Homily for Saturday, 28 February 2015‒Saturday of the First Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Deuteronomy 26:16-19; Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8; Matthew 5:43-48

“I say to you, ‘Love your enemies.’” Might this be one of the most difficult of our Lord’s commandments to keep?

And yet Jesus is adamant in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew: For if [we] love” only “those who love” us, “what is unusual about that”? What good is it to love and to be kind only to those who return our love and kindness? In the words of many youth after falling for peer pressure, “Everybody does this”!

But to love only those who love us is not God’s way; the way of God who, Jesus says, “makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Has Jesus set our moral standard too high when he urges us, “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect”?

Jesus calls us as baptized Christians to rise above the excuse that “everybody does it”; to let our Christian identity stand out as a light to our world. Each and every one of us is called to holiness; to be like God: “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

To be sure, this commandment of Christ is not only one of the most difficult we have to keep; it is impossible for us to keep without God’s grace. Who here is “perfect, just as [our] heavenly Father is perfect”? Our imperfection is why we have God’s grace available to us, especially through our Church’s sacraments; through Reconciliation and our Eucharist. God’s grace is available to us through our journey of Lent.

Even so, this commandment of Jesus was difficult to keep in his own time. The teaching we hear in today’s Gospel was Jesus’ response to a teaching of his day’s best moral teachers: “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” Love your neighbor, Jesus says, and “love your enemy,” too. Indeed, if we have enemies at all, we have not fully lived up to our Christian calling; our love is not fully like God’s love. This is how radical Jesus’ teaching was and is.

And Jesus’ teaching has only become more difficult in our time. Gone are the days, if they ever existed, when in the words of The Godfather: Part II, we could “hold [our] friends close and [our] enemies closer.” We live in a time of divided families; an ideologically divided nation and its political institutions; divisions that have even crept into our Church. We live in a world of fear in which our enemies are more difficult to define: Not nation states, but groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS.

But Bishop Angaelos, Coptic Orthodox leader in the United Kingdom, said this about ISIS’ murder of twenty-one Coptic Christians in Libya nine days ago: “I have a responsibility to myself and to others to guide them down this path of forgiveness… We don't forgive the act because the act is heinous. But we do forgive the killers from the depths of our hearts.”

“Love your enemies… “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Like Bishop Angaelos, we can live this commandment of Christ, if only by God’s grace.

Homily for Thursday, 26 February 2015‒ Thursday of the First Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25; Psalm 138:1-2ab, 2cde-3, 7c-8; Matthew 7:7-12

For what do we often ask of God or of other people? Perhaps ultimately we ask to be loved; respected; accepted for who we are. God naturally loves us; accepts us for who we are, while challenging us, especially through this Lenten season, to turn from sin and grow and be renewed in our love for God and for one another. God’s love for us is self-evident, even if readings like those we hear today necessarily remind us of the love of God for us. Our readings also call us to deepen our love for one another: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets,” Jesus says. This is our faith’s “Golden Rule.”

We ask God and one another to love; to respect; to accept us. In faith we are invited and challenged to love; respect; to accept others and to love God in return: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”

And yet our readings also encourage us to ask God and one another for what we need, and to expect confidently that our needs will be met. But what are these needs we are encouraged to ask God and one another to meet? Do not many of us have some, often healthy, aversion to asking for too much, especially of God? Should our prayer not be less of petition; of asking for things, but of gratitude and sometimes penance? Perhaps, but today’s readings show that petition to God and to one another can be effective and appropriate in many circumstances.

We hear of Queen Esther in our first reading. Esther grows up in the court of the Persian Emperor, who has turned against the people of Israel, who are under Persian rule. Esther and her people of Israel find themselves in mortal danger, and so Esther prays to God to spare her life and the lives of her people.

The cause for petition to God in Matthew is not as dire as in Esther. Jesus invites us to ask anything of God as we need it: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

But then what happens when we ask something of God, or another person, and we do not receive what we have asked or prayed for? Is God answering our prayer then? Does God care? Is it possible to pray for something wrong or untimely?

I answer yes to all three questions… But I think our readings challenge us not to view God’s answer to our prayers of petition as some kind of magic: I ask and, “Poof,” I receive! More importantly, our petition and God’s answer to it changes us; renews us. “Ask and you shall receive.” And if we allow ourselves to be changed by our petition and God’s response, we may just become more able to live by Jesus’ Golden Rule: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”

Homily for Wednesday, 25 February 2015‒ Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Jonah 3:1-10; Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 18-19; Luke 11:29-32

This homily was given at Bethany House, Rochester, NY, a shelter for homeless women and children. 

What is the “sign of Jonah” of which Jesus speaks in our reading today from Luke’s Gospel? What or, better yet, who is the “something greater than Solomon here”? The “sign of Jonah”; the “something” or somebody greater than King Solomon in all his wisdom is Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Son of God.

We know this. But how well do we really recognize Jesus as “sign of Jonah”; as all that wise Solomon was and more? This is Jesus Christ who calls us to repentance; to renewal. And yet here we stand, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in one of the poorest cities in these United States. This is a scandal that cries out to us, “Repent,” much as Jonah and Jesus once cried, “Repent! Turn your hearts to God! Believe in the Gospel”!

Today’s Gospel reading has always troubled me. I stand before us here at Bethany House, never having suffered from substance abuse and addiction; never having been homeless, let alone in this frigid climate; never having been a refugee or forced migrant.

I recently read a reflection from the Jesuits at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska on today’s Gospel reading,[1] which always evokes in me a deep sorrow for how some people suffer unnecessarily, while others stockpile goods with greed. Even so, the reflection I read seemed somewhat cynical to me at first. It spoke of how Jonah’s preaching, with “the threat of total destruction” of Nineveh, was enough “motivation” for them to repent immediately; to proclaim “a fast” and “put on sackcloth,” in the words of our first reading.

And then the same reflection spoke of our society: Today “the threat of the approaching end times, or any threat of catastrophe, doesn’t seem to change minds and hearts. These threats only increase the numbers of ‘preppers’‒ folks who are stockpiling supplies, food and water, and preparing for self-sufficiency.”

Is this our society, beyond a greedy few that, yes, are the “preppers”? I would like to hope not. But, if not, why the grinding poverty we see around us; right here in this nation; in this city? Why the high and rising number of working poor? I realize that I do not speak to most if any of us here. I speak to those who oppress by greed; who stockpile resources beyond what is necessary to live comfortably. I speak to my own heart; I examine my own conscience. One “prepper” is too many!

But where is the good news in all this? The good news is that it is not too late to repent. It is not too late to turn to God and away from sin wholeheartedly. It is not too late to seek help if we are mired in addiction or otherwise not helping ourselves to grow and nurture mind, body, and spirit. It is not too late for those who have stockpiled and not helped those in need. It is not too late to welcome. Here at Bethany House, we find welcome: One another’s welcome; God’s welcome. It is a welcome that, I pray, is transforming us; is renewing us. It is the welcome of Jesus Christ, the “sign of Jonah,” or the sign of Solomon, and greater still.

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[1] Diane Jorgensen. “Daily Reflection: February 25, 2015.” http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/022515.html. Accessed 24 February 2015.

Homily for Monday, 23 February 2015‒ Monday of the First Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18; Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 15; Matthew 25:31-46

How many sets of commandments do we know of in the Bible? Most if not all of us know of the Ten Commandments. In fact there are two sets; two very similar versions of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, one in the Book of Exodus and the other in the Book of Deuteronomy.

Are not most if not all of us familiar with Jesus’ distillation of all the Old Testament commandments, the Law and the prophets, down to two commandments: Love God and love neighbor?

Our first reading today from Leviticus presents us with a series of commandments. These commandments in Leviticus are similar in style to the Ten Commandments. We hear them as a series of laws against particular actions: “You shall not…” After every few laws is the divine emphasis: “I am the LORD.” If we love God and believe that God is the beginning and end of these commandments, we will keep these commandments.

Without changing the substance of the many Old Testament commandments or the sense that God is their beginning and end, Jesus simplifies them while framing them in a positive way: “You shall” in place of “you shall not.” We hear this simplification and positive re-framing of commandments in our Gospel reading today.

But let us not be taken off guard by the simplicity; the positive, even inviting, tone of Jesus’ words. Are there not still stark consequences to acting in favor or against what Jesus teaches? Jesus words are still commandments that we are urged to follow. They are every bit as significant as the Old Testament commands of “you shall not.”

Jesus, as in Leviticus (although perhaps more clearly than in our Old Testament reading), bases his teachings on pressing social concerns. Who are the most vulnerable in Jesus’ time; those most in need of protection? They are “the hungry… the thirsty… the stranger… the naked… the ill” and those “in prison.” The manner in which we act toward these most in need is the manner in which we act toward Christ himself.

Who are the most vulnerable; the most in need in our time? Perhaps they are the unborn; small children; the elderly; the poor person; the person working for a minimum wage that does not suffice to feed, clothe, and shelter her or his family members; the sick; the person with disabilities; the homebound.

“Whatever you did for one of these least… of mine, you did for me.” Jesus’ commandment still stands today: Protect those most in need as though they were Christ. Most if not all of us do well at heeding these teachings of Jesus. Some if not all of us have had experiences in which our actions toward those most in need, or at least our intention behind them, are in need of some purification: Am I acting for my own gain, or because I see Christ in the other person, or a bit of both?

Lent is the great time for this kind of purification of both action and intention; of praying for the strength to follow God’s commandments, especially for the benefit of “the least of [our] brothers” and sisters.