Don't complicate things that aren't

 

The Bible is full of good stories.  They often work at many levels, and the trick is to find the inspired meaning. The Old Testament story about Naaman, the Syrian general, is a good case in point [2 Kings 5:1-15]. He’s an important person and he has a serious problem.  He thinks it needs a serious solution and is miffed when he’s told to wash himself in the waters of the Jordan – a puny stream, by his standards.  How human!  Of course, millions of people over the last 3 years have had a similar response to recommendations by health officials as to how to ‘flatten the curve’ of the pandemic.  We were told to stay in place, wash our hands, and wear masks while in public.  Simple.  Many complained that those measures were too simple.  We seem to prefer approaches that are high-tech, expensive, complicated, and sometimes risky over those that are simple and inexpensive.  I’m amazed at how accurately this ancient Jewish story has put its finger squarely on a timeless issue.  How little human nature has changed!  How insightful the Scriptures are!

But the Bible is concerned with something far more important than human psychology.  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus cites this very story in response to the skepticism He, Himself, encountered in His hometown [Luke 4:24-30].  He does so, focusing not on Naaman, but on the Israelites of Naaman’s time who, presumably, didn’t think much of Elisha, just as Jesus’ own neighbors in Nazareth apparently didn’t think much of Him.  Jesus’ point (and Luke’s) was that what God has to offer is available to anyone and isn’t confined to a few who, like us Christians, believe we’re on the inside track, that we’re special.  The banquet is open to anyone willing to sit down with everyone else.  If we’re not willing, then it’s not that a vengeful God excludes us.  Rather it’s that we fail to recognize what we’re being offered.  It is we who reject it.

Why do prophets have to come from out of town?  Why do we not heed the prophetic voices we hear (or perhaps fail to hear) in our own family/parish/community?  Clearly, we know them too well.  To paraphrase Groucho Marx, if they’re related to us or our social group, they can’t be very special.  Also, they’re probably not saintly enough to persuade us.  But whoever said a prophet had to be saintly?  The prophet is just the messenger, the one who gives us an insight into how God sees things.  It’s the message we need to hear and to heed.  Perhaps we would be more impressed with a booming majestic, other-worldly voice – as in the “Wizard of Oz”.  Elijah sought just such a voice on Mt. Horeb, but instead found God in a quiet whisper [1 Kings 19:9-18].  Why do we tend not to recognize God’s voice in the ordinary?  Jesus reveals to us that God is incarnate in the ordinariness of our world and our daily lives.  Lent is a wonderful time for exercising a certain economy of our presumptions as well as for quiet listening.

Jump into the deep end

 

We talk about Lent as a time of invitation from God.  What does God want to give us this Lent?

We can look at the story of a woman who sees how she can change her life – how she can change the patterns of her life.  She leaves behind her fears and her embarrassment and begins a new life – she sees that God has an invitation for her and she says, Yes! [John 4:3-42]

Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there.

This is the history of our faith.  This is Jacob’s well and he gave this land to his son – Joseph of the coat of many colors.  The history, the stories we know so well, took place in this region.  Now what we see is that these stories are a part of Jesus’ past – and a part of our past.  But Jesus is a new part of it – a new covenant with God.  We see the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament as He sits on the side of the well.

Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.  It was about noon.  A woman of Samaria came to draw water.  Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

It was noon.  The hottest part of the day.  Who goes to the well at such a hot and unpleasant part of the day to draw water?  Someone who doesn’t want to see anyone else.  This well was a lifeline for the people, but it was deserted at that noon.  The woman was hiding from others because she was ashamed of her life.

Jesus knows her shameful secret: she’s had five husbands and she is hiding.  But what Jewish man would break the law and speak to an unattended woman – and a Samaritan woman!  What man?  Jesus, who wants to offer her a relationship that will heal her.  This encounter at the well is an encounter between Jesus and US today.

Lent is a season to be open and to receive.  God is waiting to offer us a great gift this Lent: the gift of a relationship with God!  But sometimes, we get caught up in our fear and our guilt and we focus on ourselves and our sin.  So we hide.  We can all think of things in our lives that we’re ashamed of and we hide from others, and maybe from God’s love.

Lent isn’t really about us!  Lent gives us a chance to look really closely at our lives and think about what we might want to change in it.  How can we be better persons?  If we only focus on our own sin, it becomes about us and it’s a self-absorbed exercise.  When we’re caught up in guilt, we are looking at ourselves.  But, what if we change the focus from ourselves to God’s love?  Then, we come into the amazing awareness that even though we’re sinners, we are loved incredibly by God.  That’s when we become people who are drawn back to that love and to our God.

When I was a kid afraid to learn how to swim, a friend told me about how his father taught him to swim. He stood at the edge of the pool and his dad was in the water.  “Jump in!” he would call to him.  But he saw all of the water and it was big and huge and he was afraid.  “Jump in!”  But he couldn’t.  Then his dad said to his son while he pointed to his own eyes, “Look at me.  Look at me. Watch my eyes.  Jump.”  And he did it.  Suddenly his focus wasn’t on the water and his fear … but on his father.

God is saying to us, “Look at me!  Don’t focus on your guilt or your fears!  Jump into my arms and let me love you!”  God is inviting us to jump into the deep water into a close and loving relationship.

 

Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.  It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water.  Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

Jesus sits casually at the edge of the well and talks to this woman.  But Jesus speaks to her directly.  He’s comfortable with her.  He’s offering her new life.  A friendship with Him.  He wants to offer us the same thing - a real relationship with Him.  That’s how He encounters us, as well.  He sits in the same place we are.  He meets us in a place where we carry our shame, and we want to hide.  And He wants to love us and give us a new, deeper relationship with Him.

A lot of times, we try to keep God at a distance.  I know I do.  My life goes along and my relationship with God is that I’m here and he’s "up there."   Life is good and I have it all under control.  I’ll look up at God who is very far away in heaven and say, “All is well down here, God.  I’ll let you know if I need you!”  I think I don’t need God.  I have my life in control, or so I think until the next natural disaster in daily life comes along. Then I suddenly realize, "Oh!  I need God in my life.  Help me, God!"

One of the first things we can really realize is that God Is Here.  Not There.  God is Here.  When I finally “get it,” that God is not in some abstract place far away but here, in my own heart, just waiting for me, then maybe I can move God out of my head and into my heart.

We can read lots of theology books, go to discussions about our faith and take classes to study scripture.  All of those are wonderful.  But if we only do those things, we never move outside of our head and into our hearts.  God invites us to sit in the quiet and feel God alive and loving us, living in our hearts.

Jesus said, “You did not choose me, I chose you.” [John 15:16]  Jesus actively wants a relationship with us and our sin, our messiness doesn’t change His desire.  In fact, the messier our lives are, the more we need His love and the more He wants to love us.  He longs to  be with us, to have us share our lives with Him and talk to Him.  Sometimes we feel like God is so far away.  A sense of absence vanishes when I’m open to a sense of God’s presence in my own life.

It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

When I read through this Gospel slowly, I re-think the Samaritan Woman.  What kind of a life did she lead?  The well was a gathering place in town and the people would have met there, talked, laughed, connected with each other.  Then I imagine that they go home with their water because it’s getting hot.  They leave the well, carry their water and go to the shade of their homes.

And then it was noon, and the woman of Samaria came by herself to draw water.  She was avoiding the people of the town. She knows they’ll judge her.  I can think to myself, "Oh those people, judging someone like that, so harshly."

But would I be different?  How would I be as one of the other people in the town?  Would I have befriended her the way Jesus did?  Would I want to be even seen at the well with her?  We’re so quick to judge, so quick to scorn.  If we isolate her and see her sins so clearly, it helps us feel better about our own.  And when we hear five husbands, don’t we tend to blame her?

What does Jesus do?  He sits down and asks her for some water.  Would I have accepted water from her? Maybe I wouldn’t have even looked at her!  She’s a sinner!

I’m judging her more harshly than God does!  Jesus simply loves her as a sinner.  We judge her and isolate her!  We don’t speak to her.

And what makes us condemn her more harshly than Jesus does?  It might be because we can’t comprehend how absolutely loved we are by God.  We think in our minds, not our hearts, and our minds tell us that we know how we love, and God must love us the same way.  We love carefully.  We love as people deserve.  We know how people have treated us in the past and we adapt our love accordingly.

Several years ago, my wife and I and our two daughters went to New York City for a short sightseeing trip and to see a couple of Broadway plays.  On Sunday evening, we were walking back to the hotel for the evening after a long day of sightseeing, and I saw a woman bundled up against the cold, looking almost dead lying on the sidewalk. Many people were walking by very quickly, appearing not to notice her.  It was like she was just part of the landscape.  But did I do anything?  For a fleeting moment, I thought I should see if she was all right and maybe buy her a cup of soup or something.  But did I?  No, I picked up my pace to try to catch up to the girls, who were crossing the street about 50 feet in front of me.  Truth be told, I was judging her without even knowing her.

It’s a very human way of loving, and it’s imperfect because we are imperfect as people.  But God loves in a whole different dimension of time and space that we can’t understand.  God loves endlessly and without regard to what we’ve done.

The best analogy I have for the way God loves us is parenthood.  If you’re a parent, you understand what it means to love and forgive your child over and over again.  I’m not saying they don’t drive us crazy sometimes, but no matter what they do, you can’t stop loving them.  We look at the prodigal son and his guilt over what he did to his father.  He decides to go home, practicing an apology on the way home.  He doesn’t expect his father to forgive him.

Where is the father?  Standing, looking down the road like he probably did every night, just hoping to catch a glimpse of his son returning.  That father is simply a parent, and he forgives over and over again, and still loves [Luke 15:11-32].  And that's a human understanding of love.  God’s love for us is endless, going into places in our hearts we can’t understand with our limited minds.

So here is Jesus, sitting at the edge of the well, asking for a drink of water and then offering the Samaritan woman living water.  Her response to him is from her brain.  She is logical, the way we are.

“Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water?

Jesus doesn’t go to the logic of what she says.  He speaks to her heart: “Whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

He offers her something that will change her life forever.  When she heard Jesus say this, the Samaritan woman was looking at Jesus, standing with Him and she could feel that He was offering her something she had never had before.  A new way of life.  The invitation was to her heart, not her head and she began to listen in a different way. She says,

“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

We can say that to Jesus, too.  Give us this water.  We can ask Jesus to be with us in everything we have ever done.  The things we are proud of; the things about our lives that make us ashamed.

I could say, “Lord, I hang out at the well at noon - I try to avoid deep interactions with people - especially you.  I live with a kind of self-denial about the inconsistencies of my life.  I don't have five husbands, but I have a dozen areas where I fall short of living the life of faith and trust in you that I profess with my lips.  In fact, others think I'm together, but at home, or with relatives and friends, I'm not so together.  All you ask me for is to let you give me the water you offer me.

All you ask me is to come back to you this Lent and remember I'm baptized in you already.  All you ask is that I let you "tell me everything I have done."   You ask me this year to really open my heart to you in a new way - and I’ve been avoiding it for years.  I know that if I turn to you, it will give my life a great peace, and a sense of love and will give witness to my whole family."

The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?”

She opened her heart to Jesus and her life is different.  She left her water jar!  What had been her lifeline -- her water jar -- she forgot about it.  She has a new water and a new life.  She goes to town, a town in which she had been humiliatingly rejected, and she boldly calls people together to tell them about this incredible man she’s met.  She says: he told me everything I have ever done. Suddenly she’s no longer burdened by her past life.  Her guilt and sin are not the focus.  She has heard Jesus say, “Look at me!  Put your focus on me, not on your past life” and her life is changed!  She goes through town boldly with this news of a new life.

And what is the townsfolk’s response?

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.”

Jesus shows us who we really are.  Not who we WANT to be, but who we are.  Imperfect. Crabby.  Selfish. And utterly lovable in God’s eyes.

It’s not a message we can hear with our brains.  It’s one that Jesus asks us to open our hearts for.  “Look at me,” He says, “and jump into the deep water.”

A compassion worthy of rejoicing

 

My favorite parable is all about forgiveness and the mercy of God, but there’s another angle to forgiveness and that deals with justice.  God is merciful and forgives our sins whatever they are, if we’re contrite, if we’re really sorry, and if we ask.  But how does that relate to responsibility for our actions?  In an episode of The Simpsons Bart once said he planned to live a debauched life and go for a deathbed conversion.  But it hardly seems fair to the people who work hard all their lives, live good moral lives, and do everything right, if then some sinful upstart gets the same deal in the end.

In the story of the prodigal son [Luke 15:1-32], the bad boy takes his inheritance early, leaves home, and squanders his money.  The good brother stays there and helps his father, works on the land and has to wait for his recompense.  When the bad brother comes home to rejoicing and a party, I can understand why the good brother feels it’s an injustice.  The good boy has worked hard and gained no reward.  It’s as if the bad boy is being rewarded for being bad.  And people should be held accountable for their actions.  The bad brother shouldn’t get a reward for his debauchery, but should he be abandoned?  Like Robert Frost said in his poem The Death of the Hired Man, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”  The prodigal son isn’t asking for riches or even heir status.  He asks to be treated as well as the hired hands.  The father isn’t saying that he will even divide the property again for equal shares to the boys.  The bad boy has already spent his inheritance.  The father tells the good boy that everything is his, but that his brother who was gone has returned, and that is indeed cause for celebration.  Celebrating the bad brother’s return doesn’t really hurt the good brother – he still has everything he has earned and worked for.

Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors. This was considered not cool.  These were not good people to be hanging around with.  The implication was that anyone who associated with these sorts of people was like-minded.  But Jesus had a mission to help people, to turn them from their wicked ways to a better path.  The people who were already on the right path didn’t have as much need of Him as those who were heading the wrong way.  The good people who are already doing the right thing already have their reward in heaven, but if a sinner, someone who had been lost could return to the right way, isn’t that worthy of rejoicing?

My most generous Lord, You are compassionate beyond what I can fathom.  Your mercy and goodness far exceed what any of us deserve.  Help me to be eternally grateful for Your goodness and help me to offer that same depth of mercy to those in most need.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Totally, completely loved by God

Young people spend hours daily on Tik-Tok, Instagram, etc., constantly comparing their lives to others.  Everywhere, they see what they wish they had – possessions, likability, beauty, accomplishments, and more – and they try to imitate “influencers” to gain it for themselves.  Their perceived “failures” can cause depression, low self-esteem, bullying, suicide, and violence.

It doesn’t require social media, of course.  The persistent sin of toxic envy and jealousy has been with us from the beginning when Adam and Eve acted out of “knowledge envy” and Cain’s jealousy at Abel’s perceived status drove him to murder.  Look at the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers [Genesis 37:3-28], and the Gospel about the envious vineyard tenants [Matthew 21:33-46].  While I’m not going to kill anyone of whom I’m jealous, the sin is destructive.

Of whom are you jealous?  Who has the life, spouse, money, car, job, vacation, ability, faith, popularity, confidence, sense of humor, or talent that you wish you had for yourself?  Would you gladly trade places with them, giving them your life and living theirs?  Remember that would require letting go of your own baggage but also of what and who you love.  It would require taking on their baggage and what and who they love.  Are you so sure they’re happier than you inside?  Are they loved for who they are or for those characteristics everyone envies?  Do they know the security you seek, or do they feel they have to constantly prove themselves or put on a front to be accepted?

The truth is, we’re all imperfect human beings, with a complicated mix of good, bad, beautiful, and ugly running through our veins.  The most genuine, big-hearted, loyal people I’ve met are those who stop comparing themselves against others and wishing for what someone else has.  As Socrates said: “He who is not contented with what he has would not be contented with what he wished to have.”

Perhaps this week we can pray for the grace to realize and accept the fullness of what we already have, to live in gratitude for the abundance of our gifts, and rest in the sure and certain knowledge that we are totally, completely loved by God. 

Blessings are how God makes things happen

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.”  [Luke 16:19–31]

The story of the rich man and Lazarus found in Luke’s Gospel is so powerful because of the clear descriptive contrasts.

In the first contrast, the rich man’s life seems much more desirable, at least on the surface.  He is rich, has a home to live in, dresses in fine clothing and eats sumptuously every day.  If he had a Facebook account today, he would probably be posting how “blessed” his life is.  By contrast, Lazarus is poor, has no home, has no food, is covered with sores and even endures the humiliation of dogs licking his wounds.  No one on Earth today would consider him “blessed.”

When they both die, they experience very different eternal fates.  When the poor man died, he was “carried away by angels.”  He was TRULY blessed!  And when the rich man died, he went to the netherworld, where there was ongoing torment.  These very clear contrasts lead me to reflect more on what it means to be “blessed.”   

Trust, hope, generosity, and perseverance are the essential practices of the blessed.  Blessings are how God makes things happen!

So, when we read [Jeremiah 17:5-10], “blessed is the man who trusts in the lord, whose hope is in the Lord,” we can envision a man who is not only good, but who is sustained in goodness, and who can make good happen. When we read [Psalms 1:1-6], “blessed are they who hope in the Lord,” we find that the Lord not only watches over those who follow the Lord to sustain them, but whatever they do prospers. They are set up to make even better things happen.  And when we read [Luke 8:15], “blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield a harvest through perseverance,” we get closer to the Gospel message I started with today.  What are we to do with our blessings in this life?  It’s not enough that we can be confident in the hope that God blesses us like the Pharisees.  We’re invited to receive God’s blessings with a generous heart, sharing with those in need, like Lazarus.  In blessing us, God brings out the best in us, which enables us to be a blessing to others in this life.  We’re blessed to make good happen where it is needed.

I wonder if that message is coming through clearly enough on all those social media posts these days that say, “Blessed.”  Are people just thinking they’re fortunate to be seen as good and to experience the good in life, or are they open to being transformed into something even better?  And when many of us say we’re blessed, are we just expressing gratitude for God’s goodness in our lives, or are we announcing a readiness and willingness to bless others by making better things happen in the world?  It’s my prayer today that we will all be “blessed” to be a blessing.

My Lord of true riches, You chose to be poor in this world as a sign to us that true riches come not with material wealth but with love. Help me to love You, my God, with all my being and to love others as You love them. May I be wise enough to make spiritual riches my single goal in life so that these riches will be enjoyed for all eternity. Jesus, I trust in You. 

Facing the Cross with courage and grace

 As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the Twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” [Matthew 20:17–19]

Oftentimes, the full message of the Gospel is difficult for us to accept.  This is because the full message of the Gospel will always centrally point us to the sacrifice of the Cross.  Sacrificial love and the full embrace of the Cross needs to be seen, understood, loved, fully embraced and confidently proclaimed. But how is this done?  As always, we start with Jesus.

Jesus wasn’t afraid of the truth.  He knew that His suffering and death was imminent, and He was ready and willing to accept this truth without hesitation.  He didn’t see His Cross in a negative light.  He didn’t look at it as a tragedy to be avoided.  He didn’t allow fear to deter Him.  Instead, Jesus looked at His imminent sufferings in the light of truth.  He saw His suffering and death as a glorious act of love that He was soon to offer, and, therefore, He wasn’t afraid to not only embrace these sufferings but also to speak of them with confidence and courage.

In our own lives, we’re given the invitation to imitate Jesus’ courage and love every time we must face something difficult in life.  When this happens, some of the most common temptations are to be angry about the difficulty, or to look for ways to avoid it, or to blame others, or to give into despair and the like.  There are numerous coping mechanisms that kick in by which we tend to try and avoid the crosses that await us.

But what if we followed the example of our Lord instead?  What if we faced any and every pending cross with love, courage and a willing embrace?  What if instead of looking for a way out, we looked for a way in, so to speak?  That is, we looked for a way to embrace our suffering in a sacrificial way, without hesitancy, in imitation of Jesus’ embrace of His cross.  Every cross in life has the potential of becoming an instrument of much grace in our own lives and in the lives of others.  Therefore, from the perspective of grace and eternity, crosses must be embraced, not avoided or cursed.

My suffering Lord, You freely embraced the injustice of the Cross with love and courage. You saw beyond the apparent scandal and suffering and transformed the evil done to You into the greatest act of love ever known. Give me the grace to imitate Your perfect love and to do so with the strength and confidence that You had. Jesus, I trust in You.

A desire for greatness

 Do you want to be truly great?  Do you want your life to truly make a difference in the lives of others?  Deep down this desire for greatness is placed within us by our Lord, and it will never go away.  Even those who live eternally in hell will hold on to this innate desire, which for them will be the cause of eternal pain, since that desire will never be fulfilled.  And sometimes it’s useful to ponder that reality as a motivation to make sure that this is not the fate we encounter.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives us one of the keys to greatness. “The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” [Matthew 23:1-12] Being a servant means that you put others before yourself.  You elevate their needs rather than trying to get them to be attentive to your needs.  And this is difficult to do.

It’s very easy in life to think of ourselves first.  But the key is that we do put ourselves “first,” in a sense, when we practically put others before us.  This is because the choice to put others first is not only good for them, it’s also exactly what is best for us.  We were made for love.  We were made to serve others.  We were made for the purpose of giving of ourselves to others without counting the cost.  But when we do this, we don’t lose ourselves.  On the contrary, it is in the act of giving of ourselves and seeing the other first that we actually discover who we are and become what we were created to be.  We become love itself.  And a person who loves is a person who is great…and a person who is great is a person whom God exalts.

This is the great mystery and calling of humility.  If you find it difficult to put others first and to act as their servant, do it anyway.  Make the choice to humble yourself before everyone else.  Elevate their concerns.  Be attentive to their needs.  Listen to what they say.  Show them compassion and be ready and willing to do so to the fullest extent.  If you do, that desire for greatness that lives deep within your heart will be fulfilled.

My humble Lord, thank You for the witness of Your humility. You chose to put all people first, even to the point of allowing Yourself to experience the suffering and death which was a consequence of our sins. Give me a heart that is humble, dear Lord, so that You can use me to share Your perfect love with others.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Give and get

 Mercy goes both ways.  It’s part of the very essence of mercy that it can only be received if it is also given.  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gives us a very clear command about judgment, condemnation, mercy and forgiveness.  Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.  Stop judging and you will not be judged.  Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.  Forgive and you will be forgiven.”  [Luke 6:36–37] Essentially, if we want mercy and forgiveness, then we must offer mercy and forgiveness.  If we are judgmental and condemning, then we will also be judged and condemned.  These words are very clear.

Perhaps one of the reasons that many people struggle with being judgmental and condemning of others is because they lack a true awareness of their own sin and their own need for forgiveness.  We live in a world that often rationalizes sin and downplays the seriousness of it.  We need to rekindle a sense of the seriousness of our sin.  This is not done simply to create guilt and shame.  It’s done to foster a desire for mercy and forgiveness.

If you can grow in a deeper awareness of your own sin before God, one of the effects will be that it’s then easier to be less judgmental and condemning of others.  A person who sees his sin is more apt to be merciful to other sinners.  But a person who struggles with self-righteousness will most certainly also struggle with being judgmental and condemning.

Spend time trying to understand how ugly sin is and try to grow in a healthy disdain for it.  As you do, and as you beg our Lord for His mercy, pray also that you will be able to offer that same mercy you receive from God to others.  As mercy flows from Heaven to your own soul, it must then also be shared. Share the mercy of God with those all around you and you’ll discover the true value and power of this Gospel teaching of our Lord.

My most merciful Jesus, I thank You for Your infinite mercy.  Help me to see clearly my sin so that I, in turn, may see my need for Your mercy.  As I do, dear Lord, I pray that my heart will be open to that mercy so that I can both receive it and share it with others.  Make me a true instrument of Your divine grace.  Jesus, I trust in You.

We're called to "shine", like Jesus

 

Anyone who is raised in the Christian faith knows that we’re called to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, but being called is something even greater than simply following.

Consider Abram.  He was called by God to leave everything he knew, his family, his land, his culture, his entire way of life.  Yes, he was still to be a herdsman, but if you have ever done any traveling, you know that when you go to a foreign land, even the seemingly normal can be transformed into the unknown.  Abram wasn’t given any instructions beyond, “Go!” and still he went.  The rewards he was promised were great [Genesis 12:1-4].  But Abram was no spring chicken—we’re told he was 75 years old.  I still have a few years before I reach that milestone, and already I find myself deeply resisting change in my life.

Consider the Transfiguration of Jesus as told in Matthew’s Gospel [Matthew 17:1-9].  Jesus invited His closest disciples -- Peter, James, and John -- to witness a mysterious meeting with Moses and Elijah.  Their bodies were bathed in light, but not ordinary light like the sun.  There was a cloud, but it wasn’t an ordinary cloud.  It was bright, yet it cast a shadow over them!  Peter, bless his heart, wanted to set up camp!  A voice came from that cloud, but it was no ordinary voice.  The voice told them to listen.  Peter stopped his foolish babbling and joined James and John, who to their credit, remained speechless.

I am reminded of what Jesus said in John 14:12: “…whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these…”  Are we called to be transfigured as Jesus was?

Jesus told the disciples to remain quiet about this vision until after He had been raised from the dead.  These good men could not have begun to understand this mystery with the information they had now.  They would have to wait patiently until they could eventually connect the dots and see the significance of what they had experienced.  As Paul writes in his letter to Timothy, our Lord had indeed “destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”  [2 Timothy 1:8-10]

Through our life journey, we will encounter mysteries that we do not understand.  Some will involve pain, hardship, or injustice.  We may be tempted to reach conclusions about them, perhaps even complaining or grumbling.  But like Peter, James, and John, listening, trusting, and waiting may prove the better course.  Let’s not forget that God is trustworthy and good.  In His good pleasure, the meaning and purpose behind these mysteries may be revealed to us, perhaps as we gain wisdom and walk further with God.  But in the meantime, we must be encouraged by remembering that the reality waiting for us is wondrous, indeed.  The juice will be worth the squeeze, as the old saying goes.

This is the call of Lent.  To be transformed, to leave behind our old ways, to allow God to transfigure us so we can see ourselves as His beloved daughters and sons.  This Lent it’s my prayer that we be responsive to, and participate in, the transformative power of God.

My Transfigured Lord, You spoke Your divine will to the great leaders of old on a high mountain. You also entrusted Your mission to the disciples on a holy mountain. Please give me the grace and determination I also need to journey with You up the mountain of prayer so that I will be entrusted with the mission You give to me. Jesus, I trust in You.

Displaying the Love of Christ

 

God allows the same mercy and love to be given to the just and the unjust, the kind and the wicked, and those who strive for goodness and those who don't [Matthew 5:43-48].  Honestly, loving those who have hurt me or mistreated me is not something I do well.  How can we love someone who tramples our dignity because we’re considered too old, not worthy, not the right skin color, not wanted, not good enough, or an easy target?  How can we love someone who hurts us so profoundly that we can barely face another day?  It’s not easy.  It leaves us feeling that there’s no justice for the one who has felt persecuted.  However, maybe God doesn't require us to forget our hurts.  God might just be asking us to consider love as a point of healing for ourselves and others.  God might be asking us to consider freeing ourselves from the bondage of hate and pain so we can rest. 

So, to all those who have ever put me down and kicked me while I was down, I pray for you.  To all those who called me ugly at one point or another, I pray for you.  To all those whose words and actions tore into my soul and left me wondering if there was still goodness in the world, I pray for you.  I will try to love you by God's grace, but till then, I will pray for you.  My prayers will be from a good place, not because I’m righteous but because I’m a child of God and I have chosen love.  It’s true for most of us that loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us doesn't come as easy as we would like.  However, could I really say that I observe and keep God's commandments with all my heart and soul if I pick and choose the most convenient commandments to follow and ignore the rest?  Am I really walking in God’s ways and listening to God’s voice if I decide that I’ve been hurt too badly or persecuted too often to make room for much-needed prayer for the offenders?  Can I really hold my head up high and rest comfortably in God’s love if I can’t see those who have hurt me in any way as lovable and as children of God too?  Do they not also bear the face of God?

Yes, some of God’s children are naughty, to say the least, but I know that I’m not always the just one, the good one, the forgiving one, the understanding one.  Even though I try to live out my baptism and try my best to be a good person each day, I could also end up being someone's enemy or even persecuting another for any number of reasons, especially out of fear or pain.  When I find myself in that dark place with the role of “enemy” or “persecutor,” I know I would crave love and mercy, even though it’s undeserved.  I know that my soul would long for prayers from anyone who would make room and see fit to forgive me and love me anyway.

Merciful God, we pray that those who have hurt us in whatever way may receive your mercy.  Amen.

Dig deep

Each of us has what we might call ‘deep story’ – a narrative that tells the world who we truly are.  Of concern is that often our story is unspoken, unrevealed to the world of relationships around us and sometimes not even known to ourselves.  Yet our truth, our story, is written in the language of wisdom and grace, is familiar to God and indeed is authored by the indwelling Spirit of God.  It’s the story of not only our capacity to give life and light to others, but is the revelation of our true nature, as one loved by God, created in God’s own image, and nurtured each day by the Spirit of our risen Lord.

From such an inner space we often hear verses of our story ‘whispered’ to us in that soft voice of God offering gentle encouragements, quiet refrains of advice and directing us towards love in all we do.

God reveals to us over a lifetime who were truly are.  However, the development of our capacity to hear God’s voice and to know ourselves is achieved by accepting the need to be guided in this endeavor.

Jesus offers such guidance to us in Matthew’s gospel.  He stresses the need to ‘go deeper’ to reach into our true nature if we’re to face life and live it as a child of God [Matthew 5:20-26].  To follow Jesus is to live from inner motivations and values, values that are God given and lead us to behave in deeply human ways and not merely external compliance with the minimum standards of civility and law.

Rather, we are to strive to tame angry moments, embrace good relations, and allow forgiveness to surface and guide our actions.  Virtue and righteousness are deep values and inner treasures, and to live by them allows God’s reign – a reign of love – to grow in our world.

Someone once shared with me how he’d been helping at a soup kitchen and was ladling out the stew – thin and watery as it was on top since the meat had by now sunk to the depths of the pot.  As one homeless person approached, he asked the server, ‘Dig deep brother, give me some of the good stuff”.  He wanted to be nourished by what lay deep within the stew pot.  We have a similar capacity to bring light to the world from our very depths.

Let’s dig deep into our values and live from them as Jesus asks.

My most merciful Lord, I thank You for forgiving me and for loving me with such perfection and totality.  Thank You for reconciling with me despite my imperfect contrition.  Give me a heart, dear Lord, that always seeks to love the sinner in my life.  Help me to offer mercy to the fullest extent in imitation of Your divine mercy.  Jesus, I trust in You. 

Your will, Lord, not mine

 

Jesus said to his disciples:  "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” [Matthew 7:7-12]

In 1980, I started working for (now defunct) Thrifty Drug Stores.  My first position (Manager Trainee) with them had me working in a town 45 minutes away, which wasn’t too bad.  But when I found out that a guy in the same position I was in had lost his job and created an opening in a store 10 minutes from my house, I put in for a transfer.  The Assistant Vice President said, “We don’t transfer Trainees, as a general rule.”  I was bummed, but I prayed for a change of policy so I could transfer and be closer to my wife and newborn daughter.  A few days later, the AVP called and said he was going to transfer me, after all! 

A couple of years later, after hard work and dedication to the company, I was promoted to Store Manager.  I was really happy.  But one of the drawbacks to that position was that they liked to move the managers around to prevent them from getting ‘stale’, so in May 1992 I was moved to the position of Vacation Relief Manager for an area that required me to drive 2 hours to work, complete a nine-hour shift, then drive 2 hours home every day, six days a week.  I wasn’t ready to deal with the long hours of absence from my young family (we had two daughters by then).  It also put a real strain on my ability to attend Mass most Sundays and left me precious little time to visit my mother as often as I should have (and wanted to).  I prayed to God and asked that, if possible, I’d like to have a position that would allow me to dedicate much more time to Him, to my family, and to my mom.  That was in February 1993.

Two weeks after starting this prayer, I was informed that my position was being eliminated and my services would no longer be required.  I was devastated!  I cried as I drove home to break the news to my wife, wondering how we were going to continue to provide for our family.  Surprisingly, my wife actually seemed relieved that I wouldn’t be under so much pressure anymore, and she was confident I would find other employment soon enough.

The very next day in the newspaper want ads was a position for a part-time job at U-Haul with health benefits.  I had a big plan to get the part-time job and go back to school for a couple of years to become a pharmacist.  I made an appointment for an interview at the local U-Haul that same afternoon.  By the end of the day, I had been offered a full-time position with benefits as a Manager Trainee.  At the start of the following week, I began my 25-year career with U-Haul with the promise of Sundays off so I could attend Mass with my family, at a location that was directly across the street from my mother’s apartment!   My advancement within that company would eventually require me to spend a lot of time away from the family once again, but it also continued to allow me to spend time in worship and more time with my mother than Thrifty had allowed.  I thank God every day for His compassion towards me and His answers to my prayers.

When you pray with deep faith, will our Lord give you whatever you ask?  Certainly not.  Jesus did say, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”   But this statement must be carefully read within the whole context of Jesus’ teaching here.  The fact of the matter is that when we sincerely ask in faith for “good things,” meaning that which our good God wants to bestow upon us, He won’t disappoint.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that if we beg Jesus for anything whatsoever that He will give it to us.

What are those “good things” that our Lord will most certainly give to us?  First and foremost, it’s the forgiveness of our sins.  We can be absolutely certain that if we humble ourselves before our good God, especially within the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we will be granted the freely given and transforming gift of forgiveness.

In addition to the forgiveness of our sins, there are many other things we need in life, and there are many other things that our good God wants to bestow upon us.  For example, God will always want to give to us the strength we need to overcome temptations in life.  He will always want to provide for our most basic needs.  He will always want to help us grow in every virtue.  And He most certainly wants to bring us to Heaven.  It’s these things that we must especially pray for every day.

But what about other things, such as a new job, more money, a better house, acceptance into a certain school, a physical healing, etc.?  Our prayers for these and other similar things in life should be prayed for but with a caveat.  The “caveat” is that we pray that God’s will be done.  Not ours.  We must humbly acknowledge that we don’t see the big picture in life and don’t always know what will give God the greatest glory in all things.  Therefore, it may be better that you not get that new job, or be accepted at this school, or even that this illness not end in healing.  But we can be certain that God always will bestow upon us that which is best for us and that which enables us to give God the greatest glory in life.  The crucifixion of our Lord is a perfect example.  He prayed that that cup be taken from Him, “but not my will but Yours be done.” [Luke 22:42]  And, of course, the Father saw the great eternal value in the death of His Son on the Cross and answered that prayer of His accordingly.

How do you pray?  Do you pray with detachment from the outcome, knowing that our Lord knows best?  Do you humbly admit that only God knows what is truly good for you?  Trust this to be the case and pray with complete confidence that God’s will be done in all things, and you can be certain that He will answer that prayer.

Dear Lord of infinite wisdom and knowledge, help me to always place my trust in Your goodness and care for me. Help me to daily turn to You in my need and to trust that You will answer my prayer according to Your perfect will. I place my life into Your hands, dear Lord. Do with me as you wish. Jesus, I trust in You.

A remake of the tale of Jonah

 

What a strange prophet is Jonah, God’s word bearer sent to the people of Nineveh.  In the Old Testament story we all know [Jonah 2, 3], he boards a ship going in the opposite direction to flee from God!  Was he afraid the Ninevites would kill him?  Perhaps not, because he asks no less than three times for death!  He falls overboard and is swallowed by a whale!

The whale spits Jonah on the shore and for a second time he’s given his commission as prophet to preach God’s word of conversion to the Ninevites.  We don’t know what Jonah says really.  I imagine after asking the people on the beach for directions, he told them their whole land would soon be destroyed by God.  His unhappy and unwilling presence, his uninviting personality didn’t bring hellos and smiles from the Ninevites, but to his surprise conversion was totally embraced.  Even the king says, ‘let everyone renounce evil behavior and the wickedness they have done’.

Could Jonah have skipped his short walk, his overreacting to God’s never-ending mercy, which triggers a new wave of anger and another request to die?  Could it have been the people on the beach who saw Jonah come forth from the whale and who went to the King saying someone eaten by a fish just came out alive on our shore?  Did they interpret his damp arrival as a sign from the God of Israel: Behold my best prophet Jonah who is for you a ‘sign of life’ if you change?

Jonah will ask only one more time to die. Then he gets it together enough to realize that he has a long walk back home.  No ship would dare take him.  ‘Jonah’, the captains said shaking their heads.  His story traveled fast, and so it goes even to this day.  But he really didn’t ever want to go anywhere on a boat again.

In the end Jonah, perhaps an old, grandfatherly figure matured in faith who can laugh, realizes he was the indeed the message, God’s sign of life. God even enjoyed his ‘creative alternatives’ and his acting out. Apparently, they invited God’s playfulness with a prophet in the true Spirit of Israel, one of the least who was chosen. “How better to demonstrate to the simple Ninevites that God is a God of life, a God who brings life from the dead. What better way to show hope than for God choice of this hopeless prophet”? Jonah laughs. “God said he enjoyed praying with me. I said, ‘playing with me’? God said, “no, Jonah, all was prayer between you and I. Ours is a story of lavish mercy, of new life. Thanks for playing!” Jonah concludes: “I tell you as a prophet, my story only points to a greater story yet to unfold”.  God’s Word doesn’t return to God empty.  It bears fruit; it fulfills its mission.

The story of Jonah is an ancient one.  Like a lot of old movies and television shows from the seventies, eighties and nineties, perhaps a “remake” of the familiar tale would be something like this:

Father Jonah, a very fine preacher in New York, was praying for his relatives in Ukraine.  His father and mother had come to the states in the latter part of the 20th Century and had been successful at settling in and becoming successful with green cards and, gradually, citizenship.  Through the years they had filled their children with a deep love for the “old country” and took them to visit grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides of the family.  Unfortunately they had also handed on their anger and hatred at the people and leaders of Russia.

During Fr. Jonah’s prayer he heard the Lord ask him to go to Moscow and tell the people of that great city that unless they repent of their evil God would destroy them in forty days.  The last place in the world that Fr. Jonah wanted to go to preach the good news was to Moscow.  With the war going on his parents’ homeland, and with the general dismissal of religious teaching, this was an impossible task.  Besides, he was very busy with the line-up of preaching engagements in the US this lent.  So, he boarded the plane for San Francisco to do just that.  But a terrible storm came in off the Pacific Ocean and made it impossible for the plane to get the West Coast.  They landed with some difficulty in a small airport in South Dakota and John tried to take a bus to the coast to get there in time for his preaching engagement.   The bus ticket he secured was the last sold and the bus set out, but the storm, now a raging blizzard, swerved north, and all the roads were quickly closed.  The people on the bus, recognizing his Roman collar begged him to pray for safety but the storm only became worse.  Jonah got off in a small town in Colorado realizing that he was blessed to still be alive after the harrowing trip they had, so he grumpily gave up and told God if he wanted him to go to Moscow God would have to make it possible.

A semi-truck driver was heading to Denver and offered to take Jonah to the airport there and Jonah was able get a ticket to Moscow, but he didn’t have enough money to pay for it.  A gentleman near him at the counter visited with him for a time and then offered to pay his way.  He was Russian and longed for his people to hear someone courageous enough to bring a faith message to them.

Father Jonah reluctantly arrived in Moscow; certain he would be arrested.  Even more, he worried that God would end up being “soft hearted” and forgive the Russian people for their sins – which Jonah was not enthusiastic about.  He had spent his life hating the Russians and didn’t want his God loving them!!!  He would much rather see them going to hell!

Well the rest of the story was like the biblical tale –Jonah preached, the people listened and expressed their repentance by undertaking penance and by demanding an end to the war.  Jonah was angry at God because of His great mercy to Jonah’s enemies.  Why should they be allowed to repent, and why would God require him to be God’s agent for that repentance?

Both stories sound a little crazy, but as I was praying with Scripture today, I was struck by the question of exactly what the “sign of Jonas,” that Jesus is speaking about in Luke’s Gospel, is [Luke 11:29-32] .  Is the “sign” the three days that Jonah was in a big sea creature’s stomach (a tomb)?  Or was it the three days he traversed the city and announcing the end times unless people repented?  (Lots of three’s here to remind of us death and resurrection).  Was it the fact that the people heard his preaching, and their hearts were challenged?  Or is the Sign of Jonah, that we’ve received, simply the mercy of God for a “faithless generation”?   Or is the sign – that is no sign according to Jesus – all of these?  God loves, calls to repentance through His agent, and then heals the wrongdoing of enemies.  The condition of reception, because humans have free will, is that we acknowledge and accept God’s grace, not only for ourselves and our beloved, but for our enemies, despite the seeming impossibility of that.

This is a good way to start Lent.  To consider that we imitate God most perfectly when we grasp the sign of Jonah, God’s compassion for His enemies – for those who hate Him.  During these days may we find the freedom to pray for our enemies – desiring the very best for each one.  I feel called to ask God in prayer who He wants me to announce forgiveness for.  May God begin with me – but may I become His partner in sharing that compassion among friends and enemies as Jonah did, and perhaps as my imaginary Fr. Jonah the preacher might have done.

Oh God, in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my guilt . . . [Psalms 51]

"We dare to say...."

 

One of the first prayers I learned was the Our Father [Matthew 6:7-15].  As a family (except Dad, who was a nominal Mormon), we said the rosary every night until I was 11 or 12 years old.  It was a prayer I said often in my early years.  But what I was doing back then was just repeating it, not praying it (“babbling?”).  Perhaps that early repetition laid the groundwork so I could pray this prayer more intentionally and come to appreciate it more fully as an adult.  I find that I can’t get a restful sleep without praying the rosary each day.  Although it’s a Marian prayer, the lynchpin—the prayer that leads into each Mystery of Jesus’ life—is the Lord’s Prayer.

Teaching us to pray is yet another example of how much our God loves us.  Being well acquainted with our human frailties, God constructed a prayer that would help us move beyond our earthly fears and doubts, so we’re able to see and respond to our neighbors in need. [Matthew 6:7-15]

The more I have reflected on this prayer, the more I’ve become captivated by its simplicity and power in each line.

Our Father who art in heaven,

This line grounds us and reminds us who we are and whom we belong to. 

hallowed be thy name,

God’s name is holy, sacred…remember that.

thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.

God is planting the seed that our communities and our world can, one day, become more like God’s kingdom.

Give us this day our daily bread;

We are being given permission to ask for what we need whether its food or some other need or request for help.  

and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;

This might well be my favorite line of the prayer.  The older I get, the more I’ve come to understand the power of forgiveness.  It not only harms other people, it also hurts us.  Holding on to grudges and clinging to past hurts diminishes the quality of our lives along with our capacity for compassion.  How can we help God’s kingdom come if we can’t forgive ourselves and each other?

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

God is encouraging us to stay to course—to pursue building God’s kingdom in the here and now.  Don’t get sidetracked by others or by your own desires.

Perhaps if we all focus on really praying the words of the Our Father, Isaiah’s words will become a much-needed reality for ourselves, our neighbors, and our world.

So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.  [Isaiah 55: 11]