Fr. Rick Spicer

The opening line of the Declaration of Independence speaks to us of a dream many people have. “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Today, our country boasts being the most powerful nation in the world with its standard of living, its military might, its level of employment, and its natural resources. No wonder then that we are quick to say that God has blessed America. But are we happy? Apparently not.

Each year the UN, based on the Gallup World Poll, produces the World Happiness Report. The latest poll ranked the United States as 18th, falling four spots from two years ago, “in part because of the ongoing epidemics of obesity, substance abuse and untreated depression.”

Surprisingly, all the Scandinavian countries ranked in the top ten. Iceland, for example, ranked #4. How could this remote nation, isolated in the North Atlantic, which endures 20 hours of darkness each day during the winter, be so happy? One resident offered this explanation, “Our culture is colored by the harshness of nature. That is why Icelanders have a tolerant attitude to the problems of life.” This in turn gives them a strong sense of community.

Being blessed is the theme that runs through the readings today. In biblical Greek, blessed is translated to mean a person’s inner sense of happiness.

Up front, Jeremiah tells us some individuals are not happy because they trust solely in other people and in themselves. In doing so, they turn their hearts “away from the Lord.” Using some vivid images, he tells us that the unhappy person is like “a barren bush in the desert that stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth.”

So who are the happy people? Jeremiah then notes, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in the Lord.” They, he tells us, are like trees planted beside the waters with roots that go down deep. So lifegiving!

The refrain from the responsorial psalm echoes the same message, “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.” They are happy because they do not follow the counsel of the wicked and sit in the company of the insolent. Happy individuals delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on God’s law. The formula we find here for achieving happiness is the same as what we heard from Jeremiah.

In the Gospel, we hear Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. You are blessed, Jesus said, if you are poor or hungry, saddened or hated. Excuse me, Lord? His statements go against the thinking of our times and even his. So, what gives?

Jesus isn’t saying, “If you want to be happy, be poor, be hungry, weep, be hated or be insulted.” However he recognizes that the poor and hungry are those who because of their circumstances see their need for God. So long as we are self-sufficient, we may not feel the crucial need to rely on God. In doing so, we risk becoming the deadest of the dead by seeking our relief in addictions that fail to satisfy us.

The American dream suggests a different approach to finding happiness than what Jesus proposes. Bigger is better, staying young and healthy is what matters, freedom is the highest good; look out for number one; and being successful are supposedly the keys to happiness. And if they don’t work we turn to addictions that can lead to obesity or substance abuse, the modern day woes that Jesus cautions against. The American dream is what many of us live by but as Jesus wisely points out, such conventional wisdom doesn’t offer what we really want deep down in our hearts.

Jesus would tell us that to the contrary, small is good; old age and ill health can be blessings as well; compassion, not freedom is the highest good. Look out for others for loving them as Jesus loves us is the key to finding happiness.

If we take Jesus seriously, we will come to realize power and affluence are two of the greatest threats to the Christian way of life. We live in a world that praises efficiency, glorifies success and worships power. Our culture claims that happiness comes from them and freedom from any sort of pain. The trouble with relying on such material resources to bring happiness is that, doing so does not always work.

Those who wrote the Declaration of Independence were right. The pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right for God loves us unconditionally. But the happiness that God envisions resonates with what one finds in the prayer of St. Francis, “Lord, make mean instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.” St. Augustine once preached that happiness consists in the attainment of our desires, and, he emphasized, in having only the right desires.

These readings set before us happiness and misery with no ambiguity. Nothing can truly makes us happy if we turn away from God or disturb us if we trust in God. So, my friends, happy are we who hope in the Lord!

When God has an important message to get across to us, how do you suppose we receive it? A letter? A phone call? An e-mail message? A dream? A vision? A whisper?

In today’s readings, we find three engaging examples of ancient announcements God set to significant people. The vision of the Lord sitting on a lofty throne left Isaiah awed by such majesty. The sight of Jesus blinded Paul as he traveled to Damascus. After a long night of catching nothing, Peter hauls in a catch that nearly sinks his boat, leaving him dumbfounded.

Awed by such a sight, Isaiah bemoans, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips!” Paul admitted the error of his way when he confessed, “I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Simon Peter reacts in much the same way when he begs Jesus, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

We remember these men for their holiness, not their sinfulness. In spite of how they see themselves before God, all three of them then accepted God’s call. When the Lord asked, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah replied, “Here I am, send me!” Paul set right to work, working harder than any other apostle, proclaiming wherever he went that Jesus is Lord, claiming, “I have toiled harder than any of them.” Peter did the unthinkable, leaving behind his boat to follow Jesus.

When God called them, they didn’t hang up, or put God on hold. They answered. And the world is a better place today because they did.

Admittedly, God isn’t likely to use such extraordinary means to get our attention today. Very few, if any, of us have had a vision like Isaiah, or a knee dropping encounter like Paul did, or a fishing finale equal to Peter’s. instead God is likely to get in touch with us in a quieter manner.

God’s call is more likely to be that of a whisper than a thunderclap. God speaks to us in the living words of sacred scripture. Frequently God calls us through the voice of a friend, a parent, a counselor, a spouse, a relative, a teacher, or even a homilist. That is why listening is so important. In the midst of our noisy world, we must give God the chance to be heard.

When we have listened and heard the word of God, our reaction may be like that of Isaiah, Paul or Peter. We may think of ourselves as being unworthy, reluctant, or unwilling to respond, yet God will say to us, “I need you.”

The lesson here is about our vocation, which is to proclaim each in our own way, the good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus still needs roving ambassadors like Paul, and fishers like Peter to haul in those who have yet to be touched by his gift of salvation. Jesus needs you.

Certainly, Jesus is not calling most of you to be ordained or to the religious life or even to be lay ministers. However God is calling each one of us to work just as hard as Paul and Peter did to fill the boat of the church with renewed and new members. Do not be afraid to echo Isaiah’s response, “Here I am Lord, send me!”

Send me to share what I have with the less fortunate.
Send me to give a listening ear to someone who is hurting.
Send me to share the good news of your love and forgiveness with someone who is not baptized.
Send me to share the joy of the Eucharist with someone who is homebound.
Send me to feed the hungry.
Send me to proclaim the good news by teaching our faith to others.
Send me to protect the life of the unborn.
Send me to pray for those who see themselves as unworthy of your love.
Send me to give a helping hand to a neighbor.
Send me to share my talents so that others can see your majesty.
Send me to touch the lives of the unbelievers in our midst.
Send me to invite back those who are absent from our gathering.

Sin detracts us from being the good people God made us to be so I wouldn’t be surprised if my words have fallen on deaf ears and you are thinking to yourself, “Someone else can do that.” When we ignore God’s call to actively live our faith, we risk diminishing ourselves just as Isaiah and Peter once did.

That is the point a priest once made when visiting a member of his parish who was no longer attending Mass. As they sat in front of a blazing fire, he raked a flaming ember out of the fire. The two men sat in silence as they watched the ember die down, while the fire kept blazing. Getting the point, the man said that he would be back at Mass the following Sunday. He understood that alone it is nearly impossible to keep the flame of faith alive in our hearts.

So, imagine what an impact we could have on our own community as well as ourselves if we would all say honestly to God, “Here I am, Lord, send me!”

A well-known son returns home to a hero’s welcome. As we heard, all in the synagogue spoke highly of Jesus and were amazed at what he had to say. But soon the tide of popular opinion turns against him, but that is what Jesus expected. “No prophet,” he noted, “is accepted in his native place.” So long as he delivered what they wanted to hear, Jesus was welcomed but once he spoke the divine truth, in this case, that God’s kingdom welcomes everyone, both Gentiles and Jews as children of God, they drove him out of town.

Their reaction seems so outrageous. How could they go from a warm welcome to the “urge to kill” so quickly? To better understand their provincial feelings, consider this ancient Greek tale about a farmer who had a “perfect” wheat field. Everyone admired how every stalk was exactly the same height. When asked how he achieved it, he explained, “If a grain sticks its head above the others, I cut it off!”

The folks in Nazareth did the same thing. For thirty years they had known Jesus as the carpenter’s son. All that time, he had blended into their neighborhood. Now as a roving preacher and miracle worker, he stood out like an overgrown shaft of wheat, speaking a hard truth they didn’t want to hear that God’s favor also extended to the Gentiles. Going against their expectations of a Messiah, Jesus irked them so much that they drove him out of the town.

Before we pass judgment on the people in the synagogue for overreacting, consider our own reaction at times to the truth that God unconditionally loves all peoples. Might we be just as blind and narrow-minded to what God has to say today? Paul reminds us that loving is what being a follower of Jesus Christ is all about yet how often do we advocate issues that demonstrate anything but love? Racism, white supremacy, and opposition to immigration all suggest that like the people in Nazareth, not all of us want to hear, much less accept the truth. We act like the patient whose doctor told him the truth about his condition. “You are a very sick man. You probably won’t live more than a couple of weeks at most. You should settle your affairs. Is there anyone you want me to call?” The patient replied, “Yes, another doctor!”

When we don’t like what we hear, we seek a second opinion. How often as a child did you ask one parent for what you wanted if the other parent gave you the answer you didn’t want to hear?

When given a truth they don’t like, some people look for another “prophet” who will tell them what they want to hear. They leave the Church to find another one that will tell them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

Obviously, Jesus was not a politician. Politicians assume their success depends on saying what people want to hear. As the first reading from Jeremiah hints, prophets are seldom popular for they tell hard truths, making people confront unpleasant realities. Unlike politicians, their authority comes from God, not popular opinion. Successful prophets often rub people the wrong way, just as Jesus did that day in the synagogue.

Two traits hinder our society’s ability to accept what Jesus has to say. The first is secularism, which doesn’t actually deny the existence of God but sends the message that God is irrelevant. The fact that so few Catholics attend Mass regularly is evidence that even many of them believe that lie.

Then there is relativism, the flawed notion that you have your truth and I have my truth. Without using an objective truth to measure either claim, this amounts to saying one opinion is just as good as another opinion. Thus, many opinions are promoted as being morally right when in fact they are not.

Opinions, not truth, often set the moral tone of our society. The most glaring example of that is abortion. Made legal by our Supreme Court 46 years ago, abortion is an immoral value that has numbed our society’s conscience. Despite the evidence modern medicine provides to show that an unborn child is a living human being, such objectivity doesn’t matter for those who refuse to accept the truth that life is sacred. Recently, 14 Catholic senators, including our two, voted against a bill that would outlaw late term abortions. If they had voted, as their faith would dictate, this cruel and horrible practice would have been outlawed. What’s next? Infanticide?

As followers of Jesus Christ, are we willing to accept the truth that God unconditionally loves everybody, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, handicap and origin of birth?

Paul’s description of love is eloquent and thought provoking. Genuine love for anyone or any cause requires truthfulness. Ultimately, truth matters more than popular opinions do. Love gave Jesus and Paul the courage to always be truthful, no matter what. As Paul said, Love “does not rejoice with wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.”

Clearly, Jesus did not flow with the current of his times, nor does he today. He always spoke the truth, knowing that it would not be politically correct or well received. He continues to speak the truth today, using the Church as his means to do so. God is counting on us to keep the divine truth alive. Like Jesus and Jeremiah, we should move through the crowds, confident that God will strengthen us to face the challenges we will meet for upholding God’s moral truths.

For many people, January can be a dismal month. Gray skies and bitter winds don’t lift our spirits. Our mailboxes no longer bulge with cheery Christmas cards. Instead they are likely filled with credit card bills. We know that to be a Christian means to hope, but it’s hard to do that in January.
To break my winter blue January mood, I looked at the calendar and I am uplifted by a significant date we will soon celebrate, namely the 90thbirthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., a prophet, who like Isaiah, could not remain silent.

Dr. King never moaned about the fact that the wine of freedom was drying up in America. He instead believed deeply in the power of God’s grace not only to change water into wine, but to also change hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and love. His dream of making a great nation even greater stirred us to change then and even now.

On a summer day in 1963, he shared his dream. “I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed…we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

Fifty-six years later, that dream has yet to be fully realized. Much progress has been made since Dr. King first shared his dream. Gone are the ravages of segregation that once colored the Deep South yet blatant tolerance of racism still linger in our country that color the attitudes of many.

We follow a Lord who changes things: water into wine, bread into his body, old ways into new life, January into hope. But how does he do it? Through you and me, that’s how.

We heard the last words spoken by Mary recorded in scripture moments ago when she told the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Those words are directed, in a true sense, to every Christian who ever lived or will live.

Imagine God asking you, “Are you listening to my Son?” or “Are you doing what my Son told you to do?” What might you say? Perhaps we would defend ourselves, “But Jesus told us many things to do. What particular teaching do you have in mind God?”

God would likely reply, “I have in mind two teachings that my son, Jesus, repeated over and over. Love one another as I love you and forgive one another as I forgive you.”

We are quite familiar with these nuggets of Jesus’ teaching: to love one another as God loves us and to forgive one another, yet often do we make them our priority in life? In a world torn apart by anger, hatred, and conflict, we have the privilege of being living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
Let me give you this math quiz: 5+2 equals what? 7×7 equals how much? One nickel and one dime add up to what? Pretty simple math, huh? Conventional math is one thing, but what about determining the value of God’s math?

In gospel math, for example, 5 + 2 adds up to 5,000, when someone willingly gave up all they had, 5 loaves and 2 fish, that were then blessed, broken, and shared among a group of 5,000 gathered in Jesus’ name on a grassy hillside.

Seven times seven is the measure of unlimited forgiveness and unfailing reconciliation; always seeking out the lost, finding a place for the rejected, healing the hurt and the wounded, welcoming the stranger or back the prodigal.

A single nickel and dime, when given out of the same love and sacrifice as the poor widow demonstrated once with her mite in the temple equals eternity in the Kingdom of God.

Christ comes to change the bottom line, the equations, the trends, the standards by which we live our lives, the way we deal with one another, the factors that go into the decisions we make, the things we value and seek for ourselves.

In Christ, the “watered down wine” of rationalized self-centeredness is replaced with the “new wine” of compassion and gratitude for the life God has given us, namely, the “new wine” of honor and respect for every human being as a child of God, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, place of birth, and those in a womb yet to be born, the “new wine” of justice, mercy, and peace for every human being as a child of God, which Dr. King dreamed would be the hope shared someday by all peoples, providing them with the same hope God generously offers us in this lifetime and the next.

David Whyte, a local renowned poet, wrote a poem, entitled Old Interior Angel, which tells the story of a strong confident young man hiking in the Himalayas who comes to a broken footbridge, dangling hundreds of feet above a rocky stream. The cables were snapped and the wooden planks tumbled together uselessly. Clearly, he could go no further. He sits down and tries to talk himself into approaching the trembling, ruined bridge, but cannot bring himself to cross. Admitting defeat, he decides to turn back.

Just as he is about to leave, an old mountain woman, bent and barefoot, bearing an enormous basket balanced on her back, comes along, collecting dung for fuel along the path. Seeing the young man, she smiles and offers the traditional greeting, “Namaste, I greet the God in you.” (na-ma-stay)

The young man bows in response, but before he looks up again, she is gone, walking ahead straight across the crumbling bridge that seemed to him so impassable. Without thinking, swept in the wake of her courage and trust, he says, “Namaste,” and follows her across.

I like that poem because of the beauty and wisdom it contains. But I also like it for another reason. It helps me understand something very important about today’s feast.

When I read the gospels carefully and prayerfully, I find myself wondering at times, “Why did Jesus wait so long to begin his ministry? Why didn’t he begin preaching in his twenties instead of waiting until he was thirty? Didn’t he know the whole world was crying out to hear what he had to say? What was Jesus waiting for?

The answer to that question is simple, yet important. Jesus was waiting for John the Baptist to first call the people to repentance. To better understand even that scenario, I ran across an insight on the Jews that was new to me.

Until John the Baptist appeared proclaiming his message of repentance, no Jew ever thought of being baptized. Jews practiced baptism, but only for converts, that is, people who became Jews. William Barclay explains, “No Jew ever conceived that he, a member of God’s chosen people, could ever need baptism. Baptism was for sinners, and no Jew ever conceived of himself as a sinner shut out from God.

“Now for the first time in their national history, the Jews realized their own sin and their own need for God. Never before had there been such a unique national movement of penitence and of search for God. This was the very moment for which Jesus had been waiting. Men and women were conscious of their sin and conscious of their need for God.”

The Holy Spirit had at last awakened the Jews to an awareness of God’s intimate presence in their midst and Jesus now knew this was the time for him to venture forth and proclaim a gospel of repentance. At his baptism, Jesus bridged the gap between God and humanity, enabling us to know God intimately.

How then does this event apply to us in this time and place? Perhaps the lesson for us is this: Jesus cannot begin to act in our lives and transform us until, like the people of ancient Israel, we are ready to let him do so. Nor can Jesus do anything to make us ready. Only we can do that.

And the way we make ourselves ready to let Jesus work in us is to recognize that we cannot travel through life alone. We must first admit to our need for Jesus in our daily lives. When we reach that point, Jesus can then act in our lives to transform us into what God made us to be.

In the gospel, we heard that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus as he emerged from his baptism. When the heavens opened, God came into their midst and into ours. That same Spirit descends and rests upon us at our baptism, enabling us to know God intimately. It is what the people of the Himalayas call “Namaste,” which means the God in us. The spirit, Namaste, speaks to us in the deepest and most hidden parts of our hearts of the love and compassion of God. It is the very life of God animating us and leading us; it is the well spring of grace and wisdom, of courage and perseverance, enabling us to become people of justice, peace, compassion and goodness that out of love God created us to be.

I long thought this feast was an odd way to close out the Christmas season; after all, Jesus is now an adult, but now I see why. If the message we heard at Christmas, summed up by the angels as peace on earth and good will toward all, is to be manifested in the coming year, it can only happen through us. And that can’t be done unless we freely choose to do what we can, individually and collectively as a faith community, to heed God’s call to justice, knowing that God is in us to empower us for this holy undertaking.

The season of Christmas closes with this Mass but we are by no means finished with Christmas. There is much to be done to complete the great poem of Jesus’ birth. The good news spoken by angels continues to unfold as we venture in the year ahead to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger either in our midst or seeking to migrate here, liberate the imprisoned, and bring peace to others. And we can do so for Namaste, God is in us.