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A Great Chasm

Posted on September 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

Now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed…. (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God, who is creating us, redeeming us, and sustaining us.

Well, good morning, everybody. So, in today’s gospel we encounter a man who’s having trouble with the afterlife and is concerned for his family. Whenever I hear this story, I think about a family we knew back in West Texas, the Beauchamp brothers.

Now, they were not nice people. In fact, everybody in the whole county knew the Beauchamp brothers. In business they were crooked, mean and cold-blooded. Well, one day, the older brother, Howard Beauchamp, he up and died. The younger brother, Ronnie, wanted to make sure that Howard got the finest funeral there had ever been in the county. He went down to the funeral home and bought a fine cherrywood coffin with silver hardware. Then he went to go see the minister.

The little church there was not doing so well. In fact, it was kind of falling apart at the seams. The air conditioner was old and tired, and the roof struggled to keep out the rain. Well, Ronnie Beauchamp, he went to the minister, and he offered him the Devil’s own bargain. He said, “Pastor, I will give your church half a million dollars if you will preach my brother’s funeral and tell everyone he was a saint.” Well, this was a real conflict for the preacher, because the church really needed that money, but he couldn’t lie from the pulpit.

So, the day of the funeral came around, and the whole town was there as the minister began to preach the funeral sermon.  He said, “The man you see in this coffin was a vile and debauched individual.  He was a liar, a thief, a bully, a great sinner, and he broke his mama’s heart.  He destroyed the fortunes, careers, and lives of countless people in this county, some of whom are here today. This man did every dirty, rotten thing you can think of.”

“But, the preacher added, … compared to his brother, he was a saint.”

Now, before we go any further, I want to make a couple of things clear. The passage we are reading isn’t a theological guide about how to get to heaven or how to avoid hell. This passage is one of Jesus’ parables—a riddle or a fable. So, I don’t think the rich man went to Hades because he was rich. And I don’t think Lazarus went to heaven because he was poor. But I do want us to start thinking this morning about the various chasms we encounter: chasms that separate us from each other, the gulfs between us and God—the chasms we come upon, and the chasms we help create.

One of the first places we notice a gap, or a distance, is between the circumstances of these two men. We are told that every day, the rich man ate luxurious meals, and he wore fine linen and purple. On the other hand, we can imagine Lazarus in rags, and we’re told he’s covered in sores. He’s also starving, and dreams of eating even the crumbs or scraps from the rich man’s meals.

And although their lives were very different, they did not live far away from each other. In fact, Lazarus lived just outside the rich man’s gate. But we get the feeling the rich man never noticed Lazarus. In fact, I get the impression that the rich man had become quite adept at ignoring Lazarus at the gate, a kind of studied disregard, a well-rehearsed apathy. So, their lives on earth were very far apart; they were separated by a great economic and social chasm.

Then, when the two men die, we have one of those classic reversals of fortune that Luke loves. It’s already happened right from the outset of the story. You see, we know the name of the poor man in the story—his name is Lazarus, which means God’s help. We don’t, however, know the name of the other character; he’s just some rich guy. That’s not how things normally work. We remember the rich and the mighty, and too often the names of the poor and the hopeless are forgotten.

But when their earthly lives are over, the angels carry Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham. In other words, he has a place of peace and comfort and honor among the righteous dead. The rich man, however, finds himself being tormented in Hades. There’s a considerable distance, a chasm, between their circumstances. But even from the fiery pit, the rich man doesn’t seem to recognize his new situation yet. He’s still treating Lazarus like a slave. You see, the biggest lie the devil ever told us is that some lives are worth more than others, that some people are more important than others.

The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus with just a bit of water on his finger to ease the rich man’s suffering. Once again, here’s that Lucan reversal of fortune. Abraham tells the rich man: “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.”

The bigger problem, Abraham explains, is that vast chasm between Lazarus and the rich man. Now, maybe Jesus was trying to tell us that heaven is a long, long way away from hell, but I don’t think so. I think the distance between Lazarus and the rich man is simply the echo and amplification of the separation the rich man created while they were alive. In other words, to borrow an idea from Charles Dickens, they wear the chains they forged in life. Jesus reminds us that there is a deep and profound connection between how we live in this life and how we live in the next life.

So, what are we supposed to do with this passage? What am I supposed to do about the homeless man that I drove by on my way to church this morning? Am I supposed to give him a dollar? Buy him a meal? Pay for him to spend a night in a hotel room? If I do that, will Jesus let me into heaven?

I think the very last thing Jesus wanted to do in his parables was to give us easy answers to these questions. I think we were meant to struggle with this issue, to learn to listen to Moses and the prophets. I also think we have to find a way to close the tremendous gaps between ourselves and our brothers and sisters. We all know about the terrible gap of wealth inequality, and we saw the political distance widen in this country after Charlie Kirk was killed and both parties clawed at each other desperately for a spot on the moral high ground

My friends, as Doctor King warned us, “We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools.” We know about the chasm between God’s children. I think the biggest chasm I have to struggle with every day is the gap between the man I am and the man I want to be, the distance between the life I’m leading, and the life Jesus wants for me.
I think the first thing is that we notice how deeply, how profoundly, God cares for the poor. This morning, the Psalmist tells us happy are those:

Who give justice to those who are oppressed,
and food to those who hunger.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.

A friend of mine puts it a little differently. He likes to tell me that no one gets into heaven without a letter of recommendation from the poor.

Secondly, I think we have to find a way to bridge the gap between us and the broken-hearted of this world. We must find a way to reach across to those who are hungry, to those who live in hopelessness. And we’ve got to quit asking whether they deserve our help, our charity. Quite frankly, that is none of our business. God will figure that out.

I do believe charity is important, and yes, the rich man fails to tend to, or care about, the needs of Lazarus. But there was a sin that came before that, an earlier fault that made all the others possible. He didn’t even notice Lazarus. He didn’t notice the man at his gate. I don’t want to think about the number of times I’ve turned my glance away from the homeless and the poor. And the failure to notice them robs us of any chance we have to make a difference in their lives, to make a friend. So maybe we should begin by noticing them, and I mean this quite literally, for the love of God, notice them. Maybe if we go out of our way, just a little bit, we might learn to share our resources, and more importantly, to share our hearts. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2025

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Things Hoped For

Posted on August 10, 2025 | 3 comments

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)

In the name of the living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Amen. Well good morning, good morning. I thought this morning we’d talk about faith, about different ways some folks have of understanding faith, and about what the scriptures can teach us about that.

When I think about faith, I am often reminded of my great great grandfather. You see, he had come to America from the Old Country, from Ireland. He settled for a while in the Boston area. And he was a very busy man, but a very devout man. Well, one day he had an appointment with the bishop, and he was running late. And there was no place left to park.

As I said, he was a very devout man. And he looked to the heavens and prayed. He said, “Lord, you know I’m here to see the bishop. You know I can’t be late, Lord, and you know there’s no place for me to park. So, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, if you help me find a parking place, I’ll go to mass every day for a month. He looked and there were still no places. And so he added, “And Lord, I’ll give up the whiskey.”

Well, it was a cloudy day that afternoon in Boston, but all of a sudden, the skies parted, and a bright beam of sunshine opened up to reveal a single parking spot right in front of the cathedral. And my ancestor looked up to heaven and said, “Never mind, Lord. I found one m’self.”

So, I want to suggest something to you, at least a starting premise for us to work from. I want to suggest that faith is much more about who we trust, or where we place our trust, than about what we believe. I’ll say that again: I wonder whether faith isn’t much more about who we trust, or where we place our trust, than about the ideas we have decided to accept.

Let’s look at a couple of examples that might help with that distinction. We all remember the story of Noah and the flood. The earliest claims of having found the Ark in which Noah sought shelter from the flood date back to around 700 BC. Since then, hundreds of people have claimed that they found the ark. Recently, one group is using ground penetrating radar at the Durupinar formation in Turkey and claim to have found the remains of a preserved vessel. But does that have anything to do with faith? If we could scientifically prove this was the ark, and found trace DNA from Noah, would our lives in faith be better?

If we could absolutely prove the story of Noah and the flood, we might have a very fine argument or some fascinating dinner conversation—we might even have some certainty.  But certainty is not an environment in which faith thrives. Because faith, the scripture teaches us, is the conviction of things not seen. Our discovery of the ark might prove something we could all see with our eyes, but faith looks beyond the visible, the provable, to what can only be seen with the heart.

Let’s examine question, the very old question of which religion offers us the surest path to salvation. So, we have been fighting about our beliefs for a long time: about whether you could have pictures of Jesus in the church, about calculating the date of Easter, and about how Jesus really really gets into the communion host. In the 1960s, one group of the Amish community separated from the main body of the Amish over the question of whether one could wear buttons, or whether one could only be true to their religion by fastening their clothes with hooks and eyes.

We can believe all sorts of things: our beliefs are the conclusions we are led to by our rational minds, the conclusions of our thinking. We can believe that our safety lies in our military might—nuclear submarines that can wipe our enemies off the map. Or you might belief in an afterlife in which all the meals are composed of chocolate cake and crème brûlée, where the streets are made of peanut brittle. Or maybe you believe the government is listening to our every thought through a complex system of internet connections, cell phones, and vaccinations.  I don’t really care whether you think  UFOs come down each summer to swim with the Loch Ness Monster and discuss how we faked the moon landing. You might believe that our salvation only lies in eating unleavened bread while listening to the Star-Spangled Banner and staring at an isosceles triangle.

I am not especially concerned with what you believe: Beliefs change; they are constructs of our mind. So, I’m not especially concerned with that. But I am profoundly concerned with your faith, with the place where your trust abides, and how that trust shapes the way you live your life.

That kind of faith reshapes the world and makes it ready for God’s word to vibrate through creation. This is a music that can only be heard with the heart, a music that assures us that God knows of our deepest hopes. Abraham heard that music of faith, and followed God when God told him to leave behind his home and everything he’d ever known. Abraham trusted God when God told him he would have children, even though both he and his wife were too old. And even when God asked him to give up his only son, Abraham trusted God and knew that somehow it would all work out right.

So, I’ll tell you a secret. I think that kind of trust, that deep faith or “assurance of things hoped for,” usually comes only after you’ve had your heart broken a time or two and learned where you can find shelter—who you can depend on, what you can trust. That kind of trust will necessarily influence our actions, influence how we walk through the world. In our modern world, faith (or trust) is so very hard to come by. We have become so jaded, so suspicious of each other and our institutions.

Back in the earliest days of the Church, those first Christians knew about sorrow, and suffering, and broken hearts. And it took them about 300 years to articulate who they could turn to, who they could trust. And they gathered together to work out their ideas down at a place called Nicaea. We still say their prayer, and we’ll recite it in just a moment.

They said they trusted God, “the maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” Do you hear that prayer echo in the reading from Hebrews: “the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” They trusted in Jesus, Mary’s boy, who promised he would be with them until the end of time. They had faith because Jesus told them it pleased his Father to give them the kingdom. The had faith in the Spirit which had moved across the waters, the Spirit which came upon them in baptism, and the Spirit which had inspired their Scriptures. And they trusted the Church, although they knew that from time to time a particular instance of the church might let them down.  But that’s not where their faith abided; no, they trusted in the whole church, which is the mystical body of Christ.

The great J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, said, “All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” That sounds just about right. I know I have great hopes for us. That hope is invisible, but I am assured of it. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2025

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Becoming More Human: A Sermon for Poetry Month

Posted on May 7, 2025 | 2 comments

Here’s the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwuOJMirg6U&t=69s

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The Scent of Scandal at Bethany

Posted on April 5, 2025 | 2 comments

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)



In the name of the living God who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Way back a very long time ago, back in the early twelfth century, I was a boy in Odessa, Texas. And I can tell you my very first memory. I was riding in a golf cart with my father, and I couldn’t have been older than three or four years old. And the sun was coming up, and I smelled the scent of freshly cut grass, and I thought I must have gone to heaven.

And I remember going to my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving, and the house was full of the most wonderful smells: ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, about 5 kinds of pie, and a pot of cowboy coffee on that old stove. Oh, I can still smell those thanksgivings.

Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “Smells are surer than sights or sounds to make your heartstrings crack.” And Hellen Keller once observed, “Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.” Neuropsychologists tell us that smell is one of the most powerful gateways into our memories, in part because those two parts of the brain are very close to each other. Think about your first new car, or favorite book or your first trip to the library as a child, and you will almost automatically be drawn to the way they smelled. I think this is true in part because our sense of smell is so closely tied with the act of breathing—we don’t just detect a scent, we take it into our lungs and our bodies through our breath, which is another way of saying we take it into our spirit.

So, this morning, the Church offers us this wonderful story of a dinner party. It takes place in Bethany, which is bordered by the Mount of Olives, and only about two miles from the city of Jerusalem. And Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem; in fact, it’s his last trip to that city. And nothing very good is going to happen there.

Now, this is sort of an odd dinner party, for a number of reasons. It takes place at the home of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus—yes, that Lazarus. And just one chapter before this, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. And even Jesus, knowing all that he knew and was about to do, wept at that tomb. He wept over the death of his friend, and he wept over the grief he shared with his friend’s sisters. And when Jesus told them to roll away the stone, Martha voiced her concern: “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.” She was concerned about the stench of the grave, the odor of death and decay. But Jesus called Lazarus back from the grave and ordered them to unbind him from the strips of cloth in which he was entombed.

So, we have these two sisters at this dinner party, along with Lazarus (who was dead, but is alive) and Jesus (who is alive but will not be for much longer). And then, we have Judas. I’ll circle back around to him in a bit. And they are gathered at the table.

Then, one of the sisters (Mary) does something remarkable. She does something scandalous, something embarrassing, something shocking, something prodigal. (You may remember that story of the prodigal son from last week, another story of a reckless love that doesn’t care about dignity.) She takes a pound of perfume made from pure nard and anoints Jesus’ feet with it and then she wipes them with her hair. Let’s break this down a bit.

Nard was a very expensive perfume with a strong, distinctive aroma that clung to the skin. It is mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, in the Song of Solomon, which is also a sensuous and erotic and sometimes scandalous book of the bible. The value of the oil with which she anoints Jesus’ feet is approximately a year’s wages. So, this is a lavish, sensuous act of devotion. And women of that time, did not loosen their hair, let alone wash a man’s feet with it. But just as her brother Lazarus was unbound from his death shroud, Mary unbinds her hair and begins to wash Jesus’ feet. Washing someone’s feet—well, that was dirty work for the servants or slaves. In fact, women of that time did not touch a man at all unless they were married.

So, all the good, proper ladies over at the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem would have been clutching their pearls at this scene.

And then Judas asks a question, “Why didn’t she do some good with this money? Why not give it to the poor?” Now Judas is the consummate cynic, right? You know what a cynic is—a cynic is someone who knows what everything costs but doesn’t know what anything is worth. The stench of betrayal and stinginess and violence clings to him. And he cannot recognize the worth of this moment as this woman pours out her wealth, pours out her life and her dignity, upon this man Jesus. A love that reckless doesn’t care what love costs.

And Jesus tells Judas, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” And I don’t want you to think that Jesus was unconcerned with the plight of the poor. The gospels tell us, rather, that he was profoundly concerned with the poor. But this is a special moment, a moment of lavish, unselfish tenderness, and I’m sure it strengthened Jesus for those horrifying days that lay ahead. Judas, if we take him at his word, was more concerned with a return on the investment. Mary, on the other hand, wasn’t making an investment; she was giving a gift. Love, with no strings attached. Love may not always be the most practical response, but it is always the divine response.

Now, Mary had purchased this perfume for the time of Jesus’ death, but instead chooses to anoint Jesus now. In a profound sense, she chooses life over death. This woman was willing to risk shame and embarrassment and ridicule— all for a reckless love. That kind of love always leads to the cross. Always. And maybe sometimes, every now and then, we might remember that loving God sometimes means a reckless refusal to consider the cost of love, and we might focus on what it’s worth. And maybe we might remember that God, as Isaiah tells us, is about to do a new thing.

Now, in just a few days we will celebrate Maundy Thursday, the day when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. It’s the very next Chapter of John’s gospel, and again, it’s very intimate and embarrassing. But, when we get there, I want you to remember, it was this woman Mary who showed Jesus how to do that, who showed him what love looks like.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Breathe that in, breath in her tender, reckless devotion and breathe in the life of Jesus. And then, exhale love. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2025

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Let No One Put Assunder

Posted on October 6, 2024 | 2 comments

“It is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs.” (The full text of our readings can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Well, good morning, everyone, good morning.

You know, I grew up out in West Texas. And when I was a young man I engaged in some pretty risky behavior. Now and then I would drink too much. And I liked fast cars, and liked to see how fast they would go. And I would date these girls..well, if you’ve ever been to a rodeo…well, they were barrel racers. And I want to assure you that they are, every single one of them, loco. I mean not average plain old crazy…they were fancy crazy, with glitter and everything, and some of them were mean, too.

So, I know what it means to walk into a room full of trouble. But when you walk into a church full of people you really don’t know all that well, about a third to half of whom have been divorced, including the guy in the pulpit, to preach a sermon on the topic of divorce, well, that’s next-level hazardous; that’s right on the border between silly and imbalanced. But here in the diocese of West Texas when there’s a really foolish, precarious situation, one that really no one with good sense would mess with, I’m the guy they call. Because, as we all know, fools rush in where angels dare not tread.

So, let’s turn to this passage of Scripture, a passage that has been poorly understood, horribly misused, and cruelly interpreted.  Let’s try to look at this story in context, beginning with the historical context.

The first thing we need to understand is that whatever sort of divorce Jesus was talking about, divorce in first-century Palestine had very little to do with the sort of divorce we may have had some experience with. Ancient Israel, like most of the ancient world, was patriarchal, and wives were regarded as the property of their husbands. Thus, while a husband could divorce his wife, the wife had no reciprocal ability to divorce her husband. Marriages were not based on our current notions of romantic love between two persons but on considerations of property, status, and honor between two families. If a husband did divorce his wife, she and the children would  probably end up penniless, begging, or something worse

Now let’s look at this story in the textual context, in the context of a story that Mark is telling us. This discussion takes place when Jesus is answering certain questions he’s asked by the Pharisees, asked to test him or to trap him. In this passage, Jesus isn’t asked about how God feels about divorce, or even how Jesus feels about divorce. Rather, they ask Jesus a question they already know the answer to—they ask him what the law says. Now, the Pharisees were a lot of things, but mostly, they were a group devoted to understanding, preserving, and interpreting the law. So, they didn’t come to Jesus with a genuine question, but rather with a snare.

Now let’s look at this story in the broader Gospel context about Jesus’ relationship with the law. Everything we know tells us that Jesus’ relationship with the law was….well, complicated. When Jesus’ disciples were accused of breaking Jewish law by plucking grain and eating it as they walked along on the Sabbath, Jesus responded that David and his companions ate the consecrated bread that the law reserved for the priests.  When the Pharisees caught a woman in adultery and were going to stone her as the law directed, Jesus told them that the one without sin should throw the first rock. The Pharisees constantly criticized Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, which he did so regularly one might conclude that Jesus was looking for trouble. And I think he was: I think Jesus was looking for what the great John Lewis called “Good Trouble.”

It seems to me that in this morning’s reading, Jesus is doing what he did so often. I think he was forcing us to overcome our legalism and look more deeply at the principles that underlie the law, and to look more deeply within ourselves. Jesus tells us the problem isn’t with our legal situation but with our medical situation—with the hardening of our hearts.  He says Moses only gave you the commandment concerning divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. If you’ve ever walked through a divorce with one of the parties, or with a couple, you know how hard our hearts can get. If you’ve ever watched children go through a custody battle, you know how hard our hearts can become.

Rather than involving himself in a debate about the circumstances in which divorce might be permissible, Jesus (as he so often did) calls us to examine the first principles behind marriage. Part of that first principle Jesus turns to is the story of creation: we were not made to be alone; we were made for life in common, a life in love.

We know of many reasons why a marriage can fail: infidelity; alcohol and substance abuse; workplace stress; financial stress; mental illness; disagreements over parenting styles; religious differences; physical and mental abuse. Like the psalmist says, we’re “just a little lower than the angels.” Very rarely have I encountered a situation where one party was completely to blame and the other party was completely blameless in the failure of the marriage. Divorce can leave behind emotional and spiritual wreckage. And sometimes I have seen circumstances where ending the marriage was the least wrong answer two people had available to them. Because whatever the marriage covenant is, I’m pretty sure God didn’t intend it to be a suicide pact.

I have known way too many people, mostly women, who were berated and shamed by churches and church leaders when their marriage ended in divorce. And I don’t know how Jesus would feel about all the reasons modern marriages break down. But I do know how Jesus felt about our habit of judging each other and I know how he felt about cruelty. I know that, for all of us, hardness of heart is a spiritual issue. Our lives can become so very isolated, so very disintegrated, so very fragmented.

Today’s Scripture isn’t really about the legality of our justifications for divorce. It’s about how we overcome our natural hard-heartedness and learn to live lives that are full of compassion and vulnerability and courage. It’s about learning to live into God’s dreams for the world rather than our failures and disappointments. That’s the only way we’ll discover the real intimacy God intended for us and the real blessing of a life spent in gratitude and the joy of delighting in each other. I’m pretty sure if we start off in that direction we might find the kingdom of God. That’s the kind of life I want, and I hope you want it, too. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024

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You Are the Man!

Posted on August 5, 2024 | 1 comment

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. (The full readings for today can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Good morning, good morning. Now, some of y’all know that my family came from out in West Texas, and that’s where I grew up. And y’all might find this surprising, but I was not always the saintly person you know today. No, I was not always the shining angelic light you see here on Sunday mornings. My misbehavior wasn’t usually all that serious: maybe I was cruel to my brothers, or acted selfishly, or took something that didn’t belong to me. And every now and then, the fire trucks would have to come to our house, but that’s another story.

So, when I would fall short of my parents’ expectations, my father would pull me aside and look me in the eyes and tell me, “Son, that’s not the cowboy way.” And without fail, I would crater. I would dwindle away and shrink to about 2 inches tall because I knew I had failed to live the way my family had lived for generations. And come to think about it, my father was not unlike one of the Old Testament prophets, not unlike Nathan in today’s story. And when my father had these little chats with me . . . well, I knew I had been prophesied to.

So, our reading today continues the story we began last week. So, maybe we ought to review just a bit. Our story began when David was king over Israel, in the springtime as scripture tells us, “when kings go out to battle.” But David, he didn’t go out to battle, and we’re not told why, but David let others fight his battles for him. David looked down from his roof and saw a beautiful woman bathing herself, and he wanted her. Even knowing she is the wife of one of his commanders, who is off fighting his battles for him, he wanted to have her.

And David took her, and lay with her and she became pregnant. And then, and this is hard to imagine, it gets worse. First, he tried to cover up his affair by bringing Uriah home from the war. When that didn’t work, he arranged to have Uriah killed in battle. And that gets us up to where our reading begins this morning. After arranging for her husband’s death, David brings Bathsheba into his house, marries her, and she gives birth to his child.

I know this is a shocking story and we are all clutching our collective pearls. Within about a month, David has managed to break almost every one of the Ten Commandments. I mean, a political figure, a religious leader, involved in a sexual scandal and then trying to cover it up? Thank heavens we don’t have to deal with that sort of thing anymore.

 So, I want to stop there and do a bit of a theological reflection on this man, this king, David. We all remember the story of David killing the giant Goliath who had been mocking the armies of Israel. The very first words we hear out of David’s mouth in that story are: “What will you do for the man who kills this Philistine?” In other words, what exactly is in it for me? Then we have him engage in an affair with Bathsheba, and engage in all sorts of sordid behavior to try and cover it up, including what amounts to basically murder. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have a complicated theological term for this sort of person. They would tell us that David is acting like a schmuck, and they would be right.

So, our translation this morning tells us that the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. That translation sort of softens the original text;  this is not exactly what the original Hebrew says. In Hebrew, the text reads that the thing David had done was evil in the in eyes of the Lord. And so, the Lord sends the prophet Nathan to speak to David, to tell him that he’s been acting like a schmuck, to tell him “that’s not the cowboy way.”

So Nathan goes to David,  and Nathan tells him a little story: he tells him a parable about a poor man and a rich man who stole the poor man’s only lamb. And to his credit, David hasn’t completely lost his sense of right and wrong. David says, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.”  So, David can see the moral failure in the story; he just can’t manage to see it in the mirror.

This gets me to one of the first observations I want to make about sin. Sin can act like a kind of moral cataract, obscuring our ability to clearly see our own situation and the nature of our actions. Like King David, self-delusion is one of my superpowers. And because of the nature of sin and its ability to blur our vision, from time to time we all need a prophet Nathan to help us see ourselves more clearly.

And Nathan shows David some of the consequences of what he’s done. He says because you’ve taken the life of Uriah and taken his wife, the sword will never leave your house. And God tells him, I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house. God says, you did these things in secret but I will do them openly. And David comes to realize that he has sinned.

So, I think this story teaches us a few other things about the nature of sin. First, we think we can control it, but we can’t. The outcome of sin is unpredictable. Sin operates sort of like the science of forensics. When the bullet enters the body, it enters through a tiny hole, but as it travels through cartilage and bone it flattens and spreads and the exit wound is much larger and jagged.

Secondly, there are two people who haven’t done anything wrong in this story: Uriah and the child of David and Bathsheba’s union. Both of them will die. It would be nice if the only people who suffered because of sin were the guilty, but that’s not the way this world works. Sin has a gravitational pull and draws the innocent into it. Sin is unstable, and collateral damage is just part of its capricious nature.

Third, we hope that the harm done by our wrong will be comparable to the wrong done. Again, that’s magical thinking, an infantile hope. Because of sin’s unstable nature, the consequence of sin can sometimes be vastly disproportionate to the level of wrong done.

And the last observation I’ll make about sin comes from one of my favorite novels, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald wrote: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” The point is this: in order to great harm, we don’t actually have to intend some evil plan; great harm and great suffering can result from our simple carelessness.

The more we understand about the nature of sin, the more perilous this world can seem, as though we were walking through a moral minefield, with nowhere safe to step. But there is a place we can go. There is a balm in Gilead, and there is mercy, and it is plentiful. We can trust in the practice of confession and absolution. We can turn to the Nathans in our lives, perhaps our confessors, perhaps our spiritual directors, perhaps a priest or a close friend. We can find all those right here at St. Mark’s Episcolopolus Church. And in a few moments, we can come to this altar, to take a bit of Jesus into our lives, maybe lay down some of our burdens there. And in that sacrament of repentance and forgiveness and renewal, we can start over again. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024

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The First Duty of Love

Posted on April 21, 2024 | 2 comments


“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” (The full readings for today can be found here.) In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Well, good morning, everybody, good morning. You know, I’m not sure…no, I’m not sure at all. I’m not sure that I’m qualified to preach on this Good Shepherd Sunday. You see, my people were cattle people. They weren’t sheep people. And cattle people didn’t always get along with sheep people. By “not always,” I mean they never got along with each other.

And while there are a lot of differences between cattle and sheep, a couple of them come to mind. One of the biggest differences is that you can lead sheep, but you have to drive cattle. Unlike cattle, sheep will learn to follow. They build friendships and will stick up for one another. Like us, they are highly social animals, and when they are under stress or isolation, they become sad, and yes, even depressed. And they are very intelligent creatures; they recognize faces and voices. But like us, they will sometimes stray away from the herd, and need to be watched over.

In Jesus’ time, sheep were a mainstay of survival: they provided milk and cheese, and sometimes meat for the family and for sacrifices. They also provided wool for warm garments. But I think there’s something going on in John’s gospel than a discussion of first-century animal husbandry or livestock. I think this gospel reading is, at its core, about how we love, and how we are loved.

So, I think we should note a couple of things before we go on. And for this, I think we have to go all the way back to the beginning of John’s gospel, back to the very first time we meet this man called Jesus. You may remember that John was baptizing people in the river Jordan when he saw Jesus and shouted out: “Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Now, lambs had been used as sacrificial animals for a long time by the Jewish people and were particularly associated with the holy feast of Passover.

We hear this same image, this same symbolic language in the last passage of John’s gospel, where the resurrected Jesus and Peter sit by a charcoal fire after breakfast.  And Jesus makes clear to Peter that Peter’s assurance of love carries with it a tender and sometimes difficult office, an obligation to feed his sheep. So, I want to suggest if we find this image being used in the beginning of John’s gospel, at the end of his gospel, and this morning pretty much in the middle of the gospel, we can probably safely assume that John thought this was important.

But as we read this, we might be forgiven if we have a moment of confusion. Is Jesus the lamb or the shepherd? Why is Peter feeding the sheep? Are we the sheep, or is Jesus the lamb? Quite frankly, it seems a bit complicated, and a little bewildering.

I think at least part of the answer lies, perhaps a bit veiled, in Jesus’ statement: “I am the good shepherd.” It’s one of what’s called the “I am” sayings of Jesus: you know, “I am the Bread of Life”, “I am the Light of the World”, “I am the vine,” and “I am the Good Shepherd.” In doing so, Jesus is aligning himself with a very old understanding of who God is. You remember the story from the Book of Exodus, when Moses asks God his name and God replies, “I am who I am.” For John, there is no difference between God and Jesus, the Word, the Logos. And for John, there is no difference between listening to Jesus and listening to God.

Jesus distinguishes his role from that of a hired hand. And at least part of the distinction has to do with how they react when the wolves come. Whether you’re a cattle person or a sheep person, you know about wolves. Lord have mercy, I believe we all know about wolves. You can find them in any walk of life—in business, in politics, and on our television screens. Sometimes those wolves come disguised as ambition or greed, sometimes as addictions, sometimes as failure, and sometimes as desperation.

You might argue that the distinction between the Good Shepherd and the hired hand is about their level of commitment. Perhaps the hired hand acts out of self-interest, while the Good Shepherd isn’t afraid of the wolves and understands his responsibilities. But I think there’s something more there. I think the Good Shepherd doesn’t run away when the wolves come because he acts out of something much more profound. Love, and only love, hangs around when the wolves come. Love, and only love, is willing to stand its ground when the situation gets risky. Only that kind of love is willing to lay down its life for the beloved.

Now, here’s the good news. We are the beloved. And Jesus is telling us that he loves us like that, that God loves us like that. And that kind of love doesn’t even ask what it costs, because it knows what it’s worth.
Later in this same Chapter of John, Jesus tells us “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” I often wonder how well I’m listening for the voice of Jesus. When I get busy, when I get worried, or when I’m simply careless, it’s hard to hear.

You know, a very famous theologian named Paul Tillich said, “The first duty of love is to listen.” That’s worth repeating: “The first duty of love is to listen.” We have a lot of choices in this world as to which voices we’ll listen to. We can listen to the voices that tell us that our neighbors aren’t like us—voices that tell us that they’re not as smart as we are, or they’re freeloaders, or they’re dangerous. Or we can listen to the voices that tell us this world is full of risk and danger, that we might not have enough, or the voices that tell us that our lives will finally make sense if we just get that new car, that new outfit, that new iPhone, or earn enough to retire. We can listen to those voices that tell us that we’re not quite smart enough, not quite pretty enough, or not quite good enough.  

Or we can listen to the voice of the One who will never run away when the wolves come, the one who offers us forgiveness, the one who came to show us what an abundant life really looks like. We can listen to the One who laid down his life for us, who said he’d never leave us, who says he’s with us always, even to the end of time. That kind of voice, that kind of love, is hard to fathom; in fact, it’s one of life’s deepest mysteries.

We are sometimes told, “You are what you eat.” I think it’s equally true that we are what we listen to. The voices we hear can shape us in powerful ways. Genuine listening is an attitude of the heart, a vulnerability to the holy. If indeed the first duty of love is to listen, the choice we are compelled to make is which voice we are going to listen for. Maybe, just maybe, if we listen in love, we will hear the voice of the One who loves us limitlessly, who loves us fearlessly. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024

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The Border Crisis

Posted on August 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly Matt. 15:28. The full readings for today can be found here.

In the name of the Living God: by whom we are being created, redeemed and sustained.

          You know, I have met a lot of priests. Many of them are my friends. And to be honest with you, I’m really not sure why. Because they treat me so bad. They really do. When it’s time for the Good Samaritan, or the little baby Jesus in the manger, my phone is silent—as silent as a midnight graveyard. But when the lectionary rolls around to Jesus calling a woman with a sick child a dog, all my friends have a conflict: “Brother James, could you come preach for me this Sunday?”  And all the sudden my phone is ringing like the bells of Notre Dame.

          I want to talk about that, but I want to put this story in a bit of context. You know, I love borders. I have spent most of my life near the border, and spent 25 years living right on the border with Mexico. And one of the things I love the most is the intersection of two cultures, the way culture is porous, even when a border may not be. When you live near a border, you come to realize just how fluid and flexible borders can be.

We see it in our meals: I learned very early on that enchiladas and huevos rancheros and carne asada just made life better. We see it in our families, as blended families soften our hard hearts, and all a sudden that’s not just some immigrant, that’s my grandchild, or my uncle, my tio. And we see it in our language: words and phrases cross cultural boundaries with absolute sovereignty, with no constraints. So, in Mexico, if you need to leave your car to go shopping, you’ll look for el parquing, or for breakfast you might have a cereal called los confleis, and the device you use for with your computer is el maus. And it travels in both directions: Our words corral, ranch, stampede all came from Spanish. We have states called Arizona and Florida, and even the name of your own town, Blanco comes from the Spanish. Borders and the confluence of cultures are fascinating.

My favorite border story comes from Mother Teresa, who was crossing one day into Israel. The border guards there asked her if she was carrying any weapons, and she replied, “Oh yes. I have my rosary and I have my prayer books.”

So, this morning, we find Jesus crossing from Jewish territory into the area of Tyre and Sidon, into Gentile country, into the land of the Canaanites. You remember the Canaanites; they were the people in the Old Testament who continually worshipped idols and were always in fights with the people of Israel. They really didn’t get along with the Jewish people, in fact, Jews would routinely refer to these Gentile pagans as “dogs.” It was a commonly used slur for the Canaanites, but it seems shocking when we hear that slur being used by Jesus. We might ask ourselves, “Was Jesus just having a very bad day?” Maybe we begin to get a sense that something more is going on here when we look at Jesus’ family tree and find three Canaanite women there: Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. As I said, the border changes things.

We learn just how elastic things are on the border when this woman cries out: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” So, here’s a gentile woman, who calls Jesus “Lord” and the “Son of David.” She may be a pagan, but she’s speaking a pretty solidly Jewish language. In this borderland, this woman doesn’t seem to fit any of the fixed markers of a pagan or a Gentile.

Jesus seems to ignore her, then tells her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” In other words, I’m not here for you; you’re outside my borders. But then, the story begins to shift, and there’s an interesting shift in the plot. This woman, this Canaanite woman, kneels before Jesus and begs, “Lord, help me.” And things begin to change. They enter into a conversation.  It’s worth noting that Matthew says this woman knelt before Jesus.  

Jesus tells her that it wouldn’t be fair to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs. And it’s shocking, and it’s uncomfortable to hear Jesus say that. But maybe we should remember a couple of things here. First, remember from Matthew’s gospel the parable about the workers who showed up early in the morning getting paid the same as those who showed up late in the afternoon? I don’t think Jesus gave a hoot about what’s fair; I think he was fiercely indifferent to our ideas of fairness. I think Jesus knew God’s mercy was lavish, that there was enough of it for everyone. And I think this woman knew it, too. And as for the slur about calling this woman a dog, well, as we observed earlier, Jesus had a little “dog” blood in him, too.

And look at this woman’s response, in the context of how desperate she is for Jesus to help her daughter. She doesn’t get her feelings hurt, she doesn’t lose her nerve or her persistence. She tells Jesus even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table. In other words, there’s enough for everyone to eat—to quote that old hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” In God’s economy, supplies of grace and blessings are not limited. God’s love and mercy cross every border we try to establish, skirt around all our barricades, and break down every wall. Now, here’s the tricky part: none of that was news to Jesus.

So, I want to pause that story and go back to the first part of our gospel today. Jesus is talking about the Jewish dietary laws, which are sometimes called the Purity Codes. And there were lots of these regulations, governing who you couldn’t spend your time with (like tax collectors), who you could and couldn’t touch (like lepers), and what you could eat and what you couldn’t eat. And all these rules operated as a kind of a border, a border between what was holy and the things and people that were not. And Jesus rejects this notion, he challenges this border.

Jesus tells us, it’s not what you put into your mouth, it’s what comes out of it that’s the problem. The problem isn’t what you eat; the problem is the slander and gossip and envy in your heart. So, your borders were all wrong. Holiness has a lot more to do with what’s in your heart than with what you eat. That’s the real border.

So, now we return to this woman, begging for Jesus to help her, to heal her child. And I think Jesus looked into her heart and knew that whatever border separated them, he was going to cross it. He tells her that she has great faith, and here I don’t think faith has anything to do with some intellectual proposition that she’s going to accept. I think it has to do with who she trusts. She is willing to give up her dignity, her pride, and her self-respect because she trusts that Jesus can help her daughter. And Jesus, having looked into her heart, is willing to cross the borders that separate them. He assures her that her prayers have been heard and answered.

So, I think it’s worth asking ourselves, “What are the borders that I have that separate me from God?” A lot of us have created a spiritual ghetto, isolated God and Jesus to an hour on Sunday morning. Jesus, you can have a bit of time while I’m in church, but I don’t want you coming with me to work, or when I’m arguing with my family, and I don’t want you getting into my politics, and I sure don’t want to see you on the golf course.

There’s a fellow named Russell Moore, who used to be a top official with the Southern Baptist Convention and is now the editor of Christianity Today. And he and several other pastors talked about preaching on turning the other cheek and preaching the Sermon on the Mount. And they were accosted by their congregation for preaching on “liberal talking points.” And when these pastors would reply “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ” their congregations would answer “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” Moore concludes that our church today is in a crisis, a crisis in which the teachings of Jesus Christ are considered subversive. I think that happens because some of us have created a border between Jesus and our politics.

And I think Moore may be right: we are in a crisis. But here’s the good news: if we trust Jesus, if we let him into our lives and take him seriously, he will knock down every false border we’ve created until there’s nothing left standing between us and God. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2023

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Lord, Save Me!

Posted on August 13, 2023 | 2 comments

But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Matt. 14:30 (The full text of the readings can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God: by whom we are being created, redeemed, and sustained.

As a boy in West Texas, I grew up as the oldest of four sons. Now, that was in the 60s, and back then, we went through a lot of uncertainty, a good deal of ambiguity. But there’s one thing we all knew with absolute mathematical precision; we knew it to a moral certainty. We knew it because every boy in West Texas knew it. We were sure that if a horny toad shot blood into your eyes, we knew that you would go blind.

So one morning, early in the morning, I woke up to find that my brothers had tied me to my bed. Like Gulliver, these Lilliputians had bound me where I lay, and I knew that nothing good could come of this. But my predicament got even worse when my brother Patrick, my no-good brother Patrick, took out a shoebox containing at least a dozen big fat horny toads. With glee in his eyes, he dumped them onto the bed where I was tied down and screaming like a banshee. Now, I’m not saying that my brothers were intentionally trying to blind me, but they were at least wildly indifferent to the possibility that I would end up sightless. So, I understand exactly how Joseph felt when his brothers threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery in Egypt. And I was sorely tempted to preach on that today, but the Church has given us an even better story.

Oh my, what a story. So today, we hear the story of a man named Peter who is willing to leave his relative comfort and security because he hears the call of Jesus.

If you know anything about my spiritual life, you know that I love Peter. He is my favorite biblical blunderer—overenthusiastic, and terribly underprepared. He is full of bravado and bluster and he clumsily rushes in where angels fear to tread. I think he really wants to follow Jesus, but most of the time, he really doesn’t have a clue about what that might look like. You know, now that I think about it, he’s a lot like…me.

It’s important for us to look at this story in context. This passage follows the feeding of the 5,000 in a deserted place, in the wilderness. Now the writers of scripture use two ways to signal a time and place of trouble and anxiety and danger. They talk about the wilderness, and they talk about the sea. And in this Gospel passage, Jesus has just left the wilderness, and the disciples find themselves on a stormy sea. So, you know there’s going to be some trouble.

One of the consistent metaphors used throughout the Old and New Testaments is the image of the sea as representing trouble or difficulty. These waters represent the nothingness before creation, in the Hebrew the tobu wa-bohu. The sea was perceived as the vortex around which danger and chaos and evil spun. So, in today’s Gospel, we find Jesus calling the disciples, not away from the storm, but into it. In fact, Jesus sends the disciples into the boat while he dismisses the crowds and goes to pray. Jesus goes to the mountain, like Moses, to encounter the God of Abraham. Thus, while he retreats to the mountains, he compels the disciples to face the sea of chaos. Literally translated, they are being tormented by the waves. Jesus compels them to confront their own frailty, their own vulnerability.

This story reminds us of another story in Matthew’s Gospel, in the eighth chapter. If you’ll remember that passage, Jesus was sleeping through the storm while the disciples cried, “Save us, Lord, for we are perishing.” And if you’ll recall, that story ends with the disciples wondering what kind of man Jesus is, if even the wind and the water obey him.

So, in today’s reading, it’s worth noting that the disciples have been out in this storm, on the water, for a long time. They’re sent away before evening, and they don’t see Jesus again until early in the morning. So, like many of us, they’ve been struggling to stay afloat for a good while. It’s not really the storm that frightens them, but they are terrified when they see Jesus. I love the nonchalant way the Gospel writer reports, “he came walking toward them on the sea.” Matthew records it as matter-of-factly as if he were saying that Jesus scratched his head or sat down to eat a tomato sandwich.

The disciples, as is so often the case, fail to recognize Jesus. And maybe, just maybe, it’s their fear that keeps them from knowing Jesus, just like our fear sometimes keeps us from seeing Jesus when he’s right beside us.

While the disciples are initially afraid that they are seeing a ghost, Jesus reassures them it’s him. And our translation really doesn’t do justice to Jesus’ words of comfort. In fact, this is a bad translation; it’s a terrible translation. In the original Greek, Jesus’ announcement is more sparse, succinct, and significant. In the Greek, Jesus says “Ego eimi.”  That phrase, I Am, is the name of God, the name he gave Moses as he told him to confront Pharoah. And so, Jesus assures them: “I Am.” He takes them back all the way to the God of Abraham and Moses, reminding them of the presence of God even on this storm-rocked sea.

And so, Peter sort of invites himself to join Jesus on the water. He calls Jesus “Lord,” but I’m not sure he understands exactly what he’s saying. Jesus is Lord, Lord over the deep and troubled waters, Lord over the wind and waves, Lord over the storms and all the destructive powers that seek to overwhelm our lives.

This is why I love Peter: he is so eager and yet, not quite ready. And he joins our Lord on the water and for a moment….the laws of nature and gravity are suspended. I suspect that, for just a moment, the angels stopped their singing and all heaven held its breath. And then, Peter began to notice the strong winds around him and he began to sink. And, whatever else you can say about Peter, at least he has the presence of mind to know where to turn in trouble. He turns to Jesus. He cries out, “Lord, save me.”

And when Jesus returns to the boat with Peter the wind dies down and the disciples all acknowledge that Jesus, the Jesus who walks across the storm and calms all our troubled seas, is the Son of God. And I don’t think we should judge St. Peter too harshly, in fact, I don’t think we should judge him at all, because he embodies one of the fundamental principles of the Christian life: we are going to fail. We fall down five times, and through God’s grace, we get up six.

Changing our lives is hard. It was hard for Peter and it’s hard for us. If we want to live for Christ, live whole-hearted lives, it’s going to take some time, and we’re going to make mistakes. Living with courage and hope and taking chances means we’re going to fail sometimes, and we need to be prepared for that. And yet, God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who constantly reminds us “I Am”— is always stronger than the sum of all our fears and failures.

Following Jesus is no assurance of smooth sailing. Being disciples does not shield us from the hard knocks of life and death. In fact, the biblical witness would tell us something quite to the contrary: we are assured of the storm.

You see, like St. Peter, God wants more from us than lives of safety and stability. God’s dreams for the world are bigger than that. God has called us to be explorers on an adventure: seeking God in unlikely places and pointing out His presence when others cannot see it. God had wonderful dreams for Peter, and has wonderful dreams for us, too. And so, we join him in stepping out of the boat, sinking sometimes, but always proclaiming the presence of God in the storm. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2023

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Understanding the Risks

Posted on June 25, 2023 | 1 comment

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (The full readings can be found here.)


In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Well good morning, good morning. You know, when I was a young man, growing up in West Texas, I always wanted to be a cowboy. My father had been a cowboy and rode a horse to school every morning. And every year, my father would take my brothers and me to the rodeo. And I loved it; I loved the clowns, and the barrel racers, and the calf-roping. But the event that really caught my eye, which fascinated me, was the bull riding.

I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old one year, and the bull riding competition began. And I saw the violence and the rage and the strength of that mammoth animal. And I looked up at my father and said, “Dad, you know who I’d like to meet? I’d like to meet the first man who decided it would be a good idea to crawl on top of an angry bull and ride it.” Well, my father thought about this for a while and then he said, “Yes, son. It would be interesting to meet that first man who rode a bull. But the guy I want to meet is the second man who thought that would be a good idea.”

My father was a wise man, and he had a good point. The more you understand the risks involved in what you’re about to do, the higher the level of commitment you are required to make. And I think that story is related to our gospel for this morning.

So, what are we to do with this challenging passage this morning? How are we to reconcile this Jesus, who frankly seems a little cranky, with the Prince of Peace, who told his disciple to put away his sword because to live that way meant that you would die that way. I think Jesus is talking to his disciples, trying to explain the risks of following him. I’m almost certain that Matthew was trying to help his community understand the risks of the Christian way of life.

We think Matthew’s gospel was written somewhere between 85 A.D. and 130 A.D., possibly in Antioch or somewhere in Syria. If that’s so, it puts Matthew’s gospel, and Matthew’s community, squarely within the onset of the persecutions of Christians. We happen to know a good deal about these persecutions, in part due to the diary of a woman named Perpetua. Now, Perpetua was martyred in 203, so within 70 years or so of Matthew’s gospel. I suspect Matthew’s community was intimately familiar with stories like hers. And hers is a story about the risks of following Jesus.

Now, Perpetua was the daughter of a very prosperous family in Carthage, and the mother of an infant son. Perpetua and four of her friends were all catechumens, that is, candidates for baptism. Unfortunately, the Roman emperor had forbidden conversion to Christianity or Judaism, so Perpetua and her companions were arrested and imprisoned.

At that time, Christians were essentially treated as traitors, which meant not only that you would suffer the death penalty, but also that your family’s wealth and property were subject to seizure. Perpetua’s father became one of her tormentors. He came to visit her in jail and begged her to denounce her faith. When she refused, he flew into a rage and beat her. He returned again to visit her. “Have pity on your father,” he said, “if I am worthy for you to call me father. Don’t make me a subject of scorn. Think about your son too. He can’t live without you.” 

At her trial, when she refused to denounce her Christianity, the procurator ordered that she be beaten with rods and her father carried out that sentence himself. On the birthday of the emperor’s son, she was thrown into the arena with wild beasts. Because their brutal attack did not quite manage to kill her, ultimately a young gladiator killed her with a sword. So, when Matthew wrote about the gospel tearing families apart, I think he was describing the experience of his own community. I think their experience of the resurrected Christ taught them about the risks of following Jesus and taught them that death was not something they should fear. For those who believe in Jesus, who follow Jesus, there are far worse things that can happen to us than dying. By the way, Perpetua’s diary was read aloud in those secret churches in the Empire for many years.

I want to contrast her story with the story of another man, a man named Jakob Wendel. He was only 19 when he fell in with a bad crowd, a crowd of wicked and cruel and sinful men. Now, he may not have done any actual killing, but he stood guard while these men engaged in torture and murder. And when he was brought to trial, he argued that he didn’t have any choice. If he hadn’t done it, they would have killed him. Oh, I forgot to mention that Jakob was a guard in the tower of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. And from that tower, he would have seen the smoke of the crematoria, and seen the trucks pull in with tanks of Zyklon B gas. I suppose in one sense, he saved his life by working at that camp. But in other, much more profound sense, he lost his life.

And I’m in no position to judge him, because Lord knows the worst mistakes I’ve ever made in my life I made because I was afraid. But I think for those of us who follow Jesus, there are far worse things that can happen to us than dying. I’m much more afraid of becoming callous to human suffering, or turning away from it, or living in a world where cruelty is the norm, than I am of dying. The Christian life is not easy, and every day we have to make a choice, and that choice involves a risk, and it involves a struggle. We may not all be called to be martyrs, but we are all called to struggle with the question of who we are going to follow.

Every day, I struggle with that question. There are parts of me that want to follow Jesus. And there are other parts of me that want to follow James. The parts that want to follow James come much easier. They allow me to loose that sharp tongue I inherited from my mother, to decide who is worthy of love, and sometimes, to tell the Almighty Immortal Creator of all that is how the situation down here could be a whole lot better. It doesn’t require nearly as much effort as following Jesus, which asks me to practice forgiveness and grace and compassion. All of these challenge us, and require us to take a risk. There is nothing easy about this Christianity thing.

You know, when we baptize a baby, we give his family a candle, and when we confirm those baptismal promises, we give that person a bible. And those are fine gifts, fine gifts. But sometimes I think if we really wanted to prepare people for the Christian life we would give them seatbelts and a crash helmet, because this walk of faith we are taking with Jesus, it can be a bumpy road.

But we don’t have to be afraid. Just like God told Hagar in the wilderness, just like Jesus told his disciples, just like he’s telling you and me, we don’t have to be afraid. The God who knows even the number of the hairs of our head will not leave us—no matter how dark the times, no matter how difficult the road, no matter how painful the situation. We will never wander so far that we escape the notice or the love of God. Never. So, we don’t have to be afraid anymore. We really don’t.

Amen.
James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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