November 27, 2005: FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Readings
Isaiah 63:16-17, 19; 64:2-7
I Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:33-37

Though each of today’s sacred authors speak about a future visit from either God or the risen Jesus, their goal isn’t as much to prepare us for the future as it is to help us reflect on how we’re living the present.

Third-Isaiah refers to an event for which Jews of his day and age passionately longed: the day of Yahweh. He reinforces the belief that God will eventually come on earth not only to visit the Chosen People, but also to right the wrongs they have endured for centuries. Everyone longed for that day, expecting it to be a time of vindication against their enemies.

Yet, going back almost three centuries to the first “book prophet,” those who ministered as the people’s conscience warned that this event might not be exactly what their audiences were anticipating. “Woe to those who yearn for the day of Yahweh!” Amos proclaimed. “What will this day mean for you? Darkness and not light! As if someone should flee from a lion and be met by a bear. Or as if on entering their home they were to rest their hand against the wall, and be bit by a snake.” (Amos 5:18-19)

Third-Isaiah delivers the same message in today’s first reading. Pleading with Yahweh, he prays, “Would that you would meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways! . . . We are sinful; all of us have become unclean, all our good deeds are polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, our guilt carries us away like the wind.”

Jewish prophets constantly remind their people that they, not others, should expect to be judged on the day of Yahweh. They probably will be shown to be lacking the behavior which should set God’s people apart from those others.

Five centuries after Third-Isaiah, Paul of Tarsus delivers a similar message. Though he changes the day of Yahweh into the “day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he’s critical of his Christian audience, not their pagan acquaintances. Many modern Christians never notice the criticism in today’s passage because they don’t read the rest of the letter. His original readers in Corinth winced when they heard these words. They knew the Apostle would certainly tear into them about how they were using or misusing “every gift of speech and knowledge,” and they were certain someone had snitched and informed him that they were employing their “spiritual gifts” to divide, not unite the community.

Paul wants to know why this group of Jesus followers aren’t carrying out their covenant with him. “God is faithful,” he writes, “and it was he who called you to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Writing ten years after Paul, Mark zeroes in on the same problem, making a comparison which contrasts Jesus’ Second Coming with slaves waiting for their master’s return from a trip abroad. “You do not know when the master of the house is coming,” he warns, “whether at dusk, at midnight, when the cock crows, or at early dawn. Do not let him come suddenly and catch you asleep.”

All three of our authors could end their passages with the same statement: “What I say to you, I say to all: Be on guard!”

Third-Isaiah, Paul and Mark echo a message which all God’s followers need constantly to hear. Because we’re human, we’ll always run the risk of focusing our eyes and efforts on the wrong thing. We’ll be tempted to think we’re fulfilling our faith obligations by simply going around talking and praying about a day when God will straighten out the mess everyone is experiencing.

The prophets in our faith communities are especially sent by God to remind us that, no matter what we think or dream of the future, one’s life of faith is a simple matter of noticing and overcoming the bears and snakes that pervade our present.

November 20, 2005: CHRIST THE KING

Readings
Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
I Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
Matthew 25:31-46

Though it never made the American Film Institute’s recent list of the 100 best movie quotes, Mel Brooks’ remark in The History of the World – Part 1 – “It’s good to be the king!” – seems to fit snugly into today’s feast.

But, it also creates a huge problem. One of the misunderstandings which haunts the celebration of Christ the King revolves around how we think of kings and queens. If our concepts are fueled by centuries-old western European ideas of royalty, we’ll miss most of what our sacred authors are conveying when they speak about God or Jesus as king.

When we read the story of the establishment of the Jewish monarchy in I and II Samuel, then explore the various biblical laws which apply to these leaders, we discover that no one in Israel was ever permitted to be an absolute ruler. Their power was not only limited by Torah regulations, but they were given a job description which emphasized their obligations to the helpless in the realm. For instance, three groups of people could knock on the palace door day or night and be granted an audience with the king: widows, orphans and resident aliens. In each case, these individuals have no one to defend their rights. The king is expected to fill that role.

Many kings, of course, never worried about any of those biblical expectations. That’s why Ezekiel, planning for Israel’s return from exile, reminds his audience that some pre-exilic monarchs scattered instead of shepherded their people. The situation was so bad that the prophet expects Yahweh to now step in and take the place of such tyrants. “I myself,” Yahweh promises, “will look after and tend my sheep. . . . The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal . . . shepherding them rightly.

Jesus employs a parallel image in today’s well-known gospel pericope. The “king” in the story rewards those who, like good Jewish kings, care for the helpless. It’s the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and imprisoned who most need help. In the same way, those sent into the “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” are people who refuse to assist the helpless.

The irony of this passage is that the king not only champions the cause of those with no clout, he actually identifies with them. Reminds me of the grade school students some years ago who so identified with a classmate who had lost her hair due to chemotherapy that they shaved their own heads. That’s why Jesus can state, “What you did or did not do for one of these least ones, you did or did not do for me!”

Such identification provides a key for understanding our Corinthians passage. Those who dare to become one with Jesus will discover that they’ve also become part of the life-giving force which he brought into the world.

Paul expresses this experience in classic terms. “For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ all shall be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the first fruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ. . . .For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

Sounds beautiful, but there’s just one problem. Jesus’ plan for ridding the world of death demands that his followers die with him. It’s not necessarily by physically dying that one achieves life, but by dying enough to become one with those around us. That’s why we constantly must return to the revolutionary concept expressed in today’s gospel. One best receives life by giving life to others.

Christians can certainly resonate with Mel Brooks’ pleasure in being king. But if we’re not good for others, we can’t possibly identify with the ancient Jewish kings, and especially not with Christ the King.

November 13, 2005: THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings
Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31
I Thessalonians 5:1-6
Matthew 25:14-30

We can’t be conscious of everything that happens in our life. Anyone who actually tried to do so would quickly go insane. We must experience certain things without reflecting on them or even noticing that they’ve taken place. If, for instance, we tried to be conscious of every car we encounter on an interstate highway, we’d instantly have an accident.

The key to a successful, fulfilled life is to learn to be conscious of the things which make us fulfilled, to concentrate on what brings success.

Today’s three sacred authors encourage us to do precisely that. Paul sets the theme with his command: “. . . Let us not be asleep like the rest, but awake and sober!”

Our Proverbs author ends his work by telling us on what the “worthy wife” should concentrate. Though it’s a rare woman today who “obtains wool and flax and makes cloth with skillful hands,” the writer’s point is still valid: we’re most fulfilled in life when we’re habitually conscious of the needs of others, and do our best to take care of as many needs as possible.

Writing to the Thessalonians, a community anxiously expecting Jesus’ Second Coming, Paul points out how their preoccupation with that future event is causing them to break their concentration on the present. Though our liturgical passage ends abruptly with Paul’s command to stay alert and sober, he goes on to tell his readers to “live together with him (Jesus) . . . to encourage one another and build one another up . . . to be at peace among yourselves.” Paul believes his readers should be concentrating on forming community instead of worrying about the “times and seasons” which will precede Jesus’ triumphant arrival.

The same thought motivates Matthew. That’s why he reminds his church of the allegorical parable which comprises today’s gospel pericope. He shares Jesus’ belief that the more we act on our faith, the more our faith grows.

Scholars point out that Jesus is here encouraging his followers to go against Jewish law: to make money from lending money. Notice what the man asks the poor individual who returns the same amount of money he received. He wants to know why he didn’t “. . . deposit my money with the bankers, so that on my return I could have had it back with interest?” Following the course of the allegory, it’s obvious that, going against custom and tradition, faith isn’t a commodity to be preserved and hoarded, but a power and force which continually grows and increases the more we put it to use.

Biblical authors presume everyone has many of the same experiences in life. What distinguishes people of faith from those without faith is their knack of concentrating on persons, things, and events which others habitually ignore. We find ourselves reflecting on what others don’t even notice.

The older we get in the faith, the clearer it should become that religion offers us lots of “stuff.” Our Scripture writers tell us what part of this stuff we should push into the background of our lives, and what we should constantly be pulling into the foreground.

Theologically, all that the bishops did at Vatican II was to pull some things which the church had for centuries relegated to the perimeter of our faith into the center and focus of our faith. And in turn, they pushed some of the center things out to the perimeter. What many of us thought we couldn’t live without before 1962, gradually disappeared from our field of vision, to be replaced with ideas and concepts we had rarely noticed.

Should we ever again find ourselves in a pre-conciliar mindset, we need only open our Scriptures. It’s always there, ready to provide us with a God conducted eye exam.

November 6, 2005: THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings
Wisdom 6:12-16
I Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

A change which affects our daily routine is rarely easy to incorporate into our lives. A change which affects our faith brings an even deeper dimension of difficulty.

I was ordained a priest on Dec. 16, 1964, so I've never functioned without the changes and reforms of Vatican II being an essential part of my ministry. As difficult at times as that's been, integrating the council's changes into our faith life is easy compared to some of the changes our ancestors in the faith had to face.

I could always demonstrate from Scripture and early church history that those mid-sixties changes were simply a return to Jesus' original plan for those who choose to imitate him. The bishops were just calling us to go back to the models and practice of faith which had motivated that itinerant Galilean preacher. They could always fall back on a thing called precedent.

First century Christians experienced two changes for which there was no precedent. As we've seen during this cycle of gospel readings from Matthew, they first shifted from being a Jewish church to a Gentile church. But then even more disturbing, they had to replace their belief that the risen Jesus would triumphantly return in their lifetime, with a belief that his Parousia would take place only after they died.

Today's I Thessalonians passage is one of the earliest expressions of belief in Jesus' immanent return. Our gospel pericope is one of the latest. Matthew appears to be the last evangelist to believe Jesus would come back before he died.

As a child I asked my religion teacher, "What happens to those still alive when Jesus returns?" The Thessalonians asked Paul the opposite question. They originally seemed to believe no one would die before Jesus came back. So they wanted to know, "What happens if you die before that eventful day?" Do the dead miss out on the rewards handed out at the Parousia, or do they just have to go to the end of the line when the distribution takes place?

Paul assures his community that neither will happen. "For if we believe," he writes, "that Jesus died and rose, God will bring forth with him from the dead those also who have fallen asleep believing in him . . . We who live, who survive until his coming will in no way have an advantage over those who have fallen asleep." Had Paul written to the Thessalonians 50 years later, he would have to change parts of his theology. Few at that point believed Jesus' Parousia was just around the corner.

Writing in the late 70s, Matthew still believes Jesus will return soon. He simply wants to make certain his readers have enough "oil" in their lamps to welcome the bridegroom's arrival. His message is clear: "Keep your eyes open, for you know not the day or the hour."

Within a few years of Matthew completing his gospel, Christians began to change their belief, and started to reflect on the implications of Jesus never coming back in their lifetime. It was a true "leap of faith." With no precedent for their theology, they were opening new doors of faith.

As disturbing as this change was, the author of Wisdom provides us with a rock of stability. In its biblical context, "wisdom" refers to one's ability to discover patterns in God's behavior by carefully observing God's creation. As the Wisdom author states, only those who take creation seriously will perceive and find wisdom.

Perhaps the only way we'll be able to accept those changes in our faith which have no precedent is to look carefully at how God is working through the people, things and situations we experience every day of our lives. In certain circumstances, we could be the people who are setting the precedents on which others will later fall back.