JULY 29, 2007: SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
Genesis 18:20-32
Colossians 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13

Fertility cults are a constant problem in Scripture. Prophets condemn them. Laws are created to deal with them. Our sacred authors warn us not to engage in them. Though most of the passages relating to these rituals are in the Hebrew Scriptures, the beliefs underlying such practices continue to surface in the Christian Scriptures.

The name implies these rites have something to do with fertility: an increase in children, crops, and herds. But the concept goes deeper than the specific goal of those who employ them.

Fertility cult systems teach and practice actions, words and rituals geared to control the gods from whom favors are being sought. Many individuals believe if they use certain magic actions and specific secret words in the proper order and repeat them the correct number of times, the gods will be forced to give them what they want.

Some years ago a German doctoral student wrote a paper on the subject. She compared fertility cults to modern TV and radio commercials. Within 28 seconds, we're assured certain toothpaste, a specific deodorant, or a special car will guarantee us a happy, fulfilled life. Like fertility cults, such commercials supply simple answers for complicated questions.

Our sacred authors insist that, at times, God's answers are as complicated as our questions. The writers come down hard on anyone who attempts to control God instead of relate to God. It's an understatement to say interpersonal relationships are complicated. All married couples quickly discover it's far easier to control than to relate. Some actually give into the temptation and spend their marriage in the control mode.

Today's three readings were written for people who have given up control and are trying to relate with God, even in those moments when they're attempting to get something from God.

In our well-known Genesis passage, Abraham's relationship with Yahweh opens the door for negotiations over how many "innocent" people must be found in Sodom and Gomorrah before Yahweh will spare those cities from destruction. Not lost on the original readers is the understanding that the "outcry" Yahweh is investigating revolves around the practice of fertility cults. The moral of the pericope is that relating accomplishes more with God than controlling.

Writing to the Colossians, Paul zeroes in on the most basic truth of early Christianity. Long before "confession" came into existence, the Apostle teaches that our sins are forgiven because the person who committed those sins is no longer alive. That person died when he or she became one with the risen Jesus. The new person who came into existence at that point is not responsible for the dead person's transgressions. God doesn't forgive us because we can successfully maneuver our way through a sacred ritual, but because we've merged with the personality of Jesus, the new creation in our lives.

Luke's Jesus presumes our relationship with God, and God's relationship with us must be before our eyes whenever we pray. Though experts agree this version of the "Lord's Prayer" is older and more original than the Matthean version we normally use, even here the petitions are surrounded by Jesus' assurance that God isn't playing a game of "Red Rover" with us. We don't have to say the proper words to get what we want. If human parents and friends can be moved to action because of their relationship with us, so can God.

But notice what God gives: the Holy Spirit. We can never forget that the Holy Spirit is the force in our lives which tells us what to ask God for in the first place.

JULY 22, 2007: SIXTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
Genesis 18:1-10a
Colossians 1:24-28
Luke 10:38-42

All of us need mentors, people we look up to, whose lifestyle and principles we try to imitate. In the section of Genesis in which today's first reading is situated, the sacred author presents Abraham and Sarah as mentors. The couple's words and actions embody the characteristics all good Jews are expected to incorporate into their own lives.

In this particular pericope, the imitable attribute is hospitality.

It's next to impossible for someone in our middle class American culture to appreciate the "iffiness" of travel in 18th century B.C.E. Canaan. No interstate highway system, no fast food outlets or secure hotels, no safe transportation options, not even a reliable police force. Travelers had to depend on the hospitality of strangers. Without being able to fall back on such generosity, travel was almost impossible.

That's why both ancient Judaism and early Christianity often zeroed in on hospitality as one important way God's followers could imitate God's love for all people.

In our Genesis passage, the three strangers don't even have to ask this original Jewish couple for hospitality. Abraham, in the middle of his siesta, "ran from the entrance of his tent to great them," practically begging the trio to let him and Sarah take care of their needs. And they offer them much more than leftovers. The two treat the travelers like VIPs.

The sacred author's message is to the point: since you never can be certain who the person is to whom you show hospitality, you'd best treat him or her as would the most important person you could ever imagine entering your life. In this case, the three turn out to be Yahweh in human form. (They're three, not because of the later doctrine of the Trinity, but because no one person or image can totally convey Yahweh's "otherness.")

The reward for the couple's generosity is a son. In this period, before the faithful understood they could look forward to an eternal afterlife, the only way people could be confident they'd live on after this life was to have children, who would keep their parents' memory alive.

Martha and Mary's hospitality to Jesus on his Lucan journey to Jerusalem parallels Abraham and Sarah's welcoming of the three strangers. But the reward in this situation isn't a child; it's the life Jesus shares with those who are open to him. This reward comes not just because someone (like Martha) offers a place to stay and food to eat, but also because (like Mary) we sit at Jesus' feet and listen to his message. In the long run, just as Abraham and Sarah's son Isaac guarantees his parents will live on, so by listening to Jesus' words and carrying them out, we receive eternal life, beginning right here and now.

As frequently happens, Paul's insights in our second reading help us tie together the theologies of the other two readings.

The Apostle reminds the community in Colossae that Christians never reach a point in their faith when they can sit back and take it easy. "I am filling," he writes, "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, the church . . . ."

The mystery which Paul surfaces is the "mystery hidden from ages and generations past . . . Christ in you, the hope for glory." Paul's constant task is to remind people to recognize the presence of the risen Jesus in everyone in the community.

Just as Abraham and Sarah discovered they were serving Yahweh, and as Martha and Mary discovered they were entertaining someone who offered them life, so Paul believes our ongoing life's quest should revolve around surfacing the Jesus embedded in each of us.

Inspired by that faith, we'd be foolish to refuse anyone hospitality.

JULY 15, 2007: FIFTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
Deuteronomy 30:10-14
Colossians 1:15-20
Luke 10:25-27

An ironic aspect of today's three readings is that we're hearing them in the context of liturgies which emphasize God's transcendence in our lives. We're in a building specially set aside and designed for otherworldly services, observing the gestures and listening to the words of someone traditionally regarded as "ontologically different" from everyone else present. We're watching motions and hearing music performed in no other place.

In the midst of this unearthly environment, Moses' words in the first reading enter our ears and intersect our lives. "This command I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky . . . . Nor is it across the sea . . . . No, it is something very close to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out."

At this point in Deuteronomy, Moses is just four chapters from his death. The sacred author makes these words part of the great Jewish liberator's last will and testament; an aspect of faith he most wants the Chosen People to remember. Trying to ward off the teaching of those who would one day insist that Yahweh's commands revolved only around transporting us from the confines of our everyday world and placing us squarely in the realm of heaven, Moses reminds us we're to work out our salvation against the background of the natural and normal.

Paul also argues that it's precisely in this world that the risen Jesus exists. No matter where we are, Jesus is in the neighborhood. "In him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible . . . all things were created through him and for him."

The Apostle forcefully reminds the Colossians, "He (Jesus) is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things he might be pre-eminent." It makes no difference whether we're dealing with heaven or earth, Jesus permeates both.

Luke tells us Jesus had problems with those who permitted religion to waft them out of this world and situate their faith and obligations in a more heavenly zone. He's particularly upset with anyone who practices a religion which stops him or her from carrying out God's will in the ordinary circumstances of life.

Hearing today's parable, most of us zero in on the Samaritan's generosity and sacrifice for a complete stranger. Jesus' original audience, brought up to despise heretical Samaritans, likewise would have been impressed by his actions. But they probably focused on the priest and Levite more than we do.

Both are liturgical ministers, part of the Jerusalem temple sacrificial system. Their ministry demands a special ritual purity. Among other obligations, neither is permitted to function in his office for a specific period after he comes in contract with blood or touches a dead body.

That's why, Jesus tells us, when the priest "saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he also passed by on the opposite side." Though they might have felt pity for the mugged Jew, their lofty position in the worship system stopped them from acting on that pity. Religious obligations trump love obligations.

Jesus' message couldn't be clearer. The one person in his narrative forbidden (under pain of death) from taking part in organized Jewish religious services is the only one who follows God's command to be neighbor to all.

In modern terminology, Jesus warns that, if we're ever facing a life and death situation, we'd better pray an atheist comes on the scene. He or she's the only one who wouldn't come up with six or seven religious reasons why they couldn't help us.

JULY 8, 2007: FOURTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
Isaiah 66:10-14c
Galatians 6:14-18
Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

More than any other writing in the Christian Scriptures, Paul's letter to the Galatians tells us what it really means to be a follower of Jesus.

It's an understatement to say Paul's angry when he writes this letter. He's furious! He'd evangelized the Galatian community, teaching the essentials of faith: to imitate Jesus' dying and rising. He assured those who dared take such a drastic step that they would both experience the risen Jesus in their lives and the power of his Holy Spirit in all they did: sure signs they were on the road to salvation.

Not long after he moved on, Paul received word that some conservative Christian missionaries had recently arrived in Galatia, proclaiming a different gospel. Modern scholars refer to these people as Judaizers: those Christians who insisted Gentiles first convert to Judaism before they covert to Christianity. According to their faith, all followers of Jesus must adhere to the 613 laws of Moses, symbolized by male circumcision.

Paul not only refused to impose Torah obligations on his Galatian Gentile converts, he argues that those who do impose them are simply replacing an experience of the risen Jesus and his Spirit with an experience of rules and regulations.

Fortunately for us, Paul couldn't return to Galatia to personally confront those whom he claimed were distorting Jesus' real message. Instead, he dictated a letter; a letter he didn't sleep on before he mailed. (At one point he angrily states, "Would that those who are upsetting you (about circumcision) might also castrate themselves! 5:12)

Just before today's pericope, he writes, "It is I, Paul, who am telling you that if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you . . . . For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love." (5:2, 6)

That's why Luke carefully describes Jesus sending the "seventy-two" on their first missionary endeavor. Though he narrates the event as a reminiscence of something the historical Jesus had done, he's actually setting the standards and procedures for missionaries in his own community.

God's already planted and cared for the crop. The men and women Jesus sends out are simply to do the harvesting. Yet they must never forget that they'll often operate in a hostile environment. As lambs among wolves, they're to focus solely on their mission. Nothing should interfere with their basic proclamation: "The kingdom of God is at hand for you!" Not even rejection is to slow them down. Their faithful participation in God's plan of salvation will eventually result in "Satan falling like lightening from the sky."

Obviously agreeing with Paul, neither Jesus nor Luke believed real evangelization revolves around teaching a set of rules and regulations. All three expected converts to experience a person in their lives, someone they'd never before experienced. During his earthly ministry, Jesus, like Third-Isaiah, emphasized that the person experienced should be God. After his death and resurrection, Jesus' followers presumed that divine person was actually the risen Jesus. (Remember Rudolph Bultmann's oft-quoted remark: "After Jesus' death and resurrection, the preacher became the preached.")

No one can hear today's three readings without doing a "gut check." Can we actually agree with Paul's statement, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world?" Many of us have successfully avoided being scarred by those wounds.

No matter how difficult at times to follow a specific law, it's always more painful to give oneself to another in love. Yet that's the only gospel Jesus and his authentic disciples preach.

JULY 1, 2007: THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
I Kings 19:16b, 19-21
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
Luke 9:51-62

Today's gospel pericope contains one of the most significant events in Luke/Acts: the start of Jesus' final journey to Jerusalem. For the next ten chapters, until his Palm Sunday entrance into the city, Jesus and his disciples will be "on the road." Only after the Holy Spirit's Acts 2 arrival seven weeks after his death and resurrection will some of those disciples first begin to leave town.

At this point in Luke's gospel, everything and everyone starts to flow into Jerusalem. There Jesus will die, rise and send the Spirit, and from there his disciples will be sent out "to the ends of the earth." Jerusalem plays a pivotal role in Luke's theology.

At the time Luke composed his gospel, Jerusalem was just a heap of ruins. Titus' Roman army had wiped it off the face of the earth 15 years earlier. No longer was the Jewish capital geographically important. Its destruction provided the evangelist with an opportunity to "spiritualize" the city. For Luke, Jerusalem represents wherever and whenever Christians die, rise and receive the Holy Spirit in their lives. That's why he created a "journey narrative." Our lives of faith are a constant journey to a dying, rising and spirit-filled experience. That's also why we must pay close attention to what happens at the beginning of the actual biblical journey.

First, Jesus demands his followers let nothing distract them along the road. When James and John want to stop long enough to punish the Samaritans who refuse to welcome them, he "rebukes them, and they journey to another village."

Second, Jesus sets the requirements for those who want to set out on such a venture. Get rid of any idea that this is the beginning of a soft life. "Foxes have dens," Jesus warns, "and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."

Third, neither respect for others, nor family obligations should ever block one's way. When someone promises to take to the road only after his father dies, Jesus points out that if one's father objects to him or her becoming a Christian, he's already "dead." In that case, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

Fourth, turning back is not an option. "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."

We should be careful not to contrast Elijah permitting Elisha to “kiss (his) mother and father goodbye" with Jesus' refusal to let his followers do the same. The I Kings author doesn't share Luke's journey theology.

Paul helps us better understand the depth of Luke's insight.

Author John Shea often mentions that the historical Jesus' ministry revolved around answering just three questions. What do you want out of life? Where do you get it? How much does it cost?

Paul presumes we want freedom, especially freedom from religious rules and regulations. He achieves liberation by letting the Holy Spirit control his life. Yet, as he reminds the Galatians in our second reading, this freeing Spirit only enters our lives when we begin to love our neighbor as ourselves. "For the whole (Mosaic) law is fulfilled in (that) one statement."

Love is Luke's road to Jerusalem; the price Jesus places on our freedom. It's the road which leads to death, life and the Holy Spirit's control of our lives. The cost of our freedom is our commitment to love.

No wonder Luke's Jesus is so demanding. If love of others isn't at the center of our lives, we'll never be fulfilled. Love guarantees no matter how often we start our journey to Jerusalem, we're always exploring a new road, encountering unique experiences, discovering a dimension of life we've never before visited or even noticed.