Gospel Reflection for February 4, 2016

As I begin my studies in Homiletics this Semester, I am going to start posting my reflections here, for people to read.

Gospel: Mark 6:7-13

How many of us, when preparing for a journey, spend many hours packing suitcases, making sure our finances are in order, arranging transportation, hotels, planning activities, and many other tasks- before we even step out the door?  Often in our preparations, we pack too much for the journey, wanting to be prepared for all possible situations. And often, we find that the items we packed “Just in case” were not necessary- they only cause us more trouble, because we must lug them around with us until we return home.

Now imagine if you were told to go on a journey, and were told to leave immediately, taking nothing with you. How would you feel then? anxious? Scared? Afraid?

The disciples in today’s Gospel must have felt some of these feelings when they heard the instructions of Jesus telling them how they were to go out and preach the Gospel to the villages and towns. It seems strange to us that Jesus would tell his disciples to go out to preach without basic necessities, and basic means of providing for their own survival. Jesus, however, knew what he was doing.

By commanding the disciples to bring no food, money, or extra clothing, Jesus is telling the disciples that their own personal needs are to take second place to the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. He does not want them to be worried about where they are going to buy lunch, or whether they have enough money to pay the innkeeper- rather Jesus wants their sole focus to be on proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom, trusting that if they faithfully proclaim the message, God will take care of everything else.  Jesus doesn’t want “extra baggage” to get in the way of proclaiming the Gospel. In fact, the faithfulness of the disciples to these instructions will begin to make the reality of the Kingdom of God manifest.

Too often, our “extra baggage” weighs us down, and keeps us from authentically proclaiming the Gospel Message through word and deed. Jesus’ instructions to the disciples challenge us to examine our own lives, and ask “What can I leave behind so that I am better able to make the Gospel known through my life? Do I truly trust that God will take care of me?” Learning to leave aside our extra baggage will help us to focus on our own needs less and less, and increasingly focus on the needs of others. It will help us to build relationships, and better communities. It will make us authentic witnesses to the Gospel. and in the end, we too, will make the Kingdom of God manifest. 

Worship and Transcendence

I recently had a conversation with a friend, in which she expressed her misgivings about worship consisting solely of a song leader leading worship in a concert-like environment. Her misgivings were well founded, and while she was looking for a purely biblical answer to her question, that got me thinking: What is the nature of worship supposed to be, and how is that concept often lost in contemporary society?

First, I think a little background info is in order. Let's begin with the question "how is worship portrayed in the Old Testament?"  Scripture contains many references to the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, the temple... all names for the various places where God's presence was said to dwell on earth. And while we can find in Scripture very detailed explanations for the Liturgical Rites of the Temple, what is more important to notice is the attitudes that the Israelites had toward God, and how that had an effect on their approach to Divine worship.

There is a tradition among the Hebrews that the Divine name of God is never to be said aloud. In fact, the only place it could be pronounced was by the Priest as part of the Temple rituals.  This reverence for the Divine name (referred to as the Tetragrammaton, is given to Moses in Exodus 3, and roughly translates to I AM WHO AM)  is important, because there is another ancient belief that to name something or someone is to exercise power over that person.  The insistence on not pronouncing the Divine Name indicates a recognition that no person can exercise power over God.

Another key element worth noting is the fact that even when the Israelites assembled at the Temple to worship, they themselves did not enter the Temple proper, remaining instead in the courtyard outside. Only the Priests could lawfully enter the temple, and only on the most solemn of occasions could they enter the Holy of Holies, which is the place where God's presence on earth was said to dwell, and is also the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept.  What this shows is a reverence for the Mystery of God's presence, which the people gathered to worship.

Present also in the actions of the Israelite people is a recognition of the transcendence of God's majesty and power. God's presence is known and mediated in and through real-life persons and events (the prophets, the Exodus from Egypt, etc.). But God is wholly other- and even when God does reveal His presence, it is always masked, as it was in the pillar of cloud/fire present at the Exodus. This is what leads to the belief that no one can see the face of God and live, and leads to Biblical Characters who do have an encounter with the Divine expressing great fear over said encounter.  This is why so many people struggled with understanding the concept of how God could become man in the Person of Jesus Christ.  If God truly was one, he should not have a physical presence- and moreover, he should not have a son!  This was one of the great mysteries that the Early Church had to wrestle with- and while we see remarkable explanations of the nature of Jesus the Christ present in the writings of St. Paul, it would take the Church until 381 to fully codify the Creedal formula we use today, and many more Church councils to combat the heresies that sprung up that attempted to either deny Christ's Divinity, or his Humanity.

So why is all of this important?  Because in order to fully understand what it means to Worship God, we must first recognize that God's transcendence plays a key role in worship. To worship is to enter into the Mystery of God's life and love for us- to have a reverence and respect for the Presence of God among us. Worship understood in this vein becomes a communal act, which transcends space and time.  True Worship unites us to the entire community of Faith, making present one of the great mysteries of our Faith- the Body of Christ, which is present not only in the Eucharist, but in the assembled body of Believers.

Here, the concept of Mystery and transcendence is of the utmost importance.  In contemporary society, people do not like unanswered questions. People instead want everything to be neat and organized, and they want to be able to have answers to all of life's great questions.  The unfortunate side effect of this is that it devalues the transcendent nature of God, and makes God into a commodity- something that we can keep in a neat little box, and can explain with a few trite words that tell us who our "god" is.  And here is the problem with worship expressed only through song- even though people are gathered together in a common space, there is no emphasis on community: The reality is very much that it's "just me and Jesus" and that's all that matters. All sense of mystery is lost, and we are left with a skeleton faith, which tells people that if they believe in "god," all will be well for them, and they will prosper.  There is no theology of suffering, and most importantly, no theology of Sacrifice. This personal "god" enables a person to see god as they want to, and not as He truly is- the transcendent Other, whom no human being could possibly explain.

So does this mean that Praise music is bad, and we shouldn't listen to it?  No, it doesn't. But what it does mean is that gathering together to "worship" at a concert every week cannot be the be-all and end-all of one's Faith Expression.  The fact that worship has become such is by and large a product of the secularization of society, and our modern scientific mindset. It demonstrates an unwillingness to enter into and wrestle with things beyond our understanding, and to admit that we don't have all the answers.   When we can begin to enter into mystery, without needing to find all the answers, then we can truly begin to understand what it means to Worship God.

In closing, I just want to state that the challenge for all of us who profess faith in God is to continually grow in our Faith. Even a person who has faith at the level described above can grow and deepen their knowledge of God. That should be the goal for all of us. Not to stay where we are comfortable, but to continually seek to grow in faith, even when it is difficult, or when challenges arise. That is how our faith gets strengthened.

There is so much more that I could say on this topic- I just wanted to express some basic thoughts. I hope reading this post has been helpful.

The Paschal Mystery: A Lesson in Humility

As I've been reflecting on the Events of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus over the past few days, I've come to a realization about the events that we celebrate: Something which has always been there, but I have never noticed before. And that realization is the role that humility plays in the Lord's Passion and Death.

Think about it: How many of us, if faced with the same situation that Christ was in, would have lashed out verbally at our persecutors? How many of us would have asserted our innocence with every last ounce of our strength?  How many of us would have made sure to let everyone know that our accusers and persecutors were in the wrong? I would be willing to bet that most of us would have- it's human nature.

And yet- Jesus did not.  In his agony in the garden, he wrestled with what he must face, but once he accepted the Father's will, he was silent, and opened not his mouth- just as we heard yesterday in the first reading from Isaiah.  He knew he was being wrongly put to death, and he suffered willingly, humbly obeying the will of the Father.  Why? So that, as St. Paul says in the Letter of the Romans, God's love might be known to us. "For God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:7)

So what does this mean for us? and how is the Passion of the Lord a lesson in humility for us?  In Luke's Gospel, after Jesus makes the first prediction of his Passion, Jesus states that "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me." (Luke 9:23) We are called to daily humble ourselves, and submit ourselves to God's will, and God's commandments.

Why is this? It is so that we may overcome our pride, and learn to truly follow Christ our Lord, as he leads us to the Father. The Exsultet, The great Hymn of praise sung at the Easter Vigil, speaks of this theme quite well, when it reminds us that the sanctifying power of the night in which Christ rose from the dead "dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty." In the the old translation of the Exsultet, this last line spoke that this night "humbles earthly pride."  In any case the message is the same: We are reminded that where Christ has gone, so we too are called to go- we are called to embrace our sufferings for the sake of Christ, as we humbly follow him to the Father.

This means several things: First of all, it means that we are going to have to do some things that are going to be uncomfortable. It means that we are going to have to give up certain things that seem good in order to strive after the supreme good, which is God.  So often in our pride, we tell ourselves that God's law cannot be right, because it deprives us of so much. But in the very act of saying so, we allow our pride to enable us to make a lesser good our "god," and in essence separate ourselves from God.  This is why pride is the mother of all sins, and has been since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, in order to become "like gods," when they were already like God, because he had made them in his own image!!!

And that is the biggest temptation of pride- to see ourselves as "gods," who can (and do) decide what is best for ourselves, often against what has been set forth in the Divine Law. Pride causes us to embrace a distorted world view, and obscures God's truth from us. This is why we must learn to embrace humility, so as to be able to walk in God's truth.  It may seem painful at first, but in time we discover that what we thought was "good" was really keeping us from God, and keeping us from growing in his love.  For to see the Commandments as burdensome is to miss the purpose that they serve.  For as the Apostle John says in his first Epistle, "For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith." If we see the commandments as a way to grow in love of God, then they are not burdensome, because they serve as guides to help us root out everything else which keeps us from growing in our love of God- They help us to more authentically follow the path which Christ is leading us on to the Father. Love of God demands sacrifice, and when we allow ourselves to make that sacrifice out of humility, our entire worldview changes. We start seeing with the eyes of faith, and not with the eyes of our pride, which have so often led us astray.

So as we prepare to celebrate this most holy night of nights, in which our Lord Jesus Christ passed from Death into life, let us ask God to help us to become more humble in our eyes, to bring down our pride, so that we may more faithfully obey the command of Christ to "deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him."

May God grant you Joy and peace during the coming Easter Season!

Holy Week and the Servant Songs from Isaiah: Part 4

See, my servant shall prosper,
he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him—
so marred was his look beyond human semblance
and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man—
so shall he startle many nations,
because of him kings shall stand speechless;
for those who have not been told shall see,
those who have not heard shall ponder it.

Who would believe what we have heard?
To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
each following his own way;
but the LORD laid upon him
the guilt of us all.

Though he was harshly treated, he submitted
and opened not his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter
or a sheep before the shearers,
he was silent and opened not his mouth.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
and who would have thought any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the living,
and smitten for the sin of his people,
a grave was assigned him among the wicked
and a burial place with evildoers,
though he had done no wrong
nor spoken any falsehood.
But the LORD was pleased
to crush him in infirmity.

If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.

Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him his portion among the great,
and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
because he surrendered himself to death
and was counted among the wicked;
and he shall take away the sins of many,
and win pardon for their offenses.

It is easy to see why the Church in her wisdom gives us this reading as the First Reading for the Commemoration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday.  The imagery is nothing short of powerful, and the connections between this passage, and the events of Christ's life seem to shine through even more clearly than they do in the other 3 servant songs.  

I could write an entire research paper on all of the ways in which Christ fulfills this passage, but this is not the space to do that- so I will do my best to be brief- especially since there is so much here!!

"There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him:" How many times in the Gospels do we hear people saying "is this not the Carpenter's son?" "What good can come from Nazareth?" "Do we not know his mother and his father?"  Jesus was indeed spurned, and held in no esteem, because the people saw him as a commoner, as someone who did not know what he was talking about.  Mark's Gospel even tells us that his own family thought he was crazy!

And yet, in the very next section of the text, the purpose of the servant becomes crystal clear: He, and he alone is to bear the weight of all our ills, all our sins.  But what is remarkable is the way in which he does this- The passage states:

Though he was harshly treated, he submitted
and opened not his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter
or a sheep before the shearers,
he was silent and opened not his mouth.

The silence with which the servant suffers for us speaks volumes: It shows that the servant is willing to undergo this suffering!!!! He has "set his face like flint" as we heard in the third song, and takes upon himself the guilt of us all.  This is not done without considerable agony, as even the Gospels record Jesus praying before his arrest "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass me by: Yet not as I will, but as Thou will." But once he knew that there was no turning back, he embraced his suffering willingly.

And even though in the end, all seems lost: The servant is buried with evildoers, and is cut off from the land of the living.  Yet, when all seems lost, there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the passage: The servant is promised a portion among the great, and a share of the spoils of the mighty- all because he surrendered himself, to take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.

This remarkable passage, written almost 6oo years before Christ, is fulfilled par excellence in Jesus.  And it's thought is echoed in the New Testament Writings too: Most notably in a passage from the Second Chapter of the First Letter of Peter.  It Reads:

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.

“He committed no sin,

and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.
He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

The remarkable thing about this passage is that Peter reminds us that Christ has left us an example to follow- meaning that we must learn to embrace our own sufferings as well, and unite them to the sufferings that Christ endured on the Cross- Remembering that suffering is not the end, and that we have a greater promise of hope because of the sufferings that Christ endured on the Cross.

Blessings to you on this Good Friday.

Holy Week and the Servant Songs from Isaiah: Part 3

The Lord GOD has given me 
a well-trained tongue,
That I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
And I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
My face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
He is near who upholds my right;
if anyone wishes to oppose me,
let us appear together.
Who disputes my right?
Let him confront me.
See, the Lord GOD is my help;
who will prove me wrong?

This reading holds a special place in my heart, because the first time I ever read at Mass (when I was in the First Grade) this was the reading I read.  I had practiced so much that by the time the Mass came around, I had it completely memorized- so much so that when I got up to read, I didn't even look at the paper- I recited the whole thing from memory.  And although my memory of this passage has faded (I tried to recite it from Memory when I read for our House Mass tonight, and couldn't do it) The imagery that first grade me created in my head surrounding this passage still remains in my head.

For some reason, that first image was of an old man, with a long grey beard (probably because that's how our Religion textbooks pictured a lot of Biblical Characters). But as I've gotten older, I must admit that it's become easier and easier to picture Jesus in this passage as well.  Think back to Sunday's reading of the Passion, when the soldiers mocked Jesus before leading him off to be crucified. He endured this treatment- not rebelling, not striking back. but allowing the soldiers to mistreat him. Why? Because he knows that because God is his help, he is not disgraced, and in the end, he will not be put to shame (even though it seems like the very act of enduring the treatment described would be very shameful!)  God provides his help to his servant- a fact which reaches its fullest culmination in the final servant song.

There is something more here too- something that goes beyond the suffering.  The first line of this third servant song should speak volumes to us, especially when applied to Christ.  Christ indeed had a well-trained tongue: The question is this: In our weariness, do we allow the words of Christ to rouse us? Do we allow his words to give us strength to keep going in the midst of our own weariness and trials?  All too often, it is far to easy to get caught up in the busyness of our lives, that we forget to allow some quiet time for Christ to speak to us in our hearts. As we continue to journey through this Holy Week, and prepare to celebrate the Sacred Paschal Triduum, now is the perfect opportunity to do just that.  Attend the Liturgies on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Spend some time in Adoration after the Holy Thursday Liturgy.  tune out the busyness, and allow Christ to speak to you in the silence of your heart. And look for the final installment of this series on the Servant Songs on Friday!! May God continue to bless you this Holy Week!

Holy Week and the Servant Songs from Isaiah: Part 2

Hear me, O islands,
listen, O distant peoples.
The LORD called me from birth,
from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.
He made of me a sharp-edged sword
and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.
He made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me.
You are my servant, he said to me,
Israel, through whom I show my glory.

Though I thought I had toiled in vain,
and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
Yet my reward is with the LORD,
my recompense is with my God.
For now the LORD has spoken
who formed me as his servant from the womb,
That Jacob may be brought back to him
and Israel gathered to him;
And I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD,
and my God is now my strength!
It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

This second of the four Servant Songs not only gives us a re-affirmation of the Servant's call- it is also the first indication that things might not go according to plan. Even though the servant has been called from Birth, and his name given to him from the time he was in the womb, he seems to be laboring in vain.

How true this is of Jesus' own ministry!  Luke's Gospel shows us that Jesus was named when the Angel of the Lord declared God's plan to Mary. He was indeed sent for a special purpose, but as is evidenced by the Gospels, the people he was sent to would not heed his message.

And Yet, Jesus did not lose hope- for he knew that God's plan would still be fulfilled.

The Passage gives the servant hope, because the servant realizes that even though his work seems to be in vain, and his message has not been received, his reward is to be found in the Lord, who will glorify him, and make him a light to the nations (as was also mentioned in the first Servant Song.)   God's glory will indeed be shown through his servant, but as so often happens in Scripture, it doesn't exactly happen in the way that people might expect. For as it says elsewhere in the book of Isaiah, "My ways are not your ways, says the Lord."  How true this is.  And as we turn to part 3, and look at the 3rd servant song, this will become even more clear!

Holy Week and the Servant Songs from Isaiah: Part 1

Holy Week is here once again- the week which culminates in the celebration of Jesus' Passion, Death, and Resurrection. But what has fascinated me in recent years is the Scripture Readings that the Church gives us in the first three days of Holy Week, culminating with the first reading at the Commemoration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday.  4 Passages from the Book of Isaiah, commonly referred to as the "Servant Songs" or the "Suffering Servant Songs," Each containing remarkable parallels to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

It is important to note from the beginning that these passages did not speak about the events of Jesus' to the Jews who would have heard them in the midst of the Exile in Babylon.  They most likely would have been interpreted very differently.  However, when the early Church read these passages, they spoke volumes.

So as we journey through Holy Week, how can these readings speak to us? Let's take the First Servant Song.

Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased,
Upon whom I have put my Spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
Not crying out, not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
A bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
Until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.

Thus says God, the LORD,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spreads out the earth with its crops,
Who gives breath to its people
and spirit to those who walk on it:
I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
To open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

Upon reading the passage, the themes of mercy and justice come to the fore.  The Servant has been chosen by God for a task, and has been given the Spirit of God to accomplish this task.  But what is remarkable is that he is to accomplish this task "not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street."  He is to be careful not to break the bruised reed, or to quench the smoldering wick, until the Justice of God has been established upon earth. The servant is called to open the eyes of the blind, and to free prisoners who are confined, and also to free those who live in darkness.  The servant is to be a light to the nations.

So how does all of this apply to Christ?  In looking at Christ's ministry, we can see him carrying out several of the actions described.  He proclaimed the Justice of God by calling people to repentance. He did not break the bruised or quench the smoldering, as is seen by his compassion towards those whom the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders castigated and condemned as sinners. And yet, in that merciful compassion, he still called those people to repentance.  He healed the blind, freed those who lived in darkness by driving out demons, healing paralysis, and even raising people from the dead.  He even became a "light to the nations" by preaching the message of repentance to the Gentiles- a ministry which the early church continued to do, so that the Gospel could spread to all nations.  

But what about suffering- if these indeed are the "suffering servant" songs?  The theme of suffering is important, although it doesn't seem to be prevalent in this song.  That is why it is important to read all of the songs in order, to see the full picture in order to relate everything that is said to Christ.  And that is what I plan to do over this Holy Week- so stay tuned tomorrow for part 2 of this Blog series!

May God Bless you during this Holy Week!