Michaelmas 2012

Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. (John 1:51)

People are sometimes surprised to discover that the Bible says very little about Heaven and even less about angels.

God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit into human history to invite a select group of individuals to record their observations about the human condition. In that context, God the Holy Spirit helped those individuals discern the fundamental problem confronting humanity and the solution God the Father provides humanity.

The subject of the Bible is neither heaven nor angels. It is not even God. It is humanity. The Bible reveals God’s perspective on humanity through the experience and observation of people God chose to work with and to walk with.

The Bible only speaks of angels in the context of human experience. Angels are messengers whom God sends into our world to accomplish a very specific task. Angles come, fulfill their mission, then leave.

God certainly does not need angels to accomplish his task. He chooses to invite angels to participate in his plan of salvation for humanity.

The angels remind us that as vast as this universe is, there is an even greater reality called Heaven beyond this universe of matter, energy, time and space. Angels also remind us that there is an even more magnificent reality beyond Heaven.

It is important to clarify what the Bible says and does not say about angels.

God created angels before he created the material universe. As God created the angels before he created time and space, so God created Heaven to be the home of the angels. Angels are a separate order of creation from humans. Despite what you may have seen in the movies, human beings do not become angels. And, Heaven is not the true home of our species.

Students of the Bible discern nine distinct orders of angels: Seraphim Cherubim, Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Virtues, Archangels and Angels. St. Paul references three Heavenly Realms. Theologians speculate that each of these realms is further divided into three provinces- a separate province for each of the nine orders of angelic beings. Each realm is vaster and more complex than our universe. And each realm is organized in a hierarchy of increasing complexity, beauty and grace.

The Bible is clear that God created the angelic beings by love, through love and for love. The infinite and eternal love of God manifests the divine essence in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the superabundance of that infinite and eternal Triune Love, God created the multitude of angels and placed them in the nine realms of Heaven.

The number of angels is finite but innumerable. They each hold the image of divine love and the likeness of divine holiness in a unique fashion. As inhabitants of the heavenly realms they immerse themselves in divine love through the beauty of holiness in worship. Angels are agents of love. Angels proclaim the call to worship.

Angels remind us by their very nature that worship is the highest form of love. The account of Lucifer’s rebellion against God and war against the loyal angels is an account of the distortion of worship.

Lucifer was the brightest of the highest class of angels, the Seraph Class. He came to believe that all other angels were inferior to him and unworthy to worship God, to share God’s love. He told them: since I am like God in my intelligence and beauty you then must worship me. I will take your imperfect worship and purify it within my perfection and then I will offer it to God.

This example of how the Seraph Lucifer came to reject God’s love is the story of Original Choice. It reminds us that Lucifer came to view worship as an expression of perfect knowledge and supreme power. Lucifer took his eyes off God, compared himself to other angles, and then chose to exalt himself through the pride of self will. He used his pride to seduce one third of the angels to separate from God and worship him.

In the story of Lucifer’s choice to separate from God we see the pattern of separation, sin and death that has ensnared our species and each of us.

As Lucifer proclaimed “I am like God” the smallest and weakest of all the angels proclaimed “who is like God?” In Hebrew this question is a word: Mi Cha El – Michael. Michael’s name is the angelic affirmation that God alone is God. God alone is the source of life and light and worship.

The Bible records that these two competing views of worship resulted in a terrible war in the Heavenly realms. Much to his surprise, Lucifer could not impose his will on Michael. Lucifer and his followers fought Michael and the loyal angels. Lucifer lost that war and in losing the war lost his place in Heaven.

Michael cast Lucifer into our universe of matter, energy, time and space. Lucifer pulled his followers with him. In our universe, Lucifer is known as Satan (the Adversary) and his angelic followers are demons. Demons are the burnt out remnants of the rebel angels. They are diminished spirits defined by fear and by spite.

Satan still defines himself through pride and self-will. He has lost most of his intelligence, beauty and power. He still attempts to deceive and seduce all beings who have been created for love. He does this by inspiring fear to corrupt and distort the very reason and purpose of our existence. That reason and purpose is the threefold love of the Triune God.

Satan seeks to subvert and destroy worship, to substitute conflict for compassion and to hinder our personal growth in holiness. He cannot impose his will on anyone. He can design philosophies, religions and ideologies to separate us from God and from each other.

Forget the grotesque images of Satan and the demons portrayed in art and in film. On the rare occasion demons appear to human beings they manifest as that which we most desire. They do this because they can only affect human beings through deceit. The Bible warns us that Satan can appear as an angel of light to seduce us into greater separation from God.

St. Paul teaches us to test the spirits by comparing what they tell us to what is written in the Bible. St. John teaches that any angelic being who does not acknowledge the Incarnation of the co-eternal Son of God in Jesus Christ is not from God.

On the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, the Church reminds us that we as human beings have been created for worship, service and holiness. The reality of Satan is the reality of a personal force of evil, of separation, that intentionally seeks to corrupt virtue and trivialize worship.

Satan hates what God loves. He lost his war against Michael. He has declared war on humanity. He believes he can win his war against humanity by deceit. He appeals to human pride and self-will to separate from God by redefining worship as an expression of superior religious knowledge or political power.

Satan flatters the prideful. He seduces the unwary. And, he attempts to intimidate the faithful through fear.

Our Heavenly Father has given the archangel Michael and the loyal angels two important tasks in the Plan of Salvation for humanity. The first task is to defend the faithful from Satan and the demons. The second task is to encourage the faithful to observe the seventh day of worship as the Day of Real Presence.

C.S. Lewis once commented that we are surrounded by spiritual warfare. This warfare is different from the wars human beings fight. The Satanic weapons in spiritual warfare are pride, arrogance, self-will, fear, anxiety, superstition, cynicism, blasphemy and self-indulgence. These weapons keep us in a state of separation from God and each other. Left unchecked, these weapons will leave us bitter, weak and lost in pride and despair.

The loyal angels defend us with spiritual weapons such as faith, hope, joy, humility, compassion, kindness and love. We can choose to ignore and reject the protection and guidance the loyal angels offer us. We can choose to accept their protection and guidance.

The loyal angels seek to protect us from the despair of superstition as well as the arrogance of materialism. They accomplish this task by inspiring us to make wise choices. Above all else, they encourage us to come to the altar of sacrifice to immerse our minds, hearts and wills in the Real Presence of Divine Love on the Day of Worship.

Satan seeks to detach us from God by redefining the meaning and purpose of worship. Michael and the loyal angels seek to encourage us to cultivate our relationship with God by making worship our first priority.

The Biblical stories of angels are not cleverly devised myths. They are the reports and observations of people who experienced an aspect of our world that most of us ignore or reject.

Most of us will never see or hear angels or demons. All of us will experience the reality of their presence as we choose to react to the world through fear, self-will and pride, or as we choose to respond to the world through faith, hope and love.

St. Michael defeated Lucifer by the power of Divine Love and Holiness. The ministry of angels in our midst is the ministry of encouragement. We need not fear any real or imagined supernatural entity. God assures us that the angels protect us.

We need not fear the uncertainties or unpredictable aspects of life. The angels inspire us to experience the highest form of love. That highest form of love is worship. The angels are present with us at the altar of Real Presence on the Day of Real Presence as Jesus reveals Himself to us sacramentally. In the blessed sacrament of the altar, Jesus is the great bridge, the pontifex maximus, uniting heaven and earth, divinity and humanity. It is Jesus who sends the messenger and guardian angles to Earth to assist us in our earthly pilgrimage in this world.

 Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

 

 

 

Pentecost 17 (Mark 9:30-37) “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” The Kingdom of God is counter intuitive to the Kingdom of this world. I remember vividly as a college student grappling with my religious beliefs. I was particularly agitated by portions of the Bible I found barbaric, incomprehensible or simply inconvenient. I still remember thinking: this can’t be the word of God. I don’t like this portion. I don’t agree with this portion. This portion is totally primitive and unscientific. As my thoughts analyzed, dissected and criticized Moses, the Prophets and the Apostles I heard a small whisper of a thought. My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. It was, of course, a quote from the prophet Isaiah. I had never made any effort to read, study or memorize the Bible up to that point in my life. But, I am a cradle Episcopalian. I had heard the scriptures read at the liturgy all my life. Somewhere in my memory, God had stored up His word and was now bringing it to my conscious awareness. Then, somehow, I experienced a shift in perception. Suddenly, it occurred to me: if everything in the Bible agreed with my belief system as an 18 year old 20th century middle class American from Trenton, NJ, then I would be God. And if that were true, then we’d all be in trouble. The great challenge for the people in the first century who met Jesus personally was that he did not meet the expectations of their inherited beliefs. Jesus did indeed fulfill the teachings of Moses and the prophets. But, the religion of the day had so reworked and reinterpreted the Torah, the five books of Moses, and the prophets that they missed the obvious. The obvious is the principle God revealed to the prophet Isaiah: my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. The obvious is the principle God spoke verbally to Moses in the words: I am. There are several examples of this principle in the gospel reading today. These principles challenged the disciples, Jesus’ students, then. These principles challenge us today. The first principle is timing. The principle of timing is critical in reconciling what modern people identify as contradictions in the Bible. We hear how Jesus did not want the crowds to know where he was. This is not the first passage in which Jesus presents this message to us. Occasionally, Jesus would instruct someone he just healed not to tell anyone. Of course, the people would always do the opposite. Modern readers think Jesus was being passive aggressive, using reverse psychology. On other occasions Jesus instructed his followers to proclaim the prophetic message of repentance and preparation. There seems to be a contradiction when we read the accounts from our very limited cultural context. The reason is simple. God is who he is. He is real. He is personal. He is love. He is Jesus Christ. Depending on the circumstances of the situation, Jesus asked people not to proclaim his healing power and even withdrew from public life. The scriptures tell us why. He wanted to set aside time to train the future leaders of the church. He knew his time on earth was short. He knew their time on earth would be short. Jesus does not implement a rigid inflexible program. He engages with each of us personally according to the divine principles of love, compassion and holiness. Sometimes that means he asks us not to speak. Sometimes that means he asks us to proclaim boldly the Good News of God’s love. When Jesus offers teaching he expects our questions and delights in our questions. More often than not, Jesus’ students did not ask questions. They did not ask questions because of fear. A basic Biblical principle is that fear is a distortion of faith. That distortion proceeds from Pride. The disciples feared to ask questions for two basic reasons. They did not want to change their belief system. And, they thought God would punish them for asking questions. As I came to understand that God’s thoughts are not my thoughts and God’s ways are not my ways, I began to realize that belief can distort and subvert truth. Faith is personal but not individual. Faith invites us into a personal relationship and a process of transformation. If we are not careful, belief can subvert truth and take the place of fact. Sadly, people tend to confuse fact and belief as we assert the will to power to define God, other people and the world according to our own individual needs and desires. The disciples did not ask questions because what Jesus taught challenged their inherited beliefs about God, the messiah, humanity and the world. They reacted with fear. That fear paralyzed them and held them back from understanding. They were stuck in old beliefs and enslaved to old beliefs. The evidence of this is that they ignored Jesus’ teaching about our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation and focused on their own plan of salvation. That plan rejected the way of the cross and pursued the path of the sword. The disciples wanted a plan of salvation that brought them power and position through politics. And so, they argued among themselves about who would be Prime Minister and who would be Treasurer. They ignored Jesus’ invitation to grow in faith because they were stuck in the patterns of inherited belief. Those beliefs took bits and pieces of scripture and wove them into the political ideologies of the day to produce a religion of fear, self-will and pride. It was a religion of power for the righteous and a religion of bad news for everyone else. Jesus not only proclaims the Good News of universal love, He is the Good News of universal love. He uses the moment with his disciples to challenge their inherited beliefs in order to help them grow in faith. First: Jesus sets forth the principle in words. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” The disciples wanted political power. Jesus explained to them that the Kingdom of God is about compassion. It is not about the ability to impose my will on other people. It is about my surrender to Divine Will by helping meet the physical and spiritual needs of other people. Moses taught that God chose Israel to serve in the three fold action of love: worship, compassion, personal holiness. The prophets called the people to repent of the arrogance of pride and self-will that subverted that great and wonderful call. Jesus embodied the call of God and personalized the call. By his words and deeds Jesus revealed how to be the chosen of God. The disciples were not there yet. They were stuck in the belief that God had chosen their nation and them individually to rule. Jesus said: you are chosen to serve. After Jesus speaks his teaching he demonstrates it. He invites a child from the crowd to come near. Children loved Jesus. The child embraced him and Jesus held him in his arms. Then, Jesus reveals another counterintuitive principle of the Kingdom of God. Whoever welcomes one such child welcomes me. Whoever welcomes me welcomes God. Why is this counterintuitive? From time to time as I am speaking with a child or a teen an adult will interrupt the conversation to tell me something or to ask me something. This happens less frequently if I am speaking with another adult. Certainly in the ancient world adults believed children should be seen but not heard. After all, children lack experience and knowledge to offer any meaningful contribution to a discussion or a program. They are at best students whom adults are preparing to die in battle or to pay taxes. Jesus not only valued children he honored them. He respected them. Of course, as the co-eternal Son of the Eternal Father, Jesus perceives all of us as children: charming, immature and sometimes temperamental. He welcomes all of us and each of us regardless of our age. He values each of us at every age and stage of personal development. He does not look at children and see future soldiers for a cause. He sees and values children (and adults) as unique manifestations of Divine love and holiness. One important aspect of children is that they are, for the most part, teachable. They have not yet fully absorbed the biases of their culture. They have not yet learned who to fear and who to hate. That is the message Jesus communicates as he embraces a child and says: as you welcome him so you welcome me. On another occasion Jesus says: how you treat the least powerful and the least respected in your society is how you treat me. And, how you treat me reveals your belief about God. The counterintuitive principle is that compassion is more important than power. Preserving the relationship is more important than being right. Do not seek to use whatever position of authority you may have to impose your will on others. Use that position to help others. Do not lock your mind into rigid inflexible uncompromising belief systems. Allow your mind to be transformed by the scriptures through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Continue to be open to fact. Continue to be teachable. Do not confuse inherited belief with living faith. Allow God to be God. Listen. Pray. Question. Grow in grace. Practice compassion to others. Grow in personal holiness to form your soul into a living chalice of grace. Jesus said: Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.

Holy Cross Day

Holy Cross Day 2012 (John12: 31-36)
“I, if I be lifted up, will draw all people to myself.”

The great scandal of the Christian faith is the cross.

For ancient peoples, the cross was the symbol of a shameful and terrible death. The cross is execution by slow torture. It is designed to inflict maximum pain for maximum duration before the body expires. The pain of crucifixion is insidious. The victim inflicts torment on himself as he struggles to stave off suffocation by lifting himself up on the nails that pierce his wrists and ankles.

The suffering is physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual as the victim struggles to stave off death with the certain knowledge that his survival only inflicts more pain and will eventually weaken him to the point where he will collapse, suffocate and die.

The Romans used crucifixion to show the people of the Empire that anyone who challenged the authority of the State would suffer unimaginable pain. The Romans also considered crucifixion to be a demonstration to the gods of the ancient world that Rome would maintain order at all costs. Crucifixion was a threat to the people designed to inspire fear. It was also a pledge to the gods designed to insure divine support in their mutual battle against chaos.

Someone once asked me why the crucifixion of Jesus was so important. After all, the Persians, Greeks and Romans had killed tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people by crucifixion. The victims were sometimes thieves and murders and sometimes rebels guilty of treason. Why is this one man, Jesus, so special?
It is a very good question. Jesus addresses the question in the scripture today. Of all the thousands of people who died the horrible death of crucifixion in the ancient world we remember the name of only one: Jesus.

Jesus knew that his death on the cross would draw the attention of the entire human species. He also knew that his death would draw all people to him to make a real choice to receive the gift his heavenly Father offers to the human race through him.
The gift of God in Jesus Christ is reunification with God.

The accusation that led the religious court to condemn Jesus was blasphemy. As in many parts of the world today, blasphemy was a capital offense. People believed that if you insulted the realm of the Divine that realm would bring wrath to the entire community. The only way to avoid divine wrath was to execute the blasphemer.

As today so then, blasphemy was a convenient way to eliminate someone you didn’t like. It is virtually impossible to prove you did not commit blasphemy when someone is willing to perjure themselves in court. The accusation against Jesus was that he claimed to be God. The witnesses against Jesus contradicted themselves in their testimony but the contradictions were meaningless to the religious court. They had already decided to condemn Jesus. The facts of the case were irrelevant.

Of course, Jesus did indeed claim to be God. The apostle John records Jesus’ claim in a series of “I am” statements. God the Father spoke audibly on two occasions to affirm the truth of Jesus’ statement. Jesus’ miracles offer physical evidence to support this truth. And, Jesus never violated the Law of Moses.

Nevertheless, the religious court was determined to find Jesus guilty despite the evidence. They did have one problem. Under Roman law they could not execute a prisoner. And, under Roman Law, blasphemy was not a capital offense. The Romans were largely indifferent to religious disputes. The offense the Romans were most concerned about was treason.

And so, the religious authorities accused Jesus of treason. The Roman governor, Pontus Pilate, knew this was not true. He also knew the Emperor had given him the responsibility to maintain order. The prospect that the religious authorities would start a riot and then accuse Pilate of refusing to execute a threat to the Emperor led Pilate to wash his hands (literally) of the matter and order Jesus to be executed.

Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him. That fact is critical in understanding his death on the cross. Jesus died as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. Where Jesus was innocent of blasphemy and treason, human beings are not. Lest we miss the reality of that statement we need only review the Ten Commandments. Lest we gloss over the standard of attitude and action in the Ten Commandments, the prophets clarify for us how we violate those standards. And, lest we miss the message of Moses and the Prophets Jesus gives us a simple standard. How you treat the weakest, most vulnerable and the most marginal people in your society reveals how you would treat God himself were He in your midst.

The bad news of crucifixion is that the crimes for which Jesus died were not his own but ours. The Good News in crucifixion is that Jesus took every sin of omission or commission of every human being and accepted the consequence of those sins. As the scriptures teach: he who knew no sin became sin. He did this willingly. And it inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on him. He was only able to do this because He is the Love of God in human flesh.

The great scandal of the cross is that human beings collectively and individually chose to reject torture and kill the co-eternal Son of God. We did this because he came in the fullness of love and compassion.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation recognizes the will to power of a species lost in willful separation. God folds that will to power into His perfect plan of Love and Holiness through His son, Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God deals with sin by embracing sin and transforming sin back into its original virtue through love.
In Jesus, God embraces the ultimate consequence of sin, death, and then transforms death back into life through love.

Because the love of God In Jesus is infinite and eternal, the love of Jesus transforms the sin and death of every human being who has ever lived and will ever live. Because the love of Jesus is infinite and eternal the life of Jesus is eternal.

The scandal of crucifixion is that human beings exercise our will to power to remain separate from God, separate from each other, separate from the image of God imprinted on our souls. The scandal of the cross is that God himself resolves the human created problems of sin and death. The scandal of the cross is that eternal life is a gift God offers to all people everywhere in Jesus Christ.

There is nothing you can do to earn God’s love. There is nothing you can do to lose God’s love. God’s love is real. God’s love is personal. God’s love is Jesus Christ. The enduring universal symbol of Divine Love is the cross.

Pentecost 15

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.

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.

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?

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.