. It sounds like it was a very engaging conversation, not like the challenges and disagreements Jesus would have later on in life.
Beyond having Mary and Joseph as devout parents, Jesus was very engaged in his religious tradition and working through their and his understanding of God. I’m sure in the later stories of Jesus in the temple, some of them may have recalled Jesus as a young man. Some of those he was then bumping heads with may have been foundational to his understanding of the Hebrew traditions. While Jesus was divine, if he was also fully human, he would need to be nurtured as we need to be nurtured. He would need to develop and the Temple, these feasts, and rabbis were instrumental in that development. Some of Jesus’s more radical teachings were getting the foundation they needed to come into fruition. Youth tend to be a prophetic voice for the future, and Jesus was demonstrating that voice in the Temple.
Beyond the Temple being God’s seat on Earth within their tradition, Jesus was also at home because of the community that was centered there. Jesus was a kinsman. It was his father’s house because Jesus was able to connect to God there through other people. Jesus was able to share in his faith with others. Jesus got to experience “Two or more gathered in the name of God.”
Not much is documented about Jesus’s upbringing, but this story paints a pretty good picture of how he was truly engaged in his tradition. If Mary and Joseph could lose sight of Jesus for multiple days, you could say that they were in a very trusting community. Jesus was also heavily raised by his community both within Temple and those he and his family traveled with to the Temple. Jesus was given the space to explore and learn from others which benefited Jesus’s ministry in how he understood the vantage point of different people and was able to speak to them from their vantage point.
We focus a lot on Jesus, but these people and their role had an influence on who Jesus became and what he was able to do. They were all part of his formation. We all have our place, serve our role, and have the ability to influence and impact future generations for the better or for worse. The kingdom of God is built by those who create these spaces for future generations to learn, explore, and to teach us. It's a balancing act, and we shouldn’t be surprised if we are like the rabbis in the temple who helped nurture and then eventually opposed. May we keep an open-mind to see when the next generation rightfully surpasses as Jesus did within his tradition.
The Trinity
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
John 5:17-30
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031826.cfm
The gospel of John starts with passage, “In the beginning* was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This passage often gets misconstrued that Jesus is the Bible or scripture in the flesh because of the use of the word “Word” which is used both to describe Jesus and the Bible as the “Word of God.” The Greek word that was translated into “Word” was logos or the expression, logic, reason, and speech. It is how God is made known. The word is Greek and not Hebrew. Early Christianity combined Hebrew theology/tradition with Greek and Roman philosophy and culture. The different people that had gathered in the region had an influence on each other and shared their ideas to make sense of the reality they were in.
Jesus is the expression of God. He is how God is made known. Some theologists discuss what is God innately and what is God economically. Or what is God within God, and what God through what God does. When Jesus speaks of the Father, it is more focused on the innate components of God, whereas when he speaks of himself as Son, he’s speaking more of the economic. Jesus is saying that the expression of God is one and the same with God. What God is in God’s self is what God expresses. For Jesus, there is no gaslighting or deception with God. What you see is what you get. That said, we do struggle with discerning what is divine and what is not. That which comes from God is God, but we have a hard time understanding and seeing what it is because our faculties are often limited in perception. We have competing priorities. We have our own will and expression of that will that gets in the way. You could say the Holy Spirit helps us with our perception to understand and see the divine.
Jesus states this at the end of the gospel, "I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me." As followers of Christ we want the same for ourselves. But we often put our faith in our judgements, but, without the divine will, our judgements will always have some form of prejudice to them; some form of incompleteness, personal bias, distortion, or to be used as a means to our own end. This is why Jesus warns us about judgment. Our wills compete with the divine.
Ultimately, if God is love, love is the expression of the divine. It’s as if the trinity is the noun, the verb, and the adjective/adverb of God. The Father is the noun or what is, the Son is the verb or the action of what is, and the Holy Spirit is the descriptive words, the adverbs/adjectives. God is God, and the trinity is a means for us to understand God. God is all these things. God is innate, economic, and the descriptions/attributes of both. We can find God in all these things, because God is present in them all.
Thirty-eight Years of Neglect
Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
John 5:1-16
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031726.cfm
Jesus’s interpretation of the law is not a form of legalism. Legalism comes from our need for power when it comes to the law. While God created us in God’s image, our fallen state has created our personal gods in our image. We bring our power structures to our gods. Jesus challenged these power structures.
When we see God’s law and the prophets, we interpret it through our eyes of law with all of its legalism and interpretation. For God, sin is not a traffic ticket. Sin is not understood as misdemeanors, felonies, punishments, or technicalities. God’s judgement is not going to stand in front of a judge to receive your sentence. What leads us to sin is a lack of love from others or out of ourselves. We’re accountable to the love we give others. That’s not something we can judge, that’s something that only comes from God. Our lack of love can be driven by the fact that we have not received or experienced love through others or that we’ve not chosen it for ourselves as much as it’s come to us. Sin is symptoms of a virus that can be passed between us and increased through infectious connections between us.
Sin is a symptom of lack of love. It’s the infectiousness of a sneeze. It’s not a purity code where there’s a need for moralistic interpretation of degrees and accounts. The symptoms often also need rehabilitation from the damage caused. Every time we fail to love is a sin and requires recovery. Love of neighbor and love of God is the only Law. God is ultimately the judge of this as we don’t know what’s in each other’s hearts. Plus there is so much institutional and generational sin that we must get to the root of it. Jesus was going after the root.
When you get rid of the virus via the cure, the symptoms go away. A lack of love is removed with love. It may not be instantaneous recovery as there are layers upon layers to it. In the story of the adulterous woman about to be stoned in the gospel, Jesus says that the one without sin cast the first stone. Sin is societal, institutional, and corporate. It exists because each of us contributes to it and lacks in loving one another. This is also why Jesus stresses us making amends with one another. Even the Lord’s prayer says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We have to have skin in the game. It’s not simply praying for forgiveness, but encountering the ones we’ve wronged directly. We need to make amends. We need to open ourselves to transform through love and to transform others through love.
Today’s gospel is an example of God’s system. The ill man had been waiting by the pool for 38 years with hope for a cure. Who was there to help the man during those 38 years? No one. He was neglected. He remained there for 38 years, unloved and uncared for. He was left there to wallow in his own suffering with the hope that somehow one day someone would help him get into the pool and he would be cured. Who knows if the pool would have actually cured him, but he had hope in it, and no one helped him with it. He was abandoned by our social structures of neglect. He was left alone and needed love.
Jesus saw him and cared for him and ended his suffering. The man no longer needed to be waiting by the pool so Jesus said for him to take up his mat and walk. He no longer needed to be waiting by the pool as his suffering had ended. Jesus was showing the man love, and the people judged Jesus by a technicality of the law. For 38 years, I’m sure some of those people judging Jesus were in the position of helping the ill man by the pool. Or at least, they would have known that that as a place where the neglected sick people gathered who needed their attention and love.
Who in this story was in the position of sin? He who is without sin can cast the first stone. The people looked at the surface level of the law to condemn Jesus when there was something deeper at work with him. Jesus was beyond the technicalities of the law. He was living the spirit and the source behind it. How much of our moralism is a list of technicalities that distract us from God’s source in love? If our interpretation of the law distracts us from the love of God, what good is it? It’s going to take a lot of work for us to recover from what we’ve done and continue to do. We all need work. We need to nurture and take care of each other. Not through condemnation, but through transformative compassionate love.
In Matthew 25, Jesus summarizes God’s judgement as “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
Let us stop condemning the symptoms and start working on the source.