Homily for Monday, 2 July 2018– Ferial

Monday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Amos 2:6-10, 13-16; Psalm 50:15bc-17, 18-19, 20-21, 22-23; Matthew 8, 18-22

This homily was given at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, St. Margaret Mary Church, Rochester, NY, USA.

How many of us are at least somewhat unsettled by the harshness of the prophet Amos in today’s first reading and of our Psalm? I do not particularly like to be reminded of my failings, even sometimes when I should be, much less criticized so intensely and at such length as Amos or the Psalmist criticize the people of Israel in the readings we hear today.

It does not seem to matter, at least to my ears, that Amos and our Psalm berate the people of Israel with a poetic style of writing. Can poetry not be just as harsh, and indeed more so, than other literary styles, since poetry is often designed to intensify a message in the way other ways of conveying a message cannot do, to make a point?

And what is the point Amos and our Psalm made to the people of Israel of their time, and to us today, with the intensity that only poetry can achieve? Amos and the Psalmist attack not only the sins of a few individuals, but the deep-seated, longstanding and, for many people of their time and society, subconscious evil of a whole nation; a whole society. For Amos and the other Old Testament prophets and often in the Psalms, the greatest social sin was not to care for the most vulnerable people of a society or a nation; the people summed up by the frequent Biblical motif of “the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner.”

Amos, like other Old Testament prophets, speaking in God’s voice, reminds his people that they were once as vulnerable and in need as the people they are ignoring or oppressing: “It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt… to occupy the land of the Amorites.” And if the people of Israel did not treat the most vulnerable among themselves with greater justice, they would meet the same end as the Amorites whose land God had given them: Exile and destruction.

Social injustice, to be clear, though, is not a sin for its own sake. No, social injustice, especially toward the most in need and vulnerable, is so great a sin because it is a way of forgetting God. Social injustice puts us at risk of idolatry; of making gods of our wealth, security, might, and comfort in place of the one true God. I invite us to keep this in mind as we hear Amos and our Psalm today: “Remember this, you who never think of God.”

We are gathered here and now to worship God, so I do not think that our Psalm response is directed at us per se. We “think of God”; the evidence is here, among and around us. And yet I think today’s readings, in all their startling harshness, are a call to examine our individual but also social conscience: Who are the most vulnerable and in need in our society today? In what ways have I (or we) forgotten these “least” of our brothers and sisters, “the orphan, widow, and foreigner” of our time, if not oppressed them directly or indirectly through unjust social or political policies and support for those policies or laws? How well does our worship reflect our witness to God, how we “think of God,” by our acts of justice and mercy beyond the walls of this church?

Homily for Sunday, 3 September 2017

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 20:7-9; Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27

In hearing the Gospel we have just heard from Matthew, how many of us wonder why Peter cannot seem to catch a break?

Our Gospel reading today follows immediately after Peter makes a profession of faith so astounding that he could not have made it up on his own; it must have been from God: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” It might be helpful for us to think that, whenever Peter speaks or acts in our Scriptures, he speaks or acts in our place. In his great profession of faith, Peter speaks for the other Apostles. Peter speaks for us when he identifies Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We remember that Jesus had asked his disciples; had asked all of us, “Who do you say that I am”? And, by God’s grace, Peter gives the right answer on behalf of all the Apostles; of all Jesus’ disciples; of all of us.

When we are able to answer with Peter that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” we are, as Peter was, at our most vulnerable. How so? We are most vulnerable at this point to all our experiences of life that try our faith; that tempt us; that distract us from our faith that Jesus Christ is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” At this very point of making our greatest profession of faith, we are most vulnerable to our guilt for the times we have not lived up to the truth of the faith we profess. We are most vulnerable to all the false images by which the world around us might identify Jesus, not “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” but as a static, dead god, somehow contained by our expressions and categories of human language; as a god who rules by might and violence; as a god who blesses wealth, no matter how it is acquired, and curses those unfortunate enough to find themselves in need; as a god who is distant and invincible to human experiences we fear, most of all death.

These images are not true images of our God; they are false images, idols. Our God will never hold us guilty for when we have not lived up to our words by which we profess our faith, when we have sinned. God does not rule by might, anger, or violence, as so many human rulers of nations have and still do. God blesses us all; God has created us all in the image of his supreme, living goodness. Our God curses neither the rich nor the poor, although God especially upholds the dignity of those in need and invites us to do the same: Open the doors of our churches, our nations, our homes, our hearts preferentially to the poor, the migrant, the refugee; the unborn; the young people; the sick; the aged; those seeking sincerely and struggling in the way of faith; those as vulnerable somehow as each of us are. Our God is not invincible to any of our human experience, least of all death, but became human in the person of Jesus, to share in our every experience of being human except sin; to share even in our suffering and our death in order to make eternal life possible for us.

It seems almost too good to be true that God should not be a dead god of guilt but a living God of mercy; not a dead god of anger or violence or of hoarding wealth and the world’s resources at the expense of those in need but a living God who upholds the dignity of all creation; not a dead god of invincibility and distance from creation but a living God who has become human in every way we are human, including our suffering and death, so that we might be saved. When, as Peter did, we profess our faith in a living God; in Jesus Christ as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” we leave ourselves vulnerable to Satan, who will tempt us to give into our fear that all we say we believe is too good to be true. Satan tempts us when we are most vulnerable, yet paradoxically when we have just made the greatest profession of faith possible, not to think “as God does.” This is Peter’s experience and perhaps it is, more often than we would like to admit, our experience. Peter stands in our place. This is also why Jesus rebukes Peter as harshly as he does: “Get behind me, Satan”!

But all our vulnerability; all our temptation to deny the almost incredible faith we profess; all our sin, when we fall into Satan’s traps and substitute dead gods in place of our living God, does not change who we are at our most profound: Sons and daughters ourselves “of the living God.” Sure, when we fall into sin; when we fall for dead gods in place of “the living God,” we are weakened. Our will to do good is corrupted and weakened, but never lost. Peter knew this truth and, again, Peter stands for all of us. When he takes Jesus aside and rebukes him, “God forbid it Lord,” that you might suffer and die in our place; that you might share in this fullest way possible in our humanity, Peter is still the “rock” on which Jesus has chosen to build his Church. Peter’s God-given name, his most profound nature, is not lost, even when the rock becomes “a stumbling block”; a scandal to himself and to the other disciples.

Still, Peter’s great profession of faith is still intact: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are sons and daughters of the same living God, in whom “we live and move and have our being,” as we will pray in a few moments here at Mass. The “stumbling block,” in the midst of his denial of a Messiah who must suffer and die as we do in order that we might live as God lives, is still the “rock.” The “stumbling block” who would deny Jesus not once but three times, proclaiming a dead god of fear as Jesus traveled the Way of the Cross, would still be the “rock” called to proclaim the living God of salvation by the cross and resurrection to our world.

Peter, at once the rock and the “stumbling block,” stands for us. And so how do we, like Peter, become more rock and less “stumbling block” to one another and to God’s grace working through us? How do we proclaim a “living God” and not any one of a variety of dead gods to our world? The easy answer to these questions; the answer given in our Gospel, is to accept any suffering we might experience. “If anyone wants to become my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And yet, for many, this answer is almost too easy. We know in our world and may even have experienced personally forms of suffering that are unbearable or unjust. Suffering is not of God; is not willed by God. This side of eternal life, though, Jesus, through his cross, has taken upon himself our suffering as a means of conquering it.

We participate in Jesus’ solidarity with and victory over our suffering and death especially when we find somebody, even one person, who is suffering; who is oppressed; who is marginalized; who is in need and when we work to alleviate this person’s suffering. Sometimes to alleviate another’s suffering takes heroic effort, but more often to alleviate another’s suffering— to enter into solidarity with Christ on the cross and with another who bears the cross with Christ— takes a simple smile, a listening ear, or some other simple gesture of love.

This is learning, after Peter and every disciple of Jesus who has ever lived, to be less “stumbling block” and more rock of faith. This is taking up our cross and following after Jesus, “Son of the living God,” in becoming more authentically ourselves sons and daughters “of the living God.”  

Homily for Sunday, 6 August 2017– Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Readings of the day: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 9; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Matthew 17:1-9

This homily was given at St. Alphonsus and St. Clare Churches, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Have any of us ever had a moment in which our faith was so strong that nothing could disturb it? How many have been almost to this point of unshakable faith, when our faith is still deep and strong, but with a few questions? I am not sure I have ever encountered or read anybody whose faith was absolutely unshakable. After all, the greatest of saints are saints not because their faith was perfect, but because they are the boldest in admitting their questions; their struggles; their distractions; their disturbances of faith.

The saints, including the many (I would say the vast majority of saints) who remain unnamed and uncanonised officially by our Church, like many of us, were people whose faith, this side of heaven, was usually not perfectly unshakable, but was almost there. Jesus’ Transfiguration, to which he invites only “Peter, James, and his brother John” up the mountain with him to witness, is an event not for people whose faith is already perfectly unshakable, but for those whose faith is “almost there.”

In Matthew’s Gospel, faith is the lens through which we are invited to grasp Jesus’ Transfiguration. Not long before the Transfiguration in this same Gospel, the Pharisees and Sadducees ask Jesus for a sign of his authority, despite having observed already the miracles he was performing. Jesus, we know, does not grant the Pharisees and Sadducees the sign they seek. Besides the signs of Jesus’ presence and the miracles he had already worked, Jesus could give them no sign that would move the hearts of the religious leaders of the day to faith, let alone past the outright malice and jealousy they had toward Jesus.

After the episode with the Pharisees and Sadducees, we hear in Matthew Peter’s confession of faith, his identification of Jesus as the Son of God. But even then Peter’s faith is not perfect; when Jesus speaks of his passion and death, Peter essentially curses God. (Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death is somewhat more vulgar than, “God forbid it, Lord,” which is why Jesus responds to him with such force: “Get behind me, Satan”!) And so Peter’s faith, while stronger than that of the Pharisees and Sadducees, is far from perfect at the point of the Transfiguration. After the Transfiguration, James and John at one point vie with one another for prestige, for places at Jesus’ right and left in the Kingdom of Heaven, angering the other Apostles. And later yet the Apostles would flee the scandal of the cross.

The faith of the Apostles, especially that of Peter, James, and John who witness the Transfiguration, is far from unshakable. But Jesus does not choose these three from among the Twelve because their faith is perfect. He does not choose Peter, James, and John to climb the mountain with him because they are sinless, or because they are particularly more trustworthy than the other Apostles. In fact, Jesus, Peter, James, John and we know otherwise, if we place the Transfiguration within the broader context of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus knows Peter’s, James’, and John’s vulnerability; the weaknesses of their faith; their sin, and chooses them to witness his Transfiguration anyway. Why is this?

My speculation, although this is not clear in Matthew’s Gospel, is that Jesus chooses Peter, James, and John to witness his Transfiguration because they are the most “teachable” of all Jesus’ Apostles. They are Jesus’ best students, or disciples. Peter, James and John acknowledge best their weaknesses, struggles, distractions, and disturbances of faith. They acknowledge best their need to be in the presence of Jesus to learn; to strengthen their faith; to deal with the ambiguity and scandal of the cross; to see in all this, including in the scandal of the cross, God’s glory shining forth in Jesus Christ.

Peter, James, and John acknowledge best of anybody that their faith is far from unshakable; far from certain, but that their faith is almost there. Without this acknowledgement of the “almost but not yet” aspect of their faith; this acknowledgement of their need to be in the presence of Jesus, the Transfiguration means nothing, for Peter, James, and John, or for us.

Might we imagine the Transfiguration in these terms: Are not Peter, James, and John in many ways like us? Jesus, God, has chosen us to experience his presence here. In the Word of God and the breaking of bread Jesus shows himself to us, still a fairly select group of people in our world who regularly take up Jesus’ invitation to this Eucharistic celebration. But we do not gather here to hear the Word of God and to break bread; we are not invited here by our Lord because our faith is perfect, unshakable. We do not celebrate here in Jesus’ presence because we are sinless, or because we have every aspect of our faith; every teaching our Church proposes as revealed by God all worked out. No, we gather here precisely because we do not have all this worked out; because we are sinners; because we are vulnerable to our struggles, distractions, and disturbances of faith. We gather here perhaps (and, in a way, I hope) because to worship a God who would suffer and die shamefully on a cross for us as Jesus did still, in a way, troubles us if we think deeply enough about it.

The vision of the cross at the Transfiguration would have scandalized Peter, James, and John outright, if their own sin and their own struggles, distractions, and disturbances of faith did not already trouble them at that moment. Even as they are “coming down the mountain” after the Transfiguration, they were still working out all these tensions: Why are we not to stay on this mountain? Why does this moment when God’s glory flashes before us have to end? What is the significance of Jesus being left “alone” after his Transfiguration (Peter, James, and John would not yet have connected Jesus’ aloneness after the Transfiguration to his being left alone by his closest friends to die on a cross)? Why were we chosen from among the Twelve to witness Jesus’ Transfiguration in the first place? Why are we not to “tell anyone about this vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead”?

And yet, with all these questions and tensions; struggles, distractions, and disturbances, on the mountain of the Transfiguration Peter correctly identifies the central importance of this Transfiguration event when it is most critical that he do so. Peter says, “Lord, it is good that we are here.” Peter speaks for himself, James, and John. Peter speaks for every disciple of Jesus for all time. Peter speaks for us: “Lord, it is good that we are here.”

“Lord, it is good that we are here,” our faith “almost there” but not yet perfected. “It is good that we are here” to acknowledge and to grapple with our vulnerability; our struggles; our distractions; our disturbances of faith. “It is good that we are here”; that the Lord has invited us here, not in spite of our sins and weaknesses of faith, but because of them. And “it is good” that we accept our Lord’s invitation to witness and to celebrate his Transfiguration; to celebrate our Eucharist.

In accepting our Lord’s invitation to this celebration, we witness to how good it is “that we are here” to participate in this intermingling of God’s glory with the mystery of Christ’s suffering, death on a cross, and resurrection for us. Here the scandal of the cross becomes our way to salvation. Here we admit boldly, as the saints have through the centuries, that we are God’s work in progress. We are, like Peter, James, and John, invited up the mountain to witness Jesus’ Transfiguration, not on our own merits but as God’s free gift. Insofar as we are able to admit this then, reflecting Christ we, too, are transfigured, our faith strengthened. And we are able to exclaim as Peter once did on behalf of all of us: “Lord, it is good that we are here”!