Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (January 27th, 2019)

I have spoken repeatedly from this pulpit regarding the significance of the year 587 BC. This is the year when the once mighty Kingdom of David came to a horrific end and it seemed that the God of Israel had been utterly defeated and the Israelites were no more.

This year is a watershed date in the history of the Israelites, but also, it is the key to understanding, not only the Old Testament, but also the New Testament. Without knowledge or understanding of what happened in the year 587 BC we lose a critical reference point that enables us to interpret the Scriptures. In fact, without knowledge or understanding of 587 BC the Bible becomes opaque to us- what happened that terrible year is that important.

In 587 BC, the Babylonian Empire invaded the territories of the Israelites and laid siege to the city of Jerusalem. Once the Israelite defenses had been overcome, the ransacked the holy city. The royal family, the ancestors of King David, were killed. The last king, Zedekiah, was made to witness these executions, and was then blinded and taken as a captive by the Babylonians. The Temple built by Solomon as the house of God on earth was pillaged, desecrated and destroyed, with its sacred vessels hauled off to Babylon where they would be publically profaned for the amusement of the royal elites of Babylon. The walls of the city were torn down and the city was burned to the ground. The city’s inhabitants were enslaved and exiled. In the eyes of the world, the Israelites ceased to exist and the God of the Israelites was no more.

The terrors of 587 BC could not be forgotten. The scars of such horrors would ache for generations. The shattering of the Israelite’s faith was catastrophic. Had God been defeated? Were his promises empty? Did he care? Did he even exist?

This is the context from which prophets preach and from which arises the cry for a deliverer, a Messiah, one who would come with the power of God to restore what was lost, and bring about a new Kingdom, not of merely of man, but of God. The Israelites knew that only God could set things right and they longed for him to do precisely this. All this sets the stage for the revelation of God in Christ- as I said it is the privileged reference point, and without it, knowing and understanding the Scriptures, Old and New, becomes merely a literary exercise, rather than an illumination of God’s revelation.

Without knowing about and understanding 587 BC, our interpretation of the Scriptures turns into clichés and preaching into faith-based entertainment.

Today we heard proclaimed as our first scripture an excerpt from the Old Testament Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah the prophet spoke the Lord’s word of truth to the Israelites in the year 538 BC, the year that the Israelites finally returned to their ancestral lands after long years of suffering and exile. What they found there was mere ruins, the “land flowing with milk and honey” had become a desolate disappointment. The exultation that accompanied the end of exile was dampened by the harsh reality of rebuilding an entire civilization from the ground up.

In the midst of this, the priest, Ezra, comes forward and begins to teach. He proclaims and interprets the histories, the laws, the prophets of the Scriptures to the people and for many, this is the first time they learn who they are. From this proclamation and teaching a renewed sense of mission and purpose arises. The Israelites, knowing now who they are, who God has declared them to be, now know what they are supposed to do. It was with this revelation, that the exile of the Israelites began to come to an end.

And there is the lesson: knowing who you are, you know what to do.

Without knowing who we are as Christians we do not know what to do.

Knowledge of who we as Christians does not come from the ambient culture, or from intuitions or opinions we might have. It does not come simply from feelings or from our own ideas. Knowing who we are as Christians comes from the revelation of God in Christ, a revelation that seizes us, cuts into our hearts, tells us what needs to be done and often takes us where we don’t want to go.

We don’t make up the Christian faith for ourselves. Like the Israelites listening to Ezra the priest, we receive the Faith, and once having received it, we must decide what we will do. Will we accept it or reject it?

A Christian faith we make up for ourselves out of our ideas, feelings or opinions is easier for us to take, especially in a culture like ours, that believes that the best religion is the religion that we make up to suit our desires, our ideologies, and our preferences. But this is not a religion that comes from God and it is not a religion that will truly reveal who we are and what it is that God wants for us to do. Bereft of this true revelation and true religion, there will be no mission and no real purpose. The result will be that we will remain in an exile without end.

Our second scripture is an excerpt from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In this passage, the Apostle Paul insists we accept and understand that there is a dynamic differentiation of gifts in the Church, and these gifts are intended by God for the Church’s mission in the world. St. Paul was well aware how fractious we Christians often are, are how often we receive the gifts of the Church in a dark spirit of envy or we try to use the Church’s gifts as a means to leverage our ideologies and causes. These attitudes tear the Body of the Church apart and subvert the power of the gifts Christ imparts to his people.

Not all in the Church will have the same gifts, but all the gifts are necessary. The gifts we are given are not for our own benefit, but for the Church’s mission. Seeking out of envy or scheming or ideology to leverage gifts for a purpose other than the mission Christ gives us, makes the Church sick, and can even kill the Church.

Also, St. Paul identifies the Church in a way that should shock and provoke us- he calls the Church “Christ’s Body” and he means this literally, not figuratively. The Church is the Body of Christ in the world, the extension of his Incarnation in space and time. The Church is not our faith-based clubhouse, a religious themed corporation, a discussion club, or ethnic pageant. The Church is not an extension of our political and ideological concerns, something we use to promote our agendas and causes. The Church is Christ’s Body and as Christ’s Body his mission and purpose is extended into time through us. Simply put- the Church manifests knowledge of who we are when we know who Christ is, and knowing who Christ is, then we know what we are to do.

If we don’t know Christ, or if the Christ we know is merely a projection of our own ideas, feelings and opinions, then the mission and purpose of the Church will evade our understanding. If know who Christ is, we will know who we are. If we Christians know who we are in Christ, then we will know what Christ wants us to do.

Finally, we listened today to the opening of the Gospel of Luke and heard of Christ announcing the beginning of his mission, citing as the reference point of understanding a passage from the Old Testament Book of the prophet Isaiah.

This passage is meant to signal that God is acting in Christ to set a world gone wrong back right. God has entered history in Christ and has, to the utter and complete surprise of everyone, entered history as a man. God has accepted a human nature and now lives, in Christ, a real, human life. The purpose of this revelation can be referenced in the terrible events and aftermath of 587 BC, and all the great catastrophes that have engulfed humanity in sin and death and forced us into the exile of believing that God does not care or does not exist.

In Christ, God is with us, not just in some things, or in pleasant things, but in all the events and circumstances of life. God in Christ will speak to us, as Ezra the priest spoke to the Israelites, and from him (from God!) we will learn who we are and what we are to do, and through his life and presence, we will be given a mission and purpose for our lives. And from his life and presence, given to us even now in the Church, in his revelation, in his holy sacraments, we will discover that even in the midst of the challenges and sufferings of life, our long exile is now coming to an end.

 

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (January 20th, 2019)

The Church’s first scripture for today is an excerpt from the magnificent Old Testament Book of the Prophet Isaiah.

The Book of the prophet Isaiah is one of the lengthiest and most beautiful of all the books of the Bible. Its purpose is to provide a theological interpretation and spiritual insights regarding many of the great events of Israelites history. This means that the prophet Isaiah looks intently at real world events and circumstances and seeks inspired answers to what God is doing and why. Remember, the Bible presents God as active and interested in our own lives and in what is happening in the world. The God of the Bible is not a distant force or merely an idea or feeling in our mind or heart. The God of the Bible is a divine person, who relates to us, shares his life with us, and seeks to be known and to know us.

So much of Israelite history was difficult and devastating and the Israelites wrestled with a God who insisted that a relationship with him would happen, not through exemptions from the hard facts of life, but through remaining faithful to God in the midst of circumstances that were mysterious and could not be easily explained. The Book of Isaiah presents two such difficult and devastating events- the invasions of the Assyrian armies in 722 BC and the Babylonian armies in 587 BC.

Both events were catastrophes beyond reckoning. The invasions of the Assyrians in 722 BC resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Israelites, and the devastation was such that 10 of the 12 tribes of the Israelites disappeared from history. This desolation haunted the Israelites even unto the times of Christ’s revelation, indeed, it is remains a reference point that must be considered if the Gospels are to make sense.

In 587 BC, the Babylonians invaded, and the once mighty kingdom of David came to a horrific end, and in the eyes of the world, the God of the Israelites had been defeated and his people were no more- those Israelites that remained, enslaved or in exile, wondered how God could even set things right. They lingered in despair and in doubts.

It is to an Israel that languishes in despair and doubts that the Prophet Isaiah speaks today. His words are meant as words of consolation and hope. He foresees a time when God will act to set things right, to restore what had been lost, to defeat evil, and bring justice to those who had in 722 BC and 587 BC suffered such terrible wrongs.

Isaiah insists in his vision that this will take place when God enters history himself. He will not act or speak through a prophet, but he will come himself, achieving a communion with his people that the prophet likens to the union of a bridegroom and bride. And on that day, when God comes into the world, that day will be for the Israelites like a great wedding feast- their darkness and doubts will be dispelled by the coming of God into the world.

We Christians understand Isaiah’s vision as fulfilled in the revelation of Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? He is God, God who comes to his people to restore what is lost, to defeat evil and bear into this world the justice of God. His relationship with his people is like that of a bridegroom to his bride, in fact, this is how the New Testament describes the relationship of God in Christ to the Church.

The relationship of Christ to his Church is not that of chief executive to a corporation or head of state to a parliament, but that of a husband to wife, a bridegroom to bride.

We might prefer God related to the Church another way, but God presents his relationship to his Church as bridegroom to bride, husband to wife and reveals that this is the best way, the privileged way, to understand how God relates to the Church.

The relationship of Christ and the Church is one of love, and this love reveals itself in the Holy Spirit- this is the great theme of the Church’s second scripture for today from the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.

The Apostle Paul identifies that the fruitfulness, the generativity of Christ’s relationship to his Church manifests or reveals itself in gifts of the Holy Spirit. These gifts are powers, powers that allow the Church to do the kinds of things that the Lord Jesus did. Remember, the Church is not a faith-based clubhouse, religious themed discussion group, or an ethnic identity, the Church is the power and presence of Christ active in the world. The Church is the extension of Christ’s Incarnation in space and time. The Church is the revelation of Jesus Christ happening right now. When we construe the Church into something else, that’s how the Church corrupts!

So, St. Paul insists that Christ gives gifts or powers to the Church. These powers are distributed to the baptized in accord with God’s purposes. Not all have the same gifts. No one has all the gifts. The gifts that are given are not given for our own purposes. We are not “in charge” of the gifts, nor do we create them, it is Christ who gives and Christ who creates (the gifts). Our role is to receive the gifts and to nurture the gifts in one another. And this is more often than not where the Church goes wrong.

Christ gives real power to the baptized. The gifts or powers that Christ gives are not ideas or emotions that we create for ourselves. The gifts or powers are realities that, as I said, enable the Church to reveal the power and presence of Christ, and to help Christians to fulfill the mission that he gives the Church. What do those powers or gifts look like? They look like Christ.

The problem is that often times, out of our fear and fallenness, we distort and degrade the powers that Christ gives to his Church. We use the very real powers Christ gives us to further our political or ideological machinations. We become envious of gifts that Christ gives to someone, and in our envy, we seek to destroy that person or subvert their gift. Or we seek to weaponize the power of the Church as a means of destruction, not as a source of creativity and life.

And, perhaps one of the worst things we Christians do with the gifts (or powers) of the Church, we narrow and limit Christ’s gifts as being only to our own benefit, locking them away, preventing others from receiving them, rather than unleashing them into the world. The gifts of the Church are not meant simply for our own edification and entertainment, they are meant draw others to know Christ and to invite others to share with his followers a new way of life.

You want to invite corruption into the Church? You want the Church to fail? You do that by keeping the gifts or powers he gives to yourself. Love that does not give itself away festers and destroys us.

Finally, we have a mysterious story from the Gospel of John. In last Sunday’s Gospel, Christ revealed himself in water and in this Sunday’s Gospel, Christ reveals himself in wine! In this the Christ is signaling to us that baptism must also lead us to the Eucharist, or the purpose of our baptism remains unfulfilled!

Today’s Gospel is meant to be connected in our minds to the prophecy of Isaiah, with the insight of Christ as Bridegroom and his revelation being like that of a great wedding feast.

It is in this vision that today’s Gospel can be understood. At a great wedding feast, Christ is present and revealed, and during that wedding feast, he does something mysterious and miraculous that only God can do- transforming water into wine.

The miracle is fantastic enough, but the miracle of transforming water into wine is not just meant to dazzle us like it is some kind of cinematic special effect, instead it is meant to direct our attention to something greater- and the something greater is the Mass.

The Mass is not just the gathering of the people so that we celebrate ourselves. The Mass is not an ethnic pageant or faith-based entertainment. The Mass is, as the Book of Revelation describes, “the wedding feast of the Lamb”. The Mass is where Christ the Bridegroom is united to the Church who is his bride.

And it is during the Mass that Christ effects a great transformation, not just water into wine, but bread and wine transformed into his Body and Blood- the living source in this world of his divine life. This is his gift to his Bride. He gives his life. He gives to us his power, the power to become like him. This is the mystical and true meaning of today’s Gospel- this is the meaning of the miracle at Cana.

It is about the Mass. It is about the Mass.

When out of our willfulness, narrowness, and egotism, we try to make the Mass into something other than what it is, the power, the gift that Christ gives to us- the power of his divine life, the gift of his Body and Blood, festers in us and never comes to its fulfillment. What has the Mass become for us? Are we allowing the Mass to be Christ’s gift and receiving his gift with love and with gratitude?

Do we take the miraculous “wine” of the Mass that Christ gives and doing everything we can to turn the miraculous wine of the Mass back into water?

The Baptism of the Lord (January 13th, 2019)

(I want to offer some catechesis today and offer some insights about Christian spirituality and then I will offer some insights in regards to today’s Gospel and the great revelation of Christ’s baptism).

Today the Church celebrates the awe filled event, indeed the revelation, of the Baptism of the Lord Jesus.

This event does not commemorate Christ’s Baptism into the Church. The Baptism of the Lord Jesus foreshadows and anticipates the Church’s sacrament of Baptism, but it is not the same.

The ancient saints and sages of the Church testify to three great theophanies or revelations of God that the Church presents to world- the first is the revelation of God in our flesh, in a body which is presented in the celebration of the Lord Jesus’ Birth. Remember, it is the faith of a Christian, a follower of the Lord Jesus, that God has, in Christ, accepted a human nature and lived a real human life. God’s acceptance of a human nature was such that he even experienced for himself the raw facts of suffering and death, and in doing so, God demonstrated that his will to share a relationship with us includes the harsh facts of our own lives- our own sufferings, our own death.

The second is the revelation of God to nations which is signified in the visit of the Magi to the child Jesus, an event that is celebrated in the commemoration of the Epiphany. The Epiphany of the Lord signifies that God has, in Christ, invited all peoples, all nations, to share a relationship with him. It is through Christ that God intends to draw not only Israel, but all people, to be his friends. The Church is meant to be a visible expression in the world of this epiphany, this revelation- the Church is meant to be the gathering of the nations into a relationship, friendship with God.

The third revelation or theophany is the Baptism of the Lord, which presents Christ the Lord as Savior and Sacrifice- he is the Son of God, exceptional in his identity and exceptional in his mission. God will effect the restoration of his creation through the sacrifice that Christ offers- and this sacrifice is his own divine life. Christ will offer his life for us and invite us to offer our own lives to him. This is how God intends to change us and to change the world.

Why is this important? Because it all tells us who the Lord Jesus and what he is all about. The Church’s profession of faith about the Lord Jesus is not something that we make up for ourselves, it is a revelation from God that we receive.

It is not enough for a Christian to simply have opinions about the Lord Jesus or ideas about him, or feelings about him. Opinions, ideas and feelings are not faith. Faith happens when we give assent to what God reveals about himself and live in an attitude of trust in regards to what God’s revelation asks us to accept and to do. Elevating our opinions, ideas and feelings about God to an act of faith is not genuine faith, it is really grandiosity, the assertion of our will as a means of saying that we know better than God- that who God is and what God asks is matter of our own personal preferences. No truth about God is revealed is grandiosity. The only truth that is revealed is the truth about ourselves, the truth of our own idolatry.

We come to know God, who he is and what he wants, not through the assertion of our will, expressing itself in ideas, opinions and feelings about who we think God is and what we think God should do.

We come to know God, who he is and what he wants, through God’s revelation. God’s revelation is that he has, in Christ, accepted a human nature and lived a real, human life; that he desires friendship will all people and the expression of this friendship is the Church; and that God in Christ is Savior and Sacrifice, which means he offers his life to us so that we might offer our lives to him. This is how God in Christ is Savior and Sacrifice.

None of this is hard to understand. In fact, the simplicity of it all is off putting. We expect it to be complicated, but it’s not.

The revelation of God in Christ is not difficult to understand, it is hard for us to believe. And it is hard to believe because of the implications it all has for how we live.

To accept God is personal, that he offers a relationship with us, means we cannot reduce him to a distant cosmic force or a make him a thing we should manipulate or control. To accept that God desires friendship with all people in the Church, means that he has a plan for humanity and a concrete, visible means to achieve this plan. To accept that Christ invites us to offer our lives to him means that our lives are not merely our own and that our lives are not just about ourselves.

A grandiosity that construes or distorts our faith into merely being our own ideas, feelings and opinions is meant to sidestep the demand that God’s revelation in Christ places upon us. His demand, the demand of God’s revelation, is that we have to change- think differently, feel differently, live differently. Our ideas, opinions and feelings about God seem a lot easier to us, and in many ways, they are, but they cannot redeem us and they cannot save us.

Often time our protests that the faith is difficult to understand, is not really about our understanding (it’s not a matter of our mind), but it is about the demand God’s revelation places upon us to change. Changing your life because of what God reveals in Christ is the heart of the matter for Christian spirituality. No one who saw the revelation of the Holy Child of Bethlehem at his birth was ever the same. The magi could not return to their old ways and patterns of thinking because of what they saw revealed in the light of Bethlehem’s star. That Christ reveals himself as Savior and Sacrifice means that we cannot just make him into whoever we want him to be- he tells us who he is and what he wants, we don’t tell him.

Being a Christian is not just about knowing certain things about Jesus or being vaguely influenced by Jesus through ethnic customs or culture. Being a Christian happens when, because of Jesus, you change your life.

The Baptism of the Lord Jesus is presented in three of the Gospels- Matthew, Mark and Luke. (The baptism of the Lord is not mentioned in the Gospel of John, but John the Baptist is a prominent presence in that Gospel). All this indicates that the baptism of Christ was significant to the early Church and to the preaching of the Apostles.

It’s meaning is not, as I noted earlier, that Christ was baptized into the Church- that he received the Sacrament of Baptism. Instead it is about Christ’s identity and mission- who he is and what he is going to accomplish.

The baptism of Christ tells us who Jesus is and what he is going to do.

The imagery of the Gospel accounts of Christ’s Baptism, is likely lost on many, because most Christians are not accustomed to understanding the Gospels in relation to the Old Testament and it is only in this relationship that the baptism of the Lord casts its light and becomes intelligible.

What is going on in Christ’s baptism is the presentation and preparation of a sacrifice. Remember, John the Baptist is a temple priest (the Gospel of Luke tells us this) and in receiving Christ and washing him, the priest John is preparing Christ as a sacrifice. In fact, in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist explicitly identifies the Lord Jesus as “the lamb of God”- not a reference to Christ being kind and gentle, but to him being a sacrifice.

Thus, the meaning of today’s Gospel is that Christ the Lord is the revelation of God who makes himself a sacrifice.

What does this have to do with us?

It is helpful, today, to think of Christ’s Baptism, his identity and mission as a sacrifice, in relation to what we experience in the Mass. Remember, the Mass is the temple worship of the Church, where Christ offers his life to us as his sacrifice. The Baptism of the Lord is anticipating what we do and receive here today in the Mass- Christ offers himself, offers his divine life, as a sacrifice. This is what Holy Communion is. This is what the Eucharist is. This is what the Blessed Sacrament is. The Mass is our participation in the sacrifice of Christ- the Lamb of God.

Our Baptism into the Church allows us access to this temple worship- to the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass. But it also prepares us to make our own lives a sacrifice, an offering to God. Christ the sacrifice was washed, baptized, by the priest John. Christians are washed, baptized, by the priests of the Church to prepare them to offer their lives as a sacrifice to Christ.

Your baptism as a Christian was not just to initiate you into a faith-based clubhouse. Your baptism, like Christ’s, is intended to prepare you to make your life a sacrifice to Christ.

Receiving Holy Communion is meant to be the moment when you, as a Christian, come forward (publically) to receive the Sacrifice of Christ- the gift of his divine life. But (and listen to this) there is meant to be a reciprocity in this moment that we should be intensely aware of lest we miss the point.

And the point is this- Christ made himself a sacrifice for me and now, through this Holy Communion, I will make my own life a sacrifice for him.