30 June 2021 - this little piggy

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The demons pleaded with him,

“If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.”

When demons are driven out it may upset our circumstances. In particular, insofar as our circumstances consist of structures based on unclean practices or corrupt ideologies, these circumstances may not survive. As the town's livelihood was threatened so too could be our own. If we were making money from sin, or even by looking the other way in the face of sin, anything from systemic racism to abortion, such things can no longer stand when the demons flee.

And he said to them, “Go then!”

They came out and entered the swine,

and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea

where they drowned.

It is better to be rid of the demons than to cling to the raising of pigs. But even today, though less than during Gospel times, it isn't easy to simply shift careers if our old one is no longer an option. Yet this is the depth of the reality of the change that Jesus works in us. If that idea is a bit intimidating even to us who, if push came to shove, would hopefully remain faithful, it is no wonder the world seems nervous when it's see Jesus setting captives free. Most of us were complicit in some works of darkness until Jesus freed us from them. And it was by the hooks of our complicity that the world controlled and manipulated us, keeping us in conformity, preventing us from making things better in ourselves and society.

Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus,

and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.

We discover a situation in which the reality of Jesus is uncontestable, but where it is not desired because the status quo seems easier, preferable to the frightening newness to which Jesus invites us. But we don't need to cling to pigs, nor to anything else unclean. We cannot do so without smelling like them, without becoming unclean ourselves, no matter what we tell ourselves about it being harmless. We can't tarry with sin once freedom has been given. Those around us may try to drive Jesus away, but if he goes, let us follow him.

Sometimes we need to focus on God's plan for us, understanding that God is big enough to take care of others for whom he has a different plan. This is how we can have the freedom to follow him without being constrained by the illusion that we are personally responsible for his plan for everyone else.

“What is the matter, Hagar?

Don’t be afraid; God has heard the boy’s cry in this plight of his.

Arise, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand;

for I will make of him a great nation.”

God is big enough to care for Hagar and Ishmael even without our help. It is entirely plausible that our trying to usurp that responsibility from God could interfere with his master plan for us, for the child of the promise, and for them as well. On the other hand, we don't just break off relationships because they are inconvenient or difficult. But we are free to follow God's plan if we discern that it is leading us in a different direction. 

God was with the boy as he grew up.

Refiner's Fire

29 June 2021 - built on the foundation of the apostles

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

The right answer to this question can only come through faith. The world will attempt to answer it based on what has been seen before, comparing the person in question to past patterns. And while there was a real way in which Jesus was a new Moses and a new David he was more than these. The old patterns pointed toward but could not contain him. One could look at Jesus, see the similarities, but realize that Jesus was something greater. The question that a person should then ask oneself:

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Who do we say that Jesus is? It is not sufficient to see in him a person, a teacher, or a miracle worker. What we do see in him is someone so uniquely related to the Father that only the Father can tell us who he is.

Simon Peter said in reply,

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.

We might be inclined to wonder why Jesus would build a Church if every person must answer this question for herself.

And so I say to you, you are Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my Church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

Although the question of faith is one we ask, which God answers, it is also true that the answer is only to be found in the community where Christ is present to be known and experienced. The Church is in this sense the prime matter which God puts into act by his grace. And it is something more secure and reliable than a mere collection of raw materials that may or may not give evidence of an underlying order as circumstances dictate. Instead, the Spirit is present in and and safeguards the Church through the ages to ensure that we will have access to the truth and the sacramental power of Jesus himself. Because of this the question we ask can find a response, not in our subjective state, but in Jesus, present to us.

The Lord defends his Church. He does not necessarily spare us from every hardship we encounter, but instead he keeps the barque of Peter safe even amidst the worst of storms so that her continued survival has become itself a testimony to God's presence in her. God did not prevent Peter from being thrown in prison. But he did deliver him.

Then he said to him, “Put on your cloak and follow me.”

Paul experienced every sort of trial, but in the end this only strengthened his faith. He became convinced that there was no obstacle which God could not overcome, even death itself.

The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat

and will bring me safe to his heavenly Kingdom.

To him be glory forever and ever.  Amen.

It is the same for us. The Lord does not promise that we won't experience difficulties in this life. Quite the opposite, he assures us we will. But he promises that we will always have enough grace to not only survive, but to thrive, and to be victorious.

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (see First Corinthians 10:13).

What do Peter and Paul have to say to us today in our own age? They testify to the God who is faithful to his promises, whom they have known in the person of Jesus. They invite us to the same relationship with him that they had, the gift of our one Father in heaven.

POD featuring Matisyahu - Strength Of My Life

28 June 2021 - counting the cost

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,

but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”

"This was not to send him away, but rather to convict him of evil intentions; at the same time permitting him if he would to follow Christ with the expectation of poverty."

- Saint John Chrysostom.

Jesus refused to misrepresent himself and wanted his would-be disciples to know what the decision to follow him would mean. Many people were hoping that Jesus would lead them to a place of earthly wealth and security such that they would find there a place to rest. This was the case for the rulers of this world. After all, Jesus had called King Herod a fox (see Luke 13:32). This Scribe could not, then, look forward to the palace of an earthly kingdom. Neither would Jesus find welcome in the religious establishment. It was true that "the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young" (see Psalm 84:3) at the altars of the Lord, but Jesus was not welcomed at the altars of the temple by the religious leaders of his time. This scribe would need to evaluate his reasons for following Jesus, to count the cost (see Luke 12:25-33). If he set out with his heart set on the wrong sort of rewards he would not be likely to continue when he did not receive them. On the other hand, the scribe didn't need to have the true end of the kingdom of God perfectly conceptualized as his objective. He just needed to be willing to follow Jesus, knowing that the sorts of rewards that used to motivate him would have to be surrendered along the way. The implicit promise was that there were better rewards for those who did so.

What of our hearts? Do we afford the Son of Man somewhere to lay his head?

"Otherwise; The Son of man hath not where to lay his head; that is, in your faith. The foxes have holes, in your heart, because you are deceitful. The birds of the air have nests, in your heart, because you are proud. Deceitful and proud follow Me not; for how should guile follow sincerity?"

- Saint Augustine

Jesus finds a place to lay his head in us and in our faith when are willing to follow him on his terms, motivated by the same love and zeal for God that motivated him. When we take up our crosses, like Simon the Cyrene, we do give Jesus a place to rest in us, as we cease to fight back against the healing he desires to bring.

Another of his disciples said to him,

“Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”

But Jesus answered him, “Follow me,

and let the dead bury their dead.”

Jesus wants us to understand that nothing can take precedent over him, even the otherwise essential obligations to family. This is an allegiance only Jesus can claim. Even Elijah permitted Elisha to go and say farewell to his family (see First Kings 19:19-21), but there was one greater than Elijah here. Now that the Kingdom was so close at hand at had an urgency too great to let anything else interfere. We must love Jesus more than father and mother, brother and sister, if we want to love them well. If we put family over and above Jesus we can only do so by having something less than their greatest good in view. We may, for instance, try to tone done the extreme nature of the Gospel in order to make it comfortable and convenient so that the family lifestyle can continue as ever. But to do is to act as if the life of the family as we find it imperfectly instantiated on earth is the greatest good. It is not. It looks forward to a completion it can only find as part of the family of God, with each individual member loving the others as Christ by the power of the Spirit given to them all.

Jesus wants his disciples (that is, us) to be trained in mercy. He does not desire that we simply care for our own and call down fire on the rest (see Luke 9:54). Rather, he desires us to plead for the cities and nations in which we live, even though they have strayed far from their Christian heritage. Why hasn't America already been destroyed for crimes such as abortion? It can only be because people of faith are pleading with God for our nation. It must be that he found at least a few righteous for whose sake he continues to have mercy on all. Still, mercy is meant to give us the opportunity to get our acts together, to give our nation time to change. Let us continue to plead for that mercy and work for that change.

Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (see Second Peter 3:9)

David Ruis - I Will Worship

Chris Tomlin - I Will Follow

27 June 2021 - death meddled

Today's Readings

(Audio)

God did not make death,

    nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.

The tendency some of us have is to try to make our peace with death too quickly. We try to immediately embrace Sister Death as did Saint Francis. But in doing so we minimize the wrongness and the bitterness of death. We become less sympathetic to others. To simply ignore all of the negative aspects of death in this way is not the same as embracing death like Saint Francis. 

For God formed man to be imperishable;

    the image of his own nature he made him.

But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,

    and they who belong to his company experience it.

If we want to reach the point where we can have the genuine familiarity and fearlessness toward death as Francis we first need realize that this would be impossible without the way death has been transformed by Jesus. It is not the case the humans were meant to be just one more temporal and decaying aspect of the natural world. We were made to be imperishable. Death was a genuine evil, a victory of the devil over mankind. This is the reason for the pain, not only of sickness and old age, but especially of the separation of loved ones. We do ourselves no service when we simply pretend this was all meant to be. 

“My daughter is at the point of death.

Please, come lay your hands on her

that she may get well and live.”

Jesus did not tell the synagogue official that death was simply a part of nature that he should resign himself to accept. He went with him to heal his daughter. But curiously, he allowed himself to be interrupted. He could, we assume, have allowed the hemorrhaging woman to touch him, be healed, and then continue on his way without spending the time to address her. But he took the time.

Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him,

turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?”

Jesus stopped, not because he was indifferent, but rather because he wanted to give this woman a greater grace than mere healing, the grace of encountering him.

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.

Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

This delay in healing and making himself known to this woman was long enough that the synagogue official's daughter died during the period that he himself was forced to anxiously wait and watch. It must have been excruciating to watch a situation which to his mind must have been of much lower priority.  After all, if she waited twelve years could she not wait another? Could not his daughter be healed first, and then other matters be addressed? But Jesus intentionally chose to do things differently.

Disregarding the message that was reported,

Jesus said to the synagogue official,

“Do not be afraid; just have faith.”

It was only on this far side of the evil of death that the gift of new life could be rightly understood. Had Jesus simply healed the daughter that would have made one statement about his power over disease. But instead Jesus intentionally waited so that he could make a different statement about his power over death. Jesus did not allow the daughter's death because it was, as some argue, natural, or as Jairus may have feared, unimportant to Jesus. The point he wanted to make was that to him raising the dead is as simple as it is for us to wake someone from sleep.

“Why this commotion and weeping?

The child is not dead but asleep.”

And now, finally, we too can have this same attitude. It is an attitude we would not have known if Jesus had simply addressed the symptoms of death as quickly as they arose, if he simply cured sickness and disease without ever addressing the underlying issue. However great of a healer he may have been, it could only have been a temporary fix if death itself was still the inevitable conclusion. And while death is still the likely way we will meet our end if Jesus doesn't return in our lifetime it is not for us the end of the story. We too will hear the sacred words spoken to the child, "Talitha koum."

Moreover, there is a sense in which Jesus already spoke this to us in baptism, saying "little one, I say to you arise!"

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (see Romans 6:4).

Just as Jesus ordered that the little girl be given something to eat, so too does he order that we be given his own flesh and blood to give us strength. It is from the perspective of this new birth, with faith in his power over death already at work within us, that allows us to meet death as a beloved sister who does not destroy us, but brings us at last into the presence of God.

Jesus changed death from a dead end into a doorway to life by his willingness to take on and embrace our own suffering, including our experience of death. United to him by his love we can now pass through it just as he did, just as Israel once passed through the waters of the Red Sea. Yet we are not now immune to the sorrows of the world still afflicted by death. Rather, we bring to the world our deepest sympathy and most profound compassion. We enter with it into its sorrow so as to bring it through to the other side.

For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, 

so that by his poverty you might become rich.

There is no poverty greater than death without Christ. There are no riches worth more than new life in him. It may seem like we are insufficient to reveal this reality to others, but our abundance is meant to be their supply.

Whoever had much did not have more,

and whoever had little did not have less.

Matt Maher - Christ Is Risen

Matt Maher - Because He Lives

26 June 2021 - curb appeal

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The centurion said in reply,

“Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;

only say the word and my servant will be healed.

The centurion was correct in knowing that he was not worthy to receive Jesus into his home. But he didn't allow that fact to limit his belief in what Jesus would do. For ourselves, a sense of unworthiness usually makes us want to flee from the presence of Jesus and not ask him for anything. The centurion realized what we often fail to realize, that what Jesus is willing to do, what he desires to do, is not related to what we believe about what we deserve.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (see Romans 3:23-24).

It was as if the centurion thought, 'If the Lord had to make what I have to offer him the basis on which he would heal my servant then the healing I seek would be impossible. If the Lord's healing was dependent on the state of my house, it would be dependent on my weakness, and my servant would be lost.' But he didn't stop there. He went on to consider how his own authority over his soldiers was powerful even at a distance. He could compel them to come and go and to do what he asked regardless of the condition of those soldiers or how they felt about it before hearing his word of command. Until they heard him they may have felt like sleeping in or tending to their coin collection.  But the word of the centurion would, in a sense, empower them to do his will. Their house may have been unworthy, but the external word spoken put it back in order almost of itself. He knew, then, that Jesus too, far more than he, had a power that could not be confounded by his unworthiness, that was not dependent on finding a properly ordered house to function. He had found a power that surpassed even his own human weakness, weakness with which he was apparently very familiar. The authority of Jesus was such that it could not be confounded by the lack of worth on the part of the centurion, nor, for that matter, in ourselves.

And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (see Ephesians 2:8-9).

The faith of the centurion is what Jesus desires to find in our hearts as well. It is a faith that can handle a realistic self-knowledge of our own fallenness and sin but which at the same time reaches out in a sure hope that Jesus is greater than our weakness. Our faith lets us hold self-knowledge, but only in the light of the knowledge of the mercy and the love of God. Self-knowledge apart from the knowledge of God is a bitter, hopeless poison, and it is by such lies that the devil often succeeds in making us stay distant from God. Let us learn from the centurion, and from the words of the mass that he inspired, to trust that there is something that matters more than what we can bring to Jesus.

“You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.”

And at that very hour his servant was healed.

Jesus is not constrained by those things which are humanly possible or conceivable, nor by those things which we deserve, or for which we have sufficiently prepared. He does not need to merely cooperate with processes at work in nature, as, for instance would a merely human physician. He himself is the author of nature, the very word that holds nature itself in being. It is a simple matter for his power to heal us and make us whole.

He took away our infirmities 

and bore our diseases.

We, like Sarah, are often so overwhelmed by apparently unalterable natural realities that we are tempted to laugh when God suggests some new and unguessed possibility. But even though she couldn't help but laugh God did not abandon Sarah, but rather turned her cynicism into joy. He can do so for us as well.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

Rend Collective - More Than Conquerors

25 June 2021 - if you will it

Today's Readings

(Audio)

And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said,

“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”

Lord, do you really wish to cleanse me? If so, how can it be? It has been so long and I've suffered so much. Why not sooner? Yes, it appears that you have power to heal, that you do heal others, but surely I am somehow unique, someone undeserving of your love. Yes, I know that no one is deserving, yet there seem to be some who are favored, others not. Surely my past is the limit by which my future can be created. And yet I see your power moving in the world. I see the love in your eyes that excludes no one. I can tell that you know me through and through, that you knew me before you formed in in my mother's womb. You know what I have suffered, and have a profound sympathy for me. You are not indifferent to what I have experienced. And so maybe, just maybe, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”

Or so the leper may have thought. But the important thing is that he was able to enter this place of profound vulnerability before Jesus and to place everything in his hands. He stepped back from his own judgments and self-evaluations and entrusted himself to Jesus.

He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,

“I will do it. Be made clean.”

What was the mystery of the timing that caused this man to suffer so much before finding healing? Even a question such as that was one which he had to turn over to God. He did not insist on holding the past against God as proof of a lack of love. His willingness to trust was able to overcome even his ability to understand. Did he ever have a sense that it was good that he was wounded in order that Jesus might heal him? 

It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes (see Psalm 119:71).

Most of us who receive healing don't always have a sense of why the suffering we endured had value. Perhaps we have become more compassionate, sympathetic to others who suffer. More than that, perhaps it opened us to being touched at a deeper level than would have been otherwise possible because of how vulnerable we were. But understanding is less important than trust. Jesus can heal us, and desires to do so. We may feel unworthy or beyond his reach. But this is the first thing he will heal if we will only put our hearts and lives in his sacred hands.

His leprosy was cleansed immediately.

Why did Abraham have to wait so long for Isaac? God wanted it to be obvious that his blessings came through faith, not through natural means, or because of any deserving on our part. And so we too must sometimes wait. But the faithfulness of God will never fail us.

I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her.

Him also will I bless; he shall give rise to nations,

and rulers of peoples shall issue from him.

Vineyard Worship - I Surrender

24 June 2021 - free speech

Today's Readings

(Audio)

He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”

and all were amazed.

Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,

and he spoke blessing God.

Zechariah had received a promise from an angel, but he had doubted that promise, and been rendered unable to speak. This was, in a sense, the condition of all of Israel together with him as they awaited the Messiah. A promise had been given, but they did not all respond with the faith of Abraham. As more and more of the history of Israel was marked by a lack of fidelity in response to God, who was himself always faithful, the ability of Israel to speak a prophetic word or to offer right praise was eventually silenced. It was as though the very voice of God himself was muted because it could not find voices of faith to speak it. God, however, allowed this silence of the prophetic voice because it would cause those who sensed its absence to long for it more than ever, to finally be made willing to be open to it themselves and speak a faithful response, one which fully in agreement with the promise given.

Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,

and he spoke blessing God.

We lose the ability to say anything of value when we forget about God's promises and stop relying on them. By contrast, the more our own words line up with the word of God the more they will have meaning, value, and prophetic, even world-changing power.

“What, then, will this child be?”

For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.

John himself demonstrated what it would look like to put fidelity of response to God over and above our desire to say and do our own thing, or to follow our own plan.

‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he.

Behold, one is coming after me;

I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.’

Like John, we are meant to decrease. That is, all those aspects of ourselves rooted in the selfishness of the flesh and the unrenewed old self are meant to be brought to silence. This is so that our renewed self may increase, that we may live more in more the life of the Spirit, responsive to the presence of Jesus himself living within our spirits. 

Let us learn to become God-fearing, sons of the promise of Abraham, who so treasure this "word of salvation" that we are willing to turn down all other noise so that it may be heard, and then to shout it from the rooftops.

It might seem oppressive at first to be silenced, as though something intrinsic to ourselves were being sacrificed. But this is not the case. It is rather that a disease of disordered affection is being starved of life so that it cannot outcompete the new life with which the Divine Physician desires to infuse us. He is healing us unto what we were always meant to be.

The LORD called me from birth,

    from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.

He made of me a sharp-edged sword

    and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.

MercyMe - Word of God Speak

23 June 2021 - false prophets

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing,

but underneath are ravenous wolves.

We do not live in a world where we can listen to anyone who claims to be a prophet simply on the basis of their self-identification, or even because they project a prophetic image with all the associated accoutrements. What might their disguise of sheep's clothing look like? It could be religious garb, language, or educational background. It could be the way in which they insinuate themselves in our number, pretending to share our concerns at the level of speech. But none of this will ever reach their concrete actions.

By their fruits you will know them.

Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

Is this to say that every tired and grumpy priest is a wolf seeking to devour the flock? Thank God it does not mean that. Even priests and professionally religious people seldom bear only perfect fruit. But when they are grumpy or tired it is something which they try to endure without letting it do harm to the flock. Wolves, by contrast, stand to gain by harming the flock. This might be emotional harm as they build themselves up at the expense of others. It might be spiritual harm as they teach something other than the pure Gospel of Christ. It might even, God forbid, be physical harm. Jesus tells us that we ought to be able to recognize the bad fruit and the lack of good fruit before the wolves have an opportunity to do real damage. We just need to keep our eyes open.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,

nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.

What does this mean about us? Not every piece of our fruit would be easy to sell at a farmer's market. It must mean that we are still in between identities. The old self is still alive in us even though the our primary identity is now the gift of the renewed self given by Jesus (see Ephesians 4:24). We must lean into our new identity, believing what Jesus tells us is true, about ourselves, and the world, and acting accordingly. We must let him prune the branches that do not bear fruit and especially those that bear bad fruit. If we have presented ourselves to others as weeds with thorns and thistles then it may be time to go to confession so we can be fully reinstated into our identity as good trees bearing good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down

and thrown into the fire.

Jesus set up a situation for us in which we would not need to be strong enough to fight wolves, or perfect enough to bear only perfect fruit. He gave us the same principle of discernment to look for the genuine, unfalsifiable good in those who lead us, and in ourselves. In neither case is it meant to be up to us to manifest this goodness out of thin air. Rather, we learn to run to God when we encounter thorns and thistles to seek his protection and his healing. Just as God made a covenant promise to Abram that did not depend first or fundamentally on what Abram did so too are we heirs of God's promise. Our part is simply to rely on that promise, to take it, as it were, all the way to the bank.

It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,

saying: “To your descendants I give this land,

from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River the Euphrates.”

Matt Maher - Run To The Father

22 June 2021 - recognizing the gift

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine,

lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.

Do we recognize the pearls of great price that we have been given? Do we treasure them with our attention and affection? Or do we trample them with our lukewarmness and indifference? We have been given very great and precious promises (se Second Peter 1:3-5). If we relate to them as just one more interest in a life full of diverse pursuits we risk missing their innate value in such a way that we might lose them. Let us instead recognize more and more the value of what we have received. It is in this same sense that we will offer it to others. To those who genuinely see the value we can offer our pearls. We ought not put those who are disposed with disinterest or hostility in a position of risk where they might respond by trampling sacred things, and then attacking us. This doesn't mean there are really dogs who can't recognize the Gospel. It means that sometimes people, including we ourselves, act as dogs. For ourselves, we need to learn the value of what we have received. For sharing the Gospel with others it is a matter of spiritual discernment and waiting on the work of the Lord for a time when a more spiritual appraisal of the pearls surfaces, an awareness that is finally becoming more human than dog.

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.

This is the Law and the Prophets.

Jesus turned what for the entire world beforehand had been a negative statement of morality, 'Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you', into a positive. He turned what has been called the silver rule, accessible even to natural wisdom, into the golden rule. It was new in the sense of requiring positive action and generosity toward others rather than simply limiting hostility and harm. But it was old in the sense that this was always the way the Law and the Prophets pointed, even if it was only becoming fully explicit in Jesus himself. 

Please separate from me.

If you prefer the left, I will go to the right;

if you prefer the right, I will go to the left.”

Only in our highest moments could mere humans reveal the positive side of the law, by being generous in the way that Abram was generous, rather than merely avoiding a fight. But it would take Jesus himself to fully reveal the positive side by the way that he loved us even unto folly.

Enter through the narrow gate;

for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction,

and those who enter through it are many.

How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life.

And those who find it are few.”

The gate that leads to life is Jesus himself, who told us that he was the gate for the sheep (see John 10:9). The way is narrow in the sense that it is one specific way among others, a particular truth, and a particular choice. There is a single name given under heaven by which we may be saved (see Acts 4:12) amidst all the names given under heaven. It is by conformity to Jesus and his name that we hope to have salvation. We hope this happens in those who through no fault of their own are unaware of the specifics of revelation. But we are moved to leave nothing to chance. If there are dogs disregarding those things which are the most valuable, if there are people walking in the opposite direction of the gate, may the Lord reach such people, using us to help as he wills.

He who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.

Newsboys - Step Up To The Microphone

21 June 2021 - all a board

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Stop judging, that you may not be judged.

We tend to use judgment of others as a way to distract ourselves from ourselves. We get worked up and exercised about what others are doing not because we care so much about righteousness, but because it gives us something other than our own weakness on which to focus. Our judgments allow us to believe that we are better than others, to think, 'At least I'm not like him or her.' And herein lies the problem with judgment. We do it for the wrong reasons.

Wherefore He does not say, ‘Do not cause a sinner to cease,’ but do not judge; that is, be not a bitter judge; correct him indeed, but not as an enemy seeking revenge, but as a physician applying a remedy.

- Saint John Chrysostom

We are fundamentally unable to be helpful to others in overcoming their own faults when we are still blinded by our own. Removing the splinter from the eye of our brother may seem more appealing than the deep surgery needed to remove the wooden beam from our own eye. We should in fact realize that in our condition it is not a good idea to perform this surgery on ourselves or on others, lest we both end up blind. Instead, we should seek the healing of our vision from Jesus. And it is with his direction, power, and compassion that we may then address the splinter in the eyes of others.

You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first;

then you will see clearly

to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.

We see the Pharisees constantly making bad use of judgment in the Gospels. They do so not to help, but to condemn. They condemn not because they are primarily concerned about righteousness, but in order to distract themselves from the deeper demands of righteousness in their own lives. Instead of being like them we are called to receive the forgiveness of the massive debt of our own unrighteousness and then, when we see others who still owe something, desire their own forgiveness as well, rather than that they be held to account in a way which we ourselves were unable to bear.

For as you judge, so will you be judged,

and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

We are called to have hearts that desire mercy and not condemnation. We ourselves stand in need of this mercy as much as anyone else. Even if we are not guilty of great crimes, we should recognize that this is by the grace of God, without which "there but for the grace of God go I."

Jesus has forgiven me more than St. Mary Magdalene since He forgave me in advance by preventing me from falling. I was preserved from it only through God’s mercy!

- Saint Therese of Lisieux

In the economy of the Kingdom we can only receive mercy, or any gift, to the degree that we are willing to become vessels of that gift to others. We must let the flow, which originates from the Holy Spirit, gradually widen our ability to desire and give to others what we ourselves have first received.

We do well to remember that we do not earn the blessings God desires for us. They are rather based on a promise which he himself made, and without conditions. But we accept it in the same spirit in which it was offered, not demanding that we or others are worthy of it, but instead, receiving it with gratitude. In this way we will overcome or need to be judges with evil designs (see James 2:4), and instead join Abram as pilgrims of the promise.

Abram went as the LORD directed him, and Lot went with him.

Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

Abram took his wife, Sarai, his brother’s son Lot,

all the possessions that they had accumulated,

and the persons they had acquired in Haran,

and they set out for the land of Canaan.

Darrell Evans - Let the River Flow

20 June 2021 - over troubled waters

Today's Readings

(Audio)

On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples:

“Let us cross to the other side.”

Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was.

We want to be like the disciples who were willing to go where Jesus called them, even as evening already drew on. Like them, we should desire to take Jesus just as he is, just as we find him, not forcing him into a mold based on who we would like him to be. The disciples were always learning and relearning this lesson, for Jesus was not what anyone expected him to be. Again and again the disciples had to choose the real Jesus over and against their expectations and preferences. But again and again this Jesus proved to be more than they could have asked or imagined (see Ephesians 3:20).

A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat,

so that it was already filling up.

We usually wish for a Jesus who would not permit storms in the first place. But this is not the Jesus we encounter. The character of the one we do encounter is in keeping with that of him who permitted Job to undergo trials so difficult that it was in no way evident what good could come from them. Fortunately for us, we don't usually suffer to that degree, nor are we often tested so severely. But we do often experience the same inability to make sense of suffering. Even after the fact we might not be able to articulate it the meaning of trials we have undergone. But we do not remain unchanged. One aspect of that change is often a new holy fear which would no longer seek to force God to justify himself to us, and a new trust in God's plan even when we cannot understand it. Job finally seemed to come to this place following God's self-revelation to him.

The Lord addressed Job out of the storm and said:

    Who shut within doors the sea,

        when it burst forth from the womb;

    when I made the clouds its garment

        and thick darkness its swaddling bands?

We might still risk thinking that God was unsympathetic, that Jesus was asleep in the boat because he didn't care. But before we entertain that thought we should remember that Jesus himself entered into our sufferings, that he experienced that apparent absence of God, and yet commended his Spirit peacefully into the Father's hands, and slept in death for three days. His disciples were terrified then as well, but they could not wake him sooner than he planned. Nevertheless, on the third day he woke and spoke to the very storm of death itself and said, "Quiet! Be still!" 

We need to receive Jesus as he is, the Jesus who does not eschew the storm of the cross and who chooses to sleep in death. We do this even before we can fully understand what is happening, even though it feels at first as though we have been abandoned. We are called to learn to trust him enough to believe that though he seems to sleep, "he who watches over you will not slumber" (see Psalm 121:3). More and more we can have peace that he will wake before we perish, that he will speak peace to whatever storm we face.

I suffered complete spiritual dryness, almost as if I were quite forsaken. As usual, Jesus slept in my little boat. I know that other souls rarely let him sleep peacefully, and he is so wearied by the advances he is always making that he hastens to take advantage of the rest I offer him.

- Saint Therese of Lisieux

Jesus was able to sleep even in the midst of the storm, and trust in him can help us to experience the same peace he had, the peace which was even able to calm the storm. Just as the Word spoke over the waters at the beginning of creation so too did he begin a new creation in himself. The only way to enter into that new creation is by the boat of the cross in the storm of the world, but not alone. Jesus is with us in the boat, and he only permits the storms so that he can give a new and lasting peace. He only permits suffering and death so that we can be transformed and experience the resurrection.

The love of Christ impels us,

once we have come to the conviction that one died for all;

therefore, all have died.

Kari Jobe - Be Still My Soul

Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Hillsong United - Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)

19 June 2021 - his grace is enough

Today's Readings

(Audio)

No one can serve two masters.

He will either hate one and love the other,

or be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon.

Money is not a problem when it serves us as we, in turn, serve God. However, money does not demand obedience all at once and obviously. It is rather in a pernicious and almost undetectable way that it insinuates itself into our hearts.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,

what you will eat or drink,

or about your body, what you will wear.

We might think that the main problem with money arises in response to temptations for yachts, sports cars, memberships in exclusive clubs, and similarly extravagant expenditures. But Jesus seems to suggest that a problematic relationship with money could begin before all that, at the level of basic needs.

When we manage our life, our food, drink, clothing, and shelter adequately, we often experience the illusion of control that money can provide. This illusion is the basis for the belief that money can buy happiness. Worry that we will have enough makes us long for more direct control over our lives. Money pretends to be the solution by which we can apparently have enough. But if we look at things from a broader perspective we can see that our circumstances that allow us to have money are not really of our making. And that we don't walk headlong into catastrophe is also something over which we have little influence.

Look at the birds in the sky;

they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,

yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are not you more important than they?

We are called to move beyond manipulating money as one more lever of control over our lives and to instead receive it is use it as a gift, just as birds receive their own food day to day. We are called to move beyond the feelings of worry that make us desire control to trust instead in God's providence. This is the only way we can hope to become truly generous.

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

Why are you anxious about clothes?

Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.

They do not work or spin.

Is the teaching of Jesus an excuse for imprudence, for not availing ourselves of necessities or even of planning for the future? Is it an excuse to disregard the real and dire needs of the poor? No, it is rather a teaching that reveals that worry is an unhelpful illusion. It does not plan or produce, but distracts us from the opportunities truly available in the moment, and from thankful for the gifts we have already been given.

All these things the pagans seek.

Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,

and all these things will be given you besides.

It is hard for our flesh to believe that if we seek the Kingdom first we will have what God wants us to have. Worries about food, clothing, and shelter, touch our survival instinct so deeply it is hard to relegate our concern for such things to second place. But the promise of Jesus will not fail us, and in this promise we can have peace.

Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.

Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

Jesus wants to teach us to follow him with enough trust to let go of our own need for control. For us to be available for him and his purposes we must get beyond the worries and anxieties that tend to make us slaves to money, and to other illusions of control. The Christian life demands that we let go of our own control in order to cooperate with God. Perhaps even a hint at the idea of doing so fills us with anxiety. Let us respond to that anxiety with the word of God, saying, 'I will not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will take care of itself. The Father knows what I need.'

Following Jesus does not mean that there won't be a thorn in our flesh like the one experienced by Paul. The temptation when we encounter trials like that is to try to take back control. But instead we can learn that, as for Paul, God's grace will always be enough for us if we trust in it.

Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me,

but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,

for power is made perfect in weakness.”

Matt Maher - Your Grace Is Enough (Acoustic)

18 June 2021 - custody of the eyes

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.

We tend to want happiness on terms that seem to be under our control. We begin with the experience of pleasure that we have when we acquire something particularly good. From that experience we generalize, deciding if some is good, more must be better. Treasure is deceptive because acquiring it makes us feel as though a gap is being filled, and that if we could just get a little more we would have enough. Even while it is making our desire more and more insatiable it claims to be delivering on the promise of final fulfillment.

But store up treasures in heaven,

where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

It is not the case that buying just one more thing will make us happy, no matter whether that thing is home repairs, a pair of shoes, a new movie, a yacht, or whatever else might seem like the last missing piece. Indeed it is often the case that those things we do have begin to demand more of us than they give. When this happens our possessions begin to possess us rather than the other way around. We do have temporary need of various material goods, but we must use them recognizing that they are subject to moth, decay, and thieves. They are degenerating, and from an eternal perspective they are on the verge of disappearing. We should approach possessions with simplicity, looking more to God than to things for the source of our joy. If we seek our happiness in creation our own hearts will be on the same path to breaking down as the things which hold them captive. If we seek our happiness in God we will be secure in good times and in bad as our hearts become more full of the peace that the world cannot give, and the joy that only Jesus himself can offer.

“The lamp of the body is the eye.

If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light;

but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.

And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.”

In order to follow in the way Jesus teaches we must cooperate with his grace at work in us. If we want to care about God more than riches then we can't spend our time gazing on the riches about which we ostensibly don't care. If we want to keep our hearts pure so that we can see God we can't let our gaze linger on beautiful people. We need what saints called 'custody of the eyes' so that we can ensure that the things we see edify us rather than ensnare us. It is a point that is simple, but profound. It is a rather easy move to make, that of simply looking away, when we remember that we are free by grace to make it.

Apart from these words of Jesus upon what might we have fixed our gaze today? What things of this earth have us enchanted over and above what they can actually deliver for us? This might mean not spending time looking at the situations of people we envy, even those who seem to be doing a better job walking the Christian walk, because their circumstance is one thing and ours is another. God wants to work with us where we are, which is made difficult if we're too focused on somewhere else. 

The fact of the matter of that our eye is often unsound to the degree that it often brings us unhappiness. We have a sort of half awareness that this is the case, yet we keep looking, staring longingly at things which can never satisfy us. We simply need to realize fully what is happening and use the freedom we have been given to look away from harmful things and instead unto God.

Again today, Paul is the perfect example of the principle of looking to that which satisfies. If he fixed his gaze on the idea of a comfortable life he would not have been able to be faithful to his mission in the way that he was. He was able to deal with "dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure" because he didn't spend his awareness meditating on the pleasant life he might otherwise have had. Instead, because he kept the prize of the upward call of Jesus (see Philippians 3:14) before his eyes he was able to say:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

Let's start directing our gaze intentionally, rather than letting it lead us. Let us learn to find our treasure in heaven.

Vineyard Worship - I Lift My Eyes Up

17 June 2021 - prayer presence

Today's Readings

(Audio)

In praying, do not babble like the pagans,

who think that they will be heard because of their many words.

In our Gospel today Jesus took another step to remove religion from the realm of cause and effect. Yesterday he addresses some of the short-term rewards that can distract us from finding fulfillment in God himself. After hearing that teaching we learned that we should no longer look to a direct and controllable result for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but would have to look to God himself to reward us when and how he chose. This morning we heard him reveal that prayer that was simply transactional would not be accepted. God wasn't interested in his favor being purchased by a mere performance of prayer. This lesson is less than intuitive however. We tend to have a very hard time praying in the context of a relationship. Our interest in 'doing it right' can often overflow the essence of what we are doing.

Do not be like them.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

There is nothing mechanical about prayer. The very fact that God knows what we need and desires even better for us than we do for ourselves demonstrates why prayer must be about more than a correct formula. It must be about encounter with God and the transformation that such encounter brings.

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name,

thy Kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus demonstrated that simple prayer that we can truly inhabit with our hearts and minds is the basis on which our life of prayer must be built. Only with these building blocks in place can we expand outward to spend more time in prayer. Such prayer may appear to be fruitless in terms of effects, to be nothing more than wasting time with God, but as long as we are becoming better acquainted with him who is the first and final cause of all things this will not discourage us. We will be able to even embrace the devotions of the Church without the risk of doing them merely for spiritual vanity. The rosary has many words, but we must not come to believe that the value of the rosary is in that repetition. It is rather in the intercession of our Blessed Mother and the enlightenment and graces that come from pondering the mysteries of the decades. It is emphatically true that one decade prayed attentively is better than hurrying through all of the decades of all of the mysteries.

Our prayer does not begin with us or our efforts, and neither does the completion of it rest upon them. Jesus wants us to find the freedom for relationship that comes from being loved by the Father in heaven before we ever thought to pray in response. When we learn this lesson and are set free from the cause and effect system of performative religion we become increasingly free to love others sincerely as well. We become more who we ourselves are truly meant to be.

Even if I am untrained in speaking, I am not so in knowledge;

in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.

Did I make a mistake when I humbled myself so that you might be exalted,

because I preached the Gospel of God to you without charge?

Thank God that Paul did not mask his Gospel behind a façade of fancy words, behind an expensive price tag that would be apparently worthy of his knowledge. He was well acquainted with the simplest and most direct form of communication with Jesus himself. It was his sincere response to this message that brought him healing and formed him into the person God always intended him to be.

By the truth of Christ in me,

this boast of mine shall not be silenced

in the regions of Achaia.

And why?  Because I do not love you?

God knows I do!

Matt Maher - As It Is In Heaven

16 June 2021 - reward reprogramming

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Take care not to perform righteous deeds

in order that people may see them;

otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.

Jesus wants us to be able to find our reward in God, and more and more to find it in him alone. We learned yesterday that when we trust in him to take care of us and protect us we become able to love even our enemies. Similarly, when we trust him to provide for us and reward our almsgiving we become able to give freely and cheerfully.

Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion,

for God loves a cheerful giver.

Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you,

so that in all things, always having all you need,

you may have an abundance for every good work.

If we rely on human motivations, especially the acknowledgement of others, we won't be giving with the freedom and joy that God intends. There are rewards for those who give alms that God wants to give, but they are mysteriously separate from the controllable world of cause and effect. For this reason Jesus asks us to first disentangle our motivations from those of the world. We look to receive reward, yes, but not a reward that we can cause of control. This reward does not often come on our timeline or in accord with our plans. But if we are faithful God will not be outdone in generosity.

But when you give alms,

do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,

so that your almsgiving may be secret.

Let us practice disconnecting from the easy and obvious rewards of our good works. Let us learn to seek acknowledgement from others less and from God more. 

The hardest reward to ignore is usually the boost to our own self-image that occurs when we do what we know we should. But if we get caught up in this reward we risk doing good works only so that we can feel like a good person, to fast and pray only so that we can feel religious. But we must not fixate on these feelings if they occur. If we do our giving and fasting will become limited by the feelings that we get from them so that we quickly abandon them in the absence of such feelings. We need not deny such feelings if they occur, but should instead simply not focus on them. If the left hand focuses on what the right hand is doing it will be paralyzed. It should instead continue to focus on whatever task as at hand.

When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.

They neglect their appearance,

so that they may appear to others to be fasting.

Most of us probably never fast so dramatically that we feel like acting gloomy would be appropriate. But there are certainly other times when we act gloomy to win sympathy and support from others. What if at such times we cared less about being rewarded in the sight of men and more in the sight of God?

And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

Our flesh tends to push back when we think about doing anything without an immediate and predictable reward. But the more that we allow the grace of God to set us free from this compulsion the more we will experience a new freedom in charity, a better reward, and become cheerful givers who are especially pleasing to God.

Sonicflood - In the Secret