HerbEly

Playfulness and Delight in Wisdom

    Trinity Sunday (May 26) provides a challenge to homilists They must say something about the scripture readings, expound on this great mystery, and stay within reasonable time limits.    

    It is tempting to take the first reading (Prv 8:22-31) and equate wisdom with a Person of the Trinity and attribute to it a feminine gender. Somehow it never quite works even though the scripture has abundant mother and feminine images of God. 

    I prefer to focus on this text  from Proverbs:

"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,

...

and I was his delight day by day,

playing before him all the while,

playing on the surface of his earth;

and I found delight in the human race."

    Somehow playfulness is intrinsic to the relationships within the Trinity. We have a God who finds delight in us. Deo Gratias. 

Pentecost: the Corporate Dimension

    We come to Pentecost Sunday (May 19th), the end of the Easter season and fulfillment of the promise related on Ascension Sunday. At the vigil Mass on Saturday the first reading (Gen 11:1-9) tells us of the corporate effort to build the tower of Babel. This was a corporate effort to gain prestige and power. It is contrasted with the first reading for Sunday (Acts 2: 1-11) in which the Spirit comes to the Apostles when they are gathered as a body. The story of Babel is a story of a single people split into groups and speaking different languages. After Pentecost the apostles go out speaking many languages. Instead of fragmenting humanity, the languages are given in order to unify it in a single body, the Church. Even though the Spirit comes to individuals it comes to them when assembled as a body. There is a corporate dimension to Pentecost.

    Back in 2006 I was fascinated with the idea of corporate spirituality and wrote this:

Institutions provide much of the resources with which we can provide service and exercise our creativity. Institutional culture also set the context for our work. A culture maybe healthy or dysfunctional. Cultures can be both dysfunctional and in denial for long periods of time. Businesses, being subject to market forces, are likely to pay the price for denial relatively quickly. Government agencies, subject only to James Madison’s constitutional system of divided powers, can survive a bit longer. My church, subject neither to market forces or citizens empowered by the vote, can maintain dysfunctional cultural patterns for centuries.

 I’ve not gone quite as far as Walter Wink in suggesting that the Powers of this world are spiritual entities (Eph 6:11-13).  I would agree that corporate culture is a spiritual reality – at least in the sense that team spirit is a reality.

One of the essential tasks of workplace spirituality is to positively influence corporate culture, challenging it if we must.

I've never been able to clearly state the connections between corporate spirituality and just how the Spirit strengthens us as a body. These connections are real and we bear a responsibility to the organizations to which we belong and to our employers. Part of our responsibility is to work to see that the   corporate ethic is healthy and dedicated to service. If it isn't, we will need the help of the Spirit to correct the corporate spirits of this world. 

A Promise: The Highest Power

On May 12th the lectionary readings are about the Ascension, the end of the Easter Season. During the past 7 weeks the lectionary readings focused on the Apostles and their experience of a world changing event - the risen Lord. On Sunday, we read that He plans to leave them. As we hear the scriptures read, we identify with the early church and sense that we also experience the risen Lord. As He prepares to leave, He says

"...stay in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father." (Acts 1:1-11).

 

In the gospel we hear:

"…for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

And so, they and we, wait. My prayer for us this Sunday is taken from the second reading (Eph 1:17-23)

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. (NIV)

A Time of Ferment

    On the Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 5th) the lectionary readings give us a glimpse of a time of great ferment in the early church. Attitudes and ideas were changing as the Jewish Christian community experienced a profound change in its understanding of the Lord’s action in the world. Romans and Greeks, steeped in their own ancient learnings, began to cope with Hebrew teachings and understandings. The first reading from Acts gives us an episode in telling the actions required for Romans and Greeks (i.e. pagans) to become Christian. (I suggest reading all of Acts 15. The lectionary omits vs. 3-21. This makes it easier for listeners to follow the main lines of the story but leaves out some significant detail.) The early Christians had to take part in this debate and find a way of setting boundaries without excluding those who had a desire for Christ but were not Jewish. They did so in the hope of a glorious New Jerusalem, given to us in the second reading (Rev 21). In the gospel reading (John 14:23-29) we hear Jesus’ promise that, when he left us,

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit,

whom the Father will send in my name,

will teach you everything

and remind you of all that I told you.

    Ferment is a bubbling, activated by spirits generated by bacteria. This was a ferment activated by another kind of Spirit. It was an exciting time. I can only guess that the excitement was similar to the kind that I feel as I learn about Pope Francis

Is the Gospel Reading Out of Place on the Fifth Sunday?

The gospel reading from the Last Supper seems out of place on the Fifth Sunday of Easter (April 28), We usually get this reading on Holy Thursday, yet here it is in the Easter season. The gospel reading starts:

 When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him… (Jn 13:31-32)

 It is as if Jesus is looking forward to the next few days. Was he thinking: "Here is my chance, now I get to do the job I came to do."? We know that in a little while he would be nearly overcome by dread, asking "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me…(Mt. 26:38). Yet at this moment John writes that Jesus was looking forward to glory. As we hear this gospel, along with the first reading (Acts 14:21-27), extracts from Psalm 145, and the second reading (Rev 21:1-5a) we learn of new beginnings and of hope for the future. Revelation uses wedding imagery to portray our coming glory:

 I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

 The next time we are facing a difficult job, one that may require considerable suffering, we might think back to Jn. 13:31-35 in the hope that glory will be the end result.

Shake the Dust from Your Sandals

    The first reading for the Fourth Sunday of Easter gives us a vivid image of the disciples, expelled from Antioch, shaking the dust from their feet in protest.  (This is one of the earliest accounts of the growing rift between Jews and Christians, one which will someday be healed.) In shaking the dust, Paul and Barnabas were following the advice of Jesus. In this case it was a gesture of repudiation:

 "So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them, and went to Iconium."

    Usually this means that "I think so little of you that I won't even carry the dust from your town with me."  I've suggested before that there is another interpretation: Later in Luke 9:51-56, the disciples ask Jesus if they should call down lightening on a town that wouldn't listen. Jesus rebuked them and they "went to another village."

    There is mixed message in all of this. The disciples were preaching a message of rescue from sin and death. When people refused to hear, the disciples could protest, saying: "You should have heard. You will experience woes." After that they should leave the conflict behind and just move on. There are other villages and people who need rescue and healing. Don't waste time and energy over those that would or could not hear. Maybe some one else will reach them - or maybe not. Just move on and do what you can do.

Filled with Joy, but Tinged with Regret

    Peter is the central character in the readings for the Third Sunday of Easter (April 14).  We can imagine his state of mind. Having denied Christ three times and seen him twice since the Resurrection, Peter decides to go fishing. His friends go with him. After a night's failure to catch a single fish, he sees a man on the shore, but does not recognize him. When he does recognize Jesus, he cries out, "It is the Lord," jumps into the water and rushes to shore. After Jesus cooks a breakfast, he asks Peter, "do you love me?" The question is repeated three times.

    What did Peter feel? Thrilled and eager, he must have thought, "Yes I do love him, coward though I was. Yet he still wants my love. I regret having been such a coward." When he hears the request to "Feed my sheep" does he wish he would be stronger? Is he overwhelmed with forgiveness and hopeful? Does he think back to his promise never to betray Jesus? Whatever his mood, it seems that his future actions as a shepherd will always carry a sense of amends." Now he is not even giving a concrete promise. Instead,, he gets an open-ended command: Feed my sheep. What will that require? He knows that his own death will be difficult. Yet, having failed three times," he thinks, "I will do my best from now on." 

Came to Believe

    On the Second Sunday of Easter all three readings give us stories of how people came to believe. In Acts 5:12-16 great numbers of people in Jerusalem experienced the surge of energy and healing that immediately followed the Resurrection. Revelations 1 tells us how John had a vision. In John 20 we get the story of how Thomas did not believe until he personally saw the resurrected Christ.

    C.S. Lewis writes that God is not proud. God was not offended when Thomas set the terms, saying "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands …" Even when we set hard terms for God, placing preconditions for our belief, God will not set too hard terms for us, finding a way to reach us. Many in Jerusalem came to believe as the result of wonders happening in the city. John had a vision. Thomas had to meet the risen Christ. We can be sure that, if we seek, God will find a way to help us to believe. Faith as small as a mustard seed is more than enough.

"My Father Was a Wandering Aramean,…"

    Dt. 26:4-8 gives us a clue as to how to listen to the 9 readings and re-sponsorial psalms during Great Vigil of Easter. We by reporting what happened to our ancestor: "My father was a wandering Aramean and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation…" In the next verse we identify with what happened to the Israelites: "But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer,…. Then we cried out to the Lord…"

    The story of our ancestors is, somehow, our story as well. In our parish we will start after dark with a bonfire and follow the newly lit Easter Candle in procession into church. (This same candle will lead the casket in procession for anyone who will be buried during the coming year.) As we follow, singing the lumen christi (light of Christ) we can imagine that, like the Israelites, we are being rescued and escaping from Egypt. What is Egypt to us? It is the slavery of attachments, resentments, anger, fear and whatever else binds us and keeps us from becoming the people we can be. We are on the way, not fully in the promised land -  but making spiritual progress not perfection. Perfection will be attained when we follow that candle one last time.

 Happy Easter everyone.

 

Blame or Hope at the Very End?

On Palm Sunday we get readings from Luke, Isaiah, Psalm 22, Philippians, and then again from Luke. Let's focus on the inner attitudes of the two criminals hanging on crosses next to Jesus. One says: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” and then, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” The other rebuked the first criminal saying: “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” and then “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

This is an instructive contrast. The first man will not even implicitly acknowledge that he has done wrong. His attitude is: "Jesus, it is your fault that we are hanging here about to die." The second at least admits that he is getting what he deserves, even though he does not admit his crime. From this emerges a sense of hope. He can ask "…remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Pride is one of the capital sins. This meanis that it is the capital out of which many more sins can grow. Pride often prevents us from even indirectly admitting that we have done wrong. The second criminal overcame pride. The first clung to it. Hope follows when we are able to admit it when we have done wrong. The second criminal could say "better late than never." Could the first say the same?