Author: Deacon Bob

The qualities of God, and for that matter, those who wish to call themselves disciples of Jesus, echo throughout the readings for this Sunday. If we are to focus on exactly what those qualities are, they could be summed up by the words, compassion, love, and mercy.

We all have the ability the be self-righteous, to try to impose our will on those who think differently from us, and condemn them when they do not conform to our will. I am as guilty of this as most people.

The psalmist reminds us in Psalm 25 (the Responsorial Psalm for today), of God’s love and mercy. The psalmist calls on God to form his/her life in the way of God. Then remembers how God’s love, compassion and mercy has forgiven the past sins of the psalmist. Humility formed by God’s love, compassion, and mercy is the quality of one who follows the path of God.

The prophet Ezekiel states very clearly that God is so generous in bestowing love, compassion and mercy on all people, even those whom we would judge evil, that it appears as unfair. This reminds me of a scene in the movie, “The Princess Bride”. The grandfather reading the story to his grandson is confronted by his grandson by the question, “Who kills Prince Humperdink?” The prince has killed the hero, Wesley, and is compelling Wesley’s bride to marry him. The grandfather replies, “No one kills Prince Humperdink.” The grandson is appalled by the apparent injustice of the Prince not getting what is due to him. Of course, the story revives Wesley, who was only “mostly dead”, not “all dead.” And Wesley is reunited to his true love, Buttercup. And, the prince remains living.

Jesus reminds us in the Gospel that God’s mercy, compassion, and love is greater than that of we, who are mere creatures of God. The scriptures call us to live lives that push against our natural tendencies for revenge.

I believe one of the greatest descriptors of who Jesus is, was used by the great theologian, Monica Helwig. She called Jesus, “The Compassion of God.” Jesus is the living and breathing compassion of the One who created all life. Paul in his letter to the Philippians, emphasizes this when he writes, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.” (Phil 2:1-3)

While we must always work to build the reign of God in our world, we must do so starting first by emulating the love, compassion and mercy of God, as lived by Jesus. I pray every evening that the justice and peace of God penetrate my heart, and the hearts of every American and all people in the world. If we are to be disciples of Jesus, then we must strip ourselves of self- righteousness (which is only a thinly veiled selfishness) and clothe ourselves in the compassion, the love, and the mercy of God.

We like to think in dualistic absolutes, e.g. the good, the bad, black and white. During this time of tribalism, politically and religiously, it is easy to think only in terms of us and them, and that God is only on our side and absent from the side of all our opponents. In a time of Blue and Red political differences, I know well the feeling of taking sides. I wonder out loud how anyone could claim that God is on the side of those holding an opposing viewpoint from my own. Then, I remember the words of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said to an outspoken opponent of the Confederacy, “The question is not whether God is on our side. The question is whether we are on God’s side.” For God, there are no dualistic absolutes.

One of the recurring messages of Jesus in the Gospels is telling people that they are not thinking as God thinks. Peter hears this directly from Jesus when he tries to persuade Jesus to not go to Jerusalem where there are those actively plotting his torture and execution. Jesus consistently tries to correct the absolutism of the Pharisees and the Sadducees in regard to their strict observance of the Mosaic Law. When Jesus was castigated by the Pharisees for curing on the Sabbath, Jesus hurls back at them that the Sabbath was created for humanity and NOT for God. In opposition to the Mosaic concept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Jesus tells people that that was no longer valid but wrong. Rather, people must love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.

When the Christian Church became the state religion of the Roman Empire, it took on the structure and many of the sins of Roman Imperialism. Sadly, all the warfare that resulted, e.g. the 30 years war between Roman Catholics and Lutherans in Germany, the horrific consequences of imperial colonization in Central and South America, Africa, and many Asian nations, are in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. It tragically continues today.

I believe that anyone who truly seeks to follow the teachings of Jesus lives in a dramatic tension that continues to pull his or her life. It is easy to live in a world of black and white absolutes. To live in a black and white world of absolutes is a lazy way to live. You don’t have to think. You are not required to think. You are not required to wrestle with your faith trying to seek God’s will in the murkiness of a world that is NOT black and white, but rather mostly grey. This is what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples and the world. The world in which Jesus lived was anything but black and white. The world in which Jesus lived was incredibly a very murky, grey world.

I have found that a complacent faith is an empty faith. Faith is only alive in the midst of struggling to know the will of God in our lives. One cannot live by blind faith, for the descriptive word describes that kind of faith well, namely, it is blind.

The first step to living the Great commandment of Jesus “to love one another as I have loved you,” requires us to recognize that every human being in all nations wears the face of God. In spite of how much we may like or dislike another person, they wear the face of God. No matter how much it may irk us or cause us distress, the people we like least still wear the face of God. If this one thought can penetrate the darkness of our human hearts, there will exist the chance of God’s justice and peace to reign in our very broken world. It is our part to pry open our closed hearts to allow God’s justice and peace to penetrate our hearts and our lives.

This hymn and this song’s inspiration is derived from the first and second chapter of Isaiah.

In the first chapter, God is castigating the elders of Judah for their corruption, their greed, and their utter disregard of the poor and the vulnerable of their society. “Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:12b-17, NRSV)

In the second chapter, Isaiah paints an eschatological vision of what will be, when all nations united with their enemies approach the mountain of God, ascend, and sit at the feet of God. God will teach them the ways of God’s peace and justice in which all weapons will be destroyed and turned into plows and pruning hooks and war will be destroyed for ever. That segment ends with the promise, “come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

The hymn acknowledges the truth that all people of our world, regardless of nation, culture, religion or non-religion, are children of God. God does not just wear one face, but wears the faces of ALL God’s children. This is the vision I hold before me during this time of great acrimony and division.

As you listen to the music, it starts out like a typical church hymn, than segues into another melody, before it segues again into a variation of the hymn, then segues again into another melody before concluding with a final variation on the hymn. Yes, you can sing the text of the hymn to the music, especially as it is played at the beginning and the end of the song.

Here is the text of the hymn:

HYMN TO OUR GOD OF MANY FACES

God of many names and faces,
Hymns of how our lives interlace
With you, whom we have known
And think of you as ours alone.

Our rituals, doors to our salvation?
Incense, music, food oblations,
Cultic gestures, words, and symbols,
Is this Salvation for the lazy and simple?

Truth be told, O God omnipotent,
Our feeble rituals sadly impotent,
Until we love all people on earth
To whom your love has given birth.

For every people, culture, nation
You equally love and grant salvation,
Our foes, our lives, you equally cherish,
And grieve the deaths of all who perish.

Truth be told, O God omnipotent,
Our feeble rituals sadly impotent,
Until we love all people on earth
To whom your love has given birth.

O God of many names and faces,
All human life your love graces,
Transform into flesh our hearts of stone,
For you are flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

Here is the music.

For those of us who have followed the horrific swath of death that Covid-19 has caused in our nation, we have also witnessed the tremendous, heroic outpouring of love and sacrifice that our medical heroes have demonstrated, often becoming infected by this deadly virus, and some dying from it. Among those medical heroes are the EMTs, the nurses, the nurses aides, the doctors, the maintenance crews, and the police who have responded to the desperate need of so many who have become infected.

I count among the number of these medical heroes, my daughters, Meg and Beth, who have selflessly given themselves to the care of so many who are vulnerable and ill.

I express my thanks to them and undying admiration and appreciation for all those who have sacrificed so much for those so desperately in need because of this pandemic.

Below is the music I composed based on a poem I also have written in great thanks to these great heroes of our time.

A NOCTURNE FOR OUR MEDICAL HEROES
Literature is filled
With narratives of
Individual and collective
Acts of heroism.
The shining armor
Of righteous knights,
the Robin Hoods’
Of world history,
Bandolier draped chests,
Fighting a heartless
World that preys
Upon the powerless
Trapped in poverty.

We search the horizon
For visions of soldiers
Bravely raising a flag
On an embattled hill.
We seek for leadership
In an absentee government,
To find only a vapid vacuum
Of intelligence, draped
In self-indulgence.
and corruption,
spreading as easily
and as deadly,
as the pestilence that
is killing humanity.

“Where are our heroes?”
Where is the new Moses
To rise among us,
To protect and lead
Us from our wandering
In this desert of death.
One, for whom the good
Of the many out weighs
Personal ambition
And self-gain?
To whom can we
Entrust our lives,
And the lives
Of those we love?

Rescuers arrive,
Draped in the soft cloth
Of medical scrubs,
EMT uniforms,
Armed only with
Bandoliers of compassion,
Love, and self-less service
And a stethoscope,
A mask and face shield.
Their hearts emblazoned
With the words,
“There is no greater love
Than to lay down
One’s life for a friend,”

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

The readings for this past weekend are hard readings for those of us who actually listen to them. It is a part of human nature for us to harbor anger against those who knowingly commit acts of injustice and violence against others. Which one of us, when watching some action movie, do not cheer the heroes who avenge the evil that some villain has caused to those who are innocent. Which one of us, do not support and cheer on those who “get even” with those who have acted unjustly and violently against those who are vulnerable? There is a reason why there are laws protecting the innocent, with consequences for those who prey upon the vulnerable.

I am no different than any other human being. For those of you who know me personally, it is no secret that I harbor great anger toward the present occupant of the White House, for the crimes against humanity that he and his administration have committed against immigrant families, against our environment, culminating in his present, criminal neglect about the Covid-19 pandemic endangering not only all of the population of our nation, but targeting especially those who support him blindly. To knowingly endanger human life is a sin.

Is it wrong for me to harbor this anger? Not really, for Jesus harbored anger toward the money changers in the Temple, actually fashioning a whip and violently whipping those who defiled the Temple with their greed and commerce and overturning their tables. Jesus, in spite of his divine origin, is just as human as we are.

So what is Jesus telling us today? If you study the Gospels, and for that matter most of scripture, you will find that the tremendous acts of God’s mercy outnumber those accounts of God’s violence. What Jesus tells us is that it is to God alone who holds divine accountability. Pope Francis 1 has written copiously about the mercy of God.

Note that in the Gospel, while the wicked servant is held accountable for the crimes he committed against another, e.g. being tortured until his debt is fully paid, Jesus rules out that that wicked servant would be abandoned by God to eternal torturing. Rather, after having fully paid back the evil he has done, the wicked servant would finally experience the fullness of God’s mercy and love.

With humanity, we may look upon those who have committed the most grievous and evil acts upon other humans as utterly unredeemable. God looks upon them differently. They will have to “pay the piper”, they will be held accountable by God for the evil they have caused, but God’s mercy is far greater than the evil they have caused others.

This does not mean that we allow those who commit evil to “get away with murder.” But it is not for us to damn them, precisely because that is a power that does not belong to us. Jesus, dying on the cross, forgave those who plotted his execution, those who tortured him beyond human endurance, and those who cursed while he was dying on the cross. He called upon his Abba and our Abba to have mercy on them. His call for God to be merciful was the last act of love Jesus did prior to his death.

This is the lesson that we, as human beings, must learn. These are very difficult times when injustice committed by many of those we have trusted have wounded us and has caused great human suffering and death. We can be angry toward them. We can vote them out of office and hold them accountable for the crimes they have committed while in public office. However, we must also look upon them through the merciful and loving eyes of God.

I remember listening to a program upon Minnesota Public Radio a number of years ago, in which a Jewish rabbi was speaking about the drowning of the Egyptian Pharoah and his army in the Red Sea. The rabbi said, that while not written in the Exodus account, in the Talmud a story is written about that mass drowning of human life. As the story goes, the angels approach God and tell him that he must be rejoicing that his chosen people were saved from the slavery and wrath of the Egyptians. However, they find God not rejoicing, but weeping, and ask why God is so sorrowful. God tells them that the Egyptians were his children, too. God was weeping over the deaths of his children, the Egyptians.

In the first two chapters of the prophet, Isaiah, God’s love and God’s mercy for all of humanity is revealed. The first chapter has God very angry against the Jewish people. God calls their religious rituals an abomination, stating that God’s ears were closed to all their prayers, their rituals, and chants. Why? Because they are bathed in the blood of the vulnerable they have destroyed. They have mistakenly thought that their wealth and their finery, their elaborate rituals and sacrifices would suffice God. However, God tells them that they are buried in the corpses of the widows and orphans (Biblical metaphors for the poor and the vulnerable). Until they made reparation for their crimes against humanity, God would condemn them.

In the second chapter of Isaiah, the prophet paints the scene of ALL humanity, ALL nations, including the enemies of Israel, coming to God’s holy mountain, whereupon they will be seated around the great table of God for a feast of food and drink. In the sharing of this great eschatological meal, God would teach them divine love and mercy. Weapons of war would be transformed from instruments of torture and death into plows and pruning hooks, and war would no longer exist. The passage ends with God inviting all to walk in God’s light.

In light of these two readings from Isaiah, I composed the following poem.

HYMN TO THE GOD OF MANY FACES

God of many names and faces,
Hymns of how our lives interlace
With you, whom we have known
And think of you as ours alone.

Our rituals, doors to our salvation,
Incense, music, food oblations,
Cultic gestures, words, and symbols,
Is this Salvation for the lazy and simple?

Truth be told, O God omnipotent,
Our feeble rituals sadly impotent,
Until we love all people on earth
To whom your love has given birth.

For every people, culture, nation
You equally love and grant salvation,
Our foes, our lives, you equally cherish,
And grieve the deaths of all who perish.

O God of many names and faces,
All human life your love graces,
Transform into flesh our hearts of stone,
For you are flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

As I have read the New Prague Times over the past six months, the number of deaths reported in the obituaries are juxtaposition with that of the number of weddings. Just because the pandemic is killing a huge segment of our population, that has not thwarted those couples seeking to be married. The juxtaposition of death and life continues to be played out. This poem and music in two parts reflects this dichotomy that is a part of our lives these days. Whether it be celebrating a life that has ended, or celebrating the lives of a couple that have just begun, one thing is consistent, because of the danger of infection, only small, isolated groups can gather to honor and support both celebrations.

Here is the poem and the music that reflects the poem.

JUXTAPOSITION 2: A Lullaby and a Waltz
Lullaby for a Deceased Loved One
So many walk,
eyes cast downward,
Draped in black,
Bruised and battered
By the sting of death.
Their loved one placed
Among the community
Of the non-living, who
Will now attend
To their future needs.

A Wedding Waltz
Across the town,
Faces lift skyward,
Adorned in white,
Young love’s promises
Dreams to be fulfilled,
And new life generated.
They take their place
In the community
Of the living, who
Will now attend
To their future needs.
Love triumphs over death,
Plucking from death its sting.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

The following poem and reflection is a result of my whimsical musing as to how adolescents and young people are coping with the increasing influence of hormones in their lives. Unless one is locked away in a monastery some place (and even that is not a guaranteed chaste environement) or wearing locked metal chastity belts etc, adolescents will explore and experiment sexually, much to the displeasure and disapproval of us clerics and parents.

Since the invention of the automobile, secluded places to park a car and “make out” has been an active endeavor of adolescent couples experiencing the natural explosion of hormones in their lives. Whether we call those places, “lovers lanes”, Drive-in Theaters, or “watching submarine races” (Ruthie and I went out to the airport quite a bit, “to watch the planes take off from the parking lot” … imagining doing that now in this post 911 time of increased surveillance and camera monitored airport parking lots) adolescent couples continue to seek secluded places.

This poem is a whimsical musing as to how this pandemic has affected this behavior on the part of our adolescents. With the danger of infection so great, how do adolescent couples cope. Somehow, “making out” over Zoom or Skype is just not quite the same.

Here is the poem and the music that accompanies the poem.

An Estampie for Would Be Lovers

Ah, those isolated places where once
cars and bodies huddled together,
the “lovers’ lanes”, in which
submarine races were observed
with no winners posted,
“to score”, an unabashed innuendo
of conquest and shame.
These secluded spots.
grass trampled down by
blankets and cars,
where sexuality was explored,
car windows fogged over
by the breath of its occupants,
shaky adolescent hands
fumbling with buttons and catches,
a stroke here, a grope there,
an indignant slap leaving its mark
across the cheek of the offending,
and the hickey, the mark of Cain,
adorning the neck of the willing.

Only overgrown grasses now
huddle together with overgrown weeds,
hiding from sight these lots
these lots vacant of humanity
and near occasions of sin.
A pandemic plucks the blossoms
off of young adolescent love.
Social distancing hard to attain
In even the largest of vehicles,
near occasions of sin,
minor and major,
literally out of reach.
The facial mask, the chastity
belt for the lips, thwarting
even the most chaste of kisses.
The buildup of hormones threaten
to burst adolescents asunder.
Confessionals as empty as
hospital maternity wards,
I fear for the propagation
Of the human race.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

On May 29th of this year, Ruthie and I celebrated 51 years of being together. And, God willing, this December 27th will mark our 46th wedding anniversary. During the past year, we have finally spent the amount of time together for which we have always dreamed from that first date on May 29, 1969. It is just too bad that it took injuries, retirement, and a pandemic to accomplish what we have desired from the onset of our relationship together. I composed the following poem, and the Rhapsody for Ruth that reflects the sentiments of the poem, revising and completing both last week.

SHELTERING IN LOVE

A Rhapsody for Ruth
When we were courting,
I was impatient for the time
When the culmination of
Our evening together would
Not end at the doorstep
Of your aunt and uncle’s house.
I longed with the lover
In “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
That our evenings would
Stretch through the night,
Our night’s embrace ending
Only in the light of a new morn.

In the bliss of newly married life,
The foolish belief that my longing
Forever fulfilled, was revealed
as much a dream as when we dated.
Our children’s births, that great
Unknown during courting,
The time and expense children
requires, shredded my dream.
Our time away from each other
Out numbering our time together,
Long days at work for me, and
Long nights at work for you,
As we sought to provide
For our growing family.

It is paradoxical, that it took
Work ending injuries and
A pandemic, a plague,
In which the longing of my
Youth would be fulfilled.
The daily tasks that fill
Human lives for nourishment,
Environment and safe shelter,
Sitting in our chairs, working
Crosswords, and word games,
Cheering and cursing politicians,
Every moment together, is a
realized moment of tremendous grace.
After fifty-one years of longing
That our evening’s embrace
Would stretch through the night
Into the morning’s light
Finally, after all these years,
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” is transformed
into “Oh, How It Is Nice!”

(c) 2020, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

Here is the music I composed for Ruthie that I think reflects the sentiments of the poem.

While I was in full-time active diaconal ministry, I abstained from actively endorsing any political campaign. That didn’t mean I was silent about what I considered moral issues. Over the years, you would find on my car bumper stickers stating: “War is always a defeat for humanity! (Pope John Paul II); “Pro-life is more than just pro-birth.”; “Imagine a World where Pro-life efforts included feeding hungry children.”; “You cannot be a Christian without living like a Christian. You cannot be a Christian without practicing the Beatitudes. You cannot be a Christian without doing what Jesus teaches us in Matthew 25. It is hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away the refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry and thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of any help. If I say I am a Christian and do these things, I’m a hypocrite!” (Pope Francis 1). Of course, you would also see some bumper stickers that were a little more lighthearted, e.g. “Where are we going? And why are we in this handcart?” or “What if the Hokey-Pokey IS what it is all about?”

Now that I am fully retired from active ministry, I have the ability to more actively support the political campaigns of those candidates I believe more fully support the Gospel mandates that Jesus explicitly states in Matthew 25, with the acknowledgment that no political candidate nor no political party can fully embrace the life issues that are stated in that mandate that Jesus gave us.

This past week, Ruthie and I posted our political sentiments endorsing those candidates that we think best live out those mandates that Jesus gave us. We placed their campaign signs very close to our house, within 2 to 4 feet from our home. We have had three of those signs stolen. I would like to say that I am surprised by this however, the intolerance, politically and culturally, of New Prague is engrained in this community in which we have lived the past 43 years. When I filed my complaint with the New Prague police, I was rather explicit about the political and cultural bigotry of the community. After a couple of hours of to cool off, I penned the following letter to the editor of the New Prague Times, minus some of the colorful metaphors and questioning of the thieves legitimacy of birth, I used with the police. Here is that letter in its entirety.

“A healthy community is one that welcomes a diversity of culture and political discourse.  As much as a we would like to think New Prague is a model community of political and cultural discourse, in the 43 years my family has lived here, we have found this far from the truth. There is a high degree of political and cultural intolerance in our community. There are those within our community who are dedicated in denying the freedom of speech that our nation’s Constitution guarantees all citizens of the United States. My family has recently experienced the theft of signs supporting political candidates of our choosing and causes we support. These signs were not just out on the boulevard but were located close to our house within our flower gardens. Thieves stole my family’s  Constitutional right of Freedom of Speech from the sanctity of my home. New Prague, do you wish to be known as a community of intolerance and bigotry? Are only white, Czechoslovakian Republicans allowed to express their political opinions in this town? The theft of our Constitution’s Freedom of Speech is not a mark of a healthy democracy, rather it is indicative of totalitarian dictatorships. New Prague, we MUST be better than this!”

READINGS FOR THIS SUNDAY: EZ 33:7-9  ROM 13:8-10  MT 18:15-20

In the first reading, the people of Judah are in exile and demoralized by their enslavement and the destruction of Jerusalem. God tells Ezechial to respond by telling the people that God loves them and wants them to live, but they must first repent of the sins that caused their destruction.

In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of how the Church must address the sins of those within their community. It is important to note that the word Church is not isolated to the clergy caste of the Church. Rather, the Church is the ENTIRE community of the Church, inclusive of the laity, who will address the misconduct of all the members, INCLUDING the clergy. This is an important distinction.

All this “judging” begs the question as to what is the criteria by which we, as Church, are to judge the misconduct of others in our Community of Faith. Paul in his letter to the Romans defines this very succinctly, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:8-10, NRSV)

The entire theme of Sacred Scripture is all about “relationship”; God’s relationship with humanity, humanity’s relationship with God; and, how that relationship is reflected in humanity’s relationship with one another. As Paul so clearly expresses, if we truly live the Great Commandment of love, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”, people will not cheat and steal, people will not harm or kill one another, people will not covet those people who are important to others, nor anything that others may possess, because in bringing grave harm to their relationship with others, they bring grave harm to their relationship with God.

In our living the Great Commandment of love that Jesus gave to us, does this mean we can never be angry? Jesus felt and expressed anger toward those who despoiled the Temple with greed and commerce. Jesus felt and expressed anger toward the behavior of his own religious leaders and sought to correct their behavior. Anger in itself is not a “bad” feeling. Anger is only harmful when it consumes a person and his/her rage turns to hate, and that hate evolves in a harmful act of violence, physical or emotional toward another human being.

We live in a time of great polarization. I feel great anger, and at times, rage when I see the deliberate and criminal separation and imprisonment of immigrant children from their families by our government. I feel great anger, and at times, rage when I see how this pandemic has been so mishandled by those in political power and has lead to over 189,000 needless deaths, many families unemployed and experiencing hunger and poverty as a result of that mismanagement. I feel this great anger, and at times, rage because these actions or lack of actions are a great assault on Jesus’ commandment to love one another as Jesus loved us.

Selfishness and greed are the greatest threats to humanity evolving into becoming that which God intended humanity to be, and to what Jesus demonstrated what humanity could become. The only way, to combat this horrific state of disunity and destruction today is not through violence. It is not attainable through destruction. The only way is by living the Great Commandment of Love. And, it is so hard …

REFLECTION FOR THE 22^ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A

Readings for this Sunday: Jeremiah 20:7-9, Romans 12:1-2, and Matthew 16:21-27.

When we examine the readings for this Sunday, we are told, rather point blankly, that the life of a disciple of God is not an easy life.

I love that opening phrase from the reading from the prophet, Jeremiah.
“You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.” The prophet then goes on to say that his life has been miserable from the time God chose him as a prophet. I find it interesting that in Catholic liturgies, the concluding line from this chapter of Jeremiah is never used. Jeremiah writes:

“Cursed be the day^* on which I was born!  May the day my mother gave me birth never be blessed!  Cursed be the one who brought the news to my father, “A child, a son, has been born to you!” filling him with great joy. Let that man be like the cities which the LORD relentlessly overthrew; Let him hear war cries in the morning, battle alarms at noonday, because he did not kill me in the womb! Then my mother would have been my grave, her womb confining me forever. Why did I come forth from the womb, to see sorrow and pain, to end my days in shame? (Jeremiah 20:14-18, NAB)

I think we can safely say that Jeremiah was having a pretty bad day, the day he wrote this. However, for those of us who have served in the Church, we all, at one time or another, have shared similar sentiments with those expressed by Jeremiah. Moses called the people he led, “stiff-necked people.” I think we all, in private, have created even more colorful metaphors for some of those whom we have served.

The path of a disciple of God is not an easy one. Teresa of Avila, a doctor of theology and saint in the Roman Catholic Church, once stated, “God, you wonder why you have so few friends. Look at the way you treat the ones you have!”

So, why is it that a disciple of God often faces opposition from people? Even the finest of God’s disciples have not only been persecuted by non-believers, but have been persecuted from their own religious authorities. I think of the saints and mystics of the Catholic Church, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, to name a few. Of course, the greatest of them all is Jesus of Nazareth who was not only opposed and attacked openly by the religious authorities of his religion, but who actively participated in his execution. So why is it so difficult for a disciple of God?

Jesus expresses this explicitly in today’s Gospel, when Peter remonstrates with him, telling him NOT to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Jesus rebukes Peter saying, ““Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

A disciple of God lives a life that is in great contradiction and in direct opposition to the way that most humanity lives. Jesus speaks of this in the Gospels. He tells us that we must love as God loves, without any exception. We must love our enemies as we love ourselves. We must forgive our enemies as we forgive ourselves. We must place the common good of others before our own individual common good. A life of selfless love and service to others is bitterly opposed by a world consumed by self-indulgence and screwing over anyone who gets in the way of that self-indulgence. Humanity seeks to place itself over others and lord itself over others. The way of humanity is to engulf and devour (to share an image from Mel Brook’s movie, “Silent Movie”). The way of humanity is to divide, conquer, and enslave. We have seen this played out in the history of the United States since its inception, and has been glorified since the 1980’s. It is sickeningly on display for us everywhere today. The glorification of the self, the opulence of celebrity to the detriment of others is being broadcast in all media and social media and is justified by stating that this self-indulgent way of life is THE “American Dream.”

When disciples of God claim that this way of life is a false gospel, they will be persecuted not only by those who are non-believers, but by the authorities within their own religion. Jesus tells us in the Gospel today that this opposition from within and without religion is inevitable for the disciple of God.

“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 will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?”  (Matthew 16:24-26, NAB)

What is a disciple of God to do, faced with such a dismal  prediction? St Paul in his letter to the Romans tells us, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Paul, who was no stranger to hardship, persecution, and well knew the dangers of discipleship, knew that in discerning and conforming ourselves to the will of God, everything in the end will be okay.

Paul consuls the Roman community:

“He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.

“No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things,^* nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,^* nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:32-39, NAB)

In his wonderful book, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-third Psalm, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote these words about the psalm verse, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff comfort me (Psalm 23:4, NAB).  “God’s promise was that when we had to face the pain and unfairness of the world as we inevitably would, we would not have to face it alone, for He would be with us.”*

While we are not spared the harm and derision and danger that Jeremiah, St Paul, and Jesus experienced, as disciples of God, God does not abandon us but is right by our side as we walk through that valley of the shadow of death. We will have our crosses to carry. We will be persecuted and derided and, at times, suffer the same from those of our own religion. However, God will never abandon us but will remain faithful to us through it all. At the end of that path lies the entry way to the fullness of glory that God prepares for us.

*Kushner, Harold S.. The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-third Psalm (pp. 102-103). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.