First reading: Acts 15:1-2,22-29
Psalm: Ps 67:2-3,5-6,8
Epistle: Revelation 21:10-14,22-23
Gospel: John 14:23-29

—Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.—

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
Indeed He is risen! Alleluia!

Context

When my wife puts her hand on the doorknob, her coat over her arm, my children look up from what they are doing to ask: “Who will take care of us?”

The questions of children for their mothers are astonishingly the same as the questions the disciples were asking Jesus.

Today’s Gospel must be seen in the context of the questions the disciples were asking, very much like children. The Gospel according to St. John devotes 5 chapters to Jesus’ discussion with His disciples at the Last Supper. During the verses immediately preceding today’s Gospel the disciples ask:

“Where are you going?”
“Can we go with you?”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Why are you leaving?” and
“Who will take care of us?”

Complex answers?

Good mothers would never leave their children hanging. Their first and most natural instinct is to care for their children and to reassure them. Likewise, Jesus did not leave His disciples hanging. He gave them real answers to their questions, and today especially to, “Who will take care of us?”

“Who will take care of us?” — “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.” [John 14:16]

But, this answer seems complex and sometimes we don’t quite get its meaning. Like children, we want simple answers and most of all reassurance that all will be ok. Today we should reflect on that reassurance. Our trust in Jesus, our love for Him and His word, and the presence of the Paraclete make everything more than ok; they guarantee our assurance.

Trust:

Reassurance starts with trust.

Infants work to shape their view of the world and their place in it right from birth. A strong foundation of trust, built in a loving and caring environment, is the first step in their reassurance, and leads to their becoming loving and generous adults. Children learn about love by being loved. Today we honor mom for her part and key role in teaching us to love. Children learn in the environment of community—”the family, mother and father, siblings, the extended family and Church.

We often equate success with independence, but those lessons from home, from the family and Church, are not about independence. Rather they are about being interdependent —“ being part of a community.

Children watch the model practiced by family, and this forms their understanding of the world. Their mannerisms and speech, their ability to love and to trust, all depend on what they see and hear at home and in the family of Church. This gift we give our children is the sense of reassurance, that they are cared for and protected in the world and beyond the world.

Mom is at the door and she is leaving. If her children do not have a sense of trust and community they will panic. There will be screaming and shouting, and most of all dread fear. However, if they have learned trust they know that mom won’t leave them alone and unprotected. They know that she loves them —“ and because of this they are reassured.

In the community of faith reassurance starts with the way Jesus built up the community of the disciples by showing them love, care, and compassion. The disciples received love right from its source. Jesus taught them to stand together as a community of believers, interdependent. They watched Jesus’ model, and this formed the disciples’ understanding of the world, their mannerisms and speech, their ability to love and to trust. All was and is built on Jesus’ way. Jesus reassures us. He tells us that we are in good hands within His community, within His way. He asks that the life of the Christian community teach and enable trust among all its members.

Keep my Word

Reassurance depends on love. Like moms everywhere, Jesus asked His children to: —keep my word—

Loving Jesus and keeping His word are completely connected. They are the requirement for our receiving the reassurance we crave.

What is essential in loving Jesus and keeping His word is not merely obedience. A child might detest the words that he is hearing and yet obey. A child might even detest his parents, but to avoid punishment, he obeys them.

In contrast to this, Jesus is talking about keeping His word in the sense of holding it dear. “Holding Jesus’ word dear,” implies that we hold a positive attitude towards that Word and the Word-giver. That is, we want more than anything to hear and obey Jesus out of love for Him and His word.

The result that flows from loving Jesus and keeping his word is that we are the protected; that we have reassurance. Jesus promised that by loving Him and keeping His word the Father will love us. The Father and Son will come to us. And, the Father and Son will make a dwelling with us. Loving Jesus and keeping His word draw God to us, and if God is with us none can stand against us.

I will send the Paraclete

Finally, reassurance depends on presence.

When mom is going out she might reassure her children by telling them that the babysitter is coming over. Now I’m sure that the babysitters mom chooses are capable, but every so often mom mentions that one babysitter —“ and her children leap up from what they are doing and rejoice. That babysitter reads to them, romps with them, acts out plays and makes chocolate chip cookies; she nurtures their young lives like a loving parent, and as long as she is with them they are not afraid.

I don’t know about the Holy Spirit being compared to a babysitter, but if you can imagine Jesus as a mother, then it may not be so hard to imagine the Spirit in this other role. The Spirit is after all the One who cares for the church in the interim between Jesus’ departure and return, the One who comforts, teaches, reminds and, yes, sometimes even romps with the sons and daughters of God.

The Holy Spirit is the presence that gives us reassurance:

—I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I told you.

The Greek word for the Advocate is Paraclete, literally —one who stands by our side.— Jesus didn’t leave us alone or hanging, but left the Spirit to be by our side, to be present, to reassure.

Who will take care of us?

To answer the disciples’ question then, “Who will take care of us?” requires us to engage in trust, to love by holding Jesus and His word dear, and to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete who is at our side. This effort is cooperative, interdependent, requiring us to be on the inside of community, part of family, part of Church.

When we think of our mom, we think of that key person who played such a magnificent role in our life. She prepared us for this way. She brought us to the Church. She taught us trust and how to live in the community of family. She taught us to love Jesus and to hold His word dear. She stood by our side — and by that model we can recognize what the Holy Spirit is doing. Teaching us in this way she prepared us for that most magnificent of events.

Where are we going?

St. John’s Revelation describes the new and heavenly Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that will be present here on earth. By our trust, our love, our living in community, and with the guidance of the Paraclete, we are ever approaching this place.

I want you to think of this place, the place you are from —“ NY Mills, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, and imagine it as this heavenly city. Can you see the new Utica descending from heaven with gleaming walls —“

It gleamed with the splendor of God.
Its radiance was like that of a precious stone,
like jasper, clear as crystal.

And in this new city you will find God as the only temple, and its light will be from God with Jesus, the Lamb as its lamp. This is the road we are on. This is the promise for those who trust, for those who love Jesus and His word, who recognize the Paraclete standing at their side. This magnificence is what we will see, what all of our ancestors will witness when they rise. This is what our mothers want for us. We will all share together in the reassurance that will be forever. Amen.

First reading: Acts 14:21-27
Psalm: Ps 145:8-13
Epistle: Revelation 21:1-5
Gospel: John 13:31-35

—I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.—

Christ is risen, Alleluia!
Indeed He is risen. Alleluia!

It’s all about timing:

We all have experiences and stories to tell about timing. Remember the time I was in the right place at the right time? Boy, did he time his stock investments poorly! Ben Franklin picked the right night and the right storm to go fly a kite. A good comedian uses comic timing, rhythm and tempo to enhance comedy and humor.

The Church is illustrating timing in today’s readings. Paul and Barnabas were traveling, moving from place to place. All of us have traveled to one extent or another, and we know, travel involves time and timing. Jesus is with His disciples at the Last Supper. The time came and Judas left. Leaving is a matter of time and timing. Jesus says: —Now is the Son of Man glorified.— Now is a factual assessment of time. In Revelation we hear of the moment in time when all is brought to fulfillment. The heavenly Jerusalem is established on earth. Time is no more. All that is former has passed away.

It takes time to learn:

Jesus’ Last Supper discourse, as recorded by St. John, is lengthy. He talks about many things and tries to give His disciples a comprehensive understanding of all He has taught. He wants them to live a new life in accord with the Gospel message. This passage of teachings, explanations, and exhortations is recorded over five chapters; Chapters 13-17. Can you imagine the time it took? Could we think that perhaps the Disciples didn’t get it all?

Time has passed, and centuries of reading and proclaiming should be showing us the way. The essential message revealed by Jesus, and through the passing of time, is this: If we exist with our focus on time and events we miss the thing that surpasses and is beyond time, love.

A culture of love:

Jesus is defining, in these very few words from that long discourse, what we are to do. We are to —love one another.—

This loving of one another is something in time, but also outside of time. The act of loving is completely present and now.

This makes me think of those sci-fi stories with time travel and experiments that take people outside of time. Imagine traveling through time as a being that exists outside of its constraints. Imagine, if you would, being present at every moment that ever existed, simultaneously.

That is what our being as Christians is — a totality of love, where time is no more; where love exists in and trough all people for all eternity. That love, that culture and life of love, surpasses our mortal selves. We are in the moment of now. This moment is now and it is new.

New love:

Jesus calls this commandment of love a new commandment. He uses a word, —kainos— in Greek, which is only used a few times in the Bible. This kainos, this kind of new, can refer to something that didn’t exist before. It can also refer to something that existed previously, but was not fully known or understood.

The love Jesus speaks of is not new, because it has always existed — God’s love is eternal. Rather, we have been called to understand AND live kainos love, new love, through Jesus.

So obvious it’s boring

Are you bored yet? A friend once told me that he stopped going to church because he kept hearing the same thing over and over. We pride ourselves on our intelligence and learning. For him there was nothing new. I am sure he asked, ‘Why do we have to hear about love over and over.’

The Gospel, the lives of the saints, are replete with love. Open to a page in the Gospels or the Epistles and you’ll likely trip over the word love. The same boring theme, yes, love one another, we heard it in the Good Samaritan homily: We are to love one another as we love ourselves. We heard about the Good Shepherd’s love last week.

The problem we face as we hear this message of love time and time again, from Sunday to Sunday, Holy Day to Holy Day, is not boredom, but getting to the next level. We need to move beyond love as a momentary thing, a set of examples and best practices, a point in time — to love as state of existence. We need to evolve into people of complete, total, unconditional, and overwhelming love.

Continuity

Judas left in time, and Jesus said NOW! In an instant, things changed. In an instant, our state of being changed.

Judas left in time to sin, to initiate betrayal. Jesus would NOW glorify God by His death. In Jesus’ death ‘the Son of Man [is] glorified.‘ John emphasized this theme from the very beginning of his gospel. All references to —glorification— emphasize that the incarnation, the crucifixion and the resurrection can never be separated as points in time. Jesus is the single expression, the continuum and eternity of God’s ultimate purpose, His ultimate love that is beyond and above time.

Our kainos love, our new love then is to understand that we transcend time and are the people of God’s eternal loving. We are joined in Jesus Christ to the continuum and eternity of God’s ultimate love. Like God, we are to constantly live that love, yes in time, but also beyond time.

Because we are Jesus’ “own,” we are asked to enter into the kind of love that marks the relationship of the Father and Son. Our participation in this relationship will be shown in the same way that Jesus’ is: by acts of transcending love that join the believer to God.

Keeping the commandment of love is our identifying mark because it shows in very real ways at we abide in God’s love.

In action:

If we are to transcend time and live the commandment of kainos love, new love, it will be through our understanding and our living in witness to the world.

Like the early church from Acts —“ we are to share our resources so that no one would be in need (Acts 4:34-35). From Acts today, we hear of the Church together —“ not congregations or parishes, but the Church joined in love across many localities. From Galatians 3:28, we have a picture of a united community that transcends race, economic status, or gender.

With us it must be the same. We must have love that envelops all those within the Church, the old and new members; those who believe that the parish ministry is to its members and those who believe that it is to the unchurched.

As Christians, we are called to love all people beyond the constraints of time — even enemies — in the name of Jesus Christ. We are to hold a special love for spouses, children, and family members. In a similar way, we are to love all our brothers and sisters who proclaim Christ. We are to be a family to one another. We are to love the living and love those who sleep in Christ —“ because while to us they appear to sleep, they live.

During this past week we honored all workers who died in the course of performing their jobs. April 28th was Workers’ Memorial Day. Across the nation, people of faith are taking action to strengthen their ministry with and for workers—”workers within and outside their congregation.

In our sad economy, too many workers are not paid wages and benefits that can support families. Many have their wages stolen, and are treated as slaves. In Arizona, government sees race over justice. Poverty is growing. The rights of people to forge their own destiny, to organize unions, to improve wages or benefits, are met with subtle and violent resistance.

The history of the Holy Polish National Catholic Church is replete with stories of the Church’s stand for worker justice, education, fair wages, and the right to organize. Let us make that stand once again, in this time. Parishes and faith-based organizations are on the front lines of providing soup kitchens and shelters. So too, we must stand on the front lines of justice for workers so that people won’t need soup kitchens and shelters to survive.

Today is about timing, and moving beyond time to the love of the Father and the Son. Taking a stand to live in transcendent love, to love in real ways, and to love proactively is Christian. We are to do that because He told us:

—This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.—

Amen.

Isaiah 52:13-15, Isaiah 53:1-12
Ps 31:2,6,12-13,15-17,25
Hebrews 4:14-16, Hebrews 5:7-9
John 18-19

—I told you that I AM.
So if you are looking for me, let these men go.—

Lord for us your wounds were suffered.
Oh Christ Jesus, have mercy on us

Words we’d like to hear

I am going to suppose that in a pinch, in a tight or dangerous spot, those are words we would love to hear. —Let these men go.—

We like escape

Part of our natural human reaction is self-preservation. The dark side of our broken humanity is a tendency to avoid what is difficult. Calls to witness might go against our natural self-preservation. Given a choice we prefer to hear: —Let these men go.—

The disciples were relieved

Now, I also imagine that the disciples were relieved. They got to escape. They ran away from the soldiers, swords, clubs, and the very same dangers brought home to the high priest’s servant when he had his ear cut off. The dogs were at their heels and they had to run full speed to get out of sight. They were thankful that the power of God, standing in that garden, gave them the chance when Jesus said: —Let these men go.—

Where is our example?

When I was in seminary we conducted an interesting experiment. We had to identify with a disciple. Were we Peter or John? That’s something to think about today. Which character in the Passion do you identify with? Did you argue at the Last Supper? Did you fall asleep in the garden? Did you pick up the sword and strike the high priest’s servant, trying to protect Jesus? Did you follow along like Peter, and stand in the courtyard of the high priest? Did you run? Did you deny Him? Did you betray Him? Did you slap and mock Him? Were you a false witness or did you stand silent? Were you in the crowd, jeering at Him? Did you wipe His face with a towel? Did you bewail Him on the road to crucifixion? Did you stand under the cross and witness to Him? Were you the good or bad thief? Did you take Him down from the cross and bury Him? Did you prepare spices for His entombment? Would you have appreciated hearing: —Let these men go?—

We find affinity but we need to look elsewhere

At any point in our lives we might find affinity with one or more of these characters. That is who we are as we follow the path to heaven. We fall because of that kind of affinity and God raises us back up. We are heroes at times but many times prefer to hear: —Let these men go.— We need to change our affinity.

Our affinity is in Jesus Christ

The real question, the real issue we need to reflect on this evening is: are we Jesus? Are we Jesus who did not run, who did the Father’s will. Do we have the courage of Jesus, to be fully human and humane?

Whomever we might find affinity with, that connection is solely a connection in our broken humanity. We must judge that broken connection as something to be overcome, replacing it with our affinity with Jesus. We must make Jesus our only example and our model. Jesus’ perfect humanity is not a symbol or something esoteric. It is a call to reality, to being who He is.

Let us ask that Jesus not say for us: —Let these men go,— but rather —Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.— We will get there by living our lives courageously, modeled on the one who died so that we might have life —“- eternal life. Amen.

First reading: Exodus 12:1-8,11-14
Psalm: Ps 116:12-13,15-18
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Gospel: John 13:1-15

“This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.—

Lord for us your wounds were suffered.
Oh Christ Jesus, have mercy on us

What does —reality— mean?

Wikipedia provides a definition for reality. Their website states that:

Reality, in everyday usage, means “the state of things as they actually exist.” Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible.

The term reality first appeared in the English language in 1550, originally a legal term in the sense of “fixed property.”

The definition goes on to discuss different senses of the word reality, for instance truth and fact. They then talk about phenomenological reality. Phenomenology comes from the Greek, meaning the study of that which appears. If we take that literally, we can say that our faith is an exercise in the phenomenology of God —“ the study of God’s appearance to us in historical fact and in our personal experience.

Reality of Christ among us

Our phenomenology, our study of that which appeared, is more than an academic process. It is a path of discovery and of change. Our entire relationship with reality must move from a view centered on the world, on money, power, property, personal desires, the grievous sinfulness found in the world’s disregard for the commandments of God, to a reality centered on Jesus and His Gospel.

This is certainly a difficult path because it is so natural to be imitators of Jesus. Did I just say that being natural is difficult? Of course! Our entire humanness is directed toward God and a desire for closeness and likeness with Him. Unfortunately, by the allure of sin we fight our humanness every day. We fall.

Thankfully we have committed, by our presence in this community of faith, and in the larger Church, to be phenomenological. We have committed ourselves to humanness, to being defined by lives centered in the reality of God.

God’s desire to remain with us as real presence

Our commitment to being defined by lives centered in the reality of God would be sad if it were a one way street. If we had to rely on shadows and personal experience we would be subject to valid criticism. Thankfully, God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. The historical facts surrounding His life, death, and resurrection as well as the testimony of many witnesses centers our phenomenology, our study of God’s reality in observable and documented experience.

God desired to come among us, to live, and to interact. He made it so that we might live in the reality of who we really are; the naturalness of our humanity. He did this by teaching us what we are to do.

God’s reality remains present with us today. As we celebrate the institution of the Holy Eucharist, we recall the phenomenology, the reality of God living among us, really present so that He might work within us to bring us back to our humanity; to make our reality real.

The sacramental nature of Church is grounded in reality

Our Holy Polish National Catholic Church is the full reality of God due to its sacramental nature. God remains real and present among us, working in us, affecting change, bringing us back to the easy road —“ to the road that calls us to live the reality we were intended to live.

Sacraments are all about reality. We are fed. We are washed. We are anointed. The food of the Holy Eucharist, the washing in Penance, the anointing in Holy Orders, Confirmation, and the sacrament of the Sick are a full on experience of God’s reality.

Catholicism is the full-on reality of God’s relationship

Our Catholicism is then the full-on reality of God’s relationship with us. This reality centers us and makes God’s touch real and present.

It is real in its components and in its totality

Our reality isn’t merely a study of cause and effect, or a theological tome on the nature of God, but a compressive encounter with God. This encounter, in both its historical fact, the testimony of witnesses, and in our experience tells us that every component of who we are is found in God’s reality. From Baptism to Viaticum —“ the last Communion someone receives before death —“ a lifelong encounter emerges. It is not just one reception of Penance, one anointing, one Communion, but a lifetime marked by these encounters with God’s reality.

Real food and Real drink —“ it is real responsibility

—If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.—

That is reality. Our phenomenological encounter with God, our experience of Him is real food and real drink. It is real anointing and real washing.

Because of our unfortunate choices, the paths we choose over the path we should choose, we often fail to do as Jesus asked this night, —as I have done for you, you should also do.—

We must couple the reality of God with our real responsibility, to become human in all our interactions. If we touch someone’s life, but cheat them out of the real food of our presence, if we shut them out of our charity and fail to anoint them for strength and healing, if we fail to wash away enmity, we fall short of God’s reality. We become inhumane, we lose reality.

Let us rather do this. Let us take this holy night and choose to reconnect to the reality of God, present here. Let us choose to change our reality from a fight against what we should do, to a choice for God’s natural reality. By faith we know the phenomenological reality of God among us. Let us be in God’s reality by our presence here and in the world. Amen.

First reading: Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm: Ps 22:8-9,17-20,23-24—¨
Epistle: Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel: Luke 22-23—¨

The Lord GOD has given me—¨
a well-trained tongue,
—¨that I might know how to speak to the weary
—¨a word that will rouse them.

Lord for us Your wounds were suffered
Oh Christ Jesus have mercy on us—¨

Christ speaks to us profoundly

At the beginning of our first reading, taken from Isaiah, the Lord tells us that His Word, Jesus Christ, is the Word that will be spoken to us. He tells us that our Savior will speak profound and moving words that cut through the chatter and clutter that infect our lives. He tells us that His beloved Son will rouse us when we are weary. Jesus will change us.

As we know, Isaiah is writing well before Jesus’ coming. He likely ended his ministry of prophesy about 680 years before Jesus’ coming. Yet through Isaiah the coming Savior is clearly prefigured.

God is telling us that the life of Jesus, the life we are to model and imitate, this life of a servant who will be beaten and looked upon as lowly and outcast, is more than just a wasted life. Jesus’ life is the life offered for us. Jesus’ life as the servant, offered up for us, brings real change. That change is for you and me. There is real change, day-to-day renewal and rebirth here in Johnson City, and in Binghamton, Albany, Utica, Scranton, Oneonta, and in cities, towns, and villages around the world. That change in Jesus starts now and ends in glory.

His words and His path are one

Indeed, Jesus cuts through the noise of the world and unifies everything in Himself. Jesus’ life, words, and ministry are not just a series of historical one-off events, but a unity of message and purpose. Jesus’ life is an eternal constant, and the love and salvation He brings has been and will always be there for us.

When we join ourselves to Him in our Holy Polish National Church we become part of that constant, the life and words of Jesus washing away the old, destroying the noise, picking us up, rousing us, and changing us.

This week’s path will weary us

The path we follow this week will weary us. Whether that weary comes from the commitment, time, and sacrifice necessary to be with Jesus through these holiest of days, from Maundy Thursday to Resurrection morning, or the shopping, cooking, and cleaning that need to be done, or the work schedule that cannot wait, or the children, or projects, the weariness will be there. Our eyes will be heavy like the eyes of the disciples’ were in the garden. We will feel like we want to run away, like the disciples did. Our crosses will sit heavy upon our shoulders, as the cross bore down on Jesus.

This week’s path will rouse us

But, Jesus will rouse us. Walking this path will empty us of the old and fill us with new life. St. Paul gives us the greatest hymn of all time in today’s Epistle. This ancient Church hymn tells us what His disciples found from the beginning, that Jesus came emptied of His Godship to serve us, that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, and these words that rouse us: He reigns in Heaven with the Father and the Spirit.

The weariness gives way to the great and high position of Jesus in which we have a share. Christ lives eternally in glory, and so shall we. This is our assurance, the promised change Jesus brings to us. We know what awaits us. We will be changed into the glory that awaits us in heaven with Jesus forever. This is our great and rousing joy!

This week’s path buries us

This week we are buried with Christ. It is important to recall that during Holy Week we recall and renew our Baptism. As St. Paul tells us (Romans 6:4):

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

In baptism our old nature was buried. We are buried in those waters. That burial of the old self prepares us for the change Jesus has for us. Jesus’ change makes us new men and women.

This week’s path resurrects us.

The new man is our resurrected selves. As we emerged from the waters of Baptism so we emerge changed, into a new and resurrected life with Jesus.

Our rebirth, regeneration in Baptism, is the doorway into Jesus’ resurrected life. The grave is nothing to us because it is but a way station, a brief respite for our bodies before they enter into God’s glory. As we process on Easter Sunday morning we process changed people. The burial is forgotten, God’s glory is before us.

This week’s path surpasses all the glories we can imagine.

This week’s path is a series of steps. If we have walked them once or one hundred times, let us never forget that walking them is a small price to pay for the direction in which they lead. They lead to Jesus, to that moment when we stand as a changed, reborn, regenerated, renewed people before the throne of God. That eternal moment will surpass all the glories we can imagine, and indeed have ever been imagined. Earthly glories are but a thimble sized amount of the glory we will behold as a people changed by Jesus.

This week, my friends, walk the path and allow our Lord and Savior to push out the old, to crush the noise, and to make us a changed people once again. He is ready to do it. Only let Him. Amen.

First reading: Exodus 3:1-8,13-15
Psalm: Ps 103:1-4,6-8,11
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10:1-6,10-12
Gospel: Luke 13:1-9

These things happened as examples for us

Któryś za nas cierpiał rany
Jezu Chrtyste, zmiłuj się nad nami

Lord for us your wounds were suffered
O, Christ Jesus, have mercy on us

The fig tree’s perspective

A question: Would we want to be that fig tree? Let’s imagine how the fig tree must have felt. The owner had been showing up, three years in a row, and the tree had nothing to show him. The fig tree knew, this time the owner wasn’t going to accept the ‘no fruit’ option. The fig tree can hear him yelling: Cut it down! What a waste! Burn it up!

The gardener implores the owner:

‘Sir, leave it for this year also, —¨and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; —¨it may bear fruit in the future.’

The fig tree was certainly glad that the gardener was there and that he prevailed. Would we want to be the fig tree? Perhaps the question should be, What must we do, since we are the fig tree?

Lessons from history

Much of this week’s scripture is a walk through history. We hear of Moses’ encounter on Mount Horeb. We hear Jesus in discussions about events of that day, the Galileans killed by Pilate, or the eighteen people killed when the tower at Si’loam fell on them. Paul discusses the Exodus from Egypt and the fact that the Israelites who displeased God were —struck down in the desert.—

These histories are not meant to depress us, or cause us to think that God is horrible, or to think that these particular people were terrible sinners of some sort. What it is meant to teach, is that we must not assume an air of overconfidence, self-centered reliance, or some attitude that would cause us to think that we live in a state of sinless perfection. We must never fail to recall that without God we will bear no fruit. Overconfidence, self-centered reliance, and a failure to acknowledge and repent of our sins places in a state apart from God, as if we, on our own, could bear fruit.

As Christians, our attitude must be that of the fig tree. The tree had to rely on the good will of the gardener. Likewise, we must place our reliance on Jesus as the one who cultivates us and gives us that next chance. We must see Jesus as the one who frees us from our sin, who makes us new, who fills us with life, and who — if He is in our lives — causes us to bear good fruit (John 15:1-2).

Who gets punished?

Things get complicated in life. At times we are left wondering what happened. Someone we trusted, we built a relationship with, we made plans with, is gone. Perhaps some other disappointment, a let down, job loss, economic problems, relationship stresses, in all of it we look internally and perhaps we wonder, Am I being punished?

Our society has become very well versed in punishment. The slightest let down, the littlest transgression, and retribution is demand. Punishment is ever before our eyes and by some sort of transference we turn our God into a god of punishment. Some religious talking heads blame tragedy on God’s retribution. You’ve heard it, and the more we hear it the less shocked we are. We should be shocked for this isn’t God.

People who make this mistake, who focus on punishment, on the sins of others, or on their own sins — all to the exclusion of Jesus as our salvation — forget about the gardener, the one who tills the soil around us, who feeds us with His word, and who gives us the next chance.

God transcends

The amazing thing about God is that He transcends punishment, sinfulness, and disappointment. Our core faith, our inner being knows very well that we do not have a God of punishment. We, in the Holy Polish National Catholic Church, trust in the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. He is the God that came to us, that took on our humanity, that suffered and was disappointed, even by His disciples.

His disciples thought they knew better, they battled each other, they were quick to act, slow to think. They even lied, betrayed, and ran away, all to protect themselves. God wasn’t punishment to them, for that or any other reason.

Our God transcended all that, and in His precious blood He washed all that was sick in them, and he washes all that is sick in us away. Our God is that very gardener who implored the owner for more time, for more work even. The gardener had to do more and more for that fig tree. Jesus stands beside us, for we are like that fig tree, and He gives us the grace that allows us to bear fruit.

God the Father is the owner and He can only see us through the lens of His Son Jesus, the gardener, who is working so that we might bear fruit.

God is in the present tense.

Interestingly, our God has a name. Do you recall what He told Moses? What was God’s name? I Am.

God is teaching us, even in giving us His Holy Name. He is telling us, I am. God is in the present tense. God is always present. The whole —footprints on the beach— may be a bit cliche, but that is the truth of God. He is present. He is with us even when we disappoint in sin, even when we are disappointed, fearful, questioning. In our times of strength and times of weakness, God is present tense.

Present, and always another chance

God is exactly present to us in this tabernacle, on this Holy Altar. He is present in this community, in our Holy Church. His grace is living, energizing, and present with us. He is at work here and in our entire Church. Not only is He present, God the Holy Spirit is at work, fertilizing all our minds, strengthening our bodies, refreshing our wills to struggle on.

Take comfort

Today we are to take comfort. Forget punishment and disappointment — that is not our destiny nor our present circumstance. Look to God. Look to the image of God in each other and in your neighbors. The gardener is standing with us and He is ready. He has set to work so that in Him we might bear fruit. In Him we have all we need.

— In Him we have all we need. —

We have that next chance, and the next after that. He will not abandon us — as long as we stay faithful to Him — not to ourselves, not to agendas — but to Him who transcends, is ever present, and is at work to make us whole. Amen.

First reading: Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10
Psalm: Ps 19:8-10, 15
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Gospel: Luke 1:1-4; Luke 4:14-21

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body

The walls were still down

Our first reading was from Nehemiah. Nehemiah is an interesting book. It was written just after the Babylonian captivity; the Jews had returned to Israel. While they had returned they were acting a bit lost and were disorganized, wandering about, wondering what they should do. Jerusalem was there, but it was no capital. It was in shambles. The walls of the city were destroyed.

Nehemiah was working for the Babylonian king and asked for permission to go to Jerusalem. He wanted to rebuild it, to get things organized, to get people working together. While the king gave him permission, other political leaders fought against him, tried to distract him from his task, and even tried to kill him. All through, Nehemiah stayed true to his task, and never lost focus. Nehemiah not only stayed on task, but also organized the people diving them into groups and skills so that working together they would accomplish their task. While the task was immediate, Nehemiah knew that the reason for the task was more than rebuilding, it was recognition.

Acting in unison

Nehemiah is an example of what prayer, planning, hard work, and unity can accomplish. Acting together the walls were rebuilt. The walls were rebuilt in 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15).

Toward what?

Now let’s suppose that you and your family, your tribe, gather together and decide to build a house. You plan, organize, pray, and set to work. You make record speed while your neighbors stand by and ridicule or attack you. Now you have a house, and you look at it and say, ‘what is this for?’ You’ve done it but have no explanation for the purpose of the house. What do you do with it? You look but lack the gift of recognition, the seeing that must accompany the doing.

In Nehemiah’s case he knew the purpose, and so he gathered the people, and with Ezra stood before them to explain it all. The Law was read. From the morn till noon the people stood and were instructed. The Law, the Old Testament expression of God’s love and care for His people was set before them.

Ezra and Nehemiah knew, God’s law was the foundation the real rebuilding, the rebirth of the spirit and the rebirth of the peoples unity with God and each other. So they taught the people so that the people would recognize the purpose of their work.

Recognition

The people were so moved by God’s message their eyes fill with tears. They were focusing on their mistakes, how they have fallen short. They still didn’t recognize. But Ezra and Nehemiah knew better. They urged the people to celebrate. The people heard God’s word which was the wellspring for their unity. Nehemiah wanted the people to see, to recognize One God, and themselves as one people of God.

—Do not be sad, and do not weep—”
Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks,
and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared;
for today is holy to our LORD.
Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!—

Jesus came to the Synagogue for the same reason. He came to instruct the people, to read for them and be for them what was greater than the Law. It was God who stood before them to show them, to proclaim for them, that He was the fulfillment, the new point of unity that surpasses the written Law. Not just God in words and commands, but God living among them, with them in every way. Jesus so badly wanted them to get it, to recognize them, to let the scales fall from their eyes so they could see clearly.

All of this, the big lead up to this moment in Nehemiah and in Luke, is the groundwork for recognition. The people in the rebuilt Jerusalem were told to recognize the God who loved them and cared for them, who changed them from a captive people to a free people, from many tribes and houses to one people. The people of Nazareth were invited to recognize God’s arrival. They weren’t at the manager a few short weeks ago, nor by the Jordan or at the wedding. Their revelation stood before them and declared its presence. Would they recognize Him?

Bound in Baptism

Likewise we are invited to recognize God and our place in the people of God — the unity that comes from our common baptism. Paul is telling the people of Corinth to recognize their unity as a new people, a unified body and to see God in the many ways He expresses Himself through the one Spirit.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

The people in Corinth were very much in touch with their uniqueness. They felt themselves so unique that they had divided and subdivided by the gifts each person had. They weren’t working together to build the symbolic walls which would unify their city of God, their community, because the bricklayers thought they were better than the haulers, and the haulers felt they were better than the miners, and the miners better than those who made the cement. Paul knew that the unity that would enclose them and make them one, their common baptism, wasn’t being recognized and in failing to recognize their common life in Christ they failed to recognize God.

Sameness

Paul points out that the desired unity is not sameness. While each member of the Church, indeed, each community in the Church is unique and special we are not to focus on being the same, but rather the community that comes from the myriad gifts and expressions we have.

For instance, our Holy Polish National Catholic Church is not Roman Catholic, it is not this, or that, or someone else’s definition of what the Holy Church is, but the full Catholic expression of the unique gifts of our community, given to us so that the world might recognize God through our work.

Paul cautioned against demanding sameness. Not one member in Corinth was better than the next based on a specific gift. In fact, their classification system was turned on its head by Paul’s message.

Gifts

Paul asked the faithful in Corinth to understand that each of them is bonded by baptism into the one body of Christ. Each of them had a contribution to make to the Church. So Paul asked that there be no rivalry between them. Instead Paul asked that they work together for the good of all. He asked that they express their gifts as part of something that is larger than the gift itself.

God has given His gifts to our Holy Church, and to each of us, not as a preference, but rather as a means to achieving what Nehemiah and Jesus call us to do —“ recognize God, living among us, as part of us, in a community that is more than momentary, but that will last forever.

Turn to the person next to you or behind you. Know their face. You will see them in the heavenly kingdom, where our perfected community and its gifts will join with every other community in one common recognition of Jesus Christ, our Lord, God, and Savior, and in one joyous Amen.

and all the people, their hands raised high, answered,
—Amen, amen!—

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:10-14
Psalm: Ps 97:1,6,11-12
Epistle: Titus 3:4-7
Gospel: Luke 2:15-20

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

Let us go and see

Ok, I agree, let’s get up and go to see. Perhaps it was natural curiosity; perhaps they were just dazzled into compliance with the angels’ request. I think it was curiosity.

I would like to take a moment to think about that moment of curiosity. When did you experience a moment of curiosity so strong that it led you to a change?

We don’t even have to think about anything particularly remarkable. Ever get curious about how your neighbors decorate their homes, how to grow a plant like the one you saw in a nearby garden, or how to create a yummy recipe you’ve tasted?

That sort of curiosity leads to changes. Suddenly you’re asking your spouse to help you rearrange the furniture and re-hang the pictures, or you’re at Hewitt’s selecting plants and fertilizer, or you attend a Pampered Chef party to get just the right kind of cooking implements. Our curiosity creates change.

Today we are called to encounter something new and to be changed by it.

The Hells Angels showed up

Outside of Chicago a child was born. The angles appeared to a group of bikers in the nearby locale and told them the news. The bikers put on their leathers and hopped on their bikes saying, ‘Let’s go over and check this out.’

The Hell’s Angels showed up, saw, and understood. Kind of like what just happened with the shepherds.

But, why shepherds, why Hell’s Angels? Was it just the nearest folks who happened to be there? Were they the ones who were awake while everyone else slept? Is it symbolic of Jesus as the Good Shepherd? Guess what? It doesn’t matter because what happened next is what was most important.

The disconnect

Many of the reflections I’ve read focus on the stuff Jesus did, the things He accomplished as if it were all done in a vacuum.

Today we see that Jesus didn’t do it in a vacuum or in some sort of rarified atmosphere. Jesus came poor and in need.

Jesus came to bring about change in all He encountered. His encounter with them and with us, with the shepherds in His poverty, isn’t about Jesus magically changing them or us. If Jesus had just wanted to do that He could have done it all from heaven, no fuss, no muss. Rather, our encounter with Jesus, born of our natural curiosity, is brought to fulfillment in the fruit, the growth that comes about within us. Out of that curiosity we take the steps necessary to make ourselves, our world, different.

What happened?

So what happened that night? How did the curiosity of those humble shepherds result in their moving their furniture around? How did they change? How did they become something other than what they were while lying back in the fields a few moments ago? They weren’t there just so Jesus could do unto them. Jesus needed them.

Remember Father’s homily from Christmas. He spoke about the conversation and wonder that was going on inside and outside the door of the manger. Today we are to think beyond the words and the wonder to what happened next.

I believe the shepherds reached into their bags and presented Mary and Joseph with gifts from their meager stores: bread, cheese, oil, and wine. Perhaps they offered sheepskin blankets. Mary and Joseph didn’t show up to a Bethlehem teaming with Price Choppers and Hannafords. They didn’t come to an area with a major metropolitan hospital and a birthing center. They likely didn’t even have a midwife. They were alone and on their own in a strange and distant place, one inhospitable and kind of mean. The innkeepers were mean and they ended up in a barn —“- abandoned and alone, cold and afraid.

The shepherds did something. They came as the first visitors, the reassurance that Mary and Joseph and their newborn Son were not alone. Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus had friends and benefactors. The shepherds came and were moved to change, to share, to participate, and to offer gifts and compassion —“ to be different than what they were moments ago.

The kindness and love

Saint Paul tells Titus: when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us

Jesus’ coming was and still is an encounter with something completely new, and that something new saves us. This Christmas season renews our newness. Our curiosity, coming to this holy place, this Parish church, creates the encounter that begins our change. In the encounter we are called to offer more than words. We are required to do more than just gaze on in wonder. We are to convert our wonder and our words into action —“ to act like God would act, with goodness and loving kindness.

We weren’t just the folks who happened to be nearby. We weren’t the ones who were awake while everyone else slept. We are the accountants, laborers, technicians, paralegals, police officers, teachers, priests, deacons, and students who are called to be here and to be changed people because Jesus needs us.

Not in what we do, but how we are changed

We can gaze in our neighbors’ windows and admire their decorating acumen. We can taste every dish ever created and marvel at the subtle complexity in each. We can walk through every garden and be amazed. Our curiosity cannot stand-alone. If we look on, and do nothing with what our curiosity has revealed, it will kill us.

On the other hand we can do to excess. We can throw bread, blankets, and money at issues. We can act, act, act, and if it is just acting —“ well…

Curiosity or doing alone is not enough. The curiosity we feel gazing at the Christ child and the offering and work we put forth, must also convert us.

It is said that the shepherds —saw and understood.— This seeing and understanding started in their curiosity. It came together in their encounter with Jesus. They went away doing more than engaging in intellectual efforts at understanding. They had been changed and that change made everything new and different. This change was their remodeled house, their green garden, and the food that would cause them to live forever. Because of this they glorified and praised God for all they had heard and seen.

We are heirs

We are the heirs of the shepherds. We are to see and truly understand. God gives us the grace to be curious and to do good. More than that, he gives us the grace to bring our curiosity and our doing together creating real change. That change is the newness that is more than momentary. It isn’t seasonal change, one time change, change for the sake of change. It is the real and everlasting change that makes us one with each other and with our Lord and Savior. We are the shepherds, the bikers, accountants, laborers, technicians, paralegals, police officers, teachers, priests, deacons, and student who are changed by Jesus. Our furniture has been moved, our garden is green and our life is new. Our food is sweet and forever —“ it is the Lord revealed to us. Amen.

First reading: Daniel 7:13-14
Psalm: Ps 93:1-2,5
Epistle: Revelation 1:5-8
Gospel: John 18:33-37

So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?”

I got you:

I can relate to this line. Pilate had it all figured out. As judge, jury, and prosecutor he had that Perry Mason moment, the, —I got you— moment. Ah ha… then you are a king.

I’ve spent most of my working life in tax audit and enforcement. I can understand Pilate’s motivations here. I love these moments, when the person you’re auditing spills the beans and you discover the fraud. When the person you’re perusing for payment slips and let’s you know where the money’s hidden.

Pilate had Jesus. He found out that Jesus was a king and as such was the foe of Caesar. Of course, Jesus had to die now.

Pilate didn’t get it:

Pilate’s ah ha moment, the revelation that filled his head, was a complete mistake. He just didn’t get it at all.

Being a Roman, Pilate had no concept of the otherness of God. His idols were made of bronze, silver, gold, and stone. They had no reality other than in fables. His gods frolicked on Mount Olympus or some other locale. They had human qualities and human likeness. His fables told of gods who affected natural things, made the sun and moon rise, had fun in the sack, took care of the critters. None of their attributes were truly supernatural. The stories weren’t of spiritual beings, because if they were, their authors couldn’t relate them to Pilate’s reality.

Pilate’s reality was about power and he understood politics and the exercise of power, not the difference in Jesus, the otherness of God.

We try to explain:

Pilate was wrong and he didn’t get it. Seeing that, should we question the way we explain God?

King, ruler, majesty, all powerful, great, to be worshipped, Father, Lord. We use words, but those words fail to move us beyond the natural concepts they convey. We try to explain, but how do we connect our reality to God’s reality?

Look at our beautiful altar. The altar is God’s throne covered in linen cloths, flowers, candles. We perform postures and gestures before the throne, kneeling, bowing at God’s Holy Name. Yet, throne, light, movement — the natural things, things we can know, things we can do, things we relate to.

Picture a king. What do you see? Royal robes, a throne, people bowing, knights… It is human nature. We categorize things and paint pictures for ourselves.

Christian books, theologians, poets, the writers of prayers… They and we describe everything and attempt to describe God, but, like Pilate, we fall short in relating our reality to God’s reality.

We try so hard in categorizing and understanding God, in trying to relate to the God who is other; we sometimes go so far as to take everything and turn it into some sort of miracle. That baby, the sunset, flight, a field of flowers… Everything becomes miraculous. Certainly beautiful, certainly inspiring, but not miraculous, they are just natural. We are grasping to explain, to fit God to what we know, to fit His action in our lives to what we see, but He is so outside, beyond, and over anything we can possibly say, feel, write, or experience that we, like Pilate, fall far short.

How can we get this:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, ” says the Lord God,
“the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.”

How can we possibly get the otherness of God? A blogger recently wrote on the whole idea of God’s otherness and our inability to grasp that concept.

Think of everything you would consider portraying the supernatural and spiritual. Is it a movie character, a character in a book? Exactly how otherworldly are they, exactly how supernatural and beyond us? If we took any character we could, in a matter of seconds, show that they are little more than mortal beings with special, albeit not supernatural powers.

Consider Superman. By all accounts flesh and blood. Born on a different planet and endowed with tremendous powers, but still man. We could take any character: vampires, magicians, and find that they are no more than men and women who ply on some special physical reality. None are supernatural spiritual beings, because if they were, their authors couldn’t relate them to our reality.

In our failure to understand God’s reality we run from the supernatural, from God, and back to ourselves. We have done this for millennia, since the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:4-5):

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

We have continually tried to co-opt the supernatural, the spiritual. We have tried and tried to make what is other and beyond into something we know. We go so far as to make ourselves into the something other, into gods. We want to be the man with superpowers. In our effort at becoming gods unto ourselves, our physicalness, our reality as god, the reality of that other — the pure spirit, the soul, God, is becoming lost. We can’t quite get how something can be real, with a will and intellect, that exists outside, above and without time or space, and yet has the ability to relate to us. We cannot understand how this God who is other should have some say in the way we run our lives. How can this essence, this spiritual being be with us, guide us, teach us, instruct us, call us to account, yet be so far different than anything we know?

If we common sense, if we are smart, we realize that the spiritual being of God cannot be grasped in what we know alone.

We know, but we don’t:

All is not lost. All is not lost because God has acted, and we can know Him.

We need not create stories of gods or attempt to turn ourselves into gods. We are blessed because we have the absolute ability to know God by our own logic. Man is wonderfully endowed with a connectedness to our Creator. God has acted and has built in an automatic mechanism by which we are called back to Him. We know of Him because as Lord, Master, and Creator He has made it so.

What’s the difference between your GPS or map and the place you’re going? Like our built in mechanism the GPS and map can help us get there, but we cannot fully know the place we are going until we experience it. Our knowing about God is different from the full-on experience of God. That full on experience takes two things: revelation and faith.

Faith and revelation are not required to know that God exists, but are required to know who He is.

He came and taught us:

God came to tell us the real story, to fill in the blanks, to show us who He is. God has intervened and has permanently connected these two different realities, the supernatural and the natural. He has given us the descriptive words, the sacraments, the gestures, even the prayers. Heaven and earth have been joined in the God-man Jesus Christ. While mankind knows there is God, God had to come to relate these realities and to show who He really is.

Miraculously, supernaturally, the pure essence of God became man. God has tied it all together, His reality and ours. Not only that, God showed us that everything that is, everything we are, makes sense when it is in line with what He created it to be. God showed us His perfection and let us know that we too can reach perfection. The otherness of God is now obvious to us by both logic, faith, and revelation.

God took the necessary step, the loving action required for us to know the reality of what is supernatural. He knows that we need that. We need to know about grand movements of heaven as a bulwark against evil. We need to know that all makes sense and is part of something that is beyond description, beyond space, time, the cross and the throne.

What we now know we must proclaim:

Because of God’s action, because of His intervention in time and history, because He brings about the miraculous we now have the full story.

The otherness of God, His lordship, perfection, and reality is in our grasp. We know, by logic and faith that God has acted. We need to tell the world, from our next door neighbor to the village at the furthest point away from us, God has intervened. We have the facts, the symbols, the gestures and postures, the liturgy, the community revealed by God.

The way we live, week to week, and our connection with each other in this community of faith is witness. We are not witness to the merely real, the physical earthly reality of things. We are not just people helping people, do-gooders, fighters against poverty, wage theft, and the evils that surround us. As connectors our witness tells the story of how the supernatural and spiritual intervenes and lives —“ really lives among us.

Christ lives in Pete and Mike helping my family. Christ lives in my helping others. Christ lives when we visit each other, share a story, a glass of wine, a meal. Christ lives in our work for and within this neighborhood, in this community and the wider Church. Christ lives in the ark we will send to a far off village. Christ lives — the supernatural, eternal, otherness of God has intervened in our lives and lives here.

Today we celebrate our Lord and Savior’s kingship over us. He is certainly the king in splendor arrayed. More than that, He is the king who intervened to connect heaven and earth, to make eternity real for us and for all who follow Him. Amen.