27 February 2023 - don't be the goat

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

We know that the Lord has called us and not only a select few saints to be holy as he the Lord is holy. But in what does this holiness consist? Is it only, as we might imagine from the fact that the passage comes from Leviticus, concerned with right performance of religious ritual? No! Although some of the omitted verses do contain a prohibition of idolatry and some simple provisions about sacrifice much more of the context is along the lines of what we see in the first reading, justice toward our neighbors. We should never imagine a holiness that can exist between an individual and God alone, in isolation from the other women and men created by God in his image and likeness.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen (see First John 4:20).

In loving our neighbor we also at the same time show love to God in whose image they were made, and who loves them more than we ever could hope to do. This is part of why holiness requires a prohibition on idolatry. For when we subvert our idea of God to some lesser created thing it is not God that suffers. It is we ourselves as we no longer recognize his image in ourselves or in others. We make ourselves like the lifeless idols we serve rather than the dynamic and uncontainable source of life that is found only in God himself.

For I was hungry and you gave me food,

I was thirsty and you gave me drink,

a stranger and you welcomed me,

naked and you clothed me,

ill and you cared for me,

in prison and you visited me.'

Jesus did not diminish the Old Testament call to holiness, but rather elevated it by placing himself at the very center of it. His purpose was to unite all people of every status, race, and gender into one in himself (see Galatians 3:28). Jesus, before any of us ever began to even consider holiness or love, was already loving everyone as himself more profoundly than we can imagine. Even the incarnation by which he himself chose to become one of us and share our lot was already implicit proof of this intention. But what Jesus did we are called to imitate. And now it is not only a response to our neighbor, much less to a command, but to the presence of Jesus himself, potentially or actually within the "least brothers" of his. We see just how profoundly real this connection is when he appeared to Saul on the Damascus road.

And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting (see Acts 9:5).

Every encounter with the least of our brothers and sisters is an opportunity to discover Christ. But perhaps it remains difficult for us to recognize him in this distressing disguise. We can take heed of the advice given by Mother Teresa who was convinced that it was her adoration of the Blessed Sacrament that gave her the strength and insight to recognize the face of God in everyone.

"Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor."

- Saint Teresa of Calcutta

The call to holiness is, again, not optional extra credit for overachievers. It is a requirement for all of us, without which no one can see God (see Hebrews 12:14). But we ourselves tend to be stubborn and slow to change, more like goats than sheep. What we need to attain this holiness is not prodigious effort so much as docility to Jesus who is himself the Good Shepherd and who alone can unite all his sheep in one fold.

And he will separate them one from another,

as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Micah Stampley - Holiness Is What I Long For

26 February 2023 - the temptations

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Just as ancient Israel was led out of Egypt into the desert for forty years of trial during which they often succumbed to temptation so Jesus would now allow himself to be led into the desert for forty days in order to conquer those temptations. Israel was said to be the firstborn son called out of Egypt, but now it was revealed that this was only a shadow of the true firstborn Son: "Out of Egypt I called my son" (see Matthew 2:15).

"If you are the Son of God,

command that these stones become loaves of bread."

A superficial analysis of these words might make us wonder, 'Why not?' After all, the forty days of his fast were over and he was hungry. Why not put his power to use to satisfy this hunger and at the same time give an undeniable assertion of his identity as the Son of God? But Jesus knew that to use his power to satisfy himself in this way would miss the point of his forty day fast. The point was precisely that he would rely on his Father and not on himself to sustain him, would subjugate even his hunger to trust in God. He would not suddenly tear that surrendered control back into his own hands. The Father was trustworthy for the forty days, and he would continue to be trustworthy, as the angels who were to come and minister to Jesus would soon reveal.

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (see Deuteronomy 8:3).

By remaining faithful Jesus did refashioned broken human nature into a form that could endure trials and privations, and remain solid even when faced with the more subtle temptation to rely on oneself rather than God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city,

and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,

and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.

Again the devil attacked the identity of Jesus as the Son, yet this time with a different strategy. If Jesus really trusted in his Father's word then why not avail himself of the promised protection offered in that word?

He will command his angels concerning you

and with their hands they will support you,

lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Although the devil could quote Scripture, he took it out of context and subverted its meaning. The devil wanted Jesus to feel that it would be so easy to just force God's hand by choosing to slip only slightly and thereby reveal his divine identity to all who witnessed it, guaranteed to be no small number given the location on the parapet of the temple. We succumb to temptations like this more frequently than we realize when we try to act in a way that forces God to respond. Sometimes it does seem to be just so easy to collapse and demand that he catch us. And how great, we know, are the times when God does safeguard those who fall. We sometimes long for such encounters so much as to demand them, and indeed to grumble for them as the Israelites grumbled when they didn't receive what they wanted on the terms they chose to set. We demand revisions to the plan when the desert journey as not as smooth and easy as we had hoped, when it requires more trust than we seem to be able to offer. But Jesus reforged this fallen aspect of our nature as well. The Israelites grumbled, but Jesus was content with his Father's will, even knowing full well where that will would lead him.

Jesus answered him,

"Again it is written,

You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."

The devil tried a last desperate strategy to cause Jesus to turn aside from the Father's plan for him, one last easy out that Jesus might choose instead of the long and hard road of the cross.

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,

and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,

and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,

if you will prostrate yourself and worship me."

This might seem to us so extreme as to be laughable, as indeed Jesus might have found it to be. But we, like the Israelites of old are all too prone to choose idols when our desert journey seems to become unbearable. Like them, we have a variety of golden statues with whom we bargain when it seems to us that we can't get what we desire from the Lord. When God seems distant, as he did to Israel when Moses seemed to have been absent on the mountain for too long, we tend to take things into our own hands. And what are these idols? The list is long: power, politics, pleasure, science, and a variety of other lesser although still genuine goods. Yet we prop them up on pedestals as if they themselves will answer our prayers. Fortunately for us Jesus did not mince words in his response, did not hesitate in fidelity, and therefore reforged this fallen aspect of our human nature as well.

At this, Jesus said to him,

"Get away, Satan!

It is written:

The Lord, your God, shall you worship

and him alone shall you serve."

We are so subject to all of the desert temptations to which Israel succumbed because we inherited the spiritual death of Adam. But we can see, perhaps more clearly than before, that this need no longer be so because of the promise that has been made to us in Jesus Christ.

For if by the transgression of the one, the many died,

how much more did the grace of God

and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ

overflow for the many.

For this gracious gift to be all that it is meant to be we must receive it not just once at the beginning, but in an ongoing way that allows it to transform us, giving us not just pardon and acquittal, but life, and not just any life, but one in which we too are victorious over temptation, in which we can even be said to "reign" through Jesus Christ.

O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Stuart Townsend - The Lord's My Shepherd

25 February 2023 - feeling seen

Today's Readings

(Audio)

a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.

We might imagine that Matthew was not entirely satisfied with his work as a tax collector. The Romans would not have entirely accepted him because he was Jewish. And his own people would have seen him as a traitor who collaborated with the occupying force. It paid the bills, perhaps, but at the cost of cutting him off from socializing with any but outcasts like himself. 

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.

When Jesus came to Matthew he was still sitting at the customs post. If he was indeed dissatisfied with this work he had not yet expressed it, not yet made any attempt to extricate himself from it. Maybe it still seemed like his best option or maybe he simply despaired of the existence of any better choices. But this lack of movement on the part of Matthew did not stop Jesus. He did not wait for Matthew to first remove himself from that situation, but rather entered into it, and called him out from it.

He said to him, "Follow me."

And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

Why were these words of Jesus so immediately compelling to Matthew that he immediately got up and left everything behind? It was not simply because Matthew was dissatisfied, and here at last was an option other than his current one. It wasn't merely another competing choice, something that would compare favorably in a cost/benefit analysis. There was something more immediately irresistible about the invitation Jesus gave, having in it the same sort of power that made fishermen leave their profession and their nets to follow him.

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi 

Jesus saw Matthew. We may easily imagine that this was the first time, at least in a while, that Matthew had felt so fully seen, known, and comprehended. For years, most folks probably saw only categories: tax collector, traitor, collaborator. But Jesus saw his heart. Because Matthew experienced being seen by Jesus he was thereby elevated out of mere categories into his unique human individuality. It was in this condition that he heard Jesus say, "Follow me." 

He said to him, "Follow me."

And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

How could he not follow this one who saw him and knew him, whose very gaze opened no vistas of possibility and promise? Of all the alternatives to tax collecting Matthew might have considered it is doubtful that this possibility ever entered into his mind. It was Jesus himself who, by inviting him, opened a new path that he was now free to choose. By this invitation Jesus shattered the bondage Matthew recognized in every other option he might have chosen. Here, to Matthew's surprise, he found a new and radical freedom, one only possible in response to the invitation of Jesus himself.

Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,

and a large crowd of tax collectors

and others were at table with them.

We can see in the response of Matthew a joy he had never experienced before and which he now felt so intensely that he had to share it. It demonstrated to tax collectors everywhere that there was hope for them, just as there was for Matthew. 

"Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"

The Pharisees, however, spoke aloud what must have been the initial suppositions of Matthew and all tax collectors, that no holy man could possibly welcome tax collectors and sinners. Jesus had already shattered that supposition for Matthew by his invitation. He now shattered it for all at the banquet, giving all of them permission to hope in him.

Jesus said to them in reply,

"Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.

I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners."

Jesus did not plan to leave those sick with sin in their illness. Accepting his invitation was radical and dangerous because doing so would necessarily result in an inner transformation. By accepting it repentance was already implicit. As those who accepted it followed Jesus that transformation would reforge old habits of thought, word, and deed, until they became like the one whom they chose to follow. 

The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples

The Pharisees were apparently intimidated to go to close to the unpredictable wellspring of freedom that Jesus himself was proving to be. But they weren't done trying to shut the doors Jesus had opened, their preconceptions and prejudices scrambling to remove the healing salve Jesus had already begun to offer. We should see in them a warning. We become like them whenever we allow ourselves to be convinced that there is a person that Jesus cannot reach, to whom he cannot offer freedom, at least until that person takes a few steps on their own. We should instead recognize the lesson Matthew learned: that Jesus can burst suddenly and unexpectedly and to the darkness of any situation offering in its place freedom and life.

The Lord is calling us to see others generously, with an eye toward their potential for fulfillment in him. We are called to do all we can to make the unlimited potential the Lord sees in them to be a concrete reality in this world for them, to give them choices were there seemed to be none.

If you bestow your bread on the hungry

and satisfy the afflicted;

Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,

and the gloom shall become for you like midday;

Marty Nystrom - Forever Grateful

24 February 2023 - fast company

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,

"Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,

but your disciples do not fast?"

Fasting was such a universal spiritual practice that it was something shared in common by the disciples of John and the Pharisees, and indeed, many cultures in many times and places throughout history. We can exaggerate the scene in our minds by imagining a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, and a variety of others joining in the interrogation. 'Jesus,' they all say together, 'You say that your are the physician sent to heal those sick with sin. How is it then that you ignore this rudimentary and necessary remedy?' How indeed. Fasting does seem to be a properly basic discipline, designed to free those who do it from subjugation to lesser things, allowing their minds to rise to the contemplation of higher goods. Those who fasted in past times were expressing their commitment to a higher vision of reality than that of the mere exigencies of the body, which seemed like a praiseworthy practice.

Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn

as long as the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast."

Jesus did not in fact dispute with them about the importance of fasting. What he did instead was to recast it around himself, around his own person, in a way that must have been shocking. First, he identified himself as the bridegroom, a title God used for himself in his relationship to Israel in the Old Testament.

As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you (see Isaiah 62:5).

Jesus was trying to help them see that fasting would have to be different now that he arrived on the scene. Perhaps previously it would have been enough to fast as a sign of preference to some amorphous and undefined spiritual good. But now, that goodness had been revealed and had a name: Jesus of Nazareth. It was therefore now the case that fasting and feasting could attain their true and fulfilled purpose only if they were done in reference to him. It was now insufficient to merely fast generically, pursuing some vague and undefined good, when the true good for which we were all made, the bridegroom of whom we are all meant together to be the bride, was standing before them. To fast in such a situation was an insult, and was if if one had something better to prefer than even Jesus himself.

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast.

Jesus did not do away with fasting, he recast it with a new center rooted in the mysteries of his life. This news that the bridegroom would be "taken" must have seemed cryptic. But hindsight reveals to us that he spoke of his crucifixion and death, and that these specifically would be the mysteries that demanded fasting as a proper response. We might briefly wonder if, since that was an event in the past, we no longer need to fast. Yet we know that the Church in her wisdom calls us to enter afresh into these mysteries every year. We know too that Jesus called his disciples, past and present, to take up their crosses and follow him. Since the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus is still at working transforming ourselves and the world it is often still necessary and appropriate to fast. But the reason for this fasting is now nothing generic, it is instead a petition of our hearts longing for the bridegroom, enticing him back, telling him we will be satisfied with nothing less than he himself.

If we fast in the way that Jesus intends, centered around him, heightening our desires for him, we will not risk the selfish and superficial fasts condemned by God through the prophet Isaiah. Rather, we will experience the freedom of heart in our own lives that allows us to share that freedom with others. Self love will be tempered enough to let the love Jesus wants so show through us to others shine through. Every opportunity to show love to another is an opportunity to meet Jesus in a new way. Let us no longer allow our hunger for lesser things to distract us from such a great reward.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your wound shall quickly be healed;

Your vindication shall go before you,

and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,

you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!

Darlene Zschech - Jesus At The Center

23 February 2023 - life choices

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected

by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,

and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Jesus did not come primarily to teach or to heal or to perform other miraculous deeds. Those actions were inevitable because of who he was. But he chiefly came, was born into this world, in order to die. Yet he did this not out of a sense of masochism nor was he merely a soldier resigned to defeat. He planned to die in order to destroy death. He did it, as the book of Hebrews tells us, for the joy that was set before him (see Hebrews 12:2).

If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me.

We are called by Jesus not primarily to learn, or to be healed, nor even to learn to act in a way that is morally upright. All of these things are part of the call of Jesus, but they must not obscure the big picture, which is that we have been called to die and to rise again in him.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

If we target anything less than the life Jesus intends for us we risk losing that after which we strive. Nothing that can be had apart from Jesus, apart from the path he created through death to life eternal, nothing apart from that can truly be held in a lasting and permanent way. Apart from that health eventually deteriorates, great learning is forgotten, even virtue cannot remain indefinitely. 

The only path that is open to us one of losing our lives, but not merely in order to throw them away. We are called to lose our lives for love, specifically for the sake of Jesus himself, and are promised that when we do so we will truly find them, in a depth and reality that we have heretofore not known.

By calling us to the cross God is not trying to punish us or to make us suffer for suffering's sake. He is calling us to the one true path to life, the only way that the damage done by sin can finally be overcome. He does this because he does desire us to live, does in fact desire to share his own life with us. In proof of the fact that it isn't a ruse or a trap he himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, first blazed the trail before asking us to follow. He himself revealed the radiant glory of the life that awaits us. Let us, therefore, choose life. Let us settle for nothing less.

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

Choose life, then

Hillsong United - Lead Me To The Cross

22 February 2023 - don't feed the egos

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Take care not to perform righteous deeds

in order that people may see them;

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

Our egos have no interest in giving alms, in prayer, or in fasting. When they are informed that these are things we ought to do they protest and demand an immediate reward. If, they say, we must give up our normal indulgence, we must receive some kind of immediate reward as a repayment. The trouble with all this is not so much that our egos want too much but rather that they are content with too little. We allow ourselves to be sated with the praise of others, to be content as long as we are in some way the object of their attention. And by being sated thus with trivial things we neglect and fail to pursue the true reward and repayment from the Father himself.

But when you give alms,

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

so that your almsgiving may be secret.

It isn't so important that we perform almsgiving with absolute stealth such that even forensic investigators could not discover it. What is important is our motive. It's probably better to spend less time considering how we look to others in our almsgiving than to spend too much time thinking about it, either to display it or to hide it. Because even spending a lot of time cleverly disguising it could become a point of pride, a short-term ego reward, sabotaging our full claim in the Father's promised repayment.

When you pray,

do not be like the hypocrites,

who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners

so that others may see them.

When we pray we are called to be less preoccupied with the external form, and the self-image that accrues to us as a result of that form, a more attentive to the inner room where the Father himself desires to meet us. This inner room as often a hard space to occupy because it is cut off and isolated from the normal bustle of the world, a place where there are none of the short-term ego rewards we often seek, where the existence of any reward at all is finally beyond our control. Our egos hate this lack of control. But if we learn to sit with it, "your Father who sees in secret will repay you". And this repayment is not only at the end of the age. It is precisely in prayer that the Father himself can become our reward, provided we don't settle for less.

When you fast,

do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.

A last resort of the ego is often an attempt to feel pitiful, and thus to draw the pity of others. If it can't appear great and strong and spiritual at least it can make known how very difficult are the sacrifices it is making. Others can then acknowledge the greatness of those sacrifices and also feed it with affection to make up for the loss of those things. But is this really what we want out of fasting? Is it not rather that we would learn to prefer God to the lesser good things of his creation? Let's not going only halfway and become content with something as trivial as pity when God himself desires to be our reward.

We might protest that life seems difficult enough without increasing the difficult by a season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But this a mistaken and worldly attitude. It is precisely because the world is in such a state, and even we ourselves are perhaps struggling, that we need to turn to the Lord for mercy. What we have been doing on our own has not helped, has if anything only contributed to the downward spiral, the vicious cycles drawing men and women down toward their base natures and animal instincts. Our contentment with lesser things has meant that God has even been truly and sincerely asked to help. We have instead tried to make the best of it with our egos. And we ought to see by now that these attempts have failed. This is why the present moment of our world is the perfect, the ideal time to begin another season of Lent.

Spare, O LORD, your people,

and make not your heritage a reproach,

with the nations ruling over them!

Lent is not meant to be a hopeless or sorrowful season. It is a season where the Lord himself desires to captivate us and to capture our hearts, to lure us back from lesser things to the fullness of life that he has always intended for us. This is why Lent is not merely an optional addition for overachievers but something the whole Church walks through together, because the urgency is great, and the promise is something on which we can rely.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;

behold, now is the day of salvation.

Matt Maher - 40 Days

21 February 2023 - cross purposes

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Son of Man is to be handed over to men

and they will kill him,

and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.

Lent is the time when we prepare ourselves for the Passion of Jesus, for the celebration of the most sacred mysteries of our faith. Yet we are often like the disciples:

But they did not understand the saying,

and they were afraid to question him.

Lent is the time when we must reckon with the reality of the cross, not only for Jesus, but for each of us who, as his disciples, are called to take up our own crosses and follow him. It is probably true of all of us that there is a part in all of us that loves the cross of Christ, that loves the love he showed for us, but also another part that recoils and pushes back from such a stark reality. This other part of us acknowledges the implications of the cross, that sin was so bad that it could not simply be ignored or smoothed over.  But rather than embracing this reality, this part of us tries to figure out how it can get the most for us and lose the least. We are told we must lose our lives in order to save them. But we try to calculate a way to do so and still get what we want, to still surrender as little of ourselves as possible, to give our lives, perhaps, but hopefully without actually experiencing the loss of all things.

But they remained silent.

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way

who was the greatest.

There is this multivalent aspect to the cross because of who we are. We are at once new creatures in Christ, but with an old self that isn't entirely dead. We have both the Spirit within us producing his fruits, but also the reality of concupiscence drawing us downward toward sin. The new self doesn't calculate what it can get for itself by pouring itself out in love for others. But the old self can't be persuaded to give anything without seeing how it can benefit thereby. We tend to try to solve this by bargaining with the old self, making promises to it, in order to free ourselves to live as we should. We tell our ego that it will feel good, feel like a top rate Christian, if only we do this or that act of love. And sometimes it comes along for the ride. This can help, because to some degree, if we pay attention, love reveals itself to be its own reward. But it is also often the case that we don't receive as many good feelings as a result and the ego feels disappointed and the next act of love becomes harder. Let's take a more realistic perspective this Lent, one which is prepared for a little endurance, not because of the feelings, but because of our faith in the good entailed and what the process is doing.

Accept whatever befalls you,

when sorrowful, be steadfast,

and in crushing misfortune be patient;

For in fire gold and silver are tested,

and worthy people in the crucible of humiliation.

We are called to become servants, those who look not toward what the can get, but what they can give. And this isn't that unusual, for it describes our normal relationship with children. They can't do much to earn our affection, and sometimes seem to actively try to repel it. And yet we love and receive them. We tend to hold adults more accountable, to demand of them a greater degree of reciprocity, but we are actually called to love all with similar largesse.

Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;

and whoever receives me,

receives not me but the One who sent me.

Who can we receive today, not because of what they can do for us, but because in receiving them we receive Christ himself? Isn't receiving Christ a better reward than anything for which our egos might try to bargain, or shouldn't it be? Since we realize this, let us seek him!

Take delight in the LORD,

and he will grant you your heart's requests.

Hillsong UNITED - Lead Me To The Cross