The Universal Call to Integrity
Our Church celebrates the great Spirit-filled moments of Vatican Council II, whose 50th anniversary of opening we celebrate in October, 2012AD. Many, sadly maybe, not all, Catholics heard the “universal call to holiness” at the conclusion of the “Lumen Gentium, the Constitution on the Church.” Each person in Christ Jesus has his or her unique vocation which is the high road to holiness for oneself. Paraphrasing the call to ordinary parlance, we might say “Baptism calls each of us and all of us to lives of integrity (no exceptions!)”. The recovery of the biblical concept was an update on the universal insight in Jeremiah 1,
“ Before I formed you in the womb, before you were born, I knew you.” Not just Jeremiah, but all of us are called in Christ Jesus to be prophets to the nations.
St Paul had his hands full with the Jesus Movement at Corinth. There were possibly about 200 people (maybe 5 house churches of 40 people or less each) who met in Christ Jesus in the various house churches around the Greek metropolis. Small in number, they were varied in opinions and ideologies. Their viewpoints caused problems years after Paul founded the Church at Corinth.
St Paul’s methodology was to establish the small house churches of the Jesus Movement in major cities as an audio-visual way to win people over to faith in Christ. His focus seems to have been upon Gentile men and women who were fed up with au currant pagan religions and felt that the Jewish synagogues offered a different view of people (created in the image and likeness of God), a different view of one God Who cared about people, a different code of ethics that was clearly a cut above the mores of the ancient world. Still, they were reluctant to sign on officially as converts to Judaism because of the stringent expectations on Jews. They preferred to worship as “God-fearers”, Gentiles attracted to Judaism, but not members. St Paul felt that the Jesus Movement was a way for these folks to get on board. Not all Jews, not even all Jewish Christians, agreed.
However, these Jesus Movement house churches started to develop rifts among themselves. Rather than a united worldview, the Jesus Movement was causing scandal. Just like now??
Though St Paul had persecuted the Jesus Movement in his youth, his conversion to Christ Jesus brought home several realities that formed his consciousness permanently. 1) This Jesus Who was crucified and rejected by legitimate institutions, viz., the Roman Empire and Temple leadership of the time, was now vindicated by God as innocent. (Paul had been a Pharisee and Pharisees believed in an afterlife and resurrection.) Clearly, God had vindicated Jesus and His message of God’s New World Order (the Kingdom). 2) St Paul came to see that legitimate institutions might be legitimate, but that did not mean they were absolute. Christ Jesus and His worldview were the Absolutes that God had vindicated. State and institutional religion were relativized. St Paul wanted his Jesus Movement to share the vision of a new world view, a new explanation, a new understanding based on what God had done in Christ Jesus. All that Jesus had said and done for the Kingdom of God for which He was crucified and rose again was for real. 3) Jesus’ methodology to enoughism, viz., non-violent active engagement with obstacles to enoughism, which He wanted His Movement to follow (Thy Kingdom come!”) was peace through compassionate solidarity; the institution’s methodology was peace through victory (aka “might makes right?”) . Just like now???
What Paul stood for was the paradox of the cross. He had experienced rejection from most of his Jewish kinsfolk for whom a crucified Messiah was a scandal. He had experienced ridicule from most of the Gentile listeners. Still, as he wrote later on, “the Gospel will not be stopped.” The One Who was rejected by legitimate institutions was the One Whom God raised from the dead.
The paramount reality was the insight that Jesus is Lord. Sadly, the Jesus Movement in Corinth were missing the forest for the trees. They were focusing on one spin of the Gospel (Paul’s, Peter’s, Apollos’??) more than the reality-altering insight that Jesus is Lord, relativizing the World, the System, the conventional wisdom, the way that “they” (in the know!!!) thinks and acts. Christian Insight and its implications were the important things, not an ideology. Just like now??
Sadly, many members of the Jesus Movement today focus on liberal vs. conservative, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, born again. Sad, when individual “Christians” snipe at one another, sadder still when Christian groups do the sniping! Remember the tragic, but comical scene of the monks fighting with each other near the manger in Bethlehem just before Christmas. (Thank God, Catholistics were not involved in that scandal.) Outsiders who relish Christian in-fighting now refer to Christianists, viz., our “Christian values”, as opposed to others’ Christian values. It becomes again “My (Christianist) way or the highway.” One cannot find a biblical reference for that one. Just like now??
We might reach the sad realization that our in-fighting among ourselves and our accommodation to the System cause scandal and missed chances. Let us get our acts together!! “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” Just like now?? 031112AD jfq
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Reflection, March 4, 2011AD
Forwards or Backwards??
Our first reading today, the Sacrifice of Isaac, is one of the most vivid and shocking vignettes in the Bible. It shows us a progression (maybe, a regression, if looked at differently.)The story is archetypal, but troubling. We all catch its drift. To what limits would one go to demonstrate faith? What limit would God want?
Just about every continent in the world has shown evidence that within the past 10,000 years that our ancestors engaged in the action of human sacrifice. Usually, this was done to prisoners of opposing peoples. The story we hear today probably was penned over 3000 years ago. Its simple imagery has withstood the test of time. Still, questions are raised: 1) What would child protective services today say about the story back then? 2) What would Sarah, the child’s mother, say when she found out about what had happened? 3) What would PETA and other animal rights’ activists say about the sacrifice of the ram in place of the firstborn son. 4) How did Isaac survive the trauma?
YHWH, the God of Life, demands that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, Abraham’s son, his only son, his only son whom he loves as a sign of Abraham’s absolute commitment to God. (This God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. However, Isaac is the only son.) Still, Abraham prepared to obey God.
The neighbors of Israel frequently engaged in human sacrifice. Indeed, in the worship of Baal, the fertility god of the Canaanites, there might even have been a liturgy of sacrifice of a firstborn male to ensure further fertility for the family.
Still, old customs die hard. (Even as late as the prophet Jeremiah (c. 622BC), some Jewish people hedged their bets on God by offering human sacrifices in the Valley of Gehenna, within walking distance of the Temple constructed by King Solomon.) In essence, one meaning of the story is the clear statement that YHWH, the God of Life, does not require human sacrifice of any human person.
Instead, Israel sacrificed animals, sheep and goats, whose blood was seen as a proper substitute for human blood. (Today, animal rights’ activists would maintain a constant protest outside. YHWH, the God of Life, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, put an end to sacrificing the blood of anyone or anything in doing exactly what God appeared to be doing with Abraham. God shed God’s Blood. However, in so doing, Jesus brings an end to all primal religion which requires the shedding of blood. No longer is bloodshed, human or animal, friend or enemy, acceptable!
However, the Catholistic value of the absolute sanctity of every human life (no exceptions) still might only receive lip service from many. In the 1970’s, the System called wars in Central America “low intensity warfare”. Others fought the wars; we sold the weapons. Nobody got hurt, unless you were fighting yourself.
Ever since the British-Argentine War in the South Atlantic in 1982 over the Islas Malvinas, the world became alerted to new types of weaponry, “teleological warfare”, viz., warfare from afar.)Computerized French Exocet missiles that the Argentines had, which knocked out British ships from a distance of 75 miles. (The Iron Lady was not amused, but apparently, she did not lose any sleep over it.) Others died, none of her kin.
Today, we have drone flights, computerized recon flights (which soon became loaded with weaponry) that could be controlled from a distance. Who operates them? One Catholic peace forum recently had as its Lenten theme: “Who Lies? Who Dies? Who Pays? Who Profits?”
Theologians and others speak now of the Great Convergence. As early as 1955, people as diverse as Pope Pius XII and Blessed John XXIII and Pope John Paul and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, stated, “We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whichever group we prefer, for there are no longer such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous for all parties. Remember your humanity and forget the rest.”
Today offers a clear trajectory in reading between the lines of the Testing of Abraham and the Crucifixion of Jesus. The Gospel is the only viable way out of the transmission of violence, hatred and anger. If we do not transform these negative energies, we only transmit them.
Three values that 21st century NY Catholics (and others) can adopt include the following: 1) The Genome Project proves it, viz., there is common DNA from an original parent in each of us. Surprise! We are all brothers and sisters. 2) As brilliant minds saw 50 years ago, war has become obsolete in conflict resolution. It has outlived whatever purpose it had. 3) We can agree on a global ethic, viz., “the Golden Rule”, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The story of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his son, his only son, his only son whom he loved, has a sad resonance in today’s world. Is a “Christianist?” system starting to backslide on the divine trajectory clearly traceable in today’s readings. Are we “cultural recidivists”? The Voice from God said, “This is My Divine Son. Listen to Him.” Do we really????????? 030412AD jfq
Our first reading today, the Sacrifice of Isaac, is one of the most vivid and shocking vignettes in the Bible. It shows us a progression (maybe, a regression, if looked at differently.)The story is archetypal, but troubling. We all catch its drift. To what limits would one go to demonstrate faith? What limit would God want?
Just about every continent in the world has shown evidence that within the past 10,000 years that our ancestors engaged in the action of human sacrifice. Usually, this was done to prisoners of opposing peoples. The story we hear today probably was penned over 3000 years ago. Its simple imagery has withstood the test of time. Still, questions are raised: 1) What would child protective services today say about the story back then? 2) What would Sarah, the child’s mother, say when she found out about what had happened? 3) What would PETA and other animal rights’ activists say about the sacrifice of the ram in place of the firstborn son. 4) How did Isaac survive the trauma?
YHWH, the God of Life, demands that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, Abraham’s son, his only son, his only son whom he loves as a sign of Abraham’s absolute commitment to God. (This God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. However, Isaac is the only son.) Still, Abraham prepared to obey God.
The neighbors of Israel frequently engaged in human sacrifice. Indeed, in the worship of Baal, the fertility god of the Canaanites, there might even have been a liturgy of sacrifice of a firstborn male to ensure further fertility for the family.
Still, old customs die hard. (Even as late as the prophet Jeremiah (c. 622BC), some Jewish people hedged their bets on God by offering human sacrifices in the Valley of Gehenna, within walking distance of the Temple constructed by King Solomon.) In essence, one meaning of the story is the clear statement that YHWH, the God of Life, does not require human sacrifice of any human person.
Instead, Israel sacrificed animals, sheep and goats, whose blood was seen as a proper substitute for human blood. (Today, animal rights’ activists would maintain a constant protest outside. YHWH, the God of Life, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, put an end to sacrificing the blood of anyone or anything in doing exactly what God appeared to be doing with Abraham. God shed God’s Blood. However, in so doing, Jesus brings an end to all primal religion which requires the shedding of blood. No longer is bloodshed, human or animal, friend or enemy, acceptable!
However, the Catholistic value of the absolute sanctity of every human life (no exceptions) still might only receive lip service from many. In the 1970’s, the System called wars in Central America “low intensity warfare”. Others fought the wars; we sold the weapons. Nobody got hurt, unless you were fighting yourself.
Ever since the British-Argentine War in the South Atlantic in 1982 over the Islas Malvinas, the world became alerted to new types of weaponry, “teleological warfare”, viz., warfare from afar.)Computerized French Exocet missiles that the Argentines had, which knocked out British ships from a distance of 75 miles. (The Iron Lady was not amused, but apparently, she did not lose any sleep over it.) Others died, none of her kin.
Today, we have drone flights, computerized recon flights (which soon became loaded with weaponry) that could be controlled from a distance. Who operates them? One Catholic peace forum recently had as its Lenten theme: “Who Lies? Who Dies? Who Pays? Who Profits?”
Theologians and others speak now of the Great Convergence. As early as 1955, people as diverse as Pope Pius XII and Blessed John XXIII and Pope John Paul and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, stated, “We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whichever group we prefer, for there are no longer such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous for all parties. Remember your humanity and forget the rest.”
Today offers a clear trajectory in reading between the lines of the Testing of Abraham and the Crucifixion of Jesus. The Gospel is the only viable way out of the transmission of violence, hatred and anger. If we do not transform these negative energies, we only transmit them.
Three values that 21st century NY Catholics (and others) can adopt include the following: 1) The Genome Project proves it, viz., there is common DNA from an original parent in each of us. Surprise! We are all brothers and sisters. 2) As brilliant minds saw 50 years ago, war has become obsolete in conflict resolution. It has outlived whatever purpose it had. 3) We can agree on a global ethic, viz., “the Golden Rule”, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The story of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his son, his only son, his only son whom he loved, has a sad resonance in today’s world. Is a “Christianist?” system starting to backslide on the divine trajectory clearly traceable in today’s readings. Are we “cultural recidivists”? The Voice from God said, “This is My Divine Son. Listen to Him.” Do we really????????? 030412AD jfq
Friday, February 24, 2012
Reflection, February 26, 2012AD
Here We Go Again!!
Everyone should have a worldview. (Not everyone has such a point of view, however, because many of us forfeit our thinking to others, frequently media hateriots (sic)). Hopefully, the Jesus Movement tries, with God’s Help, to view reality with Gospel lenses. Do we always?
Traditionally, on the First Sunday of Lent, we hear an account of the Temptations of Jesus at the beginning of His public ministry. On the one hand, we remember that He is like us in all things but sin. On the other hand, we sometimes think that Jesus is God so He only goes through the motions.
St Mark tells us subtly today in the Gospel of Jesus’ temptations that Jesus is in the company of the wild beasts and/or of angels. Just like us! We can, with God’s Help, to choose to live with the wild beasts or with the angels.
Lent is an opportunity to get back to basics in a Catholistic sense. What does it mean to be a integral, whole, entire human person after the paradigm of the Archetypal Human One (the Son of Man)? Lent is a chance to do a reality check on how I am measuring up to the human (and divine) expectations of Jesus.
In the fourth century Egypt, long ago and far way, St Anthony the Abbot made three relevant statements as we begin our Lenten pilgrimage. 1) “The planet Earth is insignificant when compared with the universe. Indeed, the greatest Empire in the world is insignificant when compared with the universe.” 2) Once when he received a letter from the Roman Emperor, he remained in contemplation. Later on, he said, “Marvel, rather, that we receive word from God’s Son daily in the Scripture than I got a letter from a king.” 3) Humbly and honestly and consolingly, he wrote “The problem is not necessarily the world, but rather the complacency, laziness, and arrogance that life in the everyday world can generate.”
Pope Benedict reminds us that there are three things that each member of the Jesus Movement needs to see as basic. 1) The human person is oriented to transcendence. (That means you and your neighbor and your enemy. If we really took that seriously, then our worldview would be different. 2) With the sense of human transcendence, then, we make a preferential option for those in our midst whose lives are less than human. 3) We need to evangelize, viz., announce through how we live our lives that the Catholistic worldview is the way to go for a truly integral human life.
Theologians tell us that the archetypal sin of humanity, mythologized in the story of the fall of our first parents, is arrogance, the desire to be God. Our first parents have many descendents. Human experience shows us that one of the most primitive aspects of human life is the fight-flight dynamic of the reptilian brain in each of us. If we operate only on that level of operation, then quickly we descend to the level of the wild beasts in the wilderness. The ongoing saga in the first eleven chapters of Genesis (known as the Primordial History) is a constant devolution from God’s plan. In today’s readings we are reminded of the destruction that humanity brought about through sin that culminated in the Flood. Notice that God, in God’s Mercy, relented and promised humanity that a flood would never again destroy the earth. (God changed God’s Mind, what’s up with that?)
Interestingly, “in this new moment of human history, in which we live,” quoting the American Bishops’ Statement on the Arms Race in 1983, some have said that while God will not destroy the world, that does not necessarily mean that we won’t. (Fr Karl Rahner said, in reply, that he felt that God had invested too much in the planet earth to allow us to ever do such a thing. Let us trust Rahner’s hope.
Modern science reaffirms the Catholistic intuition that all reality is in relationship. Nothing can be understood completely unless it is understood in relationship to everything else. In today’s Gospel, this scientific insight is declared openly by Jesus as He began His public ministry. He speaks of the Kingdom of God. When one stresses Kingdom, one talks of political, economic, social reality. When one stresses God, one talks of a religious reality. Recall all reality is in relationship. Many years ago, Hans Kung said plainly, “God’s agenda is the human agenda; the human agenda should be God’s agenda.” The connection is stressed by Jesus in the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When we want what God wants, then we are called to collaborate with God in effecting that Agenda.
Rev Jim Wallis, in the Great Awakening, quoted the US Catholic bishops in offering 4 principles that should guide Catholistic engagement with the divine-human agenda. 1) As an institution, the Church is called to be political, but not partisan. 2) The Church is called to be principled, but not ideological. 3) The Church is called to be clear, but also civil. 4) The Church is called to be engaged, but not used. (As individuals and as a community, we sometimes have to challenge even ourselves to check our own consistency.)
Jesus wants us to share His Catholicistic worldview. The temptation is always there for us to go off on our own. When we do so, we can end up with the wild beasts. When we share Jesus’ point of view, please God, we dwell with the angels, even now, but not yet. 022612AD jfq
Everyone should have a worldview. (Not everyone has such a point of view, however, because many of us forfeit our thinking to others, frequently media hateriots (sic)). Hopefully, the Jesus Movement tries, with God’s Help, to view reality with Gospel lenses. Do we always?
Traditionally, on the First Sunday of Lent, we hear an account of the Temptations of Jesus at the beginning of His public ministry. On the one hand, we remember that He is like us in all things but sin. On the other hand, we sometimes think that Jesus is God so He only goes through the motions.
St Mark tells us subtly today in the Gospel of Jesus’ temptations that Jesus is in the company of the wild beasts and/or of angels. Just like us! We can, with God’s Help, to choose to live with the wild beasts or with the angels.
Lent is an opportunity to get back to basics in a Catholistic sense. What does it mean to be a integral, whole, entire human person after the paradigm of the Archetypal Human One (the Son of Man)? Lent is a chance to do a reality check on how I am measuring up to the human (and divine) expectations of Jesus.
In the fourth century Egypt, long ago and far way, St Anthony the Abbot made three relevant statements as we begin our Lenten pilgrimage. 1) “The planet Earth is insignificant when compared with the universe. Indeed, the greatest Empire in the world is insignificant when compared with the universe.” 2) Once when he received a letter from the Roman Emperor, he remained in contemplation. Later on, he said, “Marvel, rather, that we receive word from God’s Son daily in the Scripture than I got a letter from a king.” 3) Humbly and honestly and consolingly, he wrote “The problem is not necessarily the world, but rather the complacency, laziness, and arrogance that life in the everyday world can generate.”
Pope Benedict reminds us that there are three things that each member of the Jesus Movement needs to see as basic. 1) The human person is oriented to transcendence. (That means you and your neighbor and your enemy. If we really took that seriously, then our worldview would be different. 2) With the sense of human transcendence, then, we make a preferential option for those in our midst whose lives are less than human. 3) We need to evangelize, viz., announce through how we live our lives that the Catholistic worldview is the way to go for a truly integral human life.
Theologians tell us that the archetypal sin of humanity, mythologized in the story of the fall of our first parents, is arrogance, the desire to be God. Our first parents have many descendents. Human experience shows us that one of the most primitive aspects of human life is the fight-flight dynamic of the reptilian brain in each of us. If we operate only on that level of operation, then quickly we descend to the level of the wild beasts in the wilderness. The ongoing saga in the first eleven chapters of Genesis (known as the Primordial History) is a constant devolution from God’s plan. In today’s readings we are reminded of the destruction that humanity brought about through sin that culminated in the Flood. Notice that God, in God’s Mercy, relented and promised humanity that a flood would never again destroy the earth. (God changed God’s Mind, what’s up with that?)
Interestingly, “in this new moment of human history, in which we live,” quoting the American Bishops’ Statement on the Arms Race in 1983, some have said that while God will not destroy the world, that does not necessarily mean that we won’t. (Fr Karl Rahner said, in reply, that he felt that God had invested too much in the planet earth to allow us to ever do such a thing. Let us trust Rahner’s hope.
Modern science reaffirms the Catholistic intuition that all reality is in relationship. Nothing can be understood completely unless it is understood in relationship to everything else. In today’s Gospel, this scientific insight is declared openly by Jesus as He began His public ministry. He speaks of the Kingdom of God. When one stresses Kingdom, one talks of political, economic, social reality. When one stresses God, one talks of a religious reality. Recall all reality is in relationship. Many years ago, Hans Kung said plainly, “God’s agenda is the human agenda; the human agenda should be God’s agenda.” The connection is stressed by Jesus in the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When we want what God wants, then we are called to collaborate with God in effecting that Agenda.
Rev Jim Wallis, in the Great Awakening, quoted the US Catholic bishops in offering 4 principles that should guide Catholistic engagement with the divine-human agenda. 1) As an institution, the Church is called to be political, but not partisan. 2) The Church is called to be principled, but not ideological. 3) The Church is called to be clear, but also civil. 4) The Church is called to be engaged, but not used. (As individuals and as a community, we sometimes have to challenge even ourselves to check our own consistency.)
Jesus wants us to share His Catholicistic worldview. The temptation is always there for us to go off on our own. When we do so, we can end up with the wild beasts. When we share Jesus’ point of view, please God, we dwell with the angels, even now, but not yet. 022612AD jfq
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Reflection, February 19, 2012AD
The Greatest Yes
People speak these days of the “Wild West of a Quantum Universe”. Not only are things that we are learning now about our universe unimagined, but also unimaginable.
People speak of the “Heisenberg Principle”, viz., you can only measure what is measurable. (In modern physics, you can measure a wave and a particle in a wave, but you can’t measure the two at the same time.) People speak of the “Copenhagen School of Thought”. Your observation of an object changes the object that you are observing. Woe to the person who thinks he or she knows it all (or even, can someday.) As Madonna sang on Superbowl Sunday, “Life is (indeed) a mystery)”.
The important thing that St Paul stresses today is that even though life is unpredictable at times (his, yours, theirs and mine) , God is always faithful. God asks us to trust God on days good and not so good. The God of Israel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Self-identified on Mount Sinai at the time of the liberation of the Chosen People from slavery in Egypt as YHWH. The Sacred Name can be legitimately translated as the God of Life but also, the God of Mystery (infinitely knowable and unknowable simultaneously). God is the Ground of Existence but is Incomprehensible, Ineffable, Infinite. (If you think you have God figured out, you have a problem, according to St Thomas Aquinas.)
In the Incarnation of Christ Jesus, God completes the Self-Naming. St John tells us in 1 John, that this life-giving, incomprehensible “God is Love and that those who abide in Love abide in God and God abides in them.”
God is the Holy Mystery, the Holy Longing that impels the human person’s drive to Transcendence. (However, other forces, the System, the Worldview, the conventional wisdom that seems to answer the quest for meaning, can get in the way hinting to you that their spin on reality is the final word.)
St Paul felt it was important to trust in the God of the Big Picture, no matter what. We need to share the Vision and to build one another up. That is why we need groups of mutual support called “intentional communities.” These para-oikias, “other homes”, of the Jesus Movement, to build ourselves and one another up as well as others with whom we share our lives. God is to be trusted on God’s terms, not on ours. God is always faithful. We are the ones who see things differently. We need mutual support in Christ Jesus.
Thinking outside the box, St Paul felt that the glass was half-full, rather than half-empty. He believed that small groups of committed members of the Jesus Movement were capable of changing the world. He felt that the leaven, the Christ Quantum, the Virus of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit, in small doses in critical places, viz., the port cities of the ancient Mediterrean, in time would be sufficient to win the world for God in Christ Jesus. Certainly, his timing was off, but 2000 years later, the Gospel of Christ Jesus will not be stopped. Go figure!!
St Paul’s methodology was to keep the group identity strong and secure. As he addresses his audience (and us as well) today, he wants the Jesus Movement to remain loyal to our commitment to the Christ Quantum.
He wants the Jesus Movement to be united. The Hebrew word that he would have used was echad (one-ness). The Greek word was koinonia (community). In English, it is solidarity. All are one in Christ Jesus. The Jesus Movement should bring people together, not alienate them. It is an inclusive, not exclusive Reality. It’s Catholistic!!!
Indeed, one of the key ideas in St Paul’s thought is that there still exist what he calls the “Powers and the Principalities” , viz., the System, the Worldview, the conventional wisdom, the way “they” (whoever they are) all behave and think there is something wrong with you when you don’t go along the crowd. St Paul understood then, as well as now, that one person was powerless against the system. There is strength in numbers. As Margaret Mead said in the twentieth century, “Never doubt that small groups of people can change the world. Indeed, they are the only ones who ever do!”
Something bolsters people when they share a common vision. We sense that we are not alone. Others see reality differently as I do. We do not have to go along with the crowd.
Sadly, many of us live very individualistic lives. We think of themselves as the center of reality and as a result, lead what can be isolated, delusional, sad lives. When I am the sole arbiter of reality, I am headed for trouble. Many sadly find themselves in such a dilemma.
Others find their meaning in a group, whether it is one’s ethnicity, nation, religion. We have a group identity, but unless a group acknowledges that the Holy Longing for Transcendence is bigger than group identity, the group will not survive well. Ethnocentrism. chauvinism, racism, religious intolerance make for dead-ends.
St Paul understood that there is something bigger than group identity. After all, not everyone belongs to your group. He felt that the Jesus Movement within Judaism was pointing to the Big Picture. All were included in God’s plan; all, the apple of God’s eye; in Christ, there was no Jew or gentile, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus! St Paul would join us around here, “God bless the whole world -- no exceptions”.
It was the role of the Jesus Movement within Judaism that Israel would be a light to all nations. St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians was probably addressed to a group of about 200 people from a very eclectic background. Not many were rich (so some were); not many were well-born (so some were) not many were well educated (so some were.) God knows, they were far from being 10’s in anything, but God, the Father of Christ Jesus, and St Paul loved them.
St Paul tells us that Jesus was not ambivalent. He was not yes one day and no the next day. “Christ Jesus is God’s YES to the promise that God makes us.” Just as the prophet, Second Isaiah sensed, God is always making all things now. Nation-states come and go; systems and institutions come and go; the way things have always been come and go; you will come and go. As the Apostle to the Gentiles tells us in another place, “Jesus Christ is the Same yesterday, today and tomorrow.” Trust God’s YES!!!! 021912AD jfq
People speak these days of the “Wild West of a Quantum Universe”. Not only are things that we are learning now about our universe unimagined, but also unimaginable.
People speak of the “Heisenberg Principle”, viz., you can only measure what is measurable. (In modern physics, you can measure a wave and a particle in a wave, but you can’t measure the two at the same time.) People speak of the “Copenhagen School of Thought”. Your observation of an object changes the object that you are observing. Woe to the person who thinks he or she knows it all (or even, can someday.) As Madonna sang on Superbowl Sunday, “Life is (indeed) a mystery)”.
The important thing that St Paul stresses today is that even though life is unpredictable at times (his, yours, theirs and mine) , God is always faithful. God asks us to trust God on days good and not so good. The God of Israel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Self-identified on Mount Sinai at the time of the liberation of the Chosen People from slavery in Egypt as YHWH. The Sacred Name can be legitimately translated as the God of Life but also, the God of Mystery (infinitely knowable and unknowable simultaneously). God is the Ground of Existence but is Incomprehensible, Ineffable, Infinite. (If you think you have God figured out, you have a problem, according to St Thomas Aquinas.)
In the Incarnation of Christ Jesus, God completes the Self-Naming. St John tells us in 1 John, that this life-giving, incomprehensible “God is Love and that those who abide in Love abide in God and God abides in them.”
God is the Holy Mystery, the Holy Longing that impels the human person’s drive to Transcendence. (However, other forces, the System, the Worldview, the conventional wisdom that seems to answer the quest for meaning, can get in the way hinting to you that their spin on reality is the final word.)
St Paul felt it was important to trust in the God of the Big Picture, no matter what. We need to share the Vision and to build one another up. That is why we need groups of mutual support called “intentional communities.” These para-oikias, “other homes”, of the Jesus Movement, to build ourselves and one another up as well as others with whom we share our lives. God is to be trusted on God’s terms, not on ours. God is always faithful. We are the ones who see things differently. We need mutual support in Christ Jesus.
Thinking outside the box, St Paul felt that the glass was half-full, rather than half-empty. He believed that small groups of committed members of the Jesus Movement were capable of changing the world. He felt that the leaven, the Christ Quantum, the Virus of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit, in small doses in critical places, viz., the port cities of the ancient Mediterrean, in time would be sufficient to win the world for God in Christ Jesus. Certainly, his timing was off, but 2000 years later, the Gospel of Christ Jesus will not be stopped. Go figure!!
St Paul’s methodology was to keep the group identity strong and secure. As he addresses his audience (and us as well) today, he wants the Jesus Movement to remain loyal to our commitment to the Christ Quantum.
He wants the Jesus Movement to be united. The Hebrew word that he would have used was echad (one-ness). The Greek word was koinonia (community). In English, it is solidarity. All are one in Christ Jesus. The Jesus Movement should bring people together, not alienate them. It is an inclusive, not exclusive Reality. It’s Catholistic!!!
Indeed, one of the key ideas in St Paul’s thought is that there still exist what he calls the “Powers and the Principalities” , viz., the System, the Worldview, the conventional wisdom, the way “they” (whoever they are) all behave and think there is something wrong with you when you don’t go along the crowd. St Paul understood then, as well as now, that one person was powerless against the system. There is strength in numbers. As Margaret Mead said in the twentieth century, “Never doubt that small groups of people can change the world. Indeed, they are the only ones who ever do!”
Something bolsters people when they share a common vision. We sense that we are not alone. Others see reality differently as I do. We do not have to go along with the crowd.
Sadly, many of us live very individualistic lives. We think of themselves as the center of reality and as a result, lead what can be isolated, delusional, sad lives. When I am the sole arbiter of reality, I am headed for trouble. Many sadly find themselves in such a dilemma.
Others find their meaning in a group, whether it is one’s ethnicity, nation, religion. We have a group identity, but unless a group acknowledges that the Holy Longing for Transcendence is bigger than group identity, the group will not survive well. Ethnocentrism. chauvinism, racism, religious intolerance make for dead-ends.
St Paul understood that there is something bigger than group identity. After all, not everyone belongs to your group. He felt that the Jesus Movement within Judaism was pointing to the Big Picture. All were included in God’s plan; all, the apple of God’s eye; in Christ, there was no Jew or gentile, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus! St Paul would join us around here, “God bless the whole world -- no exceptions”.
It was the role of the Jesus Movement within Judaism that Israel would be a light to all nations. St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians was probably addressed to a group of about 200 people from a very eclectic background. Not many were rich (so some were); not many were well-born (so some were) not many were well educated (so some were.) God knows, they were far from being 10’s in anything, but God, the Father of Christ Jesus, and St Paul loved them.
St Paul tells us that Jesus was not ambivalent. He was not yes one day and no the next day. “Christ Jesus is God’s YES to the promise that God makes us.” Just as the prophet, Second Isaiah sensed, God is always making all things now. Nation-states come and go; systems and institutions come and go; the way things have always been come and go; you will come and go. As the Apostle to the Gentiles tells us in another place, “Jesus Christ is the Same yesterday, today and tomorrow.” Trust God’s YES!!!! 021912AD jfq
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Reflection Feb 12, 2012AD
What Are We All About?
Religion, in Jesus’ time, provided Jewish people with a necessary means to maintain themselves in a pluralistic world. The big identity markers for Jewish folks were the Torah, the Temple, the Territory (of Israel), the Table fellowship of a Kosher diet, the sacred Time (of the Sabbath), the clear identity of those whom one might Touch (Jew vs ritually unclean or Gentile). All this provided a sense of community through which Jewish people were able to survive in a frequently hostile world.
However, mature adults (children cannot do this) need to learn to what the identity markers of their religion are pointing. As a mature adult Jew, Jesus came to see that religion existed for people and that people do not exist for religion. He even said so, The Sabbath was made for the son of man, viz., everyone; not the other way around. Jesus proclaims a universal, wholistic, catholic, holy view of life. Everything is connected to everything else, as quantum thinkers tell us. Jesus says, “Now they might be getting it better”). And, as St Paul tells us in our 2nd reading, we are to be imitators of Paul, as he was an imitator of Christ.
In the Gospel today, Jesus heals the leper, who was ritually unclean and not permitted to have ordinary dealings with others. (Fear of contagion had much to do with this restriction.)
However, Jesus Himself touched the leper. As a result, Jesus ended up ritually impure Himself by the touching. As a result, Jesus was unable to enter the towns and villages either, until a determined time of isolation had elapsed. Jesus, therefore, violated the taboos of His time in His act of healing and solidarity with the leper. Jesus was inconvenienced and disabled by His own mercy. This was why He could not enter the town. Jesus was a mature Jew, but unclean!!
Despite the fact that Jesus was a practicing Jew, He had no qualms of violating religious taboos out of compassion for others. He practiced His own teaching that people in healthy relationship are central to God, not just group identity markers.
Pope John Paul spoke frequently of the need for us to be champions of life and spokespersons for the silent helpless in our midst. He reminded us that when we forget about people (for whatever reason), we will soon forget about God. He told us that whether we care to admit it or not, we are all family and in response to Cain’s question, “Yes, we are our brother’s and sister’s keepers”. We worship the God of Life through life-givers and through ritual.
A primitive, yet real, impulse among people is to scapegoat others when they are not like us. In our own world, we frequently blame the poor for their own poverty without challenging the system into which all, poor and rich, were born. For some, to question the system is subversive. Such words and actions of Jesus about the Kingdom of God made Him subversive as well in the minds of many in church and state then.
On Super Bowl Sunday, a minister published “Does Jesus Care Who Wins the Superbowl”. He said it was about Jesus’ Game Plan for the Big Game. He wrote, “Jesus really doesn’t care who wins the big game. But Jesus does care about how the game is played…In all our places, in all our games, Christians are to play like Christians – win or lose.” Quoting Jesus’ own Words in St Luke’s Gospel, Jesus shows us how He (and we in Him) are to play the game of life. 1) He brings the good news to the poor. (Everyday we have the chance to meet the poor in this world’s goods or in their self-image.) 2) He seeks the release of those bound in captivity. (Everyday, we meet people who are bound by habits, prejudice, guilt or despair.) 3) He offers new vision to those who are living blind. (Everyday, we meet the physically blind and those who just don’t see the Transcendence of their (and everyone else’s ) life. 4) He gives freedom to those who are oppressed. (Everyday, we meet people who are used and misused and marginalized and forgotten.) All provide opportunities for us to play the Big Game as Jesus plays it. (Maybe, Te-bowing can refer to our submission in prayer, shown in how we treat our neighbor and our wider community.) Think about it yourself and tell the kids.
This value has to be operative not only personally, but culturally. According to Pope John Paul’s Gospel of Life, 1) God wants us to be mindful of the silent and helpless. 2) God wants us to be the voice of the silent and helpless. 3) God loves and wants us to love the ones rejected or burdens to society. God loves lepers. God loves the unborn, the very sick, the very poor, the very forgotten, the very elderly. God wants us to do the same in thought and actions.
Dorothy Day tried to balance the tension of longing for transcendence with the drive “to make the world a place easier for people to be good.” She tried to live her life, with God’s Help, in conformity to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus reminds us in the Beatitudes that the person who, with God’s Help, acknowledges God (not the false god, EGO (Easing God Out) as the Center of Reality, is moving in the right direction. She understood that we have all been blessed with many gifts by God in our lives. However, she realized that one’s life was not about oneself, but rather about one’s place in God’s plan for reality. She knew that she had to use her gifts in service to others to acknowledge God as her Center.
Today, Jesus’ solidarity with the marginalized leper seems to us like a kind action; it was a cultural bombshell. As Pope Benedict said, God is Love, “the Church (viz., the Jesus Movement in Armonk) cannot not love.” How do we read it? Think about it and show the kids. 021212AD jfq
Religion, in Jesus’ time, provided Jewish people with a necessary means to maintain themselves in a pluralistic world. The big identity markers for Jewish folks were the Torah, the Temple, the Territory (of Israel), the Table fellowship of a Kosher diet, the sacred Time (of the Sabbath), the clear identity of those whom one might Touch (Jew vs ritually unclean or Gentile). All this provided a sense of community through which Jewish people were able to survive in a frequently hostile world.
However, mature adults (children cannot do this) need to learn to what the identity markers of their religion are pointing. As a mature adult Jew, Jesus came to see that religion existed for people and that people do not exist for religion. He even said so, The Sabbath was made for the son of man, viz., everyone; not the other way around. Jesus proclaims a universal, wholistic, catholic, holy view of life. Everything is connected to everything else, as quantum thinkers tell us. Jesus says, “Now they might be getting it better”). And, as St Paul tells us in our 2nd reading, we are to be imitators of Paul, as he was an imitator of Christ.
In the Gospel today, Jesus heals the leper, who was ritually unclean and not permitted to have ordinary dealings with others. (Fear of contagion had much to do with this restriction.)
However, Jesus Himself touched the leper. As a result, Jesus ended up ritually impure Himself by the touching. As a result, Jesus was unable to enter the towns and villages either, until a determined time of isolation had elapsed. Jesus, therefore, violated the taboos of His time in His act of healing and solidarity with the leper. Jesus was inconvenienced and disabled by His own mercy. This was why He could not enter the town. Jesus was a mature Jew, but unclean!!
Despite the fact that Jesus was a practicing Jew, He had no qualms of violating religious taboos out of compassion for others. He practiced His own teaching that people in healthy relationship are central to God, not just group identity markers.
Pope John Paul spoke frequently of the need for us to be champions of life and spokespersons for the silent helpless in our midst. He reminded us that when we forget about people (for whatever reason), we will soon forget about God. He told us that whether we care to admit it or not, we are all family and in response to Cain’s question, “Yes, we are our brother’s and sister’s keepers”. We worship the God of Life through life-givers and through ritual.
A primitive, yet real, impulse among people is to scapegoat others when they are not like us. In our own world, we frequently blame the poor for their own poverty without challenging the system into which all, poor and rich, were born. For some, to question the system is subversive. Such words and actions of Jesus about the Kingdom of God made Him subversive as well in the minds of many in church and state then.
On Super Bowl Sunday, a minister published “Does Jesus Care Who Wins the Superbowl”. He said it was about Jesus’ Game Plan for the Big Game. He wrote, “Jesus really doesn’t care who wins the big game. But Jesus does care about how the game is played…In all our places, in all our games, Christians are to play like Christians – win or lose.” Quoting Jesus’ own Words in St Luke’s Gospel, Jesus shows us how He (and we in Him) are to play the game of life. 1) He brings the good news to the poor. (Everyday we have the chance to meet the poor in this world’s goods or in their self-image.) 2) He seeks the release of those bound in captivity. (Everyday, we meet people who are bound by habits, prejudice, guilt or despair.) 3) He offers new vision to those who are living blind. (Everyday, we meet the physically blind and those who just don’t see the Transcendence of their (and everyone else’s ) life. 4) He gives freedom to those who are oppressed. (Everyday, we meet people who are used and misused and marginalized and forgotten.) All provide opportunities for us to play the Big Game as Jesus plays it. (Maybe, Te-bowing can refer to our submission in prayer, shown in how we treat our neighbor and our wider community.) Think about it yourself and tell the kids.
This value has to be operative not only personally, but culturally. According to Pope John Paul’s Gospel of Life, 1) God wants us to be mindful of the silent and helpless. 2) God wants us to be the voice of the silent and helpless. 3) God loves and wants us to love the ones rejected or burdens to society. God loves lepers. God loves the unborn, the very sick, the very poor, the very forgotten, the very elderly. God wants us to do the same in thought and actions.
Dorothy Day tried to balance the tension of longing for transcendence with the drive “to make the world a place easier for people to be good.” She tried to live her life, with God’s Help, in conformity to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus reminds us in the Beatitudes that the person who, with God’s Help, acknowledges God (not the false god, EGO (Easing God Out) as the Center of Reality, is moving in the right direction. She understood that we have all been blessed with many gifts by God in our lives. However, she realized that one’s life was not about oneself, but rather about one’s place in God’s plan for reality. She knew that she had to use her gifts in service to others to acknowledge God as her Center.
Today, Jesus’ solidarity with the marginalized leper seems to us like a kind action; it was a cultural bombshell. As Pope Benedict said, God is Love, “the Church (viz., the Jesus Movement in Armonk) cannot not love.” How do we read it? Think about it and show the kids. 021212AD jfq
Friday, February 3, 2012
Reflection, February 5, 2012AD
Again, Jesus Was Ahead of His Time!
It is becoming clearer that most of the world’s major religions strive for a common vision. The Dalai Lama and others have called “a Global Ethic”, viz., what things most human persons -- and religions – can take as common ground for living in the Third Millenium. Jesus has been trying to teach us this for the past 2000 years. If the Jewish Messiah is, indeed, the universal Savior, then, His Message is for all.
As Canadian sociologist, Marshall McLuhan, put it in 1967, the “Medium is the Message.” Jesus said the same thing 2000 years in memorable words as well, “I am the Way (Medium) and the Truth and the Life (Message).
It stands to reason that when we see Jesus in action, we see the type of behavior that God expects of us all. In these early sections of St Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus moving quickly (the Greek word for “quickly” appears about 7 times in the first two chapter of the Gospel of St Mark.)
We can deduce certain things about human behavior when we see the Archetypal Human One (a legitimate translation of the more familiar Son of Man.) Today, we see two outstanding characteristics of Jesus’ modus operandi. He is a man of action for the less fortunate and a man of contemplation to maintain right relationships in God with all.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is busy trying to help people cope with the sufferings of their lives, whether through physical pain or demonic possession (psychological addition??) First, it is the sick with various diseases and those possessed of demons, that Jesus heals. He is a Do-er!!
(One of those sick is the first Pope’s mother-in-law. We know that St Peter was married not only because he had a mother-in-law, but that over 25 years later, St Paul refers to St Peter’s wife in a little quoted line from 1 Cor 9. 5. “Do we (Barnabas and Paul) not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas, (the Aramaic word for Peter?) In addition, St Mark uses a biblically charged word “lifted up” which is later going to be used as a buzzword for Resurrection and after she gets up, she waits on them, another biblically charged word for Christian ministry.)
Still, like us in all things but sin, Jesus’ busy days could have stressed Him out. He, like all of us, needed to recharge His battery. This he does, we hear by rising very early before dawn, he went off to a deserted place, where He prayed.
Theologian John Crossan tells us that we can use the image of a laptop getting a recharge from a wall outlet to understand what is happening when we pray. We are the laptops. We get our charge, the Holy Spirit, when we engage in prayer time, plugging into the wall outlet, God’s providing the Juice of the Holy Spirit. (Think about it. It is a variation of the Vine and the Branches metaphor in John 15.)
When Jesus went to charge His Laptop, chances are that He took no biblical scrolls with Him (although He could have). He certainly like many Jews of His time knew some biblical quotes, particularly from the Psalms. Many years ago, Catholics were urged to learn a few of the biblical Psalms that spoke to them. Around here, many parishioners know Psalm 23, Psalm 95, Psalm 117, and Psalm 130. Jesus probably knew them as well and they were part of His prayer repertoire. Also, the Abba Prayer (aka the Our Father) is known to most of us and contains a ready source of prayer and contemplation at any time when we can slow down in silence and surrender in peace to the Divine Presence. In addition, many know such prayers as the Prayer of St Francis and the Prayer of St Francis and other Catholic devotional prayers.
However, chances really are real that before or after He had recited His Psalms, Jesus practiced contemplation. This is the practice of slowing down, in silence and in solitude and listening to the Silence. As the Dalai Lama suggests, this is a given in most major religions. There is something universally human about it and it stands to reason that the Archetypal Human One would be a contemplative.
Still, there is a balance. Jesus spent much of days as the champion of the helpless who came His way. Then, He maintained Himself by hours of prayer. Those who know anything about the Gospels can not say that Jesus did not care about the sick, the poor and the marginalized and that He was not a Person of Contemplative Prayer.
That is the way He wants all of us to be, not just Catholics, but all of us. In our Western Catholic tradition, we are recovering the call to contemplation for all people, not just Catholics. The “contemplative” is etymologically composed of two words con – with or within and temple (where God dwells or resides). (It is a reminder of the Catholic belief in the Divine Indwelling, that God live in us now and we live in God now, and the Deep Incarnation, the Creator of the universe in love is united with the creation, even me, even you, even the ones we don’t like!)
St Peter was more on target than he knew when He told Jesus, “Everyone is looking for You.” Just as Jesus is the Archetypal Human One, then we all want to be truly human. We are looking for Jesus, even when we don’t realize that we are.
Either way you look at Him, Jesus was a contemplative activist or an activist contemplative. Following the urging of the Dalai Lama, contemplation and compassion are calls to all human persons. As Jesus said to the lawyer in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, may we all “go and do likewise”. 020512AD jfq
It is becoming clearer that most of the world’s major religions strive for a common vision. The Dalai Lama and others have called “a Global Ethic”, viz., what things most human persons -- and religions – can take as common ground for living in the Third Millenium. Jesus has been trying to teach us this for the past 2000 years. If the Jewish Messiah is, indeed, the universal Savior, then, His Message is for all.
As Canadian sociologist, Marshall McLuhan, put it in 1967, the “Medium is the Message.” Jesus said the same thing 2000 years in memorable words as well, “I am the Way (Medium) and the Truth and the Life (Message).
It stands to reason that when we see Jesus in action, we see the type of behavior that God expects of us all. In these early sections of St Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus moving quickly (the Greek word for “quickly” appears about 7 times in the first two chapter of the Gospel of St Mark.)
We can deduce certain things about human behavior when we see the Archetypal Human One (a legitimate translation of the more familiar Son of Man.) Today, we see two outstanding characteristics of Jesus’ modus operandi. He is a man of action for the less fortunate and a man of contemplation to maintain right relationships in God with all.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is busy trying to help people cope with the sufferings of their lives, whether through physical pain or demonic possession (psychological addition??) First, it is the sick with various diseases and those possessed of demons, that Jesus heals. He is a Do-er!!
(One of those sick is the first Pope’s mother-in-law. We know that St Peter was married not only because he had a mother-in-law, but that over 25 years later, St Paul refers to St Peter’s wife in a little quoted line from 1 Cor 9. 5. “Do we (Barnabas and Paul) not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas, (the Aramaic word for Peter?) In addition, St Mark uses a biblically charged word “lifted up” which is later going to be used as a buzzword for Resurrection and after she gets up, she waits on them, another biblically charged word for Christian ministry.)
Still, like us in all things but sin, Jesus’ busy days could have stressed Him out. He, like all of us, needed to recharge His battery. This he does, we hear by rising very early before dawn, he went off to a deserted place, where He prayed.
Theologian John Crossan tells us that we can use the image of a laptop getting a recharge from a wall outlet to understand what is happening when we pray. We are the laptops. We get our charge, the Holy Spirit, when we engage in prayer time, plugging into the wall outlet, God’s providing the Juice of the Holy Spirit. (Think about it. It is a variation of the Vine and the Branches metaphor in John 15.)
When Jesus went to charge His Laptop, chances are that He took no biblical scrolls with Him (although He could have). He certainly like many Jews of His time knew some biblical quotes, particularly from the Psalms. Many years ago, Catholics were urged to learn a few of the biblical Psalms that spoke to them. Around here, many parishioners know Psalm 23, Psalm 95, Psalm 117, and Psalm 130. Jesus probably knew them as well and they were part of His prayer repertoire. Also, the Abba Prayer (aka the Our Father) is known to most of us and contains a ready source of prayer and contemplation at any time when we can slow down in silence and surrender in peace to the Divine Presence. In addition, many know such prayers as the Prayer of St Francis and the Prayer of St Francis and other Catholic devotional prayers.
However, chances really are real that before or after He had recited His Psalms, Jesus practiced contemplation. This is the practice of slowing down, in silence and in solitude and listening to the Silence. As the Dalai Lama suggests, this is a given in most major religions. There is something universally human about it and it stands to reason that the Archetypal Human One would be a contemplative.
Still, there is a balance. Jesus spent much of days as the champion of the helpless who came His way. Then, He maintained Himself by hours of prayer. Those who know anything about the Gospels can not say that Jesus did not care about the sick, the poor and the marginalized and that He was not a Person of Contemplative Prayer.
That is the way He wants all of us to be, not just Catholics, but all of us. In our Western Catholic tradition, we are recovering the call to contemplation for all people, not just Catholics. The “contemplative” is etymologically composed of two words con – with or within and temple (where God dwells or resides). (It is a reminder of the Catholic belief in the Divine Indwelling, that God live in us now and we live in God now, and the Deep Incarnation, the Creator of the universe in love is united with the creation, even me, even you, even the ones we don’t like!)
St Peter was more on target than he knew when He told Jesus, “Everyone is looking for You.” Just as Jesus is the Archetypal Human One, then we all want to be truly human. We are looking for Jesus, even when we don’t realize that we are.
Either way you look at Him, Jesus was a contemplative activist or an activist contemplative. Following the urging of the Dalai Lama, contemplation and compassion are calls to all human persons. As Jesus said to the lawyer in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, may we all “go and do likewise”. 020512AD jfq
Reflection, January 29, 2012AD
One Never Know, Do One?
There are many churches in our Catholic world dedicated to Christ the King and Christ the Good Shepherd. However, nobody has located a Church named, Christ the Prophet. What’s up with that?
In today’s first reading, Moses speaks of “a prophet like himself Whom God will raise in the future.” (The Book of Deuteronomy, whence the reading, was probably written around 622BC.)
The word “prophet” needs explanation. The biblical word is “nabi”. It has a wide sense of meanings. Unfortunately in modern American parlance, frequently, the word is associated with predicting the future, what is yet to come.
In the biblical context, the word “nabi” refers to the NOW, the present moment. The word might be related to the view from standing on a hill looking down on a situation below. In this context, it means seeing human reality from God’s perspective. If anybody named reality from God’s slant, it would have been Moses. He says, in today’s reading,in the future, one like him will arise.
The nabi names reality from God’s vantage point. As we know from experience, the description of a landscape is different when one is on level ground and when one is looking down from above. (Interestingly, it was said that when the Eiffel Tower was opened in Paris, in the 19th century, Parisians for the first time really saw themselves as citizens of a metropolis, rather than residents in an arrondissement (neighborhood).)
Jesus did not Self-identify deliberately as the Prophet of whom Moses spoke, He spoke of them. “No prophet is without honor except in his native place”. In St Luke’s account of the same vignetteJesus speaks of the prophets Elijah and Elisha who experienced rejection just as Jesus had, when He was rejected in His home town. (Mk 6.4) In St Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus raised the widow son of Nain, the reaction of the crowd was “A great prophet has arisen among us and God has visited the people.” In John’s Gospel, they asked Jesus, ‘Are you the Prophet, who is to come?” (John 1.21) The Primitive Christian Community, however, did use the term “prophet” to describe Jesus in their outreach to the Jewish world.
The first generations of the Jesus Movement believed that Jesus was, indeed, the Prophet of Whom Moses spoke. In St Peter’s Second Inaugural Address, on the afternoon of Pentecost Sunday, the future Bishop of Rome said, “Moses said, “the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from your own brethren as God raised me up. You shall listen to Him whatever He tells you.”
When we recall the world in which Jesus lived, the Big Lie spoke of the Pax Romana, viz., that the world was at peace. Still, Palestine then was a fascist, violent, repressive state. In the midst of that world, Jesus summarized His program in the world with the slogan, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent & believe this Good News.”
If the slogan is broken down into components, Kingdom of God emphasizing Kingdom is a political statement; Kingdom of God emphasizing God is a religious statement. Repent can signify turn around or snap out of it; Good News means something radically different. (Radical in the sense of getting back to the roots, viz., what God intended all along, but what we tamper with (in the archetypal story of the Fall of Adam and Eve.)
Jesus spoke truth to power. It was not for nothing that the inscription over His Head on the cross said, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”. Nor was the crown of thorns a mistake. The powers that be got Jesus’ Message loud and clear. Apparently, someone in the System read between the lines. Jesus program on non-violent active engagement with the system was a threat that some were taking seriously, but it represented a threat that could not go unchallenged.
As Pope John Paul put it, “the Age of Martyrs continues on in our own time.” In the twentieth century, many died for their belief in a message that ultimately is traced back Jesus’ agenda. We think of Mohandas Gandhi whose murder-martyrdom we commemorate this weekend. We know how imbued he was in the Gospel message of Jesus. We think of Rev Martin Luther King whose birthday we celebrated two weeks ago. (Funny how the media played him down this year!) We think of the martyrs of El Salvador, the Maryknoll Martyrs, Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit Martyrs, and many others. Today around the world, people still take difficult non-violent stands for the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
Today, Jesus cures a leper. In His compassionate solidarity, Jesus incurs the ritual impurity of the religious system by His touching the leper. That was a NoNo! When it came to humanization of the victims of the world, Jesus did not worry about conventions. People came first. However, His miracles were meant to be an audio-visual to back up the Gospel of the Kingdom. The message of the Prophet was what got Him crucified, not the good deeds He did to bolster His Gospel.
God indeed, did raise up a prophet like Moses. It was up to folks then and folks now (That’s us!!) to take Jesus’ program seriously. In the process the System will change, sooner for you, if you trust Jesus. It is not about the Bottom Line as the System cons us into thinking; rather it is the Common Good.
Prophets speak out about the invisible pathologies in the System. Today, such pathologies include the following: 1) our attitude to energy; 2) our attitude to the environment; 3) our attitude to economic justice; 4) our attitude to personal ethics. In the recent popular novel, The Kiteflyer, the prophet said, The Golden Rule was basically the 7th commandment, q.v. “Thou shalt not steal”. Paraphrasing the fictional prophet, “If we could get everyone (individuals, “corporate persons” (if they do really exist) and systemic structures (even nations) to abide by the Golden Rule, viz., “Do unto others as you would them do unto you,” it would be a great start. (Don’t boo that one!!). As a modern day prophet in Christ Jesus, Pope John Paul said, “There are no moral freezones. All stand under the scrutiny of the Gospel.”
What prophets in Christ say today echo the message of the Prophet alluded to by Moses. We usually have other names for our Prophet. Still, whatever you call Jesus, His prophetic challenge in His slogan, “The Kingdom of God has drawn near” challenges us here and now, whether we and our children take Him seriously as we try to construct better human communities reflecting the non-violent active engagement with whatever systemic evils threaten God’s children. Are we honest and savvy enough to reflect on what is what God really wants and what is merely spin? 012912AD jfq
There are many churches in our Catholic world dedicated to Christ the King and Christ the Good Shepherd. However, nobody has located a Church named, Christ the Prophet. What’s up with that?
In today’s first reading, Moses speaks of “a prophet like himself Whom God will raise in the future.” (The Book of Deuteronomy, whence the reading, was probably written around 622BC.)
The word “prophet” needs explanation. The biblical word is “nabi”. It has a wide sense of meanings. Unfortunately in modern American parlance, frequently, the word is associated with predicting the future, what is yet to come.
In the biblical context, the word “nabi” refers to the NOW, the present moment. The word might be related to the view from standing on a hill looking down on a situation below. In this context, it means seeing human reality from God’s perspective. If anybody named reality from God’s slant, it would have been Moses. He says, in today’s reading,in the future, one like him will arise.
The nabi names reality from God’s vantage point. As we know from experience, the description of a landscape is different when one is on level ground and when one is looking down from above. (Interestingly, it was said that when the Eiffel Tower was opened in Paris, in the 19th century, Parisians for the first time really saw themselves as citizens of a metropolis, rather than residents in an arrondissement (neighborhood).)
Jesus did not Self-identify deliberately as the Prophet of whom Moses spoke, He spoke of them. “No prophet is without honor except in his native place”. In St Luke’s account of the same vignetteJesus speaks of the prophets Elijah and Elisha who experienced rejection just as Jesus had, when He was rejected in His home town. (Mk 6.4) In St Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus raised the widow son of Nain, the reaction of the crowd was “A great prophet has arisen among us and God has visited the people.” In John’s Gospel, they asked Jesus, ‘Are you the Prophet, who is to come?” (John 1.21) The Primitive Christian Community, however, did use the term “prophet” to describe Jesus in their outreach to the Jewish world.
The first generations of the Jesus Movement believed that Jesus was, indeed, the Prophet of Whom Moses spoke. In St Peter’s Second Inaugural Address, on the afternoon of Pentecost Sunday, the future Bishop of Rome said, “Moses said, “the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from your own brethren as God raised me up. You shall listen to Him whatever He tells you.”
When we recall the world in which Jesus lived, the Big Lie spoke of the Pax Romana, viz., that the world was at peace. Still, Palestine then was a fascist, violent, repressive state. In the midst of that world, Jesus summarized His program in the world with the slogan, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent & believe this Good News.”
If the slogan is broken down into components, Kingdom of God emphasizing Kingdom is a political statement; Kingdom of God emphasizing God is a religious statement. Repent can signify turn around or snap out of it; Good News means something radically different. (Radical in the sense of getting back to the roots, viz., what God intended all along, but what we tamper with (in the archetypal story of the Fall of Adam and Eve.)
Jesus spoke truth to power. It was not for nothing that the inscription over His Head on the cross said, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”. Nor was the crown of thorns a mistake. The powers that be got Jesus’ Message loud and clear. Apparently, someone in the System read between the lines. Jesus program on non-violent active engagement with the system was a threat that some were taking seriously, but it represented a threat that could not go unchallenged.
As Pope John Paul put it, “the Age of Martyrs continues on in our own time.” In the twentieth century, many died for their belief in a message that ultimately is traced back Jesus’ agenda. We think of Mohandas Gandhi whose murder-martyrdom we commemorate this weekend. We know how imbued he was in the Gospel message of Jesus. We think of Rev Martin Luther King whose birthday we celebrated two weeks ago. (Funny how the media played him down this year!) We think of the martyrs of El Salvador, the Maryknoll Martyrs, Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit Martyrs, and many others. Today around the world, people still take difficult non-violent stands for the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
Today, Jesus cures a leper. In His compassionate solidarity, Jesus incurs the ritual impurity of the religious system by His touching the leper. That was a NoNo! When it came to humanization of the victims of the world, Jesus did not worry about conventions. People came first. However, His miracles were meant to be an audio-visual to back up the Gospel of the Kingdom. The message of the Prophet was what got Him crucified, not the good deeds He did to bolster His Gospel.
God indeed, did raise up a prophet like Moses. It was up to folks then and folks now (That’s us!!) to take Jesus’ program seriously. In the process the System will change, sooner for you, if you trust Jesus. It is not about the Bottom Line as the System cons us into thinking; rather it is the Common Good.
Prophets speak out about the invisible pathologies in the System. Today, such pathologies include the following: 1) our attitude to energy; 2) our attitude to the environment; 3) our attitude to economic justice; 4) our attitude to personal ethics. In the recent popular novel, The Kiteflyer, the prophet said, The Golden Rule was basically the 7th commandment, q.v. “Thou shalt not steal”. Paraphrasing the fictional prophet, “If we could get everyone (individuals, “corporate persons” (if they do really exist) and systemic structures (even nations) to abide by the Golden Rule, viz., “Do unto others as you would them do unto you,” it would be a great start. (Don’t boo that one!!). As a modern day prophet in Christ Jesus, Pope John Paul said, “There are no moral freezones. All stand under the scrutiny of the Gospel.”
What prophets in Christ say today echo the message of the Prophet alluded to by Moses. We usually have other names for our Prophet. Still, whatever you call Jesus, His prophetic challenge in His slogan, “The Kingdom of God has drawn near” challenges us here and now, whether we and our children take Him seriously as we try to construct better human communities reflecting the non-violent active engagement with whatever systemic evils threaten God’s children. Are we honest and savvy enough to reflect on what is what God really wants and what is merely spin? 012912AD jfq
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
