What Matters to God

Dore's Sketch of the Rich Man and Lazarus

In today’s Gospel, Jesus advises us to “Take care to guard against all greed.” He calls one who only accumulates things for him/herself a fool, forgetting one’s absolute dependency upon God, and forgetting one’s mortality.

Yes, we need things in order to live, but all we can take with us in death are our good deeds. As the saying goes, you never see a U-Haul trailer following a hearse to the cemetery.

The reality of death challenges us to answer the most important questions in life: how shall we live and what shall we do? And so, Jesus urges us to make sure we have our priorities straight. Seek first the things of God.

The so-called last things—hell, purgatory, and heaven—are challenging beliefs in Christianity. How can we say at the same time there’s an all-good God, and there’s a hell? Think about it.  Yes, scripture describes the last things.

But Dante’s The Divine Comedy also imaginatively reveals how he awoke in a dark wood (perhaps a midlife crisis) where Virgil led him through earth to hell (remember Dante’s famous line, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”). They saw sinners going to the abode of Satan. Then Dante ascended to purgatory, and finally, with his beloved Beatrice, he climbed the spheres of paradise and into the dazzling vision of the Triune God.

The Divine Comedy is a masterpiece in poetry, not easily readable but profoundly instructive about life. Heaven and hell answer the question of justice. Many good people die without receiving in this life a reward for their goodness, and many wicked people die without paying for their wickedness. If there’s justice, there has to be someplace where wrongs are righted, and someplace where good is rewarded.

So what are hell, purgatory, and heaven? The language is best understood symbolically. God does not “send” us to hell; we freely choose to go (unwisely). Also, while accepting the possibility of hell (in light of the dynamic between God's unconditional love for us and our human freedom to reject that love), we don’t have to believe that human beings are actually “in” such a “place.” In fact, we hope all human beings will find salvation.

If we peel away its fiery imagery, hell can be described as the absence of God, the failure to realize our true selves, whereas heaven is the ultimate fulfillment of our true selves. In heaven, we participate in the mystery of God.

Purgatory then is a “purification” in which we become our true selves.  And judgment is our own recognition of what is right and wrong in ourselves.

Finally, we believe that in the mystery of death, God will transform our earthly selves, like Jesus, into a new, indescribable heavenly reality. St. Paul put it well: “No eye has seen, no mind has ever imagined … what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Yes, Jesus wants us to be indescribably rich: “rich in what matters to God.” (Luke 12:21)

Life, Liberty, Happiness

The Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5: 1-11

On the Fourth of July, we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. That document proclaims these truths: “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The word of God speaks to those principles. For example, in the 9th century before Jesus, God called Elisha to succeed Elijah as a prophetic voice. Elisha answered God’s call with a “yes.” He didn’t know how life would unfold; he simply trusted in God.

God calls us to live a life of discipleship. Not yesterday or sometime in the future, but today!

We may sometimes judge others, like James and John in today’s Gospel, who wanted to obliterate two Samaritans for their lack of hospitality. But Jesus rebukes the disciples and continues to Jerusalem. On his way, someone asks to follow Jesus. Jesus’s reply indicates discipleship is making God your first priority.

Paul, in his letter to the Christian community in Galatia, proclaims that Jesus has freed us from our worse selves (the vices of our dark side) so that we can be our better authentic selves (in a life of virtue). Yes, the Spirit of God lives and moves and breathes within us so that we can become our authentic selves. Paul may ask, how are we using that liberty?

This insight of St. Paul’s intrigues me. Freedom to be ourselves is what joy and happiness are all about. Everybody wants happiness. Many think that if they get enough money, fame, or power, they’ll be happy. But if so, explain how some celebrities who “had it all” sedated themselves with drugs. Happiness has to factor into life, work, relationships, and ultimately death.

Bishop Robert Barron, of “Word on Fire” fame, cites Michael Jordan as an example of someone who became his happiest not by playing any way he wanted but by mastering the basics.
So too with us. Mastering the basics of discipleship with Jesus.

Yes, we become our happiest by mastering the basics (e.g., the beatitudes). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes the kind of character we should have. The first beatitudes (or attitudes) focus on our relationship with God. The next steps, our relationships with one another.

Disciples recognize only God can fill their emptiness. That’s what it means to be poor in spirit. An awesome Creator gifted us with life. Disciples realize their fortune to be alive and are grateful. They know only God can heal and gift them with eternal life. They are gentle, considerate and unassuming. Disciples, above all, hunger for a right relationship with God.

Next: our relationships with one another. Fortunate are they who forgive and let go of anger and resentment. Happy are they who are pure in heart, who have integrity in their relationships; they will see God face to face.

And fortunate are they who are ready to suffer rather than betray their conscience, who try to do the right thing in all decisions in life. Now that’s a worthy pursuit.

Building God's Kingdom

Mosaic of Christ in Majesty, Washington, DC

I really enjoyed Thanksgiving. It's all about gratitude to God for our blessings, and about family and friends enjoying one another’s company.

Sunday we celebrated the feast of Christ the King, to whom we owe our ultimate allegiance, the image of the invisible God, the one through whom we have a relationship with the triune God.

Christ the King fits appropriately into the end of the liturgical year. The cycle begins with Advent, the hope for a Messiah, then Christmas with the Messiah’s birth, then the dying and rising of Jesus Christ at Easter, and finally, after Sundays in Ordinary Time, Jesus Christ comes again in great glory and power: Christ the King.

The word of God today takes us back to the 2nd century before Jesus. The author of the Book of Daniel wants to inspire hope in the Jews who suffered cruelties because of their faith in God. The author here describes a visionary experience at the end of human history. A mysterious “son of man,” comes upon the clouds of heaven. This figure goes before the throne of God, who brings about his reign through the kingship of this mysterious “son of man.” Christians saw in this figure Jesus Christ.

The Book of Revelation speaks to Christians who suffered cruelties because of their faith in God. Jesus re-established that relationship between God and us.

In the Gospel according to John, Pilate asks political questions. But Jesus turns the table, saying the term “kingdom” has to be understood differently. His kingdom is neither political nor despotic.
Jesus’s kingdom is at one and the same time within and beyond us. He challenges us to begin building this kingdom of truth and justice and love and freedom until he comes again in great glory and power.

Many people today cry out for freedom. The word has two facets: freedom from, and freedom for.

What we have been freed from is oppression or tyranny. The thirteen U. S. colonies, for example, rebelled against abuses of their rights and liberties. The civil rights movement in the 1960s protested a social system that condemned people because of color.

Christianity is all about freedom. God became one of us in Jesus to free us from all that keeps us from an authentic relationship with God, one another and the universe.

Yes, we are free so we can serve. All around us are people with hungers: for bread, for peace, for human rights, for justice. Only a society based upon truth, justice, love and freedom can satisfy these hungers and free us to become our true selves: human beings in authentic relationships with God and one another.

Christ the Shepherd-King call us to realize that among the many blessings we have from God is the gift to share God’s gifts with others. In doing so, we are building up the kingdom of God--a kingdom of truth and justice, love and freedom. May we always embody these virtues by doing all the good we can, by all the means we can, to all the people we can, as long as ever we can.