Hos. 10:1-3,7-8,12, Psalm 105:2-7, Mt. 10:1-7

Todays’ readings are about being chosen, and I would say, the challenge of being chosen.

Hosea speaks of the heartbreak of Israel going from being faithful to God and then being defiant. Matthew’s gospel tells of those men chosen to be the Apostles and given a big job to do as a result. Even here with Jesus doing the choosing there is literally a Judas in the group. Choosing and being chosen doesn’t always yield the best results.

My observation is simply these readings are about each of us. As Christians we believe we are all individually chosen by God. We are all asked to have faith. In this case that means to accept that we are loved and cared for.

 We know that like the Apostles, we don’t always live up to the gifts or the tasks God has given us. However, it is our time and we should not be dissuaded from following the advice of today’s Psalm:

“Look to the LORD in his strength, seek to serve him constantly.
Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought, his portents, and the judgments he has uttered.”

Along with the message Jesus gave to his Apostles, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand” perhaps we can live that heavenly reality of being chosen, a beloved one of God.

Hosea 8:4-7,11-13, Ps 115:3-10, Mt 9:32-38

There seems to a lot of different things going on in today’s readings. I would like to simply give you my impressions about them. Often when you pray by using the Bible as a starting point the best thing you can do is simply pay attention to what strikes you and then stay with and follow the reaction you have to it. That is what seemed important to do with these readings.

When I listened to the reading from Hosea, I heard a God who is truly disappointed in His people. Israel is making Kings and establishing princes even creating godlike artwork all without reference or acknowledgement of the God of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah. As a result, God laments, “How long will they be unable to attain innocence in Israel?” Then a little later God says, “Though I write for him my many ordinances, they are considered as a stranger’s”. Hosea goes to far as to say, “God shall … punish their sins: they shall return to Egypt.  I don’t think it’s a surprise that God is upset when he sees Israel doing things that will only hurt themselves. Ultimately God doesn’t want to see Israel return to Egypt. I don’t think the verse means actually going back to the land of Egypt but I think it means that when we separate ourselves from the good God wants for us, we end up in a kind of slavery, a bondage to attitudes and outlooks that are not the freedom God wants for us.

This same kind of thing is going on in the Gospel. Jesus is freeing people from the many things that have kept them from living a full human life. In this case, it starts with driving a demon out of a man and while some people are amazed at what Jesus does the Pharisees can’t accept that this is an act of love and graciousness. So, once again, I don’t think it is a surprise that Jesus says that the crowds of people make him think of sheep without a shepherd. He does good things for people and even these good things like curing disease and spiritual healing end up being a source of division among people. People didn’t know who to trust or believe.

Today we know far more about how people can be different from one another than Jesus and people in his time would have known. Not only do we know more about the planet as a whole and therefore, its huge cultural differences between nations and races but also the psychological and personality differences between people even in the same family. The human capacity for difference is amazing. Each of us can interpret situations and people in startlingly different ways. So often we are divided from one another in what we believe and how we react to the world around us. All this inherent difference is, of course, also a blessing. Because as St. Paul points out in his letters we each have different gifts to bring to the Body of Christ. The difficulty is accepting another person’s difference as a good thing. Too often we see what is not familiar as wrong or at least a problem to be solved.

Jesus may not have known about the Enneagram or the Myers-Briggs type indicator but he understood that people could only be free and joyful if they could love and care for each other. None of us is going to be happy isolated on our own. Each of us has to be a worker in this kind of harvest. For centuries the harvest wasn’t brought in by a few elite, highly educated and trained workers. No really important or great harvest gets gathered by a few. The great harvests come in because everybody goes out in the field and brings in what she or he can. It is a group effort. The harvest of heaven, the harvest of joy, the harvest of a fulfilling life, the harvest of peace on this earth will take all of us. Each of us will have to take loving care of our piece of reality. Then we won’t look like sheep without a shepherd but like disciples who know very well what needs to be done.

Hosea 2:16-18, 21-22, Psalm 145:2-9, Matthew 9:18-26

I may be wrong about this but I think, too often, we associate salvation and the coming of God’s Kingdom with life after death. That’s certainly how it was portrayed to me as I grew up. You lived and sacrificed in this life to earn the reward of heaven after death. I certainly believe that’s true but it can have an element of over emphasis on life after death. An over emphasis on the heavenly kingdom can lead us to believe that somehow this life is primarily a testing ground to prove ourselves worthy for heaven. As if all that’s important is getting to heaven.

          Today’s readings can help us get a more balanced view. They speak of the amazing coincidence of physical and spiritual in this life. I think what is miraculous is how flesh is infused with spirit. How spirit emerges in everyday existence and how physical pains and set-backs can dampen spirit. If Jesus is God’s message to the world, then we have to take seriously our doctrine of incarnation. Because what it says is that God and human existed together in Jesus, one, unified person. If Jesus is God’s message, then God is telling us something about this world and ourselves. This world and therefore our lives are infused with the spirit of God. We just have to be open to it. We have to have what we call faith.

          Having faith is the key element in the Gospel today. We have the stories of two women, one a young girl who had died and another who bleeds all the time and is therefore unclean and a pariah according to Jewish law. One story is told inside the other. This is a writing technique of the time which is meant to tell the reader that the story in the middle carries the meaning for both. The technique is called a “sandwich,” because the good stuff is in the middle between the other two halves. The story of raising the little girl to life is the frame. It’s the ultimate miracle because a person comes back from death to life. But the story of the woman reaching out to touch the tassel of Jesus cloak holds the truth that Matthew is trying to teach. This outcast has reached out because she believes to touch Jesus is to be healed. Matthew’s Jesus responds to her touch by saying what we need to know, “Your faith has saved you.”

          This is the physical and spiritual coming together. Her physical outreach is the expression of her faithful spirit. Jesus responds with physical healing and his words encourage her spirit. It’s all rolled up together. The reality of this moment is so concrete that the Greek word we read as “healed” in this translation is the same word used for saved. Matthew understands this woman’s healing as her being saved. We too should to try to understand salvation as part of our lives here and now and not just after death.

          The bible is full of these concrete images of God’s intimacy with human existence. The reading from Hosea is another example of that. To talk about the relationship between God and Israel, Hosea uses the description of a love affair between a man and his wife. We need to take these stories as more than metaphorical images. No doubt the physicality of these images is used because God’s presence in the here and now is so intimate that we have a hard time believing it.

          How close are we willing to let God come to us? Can we let go enough to know God as present? Or will we hold on to how we think of ourselves too tightly and only guess at God’s love from afar? Many of us are married for many years. What did it take to become close, to come to know your spouse over the years? What giving up was involved, what trust in the other? But tell me, what joy is it to be that close, to have that faith. What joy is it … to be saved!

Annually September 21

Ephesians 4: 1-7, 11-13, Psalm 19: 2-5, Matthew 9:9-13

Today’s Psalm tells the story of the readings so beautifully that I thought we should start there. Here is the New Jerusalem translation of the Psalm that captures its sense even more clearly than the New American version.

The sky tells the glory of God,

Tells the genius of God’s work.

Day carries the news to day,

Night brings the message to night,

Without a word, without a sound,

Without a voice being heard,

Yet their message fills the world,

Their news reaches its rim.

This is what we are being asked to join. A world that in its very existence speaks the glory of God. We, of course, as humans don’t do it automatically we must decide. We must choose to live and act in a way that speaks of God and the beauty God bestows.

Importantly we are all called. That’s the focus of the call of Matthew. As a tax collector he would have been shunned and as we read the Pharisees considered him a sinner, one who betrayed the Jewish faith by extorting money as part of cooperating with the Roman empire. But as we so often see Jesus chooses those people that others dismiss as unworthy. Jesus routinely seeks out the poor, the outcasts and the politically offensive to join the kingdom he is creating. Jesus asks people to live a new life right now, to change paths and take on the beauty of the Psalm as human beings. To live as described in Ephesians, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit”

          I think there’s a hidden twist in Paul statement. He wants us to “preserve the unity of the Spirit.” Notice he didn’t say create a unity of love, as if somehow everything was at loose ends and we as humans had to help God make the world a better place. No, he says, “preserve the unity of the Spirit.” I think that is an indication that the Psalm is accurate in maintaining that creation itself speaks the love and beauty of God. The issue is, will we preserve the unity? Can we, because we believe in one God, one Body and Spirit, an overall unity in the world, be humble, gentle and patient? Will we preserve the beauty and balance that God put in place? Doesn’t it help make more sense of why Jesus chose outcasts, the poor and the sinners. He wasn’t looking for a dynamic work force or highly powered people to fix the world but people who would recognize a gift when they saw it. People who could be grateful and return love to all around them. People who could show mercy because mercy had been shown to them. Can we accept what God offers and live our lives as expressions of love, humble, gentle and kind? Perhaps we aren’t being asked to change the world just ourselves.

1 Kings 21: 1-16, Ps 5:2-3,5-7.  Matt 5: 38-42

          Whenever I read Scripture I am reminded that there are at least two distinct ways to approach the text. One is to study it as a document written centuries ago to a group of people whose way of life was completely different from ours. Another way is to approach the reading prayerfully watching for those things that stand out to me. Words or phrases that appeal to me or words or phrases that I find disturbing, that bother me for some reason. I would like to suggest to you this morning that both ways are helpful and one way of reading the Bible can help the other since it is God who is revealed in the words no matter which way you look at it.

          In the Gospel today we hear the familiar and often quoted, “You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” And Jesus’ responds, “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other to him as well.”

          That always bothered me, because it seems to suggest that people shouldn’t defend themselves and it is often used as a justification for pacifism of many kinds. This is where taking a close look at the text as a document from long ago becomes helpful.

          Jesus is a Jew who is talking to other Jews. So his reference to “an eye for eye” is his Scripture, what we refer to as the Old Testament. The eye for eye idea appears explicitly at least three times in the Old Testament: Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The most elaborate listing is in Exodus, “If further harm is done, you will award life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stroke for stroke.”

          Sounds pretty terrible doesn’t it. But this listing of rules, once you read a little more, is not primarily about rigorous justice it is about limiting people’s vengeance. It seems the problem being addressed is people wanting punishment that far exceeds the original injury. People want to retaliate against those that do them injury. People don’t want any limits on satisfying their sense of injury and being wronged. I think we can still recognize that behavior today. So the eye for an eye puts a limit on the punishment so it doesn’t exceed the injury.

          In the same way King Ahab wanted what he wanted. There was this nice vineyard that sat next to his palace in Jezreel. He was the King, so why shouldn’t he have it. You get an idea of how spoiled he was when Kings says, he laid down on his bed and wouldn’t eat. Doesn’t that sound like a pouting child? Unfortunately, in this case, it meant Naboth died for standing up for the law of Israel which said ancestral lands should not be sold. To have taken Naboth’s land was to take his identity.

          Jesus, as we know, says something else. Jesus isn’t saying you shouldn’t defend yourself if someone attacks you. But he is saying that even proportional retaliation is not the way God acts. The law is about being just and fair. God is about love and generosity. Which is clearer in the last words of today’s Gospel, “Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.”

          Can we accept Jesus’ challenge to go beyond what is expected? Can we forgive even when we have been injured? Can we forgo something that belongs to us? Can we go beyond the measured response? When do we find ourselves holding back, can we do more than we have to?  When someone needs us, can we respond with the generosity of love? Can we?

2 Corinthians 6:1-10, Psalm 98:1-4, Matthew 5: 38-42

The issue of time and what it means is at the heart of today’s readings.

What struck me is Paul’s statement “that now is a very acceptable time and behold, now is the day of salvation.” We have traditionally thought of the day of salvation as the time of the second coming, the end of the world, or perhaps more personally as the time of our own death when we hope to be taken into heaven. All of these can be properly labeled as the day of salvation but it isn’t the only time that should be thought of that way. The rest of what Paul says in this letter leads me to believe he is being much more specific, much more immediate. It is important for us to recognize the time he is talking about, otherwise we will, in fact, miss the day of salvation that is being offered to us.

Paul says, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation. We could say OK like this year, or perhaps this week or could it be today? But the problem is we often are thinking that this salvation is something that is happening to us. Something delivered by God from outside of ourselves. In this sense we tend to wait for it to happen. How could salvation be today, it’s all too normal. Sunny day, regular schedule of activities, the same people I always meet. This doesn’t look like the day of salvation because surely salvation has to be different, a wonderful thing. Salvation will change everything. We sit back and wait for it, for salvation to happen.

I want to suggest that Paul is talking about the big now, right now, this moment in time when whatever happens next is dependent on us. I want to suggest that salvation, the time acceptable to God is every time we decide to do something or not do anything. Salvation is when life responds fully to God’s call. When the earth will no longer be wracked with wars but blossom in peace. I believe Jesus and Paul were trying to tell us that each moment in our life an appropriate time to change the world. Each moment holds the potential for a new life and for peace and love and unbelievable compassion for others. It exists each time we make it so with the decisions we make for ourselves.

My evidence for this outlook is right in today’s letter to the Corinthians. Paul is saying how believers in God act. He does not describe a rosy environment a placid afternoon admiring the flowers. Instead, he talks about afflictions, constraints, beatings and riots. And in these situations, he says we should have patience, kindness, unfeigned love and truthful speech. There isn’t a single word about the outcome of all this. He is merely describing what people need to do in the moment. His concern is the believer’s behavior. Because, I would claim, it is in the believer’s behavior that the day of salvation lies. Those are the acceptable moments that God desires when we are treated as deceivers yet we are truthful, when ought to be sorrowful yet are always rejoicing, when we are treated as poor yet are able to enrich others, when we look like nobodies with nothing to our name but are recognized as possessing the riches of life that others struggle to find.

This is the message of our Gospel today as well. Instead of reacting to hatred and evil with more conflict and aggression. Make the decision to bring salvation by changing the way the world works. Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give more than you are asked for. In each moment, salvation, a joyous acceptable time is possible. We do not have to wait for it. The possibility is there if we will do it now.

2 Corinthians 3:15-4:1, 3-6, Ps 85:9-14, Matthew 5:20-26

          I think, these two readings are a great example of how God writes straight with crooked lines. What I mean is that the readings are not only written by two different authors but they are addressed to different audiences and for different purposes. Yet for us today there is a strong unified message once we take a closer look.

          In Paul we are reading a letter to non-Jewish Christians in Corinth defending his view of the Gospel against other religious preachers who are out promoting their own version of Christianity. Matthew on the other hand is talking to Jewish Christians for whom he wants to emphasize how Jesus does not abandon the Law but strengthens it.

For us Matthew’s Gospel presents a very strong statement by Jesus saying,  don’t think that coming to Church is more important than your everyday responsibilities. Be sure you are attending to the relationships you have with others before you presume to try to strengthen your relationship with God.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he emphasizes how the Spirit of God works in us to transform us into God’s image. Just as God intended to transform the world with the creation of the earth so he seeks to transform us through the action of Jesus.

Both authors are talking about a conversion, a change of heart. Paul talks about the veil that prevents some people from seeing God. Notice it is a veil over their hearts, not a veil of the mind but a veil that affects the deepest part of us. This is like Matthew who says it isn’t only the murder of a person that separates someone from God but simply anger at your brother. Wrongdoing isn’t just the action we do wrong, more importantly, it is the emotional state that motivates the action. Not only must we attend to everyday emotions that can create the rifts between people, he mentions calling someone a name or labeling people, but it is that our deepest emotional level determines who we are and how we relate to others and therefore also how we relate to God.

Matthew identifies that change of heart, that conversion, with the act of being reconciled to another person. To be reconciled is a change in how we feel. The kind of feelings we have about certain people in general or individuals, like family members. These are the kind of feelings that underlie our outlook everyday, how we see the stuff of our life. It is not a matter of law or the courts but one of human relationships and how we feel about what goes on in our life. To look at these feelings and bring about a change here is also the kind of change that will bring us closer to God. Because we are admitting to ourselves what is really happening below the surface. Getting this close to God is about dealing with emotions, letting go of feelings that are part of who we are. Matthew suggests being that honest with ourselves can feel very threatening, like being closed in. He says, like being thrown into prison. It also entails a commitment that could seem very risky much like something that would cost you your last penny. Are we ready to be that honest with ourselves, to go “all in?”

James 4: 1-10, Ps 55:7-11,23, Mark 9: 30-37

Sometimes it’s hard to see the connection between the two readings that are assigned for the day. Not today. The letter of James is asking where conflict comes from while in Mark’s Gospel the Apostles are in the middle of a fight about who is the greatest, acting like spoiled children.

The reading from James suggests that our conflicts with each other come from conflicts within ourselves. We want things we can’t attain so we go after them in forceful ways. But even deeper than that James says we don’t even know who we are. He says we are made to want what God wants so that if we were truly faithful our desires would match God’s desires for us and then we would, in fact, receive everything we wanted. Not because God gives people everything they might want at any given time but that we would be so “close to God” that our desire would match God’s generosity.

I think James is pushing us toward a passionate involvement with God. I say this because he accuses his readers of being adulterers, adulterers in their relationship with God. This is the same imagery that Hosea and Isaiah use in the Old Testament about Israel’s relationship with God. James is using marriage language. He believes we should be faithful spouses. We are to be that close, that intimate with God that you know God’s every wish and desire. When two people love each other don’t they try to satisfy each other’s needs and desires? Don’t we even try to anticipate what our spouse would like and see they have it before they ask? That’s the kind of relationship that is being suggested here.

How do we do that? It seems to me that part of doing that is also like being married but in this case its one result of the eagerness to satisfy our spouse’s every desire. If I’m trying to meet your wishes I can’t get everything I want or have everything my way. Coming to love God is like learning to live with my spouse. I have to give up the idea that I’m going to be able to do everything the way I have always done it. It means recognizing the other’s concerns, the other’s idiosyncrasies and giving up part of how I may have defined myself until now. That’s what James is referring to when he says “laughter is turned into mourning.” This is letting go of things, personal, private, emotional things because of another. Isn’t that what happens when two people are in love. Don’t they become more like each other over the years and desire what the other desires?

Jesus is trying to teach the Apostles about sacrifice for others. He is telling them that he will give himself completely on the cross for the sake expressing God’s love. But they can’t hear that and they are too embarrassed to ask enough questions to help them understand. Instead, they proceed to argue about who is the greatest among them.

Jesus gives them another way to think about it. He says they have to be the servant of others, like James was saying we needed to “submit ourselves to God,” Jesus uses a child as the example of whom we need to give ourselves to. In this case, the choice of a child depicts someone who is totally vulnerable and dependent on others. To give to a child is to expect no reward or return for being generous. That is how God acts. God gives to us in total generosity knowing we can’t return the favor. the only thing we can do is act like God acts. Give to others, being willing to give up some of own desires and our concerns in order to benefit someone else. When we do that, we welcome God, we are becoming close to God and God to us. We are becoming more deeply who we were meant to be and less likely to worry about who’s the greatest among our circle of friends.

Annually August 6

Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14, 2 Peter 1: 16-19, Luke 9: 28-36

Today is the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. So we had two readings besides the Gospel and a Gloria and we’ll say the Creed in a few minutes. The feast today is all about who Jesus is. Each of the readings is emphasizing that Jesus is the Son of God or as it says in Daniel, the Son of Man. Jesus is the chosen one who literally makes God’s presence part of human history. That’s what we believe. God’s very self, we would say, the second person of the Trinity, became a human being and was revealed as such for all of humanity to know. The idea is to be big, bold and obvious about who Jesus is.

          For some of us today, that might seem pretty obvious since all Christians believe that Jesus was God’s Son and is the person behind what being Catholic and Christian is all about. But I think it has become crucial to remember that it is a person who is the center of our faith. When 2^nd Peter was written the author was warning his community that their faith was not based on “clever myths.” The prevailing religions of Romans and Greeks were elaborate stories of gods and goddesses written in their historical past. Today, we live in a society that is based on science and rational analysis. Ideas and theories are the key to intellectual integrity. That has resulted in people of faith trying to explain belief in God and religious practice in terms of concepts and outcomes. It means putting faith into contemporary terms, which is a good thing.

          However, it can also mean that our faith can be reduced to simplistic concepts in an effort to get across the idea. Teenagers when asked, often say being a Catholic means, “being a good person.” The problem is that Christianity is not so much an idea as a trust in a person, actually the trust of a relationship. In other words, it is easy today to forget that faith is a relationship with Jesus, with God. Relationships are far more complicated and enriching that ideas and theories. It means remembering that being Catholic isn’t primarily a set of rules or a moral standard or a set of practices. Being Catholic is coming to know Jesus of Nazareth so we can be part of his life, which is why the Transfiguration is such a big deal. This part of the Gospel is telling us in no uncertain terms, “listen to him.”  Why? Because “he is my chosen Son.” The transfiguration demonstrates to Peter, James and John and to us as well that Jesus is God present here and now for us. No long ago mythology, no theory of salvation nor concept of the divine but a live person who people talked to and who did things like heal the afflicted, fed the hungry and had meals with friends and enemies because to gather people together was to have a good time. Here on earth living with us was a person that Daniel understood would have the everlasting kingdom over all people for all time.

          What’s crucial is that today while Jesus of Nazareth is no longer alive his Spirit is present and active with us every day. Our challenge is to come to accept that presence and trust in the possibilities of a divine friendship. Here we are with the same chance to be with God that Peter, James and John had and perhaps we have fallen asleep, as Luke said they did, right in the middle of the action. I suspect that the transfiguration was so beyond the human experience that the Apostles “didn’t know what they were saying” or what to do and certainly wouldn’t try to tell anyone since they probably didn’t understand what had happened until long after it was over.

          We have the advantage of hindsight and a long tradition that helps us know that Jesus was and is God acting in human lives. The transfiguration should remind us who Jesus is and that our faith is above all a trusting relationship with him. My question is, have we gotten so tied up in the prayers we say each day, in the way we think about our Church, in the problems of religious leadership, in the issues around people’s behavior that we have forgotten to talk with our God, ask for God’s response to our concerns or simply sit in silence and be with the God who has tried so hard to tell us we are not alone?

Annually September 29

Rev. 12:7-12, Psalm 138:1-5, John 1:47-51

Today’s readings are about the victory of good over evil. Sometimes we need to be reminded of that. God’s good in all of creation will prevail. There are times when it doesn’t look that way and individually we can become uncertain if not discouraged because of everything we see or hear is happening around us.

There was a choice of readings this morning and I chose the one from Revelation because it talks about the fight between good and evil in really graphic terms. “War broke out in heaven.” That’s a pretty dramatic picture. No doubt you’ve seen great artwork that depicts St. Michael vanquishing the devil. This is the story that leads to those images.

It is so important that we hear what is being said. The victory is with those who believe in Jesus and share his life. Revelation was written around 95AD, after persecutions by Nero, as a reflection on those hard times. It is apocalyptic literature, which means it is written about the end of the world. Therefore, it is trying to say that in the end, literally the end of time as we know it, God’s reign will prevail.

But it is not written as a document of history or a prediction of actual events in the future. It is written to help people, then and now, better understand the source of their salvation. We are saved because of Jesus and because we believe in him and all he stood for.

What attracted me to this reading were these lines. “They conquered him by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death.” The angels beat Satan because Jesus died on the cross and all the people who believed in him. I think there is no greater line in the Gospels than, “love for life did not deter them from death.” What is it that conquers evil? The love for life that is not deterred by the fear of death. Things may not look good but we should be able to be undeterred from the love of life because even death doesn’t matter. That is the lesson of the resurrection. We have the evidence of the risen Christ that goodness wins. Even if someone or some group or natural disaster literally pummels us to death, the good wins. That is what Christianity is all about. God is so much a part of life that it is good and no evil can destroy it.

But remember this is not a history document. It is not a blueprint for world events. The Bible is about what we might easily call spiritual reality. We need to remember that spiritual reality is the deep down inside of us reality. We are the spiritual beings that scripture stories are trying to describe. The battle against evil is going on inside of us. That’s why the Psalm says, “When I called, you answered me; you built up strength within me.” Whatever is going on around us isn’t the issue. The question is, are we still loving life and unafraid of death? Are we still following Jesus? Life is good. Do we still live that way? If we are, then we will be what Revelation describes, “Therefore, rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them.”

Remember Jesus in our Gospel reading today? Jesus recognizes Nathaniel even though he hadn’t met him before and Nathaniel is so impressed he declares Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is somewhat amused by Nathaniel’s enthusiasm. Jesus tells Nathaniel that there is much more to come. He will see, “the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” That message isn’t just for Nathaniel. It is for all of us. We who believe in Jesus and share his life have the heavens open to us and we dwell there every time the love of life is not deterred by the fear of death.