The 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The leper with exposed sores is not able to hide the sores, as much as he or she desires to hide them, for they are there for all to see, and the shame that is felt in bearing a pustule or a blotch is great.

I am sure measures were taken to try and hide them from the priest and the community, because they did not want to be out casted from the community. Who likes to be separated from others? We like to be included and a part of a group.

Yet, eventually that which someone tries to hide is revealed, and then they are cast out of the community, and from then on they have to announce themselves as unclean.

What a weight to bear to be separated from loved ones and having to proclaim yourself unclean. What hope and great longing fills the heart to once again be included into the community.

The leper in the Gospel, who comes to Jesus for healing, has this longing and hope. What great faith and trust he has to come to Jesus and ask to be healed. What if Jesus says no? What disappointment and pain would fill the heart if Jesus says no. Could the leper bear such agony?

Yet his faith may have been so strong to know that Jesus saying no is not even a possibility because he knows Christ’s mercy and love for him is great.

For us here today, leprosy fills our lives. The leprosy may not be sores such as pustules or blotches but rather the hurts and sins of the heart that weigh upon us and that we try to hide from ourselves and from others.

We live in shame knowing that we are not whole, knowing that there is a part of us needing healing. We live hiding from this shame, hoping and longing for some way that this sore can be healed so that we can walk again in the dignity of our lives and not live in fear that we might be found out, and not living in a manner that tries to cover over the sores for others not to see.

The only way for us to find the healing we desire is not by hiding the sores and living in the shadows of them, but by naming them as harming us and hurting us and thus making us appear unclean before the one whose compassionate love and tenderness can embrace the sores and soothe them.

In the vulnerability and intimacy of naming our sores before the grace of God, we encounter the love and mercy of God, and in this tender touch of God we find the wholeness of life.

What trust and faith it takes to bring our brokenness before God and ask for God’s healing touch. What if we come to God in our vulnerability and God rejects us, or God says we are unclean and unworthy to be in his presence? The weight of despair would fill our souls, for we know we have no other hope to find the healing grace to be freed from our shame.

Leprosy fills our hearts when we are not able to walk in our dignity, and for us to find healing, we must come in our vulnerability before the God of mercy and love and rest there in our shame, allowing God’s healing presence to soothe our sores.

Will we have the courage and trust to take quiet time to sit in the silence of God’s presence proclaiming ourselves unclean before the mercy and love of God, knowing that God wills to heal us and that God will heal us in the intimacy of his mercy and love?

The 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When we call out from our need to the one who alone can heal us and make all things new, what is our expectation? We probably hope that God will fill us completely so we will never need again. We want God to fulfill our every desire. Yet, is this a legitimate possibility in this world?

We believe that God will be our all in all in heaven, and if it will be so in heaven, why is it not so here on earth? Why can’t God’s infinite being reach into this material world and make it whole? Is not our God infinite and all powerful? Is God limited by the material world, or is this the result of our fallen state?

Or possibly, this is God’s design to keep us from becoming complacent in our actions and in our thoughts and move us into the realm of freedom and love.

Job this week is struggling to find meaning in his life because of losing something so dear to him. Little does he know he will lose even more and be challenged in his faith even further. Dark moments will be hounding Job, and taking steps forward with hope, that his God is walking with him, is distant from his experience. Therefore life feels overwhelming and dismal, the tasks are lifeless, and a weight is upon him. The days that come are simply endured and the nights bring no rest.

To take the next step forward, when feeling like Job, one is challenged to give of one’s self in a manner that is not consumed in self-pity but is done in a manner that is really for the good of others. To give when we do not feel like giving is when true love expands within the heart.

It is easy to give when we feel good about giving and the good feeling lingers in the heart, but this type of giving does not tear the heart open, and so how true is the love poured out? Was the giving more about ourselves and how we can feel good about ourselves, or did we give for the true good of the other?

When it is difficult to give and yet we do give, it tears the heart open and expands the heart into giving that which it does not want to give. This expands the heart in the ability to give, not because it feels good, but because it is the right thing to do. In this moment, true love and freedom begins to grow in the heart, self-absorption begins to wane, and concern for the other begins to grow broadly.

In the Gospel, Jesus healed those who came to him and yet they continued to need more healing and sought Jesus out. Yet Jesus could not be found. Is this Jesus’ way of expanding the hearts of the people to continue to seek beyond their own needs, wants, and desires into the realm of self-giving?

Does their pain of not finding the quick grace that Jesus seems to provide make them struggle within themselves to find how they are simply using Jesus for their own purposes, and not really coming to Jesus to reveal their hearts and be torn open in love?

Have they become self-absorbed and do they need to move beyond this selfishness to be made for others?

If there is nothing to move them beyond this, if they have no need and desire to move them beyond their own self-absorption, if they have become complacent in their own self-pity and have nothing outside drawing them to move beyond themselves, there is no possibility to find freedom from their lot in life, and the ability to give themselves freely will never grow.

The pains and struggles we face weigh upon us and cause darkness in our life, and these are times we need to come to Christ to find healing grace. But what if we do not find this grace so readily available?

Before blaming God or thinking that God does not love you, consider that perhaps God loves you deeper than you know, because God is not leaving you as a helpless child, always needing, but is helping you grow into an adult who has something to give — which is true love of self.

Pain and struggle and loss help us at times to recognize what we have and to know what is of value. God may have designed the world in such a way that we need to encounter struggles so that our hearts can expand from being turned inward upon ourselves to focus on the ones who are outside us.

In particular, our struggles may lead us into the infiniteness of life which is God. Without struggle we may limit ourselves in our desires and never expand into the mystery.

Without learning how to depend upon and trust in God we may never allow God to take us into the realm of his infinite being.

The 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When we think of authority we often equate authority with power, and certainly there is a power that comes at times with having authority. Yet, to have authority is to have been authorized or legitimized. It means you have been delegated to speak in behalf of another.

In Deuteronomy God is giving authority to a prophet to speak in his name and this prophet is to say only what God has told him to say. Since this prophet has been sent by God, the people need to listen with the same attentiveness and give the same enthusiastic response to the prophet’s words as though God had spoken them, for in fact God is speaking them through the prophet.

Since the people will be listening to the words of the prophet as being the words of God, the prophet is not to speak the words of someone else, nor speak his own words. Doing this will lead to confusion and will lead to lack of trust in the word of God.

In the Gospel Jesus teaches and casts out unclean spirits with authority. The Father has sent the Son into the world to be his voice. Therefore Jesus has the authority of God to speak on behalf of God, and he fulfills this role through his teaching and through his casting out unclean spirits.

Jesus also passes on this authority to his disciples. In other parts of Scripture (beyond what we read today), this authority of Jesus is handed on to his disciples when he sends them out in pairs to proclaim the good news. The disciples return rejoicing that even the evil spirits were subject to them in his name. The disciples are given the authority to speak in behalf of Jesus and the disciples’ legitimacy brings about the work of Jesus.

It is not surprising that Jesus teaches with authority because he is coming in behalf of his father. Jesus is sanctioned by the Father to come to earth to speak on his behalf. Jesus is the legitimate voice of God and so his voice carries the weight of the Father.

It is also not surprising that unclean spirits depart from the person, since all peoples belong to God and so God has the legitimate right to the lives of people. The unclean spirits recognize that God even has a legitimate right over them because they ask if Jesus has come to destroy them.

It might be good for us to ask this week who has the legitimate right over your own life. Are you speaking on behalf of yourself or someone else or are you speaking on behalf of God?

Remember legitimately we belong to God and so God has the rightful authority over our lives.

The 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus’ coming to earth is the time of fulfillment, and he becomes the manifestation of the kingdom of God—which is the manifestation of God’s love and the way love reigns over all of life. To believe the good news is to believe that Jesus came from the Father to reveal the love of the Father for the world.

Also, to believe the good news is to believe that God has a role—a divine plan—in our time and space. God is drawing people and events of life into a divine purpose. God cares for the world and the unraveling of the day is in God’s hands. Continuously God’s love is expressed in our day, for the power of redemption contained within the cross of Christ is alive and at work in our lives.

This does not mean we will all go without having crosses to bear, but it does mean that we have the grace to give ourselves over to the events of life in such a generous manner that will enable us to express deep love and trust.

We want to believe the good news that God is love and that God’s divine plan is being carried out for a purpose, but at times it appears that our God is either not all powerful or our God is not all loving, for there are many things wrong with the world around us and it does not seem to be getting any better.

In fact, the world seems to continue to struggle with the weight of sin, generation after generation. Thus, we think the weight of life is upon us and that we need to hold the uncertainties of life in check by our own power and designs.

Life appears to be heading down a path towards destruction and it will take all our ingenuity and all our strength to stay on a course for good. The feeling that God is not here—while we are—lurks in our hearts and so we feel it is up to us to hold all in a balance for the good, as though we are the saviors of the world.

Certainly there is a truth that God calls us to share in the cross of Christ. Yet, the overall plan is in the hands of God and we walk with trust in this plan. We walk by sharing in this plan with an open mind and heart to bear life as God opens it up to us within the events of our lives. The fullness of time is now because redemption has been won by Christ.

Therefore the love of God is at work in our hearts and in the events of life drawing our hearts and events into the mystery of this love. Am I opening my mind and heart to this active redemption? Am I living as being redeemed or at least on the road to redemption?

The Gospel and the book of Jonah make it sound easy to live out this redemption and to say yes to it. Jesus comes to Simon and Andrew and tells them to follow, tells them to trust in letting go all that they know, to give up their livelihood of fishing and follow, and they do so without effort, without looking back.

James and John were the same. They leave their livelihood and their relationship with their own father as they know it and follow Jesus, and there appears to be no struggle in doing so. Even in the Book of the Prophet Jonah the people of Nineveh believed Jonah and changed their ways without much effort.

How is this possible unless the love of God overwhelms the heart? A heart that experiences the depth of God’s love, and in this love finds redemption for the soul. A heart that is so overwhelmed with gratitude that the person’s disposition towards life is changed and this person begins to live a new life. When we are touched by the love of God and are overwhelmed in his mercy and forgiveness, we willingly give up the old for the new, and follow.

May God’s overwhelming love dwell in our hearts this week so that we know now is the time of fulfillment; the kingdom of God is at hand, and we repent and believe the good news.

The 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hearing the voice of God and knowing what this voice is calling us to do is very difficult because God’s voice is wrapped within the voices and events of our person, the people around us and the daily routines of life. We are filled with hopes and desires, disappointments and frustrations, routine patterns of thoughts, feelings and actions, and within all these complexities of our person stirs the Holy Spirit drawing us within these complexities to an intimate relationship with Christ, the Son of God, so that Christ can redeem us and then reveal to us the overwhelming love of the Father.

The movement towards a deeper relationship with Christ begins by looking upon “the Lamb of God,” the suffering servant of God, the one who willingly takes upon himself the hardships of the world to redeem them and make them whole so that people may live in the fullness of his healing grace.

We look upon “the Lamb of God” and stay with him where he is – which is living within the iniquity of life caused by the sin of people – and instead of finding within this iniquity the hatred for others, the resentment of others, we find patient loving kindness for the sinner, and in this love which rises above the disparity of life we have gentle loving patience, we have innocence and integrity.

This ability to stay here with Jesus is not easy. Just as Jesus made of himself a sacrifice for the cross, we make ourselves a sacrifice within the crosses of iniquities, knowing that living here with hope and faith and willingly walking through them and carrying them upon our shoulder and in fact being nailed to them, we will find the eventual victory that comes through them.

Since the iniquities of life so easily entrap us in the bitterness of life and catch us in the web of despair, daily, as we learn to walk more freely within the iniquities of life, we must call out time and time again to God, “speak, for your servant is listening.” We need to continually keep our minds and hearts open to the living God who calls out to us within the iniquities of life to give ourselves over in a way that instead of perpetuating and deepening the iniquities it brings the healing power of Christ’s grace.