Alleluia, alleluia. I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus changes the narrative for living a good and holy life. He offers the Pharisees “new wine”, the freedom of his law of love over their accustomed law of requirements.
Have you ever found yourself in circumstances where you’re saying or hearing things like this:
It’s the law
That’s the way we’ve always done it
Sorry. They’re the rules.
Doesn’t matter. No exceptions.
In such situations, we are experiencing a code of limitations where we are defined either by what we must do or must not do.
The Pharisaical law had become such a code, its spirit and freedom worn away by ages of control, authoritarianism, and brittle institutionalization.
Jesus preaches the new law of love, which can sound a little squishy and self-indulgent at first, because our navel-gazing culture has so eviscerated the meaning of love.
But real Christian love is the hardest “code” we will ever practice. Patterned on Jesus’ life, it is a discipline of mercy, self-sacrifice, radical inclusivity, non-violence, and forgiveness. Such a love will die for the sake of the beloved’s life in God.
Drinking this “new wine” brings us a profound freedom in God Who loves us like this — but infinitely.
Alleluia, alleluia. Be vigilant at all times and pray, that you may have the strength to stand before your God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are full of dichotomies and contrasts to help us understand the Truth.
Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.
1 Corinthians 1: 20-21
The core of Paul’s eloquent lesson is this: Worldly wisdom = foolishness Heavenly foolishness = true wisdom
Reading this passage, we might feel like we’re back in our Logic 101 class in college. But remember, Paul is preaching to a Greek audience, inheritors of Socratic and Aristotelian language. They would be fascinated and moved by Paul’s presentation style.
Us? Maybe not so much. We might prefer the storytelling technique Jesus used to get the same point across.
The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.
Matthew 25:3-4
Jesus’s lesson: Foolish virgins = no oil = can’t find Lord Wise virgins = refreshed oil = find Lord easily
Our Alleluia Verse captures the essence of all our readings for us:
Pay attention to your spiritual life.
Keep the Light lit.
Don’t be fooled by the world’s false logic.
In Christ, we live by the true logic and light of the Cross and Resurrection
Prose: Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel – The Logic of Faith: A Buddhist Approach to Finding Certainty Beyond Belief and Doubt
But if you are not careful, spirituality can quite easily allow you to bypass the human dilemma, because spirituality can be anything you want it to be, whereas faith will challenge you. It’s not so comfortable. It carries with it the undeniable tension between your search for security and the limits of your ability to know. Faith keeps your spiritual quest relevant and connected to the heart of the human predicament.
Alleluia, alleluia. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we see how the soul becomes “dressed” or prepared for the kingdom.
In our passage from Ezekiel, God does a major makeover for Israel, as a matter of fact, God actually recreates Israel:
I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees.
Ezekiel’s God is fed up with Israel’s sinfulness and decides to “make them live by my statutes”. According to Ezekiel, this rejuvenation is done for God’s sake, not Israel’s.
Thus says the LORD: I will prove the holiness of my great name, profaned among the nations, in whose midst you have profaned it. Thus the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when in their sight I prove my holiness through you.
The king in our Gospel gets pretty fed up too with people rejecting his invitation to the wedding. When his recalcitrant invitees killed his servants, the king blew a gasket. He even took a snap on the poor schlep who showed up in business-casual attire!
No Wedding Garment
How are we to interpret these dramatic (and kinda mean) images of God and of God’s invitation to the Kingdom?
As when praying with all scripture passages, we must receive them in light of the circumstances and culture in which they were written. Our prayer, rooted in our own relationship with God, will allow us to peel away the cultural layers to discover the unchanging message which pertains to us.
What I found in today’s passages are these thoughts:
God loves us so much and would do anything to hold us in faithful relationship
If our spiritual life had died, or is on life support, God will do a heart transplant if we repent and open ourselves to grace.
We are all invited to eternal life with God, but we can get so distracted by our entanglements that we miss or ignore the invitation.
Turn down the noise in your life so that you can hear God’s ringtone on your heart.
It matters how we respond to this amazing invitation. We need to put on our best “clothes” – our best selves – so that we can fully welcome God’s life.
Poetry and Music: Here’s a simple but delightful representation of today’s Gospel. Enjoy it, friends.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the core of our readings is about innocence and authenticity. But you have to dig a little to get to that. Maybe, like me, you finished our first reading asking, “So what’s with the green grapes!?”
A common expression in ancient Israel suggested that people’s bad luck was a punishment for their parent’s sins. It was a handy way of avoiding responsibility for one’s own foolish actions, often the actual source of one’s misfortune.
Ezekiel uses the expression to teach a lesson about the nature of God’s love and forgiveness. God loves us completely – without prejudice, without vengeance. There is no record of faults to “set our teeth on edge”. There are no “green grapes” on God’s table. God only wants our wholeness.
Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, each one according to their own ways, says the Lord GOD. Turn and be converted from all your crimes, that they may be no cause of guilt for you. Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
God will not let us hide behind excuses like a bogus “Green Grapes Theory”. As in any loving relationship, we must be honest with God, own our faults, seek forgiveness, and love ardently.
Jesus uses the example of a little child to show us how to do this. Each one of us is born with a core of innocence and authenticity. These are the attributes of God’s life in us. Throughout our lives there are times when we hide these blessings under our sinfulness. Some people bury them so deep that they lose touch with their own sacred integrity.
Jesus calls us back out of our excuses and our excesses, just as the Lord called Ezekiel’s community. We are invited to an eternal covenant rooted in the gift of divine innocence and authenticity given to us at our creation.
Jesus said: Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
Poetry: The Pursuit – Henry Vaughn
LORD ! what a busy, restless thing Hast Thou made man ! Each day and hour he is on wing, Rests not a span ; Then having lost the sun and light, By clouds surpris’d, He keeps a commerce in the night With air disguis’d. Hadst Thou given to this active dust A state untir’d, The lost son had not left the husk, Nor home desir’d. That was Thy secret, and it is Thy mercy too ; For when all fails to bring to bliss, Then this must do. Ah, Lord ! and what a purchase will that be, To take us sick, that sound would not take Thee !
Alleluia, alleluia. A great prophet has arisen in our midst and God has visited the people.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings carry the themes of Hope and Restoration.
Jeremiah tells the people that, even after all they’ve been through, God has an age-old love for them and therefore will not abandon them.
Jeremiah continues with a description of the future coming of the Savior, promising that Israel will be restored:
Yes, a day will come when the watchmen will call out on Mount Ephraim: “Rise up, let us go to Zion, to the LORD, our God.” For thus says the LORD: Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: The LORD has delivered the people, the remnant of Israel.
Our Alleluia Verse announces that this expected Savior has arrived in Jesus Christ, the Divine Shepherd, Lord, Guardian and Redeemer whom Jeremiah describes in our Responsorial Psalm.
Alleluia, alleluia. A great prophet has arisen in our midst and God has visited the people.
Matthew’s Gospel today, which can seem a little contentious in tone, actually demonstrates the surprising truth that Jesus came not only for the sake of Israel, but for all people — for us.
We are all beneficiaries of God’s age-old love for us.
Poetry: You are the future, the great sunrise red – Rainer Maria Rilke
You are the future, the great sunrise red above the broad plains of eternity. You are the cock-crow when time’s night has fled, You are the dew, the matins, and the maid, the stranger and the mother, you are death.
You are the changeful shape that out of Fate rears up in everlasting solitude, the unlamented and the unacclaimed, beyond describing as some savage wood.
You are the deep epitome of things that keeps its being’s secret with locked lip, and shows itself to others otherwise: to the ship, a haven — to the land, a ship.
Music: I Have Loved You – Michael Joncas
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine;
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine.
Seek the face of the Lord and long for him: He will bring you his light and his peace.
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine;
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine.
Seek the face of the Lord and long for him: He will bring you his joy and his hope.
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine;
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine.
Seek the face of the Lord and long for him: He will bring you his care and his love.
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine;
I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings convey compelling stories and life-changing miracles.
The passage from Jeremiah tells the tale of the false prophet Hananiah. He didn’t tell the people the truth. He was a kind of ancient “prosperity preacher” who spun a message similar to one we might hear today.
Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, the gospel of success, or seed faith)is a religious belief among some Protestant Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one’s material wealth. Material and especially financial success is seen as a sign of divine favor.
Wikipedia
Prosperity religion in centered on “me” and what I have to do to have “enough” and “more than enough” material goods and spiritual assurances.
Alleluia, alleluia. One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
In our reading from Matthew, Jesus acts out the true Gospel. It is centered on others,especially those in need.
Picture the moment. Jesus has been gut-punched by the barbarous murder of his beloved friend and cousin John. He wants to be alone to mourn. Watch him, in your heart’s eye, as he rows alone across the lake to a place of longed-for solitude. Every swish and pull through the water is a memory of John, is a hope and fragment of the dream they shared. Every oar’s dipping is a word with his Father to understand the “why”.
And yet, on the lake’s other side, where the needy crowd has found him out, he sets his own need aside. Jesus heals. He feeds. He teaches. He IS for the other not himself.
His words summarize what his actions model. He tells the gathered people that he has fed their bodies – met their material needs. But there is so much more to spiritual wholeness. Every word from the mouth of God — even the word that John had died — every word brings grace, and the call to feed and heal the world around us.
Alleluia, alleluia. One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
Poetry: Not By Bread Alone – James Terry White
If thou of fortune be bereft, And thou dost find but two loaves left To thee—sell one, and with the dole Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
But not alone does beauty bide Where bloom and tint and fragrance hide; The minstrel's melody may feed Perhaps a more insistent need.
But every beauty, howe'er blent To ear or eye, fails to content; Only the heart, with love afire, Can satisfy the soul's desire.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jeremiah gives us the wonderful image of the potter and the clay. Through this image, Israel is called to repentance, faith and transformation.
Whenever the object of clay which the potter was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased. Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done? says the LORD. Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
The passage carries the warning that some of potter’s attempts don’t quite cut it. They will be culled for the spiritual “recycle bin”. Today’s Gospel offers a similar forewarning.
The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age.
Friends, we all want to make it into the heavenly bucket, right? So let’s sincerely pray the prayer of our Alleluia Verse:
Alleluia, alleluia. Open our heart, O Lord, to listen to the words of your Son.
Poetry: The Song of the Potter – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round, Without a pause, without a sound: So spins the flying world away! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, Follows the motion of my hand; For some must follow, and some command, Though all are made of clay!
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change To something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief; What now is bud will soon be leaf, What now is leaf will soon decay; The wind blows east, the wind blows west; The blue eggs in the robin’s nest Will soon have wings and beak and breast, And flutter and fly away.
Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar A touch can make, a touch can mar; And shall it to the Potter say, What makest thou? Thou hast no hand? As men who think to understand A world by their Creator planned, Who wiser is than they.
Turn, turn, my wheel! ‘Tis nature’s plan The child should grow into the man, The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray; In youth the heart exults and sings, The pulses leap, the feet have wings; In age the cricket chirps, and brings The harvest home of day.
Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race, Of every tongue, of every place, Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay, All that inhabit this great earth, Whatever be their rank or worth, Are kindred and allied by birth, And made of the same clay.
Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun At daybreak must at dark be done, To-morrow will be another day; To-morrow the hot furnace flame Will search the heart and try the frame, And stamp with honor or with shame These vessels made of clay.
Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, too soon The noon will be the afternoon, Too soon to-day be yesterday; Behind us in our path we cast The broken potsherds of the past, And all are ground to dust at last, And trodden into clay.
Music: The Potter’s Hand- Helen Baylor
I know for sure, all of my days are held in Your hands Crafted into Your perfect plan You gently call me, into Your presence Guiding me by, Your Holy Spirit Teach me dear Lord To live all of my life through Your eyes I’m captured by, Your Holy calling Set me apart I know You’re drawing me to Yourself Lead me Lord I pray Take me, and mold me Use me, fill me I give my life to the Potter’s hands Hold me, You guide me Lead me, walk beside me I give my life to the Potter’s hand You gently call me, into Your presence Guiding me by, Your Holy Spirit Teach me dear Lord To live all of my life through Your eyes I’m captured by, Your Holy calling Set me apart I know You’re drawing me to Yourself Lead me Lord I pray Take me, and mold me Use me, fill me I give my life to my Potter’s hands Hold me, You guide me Lead me, walk beside me I give my life to my Potter’s hand Take me, and mold me Use me, fill me I give my life to my Potter’s hands Hold me, You guide me Lead me, walk beside me I give my life to my Potter’s hand Give Him everything Give Him everything Right now, give Him everything Everything Give Him everything Lord, I give it all To You
Alleluia, alleluia. If today you hear God’s voice, soften your hearts.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the readings heighten the familiar imperative of our Alleluia Verse with several more injunctions:
Hear
Soften
Arise
Answer
Do
Love
Walk
God is not shy in telling us what to do in order to grow in holiness – in mutual relationship with God.
We have to DO something, to be responsive in order to unite with God. We can’t be just passive lumps of inactive devotion.
Don’t Be a Spiritual Couch Potato
Each instruction has its own vitality which is meant, in turn, to vitalize our spirits and to make us agents of the Holy One in the world.
Our first reading carries this message clearly to the people of Micah’s time. It’s not about contrived sacrifice. It’s about love and compassion.
With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You have been told, O Creature, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6: 6-8
The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’s time demand a sign before they will listen. Jesus says the only sign they will get is to remember that the Ninevites listened when Jonah delivered God’s message.
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here.
Matthew 12:42
We don’t have a Micah or a Jonah coaching us to holiness. What we have is the Word present to us in the Gospel and in the community of faith. That Word reveals itself in the circumstances of our lives to which we must respond by:
Hearing God’s invitation Softening our hearts from judgments Arising from our self-absorption Answering the call to holiness Doing good Loving compassionately Walking humbly with our God
Poetry: from Rumi
Discard yourself and thereby regain yourself. Spread the trap of humility and ensnare Love.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we are once again enjoined:
Alleluia, alleluia. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
In other words, just listen!
This verse is repeated so often because it’s so important! And the rest of our readings illustrate that fact.
In our first reading King Ahaz is in a mess with a lot of cleverly named guys trying to take over Jerusalem. Apparently Ahaz is a nervous wreck about the situation when God says, “Just listen – it’s going to be OK!”
And don’t you just love the way God encourages Isaiah to support Ahaz. God tells Isaiah to stay calm and calls the bad guys “two stumps of smoldering brands”:
Take care you remain tranquil and do not fear; let not your courage fail before these two stumps of smoldering brands the blazing anger of Rezin and the Arameans, and of the son Remaliah,
In our Gospel, Jesus warns his Capernaum neighbors about what can happen when we ignore God’s voice. Jesus loves this little village and has settled there in his early ministry. But he is upset with them:
And as for you, Capernaum:
Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the nether world.
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
Matthew 11: 22-24
So, even though today’s readings are pretty heavy, the message is simple:
Soften your heart in silence and reflection
Just listen to God speaking in your life
Act on the loving Word given to you
Prose: from Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse captures the mixed and even contradictory conditions awaiting a dedicated disciple of Christ:
Alleluia, alleluia. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of God rests upon you.
This brief verse immediately brought to my mind the image of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. He had wonderful, faith-filled dialogues with God about his seemingly contradictory “blessings”.
So here’s a snapshot of how I prayed with our verse today:
God: You’re going to be insulted for your faith, but consider it a blessing. Me: What! Wait a minute! Maybe I’d prefer some more obvious blessings! God: No, you’re going to be insulted for your faith, but it’s a sign that my Spirit rests upon you. Me: ….. Crickets
I have been insulted and harassed for my faith, but not too often. Usually that occasional insult has come from a sad or dysfunctional source who caused more harm to themselves than to me.
The greatest insult to my faith has come from within the Church itself. The clerical sex abuse scandals and cover-ups of recent years deeply shook the investment I had made in service of the Church. The revelations mocked the innocent trust I had unquestioningly placed in the institutional Church. They invited public insult toward me and toward all of us associated with that now exposed institution.
Although my pain cannot be compared to the trauma of survivors of abuse, it has been a seismic insult and has forced me to a deeper discernment of my faith. While profoundly painful, this “insult” has, indeed, been a blessing which has helped me to separate my true Catholic faith from any misplaced institutional devotion.
The closing verses of today’s Gospel are both a warning and a pledge for those who commit themselves to Christ:
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.
Poetry: The Break of Faith – Renee Yann, RSM
My father walked with me each day in Lent
past neighbors’ homes with names
and histories like mine,
to church, where laborers in solid faith,
received a Host before the Mass began
and left to be at work on time.
Some days, my father left but I remained
secure among the faithful whose
religion was a sure as rock.
I trusted and believed their saying
salvation was reserved for those
within the Church, praying
at ten or twelve to be like
the elite who held the ancient definitions
of the God I longed to know.
Those devoted people were
the heroes of my youth.
I beat my breast with secret joy and knelt
beside them in the unexamined truth.
Some were robed in black and wafted
scents of incense and of candle wax
that were to me like fine, intoxicant perfume.
Through them, I chose the worship of a God
who was the slim abstraction of my mind
the mute extension of my whim.
But my mind is not the tender thing it was.
The years have passed and I have hardened
to them, like a lone, maturing tree.
The deeply venerated guides I loved
have journeyed with my father to the pale,
expanded universe of memory.
That I stand questioning them now is jeopardy
against the very pegs that ground my life.
I am outside the Church they held for me
because it seems a box remote from God,
who, with the years, assumed Creation’s face,
became a fire in my heart, consuming
those securities I designated once as faith.
The theologian says we walk in footsteps of a God
who comes to us from futures we cannot define.
That God of paradox is breaking in my mind
like lava breaks from stolid earth
to recreate the world. But,
with an utterly profound regret,
I leave the heroes and the saints of youth behind.
Lavish Mercy 