Job, Not Karen

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    There is a stereotype of a person who, when not getting the answer he or she wants, especially at a business, starts arguing to get his or her way, especially asking to see the manager.  Unfortunately for those with this name, this type of person has been called a Karen.  A Karen is going to get her way, no matter how long she has to talk to the person or the manager.  And sincere apologies to all those named Karen here, who, I am sure, are wonderful people.
    Perhaps this is the image that comes to mind when we hear the second part of today’s Gospel, where Jesus talks about a friend who needs three loaves of bread, and won’t stop asking until the friend, who has already gone to bed, gives him what he wants.  In other words, if I just go all Karen on God, He will give me whatever I want.  But is that really what our Lord is saying?  Does God want us to be so convinced that we’re right that we refuse to give up any ground when it comes to something that we want?

St. John Henry Newman

    I think we need to look at the nature of prayer as we begin to answer that question.  What is prayer?  St. John Henry Newman describes prayer as “Cor ad cor loquitur–Heart speaking to heart.”  Prayer is the speaking, and listening, to the God who created us out of love, sustains us in love, and works for our salvation in love.  Prayer lifts our hearts and our minds to God, entrusting not only our needs but also our desires to Him, but then also paying attention to God’s response by making room for Him and the ways He communicates in our lives.  
    God calls us to have a childlike trust in Him.  And we know that experience of a child who does not worry that mom and dad will provide what the child needs.  But perhaps, as we hear childlike, we turn it more into childish, like the spoiled three-year-old who won’t stop crying and screaming unless it gets the candy bar it wants from the checkout lane at Meijer’s, the younger version of a Karen.
    We could be forgiven for hearing both the first reading and the middle part of the Gospel and thinking that God wants us to ask for what we want until we get it.  After all, Abraham keeps bartering with God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah until God seems to relent and promises not to destroy it if He can find only ten good people in the cities.  And certainly, God does want to teach us about persistence in prayer and not giving up on what we truly desire and what we think we truly need, even if we don’t get it immediately.
    But God is not a salesman nor a manager that we can wear down until He gives us what we want.  God is our loving Father.  And while sometimes He does allow us to keep asking until the time is right to give us what we desire, we also have to make sure that our desires are in accord with God’s will.  God will not give us something that we don’t need, or something that is actually harmful for my salvation, no matter how adamantly or persistently I ask for it.  And some people lose faith when they do not get what they want; they feel that God has not answered their prayers.
    We might understand this if a person asks God to win the lottery, or for some material good.  We understand how God doesn’t give us everything we want if what we want doesn’t fit a need.  But we find it more difficult to understand when our request in prayer seems more noble and asks for something we perceive as a great good.  I’m thinking in particular of the many different scenarios when a loved one is unexpectedly in a hospital: it may be a grandparent, parent, friend, or even a child.  We pray for God to heal our loved one, and we don’t understand why God wouldn’t heal that person.  Certainly a person’s life, maybe even a very good person, a faithful and devoted Catholic, has more worth than money or material possessions.  How could a loving God not answer that prayer?  And if we don’t get healing immediately, then certainly God would grant our prayer if we are persistent.  After all, He’s the one who said, “‘ask and you will receive.’”  
    But I have been in too many situations, and known too many people who have gone through situations, where the loved one dies.  And where is God in that?  Why didn’t He answer my prayers, or the prayers of tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who were asking for a good thing?  
    This is where we have to return to heart speaking to heart, of the lover and the beloved in conversation.  At the end of the day, we don’t know why God answers some prayers in the way we want, sometimes of people who are not so good, and God answers the prayers in the way we don’t want, even though we strive to be good disciples and faithful Catholics.  We don’t always know the mind of God.  
    In those moments, we can certainly pour out our hearts and tell God that we are upset that our loved one didn’t make it, or that we didn’t get some spiritual good that we wanted.  There is nothing wrong with telling God that His answer, which sometimes is no, doesn’t seem to make sense with what we know of a loving Father who gives His children good gifts.  But we also follow the example of Job who, upon losing everything–property, his children, and even his own health–said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Job loved God, and could trust in God’s plan, even when it didn’t make sense to him.  Job hadn’t even heard the response of God yet, though he was listening, but could trust that God had a plan where that loss made sense in the divine economy.
    The message of the readings today is not to annoy God until He acquiesces to our requests.  The message of the readings is to be persistent, but to also know that God always answers our prayers, even if we don’t get what we want.  He wants us to bring our needs and our wants to Him, and He promises to do what will work out best for salvation history, even when it doesn’t make sense to us.  That only comes as an act of faith.  And the act of faith only makes sense for one who loves us deeply, and one whom we love as deeply as we can.  When it comes to prayer, God does not ask us to be a Karen, but a Job.

Magic Eye

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I was in grade school, one of the more popular items at our annual Book Fair were books that were called Magic Eyes.  On each page there was a picture, but if you stared at it a certain way, a different, 3-D image would seem to pop off the page.  As I say it, it doesn’t really sound that interesting, especially with the fact that you can now have virtual reality goggles.  But in elementary school in the early ‘90s, it was pretty cool.
    What God sees and what we see can be as different as the Magic Eye books.  Our view is often limited to the externals: how someone combs his hair; what kind of clothes she wears; skin and facial features; etc.  But what God sees goes much deeper than that.
    As Jesus told the parable about the Pharisee and the tax-collector (sometimes called the Publican), He is not only talking about how to pray (the publican) and how not to pray (the Pharisee), but He’s also making a point that had been made several times before in Scripture, that appearances can deceive.  The Pharisee seems to have it all together: he doesn’t commit major sins, he gives to the temple and synagogue, and he doesn’t cooperate with the pagan Romans.  The Publican, on the other hand, seems very downcast, and won’t even raise his eyes to heaven.  He simply, quietly, asks God for mercy from the back row.  And yet, it is the Publican who is justified (put into right relationship with God), not the Pharisee.
    This point had been made in the first book of Samuel, as the prophet Samuel seeks a new king of Israel to replace Saul, who had disobeyed God.  Samuel goes to the house of Jesse, and sees some studly looking men.  And yet, God does not choose any of them.  Instead, God chooses David, the youngest, not as much to behold, who is out tending the sheep, to be the new king of Israel.  Or, think back to to Book of Job.  Job does everything right, so much so, that God brags about Job.  But then Satan asks to take away Job’s prosperity, and then even his health, because Satan is convinced that Job will walk away from God if his good fortune were taken away.  God allows Satan, in the story, to do anything, other than kill Job, which Satan does.  Job loses everything, and his luck is so bad, his own wife says, “Curse God and die” (what a lovely woman!).  Job’s friends come, and try to convince him that he must have done something wrong, so he should repent, and then God will give Job good stuff and health again.  But Job maintains his innocence, all-the-while still trusting God.  In both those stories, and many more, physical strength and material blessings do not mean that God loves you more, nor does lack of goods mean that God hates you. 
    In fact, as we heard from the Book of Sirach, God “hears the cry of the oppressed…is not deaf to the wail of the orphan, nor to the widow.”  Those people seemed like God wasn’t on their side.  If you’re oppressed, you don’t have control of your own freedom.  If you are an orphan, you have no parents to take care of you, and there was no welfare state or foster homes to make sure you were taken care of properly.  If you were a widow, your husband, who made money to feed you, was dead, and you had to rely on the generosity of your children and other family.  In other words, these were all people who had very little, if anything.  And yet, God hears their cries. 
    Even St. Paul is an example of how what looks like failure can actually be success in the eyes of God.  St. Paul did found many churches, groups of believers in Jesus, but none of them were particularly large communities, and they almost always seemed to have problems.  St. Paul writes this second epistle to St. Timothy from house arrest, and is about to die for preaching the Gospel.  He references in another letter how many of his co-workers abandoned him.  And yet, he is sure that “the crown of righteousness awaits” him, because he has, “competed well;…finished the race;…kept the faith.” 
    So how do we measure success?  When do we think God favors us?  Is it when things go well?  Or is it when we have struggles?  In truth, God can favor us in either set of circumstances.  We may have come to church this morning and are on cloud nine because we just received a promotion, or our grandkids just made honor roll.  Or we may be struggling in marriage, doing everything we can to pay the bills and buy food with a meager salary.  God loves us either way.  He hears our prayers when we come to Him in humility, recognizing that whatever we have is from Him: a gift of good things; or the allowance of suffering to strengthen us and bring us closer to Him.
    How, too, do we view others?  Do we see the externals and presume that the person who appears to do well is blessed by God?  Do we presume that the dirty, homeless person must have done something wrong, and we should avoid him or her?  Or do we look deeper, trying to see Christ in every person, regardless of affluence or poverty?
    [Eric, you have chosen a beautiful time to join the Catholic Church.  Unlike decades past, we have lost a lot of clout politically.  Unlike before, what we hold as truths to be revealed by God regarding the dignity of the human person, from natural birth through natural death; the importance of work and using God’s gifts and talents for the building up of society; the definition of marriage given to us by God; that our bodies are good and tell us something factual about ourselves, which cannot be changed by desire or surgery; that the family is the building block of society and should not be infringed by the government; these things are now no longer popular or widely held.  People are leaving the Catholic Church in droves.  This is a beautiful time because God often works best when things seem to be stacked against us.  And you are choosing to witness to what God has revealed through his one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. 
    It will call for great determination to live out that faith.  It may even lead to suffering.  But again, what the world sees as failure–sticking to God when the rest of the world seems to be abandoning Him for more palatable beliefs–is often success, and what the world sees as success is often failure.  And your one voice today, professing your faith with us, will be joined the myriad voices throughout the millennia who have professed that same faith, unbroken and untarnished, though many have sought to destroy it and change it throughout its history. 
    Do not be afraid to live as a Catholic, in all that the word Catholic entails.  Do not be afraid of seeming to be a failure to others by professing an ancient faith that critiques so much of what modern man seems to hold dear.  You may not do it perfectly, none of us do, but if you persevere in doing what you can to follow Christ, no matter how your life looks from the outside, you will merit to hear the words we all hope to hear one day: “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Come, share your Master’s joy.”  

God Takes On the Life of Job

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

If you came to Mass today looking for a pick-me-up reading, our first reading from the Book of Job was probably not helpful.  We’ve probably all had days like Job, though, thinking that our life is just dragging on and is full of misery.  Remember that at this point, Job has lost almost of all of his material wealth, his children have been killed, and he himself is afflicted with sores.  His wife’s advice in all of this: curse God and die!  Not the loving support you want to hear from your spouse!  Instead, I think in hard times we all would rather that we had someone to sympathize with us; not just someone who feels bad for us, but someone who has gone through the same or similar circumstances.

That is the great news about the Incarnation!  God sees us in our misery, a misery which far surpasses that of Job, but He doesn’t just empathize with us, that is, suffer in us without any idea of what it really means.  Our God takes flesh in the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and comes down to know our pain.  When God takes on our human flesh, not just living in it but truly making it His own, uniting our human nature to His divine nature forever, He takes on our misery, without giving up any of His glory.  

But while He could have avoided the nastiness of our fallen condition, He doesn’t.  In fact, our Gospel reminds us that He went down right into the middle of it all.  He spends time and touches people who are sick “with various diseases.”  He drives out demons.  He even enters into the delicate relationship between a son and his mother-in-law when He goes to the house of Simon Peter.  And, as our Gospel also states, He goes out to preach and to heal and to expel demons in other villages, not just His own.  He takes upon Himself all that it means to be human, but without sinning.  But, though He never sins, He even takes sin upon Himself as He suffers the pain and the penalty of sin.  When we sin, we (hopefully) feel bad enough because we have injured (venial sins) or severed (mortal sins) our relationship with God.  But imagine how much more horrible that must have felt for Jesus Christ, Himself God, to take upon Himself separation from God.  When we think about it, Jesus’ words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” become even more powerful.  Jesus even shares in our death, the ultimate penalty of sin, as He breathes His last and His body loses the breath of God.

That doesn’t sound like it, but it’s good news.  It sounds horrible that God would have to go through that, and it’s for that reason that people weep when they think about the Passion of Jesus Christ, but it’s really good news.  Our God does not simply empathize with us, but sympathizes with us(which means He suffers with us).  He embraces us as we suffer, and reminds us that He knows the pain that we go through, not as a distant onlooker, but as a participant in our pain.

And that is the good news that St. Paul preaches.  That is the Gospel (which means good news) that St. Paul is obliged to preach, because he wants others to know that they do not suffer alone, and that, after all Jesus’ suffering, new life was won.  That is why St. Paul made himself a slave to all; why he became weak to the weak and all things to all.  St. Paul wants others to know that while life can sometimes seem as miserable as Job, Jesus has passed through pain and death and has transformed it into joy and life.  

Today the Church celebrates World Marriage Day, and next weekend we’ll have a blessing for Married Couples which will coincide with our St. Valentine’s Day Dinner Dance (and the Sunday after).  The call of Catholic married couples is to be a sacrament, a sign instituted by Christ which brings grace.  Too many married couples feel like Job, with life as a drag.  Catholic married couples are meant to show them, through their own living out of the vocation of marriage, that marriage may not be easy, and that sometimes couples might feel like Job, but that Christ has transformed marriage into a way to become holy.  They show it to others by their love for each other.  They show it to a new generation as they conceive and raise children in the faith.  They preach the Gospel by letting Christ sanctify and transform their love for each other so that when others look at them, they see the love of Jesus for His Bride, the Church.  

And we, the Bride, the Church, are not always easy to love, as many married couples sometimes experience.  We, God’s People, are not always faithful to Him; we do not always love Him; we do not always show that love for Him by prayer, spending time with Him, making Him the priority in our life.  And yet, Jesus continues to love us and pour Himself out for us as He sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.  Married couples: I challenge you to say 1 Our Father with each other each day.  If you do, I promise not that marriage will be easy, but that you will have the strength from heaven to persevere even in the hard times.  High schoolers, college students, and young adults: I challenge you to say 1 Hail Mary each day, asking our Blessed Mother to help show you if you are called to marriage, and if you are called to that beautiful vocation, to show you whom to marry.  For the rest of us, let us pray 1 Glory Be each day for the sanctification of married couples and those discerning a vocation to marriage so that our church, our city, our nation, and our world can be filled with examples of Christ’s love.