Countering "Enlightened" Disinterest

Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Daniel 9:4b-10 / Psalm 79:8, 9, 11 and 13 / Luke 6:36-38

Countering “Enlightened” Disinterest

The popular expression, “Live and let live” is not Christian. It is not the fulfillment of Jesus’ saying, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged.”

“Live and let live,” can lead to a “look the other way” mentality. Don’t complain about someone else, or correct someone else and they will let you alone too. The focus of Jesus’ teaching is not about our neighbors’ judgment being withheld; it is about God’s judgment being withheld. Here Jesus is not teaching us to act as we’d have others act toward us, but as we’d have God act toward us. 

The teaching is not “Live and let live.” It is treat others with God’s compassion. “Live and let live” is “enlightened” disinterest in one’s neighbors. “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” is enlightened interest in them. The first says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The second says, “If you want to be blessed, be a blessing.”

·        Toward whom are you judgmental? Why? Try to look at that person through God’s merciful eyes. What is the difference in the view? What gets in your way? Speak to God about it. Pray for the good of the person you have judged.

Staring Out at 75

Sunday of the Second Week of Lent – Year A

Genesis 12:1-4 / Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22 / 2 Timothy 1:8-10 / Matthew 17:1-9

Starting Out at 75

At what age will you have arrived? At 75 most people believe that what was going to happen in their lifetime has pretty much happened. Some of us believe that the time to set out for our goals and accomplishments is twenty-five or so. Some of us believe by thirty or forty we have "arrived" at the person we are to become.

Abram was seventy-five when the Lord came to him. At seventy-five we figure we have seen the landscape, and there is not much more is to be expected. But for Abram 75 was the beginning. 75 is when he heard the call: "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.” In other words, “Leave the heritage your father Terah left to you and go to… well, you’ll know the place when you get there. I'll make a great nation of you out of nothing."

When most people are making sure their wills are all in order, and hoping Social Security and their 401k are enough, Abram and Sarai were packing up all the earthly belongings that could fit onto their camels, and heading out into the desert to become wandering Arameans. What’s more, they were an elderly, childless couple, and probably resigned to it by then. What great nation could come from them? What blessing could be found in their barrenness? But at 75 things were just beginning for Abram and Sarai.

Yet it would take twenty-five more years for the promise to even begin to take shape. By that time, Abram had reached the century mark, and Sarai his wife was probably not much younger than he, 99 perhaps. When she heard a visitor telling her husband he’d be back next year and Sarai would be “with child,” she laughed. Wouldn’t we all? Pregnant at 99! It’s the stuff you read about only in the National Inquirer and the Bible.

Perhaps Sarai’s laughter was nervous laughter. Perhaps she laughed rather than just tearing through the tent flap and shouting at the man for taunting her and reminding her of her enduring barrenness. How dare he bring that up! She and her husband had put all that behind them now. They had addressed the issue with the surrogate mother, Hagar, who had made the most of her fertility by lording it over Sarai. Perhaps Sarai was afraid of pregnancy at this point, afraid of becoming a mother, afraid of being blessed.

If we received our first promise or calling at 75, would we be willing to begin a journey then? Would we be willing to wait 25 years for the first sign of the promise being for real? Today God calls us to a journey, but are we afraid of the risk it requires? Abram’s was a journey of faith and trust. Usually when we prepare for a journey, be it a vacation or a business trip, we are in control of the destination, the route and the means to get there. On the Christian journey of discipleship we don't have this kind of control. We must surrender to God in trust: we must "listen to him," as the gospel of the Transfiguration tells us.

·         In your relationship with the Lord, do you feel you have arrived, or that you are just setting out?

·         Is God calling you to leave what is familiar to you (responsibilities, ministries, patterns of behavior) to do something new in accordance with his will?

·         Do you have the faith of Abram, the faith to wait a long time to see God’s promise come to fruition?

Peculiar Meaning

Saturday of the First Week of Lent

Deuteronomy 26:16-19 / Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8 / Matthew 5:43-48

Peculiar Meaning

Peculiar is a peculiar word. It is rarely used, so it sounds peculiar when we hear it. Its modern usage normally denotes something odd or unusual. Sometimes a family, a group or a culture has an expression that is peculiar or unique to it, i.e. others don’t use the word that way. Sometimes a person’s habits are said to be peculiar, i.e. most people don’t do it that way.

The word peculiar as used in today’s reading from Deuteronomy is very faithful to its Latin root, peculiaris, which means “as one’s own.” Hence the English translation renders this verse, “peculiarly his own” thus avoiding implications of oddity.

The Jewish people are uniquely God’s people. God’s election of the Jews does not void his unconditional and universal love for all nations and all creation, but is a sign singling out the Jews as God’s covenanted people, so as to draw others to God through them.

In verse 26:19 Moses says to this people, “You will be a people sacred to the Lord, your God…”  When people today say something is sacred to them, they usually mean that they hold it in high esteem. They would not stand for it to be mistreated, or spoken ill of. Because they are a people sacred to the Lord, God demonstrated by his mighty deeds in the Exodus event that he would not stand for the Jews to be mistreated. What’s more, when God took action as the redeemer who chose them, they responded by choosing God in return, and dedicated themselves to him. And in that dedication, that covenantal relationship, the Lord promises to raise them “high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made…” Not for the glory of Israel, but for the glory of God, and to draw all people to the Lord. Truly the Jews are to this day peculiarly God’s own.

·        Our Catholic tradition has a long history of prayers of consecration in many devotional forms. Write your own prayer of consecration to God. 

·        Reflect for a moment on the words of today’s reading: “sacred to the Lord.” Apply that expression to yourself. Are you thinking, feeling, acting, and viewing your circumstances in life through the lens of being “sacred to the Lord?” Does that lens change your view of life?

·        Consider the tensions between religious traditions today: Ask God to give you an understanding of and a love for your neighbors of different faiths, and think about how you might be able to reach out to understand more deeply what your neighbor’s faith means to them. Share the importance of your faith in Christ with them respectfully.

Why Settle Out of Court?

Friday of the First Week of Lent

Ezekiel 18:21-28 / Psalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8 / Matthew 5:20-26

Why Settle Out of Court?

Laws aim at protecting rights. Holiness aims higher.

When Jesus says, “Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court,” he is not telling us to avoid legal procedures. He is returning to the themes of forgiveness, repentance and reparation. Christians should not need to be forced to be just by a law, we should be fair instinctively.

Jesus’ teaching here is not about getting away cheaply because we fear that the sentence of the court would be harsher than a plea bargain. It’s not about avoiding costly litigation. It’s about doing what is right, not because we are told to, but because we know it’s the right thing to do. 

Jesus is saying when you have not done the right thing in the first instance, do the right thing at the next opportunity, even if you have to create that opportunity. 

In Jesus’ eyes, an initial wrong is compounded by the need to force one of his followers to do what’s right. Doing the right thing should be part and parcel of our modus operandi – preferably sooner, but later if need be. We should be characterized by doing what is right as well as by righting the wrongs we have done. 

·        Steps eight and nine of the Twelve Steps of Recovery read as follows:

o   Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

o Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

·        Pick one or two people you have wronged and consider how you might make amends to them. Decide if it would be helpful to make direct amends in word or deed. Be careful that you will not do more harm than good in making amends.

·        Consider how our society is structured: Who is disadvantaged? Is there a way you can work to right that wrong and correct that injustice?

Pray Because God Wants to Answer

Thursday of the First Week of Lent

Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25 / Psalm 138:1-2ab, 2cde-3, 7c-8 / Matt. 7:7-12

Pray Because God Wants to Answer

We know that prayer is part of our Lenten discipline, but do we stop to think why it is part of that discipline? The gospel today says: “Ask… Seek… Knock...” Why?  Usually we ask, seek or knock because we want to receive, find or enter. But there is another reason to ask, seek and knock in the case of prayer.

It’s not only because we are in need, but also because God wants us to receive from him. God wants us to be found by him. God wants us to enter into his home – our hearts. Know when you ask, seek or knock that you have a willing response, and do it often this Lent and always.

·        Reflect on the disposition you bring to prayer when you are asking God for something.

            Do you ask like a beggar happy to get whatever scraps fall from the table?

           Do you ask like a child who is tugging relentlessly at her mother’s skirt:

                      “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy…?”

          Do you ask like you deserve or have paid for what you desire?

          Do you feel like you have to manipulate God to give to you?

         Would you rather steal it than ask for it?

         Is there a better description than these possibilities?

        How does the disposition that you take in “asking prayer” compare to the disposition Jesus advocates?

The Sign of Jonah Reinterpreted

Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

Jonah 3:1-10 / Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 18-19 / Luke 11:29-32

                                                                             

The Sign of Jonah Reinterpreted

What was the “sign of Jonah” Jesus was referring to? So often we think of the connection between the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the great fish and the three days Jesus spent in the tomb. But is there another way to look at it?

At the preaching of Jonah the people of Nineveh repented. They were a people who were thought to be beyond hope, under the condemnation of the Lord. Yet when they heard their sentence, they held on to hope. They did not despair. With all their heart they turned back to the Lord. They covered themselves in ashes and sackcloth, and turned to the Lord. Mission accomplished. Not destruction, but repentance; sinners reconciled with God.

The sign of Jonah might be that the hearts of those thought to be condemned were turned back to God. This was the sign that Jesus gave. He came as a shepherd in search of lost sheep. He came as a doctor for the sick. And those who were at the brink of destruction came back to God. And certainly he rose from the dead, like Jonah from the belly of the whale, but what for? So that we might rise from these ashes and return to God.

The sign of hearts converted is what Lent is all about: a season in which we cover ourselves with ashes and sackcloth, in order to express our sorrow for sin and return to the way God has traced out for us. It is a time to renew our first love, a time to turn away from sin, a time to admit our need for the doctor, the healer, the shepherd.

Be part of the sign given to this generation. Turn back to God. Show this generation how merciful the Lord our God is by turning to his mercy and imploring others to do the same. 

·        Picture two scenes:

(1) Picture yourself sitting near the seashore not far from Nineveh. All of the sudden a big fish comes up and spews forth a man from its belly onto the shore. Use your imagination to interact with Jonah: What do you say to each other? How will this affect your life? Your Lent?

(2) Now picture yourself in the streets of Nineveh as Jonah (cleaned up a little from the trip in the fish) walks by and shouts: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” How will this affect your life? Your Lent?

The Lord's Prayer: A Lens for the Day

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

Isaiah 55:10-11 / Psalm 34:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19 / Matthew 6:7-15

The Lord’s Prayer: A Lens for the Day

When Jesus says, “This is how you are to pray,” he also means, this is how you are to live. To receive the prayer of Jesus is to make it one’s own and to relate to the Father as Jesus does. Evelyn Underhill suggested that each day of the week we might take one of the seven petitions as the focus of our prayer and activity. The loving repetition of each day’s phrase can be a lens through which one’s daily activity is viewed. Another approach would be to use the Lord’s Prayer as an examination of conscience or an invitation to give thanks at the end of each day – either the entire prayer, or a line each day. Here is an example:

Our Father who art in heaven: Is God at the center of my life, or just one among other influences and concerns? I give thanks for being a child of God, the apple of his eye.

…hallowed be thy name: Do I hallow God’s name and every other person’s name I speak? Do I gossip about others or am I unfair in my criticism? I offer thanks that I bear the name “Christian.”

…thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven: Am I open to God’s influence at every moment in my life today? Do I try to discern God’s will for me? Do I choose selfishly or act responsibly? Do I set my heart on material things, forgetting to weigh all things in light of my eternal destiny? Do I neglect my legitimate responsibilities toward family, friends, neighbors, strangers, creation? I give thanks for God’s design for my life. I give thanks for the “beauty of the earth” and for the glory of my call to share eternal life with the saints.

Give us this day our daily bread… Do I trust God to provide everything I need and then act accordingly? Do I earn my living honestly? Do I share my possessions for the good of all? Do I think and act in the best interests of the hungry and the poor? Do I make healthy choices in my eating? I give thanks for what God has provided.

…and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us: Do I hold grudges? Do I ask God to forgive me when I am not willing to forgive others? Do I apply the same standards of mercy and justice to myself and others? Do I judge my behavior by the gospel, or by another standard? Am I humble enough to admit my own wrongdoing and make amends when I am able? I give thanks for the forgiveness God offers me in Jesus, and for the forgiveness others have offered me.

…and lead us not into temptation: Do I place myself in situations that might lead me to sin (the near occasion of sin), or do I make sure that I avoid situations that might lead me to act contrary to Christ’s love? I give thanks for the ways God helps me to choose well, to choose life.

…but deliver us from evil: Do I trust the Lord to work all things to my good, even hardship and struggles? Do I take unnecessary risks that endanger my safety or that of others? Do I lack the courage to stand up for what is right? I give thanks for the ways God protects me.