"DO NOT BE AFRAID!"

Homily for March 25^th, 2014: The Annunciation. Luke 1:26-38.

          “Do not be afraid,” the angel Gabriel says to Mary. Girls married very early in those days. Mary may have been only 14 or 15. To be visited by an angel was no ordinary experience. Mary did not know what was happening to her. Of course she was afraid – “greatly troubled,” Luke says. To reassure her, the angel calls Mary “full of grace.” Grace is God’s love, poured into our hearts through the power of God’s Holy Spirit. How wonderful for this young teenager to hear that she was filled with God’s love – the greatest and most powerful love there is.

          Only after speaking this reassurance does the angel tell Mary that she is going to be pregnant even before her planned marriage to Joseph. No wonder that she asks, “How can this be?” In response Mary hears the stunning news that the father of her child will not be Joseph. He will be conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the angel says, “the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”

Did Mary understand that? How could she? Only later, decades later, did all this start to make sense to her. At the time she understood only this: that in a little village, where gossip was rife, and everyone knew everybody’s own business, she was going to be an unmarried mother. Without hesitation, however, Mary responds in trusting faith: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

More than thirty years later, the Son whom Mary bore would say, not once but often, what the angel had said to his mother, at the time he was conceived: “Be not afraid.” Jesus spoke those words to his disciples in a boat, when they saw him coming toward them on the water in the midst of a storm (Mt 14:27). He spoke the same words to Peter, James, and John on the mountain at his Transfiguration (Mt 17:7 and parallels). He repeated them to Jairus, the synagogue official who, after asking healing for his little daughter, was told that the girl had already died (Mark 6:50).

The Lord is saying those same words to us, right now: “Be not afraid.” Trust me. I am with you. I shall be with you – always. On this day when we celebrate Mary’s acceptance of the Lord’s call, we ask her to pray for us, that we too may say our yes to God, in good times, but also in bad.

THE HEALING OF A V.I.P.

Homily for March 24^th, 2014: 2 Kings 5:1-15.

          Read the Bible through, and you will find every type of person you will ever encounter or even read about. The Syrian General Naaman, whose story we heard in our first reading, and whom Jesus recalls in the gospel, is the original V.I.P. – a Very Important Person. We see this in the retinue he takes with him on his visit to what he considers the unimportant little country of Israel. He brings with him a treasure in silver and gold, ten sets of elaborate court dress, the horses and chariots necessary to transport all this booty, and the personnel necessary to keep everything in order and to ensure that Naaman himself has a safe journey, with all the comforts he requires.

          The reason for his trip is the report which has reached him from one of his wife’s servant girls that there is a prophet in Israel who can cure people of Naaman’s disease: leprosy. Naaman deals initially with Israel’s king. You wouldn’t expect a man of his importance to go traipsing through a piddling little foreign country looking for a mere prophet, would you? When the king sends him on to Elisha, and Naaman finds out, upon arrival at the prophet’s modest abode, that Elisha won’t even come out to greet him, but sends him a note instead, he is indignant. When he reads the note, his indignation turns to outrage. It tells him that if is looking for a cure he should wash seven times in the nearby river Jordan. ‘You call that a river?' Naaman protests angrily. ‘Back where I come from, that’s nothing but a muddy creek. I’m going home.’

          At this point the real hero of the story appears: someone in Naaman’s entourage who finds courage to say the Great Man: ‘What have you got to lose? Why not try what the prophet says?’ Naaman does so – and he is healed! He returns to Elisha, who comes out now, and hears Naaman confess: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.” Naaman’s cure is not only physical. It is mental and spiritual as well. His mind, and with it his soul, have been changed. He realizes that it’s not all about himself, his ideas, his expectations.

          What about us? Are we open to the other – open to God? Are we willing to acknowledge that our own ideas, our goals, our dreams, may fall short of what the Lord God, who loves us more than we can ever imagine, wants for us – and yes, has in store for us -- if only we can stop thinking it’s all about me, me, me, and tell God: “Not what I want Lord, but what you want?”   

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

Third Sunday in Lent, Year A.  John 4:5-42

AIM: To encourage the hearers to deeper conversion to Jesus Christ.

          “Go, call your husband,” Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well. To which she replies at once: “I do not have a husband.”

          “You are right,” Jesus responds. “For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” She has tried her luck with five men. Now she is living with a sixth. Numbers in the Bible are often symbolic. Six is a number of imperfection, lack, or deficiency. Living with her sixth partner, the woman is in a situation of lack and deficiency. In none of these six relationships has she found what she is looking for.

          In the thought world of the Bible seven, on the other hand, denotes completeness, consummation, perfection. There are seven days in the week, seven petitions in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple (1 Kgs 8:29-53). The most sacred object in the Temple, apart from the ark of the covenant, which contained the Ten Commandments, was the seven-branched candlestick, called even today by Jews the Menorah. When the Syrian general Naaman came to the prophet Elijah to be healed of his leprosy, Elijah told him to wash himself seven times in the nearby Jordan River (2 Kgs 5:10). There are seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. When Peter asks Jesus how often he must forgive his brother, and suggests seven times, Jesus tells him that the duty of forgiveness is unlimited: “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Mt. 18:22). The gospels record seven utterances of Jesus on the cross, and an appearance of the risen Lord to seven disciples after a night of fruitless fishing on the lake (Jn. 21:2).

As this story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well unfolds, we discover that the seventh man in this woman’s life is Jesus. As she opens up to him, she finally experiences the satisfaction of her deepest longing and desires — of her heart’s thirst. 

          The story’s starting point is thirst. Tired from his journey, Jesus sits down by the well and asks the Samaritan woman who is drawing water: “Give me a drink.” Jesus is thirsty. What could be more natural than for him to ask the woman to give him some of the water she is drawing to quench her own thirst? In reality, Jesus’ request was anything but natural. The woman herself finds it astonishing.  “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” she says. Jesus’ request violated two boundaries: first, the one which forbade him, as an observant Jew, to share a cup with a Samaritan; and second, the prohibition of any extended social interaction in a public place between a man and a woman not of his own family. 

          The ensuing conversation between Jesus and this woman, member of a people looked down upon and despised by the Jesus’ people, is the longest dialogue recorded in any of the four gospels. The gospel writer tells us that when Jesus’ disciples return from the village they are “amazed that he was talking with a woman.” If Jesus had remained within the boundaries of his time, he would hardly have spoken to this woman at all — or at least only briefly and superficially. A superficial contact could have produced only a superficial result. 

          In his concern for this unfortunate woman — member of a despised minority and with a messed up life — Jesus breaks the boundaries of his time. Unlike many modern evangelists, however, Jesus does not condemn. He does not threaten. He does not intimidate. Instead he invites the woman to give him a drink. Then he challenges her: “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” When she says she has no husband, Jesus affirms her: “You are right in saying I have no husband.” Finally he tries to enlighten her doubts. When she mentions the Messiah, Jesus responds: “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”       

What is it about Jesus that makes such a tremendous impact on this woman?  Simply this: for the first time in her life she meets in Jesus a man who understands her and respects her; and the first man who knows her through and through, yet does not reject, condemn, or use her. In her excitement she forgets her water jar, and her thirst — as Jesus evidently forgets his own thirst — and runs back to the village to tell all her friends: “Come see a man who told me everything I have done.” She is so overjoyed finally to have found a man who satisfies her deepest longings that she wants to bring others to him. The convert has become a messenger and missionary to others. 

          Here in the Eucharist we receive, from these twin tables of word and sacrament, the living water of which Jesus speaks to this Samaritan woman. We need to come again and again. Why? Is it because the Lord gives us only a little each time? No! When God gives, he gives abundantly, even super-abundantly. We come repeatedly not because the Lord’s gift is limited, but because our capacity to receive is limited. We do not come, however, merely to get our spiritual batteries recharged; to fill up the tank for another week’s journey down the road of life. No, this is a personal encounter with One who loves us more than we can ever imagine; who values us more than we value ourselves. 

          Like the Samaritan woman with her six partners, we may try to hide the messy situations in our lives. Jesus knows about them already. He does not excuse; but neither does he condemn — any more than he condemned the Samaritan woman.

          Toward the end of this long dialogue Jesus tells his disciples, returned now from the village: “Look up, and see the fields ripe for the harvest.” The woman, and the friends and neighbors she has brought from the village, are part of the harvest Jesus is talking about: simple folk, little people we might say, looked down on and despised by Jesus’ people — though never by him. Unlike so many leaders of Jesus’ own people, they do not ask for “a sign”: some dramatic proof which will compel their belief. They accept Jesus in the simple trusting faith of humble people everywhere. 

          “Look up, and see the fields ripe for the harvest,” Jesus says. Was that just long ago and far away? Don’t you believe it! Whenever, wherever, we find that thrills, success, power, or possessions cannot satisfy our deepest longings, we are thirsting (though we may not know it) for the living water that Jesus alone can give. Today, as in Jesus’ time, the fields are still “ripe for harvest.” That is absolutely certain. We have Jesus’ word for it.

          One thing alone remains uncertain. Do we truly want to be part of that harvest? The answer to that question lies in our hands. Jesus Christ is waiting for our answer — right now.    

ON RETREAT

I shall be on retreat all this week. The homily for next Sunday, THE WOMAN AT THE WELL, will be posted on Wednesday of this week. Whether I shall be able to post other homilies this week is uncertain. You can count on the return of daily homilies from next Monday, March 24th, onward.

TAKERS AND GIVERS

Homily for March 17^th, 2014: Luke 6:36-38.

          At the end of the day there are, basically, two kinds of people. There are the Takers, and there are the Givers. Which are you? If you’re a Taker, I can promise you one thing. You will always be frustrated; because you’ll never get enough. It is only the Givers who are truly happy. They are the ones who receive from God, the giver of every good gift, the joy and peace which only the Lord God can give.

          At bottom this is what Jesus is talking about in the short gospel reading we have just heard. “Give and gifts will be given to you,” he tells us. And what we receive will be measured out to us in accordance with the generosity of our own giving. “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

          If we want God to be merciful to us, Jesus says, we must be merciful to others. If we want God to be generous in judging us – and is there anyone who does not? – then we must be generous in judging others.

          Lent is a time in which we try to grow spiritually. One way to do so is to examine ourselves, our attitudes, and our behavior. Am I quick to find fault with others? Do I try to avoid contact with people who rub me the wrong way? Do I easily look down on others who don’t have the gifts God has given me? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, or sometimes, then we need to ask the Lord to help us change.

          Nor should we wait to see if others show any sign of being willing to change. Start to make the necessary changes today. And you will discover what all true Givers know already: God can never be outdone in generosity!

LOVE WITHOUT LIMIT

Homily for March 15^th, 2014: Matthew 5: 43-48.

          Nowhere in the Bible do we find the command which Jesus cites in the gospel reading today: “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” Jesus is citing not Scripture but general public opinion when he refers to a command to hate your enemy. Speaking not as an interpreter of the law, but as the Lawgiver (as we saw yesterday that he does at least four times in the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus states what we could call the  new law of God: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” The book Leviticus has something similar, but it pertains to Jews only: “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen.” (19:18) Jesus, in effect, lifts the limitation to Jews and makes the command universal. How could he do this? Because this is how Jesus himself lived.

          The 12^th century English Benedictine, Abbot Aelred, writes about this in a work called The Mirror of Love. Here is what he says.

“He who is more fair than all men offered his fair face to be spat upon by sinful men; he allowed those eyes that rule the universe to be blindfolded by wicked men; he bared his back to the scourges; he submitted that head which strikes terror in principalities and powers to the sharpness of the thorns; he gave himself up to be mocked and reviled, and at the end endured the cross, the nails, the lance, the gall, the vinegar, remaining always gentle, meek, and full of peace.”

Jesus also prayed for his tormentors, Aelred reminds us, saying “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And so, Aelred writes, “If someone wishes to love himself … he must enlarge the horizon of his love to contemplate the loving gentleness of the humanity of the Lord. … If he wishes to prevent this fire of divine love from growing cold because of injuries received, let him keep the eyes of his soul always fixed on the serene patience of his beloved Lord and Savior [Jesus Christ].” (Breviary Office of Readings, Friday of the first week of Lent.)

"BUT I SAY TO YOU . . . "

Homily for March 14^th: Matthew 5:20-26.

          Four times in this first week of Lent the gospel reading is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. On Tuesday Jesus told us how to pray by giving us the Our Father. Yesterday’s gospel continued this teaching with Jesus encouraging faithfulness to prayer by telling us to ask, to seek, and to knock. Today and tomorrow Jesus speaks about the central concern of Jewish religion: God’s law. There is an important phrase that we heard twice today and that shall hear again tomorrow: “But I say to you …” With those words Jesus distances himself from normal Jewish practice.  

          Other teachers of God’s law cite a Commandment and then discuss its interpretation, citing the interpretations of other famous rabbis. The Commandment to “Keep holy the Sabbath day,” for instance, raises the whole question of what kinds of work are forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus speaks not, like other rabbis, as an interpreter of the law. He speaks as himself the Lawgiver.

“You have heard, ‘You shall kill.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Or – “You have heard, “Do not commit adultery.’ But I say to you whoever looks lustfully on a woman, has already committed with her in his thoughts.” Or again – “You have heard, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Or finally – “You have heard, ‘Do not take a false oath.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all.”

Do you see what Jesus is doing? Two things. First, by speaking not as an interpreter of God’s law, but as the Lawgiver, Jesus is manifesting his divinity. He does the same when he forgives sins. Second, he is plugging the loopholes in the law developed by legalistic interpreters – “the scribes and Pharisees” mentioned at the beginning of today’s gospel. If the Commandments really mean what Jesus says they mean, then they are beyond our power to fulfill completely.  

Many people think of the Commandments as questions in a moral examination in which we must first get a passing grade before God will love and bless us in this life, and admit us to heaven in the next. That’s wrong! God loves us already, just as good parents love their children from birth, or even from conception, without waiting to see how they’ll turn out. The Commandments tell us how to respond gratefully to the free gift of God’s love. And if a long life has taught me anything, it is this: grateful people are happy people – no exceptions!

JESUS' TRANSFIGURATION

Second Sunday in Lent, Year A:  Matthew 17:1-9.

          Few incidents in the gospels are so difficult to speak about as the one we celebrate today. Like Jesus’ resurrection, of which we have no description at all (the gospels describe only the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Lord), the Transfiguration is a mystery. Not that we can understand nothing about it; but that we can understand will always be less than the whole. The Transfiguration yields its secret only if we respect its mystery. The gospel writers do so by describing it in symbols.  There are least six:

--       the high mountain;

--        the appearance of Moses and Elijah;

--        the three booths which Peter wants to erect;

--        the cloud;

--        the heavenly voice; 

--        the dazzling whiteness of Jesus’ clothes and face.

          In the thought-world of the Bible, mountains symbolize remoteness from ordinary worldly affairs, and nearness to God. Moses received the Ten Commandments atop Mt. Sinai. Elijah staged his dramatic contest with the false prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. In Mark’s gospel Jesus ascended a mountain to call his twelve apostles (Mk 3:13). And in John he withdraws to a mountain to pray following the feeding of the five thousand in the wilderness (Jn 6:15).

          Moses and Elijah, the two greatest heroes of Jesus’ people, symbolize the special relationship of the people to God. Together they point to Jesus as the one who fulfills all his people’s hopes and expectations. Jesus is greater than either of them, greater than Moses and Elijah together.

          The three booths or tents which Peter wants to erect are reminiscent of the Jewish Feast of Booths, a joyful autumn celebration that recalled the time when God’s people lived in tents during their desert wanderings. The feast of Booths also looks forward to the joy of the end-time when God will visit his people and complete the blessings promised in the covenant he made with Moses in the wilderness.

          The cloud is the most striking symbol of all. Repeatedly in Holy Scripture the cloud symbolizes God’s presence. During their desert wanderings God’s people were led onward by a cloud. Mt. Sinai was enveloped in a cloud when Moses received the Ten Commandments. A cloud received the risen Lord at his Ascension.  

          The voice from the cloud repeats the words heard at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my beloved Son, on whom my favor rests.” Here, however, the words are addressed not to Jesus, but to his disciples. The concluding words, “Listen to him,”  remind us of Moses’ prophecy: “The Lord your God will raise up a prophet from among you like myself, and you shall listen to him” (Dt. 18:15).

          The Transfiguration is a mystery because, though it happened in time, it opens a window onto a world beyond time. For a brief moment, there on the mountain, the veil between time and eternity, between earth and heaven, is lifted. Jesus’ friends catch a glimpse of the invisible, spiritual world of God. The concluding words, “Listen to him,” express the significance of the mystery for Jesus’ friends: not only for the three on the mountain with him, but for all the friends of Jesus, ourselves included. 

          We, the friends and followers of Jesus Christ, are the company of those who listen to his words. Jesus does not grant to us, any more than he granted to Peter, James, and John, the continuous vision of his glory. We live not on the mountaintop of great spiritual experiences, but in the valley of life’s ordinary duties. There we do not look for dazzling visions from beyond. Instead we listen for Jesus’ voice.

          Jesus speaks to us in many ways: in the Scriptures, in the teaching of his Church, through the circumstances of daily life. He speaks to us in the promptings of conscience, and in the needs of those whom we encounter along life’s way. In the world to come, it will be different. There we shall see the Lord. In this world, however, we live by faith, and not by sight. 

          For a moment, before the descent of the cloud, the three friends of Jesus saw their friend and Master transformed beyond anything they could have imagined. It was as if his humanity had no limits. The Transfiguration is a manifestation of Christ’s divinity, from a moment breaking through the veil of his humanity. But it is more. It also shows us our potential to become divine.

          If the goal of the spiritual life is to grow in likeness to God, then the more we progress, the more we participate in God’s own life. When our journey reaches its end, and we have been stripped of all the obstacles to holiness, God’s life will become our life, and we shall be one with God. Then our earthly pilgrimage beneath an often overcast sky will yield to the uninterrupted vision of God’s glory. We too shall shine with an unearthly light — the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ: our Master, our Savior, our Redeemer — but also our passionate lover, and our best friend. We shall have reached our true homeland, the heavenly city which (as we read in Revelation) needs neither sun nor moon, “for the glory of God gives it light, and the lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21.23).

          Now, however, is the time not for seeing, but for hearing. We listen for the Father’s voice and heed his command, as he speaks to us the words first uttered to those three friends of Jesus on the mountain two thousand years ago:

          “This is my beloved Son, on whom my favor rests. Listen to him.”