October 2006 Sánchez Commentaries and Sample Homilies

TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMEOctober 1, 2006

Protocol of the SpiritPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Num 11:25-29Jas 5: 1-6Mark 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48

One of the Seinfeld series’ more memorable episodes was based on the character Yev Kasem, a.k.a. the “Soup Nazi.” Portrayed by Larry Thomas, the Soup Nazi was a grim-faced immigrant chef with a thick Stalin-esque moustache and an accent to match. Well known throughout New York City for his delicious soups, he was also notorious for demanding that his customers observe his soup-ordering instructions to the letter. Customers were to line up in an orderly fashion, have their money at the ready, order their soup and then step to the left to pay their bill, receive their soup and leave the restaurant promptly with soup in hand. Even the slightest deviation from the chef’s rigid protocol could result in a refusal of service. “No soup for you!” This was what George Costanza heard when he dared to ask why the person ahead of him received bread and he did not. “You want bread? No soup for you!”

A similarly strict protocol continues to be observed at a Steak Sandwich restaurant in South Philadelphia, PA. Customers who do not order their sandwich correctly, specifying their choice for onions as “cheese-steak-wit” are sent to the back of the line. Like the fictional Soup Nazi, the restaurant staff make no exceptions to the rule. Protocol however arbitrary, is to be followed or the perpetrator suffers the consequences.

While these incidents are indeed laughable, both point to a certain rigidity that all too often characterizes our dealings with one another. Having developed a system or a habitual manner of doing things we are reluctant to stray from the protocol. We have, for example, set ways of conducting business, certain rites as regards our relationships, specific ideas as to what is or is not polite and who is or is not acceptable. Impatient with deviations from what we regard as normative, we also tend to be intolerant of others who dare to choose a different course of thought or action. Something of this impatience and intolerance is clearly in evidence in today’s first reading and gospel.

With the ancient author of Numbers, we look in upon Moses and the Israelites during their desert journey to Canaan. Up to this point Moses had been the undisputed, though not always appreciated, mediator of God’s will and God’s ways for the Israelites. God’s own spirit was thought to rest upon Moses, giving veracity and authenticity to his teachings and decisions. He was, in a sense, the institution whom the people had come to accept and through whom they had come to expect to meet and experience God. To their credit, the people were also willing to accept that some of the spirit with which God had endowed Moses could be shared and delegated as it were, among the seventy elders who had gathered in the meeting tent at God’s command.

However, when two of the elders deviated from the plan and did not gather in the tent, Joshua objected when it appeared that God’s spirit had come to rest upon them as well. While he

did not use the Soup Nazi’s exact words, Joshua’s reaction seemed to say “No Spirit for you!” He had yet to learn the lesson with which the disciples of the Marcan Jesus would also struggle (gospel). How could the spirit he experienced outside the parameters of acceptable protocol. How could those who were not ostensibly associated with the company (the institution?) of Moses or Jesus also be spiritually endowed?

In an effort to educate his own in the charismatic freedom of the Spirit to blow where it will, to inspire whom it may and to empower whom it chooses, Jesus challenged them to venture beyond protocol and institution and open themselves to God’s mysterious workings. Even someone whom the disciples may have regarded as outside the parameters of their notion of acceptability can be acceptable to God and a vessel of the Spirit. Even someone whom, contemporary believers in Jesus may hold suspect or unorthodox- if that person is not against us, insists Jesus,- that person can be a conduit through whom the power and Spirit of God can be made manifest.

Jesus’ challenge to his own, both then and now, is one of inclusiveness. To meet this challenge, believers must be willing to surrender preconceived ideas and judgments to the sometimes untamed and unimaginable ways of God. Too frequently, those who are different, those who dissent and those who march to the beat of a different drummer are ignored and/or rejected outright. However, and as Charles Cousar (Texts For Preaching, Westminster/ John Knox Press, Louisville, KY; 1993) has pointed out, space must be made for mavericks and outsiders as long as they are not explicitly opponents of Jesus. Imagine the power and possibilities for goodness in a community that could accept and not reject a Galileo, a sailor, Martin Luther, a Charles and a John Wesley, a John Calvin, a Charles Curran, a Hans King, a Leonardo Boff, an Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza! Rather than eliminate, excommunicate or censure the maverick, might not the Church and the world be better served if we were to truly heed Jesus insistence that “anyone who is not against us is with us!” With the Numbers author, we pray, “Would that God might bestow the Spirit on us all!”

Num 11:25-29A more extensive reading of Numbers 11 will provide the backdrop against which God

distributed some of the Spirit that had endowed Moses and bestowed it upon the seventy elders. While encamped at Taberah, the people, weary from the desert and its inherent struggles, cried out for relief. They longed for the fish, cucumber, melons, onions and garlic they had enjoyed in Egypt and complained about the steady diet of the sweet and sticky manna.

Undone by their constant displeasure, Moses remonstrated with God, asking what he had done to be saddled with such a burdensome lot. Finding the burden too much to bear, Moses prayed to God to kill him and put him out of his misery. God’s response to Moses came in the form of an order that he assemble seventy overseers or elders in the tent of meeting. This being done, today’s first reading picks up the narrative to tell of the delegation of the spirit upon those gathered. By insisting that the spirit bestowed on the elders was the same that had been given to Moses, the Numbers author indicated that Moses retained his unique status; his authority was not diminished but shared. Two complementary truths can be discerned in this action, explained John Marsh (“The Book of Numbers” The Interpreter’s Bible, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN: 1953), viz., the service of God cannot be accomplished without divine aid; God’s work cannot be accomplished without human instruments.

But why, asks Roland Faley (Footprints on the Mountain Paulist Press, New York, NY:1994), was this particular event preserved in Israelite tradition? Surely the stand-off

between Joshua and Moses is unusual and not very flattering to Israel’s next leader. However, the disagreement between these two important figures may be the very reason for this story’s preservation. Indeed, this narrative probably took on particular significance at a later period in Israel’s history when there were strong and concerted efforts to institutionalize the prophetic charism. Nevertheless, and despite the human desire for boundaries and control, the Israelites eventually realized that there are inherent obstacles to the limitation of a free gift of God. To that end, this narrative in Numbers offers clarity, there are no limits to the action of the spirit. Therefore, human beings are to cultivate an attitude of openness and respect so as to meet the gifts and grace of the Spirit with humble gratitude and warm welcome. Shall ours be the mind of Joshua or shall we, ,like Moses be willing to recognize and accept the spirit manifested wherever, whomever and in whomever God chooses.

Jas 5: 1-6Being wealthy often entails a certain protocol, particularly in a society which equates

riches with prestige and power. Earlier in this letter (Jas 2: 1-4), the author known to us as James referenced this protocol when he warned his readers against being overly impressed by fine clothes and jewelry and of being put off by a poor person’s shabby clothes. Should one person be treated with respect and the other without caring simply because of what they can afford or not afford to wear? James described such partiality as a sin to be avoided by believers in Jesus.

In today’s second reading, James expands upon this point and promises that those who have been treated with partiality in this life and have enjoyed, however undeservedly, the adulation of their kowtowing contemporaries shall know quite a different protocol in the next life. Since wealth, fine apparel and gold and silver cannot travel the passage that is death, these transient joys shall be left behind to rot. Without their wealth to offer them security and happiness, the materially rich shall know an eternal protocol of weeping and wailing. Although gold and silver do not actually rust (vv. 2-3), James’ use of that word recalls a reference from Jesus ben Sira (Sirach 29:10) who encouraged the rich to use their money to help others rather than let it “rust under a stone and be destroyed.” “Rusted” money, explains Pheme Perkins (First and Second Peter, James and Jude, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1995) indicates that it has been hoarded and not shared. The charge of allowing one’s money to rust was a condemnation of the rich for failing to fulfill the sacred obligation to give alms. Ancient society was founded on a network of complex relationships which compelled the wealthy to give to public causes as well as needy individuals. Therefore hoarding was not only a private vice of the rich but a sin against the larger community.

The poor, on the other hand, whose lot was not eased but only exacerbated by the lack of care and selfishness of the wealthy—these, promised James, would know an entirely different protocol, viz., a reversal of fortunes, because their cries have reached the ears of God.

This promised reversal of fortunes as well as the continuing cries of the poor in our midst challenge contemporary readers of James to examine our own attitude toward wealth and the acquisition thereof. If we have so much of this world’s goods that they are molding away in some closet or growing mildew on a shelf, or, better yet, are rotting away in some storage facility, what does this say about our proper Christian protocol toward the poor? If their needs are not part of our agenda what good is all our wealth? If I am not willing to give of my substance so that others may have their necessary sustenance can I truly call myself a disciple of Jesus? James would have us ponder these questions daily so as to make our care of the poor part of our routine protocol.

Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48Appended to the Marcan Jesus’ teaching regarding the Spirit’s protocol of inclusiveness

(vv. 38-40) area a string of originally independent sayings loosely linked together by catchwords and/or subject matter. Lamar Williamson, Jr. (Mark, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1983) calls these saying “proverbs for disciples” and regards them as part of the apostolic instruction Jesus offered to his own.

The first among these appended sayings concerns the welcome that should be accorded the disciple. Offering a drink of water to those who preach the good news makes one complicit in the effort and thus a sharer in the reward that will accrue to the faithful (v. 41)

Next Jesus addresses the gravity of scandal (v. 42) and the importance of avoiding those persons and circumstances that might prove to be occasions of sin. Skandalizien can mean to go astray or cause to stumble or, of course, to offer scandal. Rather than cause one of Jesus’ simple believers to do so, the disciple should first opt for a millstone necklace and a trip to the bottom of the sea. Although harsh, this saying affirms the importance of allowing the Spirit of God to be at work within rather than give oneself over to evil and its ways.

To this warning are attached three parallel sayings about one’s hand, foot and eye (vv. 43-48). These body parts, explains Bonnie Bowman Thurston (Preaching Mark, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN: 2002) are metaphors for those faults and shortcomings that are engrained so deeply in us. Even these, however, if they be a path to sin, should be removed rather than cause the disciple to go to Gehenna.

Traditionally understood to be the site where certain of Israel’s kings resorted to sacrificing their first born by fire to the god Molech, Gehenna referred to the Hinnom Valley southwest of Jerusalem. Because of its dastardly reputation, it became the town dump—hence the images of worms and unquenchable fire (see Isa 66:24).

While most of us are devoted to offering good rather than bad example, we may wonder whether Jesus’ words regarding scandal and the willingness to relinquish eye, foot or hand has any pertinence for our lives. Yet, when seen in conjunction with Jesus’ counsel as to the welcome that should be extended to all who act in Jesus name, we may have cause to examine whether or not we are guilty of scandal. When divisiveness and separateness continue to characterize the various denominations of Christians, what does that say to the world? When one congregation of Christians calls another “heretics” or the “anti- Christ”(or worse) how is the gospel served? Lest we be too quick to dismiss Jesus’ harsh words, shall we not let them speak to our hearts? Shall we not allow the Spirit to work its protocol within us?

Sample Homily Oct. 1, 2006“Work Through, Move On”Fr. James Smith

James told the rich to grieve over their impending poverty. You may remember that a few years ago there was a five-step book on grieving. That set off an avalanche of grief manuals. Grief is a necessary part of life, and as Christians it is helpful for us to reflect on it.

No one needs to be told that the first step in grieving is simply to let go. Nothing good can happen until that happens. The next step is just as obvious: We have to move on.

One of the most difficult things we have to do is to let go of what we hold dear: a possession, a memory, a dream, a beloved. The future looks so grim without them that we simply don’t want to face life without them.

There is not much more to be said about the first phase. There is nothing for us to do except accept. It is a passive posture, a simple bowing to the forces of reality, an alignment of our personal feelings with the impersonal flow of the universe. It seems unfair that the traffic keeps moving and stores open and close and the sun rises and sets after our beloved has died. But life goes on all around us, impervious to our devastation. We have to move on with it.

How we do that depends on our personality and the extent of our attachment. Some people adjust in a few days; some take years. We have to fill the empty space with something. Some add a hobby, some get a job, some volunteer, some find a replacement. What is important is that this is not just fill-dirt, not just busywork. If grieving is to make its magic, there must be some connection of the gain with our loss. The point is not to get over her, but to integrate her.

How the first Christians grieved for Jesus is reflected in the Gospel stories. Mark writes a brief report of the short, sad life of Jesus. It ends with his burial and the women running away because they were frightened. Since this ending was so unsympathetic to those who had loved Jesus, a later editor added a more consoling ending. But Mark had it right. The first thing is to deal with it raw.

Luke, written a generation later, starts on the second step of “moving on.” (Communities take longer to grieve than individuals. Even people who were not alive during Vietnam still unknowingly grieve for that first American lost war.) Luke dilutes the death of Jesus by emphasizing his resurrection. Then, Luke gradually replaces the authority of Jesus with that of Peter. The life of Jesus is interpreted, integrated.Saint John notes that even before they knew Jesus, he was already happy in heaven, then endured earthly life as a way of moving back to eternal bliss. Their sadness at the death of their friend was changed to joy at his beatitude. Meantime, they were consoled with the presence of the Spirit of Jesus.

And how do we grieve over Jesus? The same two-step process. The liturgical season of Lent helps us mourn his death; then Easter encourages us to share his resurrection. But most of all, we mourn for Jesus in the way he told us: by remembering him at Mass. Since sensitivity is not the same as holiness, we must be careful of judgments, but could it be that our longing to see Jesus in the flesh is measured by our eagerness to see him in bread and wine? But I’m no grief counselor. That is your private work.

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMEOctober 8, 2006

Faith, a Foundation for LongevityPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Gen 2: 18-24Heb 2: 9-11Mark 10: 2-16

Founded by author and relationship expert, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony is advertised as a patented Compatibility Matching System. As spokesperson for his company, Warren asks television viewers and online guests (eharmony.com), “Isn’t it time you experienced the joy of falling in love with someone who sees you, loves you and accepts you for who you are- the kind of joy that comes from true compatibility… Let eHarmony help you begin the journey to your soul mate today.”

That journey begins with a comprehensive 436 question Relationship Questionnaire that screens applicants on as many as 29 dimensions of compatibility, including values, character, education, sense of humor, spiritual beliefs, family background, life experiences, etc. A highly successful enterprise, eHarmony boasts of having matched thousands of couples; a study conducted in 2005 by Harris Interactive claims that as many as 90 eHarmony couples get married every day.

Nevertheless, and despite the success that eHarmony can document, meeting one’s soul mate by discovering several levels of compatibility is one thing. Staying married, through all the joys and pains, the celebrations and struggles of life is quite another. Therefore, it seems appropriate that the Church in its wisdom periodically invites the praying assembly to consider the gift of marriage and the inherent blessings and challenges thereof.

With the Genesis author, we visit once again the wondrous and graced truth that marital complementarity is God-willed and therefore graced. Through the mythopoetic, and faith-inspired account of the creation of the universe and the creation of the partners who would share dominion over it, it is clear that man and woman were made to be soul-mates and that their union was divinely intended to supercede even the relationship between parent and child. When they are joined in the relationship of marriage, a man and a woman become one body, a new entity that did not exist before their union.

In today’s gospel, when questioned about the legitimacy of divorce, Jesus will reference this Genesis text and with it the truth that the marital union, intended and blessed by God, should not be severed by human beings. Indeed, the couple joined by marriage have become a new being; they are one flesh, one heart beating in two bodies, one soul enlivening two persons.

Surely, it is not a coincidence that this teaching of Jesus, however ideal and however challenging is followed in today’s gospel by a reference to children. Flower and fruit of their parents’ graced love, children are living sacraments who attest to the gifts and blessings of marital love. Sadly, it is these little ones who suffer the most when a marital union is threatened and/or breached. Therefore, it devolves upon those who would be married not to enter into that union lightly or without the profound realization that many lives shall be touched and changed as a result of that union. Such a union cannot be based on mere feelings or infatuation. Regardless of how potent such passions may be, they do not have the “legs” to withstand the long and winding and often arduous journey that is marriage. This journey becomes possible only when two persons share at their deepest level, that of faith, values and spirituality. These stand at the center of most of our life experiences and relationships. Since the most important relationship we enjoy in life, viz., our relationship with God is formed and founded in faith, should not faith also be an integral aspect of the relationship which grows between a husband and a wife in marriage? Faith, shared faith in God, endures when beauty fades. Faith survives when finances fail, when physical or mental health deteriorates, when troubles come, when death visits. Faith sustains when friends or relatives disappoint, or betray, when jobs are lost, when trust is tested. Faith enables when self-esteem and self-confidence are lost. Faith empowers when fears seem to cripple. Faith, shared faith in God, makes for the

deepest degree of compatibility that can exist between a man and a woman. Faith also enables that relationship to continue, to thrive and to endure. For all these reasons faith must continue to be the foundation upon which every marriage is based and from which it grows into future fulfillment.

Gen 2: 18-24A second creation story from the Yahwist tradition, this account is the earlier one and

predates the Priestly narrative of creation (Gen 1:1-2:4) by about four centuries. In this account, Walter Brueggemann (Genesis John Knox Press, Atlanta, GA: 1982) draws our attention to the fact that God engages here in a sharp secularization of the human creature. God does not intend to be the man’s helper. Elsewhere, e.g., in Psalm 121: 1-2 and Isaiah 41:10, God is indeed the helper of humanity, but not in the quite secularized presentation of the Genesis author. The help man needs must be found among his own kind; it must be creature, not creator. This, insists Brueggemann, indicates to what extent human beings are the free and autonomous stewards of creation, blessed by God with dominion and also graced for the responsibility thereof.

In order to accomplish this task, man’s helper will be his partner in all things. The good news of this event declares that the well being and fulfillment of man requires a fresh creative act of God. Brueggemann calls the emergence of woman as stunning and unpredicted as the surprising emergence of man. Also a free creation, woman belongs with man; they are covenanted by God in love and equal complementary to rule over and care for creation together.

As Roland Faley (Footprints on the Mountain Paulist Press, New York, NY: 1994) has pointed out, the rib drawn from man’s side graphically affirms woman’s equality with man and explains the physical attraction and compatibility between the two. Their relationship has no parallel in all creation. In the man’s expression of his satisfaction at what God has done (v. 23), there is a clever paronomasia. In Hebrew, one of the words for woman, issha, contains the root for man, ish, as is the case in the English word woman. Celebrating the gift of the woman as ”bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” the man also affirms their closeness as partners; indeed the two become one body (v. 24).

While this celebration of the gift that is marital love and complementary will strike a chord of joy and fulfillment in many today, just as many others will hear these words with a certain pain, regret and even resentment as their own experiences have proven to be less than ideal. Without detracting anything from the sacredness of the gift of marriage, those who have suffered as a result of their unions should be shown special respect, understanding and encouragement. Support for them in their struggle should be the order of the day in a community that is meant to be a home to all. Just as one would not deny physical nourishment, nor should the spiritual nourishment of friendship or the sacramental nourishment of the Eucharistic table be withheld for therein lies that strength, sustenance and graced forgiveness that each of us requires daily.

Heb 2:9-11For this and the following six Sundays, the second readings will reacquaint the praying

assembly with the Christological insights of the author of Hebrews. Appropriately, these insights shall prepare Jesus’ followers for celebrating the annual feast of his kingship on Nov. 26.

Although the author of Hebrews remains unknown to us (various suggestions include Luke, Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Apollos, Priscilla and Silvanus) and the identity of its

recipients remains uncertain (did the author write to believers in Rome? Jerusalem? Colossae? were they Jews? Gentiles? a mixture of both?) and even the literary form of Hebrews continues to be debated (is it a sermon? a word of exhortation? a treatise?) there is no doubt as to the author’s intent in creating this missive. This is clear from the opening phrases to the last words of Hebrews. Readers of this text are to realize that God continues to speak in human time and space. God is not pictured as a silent force, regulating the universe from a distance or by remote control. On the contrary, and as Thomas G. Long (Hebrews John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1997) has explained, God is the One who has been speaking, arguing, pleading, wooing, commanding, telling stories, conversing and generally spinning words across the lines between heaven and earth since the beginning of time.

This revelation is a holy event, an overture of God toward humankind, an overture that reached its climactic crescendo in Jesus Christ. The extent to which God reached out to communicate to human beings in Jesus Christ is the subject of today’s second reading. Jesus, who is God, who is God’s ultimate Word, became one of us, even to the point of tasting death, so that the salvation God intended for sinners could be fully spoken and completely heard and appreciated.

Tasting death, explains William Barclay (“The Letter to the Hebrews” The Daily Study Bible The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, UK: 1976) meant that Jesus entered fully into the human experience. He suffered and died and so, entered into glory. Jesus’ redemptive suffering and death were not for himself but for all of humankind because he died so that human beings might become what each ought to be. In doing so, Jesus became the archegos or “pioneer” (RSV) of glory. One of great titles of Jesus in Hebrew and one that is weakened by translating it as “leader” (JB), an archegos or pioneer is an originator. A pioneer is one who begins something so that others may enter into it. He/she begins a family so that others may be born into it; he/she establishes a way of living and giving, serving and witnessing so that others may follow him/her into the truth, peace and justice that he/she, himself/herself has discovered. The pioneer is the author of blessings into which others may enter and be graced. In a word, Jesus is the pioneer of our salvation; he has struck the path that leads to God and it is our privilege and joy to follow him home. In the coming weeks, the Hebrews author will continue to remind believers of the unique role of Jesus, inviting our gratitude, praise and ever deepening faith.

Mark 10:2-16Infidelity, irreconcilable differences, cruel and inhumane treatment, desertion- these are

some of the many reasons cited in divorce courts today by couples seeking the dissolution of their union. In Jesus’ day, other reasons were posited; these were as many and varied as the opinions of the rabbis who interpreted the prescription concerning divorce. According to Deuteronomy, 24:1, “When a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, is later displeased with her because he finds in her something indecent, and therefore writes out a bill of divorce and hands it to her; thus dismissing her from his house.” This one-sided, male-dominated system of ending a marriage hinged upon the term “something indecent.” For some rabbis, that indecency could only be adultery. For others, the term was interpreted so broadly as to include everything from a wife being a bad cook, or dancing in the streets, talking to a strange man or speaking ill of her in-laws in their hearing. Some rabbis went so far as to allow divorce if a man found a woman he thought more beautiful and desirable than his wife.

When the Pharisees tested Jesus on this issue, they fully expected him to cite those reasons he deemed valid for granting a divorce. But Jesus bypassed the Deuteronomy text,

calling it a concession granted because of human stubbornness. Jesus would rather his testers focus on the principal text concerning marriage (Genesis 1:27) which underscored the permanence and indissolubility of the marital bond.

Rather than rule out divorce, Jesus’ answer serves to elevate marriage and to place the married couples on a par. Notice that Jesus speaks of both men and women being adulterous if they enter into illicit unions. This may reflect either the circumstances of Mark’s Roman readers (wherein women had the right to divorce their husbands, unlike their Jewish counterparts) or it may simply attest to Jesus’ elevated ideas about marriage.

In either case, Bonnie Bowman Thurston (Preaching Mark Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN: 2002) is correct in advising pastoral sensitivity on the part of the homilist so as not to further wound those already suffering the pain of divorce. Perhaps, it is best to approach and appreciate this admittedly challenging text in its literary context, i.e., as part of Jesus’ instructions on discipleship which began at Mark 8:22 and continued until Mark 10:52. In that context, Jesus is teaching those who would be his own, not to look for the loophole, the concession or the “easy” way out. On the contrary, Jesus challenges his disciples both single and married to give themselves fully and completely to their commitments, whether that commitment be to service in the church, to struggling for justice and peace or to another person in the relationship of marriage. All the while, in every situation, in every service, struggle and relationship, grace is present to support and strengthen the disciple in all things.

Sample Homily Oct. 8, 2006“The Way Home”Fr. James Smith

Ever since Adam gazed around the buzzing Garden of Eden, people have wondered what to make of all the things that we encounter: this rock, that flower, the cat, the people. Are all things just there, unconnected to me? Are they simply background for me to play out my little role in life? Do they have any value in themselves? Are they part of some larger design?

The questions are so basic that many different cultures, disciplines and religions offer answers. Eastern wisdom says that we first look at a tree as a tree, then as more than a tree and finally as a tree again. But of course there are Oriental nuances in that simple formula. When we first look at a tree, we think we know all about it. Then we look at it closer and see that it is an oak or an elm; then we remember that it began as a seed and may end as a log or a table

But no matter how much we analyze that tree separately, we realize that its real essence is to be part of other trees and the rest of things. We don’t really know the tree until we see it as part of everything. If we miss the tree for the forest, if we lose the tree in the cosmos, then the tree loses its individual meaning. So we look at the tree again as an individual being. Now it has a different aura. It is the same tree as before, but now we understand it in all its significance.

In psychology, Paul Ricouer deals with reality in terms of naiveté. He says that we first deal with things simply, then with knowledge, then simply again. For instance, we start by naively praying for something the way a child whines for a toy. Then we realize that God is beyond our power, has no need of our prayer, will do as God wishes. Then we combine those thoughts with the belief that somehow God does care for us, does hear

us, does answer. So, we return to pestering God in prayer — but this time with a second naiveté. The prayer may be exactly the same words, but the pray-er is a different person.

In poetry, T.S. Eliot says that we all start out from home, but no matter if we circle the globe physically or have a world of experiences or embrace a universe of ideas, we end up back home —and this time, we see it for the first time. If you have gone home, you know this is true. Same house, same fence, same tree swing. But now you see it through older eyes sharpened by success, dimmed by divorce, dulled by experience. This old house contained your whole future in embryo.

Our Catholic tradition suggests that things have some meaning and should be used for a purpose. Dominicans contemplate so they can offer the fruits of their meditation to others. Jesuits look for God in all things. We understand that all earthly things are good, but only so good. They are liable to be liked too well and turned into idols. So, we take a wholesome but cautious approach to the good things of this life.

The most famous way of maneuvering through the tangle of things is the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways. First we purge ourselves of all sin, then we are enlightened by God and finally united with God. But however true this may be in theory, the practice usually leaves us harried and hopeless. It is too sin-centered, too inhumanly demanding.

A modern theologian offers hope. He says that we should first distance ourselves not only from sin (which is only a limited human activity) but from all created things. Not because they are bad, but because they tend to become too important, even replacing God — in fact, if not in theory. But once we are safely out of the grasp of clinging objects and firmly attached to God, then we can go back to all things with God.

But we do not take God to work or school or home or game as if God were not already there. We do not add holiness to unholy things. We do not squeeze God into tight places. No, we gradually discover that God is already there, already deeply involved in all things. Most of us stop at this stage of holiness. But there is one more level.

Not only is God in all things; all things are in God. Everything floats in a celestial atmosphere, all things are marinated in grace, we are swirling in a divine milieu. In Christ, we live and move and exist. We belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. All physical things find their rightful place in the flesh of Christ. And Christ will take them all himself and present them back to his Father.

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMEOctober 15, 2006

A True and Daring WisdomPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Wis 7: 7-11Heb: 12-13Mark 10: 17-30

Once upon a time, long long ago, two men lived in an arid land where it rained only briefly about once every three years. Nothing grew in that land except cactus, lizards and sand fleas. Because both men had grown weary of being so thirsty in such a dusty place, they decided

to travel to Niagara Falls. Upon their arrival, they discovered water, thundering down in abundance, making the air heavy with mist, offering cool refreshment to all. Overjoyed at such a discovery, one of the men, held out a medicine bottle to the falls and in a flash it was filled to overflowing. “I think,” he said to his companion, “I shall come here every six months or so with a bottle or two!” The other man built a house by the river.

Which of the two men showed himself to be truly wise, wise in the ilk of a Salmon (first reading, Wisdom) or wise in the manner of a Jesus (gospel)? With which of these two men would you identify? Whose lead would you follow? Probably only a few of us would dare to admit that we might choose to go back to life in the desert and rely on the occasional visit to the river and the falls for a much needed respite. While we might long for relief from the aridity and dust, how many of us would be willing or wise enough to make such a life-changing decision and leave all that was familiar, however dreadful, in order to embrace the unknown. Would we dare risk our sure base of security? Would we chance the loss of everything?

But this is precisely the choice put before would-be disciples by the Marcan Jesus in today’s gospel. Represented by the man who ran up to Jesus to ask about a share in everlasting life, the disciple’s choice is clear. Once could continue to remain at the status quo, keeping the rules that had been one’s guide since childhood, viz., not killing, not committing adultery, not stealing, not lying or defrauding and honoring one’s parents. There is a certain comfort level here and one that can be attained with a modicum of faithfulness and perseverance. After all, these are the rules of an honorable life and there is obvious virtue, and a certain wisdom in living one’s life within these parameters.

Nevertheless, Jesus’ word to the man who ran to him and to every would-be disciple cuts the willing listener to the quick. Like a two-edged sword (Hebrews, second reading) that penetrates and divides soul and spirit, joint and marrow, the words of Jesus lay bare and expose the heart and mind of the disciple, While Jesus’ words are always spoken in love (Mark 10:21), they are not without their challenge. Come away from your comfort zone and from the satisfaction of your adeptness in keeping the law, Jesus says. Come away from knowing what you are to do, how much you are to do, when to do it and why. Come away from the safe harbor of familiar rules and rote obligations.

Let go of what you have stored against a rainy day, your hedge against inflation, your secured savings. Let go of what makes you feel invulnerable and prepared to face any and all exigencies and emergencies. Come away, challenges Jesus. Let go, he invites. Then come and follow me. Attach yourself to me as if to a lifeboat on a stormy sea. Fully aware of the challenge Jesus proferred, the man who had run to him in eager anticipation went away sad, his face fallen, his heart and mind and spirit weighed down with the blessings and burdens, the joys and responsibilities of many possessions.

His departure from Jesus’ company begs us to allow Jesus’ words to speak their challenge to us. Shall we too depart? Are we too unwilling to forego the routine and the comfortable niche we have carved out for ourselves in this world, among our friends, within our comfort zone, surrounded by our possessions, the presupposed basis of our security? Or shall we follow the lead of the second traveler who relocated to Niagara Falls and build our home in Jesus. Shall we, like Peter and the other disciples, opt to put aside everything in order to follow him? Shall we, like Solomon, forego all else, all wishes, all power, all prestige, even health and comeliness in order to know the wisdom of God who became incarnate among us in Jesus?

If we dare to let go of all else and belong fully and freely to Jesus, we are assured that we shall not be left to our own devices. God and God’s good graces shall ever be with us and with

God, all things, even a life lived in faithful discipleship and dependent belonging to Jesus, are possible.

Wis 7:7-11When he realized himself to be the recipient of one of God’s most gracious gifts,

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo wrote, “What is it that shines through me and strikes upon my heart without hurting it? And I shudder and I kindle; shudder inasmuch as I am unlike it; kindle inasmuch as I am like it. It is Wisdom, Wisdom’s self which thus shines into me.” Solomon, who is featured as the purported speaker in today’s first reading had a similar experience. He knew himself to be blessed with a wisdom beyond his own capacity to imagine. He knew that this wisdom, God’s wisdom would enable him to be a king and worthy representative of God before his people.

Although written about nine centuries after Solomon’s reign as king had ended, in a language he did not speak (Greek) and in a place where he never lived (Alexandria in Egypt), the book of Wisdom was pseudonymously attributed to that great king of Israel, probably because of his reputation for being its greatest sage. Most of us are familiar with the fact that Solomon oversaw the building of Israel’s temple as well as countless public works projects. We know of his acumen and appetite for international commerce, his many wives and concubines as well as his overly ecumenical attitude toward their religious practices and his own flirtations with idolatry.

But today, the first century BCE author of Wisdom would have us appreciate another side of David and Bathsheba’s son. To that end he/she invites us to peek in upon Solomon at prayer while as the shrine in Gibeon (1Kgs 3:5-15). There, the king offered to God a thousand holocausts and that night, in a dream (a standard scriptural medium for divine communication), Solomon as told “Ask something of we and I will give it to you!” To his credit, Solomon did not ask for an increase of wealth or lands or power or prestige; he asked, as his prayer reveals, for wisdom.

Such wisdom would have enabled Solomon to rule Israel as God intended, representing not his own that God’s interests and those of the people in his care.

That Solomon’s prayer was heard and that God had, indeed, granted him wisdom is aptly illustrated by the author of Kings. Immediately after the narrative regarding Solomon’s prayer request, the ancient author recounted the well-known incident whereby the great king judged between two prostitutes, both of whom were claiming to be the mother of the same baby. When Solomon suggested that the child be cut into two and half be given to each of the disputing women, the true mother stepped forward begged the king to spare the child. She would have given up the child that was rightfully hers rather than see it killed. In concluding this narrative, the author of 1Kgs 3: 16-28 wrote: “When all Israel heard the judgment of the king, they were in awe of him because they saw that the king had in him the wisdom of God…” How fitting that Solomon’s wisdom was first manifested as an ability to know the human heart and to set right relationships that were gone awry. Would that we were all similarly wise.

Heb 4: 12-13A look at the larger literary context (3:12-4:13) of this hymnlike tribute to the word of

God will apprise the praying assembly of the ancient author’s purpose. He/She invites his/her readers to learn from their rich heritage of salvation history so as not to follow in the footsteps of those who repeatedly ignored or did not hear the word of God. Rather than harden one’s heart

against God and God’s word as did their ancestors in the desert (three times, the author of Hebrews references Psalm 95:7 in 3:8; 3:15 and 4:7), believers, insisted the Hebrews author, should welcome the word and its power into their lives. Keep in mind, advises Thomas G. Long (Hebrews, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1997) that the ancient Christian writer was evoking the memory of Israel’s failures to warn the Church, not patting the Church on the back for being superior to Israel. Indeed, his/her aim was to remind the congregation that the people of God, from Adam to Abraham, to the end of time form an unbroken chain of faith (see 11:1-40). No link in the chain stands alone or ranks superior. At no point in the schema of salvation could any one group of God’s people claim to be the complete and finished expression of God’s will for the human family – not Israel, not the Church. Therefore, rather than cast aspersions, let us hold hands with those who have gone before us, realizing that their failures are also our own whenever we harden our hearts to the word of God.

That word and its power are celebrated in verses 12 and 13; celebrated as well is the continuing challenge posed to believers by the Word from which no one can hide and before which no one can dissemble. That word cuts through the dross to lay bare the truth; it carves through bureaucracies to reveal true justice; it sifts through political machinations and points toward authentic peace. Like a two-edged sword, explains Long (op.cit.) the word of God takes an ordinary day and makes it “today,” takes an ordinary moment and makes it a time of crisis and decision, takes a routine event and makes it the theater of the glory of God, takes an ordinary life and prompts it toward holiness.

In today’s gospel, Jesus will speak such a word to the man who questioned him about eternal life. Jesus’ word invited the man to break with a comfortable, familiar past in order to embark upon an unknown future, a future of following Jesus as a disciple. Each time, the word of God is proclaimed in our hearing, a similar invitation is issued and similar risks and insecurities abound. Nevertheless the same word that challenges also encourages, and we who dare to listen will not find ourselves alone or unequipped for whatever lies ahead.

Mark 10: 17-30 At the very heart of this challenging gospel or word of Jesus is the admission, on Jesus’ part, that salvation is impossible for human beings to attain on their own (v. 27). Upon first reading, it may seem that Jesus was addressing only the rich whose possessions seemed to get in the way of their full and faithful following of his challenges. “How hard!” Jesus says two times within verses 23-27. But when he adds “for many it is impossible… but not for God. With God all things are possible.” These last words, explains Lamar Williamson, Jr. (Mark John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1983) transform the contract from a contradiction into a paradox. A share in the kingdom, entrance into eternal life or salvation – far from being easy, demands our most attentive obedience to God’s word and all our best efforts. Even so, all we can do is not sufficient to achieve the life we seek. Such life and wholeness are possible only for God and are received by us, only as gifts.

But, these are not gifts that we simply wait idly by for God to drop them into our laps. On the contrary, we are, by virtue of those gifts, challenged to work as if everything depended upon us and believe as if everything depended on God. For the man with many possessions, and for every disciple, this means being willing to let go of all else so as to let God and God’s gifts and graces work within us.

Bonnie Bowman Thurston (Preaching Mark Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN: 2002) suggests that preachers or homilists should preach this gospel as a unit of material rather than

dissecting its parts. Only with such an approach does it become clear that there is much more at stake here than wealth or material possessions. If only this aspect is stressed, then the majority of believers may too easily rationalize that since they are not truly rich the passage has little relevance for them.

In fact, however, the passage is more general than that, asking readers to determine whatever may be standing between them and their sharing in everlasting life. For the man who ran up to Jesus that day, the obstacle was indeed his possessions. But for you, for me, it may be something or someone else. Bowman Thurston suggests that it may even be our sense of ourselves as disciples of Jesus. Do we think that by our renunciations of home, brothers, sisters, parents, children and/or property we have earned salvation? Do we suppose that by accepting to be persecuted for Jesus’ sake and for the gospel we somehow merit the keys to the kingdom? If we are so misled, then the “age to come” (v. 30) will probably hold in store for us some unpleasant surprises. Therefore rather than define this gospel’s challenge solely in terms of wealth and possessions, the Marcan Jesus invites us to cling to absolutely nothing and no one that is not him. In our clinging to Jesus and to his word, we shall discover the wisdom by which we are to live and to die so as to follow Jesus into everlasting life.

Sample Homily Oct. 15, 2006“Will I Turn Away?”Denise Simeone

“Ran up…went away…” In the first sentence of today’s Gospel we can almost feel the eagerness and animation of the man who “ran up” to Jesus. He appeared to be an eager student wanting to learn more from this teacher. Perhaps he had heard about Jesus’ reputation or his preaching to the crowds. So he “ran up” to Jesus, and we can almost hear his breathless question: “…what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Yet a few short sentences later his story ends: “…he went away.” The man left, his face crestfallen and sad. (Another translation says “…he was shocked and went away grieving…”) He left Jesus; he went away.

Ran up…went away -- what happened to this man’s eagerness in between these two actions? He was invited to follow Jesus, to be one of his company, yet he went away. In Mark’s Gospel, this man is the only one to walk away from Jesus’ call to follow him. This story brings to life the epistle selected by the church for this Sunday. The letter to the Hebrews stresses the challenge of following Jesus: “…the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.”

The man had an opportunity to follow the word of God but discipleship came with a cost. When Jesus told him the cost, it penetrated his heart and the life he was leading. He was devout; he had followed the commandments since he was young. Yet, when Jesus loved him something more if he would give up what he had, he could not let go. He went away sad. The cost was too great. Instead of riches, Jesus offered him treasure in heaven and the eternal life he was really seeking, but instead he went away.

In contrast, Mark’s Gospel describes the reaction of Peter and the other disciples to the same invitation from Jesus. Peter says, “We have given up everything and followed you." God’s word has indeed penetrated their hearts and lives. Even though they do not fully

understand what will happen, they proceed to Jerusalem with Jesus, who promises them what he offered the man: eternal life. The cost will be their share in Jesus’ suffering and death in Jerusalem, but the reward will be abundant.

Many times I find myself running up to Jesus because I, too, want to follow him. His words to me are the same ones he spoke to the man: “Let go.” If we throw in our lot with the Lord, follow him to the cross, we must let go of everything else. Can I let go of the need to control God, to judge others, to be right, or of the resentment and anger that comes with conflict, even in the name of justice and righteousness?

What prompts me to run up to Jesus is my instinct that he knows the path to life. And when he turns and looks at me with love, his word will enter my hearts like a two-edged sword, exposing all my hopes and fears, dreams and desires. Having come this far, will I then turn away?

TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMEOctober 22, 2006

Third–Class, All the WayPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Isa 53: 10-11Heb 4: 14-16Mark 10: 35-45

“Go west young man and make the country grow!” Thus read the title of an 1851 editorial by John B.L. Soule which was first published in the Tena Haute Espress. Taking those words to heart, many made their way into the American West, taming the wilds as the went. Some traveled by wagon train, others opted for the stagecoach. While we’ve all had a glimpse of this mode of transportation in western movies, we might not be aware that the stagecoach companies sold three different classes of tickets, first, second and third-class.

If you bought a first-class ticket, you retained the right to remain seated during the entire trip, regardless of the circumstances. If the stagecoach got stuck in the mud or had difficulty climbing a steep grade or if a wheel fell off or an axel broke, you could remain seated. First-class had its privileges.

If you purchased a second-class ticket, you could also remain seated until and unless there were a problem. In that case, second-class ticket holders would be required to get off the coach until the problem were resolved. One could stand off to the side and watch as others worked; second-classers did not have to get their hands dirty. When the problem was resolved and the stagecoach was once again travel-worthy, one could get on board again and take one’s seat.

If, however, you held a third-class ticket, you would definitely have to get off if there were a problem. Why? Third-class ticket holders were held responsible for helping to fix the problem. Therefore, these were required to do whatever was necessary in order to continue the trip. Dirty hands and aching backs notwithstanding, third-class passengers were conscripted into service that may have involved anything from pushing or pulling a stuck wagon, repairing broken wheels or axels and even tending to the horses.

With this colorful bit of history in mind, we turn to today’s gospel. Jesus and his disciples are also traveling, not west, but from Caesarea Philippi in the north to Jerusalem in the South. On their way, Jesus has been instructing his disciples in the blessings as well as the rigors of discipleship. He has been frank, speaking more of service and suffering and less of power and prestige. Jesus will repeatedly (three times) allude to the inevitable conflict and struggle he would face in fulfilling his God-given mission. It would appear that he saw his role as more comparable to the Isaian servant whose innocent and vicarious suffering for sinners is so graphically depicted in today’s first reading. Nevertheless, the disciples remain without full understanding as is reflected in the request made by James and John Zebedee’s sons. In essence, they asked Jesus for the privilege of traveling with him holding first-class tickets in their hands and enjoying the privileges thereof.

By expressing their wish to be seated at Jesus’ right and left, it would also appear that the two sons of Zebedee presumed that Jesus, too, was riding first class into glory. They misunderstand what it means to share Jesus’ cup and bath, baptism; thinking of these as a sharing in his kingdom, they are full of confidence. “We can!” they offer excitedly. How many of us are similarly unaware and uninformed regarding the cost of discipleship. We start out well, with the enthusiasm of first-class ticket holders. Yet when the cup turns bitter and the bath becomes an immersion in sacrifice… when our third-class ticket status requires that we give up our seats and plunge wholeheartedly into fixing what needs to be fixed, mending what is broken and reconciling that which has become alienated, we tend to balk.

Like James, John and the other disciples, we have yet to fully comprehend the oxymoronic role of the servant-leader. Never one to presume first-class status, Jesus struck the path that his disciples were to follow. Serving the needs of all, he always opted for third-class ticket, giving himself fully and freely to the work of our salvation. This work continues and is the proper responsibility of Jesus’ disciples until all sinners know themselves to be saved, forgiven, ransomed, redeemed. To that end, it remains our challenge to daily stay the course and, on this side of the grave, to accept the third-class status that Jesus himself elevated to holiness.

Notice that Jesus did not rebuke or reject James, John or the others; nor should we. Rather, their experience is set before us today so that we might identify with them and learn from them. With them, we remain servants on the way, clutching in eager hands the third-class tickets that will lead us home to Jesus, home to God, home to glory.

Isa 53: 10-11Nothing is quite as difficult to accept as the suffering and death of an innocent person.

Feelings of outrage foment and fill the hearts that ache to see yet another aide-worker, reporter, soldier or civilians senselessly slaughtered as a consequence of war. Some of these killings are being broadcast on television and/or the internet in blatant disregard for justice and the sacredness of human life. A similar sense of angry resentment is stirred when, after many years in prison, someone’s innocence is at last proven through DNA testing. When the innocent who suffers and dies is a child, the misery is compounded by an inability to make any sense of such an event. Does not a similar sense of empathetic outrage arise in us each time we encounter the Isaian Servant? If not, can we claim to truly comprehend and appreciate the enormity of the Servant’s gift and the depth of God’s love for sinners?

Paul D. Hanson (Isaiah 40-66 John Knox Press, Louisville, KY:1995) has described Isaiah 53 as Deutero-Isaiah’s contribution to this spiritual quest for an answer to the tragedy of

innocent suffering. Isaiah 53 explores how the pattern of sin and punishment could be broken and replaced by the wholeness that accompanies a hearty embrace of God’s compassion. Featured in Isaiah 53 is a Servant whose surrender to God’s will was so absolute as to absorb the consequences of human sin. This is, of course, what constitutes martyrdom or the ultimate witness of faith and trust in God. Nevertheless, says Hanson, while such martyrdom can be moving it can also be completely ineffective in relation to the human situation unless accompanied by one critically significant dimension. This dimension is expressed in Isaiah 53:10 which might be better translated: “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.” As difficult as this statement is to hear, it assures readers that the Servant was not acting alone; rather, through his suffering he was serving God’s purpose. Not a victim of fate, the Servant’s obedience to God led him to offer the ultimate gift of himself.

But how, we must ask can such an obvious perversion of justice be called the will of the Lord? We must also ask how it could be that the one who suffers innocently and unjustly is one whom the Lord God loves so dearly, so deeply? Surely, it is this very love of God that empowered the Servant to participate with God in an action that broke the stranglehold of sin. Accordingly, adds Hanson, in the Servant’s death-defying commitment, he did not (in the end) lose his life. Rather, his action redefined the nature of life as light that dispels the darkness, as loving forgiveness that destroys sin and death and as justification that reconciles sinners with God.

We, who choose to follow the One who ultimately fulfilled the Servant’s saving mission, are committed, by virtue of that choice, to join our struggles and sufferings to his in order that the gifts of light, forgiveness and justification might continue to be realized in our world through us.

Heb 4: 14-16When Jesus, the Suffering Servant, beloved of God, innocently assumed the burden of

human sin, he also took upon himself the entirety of the human condition. Jesus lived as we live. He ate and drank; he cried and laughed. Jesus knew the happiness that friends can bring as well as the pain that an enemy inflicts. He knew what it meant to be tempted as regards his singular role, his special power, and his unique relationship with God but he did not succumb. Jesus knew the experience of being loved for who he was as well as being fawned over for what he could do for others. He encountered the sincere as well as the deviant and he loved and reached out to both. Jesus knew what it was to want one thing but for God to will another. In all ways, except for sin, Jesus was like us. Therefore, reasons the Hebrews author in today’s second reading, we have in Jesus a kindred spirit and one who can best represent us before God as our great high priest.

High priests of the former covenant also represented the people before God by mediating God’s will, by preaching God’s word and by offering various types sacrifices on their behalf. As a symbol of their role as representative, the high priest wore an ephod or short tunic over their robe. On the ephod was a breastpiece, a pocketlike receptacle for holding the Urim and Thummim, hence its name, “breastpiece of decision”. On the breastpiece were mounted four rows of precious stones with three stones in each row. Upon each of the twelve stones was engraved the name of one of the twelve tribes, so that whenever the high priest “entered the presence of the Lord, he shall thus bear the decisions for the Israelites over his heart in the Lord’s presence” (see Exod 28:6-30).

While the rich symbolism affirmed the unity of the high priest with the Israelites as well as his role as their representative and mediator before God, the role of Jesus is even greater. He did not wear precious stones on a breastpiece; rather he wore the very flesh and blood of humanity, thus being the perfect representative and the uniquely perfect mediator. In that capacity, wounds were what he wore, the wounds of crucifixion for the sake of sinners.

By assuring his readers of Jesus’ special role on their behalf, the Hebrews author insists Thomas G. Long (Hebrews John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1997), wanted to encourage them (and us) toward daring, even audacious prayer (v.16); he wanted them to move past fearful prayers, tidy prayers, formal and distant prayers toward a way of praying that storms the gates of heaven with honest and heartfelt cries of human need. He did not want believers to pray like bureaucrats seeking a permit to demonstrate but like children who cry out, trusting that they will be heard and attended. This boldness at prayer and the trust that prompts it are founded in the fact that Jesus, our great high priest has walked in our shoes and lived in our skin. He who became one of us is for us. Therefore, we approach in confidence to receive grace, favor and mercy from God through him.

Mark 10: 35-45When readers of Mark’s gospel realize that his narrative follows directly upon the third prediction of Jesus’ passion and death (10:33-34), the request of James and John seems all the more obtuse. Indeed, their request for seats at Jesus right and left hand seems so inappropriate and unbecoming of their position as disciples that Matthew would later alter his Marcan source and place the request for greatness on the lips of the mother of James and John (Matt 20: 20-28).Despite their lack of comprehension of Jesus’ true purpose and their subsequent sharing in that purpose, James and John should not be singled out as being uniquely ambitious. The fact that the other disciples became indignant with them probably affirms their resentment that the two had beat the others to the punch, as it were. After all, there were only two seats to be had, directly to Jesus’ right and left and all the disciples were probably aspiring to those positions; they had yet to truly understand the ramifications of their aspirations.Only later would the disciples realize and accept that the cup of Jesus did not necessary symbolize joy and fulfillment (as in Psalms 16:5; 23: 5; 116: 13) but that it could also entail a share in Jesus’ suffering (Psalms 11:6; 75: 8; Isa 51: 17,22; Jer 25: 15, 17) and ultimate fate (Mark 14: 36). Only later would understanding come as regards the bath or baptism in which the still clueless disciples eagerly agreed to be immersed. Referenced here was not the baptism in the Jordan by John, but the baptism of fire (Mark 1:8), as well as the willingness to be plunged into the deep waters of suffering (Psalms 42:7; Isa 43:2). In both of these experiences, his disciples will indeed share, promises Jesus, but as regards places of honor, or first-class tickets, these would be the ultimate prerogative of God. For now, all should be content with third class status.In the remaining verses of this gospel narrative, Jesus will explore the quality of leadership that should be exercised by those riding third class to glory. Still difficult to grasp and even more difficult to put into practice the concept of servant- leadership remains a challenge for all would be disciples. What is required, explains Lamar Williamson, Jr. (Mark John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1983) is that the servant-leader disciple pour out his/her life for another, whether it be an aging parent, a difficult or ailing spouse, a brother or sister with special needs or any person whose circumstances elicit neighborly services at personal cost. Jesus came to serve and give his life; his disciples are called to do likewise.

In verse 45, the word for life is pscuchen which means the complete self. Throughout his gospel, Mark uses this same word to mean earthly life (8:35), the inner life of a person, i.e., his/her feelings, emotions (12:30) and the life that continues beyond the passage of death (8: 36,37). The idea, insists Bonnie Bowman Thurston (op. cit.) is that Jesus came to give his entire being as a “ransom for the many”. Lutron or “ransom” means “the price of release”. Because of Jesus’ service, because of the gift of his life, the “price” as it were has been “paid”. Sinners are forgiven and freed, freed for service and a similar pouring out of our own lives as third-class ticket holders and fellow travelers bound for glory and for God.

Sample Homily Oct. 22, 2006“The Lesson of History”Fr. James Smith

Sometimes, hope and history collide. James and John had hoped to sit on seats of secular power but history records that they were executed as enemies of the state.

Facts are raw data, but history is a matter of interpretation. Events just happen, but historians try to arrange those events in some meaningful order. But if there is no discernible order, if events don’t make sense, then there can be no real history. That is why some people think that history has already ended — that we are living in post-historic times.

When history is supposed to have ended is a matter of opinion, a matter of perspective. Some say that history ended with the Berlin Wall, which divided that city and the whole world into opposing armed forces. Some think history ended with Auschwitz, where one segment of humankind tried to annihilate a fellow segment. Many Americans think history ended with 9/11, when terrorists revealed our vulnerability.

Despite tremendous progress in human health, longevity, disease control, safety and quality of life, all over the industrialized world there is a collective sense of depression, a loss of national hope. Europe has been in a cultural funk for decades, devastated by two world wars and dispirited by its denial of God. America is still energetic and powerful, but has lost faith in its historic destiny. Only poor nations seem to have hope and joy in the middle of misery and chaos.

Compare these two images. Picture some impoverished families in São Paulo, Brazil, who spend all day scavenging food from the city dump and then have a fiesta at the base of that putrefying pile of garbage. Alongside that image, picture suburban families in Paris or New York sitting soberly, joylessly at a gourmet-laden dinner table.

What’s wrong with those pictures? And how do desperate people stay joyful in such joyless surroundings? How do they keep hope alive when they know that tomorrow will bring the same hopeless situation? If they balanced good times against bad, they would commit mass suicide. But, of course, we cannot measure the depths of suffering. We cannot calculate ethereal joy. They are not separate quantities; they are successive human experiences. Joy is not some vacuous, inane jollity; joy is sadness overcome, suffering survived, despair conquered.

History is a matter of interpretation. French Jesuit scientist Teilhard de Chardin thought that humankind would progress and improve until it was perfected in the Omega Point who is Christ. German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner thought that we were just as likely to end in the catacombs. Past history gives us no cause to hope in free, fickle humankind.

Dinosaurs were here before us, beetles will thrive after us. We live in between the Big Bang and the Big Chill. Some call our time the Big Nothing, the Big Nada. A collective despair hovers over humanity; there is little cause for national joy. That explains the popularity of New Age religion. When people see no hope in society, they flee to some private salvation, some personal fulfillment, some individual joy.

But this very hopeless human situation is precisely when the Good News is vindicated. In previous times, the church tended to attach its fortunes to secular history, even to imagine that it might bring God’s kingdom down to earth. But since history has disabused us of that fantasy, we are forced to turn to our only real hope: that is, God.

Only God can make sense of chaos, only God can coordinate the billions of individual freedoms, only God can bring good out of bad, only God can guide history to its divine conclusion. But not without loss and pain. Since God sees infinitely more evil than humans, God has more reason than anyone to despair. Yet, God is joyful. The mystic Meister Eckhart said that God is joyful like a colt frolicking in a meadow!

Hope is hope only when things are hopeless. Joy is joy only when it conquers despair. The Christian view of history is not that goodness overcomes badness but that goodness survives badness; joy is born of hopelessness. We learn that from God’s own Son. We must believe that God delights in our very existence; God has high hopes for us and for his world; God is tickled to have us in his life. And all will be well.

THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMEOctober 29, 2006

Unlikely TeachersPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Jer 31: 2-7Heb 5: 1-6Mark 10: 46-52

Many among us have known both the joy and the privilege of having been taught by a capable and devoted teacher. Many among us have known one of those special people whose talent for teaching has stirred in us a sense of discovery and left us hungering for more. Fine teachers have the ability to turn on lights in darkened heads and open up new worlds that invite deeper exploration, admiration and respect. For this writer, it was a high school history teacher who made her subject come alive to the degree that her students actually felt hot, thirsty and exhausted while listening to her narrative of the 1942 Bataan death march. We readily imagined ourselves as the Yalta conference table in that cold February of 1945 rubbing elbows with the likes of Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Through her conjuring, we too, were present on the USS Missouri in Sept. 1945 when Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepted the unconditional surrender that ended the war in the Pacific.

Good teachers are, more often than not, also good people whose character, ethics and lifestyle also teach and challenge their students to respond in kind so as to grow into adults worthy of their mentoring. Of this quality of teacher, Göethe (Elective Affinities, 1808) once

wrote: “a teacher who arouses feelings in us for one good action … accomplishes more than the teacher who fills our heads with interminable lists of natural objects.”

Today, the scripture selections, particularly the first reading and gospel, present us with teachers, albeit unlikely ones, who also are intended to arouse in us feelings that will prompt us toward good actions. These teachers are unlikely in that they are what the prophet Jeremiah calls the remnant of Israel. Remnant, explains Walter Brueggemann (Reverberations of Faith, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 2002) refers to those few survivors who remain after a catastrophe. The most poignant imagery for the remnant appears in Amos 3:12 where the remnant of Israel is compared to the remnant of a sheep (a pair of legs or the tip of an ear) after an attack by a lion. This graphic description was applied to the precious few who survived the calamities of war and exile because of their unquestioning reliance on God. They are the poor, the voiceless, the disenfranchised; they are the blind, the lame, the mothers with child. They are also a blind beggar named Bartimaeus who sits by the roadside on the outskirts of Jericho. But what do these unlikely teachers have to teach us?

Foremost among the lessons imparted by God’s special remnant is the faith that inspired them to hold fast to God while all else seemed to elude their grasp. Faithful in all things and in all seasons, they did not allow fear to cripple them or thwart their efforts. Even when it seemed utter foolishness to rely on an unseen God in the face of obvious formidable adversaries, God’s remnant believed. From them, we learn that authentic faith begins in God who is utterly and unchangingly reliable. Indeed, it is only because of God’s steadfast love and merciful kindness that humankind can dare to believe, to be faithful and firm.

Along with faithfulness, the remnant of God’s poor ones teaches hope. Like faith, hope is also based on the character of God whose promises are never broken but always kept, whose word never lies fallow but is always fulfilled. Hope dares to follow as God leads the remnant homeward (Jeremiah); hope dares to cry out with Bartimaeus, “Jesus, have pity on me!” Hope harbors no doubt and when its questions are answered and its needs have been met, hope follows Jesus up the road (gospel Mark) without benefit of map or any other directions save that of his presence.

While our unlikely educators, the remnant, appear to be weak, they are actually teaching us that true strength lies in knowing oneself to be utterly helpless and absolutely dependent upon God. Like the blind Bartimaeus, they teach us the courage to cry out our needs and our desires when popular mores would dictate that we be quiet and unobtrusive. They teach us to throw caution and decorum to the wind when Jesus calls; they bid us jump at the chance to come to him, to know him and to experience his power. They teach us the wisdom of following God’s will and God’s ways even when these seem impractical, unpopular and out-dated. They teach us not to sacrifice morals or principles or values on the altars of a popular culture that attributes its choices and behaviors to the signs of changing times and excuses its sins with: This is the 21st century, after all!!

Not last or least among the lessons imparted by God’s remnant is that of the reversal of fortunes that awaits us all. This reversal, attested throughout both testaments and given expression by Luke on the lips of Mary, promises that the mighty shall fall but the lowly and poor ones shall be lifted up, the hungry will be filled, the rich will experience emptiness. Exiles will return home, the lame shall walk and dance, the blind shall see and believe and from the two little legs or the tip of the ear of the lion- ravaged sheep, God will create and gather home a people too numerous to count. We, for our part, must learn how to belong to that people by being small instead of great, helpless and dependent on God instead of self-reliant, peace-makers

rather than aggressors or avengers, servants rather than power-brokers. In a word, we must remain willing to listen and learn from those whom God, in gracious love and mercy, continues to send among us, God’s remnant, God’s poor ones, our unlikely teachers.

Jer 31: 7-9Alongside the “unlikely” teachers with whom he reacquaints us in this inspiring narrative

stands Jeremiah, teacher par excellence. So convinced was the prophet of God’s purposes, so consumed was he by God’s word that Jeremiah continues to teach all who will listen and attempt to apply God’s word and discover God’s purpose in their own lives. Jeremiah was, as Walter Brueggemann (“The Book of Jeremiah: Portrait of the Prophet” Interpreting the Prophets, J.L. Mays, P.J. Achtemeir, eds. Fortress Press, Philadelphia, PA: 1987) has explained, was a person to whom God’s persistent, inescapable and overriding word had been delivered. With full awareness of that fact, he spent his life in finding ways to articulate that word to his contemporaries and living with the oftentimes hazardous consequences of that reality.

Unlike the harsh words that Jeremiah was often burdened to speak, the words that comprise today’s first reading were probably welcomed with joy and eager anticipation. Here, the prophet speaks of the happy homecoming of those exiles deported to Assyria after the defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722-721 BCE. They had survived the shame of the conquest, the pain of displacement and the loss of their independence. Yet they endured and were returning to their own land. Because of their limited number, and the hardships they had suffered, they are called, by the prophet “the remnant of Israel”. As Roland Faley (Footprints on the Mountain, Paulist Press, New York, NY: 1994) has explained, today’s reading identifies the remnant as the disadvantaged members of society. Nursing mothers and pregnant women travelling without husbands would be dependent on their fellow travelers for protection and provisions. The blind and the lame, their handicap often regarded as punishment for sin, were looked upon as less than perfect and less than wholly fit for the life of cult and community. Nevertheless, these little ones will be repatriated as the predilect of God. They who had departed in shame and mourning shall return home in joy, consoled and guided by God (v.9 = Ps 126).

Although the term, remnant, initially described the physical survivors of a catastrophe, it gradually came to refer to a spirituality of faithful dependence upon God to which all believers are to ascribe. In the gospels, this spirituality is clearly embodied in Jesus who also recommended a childlike simplicity, innocence and reliance on God to his disciples. This same spirituality lies at the heart of the prayer Jesus left with his own as an expression of their relationship with God. Abba, Papa, Daddy, your kingdom come, your will be done, give us bread, forgive us as we forgive, protect us in temptation and defend us from evil. AMEN.

Heb 5: 1-6Jesus Christ is our high priest in that he is the mediator of salvation. Salvation, explains

Jon Sobrino (Christ the Liberator Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY: 2001) is a complex concept since it includes the multiple oppressions and wants from which human beings need to be saved. An all-embracing concept, salvation is understood in anthropological language as overcoming the dehumanization of the human. In a religious sense, salvation means closing the distance between God and humankind, a distance widened ethically by sin but also by the radical differences between divine and human nature. In order to approach God, says J.M. Castello (“Sacerdocio” Conceptos Fundamentales de Pastoral, Madrid, ESP: 1983), one must be willing and able to enter into a different world, the world of the sacred, radically distinct from the

profane, the sphere of the divine. Because of Jesus, our high priest, appointed and anointed by God, we have access to this sphere of the sacred. Within this sphere, we find salvation and the answer to all our needs; we find forgiveness and healing, bread and hope, truth and justice, life and peace.

Not only is Jesus the mediator of salvation and the guarantor of all these blessings, he is also a good and compassionate pastor. Jesus, insists Thomas G. Long (Hebrews John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1997) knew the pain and ambiguity of being human. Jesus embodied human life with all its frailties and limitations. Through his incarnation, he was joined to the entire range of the human experience and all this was intended and accomplished through the will and foreordained plan of God. This fact is reinforced by the author of Hebrews with quotes from Ps 2: 7 and Ps 110: 4. The first attests to Jesus’ role as God’s begotten Son and the Savior of humankind. A royal psalm probably composed for the enthronement ceremony of one of the kings of Israel or Judah, Ps 2 is frequently applied to Jesus, through whose kingship humankind had been saved and delivered.

Ps 110, as Bernhard W. Anderson (Out of the Depths The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, PA: 1983) has noted, also seems to reflect a coronation ceremony, This psalm references the ancient tradition about Melchizedek, a Canaanite priest-king of the pre-Israelite city of Jerusalem (Salem). According to Gen 14: 17-20, this ancient priest-king blessed Abraham in the name of God most high. Building on this tradition, the psalm opens with an oracle, according to which, God invites the king to sit on God’s throne at God’s right hand. Then comes the announcement that the king is now legitimated as priest-king in the order of Melchizedek.

By referencing these psalms, the Hebrews author affirms Jesus status as priest forever, as king, and as God’s divine Son. In all those capacities, Jesus ministers to sinners as the mediator of their salvation, as the source of their salvation as their means of access to God. In a word, Jesus is our high priest without equal, without end.

Mark 10: 46-52Framing the Marcan Jesus’ special instructions regarding the purpose and personal cost

of his mission and the subsequent cost of discipleship (8:22-10:52) are the cures of two blind persons. Jesus’ healing of the first blind man of Bethsaida was a gradual cure, requiring two touches by Jesus; in the end, the man who saw less clearly at first left Jesus’ presence seeing everything distinctly. Some scholars suggest that the gradual cure is an intended Marcan symbol for the gradual process of enlightenment and understanding on the part of Jesus’ disciples.

In contrast to this first gradual cure, the second healing features Bartimaeus, calling out in confidence to Jesus under the messianic title, Son of David. His cure is immediate and is attributed by Jesus to his faith. Although Jesus directed the now-seeing Bartimaeus to be on his way, today’s gospel concludes with the statement “he received his sight and started to follow Jesus on the way.” Clearly Bartimaeus also functions as a symbol of the disciple who, having come to know and believe and see Jesus for who he truly is, agrees to make Jesus’ way his/her own.

In its emphasis on the relationship between faith and healing (and salvation) the Bartimaeus narrative, explains Lamar Williamson, Jr. (Mark John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1983) directly echoes Jesus’ word to the hemorrhaging woman “Your faith has made you well” or “saved you” (Mark 5: 34). Also reinforced are Jesus’ repeated appeals to faith in 2:5; 9: 23-24 and (negatively) 6:5-6. Bartimaeus offers a dramatic example of the process of faith. At first, he

cries out to Jesus with a less than perfect idea of who Jesus is and he persistently refused to be silenced. Then he boldly and eagerly responds to Jesus’ call, still mediated to him through others. Once he encounters Jesus, he is clear in what he wants and confident that Jesus can fill his needs. These are the attitudes and actions Jesus calls faith. That his was an authentic faith is shown in Bartimaeus’ willingness to follow Jesus into the next part of the Marcan narrative, viz., to Jerusalem, to the conflict and controversy Jesus will meet there, and ultimately to the cross. Faith had been the factor that prompted Bartimaeus’ healing by Jesus; faith would see Bartimaeus to the end of the road.

Marcan miracles that have faith as the key factor are designed, explains Earl S. Johnson, Jr. ("Mark 10:46-52: Blind Bartimaeus” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40: 1978) to assist the disciples of Jesus in their struggle with doubt and unbelief. It is common for Mark to offer unlikely teachers to teach his lessons regarding faith. Here, a blind man takes the initiative to call out to Jesus who responds with all the blind man needs to be whole viz., healing, restoration to a productive life and a challenge– to follow Jesus up the road and along the way of discipleship. Each day, Jesus offers similar experiences of healing and similar challenges to us. Shall we learn from our unlikely teachers and, like them, make Jesus’ way our own?

Sample Homily Oct 29, 2006“I Believe, Help My Unbelief”Fr. James Smith

“I want to see!” is a heart-rending cry. But being able to see is risky. As Jesus threatened the Pharisees: “If you were really blind you would not be guilty; but since you say ‘We see’ you are guilty.”

Let’s let that warning simmer on the back burner for now while we attend to Bartimaeus’ plea for sight. Everyone agrees that blindness is the biblical code word for unbelief, and sight is the word for faith. So, for John, Bartimaeus is pleading for faith, belief in God. And that prayer came right out of his immediate experience of need.

Bartimaeus is unlike most of us, whose faith comes to us from our families and our church and school. We learned the answer to all of life’s problems way before we even knew how to ask the questions. Even before we knew there was a problem. Who made us? God made us. Why did God make us? To know, love and serve him.

Every Catholic of a certain age knows those answers; but they do not spring from a great need to know. They are the answers to someone else’s question, so they don’t dig deeply into our own experience of reality or our experience of God.

We believe that there is a God. We learned that as children, and most of us have had little reason to doubt it. But our lack of doubt contributes to our lack of faith. God is just there — like air — and taken as much for granted. We believe that God is a trinity of persons, although we don’t know or care what that might mean. We believe that Jesus died for us, but we don’t understand why that was necessary. And besides, it was a very long time ago. We believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. Again, we can’t imagine what that means for him or for us. A very long time ago, someone else.

But what if we did not believe any of these remarkable things? What if we had not been taught what to believe? What if, like Bartimaeus, we lived in darkness, struggling for a slight sliver of hope?

What if we didn’t know why God made the world, let alone us? We would not know if the world were accidental or purposeful. We wouldn’t know if we were freaks of nature or had a reason for being. We wouldn’t know where we came from or where we were going, if anywhere. What a wonderful insight it would be if we suddenly realized that there was a God who made us for a purpose and loved us personally!

What if we suffered from a serious illness and wondered why? What if we were overwhelmed with the pain of a world of fellow sufferers? And what if we thought all this evil came from something we did wrong, and there was no end in sight; it would just get worse? And worst of all, that evil was meaningless, a proof against God?

Then, what if we came to see that suffering was not for punishment, that God is not vindictive; that God also hates suffering and perhaps suffers himself. And we gradually saw that evil was just flotsam in a sea of goodness; that whatever sin there is, there is always more grace in that situation. Most of all, what if we came to believe that our suffering was joined to Christ’s, and that it even helped save the world? What a marvelous insight that would be!

We could go on, but you get the point. Faith freely given is easily accepted but hardly helpful. Real faith must rise out of our lack of faith. It must be born of an absolute need to know. We tend to use our faith as a pattern to impose over reality. We know there is a God, so why doesn’t he listen? We know that suffering is salutary, so why doesn’t it feel like it? We know Jesus rose, but we have no sense of resurrection in our own lives. We do not really experience God or her salvation, we just vaguely believe it must be true.

And that is when we remember that Jesus warned: “If you actually did not believe, you would not be guilty; but since you boast about your clever articles of faith, then you are guilty as charged.”