Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin about a month of readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans. We will also continue with Luke’s Gospel all the way up to Advent.
In my 2019 reflections on these passages, to help me understand Romans, I used a book by Scott W. Hahn, Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theologyat Steubenville University. I decided to return to that opening reflection as we meet Romans again today.
In his introduction, Hahn says this:
Today’s reading offered me these elements to ponder and pray with:
Paul calls himself a “slave” of Jesus Christ
He invokes his call as an Apostle
He sets himself in the company of the prophets
He appeals to Jews who revere David
but proclaims Christ, through his Resurrection, as Messiah beyond human lineage
He proclaims his mission to the Gentiles
to bring about “the obedience of faith”
I’ll be honest with you. I’ve read or heard this passage maybe fifty times in my lifetime, and it has meant little or nothing to me. At best, it has sounded like a formal introduction such as those we hear from government “whereas” type decrees.
But I took Dr. Hahn’s advice, studying the passage, and reading it slowly and prayerfully. Here’s what I received:
Paul’s Apostolic call, to which he willingly enslaved his heart, was to preach the Good News of our redemption in Jesus Christ – to preach it to Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and all people.
It is an awesome and incredible message that can be received only through the gift of faith.
It is a message rooted in the scripture stories we love, and where we look to find a reflection of our own stories.
Learning from these realities will help us come to a faith which expresses itself in action and gives glory to God in our own time.
Luke gives us one such story today. Jesus reminds the crowd of two familiar passages – that of Jonah and the “Queen of the South” (the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings 10). He indicates that the people in these stories believed without a sign.
Jesus tells the people gathered around him to learn from this. The crowd demands a sign, but Jesus says the sign is right in front of you – it is only your open heart that is lacking.
In his introduction, Paul prays for such open hearts in the Romans:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
By that same grace, may we receive faith’s blessing as well.
Poetry: Love Constraining to Obedience – William Cowper (1731-1800) Cowper’s poem captures the interior transformation that occurs when our obedience is motivated by love rather than simply by duty.
No strength of nature can suffice To serve the Lord aright: And what she has she misapplies, For want of clearer light.
How long beneath the Law I lay In bondage and distress; I toiled the precept to obey, But toiled without success.
Then, to abstain from outward sin Was more than I could do; Now, if I feel its power within, I feel I hate it too.
Then all my servile works were done A righteousness to raise; Now, freely chosen in the Son, I freely choose His ways.
‘What shall I do,’ was then the word, ‘That I may worthier grow?’ ‘What shall I render to the Lord?’ Is my inquiry now.
To see the law by Christ fulfilled And hear His pardoning voice, Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Joel launches into a cautionary poem replete with metaphors. His images are so effective that, even 3000 years later, many will be very familiar to us from the liturgy and even from modern culture.
Some of my readers may be of an age to remember the wonderful film “The Valley of Decision” starring two of the all-time greats, Greer Garson and Gregory Peck. The film’s title is plucked right out of Joel.
Apply the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; Come and tread, for the wine press is full; The vats overflow, for great is their malice. Crowd upon crowd in the valley of decision; For near is the day of the LORD in the valley of decision. Sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withhold their brightness. The LORD roars from Zion, and from Jerusalem raises his voice; The heavens and the earth quake, but the LORD is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the children of Israel.
By using metaphors, the poet-prophet accomplishes an extensive lesson that, delivered in prose, would have exhausted his beleaguered audience.
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.
Orson Scott Card
Like all prophets, Joel employs current events to point to a deeper understanding. Many of the metaphors he uses throughout his prophecy have been employed in the liturgy, particularly during Lent. Joel’s message is a universal call to repentance germane to every generation, but particularly to that liturgical season.
Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.
Joel 2: 12-13
In our Gospel. the core of Joel’s message is given direct and fuller voice in Jesus’ statement:
Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and observe it.
Luke 11:28
In our own lives – our own “valleys of decision”, this is the foolproof way we prepare for the Day of the Lord – hearing and observing the Word of God.
Music: Valley of Decision – Christafari
(When I read about Christafari, I am reminded that we can never underestimate or judge the many ways that people come to Christ.)
Christafari was founded in 1989 by Pastor Mark Mohr. Raised in a Christian family, during his teens Mohr strayed from his spiritual upbringing and turned to drugs and alcohol, going as far as growing and even dealing marijuana. After running away from home, living on the streets, and hitting rock-bottom, he had an undeniable encounter with God that drastically transformed his world. At 17, Mark re-committed his life to Christ and took what he now calls his “Freedom Step” out of addiction.
Christafari is comprised of men and women from various continents, countries, and cultures who are true missionaries at heart and share a love for reggae music and passion for following Jesus to the ends of the earth.
Run come and fall People take heed to His call Valley of decision (Valley of decision) This is no game People have to die in His name Valley of decision (Valley of decision) Darkness, it looms all around us I find it hard to see But I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know Whether I should stay or whether I should flee People all around me seem, they seem to be so sad I hear them cry, I hear them ball I see them back against the wall I wish I could wipe away their tears There’s a Holy A Holy hill Holy mount Zion Holy, Holy mount Zion Just know that He’s the Lord, Your God, yeah In this valley of decision Valley of decision Even though I run through enough hills and valleys I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me Run come and fall People take heed to His call Valley of decision (Valley of decision) This is no game People have to die in His name Valley of decision (Valley of decision) There’s a Holy A Holy hill Holy mount Zion Holy, Holy mount Zion Just know that He’s the Lord, Your God, yeah In this valley of decision Valley of decision Even though I run through enough hills and valleys I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me Jah great and dreadful day will soon come Jah will pour out His mighty, mighty, mighty Spirit to all mankind Through Him all creation, all creation was made Those who call upon His name (Call on His name and You will be saved) There’s a Holy A Holy hill Holy mount Zion Holy, Holy mount Zion Just know that He’s the Lord, Your God, yeah In this valley of decision Valley of decision Run come and fall People take heed to His call Valley of decision (Valley of decision) This is no game People have to die in His name Valley of decision (Valley of decision) Even though I run through enough hills and valleys I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys I fear no evil, ’cause God is with me Even though I run through enough hills and valleys Thy rod and staff, they will comfort me
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, get ready for a three-day cruise with Jonah and a radical journey down the Jericho road with the Good Samaritan.
The message of Jonah is clear: all people, even hated Ninevites, are children of God’s Mercy. Resisting that understanding can be catastrophic to our spiritual life.
Patricia Tull, Rhodes Professor Emerita of Old Testament at Louisville Seminary, summarizes the Book of Jonah like this:
A postexilic book, Jonah’s story is atypical for prophetic works. Not only is it a narrative about the prophet rather than his speeches, but it also rebuffs Jonah for his refusal to preach to foreign enemies. Jonah’s story portrays foreigners as more than ready to repent and turn to God. The book uses humor, hyperbole, and irony to make its parabolic point.
Our Gospel gives us one of the most beloved yet challenging parables of Jesus – who is our “neighbor”. The infinite dimensions within this parable continue to unfold for us as we deepen in our mercy spirituality.
God does not see anyone as a “foreigner”. Every human being lives with the breath of God. We are “neighbors” because we share that breath, that “neighborhood” of God’s boundless Love.
But, oh my God, how we have forgotten or rejected that common bond of reverence for one another! Just yesterday, one of our sisters brought up the subject of a recent hit-and-run accident in Philadelphia. It now seems to be the common practice to leave the scene of such an occurrence, abandoning the victim to his fatal circumstance. She wondered, incredulously, how anyone could be that callous.
Our Gospel parable describes that callousness. Notice that both the priest and the Levite pass the victim by “on the opposite side“. The phrase implies that if I can build a wall to make you invisible to me, I can more easily ignore your claim on my merciful neighborliness.
The Samaritan lived without those walls. He did not see a Jew, or a foreigner, or an expendable “other”. He saw a human being, like himself – a neighbor who was struggling to live.
The Good Samaritan (1880) by Aimé Morot
Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is a clear example of the call of the Gospel to neighborliness. In the story, such a call is an inconvenient truth because it summons outside the comfortable community to find the neighbor among the not-well-regarded “others.”
Walter Brueggemann, Health Progress, January – February 2010
We don’t want to be like resistant Jonah, nor like the prejudicially blinded priest and Levite of our parable. But it is hard. The world conspires to separate us into the haves and the have-nots, the deserving and the undeserving, the winners and the losers, the sinners and the saints. Mercy not only resists but dismantles such walls. Do we have the courage to examine our own prejudices and to step across from “the opposite side” for the sake of our neighbor?
Poem: Neighbor – Iain Crichton Smith
Build me a bridge over the stream to my neighbour’s house where he is standing in dungarees in the fresh morning.
O ring of snowdrops spread wherever you want and you also blackbird sing across the fences.
My neighbor, if the rain falls on you,
let it fall on me also
from the same black cloud
that does not recognize gates.
Music: JJ Heller – Neighbor
Sometimes it's easier to jump to conclusions
Than walk across the street
It's like I'd rather fill the blanks with illusions
Than take the time to see
You are tryna close the back door of your car
You are balancing the groceries and a baby in your arms
You are more than just a sign in your front yard
You are my neighbor
I can get so lost in the mission
Of defending what I think
I've been surfing on a sea of opinions
But just behind the screen
You are grateful that the work day's finally done
You are stuck in miles of traffic, looking at your phone
You are tryin' to feel a little less alone
You are my neighbor
When the chasm between us feels so wide
That it's hard to imagine the other side
But we don't have to see things eye to eye
For me to love you like you are my neighbor
My neighbor
Oh, to fear the unfamiliar
Is the easy way to go
But I believe we are connected more than we might ever know
There's a light that shines on both the rich and poor
Looks beyond where we came from and who we voted for
'Til I can't see a stranger anymore
I see my neighbor
May my heart be an open door to my neighbor
You are my neighbor
(I chose to offer a reflection on the readings for the Memorial of St. Francis rather than for Wednesday of the Twenty-sixth Week)
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) , one of the most revered figures in Christianity, an Italian mystic and Catholic friar who founded the Franciscans.
The simple holiness of St. Francis has had an immeasurable effect not only on Christianity but even on secular culture. No matter their religious interest, most people would recognize this humble, medieval itinerant preacher and understand the witness of his life.
from phillyvoice.com
Our current Holy Father, in a surprise move, chose St. Francis as his patron and model:
When the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio went over the 77 votes needed to become pope, he said that his friend Cardinal Hummes “hugged me, kissed me and said, ‘Don’t forget the poor.’” At the time of his election, Pope Francis told thousands of journalists that he took to heart the words of his friend and chose to be called after St. Francis of Assisi, “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation.”
In our readings today, both the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel echo a spirituality deeply compatible with the Franciscan spirit.
Francis, who renounced his wealthy lifestyle and inheritance for the riches of Christ, surely found inspiration when he prayed Psalm 16:
You are my inheritance, O Lord. Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.” O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot.
I bless the LORD who counsels me; even in the night my heart exhorts me. I set the LORD ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.
Most of us reading this reflection have so much in life. We are blessed beyond description with everything we need and even want. Praying in the spirit of St. Francis can help us discern how to honor and use what we have in a way that pleases God.
Keep a clear eye toward life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s creature. What you are in God’s sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received…but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage.
Francis of Assisi
Poetry: ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI – A SERMON TO THE BIRDS Francis made his deep spirituality and radical teaching easily accessible with unpretentious parables like this one. He imitated Jesus himself who taught us how to live by telling simple stories in which we could find ourselves. So let’s learn from this one, my little “birds”.
My little sisters the birds,
Ye owe much to God, your Creator,
And ye ought to sing his praise at all times and in all places,
Because he has given you liberty to fly about into all places;
And though ye neither spin nor sew,
He has given you a twofold and a threefold clothing
For yourselves and for your offspring.
Two of all your species He sent into the Ark with Noah
That you might not be lost to the world;
Besides which, He feeds you, though ye neither sow nor reap.
He has given you fountains and rivers to quench your thirst,
Mountains and valleys in which to take refuge,
And trees in which to build your nests;
So that your Creator loves you much,
Having thus favored you with such bounties.
Beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude,
And study always to give praise to God.” Amen
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 87, a Song of Zion which imagines the future Jerusalem as the world’s center of worship.
The foundation upon the holy mountains the LORD loves: The gates of Zion, more than any dwelling of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O city of God!
Psalm 87: 1-3
For centuries, the Jews had been scattered through many alien countries. Some had lost their ties to their inherited faith. The psalm calls all people “home” to the worship of the one, true God.
Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives by Frederic Edwin Church
Jerusalem is a profoundly unifying symbol for Jews. That is why it is so important for Jesus to “go up to Jerusalem” in order to accomplish our redemption. As today’s Gospel tells us:
When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he steadfastly turned his face to Jerusalem.
Luke 9:51
Praying with these passages may seem difficult for Christians if we have no emotional ties to the city of Jerusalem. But for us too, the concept of “Jerusalem” serves as a symbol of that stable and committed faith that allows us to live our lives in the pattern of Jesus.
We journey too, as Jesus did toward the fullness of life in God. Our journey takes singular steadfastness, just as his did, a commitment rooted in faith and grace.
Together in faith, we form a New Jerusalem, glorious in each one of us through our Baptism into Christ.
Poetry: A Sonnet – Malcolm Guite
Now to the gate of my Jerusalem, The seething holy city of my heart, The saviour comes. But will I welcome him? Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start; They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing, And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find The challenge, the reversal he is bringing Changes their tune. I know what lies behind The surface flourish that so quickly fades; Self-interest, and fearful guardedness, The hardness of the heart, its barricades, And at the core, the dreadful emptiness Of a perverted temple. Jesus come Break my resistance and make me your home.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 25, set perfectly in the midst of a few readings that speak to us about, among other things , “the Father’s Will”.
I think there is no greater spiritual mystery than the meaning of “God’s Will”, (and not wanting to show up Thomas Aquinas, I’ll resist explaining it here. 😂🧐)
But we’ve all heard attempts at explaining it, haven’t we, especially as it relates to suffering— as in:
everything that happens is God’s Will, so we must accept it
God wills our suffering to test us
if God wills that we suffer, He will give us the strength to endure it
I just don’t think so … not the God I love and Who loves me.
But these attempts to explain suffering are understandable because we want to rationalize the things we fear. Most of us, I think, struggle with the problem of evil and suffering in the world. We want to know what to do when, as Rabbi Kushner wrote, “… Bad Things Happen to Good People”.
Our first reading from Ezekiel shows us that even the ancient peoples met this struggle. The prophet seems to suggest that if you’re bad, you’ll suffer. If you repent, you won’t. Well, we all know that’s not quite the reality! But nice try, Ezekiel.
Our psalm gently leads to another way of facing suffering as the psalmist prays for wisdom, compassion and divine guidance. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus himself prayed like this as he confronted his impending suffering.
In our second reading, Paul places before us the example of Jesus who, in the face of suffering, was transformed by love:
Praying with these readings, each one of us must come to our own peace with the mystery of suffering. What we can be sure of is this: God’s Will is always for our wholeness and joy as so simply taught to us when we were little children:
God made me to know, love, and serve God, and to be happy with God in this world and forever.
Our Gospel tells us that such happiness comes through faith and loving service, through responding to “the Father’s Will”. May we have the insight, the love, and the courage!
Poetry: Of Being by Denise Levertov
I know this happiness is provisional: the looming presences — great suffering, great fear— withdraw only into peripheral vision: but ineluctable this shimmering of wind in the blue leaves: this flood of stillness widening the lake of sky: this need to dance, this need to kneel: this mystery:
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin three weeks of readings from some of the lesser known prophets and reformers in ancient Israel:
Ezra: instrumental in restoring the Jewish scriptures and religion to the people after the return from the Babylonian Captivity and is a highly respected figure in Judaism.
Nehemiah: his book describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period.
Haggai: a Hebrew prophet during the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and one of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. He is known for his prophecy in 520 BCE, commanding the Jews to rebuild the Temple
Zechariah: His greatest concern was with the building of the Second Temple
Baruch: the prophet Jeremiah’s scribe who is mentioned at Baruch 1:1. The book is a reflection of a late Jewish writer on the circumstances of Jewish exiles from Babylon
Malachi: Malachi describes a priesthood that is forgetful of its duties, a Temple that is underfunded because the people have lost interest in it, and a society in which Jewish men divorce their Jewish wives to marry out of the faith. (W. Gunther Plaut)
Joel: delivers a message of warning and repentance to the southern kingdom of Judah after the nation was divided.
Jonah: prophesied the destruction of Nineveh, but attempts to escape his divine mission.
Now some of my readers who are scripture geeks like me may have been interested in the above list. The rest of you skipped down to this paragraph to see if I had anything at all interesting to say about today’s readings. 😉
How about this? While Israel’s prophets and reformers speak to a certain time in history, their themes speak powerfully to our own times and culture as well:
Walter Brueggemann describes the prophets’ two primary themes:
First, they are very sure that political economic arrangements that contradict the purpose of God cannot be sustained.
Second, the prophets are voices of hope that affirm that God is a future-creating agent who keeps promises and who, against all odds, creates a new world reality that is distinct from present power arrangements.
Walter Brueggemann: From Judgment to Hope
The prophets remind us that, beyond any purely temporal interpretation of life, God is real and intimately involved in the unfolding of both our personal and global histories. When we pray with the prophets, we are strengthened in courage to engage our world, and to act in hope for the redemption of our culture.
In today’s reading, the reformer Ezra speaks a word of liberating alternative hope to a people who had been decimated by the Babylonian Captivity. Many of them thought they had lost their soul in Babylon. Ezra, by the power of God, breathes it back into them.
Therefore, whoever among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with them! Let everyone who has survived, in whatever place they may have dwelt, be assisted by the people of that place with silver, gold, goods, and cattle, together with free-will offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem
Ezra 1:3-4
As we consider our own times, our “breathers of hope” may come to mind: Pope Francis working to rebuild the Church, and Martin Luther King inspiring a vision of equity, respect and inclusion. We may think of voices like St. Oscar Romero, Venerable Catherine McAuley, Simone Weil, St. Edith Stein, Greta Thunberg, Servant of God Dorothy Day, or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Each one has spoken selflessly for peace, mercy, justice, and wholeness in a fragmented, sinfully distracted society.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus, Divine Daystar of every prophet’s hope, calls each one of us to the work of hope-filled prophecy, and faith-filled listening:
Jesus said to the crowd: “No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care, then, how you hear. To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.”
Matthew 5:1-6
Poetry: Advice to a Prophet – Richard Wilbur
When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city, Mad-eyed from stating the obvious, Not proclaiming our fall but begging us In God’s name to have self-pity,
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range, The long numbers that rocket the mind; Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind, Unable to fear what is too strange.
Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race. How should we dream of this place without us?— The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us, A stone look on the stone’s face?
Speak of the world’s own change. Though we cannot conceive Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost, How the view alters. We could believe,
If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy, The lark avoid the reaches of our eye, The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip
On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn As Xanthus once, its gliding trout Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without The dolphin’s arc, the dove’s return,
These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken? Ask us, prophet, how we shall call Our natures forth when that live tongue is all Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken
In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean Horse of our courage, in which beheld The singing locust of the soul unshelled, And all we mean or wish to mean.
Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding
Whether there shall be lofty or long-standing
When the bronze annals of the oak tree close.
Lily of the Valley, let your sweet aroma fill my life
Rose of Sharon show me how to grow in beauty in God's sight
Fairest of ten thousand make me a reflection of your light
Daystar shine down on me let your love shine through me in the night
Lead me Lord, I'll follow. Anywhere you open up the door
Let your word speak to me, show me what I've never seen before
Lord I want to be your witness, you can take what's wrong and make it right
Daystar shine down on me, let your love shine through me in the night
Lord I've seen a world that's dying wounded by the master of deceit
Groping in the darkness, haunted by the years of past defeat
But when I see you standing near me shining with compassion in your eyes
I pray Jesus shine down on me let your love shine through me in the night
Lead me Lord, I'll follow anywhere you open up the door
Let your word speak to me, show me what I've never seen before
Lord I want to be your witness, you can take what's wrong and make it right
Daystar shine down on me, let your love shine through me in the night
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have our final reading from 1 Timothy. In the closing words of this letter, Paul pleads with Timothy, and with the community Timothy shepherds, to stay faithful. Paul encourages them to do this even though the Power they believe in is invisible.
… keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ that the blessed and only ruler will make manifest at the proper time, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom no human being has seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.
1 Timothy 6:14-16
In our Gospel today, Jesus describes the Word of God aa a seed that falls upon the human heart with varying results. It is a parable we are familiar with and we get it. If we don’t have a ready heart, plowed and furrowed with faith and charity, that lonely seed is going to die.
The problem is that even when that seed falls into our very faithful hearts, we don’t always SEE the results. The work of faith is a work with invisible powers. It is a work with hope, with trust, with perseverance, with courage – much like the work in any garden.
I hear really good people, whose lives are beautiful witnesses to faith, still question themselves and their goodness. Because their lives are threaded with challenges and disappointments, they think their lack of faith might be the cause. Because the world at large may appear to be a mess, they wonder if the God they believe in is really there!
Indeed, even though the seed of God’s Word is alive, still it is buried in the realities of our lives. And we wait in sometimes doubtful anticipation for its flowering.
Paul knew that Timothy would encounter these roadblocks just as we all do. That is why his letters to Timothy are a powerful source of encouragement to us all as we strive to live a holy life. As we close these letters today, don’t put them on a shelf forever. I go back to Timothy often just to grab a few verses for light in a shadowy time. I encourage you to do the same.
The final verses of 1 Timothy struck me with a smile as I read them today. They follow just after today’s reading:
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid profane babbling and the absurdities of so-called knowledge. By professing it, some people have deviated from the faith.
Poetic Prose: Rainer Maria Rilke
When I think of the Paul’s letters to young Timothy, I am reminded of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. Here is a favorite passage:
You are so young; you stand before beginnings… have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Paul and Matthew that we may deepen our reverence for the call we have received.
I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace: one Body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Ephesians 4:1-7
Many of us think of a “call” as a one-time event, for example, the moment we say “yes” to a marriage proposal, or the profession of vows in religious commitment.
Our Gospel describes such a life call for Matthew:
As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
Matthew 9:9
But we can be certain that this was not Matthew’s only and final call. Jesus kept calling Matthew every day of his life to move deeper and deeper into the heart of God.
Like Matthew, we are all sitting at the table of life sometimes unaware of God’s power passing right in front of us. Matthew looked up from his tax sheets just in time to see Jesus’s all-knowing, all-loving glance. And that moment changed everything for Matthew. The call, crystalized in that sacred moment, had unfolded for years and would continue to unfold throughout Matthew’s life.
Maybe we spend a lot of our time fiddling with life’s calculations like Matthew did. We need to make our checkbooks balance, our calendars synchronize, our recipes succeed, our bills resolve. Sometimes we have so much ciphering going on that we don’t even glance up to see real Life passing by.
Jesus teaches that the underlying calculus of our lives must be mercy. He wants us to see where mercy is needed and to spend ourselves in its name. When Matthew’s buddies criticized him for following his call, Jesus confronted them with their own call, “Go and learn…”
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
Matthew 9:11-13
I hope those pharisaical critics listened. I hope I do too.
Poetry: The Calling of St. Matthew – James Lasdun
This beautiful, thought-provoking poem by James Ladsun suggests that Matthew had prepared himself, over many years and through many choices, to hear the call when it finally came. The poet imagines that Matthew had completed a slow emptying of his life in charity and thus left the space for God’s voice.
Lasdun wrote the poem referencing a painting of the same name by Caravaggio. ‘The painting was completed in 1599–1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation, San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, where it remains. This painting, by the way, is a favorite of Pope Francis. He has said he went often to contemplate it on his earlier visits to Rome.
Not the abrupt way, frozen
In the one glance of a painter’s frame
Christ in the doorway pointing. Matthew’s face
Bright with perplexity, the glaze
Of a lifetime at the countinghouse
Cracked in the split second’s bolt of being chosen.
But over the years, slowly,
Hinted at, an invisible curve;
Persistent bias always favoring
Backwardly the relinquished thing
Over the kept, the gold signet ring
Dropped in a beggar’s bowl, the eye not fully
Comprehending the hand, not yet;
Heirloom damask thrust in a passing
Stranger’s hand, the ceremonial saddle
(Looped coins, crushed clouds of inline pearl)
Given on an irresistible
impulse to a servant. Where it sat
A saddle-shaped emptiness
Briefly, obscurely brimming … Flagons
Cellars of wine, then as impulse steadied
into habit, habit to need,
Need to compulsion, the whole vineyard
The land itself, graves, herds, the ancestral house,
Given away, each object’s
Hollowed-out void successively
More vivid in him than the thing itself,
As if renouncing merely gave
Density to having; as if
He’s glimpsed in nothingness a derelict’s
Secret of unabated,
Inverse possession … And only then,
Almost superfluous, does the figure
Step softly to the shelter door;
Casual, foreknown, almost familiar,
Calmly received, like someone long awaited.
Music: The Call – Vaughan Williams
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: Such a Way, as gives us breath: Such a Truth, as ends all strife: Such a Life, as killeth death
Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength: Such a Light, as shows a feast: Such a Feast, as mends in length: Such a Strength, as makes his guest
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: Such a Joy, as none can move: Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joys in love
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul gives the Church a job description for bishops. Obviously, there was a time when the worshipping community had significant input into the choice of its spiritual leaders. Therefore, Paul counsels the community to look for appointees who are well-balanced at:
the family level
the ministry level
the societal level
While directed toward bishops and deacons, Paul’s words could serve as an examen for anyone who professes to minister in God’s name.
However, it is the Gospel story of the widow of Nain where my prayer rests today. Reading it, I remember standing by a large walkway window at the Louisville Airport on a sweltering July day nearly twenty years ago.
Down on the heat-softened tarmac, a small bevy of soldiers stood at attention. Slowly, a flag-draped casket was lowered into their waiting arms. Just to the side, a huddled family waited as well. Two children clung to either side of their young mother. An older couple stood behind her, hands gentled on her shoulders.
At the window with me, several other travelers gathered in silence. A few teenage boys removed their inverted baseball caps when they noticed a distinguished older gentleman stand tall and hold a salute.
No one who witnessed that brief ceremony will ever forget it. The grief, reverence and astonishment at life’s fragility emblazoned the moment on every witnessing heart.
When Jesus passed the gates of Nain on that ancient morning, he had a like experience. He saw this “only son of a widowed mother”. Once again, shaken to his roots with compassion –splancha– he pulled heaven down to heal heart-breaking loss.
How I wished Jesus were flying out of Louisville that day in 2005! But then I realized He was there. The miracle was hidden, but still real. The Divine Compassion flowed through me, through the reverent gathering beside me, through the soldiers’ honoring arms, through the long prayerful memory we would all forever share.
That young man from Nain was raised from the dead… but only for a while. He, like all of us, eventually died. The miracle was not about him and the restoration of his life. The miracle was the visible sign of God’s infinite compassion for his mother, and for all of us – God’s “feeling-with-us” in all our experiences. That compassion, whether miraculously visible or not, is always with us.
It just took a different form that day in Louisville.
Poetry: First Born Sons and the Widow of Main by Irene Zimmerman, OSF
Jesus halted on the road outside Nain where a woman’s wailing drenched the air. Out of the gates poured a somber procession of dark-shawled women, hushed children, young men bearing a litter that held a body swathed in burial clothes, and the woman, walking alone.
A widow then—another bundle
of begging rags at the city gates.
A bruised reed!
Her loud grief labored and churned in him till “Halt!” he shouted.
The crowd, the woman, the dead man stopped. Dust, raised by sandaled feet, settled down again on the sandy road. Insects waited in shocked silence.
He walked to the litter, grasped a dead hand. “Young man,” he called in a voice that shook the walls of Sheol, “I command you, rise!”
The linens stirred. Two firstborn sons from Nazareth and Nain met, eye to eye.
He placed the pulsing hand into hers. “Woman, behold your son,” he smiled.
Music: I was reminded of this consoling country song for today’s prayer. Like much country music, it hits the heart where it matters, even if the theology is a little frayed.
God Only Cries – written by Tim Johnson, sung here by Diamond Rio Lyrics below
On an icy road one night A young man loses his life They marked the shoulder with a cross An’ his family gathers round On a piece of Hallowed ground Their hearts are heavy with their loss As the tears fall from their eyes There’s one who’ll always sympathise
God only cries for the living ‘Cause it’s the living that are left to carry on An’ all the angels up in Heaven They’re not grieving because they’re gone There’s a smile on their faces ‘Cause they’re in a better place than… They’ve ever known.
God only cries for the living ‘Cause it’s the living that are so far from home
It still makes me sad When I think of my Grand-dad I miss him each and every day But I know the time will come When my own grandson Wonders why I went away Maybe we’re not meant to understand Till we meet up in the Promised Land
Lavish Mercy 