Monday, April 21, 2014
Thoughts on the Francis effect
Friday, April 11, 2014
Almost a century
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Fifth Sunday of Lent
With gratitude to Fr. Edmund Montgomery
Lazarus is a friend, a real friend. For many of us, our friends can be closer than members of our family, and when Lazarus dies, it clearly affects Jesus very deeply. He was in ‘great distress,’ the Gospel tells us. He made that groan that only those who are mourning can make, a ‘sigh that came straight from the heart,’ and he began to weep openly. So moved were those around him, they said, ‘See how much he loved him!’ We like to speak of Jesus as Savior, as Redeemer, as Son of God, and he is all of these things, but we must never lose sight of the Jesus we see in today’s Gospel: ‘Jesus the Mourner’, one who knows the depths of hurt and suffering, and the cost of death. As the Bible tells us, Jesus can sympathize with us in our weaknesses because he has been tested with suffering as we are.
A young man was murdered on 16th Street this past week. News reports have interviewed his numerous siblings and friends. There is grief in the city over this loss. There is grief among us whenever any of us lose a friend or family member. Depending on the relationship, the grief is stronger or weaker. As I reached my 50s, I wondered what it would be like when my own parents would die. They died within three years of each other and I am here. What I know now that was not uppermost in my own mind at that time is that I will follow them sometime in the future.
Martha’s faith must have been incredible. She said to Jesus, ‘If you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I know that, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.’ She is saying that Jesus could have healed Lazarus had he arrived in time, but that even now, even though Lazarus died four days previously and was buried and sealed in a tomb, Jesus can even save this situation.
What incredible confidence Martha had in him, and what pressure this must have put on Jesus. ‘He has to act now,’ those around him must have thought. ‘This will show whether he is who we claims to be.’ Martha accepts the reality that Lazarus is dead, but still believes Jesus can do something. And something Jesus certainly does.
What must the crowd have thought? What was the smell as the tomb was opened? Jesus raises his voice in prayer and cries aloud for Lazarus to come out. And Lazarus walks out of the tomb! Imagine the screams of shock, the emotion, people fainting, running away, falling to the ground in horror. Wrapped in his burial shroud still, Lazarus stands there before them all. Jesus asks them to ‘Unbind him,’ and ‘let him go free’.
In this Gospel Martha teaches us to have faith in Jesus even when the situation seems impossible. The tubes and wires connected to loved ones who are dying in hospital are like the bands of cloth that shrouded Lazarus in the tomb, and, as their life slips away, it may be that the Lord is saying the same words to us as he said after raising Lazarus, ‘Unbind him, let him go free’: don’t be afraid of letting our loved ones slip away from us in death, because it is into God’s hands we pass them.
Poor Lazarus died, was raised and lived, only to die again! But that promise Jesus made to Martha, ‘Your brother will rise again,’ is the certainty that ought to sustain us, too when we are faced with the death of a loved one, or the certainty of our own death. Jesus’ love for his friends is real, his sense of loss at Lazarus’ death is genuine, and his promise of life without end is true, too.
The more we come to know Jesus the more we will find ourselves fascinated by his life, and by the reality of what he promised. ‘I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Fourth Sunday of Lent
A fascinating video popped up last week on the blog "Whispers in the Loggia.” It shows Pope Francis going to confession. One report noted that modern popes have been seen hearing confessions but none has been seen going to confession. Until now. And that’s the joy of Pope Francis. He leads by example. He does not just talk about how we should live our Christianity. He shows us how to do so. How unlike the Pharisees who are a persistent nuisance in the Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.
Jesus heals a man born blind. This story is full of twists and turns, the kind that explain to us the nature of sin. Sin makes us feel lost. Sin is confusing. It makes us feel as if we don’t know where we are going. If we don’t know where we are going, it is very likely we don’t know where we are. And really sinful sin means we don’t know who we are.
According to the Pharisees, the man born blind was a sinner. And the sin was either committed by the man himself or his parents. Whatever the sin was, in the view of the Pharisees, the blind man was struck by divine punishment. How often we can be so Pharisaical! We judge others – their sin will land them in hell - or something worse. That something worse is usually our judgment of them. Who permits us to determine the status of the conscience of another? Most of us are just self-righteous enough that we claim to know the sins of each other. And many of us are arrogant enough to declare these sins to the other.
But none of that is of God. The Pharisees proclaim Jesus to be a sinner. He not only cured the man of his blindness. He made clay from the dust. This was servile labor and it was forbidden on the Sabbath. In the eyes of the Pharisees, this condemns Jesus. Jesus worked on the Sabbath. Remember that elsewhere Jesus says the Sabbath is made for man not man for the Sabbath.
Pope Francis describes what is at work in this story as both a culture of encounter and a culture of exclusion. The latter is, of course, the prejudice of the Pharisees about the blind man’s so-called sin. The former is, of course, the blind man’s healing by Jesus. That encounter leads to the blind man, now healed, becoming a follower of Jesus. So we can proclaim a culture of exclusion by pointing out each other’s sins or we can proclaim a culture of encounter by leading others to Jesus who is the only one who can forgive sins.
The Gospels on Sunday during Lent each reveal to us how people who encounter Jesus are led to him. Sinners they may be but they encounter something so different in their lives that they cannot lead their lives in the same way anymore. Any conversion story I’ve ever heard has been the same. The something encountered is Jesus Himself. Someone is encountered. Are any of us so full of Jesus’ Spirit that we could lead others to Jesus? When we meet others, do we present Jesus to them? Or do we speak the language of exclusion and continue to judge them?