14 February 2022 - the wisdom of the Cross

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters,

when you encounter various trials,

for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

James began his letter by challenging his readers to completely reinterpret the trials, tests, and suffering that they encountered in life. He knew that they needed to see such things from God's perspective rather than their own so that they could push past human limitations and persevere when they would otherwise give up. Just them, in order us to become complete, to become Christians lacking in nothing, we have to have the right attitude about trials. Because James knew that this is challenging, and not our normal way of thinking, he encouraged us to ask for wisdom.

But if any of you lacks wisdom,

he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly,

and he will be given it.

Wisdom is learning to think about things and judge them as God himself does. Peter expressed the contrary position and was once condemned for thinking as human beings do. He had tried to stop Jesus from going to the cross, which surely made all the sense in the world from a merely rational vantage point. Instead, wisdom would have meant to consider that plan from God's perspective, which is how Jesus himself approached it. Jesus himself did pray that the cup might be taken from him, but preferred that the will of his Father be done. Jesus showed by example in his agony in Gethsemane that wisdom is not something that comes naturally, or even easily. It requires prayer and receptivity to gain wisdom. 

But he should ask in faith, not doubting,

for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea

that is driven and tossed about by the wind.

We tend to ask for wisdom as a mere contingency plan in case we can't solve things ourselves. We usually have several other plans that do not require faith ready to go as our primary options. We tend to imagine we'll be able to fall back on wisdom if these do not succeed. But if we are not fully invested in wisdom we won't be able to receive it. Receiving wisdom means the willingness to relinquish the control that merely human ways of thinking appear to offer.

For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord,

since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.

Wisdom can only perfect and complete hearts that are willing to be given over to it entirely. Only then, when relied on exclusively, can wisdom make sense of suffering and sustain us in difficult circumstances.

James knew that most of his readings had yet to fully experience the promise of wisdom. He wanted them to be aware of that promise and the difference it could make in their lives. He saw that a community experiencing trials and persecutions needed nothing more than wisdom. The good news he proclaimed to them was wisdom was freely and abundantly available for them if they would simply stopped hedging their bets.

The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus,

seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.

Wisdom had already vindicated Jesus by his teachings and his many works. But the Pharisees had a hardness of heart that caused them to ignore signs that amazed others. Then, as now, miracles happened and those open to faith witnessed them, while those whose hearts were closed did not. The Pharisees wanted a sign on their terms, something that would be the equivalent of of controlled and verifiable lab experiment where they themselves were the only authority competent to judge. Yet it has always been uncommon for the workings of the Kingdom to be visible under the microscope. No proof given will ever force us past the free decision of faith, for God remains ever as a gentleman. He invites. He proposes, but does not impose. Wisdom allows the people of God to recognize God's presence, and gives us the humility to allow him to reveal himself on his terms and not our own.

Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.

In the face of the sufferings of the world do we still insist on signs to justify the situation to our standards? Or do we instead see that wisdom teaches us to trust in the signs we have already seen, chief of which is the Cross itself, as proof that suffering is ordered toward and permitted because of a greater perfection that can be brought about in no other way.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted,

that I may learn your statutes. 

Audrey Assad - O Happy Fault

13 February 2022 - roots in the stream

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,

whose hope is the LORD.

Rather than seeking our strength in flesh, in our ego, in those things the control and manipulation of which make us prideful, rather, indeed, than anything else, we are called to make the Lord the one whom we trust above all others. He is to be the one on whom we truly rely, rather than ourselves, as the source of our strength.

It is altogether natural from a human point of view to emphasize those things that we can control and to try to control them as if we ourselves were required to act the part of God in our lives. It is difficult for us to happily accept any privation of the things that make the flesh strong, even if it the privation is only temporary and for the sake of the Kingdom.

“Blessed are you who are poor,

for the kingdom of God is yours.

Jesus demonstrated in the beatitudes that his disciples would need to be willing to put God in the first place in their lives. They would had done this or would do it by choosing him rather the riches, sometimes even leaving all they had to follow him. Disciples of Jesus could only be those who were not so chained to their wealth that they, when invited to follow, went away sad, as did the rich young ruler (see Mark 10:17-27). But the call of the beatitudes was not only for the disciples, nor is it only a call now for monks and priests. We too must prefer God to our wealth, to be willing to use what we have for the sake of the Kingdom, and to not be so preoccupied with it as to seek it in ways that are actually opposed to human flourishing, and therefore opposed to the Kingdom.

Blessed are you who are now hungry,

for you will be satisfied.

The crowd that Jesus fed by multiplying loaves and fishes was willing to be hungry for the sake of hearing his teaching, even for three days. Some of us would do well to make it through a single mass without thinking about what is for dinner. We are called to note this impulse, and guard against the desire that would prefer temporary pleasures to the lasting peace that only Jesus can give.

Blessed are you who are now weeping,

for you will laugh.

We may well wish to create lives that are so Pollyanna-esque that we refuse to see the problems that need fixing, the things which Jesus might perhaps want to use us to address. This is so common as to be a stereotype, the Ned Flanders interpretation of Christianity. Put another way, we can't allow ourselves to focus on playing the violin while Rome is burning. It is true that there is plenty of joy and laughter to be had even here in this present life, and we are not necessarily called to shun those experiences. However, we need to heed the warning against demanding of God only experiences replete with comfortable and enjoyable feelings. If we do this we will miss the crosses we have been called to bear for the sake of the world. We need to be willing to enter into the death of Jesus in the ways he calls us if we are to fully experience the joy of the resurrection. If he allows us to weep for a moment we are meant to trust that his joy comes with the morning (see Psalm 30:5).

Blessed are you when people hate you,

and when they exclude and insult you,

and denounce your name as evil

on account of the Son of Man

Do we prefer our reputation to Jesus and his message of salvation? Our call, like that is the disciples, is a prophetic one. We cannot be so interested in what people think that we are only willing to say things that will keep them happy in the way that they themselves define happiness. This is beatitude is an other-centric version of the earlier one where we were told that we ourselves must be willing to weep. Until the Kingdom comes in fullness we all need to be opening to a challenging word, a word of rebuke, which might even sting for a time, but eventually yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness (see Hebrews 12:11).

Christ has vindicated the promise of the beatitudes by rising from the dead. His resurrection is a promise to those who follow him that poverty, hunger, sorrow, and persecution do not have the last word. They seemed to dominate during the dark hour of the Passion and so too do they often seem to dominate now. But Jesus defeated them, and death itself, by rising from the dead. It is not just as a sign of the truth of his message that Jesus rose. It is rather in his very resurrection that we have the promise of ourselves rising to new life, the life promised by the beatitudes.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead,

the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Matt Maher - Christ Is Risen

The Dameans - Beatitudes

12 February 2022 - the 4,000

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus summoned the disciples and said,

“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,

because they have been with me now for three days

and have nothing to eat.

The heart of Jesus was one of mercy, moved with pity for the crowds who were hungry for his true teaching. Yet this mercy did not ignore the physicality and full humanity of those who had been with him for three days without eating. To say they were now hungry strikes of understatement. The mercy of Jesus was broad and wide enough to embrace the crowd at every level of their being. The spiritual nourishment came first and was the priority. But it did not end there. Practical concerns were also valid.

If I send them away hungry to their homes,

they will collapse on the way,

and some of them have come a great distance.

They needed both spiritual and physical food in order to avoid both a moral and a literal collapse apart from Jesus. They had come to him and gathered around him for that which he could uniquely give, that for which they hungered but for which they could not satisfy their own hunger. Jesus delighted especially to feed this hunger. These were individuals who, staying and listening for three days, were seeking first the Kingdom. Jesus desired to ensure that received all else, the things his heavenly Father knew they required.

His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread

to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”

One might wonder, after Jesus had fed the five-thousand, why could the disciples not at least guess at the solution? But that incident was in Jewish territory, and the disciples themselves had been the ones to suggest to Jesus that he address the hunger of the crowds. Here in Gentile territory Jesus himself was the one to propose it. This suggests that the disciples might have imagined a more limited set of possibilities for the this particular crowd compared to the one in Galilee. Their faith may still have had a blind spot. They may not have seen or wished to see that Jesus desired to feed not only the twelve tribes but also the seven Gentile nations of the land of Canaan, which the seven baskets represented, and which was symbolically all Gentile nations.

In multiplying bread a second time Jesus not only showed his desire to feed all the nations of the earth, none excluded, but also began to train his disciples that their own outreach would need to be toward every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. One might say that this was, among other things, an early form of diversity training.

Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,

and gave them to his disciples to distribute,

and they distributed them to the crowd.

The disciples were being prepared for their mission. That mission would call them to make the bread of God's word and the bread of the most holy Eucharist available to all nations, making no distinction. As always, the disciples were being called to embrace the very heart that Jesus had for his people. And we, no less than they, are called to have that same compassion. We too are called to guard against blind spots in our mercy to others.

Even having seen Jesus do miraculous things in the past, as we have, we must be careful to not slide into complacency that forgets his power, the unlimited possibilities of faith that each and every moment contains. We might imagine it easy to believe that Jesus would feed a second group if he fed a first. But in reality we focus on those times in between when the meals were provided by normal means. When this is our focus the supernatural stories of his gracious intervention seem to us more like legends than reality. This limits our ability to believe in what Jesus might want to do next, when compassion again stirs his heart. If the disciples had such a hard time learning the lesson of the multiplication of the loves we should realize that the multiplication of the Eucharistic bread contains a lesson which is just as easy to lose if we fail to treasure it.

Jeroboam established a feast in the eighth month

on the fifteenth day of the month

to duplicate in Bethel the pilgrimage feast of Judah,

with sacrifices to the calves he had made;

If we recognize the compassion we receive from Jesus in the Eucharist we will refuse to accept substitutes, idols such as those which Jeroboam setup for Israel. Those idols divided the tribes whereas Jesus desired to unite the nations around himself. Jeroboam created fake feasts to distract his people from the one place where they were meant to be fed. Jesus invites us to partake instead of a heavenly feast, of which earthly images are the barest of shadows.

May we so treasure the great blessings we have from our Lord that even the most compelling idols, that our world present to us for worship, will lose persuasive power.

They made a calf in Horeb

and adored a molten image;

They exchanged their glory

for the image of a grass-eating bullock. 

Kathryn Scott - Hungry (Falling On My Knees)

11 February 2022 - ears to hear

Today's Readings

(Audio)

And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment

and begged him to lay his hand on him.

We have something in common with this deaf man who could not speak clearly. It is not uncommon for those who cannot hear to have difficulty with speech as well. And we ourselves, while perhaps not deaf, are often such bad listeners that our ability to speak coherently can become compromised in turn.

He took him off by himself away from the crowd. 

For us, the problem is not a lack of noise or sound for us to hear, but rather an excess. We are bombarded from all directions, news, social media, television, friends, and many other sources with things vying for our attention. The degree of truth in these sources varies drastically one to the next, and even those things which are true vary profoundly in importance or relevance. Without stepping away from this environment we will continue to be confused, confounded, and frustrated, unable to hear those things that truly matter in the cacophony of the crowd.

Finding a place of quiet is important. Yet, simply stepping away from the crowd is not enough on its own. That brings us into a place where Jesus is free to work, where we can be more wholly attentive to him and what he wants to do in us. It brings us to a place where he is free to work as deeply within us as he desires. It is often at a level so personal and intimate that we are grateful that the crowds do not see.

He put his finger into the man’s ears

and, spitting, touched his tongue;

then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,

“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)

Isn't this healing a little bit like stepping into the confessional? When we confess our sins we are implicitly asking Jesus to heal us and help us to hear and speak the word of God. We are grateful to keep such a touch between us and the presence of Jesus, symbolically represented in his priests. Isn't it also very much like receiving the Eucharist, another moment that can be so intimate and personal as to take our awareness from those around us, as if we were alone with Jesus himself? There is a great need of this intimacy with Jesus so that he can be free to work within our hearts. Without such space there is the risk of us rejecting him out of the need to protect our self-image.

And immediately the man’s ears were opened,

his speech impediment was removed,

and he spoke plainly. 

When we come away with Jesus, experience his touch, we will find that our ears are opened. They will become attuned, in the first place, to his own words as the paradigm by which we interpret all else that we hear. And once this becomes true for us we will become free to speak, able to say things that matter, words that the world needs to hear.

He ordered them not to tell anyone. 

This abrupt command may have been more directed at the crowd who only saw the external sign without understanding the internal healing. But it may have been aimed also at the deaf man. He might have needed more time to internalize what he had received, to learn to keep the integrity of it even as he returned to the crowd, and only then convey what Jesus had done. Or maybe what he had received was simply too intimate to be shared. Perhaps the external miracle would not be enough of the truth to speak. 

But the more he ordered them not to,

the more they proclaimed it. 

They were exceedingly astonished and they said,

“He has done all things well. 

He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

The crowds could not resist speaking of what they had seen because they were simply too astonished. They saw the prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled which said:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy (see Isaiah 35:5-6).

They saw Jesus doing mighty deeds which seemed to be properly the prerogative of God alone.

The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? (see Exodus 4:11).

The risk of describing the external healing without conveying the inner reality is that it might seem that the external healing was the whole point.  We are meant to be astonished even more by what Jesus does within us than by the external works of healing which he does indeed still delight to do. Jesus demonstrated by the physicality of the healing of the deaf man that he does desire to address himself to our whole being, to heal us on every level. But we see that his emphasis is always on the inner work. The question for us, then, who have received something at least of this inner work, is, are we appropriately astonished? He has indeed done all things well.

The two were alone in the area,

and the prophet was wearing a new cloak.

Ahijah took off his new cloak,

tore it into twelve pieces

Unlike this prophet, Jesus had a garment which could not be torn or divided, showing us that his was the Kingdom that would last forever. So too does he desire to make us whole and healed in order to live fully the life of that Kingdom. The crowd pulls us in different directions, most of which are away from Jesus. Let us allow him to take us away by ourselves and speak again his words to us, "Ephphatha!", be opened!

Chris Tomlin - You Do All Things Well

10 February 2022 - to the dogs

Today's Readings

(Audio)

He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.

For it is not right to take the food of the children

and throw it to the dogs.”

Somehow the woman took this rebuff in stride. She noticed that he didn't say 'Never', but only not 'first'. She somehow intuited what Jesus himself had elsewhere taught about perseverance in prayer. She asked and kept asking. If Jesus seemed for a moment to be the unjust judge should would not for that reason abandon her petition. 

She replied and said to him,

“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”

Her love for her daughter combined with what she had heard about Jesus to motivate her hope for his help. It enabled her to step beyond the boundaries of pride into the realm of grace. She did not go on to explain to Jesus why she or her daughter deserved what she sought, but instead sought the reason why the gift could be given in the abundance of the giver. There was enough on the sacred table for the puppies to get a portion which the children would not even miss. 

Thus, even though Jesus said of himself at another time, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (see Matthew 15:24), the faith of the woman was able to anticipate and actualize the time of promise when the Gospel would go out to all the nations (see Matthew 28:19-20). 

We are called to have faith like this Gentile women, faith that meets the apparent impossibilities of the present time but still believes so strongly in the eventual fulfillment of all of the promises of God as to bring that fulfillment even into the here and now. Thus did the saints bring something of the reality of heaven down to earth wherever they went. They lived in the now of their respective ages but their faith reached out to the not yet of eternity and even drew it to their individual moments in history. It can be so for us if our compassion for others is strong enough and if our own pride and sense of deserving are sufficiently uprooted and set aside.

Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.

The demon has gone out of your daughter.”

When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed

and the demon gone.

Our world is full of demonic influence, full too of those who hunger for the bread from the table of Jesus. Do we care enough for the those afflicted to seek help from the one who alone is Lord of lords, and who alone can heal and feed them? When we approach him do we try to suggest all of the reasons why we think he 'should' do something or do we seek to provoke him by speaking of his own abundance, mercy, and generosity? When our focus is on anything other than his own abundance we tend give up after an initial rebuke or a lack of immediate answer. We take it as a no, and we typically take that no personally, as though it were a judgement on who we are as individuals. Jesus is trying to help motivate in us a faith that is not constrained by the limits of who we are, nor even the limits of time and space, a faith the only limit of which is the limitless abundance of God.

Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD;

he did not follow him unreservedly as his father David had done.

Solomon then built a high place to Chemosh, the idol of Moab,

and to Molech, the idol of the Ammonites,

on the hill opposite Jerusalem.

Solomon was reputed to be wise. But he did not display this wisdom in this period toward the end of his life. He conceded instead to the desires of his foreign wives. Rather than trusting in the Lord who had appeared to him twice he tried fix what was doubtlessly a dire domestic situation by trying to appease all of them in the way they themselves desired. He was therefore the opposite of the woman who trusted in Jesus for her daughter rather than in our own sense of deserving. He serves as a cautionary tale about how little compromises can gradually drag us to make ever greater concessions, living lives divided between God and our many idols. But God will not peacefully share the throne with false claimants. He will in fact do whatever it takes to set kingdom back on the right path so that the throne can finally be his and his alone. If Solomon had, in addition to wisdom, something of the humility of the woman, he might have followed the Lord unreservedly as his father David had. Let us not follow in the footsteps of this foolish king but instead in those of the little puppy who found her desires met at the Lord's table.

Remember us, O LORD, as you favor your people;

visit us with your saving help. 

John Michael Talbot - I Am the Bread of Life

9 February 2022 - inverted wisdom

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;

but the things that come out from within are what defile.

Even in our day we have a strong preference for problems that can be solved by something that enters one from without. We image that a pill or a diet could solve our problems. Or maybe if we became vegetarians or were more faithful about recycling the issues of the world would be solved. Are there structural problems in society that need fixing? Absolutely. Could we ourselves benefit from finding a better supplement or exercise regime? Perhaps. But the point that Jesus made was that none of these interventions is capable of addressing the deepest issue that underlies the rest.

But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.

If we imagine we can perfect ourselves and society but leave our hearts untouched we deceive ourselves. The issues we see in society don't crop up out of nowhere, but rather are the magnified manifestations of our interior brokenness.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? (see James 4:1).

If all the external things were fixed, all the injustice in the world, and everyone had all they needed to be happy and healthy, it would still not be long before we brought the world back down to its current condition, if we tried to live in that world without converted hearts. 

When we focus on external things that merely signal our virtue to others we become complicit in building a society defiled by sin. Whatever we do for show, or seeking validation for ourselves, contributes to the illusion that it is what is outside that matters rather than what is within. How does this look in individual lives? It often takes the form of individuals who need to present a self-image that appears to be already perfected rather than the truth that we are all, to one degree or another, still struggling with hearts in need of conversion. 

The Pharisees seemed to say, 'Look at us, we've got everything right.' And somehow this is the image that Christians feel the need to present to the world as well. This is not to diminish the impact of the grace that has already been effective in our lives. But it is to take the realistic perspective that the only reason we can continue to stand is by relying on grace, and the only way our progress will continue enough to get us home to heaven is, again, by relying on grace. It would be nice to be perfect already, to just need to keep on with what we have already accomplished. But deep down we know that there is more. And ultimately, it is better that there is more. For with our meager purity how clearly do we see God? Not very? Hardly at all? Then let us rejoice that their are ever deeper levels of purification to which we are called.

From within the man, from his heart

Although the problem comes from within, without the need for any external fuel to make it burn, the solution must also originate from within. Yet the solution is not something we can create for ourselves. Only God, who himself can work sweetly and secretly within our hearts, can give us the transformation we desire.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (see Ezekiel 36:26).

The truth of the deepest need of our hearts and where that need can be met is the deepest and truest form of wisdom. It is worth more than the spices, gold, and precious stones of the Queen of Sheba because this wisdom is the one thing that can train our hearts on that which alone can satisfy them, God himself. It is not just that he is good or true, but rather that he is goodness itself and truth itself. This is why he calls us to seek wisdom and to seek purity: he desires that we find these things in him.

The salvation of the just is from the LORD;

he is their refuge in time of distress.

Chris Tomlin - Give Us Clean Hands

8 February 2022 - merely human tradition

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem

gathered around Jesus,

they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals

with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.

The Pharisees hearts were already revealed by the way in which they were watching, waiting, looking for something to condemn. We too sometimes succumb to this temptation rather than simply keeping our minds on our business. But what will we see while thus watching except merely external matters, things that do not truly touch the heart or testify to the state of the soul? When we make it habit to judge others in this way we train ourselves to value external appearances over internal realities. Then we come to only value what seems to be the case from our perspective in others, and, in turn, we only value in ourselves what they can probably see from the outside.

And on coming from the marketplace

they do not eat without purifying themselves.

These ritual purifications were not meant to be a badge of honor, lorded over those who did not perform them by those who did. They were meant to be a sign and reminder addressed to the soul of an individual in need of purity. But as they became synonymous with the Pharisees' approach to Judaism they became a sign by which the perceived superiority of that approach could be weaponized. Pride would go to those who followed them and shame to those who did not. This was far from the original point of the purifications when they were first prescribed only for priests.

You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.

We are called to be on guard against merely human tradition even as we cling to the sacred tradition that has been handed down to us, whether in written form or by word of mouth (see Second Thessalonians 2:15). There is a great risk that if we do not thus guard ourselves we may become self-deceived, believing that our human precepts are the definition of a life pleasing to God. We will then wear that right clothes, say the right words, attend the right services, and even make impressive donations. But our hearts will remain disengaged. And to the degree that they do we will risk neglecting things that matter more than appearances.

“Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’

(meaning, dedicated to God),

you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.

If we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord and our ears open to his word we won't risk losing ourselves in externals and appearances. Our priorities will then be rock solid, and not put us at the risk of the pride, greed, and indifference that the Pharisees covered over with their self-constructed traditions.

Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth?

If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you,

how much less this temple which I have built! 

How much less can our merely human traditions contain God than the magnificent temple constructed to be a sign of his presence? We are called to remember that it is a living God whom we serve, a God whose very word is alive, with whom we are called into a dynamic relationship. Human traditions place merely human limits on such a relationship with the result that they keep us sealed off from any challenges such a relationship might present.

May your eyes watch night and day over this temple,

the place where you have decreed you shall be honored;

may you heed the prayer which I, your servant, offer in this place.

Let us turn to the presence of the living God. He has made himself abundantly available to us. Rather than looking around at others seeking for something to criticize let us instead look to God himself and seek the mercy of which we ourselves always stand in need.

I had rather one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;

Matt Maher - Better Is One Day