Reflecting on Luke 14:1,7-14

Several summers ago I was recovering from surgery on my vocal cords and couldn’t speak for a week.  I was out walking one very hot Sunday afternoon and began to panic because I had run out of water and was still a mile from home.  One of the churches on the corner of a busy intersection was having a “Getting to know you” picnic on their grounds as an outreach to all those speeding by.  Ah, thank you, God.  Here I can get a refill for my water bottle and make it home.

The last shall be first

There were lots of warm, friendly congregants out on the front lawn, pouring lemonade and passing out cookies and information about times of their services.  Because I couldn’t speak, I smiled and indicated my empty water bottle.  All these years later, I’m still hurt by the detached indifference I experienced.  The smiling hospitality members took a few steps back and walked away.  No one would make eye contact with me.  I was, I guess, the odd, sweaty interloper who wasn’t speaking and kept pointing to her water bottle.  For some reason that made me scary, or at least not the person they were hoping their picnic would attract.

But I’m a SOMEBODY!  I’m a SINGER!  I’m just TEMPORARILY DISABLED! I’ll be at the top of my game again in a DAY OR TWO!

And you know what?  That day never came.

How glad I am now for that tiny peek into the world of those who come into our churches without resumes, without connections, but with a sliver of hope that someone will notice them and reach out.  The “last” are actually SOMEBODIES, as those of us who have been “first” a lot will surely one day find out.

Sharing God’s Word at Home

What experiences of “first” and “last” have shaped your life?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 13:22-30

It turns out that the question of who gets into heaven and who doesn’t gets settled on the bus.  Well, not just any bus.  It’s that primordial bus that C.S. Lewis creates for us in his masterpiece, The Great Divorce. There we see ourselves as the fearful, suspicious, whiny, gossipy passengers who have boarded the bus between heaven and hell.  And guess what?  We can’t get into heaven because we won’t get off the bus.

And why should we?   We can see from our stuffy, boarded-up windows that SHE made it in, and we CERTAINLY aren’t interested in getting out if they let HER in, for heaven’s sake.  We’ll just sit right here, thank you just the same.

The grass in heaven is so strong it’s like walking on sharp knives when you’ve been such a cheat and such a fake your whole life that you’ve never built up any real integrity to give you strength.   And who can stand up to the rain in heaven?  It’s like getting hit with bullets when you’ve spent your whole life dodging responsibilities, or the outstretched hands of those who are poor.

But watch!  There are angels to help us step off the bus and take those first courageous steps towards humility, and forgiveness, and healing from addictions, and reunions with family members we’ve cheated or ignored or abused.  All it takes is the grace to give God permission to make us fit for heaven.

Lord, will only a few be saved? Perhaps the better question is Lord, will only a few WANT to be saved? Because heaven isn’t for sissies.  But heaven IS for those grateful souls who, in fear and trembling, take God’s hand and step off the bus.

Sharing God’s Word at Home

What are you working on changing so that you’ll be comfortable in heaven?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 1: 39-56

Today’s Gospel, the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, tells us that Mary, a woman alone and with child, made a fifty-mile journey from Galilee to Ein Karem, in the hill country of Judea.  Today a Catholic church stands at that site. Its many paintings depict Elizabeth and Mary, and other women of their time, as they went about the sacred business of keeping alive their religious traditions.  It is surely the most “feminine” church in Christendom.

Church of the Visitation in Ein Karem, Israel

When Mary, now the ark of the covenant, the carrier of the Savior, arrives at her cousin’s home, she sings her Magnificat.  What seems to be most on her mind, curiously, is not the news of her astonishing pregnancy, or even that of her old cousin.  Instead, she wants to talk about God’s power to lift up the lowly and to fill the hungry with good things.

It makes you wonder what she saw on that road as she traveled.  Did she see widows and orphans crying for food, cast far away from the safety nets of husbands and fathers?  Did she see the executed Jews, whom the Romans crucified along well-traveled paths as reminders of the “Pax Romana”?    When she arrived at her cousin’s, the unborn John sensed the presence of the true and only Prince of Peace.  That six-month-old fetus was the first to recognize the Incarnation, traveling in the womb of his mother Mary.  That should end any question of when life begins.

As the lovely Medical Missionaries’ hymn, The Visit, sings, There leaped a little child in the ancient womb.  And there leaped a little hope in every ancient tomb.

Sharing God’s Word at Home

What do you think the young Mary was thinking about as she traveled to see her cousin?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19

Imagine this: Abraham and Sarah had no idea where they were going when God sent them out to a land they’d never seen.  In a dangerous world they set out to travel hundreds of miles in order to take possession of a land about which they’d never heard.

Abraham went out, not knowing where he was supposed to go

Why?  Because they were convinced that God had instructed them to do that.  After they completed that huge marathon of trust it must have become easier to believe all the other promises God had given them, even though it was impossible to imagine how any of them could ever be fulfilled.

Faith is like a muscle.  You have to work at it to make it strong enough to lift you up.  The author of the letter to the Hebrews was flexing the muscles of the early Christian believers by reminding them that the same God who was faithful to Abraham and Sarah will be faithful to them too.

My great friend Sr. Macrina Scott, O.S.F. reminds me that, in times of anxiety or fear, I should just remember that the same God who was faithful in the past will of course be faithful in the future.  That’s easy to recall during these long, luscious summer days of peaches and corn on the cob.  When the November winds blow a few months from now we’ll need to remember, once again, that faith is the evidence of things not seen.

Sharing God’s Word at Home

In what ways does remembering God’s faithfulness give you strength?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23

Of all the Old Testament writers, I think I feel sorriest for the guy who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes.  He has a symbolic name―Qoheleth, “ Preacher”―because his actual name and position in the 3^rd century B.C. community is unknown.  He’s lived a long life, tried on every one of the theologies available to him from the Scriptures, and has come to this conclusion: life’s a drag, and then you die.

Poor Qoheleth

My heart breaks for Qoheleth because if he had only been born just 250 years later he might have known Jesus.  I’ll bet he would have been a disciple, or maybe even one of the Twelve.  He was a seeker, a true lover of the Word in his youth, but as he aged he experienced that most radical challenge to Hebrew theology:  bad things happen to really good people.  And because he never knew Jesus he didn’t have any place to put that in his head.  He had no understanding of an afterlife, no theology of meaning in suffering.  Hence his conclusion: Vanity of vanities, life is just a chase against the wind.

The foolish landowner in today’s Gospel thinks to himself: I can’t take it with me, so I might as well eat, drink and be merry. But Jesus says we do take it with us ―every bin of grain that is opened up and poured out for those who are poor goes with us when we go to God.  And, by the way, we have no idea when that day may come.

Sharing God’s Word at Home

What is the hardest part of your wealth for you to share?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 11:1-13

There is an elephant in the room, and maybe we should acknowledge it and bring it out into the light.  Here it is:  we have asked and not received, sought and not found, knocked and heard the door locking from the inside.  Haven’t we?  And so today we hear Jesus commanding us to keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking, and we find hope again.  We believe again.  We ask again.

We try to bargain with God like Abraham did.  But Jesus has promised us that God wants to give us more than we even know how to ask for.  And sometimes it turns out that we were actually asking for a stone, and God gave us fish instead.

Suffering.  It’s probably the greatest barrier for us in our search for God.  Where was God when my dad died last year?  We prayed so hard for my sister to be cured, but God didn’t listen. God could have saved all those kids from that car accident, but just didn’t.

The search for meaning in our suffering is the elephant in the room.  But the Holy Spirit is in the room too, the great and lasting Comforter whom Jesus promises is the reward for all who pray.  Keep praying, and watch the Holy Spirit work.  Keep seeking, and find the Holy Spirit waiting for you in those dark corners.

I will keep knocking until the day the Holy Spirit opens the door to eternity, where every tear will be undone and Jesus,  my all-loving Savior, returns to me a hundredfold all the loves I thought I’d lost.

Sharing God’s Word at Home

Do you feel the Holy Spirit helping you to overcome disappointment and grief?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Genesis 18:1-10, Luke 10:38-42

Christ in the house of Martha and Mary by Jan Vermeer

 There is so much to notice in this story, but my eye keeps going back to Abraham, sitting in the entrance of that hot tent in the heat of the day.  And here is what keeps catching my eye:  Looking up, Abraham saw three men standing nearby.

He was sitting, looking out at the endless, silent desert.  He must have been able to see miles ahead, and the approach of three strangers could have been observed for hours before they arrived outside his tent.  But, no, he looked up and saw them. No camels kicking up telltale dust three hours earlier.  No neighboring Bedouins calling out that strangers were coming.  He looked up, and there they were.

Is it possible that those three “men”―the angels posted with God to announce the birth of Isaac―had been standing at the entrance to Abraham’s tent from the beginning of time? What great cloud of witnesses surrounds us, waiting for us to look up and see?  What miracles hover near us, waiting for us to notice?

Which brings us back to the Gospel today.  Mary looked up and saw Jesus in her home, and she never took her eyes off of him. She showed the greatest hospitality by making room for him in her soul and spirit― by truly seeing who it was who was sent to her, and never leaving his side.  She teaches us the meaning of the mystic’s sense of prayer:

Prayer is gazing at God, who is gazing at you.

Sharing God’s Word at Home

Do you think you have ever encountered an angel?

 What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 10:25-37

The trouble with Luke’s magnificent story of love of neighbor is that you can’t take it too literally.  After all, serial killers like Ted Bundy have found their victims by pretending to be crippled and in need of help to their car.  Roadside warnings near detention centers send a chill up the spine: do not pick up hitchhikers.

Vincent van Gogh, The Good Samaritan --- May 1890

But one scorching summer day in the Utah desert 30 years ago, some travelers driving by spotted a very thin young man resting on the ground next to his bike.  Something wasn’t right.  He looked gaunt and weak.  They circled back and asked out the window Are you okay?  But he was too weak to answer.  And this dad and mom, with their two children in tow, leapt from their car, wiped his face with cool  water, placed him and his bike in the car, carefully gave him food and water, and drove him to the rectory of the first Catholic Church they found.

The Spanish-speaking housekeeper cried Oh Dios! and directed them to take him into the cool back bedroom.  She cared for him for several days until he recovered from his extreme heat stroke and dehydration.

Where are they now, that observant family that noticed that something didn’t seem quite right and took the time to circle back?  Where are the tender housekeeper and kind priest who gave him shelter and comfort?

Because, as my 22^nd wedding anniversary approaches, I want to be able to thank them for saving the life of the young man who, years later, would save mine.

Have you ever experienced life-saving help from a stranger?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Galatians 6:14-18

It’s a beautiful summer holiday weekend in Colorado, and we have friends visiting from Iowa. They’ve spent every possible moment up in the mountains, hiking, rafting, and gawking at the bicyclists riding up Mount Evans.

Amber waves of Nebraska grain

I brag that America the Beautiful was written here.  I look to the west and see the purple mountain majesties that have brought me to prayer every morning of my life.

It’s hard to live in a constant state of gratitude and awe.  My sister is the best you’ve ever seen.  We’ll be driving along the San Diego harbor―she lives in that spectacular city―and she’ll stop the car to make sure we are all thanking God for the water, and the ships, and the seagulls.  And it turns out we are.

This land is our land, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. Oh, God, forgive us our trespasses against Your Gulf Stream waters.

Paul bore the marks of Jesus on his body. America bears scars on her body too.  Our rivers, our forests, our seas and our skies bear the wounds of our selfish decisions, our appalling deficit of dreams.  We know better now, and we’ll do better.

It’s nice that the holiday lands right on Sunday this year.  It gives us the collective opportunity to ask forgiveness for what we have done, and what we have failed to do.  And then, in our Sunday sanctuary of time, we will bless and thank our Creator for the endless gifts of America the Beautiful.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Where is your favorite place to pray in your home state?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting On Luke 9:51-62

I’ve got good news.  Those dusty archaeologists (bless them) who spend their lives digging in the scorching Mediterranean sun have given us a very plausible (and comforting) explanation of that MOST unsettling command in today’s Gospel: let the dead bury their dead. It’s simply this: the burial time for the dead in Jesus’ day was an entire year.  After burying the dead immediately (as we saw in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ own death) the sons “sit shi’va” for seven days.  (So the disciple who asks to bury his father before following Jesus wouldn’t even have been around if the death had happened within that week—he would have been at home fulfilling this responsibility.)

Ancient tomb in the Mount of Olives

But then the corpse is left in the tomb for eleven months, after which the relatives re-bury the decomposed body by taking the bones and placing them in a burial box, an ossuary, and placing it back in the tomb, along with all the other family dead who are in various stages of burial.  The tomb continues to fill with the other dead from the family, buried for the first time and then again a year later.

So…what a great relief to consider that Jesus was thinking of all those dead, buried with the other dead, whose death demands kept the sons in endless burial cycles. Let the dead bury their dead.  Be at peace.  My heavenly Father knows where all the bodies are buried.  In just a short time you will see for yourselves what God has planned for My tomb, and yours, and theirs too.  Be at peace.

So be at peace.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What are the burial customs in your family?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).