Listen! And Witness!

Easter Sunday

We are witnesses of…  (Acts 10:39)

On vacation last night, I found myself in the midst of an Assembly I didn’t know at the Easter Vigil.  The fire, the growing candle light, the reading of our sacred story, the water, the white, the singing, the prayers…it is high drama!  There was one catechumen, a young lady affirming her nascent faith. 

And alongside her, once again, I ask myself “Do I believe?”  And if I do then the line from Acts (from this morning’s liturgy) grabs my attention.  What does living a life of witness to the Resurrection look like? 

In an article by James Martin S.J. published Friday in the Wall Street Journal, Fr. Martin says that such Resurrection faith makes a real claim on the life of a believer.  “The Resurrection says, ‘Listen.’”  Turning that listening into witnessing…the work and prayer of a lifetime!

From the Article:

What difference does Easter make in the life of the Christian? The message of Easter is, all at once, easy to understand, radical, subversive and life-changing. Easter means that nothing is impossible with God. Moreover, that life triumphs over death. Love triumphs over hatred. Hope triumphs over despair. And that suffering is not the last word.

Easter says, above all, that Jesus Christ is Lord. That is an odd thing to read in a secular newspaper. But I’m merely stating a central Christian belief. And if he is Lord, and if you’re a Christian, then what he says has a claim on you. His teachings are invitations, to be sure, but they are also commands: Love your neighbors. Forgive. Care for the poor and the marginalized. Live a simple life. Put the needs of others before your own.

Jesus’ message still has the power to make us feel uncomfortable, as it did in first-century Palestine. It was just as much of a challenge to pray for your enemies in antiquity. It was no easier to hear Jesus’ judgment against the excesses of the wealthy during a time of degrading poverty for so many. It was just as subversive a message to be asked to pray for your persecutors as it is now.

Click here for the whole of Fr. Martin’s article The Challenge of Easter

Called to Life

Good Friday of Our Lord’s Passion

It is Good Friday.  Jesus stares down death…spiritually significant death, that is.  Death that comes from sin.  Death that makes living, hell.

While I was writing a short paper for my History and Preaching class I came across this from Ambassador of Christ, In Memory of Walter J. Burghardt, S.J. by Leo J. Donovan, SJ: 

At the age of 78, Walter entered what he later called the most exciting period of his life.

Being saved from the fear, horror, and terror of death is the gift of the cross.  It is the gift that allows for a life like Walter’s…a living that never stops.  Just living into the next with fullness.  And there is NO naiveté. 

I want to be able to say at age 78 (or any age for that matter) that I am entering the most exciting period.  I think I know what “exciting” meant for Walter.  It had everything to do with a sense of gratitude for that which came before and a conviction that one’s history is the building block for the next.  Life is never quite done this side of eternal life. 

May I see and hear that voice that calls me to life in the next, over and over again.

Being Made Sharers

Holy Thursday - Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper

During my 20+ years on the parish liturgy committee, I have spent more than my share of time in discussion about the balance of this liturgy. However the liturgy incorporates "foot washing", I know that it has been over-done when the "meal" gets lost.

The collect:
Graciously grant that being made sharers in his consecration we may bear witness...

If only every shared meal was that evocative. What if even every Sunday Euchariat was that evocative?  That prayer touches on the whole.

SHARERS - makes me present to the presence
IN HIS CONSECRATION - reminds me of my participation by virtue of my baptism
BEAR WITNESS - demands that I wrestle with what the commandment to love looks like in the daily of my life

But the prayer is collective
Not just I but We
Powerfully collective

The body at prayer
The body at table
The body in service
The body in remembrance
The body in communion
The body in vigil
The body in love

Da Da Dum

Tuesday of Holy Week

John 13:21-33, 36-38

The pace is quickening:

“do quickly”

“at once”

“it was night”

“at once”

“now”

“not now”

“later”

“at cock crow”

There is tight choreography and dramatic detail.  I find myself straining to hear the whispers around the table.  And then the revelation of Judas…I can hear the soundtrack. Of the disciples only Judas is clear…but in the dark.  The missing verses are the ones about loving one another.  

Love will be their most important identifier. The “Love” verses wrap around the drama and the confusion.  They provide light…as if through a crack in the floorboards.  The “Love” verses are the hope. 

I suppose the lectionary wants this Tuesday of Holy Week to be about setting the scene for what is to come…a dramatic build up? 

Still…Love as I am loved.  That is the perennial reminder.  It will get me through my own “Peter-like” denials.  It is the shape of glory.

What to Make of It?

Tuesday of the 5^th Week of Lent

Numbers21:4-9

In a nutshell, chapter 21 begins with the Israelites bargaining with God for a victory over the King of Arad.  All goes well (if murder and plunder=well;).  But despite the win the people start whining again.  Always the same thing…they look back at their slavery in Egypt and long for the supper table.  This time God is fed up.  He sends killer snakes to poison them.  They realize their sinfulness and ask Moses for help.  God tells Moses to a make a “serpent of bronze” and mount it on a staff.  All the people have to do is gaze on it and they will live.  Thanks God!

I trained a lector once who said that she could only read from the New Testament.  She simply couldn’t get her head around the vengeful, bargaining, all-too-human God of the Hebrew Scriptures. And I get it.  Just read this chapter in the Book of Numbers.  But it is an ancient heresy.  Around 144 in Rome a fellow named Marcion had the same idea.  The wrathful Hebrew God must be a lower entity that the God of love and mercy that Jesus comes to reveal.  The heresy was rejected.  There is but one God. 

The revelation in the scriptures is about God AND God’s people.  It is a revelation about a relationship.  Who are we vis a vis God?  The Holy Story appears to me as a wrestling with that question.  It is an unfolding story.  God stays the same but we humans are constantly in travail…and our texts reveal that travail.  So when I approach stories like this one I wonder where the movement is.  Where is the chipping away at this wrathful, bargaining, image of God?  

This one is lost on me!  But I’m not alone.  Here is an excerpt from John C. Holbert, the Lois Craddock Perkins Professor Emeritus of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology:

Well, that's the story. Are we now more enlightened about it now that we have looked more closely at it? Perhaps. We can now see that it is a part of that tradition of the wilderness where the Israelites are impatient grumblers thoroughly dissatisfied with Moses and with YHWH. Both Moses and YHWH become in their turn angry and frustrated with these ingrates and move to punish them in many and various ways. That seems clear enough.

But is that all? What about the magic of the copper viper pole? I am inclined to leave it as is, a piece of ancient necromancy best left in the distant past. And though John's gospel lifted it up allegorically to refer to Jesus' saving power, I remain suspicious that such textual use can finally be useful to us in our time. We need no magic poles to teach us that Jesus brings to us snake-bitten moderns a power and grace that only he can provide. Numbers 21:4-9 is quaint but less than efficacious as a necessary element in my Lenten journey. I leave the story and its fiery snakes far behind with few regrets.

(for the whole commentary click here)

Oh Susanna

Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Daniel13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62

(link is to the Bible so to include the missing verses)

First of all…don’t skip the missing verses.  The story is rich in detail…especially the missing verses.

The whole thing might be likened to an episode of Law & Order SVU.  (With Sgt. Benson playing the role of God and maybe the DA as Daniel;)

The details of the evil and deceit are clearly evidenced.  The turning point in the mounting drama is Susanna’s cry…her prayer:

O eternal God, you know what is hidden and are aware of all things before they come to be:  you know that they have testified falsely against me.  Here I am about to die, though I have done none of the things with which these wicked men have charged me.

And then…

The Lord heard her cry

So who is culpable when the Lord doesn’t seem to hear the cries?  God heard and used Daniel, human and fallible, as his agent of justice.  That is the hard part I think.  Being free enough…and uncluttered enough of mind and heart…to take my part in embodying God’s response to hearing of the cry of the poor.  God hears.  Then, it appears, that it is our turn. (deep breath)