April 30, 2006: THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Readings
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
I John 2:1-5
Luke 24:35-48

One of the difficulties with which modern Scripture scholars deal is the way the authors of the Christian Scriptures interpret the Hebrew Scriptures. These writers usually employ a "prediction/fulfillment" technique, a methodology which, since Pope Pius XII's 1943 encyclical Divinu Afflante Spiritu, has been gradually relegated to the past history of biblical exegesis. Following the Holy Father's lead, we spend our time not so much trying to find predictions of Jesus in Genesis as we do surfacing the sacred authors' original intention in composing their works.

More than 30 years ago, Fr. Raymond Brown disturbed some of my brother priests when he stated, "There are no predictions of Jesus of Nazareth as we know him any-where in the Hebrew Scriptures." Some at that clergy study day quickly challenged the famous Scripture scholar, quoting passages from Isaiah 7 about a virgin giving birth to Emmanuel, and Deutero-Isaiah's fourth song of the suffering servant. In both cases, Brown patiently assured us, the prophets were referring to someone other than Jesus; then in a calm voice he said, "Fathers, if you think there are passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which refer to Jesus, the burden of proving that is on you. I don't have to prove that they don't. The consensus of scholarship is on my side, not yours."

Unfortunately Luke wasn't present for Brown's conference. Without recourse to the discoveries of biblical research over the last 200 years, he and his evangelical predecessors believed Jesus, his suffering, dying and rising could be found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.

That's why he doesn't hesitate to have the newly-risen Jesus chide his astonished disciples for their unbelief, proclaiming, "'. . . Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and psalms had to be fulfilled.' Then he opened their minds to the understanding of the Scriptures. He said to them. 'Thus it is written that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day."

This parallels what Luke has Peter tell the Pentecost crowd in our first reading: "God has brought to fulfillment by this means (Jesus' death and resurrection) what he announced long ago through all the prophets: that his Messiah would suffer."

If these prediction/fulfillment pericopes can't be looked at today as they were 1900 years ago, how do we know Jesus is "the one?" Only by employing the same method our sacred authors chronologically employed. Long before they found the risen Jesus in Scripture, they found him in their lives. Both the author of I John and Luke speak about people "knowing" Jesus. The former states, "The way we can be sure of our knowledge of him is to keep his commandments. Whoever claims, 'I have known him,' without keeping his commandments, is a liar . . . . “Our gospel passage begins with Luke describing the return of the Emmaus disciples.”The recounted . . . how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of bread."

As I've mentioned many times before, our biblical writers presume we only "know" what we experience. I John teaches that we always experience the risen Jesus among us when we carry out his command to love one another. Luke believes one of the best ways to discover Jesus' presence is to die enough to ourselves to become one body - the body of the risen Jesus - when we participate in the eucharistic breaking of bread.

The writers of the Christian Scriptures turned to the Hebrew Scriptures to help them understand the experience of a lifetime. Some of us, on the other hand, explore the Scriptures in place of exploring our experiences. No wonder we insist on finding Jesus in Scripture. If we haven't found him in our lives, it's our only recourse.

April 23, 2006: SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

Readings
Acts 4:32-35
I John 5:1-6
John 20:19-31

From its beginning Christianity had to deal with those in the community who zeroed in on the intellectual dimension of their faith and ignored the actions which Jesus expects his followers to perform. As long as they believed in the salvation which Jesus' death and resurrection offered, they thought they didn't have to imitate the concrete actions of the historical Jesus which actually brought about that salvation. For the rest of their lives they could simply lean back in their recliners and "believe."

Luke didn't want anyone in his community to become "minimal action" Christians. That seems to be why, throughout the initial chapters of Acts, he inserts short narratives describing how members of the early Jerusalem church channeled their faith in the risen Jesus into specific acts of love.

"The community of believers were of one heart and one mind. They never claimed anything as their own. Everything was held in common . . . there were no needy among them . . . . All who owned property or houses sold them and donated the proceeds . . . to be distributed to everyone according to their needs."

Luke is convinced that believing, life-giving communities exist only because their members are willing to die by generously giving themselves to one another. People's needs can only be taken care of if someone gives part of himself or herself to make up for what's lacking in the other.

According to those who study John's gospel and the three letters bearing his name, the publication of a gospel which constantly stressed faith in Jesus as God opened the door to those who thought they could be saved by what they believed and knew instead of how they loved and sacrificed themselves for others. They rejected the life-giving tension which develops when someone both believes and acts, exchanging it for the false serenity which comes from just believing Jesus is Yahweh.

The I John author tries to counteract this tendency by stressing how our knowledge of the relationship between Jesus and the Father should prompt us not just to ooh and aah in amazement, but to "do what God has commanded." We're expected to conquer the world. But we can't do this by just meditating on the intellectual ramifications of Jesus' divinity. We must also reflect on and imitate the things he did for others. That seems to be why the writer contrasts "water and blood." It's a reference to Jesus' baptism and the blood shed in his death.

Though there were misunderstandings about his gospel, John the Evangelist never let his community overlook the dying aspect of Jesus saving us. Most of us concentrate on the "doubting Thomas" section of today's pericope. We smile at someone so sure of himself that Jesus is dead that he has to eat crow a week later when the risen Jesus stands before him.

It's important to reflect on the criterion Thomas employs to prove the person in front of him actually is Jesus. "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."

Notice during Jesus' first visit he breathed on his followers and said, "Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them and whose sins you retain are retained."

It doesn't take a lot out of us to "retain" someone's sins. We keep them in mind, use them in our evaluations, and contrast them with our own "sinless" personality.

Those who forgive die to themselves; they destroy the power which retaining gives them over others. Forgiving wounds us. But like Jesus' wounds, they take away other people's pain. Only such wounded Christians can legitimately believe in the salvation which Jesus offers.

April 15, 2006: EASTER VIGIL

Readings
Exodus 14:15-15:1
Isaiah 54:5-14
Romans 6:3-11
Mark 16:1-8

(Ideally all nine readings should be proclaimed tonight. But for reasons of space, I can only comment on four.)

Dennis Weaver's recent death reminded me of something he said in an old radio interview. When asked about his years as Matt Dillon's sidekick in the Gunsmoke series, he pointed out, "All the old movie and TV western heroes have sidekicks. It's the only way the audience can find out what the hero's thinking." Such characters are as much a dramatic device in westerns as soliloquies are in Shakespeare's plays. Without them, we'd never know what's going on in someone's mind.

Fr. Raymond Brown was convinced that our sacred authors use angels in a similar way - as literary devices giving readers the meaning behind specific events. In tonight's gospel, for instance, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome simply come upon an empty tomb. The absence of Jesus' body can be interpreted in different ways: someone could have taken it, or they might have gone to the wrong tomb. We need Mark's "young man" to give the definitive Christian interpretation: "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was crucified. He has been raised up; he is not here."

As comforting as these words are to the women, there's one problem: none of us normally go around with sidekicks, or break into a soliloquy during significant times of our life, nor do angels suddenly appear to provide us with the meaning behind our experiences. We live a life overflowing with unknowns.

It's our responsibility to surface meaning behind the people, events and situations which otherwise pass through our lives in a meaningless procession.

Paul, in tonight's eighth reading, supplies us with the meaning of our first formal step in the faith: baptism. Ignoring highfalutin theological language, the Apostle states that when people are immersed in the water of baptism, they're committing themselves to be immersed just as deeply into this death-dealing world as the historical Jesus was. Yet, when they're lifted up out of the water, they're proclaiming that they're now experiencing the same life which the Father gave Jesus.

Most Scripture scholars believe the Exodus account of the crossing of the sea has been greatly exaggerated both by several hundred years of oral tradition and the sacred author's attempt to show the significance of the event. If it happened exactly the way our passage describes, how could anyone ever gripe and complain about Yahweh bringing them out of Egypt as some of them do later in the wilderness? The author has undoubtedly integrated his or her interpretation into the narrative, so that we, the readers, can instantly see something in the crossing which probably took the original participants years to understand.

That's why it's good to listen carefully to what Yahweh proclaims in our Deutero-Isaiah passage. "Though the mountains leave this place and the hills be shaken, my love will never leave you; nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says Yahweh who has mercy on you."

Perhaps the only way we can understand what God thinks about us or surface the meaning of God's actions in our lives is to return to something the prophet presumed all followers of God would presume: God loves us and will never desert us, even during those moments when we feel unloved and deserted.

Especially on this night, our readings remind us that we live a life of faith. Yet when we want to convey our experience of faith to others, we often have to fall back on as many "devices" as our sacred authors did.

April 9, 2006: SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION

Readings

Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippians 2:6-11
Mark 14:1-15:47

Today’s Deutero-Isaiah pericope not only sets the theme for our readings, it’s a guide for our entire celebration of Holy Week.

This anonymous, yet oft-quoted prophet is deeply reflective. He not only delivers Yahweh’s word to the Israelites exiled in Babylon during the sixth century, BCE, but in at least three extended passages he also focuses in on what it means for him to be the conscience of his people. Our liturgical selection is the third and last of his formal reflections. (There’s one more; but that’s composed by his followers after his martyrdom.)

Though convinced of his prophetic calling, Deutero-Isaiah is just as convinced that he’s different from his prophetic predecessors. Everything in his life is unique because of one repetitive event. “Morning after morning,” he states, “Yahweh opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back.”

Carroll Stuhlmueller often reminded us students that this is the best definition of a disciple of God in the entire Bible. God’s true followers hit the floor every morning listening. Carroll always pointed out that the Hebrew word which the prophet employs for “open” is the same word our sacred authors use when they’re speaking about someone drilling a well. Our ears aren’t naturally open to hearing God’s word. If we really want to know what God has in mind for us, we must be willing to drill out our ears daily, opening them to hear things those around us never seem to hear, to look in a direction others never seem to notice.

That’s why Deutero-Isaiah sees and hears the “weary,” while others look right through them, never hearing their cries. Those are the very people who most need to be roused by Yahweh’s word of consolation and love.

We can only speculate how often the historical Jesus reflected on his own ministry. No doubt Deutero-Isaiah’s reflections guided him the process. We believe Jesus, of all people, possessed the most drilled-out ears. He deeply identified with his prophetic predecessor on that level. Yahweh’s word led him to those who found life boring and burdensome. His ministry brought meaning and joy to people on the fringe of Jewish society and religious life.

No wonder Paul employs this particular early Christian hymn to remind the Philippians about their obligation to integrate the “mind of Jesus” into their relations with others. Like him, they’re to be open to God’s voice calling them to empty themselves of anything that would stop them from becoming one with the “slaves” in their community; to be so one with them that outsiders would actually think they were slaves. Jesus did this only because he listened; the same thing he expected his followers to do.

Notice how today’s Marcan Passion Narrative leads us to be a different dimension when we hear it against the background of Jesus constantly listening to Yahweh. Accustomed to thinking he’s just following a “script” handed him by his Father at a place and time in eternity, we ignore the unknown which he faced day by day. Like ourselves, each morning he wondered what new things God would ask of him that day, things God hadn’t asked the day before.

Only by being attentive to Yahweh’s word did Jesus have the courage to face death. Holy Thursday and Good Friday weren’t the only days during which he heard God ask him to totally empty himself. Jesus had been doing that every day for a long time. Each time he did, he found himself entering a deeper level of life. Why would three o’clock on that Friday afternoon be any different?

Instead of spending so much time as children learning answers to catechism questions, we’d find our faith much more exciting today if someone had simply taught us how to listen. If they had, there’d be fewer weary people in the church and world today.

April 2, 2006: FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

Readings
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Hebrews 5:7-9
John 12:20-33

The historical Jesus would have been stupefied to discover that one day some of his followers would look at him as the founder of a new religion; a faith independent of the Judaism he professed and taught.

The man who was our spiritual director during my three years of seminary philosophy studies embodied this belief. When someone asked why he never gave "points for meditation" from the Hebrew Scriptures, he informed us that the omission wasn't accidental. "We're Catholic Christians, not Jews," he angrily responded. "We follow the New Testament, not the Old. The only reason we have the Old Testament in our Bibles is because book publishers make more money when they sell thicker books!"

His answer certainly made sense to me at the time. It meant that for the rest of my life I could ignore 4/5 of the Bible. Who could argue with such a simplified path to salvation?

But 48 years later, after a ministerial life-time of studying and teaching Scripture, and after 36 years of those Hebrew Scriptures being restored to their rightful place in our weekend liturgies, I couldn't disagree more with his reasoning.

Jesus of Nazareth had a life-changing effect on his initial followers not because he introduced them to a new religion, but because he showed them how to live the faith they already professed in the way and to the depth Yahweh originally intended.

When we Christians boast that we participate in a "new" covenant with God through Jesus, while Jews still wallow in the "old," we're ignoring the words Yahweh proclaims through Jeremiah in today's first reading. The prophet clearly states that the new covenant will be made "with the house of Israel and the house of Judah," not with us Gentiles. It'll be an agreement which returns Yahweh's people to a time before the 613 laws of Moses were ratified on Mt. Sinai, to a time when the Chosen People were only expected to deepen their ties with Yahweh, to grow closer to the God who had started that relationship with them in the first place. Like all deep relationships, that kind of covenant can only be written on the hearts of the individuals who enter it. In such intimate situations, external regulations are doomed to fail.

The author of Hebrews presumes that kind of covenant is behind Jesus' actions. Otherwise he wouldn't speak of him as "learning obedience from what he suffered." Jesus endured pain not because he carried out some external, painful laws of Jewish behavior like circumcision or food restrictions, but because he was completely willing to carry out whatever his relationship with Yahweh demanded of him. One always suffers pain when one gives oneself to another.

It's against this background that our gospel pericope marks a significant stage in John's theology. "Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover feast came to Philip . . . and asked him, 'Sir, we would like to see Jesus.'"

The evangelist is telling us that that relationship-based Judaism which Jesus proclaims also stirs the interest of non-Jews. But, as Jesus' response to their inquiry demonstrates, they didn't want to meet him just because he taught a different interpretation of the 613 laws. They asked for the meeting because he took his followers back to a pre-law period, a time when Yahweh's followers attained life only by dying to themselves enough to achieve an intimate familiarity with the person who had given them life in the first place, a time when the double meaning of "lifted up" made sense.

It's no accident that most Scripture scholars have shelved the terms "Old and New Testament," and now refer to these two collections simply as the "Hebrew and Christian Scriptures." Always nice to know we're doing what Jesus expects us to do, no matter how thick the book.