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Writing in the dust and circles of violence

02 Saturday Apr 2022

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There are many circles of violence in this Sunday’s gospel story (Jn 8:1-11). 

The woman is not without fault.  She was caught in the act of adultery.  That was a free choice on her part as well as a free choice by the man she committed the sin with.  Adultery is an act of violence against the covenant of marriage.  It is worthwhile to note that after everyone walks away Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you.”  It is in the mercy of God that she is freed from condemnation but there is judgment on her sin, her participation in that act of violence.  Jesus says, “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”    

The crowd is also caught up in the circle of violence as they stand ready to stone this woman.  These two circles of violence (the act of adultery and the desire to kill) are clearly visible and apparent but there are still other circles of violence.  There is a further circle of violence against the woman – she is being used.  The gospel lays it out clearly.  The scribes and Pharisees are using the woman to try to trap Jesus.  “They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.”  They have no real interest in the woman, their focus is on Jesus and she (and apparently even her very life) means nothing, she is just a means to get at Jesus.  To reduce another person in any circumstance to a “means to an end” is an act of violence. 

There is a further and even more profound act of violence.  The scribes and Pharisees, so proud of their religious observance, are trying to use both the commandments and even God.  Again, their intent here is to trap Jesus and not to give honor to the commandments of God and therefore, even God himself.  On their lips they say, “Now in the law, Moses commanded us…” but in their hearts their intent is far from giving honor to the law but rather to trap Jesus. It is in their intent that we see that they are trying to reduce the commandments of God and even God himself to a means to an end.  This is an act of violence.  God will never be reduced to a means to an end. 

All of these circles of violence within eleven verses. 

Probably beginning the very day that these verses were written, we have wondered what it means that Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground.  There are all sorts of interpretations of this action.  A thought that I have is that, by this simple action, Jesus is clearly showing that he will not participate, he will not get caught up in any of these circles of violence.  He will not condone the woman’s act of violence, he will not get caught up in desire to kill, he will neither use a person nor his heavenly Father as a means to an end.  He will not … by writing in the sand, our Lord demonstrates his refusal and disdain for all these circles of violence. 

Once he straightens up and looks around, the answer he gives immediately cuts through all of these circles of violence.  “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  All walk away.  The circles of violence have been broken, no stronger than the dust Jesus was just drawing in. 

Throughout his preaching, St. Paul never tired of letting people know how he had persecuted the church before his encounter with Christ.  St. Peter, never tired of sharing how he had denied knowing Christ in the courtyard of the high priest.  Both men and all of the apostles never tired of sharing how Jesus had rescued them from the circles of violence in their lives and how Jesus shows us a different way and makes it possible for us to live this way. 

Isaiah foretold it, “Thus says the Lord, who opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters … In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.” (Is. 43:16-21)    

Now, in Christ, we do not have to live in the circles of violence.  We do not have to participate.  We do not have to get caught up in the violence.  There is a different way.  We find it when we allow Jesus to find us. 

Jesus sets us free to walk this new way. 

“But from the beginning…” Christ remembers.

05 Friday Oct 2018

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Christ iconA joke – an elderly couple were visiting the county fair. While wandering around they noticed that helicopter rides were being offered for fifty dollars. The wife turned to the husband and excitedly said, “Let’s go on a helicopter ride!” The old man just shook his head and replied, “Honey, that’s a lot of money. Fifty dollars is fifty dollars.” and they walked off. The next year the same couple was back at the fair and again helicopter rides were being offered for fifty dollars. The woman wanted to go for a ride but again her husband just shook his head and said, “Sorry, fifty dollars is fifty dollars.” The woman sighed and the old couple walked off. The next year, they were again back at the fair and again helicopter rides were being offered. Again the wife asked her husband to go up on a ride but again the man answered “Fifty dollars is fifty dollars.” This time though the pilot was nearby and overheard their conversation. He stopped the couple and said, “Listen, I will make you a deal. I will take you up and give you the best and most thrilling helicopter ride of your lives and if I hear not a single thing from you – no words, no laughing, no exclamations – your ride will be free!” The old man – always quick to get something for nothing – immediately said yes and up the three went in the helicopter! The pilot was true to his word – it was the best and most thrilling helicopter ride! The day was beautiful and you could see for miles! The pilot, to add a little excitement (and try to get some sound out of the two) even steeply banked the helicopter one way and then the other way throughout the ride. The pilot was amazed though because throughout the whole ride he heard not one sound from the elderly couple. Finally, after landing he turned around and realized that the old man was not in the helicopter. “Where is your husband?” he asked the woman. “Oh, he fell out about thirty minutes ago.” Shocked, the pilot asked, “Why didn’t you say something?!”. “Well,” she said, “fifty dollars is fifty dollars!”

Relationships are a mystery are they not? When we step back to think about it though, we quickly realize how so much of our lives – our time, our attention, our energy, our focus – is caught up in relationship! Whether it be the relationship of friendship, of family, of work, of church, of our relationship with God or (as today’s readings highlight) the very ancient and unique relationship of husband and wife. So much of all that we are about and are is caught up in this mystery of relationship. The readings for today cast some light on this deep, abiding and sometimes conflicted mystery.

The first truth shared is that we are made for relationship. God himself says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” God – who himself is a trinity of relationships – has built within us the need for relationship. And it is a need critical for our own flourishing! We are in essence hardwired for relationship and we only become who we are meant to be through relationship. The vocation of marriage witnesses this in an utterly unique and potentially holy way. Husbands and wives are meant to help one another grow in holiness – which means comfort, support but also challenge when needed. The “two becoming one flesh” is a great mystery that God himself has written into creation that should not be passed over lightly.

The second truth is that this need and drive for relationship has – along with everything else – been wounded and warped by sin. This is a sad reality and how much pain it causes in our world and in every individual life. Angry words, sad, poor and hurtful choices, violence in all sorts of ways even over generations and whole nations wound and leave scars that last a lifetime or more. No form of relationship (including marriage) is immune from these dangers and this hurt.

I speak from my experience and what I witnessed in the lives of my parents. When I was in fourth grade my parents divorced. My father was an alcoholic who tried but was never able to overcome his disease. My senior year of high school he drank himself to death. My mother was faced with a very tough choice on how to raise her boys in the best possible way within a bad situation. They divorced. It hurts when the very real wounds of sin break a relationship. It is almost natural – a “sad natural” – that a hardness of heart sets in when there has been pain.

The third truth – and this is the saving message – is that there is one who has come and who remembers (because he was there) the truth of relationship before the hardness of heart. “Jesus told them, … ‘But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” This one who has come is neither afraid nor scandalized by suffering. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that, in fact, he has been made perfect through suffering. He is neither afraid nor scandalized by suffering and he is willing to walk each one of us back to the truth and the wholeness and the authenticity found in the beginning of God’s creation.

The fourth, and final truth for today – wherever you are in life allow Christ to walk you back to that wholeness and authenticity of relationship we were made for by God before the hardness of heart. If you are in marriage – allow Christ to continually walk you and your spouse back to that wholeness of relationship which existed prior to the hardness of heart. Every day! Every day, allow Christ to walk you back. Every day do the work that is needed! Do not take anything or anyone for granted. If you are in the brokenness of divorce realize, please realize that Christ is not put off, he is not scandalized. He is the one made perfect through suffering. He meets you there in the suffering – he heals what needs to be healed, he strengthens what needs to be strengthened. Allow him to walk you back to the wholeness and authenticity that God wants for you before the hardness of heart. Allow him to walk with you.

Christ remembers, he remembers before the hardness of heart.

Christ, help us to remember.

Christ, walk each one of us back to the life that was before the hardness of heart. Walk each one of us into the fullness of your Father’s Kingdom.

The Law of Generosity: Be holy as God is holy.

18 Saturday Feb 2017

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Jesus - way, truth, lifeThe “eye for an eye” teaching that our Lord refers to in today’s gospel (Mt. 5:38-48) was actually an attempt to restrict violence in a time when revenge was indiscriminate and excessive.

In the revenge culture of the time not only was it the perpetrator of a violent act who became a possible target for reprisal but any member of the same family, clan, ethnic group or even someone “thought” to be responsible or connected.  The culture of revenge was excessive.  An “eye for an eye” therefore was an attempt to limit the continuous cycle of revenge and violence.  With this understanding it would almost be better to read the injunction as “one eye for one eye and no more”.

For our Lord though it was not enough.  His desire is not just to limit the cycles and structures of violence but to actually heal the human heart from which all evil desires spring.  Evil and violence can never overcome evil and violence, even when co-opted for a good.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had an astute awareness of this truth.  In his writings and speeches we certainly find the call to end the massive injustices that the African-American community faced but we also find Dr. King reflecting on how the path of non-violence was also meant as a means to help heal those white brothers and sisters whose hearts were hardened by racism and prejudice.

God says to Moses, Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.  You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart.  Though you may have to reprove your fellow citizen, do not incur sin because of him.  Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  (Lv. 19:1-2, 17-18)

In contrast to the law of co-opted violence, our Lord calls us to the law of abundant generosity – to be holy as God is holy, who makes the sun to rise on the bad as well as the good.  God is love; he is abundant in his mercy.  Our Lord is not naïve; he knows the full weight of evil and violence.  On the cross, Jesus took on the full weight of sin and its structures.

In the law of abundant generosity, Jesus is calling us to a pragmatism of generosity.  Evil and violence cannot heal the human heart (even when co-opted in an attempt for the good).  Evil and violence cannot end the cycles of revenge and violence … only love can.  When someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other one.  When someone wants your tunic, give your cloak as well.  When someone presses you into service for one mile, go for two.  Our Lord proposes to us the pragmatism of generosity.  It is through this pragmatism that is found true healing for hearts that are wounded and hardened.

There is a story told of a painter who arrived one day in a small town and set himself up in the town square offering portrait paintings. For a few days he sat in the square with no one purchasing a portrait.  On the fourth day the artist approached the town drunk (whom he had noticed earlier) and said, “Listen, come and let me paint your portrait.  I need to keep my skills up and at the end you will have a free portrait.”  The man agreed.  He sat in the portrait chair and straightened himself up as best he could.  The painter looked at him silently, reflected for a few moments, smiled and began to paint.  The painting continued for a few days but the painter would never allow the man to view the painting while it was in progress.  Finally, the portrait was completed.  The painter handed the portrait to the man and the man’s mouth fell open.  Pictured in the painting was not a town drunk but an accomplished man – there was a gleam in his eyes, he held a steady gaze.  Instead of scruffy clothes and a disheveled appearance, the man was clean shaven and wore a nice suit.  “What is this?” demanded the man, “You have not painted me.”  “You are right,” replied the painter calmly, “I have not painted you as you now are but as the man whom you might become.”

The pragmatism of generosity sees and responds to the other person in terms of who he or she is meant to be.  Jesus calls us to live this law of generosity – to be holy as God is holy.

A God and a community who seek out

10 Saturday Sep 2016

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good-shepherdOne of the truths revealed in today’s gospel (Lk. 15:1-10) is that our God is not a God content to let people remain anonymous.  The shepherd goes out in search of the lost sheep because that one sheep truly matters to him.  The woman turns the house over searching for the lost coin because that coin is of real concern to her.  We are of concern to God.  We are not alone in a vast universe governed by random chance.  We do not have a God who does not care.  God is willing to seek each one of us out, willing to even enter the darkness of sin and death, to find us and then rejoice in the finding!

But this truth also applies to us who are called to be God’s people in our world.  The Christian community is not meant to be an anonymous collection of individuals made up of people without names and without love – separate and alone.  Because we have been loved by God and sought out by God we must, in turn, strive to love as God loves and seek out as God seeks out.  The community Jesus calls us to is not one of anonymous and separate persons but of brothers and sisters who know each other by name.  Friendship and care must be at the heart of the Christian community but it needs to be noted that this friendship is not of our own doing or crafting.  The friendship of the Christian community flows out of Jesus’ own call to his disciples and obedience to his Word.  The origin of friendship in the Christian community is in God himself.  This is a great mystery and it is a mystery we are called to live and it is a mystery we proclaim in front of a world that seems so intent on reducing the full dignity of the human person to just a caricature of the anonymous individual.

Every person has a name.  Every person has a worth.  Every person is valued and sought out by God.  No one is left behind.  We need to live this friendship of Christ as Church and, by so doing, witness to our world.  For a Christian community to have the most beautiful sanctuary or the most active list of ministries without this friendship that seeks out is (to paraphrase St. Paul and our Lord himself) to be just a noisy gong, a clashing cymbal and even a whitewashed tomb.  No life is ultimately produced.

The identity of the Church is not found by remaining within but is realized in mission.  It has been this way from the very beginning with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the call to proclaim the good news to the ends of the world!  We each have a name given by God and a task given by God, we only become who we are meant to be as we live the task we have been given.  The Christian community only becomes who she is meant to be when she lives the friendship she has been given by Christ.

This friendship begins within the Christian community herself and then it goes out into the world.  We must seek out one another.  We must be of concern to one another.  In order to be true to the gift that we were given (meaning being sought out by God himself), we cannot remain content in just being a collection of anonymous individuals.  When we meet one another in the friendship of Christ we learn we can even look out on the multitudes of our world and see not just anonymous individuals who threaten my space and my freedom but brothers and sisters and the multitudes of people who are alone and suffering learn that they are in fact not alone and that there is a God and a people who seek to care and who seek to know their name.

Joy in the Resurrection and the Call to Trust

09 Saturday Apr 2016

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Jesus Christ appears on the Shore of the Lake of Tiberias by James Tissot

It is interesting to note how the disciples react in the gospels when they encounter the risen Lord. They all have this very interesting reaction of a mix of great joy and amazement but also fear and uncertainty.  They rejoice that Jesus is risen and alive but yet they remain locked behind closed doors out of fear of the religious authorities.  The tomb is emptied yet they know that the powers of the world are seeking to persecute and destroy them because they are the followers of this Jesus of Nazareth.  It was true for the first group of followers and it remains true today.

It is also interesting to note how the risen Lord responds to this mix of emotions on the part of his followers. He does not respond by given them a blueprint or map if you will.  The risen Lord in all of these encounters never tells them how things will go or what will happen, how they will witness to him or where it will take them rather all that he continually says is to rejoice in the resurrection and to trust in him.

A scene from the movie “Risen” has remained with me these past few weeks. In the movie the Roman tribune at the center of the story has seen the risen Lord and his world is turned upside down.  He is following along with the disciples and at one point he is with them as they are rushing to Galilee because Mary Magdalene had told the disciples that Jesus had said he would be there waiting for them.  The tribune is running alongside Peter and they both stop to catch a breath.  The tribune asks Peter what he thinks they will find in Galilee and Peter says, “I don’t know.”  Perplexed by this, the tribune then asks him why he is going if he does not know what they will find and Peter responds, “Because I trust.”

Those first disciples, when all the powers of the world were arrayed against them, had nothing other than joy and amazement at the resurrection and trust. It was enough for them and frankly, it is enough for us.  We also have the joy of the risen Lord in our hearts yet we also know fear and uncertainty.  We also do not know where it is all going.  There are also powers arrayed against us.  Christ does not give any one of us a blueprint or a map; rather he gives us some things much more worthwhile – his very resurrection and the call to trust in him.

We find in this Sunday’s gospel (Jn. 21:1-19) that there are also two other things given to aid the disciples in their journey throughout history. One is community – the Church.  The disciples are gathered together again at the Sea of Tiberias and this is not just coincidence.  Peter says that he is going fishing and the others respond that they will go with him.  Together, they all get in the boat.  Scriptures tells us that where two or three are gathered together, there is our Lord in their midst.  It is when they are together and all of them hard at the work of fishing that our Lord appears to them.  The life of Christian faith is not meant to be lived alone.  We encounter the risen Lord together.  Community and the Church are not optional for the Christian, rather they are a source of encounter with the risen Lord.

The other great gift given to the Church in this gospel and a continual way to encounter the risen Lord is the call to charity. Three times our Lord asks Peter if he loves him.  Three times Peter says “yes” and the risen Lord responds with, “feed my lambs … tend my sheep … feed my sheep.” It is a call given to the whole Church.  It is also a gift.  When we feed and tend one another, especially the most vulnerable and poor in our midst, then we meet the risen Lord and we are graced and strengthened in our encounter.  The powers of the world do not understand this and they never will but there is a great power, perhaps the greatest, given to the poor and the vulnerable.  When we live charity, we encounter the risen Lord.

As for the first disciples so for us, we know the joy of the resurrection yet we also can be fearful and uncertain in our world. The risen Lord does not give a blueprint of how it will all work out.  Rather, he invites us to live in the joy of the resurrection and to trust in him and he teaches us that we will encounter him in community and in the living of charity.

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: God in the thorns

27 Saturday Feb 2016

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moses-and-burning-bushJewish midrash is a way of interpreting Hebrew Scripture that seeks to fill in the gaps and therefore bring forth truths of faith. A midrash on the scene of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush that we heard in the first reading (Ex. 3:1-8a,13-15) holds that the bush had thorns.  God witnessed the suffering of the Hebrew people in Egypt, their daily struggle and pain, and therefore God chose to reveal Himself to Moses in the midst of a thorn bush to show that He is a God who is present in the midst of the suffering of his people.

The classic translation of the name that God provides Moses is “I am who I am.” Some scholars suggest that this translation relies too heavily on Greek thinking which tended more toward the philosophical and abstract.  A translation that would lean more toward the Hebraic way of thinking which is more concrete and dynamic in its understanding of being is “I am the one who I am there.”  In this understanding, the revelation of the name of God is immediately connected with his covenant to the people of Israel.  God is not removed, God is revealed as a God who is in the midst of his people.  God’s very being is a “being-for-His-people.”

In the first letter of John we are given the singularly important teaching that “God is love”. This is first and foremost but the way by which we know God as love is the way of mercy.  Mercy is God’s love poured out, given that we might have life.  When we were lost, when we had sinned and wandered far from God, God sought us out.  God sought out Abram and made a covenant with him and his descendants.  God hears the cry of his people in Egypt and he seeks them out.  God enters into their suffering.  God is “I am the one who I am there.”

The fullest revelation of who God is; is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Christ fully reveals both the love and the mercy of God and Christ is that full revelation of the name of God.  In Christ, God fully enters into the thorns of our suffering.  God is revealed in the very midst of our pain, our loss and our weakness.  I am the one who I am there.

But we on our part need to make a choice. This is part of the gospel message for today (Lk. 13:1-9).  Through the incarnation God has entered into his creation and its injustices and tragedies.  I am who I am there.  Christ acknowledges the unjust killing of the Galileans by Pilate as well as the tragic death of those people killed when the tower collapsed.  We each have only so many days allotted us, what choice are we going to make?  CSacred-heart-of-jesus-ibarraranhrist comes to reveal the truth of who God is and to call us into relationship with Him because here and only here is where we will find true life.  What choice will we make?  We each have only so many days allotted us.

The midrash teaches that God revealed himself to Moses in the midst of a thorn bush. Isn’t it interesting that when Jesus, who is God with us and for us, is being scourged he is crowned with a crown of thorns?  In a couple of weeks we will hold the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart Mission here at St. Dominic Church.  The image at the center of the mission is the Sacred Heart of our Lord – a heart both divine and human and a heart surrounded by a crown of thorns beating in love and mercy for us.

Thoughts on the Sunday Readings: Transfiguration and the Cross (Second Sunday of Lent – B)

01 Sunday Mar 2015

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A priest of our diocese tells the story that one day he and some friends were out driving and they were coming upon Smyrna, TN.  As they approached the city they started arguing about its correct pronunciation – was it “Smyr-na” or “Smeer-na”?  It was close to midday so they decided to ask someone when they stopped for lunch.  They came to a fast food restaurant and once inside the group went to a lady who was standing nearby.  The priest said, “Ma’am, could you please help me and my friends with a debate that we are having?  Could you, slowly and distinctly, tell us the name of the place in which we are?”  The lady gave them a quizzical look and slowly said, “Bur … ger … King.”

transfiguration_of_jesus_christIt is good to know where we are – both geographically and, for our purposes this Sunday, in the life of faith and discipleship.  Today, as we continue our journey toward Jerusalem with the Lord we are at the mount of Transfiguration but it is worthwhile to note both that this mountain points toward Golgotha – the mountain of the cross and sacrifice of the Son – and why it points that direction.

There is a beauty to sacrifice.  Cinema, in its best moments, is aware of this.  Think of those moments in movies that wrench our guts when the hero or heroine sacrifices (the soldier lets go of the rope and plummets to his death so that others in the troop might make it, Obi-Wan Kenobi lets Darth Vader strike him down, the priest in “The Mission” walks directly into a hail of gunfire while carrying the monstrance).  But the beauty of sacrifice is not limited to “big” moments.  Sacrifice can be seen in the parent who works two or three jobs in order to provide for his or her children, it can be found in the life of the teacher whose great work or opus is not a world-renowned symphony but generations of students whose lives are transformed by the love of learning.  There is a beauty in sacrifice.

Before the sacrifice of the cross to which we are journeying with our Lord is the moment of Transfiguration.  Before the sacrifice of the cross, all other sacrifices pale in comparison.  The sacrifice of the cross is infinite.  God dies that we might have life.  We killed God.  Do we recognize the scope of this?  Sometimes the true depth (and beauty) of sacrifice can only be recognized in contrast to what might have been.

Romano Guardini’s book, The Lord, is a powerful exploration of the fullness of the Christian mystery.  One thing that Guardini explores in his book is the great “What if?”  What if Jesus had not been crucified?  We assume that the crucifixion was just the way it had to happen, the way salvation was to be won.  Not necessarily so, asserts Guardini.  Within the Book of the prophet Isaiah running alongside the prophecies of the suffering servant, Guardini points out, are the visions of God’s mountain where peace is established, people forget the ways of war and right relationship is restored.  God is revealed in the midst of his people.  A choice is brought to us.  Christ, the humble God-man, stands before every part of society, yet each one denounces him and each one turns away.  The religious leaders call him a blasphemer, the government/military leaders mock him and wash their hands of him, the very people who welcomed him into Jerusalem waving palm branches later denounce him in favor of a criminal, even his disciples run away.  What if we had not turned away?  What if we had not denounced?  Yet we did.  Christ must go the way of the cross.

crucifix icon6Do we recognize the depth of the sacrifice?  Before the horror of the cross we have the moment of Transfiguration.  What might have been?  There is a spiritual that is usually sung during Holy Week but it is appropriate for all of Lent, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  Sometimes it causes me to tremble … tremble … tremble … Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”  The depth of the sacrifice of Christ…

Going back to the story shared earlier, it is good to know where we are in the spiritual life, in our journey toward Jerusalem.  This Sunday, in the beauty and awe of the Transfiguration … of who Christ is and of what might have been … we recognize the depth and love of the sacrifice of the cross.

God came to us.  We turned away.  Christ must go the way of the cross.

Another spiritual, “What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse, for my soul, for my soul…”