"As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD"

Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

I think that people generally like to be the best or the biggest.  We like the ability to quantify groups, teams, positions to see if we are the biggest or doing the best.  For example: we rejoice that MSU Men’s Basketball has made it to the NCAA tournament for 15 consecutive years under the leadership of Tom Izzo.  Politicians, especially in this election year, rely on polls to see how many people agree with their position, and if they need to tweak or change their position to become more popular.  I can even fall into this trap at times.  When others ask me how many parishioners we have, I am proud to announce to them that we are the largest parish in the Diocese of Lansing, with 3500 families plus the students who live on campus.  Numbers are great, and we can want to pin our futures and actions on those numbers.

But the truly successful in Scripture do not do that.  In fact, they tend to throw any quantifiable data out the door and just trust in God.  Take Joshua from our first reading: at the end of the campaigns of the Chosen People in the Holy Land, Joshua sets before the Chosen People the choice to be faithful to God or to the pagan gods whom they had just put behind them.  Joshua knows the fickle character of the people.  He had seen how they rejoiced when they fled the slavery of Egypt, but how they also wanted to go back when things got tough.  So Joshua gives them the choice of following the God who had brought them safely from the land of Egypt and had settled them in the Promised Land, or serving their pagan gods, who were no gods at all.  “As for me and my household,” Joshua says, “we will serve the LORD.”  Joshua decides that a future with God is where he will make his claim, no matter what the others choose to do.  He is not concerned about how many join with him.

Jesus also seems to be oblivious to numbers.  He had just told the Jews that unless they eat His flesh and drink His blood they will not have life in them.  And the Jews are pretty much all disgusted and walk away.  The teaching on the Eucharist is too much for them.  But Jesus does not run after them, shouting, “Wait!  Lemme explain this a little more!  I was talking sacramentally!!”  Even with his chosen band, the Twelve Apostles, He simply says, “‘Do you also want to leave?’”  He doesn’t change his teaching because of low polling results because His teaching is Truth, with a capital T.  Jesus has come to reveal the Father and the Father’s love and truth.  If people accept it, that would be great!  But if they don’t, Jesus still is faithful to the message God the Father gave Him to proclaim.

It is tough not to care about the results.  It is tough to be concerned primarily with the Truth.  But, if we are to be like Jesus, then that is our call.  Our hopes, our futures, cannot be attached to any numbers.  We cannot choose Jesus simply because a lot of other people have.  We must be personally convicted that Jesus is Lord, and that He founded only one Church that faithfully passes on His message in its entirety, or else the teachings of Jesus will be too hard for us and we, like the Jews, will leave.  

Even today, Jesus still teaches difficult things with which our current culture is very uncomfortable.  Many people today will say, “What do you mean I have to go to Church every Sunday and Holyday?!?  I can worship God wherever I want!”; “I have to get married in a church building if I’m Catholic?  But it’s so beautiful on the beach!”; “Marriage is only between one man and one woman for life?  How insensitive to those who have same-sex attractions!”; “A male-only priesthood?  Don’t you know Augusta just opened up to women members?  Get with the times!”; “the Church needs to stay out of my bedroom!”  Of course, there are so many more.  And yet, the teaching of Jesus through His Church remains firm, and is not based upon public perception.

It takes a lot of faith and trust to care not about public opinion but about truth.  It puts us under the order (subordinate) of another.  This is what St. Paul tells us in the second reading: “Brothers and sisters,” that is, men and women, “be subordinate to each other out of reverence for Christ.”  Not only are we to pin our hopes and futures on Jesus, but we are to live out His life of service towards each other.  We are voluntarily to be subordinate to each other, just as Christ was subordinate to God the Father, and the Church is subordinate to Jesus Christ.  

When we hear this reading, we may think that this was just a chauvinist writing.  But St. Paul calls both men and women to subordinate themselves to the other, especially in marriage, which witnesses the relationship of Jesus with the Church.  Of course, the husbands many smile when they hear the line, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord,” and the women may bristle.  But St. Paul also outlines how the husbands are to subordinate themselves to their wives, by telling them to love their wives as Christ does the Church.  There was nothing that Jesus would not give for His Bride, the Church.  He lowered Himself for her by taking on our human nature; He was constantly at her service; and, in the greatest act of subordination, He gave up His very life and descended to the depths of Hell so that she could live and not have to die.  That is certainly subordination on the part of the man.  

Every day we have the choice: do we follow the teaching that is most popular?  Do we join the ecclesial community that has the biggest following?  Or do we receive the Scriptures, “not [as] a human word, but, as it truly is, the word of God,” as St. Paul says?  Whether it’s the teaching on the Eucharist, or marriage, or sexual morality, or whatever, Jesus, even today through His Church, teaches us the Truth that the Father has given Him.  And Jesus asks us, “‘Do you also want to leave?’”  May our answer be the same as St. Peter: “‘Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’”

"Little Baby Jesus" ~Ricky Bobby

Epiphany of the Lord

            Just a few weeks ago the trailer for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” was released.  As a big “Lord of the Rings” fan, both the books and the movies, I was pretty excited.  It looks to be a good movie telling the first half of the tale of Bilbo Baggins’ adventure.  Still, there’s always a little awkwardness that can come when, if you’ve read the books, you picture characters looking a certain way, and then on the screen the actors with all their makeup look different than you pictured.

            Today, as we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, we celebrate Jesus showing Himself forth to the nations, the Gentiles, the non-Jews, represented in the three magi who came from the east.  The very word epiphany could be translated as “showing forth.”  And, in fact, the Solemnity of the Epiphany has, historically, celebrated the three manifestations of Jesus: to the magi, at His baptism, and at the wedding of Cana, where Jesus, in three different ways at different times, made Himself known to others. 

            But, sticking with the Gospel passage we have today, I wonder if the magi saw what they expected.  They told King Herod that they were traveling to see the “newborn king of the Jews.”  So when they showed up at the home of Joseph and Mary, and saw a little boy, living in humble circumstances, I wonder if they were taken aback.  As they were offering their precious gifts: gold for a king, frankincense for a deity, and myrrh for a rich burial, I wonder what they thought of this little boy.

            We, of course, have ways that we like to think of Jesus.  Maybe we’re like Ricky Bobby from “Talladega Nights,” and we like to think of our Lord as “little baby Jesus.”  Or maybe when we picture Jesus we think of a king in royal robes and a crown.  Perhaps we think of Jesus as a poor, itinerant preacher, a radical of His own day.  Or maybe we see Jesus as a strong carpenter.  Or when we think of Jesus, maybe we always see Him on the cross.  In whatever way we like to think of Jesus, it is still the case that Jesus continues to surprise us by his presence.

            For some, Jesus surprises them by being present today in his brothers and sisters: in the poor begging on the corner; in our family members, especially the ones that we want to avoid; in the terminally ill; in the elderly; in those with a same-sex attraction, or in broken marriages.  And yet, Jesus still makes Himself present in these people, who have inherent goodness because they are human persons, created in the image and likeness of God, who, no matter what good or bad choices they have made, still deserve our love and can still manifest Christ, even if it’s harder to see at times.  In these manifestations, Jesus continues to make Himself known, and we still are called to care for Him who lays hidden beneath those human frailties. 

The life of St. Martin of Tours, whom the Church celebrates on November 11^th, bares this out in a very clear way.  St. Martin was a soldier, and he was riding his horse in the cold winter.  Along the road was a poor man who barely had any clothes on and was freezing.  Martin cut his cloak in two with his sword, and gave half to that poor man so that he could warm, even if just a little.  That night, St. Martin had a vision of Jesus wearing that cloak, and realized what Jesus meant when, in Matthew 25, He said, “What you did for the least of my brothers and sisters you did for me.”

In our own times, there are a number of people, maybe right here in our own parish, who struggle to see Jesus manifest Himself through His Mystical Body, the Church.  And certainly, some members of the Church don’t always make it easy to see Christ in the Church.  We certainly are a corpus permixtum, as St. Augustine of Hippo calls us, a group made up of both sinners and saints.  And yet, in a mysterious way, the Church is the mystical and immaculate Body of Christ, without sin, and communicating the fruits of Christ’s own redeeming life to those who cling to it.  As Timothy Cardinal Dolan has said on many occasions, “Christ and his Church are one.”  You cannot have one without the other, period.  Or, to quote the Catechism, which quotes St. Cyprian of Carthage, “No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother.”

How often do we hear the phrase, again, sometimes from Catholics, “I’m spiritual, but not religious”?  Or, “I have a great relationship with Jesus, but I don’t want to mess it up by getting other people involved.”  When Jesus manifests Himself, even today, He does so always with His Mystical Body, the Church, and never apart from her.  To quote the great Vatican II theologian, Henri de Lubac, “For what would I ever know of him, without her?” 

Does this mean that everyone who represents the Church is always perfect and always right?  Certainly not.  Does this mean that we should never struggle with some of the teachings of the Church on matters of faith and morals?  Some people do struggle with what the Church teaches, seeking to understand what the Church has defined as belonging to the deposit of faith.  But, when it comes to matters of faith and morals, we can know that when the Church acts, it is Jesus acting through her, whether it’s on the Church’s teaching on abortion, contraception, the preferential option for the poor, marriage, who Christ is, who the Church is, and down the line.  We may not have been expecting to see Christ in that way, but just because we do not expect Christ to be shown forth in that way does not mean it is not Christ.  Maybe instead of wanting the Church to change to fit our desires, we need to change our desires to fit with the Church.

Jesus continues to manifest Himself to us, as He did to the magi 2,000 years ago.  As He likely shocked the magi then, sometimes He may shock us in His manifestation.  The question for us is whether, like the magi, we will choose to lay down what is precious for us: our time, our treasure, and our assent of the will in faith.  I would suggest that, for many of us, money and an independent will are the two things which are most precious to us.  Will we lay them down at the feet of Jesus Christ as He manifests Himself to us in the marginalized and in His Mystical Body, the Church?