Amos 8, 4-7 + Psalm 113 + 1 Timothy 2, 1-8 + Luke 16, 1-13

September 18, 2016 St Peter Church in Naples, FL

 This parable is so complicated and complex that skipping over it becomes a great temptation, or at least skipping the first part and diving right into the second part. It is easy and perhaps lazy to just think this is about making a choice between spiritual things and physical things or between God and Money. It might be helpful by the way to know that the word translated here as money is not spot on when it comes to what Luke means in the original text. Luke is not referring to cash. The most accurate translation would say “Mammon” which means much more than money. It means anything of value. It could mean property as in livestock or crops or a home.

 To get in touch with what Jesus is praising and with what he encourages here, we must stay with the first part of the parable. This is not simply about priorities in life or about comparative values or about how to win friends. It is not the dishonesty of this manager that gets the attention of Jesus, because some think that this may actually be a real situation that everyone knew about. What Jesus admires here and proposes as appropriate behavior for disciples is this man’s decisiveness and his quick decision to do something about his situation when he realizes that it will not last forever. There is no praise here for dishonesty or cheating. This parable is about taking action without delay when someone realizes that there will come an accounting, a time to settle up with the “rich man.”

 Anyone who goes through this life thinking that there will not come a time for accounting and a time to stand before the “rich man” is a fool. The man in this parable is not foolish. For you and me, there will come a time to account for how we have managed what God has given us, not just money, but everything including this earth itself. As Pope Francis has reminded us again and again, how we treat this earth, its water, its air, its soil will be a matter for an accounting just as much as how we use all the other resources with which we have been charged and entrusted. It will not be wise to go for long fooling ourselves into thinking that God or “the rich man”, as this parable calls him, is not coming. “Give an account of your service” says this parable. “It’s going to come to an end.” There is the message, and this crooked manager shows us that a decisive action and a change in the way things are is called for. So Jesus suggests that we become clever and make some decisions quickly and wisely. This is what is praised in this parable: an awareness that an accounting is coming, and the need to change and do something about it.

 In a very subtle way, the cleverness of this “manager” goes far beyond just making friends for himself. The consequence of his decision is much more than being liked by those whose debts he adjusted. Those people, especially in that culture and time would have known that such generosity was not his alone to grant. What he really ends up doing is making the “rich man” look really good and really generous, because those people would have thought that this is what the rich man wanted the manager to do. That is clever, and making God look good or look like a generous God is very smart.

 So we proclaim today a Gospel that announces an accounting to come. We proclaim a Gospel that proposes a quick change from the way things have been in terms our management style, and some decisive action now on our part, for we are the managers here entrusted with quite a lot, entrusted the poor as well. What we do for them and what we do with them revealing a generous and loving God to them will gain us more in the eyes of that “rich man” than we might ever imagine.

Exodus 32, 7-14 + Psalm 51 + 1 Timothy 1, 12-17 + Luke 15, 1-32

September 11, 2016 on board MS Amsterdam

When I got on this ship last month, there was a lady quite distraught over the fact that she had lost her cell phone between the hotel and the ship. With my phone and that of another passenger, we made some calls to the hotel and to the shuttle company to no avail. Later when her luggage was delivered to the room, the phone was found in her luggage, and she was a happy lady. Then at the first of this week, I received an email from a passenger who had been on the ship the week before asking if I could check the lost and found on board to see if something left in her stateroom had been turned in. It was, and in Sitka I mailed the item back to her. In both cases there was great relief and a lot of joy.

The experience told to us in this Gospel is very real to everyone of us who lose things and find them again. Luke sets up this chapter of his Gospel in an ever more intense way. Sheep, coin, son is the progression as he leads us deeper into what he wants to reveal about God and to what he expects from disciples of Jesus Christ. What is constant in each of these parables is the emotion or the response of Joy. What he reveals about the nature of God is consistent in each parable: a patient and consistent seeking of what is lost. This is a God who, by our judgement, seems ridiculous. Leaving 99 at risk while searching for 1 is silly. Tearing up the house and burning more oil than the coin is worth makes no sense, but that’s the point. Waiting, watching, running outside with a ring and robe and then throwing an extravagant party for a kid who has treated you like you were dead makes you think that this dad has already spoiled this kid enough and ought to make him pay for his behavior. But then, that’s not the God Jesus has come to reveal. This is a God of Joy who is actually crazy with love for us. If you’ve ever been crazy in love with someone, you know very well that you don’t act predictably and are likely to do some wild and wonderful things.

Joy, in the end, is what these parables reveal about God, and Joy is what Jesus has come to bring and to proclaim. Joy must be the first and obvious sign of disciple of Jesus. To make the point, Luke gives us that other son who is anything but joyful. His problem is that he thinks he deserves everything, and the saddest thing we see about him is that he is without love. He does not love his brother, and is even without love for his father. We should notice that he never once speaks to his father respectfully nor lovingly. He refers to his father as “you” without a hint of respect or love. His resentment, his anger, and his jealousy make it impossible for him to enter into the joy and share the love the father has for them both.

Now in the morning we will all shortly head for home, and I hope that most of us will be welcomed there by people who love us, and in that love we shall again experience a kind of Joy that reveals something about our faith. I have begun to believe that Joy, like faith is something we must choose. Few of us have had any great or profound religious experience or been face to face with God. We have simply had to choose to believe or not believe. We all know people who have simply chosen not to believe. It is much the same with Joy. In the face of tragedy, sin, our own brokenness and the sadness we experience from time to time we have every opportunity and sometimes every reason to be angry, resentful, and jealous. We can choose to stay that way, or we can choose be joyful recognizing and choosing to share in a kind of Joy that is divine.

Fifteen years ago on this date something happened because of people who were resentful, angry, and jealous of us. Hate overwhelmed them and led them to choose violence and death rather than peace and life. Today we look back and we look ahead. Today we proclaim a Gospel of Joy because we believe in a a God of Mercy, renewing our faith through this Eucharist making sure that we shall not stand outside when the party has already begun. We choose Joy. We choose life. We choose peace. We choose Jesus Christ.

 Wisdom 9, 13-18 + Psalm 90 + Philemon 9-10, 12-17 + Luke 14, 25-33

September 4, 2016 on board MS Amsterdam

A few weeks ago much of this country had a welcome distraction from political advertisements and speeches as athletes from all over the world competed in Rio. Just the presence of those young people in Rio was the real story not whether they won or lost took home the gold, silver, or bronze. The score keepers had their lists, but to me it was a story of sacrifice and commitment told over and over again. In my extended family, we have an Olympian who competed in the winter Olympics in Tokyo. I know for a fact what his parents sacrificed to get him there, and I know what it took on his part in terms of practice and training early in the morning and late at night while continuing studies at school. It went on from the time he was ten till he was twenty five years old. I suspect many of you may also know a story like this from your families or friends. This story of commitment and determination, of sacrifice and suffering is there in any life that has some glory. As I said however, it’s not about winning or losing. It is simply about being there and being a part of it. Those young people who never mounted a podium came home with something just as valuable as a medal when they eventually tell their story.

There is a kind of parade going on in this Gospel, a march to Jerusalem. The crowds seem to be growing as people fall in behind Jesus. Some are there as spectators, and some are there because they want to be part of what they think is going to happen in Jerusalem. The apostles certainly were marching along quite confident that they were on the way to victory, and many others surely hoped that Jesus would enter that city and be the messiah they hoped for restoring the glory of Israel, sending the Romans back to Rome, and lifting the burdens the Pharisees had imposed upon them all.

Jesus had a different sense of this journey to Jerusalem. He did not see it as a victory march but rather as a funeral procession: a funeral for himself. The closer he gets, the more serious he becomes. The more he senses the way others are looking at this journey, the more he feels the need to bring them around to the truth because the destination was not really Jerusalem. The destination was the “right hand of the Father.”

When Jesus called his disciples to follow him, he was not enlisting part time or seasonal volunteers, he was calling those who would be his own to total unconditional and persevering commitment. This text is not really addressed to those who are just along for the ride, to those who expect to be entertained, amused, and maybe cash in on the consequences at the end. It is addressed to those who have begun to listen, to follow, and to hope that what Jesus has promised will be theirs.

We hear three different conditions for discipleship in today’s reading.

First, a disciple must prioritize relationships in life. One’s primary relationship must be centered on Jesus. From that single relationship, all other relations, including family and self, can be ordered. It’s like those young people in Rio. You run with runners. People who are going to distract you from your dream have no part in your life. People who share your same goal will encourage you and push you bringing out the best.

Second, a disciple must be willing to suffer. The “cross” of Christ should be the guiding image and template by which disciples come to understand the divine, as well as come to understand the purpose in one’s life. This suffering does not necessarily mean something physical. It’s like the suffering of those young athletes who gave up party nights with friends to get up early and practice while everyone else is in bed in the early hours of the day.

Third, a disciple must “renounce all his possessions.” Dependence on material goods and wealth serve only to distract a disciple’s total commitment to God and the mission of discipleship that follows. What we have is a means for getting where we need to go, and a disciple always looks upon what they have been given with an eye toward what they are to do with it.

So as our week long adventure into the beauty of God’s creation comes to a end in the morning, we take with us the encouragement of this Gospel. Renewed and refreshed after these days away from all other distractions, we can step ashore and head for home remembering that all the days of our lives are a journey to the Right Hand of the Father. We are reminded of what getting there will ask of us, and we are always assured that this not a journey we ever have to make alone.

22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Sirach  3, 17-18, 20, 28-29 + Psalm 68 + Hebrews 12: 18-19, 22-24 + Luke 14, 1, 7-14

August 28, 2016 on board MS Amsterdam

Sometimes I wonder why Jesus ever went out to eat. When you start to pay attention to all the stories, it seems as though every time he went out there was some commotion and controversy. He goes to Bethany and there is a fuss between Martha and Mary. He accepts an invitation in another place and there is contention about hand washing. Then he goes somewhere else, and everyone is upset because some woman is touching him. At another meal some are complaining that eats with sinners, and finally there he is in Jerusalem, as the hand of a betrayer is reaching into the same dish. Yet, even though these occasions are not refreshing and peaceful, they are never boring, and the truth of the matter is that in choosing all of these episodes Luke is revealing something very interesting and true about the church of his time which is hardly different from the church of our time. The church in which we continue to discover and celebrate the presence of God still faces the same challenges the church faced when Saint Luke was putting all this together.

There are two parts to this incident at the home of leading Pharisee. The first part is the one I think most of us like to pay attention to. The obvious lesson on humility spoken of with such a simple illustration about seating arrangements gives us a lot to think about. Perhaps that is why we often skip over the second part. We like to think of ourselves as guests, and the practical suggestion that we not get into some embarrassing squabble about who sits where is easy to understand. The obvious message here is that seating arrangements do matter to Jesus, and those who think that their dignity is established by where they sit or who they sit with are not thinking the way Jesus thinks.

Jesus has a vision of God’s future, and knowing who he was and where he was going freed him and allowed him to be exactly himself at every table. If it could only be so for us, things could be a lot different. Jesus must have laughed to himself at the whole picture of these guests shuffling around and the host trying to sort this out herding the guests into the right places. I like to think that Jesus was really the honored guest. The others were all confused wanting to sit next to him. Because he was sitting in the lowest place things got all mixed up among those who were so proud of themselves for being invited to a meal at the home of a leading Pharisee.

It was probably with a big grin that he leaned over to the embarrassed host and said: “Next time invite the blind and the hungry. They won’t notice where they sit as long as there is food.” With this comment the focus shifts to the second part of the story, and we might do better to take this part more personally than the first part. Instead of thinking of ourselves as guests, there might be something for us to learn about being hosts.

Every meal Jesus shared was an experience of communion, and Luke consistently uses meal as images of the Kingdom of God. There is no exclusivity when it comes to the heavenly banquet, and there are no places of honor. There is no “them” and there is no “us”, no “high place of honor” and no “low place.” Yet when Luke looked at his church, there was still an uncomfortable mood as gentiles and jews looked across the table at each other. There were Greeks and slaves, women and men pushing and slipping around for one place or another. The whole scene, and the message of this gospel asks us to look at ourselves and wonder if our congregations at home do not look a little too much like we do with a lot of people missing. It is my experience as priest that one of the most segregated places left on this earth are church congregations where everyone looks a lot alike and where strangers too often fell strange and out of place.

At the time of Jesus and at the time of Luke, sharing a meal was a profound act of solidarity. To sit at a table with someone implied that you shared a relationship with them, that you prayed together with them because you could not eat without praying. What Jesus asks and proposes at the home of this Pharisee is that like him we must open ourselves and for that matter our table and our churches to those who are hungry for food and for friendship to those who are not going to worry about where they sit as long as they get to sit. When we begin to get this right, every meal will be a taste of the Kingdom of God, and every meal will bring us all into true communion, unity, and peace.

21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Isaiah 66, 18-21 + Psalm 117 + Hebrews 12, 5-7, 11-13 + Luke 13, 22-30

August 21, 2016 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

As some of you may know, I travel perhaps bit more often and further than many people my age. The experience is growing more and more unpleasant. I think when I was younger trips were as much fun as the destinations. Mom packed great treats for us that would be offered just before one of us in the back seat would say, ‘How much longer?” or “Are we there yet?” These days it is a whole different experience. Plane travel is the most unbelievable torment not all of which is caused by the airline’s belief that we are all about 5’ 4” and our bottoms and shoulders are all less than 22 inches wide. I do believe that their decision to make more money by charging for checked baggage has contributed to it, so watching what people carry into an airliner these days is absolutely amazing. For one who usually travels lightly, the purses, bags, sacks, suitcases, garment bags, and now dogs and cats that people cram under the seat and stuff into overhead bins designed for briefcases is amazing. It not only takes longer to get everyone in, it seems to take longer to get every off. It adds to a measure of hostility that is already there because you’re late. So, many plan, scheme, and pay extra to get on early and capture what limited space there is. All of this makes today’s Gospel as timely now as it was the first time Jesus spoke these words.

The question that prompts this conversation and these parables is perfectly sensible in an age when there was only so much to go around, and things always did run out. So wondering about how this salvation thing was going to work was not out unusual. Add to the fact that people in those days probably could and did carry all their personal belongings with them whenever they went somewhere makes sense again. In his preaching Jesus has already upended the usual thinking that those who have the most are the ones blessed by God and most favored. So curiosity about how and who would get into the Kingdom of God was worth thinking about.

It never occurs to us living in this land of plenty that somehow there might not be room for us in the Kingdom of Heaven, but the Gospel we proclaim today would call into question our thinking and our behavior. Jesus makes it clear that we can be saved, but getting there is not easy and we will have to shed of few things to make it. Too much stuff, too many unresolved issues is going to make it harder if not impossible. The door is small and narrow – we are pilgrims who need to travel light. Unforgiven offenses, grudges, prejudice, hatred, racism are all things that will not fit through the narrow door. We need to decide what matters and what does not, and take the time now to look at what kind of baggage we carry.

That second parable states the case even more firmly. That door is not going to be open forever. Delay or putting off what we need to do to prepare is dangerous because entrance into the Kingdom will have nothing to do with who we know or the stuff we have piled up. It will have to do with how carefully and how successfully we have conformed our lives to the one who leads us there. One look at that cross tells us everything. When he entered into his glory and came back before his Father, he had nothing left having breathed his last and poured out his blood.

“It is what it is” the saying goes. This is how it is, says the Gospel. He door is narrow and we will be wise to travel lightly having shed anything at all that slows us down, and the door will sooner or later be closed once and for all. It would not be wise to be found on the outside. Excuses, name dropping, and for that matter any other claim will go unheard. A simple faithful life focused on the destination is what it takes. Our claim on a place there will have nothing to do with where we’ve lived, who we know, or for that matter, what we’ve done except conform our lives to his.

20^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 38, 4-6, 8-10 + Psalm 40 + Hebrews 12, 104 + Luke 12, 49-53

August 14, 2016 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Fire shows up a lot in the Bible. There is a bush on fire in front of Moses. There is a pillar of fire that leads the Israelites through desert nights. Fire burns in the golden Temple Lamp, it licks up the waters of Carmel, and it anoints the lips of a prophet. John the Baptist comes proclaiming and preparing for one who would come with a Baptism of fire and the Spirit. Then this holy fire that always signals God’s presence takes flesh in Jesus Christ, who is the earth’s firelighter.

These verses must not be taken literally. This is the Jesus who prayed and pleaded for unity, “That they may all be one.”  This is the Jesus who rebuked the disciples who wanted to call down “fire from heaven” upon those communities who had not welcomed them and their mission with the Gospel. These verses should lead us to think of Pentecost and the Fire that came upon those gathered in that upper room. This is a fire that changes human hearts and the direction of human lives. It is a fire that brings courage where there has been fear and timidity. It is a fire that signals the presence of God, a presence that calls for a purification of those who stand in the presence of the Divine. It is fire that draws those into the light who have been in darkness, and a fire that warms those chilled by loneliness and isolation. It is a fire like the burning bush that leads God’s people into covenant and faithfulness.

My friends, none of can afford to forget what happens to us all on the day of Baptism. We are given a candle lit from the fire of Easter, from the candle carried into every darkened church, from a candle we bless with the holy name of Christ. He is the light. He is the fire. He is the one who has called us out of darkness and anointed us with His Spirit to bring light and warmth to a dark and cold world. As he says every time his words are spoken, you cannot put this light under a bushel.

In ancient cultures of nomadic peoples, there was always someone who carried the fire from place to place. Without matches or lighters, keeping the flame and the fire as they roamed about was essential to their very life. Water and Fire are perhaps the most primitive elements of life. It is these primal images that Jesus uses today speaking of his own upcoming sacrifice. It is a Baptism of fire he speaks of. It is an image of life, of promise, of hope that Luke puts before us. Rather than stir up fear, these verses for people of faith stir up hope and renewed sense of who we are as a people of light filled with the fire of the Spirit.

We are the firelighters of this earth now, a people enlightened by Christ, a people who have taken the fire to be spread everywhere upon the earth: not to destroy or consume, but to purify, warm, and brighten.

The days in which we live suggest to us that faith and religion are private matters reducing the church to a kind of private club that holds meetings now and then to talk about the old days when Christ was here. Really? Where is the fire? Jesus came to light a fire on the earth. All that is left of that fire is you and me. (There’s too much smoke these days.) The church for which Luke was first writing was a church living through a time of great internal division and strife. Jewish converts cast out of their synagogues and at odds with family members over their love for Christ and his promise of the Kingdom were hurting. These verses are intended to give them courage and some comfort in the midst of this turmoil not encourage them to be self-satisfied and dismiss anyone who did not share their experience and their faith. These verses do not justify nor give us permission to be comfortable with division and broken families.

When the real fire Christ is burning, it might be more like a campfire or the hearth in the center of a home rather than a raging forest fire. It will be a fire that draws people in intimacy, friendship, and love. It will bring warmth and comfort where there is none, and it will be a place where anyone feeling frightened in the dark can find hope and companionship. We have the light and we have that fire. Jesus would suggest today that we need to let it shine.

Wisdom 18, 6-9 + Psalm 33 + Hebrews 11, 1, 2, 8-19 + Luke 12, 32-48

August 7, 2016 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

It has been suggested that there are two ways of approaching life: one is either a planner or a pilgrim. Planners like to have complete control over their lives and with clear goals they plan each stage of their lives day by day, year by year. The calendar and the clock are their guides. They have carefully examined what society considers success, and they spend most of their time trying to match or beat the lifestyle and values of everyone else. Life for them is a great contest to see who wins which usually means having the most stuff. Often failing to achieve such high hopes and goals, they end up bitterly disappointed and very often alone like the man in last week’s Gospel. On the other hand, a pilgrim who accepts life as a gift that continues to unfold as it is lived knows that no matter how hard they may try, they know that they will never have complete control over what happens in life. Surprises and disappointments never get them down because they see those things as opportunities for growth. Unlike the planner, the pilgrim never feels entirely comfortable or at ease with the values of society.

Planners refuse to live by faith while pilgrims see no other way knowing that life is full of risks, confusion, and troubles. The pilgrims simply put themselves in God’s hands, and open themselves to God’s protection always celebrating the present moment because they know it is only there for that moment and should not be wasted. There is about the pilgrim a spirit of joy that springs out of hope. This hope is not just a wish that everything will turn out alright in the end, it is a way of seeing and believing that the hand of God is to be found in every moment and every experience of life. This is a kind of hope that nurtures real Joy, a Joy that is divine, a Joy that springs from the very deepest conviction that we live in God, we live by God, and we live for God.

Abraham in the second reading today is the great example of the pilgrim. In him there is no planning, no scheming, no controlling. At the word of God he got up, left home and people and set out for a land God promised to show him. He went into the unknown, and the only compass he had was faith. We are his descendants inspired by that faith. Every day for us, who are honest about it, is journey into the unknown. We have no idea what’s going to happen next, but in spite of failures and frustrations in the past, we keep going homesick for a place where our hopes will be realized and where our true life will begin.

We should not forget that Abraham died without seeing God’s promise fulfilled, and like him, we too die after spending our lives in a journey to the Promised Land without reaching it because it isn’t here. Yet, like Abraham, we travel in faith and die in hope. For those of us who choose to be pilgrims rather than planners we gather in this place and proclaim with Joy this Gospel of hope together as members of a believing community. The faith we share together can support us when our own faith does not measure up, which is why we must be here even when we don’t feel like it or feel too good about ourselves or even God for that matter. Like the servant Jesus talks about today, we remain faithful to God and to one another. The real test of this faith is how we face setbacks and failures and whether or not they make us cry in discouragement or laugh with joyful hope. This, in the end, is the way we stay prepared: living in the present moment true one’s duty and responsibility.

After the final blessing at the end of Mass: One day an old monk was sweeping the floor in the monastery when someone asked him what he would do if he knew he was going to die within the hour. “I’d go on sweeping the floor,” was his reply. In other words, he would just go on attending to the duty of the moment

18^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 Ecclesiastes 1, 2 & 2, 21-23 + Psalm 90 + Colossians 3, 1-5, 9-11 + Luke 12, 13-21

July 31, 2016 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

There is a little detail in the first verse of the parable Jesus uses in response to the quarreling brothers. It slips by easily either because we know the story, or because we too often want to get to the end and see what it’s all about. However, this little detail is the key to opening up what is to come in the parable. It says: There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. The point is: he did not produce that bountiful harvest. The land produced it. However, this man who talks to himself, perhaps because he has no friends, thinks he produced the harvest. It’s all about him. Six times in only three verses he uses the first person pronoun, “I”; but let’s be fair about this so that we get to the real point. There is nothing here to suggest that he cheated anyone or stole anything. There is no hint that he mistreated the workers or committed any criminal act.

What makes him wealthy is sun, soil, and rain. He is conservative and careful. Yet in spite of this he is a fool! He has a lot of stuff crammed into his barn, but he has no friends. He is alone, and the sad implication in this parable is that he dies alone with no one at his bed side, and no one to mourn his passing. The question asked at the end carries that idea. Asking to whom all his riches will go suggests that there are no heirs. There is no one around to receive the inheritance much less argue about it like the situation that starts this whole episode.

What makes him a fool is revealed in that first sentence. He has not believed or perhaps ignored what everyone in that crowd would have known from singing at the great harvest feast or at synagogue Psalm 24 which says: “The earth is the Lord’s and all it holds, the world and those who live there.” What makes him a fool is his thinking that there is no God. Then he is finally confronted by the God who owns not only the land and the produce he is trying to hoard, but also the very life of the man himself. It all belongs to God, and the fool is the person who thinks that what is God’s is theirs to keep. Instead of imitating the generosity of God, he acts as though there is no God.

And so we are left this weekend with a stark reminder about what Jesus has said before. Having had everything in this life leaves nothing for a future life. He’s had it all now. It’s over. There will be no more. We are left this weekend with a reminder that amassing great wealth often leads to family bitterness and squabbles as we have heard again and again in the story of the prodigal. We are left this weekend with the clear reminder that we are nothing but stewards of this earth and all that it can produce, and that what comes from God’s earth is not ours to keep or to save. In the end, such saving reveals a lack of trust in God and the fear that things will run out. How could it be that a God who has provided so much would suddenly cease being generous unless those God has entrusted with his gifts suddenly start to hang on to what has been given and stop the generosity that is always from God.

The behavior of this man wold have provided a shock to the people of his time for in those days, one’s self-identity was imbedded in one’s family, clan, village, and religious group. Every important decision was made in community, in endless dialogue with others. Every angle was examined, every possibility weighed, every scenario painted before arriving at a conclusion. Our modern day notion of individuality was completely foreign to this time, and his self-determining behavior was shocking. There is no thought given about how his decision might affect others, and what it might mean to the community. We are left this weekend with a look at what our growing culture’s hedonistic, individualistic, and ego centric attitudes and behavior really looks like, foolishness! Lost on this man and the culture seen in him is any sense of gift and duty leaving us a little sad but inspired to look upon what we have, where it came from, and ask what we must do with it. When we rest in the arms of the divine Provider we will be able to embrace every person as a brother and a sister all who are equal heirs to the same promise. Competition and hoarding will give way to cooperation and generosity with what the earth produces. Entering into this world will be an experience of the Kingdom of God. It seems to me that having the love of family and many friends is a richness and a kind of wealth that far surpasses what can be stored in warehouses and the climate controlled storage facilities of our time. This is wisdom and it is a long way from foolishness.

The Eleventh Sunday of Pentecost

Ephesians 2, 17-22 & Saint Luke 19, 1-10

July 24, 2016 at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church in Norman, Oklahoma

This story comes immediately after an encounter with a blind beggar. What Luke gives us then is a stark contrast between someone poor and someone rich. Both of them get to see Jesus. One chapter earlier there is another story of an encounter with a rich man that ends sadly leading us into this story that has a different ending, because Zacchaeus, unlike the other rich man in the previous story, can and does give away. This story is a powerful one for us, because the poorest among us in comparison the rest of the world are very, very rich. We cannot listen to this story and think that it is just about the chief tax collector in Roman occupied Israel a long time ago.

There are two little pieces to this episode of Luke’s Gospel for us to dwell upon. Zacchaeus, in his conversion and in response to the presence of Christ in his life does way more than anyone might expect. The custom and the rules of that day set out very clearly what restitution was required or legally necessary in cases of fraud or robbery. What Zacchaeus does greatly exceeds what is required. This is not a man of minimalism. He does not simply do the minimum required of him. It reminds me of the Samaritan who picks up the man on the street after others have passed by. That Samaritan says to the inn-keeper, “Do whatever you can for him. He leaves some money and then says, if there is more I will pay you upon my return.” He doesn’t just drop him off. There is here a sense of greater generosity than just the minimal in both stories. To make the point even more powerfully, both stories use people despised by others as examples of goodness: a Samaritan and the Chief Tax Collector. If these kinds of people rise up to do more than the bare minimum, how much more so for the rest of us?

At the end of this episode comes another message from Luke that speaks to us just as clearly as it did to those for whom he first composed this Gospel. He tells us that Jesus came to seek and save the “lost.” For some reason when we use this word in a religious context, it takes on a meaning not all intended. Too often the “lost” refers to those who are doomed or condemned. This is not all the meaning of the word. When we lose something it does not mean it is destroyed. It means that it is not in its proper place. I remember so clearly as child crying out to my mother when I couldn’t find something like a missing sock or a book. Her response was always a question: “Where did you leave it?” which always frustrated me because if I knew where I had left it, I would not be looking for it. Well, it’s the same with people who are “lost” and it might well be that we’ve all been lost from time to time. It means we are in the wrong place. We are lost when we wander from God, and we are found when we take our rightful place in the family of God.

What the Church puts before us today is a reminder that if we want to enjoy the companionship of Jesus Christ, we need to be in the right place, and then once we have found that place the only proper response to the wonder that we have been called to faith by Jesus Christ is a generosity that far exceeds anyone’s expectations or limitations. The best news of all today is that Jesus Christ has come to this house.

 17^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 Genesis 18, 20-32 + Psalm 138 + Colossians 2, 12-14 + Luke 11, 1-13

July 24, 2016 at St Joseph Church in Norman, OK (Spanish Mass)

Luke tells us today that Jesus is at prayer when someone comes and asks him to teach them how to pray. They do not ask Jesus what is praying about. So he teaches them how to pray. What he teaches them is a technique more than the words to use. What he says to them is: This is how you do it, and these are some things to pray about.

First, put yourself in the presence of God and acknowledge your relationship and give God glory. “Father, you are Holy.”

Then he proposes some things to ask for: God’s Kingdom, whatever is needed for the day, forgiveness, and the courage to resist temptation. There is one more thing, but Luke holds that to the very end of this episode.

Jesus then quickly moves to tell them a story that ends with a promise. In the story it is easy to think that we are the ones who are knocking on a door, and that God is the friendly neighbor. I would suggest to you that this is not the only way to hear this story. I do not like the idea that God is sleeping and must be awakened to know about our needs. I want to suggest to you that this is a story about us and how we must take care of one another when there is a need regardless of the time or the day. This is a story about friendship. It is a story about how friends share what they have, and about not being ashamed to ask a friend for help.

Finally the episode concludes by returning to thoughts of God as he speaks about a father who gives what is needed. Luke finishes these verses with the assurance that God, the “father” addressed in prayer will give the perfect gift, and now added to that list of how and what we should pray for is that greatest gift, the Holy Spirit!