Reflections on Paul 

Number 3

The third “Psalm” of Sunday Evening Prayer 1 which falls on 4th Saturday of the 4 week Psalter is the hymn from Philippians. That means, taking other factors into account which dictate the contents of Liturgy of the Hours, we pray the Hymn 9 or 10 times a year. That would include, by coincidence, last night. I am, therefore, familiar with the Hymn and have spent some time reflecting on it.

Still, I have never considered it in the manner suggested by the Father Neyrey. Prior reflections have led me to think of verse 6, which points out that Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, to mean that Jesus, though divine, wanted us to see him in human form and that all expressions of his divine power were strictly related to service of others.

He did not throw himself off a high precipice when tempted by Satan just to prove his power. Instead he resisted temptation which was something he calls all of to do on a daily basis. Even though he had the power to pull down the walls of the temple in the same manner that Joshua brought down walls of Jericho he stuck to the message of his gospels that center on matters of heaven and eternity. I was close but I did not see the even bigger picture – Jesus is the new Adam but where Adam and Eve thought themselves equal to God when they grasped the fruit and ate it, Jesus remained perfectly obedient. 

Cool stuff. 

Peace.

Reflections on Paul 

Number 2

Sitting back and reflecting on the Letter to Philemon, a number of gospel-driven themes come to mind which clearly warrant canonical status given the book.

The first impression is one of freedom, not just freedom as in the opposite of slavery but freedom in terms of being able to make a morale choice consistent with a new morale framework that comes with the Christian message. Slavery was as much a part of everyday life in the 1^st century AD as pet ownership is in our time. Being either a slaveholder or a slave was no barrier to professing Christianity as far forward in time as the US Civil War.

In modern times, embracing a Christian faith would bring with it an abhorrence to slavery in any manner. Paul does not condemn Philemon nor does he condemn the practice. He just very simply and casually appeals to Philemon to do the right thing of his (Philemon’s) free will. We know from what we experience in other texts Paul is perfectly capable of bringing on the heavy stuff. Think about the pan of hot gravy he spilled on the Galatians – (Gal. 6:6 ). He makes a specific point of not being heavy handed in his discourse in this letter which, of course, contradicts his efforts to be light handed.

Paul surely wanted Philemon to come to his own decision about slavery for reasons not fully articulated. Perhaps Philemon owned other slaves and Paul’s ultimate goal would be the freedom of all of Philomon’s holdings. The point is that if Philemon were to find his way to free one slave, he might also rise to freeing all his slaves and to become an example for others. 

Reflections on St. Paul

Number 1 

My understanding of Paul has changed over the years and, with study, I have come to greatly appreciate Paul. Clearly he would not be the kind of person who would be easy to be around. There would be little patience with anyone suffering from even the slightest passing bout with acedia. I suspect the intensity of his personality could be positively withering to encounter. There is good reason he kept on the move and his reasons for moving on were not always related to the need to move to a new area to spread the gospel.

Paul’s great gift to the world beyond the Jewish culture is how he focused on spreading Christianity to Gentiles. Would it be too simplistic to say that anyone us of would be Christian today if his arguments at the Council of Jerusalem had not carried the day? Just today we heard how Paul and Barnabas turned from the non-listening Jewish community to preach to the gentiles who were far more receptive to the Gospel.

My greatest appreciation of Paul is that he was a convert to Christianity. The other disciples knew Jesus personally and traveled with him during the period of his human ministry. Paul presumably did not know Jesus prior to the Crucifixion but he certainly came to know Jesus as a result of his encounter on the road to Damascus.

Paul was a passionate and ardent enemy of the church and suddenly and dramatically became the single greatest force of evangelization in history. I am of English descent and was raised a Methodist in a community that was overwhelmingly Irish and Catholic. I was, therefore, in no particular hurry to convert. Fortunately, I met my Catholic wife who eventually won me over. I don’t mean to say that my Protestant upbringing made me hostile to the Catholic Church nor did I spend much time waging war on the church. I am pretty sure I never threw any rocks at anyone because they were Catholic but I was a very reluctant convert. I was skeptical about many facets of church doctrine until circumstance led to a re-conversion/re-evangelization experience that changed the direction of my life. My point is that Paul is the guiding light for all converts, including me.

Paul teaches us – and me- how to live the message we learn about from the Gospels and what implications that has in how we behave and how we see the world.

Mercy and Chaos

I briefly made eye contact with him as I entered the store just like I would anyone else I did not know when entering a convenience store. He was standing with his back to the fountain drink dispenser with a flip-style cell phone in his right hand. The phone was open and he held it in front of him like a microphone and he was speaking into it, confidently and loudly. At first I assumed he was talking to someone on the phone but I could not have been more wrong. My first hint something was askew was when I glanced back at him and realized that his gaze was fixed firmly on me. He did not look away quickly as you expect someone you did not know to do after making eye contact. Normal people just don’t stare at strangers unless they are on fire.

In a second I realized that what he was saying did not making any sense. Continuing to speak into the phone like he was addressing a crowd he repeated over and over again that the solution to the unemployment problem was to round up all unemployed veterans and give them a two-day training course in counseling and they could solve all mental health problems and restore the nation to full employment. I was in a store just down the street from a homeless shelter and other places that cater to homeless and disadvantaged. It is not a store I frequent often because I don’t smoke unless I am fishing and I don’t drink so I don’t have much reason to visit convenience stores that sell beer, tobacco and snack foods. When I do shop there, it is not unusual to see one of the people who have for one reason or another landed in a tough situation. Such people are typically easy to spot because of the way they look or are dressed. This guy was different. He was middle aged with neatly combed hair and was clean shaven. He wore a causal jacket with an LL Bean logo, khaki slacks, and slip-on dress shoes. He was, in fact, dressed like me.

As I crossed the short distance across the store to the aisle where the sunflower seeds I came to purchase were located, I passed within a few feet of him and that was when the smell hit me. He clearly had not taken a shower or washed his clothes for week. In an instant I was almost gagging and my eyes watering from the acrid stench. In that moment I realized that I had encountered someone that our society does not want to admit exists. The forceful stare I could feel even when I had my back turned continued the whole time I searched for the seeds I prefer. When I grabbed the bag I was looking for, I turned back toward the front counter and he quickly moved forward and blocked the aisle in front of me.

“Do you like seeds,” he asked? Yes,” I said. “I eat too many of them sometimes because once you have a couple it is hard to stop.”

“I know what you mean,” he responded.” I used to eat them all the time until the Secret Service blamed me for being out of touch when the disaster in Rhode Island went down.” I looked him in the eye thinking I had heard him wrong. He kept staring at me with no change of expression.

Without waiting for me to respond he continued. “I have had to carry two cell phones ever since then just to make sure they can reach me to verify my whereabouts or they will lock me up again.” I was dumbstruck and could not think of a thing to say to him. My usual practice is to just speak to people who speak to me by making small talk. Usually people can find some common point of reference to make small talk even if it is meaningless.

In the empty space between us that seemed to be planets apart, he just kept talking. “Mrs. Clinton,” he said, “blamed me for the Monica thing and she had me bounced of the detail and then she me hospitalized for the rest of the time they were in Whitehouse. Pretty soon they started drugging me, so I could not tell what was happening. The New York Times and NBC were trying to find me so the agency kept moving me from hospital to hospital. My favorite place in Georgia because they had good barbeque there.” I could not think how to best respond so I just edged around him and went the check stand. The clerk pleasantly greeted me and we completed the purchase and both of us pretended the 800-pound gorilla that was that poor guy who kept yammering about Clinton era conspiracies did not exist. The lady behind me line remained silent and motionless in an effort to draw the man’s attention. It worked for because the guy talked to my back all the way out the store.

When I got home I read a column written by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times my cousin posted on her Facebook page in which Dowd included a letter from a Catholic priest she had asked to comment on the shootings in New England. The priest, Kevin O’Neil, quoted a contemporary theologian, James F. Keenan, SJ who said: “Comforting the afflicted is a response in charity to the neighbor who is suffering. More specifically, it is an act of mercy, of entering into the chaos of another so as to respond to the person in need.“

After reading that phrase I was both comforted and discomforted. At a relatively late stage in my life, I have come to realize a consequence of my baptism and the calling of my faith is I am compelled to be merciful. While I have begun to reach out to others to respond to their needs, I was not even close to ready to be merciful to the stranger in the store beyond being pleasant.

His chaos was real, it was up front and it was more than I could handle. There is an axiom that applies to the business of mercy and that is that if you cannot bring calm into the chaos, don’t go there. In the hours that have passed since the encounter I have tried to come to an understanding of how to bring merciful calm into a place that is totally outside my comfort zone. As yet I don’t have an answer so all can do is to pray for God to care for the man in whatever way God knows he needs care. I will also pray that if God plans to work through me to provide mercy, that God will send the Holy Spirit to enlighten me. 

Our world needs God’s mercy and God's mercy enters the world through humans. We share that mercy with each other through and with His grace. Without the grace that comes from a loving God who wants us to make a difference, we will accomplish nothing regardless of how passionately we desire to be effective.
This thing we are encountering is more than about gun control. It is bigger than having a mental health care policy that allows clearly delusional humans to exist without a stable, comforting environment. It is not new. Our struggles have existed throughout our existence. It is not just about having free choice which allows us to choose between right and wrong. It is about understanding how evil exists and only God is big enough to overcome evil. We can’t do it alone.

For me, right now all I can do is pray for the calm that will allow me to step into the chaos of others and that others who also desire to serve God through acts of mercy will find the calm they also need.


God have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

God have mercy.

Amen.

Silent Sound

1st Kings 19:9-13

There he came to a cave, where he took shelter. But the word of the LORD came to him: Why are you here, Elijah? He answered: “I have been most zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.” Then the LORD said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD;* the LORD will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire—but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound.

When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, Why are you here, Elijah?

Stunned by what happened on Friday morning in Newtown, I wanted to be like Elijah and go up to the mountain and hide in cave. Not because my life was threatened. Not because I have been called to be a prophet to deaf people in a time of danger. I wanted to hide away because now we have been forced to have hard conversations about important things that will further detract from our ability to speak to each other without giving way to red zone anger. We have to have these conversations because terror has been loosed on the one segment of our society we cherish the most. I wanted to hide from the grief that every parent who has lost a child feels when they learn of the death of another child. Even now several days later, I still want to go hide in a cave rather than face the national outpouring of grief that is everywhere around me. I know, however, there is really no place to hide. I still went into the cave.

The verse from Kings that has moved me to write this came to me yesterday as I struggled to imagine how we can begin to communicate with each other and  to share with everyone else in our society the profound sense of loss that radiates from appears to have been an idyllic New England town.

Elijah learned that he could not hide away. The Lord found him there and called him out.

The message, though, is greater than just learning there is no where we can hide that the Lord cannot find us. Eventually we painfully learn that when we hide, we hide only from ourselves and so the attempt to hide is pointless. The great thing is to recognize how the Lord spoke to Elijah because it is how he speaks to us all. The Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake or the wind. His voice was not one of drama and awe that thundered down from heaven across the lands. His voice was in the silent sound.

It is not possible to explain a silent sound but once you understand it you know instantly who is speaking to you. God’s voice does not peal like a Cathedra bell or echo across hills like thunder. It is the tiny, light voice that whispers in your soul, urging you to do the right thing or, sometimes to do nothing but listen to him.

So where then is the voice of the Lord today? I can’t hear him the voices I hear that shout in rage demanding change. I can’t hear him in defensive reaction of those who don’t think that change will prevent will prevent another Newtown, Columbine or Aurora. I hear his voice as I think about parents who have suffered the one thing no parent should ever have to face – the senseless death of a child.  I hear his voice in those who offer consolation and compassion. I hear his voice in the anguish of every single person I have encountered in the past days. I hear his voice in those who call for prayer and calm.

The silent sound reaches to deepest part of the cave. The voice asks me why I am the cave. The voice calls me out. The voice compels to come out of the cave and do all that I can do at this moment on this day from where I am right now. All I can do is pray.  The voice has clearly told me to be still and know that he is God. Please hear my voice now. Be still and encounter the silent sound that is the voice of God and pray with me. All of this far too big for us but it is not too big for him.

 

Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership

Reading

Mark 9:33-35

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

Reflection

The first image that comes to mind is remembering days past when I would look over my shoulder into the back seat of our suburban in response to a growing engagement between my grade school aged sons and ask why they were fighting. When they responded with an explanation which was usually something like who be first in line for something, I would respond that neither would go first and they would have to wait until everyone else had gone first. Today I am not sure what to think when I read about grown men in the immediate proximity of the greatest human to work the earth behaving the same as school boys. The irony is nothing short of delicious but it is also scary. If the disciples can’t get it right how can I? How can we get it right?

Jesus tells us how to get it right. Instead of arguing about who is first or last or greatest or any manifestation of pride we should consider first how to serve rather than be served. His message is not about prideful leadership but rather about leading through humble service. We have an opportunity to practice servant leadership here today. The last shall be served first and the first shall be served last.

My sons are both grown now. They spend much time together even now as adults and I love to watch them interact with each other. Each is kind and gentle with the other and it is almost silly to watch them determine who will be first to grab a piece of steak off a platter even when there is more than enough to share. If one ever dares to reach first without asking the other will strictly rebuke him to mind his manners. As brothers, they serve each other and their way can lead us to understand a new of serving each other as brothers in Christ. I am proud of my sons.

Love

Psalms 139: 1-14

LORD, you have probed me, you know me:You know when I sit and stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. You sift through my travels and my rest; with all my ways you are familiar. Even before a word is on my tongue, LORD, you know it all. Behind and before you encircle me and rest your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, far too lofty for me to reach. Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee? If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I lie down in Sheol, there you are. If I take the wings of dawn and dwell beyond the sea, Even there your hand guides me; your right hand holds me fast. If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light” Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one. You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you know.

Reflection

Is not our greatest desire, our deepest longing to be loved? As we begin to finally settle into last measures of the time we are to spend together, we come see with sparkling clarity this weekend has been about love. We started on Thursday evening by asking you to be willing to know yourself. That can be terrifying because the biggest monster in the closet for almost everyone is that if our true nature were known, we would not be worthy of love. We quake at our certain knowledge no person, not even God, in his greatness, could love us because of our unworthiness. To crack open the closet door and peek inside takes courage and encouragement. It takes faith that what we find will not suck us further into darkness but we hope that what we did not know about ourselves will be drawn into the light and we will still be loved.

We showed you a video that encouraged you to be ok with opening the closet door even more. The message that there is nothing we can do that would make God to love us any less became our cornerstone for the rest of this weekend. Think about what the little boy felt when the reality of his father’s love became clear to him. Now to try wrap around just how the great message is that God has for us is in comparison to that small human act.

This scripture reading was chosen to remind us that we are known by God. He knew us before we were formed. He knows the entirety of each of us. He knows everything that is hidden in our closets and he wants to us to throw open the closet doors so that his light can flood deep into the darkest corners so what we could not see can no longer frighten us. When we live in the light of his love we can just let go. Think about that a minute. We can just let go. We can let out a deep sigh and lean back secure in the knowledge that there is nothing more within in us that is hidden and that we are still loved. Completely. Fully. Without end.

What does God, who knows us yet loves us, ask of us in return? He only asks that we seek to know him and to love him in return. Today is about love.