But you don't count......

The other day I was having a conversation with someone about being Holy.   My friend Jamie loaned me a book about this topic (How to Be Holy: First Steps to Becoming a Saint, Peter Kreeft) and it has been heavily on my mind.  While we were talking a few other people joined in.   We were talking about struggling with sin.  At one point someone turned to me and said, "Yeah but you don't count."   As if being in formation for the Diaconate or being a very active Catholic in my religion made my struggles with sin and temptation less of an issue.   I think we have that image of Christ sometimes.  As if He was made in a way that made it easier for Him to be perfect, easier for Him to be Holy.

Ezekiel in his prophetic utterance this morning gave the people of Israel a glimpse of two futures.  One in which the city itself would fall into exile with the royal prince being cast out, and another in which the royal Son would be given the same treatment.   Jesus picked up his baggage and carried it out of the city.   Up onto a hill where the darkness settled in.  Some would dismiss this as a solar eclipse, mere coincidence.  I would chalk it up to creation itself mourning that which we did not see.  Like the prince of Jerusalem, Jesus was veiled to His people.  They could not see Him for their own sin, their own failures.   In a way, they said to Him as well, "You don't count."  

In Jesus parable again I see that theme.   The first servant goes to the judge and He offers him mercy.   The servant goes out into the world, a man who should be filled with joy at his fortune.   Instead, his greed kicks back in.   He wants to get back to where he was before.   Instead of sharing the mercy he has received, he finds someone who owes him money and begins to choke him.  He has him thrown into prison in anger.  When word got out the Master was furious and demanded an account of him.   It was as if the servant was saying "I am important enough for grace" but my fellow servant, well they don't count.  Them.  The other.  They... those guys over there... they don't count.

We as Christians are challenged to be Holy.  Not just me, not just the priests and religious, not just the holy rollers or bible thumpers... every single one of us is called to be a Saint.   To be like Jesus, to follow in His footsteps.   His footsteps are the way of the Cross.   That means shouldering our own crosses and marching out to our own deaths.   Now most of us aren't going to be martyrs.   Many of us are going to die in our sleep, in some way that isn't glamorous or extraordinary.   That doesn't mean "you don't count."   It means that God is asking us to die spiritually.. to our egos... to ourselves... to live our lives in a way that says to every single person we encounter "You matter."   To everyone of them, regardless of their station, religion, legal status, political party, sexual orientation, lifestyle, or what have you.   To say to them "As God has shown me mercy, so I show it to you."  Are you offering His love to others?  Or simply holding inside?

You count.  You matter.  You are Holy and loved by God.   Stop letting the enemy convince you otherwise.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

A reflection on the readings for daily Mass on Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time, August 11, 2016.    Ezekiel 12:1-12; Psalm 78; The Holy Gospel according to Matthew 18:21-19:1

There's healing in the air tonight

This morning at daily Mass, Father Don Ahles mentioned an article by Norman Wirzba in which he mused on the thought that we might be able to now “declare the end of ‘Christian America.’”  The article speaks of the fact that we in America often portray ourselves as Christians through our speech, through our prayers, and through our presence at this or that local.  Yet, when we look at the actions, at the deeds of these Christians, we find that they don’t line up with the Christian line of thought presented in the Gospels.  

Although voters may speak piously and rather vaguely about Christian values and ideals, polls and election results communicate clearly this is a nation consumed by fear, anger and suspicion – none of which are Christian virtues.

Especially during this part of our political timeline we begin to see people who claim to be Catholic or Christian, yet they do play on those things.  The mudslinging begins.  This one can’t be trusted.  This one isn’t really ‘American.’  This one lied.  On and on it goes.  The thing is, we don’t seem very loving at all when we talk about politics.  We talk about how that we do need to vote, but then we turn lose these insults against the candidate we don’t like, and laud the one we do.. even though often we seem to be supporting those people who are truly against our faith entirely.  I think tomorrow's Gospel reading kind of sets the stage for the next line that caught my eye in his article.

[...]From a scriptural point of view, it is all rubbish. What matters is not what you say but how you live. And from a Christian point of view, nothing matters more than living a life that is inspired by God’s love for everyone.

A life inspired by God’s love for everyone.  Scripture affirms that one of the ways we should be recognized is by our love.  You know the song?  They will know we are Christian by our love?  What does God’s love look like?  Jesus has some pretty strong words to say about that.  Forgiveness.   That’s what God’s love looks like, first and foremost.  Jesus says to Peter that we must forgive not just seven times, but seventy seven fold (70X7 times.)  In the world of Biblical numerology seventy times seven does not represent a literal 490 times.. though that in and of itself would be impressive… rather it represents an infinite number.. forgiveness without limit.

I got to thinking about Lamech, the son of Cain.  Cain was seen as a hard man, but Lamech was the epitome of anger and abuse.  He claims to have killed a man just for wounding him, a young man too out of anger.  Lamech made the audacious claim that if the death of Cain would be avenged seven times, then the death of Lamech would be seventy and sevenfold.  In his world forgiveness was never given.  Anger was returned for anger.  Hate for hate. Death for a wound.  Not only did he return what was given, he multiplied it.  How in contrast that is to God’s love?  How far has he gone from God to be in such a world that does not forgive, but amplifies the hate and evil that is present.

Jesus on the other hand, offers us a world where all is forgiven.  That not only does God forgive perfectly, but we are challenged to do the same. That’s what love looks like.  It means offering your love to everyone regardless of what they do to you.  We’ve come a long way away from that message haven’t we?  We’ve begun to look less like Christians in this country, and more like followers of Lamech.  Our television shows become more catty, more snarky, more materialistic.  Just recently a movie was released in which the ‘hero’ was a man of violence, a man who harmed others, who was almost as much devil as he was avenger.   It sold out.  Record sells even.  Who are we following?  Our actions speak of that.  Our shows, our radio, our movies.. all show what we truly believe.

Then comes something that is very near to my heart though, something that fits right in with that unlimited forgiveness of God… the author goes on to say:

What about the refugees and immigrants who are being refused at our borders and made to feel unwelcome in our land, or the homeless (many of them ill) who do not have a home and proper protection from the elements, or the prison inmates (many of them African-American) who are treated like the garbage of society? [..]God is asking the nations about their public policy, not their verbal piety, because the true test of Christianity has only ever been the test of love.

There is the crux of the matter isn’t it?  To forgive as God forgives we have to forgive these people too.  We seem to be holding grudges against the ‘least of these.’  Some of those grudges from people they may not even know.  They’re muslim right?  Lesbian?  Gay? They are drug dealers and prostitutes.  They are vagabonds who don’t bother to work for themselves.  They.. they.. they.. we like to have an other to hate don’t we?  Yet, Christ told us to forgive not just those people we like, those we are comfortable with.. but even the enemy.. the other.. the they.   Are you ready to do that?  Our nation may not be a Christian nation.. to be honest, it may never have been a truly Christian one… but you and I challenged to be Christian regardless of what our nation is.   Are you ready to forgive?  To offer God’s mercy and grace to everyone? Not just those we choose to be worthy?  Are we ready to love like God loves?  That’s what we must learn to do if we want to keep using the word Christian to describe ourselves.. to lift up our own life… to sacrifice ourselves.. to go to our own Cross..  for everyone, not just those we want to choose, but those God puts before us, period.

His servant and yours,

Brian

“He must increase, I must decrease.”

An Evil and Perverse generation

The Readings for Monday of the 28th Week of Ordinary time can be found here.

In Monday's Gospel reading we find Jesus proclaiming that "This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah."  These words seem to  make a lot of sense to us as Christians 2000 years later looking back on these amazing and miraculous events in first century Palestine.   How though would these men have reacted to hearing this statement though?  First and foremost, who was Jonah and what does that have to do with them?

If we look back at the story of Jonah we see a man who was called by God.   He was called to go preach to the Ninevites.  Jesus just compared the men listening to Him, the ones demanding a sign to these Ninevites.  Who were they?  They were a despised race.  The war driven enemies of the Israelites.  The Assyrians. In 722 B.C. the Assyrians had completely conquered most of the Israelite people and took them captive.   This led eventually to the destruction of the temple during the Babylonian captivity.  Here Jesus is comparing the people standing around him to the Ninevites, the very people they would have blamed for the start of the worst time in Jewish history.  The temple was everything!  That was where God was, and here Solomon's temple had been completely destroyed as a result of the Ninevites. 

The story of Jonah itself took place before that event.   Jonah himself also didn't want to reach out to the Ninevites.  They were the "Las Vegas", the Sin City of their time. The darkest of the dark.  The cruelest of the cruel.  They were the enemy.   He would rather have seen God's justice rain down on them from on high, destroying them entirely.  In the Veggi Tales version, we see Jonah sitting up on a very high place watching for this very thing to occur.  They were Jonah's other, the enemy, "them." Time had not changed this and if anything, the Assyrian people were more hated by the contemporary Jew of Jesus time. 

Then we have the very nature of the sign of Jonah itself.   Jonah of course, we all know is the story of the man who ran from God and was swallowed by a fish for 3 nights and 3 days.   Here we have Jesus telling the people around him that Jonah, who ran from God at first, when he came to do God's will was completely successful in God's endeavor.  The people of Nineveh immediately repented of their sin and hard hearts, putting on sack cloth and ashes.  Jesus, who came performing miracles, and from the very outset of his ministry was completely obedient to God... was watching those around him not turn their hearts. 

He was both predicting his own death and resurrection, but also warning them that they were accountable for their refusal to hear his message.  Here was the rub of what he said, he in effect said "Those sinners, the worst ones you can think of, the people you hate the most, your very enemies... listened to God before you will.  They were the ones who came to God, and you refuse to hear me.  So I will show you the same sign that God showed them, for three days and three nights I will be lost to the world.  Then I shall be found again, in your presence, and my message of repentance will call out to you." 

What does this all mean to us?   How do we actualize this to our lives?  When Jonah came to call the Ninevites to repentance, the message was "40 days more and this city will be destroyed."  We have a similar call to repentance, in which we hear the "wages of sin is death."   We, just like the Pharisees gathered around Jesus in the Gospel are called to repent.   Our city, our earthly body, is eventually going to be destroyed.  For it is appointed unto man, once to die.  We all have that in common, but we all have a choice.  We can continue on in our sin and not worry, refusing to hear and believe in the sign of Jesus Christ, in the resurrection that frees us from the impending death for eternity; or we can turn from our sin like the Ninevites and trust in God's promise.

Which brings us back to the First reading:

Through him we have received the grace of apostleship, 

to bring about the obedience of faith,

for the sake of his name, among all the Gentiles,

among whom are you also, who are called to belong to Jesus Christ;

to all the beloved of God in Rome, called to be holy.

You are called to be Holy.   You are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Do you follow Him?  Or reject him? What do you choose?

In Christ,
Brian