Advent is here. That makes me happy.
Advent gives me an excuse to break out of the routine, to be more intentional about prayer, and ... let's face it: it means Christmas is almost here.
Why do I get so excited for Christmas? I'd like to think it has more to do than the music, decorations, thoughts of presents, cookies, and snow. I'd even like to believe it goes beyond seeing friends and celebrating with family. I think it has something to do with the themes of the holiday season: peace, joy, hope, and love.
Whenever I think about Christmas, it gives me a big sense of CONNECTION with all humanity.
I felt this way a few weeks ago while I was in Manhattan. In Rockefeller Plaza, they were setting up the giant Christmas tree. Thousands of tourists were gathered around to see the workers climb the scaffolding and hang the lights on the tree. There was an excitement in the air: Christmas is almost here! And we got to bask in that anticipation together.
And to be sure, there is PLENTY of anticipation this time of year. The decorations, music, and even the sales in the stores all get us geared up for December 25th.
I suppose Advent is all about pacing ourselves in this anticipation. It's not just about being totally zeroed-in on December 25th; Advent is about an ongoing project of preparation each and every day. It is a task to be present in each day. After all, as I was reminded by some graffiti in Manhattan a few weeks back:
TODAY IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN YOU THINK.
That's what today's Gospel (Mk 13:33-37) tells us: This day is more precious than you think. And getting caught up in the Christmas anticipation can make us lose sight of the gift that is TODAY.
Jesus tells us to be watchful and alert NOW, TODAY, TONIGHT and not wait until tomorrow. Not only is this true for Advent, but it is true for our entire relationship with Him. I think it's easy for people -- and especially young people -- to put off their faith in God. It's easy to think that it will mean more to us when we're older, when we want to get married or have a family of our own, or perhaps even when we're near death.
But the sad and scary fact of the matter is that we have no idea how long this gift of life will be given us. And the truth is, for all our planning, hopes, and dreams, we cannot count on tomorrow. Today is more precious than you think.
So my hope is that Advent will be a time of fruitful prayer and abiding peace for you -- not because of the general sentiments of peace, joy, hope, and love this holiday season -- but because you find the time to be quiet and still, to seek your God who is MADLY in love with you and is SO eager to show you what a precious gift you have been given, each and every day.
Gustavo Gutierrez says it best, in my opinion: the whole meaning of life is to be in communion with God and in solidarity with all our brothers and sisters.
The story about Joseph and Mary not being able to find any room at the inn the night Jesus is born is an allegory for the world making room for Christ. Let's use these next four weeks to make room in our hearts for the God who loves us, desperately desires to be in relationship with us, and who calls all of humanity into a solidarity far deeper and wider than the peace, love, and joy (or the tinsel, lights, and presents) of this holiday season.
Let's do it TODAY. Because this day is more precious than you think.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Fair Warning
Today is the Feast of Christ the King. This doesn't really resonate well with Americans, since our nation was born out of protest against a king. And I could go into a long recapitulation about how kingship is viewed in Israel and why this imagery is important and compelling -- even today, in this country -- but ... I won't.
Instead, I'd like to focus on today's Gospel, Matthew 25:31-46. In Matthew's account, this is Jesus' last public sermon. It's kind of like his punchline, I think. It's what he's been driving at during the past three years (well, that and the Cross and Resurrection, which I don't mean to diminish to any degree).
Today's Gospel is the famous instruction to feed the hungry, give drink to those who thirst, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and visit the imprisoned. There are many, many things that strike me about this passage, but I will focus on three.
1) This is the basis of judgment for a people who weren't previously warned. Jesus conjures up this image of divine judgment to separate the sheep from the goats and THIS is the basis for judgment: how we care for our neighbor. It has nothing to do with going to the Temple to make a sacrifice and pay homage to the Lord. It has nothing to do with ritual or purity. The Final Judgment is about LOVE and how we LOVE one another. And this is the case for people who weren't even given fair warning (although that's not entirely true, considering the warnings of prophets like Amos and Micah). Can you imagine what this judgment will be like for us, who have been given fair warning? In other words, Jesus is trying to say, as loudly and clearly as possible: PAY ATTENTION. THIS IS IMPORTANT!
2) The sheep and goats are separated by Christ the King and they don't know if they are a sheep or a goat. This should have served to wake up Israel, God's "chosen possession." Here, Jesus drives at another crucial point: your salvation is not won by your birth into a specific nation or religion. Your heritage does not guarantee you eternal life. How you live, how you care for and love others is what determines if you are a sheep or a goat. Although this was surely directed at Israel at the time, I think it speaks volumes to cradle Catholics today. We can take many things for granted. We can be content knowing that we have been baptized, that we show up for church, and that we're good people in general. Jesus is telling us this isn't enough. We can't be content with our comfortable little lives. We can't compartmentalize our faith into something we only deal with for one hour on a Sunday. We have to go to the margins, to the people who have been alienated and made vulnerable by society and not only love them, but meet their needs: give them food, clothing, heath care, and education. We live in a "great Christian nation" but there are millions of Americans who haven't been given the care they need. In other words, two thousand years later, we still haven't heeded this Gospel.
[cue dramatic music -- this is a major indictment of this "Christian" nation]
3. Karl Rahner writes about the unity of love of neighbor and the love of God. That is exactly what this Gospel is about. In this passage, the people ask, "When did I see you, Lord?" because they are caught up in a vertical understanding of their relationship with God. Jesus is challenging them to see their relationship with God as both vertical AND horizontal. Again, this is nothing new. The prophets of the Old Testament constantly railed about the lack of "shalom" (right relationship) between the people and Yahweh and between the people themselves. Love of God and love of neighbor is a BOTH/AND not an either/or. That's why, when Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, he responds, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul AND love your neighbor as yourself" (Mt. 22:36-40).
In A Theology of Liberation, Gustavo Gutierrez argues that what is missing most in the world today is a theology of neighbor. The statistics about individualism in our country and the 1.5 billion people living in extreme poverty certainly indicate there is truth to this claim. We have lost a concept for being neighbors to and for one another. We have turned a blind eye to those in need because we don't want to feel obliged or commanded to help someone else -- they should help themselves, after all! We are a nation which prizes personal responsibility, which means that people have to take care of themselves. But that is NOT what Jesus is talking about in this Gospel. He isn't saying that the hungry need to feed themselves, the naked need to find their own clothes, and the sick have to get their own medicine. Jesus is telling us that we must provide for those who can't provide for themselves.
And whether or not we like kings in this country, we have to know that, in the end, the final judgment will rest on whether or not we do precisely this.
And we won't be able to say no one gave us fair warning.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Plenty to Go Around
Have you ever noticed that you cannot buy a small tube of toothpaste?
Before you get Jerry Seinfeld's, "What is the deal with that?" voice stuck in your head, just go with me on this one.
It's impossible to buy small containers of toothpaste. You can either get teeny tiny travel-size tubes or you have to get a commercial-grade amount. Unless you're living with a bunch of people who are obsessive about brushing their teeth, these economy tubes could probably last you half a year. But have no fear, it comes in packs of 3 or 4 tubes, so you're set until the next time you have to move.
So, do we let this toothpaste last us half a year? Heck no! We pile that toothpaste on, and if some falls off, so what? We'll just squeeze more out. And instead of squeezing every last drop out at the end, we'll just move on to the next tube -- after all, there's plenty to go around.
But this wouldn't be the case if we had small tubes of toothpaste. Because then we'd be extra-frugal with it. We'd just put a little dollup on the brush -- only enough barely enough to get the job done. After all, we'd have to make this toothpaste last, right? And make it last, we would.
Marketers know this about us. So this is precisely why you cannot buy small tubes of toothpaste. Or shampoo. Or laundry detergent. Because if you only have a little bit, you'll be frugal with it. But if you can only get it in economy size, then you might as well be reckless with it. After all, there's plenty to go around.
This difference in behavior between excess and scarcity is something we see whenever gas prices fluctuate. When prices fall, we're in hog heaven. When prices climb, we start second-guessing all those extra trips or we might even consult a public transportation schedule. This is a fundamental basis for the relationship between supply and demand.
And it relates to our theology, too. For example, in the Middle Ages, scholastic efforts placed greater significance and sanctity on the Eucharist. The laity felt unworthy to receive it, so they stopped consuming the Eucharist each Sunday. Instead, they only sought to be in its presence, to be able to catch a glimpse of its radiant grace. Hence, the birth of Eucharistic Adoration. Anyway, the point is, when the eucharist became more scarce, we placed greater value on it. In fact, even today, some people argue against going to daily Mass and receiving communion each day because one possible result is that it becomes an ordinary part of our routine and we lose the reverence and awe that this Sacrament deserves.
Supply and demand. Jesus and talents.
In today's Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus gives us a parable about receiving talents. Although this was a kind of money in Jesus' day, we can also translate the word "talent" how we do today and understand this in a sense of the gifts that we receive.
And quite easily, we can see that the servant who got the most talents handled them with the most risk. The servant who received the least talents was far more conservative (and buried them in the ground so as not to risk losing them). The theology of excess engenders in us a sense of openness and boldness; a theology of scarcity gets us into a much more defensive and even suspicious posture.
It'd be easy to draw a quick lesson from this parable: great reward requires great risk. And to some extent, that's absolutely true. But it's also not exactly what Jesus is driving at here.
Instead, Jesus is trying to get our attention, trying to shake us free from the theology of scarcity, in which we convince ourselves that what we possess is both precious and in short supply. So instead of being open, bold, generous, and making use of what we have been given, we bury it, hide it, preserve it -- in other words, we do nothing with it.
But Jesus' point is that what we have been given -- gifts, talents, opportunities, abilities, experiences, relationships, lessons, victories, and defeats -- are to be put to use. What we have been given isn't for display purposes only; it's not about keeping it safe from decay or devaluation. Instead, it's about making the most with what we have been given, no matter if we think it's a lot or a little.
Because, in the end, what we have been given is God's infinite LOVE and abiding grace. And because it is infinite, there is no end to it. A few months back I wrote a post about how this love ought to be given so freely that we even squander it. Love certainly isn't a possession that we need to be neurotic about saving or protecting. It ought to be something we are risky with: for only then will we be rewarded with anything. Or, as St. Francis captured so well nearly eight hundred years ago, "it is through giving that we receive."
Just like toothpaste we buy in bulk, our talents, and more importantly, God's love, ought to be something that we use and use and use without worrying about it running out.
And why not? There is plenty to go around.
Before you get Jerry Seinfeld's, "What is the deal with that?" voice stuck in your head, just go with me on this one.
It's impossible to buy small containers of toothpaste. You can either get teeny tiny travel-size tubes or you have to get a commercial-grade amount. Unless you're living with a bunch of people who are obsessive about brushing their teeth, these economy tubes could probably last you half a year. But have no fear, it comes in packs of 3 or 4 tubes, so you're set until the next time you have to move.
So, do we let this toothpaste last us half a year? Heck no! We pile that toothpaste on, and if some falls off, so what? We'll just squeeze more out. And instead of squeezing every last drop out at the end, we'll just move on to the next tube -- after all, there's plenty to go around.
But this wouldn't be the case if we had small tubes of toothpaste. Because then we'd be extra-frugal with it. We'd just put a little dollup on the brush -- only enough barely enough to get the job done. After all, we'd have to make this toothpaste last, right? And make it last, we would.
Marketers know this about us. So this is precisely why you cannot buy small tubes of toothpaste. Or shampoo. Or laundry detergent. Because if you only have a little bit, you'll be frugal with it. But if you can only get it in economy size, then you might as well be reckless with it. After all, there's plenty to go around.
This difference in behavior between excess and scarcity is something we see whenever gas prices fluctuate. When prices fall, we're in hog heaven. When prices climb, we start second-guessing all those extra trips or we might even consult a public transportation schedule. This is a fundamental basis for the relationship between supply and demand.
And it relates to our theology, too. For example, in the Middle Ages, scholastic efforts placed greater significance and sanctity on the Eucharist. The laity felt unworthy to receive it, so they stopped consuming the Eucharist each Sunday. Instead, they only sought to be in its presence, to be able to catch a glimpse of its radiant grace. Hence, the birth of Eucharistic Adoration. Anyway, the point is, when the eucharist became more scarce, we placed greater value on it. In fact, even today, some people argue against going to daily Mass and receiving communion each day because one possible result is that it becomes an ordinary part of our routine and we lose the reverence and awe that this Sacrament deserves.
Supply and demand. Jesus and talents.
In today's Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus gives us a parable about receiving talents. Although this was a kind of money in Jesus' day, we can also translate the word "talent" how we do today and understand this in a sense of the gifts that we receive.
And quite easily, we can see that the servant who got the most talents handled them with the most risk. The servant who received the least talents was far more conservative (and buried them in the ground so as not to risk losing them). The theology of excess engenders in us a sense of openness and boldness; a theology of scarcity gets us into a much more defensive and even suspicious posture.
It'd be easy to draw a quick lesson from this parable: great reward requires great risk. And to some extent, that's absolutely true. But it's also not exactly what Jesus is driving at here.
Instead, Jesus is trying to get our attention, trying to shake us free from the theology of scarcity, in which we convince ourselves that what we possess is both precious and in short supply. So instead of being open, bold, generous, and making use of what we have been given, we bury it, hide it, preserve it -- in other words, we do nothing with it.
But Jesus' point is that what we have been given -- gifts, talents, opportunities, abilities, experiences, relationships, lessons, victories, and defeats -- are to be put to use. What we have been given isn't for display purposes only; it's not about keeping it safe from decay or devaluation. Instead, it's about making the most with what we have been given, no matter if we think it's a lot or a little.
Because, in the end, what we have been given is God's infinite LOVE and abiding grace. And because it is infinite, there is no end to it. A few months back I wrote a post about how this love ought to be given so freely that we even squander it. Love certainly isn't a possession that we need to be neurotic about saving or protecting. It ought to be something we are risky with: for only then will we be rewarded with anything. Or, as St. Francis captured so well nearly eight hundred years ago, "it is through giving that we receive."
Just like toothpaste we buy in bulk, our talents, and more importantly, God's love, ought to be something that we use and use and use without worrying about it running out.
And why not? There is plenty to go around.
Monday, November 03, 2008
With Justice For All?
This is an exciting time. But it is also a difficult time. Because as our nation goes to the voting booth tomorrow, we'll be choosing the leadership which will be making important decisions which will not only shape our lives, but lives of people the whole world over.
What an awesome responsibility.
People have much to say about this -- people who have more time and expertise than me -- but let me just commend two websites to you as you go about making your prudential judgment on who is most fit to lead our nation. Who will do the most good for human dignity? Who will lead us towards justice and peace? How can be once again be "one nation under God with liberty and justice for all"?
I know, for Catholics, abortion is a deal-breaker. It was for me in 2000 and 2004. But we also have to keep in mind that being Pro-Life means protecting life in ALL its forms: in the womb or a baby; as an immigrant or prisoner; old or young; healthy or sick; fat or skinny; gay or straight; rich or poor; white or black or brown or whatever; American or not.
Abortion is ONE life issue -- and to be honest, it's not one that Republicans have a terrific record on. What has George W. Bush done to lower the rate of abortions in this country? And how has his "respect for life" been evident in the torture, death penalty, immigration policies, and the war in Iraq which have taken place on his watch? And if Republicans do care so much about the most vulnerable lives (those in the womb), where are their social programs to help the children born into poverty?
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have enjoined Catholics to look at the BIG picture and NOT be single-issue voters. Their document on "Faithful Citizenship" speaks to this and I have posted the link below.
www.faithfulcitizenship.org
I also recommend to you this document from Catholics United for the Common Good. It's another helpful way to consider the big picture when it comes to being Pro-Life.
http://www.catholics-united.org/files/pro-lif e-means-all-life-en.pdf
In the end, however, we cannot go to the polls tomorrow, make our selection, and think our job is over. Whomever is elected and then inaugurated on January 20th, 2009 has a long road ahead of him. And that will be just the start of our work. We need to elect a president who will work with us to promote the common good. And we cannot forget that our responsibility extends far beyond the election season.
And we cannot forget how urgent our responsibility is today. Today, the richest one percent of U.S. households account for more than one-third of the nation’s net worth, more than double the combined wealth of the bottom 90% of Americans. A select few continue to enjoy prosperity, while more than half a million Americans remain homeless, 36 million live below the poverty line, and 47 million are still without access to health care. The United States may claim to be “one nation,” but it hasn’t delivered “liberty and justice for all.”
Realistically, it's up to us -- not a single political candidate -- to create change. So vote for the person who will help you make that change. And then, let's get to work to ensure liberty and justice for all.
What an awesome responsibility.
People have much to say about this -- people who have more time and expertise than me -- but let me just commend two websites to you as you go about making your prudential judgment on who is most fit to lead our nation. Who will do the most good for human dignity? Who will lead us towards justice and peace? How can be once again be "one nation under God with liberty and justice for all"?
I know, for Catholics, abortion is a deal-breaker. It was for me in 2000 and 2004. But we also have to keep in mind that being Pro-Life means protecting life in ALL its forms: in the womb or a baby; as an immigrant or prisoner; old or young; healthy or sick; fat or skinny; gay or straight; rich or poor; white or black or brown or whatever; American or not.
Abortion is ONE life issue -- and to be honest, it's not one that Republicans have a terrific record on. What has George W. Bush done to lower the rate of abortions in this country? And how has his "respect for life" been evident in the torture, death penalty, immigration policies, and the war in Iraq which have taken place on his watch? And if Republicans do care so much about the most vulnerable lives (those in the womb), where are their social programs to help the children born into poverty?
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have enjoined Catholics to look at the BIG picture and NOT be single-issue voters. Their document on "Faithful Citizenship" speaks to this and I have posted the link below.
www.faithfulcitizenship.org
I also recommend to you this document from Catholics United for the Common Good. It's another helpful way to consider the big picture when it comes to being Pro-Life.
http://www.catholics-united.org/files/pro-lif e-means-all-life-en.pdf
In the end, however, we cannot go to the polls tomorrow, make our selection, and think our job is over. Whomever is elected and then inaugurated on January 20th, 2009 has a long road ahead of him. And that will be just the start of our work. We need to elect a president who will work with us to promote the common good. And we cannot forget that our responsibility extends far beyond the election season.
And we cannot forget how urgent our responsibility is today. Today, the richest one percent of U.S. households account for more than one-third of the nation’s net worth, more than double the combined wealth of the bottom 90% of Americans. A select few continue to enjoy prosperity, while more than half a million Americans remain homeless, 36 million live below the poverty line, and 47 million are still without access to health care. The United States may claim to be “one nation,” but it hasn’t delivered “liberty and justice for all.”
Realistically, it's up to us -- not a single political candidate -- to create change. So vote for the person who will help you make that change. And then, let's get to work to ensure liberty and justice for all.
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