Homily for Sunday, 28 July 2019

Readings of the day: Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 6-7, 7-8; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at St. Alphonsus Parish and St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

“How is your prayer life? How do you most like to pray”?

These are questions I frequently ask people of faith in the course of my ministry as a priest. These are questions I frequently ask myself. When I ask these questions, often I observe that people to whom I ask these questions wonder what precisely I am asking: Do I mean to ask the time of day at which people prefer to pray, or whether people tend to prefer “formula” prayers like the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, the rosary, prayers at mealtime, or devotional prayers to particular saints, or simply free verse? Do I mean to leave my intent of these kinds of questions open to interpretation? (Usually I do, in fact, like to leave these questions a bit open-ended).

Is prayer not somewhat of a delicate subject for many of us? Many experts on prayer (if there are such people) suggest that there is no single right or wrong way to pray. Those of us familiar with the Baltimore Catechism of the 1940s may remember its definition of prayer as “a lifting of the mind and heart to God.” More recent prayer “experts” like the late Jesuit Fr. Thomas Green, whose book Opening to God and its sequel Weeds among the Wheat I highly recommend for anybody interested in deepening your prayer experience, reflect on difficulties with definitions of prayer like that of the Baltimore Catechism. The definition of prayer in the Baltimore Catechism, “a lifting of the mind and heart to God,” is well and good, but can lead us, Fr. Green says, to place undue emphasis on our own efforts at prayer over God’s effort to reveal God’s self to us in our prayer. And so prayer is difficult if impossible to define, except maybe as an act of attentive listening to God without trying to limit God; an act of Opening to God that is easier said than done.

In this context of attentive listening to God, Opening to God, I would like to connect this difficulty, if impossibility, in defining prayer to what we hear today from Luke’s Gospel. Luke begins by placing Jesus and his disciples at prayer “in a certain place”; a nondescript, undefined place. In this place, which the usually-detailed Luke does not even name, Jesus’ disciples ask him: “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

But how did John teach his disciples to pray? The trouble for us is that, at least in the Bible, there is no account of how John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. We know from elsewhere in the Gospels that John had disciples, people following him, and that John’s and Jesus’ disciples were not mutually exclusive groups; some of John’s disciples were probably also Jesus’ disciples, and Jesus’ disciples also John’s disciples. We know from the Gospels that John preached a message of justice and repentance in anticipation of the Messiah, Jesus, but the Gospels never explicitly speak of John the Baptist teaching his disciples to pray.

“Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples”: When Jesus’ disciples ask him this, Jesus gives them, and ultimately us, the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father. Now, neither Jesus nor the Gospel writers seem to be too fussy about the exact formula of this prayer, the Our Father. Who here noticed that the wording of the Our Father we have heard in today’s Gospel reading is not exactly the formulation of this prayer we are used to praying, whether privately or together, say, at Mass? The form of the Our Father we are more used to is from Matthew’s, not Luke’s, Gospel. We might presume that these differences between forms of the Our Father in Matthew and Luke are due to one form being older than the other (Luke’s version of the Our Father is shorter, so it is probably older than Matthew’s). We might presume that these differences are due to differences in the needs of the early Christian communities Matthew and Luke were trying to reach with their messages: Luke, for instance, focuses more on the social needs and challenges of his community, whereas Matthew focuses more on the spiritual good and cohesion of his community.

This is all fine, but how does this meet our needs; the spiritual and social needs of our community of faith here? If Jesus were standing among us here, and we were to ask him to “teach us to pray,” what prayer would he teach us? Would Jesus prayer be a particular formula, to be prayed at particular times of day, or for a specific amount of time every day, or would Jesus ask us simply to pray from our hearts; to lift our hearts and minds to God as the Baltimore Catechism says, however we see fit, at least when we pray in private?

I think we hear a clue to the answer to these questions from the rest of our Gospel reading as well as our first reading, from Genesis, and our Psalm today. As soon as Jesus teaches his disciples the Our Father, he goes on to tell a strange parable in today’s Gospel. The friend in Jesus’ parable, who is asked for “three loaves of bread” at midnight—Luke does not say why anybody would ask a friend for “three loaves of bread” at midnight—Jesus says will eventually give the person who asks for the bread what he asks for, not so much “because he is his friend” but “because of his persistence.” And if any of our human friends might be convinced by our persistence to give us what we need, even when meeting our needs is inconvenient for our friend, Jesus asks us to imagine “how much more… the heavenly Father [will] give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him”!

I interpret from this that there is never really an inconvenient time to pray to God for what we need. Jesus does not give us a correct formula with which to pray, but only asks us to pray persistently: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”

If we go back to the Book of Genesis, to our first reading today, we find a model of persistence in Abraham. In fact, please allow me to introduce to us, as a model for our prayer, Abraham the Pest! Abraham the Pest probably knew as well as anybody the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, so it could not have been much of a surprise to Abraham when the LORD revealed to him his plan to destroy these cities. Yet Abraham knew, as the LORD had to have known, that there were at least a few righteous people among the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham’s own nephew, Lot, and Lot’s family were among these righteous. So Abraham the Pest begins to bargain with God: “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city… Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five”? “Suppose forty [righteous] are found there”… Thirty… Twenty… Ten… Okay, just my nephew and his family, please, unless Lot’s wife looks back at the burning city, then I will accept that you turn her into a pillar of salt”  (but that is another story).

How might God have responded to Abraham’s persistent bargaining to save anybody righteous among the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah? I try to imagine God’s tone of voice with Abraham as The Pest bargains with God: “Alright, Abraham, I suppose I have given you my blessing to be the pest you are. Note to self: Create limits on persistence of future humans when they pray. No, wait, it is too late; I have already created the ‘pest gene’ in all Abraham’s descendants, who are to number as the stars. What was I thinking? Alright, Abe, you win, you big pest! I will save the righteous people of Sodom and Gomorrah, even if there are only a few of them”!

Our Psalm today gives us a guide for when our persistence in prayer, our being a pest like Abraham to God, pays off: Give thanks to God for when God answers our prayer. “I give you thanks, O Lord… On the day I called, you answered me,” we pray with the Psalmist. Give thanks to God when God does not give us exactly what we asked for, but gives us something even better, or when God helps us to endure suffering, because in Christ God took the suffering and evil of our world on himself on the cross to redeem it, so says the Letter to the Colossians to us today.

What does all this say about how we should pray? I think, first of all, we are invited to pray with the likes of Abraham the Pest, our Father in Persistent Faith; of Thomas Green the Contemplative; of John the Baptist; of Jesus our Saviour. Pray for our needs and for the needs of one another, especially the least well off. Listen attentively without imposing limits on God. And, when our prayer, the “lifting of [our] mind and heart to God,” is answered, give thanks that “on the day” we call, God answers us.

Homily for Sunday, 14 June 2015

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34

Jesus asks us in Mark’s Gospel, “To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God”? Jesus then compares the Kingdom of God to “a mustard seed.” How does the Kingdom of God compare to a tiny mustard seed? Why did Jesus not compare the magnificence of God’s Kingdom to a larger seed or plant than a mustard seed? At least Ezekiel, in our first reading today, compares God’s Kingdom to a mighty cedar tree planted on “a high and lofty mountain” for all to see.

Why a mustard seed? Jesus succeeds here as a teacher and storyteller if only because his comparison between the Kingdom of God and a mustard seed is so unusual. Yes, the little mustard seed in Jesus’ parable grows into “the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” But have you ever been in a desert; seen how mustard grows in a desert? There are more magnificent plants, especially in a desert, than mustard, which grows more as a low shrub than a tall, beautiful tree under the desert heat and in poor soil. Could Jesus’ point have been in the last line of his parable: “So that the birds of the sky can dwell in [the] shade” of the mustard plant? Could Jesus have been trying to emphasize the nurturing, sheltering qualities of the Kingdom of God; the love with which God nurtures us; cares for us in the way a mustard plant shelters birds from the desert heat?

I imagine this could have been Jesus’ intended focus of his parable of the mustard seed. After all, would our taking this focus from the parable of the mustard seed not fit with our experience; our understanding of God as all-good; as the creator who cares for and nurtures all creation; who loves and wants a relationship of love with us? In this way, Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed could easily point us toward God’s goodness. Ezekiel’s image of God’s kingdom as the cedar atop a high mountain could point us toward God’s greatness; God’s power. And can we not imagine our God and God’s Kingdom as both like the mustard seed and like the cedar; both good and great; both nurturing and powerful?

But still: Why a tiny mustard seed to describe God’s Kingdom? Is this Jesus’ unusual way of inviting us to trust in God’s wisdom; to trust in the God who can transform even the most insignificant, like the mustard seed, into something magnificent that serves our good: The mustard plant; the Kingdom of God that shelters us; nurtures us; is our eternal home; our salvation?

What would my ideal image of the Kingdom of God be, if not a mustard seed? Imagine the Kingdom of God as a tomato vine. Why a tomato vine, we may ask? Many of us know Fr. Joe as an expert gardener among the priests of St. Kateri! Just outside the back door of our rectory are Fr. Joe’s tomato vines. They are just beginning to leaf out and to climb up the tomato cages. A few days ago, Fr. Joe and I were returning home from breakfast with friends. As we were about to enter the house, Fr. Joe noticed the first tomato of the season on one of the vines: Only about the diameter of a dime; like a small marble in size and bright green. This tomato has a while to go before it can be picked and eaten. And yet I wish I could do justice in describing Fr. Joe’s joy at seeing this first tomato of the season on his plants. Fr. Joe gave emphatic thanks to God for this promise of an abundant harvest of tomatoes this summer. I could not help but share in Fr. Joe’s joy in this little green tomato!

The Kingdom of God is like a tomato vine. The gardener plants it. The day-to-day growth of the vine up the tomato cage is not noticeable to the gardener who waters it; cares for it; clears weeds from around it. One moment the gardener, if he is Fr. Joe, is praying, seated next to his beautiful garden. The next moment, looking up from his book of prayer, he shifts to a mildly threatening gaze to warn away pesky chipmunks…  One day, with great joy the gardener sees the first little green tomato on one of his vines. He gives thanks; prays to God to continue to sustain its growth.

It is only a little green tomato on a short vine. It is vulnerable to being eaten by animals or damaged by insects. It must be protected from a late frost. It is far from ripe. And yet this little green tomato is God’s promise of a fruitful harvest. By the end of the season the tomato plants will be weighed down by big, red, ripe, delicious tomatoes. They give shelter to many small creatures, including, I am sure, a few pesky chipmunks… These tomatoes will help to give yet more joy to the gardener. They will nourish him and those who live with him or are our guests at table for the work of the Kingdom of God; of service to this, our parish, and to God. These seeds that give rise to shoots, then vines, then little green tomatoes that ripen and are harvested seem insignificant. But with trust in God, love for those who will benefit and be nourished by his harvest, and hours of hard work, the gardener faithfully tends these tomato plants.

In the words of our second reading, from St. Paul’s second Letter to the Corinthians, the gardener’s work is an exercise in walking (and nurturing the plants) “by faith and not by sight.” The gardener’s work is one of patience. The gardener trusts in and becomes a source of God’s great wisdom, the gift of God’s Holy Spirit that brings about a fruitful harvest; the Kingdom of God; our salvation, all from apparently insignificant beginnings, like little green tomatoes... or mustard seeds in the desert, or mighty cedar trees on mountaintops, which themselves begin as small shoots.

“To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God”? Unlike Fr. Joe, gardening has never been my strength. Neither, maybe, is composing and speaking in parables. But whether we imagine the Kingdom of God as a mustard seed planted in the desert, a mighty cedar tree on a mountain, or a tomato vine in Irondequoit, is the point of all these parables not the same?

God invites us to trust in God’s wisdom. The wisdom of God brings about a great harvest from insignificant beginnings. God’s wisdom brings about our salvation; our experience of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. And, here and now, God loves us; wants a relationship of love with us. God gives us just enough of God’s own wisdom, here and now, that we can co-operate with God in building and nurturing God’s Kingdom.

We are called to co-operate, guided by the wisdom of God the Holy Spirit, in building and nurturing a kingdom of kindness; of patience (except perhaps with pesky chipmunks!); of joy even in the small beginnings of what we are promised will be: Fullness of the Kingdom of God; our salvation, whatever image we have of this. And all this from a tiny mustard seed, a cedar shoot or, if you will, little green tomatoes…

Homily for Thursday, 21 May 2015– Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 22:30, 23:6-11; Psalm 60:1-2a, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; John 17:20-26

For what or for whom do we pray most frequently? We have heard of frequently-asked questions. What are our most frequently-prayed prayers?

Do we most often pray in times of sorrow; times of need, or do we find ourselves praying in praise and thanksgiving to God; praying in moments of joy; peace; prosperity? Perhaps we know somebody who is struggling with her or his faith; or has turned away from faith altogether, and we pray for this person. Perhaps some of us are experiencing health difficulties, or we know somebody who is ill in mind, body, or spirit, and so we pray for these people.

These are only a few of the more frequent circumstances, all of them good, in which we may be inspired to pray. Do we pray, maybe often, that we might enter eternal life? I pray this often for myself, but also for the people I love; the people I serve as a baptized Christian and as a priest.

And have we ever asked ourselves: What were Jesus’ most frequent prayers? For what or for whom did Jesus pray most often? Might this be a model for our most frequent prayers?

Our Gospel reading today is drawn from John 17, which is often called Jesus’ “high priestly prayer.” We hear Jesus’ last long prayer, during the Last Supper, before his passion and death on the cross. And yet I hear John 17 as a collection of shorter prayers that Jesus prays for his disciples. For what does Jesus pray for his disciples? Jesus prays to our Father in heaven that we, Jesus’ disciples, “may be one, as” God the Father and Son “are one.” Jesus prays for his disciples “that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that” the Father has sent him. Jesus prays at length and repeatedly in this Chapter 17 of John for our unity.

For what else does Jesus pray for his disciples? He prays that they may gain eternal life: “I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me.”

And I find one of the most beautiful intentions of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer to be when he prays for the people who will believe in him because of the witness of his first disciples. Jesus prays in our Gospel reading today: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.”

How, then, can we make Jesus’ high priestly prayer our own? Jesus gives us his own example of excellent prayers to make into our most frequent prayers: Pray for one another’s unity. Important divisions still exist among Christian churches and traditions, although great strides toward unity have been made, especially in recent years. Pray that all may inherit eternal life. God has created every human being, all of us, out of love. God has created us for himself; for everlasting life. And pray in particular for the quality of our witness to Christ by the way we live, so that still more may be attracted to Christ and to our faith by our words and our works.

Homily for Tuesday, 28 April 2015– Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 11:19-26; Psalm 87:1b-3, 4-5, 6-7; John 10:22-30

What is the importance of Antioch? Our first reading this morning, from Acts, says that “in Antioch… the disciples were first called Christians.” At this time Antioch was not in Jewish territory but, for the most part, inhabited by pagan Greeks. Acts says that the first disciples of Christ had been scattered “by the persecution” during which Stephen, the first martyr recorded in Scripture, had been killed. Almost in spite of this persecution, for the first time the Gospel message of Jesus Christ was reaching not only Jewish ears, the first to hear the Word of God, but a large center of pagan Greeks. And many people of Antioch were accepting and living this faith in Jesus as God when their lives might have been endangered by their faith.

But still, do not these events of early Christian Antioch seem remote to many of us today? Before I became a Basilian but was studying at St. Joseph’s College, a Basilian college of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, every year our student retreat was called the “Antioch Retreat.” This was a way, by name of our retreat, to unite ourselves to the witness of these first Christians of Antioch not long after Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven.

Antioch today is in Syria. Christians are a small minority there and are threatened by political unrest, by Syria’s dictatorship, and more recently by the evil of ISIS. And yet still Antioch, this ancient cradle of our faith, can seem remote to us. We face our own challenges as a nation; as a city. We awaken this morning to the destruction in Baltimore; the ravages of gang violence and racial inequity here in these United States. Many not far from us awaken to broken relationships; families; marriages.

And so how are we to remember the first or even the current Christians of faraway Antioch when we are faced with so many events; challenges closer to home? How do we remember the first people who put a name to our belief in Jesus’ promise that we hear today in John’s Gospel: “I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish”?

Families and households: I encourage you to pray together at least once a day. Pray in thanksgiving for blessings. Ask God for what you need in time of trial. Pray even in silence for a few moments. Pray together!

All of us: I encourage us to commit to non-violence by word and action; to upholding the dignity of human life, of people of every race and tongue. I encourage us to speak and act for the rights of the working poor; for migrants and refugees. I encourage us to be mindful of our duty to protect creation; the earth God has given us. Pray for those persecuted for their faith. Visit the sick and the dying if you are able.

These are a few ways in which we can make ancient Antioch somewhat less remote. We bear the name “Christian” as they did in Antioch just after Jesus’ time. Like them, then and now, we witness to Christ’s promise to all of us: “I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”

Homily for Friday, 27 March 2015‒ Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 18:2-3a, 3bc-4, 5-6, 7; John 10:31-42

Who here has ever felt stressed, or even distressed? What causes our stress or even distress? Perhaps our distress is from the loss of a loved one; the loss of employment; living in poverty; severe or terminal illness or that of a loved one; our own guilt; strife in our families and marriages; unrest in the world; our children or grandchildren not attending Mass; not being baptized or receiving the other sacraments…

As a priest I am privileged to hear of our many joys as people of faith. I also hear much of what brings us stress and distress. Often, when people speak to me of their stress and distress, I also sense a kind of guilt, especially if somebody’s stress or distress is accompanied by anger; even more if this person is angry at God.

Holy Week begins in just two days. Increasingly in our readings at Mass we hear of stress and distress of the people in our Scriptures. This will continue and intensify as we journey through Holy Week next week. Today the prophet Jeremiah is being denounced; terrorized; betrayed even by the people he once counted as friends. Jesus is in danger of being stoned to death for claiming (rightly) to be God. And the author of our Psalm today is also distressed by his “enemies.”

But what do Jeremiah, Jesus, the Psalmist, and we have in common? I think we have in common the invitation to be honest with one another and with God. If we are joyful, speak of our joy to one another; pray in joy and thanksgiving to God. If we are stressed or distressed, find an outlet for this stress or distress, too: A trusted friend; a family member; a priest; God. But might some of us be thinking: “Nobody likes a complainer? Is it ever right to complain to God in prayer; to be angry with God?”

Over the past several days, even weeks, I have reminded a few people, even myself sometimes, of the value of an effective complaint! Well over half of the Psalms are psalms of lament. The prophets complain often; we hear one of Jeremiah’s bitter laments today. As Jesus hangs on the cross (we will hear this on Palm Sunday, this weekend), he speaks the words of Psalm 22, one of the deepest laments in all of Scripture: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me”?

And so I think it is sometimes appropriate, even to be encouraged, to complain, even to God. Are we not a culture averse to complaining? One of my favorite books about this is Walter Bruggemann’s The Costly Loss of Lament. What a costly loss indeed if we lose the trust in God and in one another necessary to complain effectively when we need to do so!

I am convinced that a good lament arises from trust in one another; trust in God. Listen again to our Psalm response today, so trusting in God’s deliverance from distress: “In my distress I called upon the LORD, and he answered me.”

Yes, lament when necessary in times of distress. Raise your joys and your distress to God, as an act of honesty; an act of trust in one another and in our God.