Advent

Advent, December 24

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

2 Sm 7:1-5,8b-12,14a,16, Psalm 89: 2-5,27,29, Luke 1: 67-79

On the day before Christmas, the day before Jesus is born and God enters the world as one of us, we hear once again how God has intended this all along. My impression is one of steadfast, reassuring presence. Whatever is going to happen tomorrow, no matter how great and special, today, in this moment, we need to hear the reassurance that we are supported, we are not alone. We are so close and the evidence past and present points to a new tomorrow.

In 2 Samuel the author is recalling what happened to David, 1,000 years before Jesus was born. This in itself sends the signal that God’s pattern of behavior has been in place a long time. When David presumes that God needs a better place to live, God points out who has been in charge during David’s life. The key for us is that David was the youngest son of the family, the boy who took care of the sheep because all his older brothers were the ones in line for the family fortune. God took him from this lowest position and made him the leader of Israel who defeated every enemy that came up against them. God has always looked for people who would otherwise be considered the least likely to be chosen. This pattern of behavior on God’s part is send the message that anything is possible when God is involved.

The text in 2 Samuel however doesn’t stop with past actions, it goes on with God promising to guard Israel from “further disturbance.” Even after David has died, God will establish a Kingdom that will last forever lead by one of David’s own descendants. For a person of David’s time, it’s like saying he and his influence would live forever. To me this screams support, support, support. This God has got David’s back, forever! That translates for us to say God will always be involved, we like David will never be left alone.

If we had any doubt about this, the Psalms repeat the same kind of promises.

“Forever will I confirm your posterity
and establish your throne for all generations.”

Finally, Zachariah’s statement brings the prophecy up to date for his time and for us this day before Christmas. “The dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Perhaps the only question is, can we get through today in order to celebrate tomorrow’s promise? Can we hold on to enough of what is good, what God provides, to see the birth of new life? The scripture stories suggest God will always be there, always provide some path, some way that leads to freedom, peace and joy. Today Zachariah saw the future in the birth of his own son. What do we see that says life is good? What one thing, situation or person can be a sign of a new reality for tomorrow? It’s only a day away.

Advent, December 17

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Gen 49:2, 8-10, Psalm 72:1-4, 7-8, 17, Matthew 1:1-17

Matthew begins, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” And then we get this difficult and rather tedious list of ancestry which in the end doesn’t actually biologically connect to Jesus.

These opening lines tell us what is important to Matthew and I think what should therefore be important to us. Jesus, the King, the ultimate savior, the anointed of God, the one we have been waiting for, is one of us. This is not John’s Gospel where the Son of Man exists before the earth. For Matthew, this Jesus has a human ancestry. It says, if you want to know Jesus, you have to look at where he came from. This Jesus has a history. Its place is Hebrew Scripture, what we call the Old Testament.

We get a little review of the whole story of Israel in that list of names. Beginning with Abraham and going through King David and all the rest, with some notable women as well. For me concretizing Jesus’ history emphasizes the central reality of the Incarnation, God is with us. To know Jesus is to get close to the human history that formed him. To know God is to pay attention to the reality in which God operates. This world is the access point for developing a relationship with God. Therefore, being close to God is not an ethereal or distant exercise. It is comprised of living attentively to the reality of everyday life. We need to take the time to pay attention to our own experience, our own history. The perspective from which to view our world is the one Jesus gave us. A loving, gentle but principled approach is how we are to live in this world.

All this means that the world is a graced existence. That is the view emphasized at this time of year when we celebrate the gift God has given us in Jesus, God’s very self. In so doing God has reminded us of how giving to others is the key creative work we can do to make the world a place of peace and joy.

The peace and joy of Jesus Christ, son of God, be with you all.

Monday, Third Week of Advent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17 Psalm 25:4-9, Matthew 21:23-27

There is a strong Advent reference in the last verse from Numbers. Balaam sees that “A star shall advance from Jacob.” That’s the verse that jumps out at me. Balaam makes an amazing claim,

“The utterance of a man whose eye is true,
The utterance of one who hears what God says,
and knows what the Most High knows,
Of one who sees what the Almighty sees,
enraptured, and with eyes unveiled.”

Maybe because we know he’s a prophet we accept this without much question. However, we should pause to realize this says something terribly significant for our understanding of God and God’s relationship with us. He is saying God is intimately knowable. I don’t mean we can gain some access to how the world works or see the future. I mean knowable like two people who love each other and have been married for a long time. Two friends who have spent years together and can enjoy each other’s company without having to do much of anything. Each of these people knows the strengths, weaknesses, cares and desires of the other. That kind of knowing goes beyond information to a felt sense of connection, a loving connection.

That’s the kind of knowing that John of Cross talks about in “The Ascent of Mount Carmel.” He gives an outline of spiritual growth including famously, the dark night of the soul, which leads to spiritual union with God. I’m not suggesting we all are going to try to be mystics in the classic sense. However, I think we all are capable of having our “eyes unveiled” to see and hear what God is doing in our lives. That is what the eminent Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner was talking about when he said that all Christians in the future would be mystics or not exist at all. He was discussing people having a personal experience of God, an intimate knowing. Even the Psalm for today repeats over and over how God teaches us. We may think of this as a reference to right behavior but I think it also points to learning about how God operates with goodness and kindness. It says we can learn God’s ways if we are willing to be humble.

Which brings us to Matthew’s Gospel and the chief priests and elders who have an opportunity to learn something about what God is doing right there in front of them. Instead, they feel threatened and are unwilling to be seen as making a mistake. That’s something I’m sensitive to. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, well maybe more than a bit. So I can see how the learned in the crowd don’t want to be caught making a mistake and losing some respect from the people who know them. Basically that’s what at stake in the Gospel. Jesus has been teaching and doing wonderful things for people. The elders don’t like or understand what’s going on. However, instead of a genuine inquiry, instead of seeking the truth in the situation they adopt a defensive stance. Their very question of Jesus’ authority is really a challenge not a question. As a result they learn nothing about Jesus or what his work is about.

How often do we not understand what is going on in our lives? These are situations that can look like challenges, places where we feel vulnerable, uncertain what others will think, and where we question what we ourselves think is best. This is not the time to be defensive, obstinate or fearful. Rather these are times that require the true eye of the prophet Balaam. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves, that willingness to be humble. That way we won’t shove away what honesty might reveal. We might learn something. We won’t shove away what might be a path to a deeper self-understanding which is the only way to come closer to God’s real presence with us.

Advent, December 8

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Immaculate Conception: Blessed Virgin Mary

Genesis 3:9-15, 20, Psalm 98:1-4, Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12, Luke 1: 26-38

Today the readings from Genesis and Luke are foundational stories of faith: the sin of Adam and the announcement of Jesus’ virginal conception. The stories are here as a way to celebrate an article of faith about Mary, her Immaculate Conception. It is an example of how the body of belief develops over time. One thing we hold as central, Jesus is the son of God born because of God’s action not human initiative, leads to the realization that something else makes sense as well, Mary was conceived without original sin because she would be the mother of Jesus.

Faced with these long accepted items of faith, it is important for me to remember that these stories are how we convey meaning. We tell stories to hold ideas that are the most elemental and far reaching for our existence. These are often ideas we can’t fully grasp, we’re trying to capture what may be elemental instincts about who we are and what we’re about and a narrative illustrates rather than analyzes. A narrative can hold contradictory elements better than logical arguments and so the normative measure of our faith is a book of stories and poetry.

So to honor Mary’s Immaculate Conception is, for me, to talk about how God reaches out to all human beings from the very beginning of our lives to offer us the grace, support or presence that enables us to live happy, productive, holy lives. In simpler terms, Mary represents the perfect example of what is possible for all of us.

So that said, what do I see in today’s readings? It occurs to me that perhaps we don’t take the story of Mary seriously enough. What I mean is that it’s too easy to make Mary perfect. We assume her relationship with God was so special that it’s an unattainable single instance of graced existence. I suspect the story is meant to inspire the opposite. We should take the life of Mary as an example of what is named in both Genesis and Luke, “nothing will be impossible for God.” We all have a blessed existence.

There is strong support for this line of thinking in the Hebrews reading for today. It says God, “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens … to be holy and without blemish before him.” That’s pretty strong, to be holy and without blemish. It sounds like a description of Mary or, for that matter, Jesus. The point being that we too are beloved of God, each of us. Too often we don’t accept our own goodness. Life experiences and other people run us down, raising questions about our abilities or intentions. Too often our confidence and positive self-image are fragile. We need the support of others, we need to recognize that from the beginning we have been good and at our deepest core it is goodness that supports who we want to become. That’s what we should take away from the stories about Mary and Jesus in the Bible. God made us, from the beginning, to be holy and good and happy. Believe it.

Friday, First Week of Advent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Isaiah 29:17-24, Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14, Matthew 9:27-31

In the history of Christian faith we too often project the promises of the Messiah into the life after death. In this view, God’s reign is about what we call heaven and we must suffer through this life to get there. Although life after death certainly is the ultimate realm of God’s presence I don’t believe it excludes the hope that faith, real trust in God, might well result in God’s reign and our crazy, amazing happiness in the here and now.

I say this today because today’s readings seem to scream this viewpoint. The Isaiah verses begin with the imagery we’ve come to expect for God’s Reign, the deaf hear, the blind see, the poor rejoice. But then I would contend it gets personal, and it’s this getting personal and individual that pushes me toward feeling this is about our life and our time. Isaiah talks about the God who redeemed Abraham and how Jacob’s kids will see God’s work and praise God as a result. Finally it ends with how those who “err in spirit” and “find fault” will receive instruction and acquire understanding. We’re talking about kids coming to respect their parents and other people who change their minds and accept something new. That sounds like a life process not some sacred after death revelation. To me it hints that we should rethink what Isaiah may be saying when he talks of “a very little while.”

Matthew’s gospel is a wonderfully personal story of two blind men who manage to follow Jesus to where he is staying and simply don’t give up. Jesus who has been working cures all over the place simply asks them if they believe he can cure them and they say they do. So he touches their eyes and prays that the cure happen “according to your faith.” In Matthew’s gospel Jesus regularly refers to or engages the faith of the person being cured. Here he not only has asked them if they believe in him but then stipulates the cure is based on their faith. It places additional emphasis on the need for personal trust. This is not about abstract theory. It’s not about big picture Salvation. It’s about these two men trusting another person, who he is and what that means for them. I think the personal element is emphasized when Jesus tells them not to tell anyone. He is doing this for them not as a means to larger ends.

This kind of up close and personal action says to me that Jesus is the message. God comes into this world to make people’s lives better. Isaiah could talk about it as a possibility but Jesus is the living proof that life can be better right now. Changing our lives in this life certainly is the message that the Psalmist is singing about. First, the Lord is a refuge from fear. Fear is not an afterlife problem. Second, she wants to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of her life and finally and most explicitly, “I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD in the land of the living.”

I think this emphasis on individual, personal trust and subsequent change is important because it suggests how God may actually work in the world: one person, one situation at a time. No big obvious sea change but each of us being willing to trust that God can do this in our lives: drive out fear, open hearts, enable generosity and love. Each of us having our eyes opened so we can see what we couldn’t before. By coming to a better understanding of what is possible in this world, we can rejoice in it and now, be sure to pass it on to someone else.

Advent, December 23

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Malachi 3: 1-4, 23-24, Psalm 25: 4-5, 8-10, 14, Luke 1: 57-66

Can’t you just feel the anticipation? Here we are so close, one more day and it’s Christmas. A time of wonderful excitement. That’s what is in our readings this morning. It is best expressed in the Psalm response for the day, “Lift up your heads and see; your redemption is near at hand.” No more negative thoughts, no more feelings that we can’t or shouldn’t, now is the time for everything that is new and hopeful.

That is certainly what the Gospel presents. Elizabeth gives birth to their long awaited son. As if to emphasize how new and amazing this is, he is not named for anyone in the family but a new name, John, which describes exactly what has happened, Yahweh has shown favor. This is why the villagers are amazed because there is no precedent for naming a child other than an existing family name. John is the living example of doing something “out of the box.” Zechariah, of course, knows exactly what’s going on and his first reaction is to use his renewed voice to praise God for such a wonderful gift.

Here we are one day from Christmas with all our expectations still jumping. This annual celebration of Christ bringing light into the darkness. Here in the middle of winter, cold, bleak and dark, we’re about to receive the Light of the world. Whatever has made you hang your head, the psalm speaks to you, “Lift up your head and see…” We have been in the dark long enough. Now’s the time for new life and joy because old things are passing away. They are being transformed. That’s what the first reading is saying to Israel, the refiner’s fire will purify the gold and silver. We may have had trouble finding God, we may have wondered if God was ever going to be there for us but now we will be transformed into giddy little children with a new toy, a new joy, seeing the gifts of God for ourselves.

I think Malachi points us to the kind of transformation we should expect. This is a transformation that turns the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. These are changes of heart, changes of outlook, changes inside ourselves that make all the difference in who we are. Then maybe we’ll find our own voices of praise and be like Zechariah who learned that anything is possible with God, including a new born son. Christmas may only come once each year, however its joy is available anytime. We have to be alert for the person or situation that is God’s messenger and be willing to accept something new.

Advent, December 21

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Song of Songs 2:8-14, Psalm 33:2-3, 11-12, 20-21, Luke 1:39-45

As I have said in other reflections I believe we too often spiritualize God’s relationship with us. We keep God at a distance by making contact with God something elusive, ethereal and just not substantive. Today’s readings see the God/human relationship as amazingly up close and personal.

In Song of Songs the connection is openly sexual. The woman in the Song of Songs starts out by repeatedly calling the man her lover. She describes him in wonderfully admiring, masculine terms of strength and prowess. He in turn uses pet names and admiration for her beauty to ask her to reveal herself and come to him. As part of Wisdom literature there aren’t any of the references to The Lord or God that you would find in other parts of Hebrew Scripture. However, the accepted understanding is these poems are in the Bible because they are descriptions of the relationship between God and his chosen people. The description here is of two people who not only love each other they are chasing each other.

The same theme can be seen in part of today’s Psalm response. God’s plan is described as “the design of his heart.” There is an inheritance that goes to “the people he has chosen.” And the response of the people is, “our soul waits,” “our hearts rejoice,” and “we trust.” My point is simply that these words are talking about an intimate relationship with real life consequences.

In Luke’s Gospel we have not one but two examples of God’s intimate relationship with God’s people. Elizabeth was too old to have children but conceives a child anyway. Mary, a virgin, will give birth to the Savior because she has trusted in God. The story of these two women and their sons illustrates that God’s presence is here as part of human life. Perhaps just as importantly it is a story of joy. What could be more exciting and joyful than having a child? Circumstances would seem to have prevented both these pregnancies but here they are “with child” and excited to share the news.

Mary has rushed to see Elizabeth and Elizabeth with nothing more than a greeting from Mary is filled with the Spirit of the moment. She knows Mary is pregnant and that the child is the long awaited Savior. They have come together to share their joy of new life, the children they will bear. They have a special reason to be thankful. They recognize their children, these new lives, as gifts from God. The challenge for us is to be able to recognize the moments that leap for joy within us, as gifts from God.

Like the young lovers in the Sons of Songs, so excited to embrace each other, so excited to yearn and need each other, we too should gaze through windows, peer through lattices to find the God who seeks us. The story of these two women tells us the Spirit of God is within each of us. There are fresh new lives ready to be born. Will we, like Elizabeth, recognize them? Will we trust enough, like Mary, to embrace what is offered? Human birth happens every day all over this planet. Could it be that God’s gifts are just as plentiful, just as common? Perhaps the more we come together, as Mary and Elizabeth did, the easier it is to see them.

Advent, December 22

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

1 Samuel 1:24-28, 1 Samuel 2:1, 4-8, Luke 1:46-56

Both of today’s readings fit in the context of the last several days. Each day we have had women who have become pregnant only after God has intervened on their behalf. It’s important to know that at this point in history, and for the writer, a woman’s value was largely measured by her ability to produce children. To be barren was socially embarrassing because it was seen as a punishment from God. So telling a story about God enabling a woman to give birth is to validate and vindicate her in very real terms.

1 Samuel tells of Hannah giving her son Samuel to the Lord. Samuel was born only after she had prayed in the same Temple for God to give her a child. If she had a child, she promised to give him to God’s service. The idea of giving away your child even if he was understood to be a gift from God seems terrible. It raises the question of what it might mean to be dedicated to the Lord. I think the answer is found with Mary who also, even more explicitly, was given a child by God only to have her son be totally dedicated to God. That however, is to get ahead of our narrative. Today we have what Mary says about her experience of God having “done great things for” her.

What Mary says about God is modelled after what Hannah said after giving up Samuel at the Temple. In fact, much of today’s Responsorial Psalm comes from what Hannah says in 1 Samuel 2:1-10. This heightens the parallel between the two women. It helps me see more clearly the “lowly servant” aspect of Mary’s statement. I have tended to think of this phrase as merely a statement of humility. But the link to Hannah makes me realize Luke is talking about the humiliation of women and all people who are discriminated against and seen as second class. Mary is speaking as one who has no status, no power. Such a woman does not understand herself as one who could act on her own behalf. Which makes the praises Mary and Hannah sing even the more amazing. Hannah says because of God: “I have swallowed up my enemies; I rejoice in my victory.” Mary says, “From this day all generations will call me blessed.”

I believe both these women are describing what happens when someone experiences God’s immediate loving presence. In narrative terms, Mary has become pregnant with God’s son and Hannah has given over her son, her only claim to personhood, to the service of God. These actions have empowered them and therefore changed their entire world view. I think it makes them not just visionaries of some vague future but participants in the reign of God here and now.

They see, understand and operate in the world in a new way: the proud are scattered, the mighty are cast down and, on the opposite side, the hungry are filled and the lowly lifted up. Mary says all this is the fulfillment of God’s promises. The world is changed, the reign of God spreads, now, in this life, one person at a time.

I don’t think this suggests a mystical experience of God’s presence is required for us to change the way we live. I do think that the more we reflect on what happens in our lives, searching for and recognizing how God is present in it, the more we will be able to act with love, concern and courage. In other words, the more we try to come closer to God, the more God transforms who we are and the lives we live, until in the end it makes sense to give ourselves away.

Advent, December 19

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a, Psalm 71:3-6, 16-17, Luke 1:5-25

The only way to begin looking at today’s readings is to point out the distinct parallel of two women, barren and derided because of it, hearing from an angel of God that they will bear a son. Sons who will “begin the deliverance of Israel.” Luke is using this pattern to connect his story of salvation with Israel’s historical and religious story of liberation. For us, set in this Advent season before Christmas it emphasizes a sense of preparation. God doesn’t just drop in out of nowhere. God arrives as part of the history that people already know. God is woven into the patterns of life we understand.

On an individual basis it’s interesting that these men who are going to prepare the way for God’s saving of Israel are being chosen before they were born. God isn’t asking them to change lives that are well underway like Moses or Abraham or any of the apostles. These guys will “be consecrated to God from the womb.” This condition is also claimed for Isaac, Samuel, Jesus, of course, and Catholics believe it was also true for Mary in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Each of these people have a special role to play in salvation history. They are models of being committed to God literally from womb to tomb.

Personally I think these stories are a way to tell us how God operates all the time. We are all chosen before birth as God’s children and empowered by the Spirit to make good things happen. To free our people from fear and hatred through love and mercy. The part we need to remember is that from the beginning, our very beginning, we have not been alone. God put this all in motion. The issue for us is to recognize that we have been “filled with the Holy Spirit” from our mother’s womb and “the Spirit of the Lord stirred” us so we would have the strength to make the world a better place. Our Psalm today says exactly the same thing. “On you I depend from birth; from my mother’s womb you are my strength.”

This is the last week of Advent, shortly the Christmas story will go even further saying that God’s very self comes into our world. For now these readings suggest God has been acting in human history, acting in our lives, for a long time. Maybe it says that before we can rejoice in a God fully present, see ourselves as supported by a God of love, we should look for markers throughout our lives. Maybe we need to consider everything from the beginning to get a true sense of what is valuable for us. A good look back may help us recognize what brought us to this time when everything is about to change. When even if we have felt barren and empty a new child is about to be born.

Friday, Second Week of Advent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Isaiah 48:17-19, Psalm 1:1-4, 6, Matthew 11:16-19

How hard is it for us to take advice? Sometimes nearly impossible. Husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, parents and our children can often seem naturally resistant to the advice given by those closest to us. So it’s not really a surprise that we find today’s readings complaining about the same thing. In Isaiah, God points out that if we paid attention to God’s message our lives would be as easy as water flowing downhill and that our prosperity would last for generations. Jesus, in Matthew’s Gospel, is frustrated with people who dismiss God’s message no matter how it is presented.

My suspicion is that we don’t always respond to God’s call because it comes in ways that are too familiar, too much a part of everyday life. We want what people in the Gospels said they wanted, signs. Big signs that would startle our sense of the ordinary. Then surely we would recognize God’s presence and adjust our way of living. The issue is, it didn’t work even when John the Baptist and Jesus were alive and confronting the populace. John, was fire and brimstone and Jesus, was gentle and accepting, and yet according to Matthew in today’s reading Jesus is upset that people aren’t hearing the message either way.

The problem, as I see it, is how we think of God and what we expect God would do if God were, in fact, acting in our lives. Too often our God is a distant reality and all powerful in an overt sense. It’s harder to see God as intimately a part of life, so familiar that God’s power is expressed in the very reality we see around us every day. Instead of looking for God in outsized events and dramatic actions we would be better served to look for God in the deepest part of ourselves. In the same way that we resist the advice of those closest to us because we don’t want to admit they know us that well, we might consider that situations and thoughts that resonate with us are a sign of loving presence.

That sense of resonance is the basis of praying with Holy Scripture. We read a passage and something catches our attention. Sometimes we like what we read and other times it doesn’t make sense or it upsets us. If we take the time to listen to our reaction and the passage we may discover something that is meant for us. Prayer, of this type, is about listening to what resonates with our own deepest selves. More importantly, it is an indicator of something larger, a connection to God’s presence, which can operate, not just when reading Scripture, but all the time in relation to daily life situations. What happens in every moment of life can be a contact point with God’s love because all of creation is an expression of God.

The challenge we have is to be open to it. There are many books about mindfulness which is another non-religious description of what I’m talking about. Today’s readings suggest to me that the challenge to recognizing God’s presence in our lives is we often don’t pay enough honest attention to exactly what going on for us. Just as we are resistant to the advice from those closest to us, we don’t listen to our own life as a source of divine revelation. We shouldn’t be looking for signs and wonders to step in and guide us or fix this or that. We should be learning to see and hear the reality of our lives, what we respond to, what excites or worries us and then discover the message contained in that response and circumstance. The Gospel today suggests God’s message can come in very different forms. But it won’t make any difference to us unless we’re willing to see and listen.