July 4, 2021 at Saint Peter and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

Ezekiel 2, 2-5 + Psalm 123+ 2 Corinthians 12, 7-10 + Mark 6, 1-6

Telling the difference between good and evil is serious and difficult challenge to many of us. We have all been conditioned by artists and movies to think and expect evil to look terrible and frightening like monsters ugly and deformed becoming the stuff of nightmares. If that was really the case, we would all be safe since no one in their right mind would have anything to do with evil. But the truth is, evil is anything but frightening and ugly. It is, on the contrary, usually quite nice looking, polished, and attractive.

All of us know evil. It is not specific or individual sins that make a person evil. We all sin, but we are not all evil. It is the refusal to acknowledge sinful behavior that evil people. It is that repeated, consistent pattern with no thought or desire to change that leads to evil. Evil people are to be pitied, not hated. They are always sad, lonely people hiding a great and terrible emptiness known to only a few.

When Jesus got to Nazareth in today’s Gospel, those in that synagogue had to make a choice between good and evil. They made the wrong choice. They rejected goodness. That rejection was not from a personality clash, immaturity, or some political difference. It came from the faith and commitment of Jesus. It was easier for them to do nothing than to do something. It was easier for them to be negative than positive. It was easier to be destructive rather than creative and imagine some new vision of the Kingdom of God and a new concept of a Messiah.

His rejection was also due to the growing opposition from authorities who so inflamed the townspeople that they wanted to kill him. So, he moved his mother and his base of operation to Capernaum for safety. He worked from there rather than Nazareth. So, returning there was risky. Yet, I think, he loved his old friends and home-town neighbors.

They thought he was not worthy of a hearing because he was just a guy who made things with his hands. He was a carpenter. Some of them, just like some people today, think that people who work like that are not capable of anything intellectual or really great.

His rejection was also due to the fact that they were close to him. They knew who he was and they knew his whole clan. By mentioning his family members, they probably intended an insult. Assuming that his family was not held in high regard, they ask a good question: “Where did he get all of this?” They come to the wrong conclusion. The result is resentment, and therein lies a source of evil. Their minds are made up and their hearts are closed. They were offended by goodness itself, and thereby revealed their own self-hatred. They could not believe that from them, from Nazareth, something this good could rise up. 

The truth is that he is just too ordinary for them. He is just a young man who grew up there, worked with his father, became restless and left town to discover himself like so many others had done before him. They just could not believe that out of an ordinary life anything extra ordinary could possibly happen. They could not grasp that God works in ordinary ways day in and day out, and neither can we sometimes. The result is that we often miss the hand of God at work, and sometimes even deny the possibility. 

We cannot afford to make their mistakes. We need to recognize evil and choose good even when evil looks attractive, is easy, and might make us look good. We cannot afford to do nothing, to be negative, and to fail to imagine that God might actually plan to do something with plain old ordinary people like us. We cannot let resentment ever keep us from seeing goodness in all God’s people. 

My friends, if our faith, our religion, our traditions are ever to thrive and have a future, 

• We must do more than just belong. We must participate.
• We must do more than just care. We must help.
• We must do more than believe. We must practice
• We must do more than be fair. We must be kind
• We must do more than forgive. We must love.
• We must do more than live. We must grow.
• We must do more than be friendly. We must be friends.

When we embrace this truth and this way of life, Jesus Christ will be able to work great wonders here in this very place.

Ezekiel 2, 2-5 + Psalm 123+ 2 Corinthians 12, 7-10 + Mark 6, 1-6

Telling the difference between good and evil is serious and difficult challenge to many of us. We have all been conditioned by artists and movies to think and expect evil to look terrible and frightening like monsters ugly and deformed becoming the stuff of nightmares. If that was really the case, we would all be safe since no one in their right mind would have anything to do with evil. But the truth is, evil is anything but frightening and ugly. It is, on the contrary, usually quite nice looking, polished, and attractive.

All of us know evil. It is not specific or individual sins that make a person evil. We all sin, but we are not all evil. It is the refusal to acknowledge sinful behavior that evil people. It is that repeated, consistent pattern with no thought or desire to change that leads to evil. Evil people are to be pitied, not hated. They are always sad, lonely people hiding a great and terrible emptiness known to only a few.

When Jesus got to Nazareth in today’s Gospel, those in that synagogue had to make a choice between good and evil. They made the wrong choice. They rejected goodness. That rejection was not from a personality clash, immaturity, or some political difference. It came from the faith and commitment of Jesus. It was easier for them to do nothing than to do something. It was easier for them to be negative than positive. It was easier to be destructive rather than creative and imagine some new vision of the Kingdom of God and a new concept of a Messiah.

His rejection was also due to the growing opposition from authorities who so inflamed the townspeople that they wanted to kill him. So, he moved his mother and his base of operation to Capernaum for safety. He worked from there rather than Nazareth. So, returning there was risky. Yet, I think, he loved his old friends and home-town neighbors.

They thought he was not worthy of a hearing because he was just a guy who made things with his hands. He was a carpenter. Some of them, just like some people today, think that people who work like that are not capable of anything intellectual or really great.

His rejection was also due to the fact that they were close to him. They knew who he was and they knew his whole clan. By mentioning his family members, they probably intended an insult. Assuming that his family was not held in high regard, they ask a good question: “Where did he get all of this?” They come to the wrong conclusion. The result is resentment, and therein lies a source of evil. Their minds are made up and their hearts are closed. They were offended by goodness itself, and thereby revealed their own self-hatred. They could not believe that from them, from Nazareth, something this good could rise up. 

The truth is that he is just too ordinary for them. He is just a young man who grew up there, worked with his father, became restless and left town to discover himself like so many others had done before him. They just could not believe that out of an ordinary life anything extra ordinary could possibly happen. They could not grasp that God works in ordinary ways day in and day out, and neither can we sometimes. The result is that we often miss the hand of God at work, and sometimes even deny the possibility. 

We cannot afford to make their mistakes. We need to recognize evil and choose good even when evil looks attractive, is easy, and might make us look good. We cannot afford to do nothing, to be negative, and to fail to imagine that God might actually plan to do something with plain old ordinary people like us. We cannot let resentment ever keep us from seeing goodness in all God’s people. 

My friends, if our faith, our religion, our traditions are ever to thrive and have a future, 

• We must do more than just belong. We must participate.
• We must do more than just care. We must help.
• We must do more than believe. We must practice
• We must do more than be fair. We must be kind
• We must do more than forgive. We must love.
• We must do more than live. We must grow.
• We must do more than be friendly. We must be friends.

When we embrace this truth and this way of life, Jesus Christ will be able to work great wonders here in this very place.

June 27, 2021 at Saint Peter and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

Wisdom 1, 13-15, 2, 23-24 + Psalm 30 + 2 Corinthians 8, 7, 9, 13-15 + Mark 5, 21-43

Jesus calls that woman who is unclean, “daughter,” and with that she is healed of her affliction. Of course, her affliction is far more than a hemorrhage. It is far more than the fact that her medical bills have used up everything she had. Her real affliction is her isolation, the separation from family and her community brought on by this hemorrhage which was so horrible and defiling at the time. No one there would have touched her for fear of becoming unclean. In fact, they would have run her off had she not been sneaking around. But Jesus calls her, “Daughter”. With that, all is well and a relationship that was broken by this illness is healed and she is restored. 

Around this incident, there is another that reveals the work and the will of God. A man whose name is given because he is so well known comes desperately to Jesus. This is a man of power and influence, but at the moment, he is just a father terrified over the thought of losing his daughter. So, we get two daughters today and a father who cares more about his child than about his dignity as he falls down on the ground at the feet of Jesus.

For us who proclaim this Gospel today, Jairus becomes an image of God the Father who will go to any lengths for his children to be rescued from death even to the point of humbling himself to become one of us. It may help to understand the message of this Gospel to know that the Greek word Mark uses for both of these healings is: σώσει which has two meanings: to cure and to save.

The saving work of Jesus Christ is the work of healing what is broken. It is the work of restoring us to the Father. It is the work of restoring life when there has been death. It is the work of healing the broken family of human kind, that because of sin finds us all bankrupt and helpless as we try remedy after remedy to find what we all most desire: a chance to touch Jesus Christ. This daughter who is bleeding finds hope, healing, and salvation because the one she touches will bleed for her. 

We who dare to approach this altar might come humbly like Jairus full of hope and faith. We pray for ourselves like that woman, and we pray for one another as did this loving father. Some may come secretly like the woman with needs no one sees longing to simply touch and find healing salvation. And touch we shall as we reach out and touch the saving Body of Christ in Communion. We are all ordinary believers in a crowd who cannot claim extraordinary experiences of conscious direct encounter with our Lord in unmistakable and dramatic ways. Yet, we do sometimes touch him with all the modesty the word “touch” carries. Let’s reach out today, for as long as can remain in communion we know like the one he called his “daughter” that we shall be well again.

This homily was not delivered as prepared. I was serving the Maronite Community in Jupiter, Florida on June 20, 2021

Job 38, 1, 8-11 + Psalm 107 + 2 Corinthians 5,14-17 + Mark 4, 35-41

Just in case you like trivia, the surface of the lake they are crossing is 682 feet below sea level. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides that are between 1000 and 2000 feet above the lake. Warm air on the water and cold air on the mountains just a few miles away can get very turbulent very fast. The cool air falls down the sides of the mountains and mixes with the warm wet air at which point you are going to have a storm. It’s not unusual, but not always predictable without the tool of doppler radar that we have today. But these are not amateurs in that boat. They have lived there and made their living off that lake all their lives. For them to be challenged by this storm says something about its violence. They want another hand on the oars or trimming the sails, and that extra pair of hands is asleep. They don’t like it. So, they wake him up to lend a hand.

When Mark tells us that they were awestruck and terrified, I think they were more afraid of what he did than they were of the storm. It was absolutely unnatural for someone to do what he did. I find it interesting to know (another matter of trivia) that the Greek word Mark uses means more than “woke up.” It literally means “getting up” – it implies that Jesus stood up using his full stature, rising to his full height in the stern of the boat which is taking on water as the wave break over it. He confronts the power of the wind and the waves stirring up images from the Old Testament (which those apostles knew very well): images of God’s power over the raging waters which we hear in our Psalm and in the First Reading today. 

Suddenly, those men in the boat are more struck by the power of their companion than they were by the wind and the sea. “Woah!” they had to have thought. Who is this? For Mark, “this” is the one who brings God’s power and providence to human needs.

In this fourth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, there seems to be no purpose in making that trip to the other side. The point of this episode then is what happened on the way, not the destination. We don’t even know where they going on the other side nor why except for Mark to give us this revelation and leave us as amazed and perhaps as stunned as those men in the boat. Once the storm has calmed down at the command of Jesus, he turns to the storm in the boat to ask why they have allowed cowardice (which is really the word Mark uses in Greek) to overpower their faith. They wanted another hand on the oars. They got something else. They were saved in an unexpected way. 

So, it shall probably be for all of us who sometimes let cowardice take control of our lives. Sometimes when we want God to do something our way, it works out another way. They end up asking: “Who is this?” which is exactly what Mark wants us all to ask. Like those men in that boat, we’re in the boat of life that rocks and rolls through a lot of storms. We sometimes, all of us, think of God with a very limited imagination that does not allow God to work in ways beyond what we can think of. 

God has made us to be capable of more. God has sent his only begotten son to push our imaginations to the limit and to strengthen us when we are afraid. This Gospel invites us into a deeper reflection on the power of God that is always at work through faith in us. Jesus invites us to look at anything that might frighten us with the eyes of faith replacing fear with wonder and awe at what God has done, continues to do in our lives and in this world. 

June 13, 2021 at Saint Peter and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

Ezekiel 117, 22-24 + Psalm 92 + 2 Corinthians 5, 6-10 + Mark 4, 26-34

My father was born in what we would today call “poverty”. In the middle of seven children, he never went beyond 8^th grade in a tiny village on the Mississippi River. He left home before he was 15, got a job in Saint Louis sweeping a stock room, and 40 years later retired as a top executive of the same company. He firmly believed in the old saying that you had to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. He also believed that the more you work, the more God will love and reward you. We sometimes had serious discussions about those ideas which ultimately run contrary to Mark’s Gospel. I once said to him: “Your idea may work if you have boots, but there are a lot of people who have no boots.” On another occasion, I suggested that working for rewards might not be the best reason for working because it might be better to work for the glory of God without expecting something in return. Any one of you who may have had similar conversations with a parent probably know how it ended. He rolled his eyes and muttered something like this: “This is what I get for paying for your education!”

I spent 5 wonderful years as pastor of a small town in central Oklahoma right in the middle of the wheat country. I watched those farmers year after year plant that seed. One year it would come up and then the rain would stop and it died before harvest. They would plant again the next year, and it would come up, the grain would form, and a hail storm would come and beat it into the ground before they get into the fields. Again, they would plant, and no rains came, then it would rain torrents and wash the grain right out of the field. Sometimes it would all work just right. The dry winds would come and dry the wheat leaving that golden field ready for harvest. What I learned from them is that their job was to plant. That’s all, just plant. The rest was up to God.

Mark reminds us today that we don’t make the sun rise or the seed to sprout. The way God works is unique to God. There are limits to what we can do, and St. Paul reminds us that we walk by faith, not by sight. Do not be distracted from this hard truth by the image Jesus uses in this episode. Comparing a tiny seed to some wonderful plant misses some humor that I suspect had Jesus smiling as he used this comparison. Mustard bushes were invasive weeds. No farmer would sow mustard in their field. It would be like giving a two-year-old a roll of toilet paper to pay with. Jesus is describing complete chaos. He’s joking. This is not about mustard plants or mustard seeds.

This Gospel was written for a people who were anxious, disappointed, troubled, and discouraged. Their hope for a Messiah had gone sour as their faithfulness was rewarded by persecution, death, and fear. They wondered to themselves and aloud why God was allowing all of this. And today this Gospel is just as relevant and important for us who, enduring suffering, wonder why so many people do not believe in the gospel of love. We do not understand why people leave our lives, why careers do not turn out the way we expected, why life is so complicated, dangerous, and sometimes painful.

Paul describes the only attitude we must have in the face of all this and more. We walk by faith and not by sight. In a culture hostile to the gospel of life, we base our decisions not on what is popular and convenient, but on what God has revealed through his Church. In a society that devalues the dignity of human life, we work to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and visit prisoners.

We are reminded by Jesus Christ who speaks this Gospel to us that God’s Kingdom is silently growing because that is what God’s Kingdom does. We will not see that Kingdom in full flower until we enter our heavenly reward. But we can be sure that just as the flower is more beautiful than the seed from which is grows, so God’s Kingdom will be far more glorious than anything we can imagine. Until then, no matter how dark and hopeless our world may seem, we live, we work, and we pray with trust that it is all going according to God’s plan. We have to keep planting. That’s what we are here for.

June 6, 2021 at Saint William Church in Naples, FL

Exodus 24, 3-8 + Psalm 116 + Hebrews 9, 11-15 + Mark 14, 12-16, 22-26

When I say: “The Mystery of Faith.” You often respond by saying: “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, until you come again.” We should be clear about this, because for followers of Jesus, those words are meaningless unless they reflect the life of the one who says them. On this holy day, we are reminded to pay attention to what we say and mean it. If you believe that something happens to the bread and wine in my hands when Christ speaks those words again, then you ought to believe that something happens to you when you say Amen and when you eat the bread and drink this cup. 

The Feast of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ which in the past we called,  “Corpus Christi,” is about us as much as it is about Jesus Christ and the Holy Eucharist. In fact, forgetting that runs the risk of turning this into ritual theatrics that are nothing more than elegant performances. This day is about our identity more than any other day of the year. This day defines who we are. In this age, DNA has become a big issue, and people all over are sending in samples to places like Ancestry.com to find out who they are and where they have come from. Precise as all that may be, that information when it comes back really says very little about who we are. Our mother tongue, our cultural context, and for that matter our phone records will tell others more about us than a genetic code. Genes are just the raw material we combine with circumstances and relationships to shape who we are.

On this day, like every other Sunday, we repeat the celebration that forges our identity and strengthens us to be the very body of Christ that we receive. Jesus let his disciples know that joining him in the celebration of the Passover was an event of communion in his self-giving love. Celebrating the body and blood of Christ always calls us to do what he commanded: to share our lives as he did.  If what we do here means anything at all, more is changed than bread into flesh and wine into blood. There is also our flesh and our blood that is, in a sense consecrated by our consuming these precious gifts, this holy sacrament. We can’t possibly believe what happens here if we don’t believe what happens to us. If by mid-week someone who has met us, been with us, or has seen us has not met and experienced the living Jesus Christ, something has gone wrong. And so, we have this day to redirect our focus and our purpose for being here.

What gets placed on this altar is more than a plate of hosts and chalice of wine. What gets placed here is what they mean for they represent you and me. We are the ones placed on this altar. We are the ones who come here to be lifted up in thanksgiving to the Father. We are the ones who must sacrifice and serve, we are the ones who must forgive and heal. We are the ones, filled with the Spirit, that God has sent into this world to give glory and praise, and show those who are lost the way home.

It is Saint Augustine who really speaks of the Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ as our feast day. Jesus let his disciples know that joining him in the celebration of the Passover was an event of communion in his self-giving love. Celebrating the Body and Blood of Christ always calls us to do what he commanded: to share our lives as he did. When Augustine gave out Communion, he said this: “Receive what you are and be what you receive.” This is the real mystery of faith. When we dare to say: “Amen,” we proclaim, “Yes, we will receive what we are. We will be what we eat.”

May 30, 2021 at Saint William Church in Naples, FL

Deuteronomy 4, 32-34, 39-40 + Psalm 33 + Romans 8: 14-17 + Matthew 28, 16-20

This day focused on the Trinity brings together all that we have celebrated during the Lenten and Easter season. The creative, saving, and sanctifying world of God not only frees us from the power of sin and death restoring creation to its first and original goodness, binds us together as people of faith and children of God, a church. Think of that when in our tradition we sign ourselves giving witness to our faith and remembering who we are. Let’s do it again with thought this time. We believe in a God who Creates, Saves, and Sanctifies. +.

The God revealed to us is essentially a God of relationships, discovered, experienced, and always adored within the Trinity. The whole saving wonder of Jesus Christ and his ministry was to draw us into the relationship he shares with the Father and the Spirit. It is a relationship that God intended at the beginning, and the only thing we can call it is love. It’s a love that never ceased even when the relationship was broken by self-willed human beings. As the Word of God insists, God so loved the world that he sent his only Son to reveal and Father’s will for us to be holy and blameless. By fulfilling the Father’s will so perfectly, he taught us to let God’s will replace our will. It’s all one unmistakable act of love that finds its perfect fulfillment through their Spirit which they have sent into us. The result is that all of our relationships in love become reflections of that unique and dynamic communion that exists within God. The love of husband and wife, the love of parents for their children: it’s all a reflection of how God loves. 

When near the end of John’s Gospel Jesus speaks and prays about his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he says that God will take from what is mine and declare it ours, and then, “everything that the Father has is mine” which he gives on to us. You see, there is no yours and mine in God. It is only “ours”. There is no possessiveness.

In the end, my friends, it must be the same with us. This day we hear an invitation to continue moving beyond ourselves. This day we hear an invitation to surrender our will and to embrace a life style that see and knows that we share all good things in Christ. Most human suffering comes from broken relationships. Anger, jealousy, resentment, and feelings of rejection find their source in conflict between people who long for unity, community and a deep sense of belonging. Claiming the Holy Trinity as our home and our destiny, we claim the truth that God gives us what we most desire, grace to forgive each other for not being perfect in love.

It always seems to me that the Trinity is a love story of selfless, outpouring love that holds nothing back, that never says “that’s mine”, but day and day out draws us out of ourselves and roots us deeply in the divine heart that waits with patient love for us to come home empty handed having surrendered everything that keeps us apart from one another.

May 23, 2021 at Mary Mother of Light Maronite Church in Jupiter, FL & Saint Agnes Church in Naples, FL

Acts 2, 1-11 + Psalm 104 + Galatians 5, 16-25 + John 20,19-23

The secular world in which we now live and struggle to keep our faith alive has already taken over Christmas that now begins immediately after Halloween. It has become little more than a shopping spree for way too many people. Easter is dissolving into a giant Easter Egg Hunt and a day to dress up and look for a church. Any church will do if there’s room. Fortunately, this day, Pentecost, has yet to capture the imagination of the secular world, leaving us to celebrate it without distractions, advertisements, promotions and sales. It is a deeply spiritual day commemorating the most powerful spiritual experience making it difficult to commercialize. It celebrates an event that gives Christmas and Easter a purpose. After all, why would God choose to take on human flesh if it were for just a short while? Why would Christ rise from a tomb and return to the Father except to perfect us and empower us with the very Spirit that draws us into the relationship of the Trinity as children of God?

Those of us in churches today have good news to share for a world that grows weary of division, hatred, and negativity. The news is the saving power of a God who is always with us. This news is of a God whose Spirit impowers us to bring light where there is darkness and hope to people who have given up. That Spirit leads us out of confinement and fear just as those first disciples were led out of that upper room no longer fearful to embrace new possibilities.

Pentecost is not for dour wanna-be saints who are looking for penance and suffering to prove their holiness. Pentecost is for dreamers, passionate explorers who want to live fully and come home empty. The Holy Spirit is Lord and Giver of Life to anyone who believes that God is love, and that Jesus showed us that the way to find your life is to give it up in loving service for others. We are not a people just baptized with water. We are a people baptized in that Spirit. Water cleanses, but Fire transforms. Why just go for the water when you can live your life filled with wind and fire?

Too many still hide in fear or doubt. Too many still plod through life with no hint of joy to excite and inspire others to seek the Lord. Too many are put down, broken, and discouraged by things that happen in this world. We cannot be counted among them and be worthy of the price Jesus paid for our salvation by hanging out in church. We are, because of the Holy Spirit, a people of Joy. We are a people with gifts. We have the wisdom to recognize the importance of others and the importance of keeping God central in our lives. Wisdom allows us to recognize truth. We have the understanding to know the meaning of God’s message. We have the knowledge to think about, explore, and imagine God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, and we can recognize and live with things that are beyond us. We have the gift of Counsel that provides us with the ability to make right judgements and see the best way to follow God’s plan when there are choices. We have the fortitude and courage to do what is right. We have the piety that draws us into true devotion. And, we have Fear of the Lord which is nothing more than amazement and wonder before God whose friendship we do not want to lose.

What we celebrate today is power, God’s power. In an attempt to describe what was happening, Luke speaks of a mighty wind, a violent wind. In other words, a kind of Holy Hurricane that sweeps through and blows away anything that is not rooted and firmly set in a faithful heart. What we celebrate today is also, change, something we often resist because of fear or just plain laziness. But change for faithful people is conversion that comes from recognizing and choose the will of God over our own will. It’s a day to rejoice. It’s a day to celebrate freedom from everything that holds us back from being and living like children of God. It’s a day sing and play, laugh, and pray. It’s a day to remember that no matter what we will never be alone. 

May 16, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Parish in Naples, FL

Acts 1, 1-11 + Psalm 47 + Ephesians 4, 1-13 + Mark 16, 15-20

Parents everywhere have been through it. You’ve loaded the car. Luggage is in the back end. There’s a cooler with snacks, and you’re off on road-trip vacation. Within thirty minutes it starts: “Are we there yet”?  “How much longer?” You sit there and wonder how a priest who has no children would know this, but I was in the back seat with my sister. There was more to it than just those two questions. It would go like this: “He touched me.” “She’s sitting on my half of the seat?” And then would come the question again: “How much longer.” At first the answer that came from the front seat would be “Just a little while.” Then about an hour into the ride, with twenty-five repetitions of those questions, there would come a sullen silence from the front and then that look which would turn milk sour.

That question must have been in the minds of the disciples when Jesus says: “In a little while.” What does a “little while mean”? Time for a child goes slowly. Then we get or age, and time is anything but slow. And then you wonder, what does “a little while” mean to God? That phrase is repeated eight times in the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. In a fourteen-billion-year universe, the Rocky Mountains rise in a little while, the Appalachians shrink in a little while, continents shift and shape, stars are born, comets fly by light years away, and it’s just “a little while” to God.

Only Luke gives us any images with which to imagine what happened. John does not even mention the Ascension. He compresses the whole mystery of Jesus Christ, the lifting up on the cross, the tomb, the ascension into heaven, and the return at Pentecost into a little while revealing what a real human being with a divine destiny looks like. Christ among us calls us to be children of God. It is almost beyond our comprehension, but only almost. We might wonder what happened, where did that body go, and what does it mean to be seated at the right of the Father?

The meaning of the Ascension is not found in history. It touches the lives of all believers in every age. This Feast turns our attention away from the earthly life of Jesus to the future and not just that future when he will return in a little while. It turns our attention inward, because there are implications here about our lives here on earth and for our future when we are no longer here, in a little while. Like those disciples we hear of in the first reading, our attention is turned toward the future that is clearer now because we have something to do while we wait that “little while.” We are to continue the work that Jesus began. It is an awesome task, but not one we must do alone. Because with his Spirit, we can do all the things he did and even more he has said to us. 

The Ascension is not the end of anything, but the beginning of everything for us. It gives us an idea with which to imagine our future at the right hand of the Father. It gives us not just something to do as we move into that future, but it defines who we are as children of God. The Ascension of Jesus Christ can also give us the courage to look toward our own death and not be frightened or troubled, because the best kept secret of our faith is that we shall see him, and our grief, our fear, our anxiety will be turned into joy

May 9, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Parish in Naples, FL

Acts 10, 25,26, 34,35, 44-48 + Psalm 98 + 1 John 4, 7-10 + John 15, 9-17

At the court of the Roman Emperor there was a select group of men who were called “Friends of the Emperor.” At all time, day and night, they had the right to enter into the presence of the Emperor. No one else had that right, not senators or military commanders. The Emperor consulted “the friends” before he made any public announcements or military decision. The “friends” had the closest and most intimate connection with the Emperor. That was the understanding about “friends” when Jesus applies the term to his disciples. These words were spoken to disciples gathered around the table of the Supper before he died. They are spoken again to us at this Table because when we gather here it is the same sacrifice and same meal. It is not reenactment. It is not an imitation. It is the same meal, the same body and blood we consume just as they did the first time, and the same Jesus speaks the same words to us who are as disciples as those others. He calls us friends. 

As much as we might like to claim our right to choose these days, there is one thing we need to get straight. We have been chosen by God. It is not the other way around. There is no other way to explain the fact that we are here and someone else we know is not. Then in the most simple and direct way, he tells us how to prove that friendship. “This I command you: love one another.”

It is a commandment more difficult and more challenging than all ten of those that Moses was given because there are just some people who are difficult to love. There was someone in one of the parishes I served who comes to mind every time I read these verses of John’s Gospel. For now, I’ll call her, “Rosie.” Somehow, she got my cell phone number, so she knew she could get around the system. She called often asking for groceries. When directed to the parish food pantry, she would remind me that she didn’t have a car asking that someone drive the groceries out her way because she had not had anything to eat for days. Most folks who came to our food pantry took whatever there was in stock. Not Rosie. She had a grocery list: smoked turkey, lean roast beef, and a pound of coffee – decaf. 

A typical Oklahoma winter storm was blowing huge snow drifts. Not wanting to burden anyone else in the parish during the storm, I went to the food pantry, filled several sacks, and drove eight miles through the snow to her place grumbling to myself the whole time. Her place was a mess. No one had shoveled the blowing snow from her drive. I had to leave the car some distance from the door. As I stomped through the snow in my good shoes, the bottom of one of bags broke open. Rosie opened the door with a cigarette in her hand, and oblivious to the snow, she called out: “Why don’t you pull up a little closer? Did you remember the coffee – Decaf? All the way home, I kept mumbling: “Love one another as I have loved you.” And then I would say: “Really?”

And, of course, we know the answer. Yes, really. We are all invited into a relationship with God that is a friendship not fear. Because of that relationship, we all get a Rosie or two in our lives with their demanding neediness both to keep us from acting the same way, and to test really or not we can see the face of Christ who has come to remain with us at all times, all places, and all people.

May 2, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle in Naples, FL

Acts 9, 26-31 + Psalm 22 + 1 John 3, 18-24 + John 15, 1-8

Seven times in John’s Gospel Jesus says: “I am”. There might be a test on this, so pay attention. I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to me shall never hunger.  I am the Light of the World. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. I am the Door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though they may die shall live. I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Then, the final one spoken at the last supper: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Each of these statements can lead us deeper into the identity of Jesus which is exactly what he is doing as he speaks to the apostles and to us today.

The Last Supper is the only place where Jesus uses the image of the vine, but it repeats a theme that echoes throughout the Gospel of John. It is that Jesus “stays” or “remains in” his disciples, and that they “stay” or “remain in” him. For example, when Jesus asks the first disciples what they want, they do not ask him “Where are you going?” But they ask, “Where are you staying?” It is always about the ongoing presence of Jesus within his disciples. It is always the revelation through Jesus Christ that God is with us. God stays. And so, it is always about relationships. Jesus speaks of his relationship with the Father and the Father’s relationship to him, and then he speaks of our relationship to him and with and through him we have a relationship with the Father. In these verses today, Jesus uses an image those apostles could easily understand. They understood the mutual dependence of branches and vines. Each of the I AM statements is an invitation to relationship with him.

When we affirm and remember that relationship, just like the branches that remain on the vine, fruit will flourish. It is up to us. We are the ones who choose to bear fruit or to choke ourselves off from the vine. The vine that nourishes the branches an only do so if we remain on the vine. We have to continually choose who we want to be. We are offered the option of being fruitful branches. The vine, Jesus Christ in his church can only feed us when we choose to stay with the one who stays.

The image of Jesus as the vine with us as branches finishes all the other I AM proclamations. This image goes beyond all that he has said before, and it paints a picture of what he would later pray for: “May all be one, as you Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.” Our faith and our future rests up on our choice to be one, to be church, to be in Christ and through Christ return to the One who has made us and called us his own. In John’s Gospel, belief in Jesus is not an intellectual exercise. It is the motivator of all our activity. A people who are living like branches on the fine will be a people who do something and are identified not by a name like “Christian” or “Catholic” by what they do out of love, and the fruit will be the peace of God’s Kingdom. We must all be doers of the Word, not just readers or listeners, and that is our choice.