Welcome to St. Mark's Gospel. For the convenience of your easy reading, Mark wrote in code! He had to, considering the times that were in it. As we'll hear Mark most Sundays for the next twelve months, we need to get used to his subversive message. His rag-tag community, running for their lives from Roman soldiers and police, had been accused of setting fire to downtown Rome. 'To the lions with the Christians, to the lions with them!' was the cry all over town. As if to rub salt in the wound, here comes their leader and spokesman, Mark, announcing a 'military victory' over the Roman superpower - the Good News of the Gospel - Christ has conquered! You can only imagine how that must have gone down with those at Caesar's table.
Mark opens his Gospel with this statement: 'The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.' Let's pause for a moment and look at some famous opening lines. 'Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York,' (Shakespeare's 'Richard the Third'); 'Midway along the journey of our life, I woke to find my way alone and lost in a dark wood, having wandered from the straight path' (Dante's 'Divine Comedy'); 'All men by nature desire to know,' (Aristotle's 'Metaphysics'). These enduring opening lines sum up everything the authors wanted to say; they set the theme and tone of everything that followed in play, poem or treatise. They're like the overture to a symphony wherein the musical themes to be developed are introduced. So with Mark.
'The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.' Mark's whole Gospel message is here. His story is a story of revolution. 'In the beginning...' is how the Bible itself opens in the book of Genesis before leading into the creation account where God pulls order out of chaos. 'The beginning...' is a loaded statement in which Mark is saying the story of Jesus Christ is a new creation story. Mark announced in the center of Rome, under Caesar's nose, that, in Jesus, a new world is about to begin. That's why we have this piece of Gospel on the second Sunday of Advent.
The word 'gospel' was the term used in the first century to announce the good news of a military victory for the Emperor. Mark had the nerve to challenge Rome's imperial system of things by referring to the arrival of Jesus as 'Good News.' Jesus of Nazareth was the long awaited Messiah (Christ, or anointed one) before whom every knee would bow. In effect, Mark is saying, 'Do I have a story to tell you, or what!! Caesar is no Son of God: Jesus is 'the man,' and Caesar's days are numbered! Watch Jesus in action as we go through Mark's Gospel.
Most people in prison want to get out and go home. The Jews exiled in Babylon dreamed of going home one day to Jerusalem. References to the Jewish exile in Babylon keep cropping up all over the Bible. It was Israel's landmark tragedy, the stuff of story and ballad at dinner time for centuries. For Israel, it was a national tragedy one hundred times greater than what 9/11 was for Americans. The prophet Isaiah kept the exiles' hopes and dreams alive during that time of exile with upbeat speeches such as we have in this Sunday's first reading. I've heard of prisoners who want to stay in jail, alcoholics who want to stay drinking. The scholars tell us that some exiles in Babylon were loath to journey all the way back across the desert to Jerusalem. They had settled in and were doing well in a foreign land, thank you very much. When time came for release from captivity they opted to remain behind, living high on the hog.
Mark's message is that with the coming of Jesus Christ, 'newness of life' is on offer. Its challenge is no less than Mark's challenge to the might of Rome long ago. In terms of the first reading, return to Jerusalem is available to those who want to go. Do we want the new life of Christ, with its new vision, its promise of peace and completeness and fulfillment? Do we understand how badly we need to be given the fresh start offered by Jesus Christ? Do we realize how compromised we are without him, how great our need? O Come, O Come Emmanuel!
PASTOR EMERITUS
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
SHALOM, MY FRIENDS!
I asked someone recently what the 'black' meant in 'Black Friday.' This year's 'celebration' of Black Friday appears to have been the blackest of them all. Some stores opened at 10 pm on Thanksgiving day. Others opened at midnight and others at 4:00 am. Presumably many grabbers stood in line from afternoon. To me this is shopping madness. If the old saying is true, that shopping leads to more (unintended) shopping/spending, it's difficult not to wonder the amount of financial and psychological hardship the unintended spending will eventually bring on the shop-til-you-droppers and their families.
'Be watchful, be alert!' is the message of this Sunday's Gospel. And Jesus was not talking about watching for the midnight bargains of Black Friday. He was using symbolic language; language with a double meaning. Over the past several weeks we have seen Jesus use the imagery of a man going on a journey and committing to his servants certain tasks to be accomplished. On this first Sunday of Advent Mark's Gospel offers another such image. This time, the gatekeeper is entrusted with the task of keeping watch for his return and not be found sleeping.
Black Friday shoppers watch and wait for hours. Hope keeps them patient; the hope they'll be lucky enough to bag one of those very few half-priced 81" TVs. Hope is a powerful motivator and offers the midnight shoppers the promise their waiting will not be in vain. On the face of the image in the gospel, we are being told to wait with alacrity for the coming of the Lord. What does that mean?
In a sense, my life has been marked by waiting. In my many idle moments I have been aware of an undercurrent of expectation, a kind of hope. Waiting, expecting and hoping for what? As a kid, I waited to move up to the next grade, then to high school, on to college, to a great life, a million dollar job and a film star wife....I'm still waiting, but not for these things anymore! I think I'm waiting for what I call 'Shalom' - completeness - the fullness of the kingdom promised by Christ.
'Shalom' is a biblical word from the Hebrew language and generally refers to peace. Jews and Christians often use the word, much like Hawaiians use 'Aloha' to greet people and bid them farewell. That's only a small part of what 'Shalom' means. The word involves fullness, fulfillment, completeness of life. It is that to which Jesus referred when he said, 'I have come that they might have life to the full.' At Christmas he comes as 'Prince of Peace' - the way and the truth that points to the completeness of life.
During Advent we are not waiting for Christ's birth, but for the consequences of it to be realized in our lives and in our world. We are waiting for Shalom. There's a paradox about it. On the one hand Shalom is a God-given gift, and on the other it's something we need to work at to bring about. St. Thomas Aquinas memorably said that our salvation is one hundred percent God's doing, and one hundred percent ours! Grace and nature need each other. We can achieve nothing by our own efforts - nor can God achieve anything for us without our cooperation.
This period before Christmas is a time, paradoxically, to put on the brakes and take a slow-motion look at our hopes, happiness and fulfillment. Given the facts of life all around us - growing levels of grinding poverty, especially - the huge systemic injustices that lie at the root of our wars and poverty, we must individually change the way we think and live. I cannot feel happy or be at peace with what I see all around me and not do anything about it. That's a luxury I cannot enjoy.
There are far too many people in our communities who cannot afford housing that's clean, safe and in good repair; too many who cannot afford healthy food on a regular basis; too many who cannot pay utility bills consistently; too many kids who lack adequate clothing for school, clothes that fit properly and are in good shape, and parents who lack proper clothing for work; and there are too many people who can't afford to see a doctor for fear they won't be able to pay.
These people are living in your neighborhood, a block or two from where you live. They can't afford any Black Friday stuff, and endure days and sleepless nights of desperation. Put yourself, this Advent, in their cheap and broken shoes and ask yourself what you would like someone to do for you in that condition. When you get the answer, go and do it for them. I propose to you the stark advice of the fourth century Ambrose of Milan: 'If you have two jackets and only need one of them, and your neighbor has none but needs one, your second jacket belongs to your neighbor!' Shalom, my friends!
PASTOR EMERITUS
'Be watchful, be alert!' is the message of this Sunday's Gospel. And Jesus was not talking about watching for the midnight bargains of Black Friday. He was using symbolic language; language with a double meaning. Over the past several weeks we have seen Jesus use the imagery of a man going on a journey and committing to his servants certain tasks to be accomplished. On this first Sunday of Advent Mark's Gospel offers another such image. This time, the gatekeeper is entrusted with the task of keeping watch for his return and not be found sleeping.
Black Friday shoppers watch and wait for hours. Hope keeps them patient; the hope they'll be lucky enough to bag one of those very few half-priced 81" TVs. Hope is a powerful motivator and offers the midnight shoppers the promise their waiting will not be in vain. On the face of the image in the gospel, we are being told to wait with alacrity for the coming of the Lord. What does that mean?
In a sense, my life has been marked by waiting. In my many idle moments I have been aware of an undercurrent of expectation, a kind of hope. Waiting, expecting and hoping for what? As a kid, I waited to move up to the next grade, then to high school, on to college, to a great life, a million dollar job and a film star wife....I'm still waiting, but not for these things anymore! I think I'm waiting for what I call 'Shalom' - completeness - the fullness of the kingdom promised by Christ.
'Shalom' is a biblical word from the Hebrew language and generally refers to peace. Jews and Christians often use the word, much like Hawaiians use 'Aloha' to greet people and bid them farewell. That's only a small part of what 'Shalom' means. The word involves fullness, fulfillment, completeness of life. It is that to which Jesus referred when he said, 'I have come that they might have life to the full.' At Christmas he comes as 'Prince of Peace' - the way and the truth that points to the completeness of life.
During Advent we are not waiting for Christ's birth, but for the consequences of it to be realized in our lives and in our world. We are waiting for Shalom. There's a paradox about it. On the one hand Shalom is a God-given gift, and on the other it's something we need to work at to bring about. St. Thomas Aquinas memorably said that our salvation is one hundred percent God's doing, and one hundred percent ours! Grace and nature need each other. We can achieve nothing by our own efforts - nor can God achieve anything for us without our cooperation.
This period before Christmas is a time, paradoxically, to put on the brakes and take a slow-motion look at our hopes, happiness and fulfillment. Given the facts of life all around us - growing levels of grinding poverty, especially - the huge systemic injustices that lie at the root of our wars and poverty, we must individually change the way we think and live. I cannot feel happy or be at peace with what I see all around me and not do anything about it. That's a luxury I cannot enjoy.
There are far too many people in our communities who cannot afford housing that's clean, safe and in good repair; too many who cannot afford healthy food on a regular basis; too many who cannot pay utility bills consistently; too many kids who lack adequate clothing for school, clothes that fit properly and are in good shape, and parents who lack proper clothing for work; and there are too many people who can't afford to see a doctor for fear they won't be able to pay.
These people are living in your neighborhood, a block or two from where you live. They can't afford any Black Friday stuff, and endure days and sleepless nights of desperation. Put yourself, this Advent, in their cheap and broken shoes and ask yourself what you would like someone to do for you in that condition. When you get the answer, go and do it for them. I propose to you the stark advice of the fourth century Ambrose of Milan: 'If you have two jackets and only need one of them, and your neighbor has none but needs one, your second jacket belongs to your neighbor!' Shalom, my friends!
PASTOR EMERITUS
Thursday, November 17, 2011
A LIFE WORTH LIVING
The familiar last judgment scene of Matthew 25 comes before us this Sunday: the Son of Man is seated upon a throne and all the nations are assembled before him, waiting to hear what's next for them, heaven or hell. The only question to discern whether your human life was worth living is, 'I was hungry, I was thirsty, in was sick and in prison. I was the one they called a 'loser,' a 'slut,' a 'fag,' a 'nerd.'' What did you do about that?'
What does the last judgment scene say to us about the purpose and meaning of our lives? Most of us learned as children that this life is meant to be a preparation for the hereafter. The Irish catechism we learned in grade school offered a theocentric view: 'God made us to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next.' This was an easy-to-remember answer though I have to admit it never set me on fire! When I came to study sacred scripture much later, Paul's words leaped off the page one day: 'Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life' - Romans 6:4.
Somehow, this 'newness of life' seems to have gone flat in a Church that only offered the Jesus who cherishes, short-shrifting the Jesus who challenges. Jesus has got to be more than a model for good little boys and girls, someone who'd never embarrass the family, never cause a fuss, never wander out of line. I've had my moments at the altar when I felt like screaming, 'This is the Lion of Judah...' instead of reverently saying, 'This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world....'
What is the 'sin of the world'? The word sin in the New Testament comes from a Greek word that means 'missing he mark.' Not just making an error of judgment in a particular case, but missing the whole point about being human; being out of sync with the human web and with God. Human nature has a penchant for screwing up, becoming disorientated in the quest for the truth/meaning about itself.
Spirituality, Viktor Frankl famously said, is man's search for meaning, for the truth about himself. The incarnation story, as seen in the words and actions of Jesus, is about discovering the truth about ourselves and the truth about God ('Deus noverim me, noverim te' - Augustine). Jesus, especially in John's Gospel, reveals God as the one who serves, the one who kneels down and washes the feet of the one who betrayed him, and of those who would desert and deny him. Since we are made in God's image and likeness, the meaning of our lives, the truth about who we are lies in serving the undeserving.
Back to this Sunday's Gospel. The message of the judgment scene in Matthew 25 is that the purpose and meaning of our lives lies in living according to the Golden Rule: doing to others as we would want them do to us. It's found in each of the Big Five religions of the world: 'Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you' (Hinduism); 'No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself' (Islam); 'Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful' (Buddhism); 'Do to others whatever you would have them do to you' (Christianity - Matt 7:12); 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man' (Judaism).
PASTOR EMERITUS
What does the last judgment scene say to us about the purpose and meaning of our lives? Most of us learned as children that this life is meant to be a preparation for the hereafter. The Irish catechism we learned in grade school offered a theocentric view: 'God made us to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next.' This was an easy-to-remember answer though I have to admit it never set me on fire! When I came to study sacred scripture much later, Paul's words leaped off the page one day: 'Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life' - Romans 6:4.
Somehow, this 'newness of life' seems to have gone flat in a Church that only offered the Jesus who cherishes, short-shrifting the Jesus who challenges. Jesus has got to be more than a model for good little boys and girls, someone who'd never embarrass the family, never cause a fuss, never wander out of line. I've had my moments at the altar when I felt like screaming, 'This is the Lion of Judah...' instead of reverently saying, 'This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world....'
What is the 'sin of the world'? The word sin in the New Testament comes from a Greek word that means 'missing he mark.' Not just making an error of judgment in a particular case, but missing the whole point about being human; being out of sync with the human web and with God. Human nature has a penchant for screwing up, becoming disorientated in the quest for the truth/meaning about itself.
Spirituality, Viktor Frankl famously said, is man's search for meaning, for the truth about himself. The incarnation story, as seen in the words and actions of Jesus, is about discovering the truth about ourselves and the truth about God ('Deus noverim me, noverim te' - Augustine). Jesus, especially in John's Gospel, reveals God as the one who serves, the one who kneels down and washes the feet of the one who betrayed him, and of those who would desert and deny him. Since we are made in God's image and likeness, the meaning of our lives, the truth about who we are lies in serving the undeserving.
Back to this Sunday's Gospel. The message of the judgment scene in Matthew 25 is that the purpose and meaning of our lives lies in living according to the Golden Rule: doing to others as we would want them do to us. It's found in each of the Big Five religions of the world: 'Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you' (Hinduism); 'No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself' (Islam); 'Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful' (Buddhism); 'Do to others whatever you would have them do to you' (Christianity - Matt 7:12); 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man' (Judaism).
PASTOR EMERITUS
Monday, November 14, 2011
BEAUTY IN LIFE
This time of year has its own unique beauty. The skies at sunrise and sunset are a sight to behold in the Bay Area. Birds gathering in late afternoon, fallen leaves and half naked trees, chilly, chilly nights following quickly on the heels of days as warm as ovens - all this and more have a magic that is haunting. Though autumn in northern California is not quite the one which Keats describes in his immortal 'Ode to Autumn,' nevertheless we can say of our November, as he did of his, 'thou hast thy music too.'
The old Greek philosopher, Plato, saw the artist as not only imitating nature but being somewhat divinely inspired, and creating something of beauty that was a better copy of the True than our ordinary experience offers. The word 'music' derives from the Greek Muses, the demigods who inspired the artist's work. Bach, who regularly penned JJ (Jesu Juva! - Jesus, Help) at the start of his sacred compositions and SGD (Soli Deo Gloria - To God Alone the Glory) at the finish, famously declared that music reflects the glory of God.
John Henry Newman was no slouch when it came to music, having learned the violin at age ten and played in Oxford University chamber orchestras so well that people said he would have been another Paganini if he had not been a priest! In many of his magnificent sermons, he spoke about the mysterious, quasi-sacramental beauty of music. For him, music pours into the composer from above, causing him to transmit what he hears from above, rather than inventing it in his workshop below. Referring to a Beethoven concert, he wrote: 'Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of the heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what...should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? It is not so; it cannot be. No, they have escaped from a higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal harmony, in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our home...the voice of angels... the Magnificat of saints... the living laws of divine governance...the divine attributes... something besides themselves which we cannot compass...'
Gregorian chant, well sung, is enchanting, and when listened to with a sympathetic ear it can move us from the everyday hum-drum to an atmosphere of calm dignity and contemplative grace - a sense that I exist in relation to something, someone, purer, greater nobler than myself. I am exceedingly familiar with this kind of music, having chanted it daily as a young monk for many years. Yet it also calls. It calls us to ponder its beauty, its elegance, its intimations of the transcendent, its otherworldly goodness.
Beauty attracts. I feel myself drawn to people, places and things of beauty not for their own sake but for what they seem to point toward. I think genuine beauty contains within it something not of the artist's making, something not of the studios of this world. The sixteenth-century Giorgio Vasari, in his 'Lives of the (Renaissance) Artists,' said the Dominican Fra Angelico, in his art, was on a journey of spiritual investigation - a path through beauty and goodness, toward Truth. In the presence of genuine art, can we put ourselves in the shoes of the artist and ask as she/he must have asked: Who am I? Why do I work? What will I give to the world?
The Creator invested great beauty and energy in the natural world. Everything we know about biology and physics derives from painstakingly tracing clues from God's original act of 'creation.' Beauty is the fingerprint of the Creator. Is there something in us that seems to attract us to beauty more than to anything else? I think of a line from Hopkins, 'over again I feel thy finger and find Thee.'
We need to discover careful and beautiful ways to carry us through the ups and downs of life. Poets, painters, musicians and sculptors are the midwives that bring us to the threshold of beauty, a kind of presence - to the place where, symbolically speaking, the flame meets the candle. Surely our lives, like Keats' autumn, 'hath its music too.'
"Late have I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved thee......Thou didst touch me and I burned for thy peace..."
Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo
PASTOR EMERITUS
The old Greek philosopher, Plato, saw the artist as not only imitating nature but being somewhat divinely inspired, and creating something of beauty that was a better copy of the True than our ordinary experience offers. The word 'music' derives from the Greek Muses, the demigods who inspired the artist's work. Bach, who regularly penned JJ (Jesu Juva! - Jesus, Help) at the start of his sacred compositions and SGD (Soli Deo Gloria - To God Alone the Glory) at the finish, famously declared that music reflects the glory of God.
John Henry Newman was no slouch when it came to music, having learned the violin at age ten and played in Oxford University chamber orchestras so well that people said he would have been another Paganini if he had not been a priest! In many of his magnificent sermons, he spoke about the mysterious, quasi-sacramental beauty of music. For him, music pours into the composer from above, causing him to transmit what he hears from above, rather than inventing it in his workshop below. Referring to a Beethoven concert, he wrote: 'Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of the heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what...should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? It is not so; it cannot be. No, they have escaped from a higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal harmony, in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our home...the voice of angels... the Magnificat of saints... the living laws of divine governance...the divine attributes... something besides themselves which we cannot compass...'
Gregorian chant, well sung, is enchanting, and when listened to with a sympathetic ear it can move us from the everyday hum-drum to an atmosphere of calm dignity and contemplative grace - a sense that I exist in relation to something, someone, purer, greater nobler than myself. I am exceedingly familiar with this kind of music, having chanted it daily as a young monk for many years. Yet it also calls. It calls us to ponder its beauty, its elegance, its intimations of the transcendent, its otherworldly goodness.
Beauty attracts. I feel myself drawn to people, places and things of beauty not for their own sake but for what they seem to point toward. I think genuine beauty contains within it something not of the artist's making, something not of the studios of this world. The sixteenth-century Giorgio Vasari, in his 'Lives of the (Renaissance) Artists,' said the Dominican Fra Angelico, in his art, was on a journey of spiritual investigation - a path through beauty and goodness, toward Truth. In the presence of genuine art, can we put ourselves in the shoes of the artist and ask as she/he must have asked: Who am I? Why do I work? What will I give to the world?
The Creator invested great beauty and energy in the natural world. Everything we know about biology and physics derives from painstakingly tracing clues from God's original act of 'creation.' Beauty is the fingerprint of the Creator. Is there something in us that seems to attract us to beauty more than to anything else? I think of a line from Hopkins, 'over again I feel thy finger and find Thee.'
We need to discover careful and beautiful ways to carry us through the ups and downs of life. Poets, painters, musicians and sculptors are the midwives that bring us to the threshold of beauty, a kind of presence - to the place where, symbolically speaking, the flame meets the candle. Surely our lives, like Keats' autumn, 'hath its music too.'
"Late have I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved thee......Thou didst touch me and I burned for thy peace..."
Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo
PASTOR EMERITUS
Sunday, November 13, 2011
RESPONSIBILITY AT PENN STATE
I notice a significant trend in our culture to equate the parameters of what's legal with what's moral. Many of us were shocked to hear about so many Penn State fans and students marching in protest at their head coach's on-the-spot firing Wednesday night. Their beef was that he didn't break any law. While it appears he didn't break the law, were the protesters unaware of a higher law?
That no law was broken may wash in a court of law but not in the court of conscience and morality. There's a widespread feeling among people today that one's obligations extend only to the point of fulfilling the requirements of law. According to all I've read, this coach knew what happened in the locker rooms and showers of Penn State football but, after reporting to higher-ups at the college, failed to report to police and follow up with the higher-ups or with the families of the victims. Like many in the Catholic Church over the years, he probably didn't do what he should have done in order to protect the institution for which he worked.
It would not surprise me to hear that Mr. Paterno got to be head coach for almost 50 years because he had a habit of going beyond the call of duty. That's what gets you promotion and job stability. People who over-deliver their work plan or job description demonstrate a love and passion for the mission of the whole organization. They become leaders. But Mr. Paterno, like many Churchmen, seems to have a blind spot about his moral obligations vis-a-vis the sexual abuse of kids by those under him.
Why do so many people in supervisory positions say 'that's not my job' when confronted with moral evil.? The Penn State affair would suggest that a mentality of 'legal boundaries are the same as moral boundaries' was foremost. Legalism is the low road and moral leadership the high road in how we are supposed to deal with one another.
The law cannot substitute for morality. Morality has to be left to conscience, the still but sure voice of God within us that tells us what to do and what not to do. Laws do not prompt charity, responsibility or self-sacrificing love. People with moral convictions do that. That's where the overseers at Penn State were lacking. I would hope that the Board of Regents who fired the college president and the head coach did it out of a sense of morality and not just to protect the school from further shame.
PASTOR EMERITUS
That no law was broken may wash in a court of law but not in the court of conscience and morality. There's a widespread feeling among people today that one's obligations extend only to the point of fulfilling the requirements of law. According to all I've read, this coach knew what happened in the locker rooms and showers of Penn State football but, after reporting to higher-ups at the college, failed to report to police and follow up with the higher-ups or with the families of the victims. Like many in the Catholic Church over the years, he probably didn't do what he should have done in order to protect the institution for which he worked.
It would not surprise me to hear that Mr. Paterno got to be head coach for almost 50 years because he had a habit of going beyond the call of duty. That's what gets you promotion and job stability. People who over-deliver their work plan or job description demonstrate a love and passion for the mission of the whole organization. They become leaders. But Mr. Paterno, like many Churchmen, seems to have a blind spot about his moral obligations vis-a-vis the sexual abuse of kids by those under him.
Why do so many people in supervisory positions say 'that's not my job' when confronted with moral evil.? The Penn State affair would suggest that a mentality of 'legal boundaries are the same as moral boundaries' was foremost. Legalism is the low road and moral leadership the high road in how we are supposed to deal with one another.
The law cannot substitute for morality. Morality has to be left to conscience, the still but sure voice of God within us that tells us what to do and what not to do. Laws do not prompt charity, responsibility or self-sacrificing love. People with moral convictions do that. That's where the overseers at Penn State were lacking. I would hope that the Board of Regents who fired the college president and the head coach did it out of a sense of morality and not just to protect the school from further shame.
PASTOR EMERITUS
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
TO HOLD OR TO FOLD
Jesus offers this Sunday a telling image from the world of business about a couple of people who traded successfully on the open market, a risky business today. A third one was too cautious and lost everything.
I don't know how many times people like Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, William Boeing, Alexanders Bell and Fleming risked investment of time, treasure and talent to make our world a better place. And I don't know how many people there are who could have made a difference, but didn't. Money won't grow unless it is risked, and people won't benefit where caution prevails. It's a basic rule of capitalism.
Investment, risk and return is a compelling model used by Jesus to describe long ago the kingdom of heaven and, for us today, the meaning of life. No doubt he learned something about risk by watching his father, Joseph, cut deals with customers in the family carpenter shop. Successful tycoons like Trump, Rockefeller and James Corrigan, often told not to risk, risked big and won big.
Life is about giving. God exists in gift-form; Father and Son exist by giving themselves to each other, the Spirit being their mutual self-giving. Because we have been made in the image and likeness of that God, giving is the key to our fulfillment and happiness. That's why Christ so often commands people to give themselves to each other in love, even when they find themselves rejected.
The servants in Sunday's gospel had been entrusted with their master's possessions. Our gifts belong to God and are meant to be used for the betterment of life in our world. 'The glory of God is a person who is living to the full,' wrote St. Irenaeus. Irenaeus knew people who knew St. John the Evangelist, and he lived not far from present-day Taize in Burgundy, France.
Life, the Spirit, grace, grows in us in the measure we give it away. We see this principle in the cross of Christ who gave his life that we might live at a better pitch. Like Christ, our giving may sometimes be rejected. We live in a largely ungrateful world.
Jesus was the good steward of God's life and gifts, especially when he was rejected. His life was not about about himself and his preferences. 'Father, if it be possible let this chalice pass from me, but not my will but your be done.' Our lives and our gifts are not ours to cling to. Life is not just about us. We are stewards, servants, not owners.
Perhaps in the end we all need to do what those professional gamblers do in Las Vegas when they are playing for high stakes: they say a good poker player knows when to hold and when to fold. So, when the opportunity comes for us to invest the gifts God has given us, maybe we might say a prayer like this: 'Lord, all this belongs to you; it is your gift to me. Now give me the grace to know when to hold and when to fold.' Amen.
PASTOR EMERITUS
I don't know how many times people like Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, William Boeing, Alexanders Bell and Fleming risked investment of time, treasure and talent to make our world a better place. And I don't know how many people there are who could have made a difference, but didn't. Money won't grow unless it is risked, and people won't benefit where caution prevails. It's a basic rule of capitalism.
Investment, risk and return is a compelling model used by Jesus to describe long ago the kingdom of heaven and, for us today, the meaning of life. No doubt he learned something about risk by watching his father, Joseph, cut deals with customers in the family carpenter shop. Successful tycoons like Trump, Rockefeller and James Corrigan, often told not to risk, risked big and won big.
Life is about giving. God exists in gift-form; Father and Son exist by giving themselves to each other, the Spirit being their mutual self-giving. Because we have been made in the image and likeness of that God, giving is the key to our fulfillment and happiness. That's why Christ so often commands people to give themselves to each other in love, even when they find themselves rejected.
The servants in Sunday's gospel had been entrusted with their master's possessions. Our gifts belong to God and are meant to be used for the betterment of life in our world. 'The glory of God is a person who is living to the full,' wrote St. Irenaeus. Irenaeus knew people who knew St. John the Evangelist, and he lived not far from present-day Taize in Burgundy, France.
Life, the Spirit, grace, grows in us in the measure we give it away. We see this principle in the cross of Christ who gave his life that we might live at a better pitch. Like Christ, our giving may sometimes be rejected. We live in a largely ungrateful world.
Jesus was the good steward of God's life and gifts, especially when he was rejected. His life was not about about himself and his preferences. 'Father, if it be possible let this chalice pass from me, but not my will but your be done.' Our lives and our gifts are not ours to cling to. Life is not just about us. We are stewards, servants, not owners.
Perhaps in the end we all need to do what those professional gamblers do in Las Vegas when they are playing for high stakes: they say a good poker player knows when to hold and when to fold. So, when the opportunity comes for us to invest the gifts God has given us, maybe we might say a prayer like this: 'Lord, all this belongs to you; it is your gift to me. Now give me the grace to know when to hold and when to fold.' Amen.
PASTOR EMERITUS
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
JOURNEYING INWARD
Whoever said 'we have taken the waiting out of wanting' may have said a mouthful. Everyone is in the wanting business, wanting this and wanting that. Patience is often in short supply for those who know they can have whatever they want. Waiting is an everyday reality for the poor, for those who cannot have what they want. For them, patience is not an endangered species!
Did you watch on TV the victims of the Japanese tsunami a few months ago as they waited patiently for help, as if patience was second nature to them?? Some attributed the phenomenon to their Buddhist background. John Henry Newman saw 'watching for Christ' as the hallmark of the Christian. Most of us miss Christ by not stopping to check the small print of things. God is not easily available in the shallows.
Why cannot God just give us now what we long for, justice for the poor and happiness for everyone? If God were a celestial magician we would have had it all long ago. But God is a redeemer, not a Santa Claus. God is within us like an embryo is within its mother's womb. We waited nine months to see the light of day. Life, like pregnancy and the coming of Christ, is about waiting.
God is present to us, right in front of us, within us and all around us. Our problem is we miss discovering God because we are distracted by our 'external' selves - our immediate wants, society's imposed agenda. To use the imagery of this Sunday's gospel, the foolish virgins can be seen as representative of those who have oil only for their superficial selves, for the immediate here and now, and not for the journey inward.
Society tells us that we are wired for society's brand of success - material power, wealth and prestige. On the other hand, the voice of God tells us that because we are wired for God, our real fulfillment lies in our relationship with God. 'You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you,' cried St. Augustine long ago. We spend our powers and our oil trying to quench our material hungers. We neglect to feed our spiritual hunger, imagining it is being taken care of by material fulfillment.
The reasonable desire for power, wealth and success is good. The problem is when we develop an irrational desire for them. There's all the difference between a desire that's unreasonable, irrational and immoderate, and a desire that's reasonable, rational and moderate. For instance, Thomas Aquinas describes gluttony as 'the unreasonable desire for food and drink.' The reasonable desire for food is necessary for our bodily survival, not the unreasonable desire.
One way to think about the parable of the wise and unwise virgins in this Sunday's gospel is through the lens of our search for God. The journey inward never ends. Whether we realize it or not, we have been wired for the journey. When we stop at material satisfaction we are like the unwise virgins. When we want to go further, we are like the wise.
PASTOR EMERITUS
Did you watch on TV the victims of the Japanese tsunami a few months ago as they waited patiently for help, as if patience was second nature to them?? Some attributed the phenomenon to their Buddhist background. John Henry Newman saw 'watching for Christ' as the hallmark of the Christian. Most of us miss Christ by not stopping to check the small print of things. God is not easily available in the shallows.
Why cannot God just give us now what we long for, justice for the poor and happiness for everyone? If God were a celestial magician we would have had it all long ago. But God is a redeemer, not a Santa Claus. God is within us like an embryo is within its mother's womb. We waited nine months to see the light of day. Life, like pregnancy and the coming of Christ, is about waiting.
God is present to us, right in front of us, within us and all around us. Our problem is we miss discovering God because we are distracted by our 'external' selves - our immediate wants, society's imposed agenda. To use the imagery of this Sunday's gospel, the foolish virgins can be seen as representative of those who have oil only for their superficial selves, for the immediate here and now, and not for the journey inward.
Society tells us that we are wired for society's brand of success - material power, wealth and prestige. On the other hand, the voice of God tells us that because we are wired for God, our real fulfillment lies in our relationship with God. 'You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you,' cried St. Augustine long ago. We spend our powers and our oil trying to quench our material hungers. We neglect to feed our spiritual hunger, imagining it is being taken care of by material fulfillment.
The reasonable desire for power, wealth and success is good. The problem is when we develop an irrational desire for them. There's all the difference between a desire that's unreasonable, irrational and immoderate, and a desire that's reasonable, rational and moderate. For instance, Thomas Aquinas describes gluttony as 'the unreasonable desire for food and drink.' The reasonable desire for food is necessary for our bodily survival, not the unreasonable desire.
One way to think about the parable of the wise and unwise virgins in this Sunday's gospel is through the lens of our search for God. The journey inward never ends. Whether we realize it or not, we have been wired for the journey. When we stop at material satisfaction we are like the unwise virgins. When we want to go further, we are like the wise.
PASTOR EMERITUS
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