Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15 / Ephesians 4:17, 20-24 / John 6:24-35
The folklore of the Celtic peoples is filled with concerns about warding off the baleful influence of the faeries. The peoples were, in times ancient and not so far in the past, worried not only how one might protect oneself against cruel spirits like hags or redcaps or boggarts, but also the otherwise beautiful or kindly spirits. Any interaction with these creatures of fantasy and twilight, whose very stuff was as alluring and insubstantial as that borderland between sleep and waking, was inevitably perilous. Even to eat the food of the land of Faerie was to be lost forever to the world of men, the mortal world we call our home.
While the proofs against the Fair Folk were many, one that was held to be sovereign was nothing other than simple bread. Carry a piece of home-baked bread, it was said, and no elfshot would strike you, no spell bewitch you, no fey, benevolent or malign, would cause you any harm.
Folktales are, of course, generally short on explanations, but we might well see why bread, plain and ordinary bread, should be proof against the spirits of twilight and dreams. First, bread binds us to life, life in its true and robust sense. However enticing a dream might be, the firm and honest truth of bread and its power to sustain real life is always more powerful. Second, bread binds us to the home. While this may be less true of us today, bread evokes the hearth, the family, the ordinary tasks and chores, as well as the rewards and pleasures, of an honest life. Third, bread binds us to work and labor. While faerie foods may appear magically and without effort, true food like bread reminds us of the work of the farmers who grew the wheat, the mill that processed the flour, the baker whose hands kneaded and worked the dough, as well as whose patience let him allow the yeast to leaven his loaf and the oven to bake it. Against the charming illusion of the false food of the fairies, bread alone could draw you back to what, where, and how we are truly meant to live.
When the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, desiring rather to return to the slavery of Egypt to die there as they sat by their fleshpots and ate their fill of bread, they were as bewitched as anyone deceived by elvish glamor. Like those cursed to remain in the Lands of Spring for having eaten faerie bread, the Israelites had fallen under a terrible charm, forgotten the bitterness of their slavery, and sought willingly to return to sorrow and death. Nothing that Moses and Aaron could do, no earthly power or work, could ever compete with the very worldly allure of the wealth and power of Egypt, the very earthly peril of famine. It is only when they come to possess the manna, the bread that the LORD has given, that they can be free of Egypt's spell over them.
Like bread as proof against the magic of Faerie, so does the bread of life, Jesus Christ, serve as the sole and sovereign ward against this world and its enticements. Jesus Christ, the living bread, is the only true life of those who have put away the old self and been renewed in the spirit to put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth. Without the life which comes from Christ our true bread, the illusory food of our former way of life can deceive us, and deprive us of the life we have been called to live. It is Jesus Christ, the bread of life, who alone can recall us to our real home, the homeland not of our birth, but rather of our vocation — the very Kingdom of God. It is Jesus Christ, the bread of life, who alone directs us to the work which sustains life, not the grinding of wheat to flour and its baking as bread, but the life-giving faith of believing in him, the one sent by the Father that we may no longer hunger or thirst.
Jesus Christ, alive in us through our faith by the power of the Spirit, and available to us in that pledge of the life to come, the Eucharist by which the Church is fed, can alone deliver us from those tempting and, however innocent or friendly they mean to be, ultimately fatal attractions of this world. With joy and confidence, let us receive that bread and walk without fear through the darkness of this night, and find in this heavenly food, a safe journey to the Father.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
The Nativity of St. John the Baptist
Isaiah 49:1-3, 5, 6, 7 / Luke 1:57-68
We can easily understand John the Baptist to be the very embodiment of humility. After all, his entire adult ministry was consumed with directing people away from himself, of calling his people to repentance that they might be ready for the coming of the day of the Lord. In his baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, he showed deep deference, even so much as to doubt the propriety of baptizing him, the laces of whose sandals he was not fit to untie. Although some still wished to cling to this compelling and charismatic prophet, he was altogether clear. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, must increase, while he, greater than any prophet born of woman, must decrease. The art of the Church has indeed captured his humility in the paradigmatic form of John the Baptist, his finger pointing us away from himself to Jesus Christ.
How odd it sounds, then, when the Church places in John's mouth the words of Isaiah the prophet: The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother He hath been mindful of my name. And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand He hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow; in His quiver He hath hidden me. And He said to me: Thou art My servant Israel, for in thee will I glory. Here there is no pointing away from himself, no call to decrease. Here there is no protestation of unworthiness. If we did not know better, we might well accuse John of possessing an unhealthy preoccupation with his own significance.
Yet, it is because we know that the Baptist was always prompt to direct his listeners to the One who was to come and deliver the world from sin that we can learn from this appropriation of Isaiah's words something important about humility. Humility is not a downplaying of one's gifts. It is not a refusal to recognize and acknowledge gratefully the wonders God has worked in and through us. It does not require that we follow up quickly with and affirmation of others' gifts.
Rather, humility is the recognition of what is true. It is false to deny one's gifts, false to claim not to have graces where God has lavished them so generously. What would be false, however, would be to fail to see this generosity as gift, to imagine some peculiar quality in oneself that did not come from God, that compels God in justice to reward us plentifully. What would be false would be to imagine that, because of these gifts, we ought to be immune to suffering and trial, or that we should always be successful in our endeavors. False pride fears the truth about others, fears that one day it will find its better, and so masks itself with claims of being little and of no consequence. Humility is ready and willing to name and acknowledge its own talents, and is not put out in the slightest to find that there is another who is greater.
This is the message John presents to us today. We are, each and every one of us, called by God for some unique task, some role in his building up the Kingdom, some place in the Body of Christ, which no one else has been graced or equipped to fill. Each of us has an indispensable role, and irreplaceable task, and in each of us, there are gifts that will bring the nations of the world to proclaim the wondrous works God has accomplished in Jesus Christ. At the same time, each of us has a better, someone whose gift is such that we ought with gladness and joy step aside that it might shine all the brighter. Are we humble enough to bear that truth?
We can easily understand John the Baptist to be the very embodiment of humility. After all, his entire adult ministry was consumed with directing people away from himself, of calling his people to repentance that they might be ready for the coming of the day of the Lord. In his baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, he showed deep deference, even so much as to doubt the propriety of baptizing him, the laces of whose sandals he was not fit to untie. Although some still wished to cling to this compelling and charismatic prophet, he was altogether clear. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, must increase, while he, greater than any prophet born of woman, must decrease. The art of the Church has indeed captured his humility in the paradigmatic form of John the Baptist, his finger pointing us away from himself to Jesus Christ.
How odd it sounds, then, when the Church places in John's mouth the words of Isaiah the prophet: The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother He hath been mindful of my name. And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand He hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow; in His quiver He hath hidden me. And He said to me: Thou art My servant Israel, for in thee will I glory. Here there is no pointing away from himself, no call to decrease. Here there is no protestation of unworthiness. If we did not know better, we might well accuse John of possessing an unhealthy preoccupation with his own significance.
Yet, it is because we know that the Baptist was always prompt to direct his listeners to the One who was to come and deliver the world from sin that we can learn from this appropriation of Isaiah's words something important about humility. Humility is not a downplaying of one's gifts. It is not a refusal to recognize and acknowledge gratefully the wonders God has worked in and through us. It does not require that we follow up quickly with and affirmation of others' gifts.
Rather, humility is the recognition of what is true. It is false to deny one's gifts, false to claim not to have graces where God has lavished them so generously. What would be false, however, would be to fail to see this generosity as gift, to imagine some peculiar quality in oneself that did not come from God, that compels God in justice to reward us plentifully. What would be false would be to imagine that, because of these gifts, we ought to be immune to suffering and trial, or that we should always be successful in our endeavors. False pride fears the truth about others, fears that one day it will find its better, and so masks itself with claims of being little and of no consequence. Humility is ready and willing to name and acknowledge its own talents, and is not put out in the slightest to find that there is another who is greater.
This is the message John presents to us today. We are, each and every one of us, called by God for some unique task, some role in his building up the Kingdom, some place in the Body of Christ, which no one else has been graced or equipped to fill. Each of us has an indispensable role, and irreplaceable task, and in each of us, there are gifts that will bring the nations of the world to proclaim the wondrous works God has accomplished in Jesus Christ. At the same time, each of us has a better, someone whose gift is such that we ought with gladness and joy step aside that it might shine all the brighter. Are we humble enough to bear that truth?
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Third Sunday after Pentecost
1 Peter 5:6-11 / Luke 15:1-10
Look Thou upon me, O Lord, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor. See mine abjection and my labor; and forgive me all my sins, O my God.
Most of us do not care to be seen straightaway in the morning. To greater or lesser degrees, we like to "put ourselves together." For some this may involve no more than straightening one's hair by a cursory once-over with one's hand, followed by a cup of hot coffee. For others, it may necessitate a more thorough routine — perhaps including exercise, bathing, anointing with jellies and creams, and a carefully and strategically planned ensemble of clothes, hairstyle (no doubt fortified by an array of cosmetic products), and accessories, finished by a dash or two of a pleasing scent. The notion here, however, is the same. We care about how we are seen, and we want, if not always to look our best, at the very least to look presentable. We aim to present, if not our best self, then at least a self acceptable to others, the self we would not mind others to see, graciously concealing from them those aspects of our disheveled selves that have no role in polite company.
In doing this, we are not altogether wrong. Man is, in his very constitution, a social animal. He cannot help but caring about how well he is received in the group, in the larger human society of which he is a part. To fail to care about this, to have in truth no regard for how one is seen, how one's appearance and behavior is received by others, is not a sign of virtue, but in fact of a defective humanity. To feel shame, to perceive the disapproval of others, and so to risk by that disapproval being excluded from their company, can be and often is a natural response arising from man's social character. Indeed, this is the very reason that deliberately inducing shame in another, even when justified, ought always to be a sufficiently justified and considered act; the threat to one's sense of self and the fear of exclusion are to deeply woven into the fabric of human nature to be employed for trivial or slight causes. So, concealing our less presentable parts and putting ourselves in order can be seen not as a neurotic concern, nor a concession to vanity or vainglory, but indeed as a healthy response to those natural impulses that arise from being human.
Why, then, would we call upon the Lord to look upon us precisely in our loneliness and poverty? Why highlight to him our objection and our sins, which is to say, make even better known to ourselves and others the shameful features of ourselves that divide us not only from his love, but also from the good company of his friends here and earth and those rejoicing with him in heaven? Likewise, why would Jesus, in defending his practice of receiving and eating with sinners, only highlight to the scribes and Pharisees that the sinners are lost, wayward people in special need of help? That is, even granting that their status as sinners is known, why would Jesus speak not of their worthiness of being in his company, but rather only of the motive of the one who seeks diligently what has been lost until it is found? Similarly, why would Peter, who has echoed our desire to be "put together" in his admonition to be sober and take watch against the devil, nonetheless encourage our knowing, and indeed public, humiliation — Humiliamini, Be you humbled?
The truth is that we cannot come to the security we seek, cannot arrive at being put together as we like, apart from the full, unhesitating admission, to ourselves and to the Church, as well as to the world at large, of our limitations and our vulnerability. The Lord God has nothing to do with partial selves, has no interest in engaging the "best" and thus necessarily false self we choose to present. It is whole persons whom he has come to save, to draw up into his eternal and inexhaustible life through the work of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Spirit. For that reason, it is only the person who admits that he is already divided out from the whole, already by his own choices and those of a broken world excluded from the company for which he was made and called from before the dawn of time, who is able to move from the shame of exposing his faults and limits into the glory of the new man in Christ Jesus.
This is why the Church places on her lips for our sake an appeal to be exposed, to be exposed to God in the fulness of our exclusion and shame. We want to be shamed not that we might be punished, but that we might put an end to our rebellion once and for all. We want to be remade so that what we present to others need never be a best self, a manufactured self, a counterfeit self, but rather the whole and integrated man made perfect in the love of the living God. We expose our shame to the only one who can free us from shame forever, and in that confidence, we call out with joyous confidence to a world yearning to be made whole: Cast thy care upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee.
Look Thou upon me, O Lord, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor. See mine abjection and my labor; and forgive me all my sins, O my God.
Most of us do not care to be seen straightaway in the morning. To greater or lesser degrees, we like to "put ourselves together." For some this may involve no more than straightening one's hair by a cursory once-over with one's hand, followed by a cup of hot coffee. For others, it may necessitate a more thorough routine — perhaps including exercise, bathing, anointing with jellies and creams, and a carefully and strategically planned ensemble of clothes, hairstyle (no doubt fortified by an array of cosmetic products), and accessories, finished by a dash or two of a pleasing scent. The notion here, however, is the same. We care about how we are seen, and we want, if not always to look our best, at the very least to look presentable. We aim to present, if not our best self, then at least a self acceptable to others, the self we would not mind others to see, graciously concealing from them those aspects of our disheveled selves that have no role in polite company.
In doing this, we are not altogether wrong. Man is, in his very constitution, a social animal. He cannot help but caring about how well he is received in the group, in the larger human society of which he is a part. To fail to care about this, to have in truth no regard for how one is seen, how one's appearance and behavior is received by others, is not a sign of virtue, but in fact of a defective humanity. To feel shame, to perceive the disapproval of others, and so to risk by that disapproval being excluded from their company, can be and often is a natural response arising from man's social character. Indeed, this is the very reason that deliberately inducing shame in another, even when justified, ought always to be a sufficiently justified and considered act; the threat to one's sense of self and the fear of exclusion are to deeply woven into the fabric of human nature to be employed for trivial or slight causes. So, concealing our less presentable parts and putting ourselves in order can be seen not as a neurotic concern, nor a concession to vanity or vainglory, but indeed as a healthy response to those natural impulses that arise from being human.
Why, then, would we call upon the Lord to look upon us precisely in our loneliness and poverty? Why highlight to him our objection and our sins, which is to say, make even better known to ourselves and others the shameful features of ourselves that divide us not only from his love, but also from the good company of his friends here and earth and those rejoicing with him in heaven? Likewise, why would Jesus, in defending his practice of receiving and eating with sinners, only highlight to the scribes and Pharisees that the sinners are lost, wayward people in special need of help? That is, even granting that their status as sinners is known, why would Jesus speak not of their worthiness of being in his company, but rather only of the motive of the one who seeks diligently what has been lost until it is found? Similarly, why would Peter, who has echoed our desire to be "put together" in his admonition to be sober and take watch against the devil, nonetheless encourage our knowing, and indeed public, humiliation — Humiliamini, Be you humbled?
The truth is that we cannot come to the security we seek, cannot arrive at being put together as we like, apart from the full, unhesitating admission, to ourselves and to the Church, as well as to the world at large, of our limitations and our vulnerability. The Lord God has nothing to do with partial selves, has no interest in engaging the "best" and thus necessarily false self we choose to present. It is whole persons whom he has come to save, to draw up into his eternal and inexhaustible life through the work of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Spirit. For that reason, it is only the person who admits that he is already divided out from the whole, already by his own choices and those of a broken world excluded from the company for which he was made and called from before the dawn of time, who is able to move from the shame of exposing his faults and limits into the glory of the new man in Christ Jesus.
This is why the Church places on her lips for our sake an appeal to be exposed, to be exposed to God in the fulness of our exclusion and shame. We want to be shamed not that we might be punished, but that we might put an end to our rebellion once and for all. We want to be remade so that what we present to others need never be a best self, a manufactured self, a counterfeit self, but rather the whole and integrated man made perfect in the love of the living God. We expose our shame to the only one who can free us from shame forever, and in that confidence, we call out with joyous confidence to a world yearning to be made whole: Cast thy care upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Pentecost
Acts 2:1-11 / John 14:23-31
Wait till your father gets home! In the United States, at least, this is a powerful and final warning of a mother to her wayward children. Having exhausted her store of ways to bring uncooperative children in line, she reminds them that hers is not the final authority. To escape her correction is not to escape correction itself, and indeed one would be happier to receive correction at her gentler hand than the sterner, if yet altogether fair and just, correction of one's father. Having heard this warning — Wait till your father gets home! — few children would wish the father's swift return, much less call and pray for his coming to be soon. At the same time, the wait, the delay of his arrival can itself be terrible, sometimes even enough for a real change of heart, a transformation and repentance so that the mother can report to the father, when he comes, not of the disobedience and rebellion alone, but of the subsequent turning back to humility and uprightness.
Chances are, we do not have this experience in mind when we call upon the Holy Spirit and pray again and again, "Veni! Come!" For most of us, the Spirit is best, and indeed only, spoken of as comforter, as friend, as light, rest, coolness, and solace, a healer and giver of gifts. The Spirit's coming is, for us, anticipated with joy and wonder, without a shred of apprehension or doubt. However much God the Father may remind us of the fire, cloud, and thunder of Sinai, and however much even the gentle Son reminds us of the great and awful day when he will judge the nations, the Spirit evokes none of that, and so without hesitation we seek to hasten his coming.
Yet, among his titles which we extol today, which we sing throughout the Church of Rome in the glorious sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus is pater pauperum, Father of the poor. In our song, the words may pass swiftly and hardly be noticed, but in failing to take them into account we would be making a terrible mistake. After all, how certain are we that we have treated the poor in a way that the Holy Spirit, their father, would be pleased with us? Can we say without hesitation that the Father of the poor would find in our generosity and charity, in our fellowship and joy to be among the poor, a model which would incline him to claim us as one of his own? Or, perhaps we might find ourselves to have treated the poor callously, with disregard or avoidance, at best with benign condescension, at worst with outright contempt.
If this latter should be the case, how comfortable can we be when our mother, the Church, tells us that our Father, the pater pauperum, is coming home? How joyful ought we to be that she prays earnestly that he come, and come soon? Perhaps it would be better for us to be like those wise children who seek to amend their ways, to treat as fellow sons and daughters, indeed and privileged and especially loved children, the poor in our midst. Perhaps we might recall that the Spirit who would be our Comforter and Friend, who will heal in us whatever is broken or ill, warm the chillness of our hearts and cool the oppressive heat of our wanton desires, is not only coming, but is here even now, deep within the hearts of the baptized. We might do well to recall that the same Father of the poor who will hold us responsible for how we treat his children is at the same time the one who will make it possible for us to love and embrace the poor as we ought.
God the Spirit is not, after all, sent among us to be our judge, but rather as our Advocate. He it is who will defend our cause, not make the case against us. Will we, then, be his friends as well? Will we take him on as our Councillor and follow his advice? Will we open our hearts to the poor, and in so doing, find ourselves fitting dwelling places of the Spirit, already at work in us to make us fit for the Kingdom of God?
Wait till your father gets home! In the United States, at least, this is a powerful and final warning of a mother to her wayward children. Having exhausted her store of ways to bring uncooperative children in line, she reminds them that hers is not the final authority. To escape her correction is not to escape correction itself, and indeed one would be happier to receive correction at her gentler hand than the sterner, if yet altogether fair and just, correction of one's father. Having heard this warning — Wait till your father gets home! — few children would wish the father's swift return, much less call and pray for his coming to be soon. At the same time, the wait, the delay of his arrival can itself be terrible, sometimes even enough for a real change of heart, a transformation and repentance so that the mother can report to the father, when he comes, not of the disobedience and rebellion alone, but of the subsequent turning back to humility and uprightness.
Chances are, we do not have this experience in mind when we call upon the Holy Spirit and pray again and again, "Veni! Come!" For most of us, the Spirit is best, and indeed only, spoken of as comforter, as friend, as light, rest, coolness, and solace, a healer and giver of gifts. The Spirit's coming is, for us, anticipated with joy and wonder, without a shred of apprehension or doubt. However much God the Father may remind us of the fire, cloud, and thunder of Sinai, and however much even the gentle Son reminds us of the great and awful day when he will judge the nations, the Spirit evokes none of that, and so without hesitation we seek to hasten his coming.
Yet, among his titles which we extol today, which we sing throughout the Church of Rome in the glorious sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus is pater pauperum, Father of the poor. In our song, the words may pass swiftly and hardly be noticed, but in failing to take them into account we would be making a terrible mistake. After all, how certain are we that we have treated the poor in a way that the Holy Spirit, their father, would be pleased with us? Can we say without hesitation that the Father of the poor would find in our generosity and charity, in our fellowship and joy to be among the poor, a model which would incline him to claim us as one of his own? Or, perhaps we might find ourselves to have treated the poor callously, with disregard or avoidance, at best with benign condescension, at worst with outright contempt.
If this latter should be the case, how comfortable can we be when our mother, the Church, tells us that our Father, the pater pauperum, is coming home? How joyful ought we to be that she prays earnestly that he come, and come soon? Perhaps it would be better for us to be like those wise children who seek to amend their ways, to treat as fellow sons and daughters, indeed and privileged and especially loved children, the poor in our midst. Perhaps we might recall that the Spirit who would be our Comforter and Friend, who will heal in us whatever is broken or ill, warm the chillness of our hearts and cool the oppressive heat of our wanton desires, is not only coming, but is here even now, deep within the hearts of the baptized. We might do well to recall that the same Father of the poor who will hold us responsible for how we treat his children is at the same time the one who will make it possible for us to love and embrace the poor as we ought.
God the Spirit is not, after all, sent among us to be our judge, but rather as our Advocate. He it is who will defend our cause, not make the case against us. Will we, then, be his friends as well? Will we take him on as our Councillor and follow his advice? Will we open our hearts to the poor, and in so doing, find ourselves fitting dwelling places of the Spirit, already at work in us to make us fit for the Kingdom of God?
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Sunday after the Ascension
1 Peter 4:7-11 / John 15:26, 27; 16:1-4
To have experienced the desolation of the Lord's death, sharpened all the more by their own abandonment of him, to taste that unexpected and unparalleled joy in encountering the Lord risen from the Tomb, but then to have the Lord's visible presence once more taken away might be more than we could expect anyone to bear. The pain of loss can be hard enough, but we can at least find a way to live in and through it, if never beyond it. Yet, to have than pain relieved for a time, only to seem as though to reintroduce it by a new loss, might incline us to wonder at the good of the remedy itself. If the Lord is gone, why can we not simply learn to live with that loss? If the Lord is risen to life eternal, why can he not be with us as we was before?
What the disciples would come to see, what we, too, must come to see, is that the world from which Jesus has ascended is not less, but rather more abundantly full of his presence. While his visible presence is no longer available to us, we must admit that such a presence was the least accessible to most people, even those who lived when he walked the earth. In exchange for this seeming loss, we have received rather the fulness of the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, Who procedeth from the Father. This same Spirit, who gives abiding and life-transforming testimony to Jesus Christ, is also the same Spirit who, working and sanctifying the members of Christ's body, the Church, transforms each of us. He makes us, by his work, good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Chief among those ways the Spirit does both tasks, that is, to testify to Christ and to empower us as ministers of grace, is to work in us that Christ be sacramentally present among us — body, blood, soul, and divinity, which is to say the whole truth of Jesus Christ — in the Eucharist, and that we might fruitfully partake of that presence and so be drawn into deeper conformity and community with him.
This is why we ought to see the life of the Church not as a time of trial as we await for Christ to be among us again. Trials, of course, Christ assured us will come: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God. Even so, these are not a kind of test, seeing how faithful we remain in the absence of Jesus Christ, ascended into heaven. Rather, we face these trials, even as we minister the manifold grace of God, as enjoying the fulness of Christ's personal presence, and as strengthened and empowered, indeed loved and befriended, by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and draws us closer to the Father by making us grow, day by day, more like the Son, Jesus Christ.
The Ascension of Christ, then, points us not beyond this world to a heaven apart and a future not yet realized. Instead, by his ascending into heaven, Christ has opened the way for the world to be even more filled with his holy presence, and for us, through the coming of the Paraclete, to give a more effective witness to the saving work he has done, and continues to do, in us.
To have experienced the desolation of the Lord's death, sharpened all the more by their own abandonment of him, to taste that unexpected and unparalleled joy in encountering the Lord risen from the Tomb, but then to have the Lord's visible presence once more taken away might be more than we could expect anyone to bear. The pain of loss can be hard enough, but we can at least find a way to live in and through it, if never beyond it. Yet, to have than pain relieved for a time, only to seem as though to reintroduce it by a new loss, might incline us to wonder at the good of the remedy itself. If the Lord is gone, why can we not simply learn to live with that loss? If the Lord is risen to life eternal, why can he not be with us as we was before?
What the disciples would come to see, what we, too, must come to see, is that the world from which Jesus has ascended is not less, but rather more abundantly full of his presence. While his visible presence is no longer available to us, we must admit that such a presence was the least accessible to most people, even those who lived when he walked the earth. In exchange for this seeming loss, we have received rather the fulness of the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, Who procedeth from the Father. This same Spirit, who gives abiding and life-transforming testimony to Jesus Christ, is also the same Spirit who, working and sanctifying the members of Christ's body, the Church, transforms each of us. He makes us, by his work, good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Chief among those ways the Spirit does both tasks, that is, to testify to Christ and to empower us as ministers of grace, is to work in us that Christ be sacramentally present among us — body, blood, soul, and divinity, which is to say the whole truth of Jesus Christ — in the Eucharist, and that we might fruitfully partake of that presence and so be drawn into deeper conformity and community with him.
This is why we ought to see the life of the Church not as a time of trial as we await for Christ to be among us again. Trials, of course, Christ assured us will come: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God. Even so, these are not a kind of test, seeing how faithful we remain in the absence of Jesus Christ, ascended into heaven. Rather, we face these trials, even as we minister the manifold grace of God, as enjoying the fulness of Christ's personal presence, and as strengthened and empowered, indeed loved and befriended, by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and draws us closer to the Father by making us grow, day by day, more like the Son, Jesus Christ.
The Ascension of Christ, then, points us not beyond this world to a heaven apart and a future not yet realized. Instead, by his ascending into heaven, Christ has opened the way for the world to be even more filled with his holy presence, and for us, through the coming of the Paraclete, to give a more effective witness to the saving work he has done, and continues to do, in us.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Fifth Sunday after Easter
James 1:22-27 / John 16:23-30
Much is made by theologians and attentive readers of the Scriptures of Jesus' use of parables. While some may exaggerate the role of parable in Jesus' teaching, there is no doubt that parables made up at least a notable portion of Jesus' public speech. So, many of these same theologians go on to suggest that there is some intrinsic merit in a parable that cannot be accomplished by direct speech. That is, granting that Jesus is the consummate teacher, they hold that something crucial is gained through a kind of indirection, through the telling of a simple narrative or extended metaphor, something that the hearer would not have the occasion to learn had he been presented the same truths directly. Indeed, some might even want to insist that such truths can only be told in parables.
Jesus, however, presents just the opposite kind of conclusion. In his Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus tells them that the time for parables is coming to an end, and that the things he has up to that point presented in parables, he will now present plainly. Indeed, more to the point, what he intends to show plainly is no one other than the Father himself, suggesting that every parable was at best a veiled presentation of the Father.
What makes this claim striking is that we are left wondering why Jesus should refrain from speaking plainly in the first place. That is, if the mystery of the Father admits to a kind of plain, direct presentation, and if our joy is complete precisely in knowing the Father, then it is hard to see why Jesus should not want to speak plainly of the Father from the beginning.
Yet, this way of putting things is to confuse what Jesus is saying and what he aims to do for us now that he has risen from the dead and sent his Holy Spirit upon us. Jesus reminds his disciples that the Father's love for them is grounded precisely in their love for Jesus and their belief that he comes from the Father. While some who do not have saving faith may worry that this is an arbitrary limitation, and that Jesus should be open enough to share any life-fulfilling knowledge with all, regardless of their belief in him, this perspective is deeply confused. The fact is that the Father can only be known in the Son, since the Son is the perfect image of the Father. Any attempt to arrive at knowledge of the Father apart from the Son is, therefore, a lost cause even before it starts. Conversely, it is when we have come to know the Son, the Son who in his mercy has graciously revealed himself to us in our own human nature to draw us closer to him, that we can finally know the Father. That is, the move to plain speech about the Father is only possible for us to hear and to bear when we have been brought to understand the Son in the fulness of who he is.
This is also why mission, in the plain and ordinary sense of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is so central to our own happiness and the happiness of the world. As our joy is only complete in the knowledge of the Father, and the Father is known precisely in coming to know the Son, then it is our task and our joy to help the world come to know the Son, that in him the Father will be revealed plainly and without parable. On that glorious day, we will not simply believe in, but rather know immediately the Father's love for us, and in that love, will find the fulfillment of the deepest longings of our heart.
Much is made by theologians and attentive readers of the Scriptures of Jesus' use of parables. While some may exaggerate the role of parable in Jesus' teaching, there is no doubt that parables made up at least a notable portion of Jesus' public speech. So, many of these same theologians go on to suggest that there is some intrinsic merit in a parable that cannot be accomplished by direct speech. That is, granting that Jesus is the consummate teacher, they hold that something crucial is gained through a kind of indirection, through the telling of a simple narrative or extended metaphor, something that the hearer would not have the occasion to learn had he been presented the same truths directly. Indeed, some might even want to insist that such truths can only be told in parables.
Jesus, however, presents just the opposite kind of conclusion. In his Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus tells them that the time for parables is coming to an end, and that the things he has up to that point presented in parables, he will now present plainly. Indeed, more to the point, what he intends to show plainly is no one other than the Father himself, suggesting that every parable was at best a veiled presentation of the Father.
What makes this claim striking is that we are left wondering why Jesus should refrain from speaking plainly in the first place. That is, if the mystery of the Father admits to a kind of plain, direct presentation, and if our joy is complete precisely in knowing the Father, then it is hard to see why Jesus should not want to speak plainly of the Father from the beginning.
Yet, this way of putting things is to confuse what Jesus is saying and what he aims to do for us now that he has risen from the dead and sent his Holy Spirit upon us. Jesus reminds his disciples that the Father's love for them is grounded precisely in their love for Jesus and their belief that he comes from the Father. While some who do not have saving faith may worry that this is an arbitrary limitation, and that Jesus should be open enough to share any life-fulfilling knowledge with all, regardless of their belief in him, this perspective is deeply confused. The fact is that the Father can only be known in the Son, since the Son is the perfect image of the Father. Any attempt to arrive at knowledge of the Father apart from the Son is, therefore, a lost cause even before it starts. Conversely, it is when we have come to know the Son, the Son who in his mercy has graciously revealed himself to us in our own human nature to draw us closer to him, that we can finally know the Father. That is, the move to plain speech about the Father is only possible for us to hear and to bear when we have been brought to understand the Son in the fulness of who he is.
This is also why mission, in the plain and ordinary sense of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is so central to our own happiness and the happiness of the world. As our joy is only complete in the knowledge of the Father, and the Father is known precisely in coming to know the Son, then it is our task and our joy to help the world come to know the Son, that in him the Father will be revealed plainly and without parable. On that glorious day, we will not simply believe in, but rather know immediately the Father's love for us, and in that love, will find the fulfillment of the deepest longings of our heart.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Fourth Sunday after Easter
James 1:17-21 / John 16:5-14
Many of us struggle over finding the perfect gift for a friend. Every now and then the decision is easy, but often enough we find ourselves stumped. By why should that be? While we trust that anything given in love will be received with thanks, we worry that perhaps our gift does not make quite a perfect fit with our friend's personality and interests. Perhaps it would have been perfect a year before, but now he has changed. On the other hand, perhaps the gift is just perfect for now, but will find itself discarded in a short time, as our friend changes in unexpected and unforeseen ways. We want the gift to be both meaningful and lasting, but find this to be a rather tall order.
St James assures us, however, that every best gift and every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights. Now, in one sense, this should be no surprise. Price is no limit for God. Moreover, God surely knows what it is that each one of us wants in our heart of hearts, what will indeed meet our deepest hopes and needs, and nothing so desired is outside of his power to provide. Yet, what if we should change? What if what answers our hopes and dreams here and now fails to do so in the future, or what is what we are given now will serve us well in time to come, but here and now is all too easily discarded? Can God, with Whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration, possibly meet the needs of those of us who are all too changeable, whose lives are deeply shaded with one alteration after another?
What St James wants to assure us here, and what Jesus assures us in the Gospel, is that, through being reborn in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, we have been begotten ... by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of His creature. We have been made partakers and friends in the Spirit of truth, so that by his work in us, even if in many ways there are many truths, many gifts that we cannot bear here and now, nonetheless he will teach us all truth. Said differently, we have been made, through the Easter mysteries we celebrate, part of the very mystery of God, and so every good gift that comes to us from God, comes to us not as something foreign and unknown. It does not come as something unexpected or unprepared. It comes to us, if we will receive it, as an echo and foretaste of the mystery into which we are being conformed and transformed every day.
This is why, in the end, the world cannot and will not be able to see our Christian joy as a source of delight. This is why, when all due apologetics have been made, the world will still reject us as unreasonable. This is even why we ourselves, until we have passed this vale of tears, will find some feature of the Gospel to be difficult to bear. It is because we are being transformed daily to be made like God himself and to share in his inner life forever. This is indeed the gift beyond all gifts, the perfect gift which comes from above. We can, in the Spirit sent to us by Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, receive it in joy, or we can turn away from it, and find our hopes forever obscured in the shadows of change. That is the offer, that this the gift of Easter, of the empty Tomb. Will we receive the gift we are offered this day?
Many of us struggle over finding the perfect gift for a friend. Every now and then the decision is easy, but often enough we find ourselves stumped. By why should that be? While we trust that anything given in love will be received with thanks, we worry that perhaps our gift does not make quite a perfect fit with our friend's personality and interests. Perhaps it would have been perfect a year before, but now he has changed. On the other hand, perhaps the gift is just perfect for now, but will find itself discarded in a short time, as our friend changes in unexpected and unforeseen ways. We want the gift to be both meaningful and lasting, but find this to be a rather tall order.
St James assures us, however, that every best gift and every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights. Now, in one sense, this should be no surprise. Price is no limit for God. Moreover, God surely knows what it is that each one of us wants in our heart of hearts, what will indeed meet our deepest hopes and needs, and nothing so desired is outside of his power to provide. Yet, what if we should change? What if what answers our hopes and dreams here and now fails to do so in the future, or what is what we are given now will serve us well in time to come, but here and now is all too easily discarded? Can God, with Whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration, possibly meet the needs of those of us who are all too changeable, whose lives are deeply shaded with one alteration after another?
What St James wants to assure us here, and what Jesus assures us in the Gospel, is that, through being reborn in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, we have been begotten ... by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of His creature. We have been made partakers and friends in the Spirit of truth, so that by his work in us, even if in many ways there are many truths, many gifts that we cannot bear here and now, nonetheless he will teach us all truth. Said differently, we have been made, through the Easter mysteries we celebrate, part of the very mystery of God, and so every good gift that comes to us from God, comes to us not as something foreign and unknown. It does not come as something unexpected or unprepared. It comes to us, if we will receive it, as an echo and foretaste of the mystery into which we are being conformed and transformed every day.
This is why, in the end, the world cannot and will not be able to see our Christian joy as a source of delight. This is why, when all due apologetics have been made, the world will still reject us as unreasonable. This is even why we ourselves, until we have passed this vale of tears, will find some feature of the Gospel to be difficult to bear. It is because we are being transformed daily to be made like God himself and to share in his inner life forever. This is indeed the gift beyond all gifts, the perfect gift which comes from above. We can, in the Spirit sent to us by Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, receive it in joy, or we can turn away from it, and find our hopes forever obscured in the shadows of change. That is the offer, that this the gift of Easter, of the empty Tomb. Will we receive the gift we are offered this day?
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