Homily for Monday, 2 March 2015‒ Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Daniel 9:4b-10; Psalm 79:8, 9, 11, 13; Luke 6:36-38

What is mercy? Have we heard it said, or even thought or said ourselves, that our world; our society perhaps especially, is losing a sense of sin? More importantly maybe, is our culture not lacking in a sense of mercy, both the mercy of God and in a taking to heart of our own calling to “be merciful”?

Our Gospel reading today from Luke renews for us this Christian calling, “Be merciful as your Father is merciful.” But then does not our Gospel reading confuse us with Jesus’ next words: “Stop judging and you will not be judged”? Has this prohibition of “judging” not too often been extended to reluctance in our society to hold one another accountable if need be; as an excuse for moral relativism in which we ought not to judge another’s actions or cultural tendencies as right or wrong at any cost? This kind of relativism is both morally and logically untenable. We make moral judgments all the time, I hope, as is right and human for us to do.

I only hope (and have confidence that at least most of us do) that we hold ourselves to the same moral standards, not more lenient or severe, as we hold other people. From time to time, I hear the symptoms of the evil twins of laxity, when some are too lenient with themselves (“Do I really need to pray to overcome this sin, or even confess it sacramentally?), and scrupulosity, when some are too harsh with themselves, thinking that almost all they do is sin.

Both laxity and scrupulosity are failures to recognize not so much sin as mercy. God is eternally merciful. Pope Francis says, “God never tires of forgiving us”; we sometimes “tire of asking God for forgiveness.” Let us not “tire of asking God” and one another “for forgiveness” as needed! But let us acknowledge God’s mercy and grace at work in most of our actions, even those that do not result in the good that we sincerely intend. After all, God did not create us as bad or sinful, but good; in God’s own image and likeness. To think otherwise is heresy. Even more, it is an illness from which I pray that those afflicted may be healed.

“Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.” I do not think that most of us, or most of our society, have a problem with condemning. We have a healthy aversion in our society, I think, to condemnation. And again, God is not a condemning God with a ledger up in heaven to keep score of our right and wrong actions, but a God of mercy; a God of forgiveness.

But do we not still hear, in dealing with people who are troublesome to us, “Kill them with kindness”? This phrase also deviates from Jesus’ invitation, “Be merciful.” Kill them with kindness? No! Give them life by our loving kindness; by our mercy that is God’s gift, to the point that forgiveness hurts us; is a cross for us; is “Spirit and life” for us!

“Give and gifts will be given to” us in abundance: Kindness; mercy… “Be merciful,” then, “as [our] Father is merciful.”

Homily for Wednesday, 26 November 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 34th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Revelation 15:1-4; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 7-8, 9; Luke 21:12-19

Who among us has seen a good action movie, one in which the hero emerges in a final scene from the destruction and chaos with maybe a few scratches?

The cynical side of me says when I see this kind of scene, “This is unrealistic. That explosion would have killed our hero. In no way would our hero have survived that”!

Now imagine ourselves in one of these scenes, only we are not in an action movie. What we are experiencing is real. If we can place ourselves in this kind of action scene as the heroes who emerge unscathed from the final chaos, we have some understanding of the strange readings we hear today from Revelation and the Gospel of Luke.

Our readings today are from what is called apocalyptic literature in the Bible; writings that were meant to inspire people to remain faithful to God in times of trial; crisis; hostility. The message the same now as when Revelation and Luke’s Gospel were written: Remain faithful to God and God will have the last word. The eternal God will deliver and save us from earthly trials and crises that, as terrible as they can be, are temporary. God will have the last word; the final judgment. Remain faithful, and we will emerge unscathed, as though we were standing on “a sea of glass mingled with fire,” the action heroes looking defiantly on the chaos we have just overcome; that God has led us to overcome.

Of course the crisis we face may not be as spectacular as the “sea of glass mingled with fire” or even the brutal Roman occupation the people faced when the New Testament books were written. Our crises are more subtle today, but are nevertheless present. In our own culture, our own nation, we face affronts to the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death. We face affronts to justice and human rights: The right to a living wage for workers; the right not to live in abject poverty; the rights of immigrants and refugees; rights that, when broken or ignored, contribute to situations like what is unfolding now in Ferguson, Missouri. Some of us face crises within our own families: Gossip, ridicule for holding fast to our faith even from those we love most; family division and breakdown of the kind Jesus speaks in our Gospel reading. But then Jesus ends our Gospel reading with this: “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

Our message is still the same today as in the spectacular apocalyptic images of our readings: Remain faithful to God. Work for what is right and just, even if we are ridiculed or ignored. God will have the final word; the last judgment.

We near the end of our Church year, with Advent beginning this weekend. This end of our Church year is a reminder of the end times; of God’s final judgement that is real, not only a scene in an action movie. And yet we are the heroes of these end times. Like a good action hero, if we remain faithful we will emerge from the chaos unscathed; saved; with God in eternal life.  

Homily for Thursday, 17 July 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 26:7-9, 12, 16-19; Psalm 102:13-14ab, 15, 16-18, 19-21; Matthew 11:28-30

When we think of God, do we think of a God who is up in heaven; who rules over us and all creation from afar; who is powerful, or do we think primarily of a God who is with us; who cares for us; who is merciful toward us, especially in times of need?

In a beautiful way, our readings today speak of our God who is both powerful creator and ruler over creation (and over us) and who cares for and is with us always.

Both our first reading, from Isaiah, and our Psalm today take the form of laments, or complaints. Old Testament laments often begin with the reasons why God is to be trusted to deliver the people from whatever afflicts them. In the case of Isaiah, the prophet has prophesied that the people of Israel will be exiled from their homeland. Israel will be reprimanded for having made alliances with more powerful nations around it in an attempt to ward off invasion and exile, and therefore not having trusted first in God to deliver and to sustain Israel.

And so Isaiah prays the hymn we hear today; a lament in which Isaiah recognizes that God is at once powerful‒ God will allow Israel to suffer exile for its trust in neighboring nations over God, but also has power to bring Israel back from exile after a time‒ and as caring; merciful; ever-present to the people. Isaiah’s hymn, his lament to God, on the one hand speaks of God the ruler; the judge over creation: “When your judgment dawns upon the earth, the world’s inhabitants learn justice.” On the other hand, Isaiah appeals to the merciful; ever-present God. Isaiah describes God in maternal images. By God’s mercy, when we are at our most powerless, even “the land of shades gives birth.”

On the one hand, God is like a mother to us, who in the words of our Psalm “will arise and have mercy on” us, God’s people. The merciful; present; caring God hears “the prayer of the destitute,” while on the other hand the same God abides over us “forever”; looks “down from his holy height” with power and majesty.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus also takes up the image of God as both powerful and merciful; majestic ruler from afar and ever-present to lift our burdens. Jesus’ image of God is that of yoked oxen. We are invited to become yoked with Jesus who, as divine and human, lends us God’s strength (compared to that of oxen) and yet is “meek and humble of heart”; merciful; with us always; like us in all but sin.

When we think of God, then, is God more the strong, majestic ruler and judge from on high or the God who is intimately with us; the God of mercy? In truth, our God in whom we trust and to whom we pray is both the powerful ruler and judge from on high and the merciful God who is with us always.

Homily for Monday, 23 June 2014– Ferial

Monday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time 

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18; Psalm 60:3, 4-5, 12-13; Matthew 7:1-5

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged.” Do any of us know someone who has difficulty understanding or putting into practice these words of Jesus in our Gospel reading today? Do we ourselves have this difficulty at times? Anyone who has difficulty understanding or practicing what Jesus teaches us, “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” I think deserves not criticism but great empathy.

We live in a culture of opposite extremes surrounding “Stop judging.” These are opposite ethical “dictatorships,” if you will. Just before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke of a “dictatorship of relativism” especially in Europe and North America that says: Do not judge another culture’s or individual’s actions or ideas as better or worse than those of another culture or individual. All actions or ideas are right insofar as a culture or individual feels they are right, and no other individual or group has the right to say otherwise.

Equally damaging and incoherent is the opposite to the “dictatorship of relativism,” that is, the dictatorship of absolutism: Individuals, societies, nations, or even churches may suggest that they know all the answers; that they hold absolute truths besides God, the only absolute Truth, for those who seek certainty. I do not say that, if a society, a nation, or a church develops teachings, norms, or guidelines with which we disagree, we should reject these teachings, norms, or guidelines out of hand, or that we should accept what we agree with uncritically, either.

Both relativism, in which there is no right and wrong, and absolutism, in which there is no nuance between absolute right and absolute wrong, are failures to think; to put our hearts and minds with which God has gifted us to the service of God and of one another in love.

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged.” Jesus, I think, teaches us with these words to distinguish between judging an action or idea as right or not, and judging the person as good or evil. Judgment of actions or ideas as right or wrong is, I say, healthy and even our responsibility to do. But is not judging another person beneath her or his dignity as created by God, even though in our fallen state we all sin, itself wrong? This, I think, is the kind of judgment Jesus speaks against in our Gospel reading today. This kind of judgment destroys peace; destroys human community; does not see the beams in our own eyes but focuses on the splinters in the eyes of others.

I am confident that I am not directing these harsh words at any of us here; that Jesus’ teaching is not directed at any of us here now. And yet can we not all benefit (I know I can) from the reminders our Gospel offers us today? Judge the ethics of the action or idea; not the dignity of the person created by God as anything less than fundamentally good. Strike an ethical balance between the dictatorships of relativism and absolutism. Let us pray, then, for the strength to judge wisely when we are called to judge; to judge as God judges, with love; to judge in a way that responsibly upholds what is ethically right yet respects the God-given dignity of all people and all creation.