Homily for Sunday, 23 March 2014

3rd Sunday in Lent

Readings of the day: Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42

What are some basic needs for human survival?

We need water to survive. At room temperature, without exercising, the average healthy adult human being can survive for a few days without water. We need food. The same healthy adult human being at room temperature and with minimal exercise can survive for a few weeks without food. We also need sleep…

But how often do we think of God as essential to our survival?

We encounter in our readings today several people who are concerned for their basic needs for survival. In Exodus, led by Moses and having fled slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel find themselves in the middle of a hot, dry desert. Before the story of our first reading begins, the people of Israel have run out of food. They complain, “We’re hungry,” so God gives them manna, a strange flaky food from the sky. This satisfies their hunger, but soon they are without water.

Let us imagine this, as I can having been in the Holy Land in the summer heat: The temperature is over one hundred degrees every day in the desert. A large group of people, young and old, healthy and unhealthy, have been on the move for years. They know they will survive for much less time than at a comfortable temperature and if they were not carrying loads in the heat, and so they complain to Moses again: “We’re thirsty. We’re low on manna. I’m tired. I’m too hot. I’m bored. He looked at me sideways. I need to go to the bathroom. Are we there yet?!”

“Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? … Is the LORD in our midst or not?”

Now let us imagine Moses responding to the people’s endless complaining: “Up until now you had a point. Traveling through the desert under load is hard work. We have limited food and water. It’s hot and dry. But this is better than slavery in Egypt. Remember what the LORD has done to get us this far, and please stop doubting whether the LORD is with us or not!”

At least, amid their doubt and complaining, the people Moses leads recognize their most basic need: To survive, they need God. They have this need for God in common with the Samaritan woman at the well in today’s Gospel reading. They have this need for God in common with all of us.

Yet, like the Israelites under Moses and the Samaritan woman at the well in John’s Gospel, we do not always recognize the ways in which God makes God’s self present to us; the ways in which God satisfies our need for him. To the Israelites, God is present through Moses’ leadership and through a series of signs by which God, through Moses, frees them from slavery and meets their other basic needs such as for food and water.

To the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus’ divinity is initially hidden. Jesus appears as one with basic human needs that we all share; as a weary traveler who begins by asking the Samaritan woman: “Give me a drink.”

Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman begins with this focus on the most basic of human needs. The woman can meet Jesus’ need for water. The woman’s needs are more complex. Jesus works through many layers of the woman’s need: For acceptance; for human community and relationship; for a home for worship; and ultimately for the presence of God.

How many of us have ever begun a conversation with someone, only to realize that the basic need of the other person that we have sought to meet soon leads to discovery of this person’s more complex needs? Not many of us, I imagine, would begin by saying to another, “I think your most basic need is for God,” especially if the person is not Christian or even religious. Might we begin instead with basic hospitality; offering food and drink, then a listening ear; conversation; friendship? It is wonderful to be able to identify and to meet another’s spiritual needs, but this is often only possible after more basic needs have been met.

The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman progresses from most basic to most complex need; from the need for water to the need for God. Jesus asks the woman for water. The woman is an outcast in many ways: She is a Samaritan speaking with a Jew. She cannot worship either in Jerusalem, the Jewish center of worship, or on Mount Gerizim, the Samaritan center of worship. She has had “five husbands, and the one” she has “now is not [her] husband,” and so she is rejected in her village. She is a woman in a male-dominated society. Here she finds herself in the noontime heat in a desert, risking her life for water from Jacob’s well.

The Samaritan woman has been rejected everywhere else, and so has nothing to lose. But Jesus accepts her, even over the objection of his own disciples. Beginning with basic hospitality in spite of his own hunger and thirst, Jesus brings God’s presence to her; a spiritual home neither in Jerusalem nor on Gerizim but in him. Only then can the Samaritan woman recognize that Jesus “is truly the Savior of the world.” Only then can she bring this message back to her own village, which then welcomes Jesus.

What (or who) is at the same time the most basic yet most complex need for human survival? This need is God.

Yet it takes time, hospitality, deepening of relationship, and often the meeting of our other most basic needs‒ for water, for food, and for sleep, for example‒ for us to come to recognize our most basic and yet most complex need, without whom there is no life; the need recognized by the people of Israel led by Moses and then by the Samaritan woman at the well and the villagers of Sychar.

This need, most essential to our survival, is God and God’s Son, Jesus Christ, who “is truly the Savior of the world.”

Homily for Tuesday, 18 March 2014‒ Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Optional Memorial of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Readings of the day: Isaiah 1:10, 16-20; Psalm 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21, 23; Matthew 23:1-12

 

We pray today in our Psalm response, “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.” What does it mean for us to “show the saving power of God”? How can we “show the saving power of God” to one another and to the world?

From time to time, no matter how good we are, temptation will exist to show off the power of ourselves instead of showing the saving power of God. All the telling of the saving power of God, then, will not substitute for showing and living the saving power of God.

Jesus criticizes this very tendency among “the scribes and the Pharisees.” Many of the religious leaders of his time were masters at telling of and at exercising power as if it were theirs to lord over others instead of living God’s power that serves and that saves. They looked to titles that could exploit this power over others, instead of to God’s name that stands for salvation; for power for others; for and with us. They looked to ways of burdening others with laws instead of to ways in which God’s Law could be a gift to the people they served. They looked to honor themselves visibly instead of honoring God who is invisible.

Can we not, and do not some, especially in positions of leadership, fall into these same temptations today? (I speak for myself; these words of Jesus are a constant challenge to me.) How can we show by the way we live and not only tell of God’s saving power?

Do any of us know of one person we could serve today, even in a small way, especially one who could never repay us? Do any of us know of someone in need, even if that need could be satisfied by a kind word or perhaps simply our being present to another person?

We have through our Lenten celebration a beautiful opportunity to make our prayer, the prayer of our Responsorial Psalm today, count: “I will show the saving power of God.” I will not; we will not only tell of God’s power or exercise power in a way that does not contribute to the good of one another, but we will show; we will live the power of God this Lent in a way that serves and that saves.

Homily for Friday, 14 March 2014‒ Friday of the First Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 18:21-28; Psalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8; Matthew 5:20-26

How many of us, especially those of us who are parents, have heard the complaint directed at us, “That is not fair! This person did this bad thing; you cannot let her or him get away without consequences!”

Those of us who have ever been accused of being unfair for what was in fact the right decision can take comfort from our readings today: “The LORD is not fair!”

At least this is the accusation we hear leveled against God in our reading from the Prophet Ezekiel: You cannot allow the wicked to get away unpunished, even if they repent! Truly, as we hear the people of Israel complain in Ezekiel, “The LORD is not fair!”

Those who complain that “the LORD is not fair” have a point. The Lord is not fair; the Lord is merciful. The Lord gives us all a chance to repent; a chance at forgiveness of our sins. This chance at repentance and forgiveness is central to the meaning of this season of Lent. Indeed it is central to the meaning of our Mass, which hinges on our recognition of God’s mercy; that God is not merely “fair” but is merciful. And so we pray at the beginning of Mass, “Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.” Again, just before receiving communion, we pray, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

God is not fair, and so with the Psalmist we rejoice in God’s mercy: “If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand?” The more our own society and we as individuals obsess over fairness in place of mercy, the weaker we stand. Conversely, only with mercy, repentance, and forgiveness will any of us, sinners all, stand.

This week a story appeared in The Democrat and Chronicle about local college students abusing an animal at a party. The comment column on the previous page was full of proposals to bring hard justice to those involved: “Throw the book at them!” And so on… I remarked to Fr. Joe Trovato,[1] who was reading the newspaper with me: “What good will that do?” Fr. Joe wisely suggested that the perpetrators should be offered community service time in a facility that cares for abandoned or stray animals. The former approach is that of fairness; the latter is that of mercy.

The Lord is not fair. Our Lord is merciful, and so we are invited to be not merely fair but merciful toward one another, if we are not already, beginning with our observance of Lent.

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[1] Fr. Joseph Trovato, CSB, is a senior Basilian priest serving at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Irondequoit, NY.

Homily for Thursday, 6 March 2014‒ Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6; Luke 9:22-25

My sisters and brothers in Christ, we hear in the Book of Deuteronomy that the Lord has “set before [us] life and death; the blessing and the curse.” The choice is ours.

How many of us would not choose life over death; the blessing over the curse? Not many of us would choose death or the curse, I imagine and I hope. And yet often our choices are not as clear as life or death; the blessing or the curse. More frequently our choices are among something good, which will bring us instant pleasure or prosperity but that may not last long; something better‒ a good choice with longer-lasting effects‒ or the best‒ a choice that is selfless and draws us into deeper relationship with God and one another.

In our Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus asks us not only to choose the good or the better, but the best. But for Jesus, the best choice does not appear at first glance to be the best. The choice that Jesus invites us to make; the choice to follow him appears to be the choice of death over life; the choice of the curse over the blessing: the cross. Again, who among us would choose this?

When Jesus says, “if anyone wishes to come after me, he [or she] must take up his [or her] cross daily and follow me,” of course he is not saying that if we do not literally die for Christ, we have no place among his disciples. Not many, if any, of us will face this choice, although we pray for all those who do face death or persecution for their faith.

Short of courageously accepting death or persecution for our Christian faith, though, there are still ways in which we can “choose life”; choose “the blessing” over “the curse”; choose the best, even over the good and the better. There are still ways in which this choice for what strengthens our relationships with God and with one another will involve some form of self-denial.

I invite us to do this today and throughout this season of Lent: When we pray, let us ask ourselves and God: What are or have recently been opportunities for self-denial? What have been the crosses we have been invited to take up for Christ’s sake? Perhaps someone in our family or among our friends is sick; dying; otherwise in need of care. Perhaps someone makes us angry; someone who is in need of gentle admonishment or just our prayers and the unassuming example of our lives of faith; the loving kindness of our Lord.

A second question I invite us to ask, then, is: What are the crosses we bring upon ourselves needlessly? Perhaps I need to ask someone for forgiveness. Perhaps I was impatient, failed to listen, held on to anger, or was too hurried to attend to someone’s needs properly.

By denying ourselves in these ways and by being conscious of ways in which we have added crosses to our own lives that are not of God and letting these go with a spirit of penance, we will bring ourselves into closer relationship with God and one another. We will choose life; choose the blessing; choose the best and longest-lasting good. The choice is ours.