Seize Every Opportunity to Do Good

Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Isaac

It’s “back-to-school time.” I’m going to give you a brief two-part quiz.
Part one: Name the last two movies to win the Oscar for best picture.
Part two: Think of a teacher who made a positive difference in your life, and a friend or mentor who helped you learn something worthwhile.

The point is simple: we often forget “headlines.” However, “heroes and heroines” like teachers and mentors, family and friends, can truly make a difference for the better.

The word of God heard today recalls the first Passover meal, when the ancient Hebrews celebrated liberation from their oppressors, and notes: That same provident God, always faithful to his promises, eventually will send the Messiah who will usher in God’s kingdom of peace and justice and truth and freedom.

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus says that we are to be like servants who await their master’s return, ready to welcome him. Be alert; be prepared; focus on what truly matters—eternal life with God. We will be accountable for the person we become with the time and talent God gives us.

To be a disciple of Jesus is to be fundamentally a man or woman of faith, someone who trusts completely in God throughout all the opportunities and threats and disappointments of life, someone who desires to do what God wants even though we can’t always precisely figure out what that is.

The letter to the Hebrews tells of two faith-filled people, Abraham and Sarah: trusting completely in God, in a foreign land, among strangers, in shelters, believing that Sarah would at last have a child. They are models of faith.

The story invites us to reflect upon the dimensions of our own faith: a gift from God whereby we begin a right relationship with the triune God, nurtured through prayer and especially through the Eucharist, the source and summit of Catholic life. It is the acceptance of God’s promises as true and a commitment to live accordingly. Faith includes the essential truths we profess every Sunday in our Nicene Creed, from the fourth century.

Faith is living in a right relationship with God. And there can be various stages in our faith development. We either grow into a relationship with God, or we fall out of it.

This faith compels us to be missionary disciples. Many of us share our faith even though we may not realize it, teaching the virtues of prayer, generosity, fairness, honesty, and service. Teachers develop virtues or habits of heart and skills of mind that will enable students to become good citizens. So do medical professionals. And, so do citizens when they urge their elected officials to set legislation that promotes human dignity.

We especially share our faith when we do our best to stand up for what is right and true and good. Never forget that the only “Gospel” some people may ever see is ourselves. Every day, we have so many little opportunities to be fully awake, to do good for others.

Unconditional Love

Jesus on the Mount of Beatitudes

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus asks us to love our enemies. The Greek text of the Gospel shows the word for love is agape. Not a romantic or emotional love, but an unconditional love, wishing our fellow human beings only good.

Jesus makes some radical demands upon us: Love your enemies; if someone slaps you on one side of the face, offer the other; give to everyone who asks.

Now how can anyone practice all the teachings of Jesus? How understand them? Who can give to everyone who asks? Are these teachings simply another example of middle eastern hyperbole or exaggeration? A few people, for example, Francis of Assisi or Dorothy Day, have tried to live these literally. For most people, they’re not very practical. So, how understand these ethical teachings?

First, you don’t have to like someone to love them. The love that Jesus asks us to have means that, no matter how someone may wrong us, we will never let bitterness close our hearts to them nor will we wish them anything but good. Agape recognizes the humanity we share with all people who call God “Father” – and that unconditional love begins within our own households, workplaces and communities.

Second, the radical ethical teachings of Jesus are linked to the mission of Jesus, who proclaims that the kingdom of God is in our midst. Yes, the kingdom is here, but not completely or fully. You and I are living in-between the historical coming of Jesus centuries ago and the final coming of Jesus in glory. We live in the tension between.

Jesus indicates the goal or thrust of our behavior, but this goal may not always be achievable. "Giving to everyone who asks" is not always possible, yet it indicates the direction of our lives: be generous with what we have -- our time, talent and treasure.

Remember that Jesus connects our love of God with our love for one another. Matthew 25 says this loudly and clearly: when I was hungry, when I was thirsty, etc. We can’t say we love God and yet neglect our needy fellow human beings. To the person who strikes you on one side of the face, Jesus says, offer the other as well. Yet sometimes we must fight against evil. We may have to take someone’s life in self-defense.

But Jesus indicates the thrust or direction of our lives, that is, we must try to be peacemakers, healers, bridge builders, reconcilers. So, these teachings of Jesus create tension between the present and final stages of the kingdom of God.

The genuine disciple of Jesus lives in this tension by seizing the many opportunities to do good today. To quote John Wesley: “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” Amen.

Hope and Goodness

A particular gospel phrase stood out for me this weekend: “Stand upright and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

Advent Wreath: Awaiting the Messiah.

How might we celebrate Advent? Some families create a wreath with four candles, and light one candle at the dinner table during the first week, two the second week, and so on. They pray in their own words for the coming anew of the Messiah into their own lives. Other families make a Jesse or genealogy tree to recapture the story of our salvation in the Hebrew bible. Still others have a Nativity scene and invite family members to tell in their own words the meaning of Christmas, God-with-us, Emmanuel. These are but a few customs.

The word of God carries us back in our imaginations to a prophet named Jeremiah who cited the infidelity of the Hebrews to their promises to God. But God is always faithful. And so Jeremiah spoke about hope: God one day will raise up a new king who will do what is right and good for his people.

Paul in his letter to the Christian community at Thessaloniki in Greece urged them not to so much anticipate the future that they forget how to live here and now. Yes, Paul wrote, care for one another, pray fervently, please God and be ready when the Day of the Lord comes.

The Gospel according to Luke speaks dramatically about signs that will signal the coming of Jesus Christ with great power and glory to transfigure us into the likeness of God.

We gather together in his name before the word of God and around the table of the Lord to hear God’s voice in scripture and to re-experience the sacrificial, life-giving death and glorious resurrection of Jesus. And through this mystery, we re-experience the living Christ who has already made us by grace what Jesus Christ is by nature: sons and daughters of God.

That great news of our faith challenges us this Advent season to look for the good in ourselves, in other people and in everyday situations of life. God is the ultimate good-finder. God so loved us that he became one of us.

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.