Sunday, March 24, 2013

PALM SUNDAY

The Passion According to Luke 

The gospel of Luke announces a new world.  Maps give us a clear world where there are clear boundaries.  In this gospel Jesus redraws the human map.  He draws up a new map – a new world – where there are no boundaries – and so, a world where there can be no outsiders.

Jesus overturns our old world – creates a new world – through compassion.  He is the living compassion of God.  He gives flesh and blood shape to God’s own compassion – knowing no boundaries or pre-conditions.  And so – Jesus confounds and confuses us – as he witnesses to a love truly at home with all people – at home with people of every virtue and likewise at home with people of every vice.  Jesus embodies God’s scandalous, outrageous hospitality. 

In the Passion Jesus lives out of God’s compassion to the very end.  In the garden on the Mount of Olives he greets his betrayer by name.  As he had from the beginning of his ministry, Jesus continues to heal – even in the midst of his own danger.  He heals the high priest’s slave whose ear was cut off.  In the courtyard that night Jesus looks intently, caringly at Peter after his three-time denial.  Arriving at the place of execution, his first words are: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  And finally, his love makes a home with death:  “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” 

We will know we are beginning to understand the new world Jesus wants for us when we feel our own world being upset by a world where there are no outsiders – no strangers – a world where there’s just us – just us all.  Jesus’ Passion wants to free us for that world.  It works our liberation when – as we reflect on the Passion – it exposes to honest light our fear – our fear of selfless love.  We fear the call to a love that forgives the betrayal of friends and blesses enemies.  We fear the call to a love that lets itself be struck, stripped and nailed.  We fear – even dread – the call to a love that entrusts itself over to death. 

This story of Jesus’ Passion and Death must become “gospel” – must become “good news” for us.  And for that good news to reach into our hearts we must become quietly reverent before the mystery of God already present and at work within us.  We must let God work deep changes in us.  There is no alternative.  Only God’s Spirit can make us feel at home with selfless love.  Only God’s Spirit can turn our fear into gratitude.  Only God’s Spirit can make the cross of Jesus Christ something in which we glory.

Let this week become holy time for us.  Let us open ourselves in quiet, reverent prayer to God’s transforming Spirit.  Let us learn to honestly pray: “We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

 

 

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Death and Life

5th Sunday of Lent



We’ve come to the fifth Sunday in Lent.  Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and our entry into Easter.  It’s time to begin our intensive preparation for the celebration of Easter.  Today, all three readings speak of death and life.  They want to prepare us to celebrate Easter.  And we need that preparation.
 
The Church is being a good pastor for us, because – much like the disciples in Jesus’ day – we do tend to miss the point.  We miss the point of Easter because we run from death.  We fear death.  We resent it.  And we question it – why death?  Why should I have to die?  And yet we know each of us must and will die.

The gospel account of the raising of Lazarus intends to take up our question of death.  The story comes at the conclusion of what is called in the gospel of John “the Book of Signs”.  Signs are works done by Jesus which point to the way God is present among us.  They point to the way God is dealing with us now.

In the Lazarus story our questions, our fearful resentment of death find a voice in Mary.  Mary – whose love for Jesus is true and deep – this same loving Mary can also reproach Jesus for his delay in coming to Lazarus.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  We should hear Mary speaking with a certain edge to her voice.  She is crying for her dead brother.  And Jesus joins her in her tears.  In the face of death faith does not despair – yet it is also no stranger to tears.  Death is real and so is the suffering it causes.  It is only right to grieve and cry in death’s presence.

But in the end Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb – out of the grip of death . “Lazarus, come out! …Untie him and let him go.”  This is the sign Jesus works which points to what God does for us.  It is in our dying that the Father destroys death and our fear of it.

What have we to look forward to in death?  Let us not be afraid to reflect on our dying.  As we enter into the process of dying, we know eventually all will be taken from us.  The cosmetics of life we have valued so highly:  the stuff we’ve accumulated – our silly pretensions to importance – our ceaseless busyness – all will be taken away.  And finally, finally we will have only ourselves – relieved of the sham self we have shown to others.  It will be death’s gift to us that we finally come to ourselves honestly – we finally come to our true self – the self born of God and returning to God.  There we will be able to say “yes” – able to say finally, fully and gratefully “yes” to our true self – our eternal self.

In celebrating Easter we will celebrate the feast of the Paschal Mystery.  The Paschal Mystery is the absolute core conviction of Christian faith.  It is our basic take on life.  For us it is the shape of all reality.  Paschal Mystery says that all our dying – all our deaths and diminishments of whatever kind – all our dying is leading us into deeper, fuller, richer life.  Each day, every day and that final day we die – to beget new life.  Each day, every day and that final day we die – into life, into new life.  And all this is God’s doing.  God takes our dying and shapes it into something life-giving – for ourselves and for others.

To our catechumens and candidates – to all of us Jesus puts today the same question he put to Martha:  “Do you believe?”  “Do you believe that everyone who lives and believes in me will never die?”  That question is being put squarely to us today.  Do we believe in Paschal Mystery?  Do we really want Jesus-style resurrection – his new life?  It only comes from our dying.  We call it “everlasting life”, “eternal life”.  We pray for it fervently.  But do we want Jesus-style new life?  It only comes from our dying.

Are we prepared to celebrate Easter?