Category: Homilies

Who IS this guy?

A homily for Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, April 5, 2020

Matthew 21:1-11, Isaiah 50:4-7, Philip 2:6-11, Matthew 26:14 to 27:66

Let’s start cinematically and theatrically, comedy film first. Yes, it’s appropriate on this day when we hear of agony and sacrifice.

At the start of “Ghostbusters II,” Ray and Winston are on a mission, specter-bustin’ gear at the ready, and when they confer with their client, she tells them there are a whole bunch of them, and they’re rowdy. The two Ghostbusters blast through the kitchen door into a room full of shrieking birthday party kids, one of whom disappointedly groans, “I thought it was going to be He-Man!”

As Ray and Winston sing their theme song, they’re crestfallen when they get to the line, “And it don’t look good.”

Nope, it don’t.

In the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar,” a massive crowd accompanies Jesus into Jerusalem, singing “Hosanna, Hey Sanna, Sanna Sanna Ho,” praising him as all right by them, but then asking Jesus to die for them and, as the Gospel of the Passion tells us, eventually turning away from Jesus and throwing him to the Sanhedrin and the Roman executioners.

Jesus had been preaching true peace and true love for three years all over the Promised Land. He healed bodies; he healed minds; he healed souls. He acted nonviolently, patiently and selflessly, and his rare flashes of anger were always justified and just.

His fame — or, to the authorities’ point of view, infamy — almost always preceded him.

Simply put, the people of Israel knew him, or at least knew of him, knew something about him.

Well, they thought they did.

So why, and how, did they go from “Hail conquering hero” to “Crucify him! Crucify him!” in a handful of days?

They were expecting He-Man. (Please forgive my flippancy.)

When they got the true, essential Jesus, it didn’t look good. For him. For their selfish selves.

The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, proclaimed this Palm Sunday and again on Good Friday, is historical, theological, philosophical and psychological. We can — we should — ponder all year, every day of the year, what Christ’s sacrifice means to us two millennia later. And if that’s what you take away from the Passion, you’re on solid ground.

And if you stop reading/listening now, you are blessed. It’s all fine by me.

But let’s get back to cartoon heroes and superstars for a second, because there’s an interwoven message I believe we can carry forward.

When the people of Jerusalem encountered Jesus, they had certain expectations. If Jesus was the Messiah that God had promised them, what would Jesus do? Would he be the greatest military leader in Middle Eastern history? Would he rally the people to overthrow the Roman overlords? The numbers were in the Israelites’ favor, at least until Rome sent reinforcements: There were far more sons and daughters of Abraham than there were Roman soldiers, though the Romans were battle-hardened killing machines and might have prevailed. Which is why their legions were able to enforce the Pax Romana in all the lands they conquered. But if Jesus were a divinely sent Hammer of God, the wielder of the two-edged sword, those Romans’ reign could be over.

What would Jesus do? Would he call down fire and lightning and plagues and locusts from Heaven to drive out the Romans and their supposedly religious collaborators, the Hebrew hypocrites who called themselves the leaders of their people?

What would Jesus do???

Obviously, not what the people of Israel were expecting.

So they turned on him. Fake. Phony. Loser. Next!

Maybe what Jesus did — what Jesus does, what he would do — is not what we’re expecting, either, today, now, in our lives. In the lives of others. In the life of The Other.

But it should be, because of those three precious, sacred, productive years Jesus spent preaching and teaching and healing. Fortunately for us, a few people were taking notes during those lessons. We have our scriptural instruction manual. We have our Holy Spirit-guided consciences. We have each other.

As members of the Mystical Body of Christ, as Church for one another, and especially in these COVID-19 times, we carry a dual responsibility, a dual challenge.

We must be Christ to one another, to every person we encounter, albeit from six feet away or virtually.

And we must recognize Christ in every person we encounter, same rules apply.

So who are we expecting? And what can they expect from us?

It’s pretty simple, actually. And crystal-clear.

Who are we expecting? And what can they expect from us?

The everyday hero with unique talents our Creator formed in our mother’s womb. The everyday hero Jesus died and rose for. The everyday hero the Holy Spirit sustains with a flood of wisdom and grace.

Nothing more, and nothing less.

Bouncing back

A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 29, 2020

Ezekiel 37:12-14, Romans 8:8-11, John 11:1-45

The story is so familiar that “Lazarus” is not only a name, it’s a descriptive term.

Any sort of resurrection through outside forces is called a Lazarus. Restore a Mustang II? You’ve done a Lazarus, and you probably call the car Lazarus from then on.

The 2015 sci-fi/horror flick “The Lazarus Effect” (which critics and audiences panned) was a Frankenstein-style resurrection story. And in semiconductors (computer chips), there’s a deeply scientific-y physics-y Lazarus effect that involves electrons.

Lazarus is a term. Lazarus is a name.

So, yes, the story of Lazarus of Bethany is widely known and still resonates. We all know the plot and the denouement. We all know the details. We all can recite them, and thank God for that.

In these days of extreme social distancing, when wakes and funerals are off-limits, when spending time with loved ones in their last moments is verboten, we all can identify with the most powerful two words in the New Testament, the dun-dun-dunnn moment in the Lazarus story:

Jesus wept.

Jesus felt such deep emotion that he was compelled to act, begging The Father to restore human life to his friend, and thereby restore hope and happiness to his other friends.

By his example, Jesus reminds us all that proper emotions that prompt us to act will, in most cases, prompt us to act in a proper way.

And the Gospels and the prophets map that way of action for us.

Lazarus, a friend but most importantly a disciple, also knew the way, for he had learned it directly from the Christ.

But then — tire screech sound — the story stops. Lazarus lives a bit longer, we assume, and goes about his daily affairs as before, we assume. Or does he?

The Gospels are silent. We got nuthin’. Lazarus on The Day After is a cipher.

So let’s take a leap of faith (see how I worked that in?) and say that Lazarus did not go back to his day job, that he became the walking was-dead example of Christ’s infinite love and power, and evangelized with the best of them. That when his time came again, for real, he died with a Heaven-worthy résumé and gave us a saintly example to follow.

Except, of course, there’s no chronicling of that example.

Sigh.

Yes, we all can recite the details, the who, what, when, where, how, and even a bit of the why of the Lazarus story right up through the untying of the burial wrappings and his nosh, but what about the What Next? What about the What Does It Mean for My Life?

In grand terms, our faith tells us this is a story about our shared salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, foreshadowed by the original, biblical Lazarus event.

Deeply and profoundly true.

But closer to home, in more of a kitchen-table theology understanding, this is a story within the story, a fill-in-the-blanks story about second chances, and what we do with them.

Literature, movies and TV, even comic strips are awash in scenes where somebody is in absolutely dire straits, prays for help and bargains with God: “Get me out of this and I’ll never/always do/avoid that good thing/bad thing again.”

And, of course, the odds are better than 50-50 that if the person gets out of the jam, the promise to straighten up and fly right is the only thing that flies away.

With no Laz on the Day After details, we have to use that promise-breaker from pop culture as our example. S/he got a second chance and likely squandered it. Then, s/he probably got a second second chance, and a third second chance, and on and on.

Have we squandered any second chances? It is easy to do; too easy, frankly.

Most of the time, our second chances have nothing to do with dangling 1,000 feet above a canyon and everything to do with being forgiven by someone we’ve wronged. The perils we put ourselves into usually involve someone else, and often someone close to us personally or professionally.

It may be a misstep or faux pas, or it may be a major transgression.

We seek forgiveness and we get it. We get the precious second chance.

We must use it wisely.

We need to learn from our mistakes, undo the damage if we can, get back on the right path and strengthen ourselves through grace to follow the star.

The perils we put ourselves into usually involve someone else, and is there anyone closer to us personally than our Creator?

We stray from God’s ways, and then we seek forgiveness and get it. We get the precious second chance. Over and over, thank God.

God is the only person who promised us unlimited forgiveness. But God really prefers it if we don’t repeat our mistakes, our missteps, our misdeeds. God will give us a 45th second chance. We shouldn’t have to ask for it.

He picked up his hammer and saw

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 22, 2020: Jn 9:1-41

Kittens are born blind, essentially. (Puppies too, but let’s not mix apples and oranges, to coin a phrase.) Baby felines’ eyes and ears are sealed for the first week or even weeks of their lives, to allow their senses to develop and their sensory organs to strengthen before they’re exposed to the strong stimuli of the world.

And once their eyes are opened, cats famously can see in near-total darkness, which makes them superb nocturnal prowlers, as anyone who’s ever heard a tchotchke go flying off a dresser at 3 a.m. can attest.

In the darkness, cats can see what most other creatures can’t, especially the humans who serve as their personal assistants … uh … are their pet owners.

Think about all the times you plodded down the hallway barefoot at night with the lights off to check out some creaking noise in the kitchen or bathroom. Stubbed your toe, didn’t you? Whacked your shin, right? Humans aren’t built to see in the darkness.

Which is why we got the ultimate gift of a Messiah, the bringer of true light.

In today’s Gospel, St. John goes into specific detail about the man’s blindness. He was born blind. We’re not completely sure how old the man was, other than he was an adult, or at least past his bar mitzvah — “he is of age.” He was reduced to begging for his daily bread, however much or little there was of it. Everyone knew him as a blind man, the man born blind, sightless from birth.

Let’s take a second to look at some details of this man’s life through more modern eyes, no pun intended. If he had been born without eyesight, we know from our current science that his other senses likely were heightened. Acute hearing, taste and smell. Fine touch. His mind and memory would know family and friends by their voices, their scents, by the shape of their faces as traced by his fingers. He’d know them in the dark that was his normal.

So when Jesus gives him sight — a new normal, but an extraordinary one — the man is astounded. Does the desert sunlight hurt his eyes? Does the glory of God, shining through the Son?

The Gospel says the man is grateful, but that’s debatable. Everything he knew is gone: the map of the city he stored in his head, the faces he knew by touch, even his livelihood, as dodgy as it was. He has no skills or trade, because those in the 1st century A.D. were sight-dependent. He can’t read.

He has to build a new life from scratch, which nonetheless he seems willing to do.

Like a kitten, perhaps this man was born blind because he needed all this time for his eyes — both his physical eyes and, more significantly, the eyes of his soul — to mature enough that he could see.

See the truth.

St. John makes clear — in this, and in all chapters of his Gospel — that Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life, that Jesus leads all of humanity out of the darkness. John uses the man born blind to illustrate the radical transformation, the total shedding of a prior life in exchange for an everlasting one in the Kingdom of God, needed to follow the trail Jesus is blazing.

For the man born blind. For all of us.

We all are born blind, more in the way kittens are, perhaps, than in the way this man was. Each of us has an eye-opening experience of faith in our own time, in our own way. Some of us open slowly, carefully, deliberately, delicately: an awakening at dawn, as our spiritual lives dawn and grow brighter through the days of our lives. Some of us — BAM! — get a flash, a lightning bolt, a cardiac shock that leaves us bug-eyed and mouths agape, and with the rhythm of our lives topsy-turvy like the man who could beg no more.

Our common challenge, regardless of how our eyes are opened to the Word of God in Jesus, is to acknowledge that once our spiritual eyes are indeed opened, we must continue to grow in our relationship, mature in our relationship, treat our relationship with God as one that deserves the kind of attention we lavish on any loved one.

We have to build a new life, maybe even from scratch. Is that something we’re willing to do?

We may never be able to see through the darkness the way cats can. But we always will be able to see the light if we allow Jesus to open our eyes.

 

Places, everyone. Places!

A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Feb. 9, 2020

Isaiah 58:7-10, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Matthew 5:13-16

In his play “As You Like It,” William Shakespeare gave us a familiar quotation:

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

But as we look at our own lives, especially framed in today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, where do we find ourselves on this stage?

Downstage center, closest to the audience, with the white-hot spotlight on us?

Farther back, upstage center, with a significant role, but not the so-called star?

Off to the side, stage right or stage left, part of the crowd or chorus?

Do we have a walk-on role, arriving at a critical point in the plot and, quite often, leaving just as abruptly?

This play, as we experience it, is called life, and its cast of characters is us. All of us. Every man, woman and child on every continent. Every living creature, plant or animal, on this fragile earth.

And because God created us with vast – yet vastly differing – talents, everyone, every thing God created has a role to play.

And the first rule of our role is to use those talents – all of them, all of them fully – to bring about God’s Kingdom. For ourselves. For everyone.

Now, it’s true that not everyone is cut out to take on a starring role, to lead or to teach or to preach or to prophesy. Each of us does have different gifts. Different, but all of them valuable, especially in the eyes of God.

Those whose talents put them in the spotlight must follow in Jesus’ footsteps and act with humility like his: thanking God for their gifts, thanking other people when they acknowledge those gifts, but always being matter-of-fact about them.

People who deserve to be in God’s spotlight know there are many people following them, that even though they are in the spotlight, they themselves are servants, to serve and not be served, as it is written in the Gospels.

The featured characters and the crowd or chorus upstage can support the leader in a variety of ways. Everyone in this cast is part of the Body of Christ, and very often a task God needs us to do requires a group effort. Many hands make light the work. United we stand. Joy and love are best when they are shared.

We are a community in communion.

Nowadays, in this interconnected world, and especially in a home like ours at the Jersey Shore where we see so many visitors, we will encounter many walk-on characters in our lives. How do they fit into the plot the divine playwright has written?

If we keep our eyes open and our ears primed, we may experience God’s love in unexpected ways. We can learn from strangers who become acquaintances and friends, learn about different cultures, learn about different ways of life, learn about different ways to see God. High-level stuff.

On the flip side, a chance encounter may offer us the opportunity to lend a hand to one of the least of Jesus’ sisters and brothers, pleasing the Messiah and Judge immensely. Because it’s the right thing to do, because it benefits the giver and the recipient, because we will find ourselves with the sheep and not the goats on Judgment Day, but not solely for that last reason. Or even consciously for that reason.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Um, sorry, Will, you forgot some people.

For someone to be in the spotlight, for someone to be that shining light in the city on the hill, someone else has to be operating the spotlight.

We need people to build the stage, to design and construct the set pieces and the costumes, to raise the curtain, to write the music … and so on and so forth.

Ah, our Creator’s wisdom. Our God-given talents meshing together. The heavy lifting that makes the play we call modern life come to life.

Today, Jesus and Isaiah both remind us that we all are in God’s cast of characters, and that everyone deserves a share of the applause, whether it’s literally hands clapping or, more importantly, hands outstretched to help or feed or carry or lift.

Today, Jesus and Isaiah remind us that everything is a group effort, even the living of an individual life, because of the lives of the people who touch us and because of the lives of the people we touch. Even when we don’t realize it.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

And, finally, Will, you forgot the most important person in a play: the director.

For us who have been touched by faith, that director is our triune God.

The Father who created all the world and all of us, the players, as a gift of pure love.

The Son whose death and resurrection blasted away the darkness and put all of us in the light.

The Spirit whose grace keeps us performing at our absolute best, day after day after day.

God is the perfect playwright. God is the divine director. God even operates that powerful spotlight as we climb onto that stage we know as our precious and fragile world.

When God gives us our cue, let’s pray we remember what to say and do.

The Go Bag is ready

A homily for the Feast of the Holy Family, Dec. 29, 2019

It’s 2 a.m., and the phone rings. It’s your son.

“Um, Dad? Uh, yeah, hi, I’m still at the party and I had too much to drink and I can’t get a taxi or an Uber. I’m sorry I’m calling so late.”

It’s 2 a.m., and there’s a knock at the front door. It’s the police.

“Ma’am, there’s been an accident. Your daughter is in the hospital. She’s unconscious.”

It’s 2 a.m., and rifle butts are breaking down your door. It’s the renegade militia. They’re coming to steal your children and turn them into little soldiers, and probably to kill you.

Of course you go pick up your son.

Of course you speed to the hospital and stay by your daughter’s bedside.

Of course you escape out the back, go into hiding, even flee your country to someplace safe. If you can.

Of course.

Because that’s what families do.

Just as St. Joseph did, in this Gospel and in the few other times he’s mentioned in Scripture. He heard the call, assessed the situation, did the best he could with the resources he had, and cared for his family. Became a refugee, more than once. Stepped out of the spotlight usually given to Jewish fathers more than once.

In doing so, Joseph helped fulfill Jesus’s destiny, helped Jesus be aligned with the prophets’ vision of him.

We have every reason to believe the Holy Family supported each other as a loving unit. We don’t know a lot about them or their day-in-day-out lives in Nazareth, and in a lot of ways that’s good, because of course Jesus had a cold or refused to go to bed on time or procrastinated on his chores once or twice, because of course he was a fully human boy in Israel, and that’s what kids do.

Scripture need not get muddied up with obvious details.

So, indeed, we have the Holy Family as role models.

Joseph’s strength and obedience to God.

Mary’s heart, and an even deeper obedience.

Jesus’s evolving understanding of who he is and what he is called to do.

Families then, families now are built to guide younger generations to become the best people they can be, to fulfill their destinies, to use their God-given lives and talents to their fullest.

Families then, families now are built to support older generations, as the prophet Sirach says, to live the full length of their lives in dignity, and to revere the experience those elders can share, which also enables younger generations to fully achieve a God-given destiny.

Families have evolved through the millennia.

In Jesus’s time, the notion that “it takes a village to raise a child” was a literal statement of life. Villages in ancient Palestine often were the home to only one or two families, so child-rearing was a communal effort. The strict notion of brother or sister blurred when dozens of cousins were in the mix. In fact, people continue to ponder whether Jesus had biological brothers and sisters because the ancient Greek of the Scriptures used a word that means siblings and cousins or same-age relatives.

Families evolved by adapting to their living situations.

Living in the city, as cities developed, meant less privacy as people were crammed into tight living quarters. So people gained respect for each other’s individuality and, in turn, took on common characteristics. Families took on a common identity, and learned to defend it, learned to proclaim its value.

Conversely, families who moved to frontiers – farmers, homesteaders, people separated from their neighbors by miles, or miles and miles – those families bonded more tightly, more inwardly, became a village unto themselves. They developed a deep sense of individualism and self-reliance. Nonetheless, like city dwellers, they wrapped themselves in a common identity.

This difference – city vs. country, executive vs. laborer, rich vs. poor – is worldwide, cross-cultural, spanning the ages, though as we know from the news, it’s taking on extreme proportions in modern America.

And the so-called nuclear family may be splintered, relatives scattered rather than living near each other in extended families. Phone calls and Skype help, but they’re not replacements for hugs.

So how do we follow the Law of Love with a challenge like this?

First, we need to revisit the definition of family, of village, of identity.

For Jesus – and for us – “family” was far more inclusive than blood relatives. His table welcomed sinners, strangers, the learned and uneducated alike, the other, refugees like him. Family became a verb more than a noun; “to family” meant – means – embracing. Welcoming. Setting a place. Listening so as to understand.

That effort to understand and celebrate differences results in a new sort of village, a village not necessarily of houses and streets and geographical permanence but a village of open hearts and open minds.

Opening minds refines our identities, so that we are first and foremost children of our loving God, thankful for the gift of life itself, for our talents and treasures and all that was showered upon us strictly by an accident of birth. Open minds recognize that there are many ways to do things, say things, many ways to work and play and love, and all of them make us truly human, make us the best image and likeness of God our Creator that we can be.

And so, as children of God, we are

All.

One.

Family.

Which means that, at 2 a.m., or any time of the day or night, any day of the year, when the call comes, when the knock comes, when the danger presents itself, we know what to do.

Because that’s what families do.

Because that’s what Jesus does.

The viper washer

A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent 2019, from the Gospel of Matthew 3:1-12

A lady goes to the doctor because her shoulder hurts.

“Does it hurt all the time?” the doctor asks.

“No, just when I do this,” she says, flapping her elbow like a chicken wing.

“Then don’t do that.”

Rimshot, please.

OK, it’s an old joke, but it shines a lot of light on today’s Gospel.

John, the cousin of Jesus, the wild-eyed man living in the desert, wearing Fred Flintstone furs and eating bugs, is calling on people to repent, and baptizing them in the scuzzy river water.

And people are coming from all over, walking miles to see this prophet and get themselves clean. Spiritually clean. Because their souls are sick; their hearts and consciences are in pain. And this ritual washing is the cure.

But in every act of repentance, there’s a promise, a promise that makes this cleansing and healing possible.

“I won’t do that anymore.”

There’s no sense in getting clean if you’re going to roll around in the mud again.

In Scripture, descriptions of encounters with The Baptist are vivid; he clearly is the fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah’s expectation of a voice crying out in the wilderness. He is gruff, rough around the edges, and loud.

Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus gently forgives trespasses and asks people to go and sin no more. John, on the other hand, is fire and brimstone and “Repent! Repent!” His baptism in itself implies – loudly – that people should go and sin no more.

And if we’re talking loud and gruff, listen again to the insult he shoots at the religious leaders of the Jewish community:

“You brood of vipers! … the chaff – meaning all of you Pharisees and Sadducees – he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John lays a smackdown on the holiest men, the most powerful men in town. To him, they’re snakes in the grass, slithering on their bellies, waiting to strike if somebody crosses their path. If somebody strays from the path they say is the right one to follow.

To John, they’re the stems and stalks and garbage left over from the harvest, the harvest that symbolizes the people of God who let The Word grow in their hearts.

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.”

As we listen again to John, as we imagine him waving his arms and shaking his fists at these men who surely were dressed in fine clothes and jewelry and who likely were recognizable from blocks away, there’s an anger that’s, frankly, scary. That seems so un-Christlike.

The coming wrath? That seems out of sync with the love of God through Christ, and definitely doesn’t sync with how we believe we should be living today.

No, it smacks of Noah and the flood, or Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt.

But producing good fruit? That’s in tune.

We’ll come back to that in a second.

Now, just a quick refresher on the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Throughout history, the Jewish people have been guided by what’s popularly known as The Law and The Prophets – the commandments sent by God through Moses, and the detailed rules for living as catalogued in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, alongside the preaching of men such as Elijah, Samuel, Jeremiah and Isaiah, who spoke eye-opening truth to human power, whether the people wanted to hear it or not.

The Pharisees embraced both the law and the prophets; Sadducees, the law.

By the time of Jesus, though, both groups were showing devotion to the letter and not the spirit of the law.

All head, no heart.

Which is why the Gospels portray John first and then Jesus as chastising Israel’s leaders for being rigid, for lacking charity and mercy and compassion. For saying the rules are the rules are the rules, and they must be obeyed 100 percent. Without question or thought.

Which is why John first and then Jesus are the radical counterparts, the disruptors who know that people sometimes commit sins, and that when they do, and then when they seek forgiveness, they should receive it.

As long as they promise they won’t do that anymore. Or try their hardest not to.

People then, people now need to be busy. It’s in our nature. The whole idle hands, devil’s workshop thing.

So when people repent for having strayed from the way God wants them to live, and promise not to do that again, whatever “that” was, then folks need something better to do. This is where heart comes in.

If someone is atoning for a specific sin, especially one that affected someone else directly, then the heart calls out for repairs or restitution. As Jesus said, make peace with your brother and then bring your offerings to God together.

If the trespass had a different impact, then the penance could be an act of justice or charity for the greater good.

Best yet, though, is not being transactional. Not “paying for your sins” on a one-to-one basis, the way you wipe up spilled grape juice with the quicker picker-upper.

Best yet is to live a life guided by Christ, strengthened by his Spirit, in which you produce good fruit, in which you strive to be the best you that you can be, and when you slip up – because we all do – when you slip up, you apologize to our merciful God, and then say …

“I won’t do that again.”

Don’t look down!

A homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2019

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.

“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.

“The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself: ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

“But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

“I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
From the Gospel of St. Luke, 18:9-14

We know a lot has changed in 2,000 years. A whole lot. Much of that change has been for the better.

Some has not.

Sad to say, some of what’s not changed for the better has been the way some people look at others.

St. Luke begins today’s Gospel passage with a hard shot at those folks:  

“Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.”

Two thousand years later, isn’t that still happening? Maybe we don’t use the word “righteousness” – it’s not a term we toss around a lot in the 21st Century. But maybe “right-ness”? As in, “I’m right, which makes you wrong.”

Because, of course, every situation is A or B. Black or White, no Gray.

Yes or No, Either Or, not Both And.

Because every situation, it seems, regardless how trivial, regardless how insignificant in the history of humanity, is so loaded with emotion nowadays that what should be a civil discussion can escalate to a shouting match.

What’s changed in 2,000 years, it seems, is how far we may go to show how we despise The Other.

What’s really changed, I believe, is that these days, we consider everything a competition. A competition that some folks take too far.

If you’ve ever seen me driving on the Parkway or jockeying for a checkout line at Costco, you know I’m among the guiltiest.

Now, just so we’re clear, humans are competitors by nature. It’s a gift from God. Used properly, it’s a good thing. Our competitive instincts have helped humanity survive since cave days.

Competition helps us achieve; competition helps us improve. Competition lets us understand which of our God-given talents make us stand out.

From competition, our leaders emerge.

In all of these ways, competition is good; it’s healthy.

But when competition becomes all about winning … worse yet, when competition becomes about utterly crushing your opponents, that’s when we realize that in 2,000 years, despising everyone else has devolved into something sinister.

Jerry Seinfeld once cynically joked that second place is the first loser.

Ha. Ha.

But with a mindset that sneers at silver and bronze, where is there room for an individual competitor’s personal best? People may deride the notion of participant trophies, but then tell a marathoner who finished 29,999th out of 30,000 – but who finished! – that they didn’t earn their medal.

When competition becomes all about winning … when competition becomes about utterly crushing your opponents, then the sin of selfishness builds a wall around us, and we disconnect from our sisters and brothers. We have no empathy. We cannot feel what they do – their disappointment at coming oh so close, their elation at doing as well as they did, their pride in accomplishing as much as they did. Their relief in making it this far.

Nope.

I won. You lost. You’re a loser. Go back to Loser Town.

Jesus, through Luke, describes the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector like a liturgical dance competition. Score enough points, and you win the Holy Wars.

I fast. I tithe.

Ay, yi, yi.

The moral of the story, as Jesus tells it, of course, is that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Jesus doesn’t say who will enact this turning of the tables, this delivery of true justice, but we can figure that out pretty easily.

God’s smackdown.

Jesus also slips in a couple of terms we think we know pretty well – “humble” and “justified” – but let’s take a second to break these open.

True humility involves being honest about our gifts, our talents, our accomplishments. Humility is not false modesty – aw, it was no big deal – and not a personal put-down. The humble person is grateful for legitimate praise and at the same time does not go fishing for a compliment. Humble people thank God daily for their gifts, and the No. 1 way they do that is by being the best person, the best Tom or Jess or Tracy they can be, because God wants them to. And humble people acknowledge they still have room for improvement: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Then there’s “justified.”

We use the term pretty regularly in criminal court – it was justifiable homicide – and in situations where someone argues they had every right to do something – he was justified in cutting off the branches of his neighbor’s tree that hung over his back yard.

But when the tax collector went home justified, he went home forgiven by God. He went home washed clean, not necessarily celebrating that his relationship with God was reborn, renewed, but definitely relieved that it was. He went home lighter, with his guilt acknowledged.

This is justification from God. It’s a different notion, a deeper understanding of the term than we’re used to. This is not merely arguing that an action was reasonable; this is God removing the guilt and penalty of sin.

When we sin, we offend God. We break God’s laws. We stray from God’s path. We say to God, pfft! I know better. So only God has the right to deal with us when we do. And if God were human, we’d all probably be out in the cold, cut off, shunned.

But God is God. God is Love. So no matter how many times we thumb our noses at our Divine Creator, God’s merciful embrace is there for us, welcoming us home.

Like the tax collector, we sinners in 2019 can go home justified.

God gives us the Eucharist; God gives us grace.

The grace for Both-And.

The grace to acknowledge the achievements of the winners and the almost-winners.

The grace to eliminate the notion of The Other, of someone to be pushed to the margins, to be despised.

The grace to know that to be kind takes strength and humility.

Incendiary

A homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Aug. 18, 2019

We all have them.

Jerseys with Eli, Foles, Simms, even Namath on them. Jeter’s No. 2; Mantle’s No. 7; Mariano’s and Jackie’s No. 42.

Maybe there’s a Sky Blue FC jacket in our closet, or whatever sneaker Steph Curry is endorsing these days.

Rock stars, movie stars, Broadway stars, maybe even politicians look down at us from the posters on our walls.

When the music is on, we crank it up.

When we play video games, we play loud.

When we’re at Madison Square Garden or MetLife Stadium, the digital display urges us to Get Fired Up.

And we do.

We don’t even need to be told, not really.

J-E-T-S! Jets! Jets! Jets!

Free Bird!

Victory dance!

In our culture, so obsessed with intense experiences, it only takes a spark to get us Fired Up.

Is that why so many of us are burnt out when it comes to Jesus?

“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” 

The tailgaters’ barbecues look pretty fiery.

The screams for Twenty-One Pilots sound pretty fierce.

Christians’ everyday lives? Maybe not so much.

Didn’t they used to say, “See how these Christians love one another”?

“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” 

Can we all agree that Tom Brady is the Greatest Of All Time? Of course not, but we can agree that an argument about it will be heated. Blazing, even.

Political arguments? Fiery. Especially as the Thanksgiving turkey is being carved.

Coke vs. Pepsi vs. Dew? Windmill vs. Max’s? Ford vs. Chevy? And does anybody even remember the notion of Mopar?

Whew.

Let’s take a breath for a second and pause to think: As I rattled off these trivial head-to-heads – and in the grand scheme of life, they really, really are trivial – as I rattled them off, did you hear yourself taking a side, picking your favorite? Maybe with a hint of passion? Maybe more than a hint?

It’s OK to have preferences; frankly, that’s the way God made us. We have senses, we have intellect to interpret what we sense, and our Creator gave us free will to let us choose among options.

We embrace what we choose. We get Fired Up. And when we’re Fired Up, and we disagree with someone, there is no peace between us. For a while, anyway.

It’s OK to have preferences; we know from Scripture that Jesus had special relationships with different disciples. He embraced the people for who they were and especially for how they used their God-given talents to get other people Fired Up about God’s kingdom.

So, what is this kingdom, this heavenly team whose jerseys everyone should be Fired Up about wearing? Why would Christ want to divide humanity, especially when we hear so often about unity?

And isn’t Jesus the Prince of Peace?

No Justice, No Peace.

Know Justice, Know Peace.

Throughout his ministry on Earth, and throughout his continuing ministry with us as his eyes and heart and hands, Christ divides the world into sheep and goats (and not the Tom Brady kind of GOAT). In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that his preference is for all those who fed, clothed, housed, visited and comforted the least of his sisters and brothers. His preference is for charity in his name; his preference is for the justice that reduces the need for charity, the justice that brings true peace.

And we all know that God’s peace is active, interactive caring, not simply an absence of war.

This kingdom is possible; it can be here today. We have our roadmap. We have our marching orders.

Again, from St. Matthew:

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

To be certain, it’s a battle, and it would be simple to say it’s a war against evil. But that’s not only simple, it’s simplistic, because these days the real struggle is against indifference. It’s against laxity. It’s against shortsightedness.

It’s against misplaced priorities.

We get Fired Up for our star players and star singers and star politicians because they excite us, because we believe they offer us something meaningful in our lives.

How about someone who gave us his entire life? Who dedicated his life’s work to showing that peace is made of cooperation, and not by painting those people as Others to be feared and hated? Who in the end let his life be sacrificed unjustly so that justice could follow?

Who gave us his body and blood in the Eucharist to strengthen us, to renew us?

Who wants us to get Fired Up?

Traveling light, or maybe not

A homily for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 7, 2019

It’s a school day, perhaps, or a workday, and you’re running late.

OK, that never happens, but try to imagine.

You bolt out the door, head for the steps and, Oh no!

Lunch! You forgot your lunch!

Or … raincoat. Or those papers. Laptop.

Oh, jeez … keys!

Think quick: What do you do?

You can buy lunch later; besides, you weren’t in the mood for avocado today, anyway.

The forecast said only 20 percent chance. That’s worth a gamble. Ditch the coat.

So off you go; maybe you can make up some time on the Parkway.

Gotta have those papers, though. The laptop? Don’t even think about leaving that. And keys? I sure hope the door didn’t lock behind you before you remembered.

In other words, these things are essential. Can’t do without ’em. Gonna be late? Oh well; doesn’t matter. It’s not just the American Express card that you don’t leave home without. Not these days, nope.

To win the rat race, some things are essential.

Let’s leave school and work behind for a second, and consider this:

It’s summer at the Shore once again, and for many of us, that means vacations and staycations. Trips and day trips. And those mean checklists.

Oil change, tire pressure, A/C working? Check. Beach towels, sunscreen, baby wipes, fruit snacks? Double-check.

Essentials.

“Essential” is an odd concept. It means different things to different people. It affects people in different ways, drives people in often vastly different ways.

Some people decide early in their lives what they consider essential; they set their goals and work toward them. For others, essential requires continual re-consideration. Experience brings wisdom, and wisdom defines how those people mold and reshape their lives to tackle the world’s challenges and succeed.

Essential.

When we strip our lives down to their essence, what do we have? What do we need? What is just stuff?

Relationships are essential. Jesus sent the 72 disciples ahead of him in pairs, as traveling companions, 36 essential relationships, to go and form additional relationships in the towns they visited. Those new, added relationships, built on compassion and hospitality, enabled the six dozen early preachers to go forth with no backpacks or hiking boots or even turkey jerky to sustain them.

Wherever they faced no compassion, no hospitality, they moved on, with a little pffft! of displeasure in their wake.

Compassion is essential. The word itself speaks of relationships: Com, as in community. Passion, as in the drive to right wrongs. To cure the sick and drive out demons, to try to ease pain of all sorts. Compassion to recognize and lift up those on the margins of society who have been denied hospitality.

So hospitality, too, is essential. For Jesus’ advance teams, hospitality meant room and board, without getting the best price ahead of time from Trivago. Often it meant an extended stay. And that was fine with the hospitable hosts.

We don’t need to open our homes – although, of course, we can – to show hospitality. Sometimes our mere presence with people, our opening our hearts, is hospitality in the way Jesus demands.

Perseverance is essential. Jesus’ team walked from town to town, preaching the Good News of salvation through repentance, which to many people must have sounded like carrot and stick, or a jewel of high price. Salvation – God’s eternal embrace, God’s everlasting light of love – is a joy of joys. But getting their acts together? That’s work. And, besides, many said, why should we sacrifice now for something we can’t see and which may not come after all?

On this, not a lot has changed in 2,000 years. Do we persevere when people diss our Christian ways?

Faith is essential.

Faith is essential, because believing that God’s grace will give us the strength and guidance to follow The Way does indeed open us up to receive that boost. To run the race, as St. Paul said; to keep our eyes on the prize.

Faith is essential because faith leads us back to relationships, back to the most important relationship of all, our original relationship, our relationship with the essence of love, our God and Creator, who gives us everything we need.

When we pilgrims travel with these essentials, we’re not actually traveling light. We’re packing the love of God, the Good News, and we have enough to share with the entire world. We’re not traveling light, but we’re traveling in the light, and God’s grace carries us forward.

 

 

I never knew that

Have you ever wondered how a “thing” became a thing?

When you stop to think about it, we do a lot of things without really wondering where they came from, how they evolved, how they became embedded into culture.

Quite often, they “always were there,” likely as hand-me-downs from parents and grandparents before them.

And because those “things” always were there, we may not have delved into their origins.

Guilty.

This morning, our chapel had only a handful of empty seats for morning Mass. True: It’s Lent, and people are doing their best to pray, fast and give alms. But today also was First Friday, with Eucharistic adoration and coffee and bagels.

Starting in first grade back in 19(mumble-mumble), I and my classmates and all the rest of the uniformed pupils at St. Leo the Great parochial grammar school were marched into church for Mass the morning of the first Friday of the month, October through June.

Of course! First Friday!

Of course!

Confession time: Until an hour before I wrote this, I never bothered to look up what the big deal about First Friday was.

Not once in 55 years.

On First Fridays, Catholics recognize the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and through it offer reparations for sins.

In the visions of Christ reported by Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 17th century, several promises were made to those people who observed First Fridays, one of which included sanctifying grace.

Originally the Fridays numbered nine, a la a traditional novena. Pope Leo XIII in 1869 expanded the practice to all First Fridays.

This literally and figuratively was a case of “when in Rome….”

Because, of course, First Friday. Everybody knew about First Friday.

Throughout those grammar school years, I never asked because I figured it was something I should already know (from where? from whom? by instinct??), and if I asked Sister St. Pius what the First Friday hubbub was all about, I might have to visit the corner of the room. Again.

When the morning Masses no longer were mandatory, I stopped thinking about First Friday, until I resumed the practice as an adult. But even then, even until just now, I didn’t dig deeper. I just participated.

Now, not everything we do in life needs to be questioned, though everything could be. In general, a lot more should be.

Some “things” are harmless, or mostly.

The cliché about men never stopping to ask directions … that’s a prime example.

Some “things” are dangerous.

Just count the number of measles cases the anti-vaxxers have caused.

Some “things” are hurtful, and worse, far worse.

We were taught to lock the car doors as the family car rolled into certain neighborhoods. It was years before we asked why.

By then, the racist fears and stereotypes had set the pot of hatred on a hotter flame.

Seemingly innocuous “things” fester.

Young children go through a couple of phases.

The Terrible Twos are punctuated by “No!”

Toddling Threes and Fours ask “Why?” as their response to almost any instruction or statement by adults.

Instead of shutting the children down, adults should ensure they answer with the best “This is why…” they possibly can. Then those toddlers will grow into critical thinkers who seek the best in everyone and for everyone.

And the hurtful things will wither and die.