All posts for the month March, 2024

Dying and Rising

(Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, using the ‘A’ readings: Exodus 37:12-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:8-11, John 11:1-45)

There is a passage in this gospel that never fails to annoy me, and another passage that never fails to touch my heart.

Every time, I ask myself, what is the deal with Jesus, hearing that one of his good friends is in trouble, stays where he was, for two more days? This part always rattles me. Wouldn’t our instinct be to get to where the friend is, right-the-heck-now? Aren’t we designed to be there when somebody needs us?

The biblical scholars say this detail is in the story to show that Jesus really did have divine power. There are other stories in the gospels of Mark and Luke where Jesus revives someone who had just died. The people of that place and time would believe that the dead person’s soul was still in the vicinity of the body. But they wouldn’t believe that of a person already buried in a tomb. Lazarus’s body was beginning to decompose. He was really dead, not able to be resuscitated. So what Jesus did at Bethany shows that he really is God Incarnate, with power over death.

Looking at the annoying part that way, I like to match that up with the part of the story that doesn’t bother me at all. “And Jesus wept.” After meeting his friend Martha, Jesus weeping shows he is really human too. He feels the pain and grief that we feel; he shows it.

One verse shows us Jesus is truly God, and one verse shows us Jesus is truly one of us struggling humans. Putting them together, we get a picture of who Jesus really is. Truly God, genuinely human, and wholeheartedly for us.

We hear these particular scriptures at Sunday Mass this weekend because we have the Third Scrutiny at the 8:00 Mass. The people of the RCIA, who have been preparing for the Easter Vigil where three of them will receive baptism and all of them will receive the Eucharist and Confirmation, are about to gather in our presence for the last of three special prayers we call the Scrutinies.

Last week at the second Scrutiny, we heard a gospel that establishes Jesus as the light of the world. In today’s gospel, Jesus talks to his followers about the “light of the world,” and he says it in response to their question about fear. He does not seem to have any. The people in Judea were going to stone him the last time he was there, and now he wants to go back there, to be with his good friends, Martha and Mary, whose brother Lazarus – Jesus already knew – had just died.

Each of his friends Martha and Mary greets him the same way: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” I think they are revealing some of the same annoyance and bewilderment that I was just talking about. Why didn’t Jesus show up? Where were you when we needed you? Jesus himself felt it; that’s when he went to the tomb, saw his friend Mary, and began to cry.

In the Apostles’ Creed, we pray that we believe in the resurrection of the body. What does it really mean to us? We know that Father Time is undefeated. These bodies of ours, God’s marvelous works of art, which eat, dance, play, work, kiss and hug, cry, ache. These bodies feed the hungry, visit the sick and imprisoned; they carry clothing and shelter others in need. They see and hear and smell and touch and feel, experiencing the beauty in the world, especially in each other. These bodies are all going to stop working some day. On this side of eternity, losing is part of the deal. It’s not about winning.

We teach and believe that each of us will die and rise again, as Jesus did. We teach it and believe it, and we still don’t understand it. (You can’t really “understand” a mystery; all you can do is embrace it and surrender to it.)

One thing we could all understand better is that our participation in this paschal mystery, our dying and rising with Christ, isn’t just something we do once at the end of our time here. In the first reading today, from Ezekiel, God says I will open your graves and have you rise from them. It sounds like Ezekiel was predicting the story of Lazarus and the story of Jesus, but what Ezekiel was really talking about was the people of Israel, with God’s help, pulling their lives together again.

Our dying and rising isn’t a one-time thing; it’s a way of life, going on over and over in all of our lives. We die a little every day; we rise again a little, every day. There are some days where life is too full of the wrong things. Days when our troubles just suck the life out of us. Those are days from which we rise up again. We have to.

The second reading, Romans 8, tells us to let the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead live in us. That’s not about rising from a grave; it’s about being alive.

Today’s psalm response, Ps 130, is about forgiveness: We fall down; we get back up. Sometimes we hit the bottom, and God forgives us. Always.

It reminds me that Lent is the proper season for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It’s never the wrong time, of course, but especially for those of us not in a habit of celebrating this sacrament, and those of us who haven’t experienced it in a while (no need to raise your hands), Lent was made for this.

God doesn’t want us feeling brought down in Lent; God wants us to feel relieved, happy to be brought back to life. Come back to confession and give yourself a chance to feel what Lazarus felt, when Jesus said to untie him and let him go free.

What Are You Thirsty For?

(Homily for March 3, 2024, using the ‘A’ readings: Exodus 17:3-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-8 and John 4:5-42.)

So what are you thirsty for?
Yesterday a bunch of us from the parish marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade down Madison Street in Forest Park. It was a perfect day for it, not what you’d expect in the first weekend of March: Sunny, mild, no snow. Thousands of people reveling and celebrating.
It did not appear that anybody there was thirsty.

We’re all thirsty for something. Being thirsty is the body’s way of telling us we need more water, which is essential to life. Always look for the connection between the gospel passage and the first reading: the people of God sojourning in the desert were given the water they needed to live, even after selfishly thinking that God had abandoned them.

There can be times we think God has abandoned us, when our lives are not going how we want them to, or how God wants them to go either. Times we feel the loss of connection to God and connection to each other.

Jesus says he can take that dryness away. He sees into the life of the woman at the well, her frustrations, her failed relationships, her struggling hopes. He sees all of her, who she really is, he and encounters her lovingly and compassionately and truthfully, and it makes her feel something: “He gets me.” That’s what she feels.

When you fall in love, you get that same feeling, “This person gets me.”

We are all thirsty for a connection with God, for connections with each other, for repair of wounded relationships. Jesus gets that. Jesus gets us.
We used these readings today because of the RCIA and the first of the three scrutinies.
We have three catechumens and five baptized candidates who are preparing for the Sacraments of Initiation this Easter. Two weeks ago, they were at the 11:00 Mass for the rite of sending, and we went to the cathedral for the rite of election and call to continuing conversion.

They are here again this morning, for you to see them where they are in the process of conversion. For them to see within themselves where they are.

After the homily, our Elect will stand in front of us all and look into themselves. We want them to see themselves as Jesus saw the woman at the well, compassionately and truthfully:
The scrutinies are part of the process of conversion. Which means we all should try it.

Maybe it’s because I’m a lawyer, the word scrutiny makes me uncomfortable. It means a close, hard look. It means to look carefully, and examine thoroughly and unrelentingly.

In the law we have this concept called strict scrutiny, and essentially it means, one side doesn’t get any breaks. (It’s almost a euphemism for “You’re gonna lose.”)

The scrutiny we bring to the Elect is also a close, hard look. We look carefully, and we examine thoroughly and unrelentingly. But not cruelly.

The look within of the three scrutinies is a close look made compassionately, lovingly and truthfully. We could all stand to try it. Because you’re not going to lose; you’re going to gain eternal life.

“Scrutiny”: Find the Work of Art in You.

(Homily for March 10, 2024, using the ‘A’ readings: 1 Samuel 1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14 and John 9:1-41)
The great Renaissance artist Michelangelo sculpted his statute of David from a single block of marble. The statue looks like David as described in the first reading today, “handsome to behold and making a splendid appearance.” There is a good story, even though it’s probably made up, that Michelangelo responded to praise for his work on David, saying something like this: “The statue was already in the block of marble. What I did was to chip away the parts of the marble that were not part of the statue.”
In all of us, there is something unique even more beautiful than the statue of David, and what we’re trying to do in Lent is to chip away the parts of ourselves that aren’t part of that.
One thing we can do is to ask God to shine some light inside us to help us see what belongs and what we ought to be chipping away. One courageous thing we can do in Lent is to take a close and thorough look into our own lives, to shine a light into ourselves to see what’s really there. They have a word for that close and unrelenting look. It’s a word that makes me squirm a little, Scrutiny.
It means taking a close, thorough look. Scrutiny shines a light so that all the details are visible. The flaws are exposed; any phoniness is unmasked; the failures are evident. That’s why I don’t like scrutiny.
But when we have the three scrutinies of the Elect on Sundays in Lent, they welcome the light shining into their hearts. Because this scrutiny is performed not cruelly but lovingly.
I’ve said before, you should try this some time. Like some time in Lent. Like today, because today’s gospel passage shows us Jesus is the light of the world, and Paul’s letter to the Ephesians tells us to live in that light. Jesus enabled a man to see what always was there, but he could not see it before. We want that too.
Let the light shine inside you and show you what is really going on in there.

First, there’s something good, very good. Find it and name it and celebrate it, for you are wonderfully made, and you are good at something. You have worth; you have talent. God put you here to do something, and if you’re doing it, you are finding joy and serving God.
Let the light of Christ shine on anything not so good in us too; anything that is not part of the best version of ourselves. We have stuff in us we should be chipping away at; it holds us back and prevents us from finding the joy God has in store for us, not just in the next life but here, where the Spirit of God fills up the Earth. Today is a good day to pray for the courage to ask Christ to shine that light into us and show us.

Something else about this gospel that bugs me. Jesus performs a major miracle, giving sight to an adult man who was born blind, and had never seen before. Look at the reaction it drew. You would think that people who witnessed something like this, a major healing miracle, would react with awe and gratitude, that it would bring people closer. But instead there is nothing but trouble and division. It reminds me of America in the 21st century. The partisan tribalism is grieving me.

In the gospel story, people are behaving like contemporary Americans: The first thing they want to know – Jesus’s own followers! – is Whom do we blame for this? Who sinned, this man or his parents?
Jesus is having none of that. In effect he says, this is not about sin; this is about me. He can say that in a way that is attractive, and not arrogant. Then he does the healing on a Sabbath, so you just know what’s coming next.

There was division among them.

What is it with people, that they can witness a miracle, and react by bickering and infighting and division? Only the formerly blind guy sees the truth.

Scripture scholars will tell you this story is really about early Christians and how to react to the hostility they faced: Consider the blind man’s parents, who were afraid of getting thrown out of the synagogue.
Imagine getting thrown out of this parish. How many here had parents who were married at either St. Luke or St. Bernardine? Raise your hands: Who was baptized or received First Communion or Confirmation in our parish? Who was married here? Who has brought your own children here for their sacraments? Who’s involved in a ministry, committed to serving the parish in some way? Having that connection, imagine being threatened: If you’re on the wrong side of the controversy, you’re going to be kicked out of the parish and never welcomed back.
That’s how the healed man and his parents felt. The parents knew they were adjacent to a miracle; their son was healed and could see. But they were afraid to say anything that might put them on the wrong side of the dispute and get them kicked out of the synagogue.
Fear ain’t the way. Follow the light of Christ. He will show you what’s really there. He will build up the connections between us, not tear us apart.
21 years ago, right before I was ordained a deacon, they asked us to reflect on our formation, and one of the guys said it wasn’t like they had added much to us during the years of training and preparation; it was more like Michelangelo: the deacon was already in there, and the process had helped us to chip away whatever was not part of the deacon, so the deacon could be ready to be ordained.
You do like deacons, right? I have to remind you that John Baier and I are not getting any younger, and Terry Norton and Lendel Richardson recently retired. If we are going to have deacons here, they aren’t going to be delivered from on high somewhere. Our next deacons are already here, inside the block of marble; they are sitting beside you, and inside you. We need people to pay attention to that inkling, the little voice saying that you may be called to serve as a deacon. We need people like Samuel, looking at all of Jesse’s wonderful sons, to say, "this is the one." But we need more than just one!
The light of Christ enables all of us to see what’s in us. Today we begin Daylight Saving Time, and at the end of the day you’re going to notice more light. Today our Elect, with the help of the second scrutiny, will see into themselves and continue to discover God dwelling in them and in this community. All of us can join them in this effort, and whatever isn’t part of the work of art that God has already created and put in us, we can chip that away, patiently and gradually like a sculptor, revealing God’s beautiful work of art that has always been there inside us, and allow his light to shine forth from that beautiful creation.

Belonging

All posts for the month March, 2024

Dying and Rising

What Are You Thirsty For?

“Scrutiny”: Find the Work of Art in You.

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Bob Slobig