The Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
14 October 2018 on board the MS Eurodam
Wisdom 7, 7-11 + Psalm 90 + Hebrews 4, 12-13 + Mark 10, 17-30

Two men appear in the verses of Mark’s Gospel we have just proclaimed; one at the beginning another at the end. One of them has no name, and the other is called, Peter. They are both men who have been looked at love. In the case of the first man, it is the only time in all the Gospels that Jesus is said to have looked with love on an individual. It is the gaze of divine love that should have completely overcome this man and moved him to give up everything at that moment. Yet, it does not happen. The reason why is worth our thought and some reflection. We could learn from him. In the case of Peter, the Gospel doesn’t ever say that he was looked at with love, but we can only hope that this was what Peter saw as he sat there in the courtyard of the High Priest when a cock crowed the third times. The Gospel tells us that Jesus turned and looked at him. Why would we think that look would have been anything other than the look of love? Unless our lesser selves imagine a look of reproach, like, “I told you so”, or a “how could you?” We know what that looks like don’t we? We also know how to give look, but that is not what he saw.

That man with no name could easily be us. He seems to have been so preoccupied with his own thoughts, that he does not notice how Jesus looks at him, and that’s a shame. The story might have ended up differently had he just looked up into that loving gaze. But no, he has too many possessions to look after. In reality, they possess him. He can’t imagine his life without them. What Jesus asks of him is not just to help the poor, but to become poor. Judging from his question, that man thinks that there is something he can do to gain eternal life, and here we see the difference between him and Peter. Having given up everything, Peter and his companions begin to discover that this “eternal life” is a free gift given by the loving Father to those who do not deserve it. At the moment of his greatest shame and sorrow, Peter looks at the face of the friend and master he has just denied and he sees the look of love.

Jesus demands the best of us. That is what he asked of that man and of Peter and the Twelve. The challenge: “If you want to be perfect” is issued to all of us as well. However, the thing we might be called upon to sacrifice in order to take up that challenge could vary for each of us. We have to look into our own hearts to see what it is that we would have to give up in order to respond. Our presence here this final Sunday of our adventure around the Pacific brings us face to face with great questions. We are reminded like the nameless man and Peter that we are invited to come along with Jesus, that life is a pilgrimage to God’s eternal kingdom.

On Thursday, we shall disembark the Eurodam, and as you go, take a look at the luggage 1900 people have hauled all the way to Vancouver. I never fail to be stunned by all that stuff, and I look at my own and wonder if I really needed it all. To accept the invitation of Jesus means we must travel lightly and remember that salvation is always what God accomplishes in spite of us. Eternal life is not something we can earn, buy, or accomplish on our own. Those who trust in themselves and their possessions have it all wrong. Only those who trust in the saving power and redeeming love of God can enter freely into salvation. What he asks is sacrifice. It is the sign language of love. What Jesus knows is that there is no point in forcing people to make sacrifices. If you take things from people, they are impoverished; but if you can get them to give them up, they are enriched. With these men before us today, we have a choice to make and a model to follow. One leads to sadness. The other leads to the joy of forgiveness and eternal life.

The Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
 7 October 2018 on board the MS Eurodam
Genesis 2, 18-24 + Psalm 128 + Hebrews 2, 9-11 + Mark 10, 2-16

As much as some might and in spite of how many have tried to make it so, these verses are not about marriage as we know it. To make it so is to focus on the example rather than the issue. It would be like getting all interested in the waves out there rather than the wind that causes them. What is at stake here is what it means for all of us to be made in the image of God; men, women and children. What is questioned here is whether or not a man is more important than a woman, and whether or not adults are more important than children. To get their attention, and to return the challenge of those Pharisees who come looking for a way to trap him, Jesus out smarts them with their own scriptures, and proposes something so startling and so unheard of, that they are left in confusion.

In their system of values, it was OK for a man to commit adultery. It was not OK for a woman to do so. In their system of values, a husband could get rid of a wife he no longer found helpful or productive, but not so for the woman. If she had a husband who was useless and slept around, she was stuck where she was. Moses thought that was so unfair, that he required a “Bill of divorce” from the man so that the woman would be free to be taken in marriage by someone else. And that was because men had become so hard-hearted that they were leaving the first wife with nowhere to go. Then in the second part of this episode, Jesus reacts very strongly to the behavior and attitude of the disciples toward children. It’s as though those children were not worthy to touch or be embraced by Jesus. The disciples seem to think that the Blessing of Jesus was just for adults.

So, this is not about marriage at all. It is about equality and worthiness in the sight of God. It is about affirming the fact that God made us all, and in God’s sight no one is more important, more blessed, or worthier than anyone else. In this conversation with the Pharisees, Jesus goes far beyond the question of divorce to teach about the meaning of human relationships in general. When he speaks to the disciples in private, he reinterpreted the legal explanations of the day by treating men and women as equals before the law. This really shook up everyone, and it was something totally new to their thinking. We are hardly finished working out that matter of equality today.

Behind the reflection of Jesus on marriage lies the question of all human relations which is why Mark follows up with the story of the children. Just as the Pharisees debated what could be done with a troublesome woman, the disciples did not want children bothering their master. Of course, all of this was a threat to the assumed prestige of the disciples when Jesus seemed to prefer the unimportant or disreputable to company with them. Like the Pharisees who debated the right to divorce, the disciples’ treatment of the children demonstrated their willingness to make distinctions between important people like themselves and those who could simply be dismissed.

Jesus would have none of that. With all of us made in the image and likeness of God, an offense against one of the least is equal to an offense against whoever is considered the greatest. Isn’t it fun to close this complicated Gospel with the image of Jesus tackled by a throng of kids? Perhaps when we lose all the inhibitions adulthood seems to impose on us, and find a way to get around all the rules and regulations that make some more important than others, we will all know the embrace, the blessing, and the love of God poured out through Jesus Christ.

The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
30 September 2018 on board the MS Eurodam
Numbers 11, 25-29 + Psalm 19 + James 5, 1-6 + Mark 9, 38-43, 45,47-48

That apostle, John and his friends, have a big problem. They think that somehow this power or authority to cast out demons belongs to them. Now let’s be clear about this, the casting out of demons really refers to healing or helping since in those days, demons were behind everything that was bad. We must not be distracted by thoughts of wild or dramatic exorcisms. The issue here is power and authority.

John and his fellow disciples have to learn that Jesus is the only source of power, and that anything they accomplish is done by the power of Jesus Christ, not by their own skills or their own initiative. There can be no exclusive claim when it comes to doing good in the name of Jesus. In his response, Jesus is widening the outlook of his disciples, who seem tempted to seal themselves off as a closed group and maintain a spirit of jealousy over what they consider to be the exclusive prerogative of the community. When it comes to service and the care of others in need, there is no special group who have the rights to respond, neither is there any competition about who can do the most or do it best. There is only the power of Jesus Christ exercised in faith and motivated by the Gospel which has been handed on to everyone.

Competition is bad enough when it nurtures the “look what I did” attitude. There is another down side to be avoided here which is that “it’s not my job” attitude. When someone or some group rises up with an exclusive claim, others fail to respond thinking, “It’s not my job.” Then, nothing happens.

You have to wonder if the disciples were threatened by the gifts or achievements of someone else. If so, they have a long way to go before they realize that God’s gifts are freely given to everyone. Our responsibility is to welcome those gifts where ever they appear. In the end, we have to ask ourselves what difference it makes who does something good? When there is a need, there is no excuse for looking the other way or thinking, “let someone else take care of it.” Neither is there any reason to think with some unjustified smugness that we could have done it better. If we could have, why didn’t we? Why did we wait for someone else to do it?

In the next two weeks as we live together on this ship, there will more opportunities for doing good deeds than we can imagine. Stay alert for them, and do not assume someone else will do them, but if they do, recognition, a thank you or a compliment, would the disciple’s response rather than a complaint. Deeds, suggests this gospel, do not have to be big in order to be of help and comfort to the person for whom they are done. They just have to have a certain quality. That quality is warmth. All deeds which come from the heart have this warmth.

The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
 23 September 2018 at Saint Peter the Apostle and St. Willian Churches in Naples, FL
Wisdom 2,12, 17-20 + Psalm 54 + James 3, 16–4,3 + Mark 9, 30-37

The crowds are gone now. The journey through Galilee to Jerusalem has begun, and instead of being followed by multitudes and surrounded by the needy and afflicted, it is only the disciples now being privately instructed, and Mark puts us right among them. Jesus wants to prepare us for what is ahead; but, it is not just about what lies ahead for Jesus. Is about what lies ahead for disciples. This time Mark has Jesus speaking in the present tense about being handed over. All other references to his Passion and Death were in the future. This time it is different. In other words, “The Son of Man is being handed over, not “will be handed over.” This is something happening right now. Reflecting on this business of “being handed over” leads us deeper into the mystery of the Incarnation and what God is doing by “handing over” his son to this world.

Thought of in the light of the Incarnation, it becomes clear that Jesus is no helpless victim. He is participating out of obedience in God’s act of redemption and saving love. God’s son is being handed over to us right here and right now. Knowing what is to come, Jesus could have stopped it, gone somewhere else, avoided the confrontation, and he would have never chosen Peter and Judas who both betray him, and by moving into the present tense, he proposes that Peter and Judas are not the only ones. We had better count ourselves with them as well. In spite of that, the handing over continues.

The disciples always want to avoid what he speaks of. It’s understandable in some sense. No one wants to be misunderstood, persecuted, judged unjustly, or abandoned by one’s friends at the greatest time of need. No one wants to be vulnerable enough to be stripped and ridiculed. So, there is no surprise in the reaction of the disciples. Earlier, Peter even says: “Never”, and he is rebuked. Today however, they are silent, which actually prefigures their response to his Passion, because when Jesus is handed over to the Chief Priests and Scribes, they are silent again. Not a single voice is raised in his defense. All he gets is Silence. Silence will not do. As disciples, we do not pick and choose what we are called to be, nor what we are sent out to do, but the desire and struggle to do so continues. When words fail, Jesus shifts to action, wraps a towel around his waist and washes feet. On the floor with water and towel is where disciples of Jesus are meant to be not picking the best place up at the table. To start thinking in terms of who is first or who sits where misses the message, and it breaks our fundamental solidarity with our neighbor.

There is no privilege in discipleship. There is no glory or honor for disciples in this world. There is only responsibility and duty to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, we are being “handed over” day after day. Just as the Father handed over his son into human nature, disciples are handed over becoming one with the world’s most vulnerable, helpless, poor, and outcast. When we give up thinking about ourselves and embrace what and who has been handed over to us, there will come that day when we will be raised up and lifted up in victory with Jesus Christ, and the will of God will be accomplished.

The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
16 September 2018
At Saint Peter the Apostle and St. Willian Churches in Naples, FL
Isaiah 50, 4-9 + Psalm 116 + James 2, 14-18 + Mark 8, 27-35

To believe that Jesus is the Messiah is not the same thing as understanding what it means to be the Messiah, and that is what unfolds in these verses today. From now until the end of Mark’s Gospel, the focus will be an instruction in which Jesus will reveal the mystery of his vocation to be a suffering Messiah who will lay down his life for his people, and the disciple’s vocation to follow him. As Mark sets up this last part of the Gospel, it becomes a journey to Jerusalem. Now there is a change of places. Until now, Jesus was in Galilee, but now he heads to Jerusalem knowing what lies ahead. That journey to Jerusalem would be long and hard, and even when they reached the climax of the cross, the disciples still did not comprehend the message of Jesus or understand what the Messiah had come to do. In the structure of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus will tell them three times what is coming, and three times they fail to understand. Finally, there is the healing of blind man, and it prefigures the coming “sight” of the disciples who will finally be able to see what he means and what he asks.

We sit here in this church again just like those earlier disciples sat in an upper room. It’s as though no matter what he says and what he does, we still fail to understand what this Messiah has come to do and what he has become by his presence among us. Too often like those earlier disciples, we want a Messiah who will rescue us, do what we ask, give us what we want, and respond on our timetable. When that does not happen, because that is not what this Messiah is all about, some leave. Disappointments or tragedies strike, and failing to grasp the deepest meaning of the Incarnation, the coming of the Messiah, some give up in anger and walk away. They may well have believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the one sent to save, but they do not understand what it means to have that Messiah among us.

This why the cross is so important to us, so revealing to us and so precious, because it leads us deeply into the wonder of discovery, the awesome mystery of a God who has chosen to suffer with us, to know betrayal and denial, to know what it means to be abandoned, to be unjustly condemned and humiliated.  We have to get to Jerusalem with Jesus to understand his Messianic work which is not to excuse us from life and all that life can throw at us, but to go with us through every trial to that ultimate day of deliverance, Easter. The Messiah we have all been given is not some comic book hero who sweeps down and makes everything perfect. That is what Peter and his friends were expecting. The Messiah we have all been given is one who looks like us, feels the way we do, suffers what we suffer, and dies like us. Yet, he remains faithful and obedient to the Father. That obedience does not imply that God ordered him to be killed. It does imply that he kept listening and responding to the love God poured out into his heart.

Those first disciples who stayed, listened and watched. They had the love and faithfulness to remain on the road with him, and that was all that was necessary. It is no different for us. We stay, we listen, we watch all the way on the road always with him until the end which is really the beginning of all things new.

9/11 Liturgy at Saint Peter the Apostle Church, Naples, FL
  Revelation 21, 1-7 + Matthew 5, 1-12

This assembly in a house of prayer is much more than a memorial about a horrible event in the past. If we were to gather here to memorialize horrible historical events, we would never be able to leave. We would commemorate assassinations, bombings, hijackings, riots, genocide, school shootings, and way more besides. This day and our assembly cannot be just about the past. A cross made from the debris of the Twin Towers and piece of stone from the Pentagon lie here before us to say without words what hatred can do. Yet, we place them before an altar which speaks wordlessly about what sacrificial love can do. One is a reminder of hatred expressed in death and destruction. The other is reminder of love expressed in sacrifice and salvation. Think of it this way. People motivated by hatred destroy and kill. People motivated by love buildup and save. Some believe that they have a right to kill people because they disagree with them, while others believe it is worth suffering or sacrificing one’s own life to preserve the right to disagree.

The Gospel we just proclaimed takes place on a hill, says Matthew. On that hill the core principles that shape the lives of those who give life rather than take life are put before us. Being poor in spirit has nothing to do with economics. It is the characteristic of a people who rely on God alone knowing that without God they can do nothing. The meek are not weak. This is about strength under control and power being used with wise restraint. The sorrow that comes from mourning can also stir up our hope because it can show us the essential kindness of our fellow human beings who will pour out everything to comfort and help those who are hurting. This mercy put before us is way more than feeling sorry for someone or having pity. Mercy is about the ability to get into another’s skin, to walk in their shoes. It is a kind of sympathy that comes from a deliberate identification with another person seeing what they see and feeling what they feel. That’s mercy. It is real understanding. Nutrition is not the point of feeding the hungry. It is a desire to satisfy the deepest of human needs which is always the comfort of presence and respect. The Pure of Heart are simply people whose lives are not mixed up or conflicted by many motives. They don’t do good to be admired. They do good because they are, and they know that the basis of human peace is peace with God that comes with Justice. All of this is given credibility in the end by action. It is always what we do that gives credibility to what we say. So, Jesus speaks on a hill, then he does something on another hill. He lays down his life. He suffers and He saves.

The point of our assembly here today must be the future, not just the past. In the face of destruction and even death, people who live and who are “Beatitude” or people who are a Blessing, are people of hope never revenge. They are people of respect, patience, and tolerance confident that all will be well in the Kingdom of God. They are people like you responders inspired by the sacrifice of those we remember today. By your service and sacrifice, we are moving in the right direction, toward the Kingdom of Heaven every time there is sacrifice to save another.

The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
9 September 2018 at Saint Peter the Apostle and St. Willian Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 35, 4-7 + Psalm 146 + James 2, 1-5 + Mark 7, 31-37

When you are different, people are afraid of you. If you’re blind, people step out of the way. If you are deaf few people will find a way to communicate with you. Moreover, some with a severe hearing deficit or with no hearing at all find it very difficult to speak, and so communication is difficult resulting in a great burden of isolation and often depression. These people suffer, not from hearing loss, because it isn’t painful. They suffer because they rarely get a chance to contribute to the community. They feel as though no one understands them, and many feel useless. The rest of us just feel sorry, but not Jesus Christ.

This episode of Mark’s Gospel is not about a deaf man. It is about deafness, and the inability to hear; and with it therefore, the inability to speak. All of us suffer from some kind of impediment that keeps us from making full use of speech. Some are shy. Some are apathetic. Some are just insensitive or unaware of the silence because they are busy making noise with their opinions or tuning in only the sounds that make them comfortable and secure. We might call it, selective hearing. They have impediments that prevent them from hearing as well like prejudice, inattention, or simply a decision to just not listen. Be open is the command of Jesus, be open.

What seems at first like a typical miracle story might be much more. Almost every one of the miracles recorded in the Gospels are public events that happen out in the open in front of everyone. This time, Jesus takes the man off by himself to a private place. It is an intimate, personal story with intimate and personal details. Jesus touched that man. First Jesus touched his own mouth and then touched that man’s mouth. Then Jesus touched his ears, and I believe that in doing so Jesus touched his heart, and that touch made that man new.

We have to wonder what Jesus is saying to us in this Gospel, because the Word of God is alive among us. This is no old story from “back in the day.” We have to wonder about those nameless people who brought that man to Jesus. Perhaps there is the suggestion that we might be expected to lead someone to Christ, someone who is different. On the other hand, we might well be the ones who are deaf and do not speak, deaf to the silent cry of someone who is different, even deaf to the Word of God that calls us to repentance. We may be the ones who do not speak in the face of injustice or wrong-doing. We may be the one who feels so different burdened by isolation and depression. Whichever it is, our best hope and our prayer today is that Jesus will touch us. Hearing and speech are great gifts. But without a heart that is able to feel compassion, we will never use them well. It is only with the heart that we can listen rightly, and only with the heart that can speak kindly and justly. For this today, we must pray.

The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 September 2018
Saint Peter the Apostle in Naples & St. Sebastian Church in Ft. Lauderdale

When you push through the examples here forgetting about washing and all that stuff, you get to the real point of this episode in Mark’s Gospel. Think of this Gospel as a handbook or formation program for true disciples of Jesus. When you do that, this becomes a lesson on integrity. It ought to be obvious to everyone of us that we are living through a time of moral decay. The evidence is a loss of integrity which is just what Jesus is addressing in these verses. I remind you that the Word of God is always the truth, not opinion or suggestion. It is the truth from God. This integrity Jesus is demanding is the quality of being undivided. It is one. It is being true to one’s standard. It is, I guess, honesty. It is sincerity. It is incorruptibility. It is the exact opposite of hypocrisy.

Let me give you a real-life example. Some years ago, a family in the parish was having trouble with their older teen aged son. He was messing around with drugs and running around with serious troublemakers. They asked me over to talk with them, and in the conversation, expressing what he was most worried about, the father said: “He’s becoming a liar, and I can’t stand it.” Minutes later, the phone rang. His wife answered the phone and stepped in to tell the father who was calling. The father said: “Tell them I’m not home.” Who made that boy a liar, drugs or his dad?  How can that boy learn integrity, I wondered? In recalling this, I also remembered another father, the father of one of my closest friends. Reminiscing after his father’s death, he told me of an experience from years ago about a summer when his sister was looking for employment. She had two job offers. One she wanted very much and the other she didn’t but would take as a second choice. As you can imagine, that job came up first, and it was offered to her. She wanted to hold out for the other, but she didn’t know if an offer was going to come. So, she went ahead and accepted it for her summer job. A few days later, as you also might guess, the other job became available to her, and she wanted to quit the first very much and go to the second. So, she went to her father and said, “Dad, I have a problem.” And she told him about her dilemma. He looked her straight in the eye and said, “Did you take the first job?” She said, “Yes” “Did you promise you would work there this summer?” She said, “Yes.” He said, “Why are we having this conversation?”

The kind of integrity Jesus models for his disciples is validated by words and deeds. The pure of heart are pure in action, and so integrity is making daily actions line up with the heart’s values. Integrity demands that we stand for what is the right and the upright thing to do. If you look carefully at the person of Jesus Christ three things become obvious, and those are three ways to maintain and strengthen integrity. 1. Be the same person in front of the crowd as you are behind the scenes. The real test of one’s integrity is a crisis or being under stress. That is when we reveal who we really are for good or ill. 2. Be careful not to conform. Do you notice that about Jesus? He is the ultimate non-conformist! Integrity is about doing the right thing regardless of what others think or do. St. Paul in writing to the Romans says it straight out: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.” 3. Recognize right now that having integrity is hard work, a challenge day in and day out, and it only comes through endurance. It’s slow going. You can’t get to the top without integrity. Some do, but they don’t stay long without it.

“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” is the lament of Jesus standing there before those hypocrites who are always picking away at him, watching and waiting for him to do something that will give them evidence or reason not to believe him. They say things they do not mean. They do things because others are watching them, and they want to look good and holy. He turns to us today, his disciples, and calls us to integrity. Integrity is what reveals morality which describes the principals of our behavior. For us, the principals come from Jesus Christ and from our relationship to him. The restoration of morality in our society and in our times will come about from believing disciples of Jesus who have integrated their lives into his so much so that there is no longer any difference between what God wants and what we do.

At the end of Mass after the blessing this story is told:

Ernest Hemingway wrote a story about a father and his teenage son. In the story, the relationship had become somewhat strained, and the teenage son ran away from home. His father began a journey in search of that rebellious son. Finally, in Madrid, Spain, in a last desperate attempt to find the boy, the father put an ad in the local newspaper. The ad read: “Dear Paco, Meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father.” The next day, in front of the newspaper office, 800 Pacos showed up. They were all seeking forgiveness. They were all seeking the love of their father.

If you’re a Paco this morning, and you want the forgiveness and the integrity of Jesus Christ in your life, tell the heavenly Father that and through Jesus Christ, he will say, “You are forgiven. Welcome home, my child.” And if you do that in dead seriousness and with real meaning, you’ll rise up and walk out of this building a person of integrity. God wants that for us; we want that for us. Jesus is able to make us that. Go in peace, and proclaim this Gospel by your lives!

The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

26 August 2018 at Saint Peter the Apostle, St. Willian & Elizabeth Seton Churches in Naples, FL

Joshua 24, 1-2 & 15-18 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5, 21-32 + John 6, 60-69

Now with our final Sunday in John’s sixth chapter, a crisis arises. Given what has been said earlier, it should not come as a surprise to discover that being a disciple of Jesus is more than casually looking for him and eating what he gives. Remember that this is how this crowd came together. They saw a miracle with loaves and fish and they have come looking for Jesus the next day so that they could be fed bread again. Discipleship with Jesus is not casually looking for him and enjoying some physical blessings. It is not about being close and faithful when you want something or feel grateful. It is also about staying close when things go crazy and we don’t understand the how and why of what happens at bad times or times of trial or disappointment. For these people, it is okay when he fed them and healed them. But it was not okay when he told them what to do. Jesus expects faith, obedience, and trust in him in the face of difficulty. He is the only answer for our lives. When the things of this world mean more to us than Jesus, these Gospel verses are about us.  When anything else is more important than being here around this altar, Jesus has something to say to us.

The Gospel and Discipleship with Jesus demands a change in lifestyle and it is uncomfortable. Once those followers realized that following Jesus was going to be more than social networking among friends they began to think twice. Once they acknowledge Jesus as the Holy One of God who has the words of everlasting life there is a truth that must either be ignored or accepted. For many it is easier to ignore it and stay in their comfort zone. Once we meet Jesus face to face, we either have to live as he has taught us or get out. There are no other options.

This is what makes it so difficult to live the Gospel in this world. We cannot accept violence of any kind. We stand for the protection of all life from conception to natural death.  Execution is not a natural death. We are compelled to work on behalf of the poor and vulnerable. We are expected to welcome strangers. We live lives of mercy and forgiveness, and inclusively welcome everyone regardless of who they are and what they believe. We subordinate ourselves to God and do everything we can to live our lives on God’s terms not our own. We protect this earth, all its creatures, and creation itself as faithful stewards, and we cannot deny that out planet has suffered at our hands. We are called to be humble and walk with justice, promote peace, be poor in spirit and maintain a pure heart.

Regardless of our political views on any of these things, the Gospel view remains unshaken and unquestionable, and that’s a tall order that causes to some walk away and they still do. We may be tempted to walk with them from time to time, or we might try compromising the Gospel by suggesting that Jesus “didn’t really mean that.” The Gospel is always the truth, and it cannot be watered down. Once we embrace that truth, we can say with Peter, “Where else can we go?” The Holy One of God speaks in this place now in this liturgy.

If we know there is no other place to go, and no one else speaks the truth, we look again at our personal lives and ask how closely they reflect the values and ideals of God’s Kingdom. We prioritize our lives so that we give due time and attention to those things that truly matter. We can change destructive and distorted patterns of thinking and begin to see all people as unique and valued children of God. When we do, we will silence those who deaminize others to justify taking their children or turning away those who have nothing to give us. And, just as we make time for exercise and for friends, we can develop a strong life of prayer that keeps us centered and focused and spiritually healthy nurturing in our relationship with God. So, the question he asks then he is still asking: “Are with me or are you just going to go your own way.”

The Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

19 August 2018 at Saint Peter the Apostle and St. Willian Churches in Naples, FL

Proverbs 9, 1-6 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5, 15-20 + John 6, 51-58

We all look at food differently. For some, food is about taste. Who cares if it’s full of sugar or salt? If it tastes good, it is good. If it’s fried, it’s even better. Bring it on! We’ll work it off tomorrow or after the game if we can get ourselves out of the recliner. There are others who read labels, and they think about food in terms of organic and health promoting. For them it is all about ingredients. For some, food is their best friend, and they are always after “comfort food.” While some think of food as an enemy when you can’t get into most of the things in your closet. Food can be a manifestation of love when a grandmother happily prepares cookies for her grandchildren, and brothers and sisters crowded in a kitchen all helping prepare a Thanksgiving family feast with laughter and joy.

For the past several weeks, we have heard a lot about food in John’s Gospel. Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life and speaks somewhat disturbingly about consuming his flesh and blood. To the scandal and discomfort of those who were listening as he first spoke, he was comparing himself to the Manna in the desert which was to them a constant sign of God’s care and provident presence. They also did not fail to notice, with the talk of eating flesh and drinking blood, an image of the Lamb sacrificed at Passover. They caught the full impact of these implications that he was saying that union with him was the way to eternal life. Small minded critics in the crowd focused on the literal idea of drinking blood which appalled them while really serious critics understood exactly what Jesus was saying and protested the audacity of his claim to be speaking for God.

But, Jesus was speaking the language of the heart and soul, not the language of chemistry or physics. When he presents himself as bread, or as flesh and blood for the eating, the invitation is to receive and take him in such a way that his very life becomes our own. One group of his listeners objected that this idea was bringing God too close, and they objected wanting to keep God “in the temple” or “behind the veil.” The God Jesus revealed to them was just too near and maybe too close. Then there were others who recognized the responsibility of what Jesus was proposing. Worship and keeping the rules was suddenly hot enough. They were going to have to live in the love of God doing the works of God.

Jesus was claiming to be the meeting point between the Father and humanity, and he still is. Taking him in, eating is the way to eternal life that must cause such a transformation that anyone who accepts him will become his branches and share his life as truly as he shared the life of the Father. So, it’s still about food. It’s about food that is shared in love. It is about food that restores health, strengthens the body and the soul, and food that must be shared in service, in love, and with joy. The invitation to eat is an invitation to become.