All Saints 2014

All Saints Day 2014 (Matthew 5:1-12) “Blessed are you.”

The blessing of God is the real presence of God in our lives. In the beatitudes, Jesus overturns the expectations and beliefs of the religious and political elites. Most people then as now defined blessings in the terms of wealth and power. God defines blessings as the abundant life lived in union with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Why was (and is) there such a discrepancy? Certainly, Jesus never preached self-abnegation. Jesus never taught deprivation and scarcity. Jesus never said that wealth and power are evil. Jesus did correct the assumption that blessings are only for the righteous, the rich and the powerful. This assumption derives from the original temptation to equate God with power and knowledge.

The Bible is very clear that what occupies our time and attention becomes our God. That is why Moses and the prophets teach: love God with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your mind. All means all. All means that worship of God is our first priority. Moses and the prophets also observe that most people most of the time make a different choice.

For ancient people the outward and visible sign of that choice was idolatry. The prophets record how the vast majority of people in Israel attempted to hedge their bets. They worshipped God, when it was not inconvenient or costly. They also worshipped the various specialty deities of the nations. If they wanted success in war, romance, business or any other activity, they worshipped the deity they believed oversaw that activity. By Jesus’ time, Israel no longer worshipped the specialized deities of the surrounding nations. However, they still wanted the same things that their ancestors valued. They still wanted wealth, power, pleasure and prestige. They still placed these things first in their lives. They reworked their religion to sanctify their priorities.

When Jesus declares: blessed are the poor, he contradicts everything everyone knew about God, the world and human nature. How could the poor be blessed? Only the rich are blessed. Poverty is not a blessing. Poverty is a curse. God blesses the righteous with wealth and punishes the unrighteous with poverty. This way of thinking simply justifies the pattern of Original Sin. This way of thinking rejects the priorities God has revealed through Moses and the Prophets. Jesus reminded the people of his generation and of all generations that wealth apart from God is a trap. Jesus said: what does it profit if you gain the whole world -if you are the richest and most powerful person in the world- and lose your own soul? Sadly, most people are quite willing to accept that bargain. Most people don’t believe God. They may believe in God, much as Satan and the demons believe in God. But, they hold that belief without faith. Faith is trust and faith is loyalty.

The blessing comes by faith not by belief. It is a gift. The gift is Jesus himself. The saints are those who walked the ways of this world by faith. They were not perfect. Some, such as St. Paul, had what we call today “anger management issues.”  If you read the biographies of the saints you recognize that they were all unique. You also perceive how they all struggled with the distortions of original sin by faith. They learned how to trust God. They learned that the spiritual life is a journey not a destination, a path not a set of possessions.

We honor the saints for their loyalty to Christ as their first priority. They still committed sins. They still had their faults and their doubts. Yet, they made a firm resolve to make Jesus their first priority. God invites all of us to be saints, to make a firm resolve to place Jesus first in our list of our priorities. Heaven is not a reward for right actions or right beliefs. Hell is not a punishment for wrong actions and wrong beliefs. Heaven is a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. And, it is a choice. The Bible is very honest in its assessment of human nature and human choice. Even those who assert a belief in God have a tendency to reject the way of faith. That is why the universal church discerns that many of us are not quite ready for prime time.

The Church Triumphant is the experience of Heaven for those who in this world attempted to make Jesus their first priority. They still grow in grace. But, they grow from the place of love. The Church Expectant is the experience of Heaven for those who in this world did not attempt to make Jesus their first priority. They need to complete that developmental task before they can enter into the Church Triumphant for the next stage of growing in grace.

We are here today as the Church Militant. We live in the world of choice, which is the world of duality, the either/or.  Choice is the initiating principle of Salvation, love and blessing. Choice forms our priorities. Choice receives the blessings God is constantly pouring out to everyone. The poor are blessed only because they have fewer obstacles to bar their way along the path of blessing. The poverty itself is not the blessing. The poverty can clear their way to make a choice to be embraced by the saving grace of divine love in Jesus Christ. You do not have to be poor to receive the divine blessing. Your choice to receive the blessing will be more difficult. There will be more distractions and desires to seduce you away from the blessing.

This is the key to understanding the beatitudes. This key is what activates the way of faith. This is why Jesus turns the beliefs of his listeners upside down when he describes the poor, the mournful, the meek, the hungry and the thirsty as the blessed. The blessed are the saints who make a real choice to live in the real presence of God in Jesus Christ.

The question is: what chains of inherited belief keep us from experiencing the divine blessing? Where does our belief system subvert the way of faith? How are we placing Jesus last in our lives? What are we placing first in our lives? The saints can help us ask and answer these questions. We can read their biographies and study their example. We can also ask for their help. God created us to live and move and have our being in the way of blessedness. Only our choice limits the abundance God offers us and all people everywhere.

Jesus teaches: how blessed are you. The blessing is already there for us as an unconditional gift. With Holy Mother Mary, the Queen of Saints, we simply need t

Pentecost 12

Pentecost 12 (Matthew 22:34-46) “You shall love…”

God is love.  The One God eternal manifests himself as an active, dynamic and creative community of love. That love is universal and unconditional. That love always seeks the best for each and for all.

If there were a theme song to summarize the human experience it might be “Looking for Love in all the wrong places.” God the Father designed our species and each of us individually by the creative power of the Holy Spirit according to the dynamic pattern of the Son. God created by love, though love and for love.

The choice our species made to separate from God resulted in a terrible distortion of the pattern of love in our souls. Most of us most of the time have a vague awareness  that love is the answer. Unfortunately, we also cultivate the triad of sin from the place of separation. That triad of sin is Pride, Self-will and fear. That triad subverts and distorts the reality of love. That Triad of sin corrupts the mind so that we cannot properly understand love. And it corrupts the heart so that we confuse immediate pleasure with love.

Jesus taught nothing new when he answered the question the Pharisees asked. God had revealed this teaching to Moses millennia before. Love is the underlying principle that gives form and substance to the Law. Without love the Law kills. With love the law releases the soul from the chains of slavery to sin. It is clear from Scripture that the Pharisees we so very close to the reality of God, which is the reality of Love. It is also clear that they would not accept the Real Presence of love. One fundamental reason they would not and indeed could not accept the Real Presence of Love in Jesus Christ lies in how they chose to understand God.

The Pharisees and other religious sects of the day were theological “impersonalists”  They believed in one divine principle who was so transcendent, so pure, so holy so perfect that they rejected any personal descriptions of this principle. They were fine talking about the Deity in the abstract. They had largely abandoned the vivid and at times the scandalous images of God as Father, Husband, Lover and Friend revealed by Moses, the Prophets, King David and King Solomon. They accepted the Law as a detailed rigid inflexible standard of behavior that guaranteed rewards and punishments.

They never imagined that God would come to them in person. And, they refused to acknowledge the personal presence of God in Jesus Christ. What was their motive? Control. A God who is upfront and personal, who identifies himself in very specific ways through the images of personal relationships, is not a God you can control or use for your individual goals.

As we see in other passages of scripture the Pharisees wanted to justify themselves. They didn’t really need God. They believed they were righteous by their own efforts in the categories of right action and right belief. They believed God must reward them with power, position, prestige and pride automatically. They believed and they prayed: My will be done.

Their belief subverted their faith. Their pride rejected the personal life transforming relationship God offered in Jesus Christ. They were theological impersonalists only a breath away from agnosticism. They were ethical legalists who used the law to reward themselves and to punish everyone else including Jesus. They were willfully and spitefully lost in separation from God through pride.

And Jesus loved them. Jesus loved them because Jesus is love. Jesus loves everyone. He accepts us fully and completely as we are where we are. And, in the personal relationship he offers us he knows we will experience change. He knows that as we spend time with him we will acquire his perspective, his values and his way of living.

The Pharisees and the other religious leaders of the time did not want the relationship because they did not want to change. They wanted to rule.  Love is all about change. Love is all about the choices we make.  Jesus invites us to consider those places in our own minds and hearts where we hold back from love. He wants us to consider how we withhold love from others. Jesus is the abundance of infinite and eternal love. Most people in his time as well as in our time reject that abundance. WE reject abundance in order to remain unchanged and to maintain control.

Jesus asks us to enter into the active dynamic creative and transforming life of the Trinity. Jesus reminds us that the Father created us from abundance for abundance. Jesus demonstrates for us a new life and a new way of living.  It is the way of love. In this world that way opens the path to divine blessing through worship, kindness and compassion, and personal transformation.

Do you value this? Are you willing to be willing to live in this way and to follow this path? Do not answer too quickly. If you choose to follow this way then the Holy Spirit will help you to surrender the demands of self-will to the invitation of divine will to receive the blessing of God and become the blessing of God to others.

Pride kills the blessing. Pride keeps us rigid, inflexible and demanding. Pride produces least common denominator religion, self-indulgent spirituality and material scarcity.Love gives life. Love produces a blessing in the soul that keeps us flexible, adaptable, reasonable and compassionate. Love enters into the divine presence through worship with the motto: My utmost for His highest. Love is generous. Love delights in surrendering old fear based beliefs to be transformed by Jesus himself into the bright majestic and magnificent virtue of abundance.

The preeminent image of worship is the image of a banquet. The divine pattern of the world is abundance. The vision of human life is an exciting journey of discovery and transformation.The Pharisees’ vision was too small. It was a limited vision based in scarcity and expressed through rewards and punishments.

The vision Jesus offers is infinite and eternal. The vision for humanity and for each of us as individuals unfolds as we hear the word of God, believe the word of God and embrace the word of God. That word is expressed in an imperative: you shall love.

St Luke's Day 2014

St. Luke’s Day 2014 (Luke 4:14-21) “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus fulfills the Law of Moses and the call of the prophets.

At the beginning of his public ministry, at the age of thirty, Jesus did two things. He went to his cousin John to be baptized and he went into the desert to confront Satan.

Unlike all other human beings, Jesus did not need to be baptized. John’s baptism was a pledge of repentance of past sins. Jesus never sinned. He never sinned because he never separated from God. Nevertheless, Jesus sought out his cousin John, the last of the prophets, to receive baptism in order to fulfill all righteousness- all right relationship.

At his baptism God revealed the fullness of the co-eternal Trinity. God the Father spoke audibly to the crowds and announced: this (Jesus) is my Son, The Beloved. The Holy Spirit appeared in visible form to anoint Jesus for his public ministry. And of course, Jesus himself enters the river to hold our humanity with God’s divinity in his own person.

After his baptism Jesus confronts Satan in the desert. Satan tempts Jesus to test his humanity. Satan wants to know: can he be tempted? Will he separate from God as Adam chose to separate from God?

After Jesus resists the temptations and confounds Satan, he returns to his home town, to Nazareth. He enters the Synagogue. It is important to note that Jesus always attended the Synagogue on the Sabbath day. It was his first priority as attending church on Sunday should be our first priority. Then, he read from Scripture.

The Scriptures formed Jesus’ identity as the scriptures can form our identity. We understand who Jesus is through the writings of Moses, the prophets and the apostles. We understand the writings through the reality of the Living Lord Jesus Christ.

As Jesus read from the book of the prophet Isaiah he declared his intent for his three year public ministry. He chose his home town to make the announcement. Very likely, his mother and his other relatives were all there. The people who watched him grow up were there. The children he played with and studied with and who were now adults were there. The people who bought tables and chairs from him and hired him to repair their houses and fences were there.

They knew him as a child, a teen, a carpenter. Now, he announced to them his plan and his purpose as the Son of God.  He said: I am anointed by the Holy Spirit.

This took place at his baptism. The record of Scripture is that the Holy Spirit anointed Kings to govern and prophets to call people to repentance and priests to offer sacrificial worship. Jesus announced his was prophet, priest and king.

Jesus also clarified that he was anointed to bring good news to the poor. The poor? The common belief at the time was that wealth and power were a sign of God’s blessing. Poverty was a sign of God’s judgment for sin. How could the Holy Spirit anoint someone to announce good news to a class of people God had judged as unworthy?

Jesus goes on to declare he has come to release the captives? What captives? Slaves? Criminals? Political prisoners? He has come to restore sight to the blind? Wait a minute. No one can do that.

He has come to free the oppressed. Israel considered itself to be an oppressed nation. Would he destroy the Romans? Would he restore their national independence?

Finally, Jesus says: I have come to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor grace). This is a messianic function. This is what many believed to be the restoration of all things in a new world order and a new form of humanity. This is the eternal Sabbath God had promised to manifest as a new beginning for Israel and for all people everywhere.

Jesus reveals the pattern of the anointed, the Christ, God’s Messiah. That pattern was already recorded by Moses in the summary of the Law. That pattern was already revealed by the prophets as something people consistently rejected but something that God would nevertheless bring to pass as an amazing gift.

The plan of God , the pattern of God and the purpose of God are all revealed by Moses and the Prophets and all fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was everything that God had promised and more. Jesus was nothing that the people wanted.

As Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures then by his words, actions and real presence so he continues to fulfill the scriptures now.

The plan of salvation is Good News, not bad news.

The plan of salvation is for all people not just the rich and powerful and those who declare themselves to be the righteous.

The Plan of salvation opens the eyes of  our souls to the light o divine truth.

The Plan of salvation liberates those enslaved by sin, by governments, by economic systems and by fear,

The Plan of Salvation is the Real Presence of Jesus here and now at the altar of sacrifice infusing grace and favor into this realm of matter, energy, time and space.

The Plan of Salvation is a person: Jesus Christ.

Pentecost 18

Pentecost 18 (Matthew 22:1-14)

“Many are called but few are chosen.”

The activating principle for salvation is choice. The real presence of salvation is divine love.

A popular image of heaven is the image of St. Peter standing the gate. He sits at a large leger book. It is a book of debits and credits the soul accumulated in life. When a soul seeks entrance into Heaven, St. Peter checks the book. Je adds the tally. If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds he lets you in. If not, well- you are directed to an elevation that has only one button: down.

While this may be a popular image it is not Biblical. According to the Bible Heaven is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is in fact a magnificent marriage feast, a party, to which all are invited. The only one standing at the door is Jesus Himself. There is no leger book, just Jesus with his arms wide open, smiling and greeting all souls with a single word: Come!

The parable Jesus tells us about the Kingdom of Heaven works on two levels: the specific and the general.

The specific meaning of the parable is the call to Israel to be chosen for worship and service.

God initially issued this call through His servant Moses. The people heard the call and rejected the call. They distorted the call into a demand for privilege, power and pride.

Those who bring the invitation to the wedding feast are the prophets. They remind Israel that the call is to enter into a life transforming personal relationship with God through worship and compassion. Jesus cites the experience of the prophets to indicate how Israel by and large not only distorted the call they also rejected the invitation.  Jesus even gives an explanation  for the rejection: business. Business as usual.

Israel did not want the call or value the invitation. God offered infinite and eternal divine love and the people essentially said: very nice but show us the money. God offered the assurance of eternal life and the people said: well and good but give us the power to conquer the nations. God offered the people the invitation for Israel to help meet the needs of the poor, the sick the lonely and the homeless. The people demanded the right to possess the land and use other people for their own benefit.

The last group of servants in the parable are the apostles. When the chosen reject the invitation to the wedding feast, the King sends servants to offer the invitation to everyone in the world, the good and the bad. This is the image of grace. The call is a gift we can choose to receive through the waters of baptism and cultivate at the altar of sacrifice.

The man who does not wear a wedding garment presents a problem for modern readers. This is one of those rare instances in scripture where it is important to look at a good Bible dictionary and perhaps even read a scholarly commentary. In the ancient world and in many traditional societies, the King himself would provide his guests with a wedding garment at the door. It was a sign of the king’s generosity to give the garment and of the guests respect to receive and wear the garment. The garment is a symbol of divine grace. It reminds us what the apostle Paul preached: we are saved by grace through faith and not of works lest anyone should boast.

The man without the wedding garment rejected the gift at the door. The basis of his rejection is pride. The effect of his rejection is lack of respect. The result of his pride and arrogance, his lack of respect and of reverence, is his exclusion from the feast. He excludes himself by remaining apart from the celebration . The king acknowledges his choice and basically says: as you have chosen through pride to stand apart from the celebration you shall dwell apart from the celebration. This is the image of the lost souls.

The lost choose to reject God’s grace through pride. They stand apart. They assert their own will to do what they want when and how they want it. They are welcome to enter the door to the feast dressed in the wedding garment of divine love. Since they reject what God offers God acknowledges their choice but will not allow them into the feast. At the feast there is only joy grounded in humility and delight in the Beloved Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

As then so now. Israel’s experience is not unique. It is normative for all people everywhere.

The great challenge for the Plan of Salvation is also the great blessing. The challenge and the blessing are choice. Choice activates love and the Kingdom of Heaven is a personal relationship with the Triune God of love.

That is why salvation is not a bookkeeping function of debits and credits. The Kingdom of Heaven is a celebration of Divine love. On Earth, that celebration is the Mass. The Holy Spirit invites everyone to come to the font of blessing, the baptismal font, to receive the Wedding Garment of grace. He invites the good, the bad, the beautiful, the not so beautiful and indeed He invites all sorts and conditions of people.

Everyone is welcome. No one is excluded. We can exclude ourselves but God never excludes us. How is this possible? The history of Israel as recorded in the Bible and summarized for us by Jesus in the parable offers an explanation.

God offers eternal love through worship and people respond: that’s nice but show me the money. Give me the power.

The parable summarizes for us two basic attitudes that produce two very different actions that lead to two separate results.

One attitude is the posture of pride that demands: my will be done. I want the benefits I want according what I value. Give me that and I may come to the celebration. But I reserve the right to analyze, criticize and judge the people, the program the process. I reserve the right to exclude the unworthy. I reserve the right to hold back unless I get what  I want. The voice of pride is the voice of the lost who throughout this life issue a demand and formed their soul with the words: my will be done.

The other attitude is the posture of humility that rejoices in the personal relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. This voice does not come from moral perfection or intellectual arrogance or even a narrow prideful cold orthodoxy. This is the voice of passionate friendship. It is the voice that says with the apostle Paul: no one is perfect most of all me. I am a work in process and so is everyone else. My primary value is the friendship Jesus offers me. I accept the garment of salvation as the free gift it is. I come to the altar of sacrifice to celebrate. I can relax in the transforming grace  of the Holy Spirit. I can trust my forever friend, Jesus, that he is working in all things to accomplish the Father’s Plan of salvation.

In the final judgment, all people will either stand before God and say: My will be done or Thy will be done.

To the first God will say: Amen. So be it. Your will be done. You have chosen separation from the infinite and eternal community of divine love. Heaven is a marriage feast of celebration and there are no shot gun weddings in heaven. You were called and you have chosen to reject the invitation.

To the second Jesus opens his arms wide and says: whoever you are, whatever you have done or left undone, Come.

You have been called and you have chosen to accept the invitation. You have chosen to receive the wedding garment of divine grace. Come to the feast and let us celebrate forever the great love of the one God who is an infinite and eternal community of love.