FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

31 JANUARY 2016

          In his Gospel, Saint Luke clearly reveals the identity of Jesus of Nazareth.  At the beginning of the Gospel, the Angel Gabriel had announced to a lowly young woman that she had been chosen to be the mother of God.  Mary believed and accepted the child in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit.  At his birth in Bethlehem, the angels announced to the outcasts of the area the good news of the Savior’s birth.  The shepherds believed and worshipped him. When John baptized Jesus in the waters of the Jordan River, the voice from heaven clearly announced that “this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”

            When Jesus comes home to Nazareth as an adult, his reputation preceded him.  The local people had heard of his miracles.  They probably wanted him to prove himself to them by working a couple of miracles at home.  Instead, he goes to the synagogue, where he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and announces that the prophecy is now fulfilled in their hearing.  They marvel at the words which come from his mouth.  But, they cannot believe what he says.  They cannot believe that he is the Son of God, because they see him only as the son of Joseph.  Their blindness turns to anger when he tells them that his mission will extend from the children of Abraham to everyone.  He reminds them that a pagan widow had welcomed Elijah, and that a pagan general from Syria had been healed by Elisha.  They cannot open their eyes to recognize the Son of God standing in their midst.  They do not want to share Isaiah’s vision of liberation with strangers and foreigners.  They cannot accept the love of God which will include everyone.  They try to kill him.  But, his time has not yet come.  He walks through their midst to continue to reveal his identity and his mission to anyone who will accept it.

            Knowing that God is love, Jesus is manifesting God’s love to them.  In his first Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul defines God’s love.  Paul’s definition is very close to the definition of love given by Saint Thomas Aquinas:  love is willing the good for another only for the sake of that other.  God’s love is pure.  God does not love us to put on a huge show.  God is not interested in looking good to others.  God does not brood over injury, nor does God take pleasure when we have to suffer the consequences of our bad choices.  In fact, God forgives completely. 

            This is the love that Paul recommends to the people of Corinth.  Some members of the community were trying to impress everyone with their extraordinary gifts and demonstrations of faith.  Some of them spoke in tongues, while others paraded around their gift of prophecy.  Paul flatly dismisses any of these gifts or talents if they are not done with love.  Paul gives this same message to us.  We who embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior have the opportunity to witness to God’s love in our world.  Loving as God loves us is very hard work and goes well beyond those sentimental feelings we have for those for whom we care.  In fact, this kind of love enables us to love our enemies, in the sense that we will what is best for them, not for our own benefit, but for their good.

            Jesus, like Jeremiah centuries before him, found that his words spoken in love would eventually bring him to death.  Like, Jeremiah, Jesus trusted that his Father would never abandon him in his efforts to put a human face on God’s love.  When we were baptized, we were anointed as priests, prophets, and kings.  Sharing in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, we gather here to pray and celebrate the central Mystery of our faith.  As kings, we know that the Father loves us as much as he loves his Son.  As prophets, we can have the courage to speak the truth in love, willing the good of the other, even when that love is not returned to us.  God’s love never fails, and God will never fail us.

THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

24 JANUARY 2016

          Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the governor tell their people that they should not be sad and that they should rejoice and feast on rich foods.  The people need to hear these words, because they are in a desperate situation.  They had just returned from fifty years of captivity in Babylon.  Most of them had never been to Jerusalem.  They had only heard about it from their parents.  Now, they are facing a very different reality.  The Babylonians had breached the walls that had protected their beloved city.  They are facing the difficult task of rebuilding the walls and the Temple. Ezra reads from the Law of the Lord to encourage their work of reestablishing their physical identity.  Now we have had some long-winded associate priests in my time here.  But none have ever preached from dawn until mid-day!  But that is what Ezra does!  He reads from the Scrolls of the Torah –the first five books of the Bible – to help the people recover their connection with the God who restores them and their social connection with each other as members of the Covenant, originally sealed through Moses.  Ezra and Nehemiah remind the people that God has never forgotten them, even though their parents had forgotten God.

            Centuries later, Jesus comes home to Nazareth and opens another one of the scrolls of God’s Word, deliberately choosing the Prophet Isaiah.  Like Ezra and Nehemiah, Isaiah had told his people that God had not forgotten them, even when their bad choices had caused their exile.  Isaiah promises that God would recognize them in their poverty, that he would free those held in captivity, that he would restore sight to the blind, free the oppressed, and that he would proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.  To the utter astonishment of the congregation, Jesus announces that “today, this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

            The Gospel of Luke is not a history lesson, but the living Word of God through which Jesus speaks to us here and now.  During this Liturgical Year, we will hear the Gospel of Saint Luke on most Sundays, opening our hearts to reflect on the Lord’s presence in our daily lives.  Jesus invites us to be mindful of the poor in our world.  He wants us to trust that he can free us from whatever binds us and keeps us from reaching out in love to others.  He can open our eyes to see his presence in those around us, especially in those who annoy us and are difficult. We can do these things, because the same Spirit that empowered Jesus empowers us to live as his Body in our world.  As Saint Paul reminds us, each of us has a part in this Mystical Body.  Each of us contributes to the working of this Body, even when we are tempted to consider our actions and our gifts do not matter.

            When Isaiah speaks of a year acceptable to the Lord, he is speaking of a Jubilee Year, a year in which debts are erased and people are given a fresh start.  Pope Francis has declared this year a Jubilee Year, a special year focused on God’s Mercy.  In declaring this Year of Mercy, Pope Francis does not imply that there is no right or wrong.  He is not changing the moral teachings of the Church.  Those moral teachings are intended to prevent our making choices that cause the exile and suffering faced by the people addressed by Ezra and Nehemiah.  Instead, he encourages us to face the ways in which we have not taken our place as members of the Body of Christ.  He wants us to be honest about how we have ignored the poor or caused damage to other members, especially in our families, in the places where we work, and in our parish.  Embraced by God’s limitless mercy, we can open our blind eyes to see the wounds we have caused and make a new beginning.  Once we become more aware of God’s mercy in our own lives, we can give it more freely to those who have wounded us.  In accepting and giving God’s mercy, those words of Jesus are being fulfilled, here and now, in our midst, in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

10 JANUARY 2016

            Children are integral to Christmas.  Christmas centers on the manifestation of God in the form of a tiny baby, born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laying in a manger.  Our Scripture readings have unfolded the mystery of that child:  how he was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin and protected by a man who trusted in God’s Word.  They have told us about shepherds worshipping the child and astrologers from the east discovering the child.  We have heard about his parents finding him in the Temple when he was 12 years old, and Mary reflecting on these things in her heart.  Our Christmas Carols have focused our reflections on what child is this and what joy his birth brings to us.  They have urged us to ponder these events of that silent Bethlehem night in the silence of our hearts.

            With our focus on this child, Christmas is also about our children.  Children show us how to wait (not so patiently) for the gifts of the Christmas Season.  They show us how to rejoice and find joy in places we might not expect.  They give us hope, because they reveal that God can begin something new, as we get older and more cynical.  They teach us to love in very ordinary ways.  More than anything else, they make us smile and laugh.

            As important as children are to Christmas, this last Sunday of the Season reminds us that we must mature in faith.  Otherwise, Christmas becomes simply a cute and sentimental time that goes too quickly.  On this last Sunday, we reflect on the mature adult Jesus, coming to the waters of the Jordan River to begin the mission for which he had been sent.  Like excited children, the crowds are wondering whether John the Baptist might be the messiah.  Pointing out that he is not worthy to perform the work of a slave in adjusting his master’s sandals, he baptizes everyone who wants to turn away from sin and begin a new life of graced living.

            In telling the Baptism of Jesus, Luke teaches two lessons.  Without describing the actual baptism, he tells us that Jesus spends time in prayer.  We will find Jesus spending time in prayer many times in this Gospel that we will hear during this New Year.  Through prayer, Jesus becomes more aware that he is the Suffering Servant of the Prophet Isaiah.  His mission is to save us from our sins through his redemptive suffering and death.  The second lesson occurs after the Father confirms, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove.  The Holy Spirit anoints and equips Jesus for his mission.  Luke will unveil the presence of the Holy Spirit throughout the ministry of Jesus Christ on the Sundays of this year.  During the Easter Season, we will hear about the Holy Spirit working through the Church in Luke’s second volume, The Acts of the Apostles.

            In leaving the Christmas Season and returning to Ordinary Time, the Scripture readings invite us to reflect on our baptism and grow in faith.  Whether we were baptized as infants or adults, we were plunged into the saving waters of God’s love and inflamed with the fire of the Holy Spirit when we were confirmed.  We received the gift of God’s grace and shared fully in the life of the Trinity.  That grace does not depend on how good we are or how much we know.  It is and undeserved and wholly given gift for the rest of our lives.

            This New Year gives us the gift of learning how to live our baptism more fully.  We can spend more time in prayer, reflecting on our status as beloved children in whom God is well pleased.  Through prayer, we can sort out our mission.  Through prayer, we can become more aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, giving us the courage to love as God has loved us.  The definition of God’s love is that God wants the best for us.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of the sacrament of Baptism, we can give that same love to others. 

THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD

3 JANUARY 2016

          Saint Paul knew the city of Ephesus well, because he lived there for three years.  He knew it as a large prosperous port city with a diverse population of people coming from many different areas and cultures and races.  The people of Ephesus worshipped a wide variety of pagan gods.  Most of these gods were inventions of “mystery” religions, inviting people to become fully initiated members by gradually learning the secrets known only to a select few.

            When Saint Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians from his prison cell in Rome, he is aware that this notion of secrecy has been creeping into the Christian community which he had founded in Ephesus.  Gnostics are insisting that Christians have to know the secrets to live fully initiated lives in Christ.  As a steward of God’s grace (as one who has been called to preach the authentic Good News of Jesus Christ), Paul acknowledges that there is mystery in Christianity, in the sense that we can never fully understand what we believe.  But, there is no secret!  The mystery involves God’s plan that originated with the Covenant with Abraham and has slowly been revealed to the people of that Covenant.  Now, in the fullness of time, God has taken on human flesh and dwells in our midst – not just in the lives of a few chosen people who know some secret, but in the lives of all who embrace the Good News of Jesus Christ.

            That is the message of Saint Matthew.  He writes his Gospel to Jewish Christians.  In telling the story of the Magi, he proclaims the truth that God had chosen them not to keep the truth to themselves, but to share it with the world.  As Saint Paul insists, all who embrace the Gospel are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.  These non-Jews from the east are the first to encounter the newborn Christ.  In offering him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they express our faith that Jesus Christ is a King, that he is God, and that he is to win our salvation through suffering and death.

            In our own day, many people continue to search for the truth.  Just as the Magi used the science of their day, many young people are searching to find the truth through science, or philosophy, or through nature.  Many make a distinction between being spiritual and being religious.  There is much which is good about being spiritual and being a seeker.  But, the star led those ancient mysterious seekers from the east only so far.  To find the Word made flesh, they had to consult those who knew God’s revealed Word through organized religion.  Only through the revealed words of the prophet Micah could they know that the King of the Jews was to be born in Bethlehem.  Only through the words of the prophet Ezekiel could they know that God would eventually shepherd his flock through an ideal shepherd who would give his entire life for the flock.  Aided by religion, these spiritual seekers eventually find the truth.  Once they find the child, they become aware that he had been seeking them all along.

            On this Feast of the Epiphany, we reflect on the ultimate gift of Jesus Christ, given to us, and its implications.  We are aware that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has found its way to every part of the world, to every culture, and to every race.  Our challenge is to reach out to the spiritual seekers of our own community and welcome them into the fullness of religion.  As we construct our church of brick and mortar, we commit ourselves to do whatever we can to engage those who honestly seek to find the truth.  Please consider joining one of the book clubs to discuss the book we gave at Christmas:  Rediscover Jesus.  This is the first of many steps to engage spiritual seekers, to help them find the truth that we worship here, and to let them know that the Word made flesh has been seeking them all along.