One of the things I often hear people say is that, although they speak to God, God never seems to say anything in reply. The great German theologian Karl Rahner’s response to this is that we spend our lives talking and God’s reply comes in eternity, but, while there is truth in this, it is only one way of looking it. At another level, the God of that first reading is speaking to us all the time: the God who, as we heard, loves everything that exists, holds it in being and works tirelessly to draw every person to himself. But how does God do this? How do we recognize his voice? How do we know what he is saying? Well, it isn’t always easy? There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who thinks every thought he or she has is from God, as we see today in the kind of religious fundamentalism which causes so much trouble in the world. And yet, while every thought we have – no matter how holy or religious it might appear – is not from God, and while we have to be very careful about what we think God is saying to us in case what we are hearing is our own voice echoing back to us, it’s also true that God is speaking to us all the time. Mind you, if you ever hear actual voices, contact your doctor immediately. The God who communicates with us is not a God out there who speaks the kind of words we hear with our ears. He’s a God who speaks deep within us and whose words are ‘heard’ in a different way altogether. So how do we hear at this deeper level of ourselves? Well, we can at least begin to answer that question by looking again at the Zacchaeus story.
I think we can safely say that what moved Zacchaeus to climb that tree was the same thing that drew so many others to Jesus. Fundamentally it was a sense of ‘dis-ease,’ the sense that something in himself or in his life was not right. Maybe he was no longer happy in his job, maybe it was his age, maybe it was just a vague sense of discontentment, but something in Zacchaeus’ life was not right and he could feel it. It could have been anything, but, whatever was causing the dis-ease, God was speaking to him through it. Zachaeus wanted to see Jesus and only God could have stirred this desire in him. Deep down in all that was going on in his life, God was at work, speaking to his heart and it’s into that same place we must go to hear what God is saying to us.
And the first thing to look for there is any sign of ‘dis-ease’ in ourselves. As with Zacchaeus, it can come in many shapes and forms. Maybe you are showing signs of stress. Maybe you are worried or anxious about your health. Maybe you are tired, needing a holiday, fed up with your job, bored, irritable, unhappy in your marriage, looking for a new challenge, anxious about growing old or feeling angry at someone or something. ‘Dis-ease’ comes in all shapes and forms, but at the root of it is a discontent which, if properly understood, can be a positive force for change in our lives. Cows in a field do not feel this kind of ‘dis-ease.’ They are all the cow they will ever be. As human beings, however, we can never say that we are all we will ever be. We are always capable of more and therein lies the root of our discontent. Our ‘dis-ease,’ more often than not, is a desire for this ‘more,’ and so, far from seeing it as a problem, we should listen carefully to what it is telling us.
But while this is true, it does not in itself tell us what God is saying. To discover that, we must be much more precise about what is going on in ourselves and identify our own personal version of what made Zacchaeus want to see Jesus. For many today it starts with disappointment and disillusionment with the Church or the kind of faith they have grown up with. What in fact is happening often is that God is inviting us to something deeper, questioning and an apparent loss of faith in many being among the first signs of this. In the area of prayer, for example, the statement ‘I don’t seem to able to pray the way I used to,’ is often the surest sign that God is calling a person to new and deeper ways of praying. For others the movement of God manifests itself in things like anger at injustice or, to quote the Beatitudes, ‘a hunger and thirst for what is right.’ a hunger for something better. To want to know Jesus is to feel an attraction to the things of Jesus and to the values of the kingdom, and that is what happened to Zachaeus.
But there is another feeling, too, which can often give us a clue to where God is calling us, and it’s a feeling of resistance in ourselves. Throughout the Gospels, there are examples of situations where it is the unclean spirits who recognize Jesus before anyone else does. They cry out to him to leave them alone, not to disturb them, and it is this same resistance to something which deep in ourselves we know is right that is the first sign of where God is moving in us. And so if we find ourselves getting angry at something or not wanting to hear it, then it may well be a clue to where God is leading. What we do not want to hear may be the very thing God wants to say to us.
But there are external factors, too, which make it difficult to know what God is saying. The voice of God is always gentle. And so, unless we find time in the midst of the modern world to be silent and reflective, the voice of God will often be drowned out by louder and more strident voices. Consumerism, too, is our enemy in this respect. Hearing the voice of God in ourselves involves being in touch with our deeper feelings, whereas consumerism, the advertising that goes with it and the huge amount of rubbish that fills our TV screens every day pander all the time to our more superficial feelings and desires. And that makes things more difficult too. But this is the world we live in and these things are all part of the challenge of living a discerning and faith-filled life in today’s world.
The question is; do we want to do it? Zacchaeus wanted it enough to climb that sycamore tree and it changed his whole life.
BIDDING PRAYERS
In the second reading today, St Paul prays that the people of Thessalonica will be worthy of their call and that God, by his power, will fulfil all their desires for goodness. What is good is of God and so when we long for what is good it is ultimately God we are longing for. And so we pray for the maturity we need to recognize the movement of God in our deepest longings and desires and the insight to recognize what he is saying to us through them in the deepest parts of ourselves..........Lord hear us
In a consumer-driven society, we often have little time or inclination to listen to our deepest desires. We are far too busy feeding our superficial ones in an ultimately futile attempt to keep at bay the deep sense of ‘dis-ease’ which, if we took time to listen to it, would tell us so much about what is wrong with the way we are currently living our lives. And yet the very planet we live on cries out, urging to us to change before it is too late. And so we pray for the grace to hear this cry......Lord hear us
Once again in today’s Gospel, the people complain that Jesus has gone to the house of a sinner, reminding us of last week’s parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-collector. And so we ask God to open our hearts and minds today to hear, yet again, those words of Jesus from the Zacchaeus story. “The Son of Man has come to seek and save what was lost” so that we can open up our hearts to human weakness in all its shapes and forms wherever and whenever we meet it either in ourselves or others......Lord hear us
The first reading this week tells us that God, little by little, corrects those who offend and reminds them of how they have sinned, so that they can abstain from evil and put their trust in him. And so we pray for the grace to become more and more aware of our faults and of the areas in our lives where God is calling us to conversion and change so that. like Zacchaeus after his deep, personal encounter with Jesus, we can learn to live more full and more just lives.........Lord hear us
The book of Wisdom also spoke of a God who loves everything that exists and holds nothing of what he has made in abhorrence. And so we ask God to stir in us through the power of the same Spirit through whom he brought everything into existence, a deep appreciation of the gifts of creation and a deep respect for everything that lives and moves on the face of the earth. But we pray in particular for a deep sense of the dignity and worth of every single human being…….Lord hear us
This weekend, along with every parish throughout the world, we celebrate Mission Sunday. Our mission is to share with the people around us the good news of God’s love for the world and, by the way we live, show them that this love is a power for change in our lives. But for this to happen, we ourselves must experience that love ourselves, so that, when we speak to others, we speak with authority. And so we ask God to bring us to a place where we can be genuine missionaries for others.....Lord hear us
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Saturday, 23 October 2010
30th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
Having been a priest for forty one years, and given that it comes round once every three years, this is the fourteenth time I have had to give a homily on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. I even remember some of the previous ones and so am aware that there are a whole variety of ways of approaching this story. Since this is my first time in West Kilbride, however, I would like to return to what is my favourite way of understanding or interpreting it, which is to see the Pharisee and the tax collector, not as two individuals, but as one person at different stages of spiritual development. Or, to be more accurate, to see them as each one of us at different moments in our journey towards God. This story, in fact, t takes us to the very heart of the journey from religion to faith which has been the consistent theme of everything I have been trying to say to you since I came to the parish a year last Monday.
And the key is in Jesus’ opening sentence, where he says that two men went up to the temple to pray. There is deliberate irony here, because, in reality, only one of them really went up to pray and it was not the Pharisee. He thought he was praying, but the words Jesus puts into his mouth are the most perfect description of religion without faith you could ever hope to come across. Real prayer, the prayer of the man or woman of faith is focused on God, whereas everything this man says is about himself. He does indeed pay tithes on all he gets. He does fast twice a week. Everything he says about himself is true. By the standards of the day he was an upstanding member of the community, the trouble being that, far from leading him to God, these signs of apparent virtue were the very things that were keeping him from God. Somehow, he has to get from where he is now to where the tax collector is. Somehow or other he has to learn that salvation, eternal life, call it what you will, does not come through good works or performing religious actions. It comes, not as the result of anything we do but is an utterly free gift from God. Ultimately, this Pharisee and the Pharisee in each of us has to come to the place occupied by the tax collector, fall on his knees and cry out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
So how do we make this journey? How does the Pharisee become the tax collector? Well, although it can take a lifetime, the answer is both simple and profound. We become the tax collector, we move from the world of religion to the world of faith, by entering into the depths of our own weakness. Two weeks ago, when we had the story of the leper who came back to give thanks for having been cured, I invited you to reflect on the things in your own life you are grateful for. Well this week, I am inviting you to be grateful for your sins, for the mistakes you have made in your life and for all your weaknesses. Because it is only through these that we can come to know the truth about who we are in relation to God and so be able to make those words of the tax collector our own.
Human weakness, of course, comes in all shapes and forms. Sometimes they are big and glaring, as is the case, for example, the rampant alcoholic or the very public womaniser, and sometimes they are low key and persistent, the kind we spend years struggling with and never seem to get on top of: ordinary, simple things like bad temper, envy of others, laziness and so on. Our mistakes, too, come in a whole variety of shapes and sizes. Some are major, like a marriage entered into when we knew, deep down, that it was wrong, or an affair which seemed to offer happiness only to bring misery and heartbreak to everyone concerned. Sometimes it is just a matter of bad judgement; a poor career choice, money thrown away foolishly or a family situation badly handled. There are things, too, about which we can do nothing; things like growing older and the inevitable physical diminishment that goes with it. And so we could go on. But what all of these things do for the person who has the maturity and depth to reflect on them prayerfully is to teach us the full truth about ourselves and set us free from the most profound of all lies, the illusion that we are gods in our own lives. Only when we finally accept this and recognize the One who is God can we begin to leave behind the world of religion, symbolized by the Pharisee, and enter the world of faith where the tax collector in us is able to cry out, “God, be merciful to me, a weak flawed human being who can do nothing without you.” The person who can finally say this and mean it, far from worrying about his or her sins and mistakes, will thank God for them. And this is because these same sins and mistakes have, in his infinite providence, become the place of encounter with God’s deep, forgiving love.
But if this is true of us as individuals, it is also true of the Church as a whole. Certainly the Pharisee was alive and well in the Church many of us grew up in. Secure in our Catholicism, with its novenas, nine Fridays, miraculous medals and so on, we considered ourselves superior to others and regularly thanked God that we were not like the rest of men either. Some of us even believed that only Catholics went to heaven. But how all that has changed. Falling numbers, churches having to close, young people walking away in their droves, the scandal of sex abuse, are forcing us to face up to the truth about that Church. Outside it was all clean and tidy while inside all kinds of rottenness lay hidden. And this truth, even when it is very painful, is slowly but surely setting us free. We are a less arrogant Church than we used to be, although the process of change is far from complete. Millions, however, are finally seeing through the lie that is religion and embarking for the first time on the great journey of faith.
And it is truly wonderful. The Pharisee in the Church is slowly but surely becoming the tax collector and it is God’s doing. Recognize what is happening both in yourself and in the Church and, from the bottom of your heart, thank him for it.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We pray first of all today for the Church throughout the world. We pray that, as it is forced by the media to confront the reality of its own weakness, a weakness which, in the past, we often chose to close our eyes to, it will come to the profound sense of humility and dependence on God it needs if it is to engage in a credible and meaningful way with the world of the 21st century. And so, far from blaming or demonising those who draw these weaknesses to our attention, we thank God for them............Lord hear us
As the previously hidden or deliberately ignored deeply disturbing weaknesses of the Church come to light, many in recent years have lost faith and walk away. And so we pray for all who have been affected in this way. We pray that we will all have the courage and maturity we need to let go of unrealistic, often infantile expectations and continue to live and grow in a Church which, like every single one of its members, is deeply flawed.........Lord hear us
We all make mistakes in our lives. For some people, however, the consequences of the mistakes they make are far-reaching and affect the whole course of their lives. And so we pray for all in the community around us of whom this is true. We pray that, with God’s help, they will learn to forgive themselves and come to see how God has been with them through all that has happened. And we pray, too, for the compassion we need to stop holding the past mistakes of others against them........Lord hear us
For a whole series of understandable reasons, not least among which have been the shortcomings of those of us who claim to believe in him, the world today has largely lost its sense of God. And so we pray that, in and through the many problems and challenges facing humanity at this time - the products of human sinfulness in all its many shapes and forms – the men and women of our time will come to know again both our need for God and the sheer depth of his love for us……Lord hear us
The first reading this week speaks to us of a God who shows no respect for personages to the detriment of the poor man. And so we pray for all who exercise leadership today in Britain, that they will, through the power of his Spirit, become more like God and learn to hear and listen to the cries of the poor. We pray, in particular, that the poor will not be turned into scapegoats and be made to pay the price for the financial folly which has brought our country’s economy to where it is today……...Lord hear us
Today is Mission Sunday, and so we pray that God will stir in all our hearts a deep desire to share our faith with others. The message that we are loved sinners; that our faults and failings are in no way an obstacle to the experience of God’s love; that, despite our weakness and our many mistakes, God longs to share his life with us, is something the world of our time desperately needs to hear. And so we pray that, as a parish, we will always communicate this to those who come to us.......Lord hear us
And the key is in Jesus’ opening sentence, where he says that two men went up to the temple to pray. There is deliberate irony here, because, in reality, only one of them really went up to pray and it was not the Pharisee. He thought he was praying, but the words Jesus puts into his mouth are the most perfect description of religion without faith you could ever hope to come across. Real prayer, the prayer of the man or woman of faith is focused on God, whereas everything this man says is about himself. He does indeed pay tithes on all he gets. He does fast twice a week. Everything he says about himself is true. By the standards of the day he was an upstanding member of the community, the trouble being that, far from leading him to God, these signs of apparent virtue were the very things that were keeping him from God. Somehow, he has to get from where he is now to where the tax collector is. Somehow or other he has to learn that salvation, eternal life, call it what you will, does not come through good works or performing religious actions. It comes, not as the result of anything we do but is an utterly free gift from God. Ultimately, this Pharisee and the Pharisee in each of us has to come to the place occupied by the tax collector, fall on his knees and cry out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
So how do we make this journey? How does the Pharisee become the tax collector? Well, although it can take a lifetime, the answer is both simple and profound. We become the tax collector, we move from the world of religion to the world of faith, by entering into the depths of our own weakness. Two weeks ago, when we had the story of the leper who came back to give thanks for having been cured, I invited you to reflect on the things in your own life you are grateful for. Well this week, I am inviting you to be grateful for your sins, for the mistakes you have made in your life and for all your weaknesses. Because it is only through these that we can come to know the truth about who we are in relation to God and so be able to make those words of the tax collector our own.
Human weakness, of course, comes in all shapes and forms. Sometimes they are big and glaring, as is the case, for example, the rampant alcoholic or the very public womaniser, and sometimes they are low key and persistent, the kind we spend years struggling with and never seem to get on top of: ordinary, simple things like bad temper, envy of others, laziness and so on. Our mistakes, too, come in a whole variety of shapes and sizes. Some are major, like a marriage entered into when we knew, deep down, that it was wrong, or an affair which seemed to offer happiness only to bring misery and heartbreak to everyone concerned. Sometimes it is just a matter of bad judgement; a poor career choice, money thrown away foolishly or a family situation badly handled. There are things, too, about which we can do nothing; things like growing older and the inevitable physical diminishment that goes with it. And so we could go on. But what all of these things do for the person who has the maturity and depth to reflect on them prayerfully is to teach us the full truth about ourselves and set us free from the most profound of all lies, the illusion that we are gods in our own lives. Only when we finally accept this and recognize the One who is God can we begin to leave behind the world of religion, symbolized by the Pharisee, and enter the world of faith where the tax collector in us is able to cry out, “God, be merciful to me, a weak flawed human being who can do nothing without you.” The person who can finally say this and mean it, far from worrying about his or her sins and mistakes, will thank God for them. And this is because these same sins and mistakes have, in his infinite providence, become the place of encounter with God’s deep, forgiving love.
But if this is true of us as individuals, it is also true of the Church as a whole. Certainly the Pharisee was alive and well in the Church many of us grew up in. Secure in our Catholicism, with its novenas, nine Fridays, miraculous medals and so on, we considered ourselves superior to others and regularly thanked God that we were not like the rest of men either. Some of us even believed that only Catholics went to heaven. But how all that has changed. Falling numbers, churches having to close, young people walking away in their droves, the scandal of sex abuse, are forcing us to face up to the truth about that Church. Outside it was all clean and tidy while inside all kinds of rottenness lay hidden. And this truth, even when it is very painful, is slowly but surely setting us free. We are a less arrogant Church than we used to be, although the process of change is far from complete. Millions, however, are finally seeing through the lie that is religion and embarking for the first time on the great journey of faith.
And it is truly wonderful. The Pharisee in the Church is slowly but surely becoming the tax collector and it is God’s doing. Recognize what is happening both in yourself and in the Church and, from the bottom of your heart, thank him for it.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We pray first of all today for the Church throughout the world. We pray that, as it is forced by the media to confront the reality of its own weakness, a weakness which, in the past, we often chose to close our eyes to, it will come to the profound sense of humility and dependence on God it needs if it is to engage in a credible and meaningful way with the world of the 21st century. And so, far from blaming or demonising those who draw these weaknesses to our attention, we thank God for them............Lord hear us
As the previously hidden or deliberately ignored deeply disturbing weaknesses of the Church come to light, many in recent years have lost faith and walk away. And so we pray for all who have been affected in this way. We pray that we will all have the courage and maturity we need to let go of unrealistic, often infantile expectations and continue to live and grow in a Church which, like every single one of its members, is deeply flawed.........Lord hear us
We all make mistakes in our lives. For some people, however, the consequences of the mistakes they make are far-reaching and affect the whole course of their lives. And so we pray for all in the community around us of whom this is true. We pray that, with God’s help, they will learn to forgive themselves and come to see how God has been with them through all that has happened. And we pray, too, for the compassion we need to stop holding the past mistakes of others against them........Lord hear us
For a whole series of understandable reasons, not least among which have been the shortcomings of those of us who claim to believe in him, the world today has largely lost its sense of God. And so we pray that, in and through the many problems and challenges facing humanity at this time - the products of human sinfulness in all its many shapes and forms – the men and women of our time will come to know again both our need for God and the sheer depth of his love for us……Lord hear us
The first reading this week speaks to us of a God who shows no respect for personages to the detriment of the poor man. And so we pray for all who exercise leadership today in Britain, that they will, through the power of his Spirit, become more like God and learn to hear and listen to the cries of the poor. We pray, in particular, that the poor will not be turned into scapegoats and be made to pay the price for the financial folly which has brought our country’s economy to where it is today……...Lord hear us
Today is Mission Sunday, and so we pray that God will stir in all our hearts a deep desire to share our faith with others. The message that we are loved sinners; that our faults and failings are in no way an obstacle to the experience of God’s love; that, despite our weakness and our many mistakes, God longs to share his life with us, is something the world of our time desperately needs to hear. And so we pray that, as a parish, we will always communicate this to those who come to us.......Lord hear us
Saturday, 9 October 2010
28th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
One of the problems about giving homilies is that you can never be sure that what people hear and what you think you have said are the same thing. I remember one old lady in Kilmarnock. She made the tea in the staffroom at St Joseph’s Academy, and often during conversations with the teachers she would say things like, ‘Father was just saying on Sunday..’ and proceed to tell them something which either had nothing whatsoever to do with what I thought I had said or was the exact opposite. I remember another angry woman who phoned up one evening and went on about how, several weeks previously, I had said that Jesus was a woman. I knew I had never said any such thing, but could not figure out what it was she had heard. Thanks to the wonder of computers, however, we were able to trace it back, to discover that what I had said was that God was not a man and that, when she had heard this, she had thought I was talking about Jesus. I had not said Jesus was a woman, but if he was not a man, what else could he be? And then there are the people who, no matter how often you say something, never hear it. One man came to see me recently who, despite the fact that he had sat through many years of my homilies, was adamant that he had never heard me explain the difference between religion and faith. To some extent, of course, we all hear what we want to hear and there are things we hear many times without really hearing them, until one day something changes and it’s as if we are hearing them for the very first time. And so, although I have done so before, I would like to address a question connected with what I said last week.
And it’s a problem which arises every time I speak about the unconditional nature of God’s love. Someone always asks the question, and sure enough, it happened again last week. “But if God loves us unconditionally; if there is nothing we can do which would make God love us any more or any less; if we cannot earn or gain the kingdom by our own efforts; then, what’s the point? What’s the point in being good? What’s the point in going to Mass? What’s the point in trying, if, in the end God loves everybody the same; and, ultimately, for many people who deep down have always envied those who can lie in their beds on a Sunday morning instead of getting up and going Mass, what’s the point in being a Catholic?” These are important questions, but only those who inhabit the world of religion rather than faith could ask them. And I will try to explain why that is.
Dig down as far as you can to the very roots of religion and what you will find there is fear. Our ancient ancestors lived in constant fear of the unpredictable violent forces which governed the world they lived in and, as we have seen before, religion in its simple and most primitive form was a way of dealing with and alleviating those fears. If they could control the gods and win their favour, then maybe the worst would not happen. Maybe by performing religious actions and offering sacrifices they could get the gods on their side and persuade them to do what they wanted. And deep within our churches that same primitive way of thinking is alive and active. How many people over the years have gone to Mass out of fear of what might happen if they didn’t, especially if, as happened to me, it was drummed into you at school what would happen if we committed a mortal sin and died without going to confession. And how much harm has been done to people who have lived their whole lives fearful of a God who was watching them, keeping a record of every wrong thing they ever did – extending to even their most secret thoughts - and just waiting to trip them up and punish them at every opportunity? Such non-existent gods have caused havoc over the years, limiting people’s capacity to be enjoy their lives and contributing to all kinds of mental health problems like depression and scruples. They even lie at the root of the Reformation. Not only was fear of damnation at the heart of the problem of indulgences, but Martin Luther himself was a man tormented by the fear we speak of. Driven by his fears, he went to confession many times every day and ultimately only found relief from his scruples in the whole notion of justification by faith alone, a struggle which has had long-term consequences for the whole Church.
But for those who have begun to move from the world of religion rooted in fear into the world of faith, a whole new dynamic opens up. In this new world it is not fear which lies at the root of how we live, but gratitude. And here, of course, we have the link with the story of the leper in today’s gospel story. Religion is about doing things for God. Faith is about what God longs to do for us. And as the truth of all that God has done and longs to do in us and for us begins to dawn, deep, overwhelming gratitude is the only possible response. And as it grows in us through the power of the Spirit, our whole reason for doing what we do as Christians is transformed and moved onto a totally different plane. We start coming to Mass, not out of fear of what will happen if we don’t, but to give joyful thanks to God for all that he is doing in us. Christian morality becomes, not a list of ‘thou shalt nots’ which put restrictions on what otherwise we might want to do, but a whole new, rich vision of where human happiness and human fulfilment really lie. The sacrament of penance, which, thanks to the fear we speak of, few people use these days, and which grown men and women still live in fear of, becomes what it was always meant to be, a joyful gratitude-filled encounter with the Jesus who loves humanity in its weakness and longs to lead us beyond the sinful and destructive parts of ourselves which cause so much pain and damage to ourselves and others.
But even in the single year I have been here, I have said these things over and over again. But have you heard them? Only you can answer that question, but my own prayer is that there will be at least one person here this weekend who really hears them for the very first time.
BIDDING PRAYERS
Leprosy in Jesus’ day was a metaphor for sin, and Jesus’ healing of the man in today’s gospel, like all the other healing stories in the gospel, is really about the forgiveness of sin. And so we ask God today to stir in us today a deep sense of the reality of sin in the world and of our need for healing and forgiveness both as individuals and as a society if we are to overcome the selfish, destructive part of ourselves, move beyond narrow self-interest and build a more just future for the whole of humanity......Lord hear us
There is nothing in the whole of life more radical than the Word of God which we hear each week. It challenges us to the very roots of our being, calling us to profoundly new ways of living based on the teaching of Jesus. It invites us to embrace the values of the kingdom rather than those of the consumer-driven society we live in and this is not at all easy. But we pray that, with God’s help, we will come here each week open to the challenge and willing to go wherever the Spirit leads........Lord hear us
The tendency to have selective hearing and hear what we want to hear, blocking out the things we don’t agree with, or simply do not want to hear, is deep in all of us. We use it as a way of keeping Jesus at a safe distance, enabling us to avoid the radical nature of his teaching. We reduce the gospels to something we can understand and accept, something that makes sense on our terms, and so rob it of its power. And so we ask God for the insight and wisdom we need to see how we do this.......Lord hear us
The fear which has lain at the root of religion from primitive times has done immense harm to millions of human beings over the years. It can be the cause of scruples, with all the anxiety they cause in the lives of those who suffer from them. For others, it can be a contributory factor in depression and other mental health problems. And so we pray for all whose lives are blighted by a deep rooted fear of God that they will come to know something of the sheer depth of God’s love for them........Lord hear us
For millions of others, this deep-rooted fear of God has other harmful consequences. Deep inside many religious people, it whispers the lie that to enjoy the things which give us pleasure in life is somehow not quite right, leaving us feeling guilty about things there is nothing to feel guilty about. As a result, many outside the church believe that getting involved with God would mean the end of all fun and enjoyment. And so we pray that, by living joyful lives, we will show the world that this is not true............Lord hear us
Few people in the Church today celebrate the sacrament we call Confession. For millions whose early childhood experience in this area was one of fear and dread, the thought of going to Confession is not unlike the way we feel about a visit to the dentist. And yet it does not have to be like this. Confession at its best is an a joyful encounter with the Jesus who healed the leper in today’s Gospel and we pray for the coming of the day when we will all re-discover this and feel again something of the gratitude he felt.....Lord hear us
And it’s a problem which arises every time I speak about the unconditional nature of God’s love. Someone always asks the question, and sure enough, it happened again last week. “But if God loves us unconditionally; if there is nothing we can do which would make God love us any more or any less; if we cannot earn or gain the kingdom by our own efforts; then, what’s the point? What’s the point in being good? What’s the point in going to Mass? What’s the point in trying, if, in the end God loves everybody the same; and, ultimately, for many people who deep down have always envied those who can lie in their beds on a Sunday morning instead of getting up and going Mass, what’s the point in being a Catholic?” These are important questions, but only those who inhabit the world of religion rather than faith could ask them. And I will try to explain why that is.
Dig down as far as you can to the very roots of religion and what you will find there is fear. Our ancient ancestors lived in constant fear of the unpredictable violent forces which governed the world they lived in and, as we have seen before, religion in its simple and most primitive form was a way of dealing with and alleviating those fears. If they could control the gods and win their favour, then maybe the worst would not happen. Maybe by performing religious actions and offering sacrifices they could get the gods on their side and persuade them to do what they wanted. And deep within our churches that same primitive way of thinking is alive and active. How many people over the years have gone to Mass out of fear of what might happen if they didn’t, especially if, as happened to me, it was drummed into you at school what would happen if we committed a mortal sin and died without going to confession. And how much harm has been done to people who have lived their whole lives fearful of a God who was watching them, keeping a record of every wrong thing they ever did – extending to even their most secret thoughts - and just waiting to trip them up and punish them at every opportunity? Such non-existent gods have caused havoc over the years, limiting people’s capacity to be enjoy their lives and contributing to all kinds of mental health problems like depression and scruples. They even lie at the root of the Reformation. Not only was fear of damnation at the heart of the problem of indulgences, but Martin Luther himself was a man tormented by the fear we speak of. Driven by his fears, he went to confession many times every day and ultimately only found relief from his scruples in the whole notion of justification by faith alone, a struggle which has had long-term consequences for the whole Church.
But for those who have begun to move from the world of religion rooted in fear into the world of faith, a whole new dynamic opens up. In this new world it is not fear which lies at the root of how we live, but gratitude. And here, of course, we have the link with the story of the leper in today’s gospel story. Religion is about doing things for God. Faith is about what God longs to do for us. And as the truth of all that God has done and longs to do in us and for us begins to dawn, deep, overwhelming gratitude is the only possible response. And as it grows in us through the power of the Spirit, our whole reason for doing what we do as Christians is transformed and moved onto a totally different plane. We start coming to Mass, not out of fear of what will happen if we don’t, but to give joyful thanks to God for all that he is doing in us. Christian morality becomes, not a list of ‘thou shalt nots’ which put restrictions on what otherwise we might want to do, but a whole new, rich vision of where human happiness and human fulfilment really lie. The sacrament of penance, which, thanks to the fear we speak of, few people use these days, and which grown men and women still live in fear of, becomes what it was always meant to be, a joyful gratitude-filled encounter with the Jesus who loves humanity in its weakness and longs to lead us beyond the sinful and destructive parts of ourselves which cause so much pain and damage to ourselves and others.
But even in the single year I have been here, I have said these things over and over again. But have you heard them? Only you can answer that question, but my own prayer is that there will be at least one person here this weekend who really hears them for the very first time.
BIDDING PRAYERS
Leprosy in Jesus’ day was a metaphor for sin, and Jesus’ healing of the man in today’s gospel, like all the other healing stories in the gospel, is really about the forgiveness of sin. And so we ask God today to stir in us today a deep sense of the reality of sin in the world and of our need for healing and forgiveness both as individuals and as a society if we are to overcome the selfish, destructive part of ourselves, move beyond narrow self-interest and build a more just future for the whole of humanity......Lord hear us
There is nothing in the whole of life more radical than the Word of God which we hear each week. It challenges us to the very roots of our being, calling us to profoundly new ways of living based on the teaching of Jesus. It invites us to embrace the values of the kingdom rather than those of the consumer-driven society we live in and this is not at all easy. But we pray that, with God’s help, we will come here each week open to the challenge and willing to go wherever the Spirit leads........Lord hear us
The tendency to have selective hearing and hear what we want to hear, blocking out the things we don’t agree with, or simply do not want to hear, is deep in all of us. We use it as a way of keeping Jesus at a safe distance, enabling us to avoid the radical nature of his teaching. We reduce the gospels to something we can understand and accept, something that makes sense on our terms, and so rob it of its power. And so we ask God for the insight and wisdom we need to see how we do this.......Lord hear us
The fear which has lain at the root of religion from primitive times has done immense harm to millions of human beings over the years. It can be the cause of scruples, with all the anxiety they cause in the lives of those who suffer from them. For others, it can be a contributory factor in depression and other mental health problems. And so we pray for all whose lives are blighted by a deep rooted fear of God that they will come to know something of the sheer depth of God’s love for them........Lord hear us
For millions of others, this deep-rooted fear of God has other harmful consequences. Deep inside many religious people, it whispers the lie that to enjoy the things which give us pleasure in life is somehow not quite right, leaving us feeling guilty about things there is nothing to feel guilty about. As a result, many outside the church believe that getting involved with God would mean the end of all fun and enjoyment. And so we pray that, by living joyful lives, we will show the world that this is not true............Lord hear us
Few people in the Church today celebrate the sacrament we call Confession. For millions whose early childhood experience in this area was one of fear and dread, the thought of going to Confession is not unlike the way we feel about a visit to the dentist. And yet it does not have to be like this. Confession at its best is an a joyful encounter with the Jesus who healed the leper in today’s Gospel and we pray for the coming of the day when we will all re-discover this and feel again something of the gratitude he felt.....Lord hear us
Saturday, 2 October 2010
27th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C
When we had the parable of the Prodigal Son three weeks ago, one parishioner told me she hated that story. It was, she said, so unfair. And many people do instinctively feel sorry for the brother who played safe, stayed at home and kept all the rules, perhaps because we see something of ourselves in him. And then there’s that other story of the workers who came at the eleventh hour and were paid the same amount as those who had worked hard in the vineyard all day long. That, too, seems unfair to many, although the parishioner who hated the parable of the Prodigal son was prepared to give this one more of a hearing. The ones who had worked all day had, she acknowledged, made an agreement, and having been a trade unionist all her life, she was prepared to come and go a bit on that one. And then we come to today’s story. It doesn’t seem unfair in the way the other two do, but it doesn’t seem entirely consistent with them. Any master would expect his servant, even after a hard day’s work, to get his supper ready before he had his own. But what has happened to the lavish generosity of the first two stories? And what about the Jesus who washed his disciples feet and told them that the greatest among them must become the servant of all. Well, this is what I would like to reflect on today.
The reason, I believe, why we struggle with some of the parables of Jesus is because of the things we are taught from a very early age. ‘If you don’t eat your peas there will no trifle.’ ‘If you don’t start behaving yourself there will be no football this weekend’ ‘If you don’t go up there right now and tidy your room there’s no way you’re having your friends here tomorrow tonight’ And so it goes on. Very quickly in our lives we learn that all manner of things are conditional. If we please others and do what they want, they will like us more than if we annoy them or upset them, and very soon this message becomes part of the hard-wiring in our brains. It fundamentally shapes the way we respond to each other, setting us up for all kinds of complications in our relationships, not least of which is the way we learn to use emotional blackmail to manipulate others. We soon learn that there is no such thing as a free lunch. More and more as we move out into the world we discover that it is a ‘dog eat dog situation’ out there. One good turn deserves another. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Such and such a person owes me one. Agnes gave me a birthday present last year so I better get her one this year. We got a Christmas card from the Brown’s today so we better send them one back. It’s the way the world works, the problem being that it’s not the way God works.
To enter the kingdom of God, you see, is like entering another dimension, something I know about after ten years as a prison chaplain. In our country, you see, there are people who don’t live in the same world as we do. They belong to an underclass and although they occupy the same physical space as we do, live their lives in a another dimension altogether. It looks to us as if they break our rules, but the truth is that they live in a world with different rules, where things don’t look the way they do in our world and where the values we take for granted often have no meaning. At another level, scientists speak about the possible existence of up to eleven different dimensions, possibly also occupying the same space as we do, and speculate about whether what we think of as the basic laws of physics which govern everything we know about the physical universe would apply in these parallel worlds. And the kingdom is like that. In it, everything that makes our world go round is turned on its head and the basic laws by which we live most of our lives do not apply. In our world things are earned. In the kingdom of God everything is freely given. That is the whole point of the story Jesus tells today. The kingdom of God cannot be earned and that is why, no matter how hard the servant has worked, the master owes him nothing. The very concept of owing or being under an obligation to do something makes no sense in this new dimension. Fairness, the idea that we should get what we deserve is redundant. Love does not understand fairness and far outstrips it in generosity. It is just not like that. We cannot control or manipulate God in any way whatsoever, which, of course, is what religion as opposed to faith has always tried to do. We can perform all the religious actions we like, but nothing we do or don’t do can make God love us any more or any less.
But it’s so hard for us to understand this. It is so different from what we are used. The idea that we should love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, or that we should turn the other cheek makes no sense to millions. And even when they can see the attractiveness of it, many dismiss it as unrealistic. One politician friend of mine with whom I have discussed these things many times over the years has felt the need to remind me on a number of occasions that we have to live in the real world.
But, of course, in saying this, he begs the question, which is which of the worlds we live in is the real one. Is it the world where virtually all love is conditional and has to be earned or is it the world of the Prodigal son and the man who paid all his workers the same. Faith tells us that it is the latter and that, while the world as we know it now will pass away, the world described by Jesus both in these stories and in the one we heard today will not pass away but will last forever. This is the vision of the kingdom of God the prophet Habakkuk speaks of in today’s first reading. ‘Eager for its own fulfilment’ he says, ‘it does not deceive. ‘If it comes slowly,’ he continues ‘but wait, for come it will without fail.’
It may seem unrealistic. It may seem impossible. It may be hard to believe. But as men and women of faith we are called, not only move mulberry trees, but to turn whole worlds upside down.
BIDDING PRAYERS
It is not possible to enter the kingdom of God unless we turn upside down and inside out many of the things the world has taught us from childhood. The kingdom involves new ways of thinking, new ways of loving, new ways of treating others, new way of seeing the world and new, faith-filled rather than religious ways of relating to God. Its values are very different from those of the secular world and challenge us as human beings to the very depth of our being. And so we pray for the grace to understand this........Lord hear us
In the first reading, the prophet Habakkuk struggles to hang on to the vision which God holds up before him. He is surrounded, he tells us, by tyranny and injustice. Outrage and violence is all he sees and wherever he looks, contention and discord flourish. But in the midst of all this he hangs on to his vision for the future. The vision, he says, does not deceive. If it comes slowly, wait, for come it will without fail. And so we pray for some of his trust in God’s vision for the world which we call the kingdom........Lord hear us
The kingdom of God is not just something for the future. It’s not about ‘pie in the sky when we die.’ The kingdom, Jesus tells us, is among us. It is already growing in our midst wherever the hungry are fed; wherever enemies forgive one another; wherever people in our consumer-driven society sense that something is not right and begin to long for something deeper; wherever religion begins to give way to faith; and so we pray for the wisdom to see this is happening in the world today.........Lord hear us
Many people in the world today can see the need for radical change in the way we live. Politicians speak about it and, in their speeches during election campaigns, promise that, if we vote for them, they will deliver it. But in the cold light of day most revert to old ways of thinking and old ways of doing things. Many lose sight of the original vision which inspired them and cynicism is a constant danger. And so pray for those who govern us, that they will never lose faith in our capacity for something better........Lord hear us
In the second reading, Paul urges Timothy to fan into a flame the gift God gave him when he, Paul, laid hands on him. The gift he had received then was not a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, and he must never be ashamed of his faith. But we, too, had hands laid on us at Confirmation and received the same gift as Timothy did. After the Pope’s visit, Archbishop Nicholls of Westminster has called on us, too, to be less afraid to witness to our faith in public and we pray for the courage to respond to that call.....Lord hear us
In the end, only God loves us with unconditional love. This is because God is love. But through the power of the spirit living in us, it is possible for us to grow in love and for our love, slowly but surely throughout our lives, to become more and more like God’s. And so we pray for this grace for ourselves. And we pray, too, for those people in our lives who, when we have not perhaps been very loveable at a human level, have continued to love us and shown us something of what God’s love is like........Lord hear us
The reason, I believe, why we struggle with some of the parables of Jesus is because of the things we are taught from a very early age. ‘If you don’t eat your peas there will no trifle.’ ‘If you don’t start behaving yourself there will be no football this weekend’ ‘If you don’t go up there right now and tidy your room there’s no way you’re having your friends here tomorrow tonight’ And so it goes on. Very quickly in our lives we learn that all manner of things are conditional. If we please others and do what they want, they will like us more than if we annoy them or upset them, and very soon this message becomes part of the hard-wiring in our brains. It fundamentally shapes the way we respond to each other, setting us up for all kinds of complications in our relationships, not least of which is the way we learn to use emotional blackmail to manipulate others. We soon learn that there is no such thing as a free lunch. More and more as we move out into the world we discover that it is a ‘dog eat dog situation’ out there. One good turn deserves another. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Such and such a person owes me one. Agnes gave me a birthday present last year so I better get her one this year. We got a Christmas card from the Brown’s today so we better send them one back. It’s the way the world works, the problem being that it’s not the way God works.
To enter the kingdom of God, you see, is like entering another dimension, something I know about after ten years as a prison chaplain. In our country, you see, there are people who don’t live in the same world as we do. They belong to an underclass and although they occupy the same physical space as we do, live their lives in a another dimension altogether. It looks to us as if they break our rules, but the truth is that they live in a world with different rules, where things don’t look the way they do in our world and where the values we take for granted often have no meaning. At another level, scientists speak about the possible existence of up to eleven different dimensions, possibly also occupying the same space as we do, and speculate about whether what we think of as the basic laws of physics which govern everything we know about the physical universe would apply in these parallel worlds. And the kingdom is like that. In it, everything that makes our world go round is turned on its head and the basic laws by which we live most of our lives do not apply. In our world things are earned. In the kingdom of God everything is freely given. That is the whole point of the story Jesus tells today. The kingdom of God cannot be earned and that is why, no matter how hard the servant has worked, the master owes him nothing. The very concept of owing or being under an obligation to do something makes no sense in this new dimension. Fairness, the idea that we should get what we deserve is redundant. Love does not understand fairness and far outstrips it in generosity. It is just not like that. We cannot control or manipulate God in any way whatsoever, which, of course, is what religion as opposed to faith has always tried to do. We can perform all the religious actions we like, but nothing we do or don’t do can make God love us any more or any less.
But it’s so hard for us to understand this. It is so different from what we are used. The idea that we should love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, or that we should turn the other cheek makes no sense to millions. And even when they can see the attractiveness of it, many dismiss it as unrealistic. One politician friend of mine with whom I have discussed these things many times over the years has felt the need to remind me on a number of occasions that we have to live in the real world.
But, of course, in saying this, he begs the question, which is which of the worlds we live in is the real one. Is it the world where virtually all love is conditional and has to be earned or is it the world of the Prodigal son and the man who paid all his workers the same. Faith tells us that it is the latter and that, while the world as we know it now will pass away, the world described by Jesus both in these stories and in the one we heard today will not pass away but will last forever. This is the vision of the kingdom of God the prophet Habakkuk speaks of in today’s first reading. ‘Eager for its own fulfilment’ he says, ‘it does not deceive. ‘If it comes slowly,’ he continues ‘but wait, for come it will without fail.’
It may seem unrealistic. It may seem impossible. It may be hard to believe. But as men and women of faith we are called, not only move mulberry trees, but to turn whole worlds upside down.
BIDDING PRAYERS
It is not possible to enter the kingdom of God unless we turn upside down and inside out many of the things the world has taught us from childhood. The kingdom involves new ways of thinking, new ways of loving, new ways of treating others, new way of seeing the world and new, faith-filled rather than religious ways of relating to God. Its values are very different from those of the secular world and challenge us as human beings to the very depth of our being. And so we pray for the grace to understand this........Lord hear us
In the first reading, the prophet Habakkuk struggles to hang on to the vision which God holds up before him. He is surrounded, he tells us, by tyranny and injustice. Outrage and violence is all he sees and wherever he looks, contention and discord flourish. But in the midst of all this he hangs on to his vision for the future. The vision, he says, does not deceive. If it comes slowly, wait, for come it will without fail. And so we pray for some of his trust in God’s vision for the world which we call the kingdom........Lord hear us
The kingdom of God is not just something for the future. It’s not about ‘pie in the sky when we die.’ The kingdom, Jesus tells us, is among us. It is already growing in our midst wherever the hungry are fed; wherever enemies forgive one another; wherever people in our consumer-driven society sense that something is not right and begin to long for something deeper; wherever religion begins to give way to faith; and so we pray for the wisdom to see this is happening in the world today.........Lord hear us
Many people in the world today can see the need for radical change in the way we live. Politicians speak about it and, in their speeches during election campaigns, promise that, if we vote for them, they will deliver it. But in the cold light of day most revert to old ways of thinking and old ways of doing things. Many lose sight of the original vision which inspired them and cynicism is a constant danger. And so pray for those who govern us, that they will never lose faith in our capacity for something better........Lord hear us
In the second reading, Paul urges Timothy to fan into a flame the gift God gave him when he, Paul, laid hands on him. The gift he had received then was not a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, and he must never be ashamed of his faith. But we, too, had hands laid on us at Confirmation and received the same gift as Timothy did. After the Pope’s visit, Archbishop Nicholls of Westminster has called on us, too, to be less afraid to witness to our faith in public and we pray for the courage to respond to that call.....Lord hear us
In the end, only God loves us with unconditional love. This is because God is love. But through the power of the spirit living in us, it is possible for us to grow in love and for our love, slowly but surely throughout our lives, to become more and more like God’s. And so we pray for this grace for ourselves. And we pray, too, for those people in our lives who, when we have not perhaps been very loveable at a human level, have continued to love us and shown us something of what God’s love is like........Lord hear us
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