Holy Innocents (Matthew 2)

  In nomine, etc..

 Today’s Gospel contains two stories: The Flight into Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents. Likely we’ve all seen icons and paintings depicting these, with the Mother of God holding her baby and riding on a donkey, and Joseph leading them on their way, and other paintings depicting the slaughter. The Gospel is very pertinent in this time of mass migration and flight from violence and war and poverty. As we know all too well these days, many innocents are being slaughtered in the Middle East and elsewhere, and hundreds of thousands, millions even, are on the move in efforts to escape.
     We realize, of course, that these migrations are not pretty, not elegant or refined like the best religious art depicting the Flight into Egypt. They are dangerous, desperate, unhealthy ventures, prone to hunger, thirst, disease, attacks from bandits, exploitation, and more. We can all think of variations and additions to this theme. Forced migration is a catastrophe for everyone involved, for the migrants and often also for people at the migrants’ destination. Forced migration has occurred in American history as well. The nineteenth century expulsions of Indians from their lands in the southeast, and their resettlement in the west, are well known. Large-scale voluntary migration has occurred as well, notably from the southern states to the cities of the north. We may think of the steady influx of millions of people into California, basically since the 1930s, as a mass migration from other states and from countries to the south. Migration is a constant theme in history, and the story of the Flight into Egypt is an archetypal tale whose pattern can be applied to much of it. What is different in the Gospel story, is that the Holy Family has the option to return to their country of origin. Most modern migrants can’t return, or don’t want to; some are forced to return, as we know. In any case, migration is generally a one-way trip for most people, whose final destination is uncertain.
    At the time of the Nativity, the Holy Family were homeless, and they were homeless again in Egypt. How well this resonates with the contemporary situation! I think of the video clips on television, of people stranded at borders, camping out in the open, waiting for a chance to move on to something better. The Holy Family may have had experiences like this, or worse, since they had to cross the Sinai desert to reach Egypt.
What can we learn from the story of the Flight into Egypt? And how can we apply what we learn to today’s situation?
 The Holy Family is God-protected, and led by God to safety, where His will for them can be fulfilled. But his will for them is being fulfilled, even in danger. There is no moment when God is absent. There is danger at both ends of the journey, at their point of origin and on their return to Israel. There is danger as they cross the Sinai, into an unknown situation. But in all situations, God is present. There are clear statements that prophecies are being fulfilled, that, no matter what the danger, ultimately there is no getting in the way of what God intends for the Holy Family.
Every family on the move today in the migrations from the Middle East and elsewhere, is a holy family. They deserve to be seen as God–protected and God-led, as much as the Holy Family of the Gospel. It is our plain duty to do what we can to ease their situation, to welcome them and care for them. It is clear from the Judgment of the Nations in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, that when we welcome the stranger, we welcome Jesus himself. And if we don’t welcome them, we place ourselves under judgment. It is startling to see the uneasiness, the hostility, in purportedly Christian lands, including our own, to migrants from Syria and elsewhere. We Christians must not let ourselves be overtaken by this hostility, and instead look at the situation with God’s eyes, so to speak, and act as He would act, and as our Lord would expect us to act.
The Massacre of the Innocents is another archetypal tale. It describes situations very common in our world. In the Gospel, the Flight into Egypt is in response to a clear threat from Herod. An angel warns Joseph of the approaching calamity; at the very least, this is a way of saying that Joseph suspected the coming danger, and fled with his family. The twentieth century saw massacres of innocents: the Armenians, the Nazi genocides, the war in Rwanda, and more. We have the ongoing Rohingja crisis in Myanmar, and the American enthusiasm for gun violence, which leads to the deaths of thousands of innocents every year; there are many more such events, historical and current. It is difficult to know what to say about this very dark side of  human nature, when the better side of human nature is overtaken by tribalism, ethnic hatred, religious division, just plain greed for other peoples’ land, and so on.
We Christians, who believe in the saving power of the Cross and the overcoming of death in the Resurrection, are compelled to affirm our faith that death and destruction are not the last words in the story. Today’s Gospel reading is followed by the return of the Holy Family from Egypt after the massacre;  that is to say, return to life as God intends it is possible; new life is possible, God will not abandon his people; he commands us not to abandon them either. Ultimately, God will guide his people into the promised land, to the new heaven and the new earth. May we accompany them on their return to Him. May He include us in that happy migration.
 In nomine, etc..

   

John the Baptist (Matthew 3)

“John said to the crowds…’You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.’”. 

In Nomine etc..

     John has one message: a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In this Advent season, when we prepare to celebrate the coming of the Incarnation, and we also look forward to the coming of Christ at the end of time, spiritual preparation is essential. In repentance, that is, in turning toward God and away from those things which obstruct our relationship with Him, we are following in the footsteps of the prophets and John the Baptist. Matthew himself makes the connection between the Baptist and the prophets, when he quotes the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah and John are not offering theological abstractions, but real actions, baptism, in the case of John,and the opportunity, in the case of Isaiah, to follow him on a straight path to God, free of obstacles.

    We can grasp the main point: there is actually no obstacle between us and our destiny in God.  The pathway before us is clear; all we have to do is take the first step, and more steps will follow. Once we set out on the path, there is nothing to stop us. The first step that John the Baptist offers is the baptism of repentance. And repentance is basically a choice: to turn toward God. That is all.

    “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness”...why the wilderness? The wilderness is that place where there are no distractions, no easy escapes from our spiritual journeys, where the paths are not yet straight,or where, perhaps, there are no paths at all. The wilderness, spiritual or geographical, is that place where we can more easily hear the voice of God. This is why people walk on pilgrimages through difficult landscapes, and locate monasteries, like St Catherine’s in the Sinai desert, in remote places. Geography and our passage through it are analogs of the spiritual life, which is always a journey, a journey from God and return to him.

    It is a journey where God is always present and waiting for us; always present, at the beginning through to the end. We know this because Isaiah says, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” This is a promise, without qualification, no exceptions. That being true, John’s baptism of repentance is a way of accepting that reality; it puts us on the right path, the crooked way made straight, on the journey to God. There God journeys with us, and where he is also waiting for us at the end of the road.

    “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” asks the Baptist. The answer is, John the Baptist did, and the prophets before him. There is a tone of seriousness, maybe even harshness, in John’s proclamation of repentance. The crowds coming to hear him are vipers, snakes! So, that’s what he thinks of them and their so-called “repentance !” “Bear fruit worthy of repentance!” But even that may not be enough: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees.” So much for the crowds' fruits of repentance.

    Repentance is not about making ourselves feel badly about what we’ve done or  haven’t done, but is about following the commandments.  

    The Baptist’s serious, warning tone reappears. “One who is more powerful than I is coming...his winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” We may understand this to mean that the chaff, along with the trees that don’t bear good fruit, are all those things that we repent of, all those actions and inactions that lead us and others away from God. Those actions and inactions are consumed in the unquenchable fire, which is nothing less than the uncreated light, the light of the divine radiance. We don’t have to hear this as  a threat of hellfire. The winnowing fork separates good actions from bad, and the good actions are taken up to God and add to the radiance; even bad actions, and inactions, are enfolded in the unquenchable fire and add to the divine radiance. So, when we “flee from the wrath to come”, we are turning toward God, toward repentance, leaving behind actions that get in our way, and in God’s way. May we heed the message of John the Baptist, and the prophets, this Advent and always.

    In nomine. Amen. (7.XII.19 Adv)

    

Signs & Persecutions (Luke 21)

    “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” Luke 21:7.

     In Nomine etc..

     Today’s Gospel reading begins at verse 5 in chapter 21 of Luke’s Gospel. Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, but, interestingly, he doesn’t say when this will happen. So, naturally, the disciples ask him to clarify his prediction, to provide more information. They actually ask for only two clarifications: for the time of the destruction, and for a forewarning, a preamble, if you will, of the impending event, a sign, as they call it. Straightforward requests, which should be easy to answer, the disciples seem to think.

     Jesus doesn’t actually answer their questions. Instead, he pronounces warnings and exhortations and predictions about what will happen to them when “the time is near!” He doesn’t make clear what “the time” is either, but takes for granted that the disciples will know what he means. The disciples have asked for two things only: the time of the destruction of the Temple, and a sign that the destruction is about to occur. What they get is something else entirely.

     The first thing they get is an answer to a question they haven’t asked. They haven’t asked, “Will the Messiah come?” But Jesus says, anyway, “Don’t go after anyone claiming to be the Messiah, and, incidentally, there will be many of them!” This, evidently, is the sign, or a sign, of the approaching destruction of the Temple. 

     But there’s more. There will be wars and insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues, portents and signs from heaven. These last are probably eclipses and comets, phenomena which alarmed pre-scientific people, and which still do alarm many  people today. Jesus commands us, when we hear of these things, not to be terrified, just as he told the disciples not to follow the many claiming to be the Messiah. 

     “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you.” In other words, the wars and signs and portents will come after the arrests and persecutions and so on. Jesus is apparently saying,  now, that the arrests are the sign or signs of the destruction of the Temple. The notion, the definition, of a sign is changing, from an event or events outside the community of the disciples, to situations in which they will find themselves, in which they themselves will become signs of the end of the Temple. But it doesn’t stop there;  Jesus guides them into yet another understanding, a deeper one, of the sign of the end.

     Jesus says, “you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name...you will be hated by all because of my name.” Jesus’s name has become the sign of signs, the sign of the end of the old order which the Temple represents, and the sign of the coming of a new understanding. The signs and portents, are almost the consequences of the coming of the new order, as well as being signs of  the end of the old.

     “This will give you an opportunity to testify,” Jesus says. Testify to what? Jesus doesn’t say, and he tells his disciples not to worry about it. Since the old order is coming to an end, there is no standard story that they can rely on, no catechism that they can recite, no fixed doctrine or canonical story that they can prop themselves up with, no tradition that they can claim to be the heirs of. “So make  up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance,” Jesus says. “I will give you words and wisdom,” he says. In other words, their words, their wisdom, will come from the depths of their experience of the reality that Jesus represents, of the divine-human reality that he is, and that he has been helping them to perceive. Their words and wisdom will come from the depths of their souls that Jesus has opened to them, which they have reached, unknown to themselves. This is what Jesus means when he says, “But not a head of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain  your souls.” 

     In other words, by their endurance, by their patient willingness to get beyond narrow questions about times and signs, and by accepting the turmoil which wars and insurrections and earthquakes and portents and persecutions and so on represent, they will reach the true depths of their souls, which the divine-human reality of Jesus is opening up to them. Signs and times are the beginnings of their transformation, not the goal of their spiritual life.

     The time is always now, the signs are always before us, the events and portents that Jesus describes are always present. We always have opportunities to testify, and words and wisdom will always flow from our souls, not necessarily in words or thoughts, but in transformation of ourselves, our souls, into the beings that our Lord has made us to be.

     “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place.”

     In Nomine etc.. (16.XI.19 Adv.)

     

     

     

Ten Lepers (Luke 17)

In Nomine etc..

      Today's Gospel is about gratitude, among other things, and it reminds me of a story about a man --- we’ll call him Al --- who went out to hunt in the woods of British Columbia, Canada, my native land. It had been a slow day and he hadn’t found any game to shoot.  Suddenly, Al heard a noise behind him. He whirled around and saw two ferocious looking bears coming towards him. He quickly raised his rifle to his shoulder, took aim and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing - the rifle misfired. He reloaded and fired again. Click… click… click. Again, nothing - the gun just wasn’t working. By this time, the bears were almost on top of him. In desperation, he threw down his rifle and ran. But the faster he ran, the closer the bears got. Finally Al came to the edge of a cliff.

As there was nowhere to go, he dropped to his knees and began to pray. “O Lord, I pray that you make these bears Christian bears.” As Al looked up, he was surprised to see the bears kneeling just a few feet away from him. And as he listened, he heard one bear pray; “For what we are about to receive, may the Good Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.”

      There were ten lepers, one of whom was a Samaritan, whom Jesus healed. And so by inference the others were probably all Jews. The ten approached Jesus and presented him with their petition. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" And if Jesus followed what he did in other Gospel passages – I am sure his follow up question would have been: “What do you want me to do for you?” To which they would have replied “to be healed of our leprosy.” Interestingly, Jesus didn’t touch them as he did in other healings. He simply said: "Go, show yourselves to the priests." 

     This reminds us of the story of Naaman, the Syrian general who was healed on leprosy in chapter 5 of the Second Book of the Kings. Again, he was simply told by Elisha to do something simple – dip himself seven times in the Jordan river. I wonder whether there was any sign of Naaman’s healing when he came up out of the Jordan on the sixth time. Perhaps not – but after the seventh time he was healed.

     In the same way I wonder when the ten were healed.  Was it when they went to the Priests? Or was it when they decided to go to the Priests? In any case, their healing began when they obeyed Jesus. The Gospel says, “And as they went, they were made clean.” Decision and action are one in this story. They believed him and obeyed. 

     We note that Jesus is unorthodox in this story – and shows no favoritism. He doesn’t say: I’m only going to  heal the nine Jews. He is open to everyone who approaches, including the Samaritan. 

     The Samaritan leper is doubly unclean. He is a leper and a Samaritan. In biblical times, leprosy was a terrible problem, and in some places may still be. The word referred to a variety of skin diseases but in this case it was likely the contagious disease that we call Hansen’s Disease. It starts with a white patch of skin that becomes numb, so much so that the victims cannot even feel a needle piercing the spot. The patch begins to spread all over the body and often manifests itself on the face, so the disease is impossible to hide. It then begins to form spongy tumors on the face and, at the same time, attacks the internal organs as well. Generally the condition was not in itself fatal. However, it weakened the body so much that most lepers died from other diseases they contracted because of their weakened condition. Lepers were referred to as “the walking dead,” and were kicked out of their homes and villages. They were forced to live in colonies with other lepers. They couldn’t work nor were they allowed to worship at the Temple. 

     In Jesus’ day, the Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. They had other customs and had married non-Jewish people, something God had expressly told the Jews not to do. They were considered “unclean”.

      The story illustrates the importance of thanking God for his goodness. You would have thought that it would have been the nine Jews - God’s own people - that would have known to come back and give thanks to God. Yet it was the Samaritan who had enough spiritual insight, enough depth and presence of mind, to return to Jesus and thank him for the healing. 

    We live in a society that takes the good things we have for granted. It is easy in our health and prosperity and freedom and relative safety to forget that everything we have is a gift, to forget that we could easily be in the place of the lepers of old, without hope and without cure. In fact, if we look around the streets of  our city, we see people, thousands of them, who are not unlike lepers. We pass by on the other side, we think that nothing can be done, and it doesn’t occur to us to ask God, ask Our Lord, to help, which means, practically speaking, to ask Jesus to heal our disease, our lack of awareness, of insight, so that we in turn can heal the problems we see before us, and give thanks to God for the opportunity He has put in front of us.

     Note where Jesus is, in this story. He is on his way to Jerusalem, on his way to his Passion and death. He is between Samaria and Galilee, that is, in that liminal space between the land of the outsiders, passing through the land of the outcasts, on his way to the city of the orthodox, who will seek to destroy him. The nine who did not return to give thanks are hurrying to the city of the orthodox, thankful that they can return to their spiritual home, as they see it. The nine are no doubt grateful that they can return to the certainty of their orthodox home, and are eager to leave that place of exile and exclusion, of isolation and ambiguity. 

    And likewise the Samaritan thanks Jesus that he can return to his spiritual home, the land of the outsiders. Jesus doesn’t tell him to follow the other nine, who are on their way to show themselves to the priests at the Temple in the city of the orthodox. He says simply, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Jesus is saying that he is not choosing between the orthodoxy of Jerusalem and the supposed heresy of the Samaritans. Jesus accepts the ambiguity of the space between Samaria and Galilee, recognizes that that is where faith is strongest, where, in fact, it is essential. Jesus is the bridge, as it were, between heretic and orthodox, between insider and outsider, between the incurable and the healed. 

     And that is where we Christians are, often in a space between certainty and doubt, yearning, many of us, for the certainty of orthodoxy yet aware that only faith can carry us through the space where the outcasts are, aware that the reality of the outcasts requires us to be with them in their exile, to care for them, to share their status, to heal when we can, and to give thanks to God for all that he has done for them and for us. We are all with Jesus between Samaria and Galilee, with the outcasts, on our way to Jerusalem, to suffering, death, and resurrection, rejoicing on our way and giving thanks to God for all that he has done for us. (12.X.19 Adv)

In Nomine etc..

      

     

Tax Collector & Pharisee (Luke 18)

  “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

     In Nomine etc..

     Whom is Jesus talking to in this story? Previously in chapter 17 and this chapter, 18, he has been talking alternately to Pharisees, disciples, lepers. Now it seems that he is talking to a fourth group, or perhaps to a subset of disciples, or maybe to another group altogether. In any case, they’re called “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt,” without any other descriptor. And he’s speaking to them, not about them to others. He’s addressing a group with an attitude problem, and their attitude, contempt, is a symptom of a spiritual problem, their trust in their own righteousness. And that problem, of course, breaks down into two other problems, their trust in themselves, and their confidence in their righteousness. 

     Jesus chooses a Pharisee to illustrate the nature of this spiritual problem. The Pharisee, as we heard, thanks God for his religious and moral correctness. He reminds God that he fasts regularly each week (Wednesdays and Fridays, perhaps?), and he makes sure that God knows that he tithes the way he’s supposed to. The Pharisee directs God’s attention to the tax collector, whose moral inferiority the Pharisee takes for granted; he apparently expects God to take it for granted as well. It is interesting to consider how the Pharisee knows that he is a tax collector; he is “standing far off,” and should be hard to notice. Is the tax collector wearing a badge or uniform? The Scripture doesn’t say. It’s possible that the tax collector dresses better than the Pharisee, since the tax collector, who is a contractor working for the Roman government, makes money off the difference between what he owes the government and what he can extract from taxpayers in his territory. He likely can afford to dress well. Be that as it may. The contempt of the Pharisee is obvious in any case, and he expects God to share in it.

     The Pharisee is, according to his lights, religiously and morally correct. He prays, he thanks God for his abilities, he avoids moral and criminal failure, he follows the rules for fasting and generous giving, and of course he knows whom to avoid. Really, he’s a pillar of his community and local synagogue. They’re proud of him, actually. He can be depended upon for support when it’s needed; he’s an example of a model religious life. So what is the problem here?

     Jesus is expecting us to make a connection between “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” and the Pharisees. Jesus doesn’t actually state that connection explicitly, but it’s pretty clear. And this trust in themselves leads straight to contempt for others. To understand why this happens, Jesus introduces his hearers to the prayer of the tax collector.

       “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Both the Pharisee and the tax collector have one thing in common: they speak to God in prayer. That’s all. There the comparison ends, and the prayers diverge. The tax collector acknowledges his sinfulness, and describes God as merciful. The Pharisee does neither. Since the Pharisee does not admit, is not aware of, his sinfulness, it doesn’t occur to him that God is,  or could be, merciful. The Pharisee mistakes his religion for God, and mistakes the rules of his religion for God’s thoughts. His mind is a closed system, a false self, which he mistakes for reality. This gives the Pharisee the confidence to trust in himself, and leads him to the contemptuous rejection of the tax collector. After all, if God disapproves of the tax collector, the Pharisee can do no less.

     The tax collector does not imagine that his thoughts are God’s thoughts. He trusts, not in his own imagination, not in the apparent neatness of a religious system that sorts people into righteous and unrighteous, Pharisees and tax collectors; rather, he trusts in the divine reality whose nature is to have mercy. He does not have a high view of his moral and religious accomplishments. He does not even look to heaven. He has his feet, and his soul, on the ground, in reality.

     “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” 'Humbled' comes from 'humility' which comes from 'humus', meaning earth, so to be humble, or to humble oneself, is to keep oneself, to place oneself, on the solid ground, the solid earth, of reality, human and divine. That is what enables the tax collector to know and ask for God’s mercy. He has not exalted himself, he has not detached himself from the reality around him and lost himself in his own imagination, a false self, mistaking it for God. He can reach God, and God can reach him, as he stands on the solid earth of true awareness. That is what Jesus means when he says, “this man went down to his home justified.” He went to his “home”, to his true self, as “justified”, aware of his real relationship to God, founded in mercy.

     Who are we in this story? Are we exalted Pharisees, proud of our religious and moral correctness, excluding those who don’t meet our exact requirements, imagining that our way is God’s way?  Or are we, like the tax collector, aware of ourselves as sinful, as out of touch with our true selves? Are we aware that we are supported by God’s mercy? Are we aware, as the tax collector is aware, that we are on our way to our true selves, our true homes, justified, accepted by God? Do we keep in mind the divine promise, the last line of today’s Gospel, that “all who humble themselves will be exalted?” This includes, remember, even those who exalt themselves, for, once they are humbled, once they have their feet on true ground, and once they accept it, they too will be exalted, not by themselves but by God, they too will find their true home, their true selves, in God.

     In Nomine etc.. (26.X.19 Adv)

          

     

     

    

Exaltation of the Holy Cross (John 12)

     The one symbol most often identified with Jesus and his Church is the Cross. Today we celebrate The Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This feast traces its beginning to Jerusalem and the dedication of the church built on the site of Mount Calvary in AD 335. But the meaning of the cross is deeper than any city, any celebration, any building. The Cross is a sign of suffering, a sign of human cruelty at its worst. But by Christ’s love shown in the Paschal Mystery, it has become the sign of triumph and victory, the sign of God, who is love itself.

     Believers have always looked to the Cross in times of suffering. People in concentration camps, in prisons, in hospitals, in any place of suffering and loneliness, have been known to draw, trace, or form crosses and focus their eyes and hearts on them. The Cross does not explain pain and misery. It does not give us any easy answers. But it does help us to see our lives united with Christ’s.

     We often make the Sign of the Cross over ourselves. We make it before prayer to help fix our minds and hearts on God. We make it after prayer, hoping to stay close to God. In trials and temptations, the Cross is a sign of strength and protection. The Cross is the sign of the fullness of life that is ours. At Baptism, too, the Sign of the Cross is used; the priest, parents, and godparents make the sign on the forehead of the child. A sign made on the forehead is a sign of belonging. By the Sign of the Cross in Baptism, Jesus takes us as his own in a unique way. Today, let us look to the Cross often. Let us make the Sign of the Cross and realize we bring our whole selves to God—our minds, souls, bodies, wills, thoughts, hearts—everything we are and will become.

     It is the dark side of life in this world, the side of the world that Jesus experiences on the Cross. This dark side attempts to restrict God and keep us in darkness. Jesus says that he must submit to this darkness, so that we can perceive it for what it is, and not be overtaken by it. And he does this by accepting the darkest experience of all, or what we perceive as dark, this side of it, the experience of death.

    “Father, glorify your name,” Jesus says, a few verses before the beginning of today’s reading. “Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’” Now this may sound strange to us, Jesus’s   acceptance of death on the Cross associated with the glory of the name of the Father. The root meaning of ‘glory’ is ‘light’, the uncreated light of Heaven, the uncreated light of the invisible world, of which the created light of our world is a reflection, an image; for the Father to glorify his name in death on the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus is to bring the uncreated light into our world, to bring into being in our world as fully human, the divine, eternally begotten Son, the eternally flowing and coming into being of the Father’s Word, the Logos. The glory of the Father lightens, enlightens, himself, the Son, the world, and ourselves, to reveal all as they, we, really are, in the light of divinity. That is why Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” The darkness that would restrict, would deny, God, that would kill Jesus, cannot, in the end, overcome, blot out, the divine light, the glory of the Father, cannot blot out the life of Christ. Jesus confirms this when he says, “while you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” To be children of the uncreated light is our origin and destiny, is what we are made for, is our true nature.

    Jesus says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” This is usually understood to be about the Crucifixion, but it can also be about the Resurrection or the Ascension, or all three, and it can also mean what the Prologue to John’s Gospel means when it says: “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” That is, all things came into being through Jesus, and are seen in their true nature in relation to him, in the light that he brings into the world. “I am the light of the world,” he says. He brings the uncreated light into the world, and by it we see Jesus, the Father, the world, and ourselves, as they, we, really are.

    So , when we see the Cross, we see far more than torture and death. We begin to see the world as created through Jesus, as the Father sees it. They are helped to see the world in divine light, promised that they are, will be, children of that light. We, like they, must “walk while [we] have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake [us].” Amen. (14.IX.19 Adv.)

Nativity of the BVM (Matthew 1)

In the Name etc.

     On this feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our lectionary readings present us with an interesting challenge: the readings apparently have little to do with the Mother of God, and everything to do with promises of the coming of the Messiah. It is his birth which gets all the attention. The prophet Micah says, “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah...from you shall come forth...one who is to rule in Israel...and he shall be the one of peace.” Micah almost says that Bethlehem is giving birth to the Messiah.

Psalm 131 mentions “a weaned child with his mother” and goes on to compare that weaned child to the writer’s  own soul. Paul says in his Letter to the Romans, that “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.” And Matthew, as we just heard, presents a long genealogy, not of Mary, but of the ancestors of Joseph, starting with Abraham, going through the House of David, through the Babylonian exile and so on down to Joseph, “the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.” That’s it; it’s all about the Messiah and Joseph’s male ancestors. Not a hint about the birth of Mary or her ancestors. It is interesting to note in this connection that Luke’s version of the genealogy starts with Adam, not Abraham, and the names don’t match up with Matthew’s list. We can conclude from this that Luke and Matthew were working in communities who had very different ways of thinking about the story of Jesus and his ancestry. It is worth keeping in mind that Luke, or Luke’s community apparently knew a lot more about Mary’s role in the history of salvation than Matthew did.        

     What can we do with these readings, which apparently tell us a lot about the prelude to the appearance of the Messiah, but very little about Mary, whose Nativity we are commemorating today? Can we find anything in these readings which illuminates Mary’s role in salvation history, and also illuminates the idea of salvation history itself, and what birth, nativity, has to do with it?

     Nativity, of course, as we know, means “birth” and the Church celebrates the Nativity of Our Lord, the Nativity of the Mother of God, the Nativity of John the Baptist. It’s a rather lofty sounding word, at least in English, which we don’t use of our own birthdays. I’m aware of my birthday each year, but I don’t ask my friends to celebrate the Nativity of Alex Martin! 

     When we celebrate the Nativity of a person important in salvation history, we aren’t necessarily marking a particular day or year, but we are marking the appearance in history of real people responding to the call of God. We know that these people are historical, and that is what we are commemorating, the actions of God in history, and the people God empowered to act on his behalf.

     So, how do these readings help us do this? Micah says, “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, one whose origin is from old, from ancient days.” One of the little clans of Judah: no grandeur here, nobody significant, no names at all, no genealogy, apparently nobody important, but from that little clan is to come one who is to rule. And his origin is from old, that is, it has been prepared from ancient  days, and is the fulfilment, the culmination, of an ancient plan. There is no regard for conventional expectations, no grand world-shaking publicity, just a promise to a small clan, in an unimportant town that there, there would appear a ruler, who would come into the world in the ordinary way, by human birth, not by supernatural intervention, when the time was right. “And he shall stand...in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.” But it will take generations of preparation to enable this to happen. That is where the majesty of God will appear, in a small town, out of the way, in a little clan.

     Psalm 131 changes the tone somewhat, but still emphasizes the small, the ordinary, the humble. “I do not occupy myself with things too great...for me...I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother...O Israel, hope in the Lord…” Hope in the Lord; trust in his  working out of our salvation. In other words, the person of a calm and quiet soul is the one best able to hear, to perceive the will of the Lord, and to respond to it. That person, he or she, will be ready for the great things which the Lord has in store, when the time comes for one to rule in Israel, to bring the Messiah into the world. This psalm describes well the spiritual condition, the spiritual readiness of both Mary and Joseph, for the work that God had prepared for them from the beginning of the world.

     When we come to Matthew’s genealogy of the Messiah (which is actually Joseph’s genealogy) , and his account of the birth of Jesus, it is notable that Mary is mentioned as briefly and as by-the-way as possible. She says nothing. She is mentioned only as the wife of Joseph, or rather Joseph is mentioned as her husband, and he had to be persuaded by an angel to go through with the marriage. Mary has no recorded genealogy, no apparent status, an obscure origin; she is dependent on Joseph to preserve her reputation. Contrast Mary’s situation, in worldly terms vulnerable, defenseless even, to Joseph’s situation, with that thundering, imposing genealogy and royal ancestry to back him up, and we begin to perceive what God is doing here. 

      It took generations of great ancestors to prepare Bethlehem, and Israel (and Joseph) for the time when Joseph would be able to hear and see the angel of the Lord and respond to the angel’s command.  It took the obscurity of Bethlehem, and its little clan, to be the place where Mary could calm and quiet her soul, down to the depths where she could perceive and accept the presence of the Holy Spirit. The real function of Joseph’s ancestry becomes apparent here: it is meant to exalt, not worldly importance, but spiritual reality. The real use of worldly glory, Joseph’s royal ancestry, is to bring God to earth, so to speak. God is acting in Mary, whom he has prepared for her great work. Mary’s obscurity is essential, if I can put it that way; it reveals our true position in the world, our true relation to God. In relation to God, we are all a little clan, the human race; we are all a little clan somewhere  in an obscure corner of the universe. Our location gives us the opportunity to calm and quiet our souls, so that we can perceive what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. Our task, like Mary’s, is to bring Christ into the world. The task of people like Joseph, people of great ancestry, or, to put it in contemporary terms, people of great resources both spiritual and material, is to help that happen, to make the divine reality visible in our world. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Nativity of the Mother of God, the God-Bearer, is the birth in us of our  vocation, to bring knowledge and experience and love of God into the world, today and every day.

     In the Name etc.. Amen. (8.IX.19 Adv.)

     

     

Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus (John 12)

In Nomine etc..

       There is a lot of meaning packed into this story of Mary, who anointed Jesus, and Martha, and their meal together with Lazarus. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are siblings, of course. The western church in the Middle Ages identified Mary with Mary of Magdala, but today’s story doesn’t make that connection. In any case, from this story we can learn a lot about the people around Jesus, about the community around John the Evangelist, and what they understood about Jesus. The story reminds us of important teachings, and anticipates the death of Jesus.

      “Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany.” Six days. This recalls the six days of creation, and links the Passover, the implied seventh day of the story, with the seventh day of the Genesis story. The six-day period before the Passover parallels the six days of creation; Jesus arrives in Bethany on what amounts to the first day of a creation renewed in and through him. Jesus has already raised Lazarus from the dead, a sign of renewed life in the new creation. It foreshadows Jesus’s own resurrection, just as the dinner with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus foreshadows Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples.

      We take it for granted that  Jesus is the host of the Last Supper; we don’t really know who the host of the Bethany supper is; is it Mary or Lazarus, or Martha, "who is serving"? The Scripture doesn’t say. And the ambiguity reveals something about the community around Jesus and John the Evangelist: women are prominent. The apparent wealth of Mary and Martha suggests that perhaps they were financing Jesus’s ministry. Without their support, there might have been no ministry at all.

      “Mary took a pound of costly perfume...anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair.” Notice what’s happening here: Jesus the Anointed One, the Messiah, is receiving a second anointing, a confirmation of his role and ministry. And he’s allowing Mary to anoint herself with the same perfume, to declare that she’s participating in that ministry. We remember that Christus means Anointed. That is why we are called Christians; we are descended, so to speak, from the anointing of Jesus and Mary of Bethany, and we pass that anointing on sacramentally to those who come after us. That is one way to understand the line, “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” The fragrance of the anointing fills the whole church. Just as Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus, so he anoints us.

      Judas Iscariot speaks, as the story continues to foreshadow and parallel the Last Supper. “Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor?” A denarius, my commentary says, is a day’s wage for a skilled laborer. So the perfume is worth about a year’s pay for a worker, clearly a high-value, high-status item, meant to show not only how much Mary of Bethany values Jesus, but also how much he values her. Jesus in effect responds in kind to Mary’s gesture.

       Jesus also adds an interpretation to the gesture. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” More foreshadowing of the coming Passion, and a reminder, suitable for Lent, that there is no new, resurrected life without first giving up our pre-resurrection life, if I can put it that way. In the approaching Passover, Jesus will recall the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, and will look ahead to passing through death to new life.

      “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Jesus does not allow anyone to follow Judas Iscariot, and descend into a moralizing rant about the proper uses of wealth. It is easy to discern Judas’s motive; the Evangelist is on to it when he says that Judas “kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.” Judas, in other words, is covering for his own greed and hypocrisy. Mary of Bethany in fact is making good use of her wealth, by symbolically placing it at Jesus’s disposal. This gesture continues to benefit the church spiritually to this day. May we all place our resources at Jesus’s feet, and may we accept his anointing us, to the benefit of the poor and all God’s people.

      In Nomine etc.. (6.IV.19. Adv., n. p.)        

           

The barren fig tree (Luke 13)

         In Nomine etc..   

      Today’s Gospel reading presents us with two distinct stories, both of them a little grim, severe even, in their content. And the two stories don’t appear to have much to do with each other. That being so, it is our task to understand why the Evangelist placed them where he did, and to discern what his message is, or what his messages are. And their arrangement is as much a message as any content.

      This chapter, chapter 13 of Luke’s Gospel, is in that part of the Gospel that scholars call ‘Luke’s Special Section’; special because it is unique. It has no parallels in the other Gospels. That tells us that Luke, and Luke’s community, knew teachings and stories of Jesus that the other communities did not know. That gives Luke’s Gospel a special status, an important one; it tells us to pay close attention to his unique content, and to be ready to hear what special emphasis Luke gives to Jesus’s teaching and work.

      Today’s reading begins “there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” A grim beginning, a bloody one, a foreshadowing of the Passion, a reading which is appropriate as we pass through Lent, appropriate for the time when we remember in our devotions the Stations of the Cross, itself a mingling of blood and sacrifice initiated by Pilate.

      I don’t know what incident this text refers to, but a scenario is easy to imagine. The Galileans are in a temple, there has been a riot, or a revolt, and  Pilate’s soldiers attack during a sacrifice. Many are killed. We remember the recent attacks on mosques in New Zealand, and attacks on churches in Egypt and elsewhere. Luke is telling us that our religion is no protection against violence, and it’s no protection against God’s judgment either.  And he records Jesus as telling us that such violence is not proof of the sinfulness of the victims; rather it is a sign that we are all equally subject to judgment, none of us better or worse than any other. “Unless you repent,” he says, “you will all perish as they did.” We may understand this to mean spiritual death, not necessarily a threat of physical violence. We all have a tendency to believe that violence is, or ought to be, a punishment for sin. Certainly the crowds around Jesus thought so, but we don’t need to be so literal. But we can perish spiritually, if we fail to repent. A suitable warning for Lent, and any other time. The tower of Siloam story makes essentially the same points, and comes to the same conclusion.

        “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.” This parable reads like it’s incomplete and belongs somewhere else. But if we think about it, we realize that it’s really quite ingenious, and that Luke put it here for a reason. It’s our task to uncover that reason.

      The man orders the tree cut down because it’s not producing fruit. The gardener intercedes for the tree, and asks for another year, to fertilize the tree and help it produce fruit. The story stops there, somewhat oddly. There is no recorded reply from the owner of the vineyard, but we can assume that he consents. It is odd that the gardener wants to save the tree at all, and make an issue of it with his employer. What is going on here? What is Luke up to?

        We can understand this story as allegory. There is a tradition that the fig tree represents the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, (we may take it to refer to all creation generally), and that it will be restored at the end of time. The man, then, the owner of the vineyard (which is the Garden, or the Kingdom) is God, and the gardener is the Son. The Son is interceding on behalf of all creation, and working to restore it. But there is a limit. “If it bears fruit, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” This is a way of saying that time will end, there will be a judgment. It is also a way of reinforcing the conclusion of the previous story: “unless you repent, you will all perish.”

      So Luke has fit the stories together well, with one consistent theme: repent! I’m reminded of what an Orthodox priest said in a funeral sermon one Eastertide: Why has God allowed you to live through another Lent? The answer of course: to give the Gardener time to fertilize the Tree, to give us time to repent.

      In Nomine etc.. (23.III.19 Adv.)