2006

I will never forget the card my friend, Sr. Bea, gave me when I graduated from the seminary 21 years ago. The cover featured a monk busily writing on a scroll. Looking up, he says, “Your graduation should be listed among the sacred events in the Bible…” Inside the message continued, “along with the other miracles!”

I suspect most people think of miracles as being magical, unnatural acts. More than once I have seen people near death make a comeback after I had anointed them. As a child, my parents took me to Lourdes, hoping that my hearing could be restored. That didn’t happen, but countless crutches line the wall of the grotto there, testifying to the many miracles that have taken place.

 

Today’s gospel passage features two miracle stories, one sandwiched inside the other, intended to make a strong statement: Jesus has the power to heal. Last week, we saw that he had the power to calm the winds and the sea. The disciples had turned to him in their desperate need. This time, we find a synagogue official and a woman who had been ill for 12 years both turning to Jesus for a miracle.

 

For Jairus, the synagogue official, to seek Jesus out demonstrates that we would go to any extreme to save a person’s life, especially the life of someone whom we love. The child’s life was saved, but we never hear of her again so whatever happened to her? Like Lazarus, she was given a new lease on life, but at some appointed time, she did die. 

 

Regardless of our gender, ethnicity, religious or sexual orientation, income, education, assets, or physical health, some day that too will be our fate. There is an appointed time in the heavens for us to die.  When death happens, some people might try to reason that a person’s death is God’s will, but as the passage from Wisdom points out, “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.”  If that line surprised you, go back and read the story of creation. When God made man and woman, he gave them a special participation in his own divine life. In his plan, God created us to be imperishable but, as Wisdom also points out, “by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who belong to his company experience it.”  

 

Some people blame God when death claims the life of a loved one, so out of anger or grief, they turn away from God. I suspect they never realize that they have done just what they devil hoped they would do, distance themselves from God at a time when they need God the most.

 

Fr. John Powell shares the story of a former student who acted as an “atheist in residence” in his theology of faith class. Tommy constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the notion of an unconditionally loving God. At the end of the course as he turned in his exam, he cynically asked, “Do you think I will ever find God?” To shock him, Fr. Powell said, “No.” “Oh,” Tommy replied, “I thought that was the product you were pushing in this class.”  Just as he was about to walk out of the room, Fr. Powell called out, “Tommy, I don’t think you will ever find him, but I’m absolutely certain God will find you!” 

 

A few years later, Tommy came by to see Fr. Powell, who hardly recognized him for he was now terminally ill with lung cancer. His long hair had fallen out due to chemotherapy, but his eyes were bright and his voice firm as he shared his story, telling Fr. Powell that it was a matter of weeks.

 

“What is it like to be only 24 and dying?” “Well, it could be worse,” Tommy said. “Like what?” “Like being 50 and having no values or ideals, like thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in life.”

 

“What I really came to see you about is something you said to me on the last day of class. I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was not all that intense at that time. But when the doctor told me the lump was malignant, I got serious about locating God. I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven but God did not seem to come out.  I decided that I didn’t really care…about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that.

 

“I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I remembered something else you had said: ‘the essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life without ever telling those you loved that you loved them.’ To make a long story short, that is what Tommy did, beginning with his father, his mother, and his little brother. “I was sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long. Here I was, in the shadow of death and I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.

 

“Then one day, I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him. Apparently, God does things in his own way and at his own hour. But the important thing is that he was there. He found me. You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him.”

 

St. Therese of Lisieux tells us that we are saved by God’s love alone. Not when we make God a private possession, a problem solver or an instant consolation in time of need, but when we open ourselves to his love. That, my friends, is a miracle we can all experience. The choice is up to us.

An elderly woman named Maude had a window seat on a big 747 that had just taken off for Rome. She had been saving for years to fulfill her dream to visit the Eternal City. But this was her first flight and she was terrified. Even the stately presence of four bishops sitting behind her didn’t help. With fear and trembling, she peeked out the window just as one of the plane’s engines broke loose from the wing and disappeared into the clouds. “We’re going to die!” she cried out, “We’re going to die!”

 

The pilot then announced that everything was under control and that they could fly back to New York with three engines and land safely. But Maude continued to cry out, “We’re going to die!” A flight attendant finally said to her, “Don’t worry, my dear, God is with us. We have only three engines, but look, we have four bishops.” To which Maude replied, “I’d rather have four engines and three bishops, thank you!”

 

Judging by the crowds at the airport on any given day, fear of flying isn’t common but fear is something we can all relate to.  For me, the most memorable line ever spoken by President Franklin Roosevelt dealt with the reality of fear. In his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, he said, “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…nameless, unreasoning terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

 

The gospel scene from Mark places us in the midst of a storm on the Sea of Galilee. We find the disciples terrified and for good reason.  These storms could come literally out of the blue with shattering and terrifying suddenness much like tornados do in the Midwest. You might have thought what fools these men were to go out but all was calm when they left the shore to sail to the other side.

 

In this short passage, Mark portrays them as being quite afraid, so much so that they asked Jesus, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  Perhaps you have asked the same question, presuming your misfortune to be God’s will.  God is omnipotent but God doesn’t decide the events of our lives; they are a byproduct of our free will, either the choices we make or others make.

 

Considering how often some disciples had been on the lake, that must have been one dandy storm.  Still, after quieting the sea, Jesus asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” What an interesting question. “Do you not yet have faith?” Most likely they had faith or at least they thought they had faith. After all, the disciples had been traveling with Jesus for some time and seen a few miracles but if Jesus had to ask that question, maybe what they thought was faith was too shallow to really be faith.

 

The disciples were in danger, all right, but their most dangerous threat wasn’t the weather or a leaky boat. It was the temptation to give up and yield to fear. It was that “nameless, unreasoning terror which paralyzes” that FDR spoke of.  Fear has the potential to incapacitate us. Unless something overrides it, fear short-circuits the system.

 

And what might that something be?  As far as Mark is concerned, Jesus is that something that can free us from whatever fears we have just as he did for the disciples in the midst of that storm.  

 

In the 20 years I have been a priest, I have weathered a fair number of storms and I imagine most couples have done the same in their marriages, be it dealing with the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a life-changing illness or injury, rejection of some kind, to name but a few.  In any case, you can probably relate to Job in his despair or to the disciples in their fear.  Each time, you somehow reacted to the situation. Did you panic? Or did you pray? And if you prayed, did you feel as though God was responding? More than once, people have lamented that praying seemed so useless. God isn’t answering me!

 

I would tell them, that quite likely God is answering them but not in the way they wanted their prayers to be answered. Prayer is like a conversation and if we are to hear God then we need to be still long enough so that we can hear God. Recall what Jesus said, “Quiet! Be still!”  Too often we do all the talking when we pray.  In times of trouble, the best advice we have is this: Be still and listen to God. With the TV blasting in the background or our ears cabled to iPODs, we aren’t giving ourselves much chance to hear what God has to say. The clatter of our noisy world drowns out God’s quiet whisper but when we take time to quiet down, we will discover for ourselves that God is indeed there.

 

Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta once said, “The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith.” With faith, no trouble is too much. That is the point Jesus and Job were both making in these readings.  With faith, grounded in prayer, “no storm,” as the refrain to one song puts it, “can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging.”

 

Years ago, I was once in a fire, so I can relate to the fear of a young boy when his house was on fire. His father stood on the lawn with outstretched arms, yelling, “Jump, son! I will catch you!” All the boy could see from the second floor was smoke, fire and blackness. Naturally, he was afraid. “Jump!” his father said again. “But, Daddy, I can’t see you.” His father replied, “But I can see you and that is all that matters.” God can see us and that, my friends, is all that matters.

What is culture? That question prompted much discussion at our gathering of priests a few years ago. Our keynote speaker defined culture as a collection of shared ideas that enable us to better understand who we are. We are shaped by the culture we live in. Certainly there is much difference between the culture that shapes America and the countries of the Middle East. You could even argue that here in the Pacific Northwest we have a different outlook on life than those who live in the Midwest or New England.

The first thought that comes to mind when I think of the culture of the Pacific Northwest is what I call radical individualism. Other traits include a respectful religious relationship with nature, suspicion of authority outside of self and a desire to live free from unnecessary social restraints.

 

In the midst of our beautiful outdoors, especially when the mountains are out, as the expression goes, we are inclined to “get away from it all,” and seek peace and God elsewhere.

I would not be surprised one bit if my sister and her husband spend this afternoon sailing out in Puget Sound. Being outdoors whenever possible is the creed for many who live in the Pacific Northwest. 

 

Judging by the drop in attendance at Mass when summer rolls around, I suspect many Catholics practice this creed as well. They excuse themselves from the responsibility and obligation to attend Mass each week, claiming that along with their neighbors, they prefer to find God in nature.

 

That brings to mind a question. Can a Catholic also be an individualist? As Catholics, we belong to another culture, one in which the community is an important trait. Consider this. A brick by itself remains just a brick, but when placed along side other bricks, it has the potential to become a cathedral!

To approach God solely as an individual is to overlook the two key elements stressed in today’s readings; covenant and sacrifice. To ignore either of them is to ignore what being a Catholic is all about.

 

In biblical times, covenants were sealed with sacrifices to symbolize the total commitment of the parties involved to one another. That would then be closed with a meal, symbolizing that the covenant was intended to nurture and protect everyone involved.

 

The passage from Exodus recounts for us how the Israelites entered into a covenant with God at Mt. Sinai, sealing it with a ritual sacrifice. In response, the people all proclaimed, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.” In return, God provided them with protection, guidance, and freedom from slavery.

 

Shaped by the culture of his times and the tradition of the Jewish Passover, Jesus used the Last Supper to enter into a covenant with his disciples. What he did was unusual in that after he enacted the covenant, he then gave his life on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice to seal this new relationship between God and his followers.

 

Each time we celebrate the Mass, we continue to celebrate the meal Jesus first shared with his disciples. Offered to nourish our spiritual lives, the Eucharist is a reminder that our relationship with God is more than just a friendship. When we receive Holy Communion, we reaffirm our commitment to Jesus Christ and the faith we profess as members of the Catholic community.

 

What makes keeping our end of the agreement difficult for some of us is not only the individualism that colors our culture, but also the fact that few of us really understand what a covenant is. Simply put, a covenant is a binding agreement. Even though God designed marriages to be covenants, many couples treat their marriages as a contract. Just in case their union does not last until death do they part, some couples even sign prenuptial agreements.

 

If the terms of a contract become too inconvenient or are not met, people will find a way to end the relationship. Marriages that are crumbling often end in divorce. Some employers treat their employees in the same way. Gone are the days when a company would retain an employee until retirement. Instead, some employees never know if they will be getting pink slips when they receive their paychecks.

 

In contrast to the me-first mentality of a contract, a covenant is an agreement in which the parties involved agree to share their lives with each other. Jesus shares his life with us in the Eucharist, giving us his body and blood to feed us.  In return, how willing are we to share our lives with him?

 

A covenant is a very close relationship built on love. It was Jesus’ sacrifice, made real for us in the Eucharist that has made this covenant between God and us a reality that has stood the test of time. Do we really care or are we drawn instead to find God elsewhere on our own terms?

 

Fortunately this covenant with God is ours forever. God has no intention of negating this covenant, but if we want to benefit from all that it has to offer, then we have to let go of our inclination for individualism and strive to make the faith community an important part of our lives. When we allow our Catholic faith to be part of the culture that shapes our lives and times, we honor our side of the covenant.

What happened to the disciples on Pentecost brings to mind the story of a certain teenager who also found himself transformed in ways he never expected. 

 

One day he and his mother were rummaging through a second hand store when they spotted a thick black wool chesterfield topcoat. The coat, with a velvet black collar, elegant tailoring and fancy label was like new. Whoever owned it had taken good care of it. And the price was an unbelievable $28.

 Dark woolen topcoats were very popular with the kids at the boy’s high school but they usually cost several hundred dollars. The teenager slid his arms down into the heavy satin lining of the sleeves and buttoned the coat. He turned from side to side, eyeing himself in the mirror with a serious expression that soon broke into a smile. It was a perfect fit.

 

The boy, whose name was John, wore the coat to school the next day. “How did your friends like your new coat?” his mother asked. “They loved it,” John said as he carefully draped the coat over the back of a chair.

 

Over the next few weeks, John’s mother noticed a change in her son. Agreement replaced contrariness; quiet, reasoned discussion replaced arguments. John became more mannerly, more thoughtful, and eager to please. He was more generous and patient with his younger brother, chores were willingly and cheerfully done, and his homework was completed without nagging.

 

When she mentioned the change to one of John’s teachers, she was told, “It must be the coat!” John’s mother had this to say, “John and I both know we should never mistake a person’s clothes for the real person within them. But there is something to be said for wearing a standard of excellence in thought, speech and behavior, and for matching what is on the inside with what is on the outside.”

 

Like the effect John’s coat seemed to have on him, the Spirit of God certainly had an impact on the disciples. Until Pentecost, which came 50 days after Easter, they had been hiding in the upper room, uncertain what to do. Jesus had promised to send them the Holy Spirit and when that happened, as we heard from our first reading, they finally understood all that Jesus had shared with them during his ministry. They were empowered to venture forth and share the good news with anyone who would listen. No longer timid or intimidated, the disciples preached God’s message of love, forgiveness and salvation, not just in their native Aramaic, but in the languages of those who were listening.

 

From its humble beginnings in Jerusalem, the Church grew, eventually reaching all the corners of the world. Its many believers were joined together by a common faith in spite of their different languages and cultures. What has enabled the Church to grow, as Paul tells us, is the ongoing presence of the Spirit enabling us to share our many different gifts and ministries.  The Church is vibrant when its members all see themselves as coming together and using their different gifts and talents to follow the example of the early disciples.

 

I recall the day when I first understood the point Paul was making here that we make up the body of Christ.  As with our own bodies, some parts may not seem as important as other parts. I could lose a finger and still have a useful hand but without the rest of me, that finger could not survive. That image strongly impressed upon me how important the faith community of the Church is for my spiritual wellbeing. Likewise, the well-grounded faith community depends on its many members to pool together their talents and treasures to instill new life in the parish. 

 

Simply put, God is counting on all of us to do our share in proclaiming the good news of salvation by word and example. Some of us forget that the mission of being a disciple was entrusted to us at our baptism.  You might be thinking to yourself that faith is a private matter between you and God. If that is the case, then you aren’t seeing the whole picture of what being Christian is about.

 

A well-rooted faith depends on all the parts being put together: scripture, sacraments, prayer, study, worship, and a community of believers. Leave out any one of these essential components and we will be left with a faith that could easily fall apart in the face of a personal crisis.

 

Pentecost celebrates the reality that we are not meant to be a scattered bunch of self-reliant individuals. Rather, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to make God’s will our will. With the gifts of the Holy Spirit that include wisdom, piety, understanding, knowledge, and fortitude, we have been transformed so that we can make our broken world aware of God’s healing presence.

 

At baptism, we were clothed, not with a chesterfield coat, but with a white garment. As that was being done, we were told to bring our Christian dignity with the help of our family and friends unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.

 

Likewise, on this Pentecost, we are invited to put on the Spirit just as the disciples did, matching our outer selves with the grace and peace of our inner selves where the love of God dwells. Dare we accept God’s invitation to let the Spirit dwell in our hearts and make a difference in our lives? 

His name was Josef Shultz. He was a German soldier on duty in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. One day he heard his name called out along with seven others. The soldiers hitched their rifles, assuming they were going out on another routine patrol. They were led to a hilltop where they found eight Yugoslavians, standing there, three women and five men. When the soldiers were about fifty feet away, they realized what their mission would be.

 

After they had lined up, their sergeant barked out, “Ready!” and they lifted their rifles. “Aim,” and they got their sights. Suddenly in the silence that followed, there was the thud of a rifle falling on the ground. Everyone stopped and watched as Private Shultz then walked toward the Yugoslavians. His sergeant called him back but he pretended not to hear him.

 

Instead, he walked to the mound of the hill where he joined hands with the eight Yugoslavians. There was a moment of silence, then the sergeant yelled, “Fire!” and Private Shultz died, his blood mingled with that of the innocent women and men. Found on his body was an excerpt from St. Paul that read, “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.”

 

That is quite a command Jesus gives us in today’s gospel. “Love one another as I have loved you.” He then adds, “No one has a greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

 

Even so, the thought of doing what Private Shultz did may seem so unreal to us. As one husband observed, “I can hardly lay down my newspaper to listen to my wife. How am I supposed to lay down my life for someone?” Yet, Jesus isn’t imposing an impossible mission on us.

 

Granted, not everyone is loveable nor are we always in a loving mood. While very few of us will ever have to literally lay down our lives, all of us are being called to love one another through smaller deaths to ourselves. This we do when we put aside our preoccupations for someone else like the parent giving undivided attention to a child. We die to ourselves through common acts of courtesy when we let someone go ahead of us in line, listen to someone pour out their troubles, or when we do a favor for our neighbor.

 

Jesus tells us that we demonstrate our love for him when we keep his commandments. To him, love isn’t a matter of affection but of action. Don’t think of the commandments as a list of do’s and don’ts that restrict your freedom. Instead see them as avenues for demonstrating your love. Compare them to the little signs lovers do for one another, like the husband who buys flowers for his wife on special occasions or the wife who surprises her husband with his favorite meal.

 

Love is a matter of giving. Not only of self-giving, as Private Shultz demonstrated on that Yugoslavian hillside, but also of forgiving.

 

Being human, we sin against one another and against God. In doing so, we hurt one another, even members of our family. For that reason, we must be willing to forgive, not just once, but many times over. Unless we are willing to forgive when the need arises, we cannot expect our love to survive, much less thrive.

 

A couple in Australia found themselves in a heated argument one day. Suddenly the husband broke through the tension, walked over to his wife, tapped her gently on the arm and said, “Hey, tell me something. Tell me something.”

 

Reluctantly, his wife’s snarl relaxed into a half smile before she volunteered her half of the equation. “I love you,” she said and they embraced. That little exchange, repeated many times during their 40 years of marriage symbolized for them a powerful decision that no issue was so big that they would allow it to come between their love for each other.

 

Could you say the same about your marriage? Are there issues that keep you apart from God and one another? Issues that threaten the bond of love that joins you together as a family or us as a faith community? Forgiving others isn’t always easy, yet that is the promise we make in the Lord’s Prayer whenever we ask God to forgive us.  Is our pride so big or so important that we are willing to risk the loss of love that sustains us or the loss of God’s forgiveness?

 

Love is also a matter of thanksgiving. Love is the one thing all of us are able to give God, and we do so when we gather here for worship. When we have nothing else to give to God, at least we can still give thanks to show that the love we have received is indeed very much appreciated.

 

“This command I give you: love one another.” Notice, it isn’t a suggestion; it’s a command. Love one another. There are no qualifications, conditions, or limitations.

 

Love one another…even the mean-spirited, the grouchy, the ungrateful, the unreasonable. Jesus didn’t give us an impossible mission for each time we seek to be self-giving, forgiving, and full of thanksgiving, we are fulfilling this mission entrusted to us.