Be Prepared...The Son of Man is Coming

 

 

"Be not afraid... Fear not."  People have derived comfort from these words for over 2,000 years, yet we are still afraid.  What's more, we are too frightened to admit our fears, particularly the biggest fear of all - death.  The fear of death overshadows our lives.  We have - or likely have - lived longer than our parents and grandparents.  We are better fed; we lose few babies, and modern medicine protects us from contagion and disease that will lengthen our lives... and yet, we are still afraid. 

Shortly after 9/11 the words Fear Not seemed a little out of place.  Surely we had every reason to be afraid.  I am reminded of Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, who served as Chaplain to the New York Fire Dept., and was the first registered victim at Ground Zero, the sight of the former Twin Towers.  The details of his death are unclear:  some say he was fatally wounded as he administered last rites to a dying firefighter; others recall his being killed while in silent prayer.  Whatever happened, his lifeless body was discovered in the lobby and carried to a nearby church shortly before Tower I collapsed.

What does this have to do with our gospel (Matthew 24:36-44)?  Who knew how that fateful Tuesday that began with skies so blue and air so clear, would end as it did?  In many ways, Father Mychal lived this gospel.  In many ways this was a man who had arrived at Ground Zero long before 9/11.  He had proved himself ready to lay down his life many times during his career.  For him 9/11 could have occurred on any day or at any time... he was prepared.

If the thought of finding God amidst such harrowing circumstances seems strange, perhaps it is because we are out of practice looking for Him.  However, we can be certain that Christ's death and resurrection hold the deepest answer to all our fears.  Christ was executed like a common criminal and was totally forsaken by his friends.  By His overcoming death and our sharing in his resurrection, He took away all our reasons to fear forever.  Of course it does no good to recognize this on a merely intellectual level.  Knowing that Christ loves us may not save us from fear, nor will it save us from death.  And so it comes down to this:  The only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to "be prepared" and to live our life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death.  As with Father Mike, it means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves instead of others.  It means being prepared to die again and again to ourselves, and to every one of our self-serving opinions and agendas.                           

(Adapted from Johann Chrisoph Arnold, Be Not Afraid, Advent Readings, 2001)

Christ the King

Although his time on earth was short, Jesus created quite a stir during his even briefer ministry( Luke 23:33-43). As a revolutionary he upset Jewish law, tradition and the Roman hierarchy. He consorted with the most unlikely disenfranchised members of society and violated conventional decorum. He upset the “purity code” by proclaiming it wasn’t what went into your mouth that mattered but what came out. He wasn’t a king, a priest, or a prophet. He performed many miracles that included healing the sick and bringing the dead back to life. Yet he was unable to save himself; he was executed with 2 petty criminals. Not very kingly is it? And to compound the indignity, the soldiers kneel at his feet, not to worship, but to gamble for his clothes, while deriding his reign as “king of the Jews.” It amused them because they were Romans and they knew what a real king looked like, and this definitely was not it. A real king had power and arrogance and this Jesus had none of that. So they mocked him.

Yet, for some reason, one of the two thieves also being executed reprimands the other who derides Jesus’ weakness and speaks with compassion and takes pity on another condemned man. Then he does an astounding thing and asks “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Now, where did that come from?  How can he hang there on the cross and look over at a man dying beside him, and see in him as a savior, a messiah, a king with a kingdom? Somehow, the second thief got it; he saw what Jesus was doing; he saw that Jesus refused to swat his oppressors and he died so that they could be forgiven, died so that by his suffering their suffering would be healed.

We celebrate Christ the King, not because of his regal bearing, but because of his humility; not because of his power, but because of his compassion; not because of his triumph, but because of his travail; not because he fixes our lives, but because he shows us the way to live.

And what about this kingdom of God? Where is it? Richard Rohr writes that “if we go to the depths of anything, we will begin to knock upon something substantial, ‘real’ and with a timeless quality to it. We will move from the starter kit of ‘belief’ to an actual inner knowing. This is most especially true if we have ever loved deeply; accompanied someone through the mystery of dying, or stood in genuine life changing awe before mystery time or beauty. This ‘something real’ is what all the worlds religions were pointing to when they spoke of heaven or the kingdom of God. They were not wrong at all; their only mistake was that they pushed it off into the next world. If God’s Kingdom is later, it is because it is first of all now…In other words, heaven/ /union/ love now emerge from within us much more than from a mere belief system and  as Jesus promises the Samaritan woman, “the spring within her will well up into eternal life. (John 4:14)”

Love is Here to Stay

The more I read the papers, the less I comprehend.
The world and all its capers and how it all will end.
Nothing seems to be lasting, but that isn’t our affair.
We’ve got something permanent,
I mean in the way we care.

 

… and so did Ira Gershwin pen this beautiful preface to his brother George’s melody. Somehow these words seem to connect me to our reading in Luke 21:5-19. Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics to Love is Here to Stay as a loving tribute to his brother who had recently died at 39. The song speaks of love’s permanence in an ever changing world. Ira would have no way of knowing how prophetic his words written in 1938 were, as we witness the passing of what we thought would be indestructible icons that turned out to be passing fancies of sorts.

A few months ago I had the chance to visit the high school from which I graduated. I had attended this newer more “modern” building for the last 6 months of high school, since my school had to be torn down. At the time of my visit I passed by my childhood home and paused to take it all in. Only the front door remained the same. I did not nor did I expect to recognize anyone, although I could recreate people and places by super imposing my memory on the scene. Not unlike those who resisted Jesus’ prediction that the temple would one day be destroyed, I too thought these icons of my youth would last forever. Yes, there is an ache that comes from seeing so much of what I thought would be always, be no longer, but the older we get the more we know that nothing temporal by its very definition is eternal.

Jesus prophetically speaks of unsettling things that we like to think are just spiritual metaphors. But the current devastation from the Typhoon in the Philippines and the civil war in Syria are terrible reminders that the things we hold so close are just passing fancies and in time will go.  Even if these words don't resonate for us today, the time will come when they just might.  And then, as now, Jesus’ promise remains “I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.”  God is watching out for us and His love is here to stay.

Resurrection and Everlasting Life

 

I don’t think the Sadducees really cared about Jesus’ opinion on resurrection (Luke 20:27-38). Not unlike news reporters who ask leading questions to which they already know the answer, the Sadducees tried to embarrass Jesus by having him say something that “contradicts” the law. Yet, motive aside, was their question really unreasonable?  The Sadducees saw the whole person as mortal and did not believe in "resurrection.” They attempted to use the Jewish law on women, marriage and procreation to trap him. Of course in all cultures marriage and procreation are crucial to maintaining stability and preserving survival and Jesus is really not rejecting or taking a stand on the importance of marriage. However, he is telling the Sadducees that marriage is irrelevant and procreation is unnecessary in life eternal.

 Much of our belief on Christ’s resurrection on the “third day” comes from the way in which the Church interpreted the Creed throughout the centuries. David Steindl-Rast writes that “Jesus’ resurrection has nothing to do with coming back to life (like Lazarus in John’s Gospel). The Creed does not talk about any coming back; resurrection is a sacred movement of completion. It’s a new beginning into a new level of life in which the power of love breaks the bonds of death. The followers of Jesus experienced the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a life-changing conviction.”

The Sadducees used the laws of Moses to trap Jesus on resurrection. However, Moses was dealing in a time and place during which a man was responsible for the preservation of his lineage and his family by marrying his deceased brother's wife (Deuteronomy 25:5-10). Jesus stance on earthly convention had nothing to do with the earthly laws of Moses which do not apply in heaven. We are confined to understanding that which we are capable based on our human intellect. God s not bound to our human understanding or to our dimension. God is about something more.

“For many of us mystery became an adversary; unknowing became a weakness. The contemplative spiritual life is an ongoing reversal of this adjustment. It is a slow and sometimes painful process of becoming ‘little children’ again in which we first make friends with mystery and finally fall in love again with it again.”  (Gerald May, Dark Night of the Soul).

You've Got to be Carefully Taught

It is impossible for us not to have grown up without “preconceived notions” of people, places and things. From the time we are born we are surrounded by visual and auditory signals that influence the way we view our world. In time these “prejudices” are tempered by our intellect personal convictions and we either accept or reject those judgments and opinions. And so it is in the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). In this Gospel Luke really exaggerates the stereotype of the despised man in the community to make a point: Zaccheaus (let’s call him “Z”), was rich; a chief tax collector, and he was short (?). In the shame-based culture of his time, being a tax collector was tantamount to being a traitor. The tax collector was expected to “extort” money from his people and turn it over, minus his commission, to the Roman oppressors. As Luke referenced his height, my guess is that Z was probably shorter than most people of his time. In any case, we can understand why Luke’s audience would to rush to judgment.

In the beautiful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, the song “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” characterizes how “inherited” racial prejudice and intolerance can destroy relationships. On the other hand, they can be overcome by understanding and love. In that song Lieutenant Cable describes how his Philadelphia blue-blood upbringing has caused him to retreat from his love for the Tonkinese girl, while Nellie, the young nurse from Little Rock, cannot accept the fact that the man she loves had fathered inter-racial children. You've Got to be Carefully Taught.

Z knew who he was and knew what he had done. He saw shame in the eyes of his community and was quite happy to be concealed. There are those among us who are naturally drawn to the promise of healing and wholeness but instead opt to “hide up a tree” because they are among the disenfranchised and not a part of the in-crowd. Like Z, it’s safer for them to look from a distance than risk shame or embarrassment.

In keeping with Luke’s familiar surprise endings and his unlikely heroes, Jesus called Z out and “invited himself” to his home. In turn, Z immediately responds and repents, at which point the story reverts to the crowd that demonizes a person it doesn't like based upon its pre-conceived notions and prejudice.

Nancy Rockwell writes “what Jesus treasures in the despised is their ability to hang on, to survive with part of their own humanity intact, despite the way they have been treated by the world. This part of themselves becomes their shining light, becomes the window of their soul and a lighted path for all out souls…They are here to show us how to keep going in deep darkness, how to survive the bullies, how to have hope in mean times…No wonder, then, that we celebrate the saints in the dark of the year, a time they understand well, a darkness in which they shine.” (The Bite in the Apple).

There but for the grace of God go I

In reading this parable Luke 18: 9-14 it’s only natural for us to take the side of the tax collector. After all these months of discussing Luke, we’re pretty sure we have a  good handle on what he’s trying to tell us.  We know that Luke was writing to an elite audience whose rigorous adherence to the law revealed its position in society. Besides, anytime we try to draw a line between who's "in" and who's "out" as this parable asserts, it’s reasonable to assume that God is on the side of the poor wretched tax collector. But, stopping there is too easy and is Luke’s red herring. Once we fall prey to the temptation that divides humanity into groups, we have aligned ourselves squarely with the Pharisee.

This parable is not about self-righteousness and humility anymore than it’s about a pious Pharisee and desperate tax collector. Rather it’s about God…who alone can judge and “justify.” Judgment is based on law and is at the mercy of human interpretation and bias. David Steindl-Rast writes  in Deeper Than Words that Justice is rooted in love not law…and is not a matter of imposing laws, as one imposes with a cookie cutter, patterns on flattened dough; it’s more like the yeast in the dough, it makes things work from within …Judging does not mean punishing but setting things right. Genuine justice ‘justifies’ in the way the printer justifies the lines on a page by making the margins straight. In nature whatever we look at closely shows itself ‘justified’---in harmony with divine order…nature is the great example of love in this sense.

This story is at the very heart of the good news.  God sees all about us, and knows all about us—good and bad--and accepts us as we are.   

Be Rich in Good Works…Talk is Cheap

 

The story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 is in keeping with many of our recent discussions and typical of Luke’s Gospels in which we encounter a number of assumptions and reversals.  The first reversal is that the beggar is given a name and the rich man is not.

When we encounter the poor or homeless we are moved to pity and a desire to help. Yet, too often this desire or inclination stops with the intention. It’s not that we don’t care; we really do, but something happens to cause us to “look the other way,” just long enough for us to put the “urge” out of our minds and for us to forget it. Let’s face it, getting physically involved with those who are “different” from us can make us a little uncomfortable. Perhaps the operative word here is “different.”

So it is with the rich man in this parable.  Both characters die and Lazarus is with Abraham in paradise and the rich man is in hell. While the story does not have a judgment scene, we assume that the rich man is not condemned because of his wealth but because he was “indifferent” to the plight of Lazarus. He did nothing to relieve his suffering in this life. Lazarus was not in the rich man’s line of sight because he was different …and the rich man was indifferent.

Yet doesn’t the rich man reveal a certain compassion and “piety” when he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to “warn” his brothers? Doesn’t this “better late than never piety” count for anything? No, it really doesn’t…the road to hell is paved with the best intentions. Jesus is telling us that piety and talk are cheap grace; it’s what we do with our wealth, i.e., our time, our abilities and our resources that count. While the rich man could have helped Lazarus before, he did not, and Lazarus cannot do anything to help the rich man now.

This Gospel stresses the urgency for us to act in this lifetime and suggests that the righteous and the “wicked” may see each other after death…but if they are attentive to the presence of the Kingdom of God, they may see both each other while on this earth.

Crime and Punishment

 

I think Alfred Hitchcock must have liked Luke. Likewise, I’m sure Luke would have been a big fan of Hitchcock’s films, many of which had twisted endings in which crime and punishment were somehow turned upside down and left us wondering what just happened. And so it is with Luke 16: 1-13. We’re convinced that the dishonest manager is finished, but is he?

Most of us have jobs that conform to specific job descriptions that are beholden to specific performance standards to which we are accountable. If our performance exceeds expectations, we are rewarded; likewise, if our performance falls short of expectations, we can be subject to remediation, probation and dismissal. Now the “dishonest manager,” as Jesus has already named him, is an “employee at will” and fired without so much as an opportunity to speak, much less redeem himself. The rich man was completely in his right to fire him for squandering his property.

So, here’s Luke’s surprise ending: instead of being punished and used as a model for bad behavior, the manager is given credit for being shrewd because he feathered his own nest by ingratiating himself to his employer’s debtors by discounting what is owed without any authorization. Instead of being thrown in jail, he was acknowledged for using his resources to provide for his future as he was forced to leave his job. I don’t think we would regard the manager as a model citizen but he was able to secure his future by establishing new friendships of those who were at one time in his debt. The dishonest manager was not respectable because he defied the law. Couldn’t the same be said for Jesus? He broke all the laws and was executed.

Jesus refused to yield to the love of power and lived the power of love by defying the hypocrisy of those who sit in judgment. He reached out with compassion to the “crooks” and “sinners” in us all, who might otherwise never feel worthy of meeting the expectations of a “harsh judge.”

Are there those we dismiss or overlook as though they have no value? How about those whose lifestyle is different from ours…do we dismiss them as having nothing worth contributing? Are they too young, too old, and too impaired to add anything to our lives and to our Church? Looking for the good in people is impossible if we treat them as having no redemptive value. 

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” (Mother Theresa)

You were never out of my sight

We all know what it’s like to lose something or someone. We all know that feeling that borders on fear, if not actual fear. Reading Luke 15:1-10 reminds us to think about how we felt when we experienced loss, and the joy we felt when we were “reunited.”

One of my most memorable experiences with loss goes back to a time when I was a child, not more than five, at the crowded beach in Coney Island. I suppose I got a little bored sitting on the blanket alone with my mother and baby sister and wanted to get some water to bring back and make a sand castle. Mom resisted my going to the shore unattended and did not want to leave my sister sleeping and alone. I convinced her that I would not get lost and would be always aware of where she was. Mom relented and so I made my way with my metal pail and shovel in tow, carefully drawing a line in the sand with my foot. I played at the surfside for a bit, filled my pail and turned to make my way back to the blanket. Of course, the line I’d made was gone and I immediately panicked...not because I couldn’t see my mother but because I couldn’t find the line in the sand leading back to her. I remember being overcome with fear and began crying. A woman standing nearby came to my aid, and assured me that we would find my mother, who appeared, I’m sure, within seconds, although it must have seemed like hours to a lost child. I can still recall what I felt when my mother gathered me up in her arms and held me close, telling me I was not lost and that I was always in her sight. I suppose the reason I can still remember this event so vividly is because of the “palpable” effect it had and continues to have. 

I can somehow relate this childhood experience with the two parables Jesus uses to describe lost and found and wonder what is more memorable, the fear of being lost or the joy of being found? In both instances Luke depicts the joy the shepherd and woman experience in finding what was lost. There was no recrimination just joy, as we are never out of His sight.

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

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Once again, Jesus’ message makes us a little uncomfortable. Did he not go a little too far when he tells us in Luke 14:25-33   "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple?”

We have all been involved in the planning of a party either as hosts or as guests. We have all experienced the initial excitement in discussing plans. But how many times do we renege or receive polite apologies when it comes time to commit? Are you or we coming to the party? Isn’t this a little how we feel in reading Luke’s gospel? How do we politely decline Jesus’ invitation to the banquet; it sounded so good in the planning stage but isn’t this a lot to ask of us right now; can I take a rain check? I’d like to but I’m not sure I have what it takes to get involved right now. I know He will understand.

After all these weeks we finally understand that Luke has a reason for speaking so directly to his audience, who while relatively affluent, was living in difficult times. Luke’s world was not a peaceful one; the Jews and early Christians faced a domination system that threatened their existence. In helping us understand Luke, David Steindl-Rast tells us that metaphor speaks to our intellect through our poetic sensibility. He suggests that reading the Bible or Gospel requires that we tune into the language of metaphor which asks that we take it seriously but not take it literally. And so it is in this reading of Luke.

Now back to Jesus’ invitation. I suppose we can ask for a rain check but in the long… and short run, we are hurting ourselves. By saying “no” to Jesus’ invitation-  “maybe later” - we are denying ourselves the opportunity to experience the Kingdom of God not just later, but right now, here in the present. Living for others out of our love for God, is the only way to find joy, peace, and a repaired relationship with God and each other in this world and in the hereafter. This is at the heart of Luke’s gospel and at the heart of Christianity.
By now we’ve learned that following Jesus is more than just sitting back and listening to a beloved teacher. Jesus’ words are meant to get us to move and to give up those things that get in the way and to surrender to His will. In essence this is what it means to be transformed in His likeness and what it means to be part of the “Body of Christ.” We don’t want to miss this party