First Sunday of Lent; Choosing to Be Less or to Be More.

We are lucky because we are always in a state of becoming.  We are not static, we are process and potential. God has given us the gift of reason so we can choose and the gift of time to give opportunities. We are formed by the endless stream of choices we make. Each good one builds us up and each poor one weakens us.  Each choice brings us closer to God or further from Him. It is always our choice. But, rarely do we have to make- the choice – that would define our lives, once and for all.

But, today I have two re-imagined stories of a fundamental choice to tell you, stories about righteousness, our right relationship with God, sin, and the insidious of evil.

The Garden

In the beginning the first human beings, Adam & Eve lived in right relationship (that is in righteousness). They were in right relationship with God.  They walked with God.  It was that familiar and natural. They were in right relationship with each other.  Scripture says they didn’t even know they were naked.  They had nothing to hide.  There was only selfless love and the common good. They were in right relationship with the environment.  It was described as a garden.  Every plant was good, all their needs were met and they were good stewards of God’s gift of the garden.

And the sign and symbol of this righteousness, this right relationship of confident trust & loving obedience was the tree in the center of the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil which they were forbidden to eat from. 

One day Satan, in the shape of a serpent comes by.
 “Adam what’s up”
“Nothing Satan, what’s up with you”
“Not much, just going for a walk.  How’s the garden?”
“It’s great. Things are really going well for Eve and me.”
“Glad to hear that. Take care, See you around”

Sometime later Satan comes back (evil seems to always come back)

“Long time no see, you two”
Adam & Eve looked up from their gardening  “Hi Satan, what bring you here?”
“Well, I am glad you asked.  I have been thinking about you both and that tree over there”?
“the tree of knowledge of good and evil?” Adam says as he gestures towards it.
“Yah, that one”
“What about it?” Eve says
”Correct me if I’m wrong.  You can eat anything in the garden, but not from that tree, right?”
“Yah, God asked us not to eat from that tree and it seems reasonable to us’
Satan steps closer
“But, that is what bugs me Adam. I think you and Eve are getting a bum deal”
“Really, how so”
“God has given you everything”

“Yes”
“Everything for your benefit”
“Yes”
“Then why are you not using God’s gift of reason?  You know, to think for yourself?”
“Adam & Eve look at each and then back to the serpent
“What do you mean”?
“Let me ask you a question. Do you love God”?
“Absolutely, more than anything”
“Well, if you loved God, as much as you say you do, then why wouldn’t want to know what was good or evil?  If you knew what was good and evil, you would never do anything wrong and God would love you even more than he does now”
“You both would be perfect, like him, and we know how much God loves perfection” He hisses.

In their immaturity, foolishness, and misplaced love this seemed reasonable to them, they were of course, only human. . And so they ate from the tree a “choosing” to be like God (self-sufficient) rather than choosing a trusting dependence on God. They lost their righteousness and perverted their relationship with God and for the first time they hide from God, because now they were afraid of God.

They lost right relationship with each other.  Scripture says they realized they were naked, because now they had something to hide “You made me do it”  “No, you made me do It”. The Self and Ego (with its pride, jealously & fear) took hold of man. The selfish impulse replaced the selfless.

They lost right relationship with the environment. They lost the garden and now had to farm semi-arid desert, deal with drought, famine, and plague, nature was no longer a friend.  Their bodies turned against them in aging and sickness and their spirit was confronted with the dark mystery of death.

This new human condition is the result of turning from God, when Adam & Eve unknowingly released Sin (in all its forms) into the world, and for the individual the new susceptibility to the alluring insidiousness of sin.   Evil always, ready to use whatever is at its disposal to turn us away from God, to sin rather than to love.

The Desert.

After his baptism Jesus was led into the desert, a place of testing, by the Spirit.  After 4o days and 40 nights of fasting scripture says simply “Afterwards he was hungry”

Perhaps, as Jesus has a little water in the cool of the evening watching the sun go down, Satan “The Tempter” shows up.
“What going on? After 40 days you must be starved”.
Jesus answers “I am hungry”
“Me too, what do have to eat”?
“Nothing.” Jesus replies
“No problem” Satan says

“If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread”

Jesus looks at the stones and then at Satan “I don’t think so”
“Why not?  We’re both hungry”.
“Is not life more than the body”?  Jesus replies.
“one does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God”

Satan shrugs, “Ok, forget about the food, I have a better idea”.
“If you are the Son of God throw yourself down from the highest tower in Jerusalem and let His angels
save you.”
“Are you asking me if I am the Son of God or are you asking me to test God”?
“Both” Satan replies.     
“ I know myself and I know God. I need no proof of God’s faithfulness and do not see why you do”?  “You know it is written “you shall not put your God to the test”
Satan smirks “So you won’t feed us or entertain us.” 

“How about this” Satan turns to look out over the darkening horizon.
“ I have some influence over all the kingdoms of the earth.  All their wealth and power is at my command and I will give it all to you.”
“I can make you the greatest king that ever was, worthy of who you are.  Then Satan plays his last card. “You can rule as you please, do good, for all I care.”
“If - only, between you and me, right here in the desert, with no one watching you worship me, just once”

Jesus says, without looking a Satan “I will not sin. I will not forsake God.
 “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
“The Lord your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve”

Jesus chose love of God over love of self, right relationship over a sinful relationship.

The devil left him, we are told, but only for a time because at Jesus’ crucifixion, Satan again appears in the guise of an onlooker at the foot of the cross and using the same words to for the same temptation
“If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross”

What is this all about?

Satan didn’t give a fig for a cheap trick.  He could do cheap tricks galore. He could change stones to bread, he could have his demons catch him in a fall, and he has princely power in the world.  But, he knew who Jesus was and what he was to become and this frightened him. Satan wanted Jesus to claim equality with God that day, wanted him to give into pride, anger and selfishness. Satan wanted to be chastised by a show of power. Satan wanted to be beaten! Satan wanted Jesus to use his will rather than the father’s will. Because, if Jesus had poured forth his glory to banish Satan, that would prove that anyone and everyone could be turned by sin. It would have been of been victory for Evil.

But, Jesus choose powerlessness, humility, and righteous over power, pride and sin. Jesus chose to ”be less” then he was, in the face of every temptation, a foreshadow of the cross, which would  open the door to our redemption and our salvation, which Adam, in choosing  to “be more” than he was had closed.

Leaven & Salt, Transform From Within, 5th Sunday Ordinary Time

Today’s Gospel is part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus addresses the crowds and delivers the   Beatitudes  “blessed” he tells them.  Blessed are the; mourners, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted. Now remember Israel was waiting for a princely warrior king messiah that would battle the Romans and expel them from Israel. .Was this the messianic army to drive out the Romans – the meek and the pure of heart?

Now, we must stop for a moment and consider the dynamics of the Kingdom of God according to Jesus.

The Kingdom of God, comes secretly and hidden. It arrives un-expectantly and in unexpected places.

The Kingdom of God is hidden (not because God wants it so) but because the world looks in the wrong places for it, or fails to recognize it, or is willfully blind to it. The kingdom of God is concealed but it is abundanty and effectively active, even where it is not seen.  God transforms everything from within.

The Kingdom of God also does not come following a linear path, it's more tidal, ebbing and flowing in human history. And the Kingdom of God does not destroy; not ages, kingdoms, nations or cultures it infiltrates them with truth, permeates them with light, and transform them according to His will.

 So now, back to the gospel of today. Jesus knew the Roman Empire was not going anywhere. 

He also knew the reign of God had come, had already broken into the Roman world like some weed in a well-manicured garden. Indeed, the Roman Empire was a well-manicured garden, and a well-oiled machine.

It had turn Jesus’s home of Galilee into one of its stomping grounds. Herod Antipas, client king of Rome, had turned the Sea of Galilee into a commercial hub of fishing and fish processing and a vital center of merchant shipping. He built his new capital, the splendid and imperial, Tiberius on its western shore to attract pilgrims and tourist on their way to Jerusalem.  Galilee was not a backwater. Roman roads crisscrossed Galilee, Roman commerce moved east to Damascus, north to Jerusalem and west to Mediterranean ports.  Roman taxes were collected and Roman dues paid.  

Jesus had grown up in this Roman world.  It was a world of power, expansion, and commerce.

Jesus saw Roman power as something that could not be beaten, but he also saw that it was already being penetrated by the Kingdom of God, sprouting up like a misplaced seed; small and concealed, but full of promise, and unstoppable by its very nature.

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (and throughout his gospel message) says God’s reign has already begun, growing in our very midst, though it was still hidden from the world too blinded by its own reflection to see the truth. Jesus tells the crowd, those who already have experienced God’s presence: the meek, the merciful, and the pure of heart, even the persecuted are blessed. 

 But, many would still ask where is God’s flaming sword of wrath where is his mighty and glorious army?   We want payback & vengeance not mercy & forgiveness. Jesus knew that God's reign did not, nor would not, come like some glimmering army in the noon day sun, but rather like a commando dropped onshore on a moonless night, behind enemy lines so to speak.

God's kingdom comes like a quite, life giving, breath. Its entry into the world was unassuming but necessary, even critical, like salt and leaven, or as natural as light, and as relentless as a mustard seed.  But, it was also mysterious and marvelous like a hidden pearl or as an unmeasurable treasure buried in an abandoned field.

Jesus also tell us that even though God was concealed, he was, and is, active, like leaven that contributes to generous rising of bread or light, first hidden under a basket, but escaping to illuminates the dark room, or as Jesus says, it is even like city on a hill, first obscured by the morning fog, but when the fog is burned away by the mid-day sun it reveals the perfect glorious city.

And the dynamics of God Kingdom are also the dynamics of God’s people. Like those living in 1st century Galilee we are constrained and limited to our time & place and the powers that be. But, Jesus reminds us that we are not prisoners or slaves of that power. He shows us we do not have to give in to the shimmering allure of the dominate culture nor do we to run from the inequalities of absolute power.  

We can dig in and work from within; building up God’s Kingdom right in the very center of our culture; brick by brick,  making one better choice at a time, one act of kindness or one act of forgiveness.We infiltrate

 pride with humbleness, we permeate greed with generosity,and we transform meanness by kindness.

We can transform, by God’s grace and our patient hard work, the entire culture, starting with ourselves first, than our marriages and families which then spills out and permeates the school and playground, the workplace, the parish, the community and the nation, everywhere and always choosing human dignity over human commerce and the common good over the private good. We can use the world to better the world, we can use the culture to make the culture better, we do not hate the world for what it has become but we love it for what it was meant to be.  Blessed indeed those that already do this.

But, if we do not choose the better and the good and we don't share the many gifts we receive from God, his kingdom remains hidden because we are inactive and sterile, we are salt that loses its value and light that remains hidden in darkness. 

But, we are children of light and faithful servants and our mission and our goal is to be the light of Christ that illuminates the dark corners of suffering, and to grow like the humble mustard seed into a tree capable of - in Isaiah’s words, 

 “To share our bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless, cloth the naked and not turn our back on our own and remove from our midst, false accusations and malicious speech”

  We are capable of this and even greater things, even if they are small things. God's kingdom is here in our very midst. We must live this reality and we must proclaim it. How do we proclaim this good news? Jesus tells us loud and clear

 “Your light must shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father”

May the good work God has begun in us and the world come to fruition and fulfillment.

Baptism of the Lord

The Baptism of the Lord is one of those historical nuggets NT scholars are always searching for, and it is also theological. It is historical because the early Church, was still in some tension with those who had followed John the Baptist, and those who followed Jesus  would not have made up a story where Jesus is baptized by John.  And it is clear in Scripture that John was the fore runner, who preached and baptized and was already at work in the Jordan valley when Jesus began his mission. 

 The baptism was certainly important to Jesus who surly shared his inner experience with the disciples.  They were so moved by its significance they passed it on through the varied oral traditions eventually finding the baptism event in all four Gospels and even the non-canonical Gospels of Hebrews and Thomas. The Baptism was remember for a reason.

 The Baptism of The Lord is theological because the earliest Church saw in it a Trinitarian event, where the mystery of God’s inner life of mutual self-giving, was made manifest and revealed as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in our time and history.

But let’s start at the beginning. At the Nativity we heard that the poorest of the poor, the shepherds in the fields, were visited by the angel of The Lord who said to the terrorized men

“Do not be afraid, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. A savior has been born for you who is the Christ”

And the world was light up by this revelation and by a multitude of the heavenly host praising God saying

“Glory to God in the highest”

After this outpouring of God’s Glory on earth, the world rested, dreaming its dreams, sleeping in its darkness. The moment God entered the world was forgotten, except in the hearts and the story, told and retold by the shepherds, who were there that day and the wise men who surely carried their experience back to their people in the East. The next thirty years were silent. These were the hidden years of the child born and glorified that night.

This were ordinary years learning what all boys learn from their fathers. In time Joseph taught Jesus the carpenter’s trade. Joseph taught Jesus the prayers of the synagogue and encouraged him to study the Torah.

Jesus learned what real strength was, what gentleness and patience were from Mary his mother.

It is clear that a good family was important to Jesus, as it is for all children. Jesus, growing up in Nazareth, learned the ways of a children's world from friends and extended family. They played children's games and perhaps were even a little naughty.

These were also years that Jesus grew in awareness of God, in his life and in the world around him. We know Jesus from an early age felt at home in the synagogue which he told his mother was his father's house.  We read that he amazed the rabbis by his understanding of Scripture. He was curious and astute.

 This growing awareness of a real shared life with God, would continue until his came to recognize his Sonship and God the Creator, became God the Father – Abba.

 

In time Jesus’ interior life blossomed into complete openness to His Father love and an absolute obedience to the Father's will, and an understanding of what the kingdom of his father would look like.

 We don't know any pre baptism details, but it makes sense Jesus knew John, both as cousin, and as a holy man. Jesus would of heard John preach.  Jesus would of talked to him about the coming the Messiah, about repentance and conversion. This stuff was in the air.  It is also likely that John came to "really" know Jesus. And it would be John himself who would say of Jesus

" Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."

 So after some thirty good and ordinary years Jesus comes to understand who he is and what he must do.

For Jesus the time is now, and he comes to a decision that changes everything and the dreaming world stirs from its slumber. God is on the move and draws near.

Jesus comes to the Jordan. John tries to stop him because his baptism is only with water as a sign of repentance and Jesus is without sin. John is disturbed,

"I need to be baptized by you and yet you are coming to me" John says.

Jesus with a new power and authority simply looks John in the eyes and says quietly

"allow it . . . . for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. "

There is no argument. Jesus tells John to do this as a sign (not of repentance) but of righteousness, and as a sign that inaugurates Jesus’ mission, and brings the Kingdom of God into the world.

From the moment Jesus came up from the water (a first resurrection of sorts) the heavens were open to him. The line of communication between Father & Son, through the Spirit (descending that day like a Dove) was up and running. God self-gift was now made concrete and visible, not as a child, worshiped by shepherds and glorified by the angels, but as Jesus, Lord. If I can be fanciful, the Father smiled that day and in a love that could not be contained revealed to the world

"This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased"

We know from the first reading what kind of Son Jesus was

"A servant upon whom God's own spirit dwells who brings forth Justice to the nations”

Jesus is salvation, an all-inclusiveness righteousness that saves all of humanity. And the Son came not to be served but to serve and Isaiah tells us how – He will be compassion and mercy, a love that will not "cry out" or "shout". He will heal the bruised reed, he will feed the smoldering wick, he will love, and he will, if we let him, transform us by that love.

The baptism of the Lord is a sign that breaks open the lock on humanity and offers up an invitation (in Jesus himself) to become new, and to know God's love and share his life. Through Jesus, the chosen and beloved Son God, the Father reaches out to us. Isaiah describes this in beautiful and simple words

“I grasped you by the hand and formed you"

God is active, he loves first, He grasps, He forms us as sons and daughters, co-heirs with Jesus, but he does not grasp and form to make us some special elect, some secret society. He grasps us to be like his son - a beloved servant,  doing the Father’s will the best we can doing whatever work that needs to be done to bring about His reign, here and now. To be in our own humble way

"A light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to free prisoners, and to free all those who live in darkness"

To be good and faithful servants walking like Jesus walked.  Doing what he did. In the words of  Peter

“He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him"

The Baptism of Jesus’ set all of this in motion and the world has never been the same.

We should never undervalue our own baptism. We too live with the Spirit (the gift of our own baptism).  We too grow in faith (the fruit of baptism). We too (in Christ) are beloved sons and daughters of God and can experience more and more what communion with the Father feels like in our lives.

We know the story of what came after Jesus' baptism. Our story is still being written.

But when it is finished let it echo the words of Isaiah

“Would that you might fine us doing right, that we were mindful of you, in all our ways”

Come, Lord Jesus, Come !

Advent is the season of Christian imagination; God given, enriching, a positive human faculty to think creatively - to imagine a mystery.

I want you to imagine this - a promise so full of potential, it is like a late fall pomegranate

splitting open revealing its sweetness.

Imagine a promise so potent, so generous and self-giving - that even as the promise is being given it is already pouring out what is promised.

Imagine a promise that even as we wait for its fulfillment it gives us the abundant means, the grace, to wait in Hope and Joy. 

And I want to imagine being able to look backwards and forwards simultaneously

because this what the Church does and along with the whole Church I want us to imagine the fullness of the inexpressible mystery Advent.

 At Advent we look backward and call to mind that all of scripture is the revelation of God’s promise; from creation when God declared all to be good, through Abraham the father of faith, through Moses and his complete trust in God, through the prophets with their visions of God. 

But, most of all, in Advent, we remember God’s promise fulfilled in Jesus, his son, our Lord.

 We remember that God himself, through the incarnation, the Word made flesh, came to be with us as Emmanuel, God is with us.

He came because he simply loves us, he came to bring us home, he came as truth, life, and salvation.

In this season of Advent we celebrate the incarnation, the first coming of Christ as an infant in the manger, and we look forward to the second coming of Christ, the Parousia, when he comes as Lord over all.

As we celebrate we live in hope and we patiently wait for that day and when it comes to pass and God’s promise is fulfilled, the Church will pass away.

 There will be no need of scripture. No need of bishops, priests or deacons and the people of God will include everyone.

The work will be done, the waiting will be over. Only God’s beatific vision will remain.

Advent, Latin for “to come” is the longing for that momentous day.

A day Isaiah repeatedly points to as “on that day” and what St Paul has described as 

"The plan to be carried out in Christ, in the fullness of time, to bring all things into one in him in the heavens and on earth"

In the first reading Isaiah paints us an imaginative view of God’s promise as the new heaven and the new earth.

On that day ... a shoot shall sprout....a bud will blossom… the Spirit will judge in truth and justice.

The wolf will love the lamb and the lion will yield to the child, the baby is safe with the cobra - for the world will be filled overflowing and abundant with God.

On that day, I might add

The poor and the rich will share the same table, because they are equal, judged for who they are not for what they have.

Nations will rejoice in God; Israelis will love Palestinian, Sunni the Shite.

Moslem and Christian will remember that there is only One God and we are all brothers and sisters, children, each one of us, of that One God.

On that day all of creation, like the prodigal son, will return to right relationship with God, the Father and he will welcome us and all of creation, and he will rejoice.

But, our Advent longing for that day cannot be passive wishful thinking, but must be active and life affirming, it must enliven our hearts to trust God completely, to him love more deeply and to have a faith that lasts for as long as it takes. 

John the Baptist longed for that day and pointed to it when he preached repentance in the desert and when he baptized in the Jordan as a sign of that repentance and as a first step in preparation for the coming Lord. 

John was fired up and there was urgency in the air "for the Kingdom of God was at hand"

John called for a new honesty of character, a true conversion and an openness to what was/is coming.  John, the voice of one crying out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths calls the Pharisees and Sadducees, who are lurking around his baptisms,  a brood of vipers, trouble makers, because they stubbornly look backwards to Abraham as their hope.  Abraham was a holy man loved by God, but he could not save, only he who was coming could save.

 the Pharisees and Sadducees were roadblocks to the people because they denied the potent truth of Isaiah’s vision.

John, who I imagine, would be losing his temper says look!

"I am baptizing you with water, but it is only a sign of repentance.

 I tell you, the one who is coming after me - is mightier than I.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" 

The one who comes will change everything and every tree that does not bear good fruit

will be cut down and he will consume all of us one way or the other.

John who was not the light, but pointed to the light seems to be saying –

we can argue till the cows come home, but "on that day" it will not matter.

Only Truth will matter and all will be subject to an unquenchable fire.

A divine fire that will devour, but it will also purify, and those purified will be foraged together, in Christ, one body one spirit and “on that day” all things will be brought together into one and handed back to the Father.

This is a good thing and the Church especially at Advent celebrates and rejoices in hope & joy for its coming.

 Let us then celebrate by looking back to God’s first coming; in all its tenderness and joy; the nativity, the Holy Family and the child Jesus and we look forward, beyond the horizon, to His second coming in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.

"on that day" our hope and our joy will spill out like that over ripe pomegranate.

 and we will rejoice in the presence of the Lord.  Come, Lord Jesus. Come!

"On that day” the earth shall be filled with Spirit of The Lord and his dwelling shall be glorious"

“On that day” our Advent longing will be over.