Pentecost 15 (Mark 7:24-37) “Be opened!”
Jesus specializes in opening up hearts, minds and wills.
If you think you have life, the universe and everything figured out, then Jesus will surprise you. He will not only surprise you- he will astonish you.
Jesus certainly surprised, astonished and aggravated the people of his time. He healed everyone who came to him including those whom the religious authorities had written off as unworthy. His power to heal surprised even his students. His universal and unconditional healing aggravated the religious and political elites.
Certainly, the Syro Phoenician woman knew the religious people despised and rejected her. Under ordinary circumstances, she would never have come to a Rabbi for help. Under ordinary circumstances, a Rabbi of any sect would not have spoken with her.
These were not ordinary circumstances. Jesus was not an ordinary Rabbi. The woman was desperate. Her daughter was possessed by a demon. Demon possession is very rare. It does happen. It always results in madness and death. There is nothing casual or magical about exorcism- the removal of a demon. The more you fight a demon the stronger it becomes. It feeds on fear, anger, and pride. It flees only from the Real Presence of unconditional love.
Jesus understood all of this. He lived in a religious society that had structured itself in the distortions of fear, pride and the will to power. He lived in a xenophobic culture that despised strangers despite the clear and unambiguous teaching of Moses to welcome the stranger.
Jesus used this opportunity to teach a fundamental lesson about God, human nature and individual responsibility.
Jesus started the lesson from where people were. This is an important principle. The very presence of Jesus in the world initiates a process of revelation and self-discovery.
The first revelation Jesus manifested in this passage is the problem. The problem is three fold. The first aspect of the problem is that people believed God favored some people over others. The categories the people used to identify this favor were: race, religion and righteousness.
The logic went like this:
God called one individual, Abraham into a unique contract. The contract stipulates that God will bless Abraham and his legitimate descendants in exchange for their obedience to God’s commands.
The legitimate descendants of Abraham come through the line of Isaac and Jacob.
The Law comes through Moses.
The proper interpretation of the Law comes from the sectarian insights of those religious leader whom God favors.
And so, God favors only one specific group of people of one race in one nation who properly understand the Law and keeps the Law. God rejects and punishes everyone else.
The Syro Phoenician woman did not fit into the “favored” category. She had no claim on God’s blessing. She did not deserve God’s blessing. Even Jesus’ disciples held this point of view. And, certainly the woman understood this aspect of her intrusion into the conversation of who God will bless and who God will curse.
Nevertheless, she asked. Against all logic and against all probability she asked Jesus for help. And, everyone around Jesus, his friends and enemies alike, expected Jesus to reject the woman and send her away. That is the context of Jesus’ seemingly harsh statement to the woman.
The immediate issue is the division among people. Human beings divide ourselves and separate ourselves from each other in every way possible. Race, ethnicity, language, accent, class and so much more becomes the occasion for separation, division, conflict and war.
The religious people of Jesus’ day equated religion with politics, politics with partisanship and partisanship with pride. That pride empowered a very small group of people in one faction of one sectarian group of one tribe of one nation to assert their will to dominate all other people in their nation and all other nations. They were just waiting for the right leader to make it happen.
That is where they were in terms of religion and culture. That is where Jesus met them. That is not where Jesus left them. He invited them to take a journey in faith. He invited them to consider certain facts that did not conform to their strongly held beliefs.
The invitation was in the woman herself. Her gracious and humble response to Jesus’ harsh and uncompromising statement was the open door for the people to understand a reality they had been educated to reject.
The door is humility. The reality is unconditional love.
Jesus never argued or debated within the narrow inflexible uncompromising ideologies of his enemies or his friends. He did use their uncompromising beliefs to help them experience unconditional love.
The unnamed pagan woman walked right into the center of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. The Plan of Salvation is personal. Jesus is the personal reality of the infinite and eternal God.
Jesus led the woman into a process of self-discovery and divine revelation that scandalized those who considered themselves the righteous. The woman discovered her humility. The religious leaders discovered their fatal pride. Everyone discovered something about God that they had failed to recognize.
Jesus makes manifest the reality that God just doesn’t have love. God is love. That love is unconditional, universal, compassionate and holy.
Because our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation is personal there is no room for individual pride. Jesus will meet us where we are. But, He will not leave us where we are. If he comes to us and discovers we are lost in pride he will bring people and circumstances into our lives to reveal that pride to us. He will send the Holy Spirit to convict us of the fatal consequence of pride in the way we live life here and now.
There is no condemnation in Jesus. Sickness is never a punishment for sin. In certain situations, disease or injury may be a consequence of particular sins, but never a punishment.
Jesus uses all events in our lives to help us make the real choice to accept the gift of reunification with God in the waters of baptism. Jesus uses all circumstances in our lives to help us identify those sins of thought, word and deed, of omission and commission that need to be transformed back into their original virtue.
Jesus surprised the crowd, annoyed the righteous and astonished the pagan woman by reversing everyone’s expectations and beliefs about God. The righteous are proved to be lost in fatal pride. The friends of Jesus are convicted of their own rigid inflexible inherited belief. The pagan woman receives the unconditional love of God just as she feels the moment slipping away from her.
And, everyone receives the invitation to question their beliefs in order to grow into faith.
The healing of the deaf man seems simple by comparison. Mark uses the word Jesus used in that healing to comment about the prior event. “be opened”.
The words set the deaf man free from his physical affliction. The words are also given to set us all free from our spiritual affliction.
“Be open!” God is performing miracles in our lives every day. Jesus is asking us to identify where pride solidifies inherited belief and subverts faith that manifests compassion.
Be open to hear the word of God from the one who is the incarnate Word of God. Open your ears to hear Jesus speak in the Bible. Open you hearts to feel Jesus present in human need. Open your minds to ask Jesus to transform your inherited beliefs by grace through faith. Open your souls to experience the Real Presence of the Divine on the Day of Real Presence at the altar of Real Presence.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Pentecost 14
Pentecost 14 (Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23) “For it is from within….”
Sin is an inside job.
There is nothing external to the human soul that is inherently sinful. Sin is a distortion of virtue and the corruption of virtue. The distortion comes from the original pain of our choice to separate from God.
Most forms of religion do not acknowledge the Biblical teaching of original separation, also called original sin. Most forms of religion assert that human beings are born in a state of innocence and only gradually learn to make choices that are sinful.
In these forms of religion the problem of sin is a lack of knowledge. Since the problem is a lack of knowledge the solution is education. That education can come in many different forms depending upon the religious culture. For the Pharisees, the knowledge was the proper education in the Law.
The Pharisees certainly had the insight that the Law, the Law of Moses, was important. Sadly, they missed the point of the Law. The Law is holy and good. But, the Law can only reveal to us our original choice to separate from God and our need for reunification with God.
The Pharisees assumed God gave the Law so people would obey. They further assumed that God’s love was conditional. Only those who obeyed the Law were entitled to the conditional love of God. For those who chose to disobey the Law God brought forth only wrathful condemnation.
Since the Pharisees believed that God’s Love and therefor God’s favor (grace) is conditional upon obedience to the Law, it was vitally important for them to know just what the law required. Sadly, these assumptions led to a series of questions, speculations and answers that formed the body of what the people came to call The Tradition.
As the question of what must I do to earn God’s love and avoid God’s wrath became the central question of religion The Tradition became the most important element of religion.
The Tradition was a body of commentary learned by students in question and answer form. In Jesus’ day is was still largely an oral tradition. With the destruction of the Temple in 70AD and the 2nd exile of the Jews in 140AD it became important to record The Tradition in order to preserve it.
The Tradition had emerged after the destruction of the first Temple some five hundred years before Jesus’ birth. It that five hundred years it grew and developed and branched into many different schools of thought.
Ironically, the very effort to help people keep the Law of Moses actually subverted the Law of Moses. Law based religion tends to be fear based religion. It focuses on the external observance of rules and regulations. It produces religious courts to decide disputes over interpretation. It creates religious lawyers to administer the system. And, it creates a culture of rigid inflexible uncompromising judgment.
As Jesus pointed out, such a system also creates the minimalist mentality that asks the question: what is the least I must do to get credit and avoid punishment. The minimalist mentality leads to the invention of the loop hole.
Loop holes allow the rich and powerful to avoid the most troublesome commandments of the Law. Most of these troublesome commandments derive from the three fold principle of the Sabbath. More specifically, the loop hole allows the wealthy to hold an outward form of right belief and right behavior while avoiding the inward transformation of our attitudes and actions.
The tragedy of the Pharisee is in the belief that God’s love is conditional on human behavior.
So, as Jesus points out, the oral tradition of commentary, interpretation and loop holes allows the wealthy to claim God’s favor based on the minutia of daily activities- the right clothes to wear, the right food to eat, the right way to prepare the food, the right way to serve the food, the right dishes on which to serve the food, the right way to wash those dishes before and after the meal, and the right way to wash your hands before, during and after the meal. The rules become the reality.
If and only if you have the time and resources to observe all of the many traditions that govern your daily activities can you lay a claim on God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The poor and the uneducated lack the advantage of the rich and powerful. By definition, the poor are poor because they are unrighteous. They deserve God’s wrath and they receive God’s wrath.
The rich by definition deserve God’s love and receive God’s Blessing. Since they are the righteous they are the ones who write the rules to interpret the Law. And , they are the ones who create the loop holes to avoid the weighty matters of the Law of Moses. Those weightier matters address issues of mercy, compassion and the responsible use of wealth. Those are the Laws the rich and the powerful subvert through the process of interpretation. The system is flawed and hypocritical because it is based on a flawed assumption. It is based on the assumption that God’s love is conditional.
Jesus’ simple message is that God’s love is unconditional. God just doesn’t have love. God is love. God’s love is universal.
The purpose of the Law is to act as a perfect mirror to the soul. The Law of Moses reveals not only how we separate from God by our attitudes and actions but why we separate from God. The Law shows us that we separate from God in order to assert our will to power to be God.
The Law is holy and good. It has its place in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It’s place is not to make us righteous. It’s place is to reveal to us that we as a species have chosen to separate from God. It’s place is the show each of us how we actively and deceitfully participate in separation. And, its place is to lead us to the One who is the final solution and the only solution to the problem.
The solution is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the unconditional love of God the Father. He is the infallible Plan of Salvation for all people for all time.
Jesus is the perfect mirror to the human soul. He shows us where we are in separation from God. He shows us how we can receive the divine gift of reunification with God.
Jesus also shows us where the distortion of sin lies. It is not outside. It is not in an institution or a policy or a program. Sin lies within. It is a distortion of the mind, heart and will that proceeds from the will to power of a soul lost in separation.
The solution to separation is reunification.
The solution to sin is transformation.
Transformation is an inside job. It is the identifiable and measureable result that emerges from a personal relationship with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot just say “no” to sin. You can say “yes” to God. You can say “yes” to God by receiving the gift of God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ. That unconditional love transforms our desires. That unconditional love transforms vice into virtue. That unconditional love leads us into a journey of self-discovery. As we discover who we truly are in Jesus Christ we discover the power to change our attitudes and actions in Jesus Christ.
For some of us the change is revolutionary: dramatic, bold and quick. For some of us the change is evolutionary: slow, measured and even understated. For each of us the change is the real choice to become the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved of the Father.
For it is from within that the Real Presence of God sets us free in love to become transformed by love – the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ.
Sin is an inside job.
There is nothing external to the human soul that is inherently sinful. Sin is a distortion of virtue and the corruption of virtue. The distortion comes from the original pain of our choice to separate from God.
Most forms of religion do not acknowledge the Biblical teaching of original separation, also called original sin. Most forms of religion assert that human beings are born in a state of innocence and only gradually learn to make choices that are sinful.
In these forms of religion the problem of sin is a lack of knowledge. Since the problem is a lack of knowledge the solution is education. That education can come in many different forms depending upon the religious culture. For the Pharisees, the knowledge was the proper education in the Law.
The Pharisees certainly had the insight that the Law, the Law of Moses, was important. Sadly, they missed the point of the Law. The Law is holy and good. But, the Law can only reveal to us our original choice to separate from God and our need for reunification with God.
The Pharisees assumed God gave the Law so people would obey. They further assumed that God’s love was conditional. Only those who obeyed the Law were entitled to the conditional love of God. For those who chose to disobey the Law God brought forth only wrathful condemnation.
Since the Pharisees believed that God’s Love and therefor God’s favor (grace) is conditional upon obedience to the Law, it was vitally important for them to know just what the law required. Sadly, these assumptions led to a series of questions, speculations and answers that formed the body of what the people came to call The Tradition.
As the question of what must I do to earn God’s love and avoid God’s wrath became the central question of religion The Tradition became the most important element of religion.
The Tradition was a body of commentary learned by students in question and answer form. In Jesus’ day is was still largely an oral tradition. With the destruction of the Temple in 70AD and the 2nd exile of the Jews in 140AD it became important to record The Tradition in order to preserve it.
The Tradition had emerged after the destruction of the first Temple some five hundred years before Jesus’ birth. It that five hundred years it grew and developed and branched into many different schools of thought.
Ironically, the very effort to help people keep the Law of Moses actually subverted the Law of Moses. Law based religion tends to be fear based religion. It focuses on the external observance of rules and regulations. It produces religious courts to decide disputes over interpretation. It creates religious lawyers to administer the system. And, it creates a culture of rigid inflexible uncompromising judgment.
As Jesus pointed out, such a system also creates the minimalist mentality that asks the question: what is the least I must do to get credit and avoid punishment. The minimalist mentality leads to the invention of the loop hole.
Loop holes allow the rich and powerful to avoid the most troublesome commandments of the Law. Most of these troublesome commandments derive from the three fold principle of the Sabbath. More specifically, the loop hole allows the wealthy to hold an outward form of right belief and right behavior while avoiding the inward transformation of our attitudes and actions.
The tragedy of the Pharisee is in the belief that God’s love is conditional on human behavior.
So, as Jesus points out, the oral tradition of commentary, interpretation and loop holes allows the wealthy to claim God’s favor based on the minutia of daily activities- the right clothes to wear, the right food to eat, the right way to prepare the food, the right way to serve the food, the right dishes on which to serve the food, the right way to wash those dishes before and after the meal, and the right way to wash your hands before, during and after the meal. The rules become the reality.
If and only if you have the time and resources to observe all of the many traditions that govern your daily activities can you lay a claim on God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The poor and the uneducated lack the advantage of the rich and powerful. By definition, the poor are poor because they are unrighteous. They deserve God’s wrath and they receive God’s wrath.
The rich by definition deserve God’s love and receive God’s Blessing. Since they are the righteous they are the ones who write the rules to interpret the Law. And , they are the ones who create the loop holes to avoid the weighty matters of the Law of Moses. Those weightier matters address issues of mercy, compassion and the responsible use of wealth. Those are the Laws the rich and the powerful subvert through the process of interpretation. The system is flawed and hypocritical because it is based on a flawed assumption. It is based on the assumption that God’s love is conditional.
Jesus’ simple message is that God’s love is unconditional. God just doesn’t have love. God is love. God’s love is universal.
The purpose of the Law is to act as a perfect mirror to the soul. The Law of Moses reveals not only how we separate from God by our attitudes and actions but why we separate from God. The Law shows us that we separate from God in order to assert our will to power to be God.
The Law is holy and good. It has its place in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. It’s place is not to make us righteous. It’s place is to reveal to us that we as a species have chosen to separate from God. It’s place is the show each of us how we actively and deceitfully participate in separation. And, its place is to lead us to the One who is the final solution and the only solution to the problem.
The solution is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the unconditional love of God the Father. He is the infallible Plan of Salvation for all people for all time.
Jesus is the perfect mirror to the human soul. He shows us where we are in separation from God. He shows us how we can receive the divine gift of reunification with God.
Jesus also shows us where the distortion of sin lies. It is not outside. It is not in an institution or a policy or a program. Sin lies within. It is a distortion of the mind, heart and will that proceeds from the will to power of a soul lost in separation.
The solution to separation is reunification.
The solution to sin is transformation.
Transformation is an inside job. It is the identifiable and measureable result that emerges from a personal relationship with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot just say “no” to sin. You can say “yes” to God. You can say “yes” to God by receiving the gift of God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ. That unconditional love transforms our desires. That unconditional love transforms vice into virtue. That unconditional love leads us into a journey of self-discovery. As we discover who we truly are in Jesus Christ we discover the power to change our attitudes and actions in Jesus Christ.
For some of us the change is revolutionary: dramatic, bold and quick. For some of us the change is evolutionary: slow, measured and even understated. For each of us the change is the real choice to become the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved of the Father.
For it is from within that the Real Presence of God sets us free in love to become transformed by love – the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Pentecost 13
Pentecost 13 (John 6:56-69) Does this offend you?
Jesus is the truth.
Unlike prophets, priests and religious teachers, Jesus just doesn’t give some insight into the truth about God. Jesus is the truth of God.
The truth of God is simple and direct: God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
The truth of God is so rich and abundant and powerful that it can only be embodied. It can never be fully expressed in human language. The scriptures help us understand the co-eternal Word of God. The scriptures are not the co-eternal Word of God. The Word of God is Jesus.
All theology exists in the realm of knowledge. The Apostle Paul comments about knowledge by saying: now we know in part.
The preeminent theologian of the Western Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, had a vision of the co-eternal Word near the end of his life. He responded with delight and distress. He gave voice to his distress by saying that all of his books about God were as dust and ashes in comparison to the reality of God. His delight was to experience the Real Presence of unconditional love and compassion.
Jesus never intended to offend anyone when he came to earth. He came in the abundance of unconditional love and compassion. He also knew that he was coming to a species that had separated from God the Father, rejected the friendship of God the Son and ignored the invitation to personal transformation in God the Holy Spirit.
Moses and the Prophets reveal the framework to understand who Jesus is. They point to Jesus. It is Jesus who completes the revelation our Heavenly Father gave to Moses and the prophets.
God is too vast in his love and holiness to be described by any one prophet, teacher or theologian. In the incarnation, God comes to us in the best way, the ideal way, the only way to make himself known to us. Jesus is God’s Word to humanity. That Word is love.
In Jesus God unites his divinity with our humanity. In Jesus, God reveals that Truth emerges within the context of relationship.
Charles Cooley, a modern sociologist, developed a theory of relationship called “The Looking Glass Self”. In this theory, Cooley observes that we human beings form our individual personalities in relationship with other people. Essentially, we not only learn how to be human through our relationships with family, friends and neighbors, we actually build our own unique personalities in the dynamic of those relationships.
Jesus reveals to us that His friendship is the fundamental and primary relationship our Heavenly Father designed us to experience in order to build our unique identities. We are more of who God created us to be as we cultivate the Prime Relationship, the relationship with Jesus Christ. Correspondingly, we are dimished apart from Christ.
What is unique about our relationship with Jesus is that in Jesus we can experience the Real Presence of the infinite and eternal God. What we experience we can then choose to express.
The infinite and eternal reality of God is steadfast, holy, unconditional love. This love is unlike any thing we have ever or can ever experience in this world. It is the underlying meaning and purpose of life, the universe and everything that exists.
It is the missing term in the human equation of duality, of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of life and death.
It is the key to understanding how the One God is three persons.
It is the basis of the incarnation.
It is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in one word.
It is embodied, incarnate, made flesh in Jesus Christ.
It is the Great Mystery of the Holy Sacrament of the altar.
Jesus said: those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Jesus is God in human flesh. God is love. To eat the flesh and to drink the blood is to make a real choice to enter into the total immersion of our being in the Real Presence of Divine love.
This Divine reality comes to us in the very humble and ordinary means of bread and wine. The sacrament of Holy Communion reminds us that the co-eternal Son of God came in the very humble and ordinary means of our humanity. He lived for thirty years in a small town as one of the working poor. He knows exactly what it means to be human. He knows exactly what we, all of us and each of us, need to be fulfilled and completed.
No book can accomplish this. No theology or philosophy can communicate to us what Jesus offers. Jesus is the perfect mirror of God. He shows us who we are: lost in separation. He shows us who we can become: the beloved of God. He just doesn’t tell us the solution. He just doesn’t show us the solution. He is the solution. He gives us himself is a very real and organic way in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Our Heavenly Father has sent the Holy Spirit into the world to invite all people everywhere to receive the gifts of reunification (through Baptism) and personal transformation (through Holy Communion).
As in Jesus’ time so in ours: this offends many people. Many react from the place of pride and say: why does it have to be Jesus? Others react from fear and ask: will God punish me if I do not receive the gift? Still others simply walk away and say: no way. I will not submit my will to this religious teaching.
As with all things in life, Love is the key. Love is the missing term in the human equation of fear, self-will and pride. Love is not just a feeling or a concept. Love is a person: Jesus Christ.
Are you offended by this? Most people are offended if they are honest. Jesus understands this. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And so he offers us his friendship, his life, his very being. There are no preconditions to the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus invites us to dialog with him as we read the scriptures.
Jesus asks us to ponder the imponderable assertion that He is real.
Jesus invites us to the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence to taste and experience the goodness of God.
The reality of God is the relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. The relationship is the Real Presence of the Infinite and Eternal Beloved of God in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
The invitations have been and continue to be sent.
The table is set.
The banquet hall is ready.
The time and place have been posted.
The gifts have been prepared.
All are welcome.
The Reality of life itself offers himself to us in the bread and the wine.
Your responsibility is to choose to receive the gift God has designed into this universe of matter, energy, time and space.
The gift is the Real Presence of unconditional love in Jesus Christ.
Does this offend you?
Jesus is the truth.
Unlike prophets, priests and religious teachers, Jesus just doesn’t give some insight into the truth about God. Jesus is the truth of God.
The truth of God is simple and direct: God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
The truth of God is so rich and abundant and powerful that it can only be embodied. It can never be fully expressed in human language. The scriptures help us understand the co-eternal Word of God. The scriptures are not the co-eternal Word of God. The Word of God is Jesus.
All theology exists in the realm of knowledge. The Apostle Paul comments about knowledge by saying: now we know in part.
The preeminent theologian of the Western Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, had a vision of the co-eternal Word near the end of his life. He responded with delight and distress. He gave voice to his distress by saying that all of his books about God were as dust and ashes in comparison to the reality of God. His delight was to experience the Real Presence of unconditional love and compassion.
Jesus never intended to offend anyone when he came to earth. He came in the abundance of unconditional love and compassion. He also knew that he was coming to a species that had separated from God the Father, rejected the friendship of God the Son and ignored the invitation to personal transformation in God the Holy Spirit.
Moses and the Prophets reveal the framework to understand who Jesus is. They point to Jesus. It is Jesus who completes the revelation our Heavenly Father gave to Moses and the prophets.
God is too vast in his love and holiness to be described by any one prophet, teacher or theologian. In the incarnation, God comes to us in the best way, the ideal way, the only way to make himself known to us. Jesus is God’s Word to humanity. That Word is love.
In Jesus God unites his divinity with our humanity. In Jesus, God reveals that Truth emerges within the context of relationship.
Charles Cooley, a modern sociologist, developed a theory of relationship called “The Looking Glass Self”. In this theory, Cooley observes that we human beings form our individual personalities in relationship with other people. Essentially, we not only learn how to be human through our relationships with family, friends and neighbors, we actually build our own unique personalities in the dynamic of those relationships.
Jesus reveals to us that His friendship is the fundamental and primary relationship our Heavenly Father designed us to experience in order to build our unique identities. We are more of who God created us to be as we cultivate the Prime Relationship, the relationship with Jesus Christ. Correspondingly, we are dimished apart from Christ.
What is unique about our relationship with Jesus is that in Jesus we can experience the Real Presence of the infinite and eternal God. What we experience we can then choose to express.
The infinite and eternal reality of God is steadfast, holy, unconditional love. This love is unlike any thing we have ever or can ever experience in this world. It is the underlying meaning and purpose of life, the universe and everything that exists.
It is the missing term in the human equation of duality, of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of life and death.
It is the key to understanding how the One God is three persons.
It is the basis of the incarnation.
It is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in one word.
It is embodied, incarnate, made flesh in Jesus Christ.
It is the Great Mystery of the Holy Sacrament of the altar.
Jesus said: those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Jesus is God in human flesh. God is love. To eat the flesh and to drink the blood is to make a real choice to enter into the total immersion of our being in the Real Presence of Divine love.
This Divine reality comes to us in the very humble and ordinary means of bread and wine. The sacrament of Holy Communion reminds us that the co-eternal Son of God came in the very humble and ordinary means of our humanity. He lived for thirty years in a small town as one of the working poor. He knows exactly what it means to be human. He knows exactly what we, all of us and each of us, need to be fulfilled and completed.
No book can accomplish this. No theology or philosophy can communicate to us what Jesus offers. Jesus is the perfect mirror of God. He shows us who we are: lost in separation. He shows us who we can become: the beloved of God. He just doesn’t tell us the solution. He just doesn’t show us the solution. He is the solution. He gives us himself is a very real and organic way in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Our Heavenly Father has sent the Holy Spirit into the world to invite all people everywhere to receive the gifts of reunification (through Baptism) and personal transformation (through Holy Communion).
As in Jesus’ time so in ours: this offends many people. Many react from the place of pride and say: why does it have to be Jesus? Others react from fear and ask: will God punish me if I do not receive the gift? Still others simply walk away and say: no way. I will not submit my will to this religious teaching.
As with all things in life, Love is the key. Love is the missing term in the human equation of fear, self-will and pride. Love is not just a feeling or a concept. Love is a person: Jesus Christ.
Are you offended by this? Most people are offended if they are honest. Jesus understands this. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And so he offers us his friendship, his life, his very being. There are no preconditions to the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus invites us to dialog with him as we read the scriptures.
Jesus asks us to ponder the imponderable assertion that He is real.
Jesus invites us to the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence to taste and experience the goodness of God.
The reality of God is the relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. The relationship is the Real Presence of the Infinite and Eternal Beloved of God in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
The invitations have been and continue to be sent.
The table is set.
The banquet hall is ready.
The time and place have been posted.
The gifts have been prepared.
All are welcome.
The Reality of life itself offers himself to us in the bread and the wine.
Your responsibility is to choose to receive the gift God has designed into this universe of matter, energy, time and space.
The gift is the Real Presence of unconditional love in Jesus Christ.
Does this offend you?
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Assumption Day 2012
Assumption Day 2012 (Luke 1:46-55)
“He has filled the hungry with good things.”
Grace is the gift of God. The gift of God is the abundance of God.
At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary with the words: Hail Mary, full of grace.
Gabriel did not come to fill Mary with grace. God had already filled her with grace. The abundance of grace is the Real Presence of God.
Most people most of the time reject the abundance of grace in the Real Presence of God. The evidence of this statement is recorded in scripture, history and personal experience. Most people most of the time make choices that reveal to others and to ourselves that we do not value the Real Presence of God. What we do not value we do not choose.
The most obvious evidence to support this statement is the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath Day, the seventh day, is the Day of Real Presence. Moses writes that God designed time itself to reflect the seventh day. It is the time when the timeless touches time. It is the day when the infinite and the universal is available to the limited and the particular. Moses and the prophets also record their observations that most people most of the time reject the gift of the Sabbath.
That gift is God’s promise to be with us and to bless us with the abundance of grace.
Separation from God is subject to the law of diminishing return. The more you get the less you enjoy but the more you want. The soul disintegrates into stagnation through the pursuit of separation. The soul also seeks greater and greater external stimulation to mask the pain of separation.
Grace is just the opposite of separation. Grace is immersion in divine abundance. The more grace you get the more you enjoy grace and the more you are able to expand and transform into grace.
Mary grew in grace. She grew in grace in the threefold manifestation of love: love of God through worship, love of others through acts of compassion, love of the unique image of God imprinted on her soul through Bible study, prayer, and the surrender of self will to divine will.
Unlike so many people in the long history of Israel who said “no” to God, Mary said “yes”. Mary grew up in a time of religious controversy and conflict. People argued over religious belief and practice. Mary lived a life of grace. She focused on worship, service and personal transformation of her mind, heart and will.
Mary asked honest questions to seek knowledge, understanding and wisdom. When the archangel told her she would be the mother of God’s Son she asked the very logical question: how can this be?
God invites our questions. Mary asked a question in order to hear the answer.
After Mary received the answer to her question she declared: I am the Lord’s servant. She did not presume to change the message of God. She did not debate the angel. She did not claim any special position or privilege. She expressed her moment of grace in the joy of grace by acknowledging the reality of grace: I am the Lord’s servant.
Mary knew that if you name God, Lord, than you are not Lord. You are not in control. You do not make the rules or establish the plan. God does that.\
As the Lord’s servant Mary declared: may God’s will be done. Surrender to God’s will is not the same as submission. Submission to divine will always asserts the hidden bargain: I will do what you want so that you are obligated to give me what I want.
Surrender is the total immersion of the will in the love of God. Surrender is not resignation to overwhelming and incomprehensible power. Surrender is the embrace of the Great Mystery of Divine love by faith. Surrender says: I fully accept your plan and your purpose and I delight in your Real Presence. The framework of power, of command and control, is simply absent from a soul that surrenders to the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Mary’s next choice was to share her joy with her cousin Elizabeth. Grace increases as we share it with others. Mary and Elizabeth experienced an infilling of the Holy Spirit as they met and shared another moment of grace.
This moment brings forth the second portion of the Hail Mary prayer as Elizabeth declares to her cousin Mary: blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”
Elizabeth’s joy echoes in the immaculate heart of Mary to produce the song of worship we know as the Magnificat.
The Magnificat is based on Hannah’s song from the book of 1 Samuel. It reminds us that Mary read scripture, studied scripture and memorized scripture. A soul that is touched by grace discovers a desire to read the Bible.
As we choose to respond to the desire to read the Bible God infuses more grace into our soul. We move from a desire to read the Bible to a passion to study the Bible.
The next step of grace is the real choice to memorize the Bible. Mary embodies this pattern of grace and demonstrates the pattern in the Magnificat.
Grace is like a small seed, a mustard seed. It begins small and understated- almost unnoticed. The seed of grace is nourished in our souls by the real choice we make to meet God at the time and place God has announced he will meet us. That time and place is the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence.
In the life of Mary we see how grace balances and transforms the duality of human experience: the joys and the sorrow, the life and the death.
There is no evidence that Mary participated in the religious debates of her time and culture. There is every evidence in her song of joy, the Magnificat, that she accepted grace to grow in faith. Faith is about a relationship. Mary had the most intimate relationship with God any human being has ever experienced. By grace through faith she embraced the will of God and became the Holy Mother of God incarnate.
The way of grace is active, dynamic and transforming. As her son was dying a terrible death on the cross, he asked Mary to take the next step in grace. He asked her to complete the apostle John’s spiritual formation. Despite her grief and her anguish Mary once again experienced the events in her life as a moment of grace. This time, she heard the word of God from her only son who is the Word of God.
She accepted this call by grace through faith in the center of the Great Mystery of God: the infinite and eternal love of God.
The example of Mary, and the experience of Mary, is that life on this planet here and now is formed by joy and sorrow. The way of grace that God offered Mary is the way of grace God offers all people. It is the way of grace that invites us into a life of faith. The life of faith is the immersion of the mind, heart, will and soul in the steadfast holy love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Mary’s life is a life of choice. The culmination of all of the small and big choices Mary made is the Assumption. Mary had chosen to open her heart to grace at every moment in her life, in the joys and in the sorrows, in the pleasures and in the pain, in her life and in her death. At the moment of her death, Jesus brought her body directly to heaven and gave her the gift of immediate resurrection. Then, he crowned her Queen of Israel, Queen of Earth, and Queen of Heaven.
The Assumption of Mary at her death, and the Coronation of Mary in Heaven, is not a reward for submission to Law, religion or belief. It is the fruit of a life of grace lived by faith in the Real Presence of the Great Mystery of Divine Love.
We remember today that Jesus fulfilled the 5th commandment by honoring his mother with the Assumption and the Coronation. We also remember how the Assumption and the Coronation model for each of us the glory of a life that embraced both joy and sorrow by faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, hagios theotokos, pray for us to make a real choice to live by grace through faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
“He has filled the hungry with good things.”
Grace is the gift of God. The gift of God is the abundance of God.
At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel greeted Mary with the words: Hail Mary, full of grace.
Gabriel did not come to fill Mary with grace. God had already filled her with grace. The abundance of grace is the Real Presence of God.
Most people most of the time reject the abundance of grace in the Real Presence of God. The evidence of this statement is recorded in scripture, history and personal experience. Most people most of the time make choices that reveal to others and to ourselves that we do not value the Real Presence of God. What we do not value we do not choose.
The most obvious evidence to support this statement is the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath Day, the seventh day, is the Day of Real Presence. Moses writes that God designed time itself to reflect the seventh day. It is the time when the timeless touches time. It is the day when the infinite and the universal is available to the limited and the particular. Moses and the prophets also record their observations that most people most of the time reject the gift of the Sabbath.
That gift is God’s promise to be with us and to bless us with the abundance of grace.
Separation from God is subject to the law of diminishing return. The more you get the less you enjoy but the more you want. The soul disintegrates into stagnation through the pursuit of separation. The soul also seeks greater and greater external stimulation to mask the pain of separation.
Grace is just the opposite of separation. Grace is immersion in divine abundance. The more grace you get the more you enjoy grace and the more you are able to expand and transform into grace.
Mary grew in grace. She grew in grace in the threefold manifestation of love: love of God through worship, love of others through acts of compassion, love of the unique image of God imprinted on her soul through Bible study, prayer, and the surrender of self will to divine will.
Unlike so many people in the long history of Israel who said “no” to God, Mary said “yes”. Mary grew up in a time of religious controversy and conflict. People argued over religious belief and practice. Mary lived a life of grace. She focused on worship, service and personal transformation of her mind, heart and will.
Mary asked honest questions to seek knowledge, understanding and wisdom. When the archangel told her she would be the mother of God’s Son she asked the very logical question: how can this be?
God invites our questions. Mary asked a question in order to hear the answer.
After Mary received the answer to her question she declared: I am the Lord’s servant. She did not presume to change the message of God. She did not debate the angel. She did not claim any special position or privilege. She expressed her moment of grace in the joy of grace by acknowledging the reality of grace: I am the Lord’s servant.
Mary knew that if you name God, Lord, than you are not Lord. You are not in control. You do not make the rules or establish the plan. God does that.\
As the Lord’s servant Mary declared: may God’s will be done. Surrender to God’s will is not the same as submission. Submission to divine will always asserts the hidden bargain: I will do what you want so that you are obligated to give me what I want.
Surrender is the total immersion of the will in the love of God. Surrender is not resignation to overwhelming and incomprehensible power. Surrender is the embrace of the Great Mystery of Divine love by faith. Surrender says: I fully accept your plan and your purpose and I delight in your Real Presence. The framework of power, of command and control, is simply absent from a soul that surrenders to the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Mary’s next choice was to share her joy with her cousin Elizabeth. Grace increases as we share it with others. Mary and Elizabeth experienced an infilling of the Holy Spirit as they met and shared another moment of grace.
This moment brings forth the second portion of the Hail Mary prayer as Elizabeth declares to her cousin Mary: blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”
Elizabeth’s joy echoes in the immaculate heart of Mary to produce the song of worship we know as the Magnificat.
The Magnificat is based on Hannah’s song from the book of 1 Samuel. It reminds us that Mary read scripture, studied scripture and memorized scripture. A soul that is touched by grace discovers a desire to read the Bible.
As we choose to respond to the desire to read the Bible God infuses more grace into our soul. We move from a desire to read the Bible to a passion to study the Bible.
The next step of grace is the real choice to memorize the Bible. Mary embodies this pattern of grace and demonstrates the pattern in the Magnificat.
Grace is like a small seed, a mustard seed. It begins small and understated- almost unnoticed. The seed of grace is nourished in our souls by the real choice we make to meet God at the time and place God has announced he will meet us. That time and place is the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence.
In the life of Mary we see how grace balances and transforms the duality of human experience: the joys and the sorrow, the life and the death.
There is no evidence that Mary participated in the religious debates of her time and culture. There is every evidence in her song of joy, the Magnificat, that she accepted grace to grow in faith. Faith is about a relationship. Mary had the most intimate relationship with God any human being has ever experienced. By grace through faith she embraced the will of God and became the Holy Mother of God incarnate.
The way of grace is active, dynamic and transforming. As her son was dying a terrible death on the cross, he asked Mary to take the next step in grace. He asked her to complete the apostle John’s spiritual formation. Despite her grief and her anguish Mary once again experienced the events in her life as a moment of grace. This time, she heard the word of God from her only son who is the Word of God.
She accepted this call by grace through faith in the center of the Great Mystery of God: the infinite and eternal love of God.
The example of Mary, and the experience of Mary, is that life on this planet here and now is formed by joy and sorrow. The way of grace that God offered Mary is the way of grace God offers all people. It is the way of grace that invites us into a life of faith. The life of faith is the immersion of the mind, heart, will and soul in the steadfast holy love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Mary’s life is a life of choice. The culmination of all of the small and big choices Mary made is the Assumption. Mary had chosen to open her heart to grace at every moment in her life, in the joys and in the sorrows, in the pleasures and in the pain, in her life and in her death. At the moment of her death, Jesus brought her body directly to heaven and gave her the gift of immediate resurrection. Then, he crowned her Queen of Israel, Queen of Earth, and Queen of Heaven.
The Assumption of Mary at her death, and the Coronation of Mary in Heaven, is not a reward for submission to Law, religion or belief. It is the fruit of a life of grace lived by faith in the Real Presence of the Great Mystery of Divine Love.
We remember today that Jesus fulfilled the 5th commandment by honoring his mother with the Assumption and the Coronation. We also remember how the Assumption and the Coronation model for each of us the glory of a life that embraced both joy and sorrow by faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, hagios theotokos, pray for us to make a real choice to live by grace through faith in the Real Presence of Divine Love.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Pentecost 11
Pentecost 11 (John 6:35, 41-51) I am the living bread that came down from Heaven.
Life is not the same as existence.
All living things also exist. Not all things that exist have life. Sadly, the human species made an original choice to separate from life when we chose and continue to choose to separate from God.
Life is a series of interdependent relationships.
The primary life giving relationship is with God. Relationship is not the same thing as religion. People in Jesus day were very religious. They also were filled with fear. They feared the government. They feared foreigners. They feared each other. They feared that somehow God was so pure, so holy, so transcendent that they were unworthy to receive God’s blessings. They feared that God would punish them if they did the wrong thing or believed the wrong set of statements. They missed the clear and unambiguous teaching of Moses and the Prophets that God is love.
In that Divine Love, God revealed to Moses and the Prophets that God is personal. He is like a father to his children in his concern for their well-being. He is like a husband to his wife in his passionate delight.
Fear based religion produces a God of inflexible law. If you obey this law then God is obligated by the law to reward you with what you want when you want it. If you disobey the law then God is obligated by the law to punish you with sickness, poverty and failure. The God of inflexible uncompromising rigid law is the God of indulgence for the rich and powerful. He is also the God of wrath for the majority of the people who lack wealth and power.
Moses and the prophets observed this aspect of religion. They recorded their observations and formulated a theory about why people choose to invent a religion of fear to support a God of self-indulgence for the wealthy and a God of wrath for the working poor. The theory is separation, also known as “original sin.”
Original sin is the choice our species made to separate from God. In that separation, human beings lost the awareness of God as real, personal, and loving. In that separation, human beings lost compassion, concern and kindness for each other. In that separation human beings lost our true identity in love and holiness. We created and continue to create a false identity in fear, self-will and pride.
Jesus came into the world to demonstrate the fundamental truth that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
In a series of “I am” statements that invoke the very Name of God (I am), Jesus reveals that He has come to find the lost, reunite the separated, and restore life to a species lost in the stark isolation of existence.
It is important to hear the words of Jesus in the context of the observations of Moses and the Prophets. It is Moses and the prophets who help us to understand the pain of existence. That pain creates enormous distortion in our personalities, in the institutions we form and in the religion we create.
That pain of original separation produces the illusion that we can create God in our own image. And, that pain so corrupts and erodes the gift of life God has given to us that we no longer delight in life but endure existence.
Jesus came to restore life to a people lost in mere existence. His life is the delight of the infinite and eternal God in the people He created to be his forever friends. Fear based religion holds the soul in a spiritual stagnation that exists apart from life.
Jesus just doesn’t teach about life. He is life. He is the source of life that is active, dynamic, rational, passionate, spontaneous and creative. He is the life of kindness and compassion to others. He is the life of prayer and worship before our Heavenly Father. He is the life of renewal in the truth of steadfast holy love.
People liked the miracles Jesus performed. They appreciated the healings. They valued the banquets. Sadly, they still attempted to place those miracles into a religious context of self-indulgence and wrath. Tragically, they chose to remain lost in existence, lost in fear. That fear morphed into pride and despair.
Those who through fear chose the path of pride killed Jesus. Those who through fear chose the path of despair abandoned Jesus. It is important to recognize that at the end of his life only four people remained loyal to Jesus. His mother, with her two companions, remained loyal from the place of maternal love. A teen named John remained loyal from the place of fraternal love.
Love overcomes fear. It is the love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ that restores life to mere existence. No law can do this. No religion can do this. Only Jesus can do this. He does this by offering himself to us as our forever friend.
Where are you lost in mere existence? How do you perceive God in the terms of self-indulgence or wrath? Where is your religion rigid, inflexible and uncompromising? Where do you react to God, other people, your own imperfections from the place of fear?
That is exactly where Jesus wants to meet you. That is precisely why God sent His only begotten Beloved Son into the world. In Jesus, God is offering new life to all people everywhere without condition. There is nothing you need to do before you receive the gift of Divine Love in Jesus Christ.
How do you receive that gift? Faith. Faith is the pledge of loyalty we see in the examples of Holy Mother Mary and the beloved apostle John at the foot of the cross. The outward and visible sign of faith is baptism.
What is the result of faith? It is a new life. Jesus gives us life to rescue us from the pain of mere existence. In that new life Jesus enters into a forever friendship with us. He helps us grow into a new way of living.
The essentials of that new way of living derive from the three principles of love Jesus taught and lived. Those three principles of love are worship, service to others, personal transformation. That is the life Jesus brings us.
People sometimes use the phrase “get a life”. Jesus agrees with this statement. He not only agrees that we should get a life he says: here, take mine. My life is the infinite and eternal love of God manifesting moment by moment, choice by choice in the here and now of this world. The new life is the forever friendship God offers us in Jesus Christ.
Life is not the same as existence.
All living things also exist. Not all things that exist have life. Sadly, the human species made an original choice to separate from life when we chose and continue to choose to separate from God.
Life is a series of interdependent relationships.
The primary life giving relationship is with God. Relationship is not the same thing as religion. People in Jesus day were very religious. They also were filled with fear. They feared the government. They feared foreigners. They feared each other. They feared that somehow God was so pure, so holy, so transcendent that they were unworthy to receive God’s blessings. They feared that God would punish them if they did the wrong thing or believed the wrong set of statements. They missed the clear and unambiguous teaching of Moses and the Prophets that God is love.
In that Divine Love, God revealed to Moses and the Prophets that God is personal. He is like a father to his children in his concern for their well-being. He is like a husband to his wife in his passionate delight.
Fear based religion produces a God of inflexible law. If you obey this law then God is obligated by the law to reward you with what you want when you want it. If you disobey the law then God is obligated by the law to punish you with sickness, poverty and failure. The God of inflexible uncompromising rigid law is the God of indulgence for the rich and powerful. He is also the God of wrath for the majority of the people who lack wealth and power.
Moses and the prophets observed this aspect of religion. They recorded their observations and formulated a theory about why people choose to invent a religion of fear to support a God of self-indulgence for the wealthy and a God of wrath for the working poor. The theory is separation, also known as “original sin.”
Original sin is the choice our species made to separate from God. In that separation, human beings lost the awareness of God as real, personal, and loving. In that separation, human beings lost compassion, concern and kindness for each other. In that separation human beings lost our true identity in love and holiness. We created and continue to create a false identity in fear, self-will and pride.
Jesus came into the world to demonstrate the fundamental truth that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.
In a series of “I am” statements that invoke the very Name of God (I am), Jesus reveals that He has come to find the lost, reunite the separated, and restore life to a species lost in the stark isolation of existence.
It is important to hear the words of Jesus in the context of the observations of Moses and the Prophets. It is Moses and the prophets who help us to understand the pain of existence. That pain creates enormous distortion in our personalities, in the institutions we form and in the religion we create.
That pain of original separation produces the illusion that we can create God in our own image. And, that pain so corrupts and erodes the gift of life God has given to us that we no longer delight in life but endure existence.
Jesus came to restore life to a people lost in mere existence. His life is the delight of the infinite and eternal God in the people He created to be his forever friends. Fear based religion holds the soul in a spiritual stagnation that exists apart from life.
Jesus just doesn’t teach about life. He is life. He is the source of life that is active, dynamic, rational, passionate, spontaneous and creative. He is the life of kindness and compassion to others. He is the life of prayer and worship before our Heavenly Father. He is the life of renewal in the truth of steadfast holy love.
People liked the miracles Jesus performed. They appreciated the healings. They valued the banquets. Sadly, they still attempted to place those miracles into a religious context of self-indulgence and wrath. Tragically, they chose to remain lost in existence, lost in fear. That fear morphed into pride and despair.
Those who through fear chose the path of pride killed Jesus. Those who through fear chose the path of despair abandoned Jesus. It is important to recognize that at the end of his life only four people remained loyal to Jesus. His mother, with her two companions, remained loyal from the place of maternal love. A teen named John remained loyal from the place of fraternal love.
Love overcomes fear. It is the love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ that restores life to mere existence. No law can do this. No religion can do this. Only Jesus can do this. He does this by offering himself to us as our forever friend.
Where are you lost in mere existence? How do you perceive God in the terms of self-indulgence or wrath? Where is your religion rigid, inflexible and uncompromising? Where do you react to God, other people, your own imperfections from the place of fear?
That is exactly where Jesus wants to meet you. That is precisely why God sent His only begotten Beloved Son into the world. In Jesus, God is offering new life to all people everywhere without condition. There is nothing you need to do before you receive the gift of Divine Love in Jesus Christ.
How do you receive that gift? Faith. Faith is the pledge of loyalty we see in the examples of Holy Mother Mary and the beloved apostle John at the foot of the cross. The outward and visible sign of faith is baptism.
What is the result of faith? It is a new life. Jesus gives us life to rescue us from the pain of mere existence. In that new life Jesus enters into a forever friendship with us. He helps us grow into a new way of living.
The essentials of that new way of living derive from the three principles of love Jesus taught and lived. Those three principles of love are worship, service to others, personal transformation. That is the life Jesus brings us.
People sometimes use the phrase “get a life”. Jesus agrees with this statement. He not only agrees that we should get a life he says: here, take mine. My life is the infinite and eternal love of God manifesting moment by moment, choice by choice in the here and now of this world. The new life is the forever friendship God offers us in Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Pentecost 10
Pentecost 10 (John 6:24-35) I am the bread of life
Jesus is life.
Jesus is the source of life for all organisms on this planet. There would be no life on Earth without the source of life in Jesus Christ. We become more of whom our Heavenly Father created us to be as we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The life of Jesus is eternal.
As St. Athanasius asserted: there never was a time when the Son was not.
In the divine realm, our Heavenly Father has always and is always expressing His infinite love by eternally expressing that love in the Son. The Father and Son share that eternal love in the person of the Holy Spirit. The three persons of God are the three persons of love: the one who loves, the Beloved, and the Love that forms their essential being as one God.
Life is love.
Any mode of existence apart from steadfast holy unconditional love is a distortion of life and a disintegration of life.
When our species chose to separate from God in an effort to acquire supreme knowledge and unlimited power, we abandoned love as the central organizing principle of our existence. As we abandoned love so we abandoned life.
We exist in a world of cause and effect, of gravity and entropy, subject to the laws of matter, energy, time and space. We suffer physical death because we suffer spiritual death. Human beings die because our species chose to separate from the very source of life.
Jesus came to Earth to restore us as a species and as individuals to the source of life.
It is important to understand that sin is a consequence of separation. Death is not a punishment for sin. Death is a very real organic and spiritual reality. It is a terrible tragedy. Our Heavenly Father is so concerned about our species that He allowed His co-eternal Beloved Son to come to earth, become a particular human being and suffer a cruel death.
Jesus trapped death by accepting death. As the very source of life Jesus transformed death back into life by the power of infinite and eternal love.
People sought out Jesus to solve all manner of problems. Death was not one of them. The problems people identified are in fact the symptoms of the real problem confronting our species. That real problem is separation from God, from other people, from the truth of who God created us to be, and from the very source of life.
Jesus is the bread of life. He is the nourishment that strengthens the soul to enter into a new way of living. The way of living Jesus offers is eternal.
Every choice we make has an eternal consequence. In Jesus those choices and find transformation in the real presence of eternal love.
We can only overcome the consequences of separation- sin and death- as we allow the Holy Spirit to infuse the Divine Life of the co-eternal Beloved Son into our daily existence.
It is not enough to hold up the Ten Commandments and say: do this. A soul in separation has no desire to keep the Law. The desire comes only as the soul hears the Word of God, believes the Word of God and receives the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God.
The Bible teaches us about Jesus but the Bible is not Jesus. The sacraments infuse divine grace and divine life into our souls but the sacraments are not magic. The Bible and the sacraments are the instruments of reunification and transformation. The reality is Jesus.
That is why Jesus teaches that the work of God is the choice to place your faith and hope and love in the Personal Reality of God. The Personal Reality of God is Jesus Christ.
All souls hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose. Our Heavenly Father designed us to find that meaning and purpose in the co-eternal Son. Nothing less than the Son, nothing of the material universe, can meet that need and fulfill that desire.
We may enjoy a good meal. But we will grow hungry again.
We can delight in a friendship or a romance but we will thirst for something more or something different.
Even the legitimate pleasures of the material world are subject to the law of diminishing return.
Only Jesus can fully and eternally satisfy our hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose. Only Jesus can overcome death. Only Jesus can transform our distorted desires that result in sin.
Only Jesus can say: I am the bread, the source, of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger for meaning and purpose.; whoever believes in me will never thirst for life and for love.
Jesus is life.
Jesus is the source of life for all organisms on this planet. There would be no life on Earth without the source of life in Jesus Christ. We become more of whom our Heavenly Father created us to be as we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The life of Jesus is eternal.
As St. Athanasius asserted: there never was a time when the Son was not.
In the divine realm, our Heavenly Father has always and is always expressing His infinite love by eternally expressing that love in the Son. The Father and Son share that eternal love in the person of the Holy Spirit. The three persons of God are the three persons of love: the one who loves, the Beloved, and the Love that forms their essential being as one God.
Life is love.
Any mode of existence apart from steadfast holy unconditional love is a distortion of life and a disintegration of life.
When our species chose to separate from God in an effort to acquire supreme knowledge and unlimited power, we abandoned love as the central organizing principle of our existence. As we abandoned love so we abandoned life.
We exist in a world of cause and effect, of gravity and entropy, subject to the laws of matter, energy, time and space. We suffer physical death because we suffer spiritual death. Human beings die because our species chose to separate from the very source of life.
Jesus came to Earth to restore us as a species and as individuals to the source of life.
It is important to understand that sin is a consequence of separation. Death is not a punishment for sin. Death is a very real organic and spiritual reality. It is a terrible tragedy. Our Heavenly Father is so concerned about our species that He allowed His co-eternal Beloved Son to come to earth, become a particular human being and suffer a cruel death.
Jesus trapped death by accepting death. As the very source of life Jesus transformed death back into life by the power of infinite and eternal love.
People sought out Jesus to solve all manner of problems. Death was not one of them. The problems people identified are in fact the symptoms of the real problem confronting our species. That real problem is separation from God, from other people, from the truth of who God created us to be, and from the very source of life.
Jesus is the bread of life. He is the nourishment that strengthens the soul to enter into a new way of living. The way of living Jesus offers is eternal.
Every choice we make has an eternal consequence. In Jesus those choices and find transformation in the real presence of eternal love.
We can only overcome the consequences of separation- sin and death- as we allow the Holy Spirit to infuse the Divine Life of the co-eternal Beloved Son into our daily existence.
It is not enough to hold up the Ten Commandments and say: do this. A soul in separation has no desire to keep the Law. The desire comes only as the soul hears the Word of God, believes the Word of God and receives the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God.
The Bible teaches us about Jesus but the Bible is not Jesus. The sacraments infuse divine grace and divine life into our souls but the sacraments are not magic. The Bible and the sacraments are the instruments of reunification and transformation. The reality is Jesus.
That is why Jesus teaches that the work of God is the choice to place your faith and hope and love in the Personal Reality of God. The Personal Reality of God is Jesus Christ.
All souls hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose. Our Heavenly Father designed us to find that meaning and purpose in the co-eternal Son. Nothing less than the Son, nothing of the material universe, can meet that need and fulfill that desire.
We may enjoy a good meal. But we will grow hungry again.
We can delight in a friendship or a romance but we will thirst for something more or something different.
Even the legitimate pleasures of the material world are subject to the law of diminishing return.
Only Jesus can fully and eternally satisfy our hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose. Only Jesus can overcome death. Only Jesus can transform our distorted desires that result in sin.
Only Jesus can say: I am the bread, the source, of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger for meaning and purpose.; whoever believes in me will never thirst for life and for love.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Pentecost 9
Pentecost 9 (John 6:1-21) “Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”
Wisdom begins with a question.
Almost any question will do. Honest questions are best. Holy Mother Mary asked an honest question of the archangel Gabriel when she said: how can this be?
Dishonest questions can work. The religious and political leaders of Jesus day frequently asked these kinds of questions. We call them today: “gothca!’ questions. These questions aren’t designed to seek knowledge, let alone understanding or wisdom. They proceed from pride. Jesus was superb in the way he used these prideful dishonest “gtocha!” questions to help people see beyond their rigid inflexible ideologies.
Jesus sometimes used leading questions. A leading question is an invitation to enter into a process. It is a process of discovery that leads to knowledge, understanding, wisdom. It is a process that takes place in the context of a personal relationship.
Jesus is the universal savior of humanity. His questions facilitate our heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation. This is no mere academic exercise. It is a dialog within the context of a personal relationship- a friendship. In that dialog God the Holy Spirit manifests the wisdom that leads to salvation.
The physical context for this question about food is a mountain. Jesus had gone outside the city and into the wilderness. There were no villages or farms. There were no inns or trading posts. The mountain was isolated. It was a great place for a mass meeting. It was an impossible place to spend any time. It lacked the basic necessities of life: food, water, shelter.
The religious context for the question about food is the Passover. On the Passover, the people remembered the great and terrifying events of the Exodus: the angel of Death, the meal eaten in haste, the hurried departure from the cities and abundance of Egypt into the stark desolation of the desert.
The Passover tells the story of God’s deliverance, of God’s salvation.
The spiritual context for the question about food is desperation. The people who followed Jesus into the wilderness were lost in desperation. Their need for healing at every level was profound and unmet. They lived in a society where the wealthy feasted and everyone else hoped for a few crumbs that fell from their table.
The people were lost in separation from God, other people and their true identity. They lived with fear, anxiety, anger and at times hate. What attracted them to Jesus was not just that he could heal. It was not just that his success rate was 100%. It was that Jesus healed everyone who came to him. And, he healed for free.
As a healer Jesus was unique in every imaginable way.
The people flocked to him. He healed them.
In this passage we see how the people acted impulsively by following Jesus into the wilderness. They did not think about the consequences of their actions. They reacted from a place of profound need and desperation. After all, no one else was willing to help them.
Jesus saw the problem and responded with compassion. He also used the moment to teach his disciples. He asked a very logical and practical question: Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”
Philip addressed the financial part of the question. We can’t afford to buy bread. We lack the money.
Andrew addressed the supply side of the question. He found a boy who had the presence of mind to bring a lunch of five barley loves and two fish. It was the lunch of the working poor. It reflected scarcity and seemed an object lesson to Andrew about the lack of resources available to them.
Lack of money. Lack of resources. A hungry, lost and anxious crowd. A desperate situation. Into that place of scarcity Jesus brought Divine abundance.
In an understated manner filled with humility and love, Jesus very gently took the boy’s lunch, offered it to His Heavenly Father, gave thanks to the Father for the abundance of creation and with those five barley loaves and two fish fed five thousand people. At the end of the meal there was more left over than at the start.
The scarcity in the world is not in resources. Our Heavenly Father created a world of abundance. The scarcity in the world is love. As the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father Jesus restores love to a species that has abandoned love and distorted love.
Jesus clearly performed a miracle that day. Everyone recognized the reality of the miracle. They attributed the miracle to power. They insisted Jesus use this power in the political realm of command control. They attempted to force Jesus to become the new king of Israel.
This is not the Plan of Salvation. Jesus performed miracles from the place of humility, thanksgiving and love. In humility Jesus’ constant prayer was: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done. In thanksgiving Jesus delighted in the abundance of the Creation. In love and indeed as love Jesus always sought the highest good for all people.
Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand from the place of steadfast, holy and unconditional love. Where everyone saw only scarcity he saw abundance and proclaimed abundance. He shared that abundance with everyone. He made no distinction based on class, ethnicity, gender, age or religious belief. As the unconditional love of God in human flesh Jesus fed everyone.
There are a billion people in the world starving to death. There are billions more who may have food today but are uncertain whether they will have food tomorrow. There are people in our community who live in fear with the reality of scarcity.
The problem of starvation, hunger and deprivation is not a lack of resources. It is a lack of love. The resources are abundant. The will to use those resources to fulfill the invitation our Heavenly Father offers to us in Jesus is what is missing.
The solution is to hear the question Jesus asks. Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”
The question is an invitation to ask other questions. Why are a billion people starving to death? Why are so many people in our own community living with fear, anxiety and confusion? What is wrong? What is the solution?
Moses and the prophets answer both questions. The problem is the choice our species made and continues to make to separate from God. The problem is rigid inflexible uncompromising ideology that not only fails to see the forest for the trees but can only see the cash value of the trees. The problem is the pride of individual self-will and exclusive self-interest.
The solution is Jesus. Jesus is the co-eternal Word of God. Jesus is the Beloved Son of the Father. Jesus is the forever friend who is encouraging us to enter into the abundance of reunification with God. Jesus is the solution who offers to transform each of us to be the abundance of God for our families, friends and neighbors.
The solution starts with a question. Bring your questions to Jesus. Allow Jesus to ask his questions of you.
A billion people are starving. Billions more are on the thin edge of hunger. Many in our own community cannot afford to feed themselves or their children. Jesus asks us as he asked his disciples so long ago: Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”
Wisdom begins with a question.
Almost any question will do. Honest questions are best. Holy Mother Mary asked an honest question of the archangel Gabriel when she said: how can this be?
Dishonest questions can work. The religious and political leaders of Jesus day frequently asked these kinds of questions. We call them today: “gothca!’ questions. These questions aren’t designed to seek knowledge, let alone understanding or wisdom. They proceed from pride. Jesus was superb in the way he used these prideful dishonest “gtocha!” questions to help people see beyond their rigid inflexible ideologies.
Jesus sometimes used leading questions. A leading question is an invitation to enter into a process. It is a process of discovery that leads to knowledge, understanding, wisdom. It is a process that takes place in the context of a personal relationship.
Jesus is the universal savior of humanity. His questions facilitate our heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation. This is no mere academic exercise. It is a dialog within the context of a personal relationship- a friendship. In that dialog God the Holy Spirit manifests the wisdom that leads to salvation.
The physical context for this question about food is a mountain. Jesus had gone outside the city and into the wilderness. There were no villages or farms. There were no inns or trading posts. The mountain was isolated. It was a great place for a mass meeting. It was an impossible place to spend any time. It lacked the basic necessities of life: food, water, shelter.
The religious context for the question about food is the Passover. On the Passover, the people remembered the great and terrifying events of the Exodus: the angel of Death, the meal eaten in haste, the hurried departure from the cities and abundance of Egypt into the stark desolation of the desert.
The Passover tells the story of God’s deliverance, of God’s salvation.
The spiritual context for the question about food is desperation. The people who followed Jesus into the wilderness were lost in desperation. Their need for healing at every level was profound and unmet. They lived in a society where the wealthy feasted and everyone else hoped for a few crumbs that fell from their table.
The people were lost in separation from God, other people and their true identity. They lived with fear, anxiety, anger and at times hate. What attracted them to Jesus was not just that he could heal. It was not just that his success rate was 100%. It was that Jesus healed everyone who came to him. And, he healed for free.
As a healer Jesus was unique in every imaginable way.
The people flocked to him. He healed them.
In this passage we see how the people acted impulsively by following Jesus into the wilderness. They did not think about the consequences of their actions. They reacted from a place of profound need and desperation. After all, no one else was willing to help them.
Jesus saw the problem and responded with compassion. He also used the moment to teach his disciples. He asked a very logical and practical question: Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”
Philip addressed the financial part of the question. We can’t afford to buy bread. We lack the money.
Andrew addressed the supply side of the question. He found a boy who had the presence of mind to bring a lunch of five barley loves and two fish. It was the lunch of the working poor. It reflected scarcity and seemed an object lesson to Andrew about the lack of resources available to them.
Lack of money. Lack of resources. A hungry, lost and anxious crowd. A desperate situation. Into that place of scarcity Jesus brought Divine abundance.
In an understated manner filled with humility and love, Jesus very gently took the boy’s lunch, offered it to His Heavenly Father, gave thanks to the Father for the abundance of creation and with those five barley loaves and two fish fed five thousand people. At the end of the meal there was more left over than at the start.
The scarcity in the world is not in resources. Our Heavenly Father created a world of abundance. The scarcity in the world is love. As the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father Jesus restores love to a species that has abandoned love and distorted love.
Jesus clearly performed a miracle that day. Everyone recognized the reality of the miracle. They attributed the miracle to power. They insisted Jesus use this power in the political realm of command control. They attempted to force Jesus to become the new king of Israel.
This is not the Plan of Salvation. Jesus performed miracles from the place of humility, thanksgiving and love. In humility Jesus’ constant prayer was: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done. In thanksgiving Jesus delighted in the abundance of the Creation. In love and indeed as love Jesus always sought the highest good for all people.
Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand from the place of steadfast, holy and unconditional love. Where everyone saw only scarcity he saw abundance and proclaimed abundance. He shared that abundance with everyone. He made no distinction based on class, ethnicity, gender, age or religious belief. As the unconditional love of God in human flesh Jesus fed everyone.
There are a billion people in the world starving to death. There are billions more who may have food today but are uncertain whether they will have food tomorrow. There are people in our community who live in fear with the reality of scarcity.
The problem of starvation, hunger and deprivation is not a lack of resources. It is a lack of love. The resources are abundant. The will to use those resources to fulfill the invitation our Heavenly Father offers to us in Jesus is what is missing.
The solution is to hear the question Jesus asks. Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”
The question is an invitation to ask other questions. Why are a billion people starving to death? Why are so many people in our own community living with fear, anxiety and confusion? What is wrong? What is the solution?
Moses and the prophets answer both questions. The problem is the choice our species made and continues to make to separate from God. The problem is rigid inflexible uncompromising ideology that not only fails to see the forest for the trees but can only see the cash value of the trees. The problem is the pride of individual self-will and exclusive self-interest.
The solution is Jesus. Jesus is the co-eternal Word of God. Jesus is the Beloved Son of the Father. Jesus is the forever friend who is encouraging us to enter into the abundance of reunification with God. Jesus is the solution who offers to transform each of us to be the abundance of God for our families, friends and neighbors.
The solution starts with a question. Bring your questions to Jesus. Allow Jesus to ask his questions of you.
A billion people are starving. Billions more are on the thin edge of hunger. Many in our own community cannot afford to feed themselves or their children. Jesus asks us as he asked his disciples so long ago: Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”
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