“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded.”
Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, the husband of Mary and the legal father of Jesus. As we reflect on the Gospel of Matthew, specifically Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a, we delve into the life of this remarkable yet humble man, whose quiet strength and unwavering faith played a pivotal role in the story of Jesus and of our salvation.
In Matthew 1:16, we reach the culmination of Jesus’ genealogy, where Joseph is established as a descendant of the house of David, fulfilling the old prophecies and underscoring Jesus’ rightful place as the Savior of Israel. It is here in Matthew where Joseph is named as the husband of Marcy, of who Jesus was born and is called the Messiah or Christ.
The birth of Jesus, as narrated in Matthew’s Gospel, is uniquely told through the eyes of Joseph. Here we come to find that Joseph is a righteous man. He is faced with a dilemma. He is engaged to Mary and discovers she is with child, not by him, but by the Holy Spirit. This is a society where such news could lead to public disgrace at best or even death for Mary. We find Joseph has a heart of compassion when he resolves to dismiss her quietly, again representing his deep care and righteousness.
The story in Matthew continues when God reveals a different plan to Joseph. Joseph thinks he has this figured out, but God intervenes. God sends an angel to appear to him in a dream and reveal the true and divine nature of Mary’s pregnancy. The angel instructs Joseph not to fear taking Mary as his wife, for the child she carries is conceived by the Holy Spirit. The angel tells him to name the child Jesus.
Joseph’s response to this divine message is immediate and faithful. Upon waking, he does as the angel commands, embracing his role in God’s plan with humility and obedience. Here, we witness faith in action—a testament to Joseph’s character and his willingness to trust in God’s will, even when it defies human understanding.
Saint Joseph’s story is a celebration of humble service and strength. Despite being an ordinary man—a carpenter promised to Mary—God chose him for an extraordinary purpose. Joseph’s life exemplifies how God often selects the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary. His example of humility, obedience, and unwavering faith serves as a model for us all.
As the patron saint of carpenters, the dying, and workers, Joseph’s legacy extends beyond his earthly life. With God’s grace, he responded to his call, reminding us that, like him, we too can respond to God’s direction with grace and faith, even when faced with difficult tasks.
In his apostolic letter on the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of St. Joseph as the patron of the universal Church, Pope Francis describes Joseph as a beloved, tender, and loving father—a creatively courageous father who worked in the shadows. This description encapsulates the essence of Joseph’s role in the life of Jesus and the Church.
Let us pray for St. Joseph’s intercession, asking him to watch over us and grant us the courage and strength to follow God’s will, just as he did. May we find inspiration in his example, allowing his humility and obedience to guide us in our own journeys of faith.
St. Joseph, watch over us today and every day. Amen.
Second Sunday of Lent is already upon us. Do you know where the word Lent comes from? In the old English world, the word “Lenten” meant “springtime”. And I think it is safe to say that, here in San Antonio, we are ready for some springtime! In Latin, Lent, however, means something altogether different. The word for this season is Quadragesima, denotes a season of preparation by fasting and prayer, to imitate the forty day example of Christ. A little historical fact, Lent used to begin on the first Sunday of Lent, also called Quadragesima Sunday after the Gospel reading for that weekend of Jesus fasting in the desert for forty days and ended as the Triduum began the evening of Holy Thursday. When we count the days from the first Sunday of Lent to Holy Thursday, it adds up to forty, including the Sundays. Over time, however, there was a discussion that the Sundays during Lent should not be fast days. When asked about fasting on the Sundays during Lent, tradition says, Solemnities, even during the Season of Lent, ought to still be seen as a feast days. Sundays are considered Solemnities after all, are the Lord’s Day, and a day of rest. Beginning the count for Lent on the first Sunday of Lent, and Sundays are not followed as days for fasting, this would equal fewer than forty days of fasting before Easter. In order to make the forty days as Jesus did, they allowed the Sundays to be removed as days of fast and we now start Lenten fasting on Ash Wednesday and when you do the Catholic math it remains the traditional forty days.
I mention this little bit of history since the second Sunday of Lent is also a good time to check in with ourselves on how we are doing with our Lenten promises. Did we eat the Filet-O-Fish instead of the Big Mac on Friday? Inquiring minds want to know. And how are we doing with what we gave up for Lent for that matter? Was it chocolate, alcohol, whatever? You see, as lightweight as our Lenten practices seem to be nowadays, I think it is helpful to consider what Quadragesima would have been like if you lived in medieval times. St. Thomas Aquinas proposed that no food would be allowed at all on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On the other days of Lent, food would only be allowed after 3 PM (the hour of our Lord’s death on the cross). And, no animal flesh was allowed at all, neither were eggs or dairy, and Sundays were not free days from the fast either. St. Thomas Aquinas believed in the most extreme fasting during Lent. I think for the people living in medieval times, the severity of this kind of fasting was meant to be life changing, life altering, helping Christians to embrace the seriousness of their baptismal identity as a People of God. Lent was supposed to be understood as a time for transformation. Someone who saw that kind of fast would certainly undergo a makeover by Easter Sunday, as well as their waist to say the least. I am not suggesting that we bring back that kind of Lenten fasting. Nevertheless, obviously though we see the season of Lent, the most important is the love we put into it in the first place.
If you think that fasting in medieval times was serious business, check out how covenants were made in the time of Abraham in our first reading from Genesis. Covenants were meant to be truly life-changing events as well. The Lord promises Abraham that his descendants would be like the number of stars in the heaven and offers the land before him as his possession.
Abraham wants to seal this deal and so God asks him to bring a three-year-old heifer, a three year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Genesis says, “Abram brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other”. You see, that’s how the deals were done in those days, you would meet among the split animals to make the agreement which was a way of indicating, if I break my word may what happened to these animals happen to me. These kinds of covenants in those days were meant to be life altering events that helped move a person or tribe from one reality to a new reality based upon the agreement being made. These covenants were meant to be truly transformative. As we know, the Chosen People in the Old Testament broke one covenant after the other with God, which makes Jesus’ choice to die on the cross in atonement for our sins all the more remarkable.
All of these observations are meant to help us understand our Gospel reading from St. Luke about the transfiguration of Jesus. Here we are on Mount Tabor, Jesus is transfigured before Peter, John and James, foreshadowing the glory of the resurrection. Jesus is also seen conversing with Moses and Elijah, signifying to the disciples that Jesus is the fulfillment of both the Law and the Prophets. However, there’s something really unique about St. Luke’s version of the transfiguration. You see, in Luke’s Gospel it says, “And behold, two men were conversing with [Jesus], Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to conduct in Jerusalem.” The reference to exodus here is unique to St. Luke’s Gospel and is meant to help us connect the exodus of the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, to what Jesus conducts for us by his passion, death and resurrection. You see the exodus from Egypt was a transformative event for the Chosen People. They went from a state of being slaves to inheriting the land God promised to Abraham. The process for that transformation took the Hebrews a lot longer than forty days. It took forty years for that transformation to unfold, and it took centuries more before God was ready to offer a new exodus to the human race through his only Son our Lord.
This new exodus presented to us, through the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, offers us a path from the tyranny of sin and death to the glory of the resurrection and eternal life with God. This ultimate transformation that Christians seek is what St. Paul is referring to in our second reading from Philippians when he says, “Brothers and sisters: Our citizenship is in heaven”. Think about how radical St. Paul’s message is, “Our citizenship is heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our humble body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into obedience to himself.” (“Philippians 3:21)
My family, the second Sunday of Lent invites us to accept this season as time for a radical change. Our Lenten rituals of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving are meant to help us with this while we make our pilgrimage to Holy Week. We can ask ourselves this week, what areas in my life need radical transformation? In what ways can I allow this season of Lent to transform my heart to be more like Jesus? These are good questions to ask as we continue our pilgrimage into the desert with our Lord. During this season of Lent, the level of transformation God will bless us with will depend largely on our response.
When I read this passage in the Gospel of Luke, the cynical side of me can’t help but envision an exasperated, eye rolling Jesus saying to the Israelites (in the style of Southern comedian, Bill Engvall)… “Here’s your sign.”
We are a week in from Ash Wednesday, where we had the sign of the cross placed on our foreheads in ashes reminding us of our mortality, to turn away from our sins and turn to Christ, and also to be a sign to those around us that we are Christians. That is a powerful sign… but in this generation, did anyone “see” this sign? Did we?
In this passage, Luke links passages from verses 14-36. These are based on controversies about the source of Jesus’ kingdom power. In verse 16 preceding this text, the religious leaders ask for a sign from heaven to test him; though in reality they really didn’t care for any sign but simply wanted Jesus to submit to their signs and symbols of authority. They foolishly say they just need to see more but the truth is that they had already observed several miracles and did not believe.
Their demands are turned down flat, for the very Word of God, their Sign had come to them and they and showed how little they desired it. So Jesus contrasts the Jewish religious leadership with two examples; both of whom are pagan in origin and who were considered outsiders, but both of whom were able to read the signs of the time and accept the truth, unlike the Jewish authorities. Even though God had revealed so much to the chosen people of Israel, these who knew so little were the ones who were responsive.
The first is the example of Jonah. Jonah was an Old Testament prophet who lived nearly 800 years before Christ and was sent to the pagan people in Nineveh (adjoining the current city of Mosul in Iraq). Jesus is comparing and contrasting the people of Nineveh with the people of His generation.
Unlike the related passage in Matthew, where the focus is on Jonah in the belly of the whale, Luke’s focus has to do with Jonah’s preaching of God’s word as the sign of repentance that was preached to the people, which as a consequence led to repentance of the pagan people of Nineveh. The people of Jesus’ generation don’t and didn’t. repent. They weren’t showing hearts of receptivity but of resistance. It becomes clear that they weren’t looking for a reason to believe, they were, in reality, looking for a reason NOT to believe. They were flat out choosing not to see their Sign. How often do we see this in our generation today? How often do we even see this in our own lives at times?
The second example Jesus used is that of the Queen of the South, better known as the Queen Sheba. Sheba is believed to refer to an area of modern day Yemen in Arabia or Ethiopia in northern Africa. This queen of great education and wealth travelled from far away because she heard of the unusual wisdom of Solomon the King of Israel. When she met Solomon, she was blown away. She saw Solomon as the display of God’s justice, love, mercy, and righteousness in the world and she was amazed. This pagan queen praised God because of Solomon’s great wisdom.
Jesus is making a point. When the Queen of Sheba heard of King Solomon there was something in her that resonated, she recognized the wisdom that he had to offer, and she longed for that wisdom enough to travel with caravans and gifts from afar just to seek out such wisdom. She saw the Sign. Have we opened up the eyes of our hearts to see the signs God places before us every day? Have we responded to those signs?
Here in lies the condemnation of the people at the time of Jesus who rejected his message. Their condemnation would be all the more complete because their privileges were even more great as compared to the people of Nineveh or the Queen of Sheba. Their Sign, Jesus, was right before them and they chose to ignore and try to find reasons not to see and not to believe. Let us never forget that both privilege and responsibility go ever hand in hand. Let us remember, we are Christ’s hands and feet in this world. We are co-workers with Christ and called to be a sign of God’s love, mercy, justice, and grace to ALL people in this tired and hurting world. Let us go out into the world sharing and showing that we are seen, we are heard, we are loved.
So maybe it’s not so much of hearing, “Here’s your sign,” but more of realizing, “He’s your sign.”
In John Le Carré’s novel, The Secret Pilgrim, a young intelligence officer visits East Germany to meet a spy. Anxiously, he carries cards with spy network details, which go missing after the visit, likely having fallen out of his pocket. Shortly afterwards, the spy network is discovered, resulting in torture and loss of life. This leads to the young man having a mental crisis and confessing to his superior in the intelligence services what he had done. The superior in question is the narrator, and in the novel, there are these words about the narrator’s reaction to what he had just heard: “Then the appalling triviality of what the young man had told me got through to me: that you could lose a [spy] network as easily as you could lose a bunch of keys.”
Although sin involves free choice and decision, it often resembles careless, unthinking behavior, much like losing keys due to a lack of thought and care. World history is filled with sins that are significant, systematic, and destructive.
Sin renders us blind and insensitive; sin stops us from being truly free. When sin gets into the system, when our whole way of thinking is touched by it, we can find ourselves almost sleepwalking into sin, shoring up the patterns of sin. We can find ourselves almost sleepwalking into hurting others and hurting ourselves, thoughtlessly, committing all those acts of petty cruelty and betrayal, that despite their banality and carelessness leave a trail of hurt and damage in their wake.
People often focus on significant wrongdoings such as cruelty, tyranny, and hate. However, the origins of these issues might lie in smaller actions that infiltrate systems subtly, diminishing awareness and leading to destructive outcomes. This can occur quite easily due to desires for physical satisfaction, power, or psychological complexity, where individuals play mind games and seek quick gratification. In the desert, Jesus is tempted in these ways, revealing the nature of temptation.
While many of the temptations we encounter are likely to be relatively minor, it is crucial not to exaggerate their significance. It is also important to acknowledge that our desires often aim for things that are genuinely beneficial. We should strive to avoid excessive scrupulosity and anxiety, as these can have negative effects. Conversely, we must guard against complacency, which can also be detrimental, as it might lead us to inadvertently engage in actions that harm ourselves and others.
Christ being tempted by Satan shows us hope and true happiness. Jesus resists turning stones into bread, yet he also eats and drinks with his disciples. Perhaps one lesson to draw from this is that it is only the one who can eat his food with self-control and without greed who can enjoy it fully. Greedy people are too busy thinking about what they do not have to enjoy, what they already possess.
Sin is a complex business that stops us from living as we ought, and so Lent is a wonderful opportunity to ask ourselves hard but realistic questions about true human happiness, questions that involve reflecting on the role of sin in our lives. To take up this opportunity is to ask if we have been sleepwalking through life, sleepwalking into patterns of sin and destruction, perhaps not so much out of active malice or greed, but almost carelessly, unthinkingly, almost like losing a bunch of keys through lack of thought and care.
Lent serves as an opportunity to open our eyes and, through the grace of God, embrace life and love—precious gifts offered by God that are never acknowledged by Satan.
Y’all…..today is Ash Wednesday, and you’re prolly gonna see a bunch of folks running around with dirty foreheads today. Reckon wonder what’s that all about? Since you asked so nicely, I’ll tell ya!
Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the first day of Lent. You know, that season where “What are you giving up for Lent?” is an incredibly common question. It’s when we’re expected to give up something as a sacrifice, for us to use that sacrifice to remember what Jesus sacrificed for us. For most of us, Lent is the time of sometimes painful self-examination, during which we scrutinize our habits, our spiritual practice, and our very lives – hoping to make ourselves better, trying to make ourselves worthy of the love of God. We “step up” our prayer, fasting, and self-denial in order to remove worldly distractions from our lives.
On Ash Wednesday, we wear ashes, and not because we forgot to wash our faces. The spiritual practice of applying ashes on oneself as a sign of sincere repentance goes back thousands of years. Frequently in the days of the Old and the New Testament, when someone had sinned, he clothed his body with sackcloth and covered himself with ashes. [Jer. 6:26] The sacramental that we are observing today arises from that custom, the spiritual practice of observing public penitence. Church history tells us that the liturgical practice of applying ashes on one’s forehead during the Lenten Season goes back as far as the eighth century. This was accompanied by different forms of fasting, prayer, sacrifices, charity towards others, etc… The writings of St. Leo, around 461 A.D., tell us that during the Lenten Season, he exhorted the faithful to abstain from certain food to fulfill with their fasts the Apostolic institution of forty days. In the days of the Old Testament, many tore their clothing as a sign of repentance.
Today, we use the ashes as a reminder of who we are. The Bible tells us that we came from the dust and to the dust we shall return. The first human was formed out of the dust of the earth by God and then God breathed life into that dust. That is a powerful image. One that is meant to remind us that without the breath or Spirit of God moving in us, we are just like these ashes: lifeless – worthless.
So….what are you giving up for Lent? I have a suggestion or three. Instead of giving up chocolate, or sweets, or cola, or whatever other dear little thing we may indulge in, what about doing something that will actually make a difference, not only in your life, but in the lives of those around you? In this day and age, isn’t it time that we, as Christians, start putting Christ first, start putting his people first? Isn’t it time that we as true followers of the Jesus that we proclaim learn to treasure what we have been given? Work for justice. Work for peace. Work for understanding. Work to love the unlovable, the least, the lost, the forgotten.
Fred Kaan, the lyricist, has written a hymn that is especially meaningful for today:
Put peace into each other’s hand and like a treasure hold it;
protect it like a candle flame, with tenderness enfold it.
Put peace into each other’s hand with loving expectation;
be gentle in your words and ways, in touch with God’s creation.
Put peace into each other’s hand like bread we break for sharing;
look people warmly in the eye: Our life is meant for caring.
Give thanks for strong yet tender hands, held out in trust and blessing.
Where words fall short, let hands speak out, the heights of love expressing.
Put peace into each other’s hand he is love’s deepest measure;
in love make peace, give peace a chance and share it like a treasure.
Let us pray:
God, we pray that Your Spirit may rule over all things. May Your Spirit rule over kings and presidents, over prime ministers and generals, over CEOs and party bosses, over the legislatures and over the bureaucrats, over all citizens. May Your Spirit guide us on the way of peace on the way of honest dialogue on the way of reconciliation between peoples, on the way of disarmament and justice, on the way of freedom and life for all.
May Your Spirit lead us on the journey of blessings shared with all on the journey of educational opportunity for all our children on the adventure of research and study that helps all men and women, on the road to meaningful work for all people, on the path of solidarity and love between all our brothers and sisters.
May Your Spirit help us to speak up with courage to share what we have and what we are to challenge the powers that be to offer a message of liberation and life. May your Spirit help us to have a holy and meaningful Lent. We make this prayer through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Do y’all get as tired as I do of the back and forth between conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican, right vs. left, this religious denomination vs. that religious denomination back and forth, my way or the highway babble that goes on and on and on and on, ad infinitum?
Sometimes I just wanna scream STOP It! Other times it’s a quiet “Why can’t we all just get along?” More recently, my thoughts have been, “What the hell is wrong with you?” I find it exhausting, this push and pull and continuous descension, and I find myself wondering, “What if? Why? How can we stop this madness?”
Well, Imma tell ya. We can’t. We simply can’t stop folks from doing what they’re gonna do and being who they’ve shown to us they actually are. But, as he so often did, Jesus gives us a bit of direction that we can apply here. In Matthew 10, often called “The Great Commission,” Jesus is telling the twelve disciples what’s up, just how they’re supposed to proceed with the “actually being disciples thing,” and what they can expect. And in the middle of this oral handbook he’s delivering, he includes this little zinger: “Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.” To put a more modern spin on it, in the film “Frozen,” Elsa sings, “Let It Go.”
Along those lines, a dear friend of mine sent me an article this week in which the “Let Them” theory is explained. He summed it up like this:
I used to tolerate a lot because I didn’t want to lose people. But I learned the hard way if they were really my people, they would never treat me poorly. Don’t make the mistake of being so understanding and forgiving that you overlook the fact that you’re being repeatedly disrespected. Let them be upset. Let them judge you. Let them misunderstand you. Let them gossip about you, let them ignore you. Let them be “right.” Let them doubt you. Let them not like you. Let them not speak to you. Let them run your name in the ground. Let them make you out to be the villain. Whatever it is that people want to say about you, let them! Kindly step aside and LET THEM. You can still be kind. You can even still love them deeply. But do it from the distance they created with their words and actions. Access to you is a privilege they have proven they can’t be trusted with. Let them go.
Now, having said all that, what are we left with? In the Gospel reading for today, Jesus tells us to make sure that we are the folks who need to “Let them go,” rather than being the folks who are let go: Jesus told his disciples a parable.
“Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”
So the bottom line here is, much like Glenda asking Dorothy, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Are you letting go, or are you being let go? What kind of fruit are we bearing? Are we being Jesus for folks? Are we acting in love? Coz love is what Jesus teaches us we are supposed to do. Again from Matthew: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Notice there is no mention of race, gender identity, sexuality, citizenship or immigrant, religious preference or lack thereof, gender expression, or anything else that we today use to separate us into an “us versus them” mentality. Nothing except acting in love. There it is. Are you gonna be ‘let go’ like a goat, or loved like a sheep?
John Bell has written the hymn, “The Summons.”
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my Name be known?
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave your self behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoner free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean, and do such as this unseen?
And admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
Will you love the ‘You’ you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?
Christ, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show,
thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me?
Y’all….all few things…… Way, WAY back when I was but a teeny lad in the nursery and kindergarten at church, we were taught a song: Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world…..
So yeah. ALL the children of the world. Now, Mr. Webster, that brilliant purveyor of dictionaries, defines “all” as this: “including everyone or everything without exception.”
And, Mr. Webster, in his brilliance, defines “the world” as: “the earth, together with all of its countries, peoples, and natural features.”
Ya put these two together, and there is a whole lot of loving we have to do. Reckon wonder how do we do that? Especially in today’s tumultuous world. Funny thing, tho. We have an answer for that. It’s not often that I quote directly from the Scriptures, but today? Yeah, Imma do that, coz today we have the answer for our “how do we do that” question straight from the mouth of Jesus:
Jesus said to his disciples:
“To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” Luke 6:27-38
I’d say, based on this little nugget of scripture, we all of us, every single solitary one of us, has some work to do. Ya see, it seems to me that we let things divide us, we let our differences get in the way of what matters, and we, selfishly, want things to go our way and in doing so, we step on and over folks, and sometimes we just wanna knock them out of our way. But ya know what? Paul teaches us in Galatians that, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. (Galatians 3:28) And again in Colossians, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” (Colossians 3:11)
Oops? If this is the case, then we have some work to do. Y’all are smart enough to figure out how to apply what Jesus has said to your own lives without me telling ya, and you can certainly figure out what Paul was saying on your own. The trick here is to actually apply it. To live it.
Like I just said, we, all of us, have some work to do.
Nobody wants suffering, loneliness, or illness. Various professionals and individuals, regardless of their beliefs, strive to eliminate these problems. The gospels depict Jesus as a healer who cures people and alleviates their burdens, highlighting the importance of a savior who makes a practical difference.
So, in the story told in today’s passage from Luke’s gospel, a crowd of people was following Jesus, a man who had a reputation for being able to heal people’s illnesses and take away their problems. They came from all over the place looking for help, practical help. And what did they get? A sermon!
That probably sounds all too familiar for many people who have approached religious groups for help. And the sermon or the talking-to that they have to listen to is often about what they must have done wrong to deserve all that has been happening to them. People suggest, for example, that AIDS is a punishment from God for a lifestyle they can’t approve of, or that poverty is the product of laziness and so on.
But that is not the line that Jesus takes. He starts his sermon by saying, ‘Blessed are you poor…, blessed are you that are hungry…’ Now the word that is usually translated as ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ doesn’t mean the sort of happiness you might experience at a good party. It comes originally from a word that describes the straight flight of an arrow. I think the best translation of it would be ‘on the right track’. So, Jesus is not saying you’ve done something wrong if you’re poor or hungry or are bullied and so on. Quite the opposite: you’re probably on the right track if things like that are happening to you. I don’t think he’s suggesting that suffering of any kind is a good thing or that you’ve got to go looking for it. It’s a message of encouragement. Problems come along to everyone, but when things do go wrong it doesn’t mean it’s your fault, God hasn’t given up on you.
The sermon goes on to give some guidance about how to cope with life in general. It’s all based around an idea of love. It is a kind of love that is free and generous. It’s a matter of trying to respond well even when people are unkind to us; trying to heal damaged situations by forgiveness where that’s possible; trying to improve our own reactions instead of just being critical of what other people are doing. It gives a whole framework for life. Nothing in the sermon comes across as being superficial or easy. Trying to be as open to people as it suggests means being prepared to allow ourselves to be very vulnerable. We are going to be hurt, we are going to be taken advantage of. But, says Jesus, when that happens, we are probably on the right track.
Maybe it is because so many people were following him, expecting him to take their problems away, that Jesus put the question back to them in the sermon. He was suggesting that they could free themselves from the weight of carrying around too much guilt for everything. They could give some shape to their lives by taking on board some of the ideals that he was presenting. They could heal their own lives without necessarily having their illnesses or their problems taken away from them.
The miracles of healing that we hear about in the gospels and elsewhere are spectacular, even if they do seem a bit out of reach. But the sermon is more practical, more possible. Thank God we can still rely on healing in various forms, some more or less miraculous, but there’s something just as important and more within the reach of everyone. To be able to love and accept ourselves, to give someone else the support of love and maybe some guidance if it is needed, even to be able to make someone feel better about themselves, is to bring a kind of healing that is very real and very important. It may not be spectacular, but it can still be a miracle.
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) 20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
When The Rules Get in The Way.
A reflection on Mark 7: 14-23
In order to understand what Jesus is trying to get at in our text for today, we need to understand what is going on prior to it. The seventh chapter of Mark begins with the Pharisees and some religious scholars questioning why the disciples did not wash their hands prior to eating. (the idea of ritual handwashing and proper cleanliness is what sparks the conversation we have in our text for today)
For the Hebrew people, religion was more about following the law, which consisted of two main things, the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). In addition, the Scribes, legal experts of the law, would break down and amplify or explain the law leading to “traditions” that were used to prevent the people from breaking the law.
Cleanliness was a large part of the law, and this is where our text starts today. The disciples where not following the law as written by the Scribes. And Jesus responds to them with a text from Isaiah: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (29 vs13)
I like the translation that we find in The Message for verse 13-14 The Master said:
“These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their hearts aren’t in it.
Because they act like they’re worshiping me but don’t mean it,…
The wise ones who had it all figured out will be exposed as fools.
The smart people who thought they knew everything will turn out to know nothing.”
The religious leaders of the Old Testament believed that as long as they carried out the ritualistic end of the religion, it did not matter whether they disliked their neighbor or had hate in their heart. To them, all that mattered was following the ritual: saying your prayers every morning, noon and night, going to church every day, reading the scripture. And as long as you observed the ritual it did not matter if you have hate in your heart or discontentment toward your neighbor because it was the ritual that was important.
To show them the difference between their understanding of religion and the good news that Jesus was bringing, he uses the example of what you put into your body, doesn’t go to your heart, I goes to the stomach and is discharged through your bowels or you vomit it back up.
What comes out of your heart is what comes out of your souls or your spirit, your true self. That is where religion is centered. So the question is asked, is your heart centered on God and toward the efforts of helping others or is your heart centered on yourself and filled with bitterness, grudges, jealousy, and pride?
The point is simply this, Religion, following Christ, is not about following all the man-made rules of that they impede on the ability to follow the greatest command that Christ gives us.
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ … ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 23:37-39.
We must be aware that we never follow the rules that would paralyze the claims of love. No rule that would prevent us from helping someone else would ever be approved by God.
So, we must ask ourselves today, are we like the Pharisees and scribes who only want to do what is ritualistic and have no feelings towards God and God’s people? Or are we following the call of our hearts and the call of God to take care of the other, the widow, the orphan, the downtrodden, the outcast, and the hungry?
Way back when, when I was but a wee lad, one of the most exciting things in the world was when my papaw would take my brother and I fishing. We’d go about a mile from Papaw’s house to a wide spot in the creek, and spend many happy hours catching sunfish and then letting them go. Or we would spend a short time catching nothing because my little brother insisted on throwing rocks into the creek, scaring the fish away, but that was a good time, too. Anyway, the point of the whole thing is, we went fishing, for the fun of it.
Now, way, way, way back when folks didn’t just “fish for the fun of it,” they had to fish to actually earn a living and just to have something to eat. Or so it was with Simon, and his buds, James and John. Now, I don’t know if any of them had little brothers who were wont to throw rocks into the sea and scare the fish away, but on this particular day, no matter how much they fished, they caught nothing. Bummer. So they packed up their nets, returned to the shore and started to clean up their stuff so they could try again the next day.
Now, not too far away from there, there was a crowd of folks listening to this new preacher dude, who apparently was pretty great. So great in fact that the crowd started pressing in on him so to get closer to him. Since the preacher dude didn’t have a security team at the time, and being the observant type, he took a short break and trotted down the beach to our guys, Simon, James, and John, and asked them to row him out a bit so he could continue his preaching gig, and not be trampled in the process. So they did.
Now, after preacher dude was done dispensing his words of wisdom, my guess is he was kinda hungry and asked our guys to catch him a fish. And nope. They told Jesus, who was the preacher dude (but you already knew that, didn’t ya?) that they hadn’t caught anything all night long. And Jesus said, “Try again, only lemme help ya a bit.” And so they did. And hoo-whee. They caught them a heap of fish! So much so that they had to ask for help to get their haul back to shore.
Because of all of this, Simon recognized Jesus as being more than just a preacher dude, and was pretty tripped out. He told Jesus he wasn’t good enough to hang around with Jesus, and Jesus told him, “Dude. Stick with me, and I will have you catching men.” I can imagine that our guys, Simon, James, and John, were even more freaked out, but they left everything and followed Jesus. (Luke 5:1-11)
Kewl story, huh? So, you ask, what does that have to do with us? Imma tell ya. In the past few weeks, how many of us have said/posted/read/agreed with things that would most definitely not be considered Christ-like? How many of us have let our personal political beliefs get in the way of acting like the “little Christ” we are called to be? Sure we can disagree, often vehemently, but under no circumstances can we allow ourselves to allow those differences of opinions to get in the way of our witness for our Lord. (You gotta remember that even Peter and Paul argued, but they didn’t let that stand in the way of building Christ’s Kingdom.)
Let us not forget that in many cases, we are the only Bibles that many folks will ever read, and we are the only Jesus that some folks will ever see. It is up to us to see the Jesus in everyone, regardless of political belief, race, creed, color, sexual orientation, whether we cheer for the Chiefs or for the Eagles, or anything thing else that can be used to divide us. We are all of us HIS people, the sheep of HIS pasture, and we have far more in common than we do the things that divide us, if we truly identify as HIS.
As Christians, have we lost our focus of what is truly important? Regardless of politics, of whether we are ‘blue’ or ‘red’ or ‘rainbow,’ we are to remain focused on the one thing that really matters in this world and the next: Spreading and sharing the love of and for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. No matter who sits in the Oval Office, our job, our mission, our focus, has not changed and will not change: We are called to love and to serve the Lord with gladness and singleness of heart. We are called to care for each other, regardless of our politics. We are commanded to ‘bless those who persecute us’ and we are called to ‘pray for our enemies.’ We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless. (Matthew 25:31-46). It is up to each of us to conduct ourselves in a manner fitting our faith. Look at what you say. Look at what you post. If you were accused of being a Christian, would your timeline bear witness to the fact?
What are you doing to actually become a “fisher of men?” Does what you say or do truly make folks want to come to Jesus? In the movie “Sister Act” the nuns sing another song that we’re all familiar with. “I Will Follow Him.”
“I must follow him, ever since he touched my hand I knew that near him I always must be And nothing can keep him from me He is my destiny.” (Songwriters: Arthur Altman / Franck Pourcel / Jacques Plante / Norman Gimbel / Paul Mauriat)
So, having said all of the above, shouldn’t we, like the nuns, like Simon Peter and James and John actually do what we are called to do?
Follow Him. In EVERY word that we speak. Follow Him. In EVERY post that we make. Follow Him. In EVERY action we take. Follow Him. Amen.
The Order of Preachers, Independent 
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