4th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Beatitudes

Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Matthew 5:1-12a

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Today we hear the beatitudes, the opening section of the Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew’s gospel, along with Luke’s, contains all the material of Mark’s along with some additional stuff.  The Sermon on the Mount is some of the additional stuff. It is one of five sermons in the gospel of Matthew that make up the core teachings of Jesus. 

The beatitudes have always been puzzling to me.  What does it mean to be poor in spirit and how is that good?  What does it mean to be meek, to mourn?  The truth is that these are pretty words that just don’t line up with the world I live in.  These things that Jesus says are blessed by God bring suffering.  So how does this work?  Is he offering a reward, like a piece of chocolate at the end of the day for good work?  Or is he naming something that just happens naturally, like when you plant watermelon in June you get to eat watermelon in September? 

Every one of these blessings is about being lowly, humble, and trusting God.  Jesus demonstrated and taught that there is no happiness without dependence on God and with dependence on God, any suffering is merely a detail.  People who live their lives without God but with money, power, comfort, and control aren’t happy.  They aren’t content.  They aren’t joyful.  They are eaten up by their own brokenness.  But those who are poor, with dependence on God, who are above no one, who would rather get stepped on rather than do the stepping, who crave the goodness of real justice, who forgive because they were first forgiven, who are a reconciling presence in the world, these people have a contentment that is so much deeper and bigger than any suffering they go through. 

How is it blessed to be poor?  To live with the stress of bill collectors calling and utilities getting turned off.  To live with the knowledge that all it will take is one problem and those ends that are barely meeting, just won’t meet anymore.  To live with the terror of homelessness.  How was that blessed?  But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that when have had those times of relying on nothing other than God, that we find a security that no amount of money can give.  We learn that dependence on God in poverty is truly blessed.

How it blessed to mourn?  Not just the kind of mourning that we are used to, but the kind of mourning from being invaded, conquered, and oppressed.  The slaves of the American south mourned.  How is that blessed?  But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that when we suffer under oppressors, or suffer from racism, or sexism, that we can sense God standing beside us, standing up tall, and feeling that support and presence, we are blessed.

How is it blessed to be meek?  The Hebrew word for meek, anawim, was the word for the widows, the orphans, and the aliens.  How is it blessed to be an alien?  To go to bed at night wondering if ICE is coming.  To show up at work the day before payday and be arrested and flown far away with no way to let your family know.  How is that blessed?  But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that when we are powerless against the world, then we find that real power comes from God and we are blessed.

How is it blessed to hunger and thirst for righteousness?  To hunger for something so absent from our world?  That here in the richest country in the world we have people having abortions because they can’t afford a baby, we have people sleeping on the streets of Boise.  We have people dying because they can’t afford chemotherapy.  How is that blessed to see that and to able to do so little to change it?   But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that, in fact, it is the only hunger that that will satisfied.  We all hunger, but those who hunger for God’s justice are the only ones who will be satisfied, and that is blessed.

How is it blessed to be merciful?  Isn’t that just being foolish?  If somebody cheats you to just let them go?  We must be tough on crime, we must be ruthless, or else we’ll be overrun by crime.  Being merciful will get you take advantaged of.  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.  How is that blessed? But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that when we are merciful, forgiving without good cause as we have been forgiven, that we are healed and that is blessed.

How is it blessed to be clean of heart?  It sounds nice, but the ones with authentic integrity, the kind of integrity of saying what you believe and following it up with action will sooner or later run up against a pretty hard wall.  That kind of integrity gets people fired every day.  People who have stood up and told the truth found themselves with clean hearts but empty bank accounts.  How is that blessed? But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that when our words and actions and lives line up with God’s truth that we are filled with a sense of holy identity and we are blessed.

How is it blessed to be a peacemaker?  It sounds nice too, but getting involved in conflicts, even to make peace, can leave you a casualty.  Many people don’t want their conflicts resolved, and if you aren’t on their side, then you’re the enemy.   How is that blessed? But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that when our presence is about lasting reconciliation and peace, then we have been co-workers with God and we are blessed.

How it blessed to be persecuted?  Being denied a job, refusing to rent to you because you’re Christian isn’t just in the history books.  Ostracism happens right now.  How is that blessed?  But Jesus says it is.  Jesus says that the joy of being aligned with God makes any gruff we receive nothing more than gnats buzzing around and we are blessed.

These blessings from God are in opposition to the world. So the world uses every trick to get us back in line.  To make us crave money for our security rather than trusting in God.  To make us value comfort over integrity. To make us punish our enemies, and call that fair, rather than reconcile with them.  It takes strength of faith to resist those lies because they just keep coming.  It takes persistence to reject the lie that war makes us secure, to reject the lie that it’s better to be at the top of the heap than the bottom, to reject the lie that the one who dies with the most toys wins.  A lot of us Christians have bought those lies.  That’s why we don’t like the cross.  Because it’s foolishness to us.

But we keep coming back to these beatitudes because even though they’re foolish, they speaks to the part of us that knows the world is lying. 

We’ll spend our whole lives living into the beatitudes just as we spend our whole lives becoming fully Christian.  For some of us, who want so badly to prove we are independent, the challenge will be accepting God’s care.  For some of us, who haven’t had much success with trust,  the challenge will be believing that God loves you enough and is powerful enough to care for you.  For some of us, who like things fair, the challenge will be forgiving without first getting revenge. For some of us, raised in a world that says its better to be rich than poor, the challenge will be to value the people who are named in these beatitudes — the poor, the meek, those who mourn oppression.   

These beatitudes are knives with sharps edges, a different edge for each one of us.  But these are not knives that stab.  They are scalpels that cut away cancers from our soul that drain life from us, that drain energy from us, that drain love from us.  With those cut away, there is nothing left but blessing.   

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Unity

Isaiah 8:23-9:1-3
I Corinthians 1:10-13, 17
Matthew 4:12-23

When I was studying theology, we read all the great theologians — Karl Rahner, one of the fathers of Vatican II, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and St. Paul.  Have you ever thought of St. Paul as a theologian?  He was.  He thought about the stories he had heard about Jesus, about his own experience of Jesus, and wondered, what does it mean?  What does it mean about our relationship with God and what does it mean about how we are to be together as Christians.  In his letter to the Corinthians we hear some of his conclusions.

Those Corinthians were a difficult bunch.  Paul had been there, preached the good news, and established a church.  But later he received reports of divisions in the church.  Some people were declaring allegiance to Paul, some to the charismatic leader Apollos, some to another leader named Cephas, and a fourth faction claimed to be just Christ followers.  But that division was a big problem.  It split the community.  Paul was emphatic that there was only one community, just as there was one baptism, one gospel, and one source of wisdom that united people in Christ. 

Paul was saying that being a follower of Christ binds a person with every other follower of Christ.  But how does that work?  How does the Spirit unite us all without wiping out our diversity?  Paul never answers the “how” question and I sure haven’t figured it out.  It’s a mystery, one that we can’t understand and one that we certainly can’t control.  But it is one that we can observe.  We can see it. 

It reminds me of that joke that sitting in the pew doesn’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in the garage makes you a car.  We can look in the garage tell by looking, you’re not a car.  St. Paul is saying the same thing about Christians, we can tell a Christian community just by looking — it is a community empowered by Christ to be of one love, one heart, and one mind.  He’s not saying that it’s a community without diversity because only a short bit later in this letter to the Corinthians is his beautiful description of the many gifts and the one Body.  St. Paul is telling us that I can be quite different from other people and still be bonded to them, bonded in love.  The love which binds us together is our love for Christ, but more importantly, it’s Christ’s love for us, and every other person who Christ loves.

I was thinking about this as I was watching my little son stringing beads.  I think a string of beads is a good way to think about this unity St. Paul is describing. 

We are like the beads.  Like, this one, it’s a yellow cube, is Mia.  I can set it out here by itself.  It’s an individual.  It can’t do much.  It’s pretty, but it’s only one bead.  But then I take it and put it on the string.  The string is the Holy Spirit.  Suddenly that yellow bead that is Mia is part of a whole artwork.  The string is holding me together with a bunch of other beads.  They are all different from me – different shapes, different colors — but we have one thing in common.  We all have a hole for the thread.  Just as with all of us, we have different gifts and charisms, but all of us have a hole where God goes.   And when we are strung onto God, we are held together.  When my son’s done stringing his beads, he asks me to tie a knot in the end, just as Christ is the knot that holds us all on.

Apart from the string, we are just individuals.  But on the string, we form a community, a Christian community – strung by God the Father, held on the string that is God the Holy Spirit, and knotted securely by God the Son.

One thing I like about this image is that the beads don’t change.  They don’t have parts cut off, they are smashed into new shapes.  They are put on the string exactly as their are.  That’s how it is in Christian community for us, we come as our true selves, nothing more, nothing less, with the giftedness God has imbued in each of us.  But being strung on that string, we have gotten so close to God that God has become part of us and we part of God.

I think that’s the secret between the kind of community like the Corinthians that broke apart and the kind of community St. Paul was describing.  When coming together means that some of us have to be smashed in order to make room for others to expand, there’s problems.  But when we all come together, exactly as we are, expecting nothing other than the love of God to hold us together, then there is an easy bond that supports but doesn’t control.

In the end, the beads don’t know how they are held together, they just know that they are.  They observe that they are.  They don’t know how it works. They may not even see the string, they may not know about beads down the way, and they certainly don’t see the overall design.  They know that they’re held together.

So how is this helpful to us?  If we are those beads, sitting on that string, how does that change our life?

You know, I’ve often thought of my community as the people who I like.  That the bond of friendship holds us together.  These beads aren’t held together by themselves, it is only the string holding them together.  Christian community is being held together by nothing other than the love Christ has for each of us.  That changes a lot for me.  That I means I don’t have to like every person in my parish community to be bonded them.  Even more, they don’t all have to like me.  We’re still held together. 

Just like I’ve thought of my community as the ones who I like, I’ve thought of my community as the people who are similar to me. But these beads aren’t all the same.  In fact, the design is more beautiful because they’re different.  Christian community is a bunch of people who are different, being woven into a design that is bigger than any of us.

What does it mean for you?  Are you a bead right in the middle of the design.  Maybe you’re on the string but you’re looking down a seeing another bead, thinking, oh I wish I was red cube.  Look at how much attention he gets.  Or maybe you’re telling all the other beads around you, you really should be red cubes.  Maybe you’re on the string, but you keep trying to jump off, and taking the whole string along with you, God acting through the other beads calling you back every time.  Or maybe you’re out on the table and you need to jump on the string.

Christian unity is something we called to, but it isn’t something we create.  Our unity comes from God the Father, who threads us on, from God the Holy Spirit, the string we all ride on, and from God the Son, the knot at the end holding us all together.

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time: Mission

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
John 1:29-34

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Isaiah had been called from birth, called from the womb, and he knew it.  His job was to bring Israel back to God.  It was a mighty commission: important and relevant work.  It would call for his best gifts and deepest love, but God had formed him for this task.  He could feel it in his bones.  He was inspired and that inspiration made the mission possible. 

I think most of us have some sense that we have a purpose on this earth is that is only ours.  Much of the discernment we go through as young adults is searching for that mission, fine tuning it.  We do it by pursuing our interests and talents, what we are good at and what we long to do.  Maybe it’s a call to the healing arts of nursing or doctoring.  Maybe it’s a call to the creative crafts of carpentry, plumbing, or mechanic.  Maybe it’s a call to teaching or law or farming or ministry.  Maybe we also have a call to parenting and married life.  We discern our calling by finding those holy passions that keep at us even as obstacles arise. 

Isaiah had that done that. He knew he had a life’s mission that was to be mouth piece of God, calling Israel back to God.  At the end of the Babylonian exile, the people were ready to be called back.  They were weary from being away and wanted to be close to their land and close to their God.

And then God changed things on Isaiah.  The calling he had taken on and accepted was too little. Isaiah had it all figured out, but it was too little.  He had thought through his calling, it would be difficult, but he’d wrapped his arms around it.  But it was too little!  God wanted more!  Isaiah was to lead Israel to be a light to the nations!  That’s completely different.  It wasn’t enough for Israel to gather around God, they had to be an example.  Their faith had to be so strong, so life-changing, so life-giving that they would be a witness and inspire every other nation!  They were the ones who would spread God’s salvation to the ends of the earth.

After getting people all comfortable back on their own land with their own God, Isaiah had to send them back out!  Isaiah didn’t have his arms around that.

Now think about the calling you’ve felt in your own life, that purpose for which you were made, that mission that calls for your best gifts and deepest love.  But is it a mission that you’ve got your arms around, that you know will be difficult, but you think you can do it. Does God say to you,  It’s too little!  Does God say, that holy work you’ve been doing is not enough.  I want more.  I will make you a witness, a light to everybody.  I will send you to reach my salvation to every corner of the earth.

God said that to Mother Teresa.  She was doing good work in India teaching in a Catholic school, but God wanted more.  It was like that for Archbishop Oscar Romero.  He was doing good work caring for his church in war-torn El Salvador, but God wanted more.  It was like that for the Virgin Mary.  She was doing good work in her home in Israel, but God wanted more.  It was like that for Pope John XXIII, he was doing good work leading his diocese, but God wanted more.

It seems that God gives us a calling, gets us all formed and educated until we feel comfortable and competent, and then God hands us a whole new job.   

I’ve had God turn corners on me in my life.  When I was in school I always got better grades in math than in English.  As a young adult, I was asked to write articles now and then, but I figured it was because nobody else was around.  I really wasn’t a writer.  Then I went to a Called and Gifted Workshop and I was told, right to my face, “you might want to discern the charism of writing.”  Well that wasn’t comfortable!  I was good at math, not writing.  Writing was a struggle, it was hard, it made me feel inferior.  Frankly, it scared me. It still does.  But those words about discerning writing grabbed a hold of me and didn’t let go.  Like all things of God, those words were not for me. They were for my community, reaching all the way to the ends of the earth.  And God started working through my writing.  So I did some discerning, and I continue discerning, surprised every time when my writing touches people deeper than I capable of touching them, inspiring them more than I am capable of inspiring them.

You see, I had things figured out.  I had decided how I would serve God.  But God told me, it is too little, and then called on me for more.  It has been uncomfortable, because it always is when you let God do the deciding, rather than the other way around. 

There were other reasons that I resisted writing.  It was the voices telling me that maybe I should have more reasonable goals.  Lay women from Idaho really don’t become well known authors.  The voices said, how much can you really have to say.  Or the voices were just silent, that clanging, jarring silence where encouragement could be.

You know what I’m talking about.  All of us at some point have been told that we are less than the calling we received from God.  We’ve been told to be realistic, to be reasonable.  It is a cold towel thrown on God’s fire.  Sometimes I’ve even been those voices to others.

God uses the unworthy to do great things.  God always has.  God chooses the unworthy over and over because, in truth, they are worthy.  Every one of us is worthy of our Creator and of the mission that our Creator gave us.  We are the ones with the small minds who have to be reminded that the real power comes from God.  Why did God choose Paul when there was Peter... If God choose Peter, people could say, “well sure Peter’s got faith but he heard and saw the Lord.”  But Paul didn’t. Paul’s like us.  And Paul had faith.

Why did God choose Mary Magdalene when there was James and John... If God choose James and John, people could say, “well sure they proclaimed the resurrection, they were the official disciples after all.”   But Mary wasn’t.  Mary’s like us.  And Mary proclaimed the resurrection. 

God consistently chooses the ones like us, but we are slow to accept them.  Because we are slow to accept the messenger, we are slow to accept the message.   And then we have to deal with our own lack of faith... but he was a Pharisee... but she was a woman... but he’s from Idaho... but she’s not qualified.

As long as we discount the messenger, ourselves included, we discount the message.  In today’s reading we hear that God gives ordinary people extraordinary jobs, to prepare us, to be a light, to be gathered to God. 

God is saving the whole world and using each of us to do it.  God has given each of you an extraordinary job, maybe one even bigger than you’ve accepted yet.

Baptism of the Lord: Identity

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7
Acts 10:34-38
Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus went out to the Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptist.  I’ve always imagined Jesus walking across the hot desert sand over to the river.  John is there, calling for repentance and baptizing people, wearing scratchy stuff.  Right after this, Jesus is driven to the desert to be tempted and begin his public ministry.

Scripture scholars tell us that this passage is all about Jesus’ identity.  The Gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish Christian community who cared a lot about who Jesus was.  When the heavens break open, we are being told of a new communication between God and humanity.  When the dove flies to Jesus and he’s called “my son,” we hear of his divinity.  When the voice calls Jesus “beloved” we hear a connection to the Old Testament, to Isaac the beloved son of Abraham, and to the messiah, the king from David’s line.  When the voice says, “with whom I am well pleased,” we hear about God’s servant described in our first reading, “my chosen one with whom I am pleased.” 

It was like a mirror.  Mirrors reflect reality back to us, often a reality we don’t see.  It was a reflection of the truth about Jesus, a truth that maybe many didn’t see.  We don’t even know if Jesus had seen that truth himself.  When those heavens opened up and the dove flew down and Jesus looked up, he was looking into a mirror and seeing his most true self.  He was seeing that he was the Son of God, the messiah, God’s servant — and because he knew who he was, he knew what he needed to do.

But Jesus wasn’t the only one that day.  It was a mirror for John the Baptist too.  He had been out in the desert for a while, we can assume.  When those heavens opened up and John saw the dove, he was also seeing his most true self.  It was a mirror, showing him that he was the one to prepare the way.  His baptism of repentance was getting God’s people ready for the Christ.  That’s who he was and he knew what he need to do.

The crowds were looking into a mirror too. As Jesus was proclaimed “my son,” they saw that they were the ones whom God came for.  They were the beloved children of God, the ones who God would be born for, and would die for.  That’s who they were and they knew what they needed to do.

In that scene, everyone could see the truth. They knew who they were and because of it, they knew what they were called to do.  There is something deeply comforting about knowing who you truly are. 

I wonder if Jesus found it comforting.  Being fully human, we can assume that he had some need for comfort, especially that most basic comfort of knowing who you really are.  Do you think it comforted him?  Did it give him the confidence and resolve that he needed to live out his public ministry?

I wonder if John found it comforting. He was out in the middle of no where, living on bugs and honey, which is bug by-products.  Had doubts worked their way into his mind, wondering if he was really doing God’s will.  And then the heavens open up, and he saw the glory and majesty of God.  Did it give him confidence and resolve to life out his calling?

I wonder if the crowds found it comforting.  After all, they were the ones paying the taxes to Rome, paying those high temple taxes, and following all those 600 and some odd rules of ritual purity so they could even approach God in the temple.  Did this scene, affirming the one who called for their justice, affirm them?  Did knowing that God remembered them, help them see the fullness of their own humanity?  Did knowing that God longed for their justice, give them confidence and resolve to live out their own callings?

Mirrors don’t show us anything new, they show us reality.  When the heavens broke open, God wasn’t making something new, God was reflecting the truth.  Jesus was already the Son of God.  God the Father was just showing us. 

God has put mirrors like that in each of our lives, that don’t make things new, they just show us the truth that is already there.  They reflect back to us who we really are and when we know who we are, we know what we need to do. 

Maybe it’s the people who truly love us, showing us that we are cherished children of God, showing us how easy we are to love, and how truly important  and valuable we are.  Think of people who love you.  What do they show you about yourself?

Maybe it’s people who encourage us when we are called to vocation, nurturing our charisms, helping us to learn and grow and develop.  Think of people who have nurtured and taught you.  What do they show you about yourself?

Maybe it’s the people who comfort us when when we have stood up for justice and have met with resistance, when we feel discouraged and need to hear that it was worth it.  Think of people who have comforted you when you’ve done what is right.  What do they show you about yourself?

Maybe it’s the natural world, showing us the delicacy, grandeur, and toughness of God’s creation.  Think of those times you’ve been a natural setting.  What does it show you about yourself?

Maybe it’s people who challenge us, who point out the lies we are telling, especially to ourselves.  Think of people who have told you uncomfortable truths.  What do they show you about yourself? 

Maybe it’s the beauty of art, the precision of science, or the power of technology.  Think of those times that ideas have excited your mind. What does it show you about yourself.

Maybe it’s us, here, as we name each other Christian, marked for Christ, disciple of Christ, apostle of Christ.  Think of our parish community.  What do they show you about yourself?

Look in the mirrors God has given you and see who you really are.