MARCH 30, 2008: SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

Readings:
Acts 2:42-47
I Peter 1:3-9
John 20:1931

Today's first reading provides us with the first of Luke's "summaries:" an idealistic, brief rundown of what's going on in the earliest Jerusalem Christian community. Obviously, every thing's going well. "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's need."

Lucan scholars emphasize two points about these Acts summaries. First, as I mentioned above, they're idealistic. The evangelist is more interested in informing his readers about how things should be instead of how they actually were. His eyes are focused on the future, not the past. Second, these small recaps of the church's status and growth hold the Acts narratives together. It's presumed Luke had received a series of unconnected narratives from "those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning, and ministers of the word." He ties these stories together with his summaries, making the point that Jesus' faith is not only deeply lived by his first disciples, but also that his faith is steadily being implanted in the hearts of more and more people.

Luke's summaries set an example for all Jesus' followers, forcing us to ask two questions. What are we trying to accomplish by living his faith, and what about that faith joins the disconnected episodes of our life?

The answer to both questions revolves around the same concept. Jesus' disciples are convinced their faith-filled actions can change the world. They presume they're called to carry on Jesus' work. John's newly risen Jesus informs his disciples, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." In his recent book, God and Empire, John Dominic Crossan compares the ministries of John the Baptizer and Jesus. "John had a monopoly, but Jesus had a franchise." Jesus expected his followers to buy into that franchise.

Against common belief, the historical Jesus wasn't "sent" to set up a church, initiate religious hierarchical structures, or create a series of new doctrines and dogmas. In John's Easter Sunday appearance, Jesus expects his followers to accomplish one task. Having received the Spirit, they're now to understand, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." Above all, they're to recognize their power to imitate God's forgiveness of people. (Scholars presume no disciple of Jesus - imitating him - would ever retain anyone's sins. But we must understand what happens when we don't forgive.)

Forgiving others creates problems. The author of I Peter, probably delivering a baptismal homily which was later turned into a letter, warns his community, "You may for a time have to suffer the distress of many trials." No one can be a witness for God's forgiving personality without suffering the same pain God's forgiving Son endured.

In both the second and third readings, much is made of the fact that those for whom these writings are composed never came into contact with the "historical" Jesus. "Although you have never seen him, you love him," the I Peter author writes, "and without seeing you believe in him, and rejoice with inexpressible joy touched with glory because you are achieving faith's goal, your salvation." John's Jesus tells Thomas, "You became a believer because you saw me. Blest are they who have not seen and have believed."

It's the risen Jesus whom we surface in our daily acts of faith. It's that Jesus who becomes present among us when we attempt to carry on the ministry of the historical Jesus.

His ministry both motivates us and ties our separate acts of faith together. Unless we buy into Jesus' franchise, our faith lives would be just a series of disconnected events.

MARCH 22, 2008: THE EASTER VIGIL

Readings:
Exodus 14:15-15:1
Isaiah 55:1-11
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 28:1-10

(All nine readings should be proclaimed tonight. But because of space limitations, I can only comment on four.)

Bob McClory begins his latest book As It Was in the Beginning, by quoting from the Grand Inquisitor chapter of Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. The Spanish church's 16th century judge of orthodoxy and heresy arrests Jesus who has returned, healing and comforting his people.

"The old inquisitor's complaint is basically this: that Jesus refused to use his power to relieve mankind of the burden of freedom.’Freedom of faith was dearer to Thee than anything in those days fifteen hundred years ago,' he says.’Didn't Thou not often say, "'I will set you free!'" But now Thou hast seen these "free men" . . . . Yes, we've paid dearly for it . . . but at least we have completed that work in Thy name. For fifteen centuries we have been wrestling with Thy freedom. But now it is over and ended for good."

Tonight's biblical message revolves around life. In the period before our lectors start to proclaim our readings, we've experienced the contrast between dark and light, night and day, death and life. Above everything, we're commemorating the life Jesus so generously shares with his followers.

But what kind of life is this which the risen Jesus offers? Our sacred authors were convinced it's more than just the ability to get into heaven one day. The early Christians celebrated this most important event against the background of Yahweh rescuing a band of Hebrew slaves from Egyptian captivity. On one side of the sea was slavery, on the other, freedom. The life Yahweh offers is rooted in ordinary earthly freedom, not heavenly bliss. (The concept of an afterlife as we know it wouldn't enter Jewish theology until 1,100 years after the Exodus!) The Chosen People's choices were simple: life/death, slavery/freedom.

But as Deutero-Isaiah pointed out during his people's Babylonian captivity, there's a price to pay for being free. We must personally choose to sidestep the serenity and security which slavery offers and accept the pain and uncertainty which freedom demands, the very thing from which the Grand Inquisitor saves us. Once one freely gives oneself to God, one begins a unique existence. Though God is always near, the prophet also reminds us of the other side of the coin. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways," says Yahweh. "As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts." Determining what are God's ways is a life-long process. Slaves never have the opportunity - or burden - to make such decisions.

Our Romans passage on the life Jesus offers is simply an introduction to Paul's thesis on Christian freedom. Following tonight's moving words, the Apostle reminds his readers, "Thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted. Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness." Paul then demonstrates how Jesus' death and resurrection has freed his followers from the slavery of the 613 laws of Moses. Paul can't conceive of Christians living their faith without freedom.

Such a concept is just as disturbing to some of us today as was the angel's Easter message to the frightened women. They didn't find what they thought they'd find. It would take them a long time to understand the implications of Jesus alive among them.

The early church eagerly accepted pain and hardship as an essential part of the freeing life of Jesus, the very pain and hardship which the Grand Inquisitor had successfully eradicated by eradicating freedom.

By the way, the sub-title of McClory's book is The Coming Democratization of the Catholic Church. If we think we're having problems now . . . .

MARCH 20, 2008: EUCHARIST OF THE LORD'S SUPPER

Readings
Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
I Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-15

There's a good reason the early church chose this day to officially forgive those sinners who had completed their public penance. Everything about tonight's celebration stresses unity. There's no better occasion to again unite those separated from the church with their communities.

We old timers who grew up simply "going to Mass," had to learn after Vatican II what the Eucharist originally meant for Jesus' disciples. Taught to regard the person kneeling next to us as a temptation to sin, we had to go back to Christian basics. Only after our mid-60s reform did we begin to understand the person kneeling next to us was the reason we were celebrating the Lord's Supper. Our common belief that the Mass was an action between God and me, with no distractions permitted, had to be drastically changed.

Paul already challenged that heresy almost 2,000 years ago. In the second half of I Corinthians 11, he angrily confronts that element in his community who tried to ignore those gathered around them during the Eucharist, especially the poor. In the original pot-luck setting of the Lord's Supper, some resented certain people's attainability to bring anything for the pot. They ingeniously informed such people that the meal began at 7:30; while the well-to do gathered at 7:00. "When you meet . . . it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his or her own supper. One goes hungry while another gets drunk."

It's against this individualistic background of the "Mass" that the Apostle reminds his community, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes."

What makes the Eucharist the _Lord's_ Supper is the determination of those who participate to die deeply enough to themselves to be one with everyone around the table, even the "unworthy." Only then can we validly proclaim Jesus' death.

Paul perfectly sums up the situation: "For those who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment on themselves." In this context, he's not talking about Jesus' "body" in the bread and wine; he's referring to all those participating in the Eucharist, those who, because of their willingness to become one with those around them, have become the body of Christ.

John's Jesus zeroes in on the same Eucharistic dimension in our gospel pericope. The evangelist replaces the Last Supper "words of institution" ("This is my body; this is my blood") with Jesus' servant act of foot washing. He humbly becomes one with his followers, stepping out of his "field of expertise" and serving them in a way that leaves him out of control of the situation. No wonder Peter objects, and no wonder Jesus gives him the "my way or the highway" alternative. Only by serving others through our weakness can we completely become one with those others. Those who refuse to do this can't be Christian in Jesus' definition of the term.

As good Jews, both Paul and Jesus must have often reflected on how Yahweh became one with a ragtag band of runaway slaves 1,200 years before. Every year they heard the words of our first reading as they gathered for Passover. Who would think that the Great God could identify with these Hebrew slaves and free them from the most powerful nation in the Middle-East? That oneness meant freedom for the Chosen People.

In the same way, our oneness with those gathered for the Breaking of Bread is what brings us freedom, the freedom of being Jesus' Chosen People. Though we've long ago given up officially absolving sinners on Holy Thursday, perhaps each of us could ask forgiveness this night for turning the Lord's Supper into an event the Lord wouldn't recognize.

MARCH 16, 2008: SUNDAY OF THE LORD'S PASSION

Readings:
Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippians 2:6-11
Matthew 26:14-27:66

Many of us have been raised in such a way that after we hear today's Passion Narrative we believe our proper response is simply to say, "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for dying for me!" Our four evangelists (and all other Christian sacred authors who describe Jesus' suffering and death) are looking for a different response. They anticipate we'll say, "Thank you for showing me how I can die for others."

If Matthew, for instance, wanted to inform us about the physical pain Jesus endured for us, he did a lousy job. He mentions almost nothing about it. Unbelievably, he describes Jesus' actual crucifixion in just one small, dependent clause: "After they had crucified him . . . ." Nothing about the horrendous pain of nails piercing his wrists, or the horrible torment of a raw, scourged back scraping against rough wood for three hours.

Our sacred authors always have their readers before their eyes. They write for them. Remember the old Williams Lectric Shave commercials? They ended with the newly shaved man slapping each side of his face and exclaiming. "Thanks! I needed that!" Except for the face slapping, our biblical writers are looking for the same response. They want their communities, after reading their works, to thank them for hitting them where it hurts; the point in their faith which is the most vulnerable, the issue they'd prefer not to address.

Jesus' followers have one goal in life: to imitate Jesus' dying and rising. We presume everyone longs for life - a content, fulfilled existence in this world, the next, or both. Christians are convinced this longed for life can be attained by walking down the road Jesus first explored; by dying throughout their earthly lives. The question is, "How do we pull that off?" Do we actually give ourselves over to the physical pain and death the historical Jesus endured late Holy Thursday night and Good Friday morning and afternoon?

No doubt for some, such physical pain and death will be necessary. But for the majority, our suffering and dying for others will consist of the psychological pain and death we willingly endure for those we love. That's why Matthew and his co-evangelists downplay the physical in their Passion Narratives and emphasize the psychological. It's the kind of suffering we most need to hear about, the kind of suffering we'll most likely face.

Listen carefully to Jesus' pain in today's gospel pericope: betrayed by a trusted friend and deserted by his most committed followers, tormented about his mission, misunderstood by those he wanted to help, falsely accused and condemned by his religious and civil leaders. Yet in spite of all these obstacles, he never stops loving, never stops giving himself.

Paul zeroes in on the same loving characteristic when he quotes a well-known early Christian hymn in our Philippians passage. "He (Jesus) emptied himself . . . . Humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." No one empties oneself for others without experiencing pain.

Deutero-Isaiah discovered this 500 years before Jesus' birth. Though Yahweh wakes him each morning, opening his ear to prepare him "to speak to the weary a word that will arouse them," it's those "weary" who seem eventually to have killed him. They're the very people who beat him, plucked his beard and spit on him.

Both Jesus and Deutero-Isaiah were convinced that one only reaches life by giving, even if the giving is misunderstood, rejected and the source of one's daily dying.

Again I remind you of Fr. Ed Hays' comment: "Jesus' first followers imitated him long before they worshiped him."

MARCH 9, 2008: FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

Readings:
Ezekiel 37:12-14
Romans 8:8-11
John 11:1-45

No concept is more restricted by the limits of our human nature than the life Jesus offers his followers. What exactly is that life?

In the 1960s epic movie Barabbas, the title character asks Lazarus, years after the event narrated in today's gospel passage, "What's it like being dead?" Jesus' resuscitated friend responds, "How do you explain to a fetus in the womb what it means to be alive?" In such a situation you're talking about two different concepts of life. The second has yet to be experienced in a fetal environment. It's impossible to describe.

Our Christian sacred authors faced a similar difficulty when they tried to explain the life which comes to us when we die and rise with Jesus.

Ezekiel didn't have that problem. He simply guarantees his community in exile that Yahweh will one day bring them back to live in the freedom of the Promised Land. He's so certain of this that he assures his people that not even death will stop God from carrying out this promise. If need be, Yahweh states, "I will open your graves, have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel."

Paul, on the other hand, goes beyond the restoration of life his readers have already experienced. The Apostle reflects on the brand new life which is at the heart of the existence Jesus' disciples now live. It's not just a return to an ideal past life.

Though Christians live in the same world as non-Christians, Paul assures his readers, "You are not in the flesh; you are in the spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you . . . . If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness." Paul believes that even before our "mortal bodies" come to life after our physical death, the deepest part of ourselves - our spirit - has left its old life behind and stepped into the new life Jesus promised and experienced.

Writing about 40 years after Paul, John carries this idea several steps further. The last gospel writer is a proponent of "realized eschatology." He believes that much of what we're expecting to happen in the future - especially after death - is already taking place right here and now.

Today's exchange between Jesus and his grieving friend Martha is a perfect example of John's "new and improved" theology. "Your brother will rise," Jesus assures her. She then echoes the "traditional" first century belief, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day."

At this point, John's Jesus leads Martha down a new road. "I am the resurrection and the life; those who believe in me, even if they die, will rise, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

Not only are we assured that our faith in Jesus will one day bring us eternal life, it's bringing us that life long before we leave this earth. In some sense, we're also called to "come out" of our old ideas of eternal life and, like John, explore new ways in which Jesus' life is already being realized and experienced now.

Many wonder what motivated such a significant theological change. The answer is simple. Jesus' earliest followers weren't restricted by a set of established dogmas and doctrines. They relied on what I mentioned above: their day by day experience of the risen Jesus being a part of their lives. Some of us more modern followers of Jesus believe falling back on dogmas and doctrines is enough to get us into heaven. We forget that because our ancestors in the faith put their trust in their faith experiences they actually were able to recognize the heavenly life invigorating their daily lives.