Category Archives: Jesus

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: Jesus and Nicodemus’ certainty (4th Sunday of Lent – B)

14 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in cross, faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, trust

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nicodemus-and-jesusJean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities, offers a wonderful reflection on this third chapter of John’s gospel – the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus – in his book, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John.  Vanier begins with this thought, “The Gospel of John introduces a question that is pertinent for us all.  We all need security, and yet to be fully alive we also need to take risks.  Too much security stifles us, while too much insecurity brings fear and anguish.  How can we plan for the future and yet be open to the unforeseen?”

This is a tension in life is it not?  On one side the need for certitude and control and on the other side an insecurity that only brings fear and anguish.  Are these the only two ways that are available to us?

John says that Nicodemus was “a ruler of the Jews”.  He is a man of authority in his time, probably a religious leader, and while he comes to Jesus “by night” (probably because the religious leadership was beginning to murmur about Jesus) he still questions Jesus as one who is certain in his own authority.  Nicodemus is a secure man.  He knows his world, apparently he has done well and achieved in it and he is well respected and is aware of this.  Yet, something about Jesus calls Nicodemus out into the “night” – out of his own security and certainty.

Jesus wants to show Nicodemus that there is another way other than a security that isolates and stifles and an insecurity that it is ultimately unbearable to the human psyche.  It is the way of trust.  Vanier writes, “Jesus proposes another way: the way of ‘not knowing,’ of being born from ‘above.’  That means becoming like a child again, a child of God, a new person, listening to the Spirit of God and letting ourselves be guided by the Spirit.”  All that a child can offer is trust; trust in the love and the care of the parent.  This is the “other way” that our Lord invites Nicodemus to walk and that our Lord invites us to walk.  This is what it means to be “born anew”!  We do not have to become isolated in our security nor do we have to get lost in the anguish of insecurity.  We can walk the way of trust, confident in the love of God and guided by the Spirit!  This is the way that can see us through the dark of night.  God is at work!  God has a plan!  God is intimately involved in the movement of our world and even of our very lives!  We are not alone!

How do we get to this trust?  How can we be “born anew”?  It is interesting to note that in today’s gospel (Jn. 3:14-21) it is only after Jesus speaks of the “Son of Man (being) lifted up” that he then goes on to speak of how God so loves the world and how the Son has come not to condemn but to save.  The Gospel message reveals that salvation has been won through Christ, that we are saved through the blood of the Lamb and that light has overcome darkness but it also reveals how God chooses to act and work.  God acts humbly.  God acts in love.  We would do well to note this!

To be “born anew”, to learn the way of trust, means we must stand before the mystery of the Cross and we must learn to live the mystery of the Cross in our own lives – to act humbly, to act in love, to be guided by the Spirit.

There is another way, another way other than a security that isolates and an insecurity that brings anguish. It is the way of trust and by it alone can one be born anew!

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: “Christ crucified” (3rd Sunday of Lent – B)

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Christ, cross, Jesus, salvation

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Jesus-Christ-from-Hagia-SophiaIt has been said that when it comes to Jesus there are basically only three options to choose from: either Jesus is a madman, a lunatic (How many people throughout the centuries, struggling with sanity, have concluded that they must be God?), either he is a liar and therefore one of the most evil people of all history, someone willing to deceive generations into the belief that he is God or lastly, he actually is who he says he is.  These are the options we have to choose from and if we are to be authentic in life then at some point we must each make a choice.

For Christians it all comes down to this one person who lived nearly two thousand years ago, who was poor, who never travelled in his adult life beyond his immediate area, who did not seem to have any formal education, who preached the good news of a God of love and humility and who was put to death by the powers that be.  If you are looking for an ascetic or a yogi to follow, then do not look to Jesus, he was neither.  If you are searching for a great philosopher or guru then do not look to Jesus.  If you are looking to a man of success in order to feel validated and bask in the glow of, then do not look to Jesus.  Jesus is none of these things.  He is something totally different all together.  Jesus cannot and will not be captured and contained by any of our definitions and biases.  Jesus can only be encountered.  It is because of this truth that Paul is able to write, “…Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified…” (1 Cor. 1:22).  “Christ crucified” – these two words held together break every human presumption about God and how he operates, about what it means to be human, about life itself.  For Christians it all comes down to a person – to Christ crucified.

In his book, “The Lord” Romano Guardini writes:

God did not reveal himself merely by teaching a truth, giving us commands to which he attaches consequences, but by coming to us, personally.  His truth is himself.  And to him who hears, he gives his own strength, again himself.  To hear God means to accept him.  To believe means to accept him in truth and loyalty.  The God we believe in is the God who “comes” into heart and spirit, surrendering himself to us. 

The “temple” Jesus will raise up is not a building, not a compilation of religious laws and precepts, not a system of political or philosophical thought, not an idea of a better world.  The “temple” that will be raised up is Jesus himself, “Christ crucified.”

We cannot constrain Jesus, neither can we explain him away nor fit him into a nice, neat, little category.  All we can do is encounter Jesus – the one who once was dead but who now lives – and in this is found life.

The Possibility of Holiness

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Catholic Church, Christian living, Church, discipleship, faith, following Jesus, God, gospel, holiness, Jesus, joy

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I am not holy.  My sins, failures and weaknesses are before me every day, but I believe in the possibility of holiness and it is this belief that keeps me in the Church. 

I am not naïve to the sins and failures of the institution of the Church nor its representatives – past and present, universal and local – but neither am I naïve to the sins and failures of those outside the Church and those who deride “church”.  I have also witnessed their sins and their hidden despair and I want none of it.  The louder and more forced the laugh; the deeper the despair, I believe.  
I do not want nor need a “Church” made in my image.  I know my sins.  Holiness is challenge – lived daily and without fanfare.  I am a creature and I need my Creator to heal what is broken within me.  To pretend that there is no brokenness is, in fact, to deny my Creator. 
Holiness is simple.  I am tired of a presentation of faith that needs to be hyper-stimulated.  I feel sorry for our young people who are growing up in such a world.  I am sorry for the times the Church buys into this.  Holiness cannot be manufactured.  Holiness grows simply and quietly.  What is manufactured quickly fades and leaves a void.  Maybe holiness can begin to grow in this void maybe it cannot.  I know that God can work as God so chooses and I have to trust in this.  
Holiness is not argument and it is not philosophy.  Debate does not lead to conversion, the witness of holiness does.  Philosophy and its structure is a good tool but it is not salvific faith.  The wise steward, we are told, is the one who can go to the storeroom and pull out both the old and the new as needed.  Maybe there are other tools available?
Holiness does not isolate.  Christ, the All Holy One, came into our very midst.  He called us brothers and sisters and taught us to love one another.  Holiness is found in my encounter with the other although it may not be immediately apparent.  The holiness uniquely found in community forces me out of myself and I need this.  If anything, the direction of holiness is from the mountain back down into the valley of the everyday. 
Holiness is not on a mountaintop somewhere but in the Gospel, the sacraments and community.  I need these every day.
Many people like to point to the sins of the Church.  It is nice to have an excuse isn’t it?  Pointing out the perceived sins of others does not grow holiness in my own life; it just gives me a way out.  I need to stand before my Creator on my own and not in contrast to what I perceive as the sins of others. 
Holiness is beautiful and I need beauty – a child playing peek-a-boo, friends laughing, feet being washed.  
I feel sorrow for those who have left the Church.  Christ loves the Church … how can you love Christ and not love what he loves?  Maybe Christ’s love should be bigger than my own resentments and excuses?
Holiness is living in friendship with God.            

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: God’s mercy. (25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – A)

21 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in goats, homily; mercy, Jesus, justice, parable

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When you get a chance and if you are interested I invite you to google “tree climbing goats of Morocco”.  I once stumbled across this and was really kind of mesmerized.  At first you might think that the pictures of these goats perched on extremely small branches of trees are doctored, I know I did, but they are not.  If you go to YouTube you will see videos of these goats climbing up into the trees, moving around and balancing on the branches and then scampering down.  The story is that there is a berry that these trees produce that the goats crave and over time they have adapted and developed the ability to climb the trees in order to get at the berries.  That being understood, the image of all these goats standing on branches in a tree is surreal – two very ordinary things (goats and trees) brought together in a totally unexpected way.  It makes you do a double-take when you see it and even question your perception. 
The parables of our Lord operate in a similar way I believe.  Our Lord takes common, everyday realities that we are all familiar with (maybe even take for granted) and then puts a spin on them that leaves the listener doing a mental double-take and re-evaluating ones perception of things.  Similar to seeing goats perched in a tree.  Take for example this Sunday’s parable (Mt. 20:1-16).  We can easily imagine the landowner and the laborers.  We understand what work is and what it means to give someone a fair wage for a fair day’s work.  But then there is this “spin” at the end.  Those laborers who worked only one hour get paid the same amount as those who put in a full day’s work.  And we are left with the response of the landowner, “Are you envious because I am generous?”
What is helpful to realize is that this parable is not about us.  It is about God.  God’s justice is his mercy.  In Isaiah we hear God proclaim, “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways … As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” (Is. 55:6-9).  
In this parable our Lord is not giving us a lesson on social justice nor is he presenting us with an image of the just boss.  Rather, he presents us with an absolutely exceptional person, who treats those under him beyond the bounds of any legalistic rules. The parable shows us how the Father acts – his kindness, his magnanimousness, and his mercy, which are as far from the human way of thinking as heaven is from earth. 
It is very easy to be cynical about all this, to roll one’s eyes at the Christian talk of mercy.  The cynic easily says, “Let’s get real; enough of this fairy-tale talk!”  Cynicism is indeed one of the besetting sins of our age which often dismissively equates mercy with naivety but cynicism is often really just a cover for fear.  The Christian mystery is not a puzzle to be solved and then set aside, allowing a sense of accomplishment and superiority for the cynic, rationalist and materialist.  The Christian mystery is a mystery to be lived and as we live it we are then brought to greater understanding and greater hope and joy.  And it takes courage and trust to live the mystery.  
So Isaiah doesn’t say “Figure it out!” rather he says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near.”  Then he gets really personal, “…scoundrel, wicked … you forsake your way, your thoughts … turn to the Lord for mercy…”  God owes us nothing except by his choice which is his mercy.  Rather than trying to fit God into our sense of fairness it would be better for us to wonder on God’s mercy.  
The parable is about God and how his justice is his mercy and it teaches us that when we labor for him, as we are each called to do in our own way and according to our current season in life, then we will know the great reward of his mercy.  It is a great reward.  God is unjust with no one and neither is he senseless.  God does not give according to some abstract notion of equity, rather he gives to each of his children according to his or her need.  God’s justice is his mercy. 
“Seek the Lord while he may be found…”  Encounter God and his mercy.  Live the mystery and know the life and the generous mercy that overcomes all the cynicism and sad logic of our world.
“…am I not free to do as I wish … Are you envious because I am generous?”