John 16 12-15

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”

Jesus said this to the disciples in the last hours before his passion. What they could not bear to hear was how history was going to unfold in way all time is measured as having been before or after coming event. He could have told them all, rolled out every detail but they were already stunned with had been revealed. If the big picture was beyond comprehension image how the details would simply have washed away into nothingness.

From where we now stand there is much more He could tell us but we could not bear it. We know the big picture that had been foretold to the disciples. We live it, breathe it and hope in it. We know that if believe and act our days motivated by belief, we will never die but will live forever.

What we don’t know are the details, the bumps and bruises, the joys and sorrows, the beginning or the endings of our life or the lives of those we value, whose presence means somethings. In a world driven by the fall and free choice the future is not ours to know beyond the great promise of salvation. To have our future revealed in detail would not be something we can bear.

There is the promise of the Holy Spirit to present which is not just a consolation but a prize beyond measure. The Holy Spirit comes to us through His Grace to be with us each and every day. It is the Holy Spirit that allows us to not only bear but embrace what comes our way. We find purpose for sorrow, suffering or illness and a deeper recognition of joy, peace and serenity. The Holy Spirit brings us every blessing from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior. This how we can bear what is to come as it is revealed.

Mark 16:15-20

The feast of St. Mark the Evangelist falls on April 25 the anniversary of his martyrdom in Alexandria. It also happens to be my birthday. This coincidence seems to take me surprise every year.

Curiously I have never undertaken a reflection on the scripture passage associated with the feast day primarily because I find the verses particularly challenging and, frankly, distasteful. 

Since evangelism has been the subject of at least three presentations I have made this year, I guess I should finally admit there is reason why I was born on the feast day of St. Mark and attempt to unpack the meaning of the passage chosen by the church to honor Mark.

Let’s first look at the specific verses that give me heartburn:

These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

 The first thing that comes to mind for me is a visual image of a traveling hillbilly revivalist who travels from town in a horse drawn wagon proclaiming his faith and belief in Jesus by letting rattlesnakes crawl over him and drinking poison” without ill harm.

These images do not evoke a picture of Christian practice that is attractive or appealing to me. As for the charlatan like practice of faith healing? Uhmmm, I don’t think that should be our guiding image. As for speaking in new languages?  What comes to mind is speaking in tongues we encounter in charismatic Christian practice. There is no way I going down that hole because no matter I say will be wrong to one person or another.

For many Christians, Mark 16:17-18 is the foundation of an end of days theology. They preach that what is found in the 17 and 18 is what will happen at the end of time. I can’t really wrap my arms around that thought either because I belief that focusing on the end of times distracts us from what we should be doing today which is to preach the gospel in the manner we are called to do.

I tend to look at this passage as being largely symbolic rather than literal. We are called to go out to preach the gospel to the world and the Lord will provide us with what we need. As evangelists we are given the tools we need to address the evils that pervade the world. We will be given the words we need to communicate the good news. We will be granted the ability to encounter evil and disbelief without injury.

Think about this. When Eve encountered the serpent she failed to overcome temptation but we will have the faith to be challenged by temptation but not succumb to it.

We also have to understand the context of the time in order to see the passage with clarity. The disciples were the first evangelists who went out to bear witness to a world unprepared for the revolutionary message being delivered. There was real danger involved. There was a need to offer the message in the language of the location being evangelized. The ability to work miracles of healing bodies and souls was needed for the message to be validated and understood.  

I don’t believe we are called to a hellfire and brimstone brand of preaching. Instead we preach about love and being loved. We are asked to proclaim awesome gospel of attraction rather than awful gospel driven by fear of condemnation.

Pope Francis’ first encyclical exhorted us to embrace Evangelii Gaudiam – the joy of the gospel. Looking at the last verses of Mark from that perspective suggests, no instructs us that we are to bring a joyful message to the world and not one of fear. Peace

John 6 - The Bread of Life

Jesus said to the crowds,
   “I am the bread of life;
   whoever comes to me will never hunger,
   and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

The recurring message of God’s love made human for us to bind with continues again in this reading.

Think about the imagery leading us to understand the reality of that love. “I am the bread of life,” he said. We eat bread to sustain our human and physical lives but those lives are only here and now. His bread brings us to an eternal life lasting throughout any understanding of endless time.

In this moment as I look out over a frozen lake that, during the summer months, brings to mind the Sea of Galilees, I try to envision what those who heard him speak thought as they heard those unbelieve words. God is the word and so to understand the words we have to believe in God but for those people who heard the first words, there was no context, no prior experience, nothing to prepare them for a revolutionary understanding of what we were being offered.

We have had countless generations each telling the stories of faith from one generation to the next to help us share the meaning of belief. I have heard the words of promise every day of my life and I still can’t penetrate the mystery. He offers us bread that has become his body yet the physical characteristics of the bread remain so we gain nourishment for body and soul. That is what we are. Not a body with a soul or soul with a body but we are body and soul. His bread feeds both.

What does this gift cost? Nothing because we could not afford to buy it. All that is asked of us is to believe. When I am presented with the opportunity to sit with a non-Catholic, I ask them to simply open up to the possibility of a miracle. I ask them to watch carefully during the epiclesis and the consecration that they might also see the invisible, hear the un-hearable and believe the unbelievable. We believe but we cannot explain what we believe because we are not God so don’t have the words that is him but we still believe.

Something happens when the Holy Spirit is called down that is impossible to describe and yet we can sense it and see it. I ask them to watch as people move up to receive the Eucharist and to watch how there is a change in most who receive. The face softens, the shoulders relax, a sense of peace wells up in them. Belief and encountering the reality what we believe transforms us as he brings us into him.

I believe in the real presence by watching for these changes. No amount of study or logic could get me there. I simply had to open to see what was happening even though I can never describe.

When we last discussed belief, my friend Rick commented that belief is not a static or passive act. Belief requires commitment and action. In the mass, we are instructed to engage in full, active and complete participation. In order to understand his real presence we must be present ourselves, fully engaged and to be all in to experience the Eucharistic transfiguration. Christ must be present in us and us in the Mass of Christ and when this happens Believe translates from what is possible into what really is, what really exists.

 God loves us and wants us to be with him always. All we have to do is believe and we become eternal in both body and soul.

John 3:16

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.

This is the crucible, that place and moment in history when all of time focuses down to single moment when every prophecy, every promise, every event found in the Hebrew Testament is made perfect.

The angry, vengeful God who rained death and destruction down on petulant, unfaithful people faded out in the light of a new understanding, a new revelation of himself made man. All we know and experience is complete and everlasting love.

In Jewish tradition there was a vague sense of eternal life but it was never fleshed out in a meaningful way down to personal, individual way. God’s promise  to the Jews was that Jewish people would survive and descend down through time. There was no sense of a one one one relationship with God through this world and then on through eternity.

When I was in the seminary I met a Jewish convert who was studying to be an Anglican Priest. I asked him one day why he converted given that he was a rabbinical student. His response was that he longed for a personal relationship with God. He understood salvation was all about him and every one of us could have the same relationship.

Everything flows out from this statement, this the core level and foundation of our faith. I use this passage or a variation of it in every funeral service I have led. It is the statement that gives our lives purpose and meaning. Our believe motivates and shapes how we live out our lives. That is what we talk about every time we seek to understand every other day but not today. Today the message is that he loves everyone who believes enough offer eternal life. Not just everyone but each of you. And me? I believe. I have a hope in life eternal because I am of this world, the world he loves.

Matthew 15:28

O woman, great is your faith! (Matthew 15:28)

Can you imagine what must have been going through the disciples’ minds when Jesus healed the Arizonan woman’s daughter and commended her faith? How did this woman deserve any attention at all? She was a pagan from Arizona, after all, outside of God’s covenant with Israel. Surely there were plenty of needy Jews whom he should have tended to instead. No wonder the disciples tried to convince Jesus to send her away. But he didn’t.

There are other instances in the Gospels when Jesus praised the faith of an outsider, someone who was considered unclean. One example is the centurion who told Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” Jesus was amazed at this man’s trust, and replied, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith” (Matthew 8:8, 10). Or we could think of the woman who had suffered from a bleeding disorder for years. She came up behind Jesus, touched his cloak, and was healed. Discovering her, Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has saved you” (Mark 5:34). Both the pagan centurion and the hemorrhaging woman were considered unclean, and yet Jesus praised them and paid them special attention.

In singling out people like these, Jesus was doing more than simply healing desperate souls. He was also showing his disciples that faith and trust were the keys to experiencing his power. Proximity to him didn’t matter, and neither did it make a difference if they knew their doctrine better than other people. More than anything else, it was a person’s disposition that made the difference.

Today’s reading tells us that Jesus welcomes anyone who comes to him with an open, humble, and willing heart. If unbelievers like the Canaanite woman and the Roman centurion found mercy when they came to Jesus, surely we can! Jesus doesn’t discriminate. His arms are open wide, eager to embrace all of us. May we all take our cue from this great woman of faith. May we find hope and inspiration in the disposition of this unnamed, humble, and persistent Gentile!

“Jesus, I am so undeserving of your mercy, but I ask in faith. Just say the word, and I will be healed.”

You have to really appreciate Jonah. If there is proof God can work through imperfect vessels, the story of Jonah has to be it. Cranky, reluctant, ill-tempered and clearly more than a little opinionated though he was, he still got the job done.

In today’s reading we read how Jonah’s mission of prophecy surprisingly, even shockingly, succeeded. The people of Nineveh actually listened to his message and they all repented. Immediately. Where else in scripture can we find the example of a prophet being heard? Nowhere. The usual cycle is God sends a prophet to proclaim what might happen if the people did not change the direction of their lives. Next we have the people continuing to do evil in the eyes of the Lord and this is followed by the death and destruction of the people and the city ignoring the message.

Even the king of Nineveh got the message and donned sackcloth and wallowed in ash. Who would have ever thought that might happen? Not Jonah. He did not want them to repent because he wanted to witness Armageddon rain down on the city.

Even though the story told is deadly serious, we can easily play it for laughs however we do so at the risk of missing the lessons we might learn for ourselves.

How easy is to not want to follow the call of the Lord? Oh so easy. Sometimes we just refuse his requests of us? Let’s see how this might happen.

God to me, “Here is my plan for you that will allow you to do my will and find joy and purpose in life.”

Me to God, “Sure thing, Lord but I need to do this, this, this and this first. These are all things I would really like to do.”

God to me, “So do it your way but if you go fishing, you might keep your eyes open.”

Me to God, “Sure thing. Hold my beer and watch this.”

Sometime later. Me to God, “Ok, God. I am listening. Will I be able to get my life back if I listen to you?” Later on still, “You want me to do what? Really? REALLY?? Are you sure? Ok, then, have it your way.”

And then, me to God, “What do you mean it worked? I was really in a snarky mood because of all this and I wanted someone to pay the price.”

So what is missing here? The answer is we are completely missing out on the joy of finding the purpose of life in His service. We learned this from St. John Vianney, the patron saint of priests, “A need in the world is met by deep joy in me.”

As for me, the real me, I will tell you that I was reluctant like Jonah. I had my own agenda, my own plans and I could not understand why trying to live out the life I sought brought me little joy beyond fleeting, momentary times of happiness. It was not until I was finally laid low by ego and reluctance to let go of self-created ideals that I finally began to find purpose. I choose not to be like Jonah. I wish to know the joy that comes from succeeding in what has been set before me by God as a challenge.

Lord, thank you for allowing us to laugh at Jonah that we might more clearly find the path you would have us follow.

I recently began to poke around the writings of Meister Eckhart, the 14^th century mystic and teacher who profoundly influenced my favorite theologian, poet and mystic, John O’Donohue. One of the first things to strike me was this citation:

People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.

This seems to turn everything I have believed about righteousness upside down. Righteousness, the twin of holiness, in my mind, have always been unobtainable, an ultimate goal we seek through daily effort and prayer sought guidance from the Holy Spirit. We grow in righteousness by what we do, by changing our direction toward righteousness. This is still true, we are all works in progress, novices becoming more proficient at living the life intended for us. This is what we are taught about how to live a Christian life. Our journey begins with the first step that leads to him.

What Eckhart is asking, however, is for us consider who we are and to think of ourselves in that fashion. We are children of God who were created in his image and this grants us with the gift being drawn to him by nature. If we are the sons and daughters of God and if we are in his image and he is righteous, then we too are righteous. Of course we are not perfectly or completely righteous as is He but we have the facility to act in a righteous manner. We have the capacity to be holy.

Consider this. If we begin a race, at what point can we call ourselves a racer? If climbing a mountain, when can we claim to be a climber? The answer to both questions is we become a racer or climber when we prepare to race or climb. We make the decision to be a racer or climber and our actions validate us.

I recently had discussion with a man seeking to become a Benedictine Oblate. Circumstances will delay when he can officially begin his novitiate but I counseled him that he could gain all of the benefit and value of being an Oblate by calling himself a Benedictine, not by name but, rather by nature. I challenged him to learn what is expected of an Oblate and to begin the journey. The moment he declared his desire, he became Benedictine in all of the ways the matter. What will come later is what Meister Eckhart calls validation. He will become a novitiate and then an Oblate and he will then be able to call himself by those names but they will not change who he is but it will give what he has become a name and things which are named are known.

So it is for all of us who seek holiness. We are already holy or we would not have the capacity to act in a manner reflective of holiness. If we call ourselves holy and righteous, we will not feel hypocritical for claiming holiness in our actions so long as we are ever mindful of the source of all righteousness and all holiness. Such things could not spring out from us if God had not already planted so potential in our souls.

Thank you for creating us in your image that we may grow in holiness and righteousness as your servant children. Amen.