In season or out of season?

This morning at Mass the Gospel reminds us that even Jesus sometimes is in a bad mood.  As he walked in the morning hours, hungry and irritable, he came upon that poor fig tree.   It hadn't produced any figs.  Granted it wasn't the 'season' for figs, but that didn't stop Jesus from cursing the tree. This tree was acting like every other tree in the world.. just doing what all the other ones were doing.  Deacon Bill calls this story a parable in action.   Just like the stories that Jesus often tells to teach us spiritual messages, this action of his and it's results is in and of itself a lesson to be learned. All too often we want to wait till the time is ready by our standards, we want to be in control.   "I'll have kids when we can afford it."  "You know I'll get cleaned up when things get easier."  "I'll stop smoking after this audit is complete."  "I just need a few more drinks to get me through this month."  Jesus shows us a simple truth, God expects us to be ready "in season and out of season."   He wants us always producing fruit, regardless of what is going on around us... regardless of if we feel like it.  He wants us to be different.. not following the flow of things of the world, but of the things of Heaven.

There is a tree in my front yard that reminds me of this parable.   A few years ago a friend of mine lost her son to a drug overdose.  I noticed that afternoon that the tree was only getting leaves on half of it's branches.  Today it stands much the same with half of it looking pathetic, and half of it healthy and green.  The bark on the side that does not bloom is riddled with holes and falling off, and on the other side strong and firm.  It was as if that tree lost part of itself.  I wrote a poem about that, how that losing someone can be like that... like losing half of your self.. losing your way.  That tree is still plugging away trying, even if it doesn't feel like it.. even if seems like the world is against it, some disease eating away at it trying to sap it's strength.. it still struggles to find breath, digging in it's roots until it finds the nourishment it has to keep going.

CCC 1832 The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: "charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity."

You and I are called to be like that.   Regardless of the pain and suffering we might endure.   Even if the entire world turns against us, father against son, mother against daughter, friend against friend; we are called to continue to produce fruit.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We are to bloom where we are planted and to produce those fruits.   Peter reminds us in the first reading that the greatest of all these fruits is love, because love produces all of the others.  He challenges us to let our love for another be intense.   Another translation says let your love be fervent.  That is hot, burning and glowing!  Visible.  Apparent.  On the surface not just under it.

My wife and I have been married for ten years today.  For all of those years she has stood by my side, even when pain and illness made it impossible for me to stand as well.  She watched and cared for me as I had my back surgery and through the long, tedious recovery.  When I had my knee operated on, through many kidney stones, and days in which the pain was so horrible that I did not even move from the couch.  All through this she showed a fervent love, a love that bloomed and produced fruit regardless of how I treated her back.  There have been times when it wasn't smooth sailing.  Every couple argues at some point, every couple disagrees.  The thing is I don't remember those times as much.   When I think back I remember that kindness, the laughter, the smiles, the patience, and the trust.

1642 Christ is the source of this grace. "Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony." Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another's burdens, to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ," and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love. In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb: How can I ever express the happiness of a marriage joined by the Church, strengthened by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels, and ratified by the Father? . . . How wonderful the bond between two believers, now one in hope, one in desire, one in discipline, one in the same service! They are both children of one Father and servants of the same Master, undivided in spirit and flesh, truly two in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one also is the spirit.

I think that's why Jesus reminds us today that sometimes we've got to turn over the tables that get in the way.  Every relationship has rocky moments.  For some, that means walking away.  I've heard hundreds of people say "we just fell out of love."  That does happen.   It happens when you let the tables get in the way, when you let the money changes fill up your temple, when you let the roots starve your growth until you produce none of the fruit.  Love isn't just a sappy feeling that makes you have butterflies in the stomach.  It's a choice. An action.  It's deciding each and every day to stand by someone, even when they aren't pleasant.  It is being willing to fight for the beauty that is the person you are and the vocation you are called to.  You are the temple of God.  You and your spouse are one, joined together by a Sacrament that transcends this visible world.  Are you willing to fight for it?  To dig in your roots and continue to bloom even when it seems like the bark is falling off and the ground is filled with rocks?  Are you ready to look into your heart and life and ask where are these money changes and tables that stand in the way of my relationship with God and my spouse?  That's what it takes to produce fruit.  I haven't always been the perfect husband, and there are many days that I am not a pleasant man to be around... but I do know this.. I want to turn over those tables, to drive out those things which inhibit me from producing fruit, and to grow day by day into the man and husband that God is calling me to be.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Living Water

In Tomorrow's Gospel reading we see Jesus experiencing one of those human emotions that many of us can truly empathize with.  The Scripture says that he looked around at them with anger.  Oh, anger, how I wish to be rid of thee.  Sometimes though, we should be angry!  Here Jesus shows us one of those times.  These same men have been confronting him for some time now in the readings.  They accused him of blasphemy for healing the paralytic who was lowered through the roof.  Then again on the Sabbath for his disciples working and not fasting.  Now here they are once again, thinking in their hearts that he is sinning for healing.  

They aren't watching him to get an example of how to live the Gospel.  They are refusing to see him for who he really is.  They are blinded by their own jealousy, their own fear of losing their influence, their own humanity.  Jesus demands to know, is it wrong to do good?  Is it wrong to save life?  Christ taught us that lesson over and over, that though we should avoid unnecessary work on the Sabbath, works of mercy always supersede our desire and need for rest. 

The Pharisees though did not see God standing right before them.  The Son of Man was standing in their midst, showing them the true breadth and width of the Law, that is he was showing them how to Love.   He offered them a relationship with God.  He offered them a way of living that put the law in it's proper place, as a means to bring rest to the weary and justice to the land.  Instead, they have chosen time and again to refuse his message, to reject his call.  This not only angered him, it grieved him.  Doesn't that normally happen?  When we are trying to give someone something that we know will be good for them, when we offer them love and hope, and they reject it for something they think is better?   Doesn't it frustrate us?  Anger us?  Grieve us? 

Jesus of course heals the man with the withered hand.  He shows us by his own actions the example that we should be following.  He teaches us that our relationship with God is first and foremost, and that the way we live that relationship is through a relationship with one another.  It is in loving others that we serve God the most.    The Pharisees were stumbling over Jesus doing good on the Sabbath, demanding rather that he sit and rest, avoiding work, fasting.  They forgot the words of the Prophet:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:...
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard."

Isn't that then our lesson for this reading?  God desires mercy more than sacrifice, obedience more than burnt offerings.  He wants us to follow Him.  God created the Sabbath to show man that he could both take the rest that he needed and still emulate God.  God didn't need the rest, we did.  He took our own nature and emulated it so that we could then in turn be more like him.  How generous a God is that?  Then he gave us His Son, the visible sign of the invisible God.  He gave us the perfect example to follow.. so in being like Christ, we become more like God.

We are in a world that is filled with temptations and trials.  We constantly have to fight our desires, our flesh.  The early Church Fathers talk about how David and Goliath is the story of the Church, of the fight between Satan and the Body of Christ.  David has given us an example of one who doesn't trust in armor, or trust in swords.  He doesn't put his faith in his own ability to beat Goliath, but rather in the Holy One of Israel.  He steps on to the field armed with only with the tools of a Shepherd.  In the end he is triumphant with just a sling and a stone.  The Lord is our rock.  It is when we arm ourselves with the Rock of the Lord and launch it toward our enemy that we can hope to beat him. 

That means reading Sacred Scripture.  That means studying the Word of the Lord.   That means receiving the Sacraments, often, reverently, and with expectant hope.  That means being more like Christ.   That means reaching out to the widow, the orphan, the refugee.... There is this image from the book of the Prophet Amos that says:

But let justice roll down like waters,    and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

Isn't that what our Church is?  The Eucharist is the source of life, the living waters, the presence of Christ himself.  How much more so should that stream overflow out of us and into the world?  Do you think of yourself as a fountain?  Are you letting Christ overflow from your heart that the rest of the world might experience just a drop of his justice?  Oh, how parched a land this world is, and how refreshing a single drop of that heavenly water to the soul in need.  We have work to do!

His servant and yours, 
Brian 

"He must increase, I must decrease."