Sunday, April 28, 2013

An Incredible Response

Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C

Acts 11:1-18                                                    
Psalm 148                                
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
 
The disciples had gathered with Jesus for their last earthly meal together.  At one point during this meal, for a brief moment, tension and great evil surrounded Jesus.  He looked into the heart of Judas, and saw what Judas was about to do.  Then Jesus looked into Judas' eyes, and said, "What you are going to do, go do quickly."  Without another word, and unable to look at Jesus any longer, Judas got up and walked out of the room.  He went to meet with his co-conspirators.
 
The greatest betrayal in history was now set in motion – and Jesus was the target of it.
 
It's at this point that we enter the Gospel reading for this 5th Sunday of Easter.  The reading begins, "When he [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said..."  If we had to turn the page at this point, or reading a contemporary Hollywood movie script, we would have reasonably expected some response from Jesus like this on the next page: "Well, boys, that scoundrel Judas did it this time!  He set me up, and now I'm in really big trouble.  Probably you guys, too!  If I ever get my hands on that snake I'll tattoo his face with my fist!"
 
Normal human responses to such a betrayal would probably include things like anger, fear, hatred, or revenge.  To be betrayed, especially when one's life is involved, is a highly grievous assault.  And it seems only natural to want to "get even."
 
But instead, Jesus took this incident to drive home the whole point of his ministry.  He said nothing more to Judas; he didn’t yell at him, or strike him or gossip about him.  Instead, he turned to his disciples and said two important things: first, that he [Jesus] was now glorified in God as God was glorified.  And second, he gave the disciples a new commandment: "Love one another, just as I have loved you.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
 
Thomas Merton wrote that for a person to glorify God meant that that person would become who God made them to be.  That person would grow into who they truly were, and they would live the way that God would want him or her to live.  Since God is love, and Jesus and God are One, it was Jesus' destiny to live a life of pure love regardless of what happened to him.  He glorified God because he knew that his earthly life was soon to be over, and that he would face the events of this next day in total love, just as he conducted himself throughout his ministry.
 
God did not send Jesus to earth just to die on a cross.  He sent Jesus to earth to demonstrate to us the meaning of love in the face of any of life's challenges, even if it meant that he would die on a cross.  This is what St. Paul meant when he wrote, "And [Jesus] became obedient to the point of death – even if it meant death on a cross." (Philippians 2:8)   Jesus maintained his love for the world even in the face of the greatest injustice – the murder of the Son of God.  Even with his last few breaths he was able to say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
 
So there he was, sitting around the last supper table with the remaining disciples knowing that at that moment Judas was arranging to have him killed, and yet he gave his disciples a new, overarching, commandment of love.  "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
 
And now, we are faced with this deepest of Christian principles – to love in the face of whatever befalls us.  What does this mean?  How do we do this?
 
It has to start within each person, and gradually spread outward.  So, start with yourself – Jesus said earlier to love your neighbor as yourself.  Don't forget this last part – it's key to the whole thing!  We need to deal with ourselves in a loving manner regardless of the mistakes we make, or the decisions that may lead us astray.  How would a loving person treat you in these matters?  This is how you need to treat yourself.  This will give you practice in loving someone else, too.  And eventually, this will cause us all to reach out with love into the community and eventually into the world.
 
Psalm 148 expresses the joy one finds in this loving approach God takes toward us.

Reflection Questions
 
1. What does it mean to you to glorify yourself in God?
 
2. Think of some issue or concern you are faced with right now.  How can you respond to this in love?
 
3. How can we, as the Church, respond to the world's issues in love?
 
4. How can we, as a country, respond to the world's issues in love?
 
5. Read through the scripture lessons for this Sunday again, and spend some time journaling your thoughts.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Seeing Clearly

Third Sunday of Easter – Year C
 
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)                                                        
Psalm 30                                   
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
 
Easter is the season of awakening – the risen Christ awakens us to the proof that God's love can't be compromised by anything, even as humanity stoops to its lowest point.  We become aware that we are, indeed, children of God, and that we are really all one family, all loved by God.  God yearns for our companionship, wanting us to be one with this unity.
 
But seeing the truth about this love is less likely if our minds are pre-occupied with something else, something false, something sinister.
 
The readings for today show several examples of this.  Paul (then Saul) could not see the loving truth about Christ because he was filled with a misguided hatred for the new Christians.  He was "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord," and was actively persecuting them.  Who could think clearly with all this on his mind?
 
Even Peter and some of the disciples initially failed to recognize Christ standing along the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.  Why couldn't they see clearly through to him?  Perhaps their minds were still reeling from the events of the past Easter weekend as well as reflecting on their whole experience of Jesus' ministry.  They were still somewhat confused and uncertain about what to do.  Filled with grief and lack of direction, they returned to the things with which they were most familiar.  Peter finally said, "I'm going fishing."
 
Even today, we don't often see clearly.  We often miss the presence of Christ in our lives because we have our minds focused on something else we think is important.  Our awareness of his presence in our lives is often clouded in varying degrees by things that have been given birth in our false selves; things like fear, worry, shame, prejudices, self-pride, power-lust, or even lack of self-esteem.
 
Luke (the presumed author of the Acts of the Apostles) describes the inability of Paul to see clearly as having "scales" over his eyes. After he had been helped by a man named Ananias, Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, "and immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored."  He could now see clearly because the scales of his hatred fell away.
 
From this point on, Paul had an understanding of God's love, the interconnectedness of all people under God's family, and the truth about life itself.
 
When the disciples listened to the man on the shore trying to help them, they suddenly realized who it was.  "It is the Lord," they shouted.  And when they finally recognized Jesus in their lives, they went to him, and were renewed.
 
The scales in our lives are usually things that have attached themselves to us from the shadows of our past, or are pulling us into the illusions of the future.  The only place we can see clearly is in the present moment.  One of the first things we can do to remove the scales from our eyes is to recognize these visitors from the past, or these tempters of the future.  They will all rob you of life today.  Awareness of them, seeing them for what they are, is 80% of the victory.
 
Then, work with your spiritual support team to shed more of God's Light on these scales.  The more of this Light that shines, the fewer of these shadows can survive.  None of these scales are from God – they do not belong to you as part of your true self.  The full Light shines in the NOW, the portal to the Kingdom of Heaven.
 
Leave the past to God's mercy, and the future to God's providence.  God's love is in the Present.
 
 
Reflection Questions
 
1. What scales are blocking you from seeing "straight," from seeing how much love God has for you?
 
2. Who can help you bring Light to the scales in your life?
 
3. How can thinking about the past help you in the Present Moment?
 
4. Read through the scripture lessons for this Sunday again, and spend some time journaling your thoughts.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

On Forgiving and Retaining Sins

Second Sunday of Easter – Year C

Acts 5:27-32                                                    
Psalm 118:14-29                                  
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31
 
In the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Easter we encounter the passage:
 
"If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."  (John 20:23)

The first reading of this passage leaves one with the impression that Jesus is giving the disciples (and the Church) the power to either forgive sins, or to retain them and not forgive them.  It seems to make sense – either you forgive sins, or you do not.
 
But something about this approach goes against what I understand to be Christ's underlying theology of the forgiveness of sins.  It troubled me that, on the one hand, Christ spent much of his ministry healing people and forgiving sins – even dying on the cross for the redemption of sins – and then giving the option to "retain sins" right at the end of the Gospels.  What's up with that?

I reflected on this for quite some time, and eventually realized that what may have happened here is that Christ was offering his disciples, and his Church, more than one way to heal someone's "sins."  Perhaps at this point Jesus felt that his disciples were ready to understand the healing of relationships at a higher level.
 
Jesus forgave sins, and taught us how to forgive them.  He even included this all-important act in the Lord's Prayer – "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us."  And how often should we do this?  Not just 7 times, but 70 times 7, he instructs. 
 
But he was also suggesting to us in this passage that our sins, and the sins of others, can be handled in another way – by "retaining" them. 
 
Our western mind is quick to assume that "retaining" means to "hold against" in the sense that we do not forgive the person whose sins are retained.  But if we explore the original Greek word used here, κρατητε, we can see a slightly different sense of the word is possible: to hold, or to hold fast, almost an embracing.
 
Paul describes this well in his first letter to the Corinthians when he uses the analogy of the body to explain how the family of Christ works.  "For as with the human body which is a unity although it has many parts - all the parts of the body, though many, still making up one single body - so it is with Christ." (I Corinthians 12:12) 
 
We are baptized into one body in a single Spirit, he goes on to explain, and are all given the same Spirit to drink.  The key point is then laid out in verse 26: "If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain."  This is a unitive way of looking at life, an inclusive way, a way that Jesus tried to emphasize so many times in his parables and teachings.  It is counter to our individualistic way of living life, a way that Jesus often criticized.
 
If one of us is hurt, then we all share to some degree and in some way in that pain.  Sharing in the hurt and pain diminishes the effects of that hurt or pain, because it's spread out and received by the rest of the body.  It is 'retained', or held fast, by the entire body, and not just one of its members.  It is shared, and as a result, it can be remedied more effectively.
 
Jesus' appearance to the disciples included the marks of his crucifixion: pierced hands and feet, and a spear mark in his side.  These are marks of his sharing in the problems and shortcomings of the human race.  By absorbing these, by taking them on as part of his body, he diminished them for all of us.  This is vicarious assumption of our shortcomings as a whole.  Jesus appeared with these marks to remind his disciples that as a family, we all share in human shortcomings.  We are not to segregate or separate those who are "sinners" from those who are not, because as a body, we are all what each one of us is.
 
Jesus was reminding us that there are two ways to deal with sin – to forgive or to retain.  To forgive is to simply release from blame; to no longer carry the anger or need for remembrance, and to open the way for renewed relationships.  To retain a sin is to bring it in, to know it, to understand it, and to dissolve it in the Light of God's love.  We help those in trouble to understand the impact and consequences of a wayward thought, word, or deed.  We use friends, and counselors, and therapists, and pastors, and guides; we join together to absorb the pain and sorrow of the trouble, and then place it at the feet of Jesus. 
 
Forgiving or retaining doesn't necessarily mean that there are no restitutions or amends offered.  It simply opens new collective avenues for dealing with our troubles in this world. We listen, we help where we can, we pray, we stay aware and alert, we forgive, we understand, we remember that when one of us hurts we all hurt.  We remember that we are all imperfect, and yet we are all One.  Therein is our strength.  We are the Body of Christ.
 
Reflection Questions
 
1. Does this perspective on dealing with sins help you forgive others?
 
2. Does this perspective on dealing with sins help you forgive yourself?
 
3. What might still be keeping you from forgiving someone else or yourself?
 
4. Read through the scripture lessons for this Sunday again, and spend some time journaling your thoughts.