(5th Sunday of Lent, B)
You will notice, brothers and sisters, that upon our arrival at this fifth Sunday of Lent, a shift has occurred. When we listen to the readings and pray the prayers that make up the Mass we offer today, we see right away that our attention is now directed much more explicitly on the Lord’s Passion. This shift was much clearer in the old calendar, before the reforms and changes that were made after the Second Vatican Council, when these last two weeks before Easter were called Passiontide. Perhaps you will remember how statues and sacred images were veiled in violet starting today. Even though this custom has become rare, these last two weeks of Lent still invite us to begin a more intense reflection on the Passion of our Lord.
“The days are coming” announces the prophet Jeremiah, when God will make a new covenant with his people. But this new covenant will be different than the previous covenants. It will not be something outside of us that we are supposed to follow, but will call upon us from within our humanity. Instead of giving us a code of external demands, God will place this new covenant within the hearts of his people.
This is exactly what is accomplished in the Lord’s Passion and is renewed in the Mass as its perfect commemoration. In fact, this is an important way to understand what the Mass is: the historical event of Christ’s Passion extended spiritually through time and space. In the Holy Communion we receive, God’s purpose is fulfilled as the new and everlasting covenant in Christ’s blood enters into our bodies and unites us to Christ.
Jesus proclaims in the Gospel today: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Jesus himself is that grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies for us. But the “much fruit” the Lord speaks of is us, brothers and sisters. The fruit of the Lord’s Passion is the gift of eternal life for us. Jesus’ body is broken on the Cross and his blood is poured out. In this the grain of wheat falls to the ground. But in his Resurrection the wheat rises again into the Bread of this Mass as the unbloody manifestation of the one sacrifice of the Cross.
Here at the Eucharist we receive the broken Body of Christ into our bodies, and his Precious Blood is poured out over our hearts. This is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah who looked forward to the new covenant written on the heart. This covenant is God’s promise to lift us up to eternal life with Christ, both now in the spiritual strength and consolation we receive in Holy Communion, and in our sharing in the Lord’s Resurrection in the life to come.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Cyrus and Jesus
(4th Sunday of Lent, B)
We arrive today, brothers and sisters, at the logical mid-point of our journey through Lent. As we begin, then, our ‘final ascent’ to the great mysteries of the Paschal Triduum, our proximity to those solemn days makes us rejoice. That’s the traditional name for this fourth Sunday of Lent, “Laetare Sunday.” It comes from the Entrance Antiphon for today’s Mass, Laetáre Ierúsalem, et convéntum fácite, omnes qui dilígitis eam…, “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her…” We rejoice today because we are drawing ever nearer to the New Jerusalem and to the saving works of the Anointed of God, Jesus Christ the Messiah.
But what does it mean that we call Jesus the Messiah or ‘Christ,’ as the term translates through the Greek of our New Testament? To help us understand what we mean by our confession of Jesus as the Christ, our first reading today goes a long way. Jesus of Nazareth was not first person in the history of the people of God to be called messiah. Indeed the second book of Chronicles relates to us the story of the messiah-ship of King Cyrus the Persian. So, understanding how Cyrus was a messiah can help us to understand how Jesus is the Messiah.
In the earlier part of the sixth century BC, Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonians. The city and its Temple were eventually destroyed, and, according to their method of conquering other peoples, the Babylonians deported the leading classes back to Babylon. Thus the people of God were ejected from the land that God himself had given to them, and the reading tells us that this destruction and calamity came upon them because of their unfaithfulness. Thus began what is called the Babylonian Exile or Captivity. Now, as often happens in the history of this world, one superpower comes to replace another, and two generations after the deportation, the Persians replaced the Babylonians. Cyrus, the king of the Persians, was more tolerant toward other cultures and religions, and for reasons that are a little mysterious, decided to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and even to help them rebuild the Temple. This Temple, though it was almost completely renovated by Herod the Great shortly before the birth of our Lord, was the one that Jesus would have known.
So, let’s notice that pattern of what it means to be a messiah revealed in King Cyrus. He reverses the just punishment and deportation that the people of God had received for their unfaithfulness, returns them to the Promised Land, and even helps them to begin to restore their religious life centered, as it was, on the Jerusalem Temple.
In a wider and much more universal way, this is the same work accomplished by Jesus the Messiah. The Israelites suffered exile from the Promised Land because of their unfaithfulness to the covenants. In the same way, we, because of our sins, suffer from alienation from God and from the joyful and perfected humanity that God wants to give us. In his saving Passion and death, and in the Eucharist he gives us to stretch and commemorate this one sacrifice through history, Jesus restores us to our true and best humanity and reverses the alienation from God we have earned with our sins.
This is why we rejoice today, because even in the midst of all the misery and injustice and depression we have brought upon ourselves and the world with our sins, God in his mercy sends us the Christ, that we might look upon him and allow ourselves to be restored to the joy and justice God delights to give to the world.
We arrive today, brothers and sisters, at the logical mid-point of our journey through Lent. As we begin, then, our ‘final ascent’ to the great mysteries of the Paschal Triduum, our proximity to those solemn days makes us rejoice. That’s the traditional name for this fourth Sunday of Lent, “Laetare Sunday.” It comes from the Entrance Antiphon for today’s Mass, Laetáre Ierúsalem, et convéntum fácite, omnes qui dilígitis eam…, “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her…” We rejoice today because we are drawing ever nearer to the New Jerusalem and to the saving works of the Anointed of God, Jesus Christ the Messiah.
But what does it mean that we call Jesus the Messiah or ‘Christ,’ as the term translates through the Greek of our New Testament? To help us understand what we mean by our confession of Jesus as the Christ, our first reading today goes a long way. Jesus of Nazareth was not first person in the history of the people of God to be called messiah. Indeed the second book of Chronicles relates to us the story of the messiah-ship of King Cyrus the Persian. So, understanding how Cyrus was a messiah can help us to understand how Jesus is the Messiah.
In the earlier part of the sixth century BC, Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonians. The city and its Temple were eventually destroyed, and, according to their method of conquering other peoples, the Babylonians deported the leading classes back to Babylon. Thus the people of God were ejected from the land that God himself had given to them, and the reading tells us that this destruction and calamity came upon them because of their unfaithfulness. Thus began what is called the Babylonian Exile or Captivity. Now, as often happens in the history of this world, one superpower comes to replace another, and two generations after the deportation, the Persians replaced the Babylonians. Cyrus, the king of the Persians, was more tolerant toward other cultures and religions, and for reasons that are a little mysterious, decided to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and even to help them rebuild the Temple. This Temple, though it was almost completely renovated by Herod the Great shortly before the birth of our Lord, was the one that Jesus would have known.
So, let’s notice that pattern of what it means to be a messiah revealed in King Cyrus. He reverses the just punishment and deportation that the people of God had received for their unfaithfulness, returns them to the Promised Land, and even helps them to begin to restore their religious life centered, as it was, on the Jerusalem Temple.
In a wider and much more universal way, this is the same work accomplished by Jesus the Messiah. The Israelites suffered exile from the Promised Land because of their unfaithfulness to the covenants. In the same way, we, because of our sins, suffer from alienation from God and from the joyful and perfected humanity that God wants to give us. In his saving Passion and death, and in the Eucharist he gives us to stretch and commemorate this one sacrifice through history, Jesus restores us to our true and best humanity and reverses the alienation from God we have earned with our sins.
This is why we rejoice today, because even in the midst of all the misery and injustice and depression we have brought upon ourselves and the world with our sins, God in his mercy sends us the Christ, that we might look upon him and allow ourselves to be restored to the joy and justice God delights to give to the world.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
On Our Behalf
(3rd Sunday of Lent, B)
In the first reading today, from the book of Exodus, we hear one of the versions of the Commandments. The “Ten Commandments” as they are traditionally called are the imperatives God gives us as the basis of revealed morality for human society. We are meant to adhere to and follow the Commandments because they enshrine the foundations of personal happiness and the flourishing of human culture.
So, how are we doing? Now I now I haven’t, but is there anyone here who has kept all the Commandments perfectly since arriving at the age of reason? How about anyone who has kept the Commandments since, say, making good resolutions for the New Year? Maybe there’s someone who has kept God’s Commandments perfectly so far today?
See, brothers and sisters, this is the spiritual tragedy of our lives; we have not kept God’s Commandments, but have instead persisted in our idolatries, our vanities, our inanities, and our plain old sins. This is why, instead of being the joyful, happy, and free people God would delight to have us be, so many go through their days depressed, anxious, lonely, and fearful.
As it is in our morality, so it is in our worship too. We gather here in this church to pray together and to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Yes, we’re fervent. Yes, the church itself is very beautiful. But do we think that our prayers and our worship are worthy of God? No. We could never be zealous enough or free enough from distraction and mixed motives for our worship to be worthy of the surpassing glory and holiness of the God we try to praise.
But here’s the good news. In his astounding mercy, God has made our very inability to follow his moral standards and the very inadequacy of our worship the starting point of our salvation. And this brings us to the gospel we hear today, of this incident of Jesus at the Temple for the feast of Passover. The Second Temple in Jerusalem was the greatest edifice for the honor and praise of Almighty God that human beings have ever constructed and used. But even the Temple, just like our prayer, could never offer worship that was fully worthy of God.
So Jesus proclaims that from then on, it is his he himself will be the Temple: “he was talking about the Temple of his body.” And on the Cross it is Jesus who will offer perfect obedience and worship to the Father as he becomes himself the one perfect temple, the one perfect priest, and the one perfect sacrifice.
This is the good news for us, brothers and sisters. In order to save us from the tragedy of our failure to live up to God’s commandments and our inability to offer God adequate worship, the Word of God himself has borrowed our humanity and done these things on our behalf in the Passion of Jesus Christ. On the Cross, Jesus offers to the Father the sacrifice of perfect obedience. And for us who have not yet learned to be perfect in our obedience and our worship, he has left this same sacrifice of the Cross as our food. This is what happens here at Mass. We receive into our very bodies the perfect sacrifice of Christ, so that we too might become empowered beyond ourselves to live God’s commandments and to offer God more perfect praise.
In the first reading today, from the book of Exodus, we hear one of the versions of the Commandments. The “Ten Commandments” as they are traditionally called are the imperatives God gives us as the basis of revealed morality for human society. We are meant to adhere to and follow the Commandments because they enshrine the foundations of personal happiness and the flourishing of human culture.
So, how are we doing? Now I now I haven’t, but is there anyone here who has kept all the Commandments perfectly since arriving at the age of reason? How about anyone who has kept the Commandments since, say, making good resolutions for the New Year? Maybe there’s someone who has kept God’s Commandments perfectly so far today?
See, brothers and sisters, this is the spiritual tragedy of our lives; we have not kept God’s Commandments, but have instead persisted in our idolatries, our vanities, our inanities, and our plain old sins. This is why, instead of being the joyful, happy, and free people God would delight to have us be, so many go through their days depressed, anxious, lonely, and fearful.
As it is in our morality, so it is in our worship too. We gather here in this church to pray together and to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Yes, we’re fervent. Yes, the church itself is very beautiful. But do we think that our prayers and our worship are worthy of God? No. We could never be zealous enough or free enough from distraction and mixed motives for our worship to be worthy of the surpassing glory and holiness of the God we try to praise.
But here’s the good news. In his astounding mercy, God has made our very inability to follow his moral standards and the very inadequacy of our worship the starting point of our salvation. And this brings us to the gospel we hear today, of this incident of Jesus at the Temple for the feast of Passover. The Second Temple in Jerusalem was the greatest edifice for the honor and praise of Almighty God that human beings have ever constructed and used. But even the Temple, just like our prayer, could never offer worship that was fully worthy of God.
So Jesus proclaims that from then on, it is his he himself will be the Temple: “he was talking about the Temple of his body.” And on the Cross it is Jesus who will offer perfect obedience and worship to the Father as he becomes himself the one perfect temple, the one perfect priest, and the one perfect sacrifice.
This is the good news for us, brothers and sisters. In order to save us from the tragedy of our failure to live up to God’s commandments and our inability to offer God adequate worship, the Word of God himself has borrowed our humanity and done these things on our behalf in the Passion of Jesus Christ. On the Cross, Jesus offers to the Father the sacrifice of perfect obedience. And for us who have not yet learned to be perfect in our obedience and our worship, he has left this same sacrifice of the Cross as our food. This is what happens here at Mass. We receive into our very bodies the perfect sacrifice of Christ, so that we too might become empowered beyond ourselves to live God’s commandments and to offer God more perfect praise.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
His Suffering is our Glorification
(2nd Sunday of Lent, B)
In accord with ancient tradition, on this second Sunday of Lent we proclaim the mysterious event of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Jesus takes his inner circle of disciples to the top of a high mountain, and there he appears to them in his divine glory, conversing with the Moses the great leader of the people of God, and Elijah, their greatest prophet. Here the disciples get a glimpse of the glorified Jesus, of the Lord as he comes to us in his Resurrection. The Transfiguration is a kind of preview of the Resurrection, and so its proclamation today shall be for us, to encourage us to redouble our commitment to observing this Lent and keep us focused on its goal: the renewal of our risen, baptized life during the celebration of Easter.
But, if the gospel we proclaim today is all about the glorified Jesus and the Resurrection, why do the other readings seem to about sacrifice, specifically the sacrifice of the son? In the first reading we hear of the blessing that comes upon Abraham because of his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. In the second reading, St. Paul assures us that the God who also “did not spare his own Son” but “handed him over” for our salvation will also bless us in every way.
What’s the connection here? Well, I think we are invited today to reflect on the link between God’s sacrifice of his only Son—indeed of the self-sacrificing deity—and the glorification of Jesus in the Resurrection. And here’s what it is, I think: The suffering, Passion, and sacrifice of the Son of God become for us our glorification. For what do we see glorified in the Transfiguration of the Lord—what was available to the eyes of Peter, James, and John? It was the Christ they knew as the man Jesus of Nazareth transformed and glorified in the divine light. What they saw with their eyes was a divinely glorified human being. This humanity is the humanness of you and me; it is the human nature that the Word of God borrows from us through the wondrous consent of our most Blessed Mother and that comes into the world as Jesus Christ.
In this event of the Word of God becoming flesh, becoming one with us in our humanity, God in Christ enters into and passes through our human life and experience. Most importantly, Jesus Christ is God joining himself to our suffering. There he is on the Cross, identifying himself with the suffering we bring upon ourselves and each other with our sins, even to the point of the deep pain of feeling forsaken by God: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.” Jesus joins us even in the bodily death our first parents earned for us with their original disobedience.
But here’s the good news: the goodness of the divine personality of Jesus Christ is more powerful than the evils of sin, suffering, and death. And so Jesus, again in the humanity he borrows from us, bursts forth from his Passion and death to reveal the Resurrection. This is precisely the glorification we witness in the Transfiguration. It’s not so much that we marvel at the miracle of seeing an apparition of the divine person of Jesus Christ, but that we rejoice to know that this is a glorification that is now available to us in our humanity because of Christ’s sacrifice, because of his having passed through and over the suffering and death we have brought upon ourselves with our sins.
So let us renew ourselves in our devotion to the Lord’s Passion this Lent, for it is the end of the power of sin and the fear of death for all humanity.
In accord with ancient tradition, on this second Sunday of Lent we proclaim the mysterious event of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Jesus takes his inner circle of disciples to the top of a high mountain, and there he appears to them in his divine glory, conversing with the Moses the great leader of the people of God, and Elijah, their greatest prophet. Here the disciples get a glimpse of the glorified Jesus, of the Lord as he comes to us in his Resurrection. The Transfiguration is a kind of preview of the Resurrection, and so its proclamation today shall be for us, to encourage us to redouble our commitment to observing this Lent and keep us focused on its goal: the renewal of our risen, baptized life during the celebration of Easter.
But, if the gospel we proclaim today is all about the glorified Jesus and the Resurrection, why do the other readings seem to about sacrifice, specifically the sacrifice of the son? In the first reading we hear of the blessing that comes upon Abraham because of his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. In the second reading, St. Paul assures us that the God who also “did not spare his own Son” but “handed him over” for our salvation will also bless us in every way.
What’s the connection here? Well, I think we are invited today to reflect on the link between God’s sacrifice of his only Son—indeed of the self-sacrificing deity—and the glorification of Jesus in the Resurrection. And here’s what it is, I think: The suffering, Passion, and sacrifice of the Son of God become for us our glorification. For what do we see glorified in the Transfiguration of the Lord—what was available to the eyes of Peter, James, and John? It was the Christ they knew as the man Jesus of Nazareth transformed and glorified in the divine light. What they saw with their eyes was a divinely glorified human being. This humanity is the humanness of you and me; it is the human nature that the Word of God borrows from us through the wondrous consent of our most Blessed Mother and that comes into the world as Jesus Christ.
In this event of the Word of God becoming flesh, becoming one with us in our humanity, God in Christ enters into and passes through our human life and experience. Most importantly, Jesus Christ is God joining himself to our suffering. There he is on the Cross, identifying himself with the suffering we bring upon ourselves and each other with our sins, even to the point of the deep pain of feeling forsaken by God: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.” Jesus joins us even in the bodily death our first parents earned for us with their original disobedience.
But here’s the good news: the goodness of the divine personality of Jesus Christ is more powerful than the evils of sin, suffering, and death. And so Jesus, again in the humanity he borrows from us, bursts forth from his Passion and death to reveal the Resurrection. This is precisely the glorification we witness in the Transfiguration. It’s not so much that we marvel at the miracle of seeing an apparition of the divine person of Jesus Christ, but that we rejoice to know that this is a glorification that is now available to us in our humanity because of Christ’s sacrifice, because of his having passed through and over the suffering and death we have brought upon ourselves with our sins.
So let us renew ourselves in our devotion to the Lord’s Passion this Lent, for it is the end of the power of sin and the fear of death for all humanity.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The New Flood
(1st Sunday of Lent, B)
As we begin this holy season of Lent, the gospel we hear today picks up where we left off at the end of the Christmas season. Seven weeks ago, we concluded the Christmas season with the feast of the baptism of the Lord. Today we hear the result of that baptism: Jesus is pushed into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan. Having fasted for forty days, Jesus emerges victorious over Satan and begins to preach the good news of the kingdom of God.
The other readings we have today help us to remember that these three moments in Jesus’ life go together: baptism, temptation in the desert, preaching the Kingdom. To explore this, the liturgy today invites us to go all the way back to Noah. Surely you recall the story of Noah and his family. God became displeased with the creation and decides to make a fresh start of things. God sends the flood to destroy the earth so that everything can start over with Noah’s family and the animals they brought with them on the ark. After the flood is over, God makes a covenant with Noah in which he promises never to destroy the world again. God vows, “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings.”
Now, as we hear from St. Peter in the second reading, the flood “prefigures” our baptism. The flood is like a foreshadowing that helps us to understand what our baptism means. Just as Noah and his family were raised above the flood in the ark, so we who go through the waters of baptism rise with Christ and are saved from the sin that so often cripples human life and destiny in this world.
Recall how God promised never to destroy the world again like he did in with the flood. But it’s not like us who live after the flood are any better than the wicked folks who lived before the flood, those who led God to want to make a whole new start of the creation. So, seeing the world continue to struggle with sin, seeing the world in which we persist in making ourselves and each other miserable with our sins, God again sends the waters upon the world. But this is not the violent, in-your-face waters of the first flood; this is the new flood of our baptism through which God recreates us gently from within.
The flood prefigures the baptism we share with Christ because it is again through water that God seeks to re-create the world. God sends the new flood of baptism by which our lives are re-created in a quiet, secret, and gentle way. But the new flood is no less powerful and insistent than the old. God will not be thwarted in his desire to bring the world to perfection. Our baptism is a quiet, persistent, unstoppable revolution against sin and death.
Lent is an opportunity for us to prepare for the renewal of the promises of our baptism at Easter. As the Spirit drove the newly baptized Jesus into the desert for forty days so that he might contend and have victory over Satan, so may we allow the grace of our baptism to drive us deep into the forty days of this Lent. May we allow the victory of Jesus to take over our lives. In his grace, we may prepare ourselves for the renewal of our dying and rising in the new flood of baptism.
As we begin this holy season of Lent, the gospel we hear today picks up where we left off at the end of the Christmas season. Seven weeks ago, we concluded the Christmas season with the feast of the baptism of the Lord. Today we hear the result of that baptism: Jesus is pushed into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan. Having fasted for forty days, Jesus emerges victorious over Satan and begins to preach the good news of the kingdom of God.
The other readings we have today help us to remember that these three moments in Jesus’ life go together: baptism, temptation in the desert, preaching the Kingdom. To explore this, the liturgy today invites us to go all the way back to Noah. Surely you recall the story of Noah and his family. God became displeased with the creation and decides to make a fresh start of things. God sends the flood to destroy the earth so that everything can start over with Noah’s family and the animals they brought with them on the ark. After the flood is over, God makes a covenant with Noah in which he promises never to destroy the world again. God vows, “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings.”
Now, as we hear from St. Peter in the second reading, the flood “prefigures” our baptism. The flood is like a foreshadowing that helps us to understand what our baptism means. Just as Noah and his family were raised above the flood in the ark, so we who go through the waters of baptism rise with Christ and are saved from the sin that so often cripples human life and destiny in this world.
Recall how God promised never to destroy the world again like he did in with the flood. But it’s not like us who live after the flood are any better than the wicked folks who lived before the flood, those who led God to want to make a whole new start of the creation. So, seeing the world continue to struggle with sin, seeing the world in which we persist in making ourselves and each other miserable with our sins, God again sends the waters upon the world. But this is not the violent, in-your-face waters of the first flood; this is the new flood of our baptism through which God recreates us gently from within.
The flood prefigures the baptism we share with Christ because it is again through water that God seeks to re-create the world. God sends the new flood of baptism by which our lives are re-created in a quiet, secret, and gentle way. But the new flood is no less powerful and insistent than the old. God will not be thwarted in his desire to bring the world to perfection. Our baptism is a quiet, persistent, unstoppable revolution against sin and death.
Lent is an opportunity for us to prepare for the renewal of the promises of our baptism at Easter. As the Spirit drove the newly baptized Jesus into the desert for forty days so that he might contend and have victory over Satan, so may we allow the grace of our baptism to drive us deep into the forty days of this Lent. May we allow the victory of Jesus to take over our lives. In his grace, we may prepare ourselves for the renewal of our dying and rising in the new flood of baptism.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friendship and Forgiveness
(7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, B)
The gospel we hear today is a special opportunity for our reflection. It’s special because it doesn’t require a lot of translation, because we find ourselves, right now, in the exact same situation as the people in the passage. Learning that Jesus was at home, they went to his house to hear his teaching and to seek healing and forgiveness. Brothers and sisters, this is exactly what we are doing here; we have assembled in Jesus’ house in order to receive his teaching, healing, and forgiveness.
And so the unnamed people in the gospel can help us to notice what’s going on with ourselves and what we’re called to today. In this regard, let’s notice two things: First of all, what the passage teaches us about Christian friendship, and second, what we learn about the forgiveness of sins.
We’re all familiar with the role of faith in Jesus’ healing miracles. It’s not just that Jesus heals someone; the gospels often say that Jesus “saw” someone’s faith, or he says something like, “Your faith has made you well.” Now notice in the gospel we hear today, Jesus sees not only the faith of the person in need of healing but “their faith,” that is, the faith also of the friends. This man’s friends, through their outrageous action of breaking through the roof in order to get their friend to Jesus, demonstrate the intensity of their faith in Jesus’ healing power. This is an image of Christian friendship! And it challenges us to ask ourselves how far we are willing to go to bring those we love to Jesus. Are we willing to climb up on top of houses and break through roofs so that those we love might also receive the healing and forgiveness Jesus offers? Are we hesitant to do the outrageous to connect others with Jesus? Well, once we really know the gift of forgiveness of sins, I think we won’t be, because we will know how freeing and healing it is to be forgiven.
It’s funny; I think the forgiveness of sins is one of hardest doctrines of Christianity for people to believe. In some ways I think it’s easier to believe in some of the more sublime truths like the Resurrection or the Blessed Trinity than it is to believe in the forgiveness of sins. Sometimes I ask people in confession if they believe they are forgivable. Some people don’t think so. So I tell them to pray the Apostle’s Creed as a penance, which, as you know, contains the line “I believe…in the forgiveness of sins.”
I remember once how my father said that he didn’t believe in forgiveness because it was unjust. In a certain sense of commutative justice, based on equal retribution, forgiveness seems unjust because it lets go of injury and doesn’t seek recompense. But this is an incomplete idea of justice, because justice must always be directed to the common good. And as long we hold on to evil, whether it be in an unwillingness to forgive ourselves or each other, evil will reproduce inside us. It will either turn inside and become depression or turn out and become violence. Forgiveness puts an end to the self-replicating cycles of sin and violence.
This is why God forgives. It’s not because God is a nice and patient person. It’s because God is utterly and perfectly good and has no interest in punishment or retribution. God is only interested in the healing and lifting up of the world. That’s why in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, God explains that he forgives sins for his own sake! We too, if we want to be good to ourselves, will learn to forgive ourselves and each other, so that we might not hold on to the evil and the injury that brings misery into the world. And having found that forgiveness, like the friends in the gospel, we’ll be willing to do anything to bring others to the forgiveness we have in Jesus.
The gospel we hear today is a special opportunity for our reflection. It’s special because it doesn’t require a lot of translation, because we find ourselves, right now, in the exact same situation as the people in the passage. Learning that Jesus was at home, they went to his house to hear his teaching and to seek healing and forgiveness. Brothers and sisters, this is exactly what we are doing here; we have assembled in Jesus’ house in order to receive his teaching, healing, and forgiveness.
And so the unnamed people in the gospel can help us to notice what’s going on with ourselves and what we’re called to today. In this regard, let’s notice two things: First of all, what the passage teaches us about Christian friendship, and second, what we learn about the forgiveness of sins.
We’re all familiar with the role of faith in Jesus’ healing miracles. It’s not just that Jesus heals someone; the gospels often say that Jesus “saw” someone’s faith, or he says something like, “Your faith has made you well.” Now notice in the gospel we hear today, Jesus sees not only the faith of the person in need of healing but “their faith,” that is, the faith also of the friends. This man’s friends, through their outrageous action of breaking through the roof in order to get their friend to Jesus, demonstrate the intensity of their faith in Jesus’ healing power. This is an image of Christian friendship! And it challenges us to ask ourselves how far we are willing to go to bring those we love to Jesus. Are we willing to climb up on top of houses and break through roofs so that those we love might also receive the healing and forgiveness Jesus offers? Are we hesitant to do the outrageous to connect others with Jesus? Well, once we really know the gift of forgiveness of sins, I think we won’t be, because we will know how freeing and healing it is to be forgiven.
It’s funny; I think the forgiveness of sins is one of hardest doctrines of Christianity for people to believe. In some ways I think it’s easier to believe in some of the more sublime truths like the Resurrection or the Blessed Trinity than it is to believe in the forgiveness of sins. Sometimes I ask people in confession if they believe they are forgivable. Some people don’t think so. So I tell them to pray the Apostle’s Creed as a penance, which, as you know, contains the line “I believe…in the forgiveness of sins.”
I remember once how my father said that he didn’t believe in forgiveness because it was unjust. In a certain sense of commutative justice, based on equal retribution, forgiveness seems unjust because it lets go of injury and doesn’t seek recompense. But this is an incomplete idea of justice, because justice must always be directed to the common good. And as long we hold on to evil, whether it be in an unwillingness to forgive ourselves or each other, evil will reproduce inside us. It will either turn inside and become depression or turn out and become violence. Forgiveness puts an end to the self-replicating cycles of sin and violence.
This is why God forgives. It’s not because God is a nice and patient person. It’s because God is utterly and perfectly good and has no interest in punishment or retribution. God is only interested in the healing and lifting up of the world. That’s why in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, God explains that he forgives sins for his own sake! We too, if we want to be good to ourselves, will learn to forgive ourselves and each other, so that we might not hold on to the evil and the injury that brings misery into the world. And having found that forgiveness, like the friends in the gospel, we’ll be willing to do anything to bring others to the forgiveness we have in Jesus.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Bitter to Sweet
(6th Sunday, B)
At first glance we seem to have another simple healing in the gospel we hear today. The leper expresses his faith in Jesus: “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus responds that he does will it, and the leper is made clean. But this is more than a simple healing; to be a leper in the ancient world meant more than just being sick. As we hear in the first reading today, someone afflicted with leprosy had to “dwell apart,” living “outside the camp.”
So when this man is healed, Jesus not only cleanses him of his disease, but he restores his place in human society. We see this when Jesus invites the man to go the priests so that the cure might be officially recognized. It’s also clear in St. Mark’s report that the man publicized the miracle; he was again part of the ordinary religious discourse of the people of God.
This type of healing miracle, in which someone who was excluded from society is restored to relationship, is very much worth our time. This is because exclusion is one of the most serious and debilitating evils of our time. And I think we know this in our gut feelings. We all know the experience of seeing or encountering folks who are poor or struggling and having that particular kind of searing and guilty sadness arise within us.
We are made to feel uncomfortable because the divisions of poverty and exclusion in our society are the result of sin. This is the real sin of poverty in our world; not that people lack money but that whole sections of the population lack the cultural and educational capital to interact successfully in public, e.g. to make a successful transaction at the bank, to keep and appointment, or to hold a job. And this, again, is the result of sin. We’re not talking about my sin or your sin in particular, but of structures of sin that are embedded in our culture: the legacy of racism, patterns of drug and alcohol abuse in families, children denied their right to two parents committed to each other in marriage. These and many others are what produce the moral poverties that drag so many down into frustration and misery.
So what do we do? How do we bring the healing and reconciliation of Jesus to our broken and divided world? In this I think Francis of Assisi is one of the great geniuses of our tradition. Francis gives us an account of his own conversion in his Testament written for the brothers. He begins, “The Lord granted to me, brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way. When I was in sin, it seemed very bitter for me to see lepers. And the Lord himself led me among them, and I had mercy on them. And that which had been bitter was changed into sweetness of soul and body, and I lingered a little, and left the world.”
We know that same bitterness Francis felt when he saw the poor of his world, and we can follow his lead in doing something about it. Francis refused to reinforce these divisions in himself by actually going among the lepers, living with them and serving them. In so doing, he reversed the miserable effects of structural sin in himself and became not only happy, but a saint. And we can do this too! Starting with simple acts of courtesy and regard for the poor, we can begin to overcome the sins that have allowed exclusion and division to flourish in our culture. In the coming days and years, more of us will become materially poor. May each of us do what we can to restore the dignity and place of the poor, so that our material poverty might not translate into the further moral impoverishment of our culture.
At first glance we seem to have another simple healing in the gospel we hear today. The leper expresses his faith in Jesus: “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus responds that he does will it, and the leper is made clean. But this is more than a simple healing; to be a leper in the ancient world meant more than just being sick. As we hear in the first reading today, someone afflicted with leprosy had to “dwell apart,” living “outside the camp.”
So when this man is healed, Jesus not only cleanses him of his disease, but he restores his place in human society. We see this when Jesus invites the man to go the priests so that the cure might be officially recognized. It’s also clear in St. Mark’s report that the man publicized the miracle; he was again part of the ordinary religious discourse of the people of God.
This type of healing miracle, in which someone who was excluded from society is restored to relationship, is very much worth our time. This is because exclusion is one of the most serious and debilitating evils of our time. And I think we know this in our gut feelings. We all know the experience of seeing or encountering folks who are poor or struggling and having that particular kind of searing and guilty sadness arise within us.
We are made to feel uncomfortable because the divisions of poverty and exclusion in our society are the result of sin. This is the real sin of poverty in our world; not that people lack money but that whole sections of the population lack the cultural and educational capital to interact successfully in public, e.g. to make a successful transaction at the bank, to keep and appointment, or to hold a job. And this, again, is the result of sin. We’re not talking about my sin or your sin in particular, but of structures of sin that are embedded in our culture: the legacy of racism, patterns of drug and alcohol abuse in families, children denied their right to two parents committed to each other in marriage. These and many others are what produce the moral poverties that drag so many down into frustration and misery.
So what do we do? How do we bring the healing and reconciliation of Jesus to our broken and divided world? In this I think Francis of Assisi is one of the great geniuses of our tradition. Francis gives us an account of his own conversion in his Testament written for the brothers. He begins, “The Lord granted to me, brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way. When I was in sin, it seemed very bitter for me to see lepers. And the Lord himself led me among them, and I had mercy on them. And that which had been bitter was changed into sweetness of soul and body, and I lingered a little, and left the world.”
We know that same bitterness Francis felt when he saw the poor of his world, and we can follow his lead in doing something about it. Francis refused to reinforce these divisions in himself by actually going among the lepers, living with them and serving them. In so doing, he reversed the miserable effects of structural sin in himself and became not only happy, but a saint. And we can do this too! Starting with simple acts of courtesy and regard for the poor, we can begin to overcome the sins that have allowed exclusion and division to flourish in our culture. In the coming days and years, more of us will become materially poor. May each of us do what we can to restore the dignity and place of the poor, so that our material poverty might not translate into the further moral impoverishment of our culture.
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