One Solitary Life

 

 

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

This essay was adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”).

Can We Become Today's John The Baptist?

In recent weeks our world news and our discussions have focused on urban terrorists’ attacks and civil unrest, all of which have been comingled with the noise of advertisements, beating the drum for Christmas sales, and the hollow political rhetoric of candidates and their commentators. The hymns of Christmas seem to run counter to our mood…all is not calm, all is not bright.

Father Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest writes of another turbulent time in our history. Not unlike today’s world, we need a blessed Advent, a transformation, a time to “put things back where the Lord God put them.” The following is an adaptation of a piece he wrote in a Nazi prison camp, shortly before he was hanged in 1945:

May the Advent figure of John, the relentless envoy and prophet in God’s name, be no stranger in our wilderness of ruins. (Luke 3:10-18) For how shall we hear unless someone cries out above the tumult and destruction and delusion? Not for an hour can life dispense with these John the Baptist characters, these original individuals, struck by the lightening of mission and vocation. Theirs is the great comfort known only to those who have paced out the inmost and furthermost boundaries of existence. They cry for blessing and salvation. They summon us to the opportunity of warding off - by the greater power of the converted heart - the shifting desert that will pounce upon us and bury us. 

The horror of these times would be unendurable unless we kept being cheered and upright again by the promises spoken….The first thing we must do if we want to be alive is to believe in the golden seed of God that the angels have scattered and still offer to open hearts. The second thing is to walk through the gray days oneself as an announcing messenger. So many need their courage strengthened; so many are in despair and in need of consolation; there is so much harshness that needs a gentle hand and an illuminating word, so much loneliness crying out for a word of release, so much loss and pain in search of inner meaning. God’s messengers know of the blessing that the Lord has cast like a seed into these hours of history. Understanding this world in the light of Advent means to endure in faith, waiting for the fertility of the silent earth, the abundance of the coming harvest. Not because we put our trust in the earth, but because we have heard God’s message and have met one of God’s announcing angels ourselves. 

“The Blessed Woman…” She is the most comforting of all the Advent figures. Advent’s holiest consolation is that the angel’s annunciation met with a ready heart. The Word became flesh in a motherly heart and grew out far beyond itself into the world of God/humanity. (Blessed Art Thou Among Women)

That God became a mother’s son; that there could be a woman walking the earth whose womb was consecrated to be the holy temple and tabernacle of God – that is actually earth’s perfection and the fulfillment of its expectations. (Be it Done Unto Me According to Thy Word)
So many kinds of Advent consolation stream from the mysterious figure of the Blessed Expectant Mary. The woman has conceived the child, sheltered it beneath her heart, and given birth to the Son. Advent is the promise denoting the new order of things, of life, of our existence. 

Advent comes in these three figures. This is not meant as an idyllic miniature painting, but as a challenge. My real concern is not with beautiful words, but with the truth. Let us kneel, therefore, and ask for the three-fold blessing of Advent and its three-fold inspiration. Let us ask for clear eyes that are able to see God’s messengers of annunciation; for awakened hearts with the wisdom to hear the words of promise. Let us ask for faith in the motherly consecration of life as shown in the figure of the Blessed Woman of Nazareth. Let us be patient and wait, wait with Advent readiness for the moment when it pleases God to appear in our night too, as the fruit and mystery of this time. And let us ask for the opening and willingness to hear God’s warning messengers and to conquer life’s wilderness through repentant hearts. (Watch for the Light, The Shaking Reality of Advent,”pp.90-91)

Can we become today’s John The Baptists?

What's Going On?

Adversity can play a key role in honing our ability to hear what is beyond the usual scope of our ordinary consciousness. Facing stressful challenges outside the norm of our usual experience can heighten our awareness of events that otherwise would go unnoticed. Samuel Johnson put it nicely “Depend upon it sir, when a man knows he is about to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Not coincidentally and almost by definition, our Advent readings occur during the so-called Holiday Season. It’s a time when friends and family get together. With the Thanksgiving weekend over, it’s time to move on to Christmas. As enjoyable as these social activities are, we seek respite, time alone and a return to the solitary comfort of our home. It is precisely for such clarity and insight that people seek out desert experiences such as solitary retreats, in which we step away from many of the usual supports of life, family, friends, familiar surroundings and routine, in order to be open to God’s call. This is a time for personal transformation that may be revealed on tip toes or in the sound of gun fire.

Unlike John-the-Baptist in Luke 3:1-6 , we don’t always get a chance to choose our desert times and places. They sometimes are provided for us in the form of illness, change in employment, failures in relationships, death of a loved one and even, natural disasters. These deserts all hold new possibilities for hearing the word of God at ever deepening levels. They have a way of “concentrating our mind wonderfully.”

For the past three weeks much of the news and focus of our discussions have been on the reports of urban terrorists’ attacks and civil unrest, all of which are comingled with the noise of advertisements beating the drum for Black Friday; pre-Christmas sales, and the hollow political rhetoric of candidates and their commentators. How do we process all this, much less try to make sense of it? What’s going on? The question harkens back to another turbulent time in our Nation’s history when the Marvin Gaye song of the same name asked the question and in some ways served as a mantra for the time: Mother, mother There's too many of you crying; Brother, brother, brother; There's far too many of you dying…we don’t need to escalate…what’s going on?

Our Scripture discussions in recent weeks have channeled world events and our being asked to keep awake and be ready. It goes hand in hand with the uncertainty of what’s going on today but, making sense of it is easier said than done. We really have to work hard to find God in all this. Words come much more easily than the reality of recognizing him, in ourselves and in those who are hurting. “The Christian community is the place where we keep the flame alive among us and take it seriously, so that it can grow and become stronger in us. In this way we can live with courage, trusting that there is a spiritual power in us that allows us to live in this world without being seduced constantly by despair, lostness and darkness. That is how we say that God is a God of love even when there is hatred all around us.We need to wait together to keep each other at home spiritually, so that when the word comes it can become flesh in us.” (Waiting for God, Henri Nouwen)

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

We shall become Christians on that day when sunshine means more to us than a further acquisition.  We shall become Christians on that day when the children of the world excite us at least as much as its rulers.  We shall become Christians on that day when we use our hearts to measure the worth of a  human being, on that day when greed or pride do not lead us to friendship but only to love.  We shall become Christians when we are joyful because so many people are in love rather than because so many people are affluent.  We shall become Christians when we learn to make music and poetry, to make love and peace, to make Jesus human and to make ourselves as human as He was.  We shall become Christians when the sight of the sea makes us dance more joyously than the purchase of a new car.  We shall become Christians when we allow Jesus to speak to us by His values as well as by his words.  We shall become Christians on that morning when we laugh and sing for the right reasons and when we weep not because we have lost something but because we were given so much.

Anthony Padovano, “Dawn Without Darkness”

Christ the King

The world was turned upside down by the horrendous terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday, 11/13/15. Following the attacks, it was impossible for me  get our gospel reading scheduled (Mark13:24-32) for Sunday out of my mind. (Mark was the focus of our discussion at our Scripture Discussion session on Wednesday, 11/11/15.) I do not believe in coincidence as Jesus' words continued to resonate as images of fear, pain and lostness played out on live TV from Paris and in my living room in me: “Keep Awake…the day or hour no one knows…after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken And then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.” Was it prophetic or was it a script? 

Next Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent and is the Feast of Christ the King. Our reading in John (John 18: 33b-37) picks up where Jesus left off in Mark with Jesus’ words, announcing "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here." 

These two readings could not have been more prophetic. How could the people of Paris who died or were injured or who lost love ones have known that this night would be so catastrophic? And where was God in all this? Couldn’t he just this one time send his army to prevent the terror being foisted on innocent people in the name of religion, in his name, just this one time? Why not we wonder. 

Our ability to make sense of all this is somehow all wrapped up in the mystery of God in which words come to us more easily than the reality of recognizing him, and perhaps ourselves, in those who are hurting? We become so wrapped up in religiosity and Bible-speak that we let the words flow trippingly off the tongue? Words, words, words. But how do the words become flesh in us and help us to process the events and find the indwelling God  in this human tragedy.

Aldolpho Quezada says in his book, Walking with God, “God does intervene but less in the circumstances of our lives than in our manner of responding to those circumstances.” His insight fits in with the psychological principle that it isn’t what happens to us but how we interpret what happens that causes us problems or anxiety or depression. For example, God may not intervene in the illness of a loved one but he will intervene in how we and our loved one react to the illness, seeing the suffering in the illness as essentially linked to the redeeming suffering of Jesus on the cross."

As for the Kingdom of God in the here and now, Richard Rohr tells us that for centuries all the world’s religions were pointing to heaven or the kingdom of God as something in the “next world.” God is with us, here and now, as revealed in the fellowship of broken people we call church and available to us in the seemingly small gestures of mercy we offer and are offered each and every day. It may not be where we expect God to show up, but it is just where we need him.
As for Paris, the overwhelming shared feelings of unity and support coupled with being able to mirror ourselves in those directly effected, gives us a glimpse of God's love at play.  So, we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, not because of his regal bearing, but because of his humility; not because of his power, but because of his compassion and his presence in us…What kind of king wields the power of love and shuns love of power and humbles himself and takes up residence in us, the least of these? 

Keep Awake... No One Knows the Hour or Day

 

Keep Awake for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. These words have been repeated for over 2,000 years, yet somehow we still fear the end of our life on earth. Sure, we are comforted by the many parallels in nature that reveal death to be a precursor to new life, but the fear of death lingers in the shadows. We have - or likely have - lived longer than our parents and grandparents. We know we are better fed, and while some might take issue with our respective quality of our lives, modern medicine protects us from pain, contagion and disease that will shorten our lives...Yet, we are still afraid. Why?

In the days following 9/11/01 the words Fear Not seemed a little harder to process and take to heart. Surely we had every reason to be afraid. I am reminded of Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, who served as Chaplain to the New York Fire Dept. He was the first registered victim at Ground Zero, the term euphemistically applied which now defines the former Twin Towers. The details of his death are unclear: some say he was fatally wounded as he administered last rites to a dying firefighter; others recall his being killed while in silent prayer. Whatever happened, his lifeless body was discovered in the Tower lobby and carried to a nearby church shortly before the building collapsed.

What does this have to do with our gospel (Mark 13:24-37)? I can remember driving to Connecticut that morning as I did daily for over a year. It had rained heavily the day before and this day was a day among days. Who knew how that fateful Tuesday, that began with skies so blue and air so clear, would end as it did? As I approached the Tappenzee, I could hear Charles McCord tell Don Imus that “it appears that a plane has crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.” I looked to my right and could see the beginning of a smoke plume and immediately thought small aircraft. Minutes later now on the bridge, I heard McCord say that the North Tower was hit by another plane. What’s going on I wondered? I somehow managed to turn my car around on an unpaved, unfinished roadway before exiting into Connecticut…the bridge approaches were under construction and there was a way to do this maneuver far outside the bounds of what was permitted or legal but I knew that the bridge would be shut down and I had to get home. I also knew that I had to get to my wife and tell her to get out of Manhattan any way she could…now. She was alerted via the myriad of monitors in her office that something terrible happened and was still happening. Please go home I asked, maybe even demanded. We were afraid. It was a never-before-fear that was all so new to our adult lives; all I knew was we had to get home.

If the thought of finding God amidst such harrowing circumstances seems strange, perhaps it is because we are out of practice looking for Him. I am inspired beyond the time of my original writing a few years back by Nouwen, The Wounded Healer and Ronald Haney’s The God Within You. Haney writes “One of the best kept secrets in Christianity is this: God, infinite, all-powerful, eternal Trinity, Father, Son and the spirit, dwells within each one of us and is closer to you than you are to yourself. This is the mystery of the Divine Indwelling… And where God’s life is there is God. This is one of the most ancient doctrines of our faith. A belief that for the most part is lost in the dusty annals of history. It is a faith-conviction which if lived could make all the difference in our lives in as vivid as the Transfiguration, as subtle as water changed into wine, as dramatic as a prostitute repenting her way into sanctity.” (God Within You, Father Ronald T Haney.)

Knowing that Christ loves us may not save us from fear, nor will it save us from death. And so it comes down to this: The only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to "be prepared" and to live with the knowledge that God is ever present within and is closer to us than we are to ourselves. No, it will not protect us from fear but, as Jesus did in all his humanity he called on the Father to see him through his fear, not as our will but as His will be done.

In many ways, Father Mychal lived this gospel. In many ways this was a man who had arrived at Ground Zero long before 9/11. He had proved himself ready to lay down his life many times during his career. For him 9/11 could have occurred on any day or at any time... he was prepared.

As with Father Mychal, it means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves instead of for others. It means being prepared to die again and again to ourselves, and to every one of our self-serving opinions and agendas. But about that day or hour… no one knows. (Adapted from 11/25/12 blog RRR)

The Power of Love vs. the Love of Power

The ability to assess the impact of Jesus’ meaning as he compares the scribes to the widow depends on a variety of factors: who was his audience at the time; who was Mark’s audience at the time of his writing (Mark 12: 38-44). And perhaps more importantly for our purposes, how do his words resonate with us today? These questions are relevant to understanding Jesus’ overall message as emphasized by his quote, Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.

Jesus denounces the scribes for their hypocrisy and the way in which they amass their wealth. It is more important for the scribes to be seen in all their pompous finery and feigned reverence. The scribes are acknowledged for what they contribute to the treasury from their abundance, while she the poor widow gives from her need. So, whose contribution is truly greater?

The scribes were the educated class of religious leaders regarded as the professorial types of the time. As such they expected to sit in places of honor. In addition to doing nothing for the oppressed, much of their wealth was derived from the poor and the oppressed. This is part of an ongoing much larger criticism that Jesus levies against the temple-based authority that began with the clearing of the Temple earlier. Note, the money referenced is used to fund the Temple’s treasury; it makes no mention of its use to comfort or feed the needy.

I wonder how this message relates to us today. How do we approach stewardship and how do we maintain our focus on God and not on the temple? Over the centuries many explanations have been proposed to explain Jesus’ anger with the merchants in the temple and in this reading, the hypocrisy of the scribes. What about Jesus’ frustration with the church-governing bodies, the high priests, church councils and vestries whose public piety has nothing to do with sharing God’s love and whose adherence to rituals of worship are empty? Jesus was a radical whose focus was preaching the love of God and not about the man-made rules associated with misguiding the faithful in the name of God. Jesus sought to overturn “the tables” and rid the temples of all the piety, purity and social rules created in the name of God for the sole purpose of control and power.

Yet Church is vital to our lives because it provides a coming together where we can proclaim the Gospel and share the sacraments in which we perceive God’s grace most clearly. But then we are sent out to look for God as we partner with him to feed the needy and comfort those who are oppressed. Isn’t that the image we hold for the Church? Jesus’ anger is directed toward those who use the love of power to control their congregations rather than the power of love to create an environment that sets the stage for the sharing of God’s love. Do we have the courage to overturn the tables as Jesus did and tear down the walls that exclude, and to live the Word and let the Word become flesh in us?

I Learned the Truth at Seventeen

How many of us were raised to think that the Beatitudes were an outline of character traits that we as Christians were called to embody? In some ways this is true; however, here again we see Jesus turning everything in this world upside down. Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are they who mourn; blessed are the meek. Really? Doesn’t this contradict those traits that usually characterize success, in that Jesus is saying that those who have no reason in this world for hope or joy are the ones for whom God’s Kingdom has been prepared?

Yesterday we had the opportunity to celebrate my grandson’s 17th birthday. It was hard for me to believe as it seemed like only yesterday when he was born, and could his father, my son, really be old enough to have a 17 year old? And what about me? You can see where I’m going with this. As we listened to the reflections from others, turning seventeen was a time of betwixt and between; it was the best of times and worst of times. It was a carefree time of adolescence in which the child in us had its way, but it also was a time of approaching “adulthood” with the world knocking and wanting answers that we were not always prepared to give. Can’t we just stay here a little while longer some will ask? Others can’t wait to forge ahead. In both instances there is a learning curve and the carefree days of youth like the lesson in the Beatitudes are turned upside down. This is a time to get serious about life.

So the effect that my grandson’s turning seventeen prompted me to think about our Gospel (Matthew 5: 1-12) and the Beatitudes.The Beatitudes run counter-intuitive to what humans have been taught as society’s rules for successful living. I am reminded of lines from Janis Ian’s song from years past, At Seventeen. She like Jesus summed it up in one line, It isn't all it seems at seventeen. But as most who recalled that time, the lyrics ring true:

To those of us who knew the pain, Blessed are they who mourn,
Of valentines that never came, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst,
And those whose names were never called, Blessed are the poor in spirit,
When choosing sides for basketball, Blessed are the meek
It was long ago and far away
the world was younger than today
when dreams were all they gave for free, Blessed are you when they insult and persecute
to ugly duckling kids like me...

To me this is related to the upside down world of God’s Kingdom vs our world and what Jesus repeatedly taught throughout his ministry. The laws of man and of the world have little to do with God’s. Over the past weeks we have read in Mark’s gospels that man’s expectations related to power, wealth, success, fame and happiness are not God’s. Jesus challenges our conventional wisdom that suggests that success, however we define it, or wealth or power equals happiness. He teaches that the concern for losing those fleeting, superficial abstractions of what we value, relate to a life of fear and competition that leads us to think we can only be happy by winning, and by beating someone else at the game. At seventeen we leave our childhood behind and prepare to enter the “grown up” world. At seventeen I learned the truth... It isn’t all it seems, at seventeen.

One of the reasons why this upside down approach to living remains so elusive to us is that it requires that we accept the fact that we are vulnerable because we are human. We have to accept our basic vulnerability as humans in order to let go and embrace life as it is. Most of us find this quite difficult, if not downright impossible. It requires that we acknowledge our vulnerability—which is something most of us spend a lot of energy and effort trying to avoid. Our egos rule our self- image and take us to places that require us to want the props that support a façade that will eventually break.

There is something about letting go of our obsession with getting what we want, and accepting what life brings us that opens up our ability to enjoy the goodness around us. This Jesus way enables us to relate to others with love and compassion. We begin looking at the world with the eyes of Jesus and live in God’s Kingdom in the here and now on earth as it is in heaven. At seventeen I learned the truth. Really?

 

We are free...free to risk, to love, to dream to struggle...to fail

 

What would you do if failure didn't matter? What would you endeavor, dare, or try? What mission would you attempt, what venture would you risk; what great deed would you undertake?

Last week we read in (Mark 10: 35-45) a response from Jesus to James and John that was identical to his response to Bartimaeus: "What do you wish me to do for you?" However, the contrast in attitudes between Bartimaeus and the “Zebedee brothers” is striking. Bartimeus being made aware of Jesus presence cries out two times from the depth of his faith and humility, "Son of David, have pity on me," "Son of David, have pity on me.” While James and John, came to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you…grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left." 

So, how do we react when we hear these two appeals? How are they different; how are they very similar?

Would you, like Bartimaeus in our Gospel (Mark 10: 46-52), have the courage to shout out for healing even though the people around you try to shush you into silence? I wonder, could it be that Bartimaeus was so used to failure and disappointment that he saw no reason not to try one more time? He, as opposed to James and John, were not part of Jesus’ inner circle… but was he? 

Would we be able to silence the hushes of our false self and surrender to God as Bartimaeus did? What about James and John? They may have missed the point in that they felt that they were privileged to be part of Jesus’ inner circle. But how was their faith different from the blind man?

So often we hesitate to ask God’s help because whether great or small, our needs seem so hopelessly impossible or so ridiculously insignificant that we just don't even try. Yet the promise of the Gospel is that we are free... free to risk, to dare, to love, to live, to work, to dream, and yes… free to fail, because we have God's promise that there is no small gesture and there is no impossible deed, and that the God who raised Jesus from the dead will also bring all things – even our failed efforts – to a good end. And yes, we are all part of God’s inner circle.

So, if we’re going to risk anything that matters, not failing is not an option. Risk entails failure. Change entails failure. Creativity and innovation and experimentation all entail failure. And if we forget that, we will either never try anything that matters or end up sorely disappointed.

There's no such thing as a dumb question???

Throughout our lives, most of us have been told by our teachers that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Well, in Mark 10: 35-45 James and John blow the lid off that myth. They really did ask a really dumb question at an even more inopportune time. Jesus just finished telling the twelve for the third time, that his fate was all about suffering, death, and resurrection. Yet, immediately following they ask if they can sit on his right and left side "in your glory."

Talk about not getting it! What do you suppose the Zebedee brothers had in mind? They want a piece of the “messianic action,” on either side of Jesus’ throne. James and John think they know what it mean to follow Jesus but they still don’t get it.

Jesus is, as he tells James and John after their bold request, a servant messiah, and to follow a servant messiah one must become a servant: "whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:44-45).

In fairness to James and John, answering the call to "servant-hood" does not come easy. We are so much like them in many ways, aren't we? We would much prefer to be known as a great "anything" but servant. Yet, when by His grace, we are called to give of ourselves to serve the least of our brethren, we know that we are in God's presence. (RRR October 2012)

If I were a Rich Man

For Christians, personal union with Christ is how we come to divine union with God. When we are free from those attachments that divert our attention from God, we are able to turn our lives over to him, and he comes alive to us through Christ. In essence, we get out of the way and let God’s love take us through the rest of our journey.
We can accept what Jesus says at face value in that wealth can be hazardous to our spiritual health; however, Jesus is not suggesting that it’s impossible for a rich man to “enter” the kingdom of God. In our reading this week Mark 10: 17-31, Jesus reinforces the metaphor of wealth as a spiritual liability to our gaining entry into God’s kingdom. But is he only talking about money and riches here? All too often we relate one’s being poor as an automatic “ticket to admission” to the kingdom. Yet, if we “purposely” remain in poverty because we refuse to take responsibility for our own lives and well-being because we passively accept our fate as a “gift” in and of itself, we are missing the point. There are no merit badges for being poor and co-dependent. Not taking responsibility for one’s own welfare…if one is able, is as much a distraction and a liability to entering God’s kingdom as being diverted from our union with God by coveting excess and abundance for abundance sake.

An important message in this reading is Jesus’ call for us to give up our “false selves,” as Thomas Keating calls it. Whether rich or poor, he asks us to set aside all the attachments, devices, security blankets and even spiritual practices that we devise as “props” so that we can stay in our comfort zones. As such, we hide behind an egotistical illusion of the false self. Simply stated, anything that gets in the way of our becoming closer to and being united with God is a stumbling block. Jesus makes it clear that people, places and things can be millstones, or "stumbling blocks" that can block us from our relationship with God.

Christian practice aims at our dismissing the false self by developing an awareness of God’s presence in our lives. Then as we can see our deep-rooted attachments and with God’s help, let them go as he takes them away and replaces them with Himself. (Keating, Open Mind Open Heart, p 72.)

I have always enjoyed Eugene Peterson’s citations in The Message on the false self or ego: Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for? "Don't be in such a hurry to go into business for yourself.

Is it Caesar's or God's?

 

  
 Once again in Mark 10:2-16, the Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce "to test" him and once again they misunderstand or misuse the scripture to justify their agenda. They hope their question will expose Jesus as dangerous to families, in light of his scandalous comments in prior encounters. 

In typical fashion Jesus turns the table on the Pharisees away from their legal foundation for divorce to God's design for marriage. Because of the hardness of your hearts, he [Moses] wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them [husband and wife] male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together no human being must separate.

God is love. We are products of God’s love and handiwork, a small but unique part of God’s great ongoing work of art. Love cannot be governed by temporal laws of man any more than God can. We speak of marriage, a construct of civil law that we attempt to apply to God’s law, as a contract. But is it?

I can remember studying what goes into the essential parts of a valid contract in a Business Law course a long time ago. For a contract to be valid there must be a valid offer and a valid acceptance of that offer; there must be an agreed upon exchange, or a quid pro quo, that is “something for something,” and the contract must detail specified “consideration,” a term used to affix a value exchange, usually money or equitable services rendered.

“God established a creation, a covenant bond, with humanity, with A-dam. Adam’s name is not only the name of an individual, the founding father of the human race, but it’s also the Hebrew word for humanity…The difference between covenant and contract, in the Old Testament and throughout scripture, is profound. Contractual relations usually exchange property, exchange goods and services, whereas covenants exchange persons. So when people enter into a covenant, they say, ‘I am yours and you are mine.’ So God uses the covenant to enter into a relationship with those whom he created in his own image: humanity and all human persons.” (Scott Hahn, Contract vs. Covenant, Outlook, February, 2002.)

So how do we apply a transactional agreement to love? We can’t. Love cannot be governed by man. No human can break the love between two people; it’s not theirs to break. Once again in our reading, Jesus refuses to be trapped by either the Pharisees or his disciples as he challenges the rules of men with the law of God. Each of the synoptic gospels cite some variation on Jesus’ take on separation of Church and state with the famous quote Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. This phrase has profound resonance throughout scripture and God’s law based on his love and covenant with man. It has become widely quoted as a summary statement of the relationship between Christianity and secular authority that goes far beyond whether it was lawful for Jews to pay taxes to Caesar. 

"We renew our faith in the word of the Lord which invites faithful families to this openness. It invites all those who want to share the prophecy of the covenant of man and woman, which generates life and reveals God!”(Pope Francis, Openness, 9-27-15, Philadelphia)

"I leave you with this question, for each one of you to respond to. In my home, do we yell, or do we speak with love and tenderness? This is a good way to recognize our love.
(Pope Francis, Patience, 9-26-15, NYC)

All are Welcome

There are many themes in Mark 9:38-50 that are ripe for discussion: Jesus' tolerance for an unknown exorcist and his apparent criticism of his disciples' desire for exclusivism; the danger of being a “stumbling block” to others, and the concern for loss of identity.

Clearly, the disciples view their relationship with Jesus as exclusively theirs. Jesus instructs them that anyone who offers another a cup of water in his name is doing it in the name of the One who sent him. As it was then and is now, the followers of Jesus do not belong to an exclusive club; the love of God has no boundaries and cannot be confined to the four walls of any church or denomination

At the time of Mark’s writing, “Christianity” had yet to be named as such and although the relatively small number of Jesus’ followers were in the midst of persecution, they were struggling for an identity of their own. At that time they were considered as “non-Jews” or Gentiles. Today, we still reference people who are not part of our group as non-Christian or non-Catholic, etc. Richard Rohr speaks about those who need to be identified in some exclusive way so as to be recognized as a member of a group. He refers to people’s use of religious “sign posts” so that they can be recognized as members of an organization or specific denomination. However, all too often institutional “church-club” membership exists as an end in itself and not as the basis for following Jesus. Group membership is commendable as a means to self-identify and as a means to express communal pride and fraternity, but it’s not when it is used to exclude or suggest a sense of elitism or superiority.

Commentators tell us that the Greek word, skandalon, is defined as an obstacle that people trip over and gets in the way. It has been colloquially translated as a “stumbling block.” Today the word scandal denotes a decidedly moralistic tone. In the context of this gospel, Jesus’ reference to stumbling block has nothing to do with scandal as we know it. Rather, he was quite clear that his warning was directed to anyone who would lead his followers astray: Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. In other words anyone or anything that got in the way of a follower’s relationship with God was a stumbling block.

By extension, Jesus refers to the awesome responsibility that those closest to him have as leaders. It’s interesting that in these verses Jesus lays bare the minefield of the church and the real dangers within the Christian community then and now. Those most vulnerable “little ones” within the Body of Christ may be impressionable and susceptible to irreparable damage as a result of stumbling blocks caused by careless discipleship.

In this gospel, stumbling blocks can come disguised as precious body parts that can be so “dangerous” that they must be severed. The violence in Jesus' use of hyperbole here is inescapable. He purposely uses this over-the-top language to get the disciples', and our, attention. We are likely to think there's nothing worse than losing a hand, a foot, or an eye. But Jesus says there is…the consequences of causing another to stumble are far worse than self-maiming.

Jesus asks us to examine not only those stumbling blocks that get in the way of our faith, but those that we place, wittingly or not, in the way of others. Here he includes the Church community and individuals within. Jesus does not confine his attention to Church leaders, its hierarchy and priests, but is speaking to each to one of us who are in a position to influence the “little ones,” young and old.

 

 

Satan...really??? What did I say that was so wrong?

 

Suppose this was the first time you were reading Mark’s words in his Mark 8:27-38. You might wonder if these people really knew each other or if they had an identity crisis. On the one hand Jesus asks "Who do people say that I am?" On the other, his close “friends” who are all over the lot, respond "John the Baptist,” and others, “Elijah,” and still others, “one of the prophets." Now, this is after they have seen him feed thousands; cure the sick; raise the dead, and cast out demons. This is also after he’s provided enough clues as to who he really is. 

Then, after Peter, comes up with the right answer, so we think, and proclaims “You are the Messiah.” Jesus turns to his disciples and rebukes Peter…and calls him, “Satan” and tells him that he is setting is mind on human things, not divine things.    

Now here’s a loaded question, which of the two is confused? I did say it was a loaded question but, in fairness to Peter why did he get it wrong or does even get partial credit? (Tuesday, September 11, 2012 rrr)

 

We are Ministers to One Another

How often have we read about Jesus’ healing the sick; restoring speech to the impaired; sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf? Somehow we have become jaded to Jesus’ ability to perform miracles: after all isn’t this what God and the most divinely inspired human can do? I recall having read somewhere that the great mystery of the incarnation of God in Jesus is not his divinity but his living fully in his humanity.

We spent most of this summer reading and discussing John’s Gospel. We delved into what the mystical significance of the Bread of Life; the sharing of the Bread, and what the Word becoming flesh in each of us means.

We strive to be in a “right relationship with God.” This is what being a Christian and living the Word is all about, right? But what does being in a right relationship with God really mean? Let’s close our eyes and picture this for a minute. Note, I use the word “picture,” not “understand,” in an effort to prompt our imagination and senses to feel the words as a palpable, sensory experience, and know what being in a relationship with God actually feels like, tastes like, and smells like.

God fully shared our humanity through Jesus as we through Jesus, fully share in God’s divinity. Anything less than that relationship with God would be reduced to mere acquaintance. So, with this as our premise, we consider Mark 7: 31-37 from the perspective of both the healer and one who is in need of healing. Do we ever think of ourselves as “healers”? Think of the times we listen, comfort and support one another.

Sure, we know what it means to want to be cured or be free of pain, and we can relate to medical professionals who are trained to provide healing and cure. But where does that leave us and what does this have to do with either Mark or the John of our summer and how the two Gospels relate?

There are so many ailments that are outside the bounds of the medical professional’s ability. But yet, somewhere within resides our ability to reach out and heal or be healed. The readings of John help us consider our Gospel in Mark with inspired eyes and ears.

What is required for us to be healed or the healer or both? Why do we resist the potential that resides within each of us? We hear but do not listen while remarkable things happen all the time, and we dismiss them as “coincidences.”

“Our ministering and supporting one another morph into the essence​ of our being and become who we are, as if they exist as an integral part of us. We become ever changed by their existence. Like an encrusted stone picking up moss while rolling down a hill, we are ever changed with each turn… And at the core is "love" God's love. I suppose, this is what's meant by becoming the Word. We need not speak of what we do, they describe us and speak quietly; and we give thanks for them.” (Ministries RRR 7-28-15)

In Mark 7: 1--8,14-15,21-23  Jesus teaches that the people of God are not set apart by particular traditions or ethnicity, but by a purity that emanates from the heart, manifested by love for others. We do not need more religion, but more reflection on what proceeds from our heart. Yes, traditions can be good, and can point others to God. However, they can also send a message explicitly or implicitly, "you don't belong."

Jesus challenged the purity “laws” and turned them upside down. In their place he substituted a radically alternate social vision. The new community that Jesus announced would be characterized by interior compassion for everyone, not external compliance to a purity code, or by egalitarian inclusivity, but rather by inward transformation.

"No outcasts," writes Garry Wills in What Jesus Meant, "were cast out far enough in Jesus' world to make him shun them — not Roman collaborators, not lepers, not prostitutes, not the crazed, not the possessed. Are there people now who could possibly be outside his encompassing love?" 

“Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile…
from within come evil thoughts and they defile.”

Who do we judge when we sanctimoniously spurn those who are not like us or not part of our group? (Bible Study Blog, Bob Reina, August, 28, 2012)

 

To Whom Can We Go?"

 

 

Are you leaving or Staying? 

In John 6: 60-69, the followers of Jesus have heard words they do not understand. They are repelled! It simply is impossible to believe that Jesus is inviting them to eat his flesh and drink his blood…so, many of those who had followed Jesus up to this point, now walk away. They have reached an obstacle in their belief which they cannot overcome.

It is not difficult to imagine Jesus sadness as he watched them leave… Fearing that he was going to be completely abandoned, he turns to the twelve apostles and asks them what they are going to do...Peter speaks for them and us when he responds “Master to whom can we go?”

We do all that we can in life to avoid being placed in position of vulnerability, yet in this gospel we have the twelve willing to be vulnerable by surrendering control and choosing complete dependency on Jesus. That dependency reveals an ultimate statement of faith: Lord, we have no options. We have no choice but to keep following you.

Faith is deepened in situations where self-reliance is no longer possible, a place in which it is difficult to rely on our intellect, reason or abilities.

The process of listening to what Jesus is saying to each of us and then asking: “am I going to leave or stay?” is part of our spiritual journey. For most of us, it can happen many times in our lifetimes. We are faced with a choice: do I accept this, or do I acknowledge that I have to grow into its meaning? And what do I do? To whom do I turn while I am growing into understanding? These are the steps we take to be totally dependent, reliant, and available to Jesus. 

This is the challenge of the Gospel and in the end our response has to be personal…to walk away…or to stay and walk further into the Mystery. ( adapted from Tuesday, August 21, 2012  Bible Study Blog by Bob Reina)

Another Bread Story

Whether we say it aloud or not, I’m sure we are thinking it: Here comes another “Bread” story. What more can we possibly say? Hasn’t John really exhausted the subject? I suppose that this was my reaction when I first saw the lectionary scheduled for this week. I asked myself, what else can I say or write. I wondered how the priests and theologians were able to continue to plumb the depths of John’s gospel and help us understand its relevance to our lives. Later I tried to put myself in the audience of John’s day and began to understand how vital these stories of Jesus, the Bread of Life, are to our faith. We need to hear them again and again until Jesus becomes our bread of life in the depths of our very being.

I wonder if we fully comprehend the theological and existential significance of approaching and “gathering” around the altar, the table of the Lord, to receive Communion. And if we don’t, is it really any wonder? Let’s face it, debate about the meaning of the sacrament continues even now in this relatively tranquil ecumenical period between and within different denominations. The sacrament holds a pivotal place in the Church, in that it is central to our life of faith and yet can also be so very confusing.

John writes (John 6:51-58), “How can this man give us his flesh to eat...Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” In their literal interpretation these phrases had quite an impact on John’s audience then as they do now. He is speaking to us in the present time as directly as he did in his time.

St. Augustine attempts to clarify the connection between sacraments and our daily lives with his use of the phrase “visible words.” I find this phrase attractive because it helps me appreciate the Eucharist as the visible, physical counterpart to the teaching of the church. The Eucharist is the embodiment of the proclaimed and heard gospel and through imagery and our ability to relate to their physical forms, they enable us to bridge the metaphorical words of John with our humanity, and God’s incarnation in Jesus…through him and with him. As we fully absorb his presence in water, bread, and wine, we become incorporated into the “trinity.” When the word of God in scripture and the sacramental rites have worked their way through our senses and penetrate to the intuitive level of our being, the immense energies of the Spirit are released and our consciousness is gradually transformed into the mind of Christ. (Thomas Keating, The Mystery of Christ, p2)

The liturgy does not offer us a mere seat in the bleachers, or even a ringside seat. We are invited to participate in the event itself, to absorb its meaning and to relate to Christ on every level of his being as well as our own. The main thrust of the liturgy is to develop a relationship with Christ and engage all our faculties: the will, intellect, memory, imagination, senses and body. The transmission of the personal relationships through him…with the Father. It empowers us as we celebrate the mysteries of Christ, to not only perceive them as historical events but as manifestations of Christ here and now. (Thomas Keating, The Mystery of Christ, p8)

 

 

 

Please give me a Sign

You are looking for me. How poignant was Jesus’ statement taken from last week’s gospel. Yes, the followers of Jesus, still not wanting to believe through the signs they were already provided, were looking to be spoon fed what they half-heartedly wanted to believe. Yet, by virtue of their human nature, found it hard to believe. Doesn’t this sound familiar to us now, here in the present? Show me please, so that I may trust.

We are taught to read literature as if it were a newspaper. Time is sequential and reality is “flat.” It’s one–dimensional, in that the words on the page are an assemblage of alphabets to communicate information in our language through our intellect in real time. What we see on the surface is what really is in black and white. This is not the case when we read the Gospel and especially John’s.

David Steindl-Rast writes in Deeper than Words: “to understand John’s gospels in the way they were meant to be understood, we must develop a sense for poetic language. These images speak to our intellect through our poetic sensibilities…Tuning in to this language means both taking it seriously and not taking it literally.” Marcus Borg tells us that John’s gospel invites his hearers to see in a radically different new way. His appeal is to the imagination, to that place within us where our images of reality and of life itself reside.

So when John begins the first chapter of his Gospel with In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God (verse 1)…And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, he announces the incarnation of God in his fullest humanity as the Word became flesh in Jesus, and by extension, he also signifies that the Word becomes flesh in us.

So back to our Gospel (John6:41-51). The signs Jesus followers are asking for are signs that were prophesized in the coming of the Messiah, namely, the return of manna falling from heaven. But Jesus attempts to raise their hearts and minds to a higher level, away from manna, the perishable food: I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven…whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

With this, Jesus makes the distinction between the perishable things of this world and the eternal life in God, lived through Jesus’ Word made flesh in us as we become the bread of life when we share our lives with compassion for one another.

When Jesus speaks about “live forever,” he is talking about eternity. When we think of eternity, we usually think of the afterlife. But eternity is timeless; it has no before or after; eternity is the “life to come” but it is the present life. We are living in eternity, now. So we look for signs and ask: how many times have we seen God acted out in the love of Christ, in the little things of life and yet, resisted or failed to make the connection? There are no coincidences; God reveals himself in the here and now.

It’s a quiet thing that happens when we are immersed or as I often like to think, marinated in the words by our sharing of his bread with one another. It all seems to happen on tip toes.

When it all comes true
Just the way you planned
It's funny but the bells don't ring
It's a quiet thing
When you hold the world
In your trembling hand
You think you'd hear a choir singing
But it's a quiet thing
There are no exploding fireworks
Where's the roaring of the crowd
Maybe it's the strange new atmosphere
Way up here among the clouds

Happiness comes in on tiptoe
Well, what do you know
It's a quiet thing
A very quiet thing.

        Kander and Ebb, Flora the Red Menace

I Am The Bread of Life

 I suppose it’s only human nature to have faith in the things we see rather the things we can’t. God knew our nature long before and better than we did. The whole purpose of his incarnation in Jesus was for him to be able to reach us through our faculties and physical senses. Yet, its’ “natural,” our nature, to center our world around those attachments in our life that serve us well and are under control and those that sometimes seem to control us. So, we place out “faith” in things we can see and touch like career, finances, family, relationships, and our own ability to control our lives. Unfortunately, life has a way of reminding us that our faith in those things may not be rewarded in the way we planned or expected.

Most of us are likely to experience a significant disruption in our careers at least once in our lives, and our finances are no more reliable. We entrust our life savings to financial institutions that engage in what is basically a sophisticated form of gambling. And people—yes, our family, and our friends—are all flawed and fallible and imminently capable of doing what humans do, and disappoint us.

In a very real sense, most of what we invest our faith in falls under the category of “perishable things.” After feeding the 5000 with five loaves and two fish, Jesus and the disciples crossed the lake, only to find that the crowd had followed them there. When they approached him, he abruptly accused them of seeking the “food that perishes.” In the dialogue that followed, it would seem that they were looking for a repeat of the miracle of manna in the wilderness.

But Jesus was constantly aware of the dangers of an enabling faith that is rooted in visible results based on spectacle. Getting what you asked for without spiritual elbow grease is not faith. Whenever we get whatever we ask for, it’s a matter of time before we begin to want more. Jesus was calling his followers to a completely different kind of faith. He called them to cast their lot with the One that God has sent (John 6:24-35). He was calling them to a faith without external props that deals with unseen things, hoped for and real. St. Augustine said “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” The only “bread” that can truly satisfy our hunger is the bread that God offers us, the Bread of Life.

And the amazing truth is that when we take the risk of “casting our lot with the one whom God sent” to carry out God’s cause in the world, we find that somehow we experience a peace, a freedom, a quality of life that none of those “perishable things” can possibly provide. When we take the risk of faith and begin to quiet our restless hearts, we find the life God offers us truly satisfies us in ways we may never have expected.

Loaves and Fishes

Over the years we have come to appreciate the unusual relationship between the synoptic gospels of Mathew, Mark, and Luke with John’s Gospels. While there are similarities between the four, the content in John's is somewhat unique, in that he presents a different side of Jesus that complements the other three Gospels and provides its readers insight and a clearer understanding of Jesus’ divine nature. As such, John’s relating the historical aspects of Jesus’ life are usually reserved for passages that reveal a unique aspect of Jesus’ divine nature. Marcus Borg writes that “the portrait of Jesus in John’s gospel was essentially one of the Christ of faith and not the Jesus of history…The picture of Jesus in John is quite different form the picture of Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke…In John, Jesus speaks as a divine person with his ‘I am’ statements: I am the bread of life, ‘the light of the world,’ and so on.” (Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time)

John does not waste any time and gets right to it in the very first chapter of his gospel:  In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning…and The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. 

How then does our gospel (John 6:1-21) in which Jesus feeds the multitude point to Jesus’ divine nature, after all this story and scene are similar to that found in the synoptic gospels? The answer resides in the distinction between Matthew, Mark and Luke’s account in which the apostles are charged with feeding the crowd. However, in John Jesus is clearly in charge when he writes with regard to the feeding: he himself knew what he was going to do. 

John deliberately diverts our attention from the “miraculous” and reveals something vital about Jesus and, in turn, about God. Here, Jesus represents the One who can satisfy every human need. In this gospel Jesus fulfilled the multitude’s material needs and, while material needs are important, this is not what Jesus came to do. Rather, Jesus came to reveal that God's essential character is love and loving (John 3) and God's essential desire is to be accessible and available to the people of God (John 1 and 2). It may not be what we want -- so convinced are we that material possessions will make us happy -- but it is what we need ( Working Preacher July 23, 2012David Lose).

Travel Light and Trust

Jesus ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics." (Mark 6:7-13)

I've often thought how I'd feel if I had to immediately leave home on a moment’s notice with no time to take anything except  the clothes I was wearing. I am reminded of some catastrophic events or acts of terror that have forced some unfortunate people to escape with nothing but the clothes on their backs and I wonder how they were able do this. Although there have been times when I have had to travel for a family emergency or for a so-called

business "crisis," and while time was of the essence, I still was able to give some thought as to what I needed to take with me. Otherwise, I was what you might call a "defensive packer." With a variety of lists in hand, covering any possible venue or destinations, I packed for a myriad of "what ifs" that rarely would ever materialize. In retrospect I often wonder why I needed to be so over-prepared, doubling up on apparel and anything else on my list. This preparedness was not necessarily limited to packing my luggage.

Jesus tells his disciples to travel light and rely on the kindness of strangers. Of course, the world in the time of Jesus was much different from our modern world today. At that time, Jewish travelers would often stay in the home of another member of their community in deference to the Jewish purity code. While Jesus’ message was offered to all, we know that it was not welcomed by everyone. After all, look at the rejection Jesus experienced earlier in this story. To that end, Jesus tells them that if they did encounter resistance, they not be discouraged or detained in their journey but rather they should “shake the dust from their sandals” and continue on.

What Jesus asked of his disciples required considerable trust, in that the disciples were “commissioned” to immediately follow his instructions, without question or reservation and begin to preach the good news. Needless to say this required implicit confidence in Jesus. 

So, how does my need to over prepare for a journey relate to this gospel? Perhaps it was a lack of confidence or trust in myself that required that my preparation was extreme? Perhaps in letting go of the trappings and the non-essentials that really got in the way, I am more open to the knowledge that all will go well…and I just needed to trust myself and others more. Think of all the unnecessary clutter in our lives that gets in the way of our relationship with one another. Richard Rohr teaches that the God in me loves the God in you. Those things in our lives that we once regarded as essential get in the way of our connectedness with one another, and therefore with God.

The disciples were given the authority by Jesus to preach the gospel, heal the sick and cast out demons.
What meaning can we apply to healing the sick and casting out demons today? Perhaps liberating those who are imprisoned by sadness and depression, or giving hope to those who think that their lives no longer have any meaning we can heal the sick and “cast out demons.” However in order for us to do this we must trust God and remain focused on what is essential. 
So while I cannot equate my learning to travel lighter with the confidence that all will go well, I'm now better prepared;  I can appreciate what it means to trust and let go of the unnecessary baggage filled with past regrets and the unrealized “what ifs” of my life that get in the way of my drawing closer to God. We know that the lives of those who welcome the gospel are transformed. It's a journey.

So, what is it that gives us a greater sense of security, or when have we had to go beyond our fears and set out with very little? 

Little boy false
In search of little boy true
Will you be ever done traveling,
Always unraveling you, you?
Running away
Could lead you further astray

And as for fishing in streams
For pieces of dreams,
Those pieces will never fit
What is the sense of it?
(Pieces of Dreams, Legrand, Bergman and Bergman)

You Can’t Go Home Again

In spite of his works and remarkable teachings, Jesus’ family and old friends treated him with skepticism. In a culture that measured a person's worth by their place in society, Jesus had clearly overstepped his bounds. After all, he was “just” a carpenter and as such, was relegated to a lowly place in society at that time. Carpenters were itinerant workers who left their home and went from town to town to seek employment. Their families were often left without financial security while they were away. Their time away and loss of economic support or social position often caused them to lose the respect of their own families whom they “abandoned.” By daring to step above his station in life he did not fit into the world of His family and old friends. He, despite his notoriety, was no longer what his home town folks of Nazareth expected him to be. They did not trust him. So, he went back out on the road to serve the surrounding villages. Although Jesus went home, he wasn’t made to feel at home (Mark 6:1-13).

Several years ago I was faced with having to leave a job and career to which I was totally committed and loved for over 30 years. A corporate reorganization resulted in my position and group being eliminated and absorbed. No, they said I wasn’t being fired; "your performance was exemplary; it’s just that your position would no longer exist.” The music stopped; my chair was gone, and now I had to leave a place where I was no longer wanted. How was that possible? I had to uproot my family and an established lifestyle, leave my friends behind and go to a place where I was wanted…but just not here anymore.

Little did I know at the time that this pain and anguish would lead to new opportunities, personal growth and a transformation of sorts that would not have been possible had I remained anchored in that comfortable place. Little did I know that what seemed like an interminably difficult period of loss and “exile” protected me from the peril and upheaval awaiting those in that place I left behind. Little did I know then that in the long run, it was all for the best… and all part of a plan.

Despite having walked the dusty roads of Nazareth he knew so well from his earliest beginnings, his childhood, Jesus was rejected by friends and family. It was as if they did not know him. He was amazed at their lack of faith. It’s not a comfortable scene for us to imagine? Bur then, Padovano writes “home is not a place; it is an attitude which depends on how much we are able to feel at home with ourselves as well as others. Home is something which happens to a person; homecoming has less to do with geography than it has to do with a sense of personal integrity or inner wholeness… The most redemptive all experiences is that by which the human heart is reconciled with itself. One does not remain with his family if he is not heard or listened to or if he gains attention only if he makes an enormous effort or if he is loved merely when he happens to agree with his family.” (Anthony Padovano, Dawn Without Darkness, pp 28, 34)