TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

Our God – who is faithful and just, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love – doesn’t work through coercion, shaming, or fear, the Lord knows those methods may produce short-term change. However, in the long run, they generate deep resistance to the freedom and joy and the life that is really life that Jesus offers. Coercion, shaming, and fear work against Jesus’ invitation to transformation, to repentance, to changing our hearts and minds. So instead of seeing these readings as a big warning to those of us who are rich, as some have interpreted Jesus’ parable, the Spirit invites us to “ bestow your grace abundantly upon us,” as our collect says, so that we (maybe)“heirs to the treasures of heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The tragedy of the Rich Man is less about him burning in Hades and more about the way he had constructed his life to be cut off from reality, from feeling compassion in the face of suffering, from the joy of sharing what we have, from the satisfaction of being able to see dignity and even beauty in the faces of those whom we might instinctually turn away from seeing, like a man with a dog licking his open sores.

Jesus is retelling a classic folktale of his era.   And he uses a classic storytelling technique about an imaginary future to provoke a change in his listeners.

Jesus  regularly uses images of the future to shake us up and help us become more conscious of how we are living now. He speaks about the kingdom of heaven, not as a destination where your soul goes after you die; it is, rather, how God intends this world to be when we have our priorities right and follow God’s will for our lives. Remember that line, “on earth as it is in heaven?”

On the one hand, Jesus’ parable affirms the moral of the folktale: Don’t be like the Rich Man…or else! But, on the other hand, a parable is a parable because there is always more meaning than just the plain sense. So perhaps some of “the more” in this parable is that God’s Kingdom has a special affinity for the least, lost, last, and lonely. And Lazarus certainly is among the least and last, but maybe the Rich Man is among the lost and lonely.

The Rich Man lives behind a wall with a gate. We know very little about him but that he dresses sharply and feasts sumptuously every day. The Rich Man, who is ironically nameless, knew Lazarus by name but didn’t help him.  

Maybe most of us have a little of the Rich Man in us. After all, we’re often glued to our screens, staring at social media or our bank balances or strings of texts related to our family’s emotional drama. All of that buffers us from noticing and being available to what actually is. Charles Taylor, a Catholic philosopher respected both within the academy and the church coined the term the “buffered self.” Taylor contrasts the buffered self with the porous self, a person who is open to the transcendent, to being encountered by reality that may be surprising, uncomfortable, and, of course, beyond our ability to control. With the buffered self, the Holy Spirit works overtime to get our attention, to pull us out of ourselves.

So, to stay with the imagery of the parable, while his death and confinement in Hades might have poked a few holes in the Rich Man’s buffer, I suspect that the chasm between him and Lazarus will remain until he can see the full humanity of Lazarus, until the scope of his concern for others’ wellbeing extends beyond his kin.

But  while his brothers may be so buffered they won’t be able to say “yes” to repentance, to the fullness of God’s grace, to opening themselves to the miracle of someone rising from the dead, hope abounds. Because that chasm that separates the Rich Man and Lazarus in Hades is bridged by the One who spans the chasm between heaven and hell: Jesus. Of course, Jesus came to bring good news to the poor, to the last and lost like Lazarus. And he came to set the captive free, like the Rich Man captive to his wealth, likely lost and lonely, unable to engage reality.

Jesus invites us through this teaching to let our guards down, keep our gates unlocked, our ears unplugged, our eyes wide open, so that our souls may become less buffered and more and more porous to the flow of Spirit’s generosity.

 

Feast of Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

The Saints are the masterpieces of God’s grace. Many Saints are hidden from view and remain unknown, but some saints are placed in the world to capture the attention of a society that has forgotten about God.

 Padre Pio, like Mother Teresa, like St. Francis allows people to glimpse the beauty of holiness, which is a reflection of God’s beauty. People look for happiness in passing beauty, in wealth, in power and in pleasure and are always disappointed. The Saints give us hope in the possibility of happiness, the power of love, the eternal beauty of God. I am struck by how quickly the chaplet of the Divine Mercy and the devotion to Padre Pio have spread all over the world. There is such a hunger for God’s mercy in this broken world. Padre Pio, our Saint, is a Saint of God’s mercy in the confessional. We are told that Padre Pio heard over 1,200,000 confessions, including the confession of the young Father Karol Woytyla. How powerful a spiritual experience to say in Christ’s name “I absolve you of your sins” and to raise a wounded hand to bless and console the sinner. Padre Pio’s whole life announces to the world that God loves sinners and rejoices over the one lost sheep that is found.

 The greatest heresy of the modern age is the denial of sin. We have lost a sense of sin, a sense of the offense it causes to God, the destruction it does to ourselves and our loved ones, the poisonous effects it has on the fabric of society. We are like people with a deadly disease and in complete denial, refusing to admit that we need a physician. We have made such advances in science and technology and have become so blind to the reality of our human nature.

Padre Pio was the great physician of peoples’ souls, like the Cure of Ars, St. Leopold and other great confessors of the Church. He was a living witness of God’s unfailing mercy, of the power the Risen Lord gave to His Church when on Easter Sunday He breathed on His Apostles and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit, Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them.”

No cures are as dramatic as the ones Padre Pio performed in the sacristy and confessional in the sacrament of God’s mercy. How much hope, how much grace, how much joy filled the hearts of those thousands of penitents, cured of the snake bite of sin like the Israelites in the desert who gazed on the bronze serpent Moses raised up. Padre Pio helped people to look at the crucified Christ with faith and love and experience the healing power of the cross.

St. Pio’s compassion for sinners finds another expression in compassion for the sick and suffering. The Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza is a monument to Padre Pio’s concern for the sick and suffering. He reminds us how one of the signs of the Kingdom of God is that the blind, sick, captives are cared for and the poor have the Good News preached to them. The sick and the sinners who are the protagonists of the Gospel, and the special objects of Jesus’ pastoral love are the reason for this shrine. The ministry of Padre Pio is to manifest God’s unfailing love and mercy for His People, especially for the little ones, the sick and suffering and for poor sinners.

 Padre Pio was a man of prayer, a teacher of prayer and a witness of prayer. The three thousand prayer groups throughout the world show us how his prayer life has been an inspiration for so many. If today we could ask for one grace from this pilgrimage let it be the grace of prayer in our lives.

The Saint’s Mass was witnessed by over ten million people (long before Live stream!!) who came to assist at the Eucharist celebrated by this holy priest. One of my favorite quotes of Padre Pio is what he tells us about the Mass: “Every holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we ourselves do not know…It is easier for the earth to exist without sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”

St. Gregory the Great says: “The present life is but a road by which we advance to our homeland. Because of this, by a secret judgment we are subjected to frequent disturbance so that we do not have more love for the journey than for the destination. The suffering St. Pio experienced in his ill health, in the persecution by the very Church he loved, the trials and set backs in establishing the hospital, the pain of the stigmata — all kept before his eyes the pilgrim nature of his vocation. What allowed St. Pio to persevere was the intense prayer life that he lived faithfully. He prayed more in a week than most people pray in a year. The test of authentic prayer is growth in goodness, growth in humanity, greater serenity in living and in facing hardship. Above all genuine contact with God effects a real displacement of self as the center of our existence.

Prayer is not withdrawing from the rest of humanity. It is more like a wedding feast to which we welcome all who cross our path. A strange thing takes place in prayer. There is a mysterious coupling of our own life with the lives of others – an embrace that includes the whole of humanity. At first prayer stems from a sense of personal neediness. Prayer progressively becomes less a self-centered plea for personal deliverance than a universal cry for help and for the coming of God’s kingdom.

Prayer and suffering transformed the life of Padre Pio and made him a living icon of God’s unfailing mercy and love. Too often we try to follow Jesus at a safe distance, like Peter after he fled from Gethsemani. Padre Pio’s life and teaching encourages us to climb Calvary to join Jesus in the moments of greatest pain and greatest love.

 For Padre Pio, as for St. Francis, the cross was his book, the book where he read the greatest love story in history. Padre Pio lived his life planted at the foot of the cross in the company of Mary. Mary full of grace, the costly grace of discipleship, the grace that allowed Mary to renew her fiat, her yes to the Lord even in the face of the cross. There by the cross is our Mother, Our Lady of Grace.

Pope Emeritus Benedict said, “He who believes is not alone.” Here we have a host of witnesses. We stand before the beloved Cross of Our Blessed Savior, we stand with Our Mother, Our Lady of Grace, and Padre Pio. We are not alone.   When you return to your homes, share with your families and neighbors the graces of this pilgrimage and the message of our beloved Padre Pio:   Prayer, Charity and the Joy of Forgiveness

 

TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

The moral of the unusual parable today is that Jesus wants his hearers to see that the choice before them is of the same magnitude as that of the steward. Their whole future hangs in the balance. Jesus wants them, like the Steward, to be shrewd, daring and willing to sacrifice for the future. This is an all or nothing proposition. The people, in fellowship around the table that evening, have already tasted something new in what life can be. Jesus is asking if this is going to be a one-night stand, or do they see the crucial importance of re-orienting the way they live to the Kingdom’s standards and values?

It is very important to see in this parable that Jesus cracks up the old equation of justification. If you have lots of stuff, God’s blessing is on you and if you don’t have anything it’s because you’ve lived an unrighteous life. Jesus neither condemns or condones having money and possessions. It is the choice to serve God, seeking God’s Kingdom and its righteousness, that will shape the believers’ relationship to their money and possession. We may have a little, we may have lot, just as the people around Jesus’ table that night long ago. Regardless of how much we have, we still have to decide how to use it.

The sayings of Jesus that follow the parable answer many of the questions that probably were buzzing in the heads of the people at the party. “If I am to give myself to God’s Kingdom and I am family, kin, in equal status with everyone here, how do I use what I have? ” “If I have lots, what do I give and receive; if I have little, what do I give and receive?” Jesus says, “Make friends with money!” In other words, get lots of it. Go for it so that you can use it, direct it, for God’s purposes. Ask, seek, knock to find out what God wants done with money and then do it!  Jesus says, walk the Kingdom’s ways now, so you will know how to get there later on; build riches that last unto eternal life. Money spent helping others teaches us to live as God does, giving and giving to build the other up, to widen the river of blessing, whose living waters nourish creation. In right stewardship of money, we learn God’s ways in the here and now in order to take our place as contributors to the uplifting of creation, to be creative and blessed. In so living now, we taste the eternity that is foundational to the Kingdom and the joy that only fulfilling God’s desire can bring.

All throughout these sayings, however, Jesus is clear. Money is not and can never be the end in itself, when it is a vehicle for God’s love, it will take us far along our spiritual journey through our interactions of working and giving to those whom God seeks to build up. The money is not ours; it is God’s.   

The prophet Amos puts it pretty plainly, and Jesus resounds this theme, that money pursued for itself becomes an idol, demanding service and sacrifice that has nothing to do with God’s Kingdom and everything to do with our own little ego fiefdoms. The end of money that is sought for itself, for myself alone, however, leads to smallness, not greatness of spirit. Money is destructive on its own because it demands that we treat others, sisters and brothers as Jesus has identified them, as objects easily sacrificed to the getting of more money. .

And neither Amos nor Jesus were fools. They knew that the servants of money frequented the Temple. They sat in the places of honour  even as they asked, in smug sighs of those going through the motions in order to exploit the potential that results from giving the right appearances, “When will the New Moon festival be over that we can get back to the real business of selling grain? (that is, making money)?”

The only way to “tame” money is to deprive it of its idol status and revert it to servant status. The only way to do this is to seek first  to commit your life and faith, your identity with as much earnestness as the crafty steward. We have to choose who will we serve; we can’t serve both.  Our identity and being is shaped by who or what we serve.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even as Joshua was called to state his declaration three millennia ago, so, too, are we called to state our allegiance today. “Jesus calls us to name it and claim it; to go for it full steam ahead and say, like Joshua, “Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

 

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

The Lectionary readings for today include two stories: the first  from  the Old Testament (Exodus 32:1, 7-14) about Moses and God upon the mountain and the second the New Testament story of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners and his story of the Lost Sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son.

 In the first reading  Moses has gone up the mountain to receive the laws God has for God’s people. The people get restless because Moses has not returned, so they press Aaron (Moses’ brother) into service and have him make them a God to worship-a Golden Calf — and they blame Moses for bringing them out of Egypt into the wilderness to die. God sees what is happening to the people of God and becomes very angry. God tells Moses, “ Leave me, now, my wrath shall blaze out against them and devour them.”

There seems to be some confusion here. It was God who instructed Moses to lead God’s people out of bondage into the Promised Land, but now God is blaming Moses for their failure. God goes on to say that God will consume his straying people with fire, but the Almighty will do good things for Moses because Moses has remained faithful.

That’s when Moses, goes to work.   Moses reminds God  ‘Lord,’ he said ‘why should your wrath blaze out against this people of yours whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with arm outstretched and mighty hand? 

Moses says,   “ Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, your servants to whom by your own self you swore and made this promise: “I will make your offspring as many as the stars of heaven, and all this land which I promised I will give to your descendants, and it shall be their heritage for ever.” (In other words, these people are lost and need to be forgiven and guided.)  “So, the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.” Moses won his case. The Hebrews are lost, but God continues to fulfill the promise of guiding them to Canaan with Moses’ leadership.

The second story (Luke 15) tells us that Jesus spends time visiting and eating with sinful folk, which did not sit well with the self-righteous Pharisees. As they rebuked him, Jesus tells them three parables. The Good Shepherd, the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son. I will concentrate on the first, The Good Shepherd. A shepherd who had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. He leaves the ninety-nine and goes to find the one lost sheep and rejoices when he finds it. This would have been hard for the Pharisees to understand because they even had laws that forbade them from doing business or having social connections with sinners.

The fact that Jesus would share his life with all types of people gives us hope because we are told in the second reading, “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Our Lord, as the Good Shepherd, takes delight in the ninety-nine righteous people and gives them the reassurance of God’s love, but our Lord is also willing and able to search for the lost soul. And speaking of being lost and sinful, the Apostle Paul in his first letter to Timothy says that “ even though I used to be a blasphemer and did all I could to injure and discredit the faith. Mercy, however, was shown me,”  foremost of all sinners, he has been forgiven and called into ministry.” He was lost but was definitely found.

There are times when we all feel like lost sheep because of our inner feelings and desires or when we have not acted according to our standards. Jesus knows this will happen to each and every one of us, and when it does, he reaches out in love and compassion to guide and direct us back to the fold.

God forgave the people of God in the wilderness and through God’s son, Jesus, there is much rejoicing when a single lost soul is found and either finds or returns to the flock.

Thank God for Moses and his counsel to the Almighty, and also for Jesus and his wonderful compassion and insight into the human soul. He has certainly blessed, guided, and sustained all us-straying sheep of his flock.

 These readings from Scripture are comforting because we are invited to eat at the Lord’s table with him at communion, sinners though we are. We were lost and have been found, forgiven and called to minister to others in his name.

 

TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

In today’s Gospel Jesus says some harsh words related to family. “ ‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. .” Tough words.  Jesus wants us to get our attention. Jesus is anti- anything we put in place of total commitment to God, anything that can become an idol for us. He’s talking about giving family a higher priority than the God who alone can rightly order all our relationships—will get in the way of being Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus wants all relationships to be subordinate to our relationship with God.  

What’s more, through baptism, through calling us together to be his brothers and sisters, children of God, Jesus makes a new family. Even when our earthly families fail us, we are part of a larger, eternal family.   We find ourselves parented by a God who will not fail us, will always love us, who cares for us, always and forever.  

That is great news! But now we need to hear our second lesson for today, in which we see up close how hard it can be to live as a member of this Christ-centred family.

In his Letter to Philemon, a book in the New Testament  Paul challenges Philemon to do something he probably does not want to do. That is, to take back his runaway slave, Onesimus, not as a slave, but as a brother; to receive him, not as property over which he has legal rights, but as a human being, and a living member of the family of which Philemon, too, is a part—the family of Jesus Christ.

Philemon, who had become a member of Christ’s family, the church, through Paul’s preaching. Philemon, like many householders of his day, had slaves.  One of Philemon’s slaves is named Onesimus, which means Useful, but as it’s turned out, Onesimus has been far from useful to Philemon. He’s run away. He may also have stolen from Philemon as part of his getaway. Onesimus has gone off to Ephesus, where now he too has heard the Gospel preached by Paul and has now become a Christian.

Both Philemon and Onesimus are part of the family of Christ. Both are brothers in this new family. One, Philemon, is a person with the law behind him. The other, Onesimus, has few rights and nowhere to lodge a legal appeal. Both are now members of the same family, a family big enough to embrace them both. But what does that look like, really?

Paul appeals to everything that binds Philemon to Paul. They are old friends. They are partners in the Gospel. Philemon owes his new life, his eternal life to Paul, whose preaching has set Philemon free from his old life to the new life of love in Christ. But Paul also appeals to everything that binds Onesimus to Paul. Onesimus has become like a son, like his own heart to Paul. Paul would love to keep Onesimus with him, but he knows that if he does, it will cause a rift, a split in the family tree between Paul and Philemon.

Reconciliation is costly, and Paul bears the cost himself. He says to Philemon, “If you consider me your partner, welcome him back as you would welcome me.” Paul asks Philemon to do what he should as a brother in Christ, receive Onesimus back, not as a slave, but as the brother he has become.  It must have been hard for Philemon to let go of his legal rights and pay attention to God’s higher law of love, to extend his hand, not to punish, but to reach out to a brother.

What did Philemon do? The Bible doesn’t say. But we do have a letter from a bishop named Ignatius, written sometime before 108 AD, who wrote to the church at Ephesus: “In God’s name, I have received your whole number in the person of Onesimus, whose love is indescribable, and who is your bishop.”

In Christ, we have all received adoption as children of God. We are all made one family in Christ, with enough love and forgiveness for all of us to know, to share, to show.