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Gospel Reflection for January 6, 2013, Epiphany

2 Jan

After Jesus’ birth, magi from the east followed a star in hopes of finding the messiah.

On entering the house, they found the child with Mary, his mother.  They knelt down and paid him homage.  Then they opened their coffers and presented him with gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh.

Matthew 2.11

Jesus is not only the leader/savior God promised the chosen people.  Jesus has come also for the rest of humankind.  That is the meaning of the main Christmas story in Matthew’s gospel, the visit of the magi.  Jesus is not only king of the Jews, but the hope of the Gentiles, all the non-Jewish people of the earth—us.

Only Matthew tells of the wise visitors from the East.  The story introduces a major theme of his gospel: The inclusion of the
Gentiles in the promises of Jesus.

What insight and guidance does the Epiphany story offer regarding tensions among Christians, Muslims, and Jews today?

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Trinity

1 Jun

A guest post from Claire Bischoff

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, which is celebrated the first Sunday after Pentecost. It is an unusual feast, as it is one of the few feasts of the church year that celebrates a reality or doctrine rather than an important person or event in the history of the Church. Trinity Sunday celebrates that God is not only one but also three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (or Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctified to use more gender-neutral terms).

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus makes reference to the Trinitarian nature of God, telling his disciples to go and baptize people of all nations “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This ancient baptismal formula is the one we still use today in baptism, marking baptized Christians as believers in a Trinitarian God.

Yet the Trinity is a difficult idea for us to wrap our heads around! How is it possible for God to be one and three at the same time? The way that ancient Greek theologians put it is that God is one in essence, yet three in persons. But “person” as the Greeks used it did not mean a human person like you or me. It meant something along the lines of “that which stands on its own.” So God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit each have something distinct about them, something which makes them stand on their own, while they are still united in will and essence, that is, united in what God intends for the world and in their very God-ness.

The Trinity is a mystery but that does not mean that it is completely impossible to understand. What it does mean is that the intricacies of God’s Trinitarian nature will be beyond our human comprehension, while other aspects of it may be revealed to us through prayer, song, art, and symbol. As it has been said, “Mystery is not a wall to run up against, but an ocean in which to swim.” In other words, as human beings, in this lifetime, we are not going to somehow crack the code of the Trinity or break through a wall to complete understanding of it. However, we may be able to surround or immerse ourselves in the reality of the Trinity so that we live in its reality, even without fully comprehending it.

In the spirit of immersing ourselves in the reality of the Trinity, I invite you to try an ancient religious practice this week: meditating with an icon of the Trinity. The icon pictured here, written by Andrei Rublev in the 15th century, is one of the most famous and beloved icons of the Trinity. It actually depicts the three visitors who came to Abraham and Sarah as told in Genesis 18. These visitors have often been identified with the Old Testament Trinity, and they sit in a circle that is open to the viewer. It is as if we are being invited to sit at the table with them, to share in a meal and relationship with them.

In the Orthodox Christian tradition, icons are said to be “written” not “painted.” Rather than mere works of art, icons are a form of prayer. An iconographer prepares for writing the icon with prayer and fasting, and the actual act of creating the icon is also steeped in prayer. Iconographers allow themselves to be guided by God in their creation. As such, icons can be windows to God.

Praying with an icon is a different form of prayer than we normally practice. Praying with an icon involves keeping your eyes open, seeing not so much the icon itself but seeing through it to God. Praying with an icon is prayer without words, where we focus on being in God’s presence and listen for what God may say to us.

So how do you pray with an icon? First, prepare for it as you would prepare for any type of prayer. Find a quiet spot, get comfortable, and slow down, perhaps focusing on your breathing to center yourself. Place the icon where you can easily see it and allow yourself to be still, resting in the knowledge of God’s presence with you. You may speak or pray to God, or simply look at the icon and let God speak to you. See if you can sustain your prayer for five minutes.

What questions do you have about the Trinity? Ask them here and we will try to offer answers in the coming weeks.

Also, please let us know how praying with an icon went for you. What was challening about this form of prayer? What did you like about it?

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Gospel Reflection for June 3, 2012, Trinity Sunday

30 May
Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”
Matthew 28.19
Christians follow Jesus’ example in naming God in intimate, relational terms. As baptized Christians, we follow Jesus in calling God Father; we claim kinship with God, creator and source. We claim Jesus as one of us, God’s Son, redeemer and liberator. We live in the Spirit, the animating giver of life, the sustainer and sanctifier, who urges us from within to participate in bringing to fulfillment all that God has begun in creation and revealed in Jesus the Christ.
What does baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mean to you?
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A Gospel Reflection for January 8, Epiphany

3 Jan
The magi were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house, found the child with Mary, his mother.  They prostrated themselves and did him homage.  Then they opened their coffers and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Matthew 2.10-11

Matthew’s learned Gentiles, the magi, discover through their study of the heavens a new star that sets them on an earthly journey.  The star leads them to Jerusalem, where they consult Israel’s priests and scribes.  Gentile knowledge and Israelite revelation agree; both point to Bethlehem and Jesus. The wise pilgrims from afar journey on to Bethlehem. There they find Jesus and give him their gifts and their love.  Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Jesus to Gentile seekers.

What has happened in your life that compelled you to search for more meaning?

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Gospel Reflection for November 20, Feast of Christ the King

15 Nov

The just ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or see you thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you were a stranger and welcome you or naked and give you clothing?  When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”
“I assure you, whatever you did for one of these least, you did for me,” the king replies.

Matthew 25.40

Writer Matthew places this Sunday’s parable just before Jesus’ passion in the flow of the gospel narrative.  In his passion Jesus himself becomes the least among us, suffering the kind of execution aimed to shame and subdue rebellious slaves. Sunday’s parable invites us to recognize Jesus in all those who suffer.

Who in your area needs the active mercy of people in your parish or neighborhood?

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Vocation

12 Nov
A guest post by Claire Bischoff in reflection of this week’s Gospel Matthew 25:14-30

What do you think are the world’s great hungers?

What brings you deep gladness?

At my high school, one day each year was set aside for “Vocations Day,” when priests, nuns, and brothers came to talk to our religion classes about their lives. I always listened politely, but since I was confident that I wanted to be married and have children one day, I figured “vocation” was just not for me.

Then I read something that changed my attitude about vocation. Discussing vocation, Frederick Buechner writes, “Neither the hair shirt or the soft birth will do. The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”* Buechner’s definition of vocation means that it is not only the vowed religious who are called to fulfill their vocations. All of us have vocations, because each of us has deep gladness and the world always has needs that need to be met.

What I love about Buechner’s understanding of vocation is that it combines making a difference with being happy. In other words, it isn’t a true vocation if it does not address a true need in the world (thus, even if being a reality television star makes you happy, it is likely not your vocation). But it also is not a true vocation if you are miserable doing it (thus, even if you are making a huge difference in a community in Africa by helping build a school, if you do it without joy, it is likely not your true vocation).

The other thing I love about Buechner’s understanding of vocation is that it highlights how God calls everyone to some vocation—at any age, in any setting, with whatever abilities. My three-year-old son loves meeting new people and telling stories; his great grandmother lives in a nursing home where people have a great hunger to be treated as human beings worthy of personable interaction. Even at his young age, God is calling him to a vocation of visiting the elderly, which brightens both his day and the days of those with whom he interacts. If my three-year-old son has a vocation, then I am fairly certain we all have one.

And we do not need to look half way around the world to find it. We need to look at ourselves in order to discern what truly brings us deep gladness. And we need to look at the relationships and settings in which we find ourselves in order to discern what is really needed there. God could be calling you to address a need in your family, in your school, in your church, or in your neighborhood.

In this week’s Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus tells a parable about a man going on a journey who gives gold talents (coins) to his three servants. The servants who receive five and three talents, respectively, invest them and thus have a profit to give the master when he returns from his travels. The third servant, who believes his master is a harsh man, hides his one talent in the ground and thus has no profit to give the master when he returns.

The question at the heart of this parable is, “What does God ask of us?” If we listen to Frederick Buechner, we can be certain God is asking something of each of us. God is asking us to invest our talents, to use our skills, and to apply our personalities in order to meet the needs of those around us.

So what is your vocation?

*Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, page 95.

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Gospel Reflection for November 13th, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

8 Nov

Jesus said, “To those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing; even what they have will be taken away.”
Matthew 25.29

The moral of this Sunday’s parable seems counter-intuitive to the Gospel messages to which we are most accustomed. What happened to “the last shall be first and the first shall be last?” What about, “Blessed are the meek?” Is Jesus moral compass acting like a yo-yo?

This parable urges us to see in the amount of money all that God entrusts to us in giving us life, unique gifts, and family and friends whose lives we share. Jesus calls us to multiply the gifts entrusted to us.

What is one of the most valuable ways you have invested your life energies?

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Violence and Human Dignity

2 Nov

How do you define violence? What violence are you exposed to in your community?

Guest Post from Claire Bishoff in reflection of Matthew 22:34-40
 

Until very recently, I did not think much about violence. I was confident that my only exposure to it came through the occasional act of violence I saw in a movie or television show.

Then in a girls’ discussion group I was leading, the topic of sexual harassment came up. The young women told stories about having crude things yelled at them by strangers when they were out for a jog; answering the phone, only to hear heavy breathing on the other end; avoiding the hallway at school where a few popular boys would sit and “grade” the girls’ looks as they walked by; and being touched inappropriately at school, church, and parties by boys they thought were their friends. As the stories gushed forth, the young women were amazed that they were not the only one who had faced harassment. Many had never talked about these incidents, afraid that people would not believe them or that they would be blamed for what had happened to them.

Then one young woman said something I will never forget: “I would rather have someone hit me than harass me like this. Bruises heal, but it is hard to feel good about yourself when someone treats you like an object, not a person. Plus, if there was a bruise, then people would believe I was being bothered and might even help me do something about it.”

These young women’s stories helped me realize that physical violence is not the only kind of violence. Anything that demeans another person, that denies their human dignity as made in the image of God, is violent. If this is the definition of violence, then all of us encounter a lot more violence that we might think. If this is the definition of violence, then it is harder to separate “violent” people from the rest of us. Let those among us who have never taken away the humanity of another person through rude comments, tasteless jokes, or simply staying silent while others behave this way, throw the first stone.

This is not to excuse violence because everyone acts this way at times. Rather, it is to sound a call for all of us to be more aware of our involvement in cycles of violence. Violence does not just happen in “bad neighborhoods” or countries half-way around the world. Violence happens everywhere, thus it is the job of everyone to think creatively about and to act courageously for promoting peace between people of different ages, races, nations, religions, sexualities, and political persuasions.

This is at the heart of our lives as Christians. In this week’s Gospel (Matthew 22:34-40), Jesus teaches us that the most basic laws are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, two forms of love that are integrally connected. The more we love God, the more we are able to see the humanity in others, even those who are radically different from, even those we do not like. The more we are able to love our neighbors, the more we know and love God, as we encounter God through them. This journey of love is truly a journey of a lifetime.

What is one thing you can do this week that demonstrates your:

love for God?
love for someone radically different from you?
love for yourself?


What one thing can you do this week to make sure that the human dignity of others is not compromised?

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21st Sunday in Ordinary Time: Peter is a rock; the Sunday after that Peter is a stumbling block

21 Aug

In the gospel for August 21 Peter is a rock; the Sunday after that Peter is a stumbling block.

This Sunday Peter is the heroic first believer, the leader among the disciples, who steps forward to answer Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.”

Next Sunday Peter is the lead antagonist, who rebukes Jesus for suggesting he will face conflict and death in Jerusalem but come through it “on the third day.”

This Sunday Peter is Bar Jonah, son of the prophet, a voice revealing who Jesus is; next Sunday Peter is Satan, open to the glory but not the cost of discipleship.

Only the gospel of Matthew gives us the image of Peter as a rock. In all three synoptic gospels Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” In all three synoptic gospels Peter answers, “You are the messiah.” Only in Matthew does Jesus add, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.” It’s an irony that Peter, the apostle whose failings we know best, gets the image of being a rock.

Peter is all hurrahs that Jesus is messiah but conflict and suffering—no. He doesn’t see the cost of bringing good news to the poor and preaching reform.

Peter, the impetuous, bounds out of the boat at Jesus’ invitation and walks on water until he looks and sinks like a rock.

Peter is certain he will stand by Jesus no matter what, then denies knowing Jesus rather than put his life at risk during Jesus’ trial.

Rock is a pun on Peter’s name but the image is contrary to his character and leadership. Peter is a learner, not a granite head. Peter’s tongue catches fire with a new message on Pentecost. He is fiery and responsive to the Spirit. Peter disregards Jewish law and visits the home of the Roman Centurion Cornelius. As he tells Jesus’ story, Peter sees the Holy Spirit poured out upon Cornelius and his whole household, so he baptizes and welcomes these outsiders into the Christian community. He is innovative and responsive to the Spirit.

Peter, the learner, approves Paul’s insistence that Gentile Christians need not keep the Jewish law. Far from being an impenetrable blockhead and rock, the Peter of history responds to the transforming power of Jesus and the Spirit in his life.

It is Matthew as he writes 25 years after Peter’s death that attaches this rock saying to the story of Peter’s response to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?”, making a rock of certainty of this innovative leader who spread the gospel into new frontiers. It is we who must notice that two chapters later in Matthew Jesus gives the authority to lose and bind also to the Christian community.

Today the Spirit pushes us like Peter to new frontiers. Vatican II called forth the people of God to full and active participation in the Church’s worship and life in the world. The rise of the laity—us—but we shouldn’t use that word laity because it means second class and we aren’t. We are baptized and called to holiness. How much participation of the people is too much? Leadership today arises from the grassroots as surely as from the top down. It is our obligation to lead in all the ways we can—to speak out, to act with compassion, to organize for the common good. We live under democratic governance in our country but under monarchial governance in the Church. Where is the Spirit that led Peter to Cornelius beyond the limits of Jewish law leading us? The frontiers hold tensions and conflicts.

Some people inevitably return to past answers and drop anchor in an earlier century. John Allen, the Vatican correspondent, estimates the Church will remain very conservative for 50 years. The Spirit will not let others rest.

We no long live in religious silos. Our neighbors may be Hindu, our coworkers Buddhist practitioners, and our clerk at the store a Muslim. What is the Christian mission in this new context? Who is Jesus in relation to Krishna or Buddha or Confucius?

The new evolutionary cosmology does a job on rocks of unchanging certainty. Now our cosmic history reveals God is creative and dynamic. Evolution happens though both pattern and chance, through law and freedom. We see the holy in all that is. No more do we divide matter and spirit. We have new questions like when does incarnation begin? Nine months before Jesus’ birth or at the big bang when the energy that animates all that is bursts forth and begins to unfold? The work of considering the Christian story within the frame of the evolving universe story is ongoing.

How do we develop skills for cherishing our differences and holding conflicts in tension rather than resolving or eliminating them as we do in competition. What if we trained for dialogue and negotiation the way Olympians do for sports?

Theologian Karl Rahner fifty years ago said that in the future Christians will be mystics or they will not be Christians at all. We have in Peter a model mystic who experienced the living God in Jesus, in the Spirit, in Cornelius, in Paul. Mystics are not weird visionaries but people who must seek the deepest truth for themselves. Mystics live consciously and pay attention to what troubles or torments them and what energizes them and gives them life. A mystic experiences the mystery that opens the future and that religious people call the living God.

I want to suggest a contemporary, organic image that expresses our call as Christians. Recently I visited urban kids working on a farm growing plants from heritage seeds their Native American elders have saved. I am visiting in the kitchen when the director pulls her worm colony out from under a table—a big box. She’s growing worms to help turn her compost heap into new, fertile topsoil.

The same week the newspaper features a friend’s permaculture garden. She, too, has a worm colony. I feel behind, wondering if everyone but me has worm colonies and isn’t telling me. Compost includes grass clippings, unused or rotten parts of vegetables, weeds, leaves, stuff that gets too old. We live immersed in compost, in all the writings, songs, images of the past. We are always making more out of what is. Is it too humble an image of us at the grassroots of our evolving Church to think of ourselves as a worm colony—called to transform all the garbage, the compost, into fertile ground?

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2011: The Gospel of Matthew

30 Jul

Matthew is the focus in 2011.

The First Sunday of Advent begins the new Church year and a new cycle of Sunday scripture readings.  In 2011 the Church reads from Matthew’s gospel, the second gospel written.   Matthew writes about AD 85 for Gentiles, seekers like the magi, who believe in Jesus and his new law as a result of the apostles’ preaching his good news to all nations.

Matthew’s gospel follows Mark’s gospel, the first gospel written, and adds more sayings, parables, and stories.  If Matthew were alive today, perhaps he would be a librarian because he  arranges the gospel like a library with sayings in chapters 5-7, miracles in chapters 8-9, parables in chapter 13, advice to Christians on mutual love in communities (chapter 18), parables of judgment (chapter 25).

The Advent Sunday gospels from Matthew feature the voice of John the Baptist, who promises one is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire and sends messengers to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one?”  Matthew’s Christmas story features Joseph, who keep the law compassionately and accepts the child in Mary’s womb.

In 2011 the Church will read most of one of Matthew’s most distinctive parts, the sermon on the mount (chapters 5-7).  Matthew creates a scene in which Jesus sits on a mount and teaches his disciples and a crowd his new law.  The scene echoes the setting in which Moses receives the old law on Mt. Sinai.  Matthew wasn’t us to see Jesus as the new Moses.

The sermon begins with the beatitudes that challenge us to bless the poor, the sorrowing, and the lowly, to stand with the persecuted, to bring the hungry to our tables, thirst for justice, make peace, and act with mercy.  In these sayings Jesus calls us to be salt of the earth and light to the world, to recognize we cannot worship God and carry anger toward our neighbors, to love our enemies, to keep our word, to put God first in our lives.  The sermon continues until Lent begins.

Now in late summer, we read that Jesus makes a messianic banquet of five loaves and two fish (Matthew 14:13-21)

How do you share the bounty of your life?

Your garden?

Your faith?

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