…and he was moved with Compassion

We have entered the time between Pentecost Sunday and the first Sunday in Advent. This is the time in our liturgical calendar that is called Ordinary Time.  Yet, our readings in Luke’s Gospels for both last week and this week, (Luke 7:11-17) depict events that must be considered anything but ordinary. I find it somewhat amusing when we attempt to confine spiritual transformation that we experience in our readings that are part of an eternal “calendar,” into our need to literally and methodically measure time and events. Thomas Keating said it best when he said that Ordinary Time is a time in our church calendar during which “chronological and eternal time intersect in the mystery of the present moment and become one” (The Mystery of Christ). Our readings attempt to chronicle Christ’s ministry in an orderly sequence because that’s the way we think and how we learn. But the transformation that occurs in us as we make the Word ours and become one with Jesus on our continuum, has nothing to do with our calendar that seeks to measure.

And so, this week’s story, while remarkable in and of itself, goes far beyond a dramatic restoration of life and underscores Jesus’ ministry: we express our love for God when we have love and compassion for one another.

Compassion is a particularly important word in our Gospel in which we read of Jesus being moved with compassion. Marcus Borg tells us that compassion represents the summation of Jesus’ teaching about both God and ethics. “For Jesus, compassion was the central quality of God and the central moral quality of a life centered in God. Moreover, for Jesus compassion was not simply an individual virtue, but a sociopolitical paradigm expressing  his alternative vision of human life in community, a vision of life embodied in the community that came into existence around him” (Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time).

So how does this story fit with Borg’s paradigm? In this story Jesus restored more than the life of the young man; he restored the life of the widow, a woman with no voice of her own, who, in the lowest rung of the society’s ladder, was destined to live out her life in, at the very least, misery.  This is a story in which her community, dominated by men, walk beside her in her time of need.  This is a story in which Jesus, in asking the widow not to cry, does so not to calm her emotional state, but rather to transform life: hers, her son’s, the community, and ours.

Jesus was intent on challenging the vision of God as being one that is centered in holiness, and beyond our reach, to one that is centered in compassion and lives with us in our midst. Says Borg, “As a mother loves the children of her womb, so God loves us and feels for us. In its sense of ‘like a womb,’ compassionate has nuances of giving life, nourishing, caring, perhaps embracing and encompassing. For Jesus this is what God is like.”

 

 

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Is there any Gospel reading more familiar to us than Jesus feeding the multitudes (Luke 9:11-17)? Let’s put aside the inclination to call Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand a miracle. Why? Primarily because it misses the point and distracts us from the true miracles that take place in the story. John reminds us that the wonders Jesus performed throughout his ministry were signs, indications of the character of the God of love whose divine presence Jesus bears. Make no mistake, what Jesus did is anything but pedestrian but the point isn’t what Jesus did, but why he did it. Jesus reveals the God in him by his compassion, the hallmark of Jesus ministry. This single word summarizes God’s unconditional love for us and is at the core of his incarnation in Christ. 

Ok, let’s get back to our miracle… that was no minor endeavor. What we now call “food scarcity” was rampant in the ancient world. And so the disciples’ suggestion that the hordes of people go away and buy food isn’t just unrealistic it’s ridiculous. First, they were in a deserted place in the middle of nowhere, and second, they would likely not have any money to buy food anyway. And so Jesus tells his disciples to get over their self-concern and desire to be left alone, and feed them… themselves. 

Jesus had just heard about John the Baptist’s murder by King Herod at a feast. The metaphorical juxtaposition of images couldn’t be more powerful. After hearing the news, Jesus needed to retreat and be alone. John was his baptizer, teacher and mentor. Jesus, in the fullness of his humanity, yearned for solace. And yet manages to fulfill the consistent call of the Father to feed the hungry and heal the sick and fill the “empty.” 

Which brings us to the real miracle of the story: Jesus uses the disciples, even when they would rather look after themselves, to tend to the needs of these thousands of men, women, and children. They go from “we have nothing here but five loaves and fishes” to one of abundance to “thank you, God, for these five loaves and fishes.” Whatever their initial skepticism, or doubt, or self-indulgence, the disciples are caught up in Jesus’ words of abundance and “they all ate and were filled” as God worked through these reluctant disciples to care for the poor and hungry that he loves so much. 

And that miracle continues when a parent puts his/her own dreams aside to care for the needs of their children or aging parent. God is working that same miracle when a community of faith makes a promise that no one that comes to its doors will be turned away hungry, or when a Muslim family hides a Christian refugee from the wrath of murderous radicals. God is still at work performing miracles through us, his disciples eager, yet reluctant, and everything in between.  

The real wonder of this story is that it continues. God cares deeply and passionately for those who are most vulnerable:  the poor, the homeless, the hungry. And God continues to use us to care for them. 

Just maybe if we are serving our “needy,” however poor or rich, we are reminded of the similarity that exists between the scenes in Luke. Let those of us who have been fed by God’s heavenly food go and do likewise by sharing God’s love with all we meet and especially with those in deepest need. 

There are two miracles in this story. They have little to do with simply multiplying loaves and fishes, and by remembering them, we are hopefully prepared to continue to follow Jesus and care for those in need. And that is no small thing at a time like this. Thank you God, and thank God for you.

...And we will renew the face of the earth

I was asked to move to the Midwest by my employer early in my career. This was not an easy decision for me and my family. After all at that time, disrupting everything and uprooting everyone to move far away was unheard of in my family’s “tradition.” It just wasn’t done and it was painful for all concerned. However, in time everyone adjusted to the change and in many ways we all benefitted from the experience. What started out to be a two year commitment became fifteen. Yet, I can remember how great it was when we would come home and visit for various occasions and holidays. I can also remember how it felt when we had to leave and return to our home, particularly in the beginning when it was still new. The last couple of hours before our departure were mixed. There were packing and last minute checks on “things.” But there were quiet and pensive moments during which we were all considerably more subdued and avoided the delicate subject of our departure. This may be a little of what John has been teaching us these last few weeks.

Our appointed lectionary readings have presented John’s Gospel in a series of installments since Holy Thursday so that the disciples and we might understand that while Jesus would no longer be with them, he was not leaving them alone. So, it’s important to read this brief section from John16:12-15 as part of a continuum and not as a lecture on the doctrine of the Trinity. John is intent on emphasizing Jesus’ ongoing loyalty, guidance and protection. The events leading up to and through and following The Last Supper contain pivotal elements of our faith: 

· Jesus demonstrates his unconditional love as a model for his disciples and us to follow.
· He prays that they love one another and that they forever be united.
· He knows his fate and their journey would not be easy and so he promises to send the help that they will need in the form of the Holy Spirit.

David Steindl-Rast writes in Deeper than Words: “The Holy Spirit, as the awe-inspiring power of life and love, is a reality with which every human being is familiar. We differ only by the degree to which we open ourselves to this power. Fear tends to block and close our access to life in fullness for which Jesus Christ stands. If we patiently cultivate courage and openness, we will become more and more aware of the Spirit which allows us to know God, love God and thrive in God because this power quickens our intellect, our will and our emotions…

When in our Creed we proclaim our belief in the Holy Spirit, we acknowledge God as a triune with the ‘Father,’ the ultimate mystery from whom we come and to whom we are on our way; the ‘Son,’ in whom we find our true Self; the ‘Spirit,’ the divine aliveness within our innermost life, Here we touch upon the very core of faith.”

Come Holy Spirit and Fill the Hearts of Thy Faithful...

Pentecost preserves the memory of Jesus through the Holy Spirit as our community’s faith is both restored and renewed in breadth and depth through our love for one another. God and Love cannot be contained and must be shared. God is love.

David Steindl-Rast writes in Deeper than Words that The Holy Spirit is the awe-inspiring power of life and love. We differ only by the degree to which we open ourselves to this power. If we patiently cultivate courage and openness, we will become more and more aware of the Spirit which allows us to know God within.

In our Creed when we proclaim our belief in the Holy Spirit, we acknowledge the Trinitarian God as the ‘Father,’ the ultimate mystery from whom we come and to whom we are on our way; the ‘Son,’ in whom we find our true Self; the ‘Spirit,’ the divine aliveness within our innermost life, Here we touch upon the very core of faith.

We are charged with remembering all that Jesus lived while he was with us. (John 20:19-23) The Spirit is the ultimate power of the Gospel through which the Word becomes flesh in us, and are no longer just words. We become those words and they define who and what we are. We remember not as if it were yesterday but because it is today; we live the memory now and again and again.

“When we remember, we leave the present for the past. To say it better, we bring the past into the present and give it life alongside the tangible realities we are compelled to consider. Not physical presence but love leads us to live with this remembered person even in his/her absence. When love is strong, the memory of this may be even more dear and more real than the reality of those who are present. Our memory of another confers the present upon him, gives him further life in our life, and keeps a moment of the past from drifting away or fading into death.

We are fed and nourished by communion of life in which our lives intersect in memory and merge into a common experience. No lover forgets. No beloved is forgotten. The memory of love is life; the memory of another becomes ourselves. So when the communion of believers remembers Jesus, Christ is present and is brought into the present with his grace by the power of the Spirit…The gift of the Spirit is fidelity to the memory of life’s mystery and confidence in the mystery of its future.”  (Anthony Padovano, Dawn without Darkness)

When you're awake, the things you think
Come from the dream you dream
Thought has wings, and lots of things
Are seldom what they seem

Sometimes you think you've lived before
All that you live to day
Things you do come back to you
As though they knew the way

 

 

 

 

That They MayBe All One

John proclaims the Divine presence of God in Jesus in his very first Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God… And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And now, as he announces the end of his physical presence as the incarnation of the Father on earth, Jesus passes the baton to us. How beautiful it is to hear Jesus pray for his apostles, not alone in a garden or in the desert but in their very midst. It really is nothing short of astonishing to imagine this gospel as a beautiful model for us. In this Gospel of John (John 17:20-26) there is no request for Jesus to “teach us how to pray,” but rather a beautiful prayer for the protection of those Jesus loved as he was preparing to physically leave this world. This is the Lord’s Prayer according to John.

Holy Father, I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. 

Here John relies on mystical words that speak to us in a place in which personal images of reality and life itself reside. John invites us to picture what being in a relationship with God really means. Note, I did not say “understand,” but rather, I used the word “picture” in an effort to prompt our imaginations and all our senses to feel the words as a palpable experience, and know what being in a relationship with God actually feels like, tastes like, and smells like. It’s at the essence of what we know when we say “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God shared our humanity fully through Jesus as we through Jesus, share fully in God’s divinity. Anything less than this relationship would be considered to be a just a mere “acquaintance” of God.
 
Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

When I think of you
I think about a night
When the earth smelled of summer
And the sky was streaked with white

There are new lovers now on the same silent hill
Looking on the same blue sea
And I know you and I are a part of them all
And they're all a part of you and me  Oscar Hammerstein