Reflection for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

My roadmap.

But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent.

Thank you for joining us this Sunday as we testify to the great salvation we have in our Lord and Savior.

Imagine if you will a great roll of writing paper. You take that roll and stretch it throughout your house. You start in the kitchen, run through the living room, dining room, through the halls, up the stairs, into the bedrooms, back down the stairs, back into the kitchen where you finish.

On this great scroll you write out the history of the world, the great and small events in twenty-year generational segments. You get to the modern age, and there is you – your birth and the important moments of your life.

Once finished, you step back and survey it all. Your roadmap. Now you can pick from these moments and see in each of them several things.

In these moments, we find causes for joy and sorrow, reasons for hope and despair. We also see across the great arc of history God’s abiding presence and call to His people, to you and me. We see where we have failed to heed His call to faithfulness. We also recognize the times we joyously returned to Him.

Today we have cause to consider return, the very reason we all join in this place of holiness and prayer, this place of encounter with Jesus and the moment where we repent and welcome Him into the house of our very bodies, hearts, and souls.

Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem to carry out His Father’s will. The last town He comes to is Jericho. You may remember that the man robbed in the story of the Good Samaritan was journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho. It was a well-traveled route, and the one Jesus would take.

Jericho was the place! It was the most perfect of cities. Temperate weather year-round, balsam trees, feathery palms, low slung sycamores, roses. It was a fragrant place. It was wealthy because it stood along this major trade route. Everyone was there. Yet in this very perfect place you’d find tax collectors and robbers.

Among the tax collectors was Zacchaeus, Zacchai, little Zach, a man with a name that means ‘the just, pure, innocent one.’

Imagine, like you, little Zach stretched out a great scroll around his grand home. There he considered his life in the span of history. Among his wealth and comforts derived from being unjust, Zach recalled his parents who named him the just, pure, and innocent one. Struck by the contrast of who he was to be, who God wanted him to be, and what he was, he ran out to meet Jesus. So here we are as well. We know what we are called to be, we know we fall short of God’s call, and our reality. So, we are here to meet Jesus.

We have our timelines and no matter who we are it ends right now. We do not know what the next minute will bring. So like Zach it is imperative that we meet the Lord, turning our lives to Him, changing as we must, for He is the only roadmap to salvation. May we hear Him calling our name – for He knows us. May we welcome Him into the temple of ourselves and live up to who He wants us to be.

Reflection for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

End of the rope.

The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.

Welcome, thank you for joining us this Sunday as we testify to the great salvation and confidence we have in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We have all heard the old saying: When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

If we think but a second, we see that this saying is about self-reliance. I am slipping down the rope and I need to have the presence of mind to tie that knot for myself and hang on. In our great American tradition, we can connect with that. I need to make my way and take care of myself.

God asks us to think differently, to see His provision for us. To know that He has us and is with us constantly, the essential truth that we do not have to worry at all.

God does what He does, and attempts to show us in varied way, throughout salvation history, how His people can rely on Him, how our end of the rope is never the end or disaster because He has us.

Our first reading from the Wisdom of Ben Sira, or simply Sirach, gives us groups of wise sayings. We might say, how nice, it is good to have wise sayings we might live by, until we see that this is the wisdom of God Himself passed onto us by the prophet.

Sirach loved the Lord’s wisdom and was dedicated to His worship because He saw how God made a difference in the lives of the people. A person who has that kind of love and devotion for God places their reliance on the Lord because He has proved Himself.

For us it seems obvious. God’s ultimate sacrifice for our salvation and well-being is well known. As we study and worship Him, we connect to the fact that in this loving relationship we have ultimate protection by His promise. No one and nothing, as St. Paul would say, takes us away from the love of God. Nothing can overcome it. For us here, we have seen it in the life of this Kingdom family. We are surrounded and infused with His salvific power. We own that.

In the Epistle, Paul speaks of his persecution before the Roman authorities. Even to this day, as we learned at Holy Synod, our people, clergy, and parishes are the targets of persecution – but it does not bring fear. It does not cause us to shrink, but to stand forth faithfully because God has us in the palm of His hand. We trust. We stand. As Paul tells us, it would be inconsistent to fear for we live in the strength infused in us by our faith made most present in Jesus.

Finally, Jesus sets forth the example of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the self-righteous and the sinner. This brings it all together. The Pharisee was tying ritualistic knots in his rope, fully confident he was saving himself, yet he was slipping away. The tax collector, like all of us, sinners though we are, trusted completely in and only on God. God justified him, declared him not guilty, saved him, and like all of us he lived in confident reliance on the God Who saves. He will never let us slip and fall.

Reflection for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Prayer and loyalty.

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.

Welcome, thank you for joining us this Sunday as we testify to and act on our faith in our Lord and Savior.

If we listen carefully to the liturgical Propers for today, we will hear these words in reference to prayer: loyal, ever, constant, always, persist, patience, at every opportunity, watch, persevere, never cease, steadfast, call. All these words are action words, none are passive.

These words apply to the woman seeking a just judgment in today’s gospel. She was an engaged individual; she would not let the wicked judge off-the-hook even though she knew he was wicked.

The woman seeking a just judgment had something the wicked judge did not have. While not plainly said, she was a woman of faith who combined her faith and respect for God and others with action.

Jesus really wants us to focus on action, and the primary action we will study this and next week is the action of prayer.

There are five key components to prayer – to making prayer real and effective. It is these actions:

Offer up our desires to God. We are called to pour ourselves out to Him. This seems like the easiest part. We are good at doing this.

Surrender to God. Just as Jesus taught us in the Our Father and in the Garden: God’s will be done, and His will is to be ours. This is harder.

Enter Conversation with God – it means we not only talk, but we also listen. We seek God and attend to His presence and desire for us.

Practice the presence of God. I want to be in God’s presence, never apart from Him. This is about the time and effort we make to seek God’s face, not compartmentalizing Him, but having Him ever before us, permeating our lives.

Own the peace of God. It is in prayer that ultimately, despite all things and in all things, we find peace.

It is key, we churchgoers, that we pay close attention to this, for prayer is our heritage. We come here to do as Jesus asks, joining in fellowship to offer, surrender, converse, practice, and own. Do we do it perfectly? Could our lives be more fully in God’s presence? Could we be more active? Of course! And we should get at it. But we have the start and the commitment, and in the end we will be heard. We are like the woman seeking a just judgment – and you know what? – God will give it to us.

Now I must be very honest with you. Some come to me who would never think to darken the doorway of a church. An emergency, disappointment, a tragedy – please pray for me. This isn’t people trying, but those who won’t until… I do pray in hope that they will be convicted and converted. Almost none are. I often wonder why. Thus, Jesus’ warns: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” May He find each of us loyal, active, and wholly His in prayer.

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Christian Family 2022

Living as God’s own.

Did you not know I had to be in My Father’s house.

Welcome and thank you for joining us this Sunday as we testify to our faith in our Lord and Savior, join in fellowship in His Holy Name, and celebrate the entire family of faith which is all of us who dwell in the Kingdom.

As I have occasionally commented, our Church takes this time, about mid-October, to transport us into the Christmas season as we consider the childhood of Jesus and His life within the Holy Family; as we consider our lives within the family of faith, the Kingdom of God.

It seems sort of funny, our Church was ahead of the current day Christmas rush as far back as 1914 when this Solemnity was established at Holy Synod.   

On this occasion, with its focus on family and a kind-of Christmassy theme we may feel transported back to our own childhoods, the lives of our children and grandchildren, especially in their earliest years, our families, the love, events, and even trials we have shared. Family – and the idea of Christmas – we connect with all that, and that is good. For most people it is the place good is first felt.

Considering all that we experience and share in our own families, how do we feel, what do we think, when we consider, hear about, and ponder the family of God, the Holy Church, the Christian Family?

We could consider a gamut of thoughts and feelings. Just as in any family, there will be those who say all things must change, those who say we need improvements, those who say nothing must ever change. There is a whole range of opinions from one end to the other. However, lets step away from all that and consider something completely different – our Lord’s words: Did you not know I had to be in My Father’s house.

Jesus’ incarnation, birth, and young life in the family ushered in the very thing He preached. It was the message He was meant to bring: The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, believe.

In ushering in the Kingdom, in drawing us into one family, Jesus seeks an essential change in us, His Kingdom dwellers and workers. We are called to now focus our priorities and lives on the new reality, the Kingdom reality. We are now to live as God’s own family with the Father at the head and Jesus as our brother, united in the Spirit.

In our new reality, the strictures and structures of family have vastly expanded. Relationship has evolved. We have become a new people, reborn, regenerated, and connected one to another. Being there, we have cause to proclaim: Did you not know I had to be in My Father’s house. Saying so, and truly living as a family, we join in carrying out our responsibilities in our Kingdom work of evangelism, fellowship, and worship. We rejoice as family, as God’s very own.

Reflection for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Accepted and used.

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.

Welcome and thank you for joining us this Sunday as we testify to our faith in our Lord and Savior and join in fellowship in His Holy Name.

God gives – isn’t that a wonderful statement? God has placed gifts in us, as St. Paul tells Timothy, a spirit of power, love, and self-control.

These gifts from God are a sure antidote to the things that humans face every day – weakness, anger and hatred, and a lack of control over both ourselves and our surroundings.

The interesting thing about gifts is the choice of the one receiving them. The receiver has the choice of accepting and using the gift, accepting the gift and leaving it unused, misusing the gift, or just ignoring it.

Growing up, I, like you was trained to be thankful for gifts, and to accept them with grace. We were also taught that we must not waste what we were given. Perhaps in some ways that accounts for some of the clutter we all have – what to do with that ceramic chicken table setting someone gave us?

God only gives needful and useful gifts. No ceramic chickens from God. We have these gifts of power, love, and self-control but now we must apply them. As professing Christians, that is what we are to do.

Jesus shows us how we are to apply these gifts in everyday situations, during the ordinary of our lives. We are to use our power, love, and self-control as His servants and servants of each other. We are to see with faith, the size of a mustard seed, how God’s gifts intertwine and bind our relationships with Him, our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom, and all of God’s creation.

Jesus wants us to use these gifts in doing all He commands, that is, to walk the gospel path where we give completely of ourselves, where we clothe and feed those in need, where we visit those alone, and where the beatitudes mark our life. We can all look those up.

To those given more, Jesus calls for more. For all of us in relationship with each other, we are to be a representation of Jesus’ dwelling with us, His abiding presence. Look on each other and see Jesus abiding; His gifts ready for application.

Today, as we pause to consider the pets we love or have loved, we see in a special way the implementation of God’s gifts. We recognize a dependency in the ones given to us, for care, for companionship, for a recognition of their innocence and their sharing of unconditional love which we need to reciprocate. God thus uses creation to illustrate in the simplest of ways how the accepted gift is to be used. May we ever show how we have accepted the spirit of power, love, and self-control placed in us and how we have used them as His servants.

Reflection for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Where charity prevails.

between us and you a great chasm is established

Welcome and thank you for joining us this day in our worship of our Lord and fellowship in His Holy Name.

There are several things to consider today: The way we live our lives; The need for repentance i.e, change where necessary; and The reality of the Hell we build if we close or limit ourselves toward the other. All of this is summed up in the gospel as the “great chasm.”

Jesus uses the story of Lazarus and the rich man pointing to the necessity of living a life of love, for a life of love converts us fully, brings us most fully to the likeness of His Heavenly Father. This is the life we are called to, to be the model of God in the world exemplified in love.

Now, the confusing part is our perception of what love is. We mess ourselves up by quantifying and qualifying our love toward others.

The Greeks had it a bit easier for the word Agape means a love that is complete charity, total self-giving. This is the complete love Jesus speaks of and requires from His disciples. We are to live and practice, without quantifying, self-giving toward all we encounter. That powerful love, so often unseen and unexpected in our world, when shown, breaks down barriers and brings people into the Kingdom.

The rich man had none of that. Factually, his love was completely self-centered and could not even contemplate self-giving. He existed is a loveless great chasm, a place of emptiness, a hollow place. He made that chasm impenetrable, uncrossable, and a place of blindness toward anyone else. He never even saw or heard Lazarus under his window.

Could he have repented? Most certainly. The rich man could have opened his ears, eyes, and heart to Lazarus. He could have taken from himself and could have given, inviting Lazarus in to dine with him, not counting the cost. He could have offered his friendship to Lazarus and opened himself to him.

Yet, as we see in Jesus’ telling, the rich man could not even do that after death. There he was, in Hell, being tormented, crying out for pity – pity for himself. His self-centered life lived on into eternity, he remained in the chasm he built. Lazarus remained as nothing, just a potential water bearer and message carrier for the rich man’s needs. Not once does he look up to Abraham and Lazarus and beg forgiveness.

We must examine the places where we have built great chasms in our lives, where our love is less than the full giving Jesus requires. If there is a great chasm, let us work to close it. It is certainly not easy, it wasn’t easy for most of the Apostles and saints at first, but they got there. They closed the chasms of their lives and lived complete love as we must do.

Reflection for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, First Communion, and Back To Church Sunday 2022

HOPE!

Who is like the LORD, our God, who is enthroned on high and looks upon the heavens and the earth below? He raises up the lowly from the dust; he lifts up the poor to seat them with princes, with the princes of his own people.

Welcome and thank you for joining us this day in our worship of, and hope in, the Lord.

Thank you for joining for this celebration – a day in which the door to the reception of Jesus’ body and blood is opened to Karina and Marianna – a time in which the hope unity with Jesus offers – is made very real to them.

Thank you for joining us on this Back to Church Sunday, a moment in which we revitalize the hope we all have in Jesus.

The Church offers some tough readings and a difficult to understand gospel today. We may puzzle and wonder what that is all about. Recall, we read a gospel about a cheating steward who is getting fired and who then gets commended for more cheating.

Jesus was using a negative example to show that the businessmen of His day were more wise, bold, and forward-thinking in the management of what they had than the people of God were in managing what they had – their hope. Jesus calls on us to pursue the Kingdom of God and its hope with at least the same vigor and zeal that the worldly pursue their profits.

On special days like today we tend to look back at our first communion, our innocence, the joys of the day that perhaps we could not fully comprehend. When I made my first communion it was with a certain fear and trembling made more so by hair that had to be perfect, a back straight, kneeling stiff and straight through the whole Mass, and the thought drummed into my head of the power and glory I was entering into as Christ entered into me. I did not understand until much later the hope I now owned.

Today Karina and Marianna are surrounded by their closest family and friends and the entire family of the Holy Church worldwide. They are made one with all of us in the body and blood of Christ. Most importantly, they share in the hope we have. Know that as you are surrounded today in love, so in receiving Jesus you will always be filled and surrounded by Jesus’ loving presence

By the Eucharist we live in Jesus’ eternal presence. Our, and your hope is in the assurance of Jesus fully present and real to us. We look steadfastly at Jesus and understand inside and out that living in Him gives us forever hope – a confidence that nothing can get in the way; nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus fully in and surrounding us.

Karina, Marianna, all of us receiving Jesus grow here and now in wisdom, boldness, vigor, and zeal for the Kingdom. In receiving Him we are lifted to heaven, seated with the hope filled royalty of the Kingdom.

Reflection for the Solemnity of Brotherly Love 2022

In Christ.

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Welcome and thank you for joining us this day in our worship of, and dedication to, the Lord.

Today we celebrate a very special Solemnity. If we look up the definition of liturgical solemnity, we will see the following: A solemnity is a feast day of the highest rank celebrating a mystery of faith.

From the practical side of things, we know that this Solemnity was instituted in the Church at a time when we faced persecution for our beliefs. No, this wasn’t in the first centuries, the time of the martyrs, but rather in the early 1900’s. We decided as Church, the Body of Christ, His new creation, to emphasize Christ’s teaching on love, whether it be toward one another or toward those who hated us.

It remains sad, even to this day, that those who wish to come into our Church face castigation and persecution. So, we must remain steadfast in our love of these enemies. As St. Paul tells us, our love of them will heap burning coals on their heads. In Biblical language that means that our goodness will embarrass those who hate, and who knows, may convert them to ways of love.

The scholar of the Law knew the answer when he approached Jesus. To him, there was no mystery of faith. The scholar knew he was to love his fellow Israelites. Those were his neighbors, no one else.

Now the scholar wished to justify himself. That meant that he wanted to proclaim a legal verdict (as in a courtroom) of his righteousness and faithfulness, his innocence in the way he treated his fellow countrymen. The scholar wanted to be judge and jury over himself.

Jesus was having none of that and goes on, through the parable of the Good Samaritan, to open the mystery of faith to this scholar and those around him, and in turn to us. Our love is to be unlimited in relation to God and others, and that ‘others’ includes both friend and enemy.

Our love is to be such that it makes those closest to us and enemies uncomfortable. We are to bear an overwhelming love – a love I know we practice here so beautifully – which points to the fact that we are Christ’s new creation. We are fully in Christ.

We are indeed Christ’s new creation. Our lives have been taken out of this world and have been placed in the Kingdom. We have been severed from the ways of sin and death to eternal life in the love of Christ, the Kingdom of love.

While there are many ways to shine forth in the Kingdom – through prayer, worship, and fellowship – the premier way is to shine forth love. All those others – prayer, worship, and fellowship exist in support of the building up of the love of Christ in, and out of, us. So, as people in Christ, His new creation, let us be the Kingdom’s brightness of love always and everywhere.

Reflection for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Doing differently.

Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high? And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.

Welcome and thank you for joining us this day in our worship of, and dedication to, the Lord.

A couple weeks ago we talked about the difference between hearing and listening. Last week we heard God’s call to humility and away from pride. Today we cover the difference between knowing and understanding.

We can certainly connect with historical personalities, even in our families, who wished to know God. We saw them spending their lives focused on prayer and working toward a deeper knowledge of God which would then blossom into understanding.

That kind of dedication to knowing God is a movement toward true intimacy with God, a kind of love evidenced by such a closeness that nothing can get between the individual and God. This is a truly beautiful state of being, to understand God not in the academic sense, but in in a close and personal way.

Today’s reading from Wisdom speaks of all that confounds our growth toward God. Yet God will not let the burdens of self and earth stand in the way. He grants wisdom by His Holy Spirit to lead us on the right path – the path to knowledge, understanding, and intimacy with Him.

Well, what if I have not spent my whole life in prayer growing closer to God? What if my scripture reading isn’t what it should be? Maybe even my churchgoing hasn’t been what it should be? Am I cut off from knowledge, understanding, and intimacy with God?

No, of course not, and here’s a bit of a shortcut. To know and understand God is to accept the fact that He does things differently and calls us to be so as well.

St. Paul provides us an example in the Letter to Philemon. Paul comes to know Philemon’s runaway slave, Onesimus. He brings him to knowledge of Jesus – and then as Roman law requires – he sends him back to Philemon. But now something is radically different, the relationship has been changed, because of a God Who sees and does differently, makes us different to the core of who we are. So, Philemon and Onesimus must be different in Christ Jesus.

In the Gospel we hear more of Jesus’ hard sayings. Reject that which binds you down, even if it is possessions or family. Take up your cross. Follow me.

Jesus in revealing His Father to us calls us to a radically different life. He does not want us to just know we should be different, but to understand and with intimacy be different. We are to proclaim our intimacy with God in lives that show our closeness to and trust of God as we take the risks God asks of us in building the Kingdom. The One, Who is intimately with us, empowers us in this work and will blesses us for it.

Reflection for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Be Humble.

“For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Welcome and thank you for joining us this day in our worship of, and dedication to, the Lord.

Last week we spoke of the distinction between listening and hearing. We heard Jesus tell us that the one who listens and walks the gospel way, i.e., does the work Jesus speaks of, will recline at table in the kingdom of God. Today we hear Jesus referencing another table, the one that was in front of Him in the home of one of the leading Pharisees.

We are introduced to the scene hearing that Jesus was being observed closely and carefully.

The ironic part of Jesus being observed carefully was that it had nothing to do with respect or honor. Rather, it was people lying in wait for a mistake, so they could take charge and destroy Jesus.

Jesus confronts this situation by speaking of humility. How can one rightly order their lives in relation to God and other people?

We all have that automatic detection system, the red light that goes on when someone with false humility starts talking about – themselves. We know how hard our own humility can be. Even stating that one is humble calls attention to oneself, magnifies oneself.

The temptation as I prepared this homily was to use examples from my life – oh how humble I was – and speak about how we can all effectuate humility in our lives – by following the thing Fr. Jim does. Yikes, humility is hard. That was a lesson for me.

For us, humility is the way we follow Jesus, how we walk in His gospel way. Jesus lays out examples for us today.

It starts with showing up when invited, making the effort, then placing oneself in the lowest position, doing the things that need doing while not calling attention to oneself. Then when the party begins, taking the lowest place.

Jesus also instructs us to avoid doing anything for self-gain. If we are throwing the party, invite those who never get invited. If we are playing a sport or game, pick those who never get picked.

Those are practical examples of humility in action. Doing those things helps us to live humble lives, to exemplify Christ. The truly humble person is not only a listener and doer of Jesus’ gospel but more-so a person totally committed to emptying oneself for Jesus Christ.

What this means is to finally extricate ourselves from God’s throne, to stop pushing Him aside so we can decide. It is about living up to all those commitments we made before God at our baptism and confirmation, in marriage, and in every other way – living only for God and others so to be exalted in heaven at God’s table.