Saying Yes to an Intimate God

I start my homily with a personal witness. My wife Lois and I grew up in the same neighborhood, an industrial suburb of Milwaukee called West Allis. She was the girl across the alley. And from the time she was about six, she had a rather definite interest in your humble deacon. She used to go to the same Mass in the same Catholic Church that I did so she could steal stealthy looks at me in my altar server outfit. But as a young boy more interested in popping wheelies on my bicycle and trading baseball cards, I must confess I did not have a lot of interest in her.

When Lois was 12, her family departed for the town of Cedarburg, about 30 miles away from our neighborhood. I kind of lost track of her for several years. Then, seven years later, we saw each other again, this time at a wedding of one of the other kids in our neighborhood. She revealed to me recently that she only went to that wedding to see if I might now be interested in her. And it is a good thing. For to me she looked a lot more interesting when she was 19 than when she was 12. We dated for a while. But I was still not ready to make a commitment.

Then she decided to change jobs so she could be very close to me again. Now when it comes to romance, men, as women will tell you, can be a little dense. I went off to Washington, DC to take a job in the U.S. Congress. But I did not take her with me. Not to be denied, Lois took two weeks vacation shortly after I left and followed me to Washington, DC. It finally dawned on me what a good deal I was being offered. Her persistent and deeply abiding love led me to ask her to marry her. Now, just a few months short of 30 years later, it was the best decision of my life.

Now this might sound like an interesting story, but what does it have to do with all of you? Well, let me suggest that the readings for our Mass this weekend show that we really are born in the image and likeness of God. For the readings show God in a way that reminds me a little of my loving wife.

The readings provide rather clear examples of the generosity and love of God, even in the face of rather clueless human beings who often can’t accept what a good thing they are getting. In our first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord God of Israel summons God’s people back from exile in Babylon. It is an offer filled with generosity; that God will answer all the needs of the people of Israel. God renews the covenant of love that has existed since the time of Abraham. All that is required of the Israelites is to say yes to God and live in a certain way. As we know, they often did not.

In our second reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, Paul reminds us that no matter how much suffering or misfortune that will befall us in life, no matter how desperate our lives may have become, we are never separated from God. God loves us always. God never leaves us alone and in fact creates us to conquer sin and death.  No matter what happens to us, nothing can separate us from the love of God, who will deliver us from evil.

But do we want to be delivered from evil? Or do we like a little evil to go with the good? Do we really want to say yes to God?

Finally, we have in our Gospel according to Matthew the reality that God not only meets our spiritual needs but our physical needs as well. The miracle of the loaves and fishes reminds us that everything we have comes from God, a God who is generous who enables us to live life abundantly.

Given the kind of God we as Christians believe we have, and we say we want, it seems a little odd that like my wife’s love for me we are sometimes quite reluctant to accept and respond to God’s love for us. We really are not sure we want to say yes to God. Despite all that God has given us, God’s call to give back, to love God as God loves us and to love our neighbor as Jesus loved all humanity often goes unanswered. We are all too happy to pocket the benefits of a loving God, but when it comes to giving rather than receiving we can fall short. Better to treat God like a sort of delicious baking ingredient; throw in a little dash when we need it, but otherwise leave it on the shelf. Let me say that sometimes we even treat the people we love this way.

God asks us to do our best as a response for all that God has done for us. We cannot be genuine Christians otherwise. For if we want the intimacy of an all-loving, all merciful, all generous God, then we must return that intimacy to God and others. This is why Jesus instituted a Church to which all could be invited to live life in a certain way and spread that way across the world.  Jesus’ Church is inclusive. Its message is that God’s love is invincible to the end and that God would give us all that we need. When human beings show that kind of trust in God, wonderful things happen.

That is not the same thing as saying God gives us everything we want. Our greatest joys in life come from doing for others not for ourselves. It is a lesson that for all of us is hard to learn, but is nonetheless true. It is the joy of giving in order to receive, that in giving we will receive, perhaps not in the same way, perhaps not even in this life, but ultimately through everlasting union with God.

When we read the miracle of the loaves and fishes, as we did today, we are always struck by God’s generosity. But the miracle is not just about some kind of extraordinary transformation of food. God is the source of all good things to be sure. But notice how Jesus asks his disciples to distribute the food in this miracle. The miracle tells us two things. First, God’s generosity is to be shared with many, not kept for a few. Second, God relies on us to be partners in his generosity. What God provides can only be shared well if those who believe in God’s loving generosity are willing to work to share that generosity.

There are many ways we can show God’s generosity. Some of them involve service in our Church through service ministries and financial support. Some of them involve becoming socially and politically active in support of God’s loving message in everyday issues in our communities. I would invite all to prayerfully consider these ways of reflecting God’s generosity.

But even if you do not choose these kinds of service-based love, the very best way we can show God’s generosity is by the way we live. We can say no to God, just as your humble deacon tried to foolishly do to his wonderful wife. But for all that we have been given, let us say yes to God’s persistent love. Don’t put off a good thing as your deacon did. I finally learned to respond to intimacy with intimacy. In the same way, let all of us return God’s intimacy with an intimate love of God’s way of life. If we in fact place our trust in God by the way we live, nothing will separate us from the love of God. For God will indeed be in us.
 

Picture the classic movie scene…two lovers rushing toward each other across a field, running with arms outstretched to the moment of embrace…totally unaware of anything else around them. They are focused on only one another. Nothing else matters. Finally they reach each other and joyfully embrace!

Perhaps you have experienced such a moment in your lives. If so, you know the joy that Jesus is attempting to convey with these parables. Nothing else matters so long as I can have the one thing that I value most in life. Such was the case for the farmer and the pearl merchant. Having found the treasure they were seeking, they did whatever they could to be certain that the treasure they found would be theirs.

As with any parable, Jesus is speaking about us. A priest once shared with me on retreat his observation that Jesus was the finder and we are the treasure he wants so badly that he gave up everything he had, including his life on the cross, to insure that we would be forever his.

We are often assured that God loves us unconditionally. When we begin to believe that claim, we will see how much God values us. Anytime we doubt that love, all we need to do is gaze at a crucifix. Jesus could have avoided the cruelest manner of death ever devised had he been more concerned about himself than us, but divine love prevailed. Even in the garden when he knew that he was about to be arrested, he did not waiver in his pursuit of what really mattered to him, sharing God’s gift of salvation with all would come to believe in him.

Nothing was about to stop Jesus from running with arms outstretched toward his loved ones, namely all humanity predestined by God as Paul reminds us in his letter. Are we running toward him with as much focus and love or are we too distracted by so much else going on in our lives?

Being distracted in our relationship with God is not uncommon. That is something many of us contend with daily. Even in the early church that was a challenge. A young monk once asked one of the early desert fathers why so many people came out to the desert to seek God yet most of them gave up after a time and returned to their old ways in the city.

The old monk told him, “Last evening, my dog saw a rabbit running for cover among the bushes of the desert and he began to chase the rabbit, barking loudly. Soon other dogs joined in the chase, barking and running. They ran a great distance and alerted many other dogs. Soon the wilderness was echoing the sounds of their pursuit but the chase went on into the night.

“After awhile, many of the dogs drew tired and dropped out. A few chased the rabbit until the night was nearly over. By morning, only my dog continued the hunt. Do you understand,” the old monk asked, “what I have told you?”

“Not really,” replied the young monk, “Please tell me.” “It is simple,” said the desert father. “My dog saw the rabbit.”

Have we seen for ourselves the immense love Jesus has for us or are we in pursuit of something we have yet to see? If we have yet to see that Jesus truly loves us, then like the dogs on that nocturnal rabbit chase, we could sooner or later lose interest and drop out of the pursuit, which is what many fellow Catholics have done. Ideally, if we have truly seen the treasure that Jesus is, for example, in the Eucharist, then nothing would detract us from embracing him and all that he stands for and all that he calls us to be.

Being human, the devil continually distracts us from seeing all that Jesus is by so many other things in life that command our attention. Through out the day, we select what we think of as treasures. What we choose reflects what we value in life. If our awareness of Jesus is an intellectual one instead of one rooted in our hearts, then we are not so likely to value our relationship with him, much less the wisdom he brings. How readily we value Jesus becomes evident in the ways we live out our faith. The more we do, the more we want to be with him in prayer.

“Ask something of me and I will give it to you,” the Lord promised Solomon, who then asked for an understanding heart to judge his people and distinguish right from wrong. That meant more to Solomon than a long life or riches. Because he asked for wisdom rather than anything for himself, God granted his request. What would our response be if God posed the same question to us? Would we also ask for wisdom? Lew Wallace, the author of Ben Hur, once said, “Pure wisdom always directs itself toward God; the purest wisdom is knowledge of God.”

If the pursuit of the kingdom of heaven is our top priority in life, then we need to seek the wisdom for placing God first in our lives. We begin by asking if we are grateful for what God has given us. if we are, then we would cherish what we have. We wouldn’t be envious, that is, distracted by what we don’t have, nor would we take for granted all that we do have. In turn, our gratitude should prompt us to share what we have, just as Jesus shared all that he is.

Like the old man in the desert, Jesus asks us, “Do you understand all these things?” Hopefully we do. When we see for ourselves how much God embraces us with love, we will know that nothing can keep us from demonstrating our love in return. When we seek to embrace God with all our love, we will be blessed with the wisdom to seek that what really matters in this lifetime: the kingdom of heaven and the life yet to come: embracing his son and his good news as any disciple would, with undivided attention.

Jesus knows the human heart and mind well. He also knows that we usually remember concrete examples better than abstract ideas, so he often used parables to get his message across: stories which we can relate to. However, he also cautions us to look beyond the images for their symbolic meanings.

In today’s parable, Jesus invites us to check our hearts. We should ask ourselves, “Is my heart rich, open, and fertile soil where the word of God takes root, “bears fruit, and yields a hundred or sixty or thirty fold?” Or am I living superficially, looking for material rewards and fleeting pleasures? God’s message needs to penetrate deeply in order to take root in us. But as Jesus points out, God’s seeds can easily bounce off the top of our thick heads unless we really listen to his message.

The Word of God is always the same, conveying a message of love which promises abundant life. Some people unfortunately have so hardened themselves that the word merely bounces off their surfaces. Others respond with immediate enthusiasm that wears thin before long. Still others surround themselves with so much clutter that the Word cannot grow to maturity in them. Finally, some people do what they must to receive the word, allowing themselves to be tilled, weeded, and watered. The receptive person understands God’s word and allows it to take root in his or her heart.

One such receptive person was a 52 year old nurse, a mother of five, named May Lemke. She was asked to care for a baby born blind, mentally retarded, and with cerebral palsy who had been abandoned by his parents. He didn’t respond to sound or touch.

May called him Leslie. As you can imagine, it wasn’t easy to care for this baby. Every day, she massaged Leslie’s entire body. She prayed over him, cried over him, placing his hands in her tears. Raising him was a daily challenge. Leslie was sixteen years old before he was able to stand alone. All this time, he didn’t respond to her. Still, May continued to love him and pray over him. She even told him stories of Jesus, though he didn’t seem to hear her.

One day, May noticed Leslie plucking a taut string on a package. She wondered if he might he be sensitive to music. May began to surround Leslie with music, playing every kind of music imaginable, hoping that one type would appeal to him. She and her husband bought an old used piano. She showed him how to press the keys but he didn’t seem to understand.

Then one night, May woke to the sound of Tchaikovsky’s Piano concerto no. 1. She asked her husband if he had left the radio on. He said no, so they got up to investigate and were astounded to find Leslie sitting at his piano playing the piece by ear. He had never gotten out of bed before, much less, sat at the piano or struck a key on his own. Now he was playing beautifully. May dropped to her knees and prayed, “Thank you, dear God. You didn’t forget Leslie.” Soon, he began to live at the piano, playing classical, country western, ragtime, gospel, and even rock. All the music that May had played for him was stored in his brain and now flowing out through his hands into the piano.

Doctors describe Leslie as an autistic savant, a person who is mentally retarded yet extremely talented. His story figures into our parable in that May Lemke extravagantly sowed and sowed the seeds of her love and her prayers for years with no return. Eventually she saw a harvest. Granted, not much of a harvest in that Leslie was still mentally retarded and unable to speak but still a bountiful one in that he proved to be a musical genius.

Too often, I suspect, we are apt to shrug off our potential to make a difference, yet the seeds we sow can and do. As May Lemke demonstrated so tirelessly, sowing seed is an act of pure faith.

This is where St. Paul comes in. he tells us that the sufferings of the present are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us. Creation eagerly waits for God’s children to be revealed. To be a Christian is to accept suffering and accept the challenge of the cross, just as May Lemke did. We are urged to let the Word of God take root in our hearts and grow. When it is nurtured by our prayers, and cared for with our charity, the Word of God will grow and make a difference in changing the world.

The dream of a renovated world was dear to the ancient Jews, and to countless peoples since who allowed God’s Word to be rooted in them. Perhaps the idea of her community being free from slavery to corruption is what prompted Rosa Park to refuse to give up her seat on a bus in Birmingham in 1955. Her bold act inspired Martin Luther King to tell our nation that he had a dream that one day his children would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. Years later, his vision motivated Lech Walesa, an electrician in Poland to start the Solidarity movement, which led to the collapse of communism.

We could say that this brave woman planted the seed that brought about the downfall of communism decades later.

So, who are you seeding, quietly and effectively? As we leave church today to love and serve the Lord, we go with the intention of making a difference, scattering our seeds of faith, hope and love wherever we can, thus bringing the world ever closer to experiencing the splendor of God. We can plant the seeds of God’s love in what we say and do, seeds that tomorrow’s world will someday harvest. As one teacher said, “Be in love with the sowing. Leave the rest to God.”

 

Why is There Good in the World?

From time to time in our daily lives, we may well ask ourselves, why is there such evil in the world? There are many possible explanations. But I will spare you any further discussion.

No, I am not going to sit down just yet. Rather, I would like to focus your attention on a question that is asked far less, but it is just as important. Why is there good in the world?

The question is worth some discussion for at least two reasons. First, yesterday we commemorated the 232nd anniversary of the one of the most fundamentally good things ever done by people, the American Declaration of Independence. A second reason is the fact that Our Holy Father Pope Benedict has declared this year, the Year of St. Paul.

Now for the life of me, I have wondered why the Pope is honoring just St. Paul and not Minneapolis, but perhaps I may have misunderstood the meaning. (Just seeing if you are listening). Actually, the Pope’s declaration of the Year of St. Paul commemorates the 2,000 anniversary of the birth of the great evangelist St. Paul. The Holy Father has asked bishops, priests, and deacons around the world to focus the faithful on the enormous contributions of St. Paul to our understanding of the Catholic faith. And let me suggest that at least in terms of human understanding of why there is good in the world, there may be no Catholic thinker as important as St. Paul.

St. Paul had a quality of mind that comes around once every thousand years or so. And indeed, it took Catholic theologians, clergy, and lay faithful about a thousand years to understand deeply the mind and faith of St. Paul. While we cannot do justice to St. Paul’s work in one homily or for that matter a year of homilies, St. Paul’s basic answer to the question of why there is good in the world is because of God, most notably the working of the Holy Spirit.

In today’s reading from the letter to the Romans, Paul is engaged in his famous distinction between the flesh and the Spirit in Christian life. Through baptism, Christians are incorporated into the life of Jesus Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit working through us enables us to die to the demands of the flesh, which are the primary source of evil in the world. Weakened by sin and prone to its promptings, the Holy Spirit, which is also the Spirit of Christ because they are one, stands in opposition to evil. Flesh and spirit are as separated as evil and good. To be sure we remain flesh in the physical sense, but Jesus through His Birth, Death, and Resurrection, and the Holy Spirit through his coming as a result of Jesus’ promise at the Ascension, make us if we so desire, rooted first and foremost in the Spirit of God and not the flesh of humanity.

Life in the Spirit is the pledge of resurrection for all of us. Cooperation with the Spirit makes the resurrection of our own bodies possible. The model of Jesus’ life is the goal of our lives if we so choose. The channel to make that goal attainable and bring about eternal union with God is life in the Holy Spirit. To not choose the spirit is to choose the flesh alone, which ultimately leads to destruction and spiritual death. To live the Spirit life is to live its fruits, gifts, and charisms.

Throughout writings ascribed to Paul, including the letter to the Romans, the first letter to the Corinthians, the letter to the Ephesians, and the letter to the Galatians, Paul lays out in great detail, the gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Holy Spirit. They include such things as wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord, charity, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity, faith, healing, discernment, and many, many others.

The Holy Spirit, present at the beginning time as part of the Trinity, but manifest in particular after Pentecost, provided an enormous source of grace and confidence to the great evangelizers of the Church in those early days. But what we can easily forget is that we receive those same gifts of the Holy Spirit.  They open up the faithful to the power of the Holy Spirit in every age. They are received first at Baptism, then at Confirmation and if one cooperates with the gifts, grow in power throughout life. 

Each of us receives the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit in different measures. We in turn are called to use the gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Holy Spirit to build up the whole body of Christ.  They also include the power to work miracles of all kinds.  The gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Holy Spirit help us to be on fire with God, that we may radiate Jesus Christ, and share communion with the Trinity for the benefit of all of us, the Church.

Without the gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Holy Spirit, the Christian faith would not have been able to touch the billions over the years that call or called Jesus their Redeemer. Without them the practical work of the Church, which means all of us and is so central to bringing others to God would not be possible. And despite all the evil in the world, since the presence of the Holy Spirit manifested itself at Pentecost, cannot we not say that we in fact live in greater abundance than we did nearly 2000 years ago?

But it is more than just physical abundance. We can all think of times when we allowed God to work in our lives through the Holy Spirit. I can assure you brothers and sisters that when we are not sure what we should do in a particular situation, when we want to help but we are fearful, when we don’t know when to speak up, and when to back off, a prayer to the Holy Spirit to activate the gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Holy Spirit is always answered in a way that makes us better people, that helps us do good. Many, many people give personal witness to this reality. When we cooperate with the Spirit, the burdens and evils of life in the flesh give way, as our Gospel from Matthew says this morning to the easy yoke and light burden of life in the Spirit.

When we challenge ourselves to do good, when we put ourselves in the hands of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit’s gifts, fruits, and charism are manifest in us. Multiply that reality in each of us by the billions of Christians who have lived since Pentecost. We can then begin to see the power of the Holy Spirit. And for helping us understand that power, we must in a deep and fundamental sense thank St. Paul.

For indeed it is the Holy Spirit that explains why we do good, why we put aside the evil of a flesh that it is dead in the Spirit. St. Paul’s writings remind us of the truth of that most famous Catholic liturgical refrain: Your words are Spirit and life O Lord. Richer than gold, stronger than death; your words are Spirit and life O Lord, Life everlasting.
 

Since it falls on Sunday, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul takes precedence over what would have been the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. This provides an opportunity for us to reflect upon the two most dynamic saints of the early Church.

It would be hard for us to find two more different individuals. As best as we can tell, Peter was a common worker, a fisherman, a man with no formal education, possibly even illiterate. He responded to Jesus’ call to follow him, only to stumble his way through the Lord’s public life, and beyond. Peter recognized that Jesus was the Messiah and professed his faith to the Lord, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

He had faith enough to walk on water to meet Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, but when he thought about what he was doing, he focused on himself instead of on Jesus and began to drown. That’s why Jesus chided him as one of little faith.

At the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, to point out that just as he would humble himself to serve others, they should do the same. When Jesus got to him, Peter said, “You will not wash my feet.” Jesus replied, “Then, you will have no part of me.” Peter then said, “In that case, Lord, wash my feet, my head, hands and body.” I can imagine Jesus saying, “Cool it, Peter,” as he proceeded to wash Peter’s feet.

Later in the meal Peter boasted that he would never lose faith in Jesus and Jesus predicted that before the cock crowed, that Peter would deny him three times. And as we know, Peter denied knowing the Lord three times after Jesus was arrested.

But Peter also reaffirmed his faith in Jesus three times after the resurrection. The Resurrected Jesus asked him, “Do you love me, Simon Peter?” And three times, Peter replied, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And each time, Jesus instructed him,
“Then feed my sheep.”

Peter assumed the leadership of the other disciples conferred on him by the Lord, but he was dressed down by Paul when he started treating Jewish Christians as being better than those who had been gentiles. Peter was so very human. Even after Pentecost, he still could let his humanity get the worst of him.

Nonetheless, Peter was determined to spread the faith. He traveled to Rome, the center of the world then, where he became the first bishop of Rome. Because Jesus placed Peter over all the other disciples, those who succeed him as Bishop of Rome also receive his spirit, his grace, his charism. The successor of Peter is the Pope because the Pope is the Bishop of Rome.

Paul could not have differed more than Peter if he tried. An educated man, he studied at the feet of the great Hebrew scholar Gamaliel. Physically, Paul was a small man. His name was changed from Saul of Tarsus to Paul as a bit of a joke. Paul or Paulus means small in Latin. He was small, but he was a dynamo. He was one of those Pharisees who did everything possible to destroy the followers of Jesus. He was present when the first martyr, Stephen, was stoned to death. He went on raids, arresting Christians wherever he could find them, turning them into the Jewish authorities who would imprison or kill them.

One day Jesus called Paul as he was traveling to Damascus. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” The blinding light knocked him to the ground. Paul certainly was knocked for a loop when the vision of the Lord told him that instead of serving God, he was fighting the will of the Almighty. After his conversion, Paul was equally determined to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, traveling throughout the Roman Empire, writing Letters to the infant churches, and ultimately sacrificing his life for the Kingdom of God.

We celebrate the lives of two very different saints, one a large and ignorant fisherman, the other a small and educated scholar, yet very similar saints in that they were both determined to live and die for the Kingdom of God even if this meant making radical changes and sacrifices in their lives, which they both did.

There is some Peter and some Paul in each one of us. We all harbor some of their inadequacies. Each of us also enjoys some of their strength. On the negative side, all of us tend to bungle through life much like Peter did, making great promises, taking great oaths, and then backing down when the situation becomes too tough or too demanding. How many times have we all, myself included, compromised standing for the Lord in order to avoid being mocked by others? Sometimes we go through life like the firestorm that was Saul of Tarsus, convinced that our view of the world is correct, thus willing to destroy anyone who disagrees with us, only to realize, as Paul did after his conversion, that “Nothing is greater than love.”

Many of the good qualities found in Peter and Paul can be found in each of us. Serious about our Christianity, we all have summoned from within ourselves the muscle of Peter and intellect of Paul to serve Jesus in whatever way he calls us.
When we set our minds to living for the Lord, as Peter and Paul did, others will hear his presence calling to them from within us. That is how the Kingdom of God has spread from Peter’s fishing nets and Paul’s Hebrew studies to Rome and beyond. It is the Holy Spirit, the dynamic presence of God, within you and me that continues to make the Church a living reality in the world.

Keep the faith. Live the faith. Share the faith. Such is the legacy both Peter and Paul leave to us. Such is the legacy we, the baptized, must pass on to future generations.