Tag Archives: discipleship

Maundy Thursday (The Great Commandment)

Posted on April 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. The full readings for today can be found here.)

In the name of the living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Good evening, good evening. And thank you and Father John for inviting me to spend this Holy Week with you at St. Christopher by the Sea. And as we go through these holy days we call the Triduum, I want us to view these days, these sacred days, not as isolated worship services, but as a week-long single service that began last week with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It was a day of joy, a day of laughter, a day when the crowds proclaimed that Jesus was the king. And things would end up so very differently.

One of my favorite theologians, a man named Jürgen Moltmann, said that all theology must be conducted within earshot of the dying Christ. We’re going to come back to that again over the next several days, but it’s worth repeating: all of our thinking about God, especially that which concerns our hope for ourselves and humanity, must take place within earshot of the Cross. Well, in our readings for this evening, the shadow of the Cross looms very large.

So, we’ve all heard the question before, and maybe we’ve even thought about the answer for ourselves: “What would you do if you knew it was your last night on earth?” In this passage from John’s gospel, we see Jesus’ answer to that question. He has a final meal with his closest friends, even those who will betray and deny him. And John tells us, “he loved them to the end.”

And then, Jesus does something astonishing. He washes the feet of his disciples. In that culture, a culture that placed tremendous importance on honor and shame, that was considered the work of a servant, a slave. And this scene is in stark contrast with the entry into Jerusalem in which the crowd proclaimed him a king. This shocking lack of dignity is not the work of a rabbi, let alone the task of a king. But this loss of dignity is nothing compared to that which will come just a few hours later. After all, we are, as Moltmann observed, within earshot of the Cross.

And so, it’s no wonder that Peter suffers from a bit of cognitive dissonance because these two things just can’t go together. Or maybe this scene involves a level of vulnerability that Peter just isn’t comfortable with. Jesus tells Peter that unless he washes his feet, Peter will have no share in him. It’s an unusual phrase. But I think Jesus is telling Peter that we, as disciples, must learn not only to care for each other recklessly, but also to allow others to care for us without regard to our dignity or theirs. We have to learn vulnerability if our love is going to mean anything at all.

You see, I think Jesus came to live among us to show us what God was like. That’s part of the mystery of the Incarnation. And Jesus shows us an image of a God who is willing to take the risk of looking foolish in order to show us what love looks like. We like to think that love is all soft, and cuddly, covered in glitter and bathed in golden light. But if you’ve been around a while, you know that love is more often about taking risks, sometimes terrible risks. And tomorrow, we’ll find out just how high a price God is willing to pay for loving us.

Now comes the lynchpin of this gospel passage. Jesus tells his disciples: “if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” That’s what he said to the disciples; that’s what he’s still saying to you and me. Tonight, we’ll symbolically enact that teaching when we wash each other’s feet. But, when we leave and go into the world, we’ll have a chance to embody, to incarnate that teaching when we show God’s people—especially those who aren’t particularly loveable—that we love them.

That may mean working at a food bank, or offering a meal to a homeless family, or visiting someone who’s terribly ill. It might mean backing away from a party to look for someone who’s left out, who’s friendless, who’s lonely. It might mean going on a medical mission, or working with the water ministry. Through God’s grace, we are offered thousands of chances every day to show God’s people that we love them. Love them when it’s hard, love them when it hurts, love them until the end.

Jesus tells us: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” It’s not a difficult rule to understand, but it’s hard to live out. It’s as hard as the nails of the Cross. Martin Luther King once explained the purpose of this commandment:

“the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”

Love is a powerful force. It is the only force that has ever brought about real change in our world. Genuine love does not ask how much this will cost, or what people will think, or whether this person deserves our love.

Jesus tells us that by that kind of love, people will know that we are his disciples. So, it turns out that our identity as Christians has very little to do with sticking a fish decal on our car, or dressing in our Sunday best, or which political party we support. And it isn’t really about feet at all, except that it is. The last thing Jesus wanted his disciples to know, the most important thing he wants us to know, is that love defines our common life, defines our humanity. Tonight, we will strip the altar bare, take away all the finery, remove all the trappings. And if anything remains here in this Church, if anything remains in your heart, let it be love. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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    The Smell of Scandal in Bethany

    Posted on April 3, 2022 | 9 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 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 your 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.

    The story takes place, as John tells us, “six days before the Passover.” My friend John is a careful writer and a fine poet. There aren’t any accidents or coincidences in John’s Gospel. So when he says “six days before the Passover,” I think he wants us to think back to the book of Genesis, to the six days of creation. Because these six days we’re approaching, the days we now call Holy Week, are God’s re-creation: God is making all things new again.

    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. (See, I told you last week we’d come back to that idea.) 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.

    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.

    So, Mary had purchased this perfume for the time of Jesus’ death, but instead chooses to do so 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 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; breathe in her tender, reckless devotion and breathe in the life of Jesus. And then, exhale love.

         Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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    A Change Is Gonna Come

    Posted on February 23, 2020 | 7 comments

    Transfiguration

    Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
    As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Matthew 17:1-9.  (The full readings for today can be found here.)

    But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

    In the name of the Living God: who creates, redeems, and sanctifies us.

    Good morning, good morning. So, in today’s gospel, we hear Matthew’s story of Jesus being transfigured, in the Greek, the word is metamorphosis. So, it’s a story about change.

    But before we get there, I thought we might review our journey through this season of Epiphany, and see where the Scriptures have taken us this season. We began this journey with the story of the wise men, these men from the east, these Gentiles who were following a star. Matthew told us how the new life of Jesus on earth had implications for the cosmos. Even the sky has changed. Now maybe that was a new star, or a comet. Or maybe, just maybe, these wise men were simply able to see something that was always there, hidden in plain sight. Maybe they could see God at work in the heavens because, well, they were looking for it.

    The following week we were down at the river Jordan, where John was baptizing and announced that the kingdom of God was near. John, that holy wild man, announced that we would need to repent, to change, because God was in our midst. And as Jesus comes out of the water, having been baptized, we hear the same voice we heard this morning. “This is my son, my beloved.”

    So, on the second Sunday after Epiphany, we heard John’s version of that same baptism, and heard John the Baptist testify that Jesus was the son of God. And we heard Jesus call his disciples, who had overheard John proclaim Jesus as the lamb of God. And as the disciples are drawn to Jesus, Andrew goes and tells his brother we have found the Mashiach, the Messiah. And when his brother Simon goes to Jesus, Jesus tells him you’re not going to be Simon anymore; you’re going to be Cephas, or Peter. Again, we mark the notion of change: you’re going to be a different person, so you need a new name.

    The following week, we heard Matthew’s version of that story. And we heard Jesus reminding us to repent, to change, because God’s kingdom is breaking into the world. And Jesus called to Simon and Andrew, telling them to leave behind their jobs as fishermen and follow him. And they did. Because encountering the Christ, encountering Jesus, will require us to change.

    And then in the fourth week, we heard Jesus tell us that we were salt and light. In fact, he went further than that. He said that we were the light of the world! Us? The people who bicker all day about politics? The people who live so selfishly, who are consumed with being entertained rather than enriched, the people whose fear motivates them far more than their love? Yes, us. In fact, he said we were the light of the world. He said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” That is our calling; that is our place in the kingdom. That, my friends, is going to require a change.

    And last week, we heard Jesus say, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.” Jesus reminds us that it’s not just about what we do, but what we think and what we say. Last week, Jesus told us: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” This is not just about what we do, it’s about our hearts. My brothers and sisters, we are going to have to change.

    And that gets us to the gospel for this week. The story takes place, in Matthew’s phrase, six days later. We might ask, “Six days after what?” Well, it’s six days after Jesus announces he’s going to Jerusalem: Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets. And there aren’t any coincidences in Matthew’s gospel. That six days harkens us back to the story of creation in Genesis. Because what Jesus is going to do there, in Jerusalem, well, it’s going to make a new creation. It’s going to make all things new. And nothing is going to be the same after that.

    Jesus and his disciples go up on a mountain. And there, Jesus is transfigured; he is changed. His face shines like the sun. Now, maybe Jesus is changed, or maybe for the first time the disciples can see Jesus for who he was all along. Maybe for the first time they can see that hidden reality, the reality that’s not beyond this world, but within this world and sometimes obscured by our shallow expectations. And they see Jesus, talking with Moses and Elijah.

    It’s worth noting that both Moses and Elijah encountered God on a mountain. And like Moses, Jesus’ face shines with the reflection of the God he meets there. Now, for the Jewish people (people like Matthew), Moses was the lawgiver, who brought the people the Torah. And Elijah was considered perhaps the greatest of the prophets. And there they were, on the mountain, with Jesus, upon whom all the law and all the prophets hang.

    And the disciples hear God’s voice, echoing from Jesus’ baptism. “This is my beloved son.” And this time, the voice of the Lord adds something. “Listen to him!” So, here we have the core of our journey through epiphany: here is the light; here is the way the world changes; listen to him.

    And change, well, our response to change hasn’t evolved much since the first century. Whether it’s a divorce, the loss of a job, or a deep spiritual movement in ourselves, change frightens us. And I think that’s why Jesus reached out to his disciples, touched them, and said, “Get up and do not be afraid.” He’s still telling us that today.

    So, as we reflect upon our journey through the season of epiphany, we look forward to the next season into which the Church calls us: the holy season of Lent. Here we find our opportunity to really change our lives: to become the light of the world. And it’s about so much more than giving up sweets, or bread, or meat. Lent is about drawing closer to God, repenting of our mistakes and setting out on a new life, a better life, a more abundant life.

    If all we do during Lent is give up chocolate, that’s not a Lenten discipline, that’s a diet. And that’s fine, but that’s not the life we’re called into. We are called during that Holy Season to abandon anything that gets between us and God, to lay down our burdens and begin again.

    I thought I’d close this morning with something from one of my favorite saints, St. Sam of Mississippi. He wrote,

    It’s been too hard living, And I’m afraid to die
    ‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there
    Beyond the sky

    It’s been a long, long time coming
    But I know, but I know a change is gonna come
    Oh yes it is
    Oh my, oh my, oh my

    And so that’s my prayer for us this Sunday. Let us become that change; let us incarnate that change. Let that change come. Let it come. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2020

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    Just One Thing

    Posted on July 21, 2019 | 10 comments

    Jesus_with_Mary_and_Martha_MG_3110_48-120-800-600-90

    The full readings for today can be found here.

    “You are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”

    In the name of the Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    You know, it’s hard to be the oldest sibling, the oldest sister or brother. I was the oldest, and I promise you, I know how hard it can be. I was the eldest brother of four boys. And for reasons I still don’t really understand, my brothers (my no-good brothers) did not always really appreciate my leadership skills.

    Now, growing up in West Texas, there was one thing we were absolutely certain of. It wasn’t spelling or astronomy or even mathematics

     

    We knew for a fact that if a horned toad spit blood in your eye you would go blind. I’ll repeat that, because some of you may not be aware of this guiding principle of the universe: if a horned toad spit blood in your eye, you would go blind. And while they have since become endangered, back in those days they were everywhere, at least out in West Texas.

    Now this story, however, isn’t really about horned toads. It’s about my no-good brothers. You see, one summer morning, while I was still asleep, my brothers decided to stage a revolt, a kind of coup d’état. So that morning I awoke to find that my no-good brothers, my no-good mutinous brothers, had tied me to the bed. So there I was, bound to the bed, like Gulliver surrounded by the Lilliputians, thinking it couldn’t get any worse. But I was wrong.

    Just then, my no-good brother Patrick leered at me as he showed me a shoe box containing between one and two dozen horned toads. He shook them onto the bed and they began running up and down and, it seemed at the time, heading straight for my eyes.

    So, I did what I always do when a situation calls for remarkable courage. I squealed like a little girl. I screamed like the banshees, like the demons of hell, were after me—because, well, they were. And when finally, after about a thousand years, my mother came into the room, she looked at me as though she were looking at Lazarus and said, “Unbind him.” Now, I’m not sure that my brothers intended to blind me, not exactly. But I do think they were at least…indifferent to the possibility. So, I know how hard it can be to be the older brother or sister.

    Let’s turn our attention to the gospel for this morning. It’s a very short passage: in fact, it consists of only six sentences. There are several things to note. First, I don’t get the feeling that the day of Jesus’ visit was the first time these two sisters had this discussion. I think Jesus kind of walked into the middle of a long-running squabble between these two about their respective roles. We can sort of hear that in Martha’s request to Jesus: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” This is sort of the first century equivalent of “Mom, make her stop!”

    That leads me to one of the spiritual lessons we can draw from this passage: Jesus does not like tattletales. In fact, as a friend of mine has observed, “Tattletales make the baby Jesus cry.”

    Secondly, when Jesus and the disciples come to this village, they come to Martha’s house. It’s her house. And Jesus has come with several of the disciples, so there’s a lot of work to be done. And in that culture, at that time, hospitality was a big deal—it was a cultural norm, and it was a religious norm. The task she busies herself with is the spiritually essential task of extending hospitality to strangers. So, I sadly don’t think the point of the story is that doing housework is sinful, or less valuable than studying. I only wish the point of the story was that housework is a sin. I could get behind that.

    In fact, I’m pretty sure that the point of the story isn’t that the practice of hospitality is less important than spending time with God. If you’ll remember back to just last week, earlier in that very same chapter of Luke, we heard the story of the Good Samaritan, a story which at its core, is a story about hospitality. Jesus says that we inherit eternal life by loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. And when we do that, we come to learn that loving God and loving our neighbor (or, to put it another way, practicing hospitality) aren’t two things at all. They’re the same thing. In fact, they’re the “one thing.” But, more about that in a bit.

    Now, unlike Martha, her sister Mary, sits listening to Jesus. In effect, she is studying the Torah with Jesus. She sits at his feet and calls him “Lord,” assuming the posture of a disciple. We might miss how odd that is, because in that culture at that time, men and women did not study Torah together.

    I don’t think this story is about the false choice between action and contemplation. I say “false choice” because right Christian action is always the fruit of contemplation, and our contemplation should push us toward apostolic action.

    Martha, actually, is doing a lot of things right. She recognizes Jesus as her Lord; that’s what she calls him. Moreover, she’s engaged in the holy task of serving her guests, in the Greek diakonia. That’s good and holy work; in fact, that’s the same Greek word root for our word “deacon.” So, where does she get off the track?

    I think the key lies in what Jesus tells her: she was “worried and distracted by many things.” The word we translate as “distracted” (in the Greek periespato) carries with it the idea of being pulled, or dragged, or torn in several directions. She is consumed by her worry. So, while her sister Mary is feasting on the bread of life, Martha, is making a meal out of the bread of anxiety. This anxiety sabotages her hospitality and subverts the very essence of hospitality—the gracious attention to the care of others.

    We can serve God through the practice of hospitality, preparing a meal for example. Or, we can just cook dinner. If we chose the latter, it’s easy to get distracted. But Jesus calls us into a life of unity—of seeing all our labors, the entirety of our lives, as joined in a single sacred task: the one thing. The great Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard famously said that, “A saint is someone who wills the one thing.” That’s the better part.

    Like Martha, we are all so helplessly distracted. We need to remember the one thing: we are not defined by what we do, but by our relationship with the living God in whom we live and move and have our being. Now, we don’t know how this story ended—whether Martha was able to regain her focus and realize the joy of being with Jesus. I suspect Luke left that ending out intentionally, because we get to write the ending of that story for ourselves. How do we want to live, to spend this wild, beautiful, priceless time we have been given?

    The great Spanish poet Pablo Neruda once said:

    If we were not so single minded
    about keeping our lives moving,
    And for once could do nothing,
    Perhaps a huge silence
    might interrupt this sadness
    of never understanding ourselves.

    So, today, that’s my prayer for us, that we come to recognize the one thing, just one thing, that binds all the parts of our lives and all of us together. We only need one thing. Just one. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2019

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    Losing Our Lives

    Posted on February 26, 2018 | 2 comments

    Sean

    The full readings for today can be found here.

    “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

    In the name of the Living God: Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

    It’s an odd passage, our Gospel for this morning. And you know, it’s not unambiguously “good news.” So, it’s probably worth setting the scene for today’s reading.

    The eighth chapter of Mark’s Gospel is pretty much bursting out–full of a lot of that Jesus stuff. Jesus feeds the four thousand, argues with the Pharisees, and restores sight to a blind man at Bethsaida. And, after all this, he asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And more importantly, “Who do you say that I am?” It’s a marvelous question. Who is Jesus? More importantly, who is Jesus to me? What has he got to do with my life? That question alone merits 40 days worth of contemplation.

    In response to Jesus’ question, Peter offers an answer and it’s stunning. Peter: who is always full of enthusiasm if not wisdom. Peter: the kid in class who raises his hand regardless of whether he knows the answer or not. I love Peter. He is hopelessly earnest although a bit clumsy. This gives me hope. He and I are so much alike. Well, except for that sainthood thing. And I’m working on that.

    Peter answers that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the son of the living God. And that gets us to the Gospel this morning, which is where everything begins to go haywire. Because while the disciples, and all of Israel, was waiting for a certain kind of Messiah, Jesus was busy being a different kind of Messiah. They were looking for a king, a godly king to be sure, but mostly the kind of king who would get rid of all those Romans around there. They were looking for someone to raise up a guerilla army and take back their country, to liberate them like Moses did, to fight for them like David did. They were looking for someone to make Israel great again. They were looking for someone to beat up the bullies who were beating up on them. And Jesus had no intention of doing that.

    Jesus teaches his disciples about the cross—a cross that will ultimately stand at the center of the universe, binding it all together in an act of blessing and filling the world with his eucharist. Through the cross, Jesus will transform his life and ours into union and communion with God. The cross, this instrument of torture and shame, will become so bound up with our notion of blessing and hope and salvation that we can no longer separate them.

    Jesus tells his disciples, “This Messiah thing isn’t what you think at all.” He tells them the Messiah will be rejected, will suffer, and be killed. Now, that’s not the worst part. Because then, Jesus tells them, if you want to be my followers, you have to deny yourselves and take up my cross and follow me. Let me rephrase that, Jesus tells us, you and me, that we have to pick up that cross.

    So, I’m wondering, what exactly does your cross look like? What are the nails that bind you to that cross?

    I’ll tell you a story about picking up the cross, and it’s a story that makes me proud, and it’s a story that makes me ashamed. It’s mostly a story about my baby brother, Sean Michael, and he’s been on my mind a lot lately because this week was the anniversary of his death.

    You see, many years ago, out in West Texas, my mother lay in her home dying of cancer. And there came a time when the morphine just wasn’t working very well. And my mother, you see, she couldn’t stand to be touched at all. She would scream like the demons of hell were tormenting her. Well, the time came when my mother needed to be bathed, and her dressing needed to be changed. And I, well, I just couldn’t do it. I could not watch her suffer—this woman who taught me to walk, to read, to think for myself. I just couldn’t bear to hear my mother scream or cry; I couldn’t bear to see her in pain.

    But my brother Sean could, and did. He would gently bathe her and change her dressing, while I remained outside. My baby brother, Sean Michael, picked up that cross and I did not. And I was ashamed of myself, but I was proud to call this strong, brave man my brother. And I want to suggest to you that the nails that bound my brother to that cross were the same nails that bound Jesus to his. They were not made of iron; they were made of love. You see, love is the only thing that ever really binds us to the cross.

    Now, since that time, I have encountered other crosses. And some of them, I have been able to pick up and carry for a while. I think that’s how the Christian life works: we learn much more from our failures than from our successes. And slowly, bit by bit, we are changed. Bit by bit, the stuff in our lives that isn’t Jesus begins to fade away until more and more of the divine part of us begins to shine through.

    And that’s the fundamental purpose of Lent: bit by bit, we are changed; we become more Christlike. Through grace, we grow in faith, we learn to deny ourselves and pick up the cross. We learn to give up our false selves, in order to save our true lives, the lives God meant for us to live. We learn to surrender our selfishness, until our true humanity shines through and we recover the Christ within us.

    And that’s my prayer for you, and that’s my prayer for me. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2018

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    Hearing the Words

    Posted on February 10, 2018 | 5 comments

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    Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.’

    The Jews answered him, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ Jesus answered, ‘I do not have a demon; but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.’ The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’* Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. John 8: 47-59.

    Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.

    In the name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    You know, sometimes, sometimes, I absolutely hate the lectionary. I’ve got a sermon, or I’ve got a theology, or I have an understanding, and it just won’t fit into the text that I’ve been given. Sometimes, the text just doesn’t have much to do with my idea of God, or Jesus, or holiness at all. But to paraphrase former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, we’ve got to deal with the lectionary we have, not the one we wish we had. In fact, as today’s gospel reminds us, we’ve got to deal with the Jesus we have rather than the one we wish we had.

    If you ever find yourself infatuated with the kind, squishy, gooey caramel Jesus, I suggest that the eighth chapter of John is the best antidote for you. This is not a Jesus made for people who need puppies and unicorns and glitter: this is a Jesus in conflict. It’s a conflict that begins in the opening lines of the 8th chapter with the story of the woman caught in adultery, a conflict that will ultimate get Jesus killed.

    But, I’m getting ahead of myself. You know, back when I was just a kid, growing up in West Texas, some of the earliest questions I can remember people asking me were: “Where are you from? Who are your people? Are you any kin to those Dennis’ over in Scurry County?” We are fascinated with questions surrounding our origins. I think that’s based on the assumption that if we can know the origins of a thing or a person, we will then understand it, and know which box to put it in. These are the very questions that our gospel today centers upon.

    So, we heard a bit about this conflict yesterday. And this morning, the conflict has accelerated. Jesus’ accusers go so far as to accuse him of being a Samaritan, or of having a demon. Now, in either instance, if he were a Samaritan or if a demon had driven him insane, the implication is that no one needs to listen to what Jesus had to say. Jesus turns away from the insult, returning to the notion of his origin, his source. The only authority Jesus claims for himself is the authority of the Father.

    Jesus then makes a remarkable claim: those who keep his word will never see death. So, now we have the competing claims of authority. Those who oppose Jesus claim their authority arises from Abraham, the father of monotheism. They rest upon their link, their lineage, back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the prophets. They ask Jesus, they mock Jesus: “Are you greater than our father Abraham, and all the prophets who died?” The question echoes with the question posed in the 4th chapter of John’s Gospel by the Samaritan woman at the well: “Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well?”
    Jesus refuses to entertain the question of who’s greater. He says he’s not interested in his own glory (in the Greek doxa). Whatever glory Jesus has will come from the Father, and not from them. Jesus responds that they don’t even know the Father. Jesus argues that he knows both the Father and Abraham. Now the fight is joined: they know Jesus is crazy because he couldn’t know Abraham. Abraham has been dead for centuries.

    And here’s the punch line: Jesus claims before Abraham was, I am. It’s an odd formulation. He doesn’t claim, I was before Abraham was. He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” I am. In the Greek, ego eimi. It is the same phrase Jesus uses when he says, “I am the bread of life, or “I am the true vine” or “I am the good shepherd.” It is the same phrase that answers Moses’ question, “Who are you?” I am who I am. It’s an origin story. Jesus’ origin lies at the beginning of creation: the Logos who was with God and was God from the beginning.

    It’s a remarkable claim. It’s the sort of claim that’ll get you in a rock fight, get you killed, get you crucified up on a tree. So, I think there’s a lesson for us as Dominicans. Jesus, the truth, finds himself in conflict with those who cannot accept the truth. For those of us who follow Dominic, who belong to an Order whose motto is Veritas, this offers an important lesson. Our lives will not be free of conflict. We follow a man, a God, who was born and lived a good part of his life in conflict. You see, in a world full of comfortable lies, the truth will always fall under attack. Scripture teaches us that: we need only look to the stories of Amos, Elijah, the other prophets or Jesus.

    The first weapon of our Ancient Enemy was the lie. Jesus told us, He was a liar from the very beginning. Our ancient enemy said, if you eat this fruit, you will not die, but you will become gods. Lies have a remarkable power. As my father used to say, a lie can travel three counties over while the truth is still tying its shoes.

    In a land of lies, the truth will stand out like a sore thumb. And history teaches us that lies cannot bear the light of the truth. Modern history teaches us this as well. From Gandhi to Martin Luther King, lies and liars cannot suffer the presence of those who commit themselves to the Truth. They cannot, and I choose this word carefully, abide it. So, we should not expect our road to be easy. Ours is the road that leads to Jerusalem and to Golgotha.

    So, as we leave this place, go home safely, go in peace and with our blessing and our love. But as you go, listen for God’s voice. Make that your home; abide there. But walk in truth, with the incarnate Truth, the Logos, the Christ. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2018

     

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    The First and the Last

    Posted on September 24, 2017 | 4 comments

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    The full readings for today can be found here.

    Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

    In the name of the Living God, who binds all of us together: Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier.

    Good morning, good morning. It is a great pleasure to be with you again at St. Paul’s and I want to thank your rector for inviting me and you for your wonderful hospitality.

    You know, I grew up out in West Texas, and was the eldest of four boys. And although my parents never said so, I’m sure they were terribly grateful for my finely attuned sense of fairness. Because whenever they made a mistake in the allocation of resources (whether it was Christmas presents, dolling out allowances or apportioning dessert), they could count on my keen sense of justice and willingness to speak up and tell them: “That’s not fair.”

    I had a profound sense of justice and of the urgency to get my fair share, to get what’s coming to me. And so, for a long time, the story in today’s Gospel bothered me. But as I’ve gotten older and my focus has turned to the spiritual life and perhaps a broader awareness of just how lucky I’ve been, I have come to realize that the very last thing in the world I want from God is for God to give me what’s coming to me.

    So, let’s take a look at this parable, this story that Jesus tells to his listeners. First, we need to note that the whole story is set in the context of Jesus trying to explain what the kingdom of God is like. And I don’t think Jesus was necessarily trying to give them a description of heaven, because elsewhere, he tells them, “The Kingdom of God is within you now.” So, Jesus is trying to explain how we can live into, how we can bring about the kingdom, here and now. This story isn’t about some rarefied, ethereal event that will happen in the sweet by and by: it’s about how we live our lives right here and right now.

    So, the parable itself is not that complicated. It’s not a hard story to follow. Then again, as Mark Twain once said, “Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.”
    A landowner needed people to work in his vineyards. He hires workers early in the morning, and again at nine, and noon, at three in the afternoon and again at five o’clock. And when it comes time to pay the workers, he pays those who showed up last first, and to compound things he pays those who only worked for an hour the same wage as those who worked all day. When the day ends, all of them (those who showed up early and those who showed up late) are all paid the same wage. And the workers who worked all day in the hot sun begin to do exactly what we would expect—exactly what most of us would do—they engage in one of the most ancient practices of Christians everywhere; they grumble.

    Now, I love that word: grumble. It sounds like a cross between a grunt, a groan and mumble. We think it comes from the Middle French or Middle Dutch, and meant to “mutter between the teeth.” And if we look at the Old Testament lesson today from Exodus, that’s exactly what we find God’s people doing in the desert: they are grumbling, they are complaining. So, we have been doing this for a very long time, and have gotten pretty good at it by now.

    If we think about Jesus’ parable, it’s probably helpful to think about those laborers. Day laborers probably weren’t all that different in the first century than they are today. The men who would have been hired first, early in the morning, would most likely be those who were young, strong, healthy and looked like they could do a hard day’s work. By five o’clock in the afternoon, the men left would probably have been the old, the weak and perhaps those who were lame. And yet, they had the same needs as those who were strong and healthy: they needed to feed themselves and those they cared for. So, maybe, part of what Jesus is trying to tell us is that God is far more concerned with our needs than with our abilities. In other words, God’s economy may have a great deal more to do with generosity than with merit.

    I know that will come as a great disappointment to many of us; our culture insists upon the importance of merit. Whether it’s athletic ability, intellectual capability, holiness and piety, wealth or beauty, we crave success: it’s the addiction of our age. So, whatever this kingdom of God is, I’m not sure it looks very much like our society today.

    You see, it looks like God is much more concerned with mercy than with justice. Or at least, God’s justice looks a lot more like peace and mercy than some courtroom drama where the criminals get what’s coming to them. Which is kind of a shame, because we Americans really love justice. We love it when the billionaire is sent to prison for insider trading, or when the politician is caught perjuring himself before a senate committee, or when the sanctimonious preacher is exposed in a torrid sexual affair. Schadenfreude—the delight at watching another’s misfortune—may well be the emotion most characteristic of our age. As the Canadian songwriter Bruce Cogburn said, “Everybody loves to see justice done . . . on somebody else.”

    But I’m beginning to think that God’s justice looks a lot more like what most of us would call mercy. And so, most of us can breathe a collective sigh of relief. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has observed, we may be quite surprised by the people who end up in heaven. “God has a soft spot in his heart for sinners. His standards are really quite low.”

    In the parable, Jesus points out something else that I think is really important for us today. It’s a curious phrase: “Or are you envious because I am generous?” In the original Greek it reads: “Is your eye evil because I am good?” I think Jesus is pointing out one of the greatest spiritual dangers most of us face, the danger of envy, of thinking we deserve what someone else has. In the final analysis, when we feel that, we are saying God or the fates or life has treated us poorly, that we deserve what others have. And as Shakespeare once observed, “Comparisons are odious.” But they’re worse than smelly; they are dangerous in that they encourage us to continue the practice of keeping score. And in the spiritual life, that is a sure road to Nowheresville, a long, rocky path to unhappiness and bitterness.

    Jesus talked about the same thing in the Gospel reading last week, when he spoke about forgiveness. If you’ll remember, Peter asked if he would need to extend forgiveness as many as seven times. Jesus answered, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” In other words, you’re going to have to do it so often that you lose count, that you give up the practice of keeping score. You see, when I’m looking at whether someone else deserved an award, or a raise, or a new car, I’m avoiding examining at my own life and the choices that I’ve made and the kind of person that I’ve become.

    Jesus contrasts that kind of life with a life of radical generosity and a life full of grace. Grace doesn’t have anything to do with what we deserve; it is by its very nature an undeserved gift, a gift given out of love rather than obligation or merit. When we learn to trust in the Lord of heaven, we find a God who will rain down bread on us, who sets a table for us as we wander through the desert. What does it mean for us if God’s love, God’s grace, God’s mercy, doesn’t depend at all on our effort, our achievement, or our merit? I think following Jesus may mean that we have to give up keeping score and recognize that we have enough for today, enough for this day’s journey. And enough, as my parents told me so often, is enough.

    So, I’m wondering what this passage might mean for us in really practical everyday terms. It might mean that we give a coworker a second, or even a third chance. It might mean that we give something to a street person, regardless of whether we think they deserve it or not. Or it might mean that we forgive someone who hasn’t really shown they’re sorry, or that we are kind to those who have been unkind to us in the past. It may not change them, it may not change them at all, but maybe if we’re really lucky and God rains down his mercy on us, it just might change us. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2017

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    The Wind Ceased

    Posted on August 14, 2017 | 6 comments

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    The full readings for today can be found here.

    And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

    In the name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    You know, every now and then, the stars align, the gears click into place, the dice roll reveals our hopes to be well founded and the Lectionary gives us just exactly what we need. So today, we hear the story of a man named Peter who is willing to leave relative comfort and security because he hears the call of Jesus. As Einstein used to say, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

    So, we know that 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 tohu 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 Matthews 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. And I love the nonchalant way the Gospel writer reports, “he came walking toward them on the sea.” Mathew records it as matter-of-factly as if he were saying that Jesus then ate a ham 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 Jesus’ words of comfort justice. In the original Greek, Jesus’ announcement is more sparse, succinct, and significant: he tells them “I Am.” He harkens 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 then, we have this wonderful story of Peter. Now, if you’ve heard me preach before at all, you know I love Peter. Peter is full of confidence and bravado and a genuinely good heart which is regularly undone by his clumsy efforts to accomplish his tasks. Peter usually opens his mouth only to change feet, but he rushes in where angels fear to tread. He is full of well-intentioned, but impetuous folly.

    And so, he sort of invites himself to join Jesus on the water. 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, he 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 screw up. We fall down five times, 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. In the religious life, that’s why we have a novitiate. 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 is always stronger than the sum of all our fears and failures.

    Following Jesus is no assurance of smooth sailing. Following St. Dominic 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 know, we clothe our new brothers and sisters with cowls and scapulars. I’m not sure we wouldn’t do better to give them life jackets and crash helmets.

    I’m reminded of a poem by a fellow named Andrew King. He wrote:

     

    Consider the wild wave, its wet tension,
    tissues of torn foam in its curled fist;
    contradiction of calm, enemy of evenness,
    it says to the stormed soul: fear my strength.

    Consider the flinty wind, its walled power,
    shreds of white clouds in its biting teeth;
    uncaring and unkind to brittle weakness,
    it says to the scoured soul: fear my strength.

    Consider the fragile flesh, its limitations,
    gravity’s slave and tattered by time;
    weak against wave and wind’s toughness,
    it says to the struggling soul: I’ve little strength.

    Consider Christ who walks through storm toward us,
    who reaches out, compassion in his hands,
    counters fearing with God’s loving faithfulness.
    Who says to the yearning soul: here is strength.

    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. And so it is with our brother Peter, who will make his life vows this evening. Like Joseph in the Old Testament reading today, he has come, seeking his brothers and his sisters.We have seen in him the love of God, reflected in his love and commitment to this Order and the path of St. Dominic. We have watched him grow in marvelous ways. God has wonderful dreams for our brother, and we do, 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. © 2017

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    There’s Going to Be Trouble

    Posted on June 25, 2017 | 5 comments

     

    The full readings for today can be found here.

    Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

     

    In the name of the living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    You know, every now and then, my friend Father Chris calls me and asks me if I’d like to come down here and be with you good people and preach. And without fail, before looking at the readings, I always say “yes,” because I love him, and love my godchildren and love you all.

    And then, a week or so later, I go look at the readings, and I see that my friend, my priest, my brother has invited me to preach about Jesus tearing families apart, and bringing trouble between children and their parents. And I scratch my head and wonder at the nature of my friendship with Father Chris. But here we are, and this is the Gospel we have, and so we might as well get on with it.

    So, it’s worth putting this passage in context. In the 9th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has been doing that Jesus stuff. He has healed the woman with the blood disorder, healed two blind men and a mute with a demon, and raised a girl from the dead. And now, in chapter 10, he’s sending his disciples out to do that very same work: to cast out unclean spirits and cure every disease and sickness.

    That gets us to today’s Gospel. Before he sends the disciples out, he warns them: this isn’t going to be easy. There’s going to be trouble. He tells them, if they called me the devil, they’re not going to treat you any better. Those who follow Jesus can expect that sometimes they’ll be met with fear and smugness and slander.

    One of the things Jesus is doing is inviting the disciples to face their fears. Jesus was sending the disciples out, alone. Traveling in the ancient world was a risky business, and most people didn’t venture far away from their homes or their families. But Jesus sent them out, without any money, without even a staff. He sent them out like sheep among the wolves, so they would learn to trust God and trust each other.

    For them, like all of us, fear could be crippling, it could be paralyzing. Fear is a terrible thing to see in children, but it’s dreadful to watch the grip of fear take hold of adults. Many of you know the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who returned to Germany to stand up against the Nazis. Now Nazi Germany was a petri dish in which the bacteria of fear flourished. And Bonhoeffer wrote:

    Fear is, somehow or other, the archen­emy itself. It crouches in people’s hearts. It hollows out their insides, until their resistance and strength are spent and they suddenly break down. Fear secretly gnaws and eats away at all the ties that bind a person to God and to others, and when in a time of need that person reaches for those ties and clings to them, they break and the individual sinks back into himself or herself, helpless and despairing, while hell rejoices.

    Now fear leers that person in the face, saying: Here we are all by our­selves, you and I, now I’m showing you my true face. And anyone who has seen naked fear revealed, who has been its victim in terrifying loneliness— fear of an important decision; fear of a heavy stroke of fate, losing one’s job, an illness; fear of a vice that one can no longer resist, to which one is enslaved; fear of disgrace; fear of another person; fear of dying—that per­son knows that fear is only one of the faces of evil itself, one form by which the world, at enmity with God, grasps for someone. Nothing can make a human being so conscious of the reality of powers opposed to God in our lives as this loneliness, this helplessness, this fog spreading over everything, this sense that there is no way out, and this raving impulse to get oneself out of this hell of hopelessness.

    Jesus calls upon the disciples, and by that I mean us, to confront every fear that stands between God and us.

    Jesus warns his disciples that there’s going to be trouble, not peace, but a sword. He says that families will be set against each other. In the Old Testament, there were a number of false prophets who went around proclaiming “peace” and good times when that’s not at all what was happening. Jesus distances himself from those false prophets because he knows this isn’t going to be easy for the disciples, nor is following Jesus easy for us. There’s going to be trouble.

    And Jesus talks about families turning against each other, and we know that did happen in the early Christian communities. Persecution of Christians and their families was common and still is in many places in the world. And that’s because, there’s going to be trouble.

    I sometimes hear people say that bad news, or trouble, comes in threes. That’s not been my experience in my Christian walk: it comes in something closer to three hundred and thirty threes. Whether it’s broken families, illness, losing loved ones, or the God-awful ways that we’ve begun to speak to each other politically, we find ourselves sinking in the mire. And there’s going to be trouble.

    Jesus tells his disciples, tells us, that if we want to be worthy of calling ourselves disciples, we need to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Now, picking up our cross doesn’t just mean that we bear troubles. It means that, like Jesus, we bear them in love, without letting our hearts become hardened, we bear them in forgiveness. It means that, when troubles come, we turn to God, we lean on God and we know that God is with us. Then, we will walk as children of light; then we will follow Jesus.

    This is our proclamation as Christians. The great battle cry of the Gospels, of our faith and of the Church is the renunciation of the power of fear in our lives. We don’t have to be afraid anymore.

    And since we just celebrated the feast of Pentecost a couple weeks ago, it’s at least worth considering the possibility that our troubles may be one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You see, our troubles can force us to abandon the illusion of our independence, and turn to each other for help and comfort. Our troubles can pull us out of our unreflective everydayness, and compel us to examine the things in life that really matter. Our troubles can turn us from a mean-spirited self-devotion to lives of compassion, lived in community and lived in the presence of the God who never abandons us, no matter how often we abandon God.

    But here’s the linchpin of today’s reading, and the linchpin of our faith: we don’t have to go through our troubles alone. Jesus tells his disciples: look, sparrows are worth half a penny, but God watches every one of them when they fall. You don’t think God is watching over you? So, yes, there is going to be trouble, but you don’t have to be afraid. If we’re on Jesus’ side, God is on our side: the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God who made all things, the God who makes all things new, the God who knows every single one of the hairs on our head. So, while we are going to walk through that dark land, Jesus reminds us that we aren’t going there alone. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2017

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    How Can These Things Be?

    Posted on March 12, 2017 | 7 comments

    The full readings for this Sunday can be found here.

    “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

    In the name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

              Back in 1975, my parents packed me up and loaded me onto an airplane bound for Lacombe, Louisiana. There, I would attend a minor seminary, which was a kind of a prep school for young men who wanted to become priests.  In addition to the regular courses, we would study Latin and theology. And we went to Mass every day.

              While I was there, I became close with three young men: Steve Delacroix, who taught me the benefits of being a rogue; Gerard Lascaux, who taught me how to play poker; and Jariet Randall, a young African-American man who taught me a great deal about courage.

              Well, every now and then, the four of us would sneak off from the seminary into the Louisiana night and go through the woods into the town of Lacombe. There was an old swimming pool there where the girls from town would go, and we would meet them for what my friend Gerard Lascaux called “general mischief.”

              So this one night, we snuck out of the dorm and went walking towards town, and it was way past dark-thirty. And I observed that if the priests caught us sneaking out, we would be in real trouble. And my friend Steve Delacroix said, “Oh no, chère.  They won’t be upset, cause we’re doing this for their benefit.” Well, I looked at him and said, “Delacroix, how do you figure we are doing this for their benefit?”

              Well, Steve, he looked at me and said, “You see, we’re living such holy lives here at the seminary that if we didn’t sneak out every now and then, we wouldn’t have no sins to confess, and the priests wouldn’t have nothing to forgive.”

              Well, it turns out that my friend Delacroix had misjudged the priests’ attitude about our late night adventures, and they weren’t nearly as grateful as we thought they might be.

              So, in today’s Gospel, we hear about another fellow who has been sneaking around at night, albeit for reasons somewhat more noble than were mine and my friends’.

              We meet this man Nicodemus, a leader of the Jewish people, who Jesus calls “the teacher of Israel.” He comes to Jesus as one of the stewards of the religious traditions of his people. Now the Evangelist John is a very fine poet, and when he says Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, we need to recognize that John’s not just talking about events that took place after sunset. John means that Nicodemus was walking in a spiritual darkness. And he comes to Jesus at night, in secret.

              Now Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and he had inherited a rich, long tradition and had devoted his life to it. And yet, he was drawn to this man Jesus, drawn to the signs he has seen, drawn to the miracles, and drawn to the clear presence of God in Jesus’ life.

              And then, their conversation takes a very strange turn. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born from above if he wants to see the kingdom. Now this is a moment that transcends Nicodemus’ initial curiosity. This is not just a minor adjustment in Nicodemus’ ideas about God. This is a completely new way of being, which will require Nicodemus to let go of most everything he thinks he understands.

              And understandably, Nicodemus is confused. He doesn’t get it; he takes Jesus literally. He wonders how an old man is supposed to be born again, to go back to the womb. And Jesus’ response doesn’t necessarily clear that confusion up. He tells Nicodemus that what is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. In essence, Jesus tells him, you’ve got to be born all over again; you’ve got to start from the very beginning.

              Jesus tells him that Spirit goes where it will; we don’t know where it comes from and we don’t know where it’s going. A life in the spirit of God, a life like that of Jesus, isn’t neat or calculable or predictable. The Spirit is holy and wild and unrestrained. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that God will not remain in the box that we try to keep God in.

              And Nicodemus doesn’t understand. He is confused. He reveals his amazement when he says, “How can these things be?” There is a certain terror in his confusion. Because like every birth, being born in the spirit will involve a certain amount of pain as well as some chaos. But there is a certain grace in that bewilderment.

              God will not stay inside the box of our comprehension. As a friend noted, “God, as I understand Him, is not well understood.” Or, to paraphrase the great physicist Werner Heisenberg, Not only is God stranger than we think, God is stranger than we have the capacity to think.

              We all like our mountaintop experiences. We love those moments when we think we can grasp God, or the movement of God in our lives. But those aren’t the moments where growth happens. Spiritual growth arises more often from moments when we say, “I don’t understand this at all” or “What is this happening here?” or “How can these things be?” If we want to follow Jesus, really follow Jesus, we need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

              We might call these moments of “holy confusion.” In times like these, God draws us closer. God calls us to change. God calls us into something completely new. In such moments, we feel like the rest of our lives don’t make sense anymore. We feel like new people; we feel reborn.

              One of my favorite theologians is a rabbi named Abraham Joshua Heschel, who prayed that God would give him the gift of wonder. He once said “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. . . . to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” As Heschel knew, we are far closer to God when we are asking questions than when we are convinced of our answers.

              But we know a few more things about Nicodemus. We know that at the trial of Jesus, he was the only person who stood up for Christ. Nicodemus, who had initially come to Jesus in secret, spoke up for him in public. And we know that when Jesus was crucified, it was Nicodemus (along with Joseph of Aramethea) who took the body to be buried and anointed it. Somehow, the encounter with this man Jesus changed Nicodemus.

              And we want to know more, we want to know what happened to him. But I think that John’s Gospel intentionally leaves that story unfinished. Our story, too, is unfinished. But God wants to make something new of us; God draws us into a holy vortex where God is making all things new again.

              For Nicodemus, like many of us, faith had become a beautiful heirloom rather than a living fountain from which we drink and are refreshed. You see, I don’t think we need a little more God in our lives. I think we need to be born from above, into the life of God. Every now and then, if we’re really lucky, God will shake us to our core.

              And in this holy season of Lent, it’s my prayer that we all walk through a bit of that night, a bit of holy confusion. As we approach the nightfall of Holy Week, it is my prayer that we find ourselves wondering at the meaning of the Cross and Golgotha, awestruck by the mystery of God.

              If we do, we may find that we, too, have been reborn and we are a new creation. Let it be, Lord. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2017

     

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