It’s in the Name

Acts 4: 32-35; 1 John 5: 1-6; John 20: 19-31

Poor Thomas!  If there’s to be a study done on why labeling people is not a good thing, Thomas would be the classic study.  Doubting Thomas as we know it and all he’s really known for because of this one passage.  He was destined for such labels.  I’m still not convinced that he’s even a doubter as much as he is in disbelief and grieving at this point of the story.  None of us would be much better.  All this and Thomas is even really a huge character in John’s Gospel.  He only appears twice.  The other is at the Raising of Lazarus.  The other unique thing of Thomas is that he’s only one of two who’s name is also given in Greek, Didymus.  Simon is called Cephas at the beginning of the Gospel, who’s Peter.  Thomas is the only other so maybe the passage has more to do with his name, Didymus meaning twin or double.

The name probably describes all of them at this point of the story, living two different lives.  While they find themselves in the Upper Room they’re somewhat bursting with joy in the Risen Lord but no sooner do they step out that door fear takes over.  That inside is somewhat of a comfort for them, where they can be themselves but they end up living a double life.  They’re not there yet.  As much as they have had this experience of the Risen Lord it still has not been embodied by them.  It’s still something beyond them and what they see with their eyes and not something lived.  Like us, they’re good at compartmentalizing their faith at this point of the story, living a double life and not knowing what it all means, still unfolding for and in them.

It’s not until we get to Acts of the Apostles where we begin to see how that love manifests itself in the life of the early community.  Like the Gospel today, we’re also good at labeling the message Luke conveys twice in Acts.  We want to label it socialism or communism but it had nothing to do with creating some kind of economic structure that we’re familiar with today.  That says more about us than it does them.  But they can point the way, for us, to look at our own lives and what it is that moves us.  That’s the real message of Luke today.  It is by no means that everything was just perfect in the Early Church.  Far from it if you read Acts in its entirety.  But Luke will keep drawing them back to what gives life.  He’s going to keep drawing them back to what it is that motivates and defines the community as one of integrity.  If they’re not being motivated by love, then they need to step back and evaluate where fear is creeping in, where it’s becoming about self-interest.  When we’re motivated by fear, success, wealth, self-interest, then the gap only grows, anxiety and fear take over, and we begin to live that double life ourselves.

We need to move to a place where we recognize that we never fully embody that love.  As long as we are here and breathing our motivation and what drives us will become skewed.  We become blinded by everything else.  It’s why the wounds of Christ in the gospel are so significant and how they connect to that early community.  When that gap begins to grow and they start to become closed in on themselves, locked in the Upper Room, they are once again invited to come back.  As much as they are sent forward, they are also called to come back to that love.  To step inside the wounds, even their own, and it will once again open their eyes.  That’s the significance of the reading from Acts today.  They recognize the needs of the community through their very own woundedness.  Their eyes are open to the poor.  Their eyes are open to members of the community in need.  It’s not being motivated by economics.  They’re motivated by love.

These readings on this Second Sunday of Easter challenge us to look at what motivates us at this point in our lives.  What is it that’s pushing us forward and where do we put our faith.  That’s John’s message in the second reading today.  As much as the disciples may still fear the world beyond the locked doors in that gospel, it is only faith and love that is going to break through the locks and push them out and to embody that love that they have experienced.  It’s not meant to be kept to ourselves.  Then love is not our motivation.  Rather, when we embody that love we know we have nothing to fear and we change the world not through fear, economics, self-interest, but rather love.  Victory in the hostility of the world is not won through war but through love.  That’s the message of John on this Easter Day.  Nothing else.

Where have we allowed the gap between our lives and Love to ever increase through fear, self-interest, and motivations other than faith and love?  Where are we locked up inside, afraid that somehow I won’t have enough and so I can’t give in love, holding on for dear life?  That’s where that gap grows and like the disciples in that Upper Room, we live a double life.  Faith becomes something we simply do on Sunday morning and then go about our business, often in fear, once we walk through those doors.  Yes, we come to this place to be nourished and to be fed and the more we are fed and nourished in love, the more we have to confront the world when we step forward.  We come and are nourished in order to be sent out to be the disciples, to embody that love, and to narrow the gap between faith and our lives.  It’s an ongoing process and one that never ends but also one we don’t go at alone.  We walk this journey together in order to embody that love not just by ourselves but as a community of faith.

God’s Way

Isaiah 55: 6-9; Phil 1: 20-24, 27; Matthew 20: 1-16

This is a rather unusual gospel we hear today and some proof that God really does have a sense of humor as to what we think is important in life.  All of us have been indoctrinated into a capitalist system, everyone of us.  We know what the rules are and what to expect.  We often know how to take advantage of it and when it takes advantage of us, even at the expense of others.  We want what’s fair.  Whoever works the hardest gets the most in return.  Whoever works the least gets their share but not as much as others.  We know the system.  But the passage was never meant to be a critique of such a system.  It was more a critique of the culture.  However, in the age we live, that system of capitalism has creeped its way into religion as well and certainly a part of Christianity in this country.  It’s about winners and losers.  It’s about who’s deserving and not.  It’s about whoever works the hardest should get the most returns.  In other words, we think it’s about us.

But it’s not.  This is where we get it wrong because as much as we feel we might have to prove all of that to our boss, God isn’t our boss.  As a matter of fact, God’s trying to work for us and through us more than anything.  Isaiah tells us today that our ways aren’t necessarily God’s ways and our way of thinking is not necessarily God’s way of thinking.  That we can be thankful for.  At the same time, we feel the plight of the workers who have slaved all day in the heat.  We’ve been there and we’ve seen people get treated better than us and it immediately begins to poke holes in the system.  For Matthew it was the early Jewish community that had been around all along and they were seeing the special treatment of the Gentiles who were converting.  Like most parables, they’re meant to turn things on our heads, to try to see our own lives, including our failings, through the lens as God sees not as we do.

As much as it’s not a critique of the system it is a critique of our lives that have become consumed by the system.  For Jesus, he was constantly butting up against a similar system that divided folks into greater and lesser.  It wasn’t just about the early community feeling this way.  For Jesus, it was the distaste of the Pharisees that he often had to confront.  They saw him hanging with people that they considered less than for one reason or another.  They saw themselves and deserving and entitled and if Jesus wanted to make a difference, he was going to have to hang with those who considered themselves the respectable members of the community, not sinners nor fishermen.  We’re better than that.  We’re deserving of better treatment.  Don’t you know all we do?  God’s not our boss and we have nothing to prove.  We may have to work like that in our lives, but really shouldn’t, but not with God.  Isn’t even funny how the generous landowner makes sure they’re all there to witness the generosity.  No hiding but in the process of this generosity to deeper truth is revealed, hearts that were closed off to seeing each other for who they are rather than what they did or didn’t do.

Even some of the prayers we use at Mass have language like that that just sends the wrong message.  We use words like merit and attain in our opening prayer.  In our language and in this capitalistic system, those words connote a way of thinking that isn’t of God.  As Matthew’s gospel reminds us, this God is an abundantly generous God who is constantly giving when we allow ourselves to be open to the grace, to the forgiveness and love.  Like they did with Jesus, we sometimes become jealous and envious because we think God has somehow blessed others better than ourselves, somehow someone less deserving than ourselves got something and we didn’t.  That’s where the system has infiltrated our faith.  We’ve associated the things we’ve accumulated as somehow a grace from God.  But you know what?  Eventually that’s all taken away when we begin to question what’s most important to us, what we value and we begin to see how little opening we have in our lives for God’s true grace that frees us from the systems that we often make into our own gods.

Paul sees it as a choice.  For Paul it was a matter of life and death and for him, when you choose God you always choose life even if it means martyrdom.  He finds himself in prison, and although we will be freed this time, he knows if the choice is to be martyred he will go with it rather than giving up what he values the most.  For Paul, the simple desire was to be open to the Gospel.  You know, even for Paul the greatest threat was calling to mind and making others aware of how they had become attached to something that was only benefiting a few.  More often than not Paul had to call out his own communities for falling into the traps of the world rather than being open to God’s thinking and God’s way.  For Paul, the choice was easy.  You choose the relationships, the values, love of God and neighbor, over using people for our own gain.  It’s what the system feeds on when be buy into the illusion that all benefit when we know full well it only benefits some and poverty continues to grow.

No, it wasn’t meant to be a critique of the system.  It was a critique on how they treated one another, especially the new folks that come later to the game.  It’s not about us but it is about us and how we become consumed by it in all aspects of our lives, even in the way we see God, the big boss in the sky, cracking the whip, working us to the bone, and so on.  But that’s not God’s way and that’s not God’s thinking.  Thank God.  We pray for the grace to be aware in our own lives of where we are feeding into and buying into the system as it tries to work us to death, somehow proving our worthiness and creating divisions.  My guess is we can never be totally free of it but we can be aware of it.  Once we’re aware, we can finally begin to let go of and be freed of all that our entitlements in life that prevent us from loving neighbor, caring about people, and being open to a generous God who’s always inviting us, as with Paul, a fuller way of life where we value what is most important to us.  Not an accumulation of things but rather a surrender of it all to an experience of life with greater depth and meaning.

 

Richly Poor

Luke 16: 19-31

The one side-effect or even shadow side of our addiction to the capitalistic culture which consumes us on all levels and aspects of our lives, is that it’s opened the door for us to demonize the poor. It becomes easy to blame them for their own problems and somehow believe that they are envious of others and simply want to be rich. It’s the crazy stuff that we tell ourselves and what our culture tells us. Yet, all it does is, in the words of Jesus today, is create this chasm that seems to grow wider and wider. Really, though, the more we separate ourselves from the poor we separate ourselves from the interior poverty of our soul that always seems to long for the fill of the pod. The external reality of separation of rich and poor is a reflection of the chasm that often exists within our own lives and souls, when we demonize that part of us and try to fill it with something other than God.

But here’s the thing. There is that longing for more in our lives that makes us all the same, whether rich or poor or anyone in between. It’s how we fill that desire for more that often determines the quality of our lives, which brings us to this Gospel today. It should be hard for us to hear today as it was for the Pharisees to whom Jesus is addressing it. Last week we heard the story of the steward and today the rich man and Lazarus, but in between the two are a few verses that describes the reaction of the Pharisees. Luke tells us that they love money and that they are growing weary of this Jesus and the threat that he seems to be bringing to their lives and this perceived power, especially through their love of money as Luke tells us.

So this is where Jesus picks up and begins to turn things on their head. Keep in mind that this is the continuation of the mercy parables of Luke’s gospel so it is first and foremost about who God really is. It’s also important to remember, that like many people today, there was this belief that somehow the more riches and stuff I had the more I was in favor with God. We even use that language about our wealth and belongings! If we believe that, we miss the point and are off mark on God. So the reversals begin at the start of the story. The one who would have been known by name because of his status and wealth becomes nameless and yet the one who is poor and has nothing, living out of his poverty, becomes named, Lazarus. Right from the beginning the pharisees would start to squirm.

But then there’s also the reversal of fortune. The pharisee thinks, thinks, that he is “living in heaven” because of his wealth, not only because of his status but because of his accumulation of wealth. But in the end, it’s him that his tormented. The more he separates himself from the man sitting outside his door, the more he tries to fill his pocket with wealth. His own deep longing is being separated from his life and the external world, and so as much as he thinks he’s “living in heaven” it’s really an experience of hell. He’s not living from the place of poverty but from his place of wealth. Jesus isn’t trying to scold him in some way. Rather, he’s inviting him to recognize his own poverty and to live from that place which can never be filled by what we consume but only by allowing ourselves to be consumed by God. It’s the novel of the story and to begin to recognize that Lazarus is me and Lazarus is you.

If we find ourselves demonizing in some way the poor and blaming them for our problems, well, the reality is, it says more about me than it does them and the chasm only grows wider and deeper in our lives. The story is not meant to spook us or even distress us, unless we have become blinded by our own wealth and stuff that we have accumulated. All that does is leave us with a false sense of security and something we can hold onto. Jesus, today, is inviting us to allow these realties to reflect one another, that by the way we treat others, in particular the poor, we are moving to a place where we can be more in touch with our own poverty and to begin to live our lives from the place.
There is nothing that is ever going to fill that longing and that desire for more in our lives. Yet, the entire capitalistic culture is rooted int that very reality so I can tell myself that I can’t live without something. It’s rooted in our weakness into fearing that place of poverty within ourselves, the Lazarus within ourselves, and the more I separate myself from the longing in my soul, the more I feel like I need something to fill it. It’s never going to be filled by something. We can consume all we want and the chasm grows. What we’re called to do is as it is with the Pharisees, to accept that that’s who we are, that there is this longing and desire for more within me. Rather than consuming ourselves allow ourselves to be consumed, not by the culture, but by the One who creates the longing, the God of love, mercy, and forgiveness. The more we do, the more we no longer need to feed the rich man but rather accept that Lazarus is me and Lazarus is you, and then, and only then, will our lives be rich and fulfilled.

The Illusion of Being Satisfied

John 6: 1-15

I’ve had the chance over the past years in ministry to travel to Haiti twice to participate in mission work with different groups and I often think of that experience when I hear this gospel of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. You know the poverty is extreme there and that in no way diminishes the poverty we face right outside our front door, but the extreme of it in Haiti is hard to imagine especially for us Americans. You know, they can go to grocery stores like we do up the street but they don’t buy the same stuff we do. I’ve tried to bring back a staple item there but it always falls apart on me but the best way to describe it is like when little kids make mud pies. That’s exactly what this food looks like and really is that they eat. It’s hard to imagine! It has absolutely no nutritional value but it does one thing. It gives the person the illusion that they are satisfied and full. That’s it; no value but an illusion of being satisfied.

I dare say we don’t go around eating mud or dirt pies but that’s not to say that we aren’t good at feeding that same illusion in our lives. You know, Pope Francis gets criticized a lot because of what he says about consumerism and capitalism, partially because the system is somewhat based on that very lie and illusion. We all know that we have a deeper need to be fed in relationship but at the same time aren’t and so the system preys on that need and feeds that illusion that somehow and in some way, whatever it is that is being sold is somehow going to do the trick and feed what hurts, only leaving us more empty and hurting, hungering and longing for something more. It says a great deal about the addictive society and world in which we live and how we go about feeding it with dirt and mud patties.

As much as I see that experience in Haiti, I also see the people in today’s gospel, clamoring for an experience of Jesus, trying to fill that deeper hunger and longing in their lives, practically crawling over one another to catch a glimpse, to be fed. I also see the people I see on the news who hurt. I see the people outside our front door who are hurting an looking for someone to acknowledge and reverence. I see the people in this city who continue to hurt and longing for something that will feed and nourish, beyond the mud and dirt that are often thrown at them. It’s an atrocity the number of kids that continue to go hungry in this city and this country while so many of us continue to feed the illusions of our own lives, disconnected from the reality of a people who are hurting and longing. Ironically, or maybe providentially, it’s a little boy that appears on the scene of today’s gospel carrying some bread and fish to be multiplied to feed the those who hunger. A problem that seemed overwhelming to the disciples is diminished by the young boy who then reclines and shares. In what we way are we feeding ourselves these days?

Yet, as soon as they are fed, Jesus scurries off in the gospel, up the mountain alone. As is so often the case in John’s gospel, they talk passed one another or yet, Jesus speaks on a deeper level. They thinking they are being fed physically, and they are; then Jesus speaks and blesses and breaks and they are fed on another level as well. This is no mud or dirt pie, this is what feeds forever, with some left over in the end. He scurries off and once again they will seek him out. The emptiness will once again overwhelm and consume as they try to be fed in other ways but nothing will take the place of that day, of that sign, when they were fed in more ways than one, in relationship with one another and with Christ.

These next weeks now we will find ourselves marching through this one chapter in John’s Gospel, the first fifteen versus being today’s on the sign given of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. It’s known as the Bread of Life discourse of this gospel. In the end, some will leave. They won’t like how they are being challenged to think or to question in the way they are being fed and feeding themselves. As is so often the case, we want to maintain the status quo of life; yet, an encounter and relationship with the Bread of life demands something more of us. This relationship is going to demand of us to examine how we are being fed and feeding ourselves. What are the dirt and mud pies in our lives? What has no nutritional and spiritual value, and yet, that longing and hunger within us continues to draw us to other ways and means of satisfying what hurts. Bring it to the table and be healed.

The more we try to feed it with anything else, whatever it may be for us…the latest gadget, alcohol, drugs, the latest and biggest house, money, whatever it may be, if it leads to greater emptiness, it’s time to bring it to the table and let it go. There is but one thing and one person that will sustain us, feed us, nurture us, fill us, and that’s this meal we share and it’s our relationship with Christ in this Eucharist. We all buy into the illusion and will feed the illusion in our lives; we’re human and broken and poured out, but today we pray we may recognize those dirt and mud pies in our lives and demand now something more, something greater, that will sustain and nurture us all the days of our lives.

Unbound For Our Greatest Gift

1 Thes 5: 1-6; Matthew 25: 14-30

Today’s gospel poses many challenges in the world that we live today, culturally and economically. If we simply read it at face value, it gives the illusion that Jesus is a raging capitalist, where the rich get richer and poor get poorer, without any moral compass pointing the way. Unfortunately, you will hear some preachers that support that reading of the gospel, but they’d be wrong and is not the intention of this gospel. Another challenge is that we’ve heard this gospel many times in our lives, and again, we gloss over it and limit what’s going on to the fact that God has given us talents and we are to use them. Albeit that it may be a valid point, I think it glosses over what goes on underneath the words of this gospel, which is why it’s important that we read it in its entirety rather than a shorter version.

As we hear it play out, there should be something about this third servant that we hear of that shakes us a bit and the servants relationship to the master, especially when we automatically assume that the master is God and Jesus. First and foremost, we must try to put the talents aside and convince ourselves that it’s not about money. As a matter of fact, if we keep returning to that point, it only proves how much control money does have over us. But this servant, the third of them, seems to have a different relationship with the master than the other two. They seem to listen and go and do exactly what he says and tells them to do, but something is different with the third.

It gives the appearance, in terms of relationship, that there is a level of mistrust. He has all these preconceived notions about who the master is. He thinks he’s hard. He thinks he’s cruel and to be feared. He thinks he’s stealing and getting his riches from less than stellar avenues. He thinks he is a demanding person. So all of these perceptions are preventing him from trusting the master, the master’s command, and the master’s voice, and so does what he only knows how to do when he doesn’t trust, he buries.

Now if it’s not about money, there is something of greater value that is being buried by the third servant. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we have been there. The greatest gift, of the greatest value, that we bury is the will of God, the voice of God, the divine indwelling, gets squashed. The voice of the master isn’t to be trusted because we have convinced ourselves and others have told us not to trust. Think how often the scribes and pharisees would have led others to believe that. It was only their voice that should be trusted, not the voice of God within. It’s what leads Jesus to the cross and ourselves at times as well.

Now I’ve been there. I sympathize and empathize with him, and so I’ve had to wrestle with the reading this week myself. Somehow this servant, and the third servant within all of us, whom we have learned to trust more than the voice of God, but slowly be let go of; a letting go of fear. Fear has such a tremendous hold on us in our lives and it keeps us from hearing the divine indwelling and prevents us from living the will of God in our lives. Unfortunately, we’re often ok with that. As Paul tells the Thessalonians today that we like comfort, we like just skating along in life, we like security and so on, because then we never have to change and seek conversion. When we allow fear to take hold of us, it’s as if we know something is missing in our lives, and yet, we feel paralyzed by it at the same time. I sympathize and empathize with this guy because I have been there. Yet, when the treasure is found, the talent of great value, the voice of God, there’s no turning back.

The other two servants are held up as the example to the other and to us because it’s what happens when we learn to trust and let go of these preconceived notions of who and what the master really is to us. They learn to take risk and whether we like it or not, faith is a huge risk; living God’s will is a huge risk because we are often led to places where we’d rather not go and so instead, all too often, we hunker down and bury it, the greatest gift of all. To be disciples, we must trust the master’s voice. We must be willing to take the risk in stepping out there, making mistakes along the way, knowing God’s there to pick and pull us up; but we did it and that voice will grow and the kingdom of God will grow within and around us.

My friends, this Gospel does pose great challenges to us, but not for what we might believe on the surface. It challenges us in our relationship to the master and our willingness to admit that at times I too choose fear over the voice of God trying to lead me elsewhere. I too choose to bury rather than trust and allow the experience to grow in faith. This gospel is an invitation to sit with it and allow ourselves to be and to be with this third servant and ask ourselves where are relationship with the master is these days. When we can finally admit it, then we can begin to break down the walls that separate and seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Then we can learn to trust all over again and grow in faith rather than fear. Then we can allow the Kingdom of God to not only grow within us, but through our parish, this community, and ultimately, this world.