19 December 2021 at St. Peter and St. William Churches in Naples. FL

Micah 5, 1-4 + Psalm 80 + Hebrews 10, 5-10 + Luke 3, 10-18

Two women, one from Jerusalem and the other from Nazareth. One is there at the center of power, and her husband is of the Priestly tribe. The other has no husband and she lives in a place no one would ever have heard of until a visitor comes. They are for Luke, the meeting of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The old had a history of infidelity and idolatry, but it held the promise. The new is the promise and it begins with fidelity to the Word of God delivered by an angel who only appears once in the Old Testament in the Book of Daniel proclaiming the final time, the age of justice.

The only man in the story is silent. All he can do is watch because of his doubt in the power of the Lord. And silent he should be. There is nothing to say in the presence of God’s power from those who question the God’s intention to start creation over again, and that is exactly what is happening with the Annunciation. The Holy Spirit creates something out of nothing. A virgin conceives, and her son is both human, born of a woman and Divine, the Son of God. Now the Old Testament is complete. What was promised has been given.

It all comes to pass through these two unlikely people living at the margins of society. An aging barren woman long dismissed by society, and a young girl not yet married and therefore having no identity at all. Powerless, insignificant to those who hold power and 

have authority, they speak to us today an important reminder about how God works and how the Divine plan for the new creation will be made known. Elizabeth, like Sarah of old does the work of hospitality. She welcomes Mary and her unborn child, and in all humility as the elder, she declares that the child in her womb was secondary to the one Mary bore. Elizabeth become the first to proclaim faith in Jesus, calling him “my Lord” before he was born. Don’t miss the way Luke uses the faith of women to make the major professions of faith. “Blessed are you!” she proclaims celebrating the grace that they both shared: “Blessed are you who believed.”

We pick up this Gospel today, just days before we celebrate the Incarnation once again to be reminded that God has consistently chosen the weak and the marginalized over people of influence. The Word of God speaks to us today again about how God works not to instruct, but to motivate and awaken us. We are not really people of power or great influence. They are off in citadels of power like Washington, Rome, Moscow, and all those capital places of wealth, influence, and power. We are the little ones of history whose names will hardly be remembered when they vanish from tomb stones. Those people of influence will have their monuments for a few generations, but not much of what they do lasts very long.

It takes people like Elizabeth and Mary to make a difference. It takes people like you and me to allow God’s plan to be fulfilled. Those apostles Jesus gathers are a perfect example. Not one of them was really influential or particularly gifted except for the gift of faith and willingness to follow Jesus Christ.

The Gospel today warns us to be careful about feeling privileged allowing us to look down on others who are different, powerless, poor and helpless. We might very well end up standing in silence as God works through them to accomplish what we do not. In some ways, the story we proclaim here today is our story. It is the story that God works through people like us right here in a small town on the Gulf Coast or anywhere people are willing to listen the news brought once and for all by an angel. Like those women of faith, we ought to risk believing that God’s promise is being fulfilled within us and by us. When we do, the privileged will simply have to be silent enough to perceive that God is working in spite of them. When we realize that God has chosen us, there will be peace not brought by diplomats and their treaties or ceasefires, but by forgiveness and a love that is rooted in respect. It is then that we shall truly be Blessed for we have believed that what was spoken to us by the Lord will be fulfilled. 

12 December 2021 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Zephaniah 3, 14-18 + Psalm (Isaiah) 12, 2-6 + Philippians 4, 4-7 + Luke 3, 10-18

There is plenty of reason to hear the words of the Prophet this morning and move his message into some kind of “Archive File” thinking that he was speaking to someone else a long time ago. One obvious reason for doing so is that there is plenty reason these days not to rejoice. Facing life for too many easily makes rejoicing just too much of a challenge. Personal, family, church, and social conflicts are way too many, and we constantly facing our weakness, our sinfulness, and our helplessness. For some this experience seems to explode with violence, hateful talk, blaming, and name-calling and fear. 

It cannot be so for people of faith. Even when inflation soars, food banks struggle to feed the growing number of hungry people, and a pandemic lingers we do not surrender what faith can provide. Even with political corruption, racial injustice, and with our borders becoming unwelcoming places of conflict, we do not surrender to resentment, frustration, exhaustion, and impatience.

The words and spirit of our liturgy today and even the color of this vestment are reminders that a new day is dawning. This isn’t pink. It is the color of the morning sky.

All of this is the church’s way of stirring our hope that despite all failure in the past God is here. God is working. We will not fall apart or fall into despair. It is so easy to convince ourselves that we are victims and powerless. So, today the living Word of God reminds us to rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS.

There is an indestructible power greater than the power of ambition, greed, and selfish individualism. Without it, we might cling to misery and apathy believing that we can’t do anything except moan and complain shrugging off everything that troubles and keeps this world from peace by thinking or saying: “That’s just the way it is. No, it isn’t. Discord and some suffering are part of life and cannot be controlled. Yet, we cannot fail to see that what we long and hope for is something we already have.  In the old days we called them Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity. We call them virtues because they give strength. They hold up the week and encourage the powerless. They are gifts of the Holy Spirit which we too often fail to draw upon.

Faith that God’s creation is not finished, and neither are we. Faith brings an assurance that God has things under control even when we do not. Hope keeps us looking forward not backward. Confident that the Kingdom of God is in our midst, and Jesus Christ has not abandoned us because he promised to remain with us always. Charity or “Love” allows us to see the beauty and goodness that is all around us and treasure the companionship of those who love us and care for us as friends. 

With these virtues, there is nothing to fear and no need for anxiety as St Paul says to us today. It is time to rejoice because faithful people live with Joy. We can forget about what happens tomorrow and beyond living this day in peace. We can control what we can and forget about what we cannot. If we don’t there will be no joy. We are God’s friends, and we have been given the Virtues we need, and it is time to accept them as a tender and loving blessing. Doing so will make it easy to shout for joy and to sing joyfully rejoicing always in the Lord.

8 December 2021 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Genesis 3, 9-15, 20 + Ephesians 1, 3-6, 11 + Luke 1, 26- 38

With this great feast we are called to step out of our ordinary daily routines and pause for these few minutes to let the Word of God remind us of God’s plan for creation. Paul puts that plan in plain and simple language as he writes to the Ephesians. God has chosen us to be holy and without blemish. God destined us for adoption which in the society and culture of that time meant nothing more than a completely new existence. In that world at that time, when one was adopted, their entire old identity was wiped away. If there were debts, they no longer existed. If there was anything in the past that could spoil the future, it was gone.

What this feast day urges us to do is call to mind our adoption. What must be affirmed today is the will of God that we be holy which is the whole purpose of our adoption. As with many who are adopted into earthly families, there is often a desire to know about the past, and perhaps that is why we open the third chapter of Genesis today. It’s the story of our past, and it’s not pretty. These verses we have just heard tell of losing our holiness.

Way too often, there is some mistaken idea that holiness has to do with prayers, or some extraordinary kind of service or sacrifice like martyrdom. If that’s the case, most of us in trouble. What we can discover from this great Feast Day is that those who are holy are simply close to God, and everything that is good somehow flows out of that intimate relationship. The truly holy are those are close to God. We see in the verses of Genesis today that the close and intimate relationship those first created persons had with God was broken. Leaving God to begin what is in time a long search for a way to restore that holiness for which we were created.

The woman we honor here today was holy. Her relationship with God made her so. She did not earn it by doing something. Her willingness to accept her calling is a consequence of her holiness in God’s eyes. She does not say, “Yes” and then earn her favor and holiness. It’s the other way around. Because she is already holy and chosen, she is willing to accept the unknown, unimaginable, and maybe frightening request.

She teaches us today what holiness looks like. She teaches us how a chosen people stand open to the sometimes strange and unexpected ways of God. She teaches us today what it means to be adopted, because our past is over and forgotten. We are a new people with what Paul calls a “new inheritance”. As Paul says, now we exist for one purpose: for the praise of God’s Glory. And so we can say again and again: Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be!

5 December 2021 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Baruch 5, 1-9 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 1, 4-5, 8-11 + Luke 3, 1-6

We can’t go any further into Advent without the presence and the voice of that man whose voice cried out in the wilderness. His voice is heard at a time when Rome held all the power, when Rome’s foot was on Israel’s neck. In that list of the powerful Luke includes two whose names might make us shudder because of the violence and deaths they will cause. Herod and Pilot are the names that in these opening verses give us a reminder of what is to come, because we know the end of the story. None the less, John’s voice comes like a trumpet blast out of the wilderness right into time, into history, right into reality. His voice proclaims that God is coming, and that God not only came in the past, and is not only to come in the future, but that God comes now into every moment in every age. Never mind the power of Herod and Pilot, never mind the power of that great Roman Legion, a greater one is coming. 

Having begun with a list of rulers who could not bring salvation, wholeness, and peace. John announces the coming of one who can and who will bring salvation, wholeness and peace. Just because their power and their numbers overwhelmed the people of Israel, that absence of all-out war was far from real peace. 

If we listen very carefully, John is not so much announcing someone as he proclaiming something. He proclaims that salvation has come, and it is for salvation that all people must prepare, and the way to prepare for Salvation is repentance and conversion. He proclaims that healing will come, but the healer must be recognized and people must come to him. He proclaims a season of peace, and it is a peace that can only come from reconciliation and love. 

John is in the desert, not in Jerusalem where his father, a priest, Zechariah, would be found. John is in that place where Israel crossed over from wilderness of sin to the promise of God’s faithfulness. He calls for another Passover. Like the desert days of old Israel, John calls for repentance, for conversion, inviting those who listen to experience what he has experienced, the freedom of knowing that God is about to do something great with them. 

That message is proclaimed today in this place to each of us. God is about to do something great, greater than ever before. To experience that and for God to find us, we must come out of the desert to meet the Lamb of God. There must be about us a constant spirit of change, of growth, of repentance. Acknowledging our sin, accepting the truth of our weakness and failures, we can become what God has called us to be through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not called to be a passive mob of bystanders watching from the sidelines as the world spins past. We are called by John, by grace, by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit to be the spark that changes this world, the fuel of a real “metanoia” as the first language of the Gospel describes it. Metanoia means: “Beyond (meta) the mind (noia). In other words, the change, the metanoia expected of us is far more than an intellectual affair. It is an experience of letting ourselves be lured beyond what we know, beyond our small thinking and any notion that things will just always be this way. They will either get worse, or they will get better because we have done something about it. Metanoia is a new vision of life in which we live with joy every day, secure in the knowledge that God is with us, that Christ as come, and that Christ will come again.

28 November 2021

Jeremiah 33, 14-16 + Psalm 25 + 1 Thessalonians 3, 12-4,2 + Luke 21, 25-28, 34-36 

We ponder the Word of God today as the world begins to bring 2021 to a close. The last month is about to begin. Yet most endings are really the beginning of something new. So, as the world closes a year, the Church begins a new year with the Gospel of Luke which will be our guide in the coming months. Like all of us, Jesus had his ideas about what was important. A farmer once ran an ad that said: “Wanted: young woman who owns tractor. Send photo…..of tractor.” He had his idea about was important too. Jesus highlighted a few points he thought was important for us to remember. For one thing, the timing of the end is unpredictable. For another, the second coming will in due time be known by the whole universe. That whole business of the coming of the “Son of Man” and clouds is a link to the Transfiguration and his Ascension as Luke describes those events. They involve clouds something significant to those people because of their familiarity with the story of Moses and that cloud that led the people through the desert days. Finally, Jesus insists that it is important to be alert, vigilant, and pray. 

What the Lord proposes to us is simply what might best be called, “An Advent Way of Life.” What that looks like is not complicated, but it is challenging. The challenge comes from this world filled with cruel violence, sexual corruption, hedonism, and a godlessness that drives injustice and rewards selfishness. It is the same world that St Luke faced living in the Roman Empire that was so decadent and corrupt. For the church, the faithful of his time, he wrote the Gospel we treasure so filled with hope, dreams, and promises.  In just a few weeks we will be telling the stories of those dreams that guided Joseph, Zachariah, Elizabeth and Mary. These are the promises that still give us hope on days when the end of the world seems to come with the death of a child, a broken marriage, the loss of a life-time partner, or yet another tragic shooting or an act of terrorism that shake our world. Living with hope is a challenge.

But it is not complicated, and St Paul in the oldest Christian document we possess, writes with gentle tenderness to the Thessalonians. He believed the end to be near, and like anyone who believes that it is so, he expresses his emotions, telling them how much they mean to him. It is a touching and personal example of an “Advent Way of Life.” It is a life style focused on the things that matter most. It is a way of living each day as if it were the last not fearful or anxious, but grateful, hopeful and confident that the promise of God’s love will be fulfilled. It is a way of living that is focused on what is good and just. It is a life filled with memories of good times, joyful and promising. It is a life sustained by people who do good things who far outnumber those who do bad things.

That Advent Way of Life takes no one for granted. While there may be times of anxiety, the times of anticipation and excitement are far more treasured. Watching for Jesus is as simple and as real as watching for someone you love to come home, never forgetting to tell them how much they mean to us.

In the Advent Way of Life, we forget what we’ve done for other people and remember what other people have done for us. We ignore what the world owes us and think of what we owe the world. In the Advent Way of life, no one is ever shouting about their rights, but working to fulfill their duty finding ways to do a little more. They look behind the faces of other human beings into their hearts, hungry for joy admitting that probably the only good reason for our existence is not what we’re going to get out of life, but what we going to give to life. It seems to me that this is the only way to stand erect and raise our heads before the Son of Man.

November 21, 2021 at St. William and St. Peter the Apostle Parishes in Naples, FL

Daniel 7, 13-14 + Psalm 93 + Revelation 1, 5-8 + John 18, 33-37

We have to be really careful with this feast and the image it promotes. The reputation of Kings through history is not too great, and nothing to be longed for. The kingship model was understandable to ancient communities. Royal images are common in the Scriptures, but they are not without problems. They can be easily misunderstood and mocked as when Pilate asked Jesus if he is king of the Jews. Comparing our relationship to God as that of subjects to a ruler can be a problem. While kingship can promote ideas of strength, longevity and authority, in reality it has often brought abuses of power, servitude, or slavery. In the end, what we have put before us today is the imagination of ancient communities. As we inherit this image, we might also inherit the struggle, the wish, and need to find a way to express our image of God.

As we now conclude this liturgical year in our church tradition and set aside the Gospel of Mark which we have proclaimed since last Advent, it might be profitable to review what image Mark has given us for Jesus. If you think about it, the image is anything but regal. Half of the Gospel is an effort on the part of Jesus to get his followers to understand that he is not going to establish a Royal and powerful reign that will crush the Romans and restore Israel to some former kind of earthly glory. He is going to be a suffering servant, obedient to the will of his father. The citizens of his kingdom will not be a privileged few who presume some claim on his favor or vie for positions of honor to his right or left.

If we have heard and internalized anything at all from Mark’s Gospel this past year, it is the realization that in his realm there will be found a rag-tag, sometimes confused and sometimes doubtful bunch of misfits who sometimes talk big and then act small. They will be blind but yet cry out, “Lord, Have Mercy.” They will be deaf, sometimes act as if they were possessed by evil, and they will be not-so loyal friends who sometimes can’t be found at the moment of greatest need. Yet they are the ones who have the fish and bread and are told to feed the hungry. They are the in the boat. The fish all night long and get nothing until he tells them where to cast their nets.

Remember in Mark’s Gospel there are no singing angels, adoring shepherds, and no visitors from afar with strange royal gifts. There is no gentle virgin and humble silent carpenter. There is just a wild man from the desert who picks him out of the crowd, and with an image of the sacrificed Passover Lamb recognizes him and directs our attention to the Lamb of God. Chapter after chapter, he rejects and runs from crowds who want to make him their “King.” He has only one crown in mind, and when it comes, they won’t be cheering they will be jeering. 

It’s time now to end this year of grace, and turn to the east. It is time to look for what we have been promised, not a King, but a Savior. Not a place of privilege and ease, but a place among the humble with the sick, the broken, the abandoned, and those cast off in a world still too deaf to the Good News of the Gospel and too blind to see the glory of God in the face of a Christ, the anointed one who lives with us in the poor, the homeless, refugees, the sick, the gay, the black, brown, yellow, and white people who still wait and long for a time of forgiveness asked and forgiveness given, for a time of peace, of joy, and hope. That is what our Advent next week puts before us, a time of now but not yet. It is a time to look dimly into the light of dawn and see what is yet to come, who will come again, what he will look for in us and how he will judge what we have done with what we have been given.

Traditions suggest that Mark near the end of his life was a companion of Peter in Rome during a time of terrible persecution. If so, the source for his Gospel is Peter, a betrayer and not-too dependent friend, yet one who walked on water when called to do so. It is a Gospel for our times, and it is Good News for people like us who can find ourselves in every story of the Gospel. Let us pray today that we shall also find ourselves hard at work for the sake of the one comes when he comes probably not on a golden cloud, but once again on a donkey to gather us all around the eucharistic table and feed us once more on bread of life that lasts forever.

November 14, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Naples, FL

Daniel 12, 1-3 + Psalm 16 + Hebrews 10, 11-14 + Mark 13, 24-32

Before we open our hearts to this message and revelation of this Gospel, we need to open our minds to the images the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel is using in order to understand what is being revealed. When Mark is writing this Gospel quoting Jesus, he either knows that the Romans have destroyed the Temple or that the army of Vespasian and his son Titus is at the gates. One of the main concerns for Mark is the warning of believers in Christ that everyone who claims to be Jesus or claims to be his follower should not be believed. There may be wars and rumors of war, but Mark wants believers to understand that this is not the time of the coming of Jesus in glory. All of that stuff, earthquakes, famines, conflicts have been seen many times, and they have nothing to do with the coming of Christ in glory. All that talk about chaos in the heavens refers to the collapse of earthly kingdoms and the end of religions that thought of the sun and the stars as gods. What Mark and the other Evangelists do with this kind of thinking is warn against speculation about when and how Christ will come again. We have all heard television preachers who peddle projected dates who have not studied the scriptures they profess to interpret.

We ought to understand and remember that God is not portrayed as angry and vengeful in these verses. When bad things happen, it is the result of human behavior. If anything, what we discover is that God can work through the mess we can make to intervene with mercy during times of great suffering. At the same time, when we pick up this unusual style of literature called “apocalyptic” we might simply shrug it off as too complicated or too theatrical. That’s a bad plan. What we have here is neither of prediction nor a description. It is a proclamation and reassurance.

What we hear is that human history will not end without the universal human recognition of Jesus Christ as the Lord of all history. When and what it will look like we do not know. What comes through loud and clear is that no matter what, false messiahs, earthquakes, wars, or famine, followers of Jesus will be supported by the Holy Spirit, the Gospel will reach all nations, and in the meantime, there is a lot of housekeeping to be done. That part comes at the end of the speech about servants working until the master comes. 

What we take from this Gospel and what we take home from this celebration is not fear, but a glorious vision of hope. It speaks especially to those who have suffered from war and famine, to those who suffered the collapse of love, to those who face soon the certainty of death because no one is forgotten by God. Our lives can be formed by the kind of world we envision, and while we face a world to grieve over sometimes, there are times of joy and abundance, times of peace, and healing.  Our hope, resting on Christ, Jesus must shape our lives because of our faith.  If we hope for a future of justice and peace, we must read the signs of the times, so that this future may begin now.

November 7, 2021 at St. Peter and St. William Parishes in Naples, FL

1 Kings 17, 10-16 + Psalm 146 + Hebrews 9, 24-28 + Mark 12, 38-44

Instead of calling this the “Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time”, I think we should call it “The Sunday of the Two Widows.” There is no way get through this liturgy without them. A quick read of both stories could lead us to simply think that they are very much alike, helpless, poor, but generous. In reality, they are way more than helpless, poor, but generous. That widow of Zarephath was nothing like the widow in Mark’s Gospel. The first one offered what she had to a person in need. The second one was duped by slick pretenders who know how to bilk the innocent which is what Jesus points out by scolding the leaders of the people who run the Temple. It’s a racket still going on today when we pick up a news story about someone who bilks innocent, naïve people out of money for work they never start or finish.

Elijah is not like that. As the story goes, he was a refugee fleeing both a draught and political danger. At first it might seem odd that he would ask someone as helpless as he was. But, Elijah is a prophet in touch with God, and he holds firmly to his faith in the providence of God while the religious leaders at the time of Jesus are in touch with nothing but their own greed and ambition. Elijah and that widow from Zarephath do not even share the same religion! However, she understood that human beings are made for one another and that even hunger is easier to bear when shared. What she discovers is that by sharing with another in need, they both survive.

Lest we get all impressed by the action of the second widow, we might wonder a bit more about how and why Mark describes her as he does, and what he remembers Jesus said about her.  She is not being held up as an example of charity. She is an image of Jesus himself. Like him, she gives her all whether or not it is appreciated or even noticed by those in power or those who matter. I think Jesus points her out suggesting to the disciples that God operates with a different set of values than those leaders of the people. What matters is faith, trust, and human solidarity.

In telling these stories today we might ask ourselves whose interest motivates us. We might take a second look at how our generosity really works and whether we are just giving out of our surplus, because we all have a surplus. Or, have we ever really understood and identified with people who are desperate and in need. I read recently that the poor are the most generous when it comes to responding to needs because they’ve been there or are still there having discovered that by sharing with another in need, they both survive.

We might also think more deeply about that widow in Zarephath who pays no attention at all to the fact that Elijah is a foreigner, a refugee, and even of a different religion. What matters is that he is a human being, vulnerable, frightened, and alone. So is she. When they both recognize their frailty, vulnerability, desperation, and fears, they do more than survive together, their solidarity is an unmistakable sign of how we can experience and draw them near to the reign of God. 

November 1, 2021 at St. Peter and St. William Parishes in Naples, FL

Revelations 7, 2-4, 9-14 + Psalm 24 + 1 John 3, 1-3 + Matthew 5, 1-12

Halloween has nearly eclipsed All Saints Day. The secular world seems to think that Halloween is what it’s all about. Rather than being the night to prepare for a celebration, it has become the celebration. Instead of being about life, it’s turned into a spooky time with goblins and skeletons. But we are in this church because we know the difference. We know that Christ conquered the powers of darkness and those who really believe can use Halloween to mock fear and death with laughter and fun. Confidence in Christ makes Halloween a light-hearted time.

Children are the chief celebrants of Halloween, and for some of us there is an inner child that can still have fun. The whole business of dressing up with scary masks and going around to spooky places with spider webs, ghosts, and skeletons is a delightful joke through which we can discover that this world is really comedy act in which terrible things get defeated. It’s a great therapy for fear. Those of us past childhood would do well to imitate the willingness of children to venture forth into the unknown, take risks, and return home not only safe but triumphant.

Children seem to know that if you’re afraid of something, the best thing to do is to dress yourself and your friends — maybe even your little brother — as the thing you’re afraid of, so that you can see it in familiar flesh and confront it and deal with it and prove to yourself that it can’t really hurt you. They know that pretending that something isn’t real won’t work if it is real. There are monsters under the bed. So, the Halloween wisdom of children comes down to this: There are monsters under the bed, but we can face our fears, and by grace and struggle be set free from them. 

This feast of All Saints’, with music, prayers, beautiful vestments, and everything else is the sunny side of Halloween. Today is joy. Last night was comedy. The saints we honor this day, a vast, innumerable crowd, are graduates of the school of grace and struggle in which trick-or-treaters have just enrolled. The saints are those wise enough to face their fears and accept the help of God as naturally as a small child walking in the dark accepts a parent’s hand.

The saints are those who accept the adventure of a risk, and one that’s sane and healthy too, even if their contemporaries can’t figure them out. These saints know the great therapy for fear. They take God seriously, at his word, while everything else, everyone else, including themselves, they regard not seriously, but lightly. Saints are people who aren’t afraid to live with both the gruesome and the glorious. They are not embarrassed to struggle with the great division between good and evil, life and death, heaven and hell. They are called forth into the unknown as into a dark night, they venture forth, enter spooky places, and return home not only safe but triumphant.

Did you know that Ignatius Loyola told his seminarians to laugh and grow stronger. Saint Philip Neri performed ridiculous dances in the presence of cardinals and wore his clothes inside out. Teresa of Avila taught her Nuns to dance on holy days and gave them castanets.

At Halloween children recognize that beyond the very real struggle, there is a world of delight free from fear’s control. That world is where the saints are found, both saints in heaven and saints on earth. Maybe you have known some. Maybe you know some now. Maybe you are one of these saints dwelling, part of the time at least, in a world of delight. Today is the feast of All Saints. We remember those who have gone before, and pray that we may follow after. Trick-or-treaters venturing forth on Halloween night provide us with a map for the journey, one drawn in the bright colors of childhood trust, courage, and fun. The saints massed in their glorious ranks are a promise of our happy return home, with hearts glad and eyes open to the wonder of God.

October 31, 2021 at St. William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Deuteronomy 6, 2-6 + Psalm 18 + Hebrews 7, 23-28 + Mark 12, 28-34

After countless unpleasant arguments and trick questions in an effort to trap Jesus, this is a rare and pleasant moment. The two agree with another. The scribe is “not far from the kingdom of God” Jesus says, but something is lacking. Why is he so close, but not quite there? For Mark in this Gospel, what is missing is the following of Jesus on the way and all the way to the cross. What’s missing, in other words, is commitment to discipleship. The kingdom of God is not agreeing on the right answers, important as the search for truth is. It is a relationship, a commitment, an identity that makes him part of the group, the family of faith which becomes the church.

The common thread that runs through the response of Jesus, is love: love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self. Our understanding of this text and its message depends on our understanding of the word, love. Our English language is impoverished when it comes to this word. It can mean way too many things. Even the Greek language which was somewhat primitive had three words for love depending on what kind of love was being expressed. We use the word to describe all sorts of things from a tennis score, to express our taste in food, to the most sublime affection and bonding. The problem rests upon the fact that this world of ours equates love with feelings. That is not what Jesus and the Scribe are talking about. Our western world individualism only compounds the challenge to understand what Jesus and the Scribe are talking about.

In their group-centered Mediterranean world, affection, emotion, and feeling had nothing to do with it. That’s internal stuff. “Love” as they are speaking is about something external, an attachment to one’s group or attachment to a person in the group. It is “kinship”. It is the village or the clan or the tribe that one joined at some point in life that mattered most of all, and that membership is what provided one’s very identity. So, to love God means to become attached to God exclusively. There is no other God, and it means attaching oneself to the group that clusters itself distinctly around this God.

To love one’s neighbor as oneself means to become exclusively attached to the people in one’s own neighborhood or village as if they were family. That same idea is what is behind that statement in Luke’s Gospel when Jesus says: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sister, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Jesus is not suggesting a negative emotion toward one’s blood relatives. What he asks is detachment from that kinship group for the sake of the Kingdom and joining the Jesus movement. This is not about emotions. It is about commitment.

The kind of group attachment in the world and time of Jesus is hard for us to attain in the Western culture. As precious a cultural value as it is, Western individualism is a huge obstacle to community. We are always thinking and talking about me. “I” is always the way we think. Forget about “We” or “Us”. That’s the problem with all this fussing about rights. It’s always about MY rights. Forget about how claiming or exercising my rights might affect the community or someone else, or maybe someone unborn. We join groups and remain members as long as the group meets our needs. When that fails, we drop out and join another group on similar terms.

With that in mind, we might begin to wonder how this encounter with the Scribe ends because in the text it is unresolved.  What is lacking we ought to wonder? While wondering, it would not hurt to wonder about ourselves. Are we there yet, or is there something lacking for us? The Scribe admires, understands, and praises Jesus, but that does not make him a Christian. He must follow Jesus which means giving everything one has. There is no dropping out when it doesn’t feel good or isn’t fun or entertaining. In the very next story of Mark’s Gospel we will learn from the story of a widow in the Temple what it takes. Come back next week. Don’t miss it.