Special errands

 

The Gospel I read and reflected on today reminded me of those days when my duties at work made me so mentally overwhelmed and physically drained that I was ready to lash out at anyone or anything that added to my stress unless I could get away to “a deserted place” to pray and/or recharge my batteries.

Jesus began His public ministry in Nazareth, but the people of His hometown rejected Him from their Synagogue.  So He immediately traveled some 20 miles on foot to Capernaum where He would spend much of His time.  Jesus taught in their Synagogue, cast out a demon, and then went to the home of Simon (later, Peter) to perform His first recorded physical healing in Luke’s Gospel.  He cured Simon’s mother-in-law, who suffered from a severe fever.  Then, later that evening, many people brought to Jesus the sick and possessed, and Jesus “Laid his hands on each of them and cured them.”  He certainly got their attention.  And the next morning, as Jesus was preparing to leave Capernaum after this first visit during His public ministry, the people tried to convince Jesus to stay.  However, Jesus said to them, “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” (Luke 4:38-44)

Like so many of us, Jesus was (is) in constant demand from people who desperately need His help or just want to talk with Him.  They wouldn’t give Him a minute’s rest.  By the end of the day, He was tired and harassed.  After all, He’s human as well as divine.

Unlike many of us who keep running on empty, Jesus took care of Himself.  He often withdrew to a lonely place to pray and refresh His spirit.  He sends a strong message that even the busiest people must find time for solitude.

Following this powerful example can be challenging.  Very few of us can take off for a weekend retreat.  Some days, it’s tough to find 10 minutes of quiet.  In these circumstances, I recommend a harmless ruse or two.

For example, my boss (and confidant) and I would periodically get in his car, telling our co-workers and subordinates that we were going to lunch or a meeting with a prospective new dealer, and that we’d be back in an hour or two.  Most of the time, that’s exactly what we did; but many times we wouldn’t go back to the office at all.  Instead, we’d silence our cellphones and drive around, just trying to forget about work and its aggravations.  We would start talking about our families, our hopes, our dreams for the future and occasionally, the conversations would be so fun or fulfilling that we’d find ourselves in an entirely different city from where we started without realizing it!  Then the next day we’d have to come up with some creatively compelling excuses as to why we hadn’t returned in “an hour or two”, and why we couldn’t be reached.

At other times, I would leave work early saying that I had “some paperwork to complete at home”; instead, I would drive to a local church to just sit and meditate in silence for a while, sometimes an hour or two—or three.  Sometimes, that would lead to my going to confession or attending a daily Mass.  That was a sure-fire way to recharge my spirit!

If you don’t have a church handy, try taking a walk or sitting in a library; any place that’s quiet where people won’t find you or bother you.  Tell people you have to do an unspecified errand.  And you do.  Your errand is to recapture your relationship with God.

Jesus wants us to “meet” with God.  After all, He took time for it!

Be alert, do what’s right, be ready to respond

 

If the past year and a half or so has taught us anything it’s that we don’t know what’s going to happen or when. “When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)

I thought the changing of the Presidential administration would bring at least some peace and stability to the world.  I was wrong.  In fact, we’re in the middle of another crisis that is displacing thousands of people from their homelands and threatening their very existence—again.  I thought when there was a vaccine and then when it was widely available that everything would just be ok again.  But it’s not.  There are variants, and not everyone is vaccinated, and we still need to be on guard and take precautions.  The plan is to try to return to ‘normalcy’.  I hope that works out. But we still need to be on guard, be careful, and do our best to stay safe.

Like we need to be alert and on guard for the return of the Lord.  We don’t know when it will happen or what it will look like.  “The day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.”  The Thessalonians thought it would be any minute.  They expected the return, like, that year.  It’s been 2000 years and we’re still waiting, but we can’t slack off.  We need to stay alert and stay positive.  We didn’t expect this past year, and we don’t know what the next will bring.  We don’t know what will happen or when, but we need to be alert, do what’s right, and be ready to respond.

Psalm 27 is a good prayer for these uncertain times:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?  The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?” (Psalms 27:1-14)

A dazzling promise

One of Jesus’ toughest audiences was the people from His hometown who knew Him the best.  He revisited His boyhood synagogue and read from Scripture: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has anointed me; sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind”, and other astonishing news.

At first, they were impressed and then instantly doubtful; “Is this not Joseph’s son?” they muttered to each other.  “Surely this kid we know so well, the son of our town carpenter can’t really have a message for us from God!” (Luke 4:16-30)

Many of us may pity those people who were in the synagogue that day for being so obtuse, but then we can look at our own lives.  How often are we the ones in the audience, muttering our own doubts?  We’re told that God's spirit is present in us and those around us.  But we know that can’t be true and instead turn our full attention to those nagging voices muttering inside us, reminding us of our flaws, our imperfections.

Our greatest temptation in life might be to doubt that God can be found in our midst and that God is right here, standing in the middle of our lives.  We, who are so acutely aware of our own flaws, might doubt our value and that of those around us.  We feel undeserving of God’s love, and so we ignore all of the places and people in our lives where God’s love is being proclaimed to us.

As I read about Jesus’ hometown experience, I have to ask myself, “In how many places, with how many people and before how many challenges in my life do I close my eyes to the presence of God and say, “This is just Joseph’s son?”  “Surely God can’t be found here in MY weakness and fears!”  But that’s exactly where God is found.  It’s only when we truly believe that God loves us just as we are, as imperfectly as we have become because of a thousand choices we’ve made, that we can recognize His presence in ourselves and others.  It’s in the heart of our everyday lives that we find the spirit of the Lord in our own imperfect marriages, in aging parents, in our troubled children or demanding co-workers.

Jesus invites us to look around and stop seeing ourselves and others through our blinding fears.  If we allow our hearts to be transformed we’ll see the spirit of the Lord upon each person in our lives.  It is then that we’ll find the intimacy with Jesus we long for so deeply and we will have been healed, once again, of our blindness.

St. Paul’s message to the early Christians in Thessalonica underscore Jesus’ message:  Do not say He has died.  Rather He has fallen asleep.  Resurrection is a promise (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).  We trust Jesus’ words that we will “meet the Lord in the air” and never be apart.

Without the Spirit, the community descends into a bilious state.  Schools are asking children to wear masks to keep them safe.  Some parents have erupted about infringements on their liberty.  Governments (and Catholic bishops—including the Pope—are advocating that everyone over 12 should get vaccinated against the virus.  Many people, even faced with the daily news of increased deaths and extreme suffering, are calling it a conspiracy to control the masses.  Where are the glad tidings?  What happened to the common good?

With the Spirit, the oppressed go free.  Here is new life.  It’s a dazzling promise. 

What do we do with the Word?

One of the things that amazes me about reading Sacred Scripture, is that no matter how many times I’ve read a passage something new comes to light.  It never gets old.  For me, the Sacred Scripture is the seed that’s planted in my heart as I listen to it at the Liturgy of the Mass or reading it privately. Hopefully, that seed is growing and producing much fruit through my daily blog posts and in my relationships with my wife, our kids and grandkids, extended family members, friends, and colleagues.

The three readings I reflected on today look at what we do with the Word.  In Deuteronomy, Moses is encouraging the people to follow the words of God’s statutes and decrees, commandments; these help the people to become closer to God and allow them to become a “great nation” full of “wisdom and intelligence” because they put their trust in the commandments of God (Deuteronomy 4:1-8).  The flip side of this is found in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus is calling out the Pharisees for becoming so caught up in the Law that they ignore what’s in their hearts.  Over time the people have forgotten what the Law was really for, growing closer to God (Mark 7:1-23).  In the Letter from James, we learn to “be doers of the word and not hearers only.” That the word is not just to hear but to put into action (James 1:17-27).  What do I do with what I hear in Scripture?  What is God calling me to do?  How is it helping me to grow closer to God?

When we read Sacred Scripture and “humbly welcome the word”, something is planted in us and it’s up to us to nurture that seed and to wait and see what plant comes forth.  Is it Faith?  Hope? or Love? Gratitude, fortitude, or acceptance?  It may be forgiveness or the willingness to forgive.  Many gifts await us when we plant many seeds in the garden of our heart and tend to it.

Spoon-fed brotherly love

 

 ... You yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. -- 1 Thessalonians 4:9

 ... So out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. -- Matthew 25:25

In my days as a general manager, I sometimes disdained colleagues who seemed to want to be "spoon-fed."  They seemed unwilling to spend the time and energy it would take to root out information they needed to do their jobs properly and they complained that a “higher up” or two didn¹t tell them everything.

In the Scripture I reflected on today, Paul refused to spoon-feed the Thessalonians.  You know what it means to love one another, he says.  God himself has taught you, he says.

Sometimes I pretend not to know what God has planted in my heart.  I see someone in need or pain, and I know in my heart what to do: Find some way to help.  Even if all that means is taking time for a kind word or an offer of assistance.  But that means I go out of my way.  And with a hundred other things that demand my time and attention, how easy it becomes to ignore the promptings of my heart, the promptings of God, the promptings of love (1 Thessalonians 4:9-11).

Still, I have been taught by God to love.  I know that.  I feel it deeply. I intuitively know the truth of what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians.

So if I know that truth, does it mean anything in my life?  Does it make a difference?

It means that if I have been given certain capacities, certain abilities, then being faithful to God demands that I use what I have been given to build up the Kingdom of God.  It doesn’t matter how little I might have.  I might be a klutz, a slow learner, a thick-headed plodder.  It doesn’t matter.  There are no excuses.  I have something -- something -- to offer.

The challenge is to find out what that something might be.

What prevents me from finding it?

The Gospel of Matthew gives me a clue.  Fear prevents me from discovering how I might help build the Kingdom.  In the Matthew story, the unproductive servant, out of fear, buried what he had been given instead of putting it to good use (Matthew 25:14-30).

The servant feared his master¹s anger.  The tragedy of his story is that the very action he takes to avoid the anger leads him straight into the eye of the storm.

What do I fear?  Being distracted from my comfortable routines by discovering that I could do something to help those around me who suffer or are in need?  Do I fear simply having to exert myself?  Or do I fear the consequences of discovering that I’m not nearly so helpless and lacking in gifts as I would like to believe?

And why would I fear those things?   For one thing, it means an end to self-indulgence.  Letting go of fear brings me face-to-face with responsibility.

The master has entrusted me with much.  Even if I am weary or afraid, unmotivated, uncertain of success or failure, I’m responsible to find ways by which my family, friends, colleagues, those in pain, those in need, those lost in fear, might profit by what I have to offer.  And I must accept that I may profit by what others have to offer.

I don¹t need spoon-feeding on this point: This is how God has taught me to love.

A wholehearted desire

 

In our culture we’re used to a carefully planned life.  For some people every step of their day is recorded in advance in their computer or smart phone, and this does have some advantages.  But it also has at least one disadvantage: it allows us to know how long we can procrastinate before getting down to business. 

Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13) is a warning against adopting such an attitude in our relationship with God.  A conveniently designed or imagined pseudo-God could be programmed.  We “know” when and where to meet that God: Sunday mass, a visit to the tabernacle, and in the confessional.  We also know that we have to prepare ourselves, if or when serious illness occurs.  But the time in between it is “our time”.

The parable reminds us that all of our life is God’s time, that a true God (as opposed to an imagined pseudo-God) is a God of surprises that remains unprogrammable and that consequently the only adequate readiness is a wholehearted desire for a life-commitment to God.  The emphasis here is on wholehearted, because there exists also a half-hearted type of commitment that may satisfy us and the pre-conceived demands of our designed pseudo-God, but a commitment that is basically as empty as the oil lamps of those careless young ladies and is merely a “going through the motions” without any content.

Yet the emphasis has to be also on desire, because, as long as we’re human, the implementation of our desires is always going to be less than flawless.  It’s our heart’s desire for commitment that comes from God and that counts before God.

All in God's time

 

“Stay awake,” I read in Matthew’s gospel today, “because you do not know the day when your master is coming.” (Matthew 24:42-51).

It made me realize how very asleep I’ve been, how unaware of God’s presence in my life and in the world, and how I’ve allowed having a lot of things to do to separate me from the love of God.

Anthony DeMello, a priest who wrote several books on spirituality, wrote that, “Love springs from awareness. In order to truly love, and to know the love that surrounds us each and every moment of our lives, we must learn two types of awareness.  The first is to see clearly the other—the person, object or reality—as it really is.  And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping our desires, our prejudices, our memories, our projections, and our selective way of looking.” “What good is it,” he asks, “if we perform an act of service for someone whom we have not even taken the trouble to really see?”

The second awareness is an awareness of self; “to ruthlessly flash the light of awareness on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate.  This means calling things by their name, no matter how painful the discovery and the consequences. We must also become aware of our gifts, our strengths, and of the ways in which we’re blessed with competence, that we might appropriately thank the Giver and use these skills for the building of the reign of God.”

The Psalms remind us that God’s time is not our time (Psalm 90:3-17).  When we busy ourselves with work and chores, what we’re telling ourselves is that tomorrow, or the next day or the next, we’ll give ourselves time to become aware of God.  But how sad that is for us, to miss the love that’s poured out for us today.  How sad, too, to ignore the cries of our hearts, to dishonor our deepest self in favor of a sleepwalking existence.

I don’t t think that there’s anything wrong with having a lot to do.  But during these times we must be careful to make sure that we also honor the deep desires of our hearts, the longing for quiet time and reflection that are so essential to our being.  And we mustn’t allow the many tasks we have to do to become blinders which keep us from seeing the Divine Other in all God’s many manifestations.  Because it is only in this honoring, this awareness, that we can be truly awake to the coming of Christ in every moment of our lives.

God at work in us

Every day when I have my little chat with God while suffering through a walk or praying my rosary or preparing to write these reflections, I ask for help resolving my problems in the way I think they should come out.

“Please God, let my sick friend/relative recover.”

“Please God, protect my kids and my grandkids.”

“Please God, bring peace to the world and end racism and hatred.”

“Please God, let it rain.”

“Please God, put out the fires!”

Sometimes things turn out just like I’d hoped but often God has a different plan.  At such times, it’s good to reflect on St. Paul’s message to the Thessalonians that “You received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe.”  (1 Thessalonians 2:9-13)

My experience is that often we think the voice of God sounds a lot like that of our own egos.  That’s probably especially true for those of us who pray mostly in hurried snatches while thinking of everything from today’s “To Do” list to what’s for dinner on Saturday.

Before I retired—when I was often overwhelmed with ‘busy-ness’—I would try to visit the nearest perpetual adoration chapel for an hour or so once a week just to try to LISTEN to God.  Even this brief regular period worked wonders in letting the Spirit cut through the clutter of too much multi-tasking.  It taught me that God works best in our lives when we allow Him quality time to do so.

But even when we don’t, God finds ways to move and shape us.  We’ve all suffered a disappointment that led to a greater good, reminding us that when God closes a door, He always opens a window.  My prayer today is that God opens many windows for all of us as He works in our lives. 

Ordinary people matter to Jesus

 

Governors, presidents, kings and queens, war dead.  These are some of the people honored for their service and studied in school.  Some are heroes whom we call great.  Their names, carved in stone, are found in parks and quiet gardens.  Many started life as ordinary people.

The followers of Jesus were ordinary people.  Scripture mentions some only once or twice.  Little is known about their lives outside of tradition.  But I think the most important thing about them is that they’re remembered as the first who said yes.

One of the most ordinary was Nathanael, also known as Bartholomew.  His story is one of my favorites, because I think we all have a little bit of Nathanael in us.  His good friend Philip was excited, because the one hailed by prophets was in their midst.  Nathanael listened but had his doubts.  “What good could come from [a paltry place like] Nazareth?”  Still, he left his peaceful spot under the fig tree to follow his friend and find out a little more.  When Jesus told him He knew who he was, Nathanael was thrilled and more importantly, convinced.  Jesus promised more greatness to come (John 1:45-51).

Despite our achievements, it’s tough to acknowledge greatness.  We’re experts at detecting flaws. There’s always another story, an ulterior motive, a smear in the background.  We read the world back into the self and then get bored by the self, draped over everything.  Greatness sounds naïve, like someone fresh from the countryside struck by the gleaming city.  We, the intelligent ‘woke’ people see through things until they just fade away. 

Just as He called Nathanael, Jesus calls us to greatness.  It begins in an ordinary way: trusting a friend, leaving our hiding place, being known, saying yes.  The possibilities of being alive return.  We venture out into a world suffused with His presence. 

Prompted by love

 

The Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 23:13-22) and St. Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians (Thessalonians 1:2-10) seem to be juxtaposed for the point of comparing those who are living a holy life and those who are pretending to.  The Pharisees were those who said the right things according to God’s word but failed to act in accordance with it (Matthew 23: 3-4), while the Thessalonians endured suffering and opposition when first following Christ but didn’t depart in words and actions from all that Paul had taught them about following Christ. The Thessalonians’ faith became known everywhere because of their example, their faithful actions.

The Gospel reminds me of a conversation I had once with a priest about my own church and about some of the people in it.  As I was venting about the people and things in my Church that cause me heartache and confusion, I became kind of embarrassed and ashamed.  I realized that I was sounding self-righteous and arrogant- that only my views are right and holy (the exact characteristics in others that I was lamenting about a few seconds before!).  When I voiced this, the priest said, “It’s ok to vent about things that trouble you but try to avoid publicly slandering people whom you don’t agree with.  When we do that, we display the very qualities that we detest in others.”  Unfortunately, as I sat to pray about and write this reflection, I initially thought of writing about those who seem to be like the Pharisees to me; those to whom, in my mind, God surely says, “Woe!”- those who were the topic of my conversation with my priest.  Instead, I’m reminded of the wise priest’s words and that I’m always in danger of being just like the Pharisees myself in that my words and actions don’t always match.  I take seriously the words of Christ to “love one another” (John 13:34-35) and sometimes I do this well, but I’m also quick to judge my brothers and sisters whose opinions differ from my own, and “make them twice as much a son of hell” as I am.

Instead I want to emulate the Thessalonians whose “work is produced by faith, labor prompted by love, and endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  I want to welcome the message with joy each time I hear it and use it toward the above means instead of using it to find fault with my brothers and sisters.  If I’m preoccupied with making sure my work is the fruit of my faith and love for others and for Christ, I won’t have time worry about the words and deeds of others.  And, Christ fully expects that, if we take His greatest commandment (Mark 12:28-34) seriously, we’ll love everyone, even those we’re tempted to judge and slander.

Where to go?

 

Grumbling and complaining is as old as the human race.  Before we even have language, our cries and yells are what get us what we want.  Maybe we never outgrow those habits completely.

In the gospel I pondered today, Jesus' followers are grumbling (John 6:60-69).  He’s been telling them, and us, that He is the bread of life, the bread that will let us really live.  A few verses earlier in this same gospel (John 6:43), Jesus even tells them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves.”  But of course they don’t – and neither do we.

We want to complain and whine when Jesus asks us to do something challenging, following in His footsteps.  Over and over He asks us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty and care for the poor and marginalized.  And what He first wants to do is to give us Himself as food for our mission.

Psalm 34 reminds us that the Lord has ears for the cry of the poor and from all their distress He rescues them.  The line that follows reminds us of the heart of Jesus’ message, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.” (Psalm 34:2-21)

What Jesus asks us as Christians is not easy or simple; we just want it to be.  We’re basically good people and go to Church.  We give to charity, we pray, and we’re busy with family and jobs.  At times, Jesus is asking a lot of us, it seems.

So to our grumbling Jesus responds to us as He did His disciples all those centuries ago: “Does this shock you?”  Do we find it difficult to accept the gift of His self-sacrificing love?  Does His call to make His life the center of our lives shock us into realizing that we may be far from following His way?  Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves and understands, “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” And, the gospel reminds us, “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”

But for those of us who really want to follow the teachings of Jesus, we can pray to discover who in my world, in my life, is marginalized?  Who needs my forgiveness?  How can I love my spouse and family better?  How can I stop judging others so severely and simply remember how very loved I am by God?

Am I following the call of Jesus or am I following the world’s call to succeed at any price, to ignore those people who are inconvenient to me and to fill my life with the things and signs of my success?  Who or what am I going to decide to follow?   As the prophet Joshua reminds us, “If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve.”  (Joshua 24:1-18)

At this moment of deciding whom we will serve, Jesus asks us, “Do you also want to leave?”  It’s Simon Peter who answers for us, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” adding, “We are convinced.”

We need convincing many days as we live our lives on this Christian journey.  But Jesus doesn’t ask us to take this challenging path alone.  He’s with us at every moment, offering Himself as the bread, the central food for our lives.  He’s also sending us out into our world to love others and be the support and ‘bread’ for those around us.

It’s this love, a dying to myself and loving others more freely that seems to be what Paul addresses when he writes of husbands and wives (Ephesians 5:2-32).  Though he writes through the lens of his own culture, Paul sees love in a marriage as a love that mirrors the love of Jesus.  In my own marriage, I know that I can only be self-sacrificing in my life if I first feel the love of God deeply in my own heart.  Then I can love my wife the way Jesus loves me – by dying to myself and my own needs.

Make me humble, Lord!

 

We may not know what a phylactery is or how to lengthen a tassel, but when Jesus criticized the scribes and Pharisees, the message was clear – they were using these traditional symbols not for prayer but to bring honor to themselves.  Their prestige from being religious leaders was used to get “places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues” (Matthew 23:1-12).

Lest anyone think I don’t know what a phylactery is, it’s simply a small box containing Scripture which is tied to the arm or forehead during prayer. This very visible sign of devotion (still used by some today) was being corrupted by the religious leaders who wanted the admiration of all.

It's always easy to dismiss the religious leaders of Jesus' day as dense and judgmental.  But sometimes we may wonder if we’re really all that different.  We may catch ourselves wanting to impress people by how we look or the importance of our jobs.  If we carry titles which bring us honor, we may enjoy using those titles just a little more often than necessary.  Perhaps we want to show people that we’re devout, or how much we’re giving up for Lent or how much time we spend in prayer each day.  Hand-in-hand with each “blessing” of ours may be a judgment about people who don't have important jobs, don't look as polished as we do, and even those who pray differently or less publicly, or something that doesn’t fit our standards.  Guilty as charged!

It’s good to constantly remind ourselves of the power of humility.  Humility doesn’t always come easy to me.  To be humble, I’ve found that I have to submit to God’s will and authority; I have to recognize the talents that others possess, while recognizing the limits to my own talents and ability.  While recognizing the talents of my wife, my children and my grandchildren seems relatively easy, I find it sometimes difficult to recognize other individuals’ talents, and I often find it difficult to do things without being recognized.  It is easy to acknowledge the talents of my immediate family– they are wonderful and at some level it reflects well on me.  I can bask in their glory.  I think that too often, I’m searching for recognition and honor because I want to be valued.  However, I tend to forget that God values all of us, no matter who we are or what we’ve achieved.  I don’t need to seek His approval – I have it.  Unlike the scribes and Pharisees, I don’t have to spend my time on works that are to be seen to be honored.  Undoubtedly, receiving recognition for my talents is appreciated, but those talents are a gift of God.  I thank God for His many blessings and I ask Him to keep me humble.

An immigrant's tale

I remember Paul Harvey telling “the rest of the story…”  His catchphrase came to me after trying to read just the first chapter in the Book of Ruth today.  It ended rather abruptly, piquing my interest enough to read “the rest of the story” to see what else would happen, even though I’ve read it before.

Patterns of migration are commonplace throughout the contemporary world.  Most of these migrants think of their moves as temporary, allowing them enough time to earn some capital for themselves and their families, so that they can then return home, to lead a better life there.  Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way.  Many of them have a unique tale to tell.

In a nutshell the Book of Ruth is an “immigrant’s tale”. 

In the first chapter, Elimelech and his wife Naomi and sons, left Bethlehem for the plains of Moab because “there was a famine in the land”.

Sometime later, Naomi’s husband died, leaving her a widow.  And her two sons also died, leaving two daughters-in-law who were not of the house of Israel.  Naomi heard that the famine in Israel had broken and so advised Orpah and Ruth to stay in their own country.  That’s when Ruth professed her loyalty to her mother-in-law.

So not one, but two widows were all who were left in this family.  They were doubly defenseless, being widows without much of a bright future remaining to them.  That’s why when Naomi (whose name means “pleasant one”) returned to her village and her neighbors recognized her, she told them to call her Mara (“bitter one”) because she had suffered so much loss.

 Naomi’s pain was palpable.  In just a handful of verses in the second chapter, the Book of Ruth suggests so much.  In my reflection, it became difficult to tell whether her conniving to get Ruth married off was a ploy to simply get her out of the house or to actually act for the good of her daughter-in-law.  Nonetheless, Naomi counseled Ruth how to “get her man.”

 The rest of the story is that Boaz, a relative of Naomi, married Ruth. They had a son named Obed who was the father of Jesse who was the father of King David.

 What I find good and helpful about the rest of the story is to see how God continues to work in the midst of grief and loss.  The Lord isn’t put off by our bitterness.  Rather, God seems to turn things to the good through Naomi’s mourning and Ruth’s status as an immigrant / refugee.  What a great deal!

I pray that He is working out the same deal for the rest of us who have our own “immigrant tales”. 

Faith, fidelity, and commitment

 

Every so often, I find myself reflecting on some pretty unpleasant readings from the Old and New Testaments.  From the book of Judges there’s the story about how Jephthah killed his own daughter, his only child, as a “burnt offering” to God (Judges 11:29-39).  In Matthew’s Gospel is the parable of how guests invited to a prince’s wedding feast actually “laid hold of [the king’s] servants, mistreated them and killed them.”  Next, as might be expected, the king “was enraged…destroyed those murderers and burnt their city.” Finally, this harsh king rejected a guest who was wearing the wrong clothes – in fact, he told his servants to “Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the darkness outside.”  And this difficult Gospel ends, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.”  I don’t like to think that!  I didn’t like the grief, violence, judgment and punishment in these two passages; I struggled to see what all these terrible lines mean to me in my life today.

I think I found one possible answer in a refrain from Psalm 40: “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will”.  Right after I read Jephthah’s sad story, the Psalm quietly put me back in a better frame of mind.  “Sacrifice or oblation you wished not…Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not.” Instead, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight.” (Psalm 40:5-10)

So I turned my reflection towards how I tend to take God’s love for granted.  Don’t most of us tend to think that nothing more can be asked of us beyond what we’re already doing quite comfortably?  We have smug and ready excuses for not feeding the hungry, tending the sick, clothing the naked, etc. (Matthew 25) – in other words, for not truly living the Christian faith: “I do enough already,” or “I can’t be expected to be more than I am.”   

My meditation hauled me back – not to the ancient practice of human sacrifice or to an obsessive concern with proper attire, but to faith, fidelity and commitment.  Jephthah was no ordinary man but a mighty warrior, a figure to represent power and success.  The daughter was no ordinary child bouncing out the front door to greet Daddy, but rather a princess giving a ceremonial welcome, signifying, again, power and success.  Together, father and daughter represent something greater still—about not taking the Lord for granted, and about sacrifice beyond human reason, for love.  To accept her role in fulfilling her father’s vow, the daughter must have loved God, and her father, very much!  I see parallels in Jephthah’s story with the “Binding of Isaac” by Abraham (Genesis 22:1-19) and even with the sacrifice of the Son of God on the Cross (John 3:16).

Also, the man “not dressed in a wedding garment” in the Gospel parable reminds us that the Kingdom of Heaven is not to be taken for granted.  When the king noticed him, the lazy guest “was reduced to silence.”  So it’s not like he didn’t have or couldn’t get the proper clothing.  The other last-minute invitees managed to dress appropriately.  This guest complacently preferred the comfort of his old jeans and t-shirt (or the first-century equivalent) instead of sacrificing a bit of convenience to do the right thing for his particular situation.

I think this parable has (at least temporarily) shaken me out of my slothful self-satisfaction, reminding me to not take God for granted!  I pray that I love God enough to sacrifice any convenience and comfort in order to say honestly, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight.”  

Called to gratitude, not envy

 

My reflection today was on the parable of the landowner who went to the appointed place to hire people to work in his fields (Matthew 20:1-16).  He went out early in the morning and formally contracted with some workers for a day's wage.  They agreed and came to work in the man's fields.

He repeated the action of finding workers at several points along the day and finally at the "eleventh hour" he hired even more.  The only difference in his interaction with the workers in getting them to his fields was that he said nothing about wages to the later employees, even the ones who would only work for an hour.

The whole parable points to and culminates with the dramatic statement of Jesus, "the last shall be first and the first shall be last."  This pronouncement of Jesus and the content of the story is a little confusing for me; what's it all about?  It sure seems as though the story isn’t about violations of social justice—the landowner contracted with the workers for their day's wages, and they were paid that amount at the end of the day; so all seems to be on the square.  But what about those hired later and especially the "eleventh hour" workers?  They got the exact amount for their labor that the ones who bore the brunt of the day got!  This may not seem fair to us but who are we to second-guess the generous heart of the landowner?

Some people who know Scripture much better than I do say that the parable is applied to the Jews as the early workers laboring all day and the latter-day employees as Christians.  But that doesn't seem to line up well with how Jesus wants to point the story.

I think the key to understanding the story is the audience to whom the story is proclaimed in Matthew's gospel, "Jesus told his disciples this parable:"

The words ‘his disciples’ makes the whole difference, I believe.  He's saying to His close friends, the ones He called into service with Him, those who left everything to follow Him: ‘be careful; don't take things for granted; watch out that you put too much emphasis on yourselves and miss the most important part: the graciousness of God’.

In other words it's not up to the amount of work that’s done or how much "heat of the day" is endured, or even how well the work is done.  It all depends on God's call and invitation.  That's where we (disciples) need to focus ourselves, and not on grumbling against those we think don't deserve the wages for which we contracted. 

Again, in my opinion the parable isn’t about social justice or about labor relations.  It's point is God's generosity in giving freely to ones who don't deserve what they’re graciously given (not by “earning” God's love). and as always the response to such liberality is gratitude. 

That applies to all of us, the latter-day disciples laboring alongside of Jesus in His Kingdom.  We’re the "eleventh hour" people who receive the benefits of God' graciousness.  We’re the ones who are constantly being confounded by God's wondrous generosity.  We’re the ones called into gratitude for His Goodness.

With God's help, go with the strength you have

 

The Old Testament story of Gideon is my story; probably all of us can relate to this one (Judges 6:11-24).   I love the words of the angel of the Lord to Gideon while he was hard at work grinding wheat one day.  “The Lord is with you, O champion!”  I can imagine this happening to me.  My response would be similar to Gideon’s response.  “What do you mean, “Champion?”  I’m just stuck here at work that never makes a difference, except to keep me and my family fed.  There must be more to life if I’m supposed to be a champion.” 

The Lord has done wonderful things for me, that’s true, but now what?  I’m just not one of the movers and shakers in the world.  But the Lord has an answer to our doubts just as with Gideon’s doubts.  The Lord says, “Go with the strength you have [and do what needs to be done], because I am sending you.”  And we like Gideon say, “I don’t have much strength, I’m really pretty insignificant.”  And the Lord says, “I’ll be with you.”  And we say, again like Gideon, “OK, but give me a sign.”  And the Lord does.

My reflections today are about the signs that the Lord is with us.  We’ll see them if we trust in God.  What’s important here is that God is with us, not that we get stronger.  It’s about God’s strength and not ours.  We don’t get very far if we ask for strength to go it alone to do what we want to do.  We all know that.  But we’re “champions” if we go with God where God needs us to go.  When we hear what God wants us to do, miracles will happen.  We will see the signs.  We will be champions!  Accompanying our faithfulness and hopefulness will be truth and justice, springing out of the earth and down from heaven.  It’s all there if we look for it (Psalm 85:9-14).

There’s more!  We can inherit eternal life.  But we can’t do that by ourselves either.  Jesus reminds us that it’s impossible on our own, only with God (Matthew 19:23-30).  Still, I can’t help but think that trusting in God to deliver is only half of the human story.  It’s what we want God to deliver that is the problem.  Most of us want something other than what God promises to provide us.  We want earthly riches, power, and recognition of it all more than we want peace and justice and eternal life.  We really think we can enjoy wealth and power more than we can peace and justice.  Jesus understood that.

So the other half of the human story is about our desiring to follow Jesus.  But that too isn’t all up to us; Jesus reminds us that it’s impossible for our desires to be made perfect without God.  For the sake of the name of Jesus we do our best, but we must rely on God to be with us to stay on track.  So today, and every day, we can stop to pray at work in gratitude for the Lord’s presence.  Just listen for the angel saying, “The Lord is with you, O champion!”  Then we can get our priorities straight and get back to work; that is, God’s work.         

In case of fire.....

 

While I wouldn’t consider myself “rich” by any means, my wife and I are blessed to live a comfortable life.  We have funds to spend on Starbucks iced coffee when we need a little pick-me-up, money for take-out at least once a week, and when we feel the need for a home improvement repair or we want to help the kids out with their finances, we know it won’t break the bank to splurge every once in a while.

That being said, I still think it would be difficult to live without the comforts of my daily life, that wouldn’t have been afforded to me if it weren’t for my prosperity.  The gospel I reflected on today was one of those faith-testing moments where you have to look at your life and determine where your priorities are—God is asking us if He is ours (Matthew 19:16-22).

Or put another way: If there was a fire, what would you grab as you got out of the house?  

My list of items has changed over my life; it used to be a laundry list of 25 different things.  Now, it’s down to one thing: my family.  Everything else is just ‘fluff’.  I think this is Jesus’ point–at the end of days, it’s not the things we have that matter but how we treated one another.

The commandments Jesus listed out for the young man are all about relationships with the people around us, and in expanding upon them at the end, Jesus reminds us that ultimately we’re created to love and care for others.  He calls the young man to give up what gets in his way of loving and caring for his neighbors which, by the looks of it for this young man, is attachment to his possessions.

As I reflected today on this Gospel, I asked myself the following questions:

What gets in the way of my caring for and loving my neighbor?

What grace might I ask of God to let go of those attachments?

How might I give more to the relationships in my life?

At the end of the day, I realized that what I care the most about are the relationships in my life–my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and most importantly, Jesus.  In responding to the goodness of God’s deep and generous love for us, we turn to our neighbor in striving to have good, right, and life-giving relationship, relationships that ultimately bring us closer to God.

Jesus invites us daily to know Him more.  When we spend time with Him reading the word, in quiet reflection, or in daily prayer, we’re deepening our relationship with the Creator.  We’re allowing Him into our lives and letting Him fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts that only He can seal.  And when we know Him, giving up iPhones, video games, money, comforts, etc. won’t feel like a burden.  We’ll find a willing heart, eager to follow God all the days of our lives.

I need Mary! We all do!

 

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.  From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name” (Luke 1:46-49).

I have the tendency to look at my life and my accomplishments and to pat myself on the back for what a great job I’ve done!  Like many other Americans I validate my life by pointing to achievements.  This validation leads to self-affirmation and often to boastfulness and pride.

And this tendency isn’t bad as far as it goes.  But it doesn’t go far enough.  Influenced by American secularism and individualism, I often tend to view my existence as independent from God. My tendency is to ignore God’s role and to see myself as a self-actualizing individual and to put myself -- not God -- at the center of the universe.  And then I become self-inflated -- and sadly am tempted to denigrate those I deem less successful.

Influenced by an ever more dominant secular culture, I’m tempted to ignore God’s role in my life. I ignore the God who knits me together in my mother’s womb, who gives me my talents, who sustains me in existence, and who showers me with the Holy Spirit enabling me to actualize these talents (Psalm 139).

But then I look at Mary, the Mother of Jesus.  This is Mary whom God blessed above all other human beings -- whom God chose to be at the center of salvation history and who was faithful to Jesus from Bethlehem to Calvary.

This is Mary who realized that the source of her blessings was the Almighty and not herself and whose blessings made her not proud but humble and grateful.

On this Feast of the Assumption of Mary, I pray for Mary’s intercession that I may become more acutely aware of the source of all my blessings and may join her in her humility, praise and gratitude to our God: “The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name.”

I need Mary!

Welcome the children

 

There’s a short gospel passage (Matthew 19:13-15) about Jesus welcoming the children.  He scolded the disciples that tried to hinder the children.  Something characteristic about children made Jesus exclaim, “The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”   My first thought was that Jesus was highlighting the dependence that children have on their parents as the way we should go to God.  As I reflected on the passage, I began to ask myself many questions like, “What knowledge or behavior do adults miss about the kingdom of God that children seem to possess?”  It dawned on me during my analysis that I was stuck in an adult mode.  I was analyzing, critiquing and searching for the right answer.  In my adult analysis I lost the freedom and spontaneity that children possess, and Jesus was welcoming.

A child-like dependence on God is a valuable spiritual characteristic, but freedom and spontaneity are equally important to me.  My grandchildren continually teach me to relax, have fun and play. 

Do you recall when you last felt joy and delight?  In a world where we’re bombarded with life and all of its details, I think joy might escape sometimes, unheeded in our rush to finish our to-do list.  We do have to get those things done.  We have responsibilities to our families, to our jobs, to society.

For adults, the moments of pure joy can be few and far between.  And we probably take so much time trying to figure out if that moment actually was joy that we miss it.  This makes me think of my granddaughter Lily when she and I would play “Where’s Lily?”.   It was a game we made up similar to “peek-a-boo”.  I would pretend not to see her and “look” for her everywhere calling out “where’s Lily?”.  She would be standing right in front of me, waiting for me to say, “Ooh! There she is!”, and then we’d giggle together.  There were times it could go on for 30 minutes before one or the other of us would simply lose interest or focus.  But for those oh so few minutes, Lily and I were both so completely in the moment, present, full of joy and delighted to be there in one another's company.  I’ve since enjoyed the same game with both Josephine and Paloma, with just as great enthusiasm, joy, and delight.

During these times and in many others the freedom of childhood rushes over me and for a time the important things in life seem to be so clear.  After a time, I fade back into adult mode, and I become less spontaneous or free to embrace the Godliness that’s present all around me.  I’m not advocating for adults to not act responsibly or maturely, but we must also re-learn how to be free and recognize the Godliness around us.  We must allow ourselves to play, be silly and spontaneously embrace the God who is waiting with open arms.

My prayer for today is that we can all take a good length of time with a young child to find our own answers to the reason Jesus states, “The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”