All posts tagged Mark

The first thing we can do without is complacency.

(Homily for October 21, 2018. The readings are Isaiah 53:10-12, Psalm 33, Hebrews 4:14-16 and Mark 10:35-45.)

Can I please get a show of hands: Who likes it here, at St. Luke’s? Who’s comfortable?
Who likes it here because you’re comfortable? Okay, now who’s uncomfortable? Who likes St. Luke’s because it makes you uncomfortable, because it challenges you sometimes?

It’s okay to be both, you know, to be here both to find comfort and to be challenged. That’s pretty much why I’m here, to be comforted and to be challenged.

I enjoy the comfort part a lot: Getting what I want, that’s nice. What feels better than being affirmed in your complacency, from being told you’re fine just the way you are, and no, you don’t have to change, and can I get you a pillow?

Getting challenged – that makes me uncomfortable, but that can lead to good things too, right?

It’s really okay to be here for both, for the comfort and for the challenge. We all need to be comforted, to feel the support of others, to know that we are truly cared about. It’s essential for that to happen here; it’s essential for us all to know we can count on it. And, we all need to know that we have to change; we have to let go of some of the things that make us comfortable and complacent; we all have to go through some painful stuff.

We need to do that together too.

So, people who are here because you know you will be challenged and made uncomfortable, keep coming: you’re going to get exactly what you want. And people who are here to be comfortable, you’re going to be challenged and become uncomfortable. Please keep coming too. And everybody, as we all keep coming here to St. Luke’s, let’s ask ourselves — Are we coming here, are we claiming our belonging in this community, our place in this parish, this Church, so that we can be served, or so that we can serve? What attitude are we bringing about the work that needs to be done?

These guys in this gospel, James and John, they thought it was all in the bag: Let’s just skip right to the glory part and see if we can get the best seats. One at his left and one at his right. These two want to be served, and looked up to; they want to enhance their image and have other people admire and envy them. But they don’t have a clue what they will need to do, what they will have to go through, to be looked up to like that. They aren’t grasping at all what it means to be with Jesus in his glory, one on the left and one on the right. We know what that means, we get reminded of it every time we see the image of three crosses. James and John certainly weren’t thinking about that. Even the posture they choose shows complacency: they say they want to sit with Jesus. Not stand, not walk, but sit.

James and John are thinking about how the leaders of their time were looked up to and fawned over and seemed to get everything nice that they wanted. They’re not thinking about the work that goes before that. They don’t even realize that they will be looked up to, by us, revered as Saints, but that first there will be fear and failure and suffering and redemption and a whole lot of amazing stuff they just don’t expect.

Relationships are like that: we want it to be all cushy and nice, like the picture in our minds, but we need to know that we have to go through some tears and hurts and frustrations to get there.

Jesus knows it. He speaks right to it: “You know how the bigshots act,” he says, “… but it shall not be so among you.” We’re not going to be like that. We’re going to be servant leaders. We’re going to make sacrifices for the good of others. We are not in this for our own glory, but for the glory of God.

To me, the best part of the story is that He doesn’t send them away, saying, “Get lost, if you aren’t interested in doing things a new way.” It’s more like he’s inviting them in to a new adventure; it’s not what they expected, not what they were looking forward to, but it’s better. Different. Kind of upside-down, topsy-turvy, where the leader is at the bottom of the org chart instead of the top. Better, because it’s God’s will being done and God’s Kingdom coming into being in our world.

That’s my take from this gospel: our Church tells us things are going to be different, not what we expected, not what we got too comfortable and complacent with. We’re going to do things a new way. Some of it is going to get uncomfortable, but we’re not going to just keep doing the same old thing. We are going to experience change, in how we go to mass and how we relate to the people we’re sitting next to when we do. In how we respond to the call to discipleship in all parts of our lives, not just on Sunday mornings. We can’t keep recycling old ideas and expecting new things to happen.

The first thing we have to do without is complacency. Especially my own: I may have spent a lot of the last 16 years unwittingly promoting complacency, convincing myself and maybe convincing you that everything is okay in our Church, when it’s not. There is work to be done.

So today I’m saying let’s all get rid of our complacency. Today the Church is inviting us into a new adventure, not what we expected, not what we were looking forward to, but better. Different: Kind of upside-down, where we find the leaders at the bottom instead of at the top. Better, because it’s God’s will being done and God’s Kingdom coming to be. We are going to see our Church become a vibrant, life-giving place that genuinely comforts and challenges all of us, and it’s going to take some effort. You know whose job it’s going to be, don’t you?

There was a pastor whose parish needed $1,000,000 to build a new church, and he came out and told the people, I have great news, we now have all the money we need to build the new church. It’s all right here, but it’s still in your wallets and your bank accounts!

We have everything we need to build up the kingdom of heaven in our own community. We have it here right now: It’s right there in your hearts. You don’t have to be a priest or a deacon to have a calling to serve the people of God and to build up the Kingdom. It takes all of us. The greatest among us is the one who is the servant of all, and that doesn’t require ordination. Each of us got what we needed in baptism and confirmation, and with it, we also got the responsibility to act on it. We strengthen it when we come to communion together.

On the other hand, we could also use the help of some good deacons as we do this work together. Maybe the next good deacon to serve at St. Luke is sitting here right now. Maybe that calling is stirring in somebody now. Fan that glowing ember into flame and let it light things up. You can do it. We need you.

We need everybody. We have some change ahead of us, and change is always going to hurt. We’re going to have some tears and some disagreements, and we’re going to do things in new ways so that together we can better become the body of Christ. Put your hands up again if you’re up for that.

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by bobslobig on October 21, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by bobslobig on October 21, 2018

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Red Mass

(On October 7, 2018, we had a Red Mass at St. Luke, with a special blessing for judges, lawyers, law students, paralegals, legal secretaries and all who work in the law.  The readings were Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 128, Hebrews 2:9-11, and Mark 10:2-16.  They sent me out to preach the homily, and this is what I prepared.)

Welcome lawyers, paralegals, judges, law students, and all who work in the law.
St. Luke’s joins in the October tradition of blessing the service of the servants of the law, in the Red Mass, so called because of the blood of martyrs, like St. Thomas More, a lawyer who clung to his integrity and valued it more than even his friendship with people in high places. He was the king’s good servant, but God’s first.

The message of this gospel today says something quite like that, that the law is important and has a just claim on our dedication, but beyond the law there is the love of God, which transcends all and invites our devotion.

The Pharisees ask Jesus a legal question: “Is it lawful?” trying to get him to wade into a legal issue. “They were testing him.” So Jesus says what a good lawyer or judge would say, let’s check the source: Where’s the authority? “What does Moses say?” The Pharisees were being good lawyers too; they have an answer all prepared; they had looked it up already. “Moses says this about divorce.”

But then Jesus says, let’s look behind the source; let’s see how it got to be this way, see why Moses put it in the law like this. He reminds them of what it say in Genesis, the first book of their bible, the first reading we heard today. The man and the woman become one flesh, something God puts together.

“It is not good for the man to be alone,” God says to himself in the first reading. God intended us to live in communities, in relationships, not to exist all alone. Life in this world is a shared experience. Wherever there are relationships and communities, there needs to be a system of justice, of rights and responsibilities, legitimate expectations and fair obligations.

Jesus goes on to put a new twist on the law handed down from Moses. After commenting on how the law provided for a man’s right to divorce his wife, Jesus added, “and if she divorces her husband …” Nobody had ever said that before. If she divorces her husband? You mean the woman has rights under the law, like the man does?

Jesus got into the heads of the crowd who came to watch with that. Both men and women are responsible and accountable under the law. Both have responsibilities. Both have rights. Under Jesus’ view of the law, nobody gets an advantage; nobody gets a free pass; nobody gets a privilege over another.

Then he asks everyone to look at things a whole different way. Accept the kingdom of God “like a child” he says. There is something grander and more beautiful than human law. Our God is a God of justice and also of mercy.

When the Pharisees ambushed Jesus with this divorce law question, I wonder if he was thinking about the house he grew up in, and the marriage that was saved by an angel. The gospel of Luke says that Joseph had it in mind to do just what the Pharisees were talking about here: write a bill of divorce for Mary and “dismiss her”, to end that marriage before it even got a chance to get started. That was what the law gave him the right to do, and nobody in the town would ever hold it against him. But Joseph followed something bigger and more important than his own rights, something that came to him in a dream. And I wonder if he ever told Jesus about that dream. I wonder if Jesus remembered that story when the Pharisees came to bug him about the divorce law. It would be natural that the events of his life shaped his thinking about what is right and wrong.

The events of the past week have probably caused us all to reflect on what justice is, and what does it look like. We’ve experienced some vivid images of those questions: Where is justice for this person or that person? Where is justice for all of us? How does justice really work?

The trial of a Chicago police officer resulted in a murder conviction and then in public demonstrations. The sense most of us got, I think, was that justice was done. The U.S. Senate voted to confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States, and people lined up to say this was either the right thing or the wrong thing to do. Some people came to their point of view along partisan political lines; others without any political overtones. An awful lot of people seemed to think someone was unjustly treated in the process, depending on their view of the outcome.

How can we treat everyone justly?

Humanity invented the legal profession and the law, so that we can have a society in which all members can count on justice. A society in which disputes are resolved by neutral judges and not by violence, intimidation or corruption. The rule of law separates us from barbarism. We hire lawyers instead of hiring assassins. We take up pleadings and motions instead of taking up arms. We do this because of a shared commitment among us all to live in a just society and a shared realization that we cannot live peaceably and fruitfully with each other, unless we work for justice and place our trust in it, and unless we make justice available to all. Serving the poor is not an extra-credit activity; it’s a duty we have, as lawyers, and as disciples of Christ.

St. Augustine wrote in The City of God that there is no republic where there is no justice.
The American Constitution enshrines in law many of the same things our Christian tradition teaches us, especially human rights. One of the purposes for which the Constitution was written in 1787 was to “establish Justice.”

How can we treat every person with justice?

We have to listen to those who have been wronged. We have to let them know they will be heard and valued, not scorned or ignored. We’re still learning that as a Church.
We have to be intentional about what we presume, such as the innocence of the accused in a criminal trial, but not necessarily in an important job interview.

We have to learn to love the truth, and we have to discern and distinguish it from what we wanted to hear, when it isn’t always the same. We have to remember that the truth comes to us from reality, not merely from repetition, and that God is the ultimate reality. We have to be honest about our own weaknesses, so that they can become our strength.

For that, we depend on lawyers to take care of their clients but always to stay within the boundaries of the truth. We depend on judges to be worthy of the trust we place in them and to have no constituency except for the law itself: No group to whom the judge is politically beholden, no “base”. We depend on each other to recognize that all of us have a stake in the just society toward which we are striving, and it will never be a just society until it is just for all.

We’re not there yet. So pray for these lawyers and judges, for the paralegals, law clerks and legal office staff who work with them, for civil servants, those gathered with us in this church today and those all over the world. Make all of us worthy to serve; deliver us from the desire to be honored and from the fear of being criticized and despised. Fill us with love of justice, and of mercy.

Amen?

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by bobslobig on October 7, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by bobslobig on October 7, 2018

https://bobslobig.wordpress.com/2018/10/07/red-mass/

Pick Up the Cross. You May Have Had Other Plans.

(Homily for September 16, 2018.  The readings were Isaiah 50:5-9, Ps. 116, James 2:14-18 and Mark 8:27-35.)

Jesus says whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for his sake and the sake of the gospel will save it. He was beginning to teach his disciples that he would lay down his life for them, and for us. Some of them were just not having it. Peter says something to the effect of, You wanna maybe cool it on the rejection and suffering thing? Isn’t the plan for triumph and glory? Can you stay more on that topic, the glory? That will work better; it will get you more followers. This “suffering servant” stuff is going to send people out the door.

After giving Peter an earful, Jesus then starts to explain about our place in the picture: We’re also expected to lay down our lives for the sake of Jesus and the gospel.

But the way he says it, I don’t think he means to say goodbye to our family and friends and ride off to a glorious martyrdom: He says it means taking up the cross “daily”. What he has in mind has a lot to do with struggling through today, then trying again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that. He’s talking about a Christian life lived one day at a time in the embrace of the gospel. How that actually happens reminded me of a lyric in a John Lennon song, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

(For any fact-checkers here, the coinage of that line is attributed to writer named Allen Saunders, who was published in the Readers Digest in 1957 saying, “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”)

This is why I brought it up: The Apostles’ lives didn’t turn out like they planned. They expected to live out their days catching fish and living in their little villages near the lake with an occasional day off. This new guy, Jesus, took them away from that. They lost the lives they planned on having. They lost them for the sake of the gospel.

When you embrace the gospel, you may have to give up the life you were planning on having. Taking up the cross each day was probably not the plan any of us was making.

There is a cross we have all been asked to pick up, in our own days, and it isn’t anything like what we had planned on. It’s been all over the news for a month now, and it’s been a topic of conversation and a cause for struggle among many of us. Some of the leaders of our Church have betrayed us. We’re hurting from it. We’re angry about it, and we should be.

I’m angry. But I’m here. I’m not leaving. I’m not cutting off my contribution to St. Luke’s:  I see no point in punishing the innocent for the wrongdoing and lies of other men.

You’re here too. Some of you may already have struggled through the “Why am I staying?” question.  Some of you may still be in the middle of it. It’s good we have each other to help with that, it’s really good, but you know what would be better? If each of us would tell somebody else, somebody who’s not here, why we’re not leaving, and ask them to stay with us too.

Instead of looking inward, what if we look outward, and connect with the people we’re missing? Why should it be up to someone else to reach them, to make them feel wanted and welcomed? Shouldn’t that be on us to do?

You’re thinking, “Come on, Bob: We’re already hurt and angry, and it was a struggle just to get here this morning, and now you want me to talk to someone else who’s even more hurt and angry, and talk them into coming back?”

Yes. That’s what I have in mind. Find that missionary spirit that was put into each of us in Baptism, that each of us embraced again in Confirmation. Let that spirit lead us farther out of the comfort zone to connect with the people God wants to welcome.

Our catechists are doing it. Most of them were making other plans, but responded to the need to reach out and share what keeps us all here. I don’t think we can thank them enough. It’s National Catechetical Sunday, and we are going to commission our catechists and bless what they’re doing for us all, especially for our children.

It’s worth knowing that all of our volunteer catechists and all of our teachers also recognize that the protection of all God’s children requires vigilance and perseverance, and that our Church has developed rigorous rules, training programs, norms, guidelines. In addition to sharing their time and talent, our catechists and anyone who works with children gets a background check and ongoing training; we’re taught to spot warning signs of abuse. It’s not easy stuff, and it’s not just cosmetic. I think it works, if everybody is on board with knowing the rules and principles and following them, if everybody pays attention to the training, and puts it into practice.

But it can go wrong when a person in power doesn’t practice the principles. It does go wrong when a person says, I know the rules require me to do something here. But I want to do something against the rules. Just because I want to and I can. That’s what I think happened in Pennsylvania: the rules were there since 16 years ago, but some priests and bishops didn’t follow them.

“I want it, and I can.” That’s what sinfulness is all about. “I want it, and I can.” We have all been there: there is something I want, but should not have, but I take it anyway, pretty much just because I want it. At that moment of choice, we want something for me more than we want to follow Christ and the commandments. So we take what we want. Then conscience catches up with us and we feel guilt and shame and the need for reconciliation.

The same pattern seems to be there, whatever the sinfulness turns out to be. It can be a Seventh Commandment thing, when the thing I want is property that isn’t mine. Or the Fourth Commandment, when I tell myself I don’t have to listen to my parents because I just don’t want to (right, kids?).  It can be a Sixth Commandment thing, when what I want is to use another person. It can be a First Commandment thing, when the thing I want is to be the master of the universe, when anything gets to be more important to me than the relationship God invites me into.

Concupiscence is the classic name for it, but you don’t have to be an Aquinas to relate to that basic urge that says “because I just want it” and causes us to veer off course. It happens all the time, to all of us. Sometimes we can stand up to it; sometimes we fail. We all have been there, and that’s why we all should go through the process of reconciliation too.

I’m not making excuses for the priests and bishops who failed us, or saying that what they did was our fault too. It wasn’t. The Church didn’t sin, some bishops and priests did. The Church is the people of God, not the hierarchy. It’s you and me and we’re responsible for the life of the Church. The leaders who hurt their victims also hurt the rest of us. They have some atonement to do. And now we have to carry the Church through another crisis. If that was something we were sort of counting on the hierarchy to do for us, life has happened while we were making those other plans: It’s up to us to be the grown-ups and to get it right. It’s up to us to hold our leaders accountable, and it’s up to us to stay faithful to the Church, that is, to each other. We’re surrounded by people who need help deciding to stay. So help.

The abuse crisis isn’t what we were planning on. In fact we made good, solid plans for this not to happen. We planned on a life in which this all should never have happened again. Now we’re asked to lose that life we were planning on, to lose it for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of growing closer to Jesus and more like him. We’re asked to pick up this cross and the crosses we carry each day and follow. I’m glad we have each other, helping to carry the load.

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by bobslobig on September 16, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by bobslobig on September 16, 2018

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The Mustard Seed: Love Grows Like a Weed!

(This is the homily I did at 11:00 mass today, Fathers Day. Two little guys were baptized during the mass. The readings were Ezekiel 17:22-24, Ps. 92, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 and Mark 4:26-34. )

The house I grew up in had a mustard bush growing alongside it. They grow like a weed, fast and tall, with a thickening trunk like a tree. The one at our house reached as high as a second-story window. That particular window happened to be the window of my bedroom. So one day, little Bob decided that he and his brothers should climb out of that second-story window and into the tree. We were quite sure of our idea. It turns out the branches get thinner at the top, and more supple, and the big strong tree wasn’t built for little boys to be in it, so it bent down toward the ground. It didn’t break or crack, it just bent over, and right across our neighbor’s driveway. And stayed like that.

It was moments like these that made my dad even more reflective and prayerful that he already was. Happy Fathers Day, Dad, and thank you for getting through all those moments. These days I receive more Fathers Day cards than I send, but I have much to celebrate and to be thankful for: the good man who was my father, and the good kids who qualified me for that title and gave me four chances to live up to it. Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers here, especially the fathers of the babies about to be baptized. Pray for the children being separated from their fathers and families at our southern border.

You families with the babies about to be baptized today, the story about my childhood doesn’t even begin to let you know what you may be in for. The challenges and the joys of rearing children seem to be more profound and sometimes more overwhelming than ever. You have shown a lot of courage in bringing children into a scary world, and you have shown faith by bringing them into the Church to be baptized. St. Paul comments on our shared courage in the second reading. “We are always courageous,” he writes, and I wish that were true. Most of us are courageous some of the time.

What we do here in baptism should make us all more courageous, and make the world less scary, for all of us: We are spreading the joys and the challenging parts of rearing children out across the whole Christian community. You aren’t doing this alone, and you never will be. As your children are initiated into the Christian community today, hundreds of us are praying here, with you and for you. But across the Archdiocese of Chicago, there are millions more of us, and across the whole world and across all time, there are billions of Christian believers, living and dead, all pulling for you. The whole communion of saints is invested in sharing in the joys and the efforts that will go into bringing these children up to be the future of the Church.

Fatherhood, parenthood, baptizing children – this is obviously about love. And by “Love” I mean “God”. The gospel tells us God is love, and those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in us.

It took me a while – everything takes me a while – but I realized this gospel today is about love. The way love can just take over; it gets going and it grows and grows.

From a very small start, like the tiny mustard seed, something really big can grow. Or like the farmer Jesus talks about: when he starts, the field is empty. He plants little seeds, and then crops start happening. They sprout and they grow, “He knows not how.”

If Jesus was preaching this parable here today, he might refer to a different plant, one that grows around here, garlic mustard. Once it gets going, it keeps flowering and multiplying and you can’t get rid of it. Jesus is talking about how love can do that, it can just grow out of control and spread everywhere, like garlic mustard does.

So, Jesus is telling us that the kingdom of God grows like a weed. Imagine a world of love, multiplying and growing out of control. If you have experienced falling in love, you get this, right? It’s unstoppable and it’s out of your control. I talked with a wise friend about being in love, the surprise, the craziness of it, what Joni Mitchell called, “that dizzy, dancing way you feel.” He said, “You’re not in charge of that.” Like the crops growing in the field in Jesus’s parable. “Of its own accord,” the land produces fruit. We’re not in charge of that; it’s the goodness of God that is.

It’s beautiful how the experience of fatherhood is so connected to falling in love, and it shows us what Jesus is saying here. The love keeps growing: It’s always more than you thought. You get married and can’t imagine ever loving anyone like you love your spouse, then a child comes into your life and you experience seeing what seems to be your own heart walking around outside of you and getting into everything, and you fall in love again and can’t imagine any more love than that, and another child comes and you love that one every bit as much as the first one. For me it happened again and again, and I’ve been told grandchildren do this too.

You experience little glimpses of heaven. Like the birds Jesus mentions, coming to live in the mustard tree. Maybe he was thinking about the passage from Ezekiel in today’s first reading; he would have heard that one growing up and learning about God’s love for the people of Israel. The birds flying to make nests in the transplanted cedar tree are like little glimpses of heaven coming down to be part of our world.

That’s the point to take home today: From a small start, love can grow and grow.
Take courage from little glimpses of heaven, because God’s love grows like a weed, and so can ours. Let your love grow, and it will provide more glimpses of heaven in your life, and some of them will be happy surprises like birds nesting in trees, and some of them will be challenges, like little boys coming out of second-story windows to get into the trees. We’re not in charge of it; God is.

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by bobslobig on June 17, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by bobslobig on June 17, 2018

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Drop what you’re doing.

(I gave this homily this morning.  The readings were , Jonah 3, 1-5, Psalm 25, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, and Mark 1:14-20.)

On Monday we celebrated the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said so many wise things. One of them was, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

This weekend we marched for life, and yesterday there was a women’s march, and a meme, a movement, is going around, raising awareness about how we have undervalued and mistreated our sisters: #TimesUp.

There was a scene in one of the Star Trek movies, where Mr. Chekov was in big trouble, so he was trying to get the crew of the Enterprise to beam him up, back to the ship where he’d be safe. The situation was dire, and he was worried, and he spoke into his communicator, “Captain, now would be a good time.”

My mother used a certain expression when she wanted us to know she meant business: “Drop whatever you’re doing, and come here.” It communicated urgency, immediacy. It meant, you are not doing anything more important than what Mom is calling you for. That might be dinner; that might be cleaning up some mess I left in another room; it might just be to help her out with something for a minute or two. It could be anything, but it could not be ignored. Drop what you’re doing and come. Right now.

When we heard that, we didn’t think about it; we didn’t compare our options or consider other plans. We just got going. There would be serious consequences if we heard that call and did not drop whatever we were doing and respond. And I have no idea what they were. I don’t know what would have happened if I had not come running. I don’t even want to know. I do have a sense that I am still here today because every time Mom said, “Drop what you’re doing and come,” that is what I did.

We have a story in this gospel today of Jesus basically saying to these fishermen, drop what you’re doing and come with me. And what did they do? They literally dropped the work they were doing, mending their fishing nets, and they left their own father in the boat with the workers. Just peaced out and followed. Bye, Dad!

What about us?

You may have heard me say that the scariest gospel reading is the one we heard a couple of months ago, at the end of November. It’s in Matthew, ch. 25: “When did we see you hungry, or in prison, or needing our help?” And the king says, whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me. I can’t hear that or think about it without getting a little shook up. And now that I’ve had seven weeks and the holidays to forget about it, today’s gospel comes along, and I picture Jesus saying to us, “Hi! I’ve got something I need you to help me with. Drop what you’re doing and come with me.”

What would we do?

These second graders who are preparing for their first communion, they know what they’d do. They live in the moment, and they’d say to Jesus, “Oh yeah; I’m coming with you.” But those of us who have any difficulty living in the present or being spontaneous, when everything we do is planned and orchestrated, even our daily prayer and reflection routines – if Jesus interrupts that routine, saying, “Come, follow me, and I will make you into something more meaningful than what you are now,” what would we do?

Would we consult our calendars to see what was coming up in the next hour or the next few days and politely thank him for the invitation? Would we suggest that maybe he could show us where he is staying another time, and go on with what we were doing?

Would we want to think it over for a while? My approach to life is a combination of procrastination and forgetfulness, so it’s kind of a small miracle when I get anything done. If we had a family coat of arms, the Latin verse on the scroll at the bottom would read, “Habemus temporem,” which translates, “We’ve got time.” I like to think about doing something. I go in for that part – thinking about it – way more than actually doing something, making a decision.

The planning, the considering, giving it some thought. Yeah, that’s my wheelhouse. But, doing it? Actually doing? Let me think about that and get back to you.

But this gospel challenges us, saying, okay, time’s up. “This is the time of fulfillment,” Jesus says. This is it. Right now is the acceptable time.  Jonah told Nineveh they only had 40 days.  Paul told his people at Corinth time’s up, the world we know is passing away.  The kingdom of God is replacing the world we think we know, the world we’ve tried to struggle through and become comfortable in. It’s changing because of the work of Jesus, and Jesus is getting his work done by attracting people with different skills to come and contribute their skills to his service.

In the gospel story today, he wanted the fisherman’s skills, their patience and perseverance. Their knack and feel for where to cast the net and how to drag it bag to the surface full of a catch. He wanted hard-working team players, and apparently he also had room for competitive people driven to be the best at what they do. (Later on, these brothers James and John would argue with each other as they followed Jesus on the road, fighting over which one was the best.)

He’s going to transform these followers and their skills: In calling them to be “fishers of men,” Jesus means this, “I’m going to take the practical skills of your craft and put them at the service of the kingdom.” He did that with other people too: a tent-maker, an accountant, a tax collector, a rabble-rouser – a diverse collection of people who all could do something.

I see before me a diverse collection of people who all can do something. I see teachers, lawyers, doctors, writers, financial wizards, captains of industry. I see chefs and singers and dancers and artists, people who have within them a spark of God’s creative energy. I see competitive people who are driven to be the best at what they do.

Jesus is inviting us to do a job in building up the kingdom. He calls all of us to that. Jesus is getting his work done by attracting people with different skills to come and contribute their skills to his service. The job Jesus invites us to help him with is not so much about getting people into heaven; it’s more about getting heaven into people. It’s a great job. We can’t be hesitant to do it. It doesn’t necessarily mean quitting the job you have now (but it might). When I became a deacon, I didn’t quit on any of the vocations I had – I’m still a lawyer, and a father, and a friend, and a husband. But responding does mean wholehearted dedication and trust and not waiting any longer.

Christ has been inviting us all to help with the work of building the kingdom, and too many of us, instead of saying yes, have been thinking it over, trying to figure out whether it’s the right time, whether we can fit that into our schedules. “I have a lot on my plate right now, Jesus. Can you check back with me in six or eight months and see if I can get some other stuff under control first?” That is not the answer Jesus is looking for.

Let’s not procrastinate; let’s answer the call Jesus is making to us.

Stop waiting for a better time, the best time. Now is the acceptable time, this is the time of fulfillment. We are not doing anything more important, more fulfilling, than what Jesus is calling us for. The time’s up for thinking it over, for considering it.

“The time is always right to do what is right.” We all need to drop what we’re doing and follow.

 

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by bobslobig on January 21, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by bobslobig on January 21, 2018

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Vacation is sacred

This is the homily I gave today. The readings are Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23, Ephesians 2:13-18 and Mark 6:30-34.

Who has already gone away on vacation this summer?
Who hasn’t gone yet, but has plans to go in the next few weeks?

Why do we take vacations? Lots of reasons — we visit beautiful or exotic places, and it expands our horizons, increasing our experience of the world. We go to historic places, and deepen our understanding of our heritage. We visit family and friends who live far away, and strengthen those relationships.

We go just for rest and recreation, to recharge the batteries. We need that, and Jesus knows it.

Even a long weekend, or just a day off once in a while. We need to change the scenery and get away from the work we do, the daily routines we’re in.

Before he retired my dad was the hardest-working man I ever hope to know, but vacation was like religion to him. At least once a year, he took time off and took us away, and he insisted that it be at least two weeks, not just one, because, he said, you could not get the rest you need in one.

I love hearing this gospel in the middle of summer like this, as families are planning their summer vacations. People who work are looking forward to a well-earned respite from the stresses and toils of the job. Jesus says we need a vacation. That’s comforting to me.

Looking at this gospel passage in context, remember the disciples were sent off on a mission in last week’s gospel. They have come back, and they did a good job.

Remember their send-off was to go without baggage: Trust in God to take care of you; God’s people will get you what you need. So that was good: they learned to leave their personal baggage behind and went off to do what Jesus called them to do.

Today, the followers come back and tell each other how it went. Jesus tells them to get some rest. The same goes for us: we need to get rid of our own baggage, so that we can do the work of Christian witness. Then we need to get together again and tell each other how it’s going. Then we need to get some rest. This is what real life is like, yes?

Fad religions and trendy places of worship come and go. Ours has endured almost 2000 years and will continue to endure much longer, but only if we make Christ present, in real life. Do what he says and do what he does. That can be a challenge.

In today’s story, Jesus can’t do what he says to do, and he himself doesn’t get the rest he is prescribing: The crowds follow, and he is filled with compassion for them, so he does some more teaching, for a big crowd in a faraway place. Now what do you think is coming next? (There’s a little clue, when this gospel says they didn’t even have time to eat.)

In next week’s gospel reading, we will pick up right where this one leaves off: Jesus is teaching a big crowd, and then it comes time that people need to eat. So Jesus pushes the apostles again, saying, get them something to eat, yourselves. They’re of course overwhelmed – none of us makes enough money to feed all these people. But they do find one kid willing to share the food he has, five loaves and two fish, and Jesus turns it into more than enough for the crowd, with 12 baskets of leftovers.

So does anybody wonder, this week, is he setting them up? Did Jesus draw his followers out to a deserted place so that he could surprise them with the miraculous feeding? It was a way of beginning to reveal to them who he is and why he is here. He is the true shepherd written of in the first reading from Jeremiah, and sung of in the 23rd psalm; he takes away all our fears and gets us all we need. He is abundance. The divine essence in him, the perfect love he has for all of us, will never run out. Unlike the good things of this earth, he will never be depleted.

Jesus will never run out of good stuff. But we do. We work, we get tired. We need to rest.

Last week the message was that the mission is ours now; we should bring Christ to others (and leave our personal baggage behind). Why do we need rest after that? Well, for one thing, because there is always going to be more to do. We need to be fed and fortified, because there is always more work to be done. So Jesus is telling us today to get the rest we need. If you’re doing the work of the gospel, you’ve earned it.

Even on a daily basis, we need to get away from the crowds to a quiet place and rest, in prayer. It’s a good thing to have a quiet place to pray, and to get there every day. Find our way out of the noise and bustle, and get to a “deserted place,” where we can rest with God and listen to him teach us. If we don’t do this, we will be what Jesus sees in this gospel: sheep without a shepherd.

God has plans to do something for us, something that will surprise us, something that will fill us and nourish us. God doesn’t want us to be too tired to enjoy it, or worse, too tired even to notice it. So he tells us to make sure we get some rest. We should follow that, and then we should get ready to be taught, to be nourished and to be amazed.

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by bobslobig on July 19, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by bobslobig on July 19, 2015

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Faith or fear? Stormy weather

(My homily at 10:30 mass today. The readings are Job 38:8-11, Ps. 107, 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, and Mark 4:35-41)

Chevy Chase used to open the “Weekend Update” section of Saturday Night Live, saying, “Good evening, I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not.” In these scripture readings today, God seems to be saying, “I’m God, and you’re not.”

In the first reading, from Job, what the Lord speaks from the storm asks Job, Where were you when I created the world? Do you think you have what it takes to run this universe? Look at the power of the sea: who do you think set limits on that power?

The psalm responds, commenting again on the power of the ever-moving, chaotic sea. These readings both recall the creation story, where God brought order out of chaos and divided the waters from the dry land, and they also anticipate the sea-calming miracles of Jesus, including the one in this gospel.

This gospel story takes place after Jesus had been teaching the people in parables. He decided to call it a day, got in the boat and went to sleep. As the storm came up, he was asleep.

Even though he was only 30-something at the time, and he probably had more energy than I ever will again, I can understand why he’d be sleeping. Jesus did a lot for people; he was always expending energy on them, and he needed rest. He’s a real human being, and we humans get tired, especially when we’re doing what God put us here to do, which is serving other people in need.

I think this detail in the story is so touching, in the way it demonstrates the genuine humanity of Jesus. He could use a nap, just like you and I could use a nap. Particularly when the main point of the story is to demonstrate his divinity, to show that he truly has the power that belongs only to God.

The other thing that grabbed me was the contrast: the placid serenity of Jesus, relaxed and snoozing, set off against the disciples’ panic mode and the storm’s violence. Which do you think is going to prevail?

The disciples woke him up because of their fear, so it must have been some kind of storm. These men made their living in boats, on the Sea of Galilee, and they were panicked.

Ancient Middle Eastern mythology used the sea a symbol of the powers of chaos and evil, the opposition to God. So we get here a symbol of Jesus overcoming the powers of evil, which is what Jesus does; that’s who he is.

And the story ends on the disciples asking, “Who is this guy?” which is kind of a rhetorical question. Only God can command the sea. By asking the question, the disciples are coming around to the answer, the only possible answer.

Jesus gets immediate results, which allows the disciples to achieve some of the calm that he had all along. His calm came from complete confidence in God. Theirs comes from relief. He would like them to do it his way, to go through life’s stormy moments with complete confidence in God, and not to panic. So he asks them, What are you so afraid of? Got faith, or what?

What does he see in us, faith or fear? Are we turning confidently to God for help? Is that our approach to life all of the time? Or do we return to God only when we’re in a panic? When life’s stormy moments come up like sudden squalls, what colors do we fly? The calm of faith or the stupid drama of panic? Who’s your daddy: faith or fear?

Speaking of which, happy Fathers Day to all of you. I’m especially thankful today for the full life my own dad had, and for the four kids who put me in the fatherhood business. Another thing this gospel made me think of is a father waking from a much-needed nap, sizing up the chaos raging around him, and commanding, “Knock it off! Be quiet!”

A father sometimes gets awakened because he needs to calm the storms in a family’s life, to restore his children’s confidence that they are going to be safe, going to be all right. Not all storms are wind and rain. Whenever we have other kinds of storms in our lives, we should remember Jesus is present with us through those too, and he asks us the same question: Why be afraid? Do you have faith?

After I sit down, we will stand up to profess the faith we share.
and as we do, let’s re-commit ourselves to live with the same confidence Jesus shows here in God’s mercy and goodness, and not panic. So let’s get to that.

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by bobslobig on June 21, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by bobslobig on June 21, 2015

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