Reflecting on Matthew 16:13-20

When Jesus told Peter that it was his faith that would be the rock upon which he would build his Church, he was looking at a lot of rock.  He had taken the disciples up north to Caesarea Philippi, where a huge rock formation served as the Roman shrine for the vicious god Pan (later transformed by J.M.Barrie as the benign Peter Pan).

The Master Teacher used these surroundings to tell Peter― Petra, or Rock―that it was rock-hard faith that would be the foundation and sign of the Christian in the world.  The faith of the Christian should be as powerful as the collision of the continents that formed the earth as we know it today.

You wanna see some rocks?  Visit some of the awesome national parks that are part of the Colorado Plateau.  Thirty million years ago, the largest rock formation on earth (130,000 square-miles) was one piece.  But the forces of water and time gradually carved out the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, the great stone Arches of southern Utah, and the awesome Grand Canyon. 

And of course these rocks hold secrets, mind-boggling secrets about vast underground bodies of water, the migration routes of the First Peoples of our continent 13,000 years ago, and even of the beginnings of life which the Master Designer breathed into the world so very long ago.

All this makes me wonder about what archaeologists thousands of years from now will say about us.  See here?  These path makers of peace, these missionaries of friendship and hope, these people who chose love over hate and thus saved the world?  They call themselves Christians.  And the gates of hell have not prevailed against them.

How is time turning you into a greater Christian?

Reflecting on Matt. 15: 21-28

I hope that you have a lot of memories of your parents pulling a “Syro-Phoenician Woman” for you.  I do.  One time my dad actually went to the convent and spoke with the principal about me.   I came home from the first day of school in fourth grade very upset because all of my friends were in the other section of fourth grade.  He came home that night and said, “It’s okay, Kathy.  I went down and explained everything to Sister.  Tomorrow you’ll be in the other classroom.”  That feeling of being extraordinarily loved has never left me.

Imagine that tormented daughter, probably convulsing and having seizures, finally being at rest.  Imagine the peace, and the relief, and the immense gratitude she must have felt when the neighbors came running in and said, “You should have seen your mom!  She stood right up to the Rabbi.  He told her he only came for the Jews, and she told him that even the dogs get the leftovers!  And he laughed and laughed, and hugged her, and told her that her faith had blessed him so much that he could feel healing going out from him!”  That’s how I imagine that conversation went.

I’m positive that daughter never forgot the feeling of being so very precious to her mother that she sought out Jesus as he was passing through her town and begged for her life.  I’ll bet that wonderful knowledge of how deeply she was loved healed her as much as did the power of Jesus.

Go to God in prayer this week and beg for someone.  The Gospel assures us that Jesus longs for such faith.

Who needs the healing touch of Christ in your life?

Reflecting on Matthew 14: 22-33

 I think Peter must have loved Jesus with all his heart and soul and mind and strength.  It was that love that compelled him and his brother Andrew to leave their nets behind when Jesus called them to begin his Assembly of Twelve years earlier.

And it was surely that love that pushed Peter out of the wind-tossed boat in the fourth watch of the night.  The Romans divided the night into three-hour “watches”, four per night.  It was now somewhere between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., and they were exhausted, terrified, and struggling mightily.

Even though the seasoned fishermen had set out in early evening, they still hadn’t crossed the Lake, which is five miles wide, because of the great gales. It was then that Emanuel―God with us―set out to be with them in the storm.  It was he who had commanded them to get in the boat and return to the other side of the Lake.  It was he who stayed behind in a deserted place to pray while they went off to meet the wind and the rain.  And it was he who was now coming to comfort them.

This was no still, quiet voice they heard, speaking to their hearts during a quiet retreat.  This was the screaming roar of an epic storm at sea.  It was in the storm that Jesus drew near to them.  And it was in the storm that Peter said, Lord, if that’s really you, just call me and I’ll come.

The next time you are terrified―perhaps of losing someone you love, or of a scary diagnosis―think of Jesus coming toward you in the midnight storm, calling your name.  Take heart.  It is really he.

In what storms of your life has Emanuel been “with you”?

Reflecting on Matthew 14: 13-21

My friends Arline and Bay recently moved into a beautiful assisted living apartment, and Arline can’t believe how wonderful it is to not be in charge of feeding people anymore.

Most nights of the year, for nearly sixty years, she prepared a beautiful dinner for up to ten people.  Of course, as the kids grew up and moved out of the house the numbers dropped, but as they married and brought the kids over for dinner the table grew again.  Bay helped when he was home, but that’s a lot of potatoes to peel, and Arline is weak with relief (and I’ll guess just a twinge of melancholy) that she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.

Every single meal we enjoy represents labor and attention, gift and sacrifice.   From the field to the farm to the beehive to the pasture to the dairy, all creation offers its gift, and then we humans prepare it and put it on the table.

Food is probably the best metaphor for the kingdom, and Jesus uses it often.  But it’s his suggestion to the Twelve—Give them some food yourselves— that’s the kernel of the story.  Whatever your gift is―attentive listening, loving parenting, sacrificial grand parenting, care for the elderly or for those on the margins in any way―God simply asks that you give it, and then watch it multiply.

This gift of yours is your “sign”, your signature on the world.  As Gerhard Lohfink has beautifully written, signs make room for the kingdom of God, and allow it to grow.  In your own unique way you too are feeding the five thousand, and bringing forth the reign of God.

How are you offering your own gifts for God to multiply?

Reflecting on I Kings 3:5, 7-12

 Okay, you’ve bought your Powerball ticket, and you’re checking the numbers.  Look at that!  You’ve got two of the numbers, wait, three, no, four, no five!  Your heart is racing as you check that all-important last number, and YES!  You’ve won the Powerball!  All your worries are over!  You’re a mega-millionaire!

Now you’re standing with your big oversized check, cameras flashing, lottery officials beaming, and the question you’ve dreamed about for years is finally addressed to you:  What are you going to do with all that money? 

And here’s your reply:  I want to purchase an understanding heart so that I might judge rightly and distinguish right from wrong.

Good answer.  An understanding heart.  A listening heart.  Isn’t that the pearl of greatest price?  There is no greater love than to truly listen to someone, no greater gift than to be truly heard.  Solomon could have asked for anything, and he asked for that.  A very good answer indeed.

Think back on the people in your life who were able to put aside their own agendas and really, really listen to you.  Those are the people who change lives and heal hearts.

Parents are the people whom I observe with the most finely-tuned ears.  Because they love their children so much they are able to truly hear them, truly “get” them.  They listen, as St. Benedict asked us all to listen, with the “ear of the heart”.

The ancients had a lovely understanding of the workings of the ear canal.  They assumed that there were tubes that ran from the ears to the heart, so that one could truly hear.  I want that ear surgery, and I’ll bet Jesus knows just how to perform it.

How is your “hearing”?

Reflecting on Matthew 13: 24-43

I’ve got the window open, and I’m eavesdropping on the conversation going on in our backyard.  There are at least six gardeners out there, laughing, chatting, and pulling weeds.  We were lucky enough to have our nearly-one-hundred-year-old back yard included in the Farmyard Community Supported Agriculture yards that these ingenious gardeners turn in to urban paradises every summer.

Debbie, the CEO and most astonishing Green Thumb of the organization, is casually mentioning her 45^th birthday tomorrow.  The rest of the group feigns ignorance, asking random questions about how she is planning to celebrate.  She doesn’t have any plans.

If she only knew.  The real reason the full-court press on the weeds in our yard is happening today is that tomorrow night the yard next door to us, owned by Debbie’s great friends and co-workers, will be bedecked with summer tables and chairs and lanterns, and the heavenly fruits and vegetables Debbie’s gardens produce.  Our yard has to look equally beautiful, even though it’s only the staging ground for Debby’s surprise party.

It will be the best eating of the summer, until the fall feast that Debbie herself prepares for all the workers.  It’s early, still, to have a totally sustainable garden party.  But this group…mmm, boy do they know how to cook.

It’s always a mystery where all the weeds come from.  They are so careful to plant the seeds in the beautifully- tilled ground in March.  Weeding is a tedious task, but the gardeners do it with good cheer and optimism. 

God is endlessly at work weeding out what is deadly in us, too. Take a hoe to me, Master Gardener.  I want to look good for the Party.

In what ways are you producing good fruit?

Reflecting on Matthew 13: 1-23

My friend Jim Kloppenberg has written a number of books that have become classics in the field of American Thought.  But to my mind the most important thing he ever said was in a conversation with me forty years ago.

I’ve decided that hell is being strapped down and forced to watch an eternal loop of how your words, and actions, and inactions caused pain to other people.

Imagine an angel taking you on a life review, and forcing you to watch how the seeds of your thoughtlessness or selfishness or just plain meanness had endless effects on the people who knew you, and all of the people they knew, etc.  Oh, wait.  Charles Dickens did that already.

Through the awesome economy of God’s grace, though, the reverse is far more potent.  Heaven will be our eternal astonishment at the harvest of healing and strength and forgiveness and goodness that just one kind word from us set off in the universe.

Here’s an example.  I’ve had a number of orthopedic challenges in my life, but my core perception of myself is as a strong, athletic person.  Why?  Because, at age five, my dad told me I was, and that seed fell on very receptive ground.  All these years later I hear his voice as I bike and swim and stand my ground against the effects of illness. Thanks, dad.

Chaos theory posits that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas.  God, who created order out of chaos, has created a world so fecund that a single smile can usher in the reign of God.  Yes, it’s a wonderful life.  So get out there and sow some seeds.

What good things in your life are the results of a single word?

Reflecting on Matthew 11: 25-30

I have a great summer read for you.  James Martin, S.J. has written, in my opinion,  his best book ever.  Jesus: a Pilgrimage is an utterly captivating, easy to read account of his recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  It’s delightful to see the holy sites through the eyes of this insightful author and spiritual director, who is seeing the places mentioned in the gospels for the first time.

Right off the bat he taught me something.  I knew that Jesus was probably not a “carpenter” as we think of that word.  It’s more likely that Joseph and Jesus worked with stone as well as wood.  In fact, Justin Martyr, writing in the year 90, said that carpenters made yokes and plows.

There go any fanciful images of Jesus as a slight young man with soft hands!  Imagine how strong and skilled he must have been, creating those sturdy implements in the blazing sun.  And then imagine him telling his neighbors, the ones who grew up with him and knew him  all those years of his hidden life in Nazareth, to take his yoke upon them, for it is easy and its burden is light.

Happy the oxen who bears a light yoke!  The craftsman who could make that was the pride of Nazareth.  And here is Jesus, bragging about his skill to his friends, urging them to trust him, to find relief and comfort in him, in the same way that their animals find comfort when one of his yokes is placed upon them.

Ah, summer.  Hot dogs, potato salad, and a book that brings Jesus right up on the porch.  Happy Independence weekend.

How have you learned to trust in Jesus more and more?

Those early Christians living in Rome were an ingenious group.  They lived in the shadow of the coliseum, that horror chamber where slaves, gladiators, prisoners, wild animals, and, depending on the whim of the emperor, Christians themselves were massacred in numbers too astonishing to even grasp.  And all of this for the “entertainment” of the public, who appear to have had no end to their appetite for gore.

Imagine living in a world where the emperor thought he was the son of the gods, and celebrated his birthday on December 25^th, the feast of the Invincible Sun, a big party around the winter solstice that rejoiced in the sun gradually “coming back” to earth.  What’s a Christian to do in such a world?  That’s easy.  Decide that December 25^th will henceforth be celebrated as the birthday of Christ, the true Son of God, the only Invincible Son.

What about the mythical founders of Rome, the twins Romulus and Remus?  Abandoned at birth by their human mother and their father Mars, the god of war, they were nursed by a she-wolf until adopted by a shepherd.  They went on to found Rome, but, alas, they quarreled, and Romulus killed Remus.  So the great city of Rome sprouted from the seeds of war and fratricide.  But a big party in honor of them was held in Rome every June 29^th.

What’s a Christian to do?  That’s easy too.  Proclaim June 29^th as the feast day of the twin leaders of the Church, Peter and Paul.  That’s how you lift up a culture.  You place Jesus in the hearts of those who want to rejoice, but need an actual reason.

What ingenious ways do you use to bring Jesus into the conversation?

Reflecting on John 6: 51-58

My friend Noblet barely notices sports teams, even when her home team goes to the Super Bowl.  “What did you and your brothers and sisters DO when you were growing up if you didn’t play sports?” I ask.  “We planted wheat,” she says, and that’s when the dots connect for me.

Of course.  They planted wheat.  They and all the farmers of the world who produce 650 million tons of it every year.  And, in the planting, and cultivating, and praying over, and harvesting of this wheat they partnered with God in bringing bread to the tables of most people on this planet.  That’s at least as satisfying as hitting a fly ball to left field.

Jesus could have said I am the rice of life too, since that metaphor resonates more deeply for the billions for whom rice is the more familiar staple.  When the Hebrew children escaped Egypt (the bread basket of the world) and lived in the barren desert for forty years, God became for them the manna of life.  And, just like every farmer who watches the skies for rain, those ex-slaves watched the skies for God’s daily gift of food. 

They would have to wait for the glorious fields of the Galilee.  For now, the strange, sticky dew would sustain them.

It’s a holy thing, this planting of wheat.  We plant the seeds, and God sends the rains and the sun.  Morning comes, and evening follows, and one day, voilà.  Wheat.

And just as the lovely stalks lift up in the fields, we lift our hearts up to the Lord.  Happy Feast Day, Church, and may we ever see him in the breaking of the Bread.

How are you partnering with God to feed and nourish?