Love God, Keep the Commandments

The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

Jesus tells us so beautifully today: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (Jn 14:15) You probably also recall his explanation in Matthew’s gospel:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Mt 22:37-40)

It sounds so simple: love God, love your neighbor. Problem is, sometimes we tend to filter our attitudes and behaviors through a distorting prism—so what we might consider as loving may not be so loving in God’s eyes.

There was this guy, and it was all he could do not to slap that boy. What a mouthy little twerp! He’d heard the kids fighting in the alley. What a racket! So he went out, pulled them apart, held them at full arm span distance from each other. Then he carefully explained to them how you share a ball and a glove. He actually patted himself on the back for being so patient with them. Then what gall! One of the boys actually had the nerve to ask if they could play in his yard. Very politely, he told them no, that would not be possible. All the while, he wondered who were this kid’s parents to let him be so rude to even ask that! Then the boy almost spat out the words when he said, “How do you know about sharing a glove when you keep your big fat green grass yard all to yourself?” Yeah, it was all he could do not to slap that boy.

Funny, isn’t it? We want to believe that we’re pretty good at loving God and neighbor, as Jesus commanded. We want God to always be forgiving and generous with us—even though maybe we aren’t quite so inclined to be so with others. It would serve us right if God were only as generous with us as we are with other people. But as it turns out, God always offers his blessings and graces, his mercy and forgiveness, his spectacular generosity before we even ask for them—and then always more than we could have imagined. If only we could imitate his example and keep his model of loving generosity before our eyes…

If we had to depend just on ourselves, we could easily get discouraged at our human weakness and failures. There’s a great word to describe it: double-mindedness. We really want to do the right thing, but when push comes to shove, we don’t. It’s like what’s on the inside and what’s on the outside are disconnected.

If it’s any consolation, even the greatest saints experienced the same thing. Look at Peter who vowed to stand with Christ to the ends of the earth, but took no time at all to deny him three times.

Fortunately, we Christians do not have to rely solely on ourselves. We’ve got God to help us. In fact, during this sacred and privileged Easter season, we celebrate the mystery and power of God that can easily do what appears to be humanly impossible. If God can and will raise the dead, he can and will rescue us from our far lesser burdens.

God the Father, of course, is invisible to us in our present realm. God the Son continues his reign in heaven until the Last Day when he promises to return to earth. So it is God the Holy Spirit who is doing most of the heavy lifting in our soul these days.

The Holy Spirit’s work for the most part takes place in our subconscious. His grace operates to purify our instincts, and then to redirect and rededicate them, so they better align with God’s will… with God’s commandments. As we allow the Spirit to refashion our conscience and our will, our inner self and our outward attitudes and behaviors begin to come together, to become one and the same—and best of all, united with God’s will for us.

In other words, it is the Holy Spirit’s job to take care of the thorny problems in our life. All we have to do is cooperate!

So to repeat, Jesus said: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And of course, that would include not just the two Great Commandments, but also the Ten Commandments. We all know the rules. You shall do no work on the Sabbath. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. In fact, not only do we know them, we embellish them! We multiply them! Then we judge those who fail to abide by them. We blame people with AIDS for their tragic condition. We condemn the incest victim who aborts her father’s baby. We jail the prostitute who goes after the politician’s wealth. And of course, we’re so sure that we would never fall prey to the human weaknesses that lead others to fail in living up to God’s commandments.

But no. It’s got to be something else. How come Jesus insisted on breaking the rules? Why did he heal on the Sabbath? Why did he accept the woman caught in adultery? Why did he forgive the murderer and the robber? Didn’t he know the commands of God? Shouldn’t he have stood for law and order?

I think that these twenty centuries later, Jesus still weeps over us. We have not yet learned compassion for the old woman bent double from eighteen years in spiritual bondage. We haven’t yet learned to touch the leper with healing hands. We have yet to offer alternatives to those who turn to crime because they can’t house and feed their children. We have not yet learned that there can be no justice when there is no compassion… that there can be no healing without risking. We won’t let the little boy who’s not completely satisfied with our stupid little morality lesson play in our yard.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Jesus taught us that sometimes loving him means breaking the rules. Love must supersede the law. Justice and peace must flow like a river. Let our prayer today be that the Holy Spirit will touch our hearts and grant us the compassion of his healing touch as we reach out to our sisters and brothers in God’s holy name.

Finding Your Way

The Fifth Sunday of Easter
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

In our first reading today, we see the apostles celebrate the sacrament of holy orders and ordain the very first group of deacons. The text says that the community presented seven men to the apostles “who prayed and laid hands on them.”

How did the apostles find out how to perform an ordination? You can study the bible carefully, and no place does Jesus teach them explicitly how to do this.

This is really a rather fascinating question.

People sometimes ask me what they teach you in seminary—the school where new priests are trained. Well, to begin with, there’s a certain amount of “knowledge” or “book learning” that you need to be a priest, so seminarians study the scriptures, morality, theology, church history, canon law, the sacraments, the organization of the church, and so on. There’s also training and practice sessions on how to celebrate the rites of the church: how to perform a baptism, how to hear confessions, how to say mass, how to anoint the sick. Seminary also teaches the candidates for priesthood various practical skills—everything from basic counseling to financial management for parishes.

But preparing for priesthood is not just learning a detailed set of skills. In fact, the most important aspect of priestly formation is building a relationship with Jesus Christ. The one destined to become a priest must become a person of prayer and faith, because the deepest answers do not come from a seminary class or a bishop or a church document or the pope—but from God himself—delivered individually and personally. God calls each priest by name… says “Follow me”… and then leads him by the hand along a unique path.

So back to my earlier question: how did the apostles learn to pray over their deacon candidates and lay hands on them? Very simply, from their profound relationship with Christ and by being instructed, in their heart, by the Holy Spirit. This is an ongoing process through life, and clearly one that is quite mysterious.

The wonderful dialog in the gospel between Jesus and Thomas dances around this supernatural process. Jesus tells Thomas to follow him where he’s going because he knows the way. Thomas scratches his head and says “How can I know the way when I don’t even know where you’re going?” And then Jesus delivers the mysterious line that contains the answer: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So what is the way to ordain a deacon? “I am the way,” says Jesus.

What is the way to be a priest? “I am the way,” says Jesus.

What is the way for each and every one of us to live our life? “I am the way,” says Jesus. Yes, each human being has to find their way in the Lord.

Regrettably, most people don’t bother to try. They have no interest in anything beyond their worldly concerns: food, clothes, job, sex, fun… and then one day, Game Over. It’s a bit sad.

I’m in the process, finally, of reading the last Harry Potter novel—number seven. Harry is on a magnificent quest. He doesn’t have a lot of answers. He’s really flying blind. So he has to think, pray, deduce, wrack his brain for insights, and so on, to piece together many tiny clues. Eventually, he pulls it together. But the point is, he makes his life his own. He lives on his own terms to maximize his potential and his fulfillment… and to find his mission in life.

And truthfully, it’s supposed to be the same with us. My journey is not your journey. Your journey is not my journey. Yes, we can teach each other a lot: we can share our experiences, our successes and failures, various tricks and shortcuts, and other external things to help us do stuff… BUT it’s the interior part that is special, unique and blessed. How the Spirit moves me or you is a way that’s different from how that Spirit moves any other human being. And it’s up to us, as discrete individuals, to find our own particular path. That’s the mission God has given us.

Jesus loves us without limit, and that’s why he invites us to this higher level. He says to us: you want the perfect way? That’s me. You want the best, most fulfilling, most amazing life? That’s me. You want the truth about everything you want to know? Yep, that’s also me. Right this way to your own special dwelling place in the Father’s house…

Our first step in the right direction—our first step along the way that Jesus is—is to catch God’s loving spark. In fact, the reason the church recommends that we pray every day, come to mass every weekend, practice our religion faithfully… is precisely so we increase the chances that the spark will grab hold of us. And how we should make that our quest! In the words of today’s psalm, let us place our trust in God to guide us there.

“I am the way and the truth and the life,” says Jesus. Yes, Lord… I’m ready. Please show me.

Living Abundantly

The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

In our first reading today, Peter is standing in a Jerusalem doorway speaking to a crowd of faithful Jews on Pentecost. They had come on pilgrimage from all over the Mediterranean to celebrate Passover. In the upper room, Peter and the other apostles had just been zapped by the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing; we’re told a few lines earlier that he’s speaking his own language—Aramaic—but everyone is hearing him in their own native tongue. I try to picture myself in that scene. The atmosphere had to have been absolutely electric.

Peter spoke of the gift of the Spirit and explained that they could have that same passion, that same fire of God, in their own life. The way to catch it, he said, was to repent of their sins and be baptized in the name of Jesus. Then, Peter continued, “you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”!

What’s most exciting is that Peter made clear that this promise was made to everyone—including “your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.” That includes all of us here, even though we’re separated from that scene by 2,000 years and 6,300 miles.

I guess a good question is why should we want this gift of the Holy Spirit? Ultimately, of course, to let us spend our eternity with God in heaven. But here and now, as Peter puts it, so we can save ourselves “from this corrupt generation.”

Corrupt generation. What did Peter mean?

The Greek word the Scriptures used for “corrupt” was skolios. It means crooked—just like in scoliosis, the disease that makes someone’s spine crooked. Peter was saying that we must avoid the people and structures and attitudes and other things that are crooked—everything that diverts us from God and goodness—if we want to be on Christ’s path.

Not too long ago, I was surfing through the channels on TV and I was startled to come across a program that showed a man wearing a white mask that covered his whole face. He was being interviewed. He was laughing and talking about his life as a chronic liar. Can you imagine? He described how he enjoyed making up stories about anything and everything, just because he could get away with it. He happily conned his family, his bosses, his friends, even his best friends, with his wild tales. He said that before he got up in the morning, he would think about what kind of crazy stuff he could invent and get away with. Lying was his entertainment.

Of course, he said that he got caught in his lies lots of times. He lost at least one “best friend” because of his pathological lying, but he seemed to view it as an occupational hazard. He preferred the adrenaline rush of the close call over friendship.

That’s a pretty extreme case, of course, but to some extent, isn’t that how so many people live? When it’s convenient or it suits their purposes, they’re cruel to each other, they’re deceitful, oppressive, uncaring, negligent… you name it. They’re corrupt, to use Peter’s word. Not that it was any different in Jesus’ day! Look at the Pharisees. They were masters at this. They would follow the letter of the law to such an extent that they’d count the leaves on their herb plants and give exactly one out of ten of them to the Temple… but then turn around and have no qualms about taking serious advantage of another human being. That’s corruption.

And in our modern times, corruption is no longer restricted to coming solely from individuals. It is also found in the structures and organizations of society. Often this can be worse, because people can then hide their true identity behind a corporate mask and be corrupt in new and sneakier ways. Go and try to have a lovely conversation with a credit card company you owe money to… or ask for a break at the gas station if you can’t afford to pay $3.25 a gallon… or maybe see if you can persuade the hospital to take less money for the operation you need. Yeah, sure…

You see, the opposite of this heartless, stingy, corrupt life is the life that Jesus speaks of in the gospel: he tells us he came so we “might have life and have it more abundantly.”

It’s interesting to remember that Jesus was Jewish. One of the tenets of Judaism is that it is a sin to be offered the opportunity to enjoy life and not to do so. How different from the Puritans who felt that if something was pleasurable, it had to be a sin! And how different from the Temple leaders who deprived their flock of life’s joys by heaping burdens on their back or throwing obstacles in their path. You can understand that they corrupted God’s truth! Jesus, and then Peter, told us that the gift of the Holy Spirit can help us to reclaim what is rightfully ours.

Does living life abundantly mean that I can do whatever I please and give in to every whim? No, of course not; that’s just self-indulgence. Abundant living is living life to the fullest. St. Augustine put it this way: “Love God, and do what you please.” He could say this because if we love God, what we will want to do will be God’s will for us as we best see it and as our conscience best guides us. We will live increasingly for others and for the world.

To live abundantly is joyful and creative. The gift of the Holy Spirit does not program us like robots so we’ll be good little girls and boys. We are human. We are complex. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as the psalm says. We are by no means perfect… but we are by no means thoroughly evil. As we try to make our way along the path to abundant life, we are a work in progress… and that’s why Jesus does not condemn us. Instead, he lifts us up… he shows us a better way… he encourages us to be more and love more.

It is our duty and also our joyful privilege, then, to seek to live life more abundantly. Pray without ceasing for the outpouring of the Spirit in your life. Love more and be more.

A Stranger on the Road

The Third Sunday of Easter
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

Even though we celebrated Easter two weeks ago, the events in today’s gospel actually took place on Easter Sunday. The poor apostles were in shock with everything that happened over the preceding days—and especially over the latest bombshell. The girls, and then Peter, had all been to Jesus’ tomb and found the stone rolled away and the grave empty. Probably a million questions were going through their minds as they tried to figure out just what had happened. Where was Jesus? What happened to him? Did somebody take his body? What were the Romans up to now? Or was this something that the Pharisees had masterminded?

Just the week before, Jesus had come into Jerusalem to shouts of joy and songs of hosanna. His path was covered with palm branches and the cloaks of his admirers. Folks listened with eagerness to his teaching. He and his companions celebrated a beautiful and moving Passover. And then he was betrayed, arrested, subjected to a mock trial, found guilty, and crucified until death like a common criminal. Now even his body went missing. It all happened so fast. And now it all seemed to be over. No wonder these two wanted to get out of town.

So here they were, walking along, when a stranger joined them and intruded into their sadness and confusion… their time of privacy and intimacy. It was Jesus, of course, but they didn’t recognize him—and he didn’t identify himself… and even if he had, I wonder if the two would have believed him. Instead, he simply engaged them in conversation. He asked what they were talking about. They were amazed that he didn’t know what had happened in Jerusalem.

Even in the best of times, there’s always a certain ambiguity about a stranger. Will the stranger be a friend or a foe? Can this unknown person be trusted? Is it safe to open up to him? Given the circumstances and political climate of those days, I would have thought they would have been afraid to reveal themselves as disciples, but maybe they were just too nervous or shell-shocked to think straight.

You know how when a disaster happens or someone famous dies, people just can’t talk about anything else? We all have our own interpretation of what happened and like to discuss it endlessly. So I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that these two disciples thought they knew all about what had happened with Jesus. They thought his ministry was over. There wasn’t even a tomb to visit. No, death was about as final as you could get. Maybe they thought Jesus blew it. Maybe they were feeling angry and let down. Surely they were grieving.

Walking has always been one of my favorite ways to work things out. When I don’t know what to do or don’t want to do something I have to do, I go for a walk. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I talk to myself. Often I don’t know the difference! That’s why I imagine that walking and talking was good for these men, too. Maybe their long walk to Emmaus was a kind of prayer to help them clear their heads and sort things out.

As with us, Jesus knew they would have to babble on for a while before they would be ready to get some answers—before they would even know what questions to ask. So he let them talk, and he walked with them. He was there, but he was a stranger.

In the Scriptures, the stranger, surrounded by ambiguity, is often a symbol of the future... our unknown life that lies ahead. In fact, because all life comes from God, we can say that the stranger in a way comes to represent God. So the way that someone welcomes a stranger reveals their basic stance toward the future, life and ultimately God.

This gospel about meeting the stranger on the road to Emmaus, then, is a story about trust. The critical moment in the story came when the two disciples reached the city gates and had to decide whether or not to invite this fellow who had been walking with them to their home. In other words, despite their pain, would the disciples still trust that life, the future, and even God himself were trustworthy and good?

At that special, critical moment, the disciples turned to the stranger and said, “Stay with us.” As a result of their trust, even after the painful loss of their most precious hope, they received the promise of God for a future beyond their wildest dreams. Here is where Jesus gave them a sign. He broke bread and gave it to them as a reminder that although his body had been broken, his promise had not. He still walked with them.

As always, the living word of God is more than just a historical recounting of a past event. It has deep meaning for us today—here and now. At various points in life, we all meet up with strangers, often when we want nothing more than privacy or some space. We all are touched by painful losses that God permits to happen and that may really throw us for a loop.

When that happens, when we’re reeling from life’s hard blows, we would do well to remember today’s gospel. It challenges us to keep our faith even when we’ve lost our hope. It assures us that no matter what life seems to be dishing out, Christ is very much with us. It teaches us that if we’re willing to trust life as God offers it to us, then we will discover Christ present to us in wondrous ways that we have yet to recognize… but some day we will.

Yes, Christ’s promise to those two disciples on the road to Emmaus is also his promise to us. He still walked with them, and he still walks with us—on any old road we happen to be traveling. May we always remember that and believe it.