HOMILY- 2-14-16

ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD! 

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,

to be tempted by the devil.

Luke 4:1-13

We know very little about Jesus’ life up to this point. We know that an angel appeared to a young girl of Nazareth, Mary, a little over 2,000 years ago announcing that God was making a move that he had been promising for centuries – to send a Savior. He chose the young virgin, Mary of Nazareth, to be the mother of the Son of God and she was to give him the name, Jesus.

We know that when the time came for his birth, Mary and her husband Joseph, were in the town of Bethlehem to register for a Roman census. We know that at the time of his birth, there was some kind of celestial event that attracted visitors from the East who believed that it signaled the birth of a new king. It could have been a literal star or a meteor or an unusual alignment of celestial bodies. (It is worth noting that ancient Chinese astronomy records indicate there was a star-like object hovering over the Middle East for several days about the time Jesus was born.)

We know these visitors from the East triggered panic in the mind of Herod, a petty local king installed by the Roman Emperor to govern the Jews. Paranoid about losing power, Herod ordered the deaths of every infant in Bethlehem in hopes of killing the new king that the foreign visitors were looking for!

We know that that Joseph and Mary were tipped off about Herod’s monstrous plans in a dream and escaped to Egypt where they lived until news of Herod’s death. (You all remember that Jesus spent some of his early years in Egypt, don’t you?)  After Herod was dead and the coast was clear, Mary, Joseph and Jesus moved back to Israel to spend his growing up years in Nazareth.  

We know that Mary and Joseph took the child Jesus to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Passover. On one of those trips, when Jesus was twelve years old, they got separated from one another and it was not realized until they were on their way home. Traveling in a caravan, one parent thought he was with the other. When it was obvious that he had been left behind, they went back to Jerusalem and searched frantically through the crowded city until they found him. They found him in the Temple, engaged in a discussion with the religious teachers there. After that, we know that he went home with his parents and lived there till he was about thirty years old.

We know that when he was about thirty years old, he left home having been drawn by the preaching of his cousin, John, known as the Baptizer. After hearing John preach, we know that Jesus submitted to John’s baptism. On coming up out of the water after his baptism, we know that Jesus heard a voice from heaven saying “This is my Son, whom I love.”

We know that this experience was life-changing for Jesus. Overwhelmed by what those words from heaven might mean, Jesus left there and went on a forty-day retreat to reflect on those words and discern what they might meant for his life. While on retreat, the devil presented several tempting options in contrast to what Jesus came to know as God’s plan for him. Having resisted the devil’s tempting options, Jesus comes out of his retreat, hears that John had been arrested and decides to launch his ministry. This is where we are on the time line in the gospel today.

Before we consider what Jesus came to understand as his mission from God, it might be a good idea to understand what he rejected – what the devil proposed to him that it might be when Jesus was discerning God’s will in the desert.  In a nutshell, the devil proposed all the solutions that he is still proposing in the world today. The devil, then and now, proposes external fixes. Jesus, then and now, proposes an internal fix. The devil says the path to happiness is through things changing, while Jesus says that the path to happiness is though people changing. Jesus was not called to change things. He was called to change people. He knew that when people change, things change!

Let me give you some examples. (1) The devil suggested to Jesus that he could get a lot of followers if he would just turn rocks into bread. Jesus said “no” because he knew that there are already enough resources to feed the poor. What is needed is not “magic bread,” but people changing their attitudes toward the poor. (2) The devil suggested to Jesus that he could get lots of followers if he would just suspend the laws of nature and jump from high buildings and land unharmed with the help of angels. Jesus said “no” because he knew if people would just open their eyes they would see that life as it is already a miracle. We don’t need dramatic stunts and cheap miracles. All we need is for people to look at life differently. (3) The devil suggested that Jesus could get ahead if he would only worship the devil and his power, if he would just start calling evil good and good evil. Jesus said “no” because he knew that that was a trick too many people had already fallen for with disastrous results. People could see the truth if they would just open their eyes at look at reality instead of closing them in denial and telling themselves that it was the truth.

Metanoiete! Change the way you think! Change the way you look at things! If you do, you will see that the kingdom of God is at hand, it is not in some far off heaven, but right here among us. It is indeed “at hand!”  

Change the way you think, change the way you look at things and you will see the answer! Your old way of thinking, you old way of looking at things is what is making you miserable and experience the absence God!  I believe this with all my heart. I believe it as a teaching handed to us by Christ, certainly, but I also believe it from experience!

When I was a junior in college, I was bashful, backward and scared of life. I always thought that life was something that happened to you and all I could do was to accept whatever happened. I was miserable and I blamed everybody I could. It was only when I changed the way I was thinking and got out of the back seat of life and got behind the wheel that life took a dramatic turn for the better. The world did not change! I did!

For the first 37 years of my life I carried around a huge truckload of resentment toward my father. I always assumed that the only way for me to get over it was for him to change or apologize. It never happened. I got over it the day I changed my thinking about him He did not have to change! I did!

My friends, the third temptation that Jesus faced was to call evil, good. In our own day, we are severely tempted, in many clever and seductive ways, to do the same – to trick ourselves into calling obvious evil, good! Nowhere is this clearer to me than when it comes to the staggering number of abortions, the growing call for euthanasia, the defense of the death penalty and now experiments with "designer babies." It all sounds so good to be so bad! In the face of all those simplistic solutions to complex problems, we have a tougher and tougher job. Our job is to work for changed hearts! That, my friends, is the real solution to many of our social problems – coming to a new way of thinking, seeing and acting that results from a changed heart!  

       

BY CHANGING THE WAY YOU SEE,

WHAT YOU LOOK AT CHANGES.

ONE PRIEST'S VISUAL VALENTINE REFLECTION

TRUE LOVE!

All joking aside, as a priest, I have seen true love in action 
and I have been moved deeply!



...love for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death!



.......when tough love is needed.



......love in good times and in bad!



.....life giving love!

"GOOD OLD DAYS?" REALLY?

WOULD YOU GO BACK, IF YOU COULD?

   

       

LENT IS UPON US!

Let us climb the Lord's mountain that he may instruct

us in his ways so that we may walk in his paths.
Isaiah 2:3

Tomorrow we begin the holy season of Lent - an annual retreat when we "climb the Lord's mountain" in order that God may "instruct us in his ways so that we may walk in his paths." "Climbing the Lord's mountain" is a metaphor for simply trying to rise above the pace of ordinary living to refocus our attention and intensify our efforts on "walking his paths" more faithfully. To do that we especially focus on the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. 

PRAYER - Most of us tend to think of prayer as words we say to persuade God to do something he is not already doing. While it is true that we are invited to ask God for favors, the real essence of prayer is to ask God to change us so that we will want what he wants. After all, all God really wants is our good, anyway! Our Lenten prayer, then, is basically about our changing so that we will want what God wants rather than the other way around.

Going to daily Mass or saying the Rosary is always good, but that does not work for everybody. If you have a hard time adding more prayer time to your schedule, try carving out that time by turning off the radio on your way to work. If you find it hard to concentrate, try praying for the people in the cars around you. Try getting up a half hour earlier than everybody else and sitting quietly with a cup of coffee. "Where there is a will, there is a way!" 

FASTING - Often many of us eat, not because we are hungry, but because we are trying to fill an emotional void in our lives. When we fast, when we cut back on eating, we are invited to feel the pain we want to avoid. Feeling it, we can identify it. Identifying it, we can address it rather than numb it with food. 

It is a perversion of Lent to confuse fasting with dieting. Dieting is selfish. Fasting is other centered. Be it your daily Starbucks or that second beer, monitor your feelings when you "deprive" yourself Study your reactions and let them give you some important insights into your self. 

ALMSGIVING - When we hear the word "almsgiving," most of us immediately think of "giving something to charity." What we do in almsgiving is not as important as why we do it. Almsgiving can be selfish. It can make us feel righteous. What it is meant to do, really, is raise our awareness of our connectedness to others. It helps us remember that we are all in this together. "No man is an island." "We are our brother's keeper." 

Ash Wednesday has a way of sneaking up on us. Let's use the next few hours to get ready to go on retreat! Let's.......

HOMILY 2-7-16

Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips. 

ISAIAH

I am not fit to be called an apostle. 

PAUL

Depart from me for I am a sinful man. 

PETER

One of the great disappointments of priesthood has to be that Monday after your ordination and first Mass. As much as you would like to think you are a different person, the truth of the matter is that you wake up feeling just like you did the day before you were ordained. You realize quite quickly that you are same person with the same weaknesses and same sins.

Personally, I have never felt “good enough” to be a priest. I often wonder why God picked me. However, I don’t worry too much about God in that regard because I know that God has a long standing practice of choosing the weak and making them strong. I don’t worry too much about God's approval of me, but I do worry about what people think because they sometime expect more out of me than God himself. Sometimes I think they expect too much. 1500 years ago, Saint John Chrysostom sympathized with priests like me when he wrote, “The priest’s shortcomings simply cannot be concealed. On the contrary, even the most trivial soon gets known. For as long as the priest’s life is well regulated in every particular point, the intrigues cannot hurt him. But if he should overlook some small detail, as is likely for a human being on his journey across the devious ocean of life, all the rest of his good deeds are of no avail to enable him to escape the words of his accusers. That small offense casts a shadow over the rest of his life. Everyone wants to judge the priest, not as one clothed in flesh, not possessing a human nature, but as an angel, exempt from the frailty of others.” No, God doesn’t scare me as much as people’s judgments of me!

Today’s readings make me feel a whole lot better about myself. I hope they are helpful to you as well. Today, we read about a whole bunch of “losers” being picked by God for important work. When Isaiah is called to be a prophet, he tries to beg off by pointing out to God that he is not worthy of such a job because he has a foul mouth, from a family of foul mouths! God is not fazed by his excuses. He simply sends and angel to him carrying a hot coal to purify his lips! Does that hurt or what? When Paul was called, he had actually been complicit in killing the followers of Jesus. He even held the coats of those who stoned St. Stephen to death! God knocked him off his high horse, cleaned him up in a bath of grace and said, “You’re my man! I choose you!” When Peter was called, he resisted in shock, asking Jesus to get away from him, calling himself a “sinful man.” Jesus simply told him not to be afraid because he had another kind of fishing for him to do.

The Scriptures are full of stories about losers, thieves and idiots being called by God for his special tasks. The Scriptures are full of passages about God choosing the weak and then making them strong. Romans 5:8 says, “What proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”  Hebrews 11:34 says, “They were weak people who were given strength.” I Corinthians 1:28 says,  “Those whom the world thinks common and contemptible are the ones that God has chosen.” John 15:16 says, “You did not choose me, no, I chose you and I commissioned you.”

Jeremiah is a perfect example of all this. He was a young man when he was called by God to be a preaching prophet. He tried to beg off because of his disinterest, his unworthiness, his young age and his total lack of public speaking ability. But like the over-aged Abraham and the tongue-tied Moses, God would hear none of their excuses. “It is not you who chose me, it is I who chose and commissioned you.”

Students! God has something for you to do in this world that no one else can do for him. You may not have thought if it; you may not yet have an interest in it; you may not even feel that you are worthy or capable of carrying it out, but if God wants you God is going to hound you. You can run, resist, hide, deny or try to wiggle out of it, but if you don’t answer the call, you will go though life with a dull, chronic feeling of having missed something very special. As the poet says, "Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest of these "it might have been!" If God has indeed called you to that work, he will equip and strengthen you to carry it out, and if you do carry it out, you will experience a deep down feeling of peace in your life. Dilly-dalling around and failing to act is also a form of “no.”

Let me end this homily with two of my favorite quotes. The first from George Bernard Shaw. “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world (church) will not devote itself to making you happy.” (PAUSE) The second is from W.H. Murray, “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.” In other words, find out what God wants, really commit to it and God will shower you with more help than you can imagine.

Forget your unworthiness! Forget your inexperience! Forget your fear! Forget that you barely squeaked through college! Forget the judgment of others! When God calls, say ‘Here I am!” Send me!” To be able to hear what God is calling to, you have to be able to shut up and listen. You have to spend some quality time with God, because when God talks, he whispers!   

I've Never Met a Pope......

....But I Have Met the Fourteenth Dalai Lama!

Tenzin Gyatso - born July 6, 1945

In Vajrayana Buddhism there are ritual implements and instruments. Many of the Buddha images hold one or two, or many of these, depending on how many arms the particular Buddha is displaying. All of these implements have meaning. Each is there to engage our busy minds in a way that will lead us toward the Truth. Those held in the left hand relate to wisdom, the realization of the emptiness of all phenomena, and those held in the right hand relate to skillful means, or compassion.

The bell and dorje are two of these implements. The dorje, held in the right hand, represents skillful means, and the bell, held in the left, represents wisdom. Together these ritual implements represent the inseparability of wisdom and compassion in the enlightened mindstream. Looked at separately, each is a great treasure of spiritual meaning. This is a photo of the ones I own. They were given to me after they were used by the Dalai Lama after he spoke at the Kentucky Center for the Arts during his first trip to Louisville.

Offering a scarf may seem to be a very simple gesture but in Tibetan traditions it has its own significance and protocol and is governed by tradition. To present a Khata, you first fold it in half length-wise. This represents the interdependence of each other. Then when you offer the scarf to a person, you offer the open edges facing the person you are giving; the folded section will be towards you, which represents your open pure heart, with no negative thoughts or motives in the offering.

There are two general purposes for offering Khatas, with greetings and well wishes being common to both: RESPECT/GRATITUDE. For holy sites, honored monks, teachers, dignitaries and elders, the scarf is given with folded hands near your forehead, with a humble bow before them, with head bent over and palms joined in respect.

 OTHER ECUMENICAL AND INTERFAITH OPPORTUNITIES

I was the first Catholic seminarian to join the United Church of Christ's A Christian Ministry in the National Parks program in 1968. I was proceed there by the famous American theologian, Harvey Cox, when he was a student.

When working at St. Mildred Church in Somerset, Kentucky, from 1975-1980, I started a campus ministry program at Somerset Community College called IF (Inter Faith). Several other ministers became involved with me: especially Lutheran, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ and Episcopal.

Because of my involvement in Somerset Community College, I had the opportunity to take five back packing trips to Taize (France) where we met up with 3,500 students each week from 70 countries. Taize is an ecumenical monastery in central France (Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox members). It It is the only monastery of its kind in the world.

Between 1975-1980, I was pastor of Saint Peter Catholic Church (Monticello) and Good Shepherd Mission Church (Whitley City). Young myself, and knowing little about the Bible Belt culture, evangelization and starting a parish from scratch almost, I asked the Archdiocese of Louisville if I could go back to school. When the answer was "no," I applied to the Presbyterain Church USA for a scholarship to attend their Doctor of Ministry program out of their McCormick Seminary in Chicago and got it. Three years later, I got that D.Min degree. My thesis was "How One Roman Catholic Mission Church Dealt Assertively With Its Environments" (outside pressure and inside weakness).

When pastor of the Cathedral of the Assumption from 1983-1997, I helped found the Cathedral Heritage Foundation (now Center for Interfaith Relations) and served as its first president. It has grown into a major interfaith organization that has become world known especially under the leadership of Christina Lee Brown.

Along the way, I have attended a Bar Mitzvah in Louisville, a Quaker Service in Berea and preached in a Presbyterian Church and a Lutheran Church in Somerset.

A DREAM  

No, I have never met a Pope, but I hope to meet Pope Francis someday in a  private, one-on-one audience, of course! If you are going to dream, why not dream big!