Not Them vs. Us

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

If you’ve been watching the news recently (a depressing venture, to be sure), you’ve heard about students from Convington Catholic High School at the March for Life.  A first video was shared which seemed to show an elder Native American activist being shouted at by the students, some with “Make America Great Again” hats, with one student in particular with a smug, very condescending smile on his face.  Some also claimed that the students were chanting “Build the Wall.”  The students were excoriated in the media as being the problem with America, and by some, the problem with the pro-life movement.  The Diocese of Convington apologized for the students’ behavior and judged them as guilty based upon the popular narrative at the time.

Shortly after the first video was released, a second video was released with more context, showing that the students were being yelled at by an African-American group that was protesting.  That group of people were yelling hateful things towards the students, so, to drown out the hate, they started doing school chants.  At that point, the elder Native American and his group walked towards the students, and the Native American elder stood very close to the smiling student.  That student explained that he was smiling to try to diffuse a very tense situation, and did what he thought was best to keep other students from the school from becoming verbally or physically abusive in retaliation.  Some apologies and retractions were issued about those who pounced on the first video, and these students were put forward as good examples of our youth not being baited into a fight, while others were excoriated for jumping to conclusions and reporting those conclusions before all the facts were available.

I’m not here to dissect all the blame in this situation, and who is right and who is wrong.  I’m here to preach the Gospel, and our Gospel today bears upon this situation.  Jesus in the Gospel says, quoting the Prophet Isaiah, that he has come “‘to proclaim liberty to captives…[and] to let the oppressed go free.’”  When we hear those words, we probably associate them with those who are incarcerated or held by strong forces (captives) and those who are downtrodden (the oppressed).  Maybe we think about it in social terms or government terms, or maybe even military or law enforcement terms (probably, some of those hearing it understood Jesus to mean that He was going to free them from Roman rule).  

But we are today captivated, that is to say, held by, and oppressed by more things than just foreign powers or strong worldly forces.  We are, I would suggested, held captive and oppressed by a mentality, from which Jesus came to free us.  That mentality, which captivates and oppresses us is a mentality which divides the world into “them” and “us.”  Jesus does not see people as “others,” but rather, as “His,” because all things have been handed over to Him by His Father, by our heavenly Father.  

This is not to say that Jesus naïvely thought that everyone was working for him.  How many times did Jesus condemn the scribes and Pharisees for their wrong interpretation of the law, their oppression of people, and they hypocrisy.  And yet, when a Pharisee came asking Jesus about the greatest commandment, and when Jesus responded, that Pharisee gave his assent to the teaching of Jesus, then Jesus told the Pharisee that he was not far from salvation.  Jesus condemned the misreading and skepticism about the resurrection of the dead by the Sadducees, and yet Nicodemus, one of the Sadducees, engaged in dialogue with Jesus about baptism and being born again, and there was no condemnation from Jesus.  Jesus told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more, and called tax collectors to stop cheating others, and called everyone to stop hating their enemies, or looking lustfully at people, or swearing oaths blithely.  But Jesus also welcomed sinners into His company and invited them to a relationship with Him so that they could find the conversion to which Jesus called them.

We have become captives and oppressed by a worldview that divides the world.  We are all too happy to condemn them when they don’t agree with us.  This is hard to do as humans, because we’re social and want to belong.  So we demonize others, put them down, so that we can write them off.  Look at Congress and the President over the past month.  Nothing was getting done because each side had demonized the other.  There’s plenty of blame to go around for both sides; no one side is perfectly innocent.  The same goes for the coverage of the Convington Catholic students.  And yet, we willingly let ourselves be led like lemmings to a pre-determined conclusion because of a political or social affiliation that we value more than our affiliation with Jesus.  St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians: 

remember that at one time you, Gentiles in the flesh…were at that time without Christ, alienated from the community of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become nearly by the blood of Christ.  For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh…[creating] in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace.

St. Paul puts it in terms of Gentile and Jew, the Jewish division of the world.  But it applies to any division we make in our world.

There are people who do evil in the world.  There is legitimate blame for things that people do wrong, for which we can hold them accountable.  But if we see the world through the lens of “them” vs. “us,” then we are ignoring the Good News that Jesus came to bring, that He came to bring us freedom from being held captive and oppressed by division, and that God’s freedom, prophesied by Isaiah, has been fulfilled by Christ.

Our True Identity

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

One of the most popular Disney movies is “The Lion King.”  I think we’ve all seen it; I know as a kid I watched it too many times to count.  Powers did a great stage production of it last year.  Towards the end of the movie, there is a powerful scene, and I won’t be able to do justice to it here, but it’s the scene where Rafiki, the wise baboon, tells Simba, now grown and hanging out in the jungle with Timon and Pumba, that his father, Mufasa, is still alive (remember that Scar had killed Mufasa when Mufasa saved Simba).  Rafiki takes Simba to a pool, where Simba looks into the pool and sees his reflection.  Disappionted, Simba says that it’s just his reflection.  “Look harder,” Rafiki says.  And Simba looks again.  Rafiki continues, “You see, he lives in you.”

Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord.  Even though Jesus was already God the Father’s co-eternal Son, still, the voice of the Father is heard from the heavens, “‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”  Jesus had no need to be baptized, but he still allowed St. John the Baptist to baptize him as a model for what we are to do, and to show us the reality of what happens.

When we are baptized, original sin is washed away from us, like dirt being washed away by the water.  When we are baptized, we become a member of the Church, the mystical Body of Christ, the group of those who follow Jesus’ teachings.  When we are baptized, even if we cannot hear it, the voice of the Father comes from heaven and says, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  In baptism, we become sons and daughters in the Son of God.  God gives us His life, and imprints in us the identity of His Son, Jesus Christ.  That becomes who we are, and who we are meant to be.

Too often, we identify ourselves by something other than our baptism.  Maybe we identify ourselves by our work, by what we do.  Maybe we identify ourselves by our worldly successes, by how much money we make, or the home we own, or the car we drive.  Maybe we identify ourselves by our failures, by the mistakes we make, the sins we commit, the standards, realistic or unrealistic, that are set for us or that we set for ourselves.  I know that’s my Achille’s heal: to identify myself by my failures, and Lord knows there’s enough of them to think about!  But, however we think we should identify ourselves, God invites us today to identify ourselves the way He does: by our baptism. 

In Baptism we are given a dignity that infinitely surpasses anything we could hope to achieve on earth.  Even if we were the most powerful, the richest, the most famous person on earth, that is nothing compared to how God sees us.  Even the weakest, poorest, most insignificant person, if baptized, is a son or daughter of God in the Son of God, and has worth beyond measure in the eyes of God.  Think about how much love God has for Jesus.  Try to imagine it!  You can’t imagine it, because God’s love for Jesus is infinite, and our finite minds could never even come close to processing how much God loves Jesus.  Now, because of baptism, that love that God the Father has for Jesus is given, freely and generously, to us.  In baptism, we are joined to Christ so that the Father sees Jesus whenever He sees us.

It is that identity that then becomes the way we should live our lives.  We don’t live a certain way to earn God’s love.  That’s foolish and a heresy (Pelagianism).  We can never earn God’s love.  If we were to live the best and holist life ever, we could still never earn God’s love.  But the identity that we receive in baptism, the identity of Christ, that calls us to live in a certain way, to live as Jesus would live, to the best of our ability.  It is supposed to be, as St. Paul says, no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me.  

Think back to the Lion King.  Simba had grown used to living as a wart hog and a meer cat.  It was fun, it was carefree (hakuna matata!), but it wasn’t who Simba was.  Sin is often fun, it’s almost always carefree.  But it’s not who we are.  We are not our jobs.  We are not our successes.  Most importantly, we are not our failures.  Satan tries to convince us that our identity is in something other than our baptism.  Simba, though, was a lion and a king.  And it was living according to that identity that gave him true joy.  We are, in Christ, little anointed ones, little christs.  In Jesus, we are sons and daughters of God.  That identity gives us true joy, and helps us know how we are to live our life.

When we were baptized, we went from merely being our parents’ child, to being a child of God in the Son of God.  God made our identity that of His beloved Son.  That is how we should see ourselves.  That shows us how to act in life.  That is the most important thing to know about who we are.  Today the voice of the Father speaks: “‘You are my beloved Son.’”

Giving Jesus our Time, Talent, and Treasure

Solemnity of the Epiphany

When we think about the gifts that the magi bring to the Christ Child, we might think that they’re a little odd.  Gold, yes, everyone can use some gold.  Frankincense, we might not think as so helpful.  And myrrh, well, let’s be honest, many people probably don’t even know what myrrh is.  We may think that the magi should have brought more practical gifts, like diapers, or blankets, or almost anything else.  

But while our minds are geared towards practicality, the gifts that the magi, or wise men, brought is not concerned with the practical, but rather, the symbolic.  The magi, by their gifts, mean to communicate a message about who they understand Jesus to be.  Gold is a gift that you would give a king.  The magi understood, however faintly, that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and their gift acknowledged that reality.  Frankincense, like the incense we use today, is what is offered to God.  The smoke of the incense rises, reminding us of our prayers rising to the heavens as we adore God.  It also gives a sense of transcendence, since the cloudy can seem otherworldly.  Think about Mt. Sinai in the Book of Exodus: the mountain is wrapped in smoke when God is present.  The magi recognized that, in addition to being a king, Jesus was also a deity, and deserved worship and the things that belong with it.  Myrrh is an oil, or a balm, and it was used to anoint the bodies of the dead.  While the Egyptians embalmed their dead, such a practice was not as common in the rest of the world.  So the bodies were anointed with a perfumed oil as a sign of respect and preparation for whatever came after death.  Besides recognizing that Jesus was a King and God, they also recognized that He was going to die (especially an odd thought if you believed that Jesus was a God).  Yet, we all look to Good Friday when God died on the Cross in the Person of Jesus.

As we celebrate this Epiphany, and the gifts that the magi presented to Jesus, we, too, have a chance to bring our gifts to Jesus.  Maybe we wonder what gifts Jesus really needs, since He’s God and owns the whole world.  But what Jesus desires from us is all of who we are.  Jesus desires us to share with Him our very life, each day, in all that we do.  This is what St. Paul means when he exhorts us to pray constantly.  When we offer our lives, and everything that is a part of it, each day to God, we are praying throughout the day as we work, as we learn, as we relax.  

The Church sometimes expresses how we can give Jesus a gift through the word stewardship.  Stewardship means that we have received gifts which do not, in fact, belong to us, but are given to us to use wisely.  A steward had the full authority of the master, and could act in his name.  But the steward was supposed to act according to the mind of the master, too, not simply using the master’s possessions without reference to the will of the master.  When we talk about stewardship, we talk about the three Ts: time, talent, and treasure.

Treasure is the easy one to think about.  We earn money by working, using what we have received from God to provide for ourselves and our families.  But that money is entrusted to us to use for our good, the good of the poor, and the good of the Church.  I honestly hate talking about money, and our generosity with money is often the fruit of a deep relationship with Jesus.  When we love Jesus we give what we can to serve Him through the poor and the Church.  When we are selfish with money it usually betrays a lack of a love for the poor and Jesus, as we put other priorities, sometimes simply our own will, ahead of the good of others.

Talents, though, are easy to talk about.  Each of us have gifts that God has given to us.  God expects us to use those gifts for helping us to be saints, and helping others to be saints.  Those gifts are not meant to be kept to ourselves (like in the parable of the talents), but are meant to be “invested,” shared, for the building up of the kingdom of God.  A talent doesn’t have to be extraordinary, but it is meant to be shared.  And at this time I invite our ushers to pass out our stewardship surveys.  This survey is meant to help you determine how best you can share your talents with our parish family.  You can mark down how you currently participating, or how you wish to participate.  If it’s something new, someone will contact you (give us a few weeks) about how to get involved.  But I encourage you to get involved.  This parish cannot operate without volunteers, and one of our parish challenges is that our volunteers are getting voluntired and we need people to fill the roles that many of our older parishioners used to fill.  Usually, about 20% of the people do 80% of the work.  It would be great if we could even get that number up to 30 or 40%!

Time is also easier to talk about, though perhaps this is a commodity that we value at least as much as our money.  How much time do we give to God?  If we are in a good relationship with another, we want to spend time with them whenever we can.  Facebook is always showing me ways that friends are spending time with each other.  But when it comes to our relationship with God, are we willing to spend time with God?  We have a great number of retirees in our parish, and our Mass times during the week are geared towards them.  But it seems like the same people each week (and, to be clear, I’m happy to have them!), which is simply a small selection of the parish.  I’m not saying you have to go to Mass every day (there are worse things to do with your time), but maybe, if you have a weekday open at 8:15 a.m., you could join us for Mass.  Or make sure you’re taking time out to pray.  If you’re not at all, start with 5 minutes, and then increase from there.  Or maybe, if your schedule allows, spend 30 minutes with Jesus in adoration on 3rd Fridays, or almost every Friday between 7 and 8 a.m.  

God desires gifts from us, not out of necessity, but as a sign of our love.  Is there anything that we’re holding back from God?  Will we give Him the gift of our time, talent, and treasure?