Third Sunday of Lent March 19, 2017

Exodus 17, 3-7 + Psalm 95 + Roman 5, 1-2, 5-8 + John 4, 5-42

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

The woman in this story we know so well is suffering, and the suffering she experiences is shame. I believe that is why she comes to that well at mid-day. She needs to avoid the other women who would be coming there in the early morning or evening to avoid the mid-day heat. She’s there at the hottest time of the day. We have no details about why she has lived with so many men, but the cultural historians would tell us that she was probably a concubine which today we would describe as a sex slave. She is an object used for pleasure. Among women she would have been scorned and despised never knowing any respect or real human intimacy. Then one day, she meets Jesus Christ.

Shame is a sad and ugly secret that eats away at the human heart. It is different from guilt. Shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior. Guilt will say: “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” Shame will say, “I am a mistake.” Left to itself, shame leads to narcissism, that constant unending effort to look good because you don’t think you are good. Shame is an epidemic in our culture. It keeps us apart, makes relationships shallow and temporary. Commitment is impossible because it inevitably means being vulnerable and transparent. It means someone will know about my shame. Then one day, she met Jesus Christ.

Shame needs three things to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgement. Given any amount of these three things, it will thrive and destroy. There is an antidote which this story tells us about. It is empathy. What will break through the secrecy, silence, and judgement is two powerful words: “Me too.” She met Jesus because she came to the well thirsty. He said to her: “Me too.” “Give me a drink.”

At that well, the secret of her life was laid bare. There was someone who knew everything she ever did. He did not call her names. He did not seem ashamed to be talking with her, and he spoke gently and with great respect. At that well, the silence was broken; the silence between God and a sinner living in shame and the Creator who had made that sinner good.  At that well, there was not a hint of judgement. On the contrary, there was understanding and respect. Suddenly she was treated as a person with feelings, hopes, needs, and perhaps a future that was free of shame. Someone wanted something from her that did not leave her feeling like a toy or something to be tossed around, used, and abused. He wanted her faith. He wanted her trust in exchange for living water which in John’s Gospel is always a reminder of Baptism. He would take her shame upon himself and die naked on a cross so that she could go free and finally knowing that in God’s heart she was good.

In all of that conversation at the well, there are two words spoken that get to the heart of the matter: “If only.” Perhaps this weekend we need to hear them again and let them sink more deeply into our souls. If only we knew how much God cares for us and thirsts for us. If only we knew how the judgement of God is guided by mercy. If only we could believe that we are good we could begin to live daringly and boldly, joyfully and confidently in the sure hope that God knows there is more to us than how we look, how we dress, how smart we are, or how successful in business we have become.

At that well, someone was able to see into her secret being, into that part of her which longed for true love, which was pure and innocent, thirsting to be seen as a person and not as an object. She, like all of us is deeply wounded by broken relationships, broken promises, and broken dreams. It does not do us much good to be loved for being perfect. We need to be loved and accepted precisely as sinners. Only the person who has experienced this kind of love can know what it is. Being loved like that gives one surprising energy and courage. It puts us in touch with our true nature, and to touch our true nature is a kind of homecoming that brings us peace.

Second Sunday of Lent March 12, 2017

Genesis 12, 1-4 + Psalm 33 + 2 Timothy 1,8-10 + Matthew 17, 1-9

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

 The old adage, “What you see is what you get” does not always hold true. Until that day on a hill top, all those men had been seeing was a man who had excited and inspired them with talk of a new age and some wonderful signs they could not fathom. But, he always looked like one of them. Then something happened. Six days after talk of his violent death which they refused to accept, six days after Peter answered a question he posed about who people said that he was, something happened to those men. Some like to wonder and propose that this was something that happened to Jesus, a significant moment in his life when he became more deeply aware of his calling. For me, that’s all very fine, but it leaves me and those apostles as spectators. I would rather think and ponder the idea that this is really something that happened to those apostles, people who were following Jesus but not quite sure what it was all about and where it would lead.

Jesus did not become something on that mountain that he had never been before. He was always filled with the glory of God. He did not change and become something new, but the disciples did. They began to see. It is not as though they had been blind, but now they had their vision corrected, so to speak. Their blindness was removed. They saw someone capable of revealing the beauty of God’s holiness who looked like them and like their neighbor from Nazareth, like their companion and friend, Jesus. What I believe is important to understand with this text is simply this: The transfiguration is more about us than it is about Jesus. If something happened to him on that mountain, he never told anyone about it. He simply came down and went back to his calling. Something did happen to those disciples, and it held them together and strengthened their faith leading them through the passion and death of Jesus Christ preparing them to accept and understand the resurrection. I think that without this experience on that mountain, they may never have managed to believe.

What they were discovering through their relationship and by their experiences with Jesus was that they could see things in different ways. Now for them it was not so much a matter of what they saw, but how they saw it. It is the difference of seeing with physical eyes and seeing with the eyes of faith. As long as we see only with physical eyes, we will always be looking for love, restless for life, longing for joy, bound by guilt, and in fear of death.

When we proclaim this Gospel early in Lent, we have the time and opportunity to pay attention to what we see and how we see. It is a matter of deciding if what we see is all we get or whether our seeing will bring us face to face with the mystery of God’s presence all around us. Transfigured eyes do not deny or ignore the circumstance of our life and our world. We still see poverty, racism, injustice, hateful behavior that springs out of angry lives. Yet we also see people like Mother Theresa, who stands in the midst of the most horrible poverty with the shining face of God moving countless people to respond to the helpless people trapped in that poverty. We see heroic men and women who risk their lives for the safety and rescue of nameless brothers and sisters they may never see again. I learned this standing in a bombed out building in 1995 in Oklahoma City. Everywhere you looked there was the ugliness of a man’s hatred, innocent suffering people, and lives shattered forever. What I saw was people rushing into danger to help and the hands of God pulling people out of that wreckage, and that’s what I remember most. That’s Transfiguration.

We all have had those moments; perhaps not as dramatic or historical, but we have had those times when there was more to see than the physical eye could see, when a neighbor or a friend, a colleague or a teacher suddenly seemed to reflect the glory of God to us and remind us that there is always more, that things and people are not always what they seem to be, and that what you see is not always what you get. Most of the time it’s better!

Having passed these for forty days in prayer, fasting, service, and self-denial, may we be Transfigured so that all that we say and all that we do may reflect the glory of God who has called us in children.

First Sunday of Lent March 5, 2017

Genesis 2, 7-9, & 3, 1-7 + Psalm 51 + Romans 5, 12-19 + Matthew 4, 1-11

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

I have always found it important to notice that the first temptation Jesus faces in the desert is about hunger and food. This trusting Son of God will not overreach his humanity. He does not play the “I am Divine” card, so to speak. He works no miracle for himself. The miracles he will work later are for others only.  He quotes the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy to remind us of the Hebrews who grumbled in the desert about the food that God provided every day. Addicted to overeating, junk food, and full pantries, too much of this world is deaf to the Word of God, and the consequence is hunger and starvation. The miracle that will turn stones into bread for the hungry will happen when individuals and nations turn their hearts of stone from indifference and helplessness into compassionate mercy sharing wealth and opportunities with the poor and hungry.

Then comes another temptation to force God’s hand to send angels to catch the falling Son of God as though God is some kind of “emergency response team” only there when you dial “911”. Those who live every day with the knowledge and belief that God’s constant care guides everything we do have no need test God. Those who desire to do the Will of God have no fear. Even if the choices they make are not exactly what God wills, the desire to do God’s will is itself enough. These children of God have other “wings” with which to fly through this life: faith, trust, and hope.

Finally, we go to a privileged place, a mountain top, where God’s presence and power is always experienced by holy ones. There is found a temptation to play God and take over God’s place and power. This Son of God choses to remain powerless, and by that choice he has the power of God to drive away the tempter affirming that only God has real power and privilege. The power we assume is always a sham unless it is God’s power working through us. Later to the top of a high hill Jesus will return when he has faced down the final temptation and been raised up. There he will call us to the place where God dwells. Standing on that mountain with disciples filled with a mixture of doubt and faith just like us, he will give a share in his authority with the command that we are to make disciples everywhere, baptize, and teach all that Jesus has taught with the power to forgive.

My brothers and sisters, we are living in desert times surrounded by temptations. Perhaps a desert is what this world looks like compared to the Paradise to which we are called. We live too often with hearts of stone failing to satisfy human hunger. Because we fail to trust God every day, we panic and try to manipulate God when something big comes along rather than affirming and following the will of God.  We use the gifts, the power, and sometimes the authority we have to protect ourselves rather see to the good of others.  So, as we do every year at the beginning of Lent, we tell this story of temptation with the hope that 40 days of fasting from food and feasting on the Word of God will bring us to the next mountain with pure hearts and clear minds where we shall see the face of God and live.

Ash Wednesday March 1, 2017

Joel 2, 12-18 + Psalm 51 + 2 Corinthians 5, 20; 6,2 + Matthew 6, 1-6, 16-18

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

From our very beginning we are dust touched by the loving hand of a Creating God.  We were filled with life and with hope by the Spirit of the God’s breath. But the King we welcomed with palms and glad Hosannas has been betrayed by our infidelity, fragile faith, and broken promises. So, we go back this day to that from which we came. There is a lot of dirt in all our lives the dirt of sin, the dirt of secrets, the dirt of lies and falsehood. Today we remove the masks of our pretense, and the truth is revealed; the truth of what we are without God. For had that loving creating God not breathed His life and His love into us, we would still to this day be nothing more than a handful of dirt blown about by the wind.

At no other time has the truth of our identity been so visibly marked on our skin. On the day of our Baptism, we were signed with the sign of the cross marked proudly as a royal, priestly, and prophetic people. But since that day, through the many years of our lives, that identity has been spoiled and damaged by our sinfulness. This Lenten anointing is a rougher, grittier, and dirtier marking accompanied now by stark words: “Remember,” because we have forgotten!

There is a lot to remember for all of us. The ritual words bid us to remember our beginnings, but there is far more to remember than those ritual words suggest. We must remember what we have done that brings us here, and we must remember what we have not done which might be even greater. We must remember too what this cross means, and what it promises. We must remember who we are as children for God, for we have too often forgotten. We must remember the gifts we have been given by the Holy Spirit, and the promise those gifts still hold for the future and the coming Kingdom of Go

We must remember the Beatitudes and our call to faith as disciples. We must remember one another and those who have brought us to this day by word and example, prayer and sacrifice. We must remember what it means to come to this altar and say “Amen” with outstretched hands and open hearts. We must remember finally where we are headed and the tombs into which we will be lowered, but from which we shall all be called on that glorious morning when the dead will arise arm in arm with the risen one who calls us to life this day.

There is a lot to remember today in this holy place where we shall once again, “Do this in memory of me.”

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 26, 2017

Isaiah 49, 14-15 + Psalm 62 + 1 Corinthians 4, 1-5 + Matthew 6, 24-34

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

The times in which we live provide more than enough reason to worry and be anxious. Fear is being used by too many to manipulate and manage our thinking and our options. It is a handy weapon to silence opposition and easily leads to abuses of power. History is full of examples. To these times and to all our fears and worry speaks this Gospel. Worry threatens us all. It is a part of daily life; but this Gospel suggests that for people of faith it will not control our daily lives. There are some worries not caused by external circumstances either, but rather by an internal disposition. I’m not one of them, but I know many who are worriers and are perpetually anxious. My mother was one of them, but as she grew older, I watched her get over it, as she grew more grateful for all the blessings and joys in her life.

It seems to me that anxious people and those who worry are not thankful enough for the good things that happen to them, and they spend way too much time thinking about what might happen that is not so good. I read a survey recently that reports that the most common worry people have is about money, 45%. Then 39% of people surveyed worry about people, 32% about their health, 20% about exams, and 15% worry about their job security. Now, we know that worry is not only useless, but that it is positively injurious to one’s health. Going through life without any worry or fear would probably suggest that one has not really lived very much; but reducing the power that worry has over us is possible, and Jesus speaks about that today.

Concentrate on what is essential is what Jesus proposes for his faithful, which is doing the Will of God. There is no suggestion anywhere in revelation that it is God’s will for us to be fearful or worry. In fact, the first words spoken aloud in the New Testament are: FEAR NOT, and they are spoken over and over again. Worry is out of the question when pleasing God and trust in God are the dominant elements in one’s life. It’s a matter of living one day at a time. Worry robs us of the pleasure of enjoying this day and this moment. It keeps us from a full and joyful life. Worry about an unknown future and things that may never happen spoils the moment when all is well because God is good.

The essence of faith is knowing that life is full of risk, but we are not helpless victims because we are God’s children. The essence of faith is knowing that things are always uncertain and fragile, they come and they go, but God provides what we need even if sometimes not what we want. The essence of faith provides the courage to live with grateful joy in an uncertain world amid things and people who will pass away.

The prayer which Jesus taught us is a good one for those who worry, and a reminder for those who don’t. It urges us to ask for “our daily bread” not tomorrow’s or next week’s. It the prayer of people who live in the present with confidence in the one called, “Father.” What we must learn to do says St Augustine: is leave the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time February 19, 2017

Leviticus 19, 1-2, 17-18 + Psalm 103 – 1 Corinthians 3, 16-23 + Matthew 5, 38-48

St William Churches in Naples, FL

The examples Jesus uses today can preach this Gospel if we understand them correctly from the time and the culture in which they were spoken. If we fail to do that, we end up with some rather odd behavior that will not get make us holy or get us close to perfection. When it says “offer no resistance to injury” Jesus is not saying lay down and let anyone hurt you or take advantage of you. Jesus was never passive in the face of evil or wrong-doing. A better translation says: “Do not react with hostility to one who is evil.” That is an entirely different thing from not resisting evil. So, the challenge is how to resist evil, and then comes some examples.

Striking someone on the right cheek does not mean being hit with a fist or a club. The detail of the right cheek speaks to a specific kind of behavior. It refers to a backhanded slap with the right hand which is intended to demean not physically injure. This is a put down or a power play. So, getting into a fist fight misses the point. Rather than hit, the turning of the other cheek changes the game, and it says, “Hit me with integrity and then we’ll see who is best man here.” The people who heard this example from Jesus would have been quite surprised imagining a browbeaten servant standing up like that to an arrogant overlord. The point is made by the response. A servant doesn’t take the insult, but the servant does not escalate this into violence. They simply show up or reveal the arrogance of the offender.

It’s the same thing with the extra mile. A Roman soldier could force a local to carry his pack for only one mile. No more. The offer to go a second mile robbed the bully of the initiative, and it put him in danger of being reported for going beyond the limit. Imagine the people around Jesus hearing this and laughing at the thought of a Roman soldier pleading to get his pack back from a clever pacifist rebel.

With that, Jesus turns our thoughts to hatred, a dangerous thing. It must be kept for a cause not a person. We can hate things or events like war or plagues, but not people. When Jesus talks about the enemy he is not referring to enemies in war. He is talking about someone who is close to us, in the neighborhood, at work, in the family; someone making life difficult for us. Our enemies are not those who hate us but rather those whom we hate. Hate poisons the heart, but love purifies it. When Jesus says that we must love our enemies, it is not for the sake of the enemies. It is for our own sake because love is more beautiful than hate. Love is the greatest gift, but hatred is the one thing that can destroy love.

Love your enemies is one of the most revolutionary things ever said. All other revolutionaries said that the enemy must be destroyed, and we can see where that has taken us into an endless cycle of destruction and hatred that most of the time does more harm to us. Most of us find it hard enough to love our friends, and all of us have some enemies, or at least people we dislike, and when we take the time to reflect upon why we dislike them most of the time it is not because they said or did something to offend, but because they bring out the worst in us. Enemies expose a side of us which we usually manage to keep hidden from our friends, a dark side of our nature which we would rather not know about. The enemy stirs up ugly things inside us, and that’s the real reason we feel hatred.

What is expected of us is not to “feel” love for an enemy, because love is not a feeling. It is an act of the will. We can make a decision to love someone even though we do not have feelings for that person. Love allows someone to be different, to be themselves, and not try to turn them into a copy of ourselves so that we can love them – which is a very distorted kind of fake love. In the end, what Jesus asks is contrary to human nature, but it is not contrary to the divine nature, and so this is what draws us near to perfection. The perfection Jesus speaks of is the perfection of love. God loves God’s children unconditionally not because they are good, but because God is good. And so, it would be for us who seek to perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. We love others not because they are good, but because we will and we choose to be good.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 12, 2017

Sirach 15, 15-20 + Psalm 119 + 1 Corinthians 2, 6-10 + Matthew 5, 17-37

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

I believe it is true for all of us here willing to look back on our lives with some honesty and humor recognizing that when it came to rules and laws we pushed boundaries. I can remember a confrontation with my father over my first car which he did not want me to have. I suffered many depravations until I had saved enough money to buy the most ridiculous old jollibee which he then forbad me to park in the driveway because it leaked more oil than it burned gasoline. The imposed rule was that I could only drive it to school and back, no cruising on Sixteenth Street, and no passengers. So, when I passed him going about forty-five in a 30mph zone on Sixteenth Street with eight of my classmates in the car, there was a problem. I considered the rules an infringement on my freedom and a public declaration that I was irresponsible and a danger to others. Then when I moved on to the seminary and discovered a community of rules and laws beyond count, there was then an even greater struggle over limitations, boundaries, interpretations, and the fine points of language. We had to wear cassocks if we ever stepped out of our rooms. The rule didn’t say what you had to wear under the cassock, and in the opening weeks of the school year it was hot in those things. The monks didn’t take kindly to bare legs showing when we walked in the wind or genuflected in chapel. What I now see about those days is that I was determined to get away with all I could. My father and I had no common values then. While I wanted absolute freedom to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. He wanted me to be safe and live long enough to perhaps suffer a son like the one he had! Those monks had a value of respect and devotion with a sensitivity to gentlemanly behavior. We just wanted to see how much we could get away with. Conformity, unity, and mutual respect were a long way from the minds of 20 year olds.

We ought not pretend that we have all grown up and gotten over it. There isn’t anyone in here who does not keep an eye out of police cars, or drive just about 78 mph on Alligator Alley when the sign says 70, or push on that accelerator when the light turns yellow. We hire professionals to find loopholes, and admire people who don’t exactly cheat on their taxes, but cut every corner and find every conceivable way to pay the least. No matter what the issue or situation, that urge to have our freedom to do what we want is always there. Our attitude toward any law depends on the reasons we see for it and on our feelings for those who have formulated it. On one level of obedience there is conformity to avoid punishment which is purely egoistic. The only reason to follow the law is to stay out of trouble. When the punishment or risk of being caught is slight, there is no motivation for observing the law. So, the law giver must make sure that the cost of disobedience is great enough to insure compliance. Too many of our young people today get more upset over being caught than they do over the truth that they were disobedient. They spend more time and energy trying to figure out how to not get caught than simply being obedient.

Today’s readings speak about a different appreciation for God’s law, and Jesus speaks about that again today just as he did once before to his apostles. In the Book of Sirach, a collection of Jewish wisdom, it is said that obedience to God’s law leads to genuine quality of life. The law turns out to be more of a revelation than a demand. As the Psalm we just heard says, God’s law offers the pathway to a life full of blessing.  What Jesus proposes is that the law is a guide that shows us the way to a life full of blessing.

Jesus applies this wisdom to everyday relationships of people living in community. And it is just as true today as it was the first time he spoke. Anger which leads us to demean another comes from the same root as Cain’s murder of his brother, and if you remember, that murder happened in the context of making an offering to God. So, if we can’t figure out how to make peace among ourselves, we will start taking one another to court and end up imprisoned by our own system of retribution. When he talks about relationships between the sexes, Jesus avoids judging the picky details and simply demands due reverence for every person made in God’s image. He points out that cultivating lust destroys the heart and it devalues the woman. On the question of divorce, Jesus tells the audience that if you put someone in an impossible situation, you are responsible for what happens. No blame!

Considered in this way, we can see clearly that Jesus never came to abolish the law, but to get to the heart of the matter. Fulfillment of the law is simply a question of love. My father’s concern for me when I was 16 years old had nothing to do with his insurance liabilities. He just loved me and wanted me to live a long, healthy, happy life. It cannot be different with the a God we call, Father.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 5, 2017

Isaiah 58, 7-10 + Psalm 112 + 1 Corinthians 2, 1-5 + Matthew 5, 13-16

St Peter Church in Naples, FL – MS Koningsdam

Two weeks ago, when I was preparing for today’s homily, I was sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the lectionary. As often happens to me at this stage of my life, I began to wonder how many times I have prayed, reflected, and preached these four verses that come immediately after the Beatitudes. It’s all part of the great Sermon on the Mount. I was gazing out the window, and when I looked back down at the table my eyes came to rest on the salt shaker. It dawned on me that the salt in that thing was really totally useless unless it was poured out and mixed with something else. It is that mixing together that causes something to happen. As long as it sits there on the table turning into one big lump as it does in humid Florida, it is useless. With that, I got up and finished washing the breakfast dishes grateful for one more insight into the wisdom of the Gospel.

It is so simple, this truth, and the wisdom of Jesus is so clear. As long as we sit around in this church we are not particularly useful when it comes to realizing our vocation and doing whatever it is God asks of us. We have to mix! We have to get out into the neighborhood, into the office, the shop, the club, where ever we are mixing it up with others and making a difference. We do that best and most effectively when we do it together, as church, as disciples, as Catholics. One single grain of salt is nothing when it comes to bringing out flavors or awakening tastes. The effect of the salt comes from many grains together.

Using such powerful symbols as salt and light, Jesus speaks to us about what it means to be Blessed and live in the Reign of God. We Catholics who experience the magnificence of the Easter Vigil can hardly miss the point when he calls us to be light. Remember how that one candle enters the darkened church, and then what happens as its light is shared and spread throughout the church. The warmth, the beauty, and the intimacy of that light is exactly what Jesus calls us to be. One little grain of salt or one little flicker of a candle is fragile and easily lost, but altogether there are some extraordinary possibilities.

This desire of Jesus for us to be salt and light goes deeper than just those simple images. It speaks of the need for our unity as well, and the immeasurable potential that lies before us as church for doing good. Yet we must be more than just “good”. We have to be good for something. Recognizing this ought to give us more than enough reason to remain faithful and stay with the church and with each other. The privatization of religion and the individualism of our culture and our times should find a challenge in these verses.

The most important thing about each of us is our capacity for goodness. We can be a source of light. We have hands that care, eyes that can see, ears that can hear, tongues that can speak, feet that can walk, and above hearts that can love. Unfortunately, through laziness, selfishness, and cowardice, our light can be dimmed, so that we become the shadows of the people we could be. When that laziness, selfishness, and cowardice creeps over us, the presence of others who share our hope and our faith can keep us from losing our way in darkness.

There is an old expression in English that describes a wise old timer as being “salty.” In the Old Testament, salt is frequently used as a symbol of wisdom, and wisdom is often spoken of as a “light in the darkness”. The deeper and more securely we tie our faith to the Sermon on the Mount, the wiser we shall become and brighter will shine the Light of the World, Jesus Christ.

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

1 January 2018 At Saint Peter Church in Naples, FL

Number 6, 22-27 +Psalm 67 + Galatians 4: 4-7 + Luke 2, 16-21

Today while celebrating a new year, the Church celebrates the oldest of all Marian feasts. It is a feast uniquely appropriate to those of us concerned with new beginnings, with new resolutions, and renewed hopes. The Gospel we proclaim repeats what we heard on Christmas. It is important to remember that in this gospel the shepherds, considered to be the poor outsiders, are the first informed of Christ’s birth, and who first visit the infant. It is the outsider who bears the good news of what the angels have announced, that the Savior has been born. It is an outsider who helps Mary to deeply know her son. In Luke, Mary represents the ideal believer, for she hears the good news and ponders it in her heart, and fully responds to it. Her heart becomes the place of discovering Jesus and who he truly is. Mary’s life and the Church’s life is centered on that process of pondering who that child really is. In contemplating her son, Mary becomes the church reflecting on the Incarnation. This aspect of Mary’s motherhood is important for our new year, continuing this year, our journey of heart toward God.

All reflection calls for response, and Mary’s response to God should not be considered a choice between right and wrong, good or bad, or some sort of ethical or moral decision. Nor should our choices be only that. Mary gives us an example of what our choice as Christians really implies: that every choice we make reveals who we are. It is not simply what we do. In our choices, we act out of our self and reveal who we really are. For us, freedom of choice is not about choosing which film we will go to see, or what we will wear, or what we will own. It is about how we reveal and define ourselves on the journey to God.

Mary’s choice was not right or wrong, it came from who she was and knew herself to be as a daughter of Israel, a child of God. She is blessed of all women, and we are told in the great Blessing of Aaron in the today’s first reading that God will smile upon those he loves and who love him, that his face will shine upon them. And today, this New Year’s Day, we know that the face that smiles upon Mary as she holds him in her arms, presenting Him to His Father in the Temple, is that of her new-born Son Jesus. This is the face we long to see, the face of God made flesh.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time January 29, 2017

Zephaniah 2, 3; 3, 12-13 + Psalm 146 + 1 Corinthians 1, 26-31 + Matthew 5, 1-12

Last Sunday, leading up to this reading today, we heard Jesus insist that his followers “repent.” In my preaching on that text, I was reminded that the word “repent” has been watered down in translation losing the power and the force of “metanoia” which the word Matthew uses in his original text. For most people, “repent” means to feel sorry and maybe try to do better. I do not think Jesus came from the glory of the Father to make us feel sorry. That idea trivializes his life and his death. He came for “metanoia” which means a lot more than feeling sorry and wanting to do better. That Greek word means changing one’s mind, but not like trading one idea for another. It means a complete transformative change of one’s thinking. It also implies a repudiation of the past ways. With that in mind, Matthew leads us to the mountain and unfolds the message of Jesus.

For those who have begun to experience metanoia at the call of Jesus, this transformation becomes crystal clear. For those trapped in an old way of thinking, trapped in the ways of this world, being Blessed sort of means being lucky, or having received a gift. If that is the case, what follows brings conflict  and makes no sense. How is someone lucky who is poor or meek, hungry or in mourning? How can these be blessings they must wonder, and having no answer, they just turn the page and go on unaffected and unchanged. They think it is blessed to be rich because they get what they want. They think that the powerful and aggressive are blessed because they see gentleness as weakness. If you are merciful people will take advantage of you. They want none of that. No metanoia here!

The message of the Gospel and the life and teaching of Jesus Christ turns everything in this world upside down, and it repudiates everything this world believes, values, and holds onto. So, here comes metanoia. Blessing no longer means being lucky or fortunate or favored. According to Jesus Christ being Blessed means being like God. It means being the way God made and intended us and all things to be. That is “Blessed”. Whatever is ungodly is not blessed. For those who will go through the metanoia of faith, everything is different, and the past is over.

Those who are Blessed know their need for God and put their trust in God rather than in material things believing that God will give all that is needed. The Blessed know that what makes you rich is not what you possess, but what kind of person you are.

Those who are Blessed are gentle and kind. They know that weakness is a form of strength knowing that the most important things in life have to be bought with pain and sacrifice. They never confuse happiness with cheap thrills.

Those who are Blessed have values and standards and are prepared to live up to them by doing what is right because that’s what life is about.

Those who are Blessed know mercy and give what they hope to receive. Their greatness lies in their readiness to forgive since they never forget to say, “I’m sorry.”

You can go on with the rest of these beatitudes if you have begun to desire and risk metanoia. These beatitudes are the badges of a disciple of Jesus. They make us rich in the sight of God. They open our minds to a new way of seeing and judging. They give us a whole new set of bearings. A person who lives according to the beatitudes is already living in the Reign of God, and the fact that they are made in God’s image is unmistakable. To see them is to see something of God on this earth. Eternal life will merely be the full blossoming of a life that is already full.