Getting the Right Message

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Perchik from "Fiddler on the Roof"

    Sometimes you can get the wrong message from a story.  In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” which I just mentioned two weeks ago, there is a scene where a student, Perchik, from the university in Kyiv, is teaching Tevye’s daughters how to read from Biblical stories.  One day he says, “Now after Jacob had worked for Laban for seven years, do you know what happened?  Laban fooled him and gave him his ugly daughter, Leah.  So to marry Rachel, Jacob was forced to work another seven years.  So you see, children, the Bible clearly teaches us you can never trust an employer.”  Not perhaps the message God tries to convey through the account of the patriarch Jacob in the Book of Genesis.
    I feel like the first reading and Gospel passage that we heard today can also be misinterpreted if we don’t approach it well.  From the first reading we might think that we just have to do the right thing and keep the right action up in order to win, as the Israelites win whenever Moses’ hands are raised.  From the Gospel we might think that if we pester God enough by asking him again and again, like the widow from the parable, then God will give us whatever we want.  But I don’t think either of those are what God wants to communicate to us.
    Because the first approach is basically magic.  Magic seeks to control the physical and/or spiritual world by our own efforts.  If I say the right words or do the right things, certain actions have to follow, as if they’re in causal relationship like adding baking soda to vinegar.  I can manipulate the results if I do the prescribed actions.  Magic is an offense against the first commandment, because we seek to take control rather than let God be in control.  
    The second approach is arrogance and pride.  If we ask God for something and we don’t get it, clearly God must have a different plan.  To presume that we know better than God is the ancient vice of price, seeking to elevate us over and against God, rather than submitting to His will and Divine Providence.  God is not a parent that we, like a toddler, can wear down if we just keep pestering Him, so that we eventually get what we want.

    Instead, the message, or at least a message, that God wants to communicate is a phrase my spiritual director says to me almost every time we meet: patient perseverance.  In our relationship with God, we need to approach God with confidence that He hears our prayers, even if they’re not answered immediately, and as long as they are truly what God wants.  St. Monica had to pray around 30 years before her son, Augustine, received the Sacrament of Holy Baptism from St. Ambrose.  God certainly wanted St. Augustine to become an adopted son of God in Jesus Christ and a member of the Church and have original sin washed away, but Monica had to persevere in asking God for that gift.  St. Augustine also had to be open to that gift, as conversion requires the free response to God’s grace that is given for conversion.
    We put forward our best work according to what we believe is God’s will.  We ask God to bless our work, whether it be an earthly or a spiritual endeavor.  But then we have to wait for God to grant it, all the while asking for it to happen, if it is God’s will.  It’s like the distiller who puts together what he thinks is a good mash bill, based upon what he thinks people want to drink.  He ferments the grains with the yeast, purifies the distillate to remove any harmful impurities, then puts it in a barrel to age in a good location in the rick house.  He waits for years, maybe four, eight, ten, twelve, or even twenty or twenty-three, praying that his hard work pays off and produces a tasty bourbon that people will enjoy.  But there is a certain freedom in patience, commending the endeavor to God’s providence.
    All too often, though we don’t begin by asking for God’s input as to whether we should even start something.  I know in my own life I can struggle because I have something I want to do, and I don’t ask God if it’s part of His plans, and then sometimes get frustrated when it turns out they’re not part of His plans, and I don’t find the success I wanted.  Before we begin any action, especially any new undertaking, we should ask God if this is part of His will.
    If we sense that God wants something to happen, that’s when we patiently persevere.  We continue to pray to God to give success to the work of our hands, to paraphrase Psalm 90.  And we wait until God answers that prayer in some way, shape, or form.  We don’t meddle, as if somehow our work can outdo the plan of God.  We don’t act like a toddler and keep asking, “Can I have it?  Please?  Please?  Please?  Please?”, hoping to wear God down.  We patiently, persistently bring our request before the throne of grace and lay it before the feet of God for Him to decide how and when to grant our prayers.  And we do it as a child who trusts his or her father.      Don’t misunderstand the readings we had today, as Perchik did with the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel.  Don’t pretend that we are in control and God has to do what we want if we just say the right words or do the right thing.  Let God be God, submit to His will and Divine Providence, and trust that what needs to happen will happen, according to the plan of our loving Father.  

Giving God Your Nothing Left

 Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
    People think priests have a hard life.  And, in some ways, we do.  We’re on call 24/6 (I do get one day off per week), it’s not uncommon to have evening meetings after a full day of work, because that’s when people are most often free to meet.  Because people have their own ideas (sometimes based in theology, sometimes not) about how long homilies should be, how warm (or cold) the church should be, what songs should be sung, etc., the priest often gets peppered with complaints from all sides.  So yeah, it is tough at times, but we are also taken care of and loved pretty well.
    I think parents have a hard life.  If it put myself in their shoes, I wouldn’t want to be working all day, probably putting up with many similar things as priests in terms of working conditions, complaints, expectations, etc., and then come home, only to have to prepare some dinner, often from scratch, clean-up after dinner, help the kids with homework, and then, hopefully, have some time to catch up with a few things around the house, maybe have a little alone time with the spouse, before going to bed to start all over on the next day.  That sounds like a tough vocation!!
    I know I have been, and I’m sure parents have been, at the point where I feel like I’ve got nothing left.  Maybe it’s been a long day, or there’s a long day coming on the following day, or an earlier start, and I’m exhausted, and then there’s a call to go to the hospital, or, because I work with MSP, to go out to a homicide or meet with a Trooper who can use some comforting words.  And I know parents are in a similar boat so frequently.  So you give, even though you think you’ve got nothing left to give, and somehow, it works out to be enough.
    The same was true for the widows we heard about in the first reading and the Gospel.  Can you imagine being in a famine, and all you have left is a handful of flour, just enough to make a couple of cakes for you and your son, and then this man of God comes and asks you to make some for him?  I think if I did that, I’d be run out of the house, maybe even the parish and county!  But the woman gives, and Elijah makes sure that the woman doesn’t run out during the famine.  She gave beyond what she thought she could, and God rewarded that generosity.

Examples of the widow's coins

    Or in the Gospel, the widow is giving two coins that she needs probably to feed herself to the temple, to offer to God something.  The value wasn’t large, but the sacrifice was her everything.  She gave, even after she had nothing left.  And yet, the Lord commends her gift, more than those who were putting in large amounts of money, because she was giving when she had nothing left, while the others were giving while making sure they had something left over.  
    God invites us to trust in Him as we give to Him.  And I’m not talking only about money (though, we’re always happy to receive that from you).  I’m talking about giving to God time and energy and whatever is going on in your life, even if you don’t think you’re giving God much, even if you feel like what you have to give to God isn’t worth giving.
    Maybe life is crushing you right now, and it takes all you can muster to come to Mass.  It would be so much easier to stay home and rest.  And yet, you came to give God that little bit.  And God will reward that.  Or maybe you’re just trying to make sure your kid doesn’t run away during Mass, or trying to make sure that he or she is not a major distraction (though, truth be told, I am rarely distracted by kids and love having them around at Mass).  You don’t think you’re getting much out of Mass, but you’re giving to God what little attention you can call up while you supervise your child at Mass.  And God accepts that and makes it a loving sacrifice, received with gratitude because it’s your gift.
    Parents often get gifts from their children that are made at school that are not that expensive, and maybe are not Michelangelo sculptures or Rembrandt paintings.  But those are still treasured gifts (how many moms have kept those little gifts throughout the years!?) because the child is giving what he or she can.  The same is true for God: when we give God what we can, He treasures it as the perfect gift.
    God even receives the fallen parts of us, our sins.  Through the Sacrament of Penance (aka confession or reconciliation), God deigns to take our brokenness and failings from us, so that we can be made whole.  I know that sometimes it seems like the sins may be small, or maybe the sins are awkward to acknowledge, or maybe it’s just that we confess the same sins over and over again.  In any case, God wants to receive that as our small gift, the last little bit we have left, so that it doesn’t stand in the way of our relationship with Him.  Obviously our sins are not good; they’re not our finest moments as human beings.  But God takes it upon Himself so that we might have life in place of death, grace in place of sin, light in place of darkness.
    I don’t know about you, but I feel like more and more people are at their wit’s end these days.  I meet people who feel like they have nothing left to give.  At that moment, offer to God that nothing, that fatigue, that exhaustion.  It may not seem like much, but neither did the two coins offered by the widow in the Gospel, or the handful of flour offered by the widow in the first reading.  But if it’s what you have, God will accept and bless it, and will make it enough.

A Leap from the Lion's Head

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Early in our pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2017 we are traveling to Petra in Jordan (sign-up on our webpage if you’re interested!).  Petra is the place where the final scenes in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” were filmed, that building that seemed to be carved into rocks.  Yes, it’s real (at least the outside is).  If you remember, in the movie, Indiana, has to face three trials before he can reach the chamber with the Holy Grail, and to do so he uses three clues.  In the first trial, he kneels, as “only the penitent man will pass.”  The second trial deals with the Name of God, which is very inaccurate because the Name Jehovah was not used until much later and is a German invention based upon the Tetragrammaton, the sacred Name of God in the Old Testament.  In the third and final trial to get to the grail chamber, Indiana is faced with a deep chasm, too wide to jump across, but which must be crossed.  His clue is: “only by a leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth.”  As Indiana says, “It’s a leap of faith.”  I won’t spoil the rest of the movie for you.

Our readings present us with a challenge of faith, not to seek the Holy Grail, but to grow in our relationship with Jesus and be prepared for heaven.  Our first reading and Gospel in particular give us examples of faith to encourage us to have faith.

In the first reading, the widow of Zarephath and her son are about to run out of food because of the famine that God has sent upon the Land.  God sends Elijah to the widow for water and bread.  We hear this story, and we know the end, so of course we know it’s going to work out.  But for the widow, who had no idea, and who was not even a Jew, Elijah’s request must have been horribly painful: “‘Please bring along a bit of bread.’”  She has only a little bit of oil and flour, and after she makes a cake, she and her son will have nothing left, and they will die from starvation.  But Elijah promises her that she and her son will have food enough until the rains return and she is able to get more food.  She complies, and they have flour and oil enough for a year.  Again, we know the ending, so we easily gloss over it.  But imagine that you had only one pack of ramen noodles left for you and your child, and someone who claimed to speak for God, but belonged to a different religion, asked to share that one pack with you, all the while promising that you would have enough.  Would you have shared?  I know we all want to think that we would, but would we truly have faith to share?

Or the poor widow who gave her two small coins to the temple treasury to pay for the upkeep of the temple.  She gave all that she had, even though it was a little bit of money.  As a widow, she had no one to plead her cause, no one to provide her with food, and no one to protect her.  But she had faith that God would provide, and so she offered God what little she had.  Jesus commends that faith in the Gospel passage we heard from today, and makes her the example, though we don’t even know if she knew Jesus, had faith in Him, or ever encountered Him.

Faith is easy when our bellies are full.  Faith is easy when we feel like we have enough to make ends meet.  Faith is much harder when we have nothing and no one to rely on but God.  That happens with all too many people who lack food and drink.  That happens to all too many people who have no money even though they have tried to work and save.  But it is not limited to our bellies and our pocketbooks.  Whenever we feel like the rug has been pulled out from under us, it is hard to have faith.  But that’s when we find out how strong our faith is.  That’s when we find out in what or in whom we really do put our trust.

Some priests on this weekend will preach about money, and donating to the Church, just like the widows did with Elijah and in the Temple.  This is not that homily.  I’m not asking you to give more money, because, as you seen from our bulletin updates, you are already being generous, and I thank you for that generosity.  But I will ask you to give something much more precious than your money to God.  The gift of money sometimes is the sign of the gift that God truly wants, but not always.  God wants your heart, and he’s asking you to make a leap of faith, to trust in Him, and to give Him your love.

When we truly love someone, they become the focus of our attention, and we rearrange our lives around that person.  Parents take off work, and maybe even lose their jobs because they love their children who are sick or in danger.  Do we love God more than that?  Do we love God enough to make our relationship with Him the number one priority in our life?  Not: I’ve got a million things to do this weekend, so hopefully I make it to Mass; not: my bed’s so warm, I’ll sleep a little longer and skip my daily prayers; not: I know our St. Vincent de Paul Society or Knights of Columbus or CCW could use some help, but I’ll do that next month when I have more time.  Instead: Mass is the first thing I plan on the weekend, and everything else fits around that; or: I’m tired, but God loves to hear even my tired prayers; or: how can I serve others with my time?

It takes a leap of faith to make God the number one priority in our lives.  It can be scary.  God can sometimes take us places we never expected to go.  But a relationship with Jesus requires faith: faith like the widow from Zarephath had; faith like the poor widow in the Temple had.  Lord, we want to have faith in you; help us have faith in you more.

Right in front of our Face

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Have you ever had a time when you really needed to get something done, or when you really wanted to get something, so much so that you miss a lot of the things that are right in front of you?  I know I have!  It’s so easy to become fixated on one thing or on a task to be done and to not be effected by anything else.  Sometimes it’s a positive: for example, most times when I’m celebrating Mass, I’m so focused that I don’t notice the babies screaming.  Many times parents come up to apologize for how loud they felt their child was, but it honestly didn’t bother me because I was focused on the celebration (and, for the record, screaming babies are a blessing to our church, because they remind us of new life, so don’t be giving dirty looks to parents who have screaming babies!!).  Sometimes it’s negative, like when we’re so focused on a task, we forget the people who are also involved.

            Perhaps the rich man from our Gospel today was such a person: determined, focused, wanting to get something done.  Maybe he was focused on nothing else but gaining more riches.  But what he missed was obvious: Lazarus, the poor man.  After all, Lazarus was at his doorstep, which means that every time the rich man left the house, he should have seen Lazarus.  And more than just seeing him, the rich man should have taken pity on him, and helped him out.  But he did not, and this neglect was to his own eternal peril.

            We’ve all heard this parable, probably countless times.  But who are the people who we don’t see because we’re so focused on something or someone else?  Who are the people that we step over, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually, to get to our own goals?  The US Bishops have asked priests to talk a bit about the situation of immigrants in our country.  Now, let me preface this by saying that immigration policy is a complicated thing; if it weren’t we probably would have solved the problems already.  But what I can say with clarity is that we are obliged to treat immigrants with human dignity and respect, not step over them because they are nuisances.  When we think about how we think immigration should be handled, are we first and foremost thinking, “Is this they way I would treat Jesus?”  Because, especially the immigrants who come from Mexico, Central America, and Iraq, though not limited to them, are members of the household of faith!  Most of them are brother and sister Catholics!  And even those who are not still have human dignity and still are created in the image and likeness of God!

           

Our country has struggled with immigration for a long time because, while anyone who is not a Native American was an immigrant to these shores, after a few generations it can be hard to remember that.  On my mother’s side of the family, I only have to go back to my maternal grandmother to find a first generation American.  Many of us probably only have to go back 3 or 4 generations to find an immigrant in our family.  But we can forget that fact, and act like those, especially during the mid-nineteenth century from the Know Nothing party, or any of its variants, that wanted to make sure that the Catholics coming in droves, especially from Ireland and Germany, knew that they were not welcome here.  Again, the Church is not saying that we cannot have legal ways to enter the country, and penalties for doing so illegally, but as we form policy, as you write your Congressman and Senator, is your opinion formed by treating that person with the respect that comes simply from being a member of the human race?

            Even beyond the issue of immigration, the way we treat each other is part of the criteria upon which we will be judged.  The rich man suffers because he neglected Lazarus at his front door, while God noticed Lazarus, who suffered so greatly during his life, and rewarded him accordingly. 

And the best part of this whole story is the twist at the end.  The rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers about what will happen if they neglect others.  Abraham tells them, “‘“They have Moses and the prophets.  Let them listen to them.” [The rich man] said, “Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”  Then Abraham said, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”’”  For nearly 1500 years, the Jews had been told about the importance of caring for the widow, orphan, and poor.  But somehow, according to the rich man, that wasn’t enough.  Of course, standing from our perspective, we can see the humor and irony in Jesus telling this story, that some will not believe even when a person rises from the dead.  But then it begs a very sober question for us: does Jesus rising from the dead compel us to act differently?  Does it open our eyes and broaden our horizons so that we are not fixated in a negative way on just the things we want, or the tasks we are trying to accomplish, but sees those in need around us?  And we don’t have to look to Africa, Asia, or South America to find those in need; they are right here in East Lansing.

Sometimes we need to be focused on one thing alone.  But let’s not make that our rule of life, so we ignore and neglect Lazarus sitting at our front door, and risk eternal suffering because we did not help relieve that suffering in others right in front of us.