Several years ago I saw a picture of a veteran’s tombstone that caught my attention. He died in action in Vietnam on my 18th birthday.  A young man, not much older than I, sacrificed his life that day so that I could continue to celebrate mine.

 

This weekend countless flags flutter in cemeteries across our country in remembrance of the many men and women who served our nation in time of war and peace. Some died on duty and many were wounded but they all had one thing in common; they sacrificed something so that we could have the freedom to gather here and celebrate the ultimate sacrifice, namely, what Jesus did for us on the cross.

 

Sacrifice is the message in these readings as well. First, we encounter a widow with a child, giving what little wheat and oil she has to Elijah. She expected to die soon but instead she is rewarded for trusting that God would provide for her needs. Then there is the widow who dropped two coins, all that she had, into the temple collection. That wasn’t much, but her generosity, according to Jesus, surpassed that of the Pharisees.  She committed herself to God’s mercy in quietly with total giving of herself.

 

Just as many of our citizens fail to appreciate the meaning behind Veterans’ Day, many Christians don’t fully appreciate the value of sacrifice either or what it means to our faith.  In all walks of life, there are those who are committed to what they believe in and those who are not. Look through the gospel and you will find scenarios where Jesus had little regard for those who were lukewarm in their convictions. He cautioned his followers that entering his kingdom required full-hearted conversion to a new way of life. Stewardship is one way to show how full hearted we are with our faith.

 

Jesus wants us to turn our lives up side down, to have a complete change of heart. This is vital for understanding the value of stewardship in our lives and on our faith.

 

Last week, we heard about David from Enumclaw, a sailor on leave. Remember him? Much to the surprise of his friends, he placed all that he had won at a horserace in the collection basket. When asked why he did that, he said that it made him feel good.  He had a point there. Happiness goes hand in hand with being passionate. 

When you want to be happy, “Give it all you’ve got.” In his book, Who Moved My Cheese?, Spencer Johnson observes that when we are clear about what we want to see happen and pursue that goal with passion, it will happen. Being half-hearted denies us the opportunity to experience the good that God promises us for our efforts. That was what I recall David telling us.

 

As a way of life, stewardship challenges us to examine how well do we share what God has given us; our treasures, our time, and our talents with the parish and with those in need.

 

Last week, I asked you to make a conscious commitment of at least two hours a week to prayer and service, beginning with participating at weekly Mass. If we are going to be passionate about our faith, that would be a good starting point. God gives us 168 hours each week. Is it asking too much to give two hours of that time back to God?  Many of us do that and more by reading scripture, praying alone and with others, helping out as a volunteer in the community or in our parish.  On the green trimmed card you received in the mail you can find other ideas that may better fit your needs.

 

If you have made a commitment to stewardship of time, you have done the hard part as time means so much to us. Stewardship of treasure should be easy. 

 

Nonetheless, talking about money isn’t an easy thing to do. I know some families are hard pressed to give because, like the widow, they are often stretched to the limit by their bills and debts.

 

But I also believe that something amazing happens when we recognize that we owe God a share of what we have because God gives it all, then calls us to share. When we give the first portion of what we have back to God, things start to change. I have heard of people who have tithed their way out of debt. They set aside the first ten percent for God and the rest fell into place.

 

I am not asking you to tithe but I am asking you to recognize that God gives it all and then decide what you are willing to give back by supporting your parish. For some, that will be five percent, for others, more, for others, less. That is between you and God, but by filling out a tan card and letting me know of your commitment, you enable us to form a more realistic budget for our parish and your giving would then be planned, deliberate, conscious and sacrificial.

 

As you make your decision, looking over the chart on the tan card, think of the widow in today’s gospel. Instead of following the example of the Pharisees, who gave their loose change, consider making a gift that hurts.  Use the chart to discern what percent you gave last year and see if you can increase your giving by another percent or more.  Keep in mind that you are not bound by the pledge you make. If your circumstances change, so too can your pledge.

 

Notice also on the card, a provision for simplified giving. If you are interested in electronic funds transfer from either your checking or savings account, check the box. We will explore that option with our bank and get in touch with you when we have made the arrangements. 

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is lord alone!” Is he? Is that our prayer? Is God the one lord in our lives or have we forgotten him, replacing him with many other gods that preoccupy us and demand our attention? If God is a stranger to us, then we have to admit that there are other gods in our lives taking up our time, gods like sports, our jobs, television, or hobbies to name a few. With so much to do and only 24 hours in the day, making time for God can become a distant priority for some of us.

 

When that happens, how sincere then is our love for God? It is easy to say that we love God but you probably know from your personal experiences that empty words don’t generate love. Love isn’t a sentiment; it is an action. Love is what love does. Wouldn’t those words sound hollow to you if someone kept saying, “I love you,” without any evidence to show it?

 

How then is this evidence that we love God best rendered? The simplest answer I ever heard was once provided by Gale Sayers, a player for the Chicago Bears decades ago when he said, “God is first, you are second, and I am third.”

 

At the start of any given day, upon awakening, how much thought do we give to God? The ancient Israelites began and ended their day with the prayer we heard in the gospel. For them, nothing was more important than remembering God. The same should be true for us. Out of the 168 hours in the week, how much do you give to God? Can you commit yourself to giving two hours of your time in prayer and service, beginning with coming to Mass every week? Is what you place in the collection basket loose change from your pocket or does that offering to the parish reflect a true gift from your heart? When you think of all that God has blessed you with, is God really asking too much of you?

 

As we venture through the day, what influences our choices the most? Are we concerned about others in our midst or just ourselves? I think of the times I am intent on getting something done or getting from here to there, oblivious to what is happening around me. In those moments, I am denying myself the chance to be in touch with God.

 

God wants so very much to be a part of our lives, not to be apart from us but to be part of us but that cannot happen unless we actively seek to remember God throughout the day.  No sacrament, not even baptism or eucharist, can bring us to God unless we choose to make space and time in our lives for God. The step doesn’t come easy but then no sacrifice does. If we strive to make God first in our daily lives, then we will discover how God has made us first in his.

 

Stewardship is a way of life designed for us to put into practice our love for God. On the surface many people think of stewardship as a gimmick the parish uses for its support. There is more to stewardship than what goes into the collection basket. I truly believe that stewardship can make a difference in a person’s life and that is what I have invited Dave to share with us today.

A priest visited a wise old monk to be enlightened. “Father, I have come to you seeking wisdom. What must I do?”

 

“Well,” the sage replied. “For the first exercise of your retreat, go into the courtyard, tilt back your head, stretch out your arms and wait until I come for you.”

 

The priest did as he was told. As soon as he stretched out his arms and tilted back his head, it began to rain and rain, and rain, and rain. Finally the monk came for him. “Well, father, have you been enlightened today?” “Are you kidding?” the drenched priest said in dismay. “I’ve been standing here in the rain for more than an hour and I feel like a fool!” The monk replied, “Well, father, for the first day of your retreat, that sounds like a great enlightenment to me!”

 

You never know what you are going to get when you ask for something. Consider Bartimaeus, the blind man we find by the side of the road. Hearing that Jesus was walking by, he cried out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” In all likelihood, he was begging for a handout, but Jesus put an interesting question to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the rest is history. Able to see at last, we are told, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way.

 

Few of us know what it is like to be blind. Even if you wear glasses as thick as coke bottles, at least you can see. We may even have perfect eyesight, but that doesn’t mean we always see what really matters in life. There is more to sight than merely seeing the light of day.

 

Like Bartimaeus, we need to cry out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” Why? Even if we are not physically blind, we could suffer from spiritual blindness whenever we choose not to follow the example of Bartimaeus.

 

There is ample evidence that we lack spiritual vision to follow Jesus at times. Hatred, pride, and jealousy flourish in our homes among siblings and between spouses as do bigotry and prejudice in our communities. Never being satisfied with what we have and always wanting more than we need reveals that we can be blinded by greed and selfishness.  Rare is the family in which someone doesn’t get into trouble sooner or later.

 

In numerous ways lately, we have addressed the need to respect the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb. There is more to that than the fate of the unwanted baby or the terminally ill patient. Are we respecting the lives of those close to us?  We don’t when we allow lust, for example, to blind us from respecting them.  I will never forget the young child whose father abused her and I pray that he is no longer blind to the harm he has done. I will never forget the hurt I saw on a friend’s face when she discovered her husband’s addictions on the internet which led to the breakup of their marriage. How embarrassed I still am to think back on the ways I treated my siblings when we were growing up. When we misbehave, for whatever reason, we are often blind to the hurt we cause others even to those closest to us.

 

Throughout the Bible, God speaks plainly of his blueprint for living wisely yet our human reason goes against the grain of such truth. So long as we are content with a minimal prayer life, we risk remaining spiritually blind, discounting God’s wisdom as we go about doing our own thing. Then we wonder why our lives or our world is in such chaos.

 

We all live by a certain set of values that we define for ourselves to meet our personal wants. When we ignore the wisdom Jesus offers us as values to live by through the scriptures or teachings of the Church, our spiritual vision at best remains blurry.

 

Our attitude toward what Jesus has to offer reminds me of the child who protests at dinner about eating carrots and peas. As children we are told to eat our veggies for good reason so that we will grow strong and big. Of course back then we had our doubts that this would really make a difference.  Likewise, we were often told how to behave but some of us didn’t buy our parents’ wisdom until long after we left home.  In other words, we can be slow learners at times, can’t we?

 

When making any choice, especially one regarding the sanctity of life, how readily do we consider all the possible options before us and their consequences? If our spiritual vision is blurred to any degree, we need to make the same plea that Bartimaeus did, “Master, I want to see.”

 

I want to see the wisdom of your ways. I want to see how the prejudices of my ways can blind me to the goodness of others. I want to see the shortcomings and consequences of my selfish choices. I want to see how my indifference allows evil to flourish because I don’t care enough to protest. I want to see how my obsession for accumulating wealth and enjoying a life of ease distracts me from reaching out and helping the less fortunate. If my eyes could be open, then possibly I would see how my choices could leave someone hurt, devastated, crushed, or even dead.

 

Open my eyes, Lord, so that I can see how the choices I make at times show a lack of respect not only for my life but also for the lives of others. Then I shall see what an enlightened fool I have been.

“You know the commandments.” So began Jesus’ reply to the man kneeling before him. Do you? I once thought that all Christians did but long ago I learned otherwise when I taught a class on the Book of Exodus to some teens. Not a single one could name all Ten Commandments. I had to wonder by what values they were living their lives. If you don’t know the Ten Commandments, by what values are you living yours? 

 

Daily we find ourselves making choices. Some of them are of little consequence, like the juice you will drink for breakfast. But others can be damaging, such as those we make that lead us to sin. Quite likely the question in today’s gospel on inheriting eternal life rarely comes to mind when we make our choices, otherwise more of us would be following the example of King Solomon and praying for prudence. Instead of ignoring them, we would then see the wisdom behind the commandments and what Jesus is urging us to do if indeed we want to inherit eternal life. 

 

The dictionary defines prudence as being careful about one’s conduct. Prudence is necessary to avoid harm. When we act indiscreetly or imprudently, such as indulging our addictive behaviors by overspending, eating or drinking too much, compulsive gambling, gossiping, dishonesty, or being unchaste, we harm ourselves and others. 

 

King Solomon equated prudence with the spirit of wisdom which he preferred over anything else, for that gave him the means to travel the right path in life. Unfortunately, many of us have made choices that have taken us down the wrong path at times, leaving us sad or disillusioned. Fortunately, as Jesus said, “All things are possible for God.” And that includes forgiving us for the wrong choices we have made in life as many women and some men have learned through the healing ministry of Project Rachel.  

The summer after my father died, my younger sister worked as a candy striper at the hospital where he had worked. She met a man there whom she introduced to our older sister. Before long, my older sister was engaged and in the summer of 1968 they were married. We rarely saw them after that since his job took them to remote places like Wolf Point, MT and Zuni, NM. They seldom came home to visit because my brother-in-law never felt comfortable with our family lifestyle.

 

In the summer of 1992, I helped my sister move from Colorado to California. On the way, she told me that her marriage was in trouble. Her husband had moved to Sacramento the year before to get their older children into a better high school while my sister and their younger children stayed behind to sell the house. He was having an affair and as much as she loved him, my sister was not too hopeful that their marriage could be saved. Despite their efforts at counseling, the end came a year later.

 

Divorce is not a common experience in our family. At that time, I had 35 first cousins, ranging in age from 38 to 82, and only two of them had experienced divorce.

 

A few years later, she decided to seek an annulment, so my sister asked me to serve as a witness for her. I made the observation that she did not marry a husband; she had married a father. I then explained that she met her former husband less than a year after our father had died; the two men were both army officers, pharmacists, and physically big men each in their own way.  As I expected, the tribunal in Sacramento granted my sister a “declaration of nullity.”  After its investigation, it concluded that no true sacramental marriage existed between them. Such a decree says nothing about the legal status of their marriage or their children.

 

The business of divorce and annulment undoubtedly leaves many people confused and sometimes angry, especially if they were never married in the Catholic Church. Why do I need to go through another trial with the Church in order to marry again?  I recall years ago how Ann Landers even called an annulment a Catholic divorce. Actually, we are dealing with two separate issues here.

 

A divorce is a civil decree stating that a legal marriage no longer exists. The marriage between my sister and former brother-in-law witnessed here in Washington was terminated by a court in California 24 years later. In the eyes of society, they were now legally free to remarry.

 

Based on what Jesus has said, the Church presumes every couple to be married in the eyes of God until, as the vows state, death do they part. In the wedding rite, one even finds the line taken from today’s gospel, “Let no man separate what God has joined.” Thus, the Church does not have the freedom to terminate a valid marriage. Being divorced doesn’t free a person to marry, so the question is asked, “Did God in fact join this couple together?” In other words, was this marriage a truly sacramental union?

 

Like priesthood, marriage is a vocation. Not everyone is called by God to marriage, or if they are, some choose to marry a person other than the one God had in mind.

 

A tribunal’s mission is to discern if a sacramental marriage exists or not. Whenever a declaration of nullity is granted, the tribunal has determined that something was lacking which made the marriage as a sacrament null from the beginning. Often times, one spouse or both entered into the marriage either unable or unwilling to fulfill the vows that were exchanged along with the implicit responsibilities that a true marriage entails. Two fairly common examples would be when one or both spouses enter the relationship lacking the intent, the desire or the capacity to remain faithful to one another or to have and raise children.

 

What makes a marriage sacramental? Up front, I would say when both spouses strive to include God as an integral partner in their union. Statistics show that when couples pray together, their marriage becomes practically indestructible. When God is missing from a person’s life for any number of reasons, self-centeredness is likely to fill the vacuum. Sooner or later, that is apt to stop a person from carrying out the fundamental responsibilities of marriage, namely attending to the well-being of one’s spouse and children.

 

I often tell engaged couples that a wise approach to ensuring the success of their marriage would be to adopt the line, “God is first, you are second, and I am third.” If that were the creed of every lover in every marriage, I am convinced that the seeds of divorce would never take root. The lover who honestly lives that creed could not verbally or physically batter the beloved. The lover who honestly lives that creed cannot deny the dignity of the beloved. The lover who strives to live that creed will not be unfaithful to the beloved or their children.

 

The lover who lives with this conviction would see the beloved, not as someone to be dominated or diminished, but as a spouse equal in dignity and value, for both the lover and the beloved are created equal in God’s image. The lover who believes this would never ask the question raised by the Pharisees in this gospel for instead of seeing marriage as a link merely joining two separate and possibly unequal partners, the lover sees their union as one bonded together by God that no one or nothing but death can separate.