Experiencing God -Living and Being God's Vineyard -252

 

One thing that we all have in common is that we are all part of a family.  Like you, I am part of the family of my parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles that I grew up with.  And I am also a part of my own family with my wife, children, grandchildren and in-laws. There is also another family that we all share in.  This is the greater family or community of the church of which we are each a part.  This larger family or community unites itself around that common faith we share as Catholic Christians.  In order to be a vibrant family, to function well as a community at whatever level, to have healthy and wholesome relationships, we must follow certain universal norms and actions that have been made available to us.  We all know that these things are because we all practice them every day.

In the Old Testament, we see these norms and practices being expressed in the Wisdom writings and scriptures such as Ten Commandments. In the New Testament we see these norms and practices expressed in the teachings and life of Jesus.  In fact, St. Paul beautifully expresses some of these practices in our second reading:  “The God of Peace will be with you if you keep on doing the things that you have learned:  Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing and beneficial to others, whatever is commendable.

Our families and communities function well, are healthy and safe places to be when we practice our higher ideals, when we live out of those universal principles given to us in our scriptures and wisdom literature.  When we don’t, we seem to fall into dysfunction and lose our way.

Throughout our scriptures we read that Israel has a special relationship as a family and community with God and one another.  Throughout scripture, the community of Israel is often referred to as a vineyard, prepared, planted and sheltered and protected by God’s universal Presence.  Israel flourishes because as a community, it chooses to live under the universal laws and actions given to them by God.  But whenever they deviate from this universal order and truths, then they experience chaos; they experience a time of major dysfunction, and disaster often follows.  This is illustrated in the first reading from Isaiah, a time in Israel’s history where it is falling short, and deviated from God’s plan for them. Isaiah describes this vineyard created and planted by God as producing wild grapes.  I’m not sure what wild grapes are, but a better translation would be that they were producing rotten grapes, grapes that are only good to be thrown away. This vineyard, the house of Israel had moved away from righteousness in word and deed to pursue its own end, and, as a result, is being torn apart.  

The fruits of the Kingdom of God manifested in their families and communities could not be realized when its people choose to deviate from God’s universal plan, a plan calling them to live out their lives in accordance with God’s norms.  The grapes or fruit that was produced by such a vineyard become only sour and rotten, and the vineyard becomes overrun with briars and thrones.    
In our Gospel reading, Jesus is taking this very well-known Old Test Testament story, and putting a new spin on it. 

The landowner in Jesus’ parable is, of course, God who plants the vineyard, and prepares it for all to prosper, to yield abundant fruit.  The tenants, people like ourselves, are the ones entrusted with the care of the vineyard; the ones chosen to share in its abundance as a free gift given to them. The slaves are the prophets, sent by God to remind them of God’s providential plan and truths.  The son of the landowner is Jesus himself.  In the parable, when the tenants get greedy and try to make God’s gift as their own possession and refuse to give back to the landowner what is rightfully His, then the chaos and dysfunction begins. The prophets are stoned and sent away, the son is killed in hopes of gaining his inheritance, and hope is lost. The ending line of the Gospel reads: “Therefore, I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from such tenants and given to those who produce the fruits of the Kingdom.”  So what can we learn from this. 

If we are to function and remain healthy as a family; if we are to prosper and be whole as a community, then we must allow God to be a part of who we are; to be a part of what we do.  God cannot abide with us in a place where there is ill will and hatred. God cannot speak to us inside when that place is only angry noise and deceit.  God cannot abide with us in a place that is full of fear and intimidation.  God cannot abide in us if we live only out of a sense of entitlement and privilege.  The fruit of the Kingdom of God can only be produced when people, families and communities realize that they are His vineyard, we belong to Him.  And we fall under His protection and care.  But we are designed to follow his universal plan for our lives, and this is as true as the air we breathe to give us life. 

And of course, those of us who practice and live our Catholic Christian faith know that if we wish to experience peace and wholeness in ourselves, in our families, and in our communities, then this is not really a choice. The peace and joy that comes from our faith, the fruits of the Kingdom, can only abide in those places where we allow Christ to be present.   God never turns away from us.  Our chaos begins when we turn away from God.   

Experiencing God - Giving Our Life Away 251

On Ash Wednesday Feb 26, we all began another Lenten journey.  As I was preparing for this talk, I realized that I have gone through Lents 52 times since my baptism in 1967.  I suspect many of you here have exceeded that number since I got off to a slow start.  The question that comes to my mind, and I throw it out to you is: When considering the number of Lents we have all experienced over many years, how can this Lent of 2020 be a special time of renewal for us?

A couple of weeks ago, Mary Anne and I did a five day retreat at Mepkin Abbey in Charleston.  The focus of my retreat was on a book written by a popular contemporary author Fr. Ronald Rolheiser.  In his book called “Sacred Fire”, Rolheiser described Christian discipleship at three different stages of life.  The first stage he calls “Essential Discipleship”. He describes it as the time of life when we struggle to make our own way in life, to find our own identity; that time we need, so to speak, to get our life together.  He says that before that time, we are at home with parents, family members and friends in a circle provided for us.  We are in a place that is ours, a place we can call our own; and assuming the right circumstances, a place where we feel safe and secure. 

But then we enter a time, usually in our adolescent years where we begin to over-throw our childhood home and identity, and strike out on our own. 

So we enter a time of restlessness, searching to discover our own place in life.  This becomes the time when we begin to develop our own circle of friends, explore opportunities for a career or vocation, and search for our own new home and family.  Eventually, we find ourselves to be at home again, with a new place to live, a career or life’s work, perhaps a wife and children, a mortgage, and all the responsibilities that go with.  At this time, Rolheiser says, the question we ask ourselves is no longer: “How can I get my life together”?  But rather the question becomes: “How can I give my life away?  How can I live more deeply, more generously, and more meaningfully?”  This becomes the time when we are entering the second stage called “Mature Christian discipleship”.  And I suspect it is the stage where most of here find ourselves today.  How can I live more generously, more meaningfully?  As Rolheiser explained in his book and I believe it to be true, mature discipleship begins when we begin to “give our lives away”; when we begin to live for others more than for ourselves.  Although this is simple to say, and maybe even to believe, but, I think you will agree, it is not always easy to live. 

You may recall that the readings for last weekend’s mass, the first Sunday of Lent.  The first was from Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve and how they succumbed to the temptation of eating from the tree in the Centre of the Garden. The Gospel was about Jesus and the temptations He experienced during His 40 days in the desert.  If you examine these readings closely, you will find that their aim is to lead us to that level of Mature Discipleship, a giving of our lives away and moving towards a healthy concern for others. But the focus of these particular readings is principally on the challenges that we face in getting there. There are forces around us that create a resistance to this path we long to follow as a response to Grace.  Perhaps this is one of the reasons why we need many Lents in our lives. It often takes a long time for us, not only to see, but to resist these forces that work against the movement of Grace in our lives.

The Gospel of Jesus’ temptations in the desert describes those forces as the world, the flesh and the Devil.  These are terms we are all familiar with.  In the many homilies that I’ve heard and read over the years, others have described these resistances as the three A’s:  Appetite, Ambition, and Arrogance.  Or some described it as three P’s: Pleasures, Power and Pride.  But they all mean the same thing.  In our allegorical story of Adam and Eve, we have a vivid example of a failure to resist those forces.

The tree in the centre of the garden, which is appropriately off limits, became so enticing to the appetites of Adam and Eve and probably their pride as well, that they decide to partake of it. And, as a result they lost the home given to them; they lost their place of security; they lost that special connection they had with God.  In our Gospel story, Jesus, although tempted to compromise His own sacred calling, refuses to yield to these voices of resistance.  And, as a result, He not only discovers a home that God has prepared for Him, but He gives His very life so that others like us, may share in this home with Him as well.  This home He calls “the Kingdom of God”.  I guess the question we are forced to ask ourselves, particularly during this period of Lent, is: When it comes to these forces, how am I doing in cooperating with God’s plan for me.   Have I let the appetite of pleasure, have I let the power of status, position and things; have I let the arrogance of pride, entice me away from that path of “giving my life away”.  If I am honest with my own personal reflections, the words of psalm 51 found, also in last Sunday’s readings, perhaps speak most clearly to me about this. 

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 
Against you alone have I sinned. And done what is evil in you sight.
Create in me a clean heart and put a new and right spirit within me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing Spirit.

The last stage of Spiritual Discipleship that Rolheiser mentions in his book is called “Radical Discipleship”.  And it centers on the question of how we are meant to live out the final months, weeks, days of life so that our death is part of that gift we give to others.  The question we ask ourselves at this time changes from “how can I give my life away” to “how can I give my death away.  To understand this, we must again turn to Jesus as a model for us.  We speak of Jesus as both living for us and dying for us.  He gave us a double gift of both His life and His death.  Often we don’t distinguish between them.  He gave his life away for us through the activities of His ministry; through his teachings, through his healings, through calling His followers and giving them guidance.  But he also gives His death away through His passion. And are we not healed in a special way as we reflect upon His passion and death that He embraced with acceptance, with forgiveness, with a healing at its heart?  We read in Isaiah:

 “He was wounded for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the punishment that made us whole, and by His wounds we are healed.”  
Our acceptance of "dying well" can potentially be our last and greatest gift that we have to offer, particularly to those we love. As you know, many life-long resentments and animosities are healed between children and a dying parent during this most vulnerable time because dying moves us to a whole new place in our relationships. Those of us who have experienced being with a dying person knows the deep truth in this. Unfortunately, we stand in danger of losing it because of our current laws on medical assistant dying and the belief that ones value is only found in what we can produce.  But those who are dying can give life to those they love when they allow them to attend to their needs during this time of diminishment. So we give our deaths away by dying with grateful acceptance instead of bitterness, by surrendering to Grace instead of clinging to life.  And we can do this when we see that our dying is not an end but a means to that next step in our journey to our new home prepared for us by Christ.

Our journey of Lent of 2020 is that opportunity given to us by the church to ponder where we are in respect of our own journey in faith.  It is a time given for us to reflect upon what we may still be clinging to in our attempts to satisfy the restlessness we find in our own hearts. 

Over the years, I know that I have been able to let go of many things that were a hindrance to my spiritual growth.  For many of them, the advancing years of life left me with little choice.  But there are still things in my life, areas that I still cling too, and resist letting go of.  That is why I need Lent this 2020. 

As a good spiritual discipline, the ancient practice of fasting, praying and alms giving are as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago to help us in this task.  And if you look at them closely, they tie closely with the temptations that Jesus rejected during His 40 day journey in the dessert.  And when approached with the right intention, they are healing.  We fast in order to break the habits of the flesh and senses and their insistent need to be satisfied.  So we fast from those things that we have trouble giving up. We give alms, not to pat ourselves on the back for being generous, but to help break the addictive hold that money and other such things have on us. And of course, we pray. We pray for the strength to let go of our inordinate needs.  We pray, as in the psalm, to move away from a lifestyle that is self-serving and to discern God’s will for us in our outreach to others.  
As Rolhieser explains in his book, mature discipleship begins when we begin to give out lives away, when we begin to live for others and less for ourselves.  Each Lent, number 53 for me, and whatever number it is for you, is there to help us together find  our way to the home Jesus has prepared for us; a home He calls “The Kingdom of God”. 

Experiencing God 250 - Baptism of the Lord

For over two weeks now we have been celebrating the birth of Jesus. This weekend, however, we are changing directions. We are returning to the readings about Jesus during His adult life. Under the circumstances, it is appropriate that this change begin with Jesus’ first public appearance as an adult, His baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan.

In many ways, the story of the baptism of Jesus can be strange one for us. In fact, even John the Baptist was puzzled by its occurrence. We know that in previous Gospel accounts, John the Baptist had already spoken about Jesus as the one who would baptize others, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Yet in today’s Gospel, we have Jesus presenting himself to John the Baptist for this sacred ritual. John himself, of course, acknowledges his own confusion, and even suggests that this whole matter should be turned around; that Jesus should be baptizing him, not the reverse. But Jesus’ response to John reveals that He has something else in mind. “Let it be so for now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness”.

And we read that as Jesus comes up out of the water of the Jordan, what follows speaks clearly of that sacred Trinitarian relationship that He has with the Father and the Holy Spirit. All three of the Trinity are present and visible during this event.

This revelation, as the other gospel accounts also makes clear, is not just for Jesus, but for all present to see. And I believe it acknowledges two things: First, it acknowledges that Jesus’ baptism is an inauguration of God’s unfolding plan for His people, for us. This Trinitarian relationship among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is something that we are all invited into. And secondly, Jesus’ baptism signifies the beginning of His own public ministry as God’s Son which eventually leads to the cross.

Most of you were probably baptized as babies and therefore would have no memory of the event. But through your participation in Catechesis and growing up in the church, you would have developed an understanding of what your baptism was for you. I was baptized in 1967 at age 21. And I have to admit that, at that time, I didn’t have a very deep understanding of what it was all about. During the years before my baptism, at different times, I had been a member of various groups, so I was certainly aware about group involvement and sharing a common interest with others, including family and friends. These groups would have had certain disciplines and certainly responsibilities that had to be shared by its members.

Perhaps I thought of my baptism as something like this. But as time went on, I soon discovered that baptism was so much more than being a member of a group. If anything, at least for me as an adult, it had more similarities to getting married. 

The purpose of marriage is not to share some common interests with a new spouse, although that may be part of it. We enter into marriage as a covenant relationship of love with our spouse and later family, in order to share our lives with one another. 

In baptism, much of the same thing happens. In baptism we enter into a covenant relationship of love with Christ our guide, and His extended family of faith, the Church. The Church becomes a living organism, where Christ is the head and each of us a part. In both marriage and baptism, there is a death to an old way of living in order to embrace the new.

That’s why the witness of Jesus’ baptism in today’s Gospel is so important for us. Where His baptism announced the relationship of love that exists with the Father through the Holy Spirit, our baptism announces our desire and willingness to be a part of that Divine relationship. Where His baptism inaugurates His own public call to ministry, our baptism signifies our own mysteriously incorporation into that relationship with the Trinity in order to respond to our own unique call in building up the Body of Christ.

By way of an analogy, St. Paul uses our own human anatomy to explain what it means to be incorporated into the body of Christ. Our own human organism is made up of cells and organs which must work together for everything to function properly. If you look at a cell under a microscope, you will see that it can be separately identified and can operate on its own. Yet its function is incomplete unless it works with other cells to achieve its purpose, usually as an organ. Correspondingly, organs must work with other organs in the human body in order for the whole body to function properly. It is of no value for one cell to say to another; "I don’t need you. I’m happy working on my own." Every now and again we have rogue cells like that. We call it cancer. And if they are not corrected or surgically removed, they will contaminate the surrounding cells and eventually the whole body. For all to survive, these cells must work together. In the same way, the heart cannot say to the lungs; "I don’t need you. I am happy on my own." Their failure to work together will destroy the whole body.

So it is the same for us who are incorporated into the body of Christ through baptism. You cannot say to me, and I cannot say to you; "Hey, I don’t need you." We all need each other. We need to work together, depend upon each other, in order to be Church, because through our baptism, we all have been incorporated into this living organism we call the Body of Christ.

One could argue that Saul (later St. Paul) was once a rogue cell. He persecuted Christians. And then on that road to Damascus, he was struck to the ground by that great light. The words that he heard that led to his conversion were not: "Saul, why are you persecuting those Christians?"  Or even: "Why are you persecuting the church?" The words he heard from Jesus were: "Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" The “me” is the Christ of which we are all a part because we have been baptized into a relationship with Him. And this relationship requires that we, as cells, be responsible for one another, to work and care for one another, just as Christ works and cares for us.

I would like to conclude with a quote from Fr. John Main which for me speaks about Baptism: “The mysterious thing about the Christian revelation is that we are no longer living as if we were exhausting a limited supply of life that we received at birth. What we know from the teaching of Jesus is that we become infinitely filled with life when we are at one with the source of our being: The One who describes himself as “I AM”. In the Christian vision we are led to this source by a guide, and our guide is Jesus, the person wholly open to God. That is why the Christian journey is always a journey of faith. But as we approach the center of our being, as we enter our heart, we find that we are greeted by our guide, greeted by the one who is leading us. We are welcomed by the person who calls each one of us into personal fullness of being. The consequences or results of our prayer are just this fullness of life; harmony, oneness, and energy, a divine energy that we find in our own heart, in our own spirit. It is this energy, often referred to as love, that is the energy of all creation. It is this energy of love that unites us and holds us together in Christ.

Experiencing God 249 - The Holy Family

During this Octave between Christmas and the Epiphany, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family.  Over the last several weeks, we have most certainly seen many familiar illustrations of the Holy Family.  We’ve seen Jesus, Mary and Joseph on the many Christmas cards given to us by family and friends. We’ve seen the Holy family in our nativity scenes at home and in church. And perhaps you were fortunate enough to see them also in the actions of the children at our Christmas pageant.  While each depiction tells us the same essential story, the question that I asked myself (and I throw out to you) is whether these familiar scenes represent the complete story of how we should see the Holy Family. Have we raised these familiar Nativity scenes to such heights that they have become, what we may call, “other worldly”, or just symbols of devotion.  Or can they be an effective influence and guide to our understanding of holiness as it relates to our own families in 2019.

   

This weekend, the Church puts before us this great Feast Day of the Holy Family, not primary as a symbol of devotion, but as a model of faith.  This model of faith of the original Holy Family is there to inspire and to guide us in the work that we must do within our own family on its journey towards wholeness and New Life. 

We call Jesus, Mary and Joseph “the Holy Family”, but that does not mean, for a moment, that they did not have problems. Just as we in our family circumstances have to face many problems, and work at ways of overcoming them, so also the Holy Family had to face and deal with the many problems that came there way as well.

 

We only have to read the scriptures to see the many difficulties they experienced, most of them greater than our own. And we all know the reasons for this.  They lived during a time of great persecution, when their land was occupied and controlled by foreign powers, and governed by corrupt rulers. They had none of the freedoms that we currently have in our own lives. No social programs existed to help them in times of need. From Matthew, we hear the story the Holy Family having to flee to Egypt as refugees because Jesus’ life was in danger due to the corruption of King Herod. So they were forced to leave the comfort of their home and land in much of the same way as refugees today must leave their war-torn countries to find safety in other places.  I understand that the distance from Bethlehem to the borders of Egypt is about 430 kilometers. To avoid the dangers imposed by Herod, they had to travel by donkey and on foot, which would have taken them many weeks.  It’s hard to imagine the hardships they must have experienced making this trip under such difficult circumstances.

What kept the Holy Family together, what kept them sane through these trials is the same thing that keeps us together during our own trials, even though they may be different in nature.  It was the love they had for each other.  It was the guidance and trust they had in the God of their ancestors.  Who else could did they have to turn too?  Who else could they reach out to for guidance and comfort?  They found in God, their own source of inner strength, a foundational rock on which they could build their lives. It was to this personal God they could pray and consult in the decisions they had to make.

 

And when you think about it, during our own times of uncertainty, during our own times of confusion, during those times when we are facing our own storms, who do we have to reach out to?  When we reach out to each other, when we reach out to God, then we model the Holy family; we become that holy family.  We discover in Christ our own foundational rock.

I believe at times we elevate the image of the Holy family to that “other worldly” plane because of the ways that we hear that God interacted with them.  After all, Mary was visited by an angel who asked her to conceive a son. And Joseph received his directions from God through dreams.  How often has this happened to us?

But the holiness we see in them as a family does not come from how God communicated to them, but from how they responded; how they were willing to step beyond their own fear, their own comfort and security to embrace the will of God.   Mary’s own great act of faith becomes the model that we are inspired to use in our own lives:  “With God, all things are possible. Let it be done to me in accordance with your will. ”   And Joseph’s willingness to listen through prayer, and to follow the course laid out for him, despite the inconvenience and risk to himself can become our own way of seeking guidance.

   

In our second reading of our mass today, St. Paul is speaking to the Colossians about holiness.  He is not talking about the Holy family but he is using them as a model of faith for the Colossian to follow.  He says:  “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.  Bear with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  And above all, clothe yourselves with love.”  These are the attributes we see in the Holy Family.  These are the attributes we can see and practice in our own families as well.

 Perhaps one of the greatest threats facing our families today is simply that we do not spend enough time being together, praying together.  We have become so busy with other things: working or socializing on the internet or watching TV that we seem to have less time to be with each other.  Spending time together is the primary way of showing others that we love them. 

And as St. Paul expresses to the Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, to teach and admonish each other in all wisdom, but with gratitude in your hearts because you are called to be one body, one community.”

As we celebrate this Feast Day of the Holy Family, let us remind each other that faith and family is the vehicle for our journey that leads to wholeness and new life with Christ: In summary, they must include two things: the love we have for each other, and of equal or greater importance, the love that we each have for God.