Reflection for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Listen, Obey, Witness

“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy, and My burden light.”

Thank you for joining today as we continue our Ordinary Time journey focused on listening to, obeying, and witnessing to Jesus.

This statement of Jesus, concerning taking up of a yoke – a weight, an obligation, a means of being controlled – seems odd. Why would Jesus ask us to do that? Didn’t He come to free us and take the weight of sin off our shoulders? And anyway, I’m not going to allow myself to be obligated to anyone.

First, let’s be honest about Jesus’ statement. Yes, He means we are to submit to His will. We are to turn over control of our lives to Him. We are to allow Him to direct us and take us where He will, not where we will. We are to let Him do this through His Word and His Holy Church.

I can hear people say, well forget that. Who does God and His Church think they are. I can make my own decisions.

Yes, we can make our own decisions, and this decision is a key one because unless we accept the yoke of Jesus, we have no hope of entering His rest.

Is this decision easy? No. It is bad enough when we have to allow someone else to drive us around, much less to have completely surrendered control over our lives to another.

What may help us in reaching the right decision is the metaphor Jesus uses, the yoke itself. The yoke is used throughout scripture as a symbol, but unless we liked Westerns (Wagon Train?) or lived near Amish farmers, we have little practical knowledge of what a yoke is.

A yoke is a binding devise for two animals who walk side-by-side. Oxford Dictionary defines yoke as: ‘a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull.’

You see, Jesus is not asking us to pick up His yoke and put it on our necks and do it all ourselves, for His yoke is Him on one side and us on the other. We are bound together when we accept Jesus and decide to walk in His footsteps, side by side doing His work.

We never go it alone with Jesus. He stands with us, sets to work with us, plows God’s field with us. He tells us that His yoke is easy, and light because He is carrying almost all the weight for us.

If we bind ourselves to Jesus, accepting His yoke, we accomplish great things. Lives are saved, sinfulness is ended, the good news is proclaimed, people accept Jesus and they are made new. The joy we encounter in doing Jesus’ work, at His side, makes even the slightest burden lighter.

Let us then listen to Jesus’ call to the yoke, obey Him by taking it up, and walking with Him witnessing the kingdom, and drawing in those who do not know Him to also take up the yoke.

Reflection for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Listen, Obey, Witness

“Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One who sent me.”

Thank you for joining today as we continue our Ordinary Time journey focused on listening to, obeying, and witnessing to Jesus.

Why does Jesus say such difficult things? It is a common question and a very popular question in our day and age. People pick up the tough sayings of Jesus and say: ‘Look at this – how stupid. He doesn’t’ want me or us to be free. God is not worth believing in because He is mean and controlling.’

Indeed, Jesus does ask much of us. He wants us all-in, completely dedicated to listening to His commands and His way (not my way), to obedience (not going my own way), and to witness to His tough call (do I really have to?). He tells us that this priority is first, even before family. 

We cringe, don’t we, when we hear words like obligation, obedience, duty, sacrifice, submission, requirement, restraint, perseverance, follow, and commandment. I am sure you could think of others. But those are the all-in things Jesus asks of us, to put Him and the Kingdom first.

Jesus asks us to put our old selfish selves and self-interest away and allow ourselves to listen to, obey, and witness to Him above all things.

What does it mean to carry out Jesus’ work, to fulfill our obligation for His having saved and reconciled us and for forever ending death so we might have eternal life? It means that we must level-up our faith. We must work hard to overcome the things that are broken in us and the obstacles and enemies in our way with the help of His grace. We must endeavor to be not just different, but different and ever better.

If we were to draw a map from where we were just a few years earlier, and for older folks perhaps decades earlier, would we be on the same level or have we leveled up?

You may remember the picture of Jesus standing outside a door. If you observe closely, He is knocking but cannot enter on His own. The door on the outside has no doorknob. We must open the door for Jesus. That is where we start leveling up, by letting Jesus in. Unfortunately, too many think they are being progressive, by not only refusing to open the door, but by locking it and barring it. Don’t let Jesus in. I’ll stay where I am. It looks like I am moving, but I’m just falling. Waaaaaaaa…

As we set forth into the days and decades ahead let us resolve to level up. Let us level up our faith, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and our love. Let us let Jesus in and accept His grace and His tough sayings which will make us better than we are today.

To those who say: ‘Look at this – how stupid. Jesus doesn’t’ want me or us to be free. God is not worth believing in because He is mean and controlling,’ we can say: ‘God wants me to succeed, to level up, to listen, obey, and witness and to obtain all His glory.’

Reflection for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Listen, Obey, Witness

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

Thank you for joining today as we begin our Ordinary Time journey and place our focus on listening to, obeying, and witnessing to Jesus.

Today we begin in Jeremiah. When we hear the phrase ‘the Lamentations of Jeremiah’ we are reminded of the difficult message he had to bring to a people who would not listen, and the cost he faced for bringing that message.

Let’s set this up a little bit. Just before the opening verse “I hear the whisperings of many: ‘Terror on every side! Denounce! let us denounce him!’Jeremiah had been in the public stocks outside the Temple. The Chief of the Temple police, Pashhur (whose name means freedom and peacefulness) had arrested him, whipped him with thirty-nine lashes, and put him in the stocks. He then let Jeremiah out early. Jeremiah immediately called Pashhur a name: Magor-Missabib, literally ‘Terror on Every Side.’  Jeremiah had no intention of moderating or covering over God’s message. He boldly told the priest and chief of police that destruction was sure to come, and they would be at the center of it. They would be ‘terror on every side.’

Now we hear Jeremiah quoting the people. In mockery they call him Magor-Missabib, ‘Terror on Every Side.’ They try to use God’s words against him. They will watch for any misstep and use it as pretext for destroying Jeremiah and as an excuse for ignoring God. Knowing this Jeremiah again proclaims his faithfulness to God’s message and work.

Jesus tells his disciples that their listening to Him, obeying and carrying out the work of witness He has given them will, just like Jeremiah, not be easy. He also reassures them of God’s attention to and protection of their work. They are valued by God for listening, obeying, and witnessing. To drive the point home, he repeats “do not be afraid” three times.

Brothers and sisters, we are called to an incredible and glorious task. We are asked to listen to, obey, and witness to Jesus and His gospel teaching. We are called to the discipline of the Holy Church and her teachings which are the Holy Spirit’s proclamation to us of all He heard the Son teach (cf. John 14:26, 16:13).

We have choices. Listen, obey, and witness are three components in which we must choose to follow God’s way or go our own way. Choosing God in everyday life and daily encounters has consequences and sometimes they are unpleasant. However, choosing our comfort, convenience, our own way has consequences as well. Jesus – God Himself told us: be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. The evil one leads us in our own ways, in a mirage of freedom which is not freedom at all. Let us choose rightly so Jesus acknowledges us before the Father and does not see us as ‘terror on every side.’

Reflection for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time/Word of God Sunday 2023

Trust!

Indeed, if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by His life.

Thank you for joining today as we complete this short time wherein we consider the mysteries of God and His action to save us. This includes the Mystery of the Trinity (two Sundays ago), of the Body and Blood of Jesus (from Thursday the 8th through Thursday the 15th), and the power of God’s Word (today).

From June 4th through today each of these topics is put before us, not so we get some academic explanation of them, but so we can learn of God’s awesome love, His desire for us, His self-revelation, and finally His desire that we trust and love Him in return.

Throughout this mini season we have focused on the connection between mystery and trust and how the Christian life must rejoice at God’s revealed mysteries. Trust is key to our relationship with God.

As you well know, our Holy Church has defined the Word of God proclaimed and taught as a sacrament, and our Church sets aside this first Ordinary Sunday after Lent, Passiontide, Easter, Pentecost, and this mini season as Word of God Sunday. We are called as clergy to make extra effort to enshrine and honor God’s word as an expression of what the Word of God means to us.

First, I would like to recommend that you do something special concerning the Word of God at home tonight, whether it is dusting off an unused Bible, or taking up that one you use regularly to share a special verse with the rest of your family. Perhaps you will think of something else beautiful for yourself and your household. Do it.

Beyond that, on this special day, consider the power of God’s Holy Word and how His Word has instructed us, has brought us into intimacy with Himself. That’s what the 12 were sent to proclaim.

The mystery we consider is defined for us in John 1:1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We are told that Jesus is God’s Word, existing eternally and focused on interacting with us.

Jesus, the Word, is God’s self-revelation. We know God through Jesus. The unknowable, unsearchable mystery of God’s life becomes our possession and in knowing Him we are invited into union with Him. As St. Paul tells us, the Word came at the Father’s command to reconcile us, to save us, because it was impossible to do anything of ourselves.

Paul says: how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by His life. This is not something Jesus once did and left the room. Rather He has left us His word to continue to teach us, to help us strive for full on gospel lives, and ultimately trust in what He taught, all documented in His Holy Word.

Reflection for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Did, Doing, Done.

  • But I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly.

Thank you for joining as we testify, proclaim, and evangelize the great and Holy Name of Jesus.

Over the last two weeks we spoke of our baptismal obligation to testify, give witness, and proclaim the truth of Jesus, His gospel message, and the promise of salvation that is in Him. We are to live in His light 

We may think our baptismal obligation is a one-way debt owed to God, that we are taking upon ourselves duties aimed at God. At that point we may wonder what God’s obligation is toward us, how does He live in relationship to us? Is this a one-sided thing or is it mutual?

Let us liken our baptismal relationship to what we may better comprehend, we get married or take on a job and there is a set of obligations both on ourselves and on the other party, a spouse, an employer. So, how does that work out between us and God. How does it work in both directions?

God’s obligation toward us is real, not because we can make Him do anything for us, but because He chose to pursue us. God pursues us, always with great love, even when we are far off. He seeks us out and calls us into relationship with Him. This is most evident in His constant call to the people of Israel, even when they strayed, and it came to completion when He Himself, in the Person of His Son, Jesus, came to us.

God in Jesus said – here, let Me teach you. Let Me show you the way you are to live as part of an everlasting relationship with Me and with each of your brothers and sisters. Here is My gospel which is life – live this way. Here is My body and blood, offered for your salvation and here is my resurrection so you too may rise and enter the everlasting Kingdom. I love you.

God’s relationship with us, His people, and the salvation brought to reality in Jesus is the hope and loving promise we attach ourselves to in baptism. What God already did is the starting point of relational obligations. As St. John would say: We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

The mutual obligation between us and God continues in everyday life. It is centered on what God is continually doing for us. He gives His grace to strengthen and sustain us. He does as Zephaniah prophesized – He has left us as a humble and lowly remnant, living the beatitudes He taught, to give light to the unsaved so they too may enter this mutual obligation.

The best part of our relationship with God is that He made us His remnant, His people. We are the chosen insiders in the Kingdom, not insiders for worldly wealth and power, but insiders for the sharing of His love and for everlasting glory.

Finally, God’s promises to us are guaranteed. He has made us co-heirs with Jesus to the Kingdom. He will deliver everlasting life in eternal joy where there is no more tears, death, mourning, crying, or pain (Revelation 21:4). What He will do for us is the promised side of those Beatitudes – comfort, inheritance, satisfaction, mercy, and great reward.

So let us live fully our relationship with God, doing as He requires and receiving His love. That’s the deal we all want.

Reflection for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

What do I do…?

The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen.

Thank you for joining as we testify, proclaim, and evangelize the great and Holy Name of Jesus.

Last week we spoke of our baptismal obligation to testify, give witness, and proclaim the truth of Jesus, His gospel message, and the promise of salvation that is in Him. This week we reflect on the light we have received and that light in relation to our obligation.

I don’t know how many of you took economics in college. I remember it well. I enjoyed macroeconomics, looking at the big picture of the economy and how things work.

Walter Heller, speaking of economists commented: “You know it’s said that an economist is a man who, when he finds something that works in practice, wonders if it works in theory.”

That makes sense for us doesn’t it. We who go shopping for food every week, who need a paycheck, and who put gas in the car know what works in practice, i.e., in reality.

One thing I remember quite well from economics was the idea of perfect competition. Perfect competition occurs when companies sell an identical product, market share does not influence price, companies are able to enter or exit without barriers, buyers have perfect or full information, and best of all – companies cannot determine prices. Everyone pays about the same price.

A loose example is old fashioned regular milk. Sealtest, Hood, Stewarts, Price Chopper, Hannaford, Crowley – well milk is milk. But… and we all know, companies have learned to change things up, differentiate, and offer unique milk products like goats’ milk, almond milk, oat milk, 2%, 1%, skim, chocolate, extra pasteurized, non-GMO. We are willing to pay more or less to substitute regular milk for what we want or prefer.

There is however one unique thing, one that cannot be substituted, one we cannot replace with something that might be similar or just as good and that is Jesus.

Jesus came as the promised light, and we who recognize His coming should be like the people of Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. We have a great, perfect light Who shows us the way we are to go.

The excerpt from Psalm 126 used for the alleluia verse tells of the reaction of those who recognize the Lord as their Light. The Lord had done great things for us; Oh, how happy we were! They perceive what the Lord has done for them, and they show forth their happiness because its light stands in dynamic contrast to the darkness they lived in.

If for us the Lord is indeed our light and salvation, without substitute or equivalent, the question comes down to what we do with Him.

The right choice and the only choice for us is to follow Him and declare Him. Like the called disciples we must get up and go with Jesus, learn from Jesus, and testify, give witness, and proclaim the truth of Jesus His gospel message, and the promise of salvation that is in Him alone.

Reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Testify

“I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him… Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

Thank you for joining as we testify to our Lord Jesus Christ.

To testify, to give witness, to proclaim the truth – this is the charge we received in baptism. 

In the Baptismal Rite the one to be baptized receives salt, the savor of wisdom and truth that the name of Jesus should be in our mouths, their lips are blessed that their mouths may be opened to proclaim Christ. These serious charges are an obligation of duty on us from baptism to our grave. An adjunct to this is that the ears are also blessed that they may be opened to hear Jesus, the proclaimed gospel that is way, truth, and life.

John and later St. Paul testify to Jesus, one as His precursor paving the way and pointing toward Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God and the other His apostle, going throughout the world to preach the gospel of salvation that is in Christ Jesus.

We here, in this parish church, dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus, are who Paul is describing: ‘those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus.’ 

Paul further states that we have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and are called to be holy.

This is more than a reminder at the beginning of this new calendar year of who we are to be and Who we are to proclaim; further how we are to live. Reminders, while nice, do not precipitate action. Any wife or husband can tell you how many times they have reminded their spouse to do so and so without result. How many teachers can testify to the fact that they remind certain students all the time, send home notes, write it in their ‘agenda book,’ or send Emails with little to no effect.

Jesus did not come to remind us. Not at all. That was the job of the prophets who came before Him to remind Israel of their obligations to God and of His promise to them. Even John the Forerunner came to remind the people of the promised Messiah and to call them to conversion in advance – Prepare the way, reminding them of what they must do. Jesus instead came to call us to action, to open ears to hear, to open mouths to speak, to free what was locked up for all to see and hear.

No, no reminders. We have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and are called to be holy. That is an ongoing state of being. Older, retired, worked for God all your life? You cannot retire or stop for you are called to be holy. Parents who had their children baptized? You cannot stay away, write it off, cheat their ears and leave their mouths empty of the gospel for you are called to be holy as are your children. Teens, college graduates, mid-life everyday job folks – you are called to be holy.

Tomorrow, we honor someone who lived their call to be holy with ears that heard the cry of the oppressed and opened his mouth to speak the Lord’s truth concerning each person’s humanity and dignity. Today, we recognize where we have failed in our call to be holy. 

We have been charged to testify, witness, and proclaim. Starting now we live our baptism and set to action for He is the Son of God.

Reflection for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Our testimony

“Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony.”

Thank you for joining us this Sunday as we testify to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

After a long, nearly three-year journey across Israel and Samaria, preaching the gospel, proclaiming the kingdom, teaching the apostles and disciples, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. He preaches in the temple precincts with the same message, these times tinged with the exigency of His coming arrest, suffering, death, and resurrection.

As Jesus teaches, people are commenting on the magnificence of the Temple. Indeed, it was the place to be, the place to meet God. We might speed by this comment about the way the Temple was adorned, but we should not set aside its overwhelming presence. Even from afar you could see it towering over Jerusalem. Its walls magnificent white with large gold plates. Sparking jewels and offerings on its walls. This – and it was still under construction. Indeed, it would not be completed until 63 A.D., seven years before it is destroyed completely by the Roman army.

Jesus tells of the Temple’s coming destruction. Now, when someone predicts something like this, especially involving something so magnificent and meaningful in the lives of the people who fill and journey to this holy city, we all want to know more, and the disciples take up our curiosity and ask: “Teacher, when will this happen?”

Certainly, our minds cannot help to think of what is to come. But, in the Gospels Jesus stresses something different no matter how much people persist in their inquiries about the end and His return.

In our own day there are those prophets of doom who say they represent Jesus (really only a shadow of Who Jesus is) and tell us the end is neigh. Our own flights of fancy go from Jesus’ return out of the rising sun in the East with trumpet blast and astride a white steed followed by all who had previously fallen asleep and the heavenly host of angels. Then we start thinking of ourselves, will I be a sheep or a goat?

Yes, there were those time I fed and clothed, visited, but then again, there were times I hoarded, fought, over-ate, and ignored. And we get a little worried – we should because it keeps us honest in our weekly confession. 

Jesus warns us today – do not get caught up in all that end-times stuff. If we truly are to be His disciples and Kingdom dwellers, then we have far more important work to do. There will be bad times; people will disappoint and betray us; storms, earthquakes, and other awful stuff will happen – and through it all, no matter what, we are to testify, to proclaim Jesus and His Kingdom because only His overwhelming presence matters, frees, and makes those who believe ever secure.

Reflection for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Did you happen to read?

That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out ‘Lord, ‘ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” 

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

Today’s gospel begins very plainly and factually. Here comes another group to challenge Jesus. This time it is the Sadducees, as the gospel notes: those who deny that there is a resurrection. Well, there was good reason for their being named Sadducees because they were without hope – they were sad-you-see.

The Sadducees, like others, are going to Jesus, not to learn anything whatsoever, but to prove a point and show Him to be a worthless prophet. They come with this story of the widow who marries various brothers and after the seventh dies, leaving no heir to the original brother, the widow says, thank God that is over.

This process of one brother marrying the widow of another brother to ensure he has heirs is found in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 25:5-10 if you would like to look it up.

This kind of marriage is called a Levirate marriage. In many positive ways it served as a protection for the childless widow who would have no one, being childless, to provide for or protect her. This type of marriage also ensured the survival of the clan.

What is interesting here is that by Jesus’ time the practice of levirate marriage was out of favor and had declined in practice. That being the case, the Sadducees question was strange in and of itself – and it gets stranger.

The Sadducees’ question becomes even stranger when you consider how manufactured it was. It was a reductio ad abusurdum argument, trying to prove that there cannot possibly be a resurrection because all these absurd machinations of marriage and childlessness would come to chaos in eternity, everyone looking for a spouse and wandering about heaven calculating who it might be. As such, reduced to, the resurrection is absurd.

Here Jesus, while not wasting time on their absurd question, cuts to the chase. And to really understand this we need to know that the Sadducees only believed in and followed the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. 

Jesus says: That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush. The very books you follow, and say are the only books, right in their very middle, themselves prove the resurrection. You haven’t even read what you claim to believe.

Brothers and sisters, take time to study scripture. Know what God says and what He promises. Life in Him is forever. In that, be alive in God and live forever.

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.