2009

The Suffering Servant in Every Age

In our first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, the prophet describes the Suffering Servant of God, the Messiah, the one who will take on the sins of others to liberate God’s people.

Jesus, the Messiah did just that. He conquered sin and death so that we can do the same. But Jesus did not put us in heaven. He set the model. It is up to us to cooperate. Jesus’ model of life emphasized the building of the Kingdom of God on earth, recognizing that it would be perfected in heaven by all who have learned how to love. For heaven is indeed the Kingdom of God perfected, and we must be perfected in love to get there.

The Old Testament prophets like Isaiah taught that it was not enough to simply call oneself a Jew. One had to live one’s faith, one had to build the Kingdom of God. Jesus extended a similar requirement to his followers. For us it not enough to simply call oneself a Christian or a Catholic. We must live our faith. Our second reading from the letter of St. James makes this crystal clear. A faith without works, St. James says, is dead.

The principles of the Kingdom of God can be found in the latter chapters of the book of the prophet Isaiah from which our first reading is drawn. They are the principles that, Jesus tells his apostles in our Gospel reading from Mark, for which he will die.

The concepts of the Kingdom of God include a rather clear concept of justice.  It is a Kingdom that rejected the economics of inequality that was inherent in slavery. It was a call for ALL to be able to enjoy the fruits of God’s creation and a rejection of oppression and exploitation. It was a rejection of religious and political leaders who sought to be God’s ventriloquist, warping God’s message into one that favored some, like them and their Roman masters, at the expense of others.

The principles of the Kingdom of God bothered many comfortable Jews of Jesus’ day.  For the Kingdom of God rejects the economics of inequality, oppression and exploitation that were clearly present in Jesus’ time. It rejects a timid faith of dusty, arid rules and regulations that did not offend the oppressors of the time but added to the burdens of ordinary people. Small wonder the political establishment of Jesus’ time wanted to kill him. 

But Jesus never lacked for courage. He would say many things that would offend the ruling religious classes of his day, so much so that they would eventually find a way to kill Him. But his message would not die out with his earthly life. The loving covenant of God was extended to all people. A billion of them now call themselves Christians.

Fortunately, the teachings of Jesus, passed down to us through our Church give us an understanding of what needs to be done as we pick up our cross and follow Him. Jesus and His Church have given us some important principles in which to build the Kingdom of God. They include:

    the promotion of human dignity at all stages of human life;
    the promotion of the community and the common good of the society in which we live, a fundamental right to life and a right to the things required for human decency (food, shelter, clothing, employment, health care, and education) as well as personal responsibility for ourselves, our families, and society;
    a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable in our society;
    the right and responsibility of all, not just some, to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society;
    the promotion of the dignity of work and rights of workers, including the right to productive work, decent and fair wages, safe working conditions, and the right to organize and join unions;
    the holding of God’s material creation in common, with the right to private property but not excessive wealth when others lack the basic necessities of life;
    protective stewardship of God’s creation, caring for and preserving it for future generations;
    solidarity with the entire human family and its needs, not just one or another nation;
    a constructive not oppressive role for government in promoting human dignity, protecting human rights, and building the common good; and
    the promotion of peace through mutual respect and confidence between peoples and nations tempered by legitimate measures of self-defense.   

            These are the principles of the Kingdom of God. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you visit the web page of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, www.usccb. org. The principles of the Kingdom of God are the principles of a just Catholic faith to which Jesus calls us, no less now than in the time of Jesus.

In all times and places, one can expect that the call for such a new loving covenant, a new Kingdom, will encounter opposition. In speaking about the Church’s message about carrying out the Kingdom of God, a Latin American bishop once noted, “when they see me feeding a poor person they call me a Christian; when I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist.”

Some in this parish from time to time have called me a communist. As you can see, they can’t call me late for dinner. But I am here to preach faithfully about the teachings of the Church, whether they encounter opposition or not. And my travails are trivial compared to many others who have fought for Christian social justice, who have been Suffering Servants in the model of Jesus. Many have died believing in the Kingdom of God and fighting for its carrying out on this earth.

We remember, for example, how some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks gave their lives to save others by forcing the terrorists to crash a plan in rural Pennsylvania rather than at the U.S. Capitol. At the cost of their own human lives but certainly not their human dignity, they saved the human lives of so many others who they never even met.

By contrast, there are those who lack courage and honesty and try to make up for it with their hostility. We see this in the current debate about health care. The Catholic Church supports universal health care as a right not a privilege. It has not endorsed any single proposal to do this, and there are a lot of different ways to get there. And this right is not morally acceptable if it is not accompanied by the protection of human life at all of its stages.

So in the health care debate, on one end are those who don’t like Catholic teaching on abortion and don’t like the Catholic position that supports universal health care, but not if our tax dollars are used to increase the use of abortion.

On the other hand, we can see in town hall meetings across the country this summer, fear tactics, as those who seek to carry out the Catholic teaching for universal health care as a basic human right are called Nazis and supporters of death committees, even though the Catholic Church itself, indeed our own Archdiocese, supports end-of-life counseling.

Our political leaders are threatened with assassination. Many of us find ourselves shouted down and ridiculed. But the ultimate death panel, brothers and sisters, is the use of slander and deceit to kill efforts to bring about universal health care. This all to real death panel kills 20,000 people are year, because people can’t get insurance or face the cruel irony of losing it because they got sick. 17,000 people lose their insurance every day.

Opponents of the Kingdom of God, whatever their motivations, have learned the lessons of the Pharisees well. Scare people and they will believe anything. Inject fear and people will cling to what they have, even as they are losing it.

But there is nothing new about this. Catholics will never be fully popular with some when we promote the Kingdom of God and its covenant, be it opposition to abortion, support for universal health care, the free practice of our faith, or anything else. We may not even be popular with some sitting in our very pews. But let us pray brothers and sisters that we utilize the Holy Spirit’s gift of courage in promoting God’s covenant, the Kingdom of God, no matter how unpopular. For living that covenant, building the Kingdom of God, is the joy of being a Christian, the challenge of being Suffering Servants and the only real path to salvation.
 

Two friends were walking down a crowded city sidewalk in the midst of a typical noisy rush hour. People bustling, horns honking, engines roaring, vehicles of all sizes rumbling, sirens blaring all about them, when suddenly amid the noise, one friend suddenly turned to the other and said, “Listen, a cricket!”

“Come on!” the second friend shot back. “How can you possibly hear a cricket in the midst of all this noise? Are there even crickets here in the city?”

“But I did hear a cricket.” She stopped to listen again, then, with her cynical friend in tow, crossed the busy street to a big cement planter. Gently pushing aside the petunias, she revealed a little brown cricket. “That is amazing!” her friend said. “How could you have possibly heard it?”

“There is no secret,” she explained. “Watch.” Reaching into her purse, she pulled out some loose change and dropped a quarter on the sidewalk. Despite the deafening noise around them, everyone within fifteen feet turned their head to see where the sound of the money was coming from. The woman turned to her doubting friend and said, “”See, it is all a matter of what you are listening for.”

Being hearing impaired all my life, I have at times envied the ability of some people to hear certain sounds like the purr of a cat.  With the help of good hearing aids, I hear the noise, but I often struggle to discern what is being said in noisy places or when I can’t see the face of the person speaking to me.  If I manage to catch the message the first time around, that would prompt my mother to accuse me of selective hearing.

For anyone with normal hearing, this gospel passage may seem irrelevant, but there is a lesson here for all of us, regardless of how well we hear. In the midst of all the noise in our lives, we can easily become “deaf” to the presence of God and even those around us.

Our days are crammed full with too many words and too much talk. We live in the midst of 24/7 cable television news, twitter, facebooks, bluetooths, or texting one another on blackberries.  We keep in touch with one another on our cell phones while shopping, waiting for the ferry, or commuting. Without a doubt, we are much more into communication than we were three decades ago but are we listening to what really matters?

Sadly, many people have grown deaf to the words of Jesus, the thoughts of the Bible and the message of the Church because the loudness and clutter of this world’s noise has made them spiritually deaf.

Jesus said to the deaf man, “Be opened!” Those are words we all need to hear. This encounter between Jesus and the deaf man captures the relationship between God and us. Face it; we are not always open to hearing the word of God, much less listening to what God has to say. The noise of our surroundings, of Madison Avenue, sports and worldly values often muffle and silence the Word that God speak to us through scripture, the teachings and the preaching of our Church.

Think of how many conversations fall short of being just that because one person refuses to listen to what the other person is saying. Instead of listening, that person has any number of rebuttals lined up for dismissing what is being said. The misunderstandings that ensue sometimes are resolved when the message is finally heard, then understood.

How open are we to hearing what Jesus has to say to us through scripture, the teachings of our church and the preaching of its ministers? Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees because we become upset or hung up by something a homilist has said or by a certain teaching or regulation of the Church, failing to be open to the messenger and the message being delivered.

More than once, someone has expressed to me the opinion that politics should not be preached at Mass. I would agree, but when the issue at hand infringes on the moral teachings of the Church, thus the Word of God, then we need to be open to the bigger picture and listen to what God is ultimately saying. A church that is witness to the Word of God must be partial to those bowed down and give voice to the voiceless like the unborn, the inmate on death row, the poor on skid row, and the mentally ill.

Contrary to what some may think, the Church cannot stay out of politics when politics endangers the lives of the innocent or the rights of others to follow their conscience. The Church has the responsibility to speak up when the law of the land runs contrary to God’s law, for the former is not our means to salvation.

Recall the words of our opening prayer. “Lord our God, in you justice and mercy meet. With unparalleled love you have saved us from death and drawn us into the circle of your love.”  From the very beginning, God has endeavored to save us and will always do so, but if God is to succeed, than we must open our ears in this noisy world of ours to what is being said that truly matters in making salvation real.

The words Jesus said to the deaf man are meant for us as well. We must open our hearts to experience God’s compassion in the love of family and friends, to realize God’s presence at all times and places. What we listen for will make a difference in our relationships with one another and with God. Be open and you will experience God in a whole new light.
 

Today’s readings are a powerful reminder of how we, as individuals, as a nation, as a society, as a Church, relate to those around us and how we treat one another by what is in our hearts, minds, and souls.

A good example of what can happen to this relationship took place about two weeks ago. One morning I got up very early, like 4:30 A.M. I was going out to hook into and hopefully land that elusive but majestic Pink Salmon. Well, when I reached my fishing destination, it was still dark but I could see the sky beginning to get bright. I knew I was in God’s country.

All of a sudden the sun came up lighting up the beach and the water. I began to fish. I thought to myself, O.K. God, I got up very early. Show me the fish. After about 30 minutes or so, the beach where I was fishing began to overflow with other fishermen. Most seemed very courteous and friendly except the one who decided to fish just a couple of feet from me.

You see, he saw me hook and lose a fish so he moved right in. That was O.K. I still was in God’s country. I said good morning, without a response back. This man then proceeded to fix his pole for that first cast. I was really hoping he would catch a fish. I was in God’s country with company. Here comes the first cast right over my line. I thought what would happen if, at that point I hooked into the big one.

All of a sudden, I was not in God’s country anymore. Someone was trying to lead me astray. The devil, I would imagine. I was getting so mad that, instead of saying something awful to the man, I picked up all my gear and left.

Now, that was not so bad. I held my temper, or did I? My heart was becoming hardened. I did not have what I should have had in my heart. As Jesus reminds us in this morning’s gospel, it is what comes from within that defiles.

It wasn’t the fact that he was in my space, it’s what I was feeling inside that was the cause of my anger toward him. I was only worried about myself. The right thing to do would have been to help that man or at least offer, for he sure could have used it.

In the gospel we hear about dirt under the nails. Having dirt or mud under ones nails comes from doing something outside the body. The deeds of evil come from within and are not erased by washing hands. The list of interior attitudes is quite extensive and encompassing. Jesus did not mince words or leave much to legal interpretation. Worship of God comes from the heart, but the heart hears other calls as well that can infiltrate and defile.

If our minds and hearts are full of God’s love, then we are living through his words and truly we are the children of God, living in his image and likeness through Jesus Christ. If I was living this way at that point in time I probably would have reacted differently. I would have heard the right call. As we hear in today’s gospel, if our hearts are full of this worlds temptations, evil thoughts: un-chastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, hatred, (The list goes on and on) we are not living our lives the way God had intended.

It would be untrue to imagine that the Scribes and the Pharisees in today’s gospel really understood the laws that they, by their position, were to uphold. They let the law get in the way of the heart, which is the backbone of the law.

The law was given to enhance their relationship with God.

There are still those, and sad to say, even in our tradition today, whom religion is still a matter of blind obedience to the external rule and forgetting the matter of the heart, from which flows love and compassion. There are still those who disregard that serving God is to be found in total living, living from not only the mind but also the heart. Without the heart we cannot live and it is so with our spiritual lives as well.

To live the way God intended is not to add or subtract from that which makes us Christian, that which makes us Catholic. Those who attempt to reduce or change it to fit their own agenda their own needs, are doing just that. There is to be found an abundance of love and grace in keeping true to scripture, our tradition, our Church, by allowing our hearts to be transformed by God’s love.

How do we do that? To be an effective Catholic in the world today requires that we do much more than just go to Sunday Mass and avoiding major sins. We are charged at the end of Sunday Mass to go out to love and serve the Lord. This is the call to evangelize by living our lives not in self-indulgence, but in the love and compassion for others that comes from the heart, receiving strength to do so by the sacrifice we come here to accept through the Eucharist.

Today’s reading from St. James puts it all into context in a very understandable way. He says: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” Sounds like our charge at the end of Mass!! Have we been accepting this charge, this call?

In our human nature, we break things apart so that we can come to a deeper understanding. Jesus is telling us to do just that. Let his words enter into not only our minds but in our hearts. This is where we will receive the full affect of what he is telling us. This is where the “rubber meets the road.”

In retrospect, I now think back to that morning of fishing and see that maybe that fisherman, who moved next to me, also felt he was in God’s country.

Last night at the 5 P.M. Mass, those present had the pleasure of witnessing the baptism of baby Cruz Patrick Hezel. The parents and godparents took an oath with God to raise baby Cruz in the faith. As a part of the body of Christ, we too take on the responsibility of being the example and teacher of the faith for baby Cruz and all who enter into and are a part of this body. We do this by living in God’s love, treating everyone with this love even those who seem to put us on edge.

My sisters and brothers in Christ; let us hear what God’s words are telling us in Holy Scripture. Let us live by the infusion of God’s love in our minds and hearts ands souls sharing this love with others around us. Let us also be the example of faith lived not just faith spoken. Let us be the example to baby Cruz and others of the love of our savior, Jesus Christ.

So let us pray with dirty hands and cleaner hearts to extend those dirty hands in praise of the God who dirtied himself by walking in our mud.
 

I do not know of a sentence in the Bible that annoys more people than this line in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he urges wives to be subordinate to their husbands. Angered by such chauvinism, many listeners then tune out his message on commitment, the same message we hear in the other readings.

Paul isn’t putting anyone down in his letter nor is he giving husbands the license to degrade, abuse, or control their wives. To the contrary, he is challenging spouses to examine their fidelity and commitment to one another.  There is no room for a domineering spouse in any truly sacramental marriage.

A husband, Paul contends, is to commit himself as totally to his wife as Christ committed himself to the Church. You and I know how far Jesus Christ went for the Church and for us, giving his life on the cross so that we could be freed from sin. Ideally, every husband should be willing to do the same for his wife. She is to be as important to him as his own body. He should love her more than anyone or anything else on earth. The bottom line is that both husbands and wives are to put the other person first. Each spouse has to sacrifice something for that to happen. Giving up some of their personal preferences, the two become one, thus becoming the sacrament of marriage to one another.

From what I have seen and heard over the years, that hasn’t always happened. I ache for spouses who endure domestic violence of any kind from verbal to physical. Alas, both husbands and wives have been known to abuse their spouses. Such a marriage is not what the Church defines as a sacramental union.

The experience of those who are victims in such situations dramatizes the point being made in today’s gospel. There are times in life when we are pushed to the wall. There are times in life when we are ready to quit. There are times in life when we need something to hold on to.  In the gospel, the disciples were being pushed to the wall by what Jesus said earlier about giving his body for them to eat. Notice how they responded.

One group found Jesus’ words too hard to take. “Who can accept it?” Not them, so they parted company with Jesus. The others met his challenge successfully and remained faithful to him.  Why did one group leave and the other stay? The gospel doesn’t answer that question outright, but it gives us a clue.

Peter speaks for us when he said to Jesus, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

When pushed to the wall, so to speak, they kept their eyes focused on Jesus whereas the group that abandoned him had focused on the stumbling block instead.  “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Detracted by the repulsive notion of eating someone’s flesh, they lost sight of the whole picture Jesus was presenting. A commitment to God or another person is never made once and for all, but must be renewed again and again.

When I witness a marriage, I tell the couple to say the words of their vows to each other as though they are the most important words they will ever say. “I take you for my spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part.”

I have known many loving couples who have honored their commitments to each other. When the going gets tough for them, their love grows even stronger, for they keep their eyes focused on Jesus, rather than the problems that surface. They minister God to each other daily. They also know their marriage cannot thrive or even survive if one or both spouses become too self-centered to honor their vows.

When we hear the words, commitment and fidelity, we are apt to think only about the faithfulness of spouses to one another, but the notion of fidelity extends to every commitment we make. Being faithful means honoring the commitments and keeping the promises we have made in our work and business dealings, as well as our relationships with God and others.

Joshua knew what he was committed to. He also knew that many who had followed him for 40 years in their exodus to the Promised Land were now attracted to the many gods of their neighbors. “If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” In reply to his challenge, they said, “We also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

The lesson given in these readings is clear: when we commit ourselves to Christ or to another person, the decision impacts us and the world around us. Our relationship with God cannot be a half-hearted one if we are to grow in faith. “Decide today whom you will serve.” Joshua’s challenge is a choice for us as well.

Centuries later, Jesus essentially posed the same question to his apostles. “Do you also want to leave?” Some disciples had found his message too hard to take or too unrealistic to accept such as what he had said about chastity and fidelity, forgiveness and honesty, so they left. What he had said about the Eucharist as a covenant was too much for them to accept.

Countless fellow Catholics, married and single alike, have demonstrated by their lives their commitment to Christ. Their faith has been a continual inspiration to me. If Jesus were to ask me, “So you also want to leave?” I would respond, “What? Not on your life, Lord. I agree with Peter. You have the words of eternal life. I am convinced you are the Holy One of God.” I hope you could say the same.

More than a century ago, a poor family from a small village in Eastern Europe decided to migrate to America. Their friends and relatives threw a “going away” party for them. They were given several loaves of hard bread and blocks of cheese for the voyage. A week later, the family boarded an Italian ship. Since they had never been out of their village before and no one on board spoke their language, they were overwhelmed by what they saw and heard.

Because the weather was cold and wet, the family immediately went to their third class cabin below deck. There they stayed, eating their provisions of bread and cheese sparingly. On the last day of the trip, the weather cleared up. The oldest boy, who had grown restless, asked his father for permission to explore the ship. When his teenaged son did not return within the hour, the father went looking for him. He found him in a big dining room, sitting at a table, eating from a plate overflowing with vegetables, meat and even desert.

The father’s heart stopped. He had visions of spending his first days in America in jail for there was no way he could pay for all the food that his son had ordered and was eating. When the boy saw how frightened his father looked, he said, “Don’t worry, papa, it’s free. While we’ve been fasting on rations of bred and cheese, everyone else has been feasting on banquets like this. They’re included in the price of the ticket!”

That story fits in well with the message of today’s gospel. The world is filled with people who, like that poor Serbian family, journey through life, totally unaware of the incredible banquet that God spreads before them every day. This banquet, which we call Holy Communion, is the banquet that Jesus is talking about when he told the crowd, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Understandably, those who first listened to what Jesus said were disturbed. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” The notion of eating anyone’s flesh was quite unsettling. Certainly, Jesus was not talking about ordinary bread here.

The difference between the living bread, which Jesus speaks of, and bread that you can buy at the store is beyond comparison. When we eat that kind of bread, it enters our body and changes into us.  When we eat the living bread, however, the opposite happens. The living bread doesn’t change into us; rather, we change into the living bread. When we reverently partake of Holy Communion, we are transformed into the body of Christ. We take on the life of Christ. Jesus told the crowd, “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

Think of the words spoken at the consecration, which sum up what Jesus said at the Last Supper. “This is my body which will be given up for you…this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.”  And this we have done since they were first spoken. The Eucharist is our link with Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. The Eucharist is our tangible reminder of God’s unconditional love for us.

Mindful of Jesus’ profound love for us, we allow the Eucharist to transform us. We are then empowered to heed the command we are given at the end of Mass to love and serve the Lord. Yes, the Eucharist can transform us into people of love.

The first reading speaks about the wisdom of God, who invites us to a dinner. “Come and eat and drink and live forever,” we are told. God gives us the dream of living in peace and happiness for all eternity. That becomes possible when we endeavor to love.

Paul knows how human we are. He speaks of our failings, urging us to understand the will of God. Deep down, we want to be with God, but too often, we ignore God’s wise counsel for getting there, such as allowing the Eucharist to change us.  Many people go through the motions of taking communion but with little appreciation for what they are receiving.  They act as though what they receive is still bread and wine; then they wonder why this sacrament has no impact on them.  They may have the faith and the knowledge all right, but if they are not attentive to what is going on, they cannot receive the fullness of grace that is being offered.

St. Thomas Aquinas observed that a mouse cannot receive Holy Communion if it eats a consecrated host since it lacks knowledge and faith, even though Christ remains present. He went on to argue that a believer who consumes consecrated bread, but believes that it is not consecrated, does not receive Christ either. He also reasoned that the same is true for non-believers who partake of Holy Communion despite what others believe. They receive the Eucharist, Aquinas notes, “not as sacrament, but as simple food.”

What about believers who are inattentive while receiving Holy Communion? We may be receiving Christ but not the fullness of grace that he has to offer, for we can only receive fully what we are fully disposed to receive. Come attentively and reverently to receive the Lord. Sense his presence in your midst. Reverence the encounter. Respond convincingly with the word, “Amen,” as a sign that you savor what is being offered you in the sacrament.

How tragic that the Serbian family made their voyage to America unaware that meals came with their tickets, but what is even more tragic is for us to turn this banquet into a lifeless routine by failing to make this encounter with Jesus a personal prayerful encounter every time we’re given the chance to feast on him.