NOVEMBER 25, 2007: CHRIST THE KING

Readings:
II Samuel 5:1-3
Colossians 1:12-20
Luke 23:35-43

It's often difficult for Jesus' followers to accurately convey to others his importance in their lives. If we regard him only as the founder of a specific religion, we don't have that problem. In that case, Jesus simply provides us with an institution which offers us the means to get into heaven. He's not someone who relates to us and we to him as a real person.

His earliest followers, including those who gave us our Christian Scriptures, had yet to experience an institution, as we know it, through which they'd filter their experience of him. They just had him, risen and alive, present in everything they did.

We've some inkling of how they valued his presence when we hear the early Christian hymn Paul inserts in our Colossians pericope. Listen to the different concepts which come to the author's mind and pen when Jesus is mentioned. ". . . Image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation . . . head of the body, the church . . . the beginning, the firstborn of the dead . . . in all things, pre-eminent . . . in him all the fullness . . . making peace by the blood of his cross . . . ." No one has ever entered into the life of the Colossian community who has more drastically changed that community.

In our II Samuel reading we get a small glimpse of how Jesus' ancestor David was regarded by the people in the 10th century B.C.E. Originally David was king only of the southern half of the Promised Land, Judah. Saul's son, Ishbaal, was king of the northern half, Israel. The latter eventually was assassinated. That's when the elders of those 10 northern tribes "came to David in Hebron" and asked him to lead their nation also.

Scholars tell us the best thing David had going for him was his unifying personality. Though an adulterer, a murderer, and, without doubt, the worst parent in Jewish history, he could unite the 12 disparate Jewish tribes and all other factions, molding them into one nation. This unifying dimension of David's personality seems to have prompted the blind Jericho beggar Bartimaeus to cry out, "Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!" The good which David brought to all Jews is what Bartimaeus expected Jesus to bring to his life.

We see some of the significance people attached to Jesus in today's gospel passage. He certainly didn't fulfill everyone's messianic expectations; else he wouldn't have had to endure these Golgatha taunts. But he did make a difference for some. In this situation especially, for the thief who asks, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

His request and Jesus' response is even more significant when we know the history of the community for which it originally was written.

Christians at first believed Jesus would return quickly after his resurrection and escort his disciples into heaven. At that time, the question most asked was, "What will happen to those who die before Jesus' return? Do they lose out on the heavenly goodies?" In I Thessalonians, Paul assures his readers that those who die before Jesus comes back will simply spend the interval in the grave, biding their time until that glorious occasion arrives, then they'll be the first to rise.

Thirty years later, when Luke writes, Christians are facing a crisis in faith. Jesus not only hadn't returned, there was no sign he'd do so in the near future. Luke is the first Christian author to dump the "time in the grave" belief and reach the conclusion that Christians who die receive their own personal Parousia. At the moment of death, they instantly find themselves in heaven with Jesus. That's why Luke's Jesus can assure the thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise!" (Were this scene in Mark or Matthew, Jesus would have said, "After a brief period in the grave you will be with me in Paradise!")

The risen Jesus' personality obviously triumphed over "church doctrine." Only someone who had a deep relationship with such a living person could have dared take such a drastic step.

NOVEMBER 18, 2007: THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
Malachi 3:19-20a
II Thessalonians 3:7-12
Luke 21:5-19

It's not difficult to predict an event the day after it actually takes place. But that’s often what the authors of apocalyptic literature do. We haven an example of their writing in today’s gospel periscope.

Luke composes his gospel at least 20 years after Jerusalem's 70 C.E. destruction. Both he and his readers are aware no temple stone has been left upon another stone for a long time. That's why it's easy for Luke's Jesus to accurately describe this event. The authors of Daniel and Revelation frequently employ similar "predictions" in their writings. Why?

Like all literature, we must read apocalyptic against the environment within which its authors and readers originally lived. In this case, against persecutions.

Along with all people suffering for their faith, Luke's community is faced with the unthinkable: "Does God really care about what's happening to us? Have we been deserted by the one person we rely on for help?" At this point in his gospel, Luke, like other apocalyptic authors, writes to assure his readers they haven't been abandoned. How could a God who accurately predicts the future not be intimately involved in what is happening to his/her people.

In Luke's situation, since Jesus knows about Jerusalem's destruction in advance, why would he walk out on his followers when they're facing a parallel destruction? Nothing happens by accident; nothing is outside the mind and will of God. "They will seize and persecute you," Luke's Jesus both warns and assures his disciples. "They will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name . . . . You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

The persecutions second and third generation Christians are experiencing are just as much in God's plan as Jerusalem's destruction.

It's usually not difficult to surface God's presence in our lives when things are going well. It's another matter when they're going badly. The disciple of Paul who wrote II Thessalonians zeroes in on some of those "badly" things.

Coming from a belief that communal living is one of the best ways to experience God's kingdom among us, the writer points out a few drawbacks to such a challenging endeavor - common to any group who attempts to share themselves and their belongings. The author's classic line: "If anyone (is) unwilling to work, neither should that one eat." Those who refuse to give themselves to others shouldn't be surprised when no one gives to them. Forming and sustaining communities is hard work, so hard we often sense we're more "persecuted" from within than from without. On many levels, imitating the risen Jesus in our real world is a painful experience.

That's why it's important to listen carefully to Malachi's words. We presume he's describing the same set of circumstances when he proclaims, "Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire. . . . But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays." in other words, the same sun which brings healing to Yahweh's faithful will bring destruction to Yahweh's enemies. The "heat" isn't the problem. It's how the "heat" is received that defines the situation.

Perhaps, when faith-conflicts arise, instead of complaining, we'd achieve more by exploring the many dimensions of those difficulties. Some might develop into the very circumstances which lead us to the salvation we long for.

NOVEMBER 11, 2007: THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
II Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14
II Thessalonians 2:16-3:5
Luke 20:27-38

Our first and third readings are united not only by "seven brothers," but also by both authors’ belief in an afterlife.

We who believe in a life beyond this one often presume all our sacred authors did also. Our Christian authors do, but only a few of the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures do. Such a concept doesn’t enter Jewish thought until a little over 100 years before Jesus’ birth.

For instance, nowhere in the Torah - the Bible's first five books – does anyone refer to an afterlife as we know it. This seems to be why some Christian theologians later developed the idea that “the gates of heaven were closed” after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. Not realizing concepts of heaven only evolved centuries after the two Genesis creation myths were composed, they presumed the sacred Torah writers didn’t mention heaven because people couldn’t get into heaven.

But even after Pharisees began to develop the idea that those who formed a relationship with Yahweh in this life would carry and deepen that relationship into the next life, a large number of Jews still maintained this was the only life we’d ever experience. Some of these belonged to a religious faction called Sadducees: arch-conservative Jews rarely mentioned in the Christian Scriptures. St. Louis U.’s Fr. Frank Cleary contends that the historical Jesus directed his teaching to people willing to change and grow. He had little to offer to anyone, like Sadducees, determined to live in the past. The evangelists seldom call attention to them because Jesus seldom interacted with them.

Considering Sadducees would have objected to much of Jesus' teaching, it's significant this particular encounter revolves around the issue of the afterlife. Their question is logical: "In the resurrection whose wife will she be?" Death has a way of handling situations which couldn't be handled without it.

Jesus first responds to the Sadducees' question by assuring them that eternal life won't be an eternal extension of this life. Those who attain that existence "neither marry nor are given in marriage." (What answer would you give an unborn fetus who asks how she can attend college connected to her mother by an umbilical cord?) We're dealing with something we've yet to experience in the way we'll experience it.

Second, knowing the Sadducees' Bible comprises only the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) Jesus argues from one of these five books. Referring to Moses' Exodus 3 burning bush encounter with Yahweh, he zeroes in on how God identifies God's self. "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Jesus presumes if those three patriarchs aren't still alive when Yahweh talks to Moses (more than 500 years after their deaths), Yahweh would say, "I was the God of Abraham, etc." There must be a heaven if, at the time of Moses, these three pillars of Judaism continue to relate to God.

Jesus' key argument comes at the end: "God is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." God's true followers continually grow in their understanding and experience of what it means to be alive in God. Jesus presumes this evolution is an essential part of faith.

Before Maccabees, faithful people limited their idea of the life God offers to this life alone. After that period, they could state, "The King of the world will raise us up to live again forever." Quite a sea change!

But as we hear in II Thessalonians, Jesus adds another dimension to our life in God: our dying and rising makes us one with him not only in heaven, but also now. Jesus is "directing our hearts" in both of these experiences.

Just as we're constantly expected to learn new ways to die with Jesus, we're also expected to constantly surface new ways to live with Jesus.

NOVEMBER 4, 2007: THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Readings:
Wisdom 11:22-12:2
II Thessalonians 1:11-2:2
Luke 19:1-10

No doubt, hearing today's gospel, some of us will reflect on what happened a few months ago when one of our presidential candidates mentioned that, if elected, he would dialogue with our country's "enemies." Talking with adversaries creates problems. Many contend it leads to our stepping down from the "high ground" and putting ourselves on the same level as our opposition.

That's why today's Lucan pericope is such an important part of our Christian belief and practice. Zacchaeus is worse than a common sinner; he's a traitor to his people. Most of the taxes he collects fund the Roman occupation which had oppressed the Israelites for almost 100 years. He's a co-conspirator with Israel's enemies.

Besides, he was awarded his job by bid, promising the Romans he'd deliver a certain amount of money for the specific area and people from whom he collected taxes. His "salary" consisted in what he could force, bribe, or blackmail out of people beyond what he owed the Romans. No wonder tax collectors traveled with Roman soldiers and other bodyguards protecting them. They were among the most despised people in the country. It's against this background that we must listen to Luke's narrative.

Jesus takes one step beyond talking to the enemy. "Zacchaeus," he says, "come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house." Though hard to believe, the prototype of goodness is about to lodge with the prototype of evil. What most good folk would interpret as a sell-out, Jesus interprets as a means of bringing salvation to a sinner.

Zacchaeus' reaction is completely unexpected. "He received him with joy . . ., stood there and said to the Lord, 'Behold, half my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.'" Jesus' scandalous acceptance of a sinner results in a conversion no one could have anticipated.

Scripture scholars emphasize an aspect of this story which many of us overlook. "This man too," Jesus states, "is a descendant of Abraham." The historical Jesus was driven to proclaim the presence of God's kingdom to all the Chosen People, not just to those who belonged to the most prestigious tribes, or professed an "acceptable' form of Judaism. He challenged all Jews - all descendants of Abraham - to return to the roots of their faith.

That's why Jesus traveled with the "Twelve." No author of the Christian Scriptures regarded these 12 men as the first stage in Jesus' establishment of a hierarchical church structure. For the historical Jesus, this band of men symbolized his quest to include all of Abraham's descendants in his reform, no matter to which of the 12 tribes they belonged, no matter if they were saints or sinners, male or female. Each Jew could identify with one of Jacob's 12 sons. All were invited.

Jesus invites his followers to look at all God's creatures as God looks at them, just as our Wisdom author encourages his community to look at them. "For you (Yahweh) love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned."

This concept of unity also motivates the II Thessalonians author. Confronting a rumor that Jesus has already returned in the Parousia, the writer tells his readers not to worry. Whether they're present or absent when Jesus arrives, the important thing is that they are "worthy of his calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith . . . ."

I presume any Christian who today refuses to carry on Jesus' inclusive ministry will really be in trouble when Jesus does return, no matter when that event happens