Having a Beer with Jesus–Sacrament Edition

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time–Christian Initiation of Adults/Confirmation

    In his song, “Beer with Jesus,” Thomas Rhett sings about what many a person would like to do: sit down and share an adult beverage with the Lord.  And, as the country music singer muses, he would ask Him numerous questions including: “Do you hear the prayers I send?”; “What happens when life ends?”; “What’s on the other side?”; “Is mom and daddy alright?”  As rational human beings we seek knowledge, we seek to understand.  And yet, as we heard in our first reading, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?”
    In humility we must acknowledge that we do not always know why God does what He does, nor do we always find an answer on this side of eternity.  Even if we did sit down and drink a beer with Jesus, there would probably be some things that He didn’t tell us, or He’d tell us not to worry about certain things because we don’t need to know some things, even when we think we do.
    But God has a plan, and He calls us to trust Him that His plan will bring about the best result.  This is where faith comes in, where we go along with God and His ways, even when we can’t make out how it makes sense.  And while God sometimes asks us simply to trust, He proves Himself worthy of that trust by what He did for us.  
    It would be odd for God to tell us that we have to take up our cross and follow Him, unless He took up His cross and followed the will of God, even when it meant extreme suffering and death.  And He proved, by His Resurrection, that though following God and trusting in His plan can mean great anguish, that anguish passes and a joy and life beyond all imagining follows.

    Today, as Raegan and Skyler receive all three Sacraments of Initiation, and as I receive Andrew into Full Communion with the Catholic Church, and as Andrew and Nico receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, we see how God’s ways do not always seem clear to us.  Wouldn’t it have been better if Raegan and Skyler were baptized as infants and grew up in the faith?  Wouldn’t it have been better if Andrew were born into the Catholic faith?  Wouldn’t it have been better if Nico had been confirmed as a youth?  At this point, all we can say is that was not part of God’s plan.  Only God knows why, but this was the way, from all eternity, that God would grant different forms of sanctifying grace to all four of these young women and men.
    We see this in the second reading, as we hear about Onesimus, a slave, who befriended Paul and became a Christian through baptism, and his owner, Philemon.  Slavery is not good.  Philemon certainly thought that Onesimus running away was not good.  And yet, God used all of that as Onesimus met St. Paul and came to know Christ Jesus so that Onesimus could return to Philemon, himself a Christian, as a brother in Christ, rather than a slave.  The path didn’t make sense until you saw the ending, and then it made all the sense in the world.
    The same could be said for the crucifixion.  Jesus said today that His disciples would need to carry their cross.  We lose how startling that phrase would have been because we have accustomed ourselves to the cross.  But that phrase certainly scandalized the first hearers.  And it would have continued to scandalize them, if not for the fact that Christ Himself took up not just a metaphorical cross, but an actual cross, a literal cross (to use the word literal correctly), to prove His love for us.  And while Good Friday didn’t seem to make any sense at the time, on Easter Sunday we came to see that crucifixion in a new light: that God redeemed suffering and death and conquered it by Jesus’ Resurrection.
    Raegan, Skyler, Andrew, and Nico, to quote the character Saruman from “Lord of the Rings,” “So you have chosen death.”  You have each chosen to take up your cross, your means of suffering and pain, and follow Christ.  You have chosen to make His way your own, whether through a first choice of baptism, through your entrance into Full Communion with the Catholic Church, or through your reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation.  But in choosing to die with Christ, or deepening how you die with Christ, you have also chosen life.  Because when we take up our cross with Christ, He also grants us the resurrection.  
    And you each will taste the fruits of that Paschal Mystery–the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord–in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist that you will receive for the first time today.  That will be your reminder of what God has done for you.  That will be your strength to help you carry your cross.  That will be your foretaste of victory as you eat Eternal Life.  
    And while we don’t know why God allowed you on the longer path that has brought you to today, we trust that it is the best plan, and that your witness of receiving these sacraments will continue to bring about great good in the Church.  May God strengthen each of you in your pilgrimage towards heaven, and may we all carry our daily crosses according to the sometimes mysterious plan of God, so that we may one day enter into Eternal Life.

The Old Rugged Cross

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Sometimes, in writing a homily, an idea just pops into your head by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and He makes a theme known.  As I read over the readings for today on this past Monday, in preparation for writing the homily, there were so many things that I could preach on: from the first reading I saw the theme of the wisdom of God as opposed to the wisdom of the world; from the second reading I saw the theme of the fraternity of Christianity which excludes no one, not even, from St. Paul’s times, slaves who were considered property; from the Gospel I saw them theme of the cost of discipleship and whether one is strong enough to follow Jesus.  So I was wondering in which direction the Holy Spirit wanted me to go.

Then, on Wednesday, as I was driving in my car, I was listening to my iTunes, and I just felt drawn to listen to songs from an album called “How Great Thou Art: Gospel Favorites Live from the Grand Ole Opry.”  And I was driving a song came on which focused my attention for this week.  And that song was “The Old Rugged Cross.”  To me it became clear that the Holy Spirit wanted me to preach about the cross.

We don’t often think of the cross as beautiful.  It was the worst punishment that the Romans had devised to torture prisoners and foreigners.  It was so harsh that it was only applied to those who were not citizens of Rome.  And yet, Jesus says today, “‘Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.’”  Whoever does not carry his own ignominious symbol of defeat, cannot be a follower of Jesus.  That’s not the sort of thing you do to gain a large following.  No one wants to daydream about hanging, naked as the day you were born, in front of soldiers who are jeering at you, while your arms and legs are attached to the cross by nails.  No one wants to aim for being suspended on a rough piece of wood, the weight of your own body causing your lungs to slowly fill with fluid until you can no longer even breath.  And yet, as Christians, that is what we are called to do.

In the song, “The Old Rugged Cross,” the second half of the refrain goes, “I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown.”  It so easy to try to forget the cross part, and go straight for the crown.  Who doesn’t want to share in glory?!?  Who doesn’t want the reward?!?  And yet, the only way to do that is through the old, rugged cross.  St. Rose of Lima, the first canonized saint of the Americas, whose memorial we celebrated on 23 August adeptly related an experience of the Lord, who said to her, “‘Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation.  Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace…This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.’”  If we wish to go to heaven, then we must not only know the cross, but embrace and cling to it.  It may seem harsh, but it was the only way that our Master showed us, who only gained the resurrection after his crucifixion.

It’s also very easy to give the cross lip service.  We’ve become so used to it that we think we can utter beautiful platitudes about carrying our cross.  But when the cross comes into our lives, do we cling to it, embrace it?  Some crosses are big.  I think of the families in our parish who have miscarried, or who have lost a child shortly after birth.  What a cross.  Those families have certainly experienced the dying of Jesus in their lives, and, as much as they have united it to Jesus, will also experience the resurrection of Jesus.  Some crosses are small.  I think of those who talk about co-workers who get on their nerves; family members who always seem to be in trouble or looking for help; drivers who cut you off; the plans that fell through; the professor with whom you don’t see eye to eye; and the list goes on.  Those are also crosses, and more often than not I don’t think we embrace them.  We tend not to thank God for annoying co-workers, bad drivers, ruined plans.  And yet, that is the cross the Lord is presenting to us to carry.  That is what we should embrace.  St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a perfect example of this.  There were a few sisters in her convent who annoyed her to no end (I’m sure Sr. Dorothy and Sr. Liz have never experienced this): one with the sounds she made during prayer; another with her attitude.  What did she do?  She willed to love them and smile to them.  There was food that was prepared that she could not stand, but she smiled every time it was placed in front of her, because she saw in it the cross that the Lord had given her.  And, she smiled so much at that cross, that while she was dying with Tuberculosis, the sisters made some especially for her, thinking that it was her favorite!

To embrace the cross seems foolish.  St. Paul himself says, “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.”  Isn’t that what our first reading is all about: the wisdom of God? God gave us His counsel, His wisdom, in Jesus, who teaches us to take up our cross and follow Him, so that we who share in Jesus’ suffering and death might also share in His resurrection.  May our words and our very lives be the second half of that refrain from “The Old Rugged Cross”: “I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.”