And you can too!

A reflection on the readings for Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 5th, 2016.

Hosea 8:4-7, 11-13
Psalm 115
The Holy Gospel According to Matthew 9:32-38

My wife and I had a relaxing and beautiful Fourth of July.  She, Moira, and I road our bikes around town a couple of times.   First to eat lunch at Subway.  Then to go see Haley at work and get some of the vegan Italian ice she keeps telling me about.  It was a day of peace, reflection and joy.  A day to remember that we are free enough in this country that my wife and I can go riding downtown with our kids and not have to worry about being attacked.   She can wear exercise clothes and not be in fear of her life or being beaten for exposing too much skin.  A day in which we celebrate that freedom, but also have to think deeper.

The readings remind us about something that we often don't think about anymore in our society.   Americans tend to think that freedom means I can do whatever I want, I don't need discipline... if I want this I eat it... if I want that I drink it.   If I like this person I sleep with them.  As long as I do not hurt anyone else, what does it matter?  "You do you, and I'll do me."   That's not freedom though.  Freedom is not giving in to every single whim that your body, your desires, asks you to give in to.   True freedom is being able to say "I know I want that fifth doughnut, but I also know it's not good for me.  So I'm not going to eat it."   True freedom is being able to step back from your situation to ask, Is this good for me?  Is it good for them?  Which action leads to a long term good not a short term pleasure? True freedom must produce fruit.

  The stalk of grain that forms no ear can yield no flour

Though Hosea was talking to a people a couple thousand years ago, he could also very well give the same message to us today in the United States.   We have become complacent.   In our search to make freedom into our deity we have forgotten where we have been, who we were, and why we had become that people.  A Protestant reformer once said that a man should just sin because where there is sin, God's grace abounds.  So he encouraged people to sleep with their chamber maids when their wives weren't in the mood, or to eat till their stomachs were close to bursting in gluttony because somehow that made God's grace even greater.   That just doesn't seem right does it?  Why do evil so that good can come from it?  Rather than do good that good can abound?  When we forget our past... when we forget the things that have happened to us before... we fall into the same ruts.. the same sins... we stop producing fruit that is worth eating.. and become just a stalk of grain that has no ear... no flour... nothing worth eating.. and even what we have?  Is feeding the wrong type of person.

The Gospel reminds us though that when Jesus looks out on us, lost and confused in the crowd, He looks on us with compassion.  He sees us as a flock scattered in the mountains with ravenous wolves seeking to devour us on every side.  He seeks to find us, first and foremost with the call in our hearts.. but secondly by sending the Church to find us.. to guide us.. to give us discipline.. yes discipline.. that we might be truly free.  Sounds almost like an oxymoron doesn't it?  But true freedom comes form discipline.. it comes from putting our emotions, our desires, and our urges on the back burner and asking.. what is the true good that I need to do?  How can I produce fruit?  He calls us not just to be the fruit.. but also to be the laborers of the harvest.  That means that we first have to discipline ourselves.. but then to go out and help others to see the beauty of what Christ has to offer us.. by living it with joy, with peace, and with patience.  He wants to heal us... so that we can go out into the fields and help others to be healed too.

So are you doing that?  Are you working to produce fruit?  Are you trying to help others produce good fruit too?  That's why we Catholics consider it our responsibility to get involved in politics, in education, in all walks of life... why?  Because fruit is there... it's either good or bad... and we must stand up and say "This is wrong."  or "This is right!"  That's a fruit right there!  To stand up against the grain of what society tries to tell you is good and say "No.  That only seems good... and it probably feels good in the moment.. but it leads you to a place that is not good.. and does not feel good."  That's true love..... not just giving others what they want.. but rather giving them what they need.  The harvest is plentiful and abundant and Christ is calling you to go forth and help those who are struggling.. the ones who aren't producing fruit.. the ones who are falling away and starting to lose soil... starting to lose root... and saying Here, let me water you... let me feed you.... Let me serve you the least of these.. the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the sinner and the saint.... let me help till the soil and draw the bucket.... that you too might join me in producing the grain that Christ has sent us to grow...

That's our calling.. not just to think about ourselves... but to try to help every person we meet to come into a living relationship with Christ... to get to Heaven.... because that's the goal isn't it?  Starting with working on ourselves and our families... but then.. going into the world and living in a way that says I am producing fruit and you can too.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."  

And now you're so surprised to see me

In tomorrow’s reading we see the parable of the fig tree.  This sort of tree is a source of fruit, a source of nourishment for the world.  In the desert lands in which Jesus taught and journeyed it would have been seen as sustenance, life. The owner of the vineyard, the farmer, came along after three years of time and saw that the fig was still not bearing fruit.  He then turns to the vinedresser and says, “For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?”(Luke 13:7)  The vinedresser in turn begs for another year.  He wants to spend more time cultivating.  More time giving the tree a chance to produce fruit.  Then, though, he will have to cut it down.

I find it extremely telling that the Owner speaks of three years of time.  Jesus himself had only three years of preaching to convince the Jewish people that he was the Messiah that they had been seeking.  Here the owner must indeed represent the Father.  It’s almost as if Jesus is giving us a glimpse of a conversation that was to come, one after his crucifixion.  God the Father has tired of the people who he has been sending messages to.  He tried to send them through Abraham.  He tried to send it through the prophets.  Then the judges.  Then during the time of the Kings.  Then he sent his only Son.  As in the Parable a few days ago, the tenants did not bother to give over that fruit they were supposed to be growing.  They abused the servants, and then killed the Son.  

 In the Eucharist he gives us everything we need to produce that sumptuous and elegant fruit that the Father seeks in our lives.  God is calling out to us in love, asking us to love in return.  To love God and our fellow man.   

I think this parable is much the same.  The owner of the vineyard has returned to collect that fruit.  Yet, here he finds the barren tree.  This person has borne no fruit though he has heard the word of God preached for a fullness of time.  Three is considered a perfect number.  Complete.  This person has heard the word long enough!  Yet he still rejects the message.  Then steps in the vinedresser.  He stands between  God and man, he intercedes on our behalf.   This man must be Jesus himself.  Though he has been toiling in the vineyard for three years, there are still these trees that bear no fruit.  Even though they have rejected him, even though they have sent him to a bloody, and thankless death, he still begs for them.

Jesus declared to his disciples that he was the vine, the thing from which sustenance flows.  That God is the gardener, the husbandman, the owner of the vineyard.  Jesus wants to give them more time.. he wants to nourish them… he wants to water the seeds that he has planted.  We as Catholics acknowledge that  “Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men.” (CCC 480)  He is the one who steps in to cultivate the dirt of our soul, to create a truly beautiful soil ready for growth, rich with virtue and grace.

How then can we apply this to our lives?   To our own situations?   We are the fig tree.  We are either producing fruit or not.  God has sent his message into our hearts.  He has given us all the tools we need to learn more. That’s the Son still calling out to us.  Through the Church, through the Scriptures, through nature itself, he continually digs around our roots and places nourishment there for us to consume.  In the Eucharist he gives us everything we need to produce that sumptuous and elegant fruit that the Father seeks in our lives.  God is calling out to us in love, asking us to love in return.  To love God and our fellow man.   He has sent his Holy Spirit into the world, into our hearts, to help us even further.. to fertilize our hearts.. to take away that dry weary land, that heart of stone, and give us a heart of flesh that will reach out to bring about God’s kingdom.

The Catechism says that “the fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.” (CCC 1829) God is giving us just a bit more time, Christ is seeking to open our hearts to love.   We don’t have forever though.. it is appointed unto man once to die, and after the judgement. (Hebrews 9:27)  We don’t know when that will be.  The Parable says that the vinedresser asked for another year… another span of time, just another season.  Then comes the judgement though.. then if there is no fruit, it will be cut down.  The truth of the matter is this:  all of us have that one thing in common.  We are all going to die one day.  God has given us the fullness of time, he has given us every opportunity to produce fruit.. and how often we fail.  The son wanted us to have another chance, so much was his love for us that he came down as a man himself, and died in our place.  He has made the downpayment.. it’s up to us to do something about it.  We are planted in God’s vineyard through baptism, the Church.  The Church, the body of Christ, is continually tilling around us, feeding us with every spiritual food available through the Holy Spirit, the liturgy, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments.  Our roots are being nourished, but it’s up to us to drink.

The Samaritan woman at the well represents us.  We are going to the well.  If we only knew the gift of God, if we only knew who stands before us, if we only took a drink of the water he offers… our fruit would blossom so much that the whole world would see it!  Are you drinking of that well?  Or like the rich young man are you letting some attachment stand in your way?  It’s time for us to get in line behind Christ, to point our face toward the cross and say, “Here I am lord, speak your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10)

Once again, I must reiterate, Christ is coming to us daily.  He is seeking to pick that fruit.  He comes in the face of the stranger, the refugee, the orphan.  The homeless man down the street.  The angry fellow in traffic.  The tired, overworked nurse who just wants to complain on her lunch break.  The young couple in the pew who struggles with their child. That neighbor who just wants a little conversation, a little human interaction at the end of a long day. All of these people are looking for some fruit.  They just want to experience a little love.  Are you offering that fruit? Are you responding with joy, peace, and mercy? Are you running toward them with the open arms of the Father, with love?  Oh imagine the world in which we did such things, Church!  That line from Augustine quoted in the Catechism is so beautiful isn’t it? “There is the goal(love); that is why we run:  we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.”  Are you running toward Christ in the least of these? There, there in the arms of the dying, the poor, the outcasts.. that’s where you’ll find the love of Christ reflected, that’s where you will find rest.

The Samaritan woman at the well represents us.  We are going to the well.  If we only knew the gift of God, if we only knew who stands before us, if we only took a drink of the water he offers… our fruit would blossom so much that the whole world would see it!

When God came down on the burning bush before Moses, the bush was not consumed.  It was rather transformed into something amazing, something beautiful, something that reflected the glory of God to the world.  It became a symbol, a beacon.  The place became so Holy because of the presence of the Holy Spirit that God said to Moses, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”  Think about that symbolism for a minute.   As you walk up that Aisle today toward the Eucharist.. not only are you on Holy Ground.. but you are about to become Holy Ground. You are about to receive God himself into your body.  You are about to be filled with that same glorious power that Moses saw radiating from the burning bush.  It does not destroy you.. it transforms you.. Are you allowing it do just that?  Are you allowing God’s light to shine into the world in such a way that people want to remove their baggage, their spiritual shoes, and walk in the presence of God?  Are you offering them that fruit?  Only you can offer the unique fruit that you are designed to give.  No one else can give it the same way, the same kind, the same you.  Are you ready to be a fig tree in God’s garden?  Are you ready to be Holy Ground?  

His servant and yours,

Brian

“He must increase, I must decrease.”

Do we gather figs of thistles?

In tomorrow's Gospel we see this amazingly detailed parable that speaks of a vineyard that has been leased to tenants.  It's easy for us to digest it just as the Pharisees did by placing each of the people mentioned in context of who Jesus was and who he was speaking of.  God the owner, Jerusalem the vineyard, the wicked tenants the leaders of Jerusalem, the servants that were sent the prophets, and of course the son being Jesus himself.   That's easy enough for us to see two thousand years later with all of our Scripture, our writings of the Church and magisterium.   Apparently according to scripture the Pharisees themselves could easily see that meaning as well.  Scripture records: When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they knew that he was speaking about them.

What about applying it to our lives though?  God has given us a Church.  He has declared that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.   If we then place ourselves into this parable we see God is again the owner of course, the householder.  The Church is the vineyard, surrounded by the hedge of protection, the Holy Spirit.  Jesus of course would still be the son, sent to remind us to be faithful to the teachings of God.

We are the tenants in the vineyard of the Lord.   He will be sending people to gather the fruit.  Peace, love, joy... these are fruits.. they are spread by following those corporal works of mercy.  Giving food to the hungry. Clothing the naked.  Giving drink to the thirsty.  These are the fruits of God's vineyard.  He sends us not prophets, but homeless men and women, refugees and orphans, sinners and saints...these are his servants.   They have come to collect the fruit that you and I are supposed to be producing.  Are we like the tenants and refusing to give them that which God has prepared for them?  Are we sharing the grace he has prepared for them in the hedged safety of the Church?  Or are we holding them all for ourselves?  The Owner of our vineyard will be returning at the end of time and not asking how much you know, or how many degrees you had, or how many of a specific prayer you said.. no he will be asking when I was thirsty, did you give me drink?  When I was naked did you cloth me?  When I was suffering did you comfort me?

God has shown that when we have good in us it increases, when we have bad in us it increases as well.  Just like playing the guitar or the piano, if you don't use it.. eventually you begin to forget.  It becomes harder to play, the muscle memory begins to fade.  God gives us those gifts to serve with.  If we don't use them?  He will take them away and give them to another who will.  If you aren't producing fruit, he'll find another tenant for the vineyard who will.  The beautiful thing about the Church though is this, it's never too late.  As we journey through the desert of Lent we can begin by seeking forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation that we might become better tenants, and God will take whatever fruit we produce and multiply it.  Are you ready to be a good tenant?  One who receives those in need of the fruit?  One who receives the Son and cherishes him, lavishing him all he asks for and more?  If not, what stands in your way? That's what prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is for... to help break down those walls, disciplining ourselves that we might realize that God is what is important.. not food, not money, not wealth, power, pleasure, or honor. Then God can say with confidence "They will respect my Son," who will then lead us safely in tow to that country to which the householder had journeyed to prepare a place for us, eternal in the heavens.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

The Material World

There is this notion going around (and has been for many hundreds of years).  The church has been combating it from a very early time.  The Gnostics have long held (since the 1st and 2nd centuries) that all of creation was evil.  That notion is that the material world, that is all of creation, is 'bad' and the only good thing is the spiritual. What though would that notion say about Jesus Christ himself, who though fully God was also fully man?  Or about God himself who created matter?   This notion that our world is not worth the time we spend here and all that matters is Heaven to come has indeed infected the popular Christian music of our time.  A small example:

All I know is I'm not home yet

This is not where I belong

Take this world and give me Jesus

This is not where I belong

On one hand the lyrics are poignant and meaningful.  Being in Heaven with Christ is the goal of our existence.  The danger comes though when we spend all of our time thinking of things to come, without trying to see the beauty and gift of what Jesus has already given us.   It's kind of like getting a shirt that you kind of wanted for Christmas.  Then every time someone asks you about the shirt you're wearing, you start instead talking about the one you are going to get later.. the good one.. the one you got on is just a necessary thing to get you through.

We often forget the simple truth that when God looked back on creation, he said it was very good.  Not just mankind, but all of it.. the trees, the earth, the animals, the plants, in the water and on the earth.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.  Genesis 1:31 RSV-CE 

I think that is why this new encyclical, Laudato Si' is so pertinent and necessary for our times.  We have wrongly treated the word dominion as a right to complete domination.   As if we have the right to rape, pillage and destroy what God created and deemed very good simply because we are in charge of it.  How much like the renters of the vineyard we seem to have become who started treating it like it was their own.

“Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did the same to them. Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on any one, it will crush him.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes, because they held him to be a prophet."

Matthew 21:33-41

How very fickle we humans are indeed.  We did the very thing Jesus speaks about.  God created for us a vineyard, filled with so many beautiful and wonderful things.  He gave it to us to take care of and instead of enhancing it's beauty and productivity, we often just destroy parts of it in search of greed and wealth.  Then the son himself came, and we did just like Jesus spoke of... we killed him and claimed the world as our own.  Yes, we have much to learn.  I am thankful for God's mercy because we as a species definitely do not deserve it.  May God forgive us for all we have done, and may the Pope's encyclical reach all to all people of the world and remind them that we have a duty to creation and we need to start living it.