Category: The Church Year

Today’s readings

It’s a frightening thing, I think, to hear Jesus say in today’s Gospel reading, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.” And it’s frightening not because of some actual sword that might impale us, but instead because of the havoc a statement like that could wreak in our spiritual lives. There’s an old trite saying that says Jesus didn’t come just to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable. It may be trite, but there is truth there.

The spiritual life is one of precarious balance. Things can be going along alright, much as the relationships the Jews had with the Egyptian government while Joseph was alive. But then something can change in our lives: in the words of our first reading today, a new king, who knows nothing of Joseph, can take over. In the context of that first reading, the new king taking over didn’t know Joseph and thus have all the good feelings toward the Jews that Joseph inspired. In the context of our spiritual lives, the new king is whatever new distraction may come our way and, knowing nothing of Joseph, that is, knowing nothing of the harmony that can be part of our lives when we follow the right way, that distraction takes over and tears us away from our God.

In that light, the first reading today is a discussion of the seductive power of sin. Just as the new king wanted to stop the increase of the Jews, so sin wants to stop our increase in the spiritual life. Just as the Egyptians oppressed the Jews with hard labor, so sin oppresses us by affecting our work, our relationships, and our life of faith. But just as the more the Jews were oppressed, the more they multiplied, so the more that we are oppressed by sin, the more we can multiply grace by turning back to God.

Sin is a dreadful power in our world. Sin knows nothing of Joseph, knows nothing of the life of grace and its joy. But we don’t have to let it oppress us. We can let Jesus bring the sword to afflict the comfort of our sin and help us to multiply and increase in the life of grace and faith. As our Psalmist says this morning, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

Today’s readings

“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

Joseph realized what this Gospel statement of Jesus meant long before Jesus himself ever uttered it. Given his position of power, he could have had all of his brothers imprisoned or worse because of what they did to him. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, the anger in his heart is broken, and he realizes that what happened to him since being sold into Egypt was eventually a very great gift. In fact, it was such a great gift that it fulfilled God’s plan for the people. And he was glad to be reunited with them. He realized that he had been given many blessings without cost, and he was now prepared to bestow them on his brothers in the same way.

We too have received so much without cost. Think about the place we live. We are in one of the richest cities in one of the riches counties in what is, hands down, the richest nation on earth. Not only that, we are able to worship freely here today, without fear of persecution or any kind of danger. This church building provides refuge from the weather, be it hot or cold, snow or rain. We have places to live and food to eat, and freedom to do whatever pleases us. Whatever we have worked hard for, even the ability to work that hard was given to us. We have talents and gifts that we could never have produced in ourselves. Even our ability to think, reason and communicate comes from God. Without cost we have received indeed.

And now we, like the Apostles, are being told to give without cost. To use our talents and gifts to build up the kingdom and not just our own interests. To take advantage of our ability to worship freely and let the Lord mold us into disciples who can make an impact on the world. To share our incredible resources with all God’s people. Because there has been no limit to God’s lavish giving, there can be no limit to our grateful sharing. Without cost we have received, without cost may we give.

Today’s readings

Some people think that the spiritual life should be easy. Today’s readings prove to us that it’s not that way. Jacob wrestles with “some man” in today’s first reading; ostensibly, it’s God himself. They tussle all day long and finally they declare it a draw, but leave poor Jacob injured from the battle. But, in the end, Jacob receives a blessing. That’s the way, brothers and sisters, the spiritual life works. We often wrestle with God in some way or another, and occasionally the battle marks us, but we always end up blessed by the experience, that is, if we’re ready to do battle for the long haul.

I think what’s hard about this is that first you have to identify what the battle is, and then you have to have the courage to stick with it. Maybe you’re struggling with God because he’s calling you to do something new; something you’re not sure if you want on your plate. Or maybe your prayer life has grown stale and you are being called to revitalize it. Or maybe he’s encouraging you to move to a new place in a relationship or in your vocation or whatever it may be. It’s a struggle, and there could be considerable wrestling with God. But you have to identify it. And then stay with it.

All the saints have had to wrestle with God at some point or another. It’s a process of getting over our own inhibitions to the spiritual life and passing the obstacles that we put in the way of our relationship with God. It’s difficult, and it’s scary, and it needs to be surrounded with prayer. Only then can you stay with it and bear its marks, and receive God’s blessings.

Today’s readings

If we want to know if we are doing God’s will, I think, we need to examine our lives for evidence of joy. The disciple who goes about his or her work in this world grudgingly and amidst a total disconnect with other people isn’t much of a disciple at all, I’m afraid. I have been a priest now for just over a year, as you know, and lately I have been examining my vocation and how it’s been going. I wanted to see what I need to spend more time on and what I need to perhaps let go of. One of the great barometers for me has been to look at what gives me joy in my ministry. Not that every moment is supposed to be a picnic, that’s not the point at all. But God speaks through joy in our lives because joy is an indication that we’re doing what God wants from us. And I can find joy in doing some pretty hard things, like anointing a person near death, or ministering to a family who has come to the Church to arrange a loved one’s funeral. Joy doesn’t necessarily mean doing things that are easy and fun, but it means more that we are doing what we were created for, that we are using our time and our talents to build the kingdom in the particular way God has called us to do that, that we are living our discipleship in a way that gives honor and glory to God.

Now discipleship is not a popular term these days, I’m afraid. Maybe that’s because it comes from the same root as the word discipline which can be such an ugly word for us sometimes. And in a world where people do pretty much what they want, when they want and where they want, the idea of discipline doesn’t really work. But all of us who are followers of Jesus are disciples, and as such, we are subject to the discipline of the One we follow, Jesus Christ. So let’s take a look at today’s Liturgy of the Word and see what we can find out about the discipline that Jesus teaches us, and perhaps where we can find joy in following that discipline.

Now, before I launch into that study of the readings, I should point out that this is one of Fr. Ted’s favorite Gospel readings. He is so aware of the many needs of our parish and the difficulty of fulfilling them all, that he points to this reading as a reason to have two priests in a parish. “The Lord sent them out two by two,” he often tells me, “so I am so glad to have an associate to go out and do the Lord’s work with me.” Now, a little further down in the reading, the Lord says he was sending them out “like lambs among wolves.” So guess what that makes all of you… But I digress….

There are three specific disciplines that Jesus teaches the seventy-two that I want to reflect on today. First: don’t rely on yourself. Second: go in peace. And third: eat and drink what is set before you.

So first, don’t rely on yourself. Listen to the instructions Jesus gives the seventy-two before they leave: “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.” Now that all seems pretty impractical to those of us who have to travel in the twenty-first century, doesn’t it? I mean, the only possible instruction in there that would make our travel at all easy is to wear no sandals – bare feet sure travel easier through security checkpoints! But we definitely need a money bag to carry what we’d need to pay tolls and buy fuel, and certainly we’d need a sack to carry identification as well as just basic things we’d need for the journey. And greeting no one along the way just seems downright inhospitable.

And this is worse for me, because I always overpack for a trip! But I think we’re missing the point here. If we take the time to bring everything with us that we’d ever need for the journey, we’d never get on the road. It’s much like the disciples in the Gospel reading last Sunday who wanted to bury their dead or greet their family, all at the expense of following Christ. At some point we have to stop thinking about maybe doing God’s will and just get out there and do it. Another point is that if we were even able to foresee every possibility and pack for every possible need, we would certainly not need Jesus, would we? Jesus is telling the seventy-two, and us as well, to stop worrying and start following. Rely on Jesus because he is trustworthy. Experience the joy of letting Jesus worry about the small stuff while he is doing big things in and through you.

Second, go in peace. Jesus says to the seventy-two: “Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.” Those disciples were sent out with the peace of Christ, and were told to expect to be received in peace. The source of the peace they were sent out in was, of course, Jesus himself. He is the one who greets the disciples after the Resurrection by saying “peace be with you.” The peace he is offering is not just the absence of conflict. In fact, their journeys may indeed involve some conflict: conflict with demons, conflict with illness, conflict with those who may not receive them. No, the peace he sends the seventy-two out with is a peace that they receive from knowing they are doing God’s will and that souls are coming back to God. It is a peace that says that everyone and everything is in right relationship, the way things are supposed to be.

The disciples are told to enter a place and say “Peace to this household.” So we too must also offer this greeting of peace to those we come to work with. There are a lot of ways to make this greeting, though. We could say it in those words, or perhaps through our actions: in not returning violence with violence; doing our best to diffuse anger and hatred; treating all people equally; respecting the rights of both the well-established and the newcomer; working to make neighborhoods and communities less violent; protecting the abused and the ridiculed. This peace is a peace that brings true joy.

And third, eat and drink what is set before you. This is again a trust issue. The seventy-two are to trust that since the laborer deserves his payment, the Lord will provide for what they need. But there’s a bit more to it, I think. Eating and drinking what is set before them meant that if they were to be given ministry that is difficult, they needed to stay with it, because that’s what was set before them. If they have been received in peace, then they need to know that they are in the right place. That doesn’t mean that the mission would be easy, though, and they need to take what’s given to them. We too have to know that our mission may not be easy, but if we have been given it in peace, we have to accept the mission we have. Taking things as they are and trusting in God to perfect our efforts is a path to true joy.

Blessed Mother Teresa once said, “Joy is prayer – Joy is strength – Joy is love – Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” For the disciple, the life of prayer must lead us to this kind of joy. Because joyous disciples are the ones who bring unbelievers to the faith. They are the ones that bring God’s love to the forgotten and the sorrowful. They are the ones that make God’s presence and care known to those who have been marginalized and exploited. Following the discipline of Christ by relying on Christ – not ourselves, by bringing the peace of God to our missionary encounters, and by eating and drinking what the mission sets before us, this is the way to true joy. This is the joy of which the Psalmist sings, “Shout joyfully to God, all the earth, sing praise to the glory of his name!”

Today’s readings

Today’s readings are, well, interesting. It’s hard to know in today’s first reading if the Lord is blessing dishonest conduct, or if it’s the providence of God that is working its way out. All of us must surely bristle a bit when we see Esau cheated out of his father’s blessing, and Jacob and Rebekah’s dishonest conduct blessed. Secretly we all must have been waiting for the wrath of God to come down upon the two of them and turn them into a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife. But that’s not what happens here. And we know that Jacob is blessed as the father of a nation. What the message seems to be here is that God does not let an accident of birth order stand in the way of blessing one he has chosen.

If our Gospel reading today could shed any light on this conundrum, perhaps it is that we cannot put new wine into old wineskins. The new wine of God’s justice and omnipotence just won’t be contained in the old wineskins of our understanding. Instead, that new wine bursts forth from those wineskins and saturates the earth with mercy and justice.

Today, may we rejoice with our bridegroom that God’s mercy and compassion never end and that our limited understandings cannot be the containers of God’s ways.

Today’s readings

For those of us who think we have it all together, that we are righteous in and of ourselves, well, today’s Gospel isn’t Good News, is it? Jesus says, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” But for those of us who know we need our Savior, what great joy to know that our Savior will come and dine with us!

That Jesus would call a man like Matthew to come and follow him is news of redemption and hope for all of us. Tax collectors in those days, as you may know, were notorious for exploiting the people they were collecting from, taking far over and above what their tax should be. The occupation of tax collector was synonymous with the name “sinner.” Clearly such a man was unfit for the kingdom of God. But to him, the Lord Jesus says, “follow me.”

The redemption we have in Christ is a complete healing and change from the inside out. We aren’t just forgiven and sent out to continue living our lives as we always have. No, we are forgiven and then told to “follow me.” Because following Christ is the only way that our broken lives can be reclaimed and drawn back to God who made us. And following Christ is the only way that we sinners can be part of the Kingdom of God.

Today’s readings

God is always most concerned about what is going on inside of us. Which is why Jesus says to the paralytic, “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.” It would have been easy for Jesus to snap his fingers and heal the man’s paralysis, but that is not what he was most concerned about. Sometimes when a person has been sick a long time, there are resentments toward God and toward other people that have added to the misery of their illness. Jesus knew this, and took the opportunity to heal the man of those maladies as well. Saying to him, “Rise and walk” was merely incidental, and Jesus does that too. What we see in today’s Gospel reading is that our God longs to heal us from the inside out.

The incident with Abraham and Isaac feels like something else, though, doesn’t it? It almost seems as if this is a manipulative attempt on God’s part to see if Abraham was really on his side or not. But I don’t think that’s what God is doing here. I think this encounter shows us our God who is aching to pour out his blessings on us. If we will but give him everything, he will choose not to take it from us, but to work through our gifts and blessings to bless us even more. Listen to the promise he makes to Abraham: “I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing.” Finally, God provides the lamb for the sacrifice, which is a foreshadowing of the way that he himself will give his own Son, Jesus Christ, to be the lamb of sacrifice for our sins.

Just as Jesus healed the paralytic from the inside out, so God blesses Abraham from the inside out, giving him knowledge of a God who longs to provide blessing and healing for his people. In our offering today, we too can come to be fed from the inside out, by giving God whatever we hold most dear, knowing that he intends not to take it from us, but to use it to bless us beyond our wildest imaginings.

Today’s readings

This morning’s Gospel reading is the Matthew version of the Gospel reading we had yesterday from Luke. So I’m going to bracket that, and reflect this morning on the first reading instead.

This first reading has always intrigued me, ever since I can remember hearing it as a child. God intends to destroy the city of Sodom because of its pervasive wickedness. Abraham, newly in relationship with God, stands up for the innocent of the city, largely because that was where his nephew, Lot, had taken up residence. In what seems to be a case of cosmic “Let’s Make a Deal,” Abraham pleads with God to spare the city if just fifty innocent people could be found there. God agrees and Abraham persists. Eventually God agrees to spare the city if just ten people could be found in the city of Sodom.

Now we don’t know how many people were living in Sodom, but it was certainly a great many more than fifty. But God agrees to spare the city if just ten just people could be found, a number that was probably some fraction of one percent of the population. Now, we know the rest of the story without even having heard it today, don’t we? Sodom is eventually destroyed for its wickedness, along with the city of Gomorrah. So let’s think about that for a minute. Not even ten good people were found in that area, so great and widespread was their wickedness!

Now the Old Testament has a number of stories like this where a great many people are destroyed in their wickedness. From this we should not draw the hasty conclusion that we worship a wrathful God. Instead, we worship a God who is just and merciful, not punishing the great many innocent for the wickedness of but a few. The guilty are punished, but the just are not. And in Christ Jesus, we have the great grace of one being punished for the great wickedness of all of us. So merciful and gracious is our God that in these days after the birth of our Redeemer, we have been granted forgiveness for our sins, because the guilt was borne by our Lord Jesus.

That is why the Psalmist is quick to sing today, “The Lord is kind and merciful!”

Today’s readings

“For freedom Christ set us free.” These readings seem to me to be a beautiful reflection for this weekend, when we are getting ready for our Independence Day celebrations. When our nation’s founders set up this fledgling republic 231 years ago, freedom was certainly one of their primary concerns. Freedom of religion was particularly important, as was freedom of expression, freedom of association, and many others. We are the beneficiaries of their hard work. To use a current catch phrase, freedom isn’t free, it is purchased at a price, and at this time of year we remember those who purchased it for us.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul is reflecting on the freedom that the early Christians had. This freedom was a freedom from the constraints of the law that encouraged people to replace true devotion and zeal with mere surface-level observance of their religion’s many laws. Those early Christians were beneficiaries of the hard work of others, also. Particularly, Paul reminds them, their freedom was purchased at the incredible price of the blood of Jesus Christ the Lord who died that we might have life. Their freedom wasn’t free either, and they, and of course we, are beneficiaries of the sacrifice of Christ.

For the Galatians, as well as for all of us, freedom had to be defined a little more exactly, and that was St. Paul’s purpose in today’s second reading. Because freedom isn’t free, it can’t be taken lightly or casually, and so he makes it clear what the freedom truly is. The Galatians had the mistaken notion that freedom meant the same thing as license, which isn’t the case at all. Freedom didn’t mean license to act against the law and to live lives of immorality and corruption. That would be replacing one form of slavery with another, really, since immorality has its own chains. The freedom Christ won for us is a freedom to live joyful lives of dedication and devotion and discipleship, all caught up in the very life of God. Real freedom looses us from the bonds of the world and sets us free to bind ourselves to God, who created us for himself. Real freedom is freedom to be who we have been created to be.

This distinction between true freedom and license for immorality is one that we must take seriously even in our own day, even as we prepare to celebrate our nation’s own independence. Because in our own day, we too have confused the freedom we have inherited from our founders with a license to do whatever the heck we want. And that, brothers and sisters in Christ, is not the gift we have been given. Freedom of expression doesn’t mean we have the right to express ourselves in a way that slanders or ridicules others. And if you don’t think that’s an issue, just listen to some talk radio or turn on Jerry Springer. Freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion, and it doesn’t mean that we have to practice our faith in secret and not let people know that Jesus Christ is Lord. And you know that’s an issue: in the courts, in our places of business and our schools, and in our communities. Being free doesn’t mean we have license to do whatever we want; being free means we are free to better ourselves, our families, our churches and our communities. Real freedom is freedom to be who we have been created to be.

This freedom to be who we have been created to be is a matter of some urgency for Elisha in today’s first reading and the disciples that Jesus met in today’s Gospel. All of them received the message that when God calls, the time to answer is now. But all of them found that there were things going on inside them that kept them from answering the call, that kept them from being free to follow God in the way they were created to do that. And the rebukes they all received seem a bit harsh to our ears. After all, they had good excuses, didn’t they? Who would deny a person the right to say goodbye to their families or bury their dead? But there are a couple of subtle distinctions that we have to get here. First, it wasn’t as if they had ever been told to follow the call instead of taking care of family and burying the dead. Yet they were using those things as an excuse to put off their response to God’s call. Second, following God’s call very well could have meant doing those things they were involved in, but in a way that honored God. The demand was to put God first, and one could conceivably do that and still take care of family, friends and business.

What’s at issue here is right relationship. Responding to God’s call must always come first, but responding to God’s call may mean raising one’s family, tending to a sick parent or elderly relative, reading to one’s children, grieving the loss of a loved one or battling an illness. It’s a matter of priorities, and true freedom means putting God first in all of that, trusting that God will help us to make sense of the ordinariness of our lives.

Because we really are usually called out of the ordinariness of our lives. That was true of Elisha today. He was minding his own business – literally – by plowing the fields. He certainly must have been a man of means, because he had twelve yoke of oxen. And yet he gives it all up on the spot to follow God as Elijah’s successor. The way Elisha’s call happened might appear a little strange, but we actually use elements of that call in our own Church’s Liturgy. Elisha’s call happened by Elijah throwing his cloak over him. It seems like an odd gesture, but it symbolized Elisha taking over the mantle of authority from Elijah. It’s a symbol I can resonate with, because at my Ordination to the priesthood, one of the most profound moments was the moment in the rite when two of my priest friends took off my deacon’s stole and put the priest’s stole over my shoulders. I knew in that moment that the Ordination was done; that I really had become a priest. I could almost literally feel the weight of following Christ in that particular way. It was an incredible moment for me, and it must have been so for Elisha. In fact, he was so excited that he ran back, slaughtered his oxen and chopped up the yokes to use as fuel to cook the flesh and feed his people. Doing that was a complete break with his former life, and showed the length he was ready to go in order to do God’s will.

On this Independence Day, may we all remember that true freedom doesn’t mean doing whatever we want, regardless of the implications for others. True freedom doesn’t mean license to live an immoral life. Instead, true freedom is about living the life God has called us to live and following as committed disciples, free to be bound up in the life of Christ. True freedom means breaking with anything that holds us back from becoming the free sons and daughters of God we were created to be. True freedom means putting God first and serving him in the ordinariness of our lives, following his call to our dying breath. True freedom means finding the same joy that our Psalmist finds today when he sings, “You are my inheritance, O Lord.”