Monthly Archives: March 2013

Friendship with Christ and the journey to Jerusalem

23 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in friendship, frienship with Christ, Holy Week, walk to Jerusalem

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A while back an Italian friend of mine observed that we Americans grossly underestimate the power of friendship.  We focus in on our projects and plans individually and even collectively as a people (we like our meetings to give us a sense of productivity), while often failing to notice the gift and possibilities found within friendship itself.  I think that my friend is correct in this assessment.  Certainly, we Americans value friendship in life yet I do believe we often underestimate the basic human need for friendship, how it shapes who we are and all the good that friendship, by its very nature, can accomplish in life and even in our larger world.

Since my friend’s observation I have even found myself wondering about the role of friendship in our Lord’s life.  Correct me if I am wrong but I cannot call to mind a book that truly explores this dynamic in the life of Jesus.  We know that Jesus had friends (Martha, Mary and Lazarus seem to hold a special place for our Lord) and we know, through the gospel accounts, that Christ continually gathered people around himself.  We often reflect on how encounter with Christ and discipleship to Christ transformed the apostles and disciples and how it transforms people throughout history (ourselves included) but how did our Lord’s own honest human need for friendship affect him and his own understanding of himself and his mission?

Any honest examination of the human condition reveals that friendship is a prime mover in the development of the understanding of a human person.  We can all probably point to experiences in friendship (some truly positive and some truly negative) that have helped to shape who we ourselves are and have brought insight and understanding.  We hold in the mystery of the incarnation that Jesus is fully human and fully God.  We profess that the divinity in Christ has not swallowed up his humanity nor has his humanity excluded the divinity.  If Christ is “fully human” then isn’t a part of being human this amazing and complex dynamic of friendship?   

I think that we often keep Christ removed.  I think we are often more comfortable with Jesus as a stoic philosopher/savior whom we can learn from and receive salvation through but who had no real human needs or, if he did, transcended them in such a way that those needs were mitigated almost to the point of being nonexistent.

I do not believe that this does justice to our Lord, to the incarnation nor even to ourselves in the long run.  To be human means to grow in awareness; to be human means to be affected by relationship with another.  Yes, the foundational relationship that Christ had (which we see time and time again in the gospel) was his relationship with the Father but relationship with the Father does not negate relationship with other people and often it is through relationships with other people (friendship included) that God’s will is revealed in one’s life.  I think of the not-so-subtle nudging of Mary at the wedding in Cana that, perhaps, helped our Lord to realize that yes, the time had come to begin his mission in earnest.  I wonder how often those times spent in the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus helped our Lord to clarify his own thoughts and his own understanding.  It seems that Peter, James and John had a unique relationship with our Lord even among his most immediate group of followers.   

Friendship is one of the most beautiful gifts of the human life.  Why would our Lord and Savior be denied this gift?  It makes no sense that he would but often it has remained an area unexplored.  We live in a time where factors and influences continually separate and isolate people.  It is my belief that people are hungering for true and authentic friendship.  I think that it is time that we followers of Christ earnestly explore the graced reality of friendship in the life of our Lord. 

As Church, we are now entering into Holy Week and it is right that we go with our Lord to Jerusalem and here I would add emphasis to “go with” and specifically I would say, “go with as friends”.  The gospel invites us to walk this way in the gift of friendship with Christ.  There is a Lenten hymn that says that Jesus walked this way alone and that is true to some extent but we as Church are now called to walk this way to Jerusalem in the ever-deepening reality of friendship with Christ and we are invited to make note of how friendship and honest human contact touched our Lord on his journey to the cross.  There are friends who loved our Lord yet turned away in fear.  There is the mother who walked every step with her son.  There is the friend who betrayed our Lord.  There is the man who allowed a place for our Lord to be buried and there is one who came to our Lord under the cover of night.  There is the woman who anointed our Lord in preparation for his burial.  There is the man who helped our Lord to carry his cross.  There are the women who met our Lord and wept for him on the street.  There are the women and the one male disciple who stood with Mary at the cross.  Where are we on this journey?  How did these moments touch the heart of our Lord?

In Holy Week, we walk to Jerusalem with our Lord and we walk the way in friendship. 

 

"Be Merciful" – Fifth Sunday of Lent (C)

16 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in mercy, poor, woman caught in adultery

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Woman Caught in Adultery by John Martin Borg

“…be merciful, the souls of the faithful need your mercy.”  These are the words given by newly elected Pope Francis to a group of confessors at St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome the day after he was elected Bishop of Rome.

These words, I believe, catch the heart of our Lord in today’s gospel passage regarding the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).  We often refer to this passage as “the woman caught in adultery” but it could just as easily be titled, “woman being played by the powers-that-be”.  The scribes and the Pharisees have no regard for this woman nor are they really concerned about the integrity of the Law at this point.  The scribes and the Pharisees rush to Jesus full of energy and accusation with this woman in tow in order to catch our Lord in a trap.  The woman is powerless and she is being played by the powers-that-be.  This is often the situation of the poor in our world.  The poor know this game well.

So does our Lord.  Our Lord refuses the energy and the accusation of the narrative of the scribes and the Pharisees and he re-directs it in an almost aikido-like fashion.  Our Lord bends down and he writes on the ground with his finger.  He lets the energy and accusation of the mob pass over him.  Once the energy and accusation of the crowd is spent and has no effect, our Lord responds with a new and surprising energy.  It is an energy rooted in God himself.  It is the energy of mercy.

Once again, our Lord is giving us an instruction in mercy.  In last Sunday’s gospel (Lk. 15:1-3,11-32) our Lord answers the accusation of the scribes and Pharisees not by pointing to his own righteousness but by pointing to the mercy of the Father.  This Sunday, our Lord answers the accusation of the powers-that-be by speaking truth and sharing mercy.  Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.  None of us are without sin.  Christ alone is without sin but instead of accusation he offers mercy.

In this Sunday’s first reading (Isaiah 43:16-21) we are told that our Lord opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters.  In and through the gospel, Jesus overcomes the strength of accusation and abuse of power that can often inflame and harden the human heart and he opens a new way – the way of mercy and reconciliation!  Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!  Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.  

On Tuesday, newly-elected Pope Francis will be installed as Bishop of Rome and successor to St. Peter.  Much is being made of his humility and simplicity.  Pope Francis knows the lesson of mercy because he is a friend of the poor.  When we become friends with the poor we learn their story and we learn the lessons that only they can teach.  Christ is with the poor in a unique way.  Friendship with the poor is friendship with Christ.  There is no true new evangelization without friendship with the poor.

In a special way this Sunday we pray for newly-elected Pope Francis, may he in his unique role as successor to St. Peter, help all the Church learn the lessons of mercy and walk together in the ever-newness of the Gospel!     

Christ the Gardener: Third Sunday of Lent (C)

03 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in burning bush, Christ, cultivating, fig tree, gardener, Moses

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In this Sunday’s gospel (Lk. 13:1-9) we are given an image that is worthy of reflecting upon. Christ presents himself as the gardener – the one who patiently and humbly works in the situations of our lives to bring forth life and healing. In the parable offered by our Lord we are told that the owner of an orchard wants a fig tree that is not bearing fruit cut down yet the gardener intercedes on behalf of the tree. He will cultivate the ground and fertilize it and then see what will happen. Then it will be decided whether to cut down the tree or not. It is interesting to note that the parable ends here – left unfinished. This in intentional, I believe, on our Lord’s part because by leaving it unfinished we are brought into the parable. We cannot avoid the conclusion that we are the fig tree.

The question is raised though as to our willingness and ability to recognize the cultivation of the gardener in our lives and how to respond to that cultivation.

To begin to recognize the work of the gardener we must acknowledge and admit that we are not the gardener. In other words, we are not necessary. In today’s first reading (Ex. 3;1-8a, 13-15) when Moses asks what name he should give the Israelites for this deity who is speaking to him from the burning bush, God responds with, I am who am. God is the one necessary thing, God is being itself. All of creation (including you and me) exists solely because God wills it. This might be a terrifying thought were it not for the fact that God is love, pure and simple.

The gardener we have is one who carefully and patiently cultivates and fertilizes the terrain of our lives and our hearts. The gardener wants the tree to bear fruit! God wants nothing other than the good for us! Just as the gardener wants the tree to flourish, so God want us to flourish! Any image, any thought of a God who is jealous of his power, or vindictive or wrath-filled must be discarded if we are to truly advance in the Christian life.

Neither is God absent nor uncaring. Any gardener worth his or her salt is very attentive to the garden. But a gardener knows that there are moments to cultivate, fertilize and water as well as moments to let be and even weed and prune if necessary – all for the good of the tree. Sometimes God’s seeming absence might be the work of the attentive gardener.  Sometimes the pains of life might be the needed action of pruning.

The gardener is also dedicated.  The gardener is willing to remain and work with his or her garden both in and out of season, both in times of growth and times when the land lies fallow.  This dedication and persistence proves the devotion of the gardener to the garden.  God says to Moses, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob…  In our life and in the history of creation, God is persistent in his love and in his mercy.  We can have confidence in this.  Our name is included in this litany. 

As we learn the action of the gardener in our lives we come to recognize the holy ground on which we stand – both the moments of joy and sorrow, the moments of triumph and of loss.  All become holy ground and moments of encounter with God who is love.  Remove the sandals from your feet for the place where you stand is holy ground.