28 February 2022 - freedom to follow

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

We have been given a great hope, a hope that is called living because it is based in the risen Jesus Christ who himself is the guarantee of our hope. He himself is now in heaven, imperishable, undefiled, unfading. This refers not to his immaterial Godhead but rather to his sacred humanity which awaits us and which draws us onward and upward. It is our faith that enables us to stay plugged in to this heavenly reality, a connection which keeps us safe even as we face the trials and challenges of life.

In this you rejoice, although now for a little while

you may have to suffer through various trials,

so that the genuineness of your faith,

more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire,

may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor

at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

If we choose to live for a lesser hope than Jesus then we cannot expect the fire of trials to have a positive result. Trials reveal where we have set our hope too much on temporary things instead of the one thing necessary. Our faith can empower us to live through even very difficult circumstances while retaining the joy of our salvation. This joy comes from the knowledge that even the worst trials are only "for a little while" as Peter wrote, or as Paul wrote, light momentary afflictions (see Second Corinthians 4:17). Like Theresa of Avila we can retain our humor because we know that from "heaven even the most miserable life will look like one bad night at an inconvenient hotel". When we forget that there is something beyond the inconvenient hotel, or when we are too invested in trying to ensure that we only have the perfect accommodations here on earth we become so invested that we easily lose our joy. We are called to remember that we are meant to be connected to a heavenly power source, drawn upward toward a heavenly reality that keeps all else in perspective.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,

“How hard it is for those who have wealth

to enter the Kingdom of God!”

Jesus calls us to make sure that our hearts and our treasures are in heaven. The risk is that we are too similar to the rich young man, with so many possessions that they get in the way of our freedom to follow Christ. However wealthy this rich young man was it is likely that we most of us in the modern era are more wealthy still. And this wealth offers us a measure of temporary comfort. It is temporary, but even so it is hard for us to willingly do without it after have been long accustomed to its presence.

Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor

and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.

There is nothing in this life that is worth as much as our relationship with Jesus himself. He allows trials into our lives to reveal to us areas of our hearts which are not yet fully his. But he also invites us to freely choose him over and against our "many possessions". It is not so much that he is calling most of us to take a vow of poverty. But he is asking us to ensure that when he invites us to follow him in some specific way that we are sufficiently free to do so. Only if we live in this freedom will we also live with the joy that is meant to be a mark of those with the hope we have.

Although you have not seen him you love him;

even though you do not see him now yet you believe in him,

you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,

as you attain the goal of faith, the salvation of your souls.

This is a description that in which we are meant to recognize ourselves. We are the ones who love Jesus without having seen him in the flesh. We are those blessed who have not seen but believe. We are also meant to be a people who "rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy" that even trials cannot take from us, precisely because they can never separate us from the one we love, in whom we place our faith and our hope.

He has sent deliverance to his people;

he has ratified his covenant forever;

holy and awesome is his name.

His praise endures forever

Ingrid DuMosch - I Will Worship

27 February 2022 - blind guides

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus told his disciples a parable,

“Can a blind person guide a blind person?

Will not both fall into a pit?

We should not be in a rush to teach. In the readings this past week, James reminded us that it is essential that we take care in our usage of language, and that teachers will be held to a stricter standard of judgment. Yet we are called by Peter to always be ready to give a reason for the hope of our calling (see First Peter 3:15). Paul too acknowledged the danger of silence, saying "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel" (see First Corinthians 9:16). Jesus himself taught that there would be times when we would be called to speak that which we first heard in silence from the rooftops (see Matthew 10:27) and that there would we will encounter trials that can serve as an "opportunity to bear witness" (see Luke 21:13). 

No disciple is superior to the teacher;

but when fully trained,

every disciple will be like his teacher.

Humility calls us to be patient and to steep ourselves in the word of God, in the training of the disciple by our teacher. But it is false humility if we try to stay there, to never move on from being a beginner to becoming a more mature student. Jesus is not suggesting that we never testify or never teach, but rather that we not rush to do so. When we are mature enough that what we desire to share is no longer ourselves but Jesus we have crossed the critical threshold and it is time to get about the work of evangelism. When proclaiming Jesus is our objective we lessen the risk that our own limitations will become liabilities for those who hear us, leading them into the pits of our predilections. When the whole point of our message is Jesus himself it will help us to avoid the risk of teaching for the sake of our self-image, so that we can imagine ourselves to be wise guides when, if we look away from Jesus, we are just as blind as anyone.

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye,

but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?

Critically, part of the process of being trained to be like our teacher is the introspection necessary to remove the wooden beam in our own eyes. We are called to assess ourselves and our own hearts as thoroughly as possible and turn to Jesus in the Sacraments for mercy and healing. We will never be so perfect as to be entirely without splinters limiting our vision. But if we at least begin with ourselves our own issues can be corrected enough that we might have something genuinely useful to offer to others. If we skip this process we will not see the faults of others clearly. Most often we will see our own unacknowledged faults in others all around us, whether they are actually present or not.

A good tree does not bear rotten fruit,

nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.

We are meant to be good trees bearing good fruit. If our hearts are still characterized by thorns and brambles this is a sign that we are still not fully trained, and that our teaching might do more harm than good. If we are not yet bearing good fruit we might need a transplant to the living waters of the Holy Spirit. It is he himself that is meant to be the source of the fruit we bear. Fruit comes from the heart, as Jesus taught. But if our hearts are still contaminated with evil (as evidenced by our speech) we need not despair because new hearts were part of the promise of the New Covenant. It is a promise which has begun to change us, but into which we need to continue investing, more and more.

We look at ourselves or at those around us and see the limitations of corruptibility and mortality and might imagine that there is no way that we could be changed enough to be like our teacher, that sin's sting was too strong to be surmountable. But no one needs to feel as though they are doomed to bear bad fruit forever. The solution is to let grace transform us. This is the only way to become like our teacher, and becoming like him is the meant to be our goal.

but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (see First John 3:2).

We will be called to speak, and it will be at that time that we are tested. Have we begun to trust in the Holy Spirit such that we can continue to rely on him then? Or do we fall back upon ourselves and the limits of our own so-called wisdom? We need to get this right because we have a world of the blind stumbling in darkness who desperately need the light of wisdom that comes only from Jesus himself. If we don't learn to speak well and with moral insight we may deprive others of the guidance that would have kept them from pits, pits from which it is difficult to climb out alone. If we do we will help others avail themselves of the water that has begun giving us life.

The just one shall flourish like the palm tree,

like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow.

They that are planted in the house of the LORD

shall flourish in the courts of our God.

Rend Collective - My Lighthouse

Paul Wilbur - It is Good (La La Lai)

26 February 2022 - let the children come

Today's Readings

(Audio)

People were bringing children to Jesus that he might touch them,

but the disciples rebuked them.

The disciples probably assumed that Jesus had better things to do. He himself was the most important person in their lives. Should he not, therefore, spend his time was others who were important, significant, or of great account in the eyes of the world? Implicitly, the disciples might still have imagined that they themselves were permitted to be in the presence of Jesus because they were somehow qualified for it, that there was something intrinsic to them that made them important enough to be at the core of the Jesus movement. However they thought about it, the response of Jesus could have done nothing less than turn the preconceptions upside down.

When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,

“Let the children come to me; do not prevent them,

for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

The disciples knew that the whole point of the message of Jesus was the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. But if that Kingdom was to compete on equal footing with the kingdoms of the earth wouldn't it need, primarily, the strong, the smart, and those of great means or ability? Wasn't Jesus proceeding to select followers based on their worth? How else, after all, could a Kingdom have any impact on the earth?

Amen, I say to you,

whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child

will not enter it.

Jesus explained that it was not on the basis of merit that one would enter the Kingdom. It was not a typical job interview where all of the bullet points on a resume were weighed against those of other candidates to select the ones who appeared best. It was precisely the opposite of this. Those who would come without pretense, even being carried to Jesus by the help of others, those with no accomplishments of their own about which they could boast, were the ones on whom Jesus would bestow the Kingdom. The disciples themselves were not first in this line according to this logic, still struggling as they were for supremacy in the group, still looking for something about themselves about which they could boast, that could justify their desired preeminence. 

Then he embraced the children and blessed them,

placing his hands on them.

Jesus welcoming the little children was an act that could immediately convict those with prideful thoughts. But that very conviction was also an invitation of a different an easier way to come to Jesus, one which need not be earned, that was based entirely on the love of Jesus himself.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (see Matthew 11:28-29).

Coming to Jesus as a child is the only way that our own prayers will become the fervent prayers of righteous people that James described as powerful. Jesus will not grant our prayers simply because we think we deserve him to do so. In fact, our sense of entitlement is an obstacle. On some level we even know better than to imagine that God is obliged to do what we desire. Our source of confidence must shift from ourselves to Jesus himself. This will not make us less willing to pray, but more, and in more circumstances. Not only will we pray when we want something. We will pray in times of need and in times of thanks and we ask for blessings both physical and spiritual.

Is anyone among you suffering?

He should pray.

Is anyone in good spirits?

He should sing a song of praise.

Sacraments like Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick are too egalitarian for our egos to readily accept. It is actually difficult to put as much stock in them as the impressive healing ministry of this or that traveling preacher. But for the childlike the Church stands ready to embrace the world with the arms of Jesus himself.

Rend Collective - Build Your Kingdom

25 February 2022 - back to the beginning

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another,

that you may not be judged.

We recently read a Gospel passage where Jesus told us not to judge lest we ourselves be judged. And we probably thought that we were more or less off the hook, that we weren't judgmental, and weren't in the habit of condemning others. We thought that to judge meant only the assumption that someone was acting as a willful accomplice of the powers of hell, toward which their soul was therefore headed. But in our first reading today James added a different and parallel layer, a related teaching which might bring about more conviction in us. According to James, in order to avoid judgment we must not complain about our brothers and sisters. Complaining, it turns out, is implicit judgment, either on the character of our brothers and sisters or, worse, on the character of God for allowing their presence in our lives. 

You have heard of the perseverance of Job

It is one thing to bemoan difficult circumstances. The psalms give evidence that this is acceptable, as does the existence of a biblical book called Lamentations. The trouble arises when our complaints become directed and accusatory. This was exactly the temptation Job faced, voiced by his wife telling him to,  "Curse God and die" (see Job 2:9), but which he admirably resisted. We too will be tempted to find someone to blame for the hardships we endure. But instead of doing so we can look to the example of the prophets, that of Job, and the other examples of the saints of the old and new covenants. If we can hold on to our belief that the Lord has a purpose in what he allows, and that said purpose stems from the reality that he himself "is compassionate and merciful" we can diffuse the temptation to blame, to point fingers, and to complain. Rather than trying to find cheap satisfaction in complaining about one another we can take responsibility for our own walk with God. We have no cause to complain when the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy and peace, are all available to us. This is not something that others control, nor a gift which God withdraws. Complaints misdirect our attention from our own need for deeper conversion. Let us stop making other people responsible for our joy when God has already made it abundantly available.

let your “Yes” mean “Yes” and your “No” mean “No,”

In not complaining about others we begin to take a baby step toward controlling our tongue and bringing it into line with God's wisdom and his plan. By not swearing rashly we take another step. We learn to speak as creatures who are contingent, who recognize that our own plans and our own wills are not absolute. The temptation is to want to be able to say more than we are qualified to say, to make assurances that we are in no position to guarantee. At the very least we must not speak as though God himself were in agreement with plans which are merely are own. When his holy name is invoked we do well to remember our own limitations, that his ways our not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. When we take oaths, then, it should only be at times of dire need, when we, our society, require God's help to ensure that the truth is spoken. Such logic characterized the oaths taken by Paul (see Galatians 1:20, Second Corinthians 1:23) and is why the Catechism still recognizes the validity of oaths in some circumstances (see CCC 2154).

Indeed, one such oath that is valid in the eyes of God and the Church is the one couples take when they are married. Living out the reality of a commitment that the hardness of fallen hearts had made impossible requires divine assistance. Merely human commitment would waver and falter in the face of circumstance and selfishness. But an oath supercharged with the promise of God's own grace would again make possible what was meant to be "from the beginning". The consequence of this was the much greater expectations for fidelity that would define marriage in the new covenant.

Therefore what God has joined together,

no human being must separate.

May the Lord himself help us to tame our tongues, learning to use them to bless and not to complain, to agree with his plans rather than to market our own plans to others or even to ourselves. The Sacraments are in some sense oaths, in some sense all statements that, "I will be faithful". Let these become the center from which all of our other speech issues.

Bless the LORD, O my soul;

and all my being, bless his holy name.

Bless the LORD, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits.

Songs In His Presence - So Bless The Lord

Matt Redman - 10,000 Reasons

24 February 2022 - woe to you rich

Today's Readings

(Audio)

You have stored up treasure for the last days.

How do we relate to our material resources? Do we tear down our barns and build bigger ones to lay up a surplus of grain designed to last for many years, as did the rich fool? Does our fiscal responsibility go beyond simple prudence and reveal a desire to control the future, a desire that is not realistic?

"Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."

"But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ (see Luke 12:13-21).

Prudence is one thing. The need to exercise such absolute control over our destinies that we become stingy and selfish is something else.

Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers

who harvested your fields are crying aloud;

and the cries of the harvesters

have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

As a simple test, how much of the resources we allocate to ourselves do we typically put to actual use? How much of them, by contrast, end up corroded and moth-eaten, kept away from the needs of the world but also not even utilized by we ourselves? Our bank accounts may well be gaining interest for us to use for necessities and to enable us to give to others. But what of those toys and treasures that we stockpile for ourselves? What of the luxury and pleasure that we purchase and ultimately just box up and store without deriving any value? If we have many such boxes at may be a sign that we need to involve God more in the planning of our budgets.

In our use of riches the real risk is the way we become so self-focused that we neglect the needs of those around us. We who have been blessed with an abundance have been blessed not primarily for ourselves but so that we can bless in turn those who have less. Do we do this?

You have condemned;

you have murdered the righteous one;

he offers you no resistance.

Jesus himself was not born into a life of luxury, and trained his disciples to be ready to go forth on mission without bringing money bags with them. Jesus deeply empathized with the material poor, to the degree that he received good or ill done to them as done unto him. If we claim to love Jesus but fail to notice the poor on our own doorsteps our claims are at best inadequate and partial. When we do not do what God himself equipped us to do it is as good as condemning the poor to their plight. It is too easy for us to dismiss the poor, for there are so many of them that the problem seems intractable, and in most cases their stories are so different from our own that it is difficult for us to relate. Yet when we recognize the presence of the righteous one in his poor it can help us to see beyond our selfishness and teach us to be generous.

Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink

because you belong to Christ,

amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.

Even small acts of charity are valuable to Christ. Small acts as well as large ones mean that our focus is finally off of ourselves and on another. They help us escape from the prison of ego and allow us to begin to see the wider world around us through God's eyes.

We are called to be salt for the earth, salt that gives flavors and preserves lasting nourishment. The key to remaining salty is too avoid too much worldly contamination. Both actions that potentially scandalize others and sins committed in secret mix our salt with things which are inedible and potentially poisonous. We are called to be so invested in being people who live for the sake of others that we should, by hyperbolic example, desire this even more than the integrity of our own bodies.

If our hands grasp wealth, if our feet cause us to walk in evil ways, if our eyes look with lust or envy, and especially if we lead others to stumble by example, it is clear that we have lost our function as salt. What will restore its flavor? Jesus himself can do so. May he enable us to see his own presence in others and to reorient our lives at least a little more toward service, at least toward small, daily acts of love to which he invites us. Acts on a grand scale are often an illusion of pride. If we begin by being faithful and small things we can be sure that we will be usable by him for whatever he desires.

Matt Maher - Hold Us Together

23 February 2022 - all such boasting

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Come now, you who say,

“Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town,

spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”–

you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.

It is altogether easy, natural on a human level, to live our daily lives without acknowledging our dependence on God. When we pause to reflect we recognize that everything does depend more on whether the Lord wills it than on our own decisions. But when we are actually making plans do we pause to discern God's will? As we make plans do we at least recognize their contingent nature? It would seem that we do not, and here it why: When our plans are interrupted or frustrated we become surprised, angry, and upset. We do not simply experience ourselves as being redirected by God to different, ultimately better options, as we would have had we fully surrendered our plans to God in the first place. 

All such boasting is evil.

Simply to live in a human way, making decisions with only ourselves as our frame of reference is ultimately prideful boasting. It does not acknowledge the truth that everything finally depends on God himself.

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps (see Proverbs 16:9).

Without reference to God in our initial understanding of our decisions we also fail to acknowledge him when those plans succeed, as they occasionally do. We are like the nine lepers who are cured but simply take that cure for granted and go back to business as usual.

We are meant to be involved with God even in the ordinary and mundane aspects of our lives. We are not to hold any sphere of our activities as so insignificant or insubstantial that we ought not bother God about it. He desires to have our whole hearts and to be actively involved in every part of even the most quotidian tasks. It is in fact only when we involve him early on and often that we are really able to rely on him in the more dramatic or dire of circumstances.

So for one who knows the right thing to do

and does not do it, it is a sin.

We know that we ought to involve God more in our lives, to rely on him, and to thank him for his help. This is so important that to omit it could be a sin of omission and a sin of boasting simultaneously. 

We know, on some level, what we ought to do. Much of what we are missing is not something too abstract or complicated for us. It is rather something that has been heretofore too obvious and simple for us to bother much about it. Let us know that right thing to do but also do it, early and often, so that when more significant trials come our resolve will be tested and our good habits will be firmly established.

“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,

and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”

The disciples desired to be able to credit for this individual who drove out demons in the name of Jesus. It wasn't that he didn't follow Jesus, for clearly he did. It was rather that he did not follow the disciples, who were still in the midst of learning lessons about servant leadership, still struggling against their own prideful need to be in the first place. They ought to have understood that this man was an implicit all., Rather than stopping him out of pride they should have welcomed him as a potential contributor. Their own need to shine and take center stage potentially risked stopping legitimate good fruit from being produced by someone else. The disciples needed to discover an attitude more like that which James recommended, where the Lord's will would take precedence over their own plans and where the centrality of Jesus himself would supersede their own desire to boast in any fruit that was going to be produced.

For whoever is not against us is for us.

Are we able to receive blessings from others? Or does it make us uncomfortable not to be in charge ourselves? When others are doing legitimate good in the world, good in accord with the name of Jesus and his Kingdom, let us learn to celebrate this fruit and even be open and to receiving it in humility ourselves. The simple lesson we need to learn is to stop asking so much what we ourselves will or do not will and to start asking what the Lord wills. If there is good fruit it is likely that he does will it. If we can escape the prison of our own self will we will discover much to celebrate, much that had somehow previously gone unnoticed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Maranatha! Music - Shine Jesus Shine

22 February 2022 - key points

Today's Readings

(Audio)

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

Popular opinion about Jesus is always divided. There are nearly as many opinions about who he was and what he did as there are people. Further, the opinions of the masses, insofar as they conduce to soundbites, only capture part of the reality. 

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,

still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

Trying to determine the identity of Jesus using the wisdom of crowds or popular opinion is a doomed project. Even scholarly consensus is insufficient. Jesus knew and warned that he would be a deeply divisive figure, even dividing families against themselves. There was simply too much personally at stake for anyone who would answer the question for there to be any room for neutral ground. Objective opinion, if it could exist, could nevertheless not be disinterested or allow one to remain uninvolved.

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

Simon Peter said in reply,

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

Rather than subject ourselves to the various opinions, limited perspectives, and merely human interpretations of Jesus that the world readily supplies, we are called to answer this question ourselves in the depths of our own hearts. We are called to revisit our answer again and again to ensure that all of the consequences it are being realized in our lives. If Jesus is who we believe him to be are we living in accord with that reality? 

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.

Though we must answer the question individually we do not have to answer it alone. The Father himself desires to reveal his Son to us. He sees that our faith is weak and imperfect and desires to answer us when we pray, "Heal my unbelief."

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.

Over and against popular opinion Jesus established his Church to be the place where we could be certain of the truth about him, the place where the keys of authoritative teaching and certainty of forgiveness could be found. This does not exempt us from the need to put the question about the identity of Jesus to ourselves and to answer it from our hearts. But it is meant to be the place where our individual confessions find substance and stability when united to the graced confession of Peter himself, upheld and explicated by his successors the popes.

I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

We are all meant to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Yet we do not all become the foundation stone of his Church or receive the keys of the royal steward (see Isaiah 22:22) or receive the ability to bind and loose doctrine or sin. Even so, we do become living stones that are meant to be built in this initial foundation established by Jesus himself. We see in the Church the fullness of revelation sustained across the ages. The smaller individual revelation we are each meant to receive call us to join ourselves to that Church. Our faith cannot substitute for that of Peter, but neither can Peter's substitute for our own. They are meant to join together in a larger project of Jesus himself. This is the context, the only context, where victory over the gates of the netherworld becomes possible.

Tend the flock of God in your midst,

overseeing not by constraint but willingly,

as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly.

The authority of the Church is meant to be ordered to the service of the lay faithful. Although it has not always actually embodied this reality it is the heart toward which it strives, from which it sometimes falls, but to which it must return again and again. As Jesus taught, authority must not be lorded over those who are under it. Yet an institution made up of humans such as the Church will constantly be tempted to wield authority to dominate. Even when we see this happening we are called to recognize the core graces that are always preserved in the heart of the Church, to do our part to seek them, and to know that there is a bigger story unfolding than the story of our fallen tendencies. Jesus himself is constantly working to prune and renew his bride, so that she may be spotless on the day of glory. If Jesus himself so values his bride than we too must remain faithful even at times when she seems less than impressive. We can trust that over all our earthly shepherds there is a heavenly shepherd still at work.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

In verdant pastures he gives me repose;

Brian Blum - Song of Peter

21 February 2022 - those who cultivate peace

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Who among you is wise and understanding?

Let him show his works by a good life  

in the humility that comes from wisdom.

Wisdom is about more than clever words. Proof of wisdom does not come from the books we have read or our academic history. Persuasive articles or well written blog posts are not certain indicators of wisdom. Much more than these, we ought to observe "a good life in the humility that comes from wisdom." Does good teaching seem to stop at the doors of a teacher's daily life? Or is it rather part of a larger and consistent example of purity, one that is "peaceable, gentle, compliant, fully of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity"?

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts,

do not boast and be false to the truth.

James taught that not many should be teachers because they would be more strictly judged and because the tongue was difficult to control. Teachers would be tempted to present a better version of themselves than the ones that actually existed. They would feel compelled to boast and be false to the truth in order to make themselves persuasive. This would be especially the case if their motivation was self ambition, that is, the desire to be seen as impressive in others eyes, or if their motivation was bitter jealousy, that is, the desire to be seen as better than those around them. Teachers, desiring a short term reward for their work, are often content with the praise and adoration of their students and neglect the humble path of wisdom.

We are all called to seek wisdom. To do so we must remember that the essential thing is the humility to always put Jesus and his priorities first. It was perhaps this lesson that the disciples had forgotten in today's Gospel reading. They had previously succeeded in casting out demons but now they found themselves impotent. 

I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so.

What was missing? 

He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

The disciples had perhaps begun to take for granted the gift of authority they had received from Jesus and thought that they could now wield it even while forgetting him. They displayed the signs of the absence of wisdom that James described, jealousy and selfish ambition, by the way that they themselves had been divided by the experience.

He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?”

We can imagine one disciple after another failing in their attempts to exorcise the demon and then resorting to accusations and recriminations about what the other disciples did wrong to justify themselves. What we did not see- and what we would have seen if they were living in accord with wisdom- was the disciples as a unified front bringing the boy to Jesus himself when they found themselves unable to help.

Wisdom requires faith. It is not a faith in the abstract, not the sheer willing of a miracle to happen by believing it will. It rather requires a faith in which Jesus himself is central. It is one who has a faith like that for whom all things are possible. 

“‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.”

Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”

In this request the boy's father displayed the true wisdom of humility. Let us learn to imitate him when our faith comes up short and not resort instead to the self-reliance of subsequent discord that defined the disciples in this incident. Let us learn that wisdom is not only saying good words about Jesus but is about the art of making he himself the center of what we do.

But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.

There is much malign influence in the world today that Jesus does want to heal and restore. He desires to use his modern day disciples to do so. May we be open to the faith and the wisdom we will need if he is to work through us as he desires.

Let the words of my mouth and the thought of my heart

find favor before you,

O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

Vineyard - Help Us Our God

20 February 2022 - not equivalent exchange

Today's Readings

(Audio)

To you who hear I say,

love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Jesus is calling us to break free from the need to always receive something in return for our good deeds. To a world obsessed with quid pro quo exchanges Jesus takes the extreme case to make his point. He goes beyond telling us to love those who sometimes forget to send thank you notes to telling us to love even those with open hostility, who are actively trying to sabotage our success in the world. We are called to regard even enemies, not from the limited perspective of our wounded egos, but from God's perspective, just as David treated Saul.

Today, though the LORD delivered you into my grasp,

I would not harm the LORD’s anointed.

David had been wronged by Saul but did not insist on himself being the one to balance the scale. Rather, he forgave, and trusted that the Lord himself would take his part and bless him. Indeed, by not trying to seize the blessing of kingship for himself he ensured that he was open to receiving it in the Lord's time and in the Lord's way.

and from the person who takes your cloak,

do not withhold even your tunic.

Give to everyone who asks of you,

and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.

We are called to experience a freedom in giving that is supernatural. It is not so much that we are called to bankrupt or ruin ourselves by giving away more than we can afford as it is that we are called to move beyond concern for balanced and equivalent exchange. Because we are fallen, we tend to note every sleight and eagerly await repayment. We have very specific criteria for when and how much we will give. Will it make us feel good? Will the recipient earn it by at least putting it to good use? On the one hand, it is not that we are called to donate to so-called charities that are actually promoting intrinsically evil actions just because the ask of us. On the other, however, it we are called to be free enough to give even outside of our budget, at times that are inconvenient, without being in perfect control of what happens afterward.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

The golden rule taught by Jesus is also the safety valve to assure that our reckless generosity does not actually cause harm. We are supposed to give above and beyond what is comfortable, or what seems prudent.  But these gifts are meant to be those that will most likely bless the other rather than harm them, and which will leave us with sufficient resources to continue to follow the vocation to which we ourselves have been called. We wouldn't want others to finance evil for our sakes, or bankrupt themselves to keep us comfortable. Neither are we called to do so for anyone else. But even with that caveat we must be cautious. We are always looking for excuses to do the least possible. Jesus is trying to teach us instead to do the most we can, motivated by mercy rather than what we can get in return.

But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,

and lend expecting nothing back;

then your reward will be great

and you will be children of the Most High,

for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

We are called to have hearts that are merciful as the heart of our heavenly Father is merciful. God loves us even though there is by definition nothing we can do to repay him, even though he is lacking is nothing and therefore has nothing which can be given him in return. Nor even does he bless us only as we remember to acknowledge him or make good use of what he gives. Fortunately for us, he blesses even while we are living as his enemies (see Romans 5:8). He continues to bless us even though we never fully and adequately thank him or respond to his gifts. It is precisely our experience of this freedom of his that calls out to us to desire the transformation that will allow us to imitate him. When we begin to love others with the same freedom and mercy that we ourselves first received it can become an unspoken invitation, the first step of genuine evangelism.

Give, and gifts will be given to you;

a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,

will be poured into your lap.

When we experience difficult times in life it is often the case that they are marked by an overly inward focus. Our thinking at such times becomes dominated by those things we imagine we need that we don't have or those things that we don't want but are nevertheless forced to experience. They are, in short, about us. At such times it is especially important to give. Giving when times are tough can be an experience a transcendent freedom from our usual self-centered perspective. It can open us to be able to receive more of the grace of God as he makes us become the women and men he desires us to be. It can be the increasing of the measure with which we measure so that God can pour ever more of himself into our hearts.

Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one,

we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.

We have spent years bearing the image of Adam who chose himself over and against God, and who, as a consequence, became utterly preoccupied with his own survival and success. We are called to allow Jesus himself to reshape us in his image, the image of the one who loved us while we were yet sinners, who gave everything he had to give for our sakes.

As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.

Jars Of Clay - They'll Know We Are Christians

TobyMac - Made To Love

19 February 2022 - taming the tongue

Today's Readings

(Audio)

If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man,

able to bridle the whole body also.

It is easy to have pristine speech part of the time. But it is difficult for us to avoid giving voice to destructive words occasionally, not a full blown fire, but small sparks. Yet, in the presence of fuel, small spark are enough to ignite a large fire. This world is full of fuel, and so we often find our words having unintended consequences. Once spoken we cannot call them back or easily mitigate the damage they do.

but no man can tame the tongue.

It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Humans were made in the image and likeness of God, and given a royal dignity of the stewards in charge of creation. Yet, in a bitter irony, since the fall we have been unable to properly exercise this royal authority over ourselves, even while taming birds, reptiles and sea creatures. James suggested that our control of our speech or lack thereof is the first place where will we manifest either our likeness to God or our fallen state. Our speech is a rudder that can steer the vessel of our lives in one direction or the other. How ought we navigate? We should turn to the word planted in us that is able to save our souls (see James 1:21). God offers us wisdom to know how to apply that word in the individual circumstances of our lives. This includes teaching us the ways of wise speech in accord with his word. Relying on this wisdom we can avoid the harms of rashly spoken words.

If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us,

we also guide their whole bodies.

Control of our speech in not only essential for the sake of others. It is essential for the sake of our own spiritual lives. We cannot become "perfect", that is, mature Christians, with unredeemed speech, even when others aren't looking. By our speech we steer the ship of our hearts. We can steer them to agree with God's word. Or we can steer them to agree with the world. Agreement with the world often results in hopelessness and despair. The world tries to teach us to talk about ourselves as worthless, and our struggles as hopeless. We are all to ready to become the world's prophets, prophesying doom over our own lives and circumstances. Let us listen more closely to our inner monologue to recognize when it is off course so that we can again seek to guide it by heavenly wisdom.

Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them;

then from the cloud came a voice,

“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

Our speech is meant to be nourished by first listening to the word that is able to save our souls. This word teaches us the brightness of the hope of the promise we have been given. It teaches us how even apparently dire circumstances can be recast according to that promise.

As they were coming down from the mountain,

he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone,

except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

We are not ready to speak until we can use the resurrection to make sense of what we want to say. If we are not all the way to that point yet in our walk with God we can allow the vision of Jesus himself to strengthen us. Even a glimpse of his glory can sustain us during our own dark night. Remembering it we can avoid the temptation to fill the void with our own words as we wait for the definitive word of the resurrection to be more deeply revealed to us.

And he was transfigured before them,

and his clothes became dazzling white,

such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

Lord, reveal your glory to us. Teach us to hope in your resurrection and to speak in accord with that hope.

MercyMe - Word Of God Speak

18 February 2022 - faith working in love

Today's Readings

(Audio)

See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Faith that does not give rise to works isn't saving faith. But it is exactly the sort of thing that can give rise to self-deception, to the illusion that we have faith simply because we have orthodox beliefs or positive emotions, even when those things don't issue forth in love.

If a brother or sister has nothing to wear

and has no food for the day,

and one of you says to them,

“Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,”

but you do not give them the necessities of the body,

what good is it?

It may feel like faith to wish others well. But if it does not motivate us to do what is in our power for them we can't say that such a faith really has much claim on our heart. It is in fact harmful to have such an attitude. We imagine that our duty is done as long as we maintain these positive feelings, even while others go hungry. True faith, by contrast, is not content to stop at good feelings or well wishing. It is inclusive of our whole being, involving our minds and hearts in a response that always includes some measure of action.

You believe that God is one. 

You do well.

Even the demons believe that and tremble.

Saving faith cannot be content to stop at orthodox belief. Such beliefs must change us. It is possible to know that God is one and yet live like a demon. We are called instead to live from all of the implications of our belief in God, which includes the call to love as he first loved us.

You see that faith was active along with his works,

and faith was completed by the works.

Abraham was established in right relationship with God based on his faith and not because of anything he did to earn it. But had he gone on the reject God's call on his life when it became too difficult he might have finally rejected and abandoned that relationship. Abraham's faith was not so thin as to crumble, not even when the call on his life became almost unbearable.

Was not Abraham our father justified by works

when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?

Abraham displayed faith when in his so-called work of offering Isaac. For it would not have been possible without faith. Indeed it would have been evil to do anything of the sort if it did not stem from absolute trust in God, from a deep, incipient belief, that God could give life even to the dead.

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death (see Hebrews 11:17-19).

Our faith requires that we not remain at the level of spectators surrounding Jesus, but rather that we embrace the role of genuine discipleship.

Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,

take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake

and that of the Gospel will save it.

 Peter had has faith in Jesus challenged when it became clear that such faith would mean to embrace the cross, both that of Jesus, and his own. He would doubtlessly have preferred a faith was more superficial, that believed correct things, and experienced good things, as Jesus went from one success to another. But his faith in Jesus was not meant to stop at the level of belief or feelings, but rather to empower him to follow Jesus and become like him, to love in a way that would have been impossible to him without faith. 

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world

and forfeit his life?

Without faith we have nothing to seek but the world, and no way to gain life. Faith calls us to live lives motivated by a bigger picture, by a true and lasting hope. 

Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words

in this faithless and sinful generation,

the Son of Man will be ashamed of

when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.

As a brief litmus test of our faith we can ask ourselves whether there are words of Jesus which, though we profess to believe them, are nevertheless the cause of cognitive dissonance within us? Are there parts of the faith of which we are ashamed? If so, it is likely because we have only superficially embraced them. They are in our minds but at odds with our actions. We have not planted the seed deeply enough or gazed long enough into the mirror of wisdom. If this describes us it means that we will be less likely to speak up for those parts of the faith when the time comes. Instead of this, we must strive to more whole-heartedly accept the faith so that it can transform us into people who, like Paul, are not ashamed of the Gospel (see Romans 1:16).

Blessed the man who greatly delights in the Lord’s commands.

Newsboys - I'm Not Ashamed

17 February 2022 - blessed are the poor

Today's Readings

(Audio)

My brothers and sisters, show no partiality

as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

We are called by Jesus to learn to see the inherent value in each human being. To do so we must overcome an innate tendency to show partiality to those who, in one way or another, are especially appealing to us. The rich, the popular, celebrities and the like, should not receive preferential treatment over those who are poor or unremarkable. Yet we tend to fixate on the impressive, ignore the unremarkable, and shun those whose poverty makes them appear undesirable. This is also true at the other extreme, where the very rich are often the dehumanized villains of our narrative about the world. In God's eyes, by contrast, everyone has value. When we look for proof of that value in the actions or accomplishments of others we miss the fact that it is already present in them before they say or do anything at all.

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.

Did not God choose those who are poor in the world

to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom

that he promised to those who love him?

The poor come the closest to revealing this fact of the inherent value of all people, for they have no polished appearance behind which to hide. Jesus himself did not come to enjoy a life of riches, and strongly identified with those who were without enough to meet their material needs. He called the poor blessed. He taught that by contrast, the rich had more going against them as they strove to enter the Kingdom, more weight pulling them back down to earth as they tried to rise to heaven. 

Perhaps we can see why there remains for us the temptation to shun the poor. They reveal our own calling to us, and it is frightening. We have a hard time imagining being so free from earthly attachments and so completely dependent on God. It is easier for us to sweep all of this aside and keep only that which is polished and pristine as our focus. We don't exactly imagine ourselves as shunning the poor. But they nevertheless slip through the cracks of our attention. While we may not be openly hostile, the result is still the privation of what the Lord would otherwise use us to do for them, which is in fact something we owe, not merely a gift we might offer on a whim.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

In order to love the poor we must be able to see their poverty without being overwhelmed by it as hopeless. And the only way to do this over the long-term is by faith in the person and mission of Jesus himself. He was a Messiah whose mission did not seek success on worldly terms, but was rather a straight line directed toward the cross.

Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

When we learn not to rebuke Jesus for his own mission we will become able to welcome all those who are suffering together with him. They will not be outliers to be ignored, but the focus of the very heart of Jesus himself, those to whom he was especially close. We will then be more free to embrace his mission as our own, free from our own need to always have a surplus of resources or a presentable appearance, if the demands of the Kingdom require it of us.

When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,

and from all his distress he saved him.

Kutless - All Who Are Thirsty

16 February 2022 - mirror, mirror..

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Know this, my dear brothers and sisters:

everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger

for anger does not accomplish

the righteousness of God.

As followers of Jesus we are called to a posture that is fundamentally one of listening, one that listens first and completely before rushing to speech. This posture is meant to define the way that we listen to the word of God that has been planted in us and is able to save our souls. It is also, in turn, meant to describe our conversations with others.

Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, 

he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror.

The word God plants in us acts as a mirror to reveal us to ourselves. We come to realize that our very being is a gift from God, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And at the same moment we see the defacements of that gift that are the results of our negligence, lack of fidelity, and sin. We need to fully hear what the word is saying, to fully take in the sight visible in the mirror. If we hear the word only in passing or glance at the mirror for only a moment and then rush back to life as usual without being changed we do not gain anything. Yet we might imagine that we had a profound religious experience and are therefore now 'religious' or 'spiritual'. We must do more than hear the word, we must provide the disposition of listening hearts to welcome it.

But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres,

and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts;

such a one shall be blessed in what he does.

When we keep looking and listening we eventually discover something greater than our own imperfections and limitations. This gaze does not make us fall into introspection that narrows us and makes us hopeless. Instead, we find our focus shifting outward to God himself and what he desires to make possible within us. We see that the word itself becomes a power to live and persevere in lives that are free from sin. This happens specifically when our listening is tuned in to the word, and not to the protests of our flesh, protests that, 'I can't' or, 'It's too hard', or 'It's not fair.' When we rush to respond in those merely human ways we risk missing the point.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue

but deceives his heart, his religion is vain.

Thoughts, unchecked, become words. Words spoken become habitual ways of thinking. These patterns of thought finally come to shape how we will act. This can work for us when our own words stem from listening first to God's word. But it can also frequently work against us when we rush to rash words of our own. We may not always manage to interrupt this pattern at the level of thoughts, but we must at least be conscious of our words. We must learn and train ourselves to speak based on God's view of the situation as best we understand it. Rather than boastfulness, pride, or anger, rather than fear, or doubt, or despair, we must align our words with the words of promise, of hope. When we agree in speech with God's declaration that it is possible we will discover that we are able to actually keep ourselves "unstained by the world."

Looking up the man replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.”

Jesus knows that our healing will not always be all at once and immediate. We try to gaze into the mirror mentioned by James but we don't see clearly enough to freely navigate life by the law of freedom. We want to see ourselves as we are but something more akin to trees is all we can discern. The point for us is to keep looking, to keep listening. Jesus himself is still in the process of recreating us. If he chose in us to do so over many steps or multiple iterations it must be because, for us, that way will yield the best results. Let us trust him enough to stay with him until our sight is more and more restored and we too can finally see everything distinctly.

Randy Travis - Open The Eyes Of My Heart

15 February 2022 - wise bread

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Blessed is he who perseveres in temptation

We imagine that it is those who have no real struggle with temptation who blessed, those to whom always choosing the good comes naturally and easily. But James was a realist who knew that we would never by perfect without first persevering. The possibility of being complete as a Christian which he mentioned in yesterday's reading would come only after virtue was battle tested. 

Our virtue, our commitment to choose the good and reject the bad will be tested. But there are some important things for us to recognize when this happens.

No one experiencing temptation should say,

“I am being tempted by God”;

for God is not subject to temptation to evil,

and he himself tempts no one.

God does not put us to test out of malice or the desire to make us stumble, or so that only the very strong and very perfect might stand before him. He rather permits the circumstances of the world to test us in order that we might grow in holiness, learning to choose him even when to do so is not easy or when there are other, more superficially appealing options. His goal is to help us learn to love, so that we can have hearts fashioned within us that resemble his own heart. He himself is better than the desires that tempt, lure, and entice us, but unlike them, he will not try to force us to choose him. He will however attempt to persuade us.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters:

all good giving and every perfect gift is from above,

coming down from the Father of lights,

with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.

Only truly good things come from God, nothing evil, nor even anything mediocre. And there is nothing truly good that comes ultimately from anywhere else. This is true in the world around us, but it is also true in our hearts. This is key to remember when we face temptation. It is not in the end all or even mostly meant to be about us and our moral striving apart from God's help. And so we need to remember: God has the power to help. God has the desire to help us. If we instead harden our hearts, imagine ourselves as victims, and wonder, 'Why me?' we won't look to God for the strength we need to persist. But we should look in order to see that the Lord has orchestrated the circumstances of our lives precisely because the gift he wants to give is so good and perfect as to be worth what we must endure to receive it.

He willed to give us birth by the word of truth

that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

The word of truth, the Gospel, resulted in a new birth when we where baptized. But we must continue to rely on the power of grace infused in us then and strengthened at confirmation. We must live from the minds renewed in wisdom and hearts reforged to love that we were given.  May we learn to flee from the temptation to fall back into a way of living that relies on ourselves alone. 

They concluded among themselves that

it was because they had no bread.

The disciples still thought, even after witnessing miracles, that everything depended on their planning and logistics. Jesus had demonstrated twice to them that he himself was the only loaf they would ever need in their boat, bread that would be multiplied endlessly to feed the spiritual hunger of the entire world. The disciples still needed to be persuaded that Jesus was entirely good so that they could trust him and believe that he wasn't trying to trick them or spite them. He did indeed let them endure difficulties, but it was always so that they could learn to trust themselves less and him more. It is reassuring that even for them this lesson was only learned over time, in relationship with Jesus himself. May Jesus open our hearts to trust him.

“Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?

Do you not yet understand or comprehend?

Jesus, born in Bethlehem, the "House of Bread" is enough to satisfy all of our needs, to strengthen us for trial so that we can receive the crown of eternal life with him that he desires to bestow on all of us.

Maranatha! Music - The Battle Belongs To The Lord