St Francis of Assisi had that wonderful ability to see the presence of God in all of God’s creation, whether it be the lowly worm to the wolf of Gubbio. This poem is my attempt of expressing how I find God embodied in our pet dog, Belle. The one attribute that dogs have over human beings is that dogs never put on airs. They live authentic lives, always being true to themselves.
My family has had three “official” pets over the years. FloydRMoose, and Henri “Puppyboy”, both AKC Great Pyrenees dogs, very loving and sadly, short lived. And, now Belle E Button, a rescue pooch who is officially a “Boxerdore” part Boxer and part Labrador. Unlike the Pyrs, who were pretty laid back, Belle has the high strung character of the Boxer. She is a very loving dog, but needs a lot of attention. The joy of having this dog in my house is that I am reminded of two things: One, I am always loved. This dog reminds me how well I am loved pretty much most of the time. Secondly, because of her own needs, I am reminded that as she serves me, I need to serve her needs equally, even at times when it can be very inconvenient. Here is my poem.
BELLE
You sit by my chair, anticipating a tossed, discarded crumb of toast, cracker, or popcorn kernel. I acknowledged my failure, reinforcing habits frowned upon in polite canine etiquette.
You, not highly born of breed, but more the result of unsafe sex, your parents’ careless passion resulting in your spindly legs, your Boxer disposition, your “house elf” ears and Labrador face. Your life more shaped by the cats than the dogs at the animal rescue. You are a living contradiction, facing down thunder storms with a lion’s courage, yet cowering in your safe place behind the chair in dread fear of the vacuum cleaner.
Are you cat or dog burglar? I remember well the purloined steak marinating on the kitchen counter, one of those nights of infamy, in which the question was whether the steak was worth the discomfort and diarrhea in which we all had an unfortunate share, the wee hours of that night.
In love with forbidden fruit, should I have named you Eve? Chocolate, dark or milk, no matter, you consume and savor equally with great relish this canine poison. Just why is it that you are still alive? Did the cats with whom You were raised as a puppy, bequeath to you a portion of their nine lives?
Discreteness, not one of your fortes, the evidence of your kitchen counter thefts strewn behind the coffee table, your fortress of naughtiness, torn, stolen bags of licorice, chips, candy wrappers and paper. Yet, for all the theft, your life and mine strewn about the house, you remain for me a living metaphor of God’s unconditional love.
For all your incessant barking, I am reminded of your constant love and protection, your willingness to ward off the forces of evil perpetrated by the children and the elderly walking by my house. You greet me with unbridled joy every time I walk through the door excitedly offering to me a treasured bone, a sign of God’s unlimited hospitality toward all.
In your crying to be let out in the yard, the potty breaks in the middle of the night, and, yes, waiting by my chair in hope of getting a crumb of bread or snack, you remind me of my need to embody Christ, to serve and not to be served.
As I scratch under your muzzle, and that spot you can’t reach just above your tail; as I rub your belly, and you stretch out your legs and hear that sound of contentment only you can make, I remember that it is giving that I receive, and in dying to myself I find everlasting life.
The past 4 weeks and another 6 to 8 weeks of a non-weight bearing left ankle, I find myself obsessively consumed in finding balance. Here is a poem about exactly that.
FINDING BALANCE
My daughter calls it a stripper pole, a floor to ceiling invitation for exotic, gymnastic moves designed to raise the libido of the observer … or, in my case, that upon which to grasp, holding and assisting me in raising my body from the bed to the walker staring at me, double dog daring me to stand, presently far more important than my libido, which has long been in the depths of a Rip Van Winkle slumber.
My present pursuits seek not those earth-shaking epiphanies of eschatological mystery. My pursuits are more isolated to the mundane, the more parochial, a Question of movement … reaching in safety, my chair, commode, bed, those long sought after Quixote quests spiritual, and psychological balance set aside for a while.
I find myself desperately grasping for balance, as central to life as a drawn breath, a dance filled with complex steps, fragile and perilous, suspended over uncertainty with no visible net underneath. It is that moment, when the pole is released, the quick reach for the walker, hoping that an open, grasping hand will make the journey with surety to the walker, awaiting a new day.
(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
My granddaughter Alyssa, my grandson, Owen, and Julissa, the daughter of my good friends, Jorge and Monica.
I was looking at this photograph of Alyssa, Owen, and Julissa this week. It is a wonderful picture of the solidarity of the human race. Alyssa’s parents are Caucasian. Owen’s parents are Caucasian and Filipino. Julissa’s parents are Mexican. Seeing these little children playing at my parent’s home on Easter Sunday 2003, showed me the salvation that Jesus extended to all of the world when he rose from the dead on that Easter over 2000 years ago. It reminds me of a meme published a number of months ago of a Caucasian child embracing another child of Color. The banner underneath the meme was “Racism is not natural. It is learned.” These are very true words.
Now contrast this photograph of our common humanity, to the horrific racism exhibited by certain people of our executive and legislative branches of government and echoed at a political rally this week.
When I was in graduate school at the St Paul Seminary School of Divinity, among the many wonderful texts given us during school was one entitled Dangerous Memories: House Churches and American Society, written by theologian, Rev. Bernard J Lee, and Psychologist and theologian, Dr Michael A Cowan. In the book, they examined how people learn the important values in their lives. A child’s values is the result of an nteraction of those taught by the child’s parents and relatives, with that of the culture in which the child lives. They call this the child’s “Assumptive World.” Those values taught by the child’s parents and the community in which the child lives will shape the behavior of the child in adulthood. These values or “ethos” are hard to change. Something dramatic must happen for the child to challenge or reject the values that the child has learned. This is a very important concept for us to absorb and upon which to reflect. All values, good and bad, will shape our lives up to the time we take our last breath. It is important for us to look at those values we have learned, and how we have passed them on to our own children.
In working with people suffering from domestic violence, I have found, and it is documented, that abusive behavior is a learned behavior. The perpetrator of abuse learned this behavior from one of his/her parents. The behavior is passed on, like an evil gene, from parent to child, and summarily passed on by the child’s to his/her own children. It is a horrible chain of violence that is hard to break. Children in a household of domestic violence have two choices: 1) to become a perpetrator of abuse; or, 2) to become a victim of abuse. The victim will commonly marry a perpetrator of abuse, because the victim believes that the normal relationship between a married couple is one of abuse. The perpetrator will seek out someone to control and abuse. Tragically, this is more common than not. This learned behavior of abuse and the circle of violence it spawns is very hard to break and change. For the victim, it is not impossible. For the perpetrator, it is so deeply rooted in his/her life that it is close to impossible.
Now apply this same concept to the sin of Racism, especially so graphically portrayed for us on national television this week. With the passage of the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960’s and the election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008, many thought America had been cured of the Sin of Racism that has afflicted our nation from its very beginnings. Racism passed on from generation to generation over 200 years is not so easily eliminated. The racism has just gone underground continuing to fester and infect the many, many lives of innocent children.
In order to address the Sin of Racism in our society, we must first do the hard work of addressing the racism we have learned. I started to do this my freshman year of college.
MY STORY
My parents never taught me racism nor any prejudices, because they themselves suffered discrimination for being children of immigrants, Swedish, Irish, and Polish, and being Roman Catholic. At the time they grew up there was a great deal of prejudice leveled at many Roman Catholics in the United States. My father had to change his name from Wojnar to Wagner, to make it sound more Protestant in order to get a job as a mechanical engineer in his company. My mother lost her job as a home economics teacher in the Pittsburgh Public Schools because she was Roman Catholic. Being victims of religious prejudice, growing up poor in the Great Depression, they made sure that prejudice of any kind, classism, religious or race, would never be passed on by them to their children.
So, as a freshman talking three city buses to and from college every day, I was surprised to find myself very uncomfortable when the color of the bus changed from exclusively white to black in color at the intersection of University Ave and Snelling Ave. I was dismayed to find myself feeling this way. I was in no danger, yet I felt threatened. I realized at that moment as a young man that I harbored racist thoughts and feelings. Where did I learn it? It certainly was not at home.
I tend to be introspective and wanted to examine where I learned this behavior. After some considerable thought and reflection, I determined it was from television and the communities in which I had lived. As a child, my home was in exclusively Caucasian neighborhoods. From fellow students I learned that when driving in certain neighborhoods of St Paul, namely the Selby/Dale neighborhood, it was important to “roll up your windows” and lock the doors in the car to protect myself from “those dangerous people.” It was also from my fellow students I learned racist and cultural jokes, from Afro-American to Polish jokes, and sexist jokes e.g. “Blond jokes”. All of these jokes were baseless in fact and were clearly meant to demean and degrade the people or cultures targeted in the jokes. The same could be said for prejudice against “queers”, or what we would call the LGTBQ community today. Much of the prejudice I learned was from my own peers, who had been taught what they passed on by their parents, relatives, and communities.
I also found that my prejudice was influenced and reinforced by television. At that time, the only people you saw on television in television shows and advertisements were Caucasian. There were no people of Color playing important roles on television, with the exception of roles as servants or criminals. So the portrayal of people of Color on television isolated those people to roles that were perceived as either demeaning or criminal. Portrayals of Asian people were isolated to those running Chinese restaurants or laundries, or the Japanese whom our parents fought in World War II. In general, people of Color were portrayed on television as people who served or harmed the Caucasian race and were not worthy of the American Dream to advance themselves culturally or economically.
Once I found the source of my racism, I set to the task of reversing what I had been taught. It is a lifelong of relearning. In pursuing friendships with people who were from other races and cultures, and listening to their stories, I discovered the reality of the world of “White Privilege” in which I had been raised. The obstacles in the path of many people of Color to better education, better employment, a more fulfilled life were far more numerous than any I had. I naturally presumed the playing field was level for all races. I learned that my presumption was totally false.
Being educated formally as a musician, I also had many good friends among the gay and lesbian community. In listening to their stories of discovering their sexual orientation and the fear of being “found out” by family, church, and society upset me greatly. Their sexual orientation never shocked me. How they were treated for being gay and lesbian upset and shocked me. Then as I studied the lives of the composers whose music I performed and admired, I discovered that many of them were homosexual. Tschaikovsky feared his homosexuality would be discovered all of his life. To hide his homosexuality he got married to a woman who was nymphomaniac. She blackmailed him his entire life. Since homosexuality was a capital offense in Russia, he feared being executed for the crime of homosexuality. Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, and Ravel, all hid their homosexuality. Leonard Bernstein came out when he was director of the New York Philharmonic. He ended up resigning his position. I admired their great courage living in a world that hated them for being homosexual. Homosexuality is not a learned behavior. As in the color of our skin, it is how God created us. I once asked one my of gay friends when he knew he was gay, he replied by asking me how I knew I was straight. I answered him, “I just know.” He said, “It is no different for me.”
(Clip are from Hermanleon.com. Used with permission.)
UNLEARNING FALSE AND DANGEROUS VALUES
How do we unlearn the harmful values that we have been taught? The key to this unlearning is “relationship”.
The first we thing upon which we must base our unlearning are the words from the first chapter of Genesis. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. This is exclusively true for all races, gender, or sexual orientation. In the Hebrew Testament, it is written that God is the God of all nations. In the Christian Testament, it is doctrine that Jesus died for all people of all nations. Salvation is not isolated to only a small group of people. The salvation for which Jesus died and rose from the dead is extended to all of humanity. God’s love and acceptance is always exclusive, never inclusive! To be taught otherwise is nothing more than the false teachings of our own fears and prejudices being projected on God. In short, heresy.
Secondly, we need to cultivate relationships with people of other races, cultures, and sexual orientation. When we do this, we find that our differences are very few. I remember when I was at St Stephen’s parish in South Minneapolis, if I sat after Mass with a heterosexual family and then with a homosexual family, the topics talked were about all the same things of family life. The diversity of people on parish staff and Human Services staff enriched my life so greatly that I was completely, utterly changed shattering many false values I once believed. We all share in the same pain, sorrow, joys, and worries regardless of our family of origins, religion, race and culture. Whether we be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, we may call God different names and religious rituals may differ, but our need for salvation and our desire to be united to God for eternity remains the same. Forming relationships with people different from us expands our understanding of the world, destroys the fears we were taught by our parents, relatives, and community, and shatters forever false and dangerous values.
Thirdly, it is important to pass on to our children and our grandchildren values that values that build up the reign of God in our world. This is the mission that Jesus entrusted to us at his Ascension. There is no place for fear in God’s reign. There is no place for racism in God’s reign. There is no place for sexism or sexual prejudice in God’s reign. There is only one law that holds primacy over all human laws, “Love one another as I have loved you.” These words were spoken to the Apostles as Jesus prepared himself to be arrested and executed. These words continue in perpetuity until that time that Jesus returns again. These words of Jesus must be imprinted in our heads and our hearts and must be not just mere words but the mission statement of our lives.
Perhaps this is what shocked me the most at the political rally held this past week. The complete and utter lack of love present there. There was no visible or audible sign of Jesus’ commandment to “love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus’ last words to his apostles the night before he was executed, must become our life’s mantra and must hold primacy over all other values we hold in our lives. This must include the hard task of loving others who hate us, fear us, and act against us.
(clipart from hermanoleon.com used with permission)
REFLECTION ON THE READINGS FOR THE
16TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, 2019.
If we look back over the last two
weeks, the readings have addressed the qualities of being a disciple of Jesus.
This is true for this week, too.
The readings present to us a dichotomy in which Christian disciples live. The first is the busyness in being a servant of God. The second is doing nothing but resting in God.
In the reading from Genesis (Genesis 18: 1-10a), we hear the story of Abraham greeting the three strangers standing by his tent and inviting them to rest and freshen up from their journey and have some food and drink. The three strangers reward his generosity by telling him that his wife, Sarah, would bear him the child he had always wanted.
Paul begins his letter to the Collosians (Collosians 1: 24-28) stating that he is offering himself up as an oblation in service to the Collosian community. “I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.” (Collosians 1: 24*)
Then, in the Gospel (Luke 10: 38-42), Jesus presents another side to discipleship. To borrow the old proverb, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Martha is busying herself, preparing food, cleaning, working very hard being hospitable to Jesus, while her sister, Mary, is doing nothing but sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him. Martha, naturally, feels very put upon by what she perceives as laziness on the part of her sister, and complains to Jesus. We then hear Jesus’, famous quotable response to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10: 41b-42a)
I worked with a wonderful priest at St Hubert from 1984 to 1989, Fr Barry Schneider OFM. Unlike many priests with whom I worked up to that time, Barry was multi-faceted and talented. Before becoming pastor of St Hubert, Barry was an accomplished author of plays, taught at Hales Franciscan on the South Side of Chicago, traveled throughout the United States presenting plays with his acting troupe from Hales Franciscan, and was Director of Religious Education for the Diocese of South Falls, SD. He was also an activist priest, marching throughout Cicero with Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He protested the Vietnam War. He told me one day that because of his activism, he thought the dossier the FBI had on him was pretty thick. Prior to his coming to suburban, Chanhassen, he was pastor for a number of years at an African American parish in Nashville.
One day, in the midst of a very busy day, I found Barry sitting in silence in the church. He had been there for some time. He invited me to sit next to him and begin to speak to me about his life as a priest. When he was at his most busy, when he was teaching at Hales Franciscan in Chicago, busy with his plays, traveling, and his activism, he said, “I almost lost my faith and my vocation as a Franciscan priest.” I asked him to say some more about this. He replied, “I thought that my work was my prayer and neglected my need to pray.” He got to the point that he became overwhelmed by all the work he was doing and almost left the priesthood. It was then he realized that in all his busyness he was not paying attention to his relationship with God. With this insight, he made it a point to schedule in his busy day an extended time of solitary prayer with God. Sometimes, usually in the winter months, that solitary place as an empty Church. However, his most favorite and frequent place to pray was in nature. He, and his miniature schnauzer, Scamp, would go for long, prayerful walks in the nature preserves around Chanhassen. This was how Barry kept a spiritual balance between service and resting in God.
This is an important lesson for all of us. We as disciples, and especially for those of us in ministry, have a misconception that discipleship is about pouring ourselves out as a libation in service to everyone. I suffered under this misconception in my early years doing Church ministry, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that eventually threw me in to a very deep, dark burnout. Isolating discipleship to mean all work and no rest can, as Barry observed, can lead to losing our faith and abandoning discipleship altogether.
Jesus insists that it is absolutely necessary to find a place to be alone and be in quiet with God and ourselves. We hear in the Gospel stories, Jesus seeking away, and on one occasion, fleeing from the crowds and the apostles to find an out of the way place to sit in quiet, in order to be in relationship with his Abba.
I remember a romantic comedy in which an American woman traveling through Italy has lunch with an Italian businessman. The lunch goes about 2 hours in length, in which the woman says to the man, “don’t you have to get back to work?” He replies to her something I have never forgotten, “That is the problem with you Americans. You live so you can work. We who are Italian work so that we can live.”
So how do we attend to this important need to spend time by ourselves and with God? Are we that busy with the things in our lives that we cannot schedule an hour, 30 minutes, 20 minutes in our day to do nothing but just “be” with God and ourselves? All the busyness in life and in ministry, for that matter, will not earn our way into everlasting life. What is most important for everlasting life is growing our relationship with God. While part of that is being in good relationship with others and serving them (Martha), we must also build a good relationship with the God who created us in love (Mary).
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Todays readings tell us we are not to choose between being a “Martha” or a “Mary”. We must embrace both in our lives.
*All scriptural texts taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A.. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
I want to honor my son, Luke, a day early. Tomorrow he is celebrating his 42nd birthday, and, while he is celebrating that day, I will be having surgery on my left ankle … again. He and his older brother, Andy will be enjoying a Twin’s game and rightly so.
Luke was overdue by a month and a half. We tried to induce that kid twice but he was so comfortable within his mom he just didn’t want to come out. It was one of those blistering hot summers with temps around 104 degrees. Ruthie finally had the doctor break her water and scrape her cervix which prompted Luke to finally see the light of day.
He was born at a crises moment in our lives. My teaching position had been cut and I was looking for a new job. That search led me to St Wenceslaus and a career in church ministry. For the first 5 months of his life, we were essentially homeless, all our possessions sitting in a semi trailer on Ruth’s family farm. We lived out of our suitcases at either Ruthie’s parents or my parent’s. In the midst of all this, a heart condition showed up for me, something my mom had, and something I passed on to my daughter, Meg. I finally had the problem corrected in 1992.
Ruth dancing with Luke at her brother, Paul’s wedding.
It was within months after having finally settled in our home in New Prague that Luke’s doctor told us that he believed Luke was born blind. I have never seen Ruth so angry and defiant. She immediately set up an appointment with her family opthamologist (her mother had a congenital visual condition that had been passed on to Ruth’s brothers, called congenital nystagmus). After a thorough exam, the doctor told us that Luke was not blind. His optic nerve had not fully developed and he had the congenital nystagmus. I expressed that time in our life in this poem I addressed to Ruth, in a collection of poems I composed in her honor, The Book of Ruth.
NOT ENOUGH TO BE HOMELESS BORN
Not enough to be homeless born shuffled from home to home your arms his sole source of bearing in an unknown world, finding home in your maternal embrace An uncertain year of lost job, lost home, lost health, is nothing to the diagnosis of the hidden blindness, optic nerves, gestational blood deprivation, unable to focus, unable to reveal to infant’s hands the world waiting to be explored.
Our son, our beautiful son like the man in John’s gospel, born blind. Where is the miraculous mud moistened by the saliva of Jesus?
You scoff at the white lab coated Pharisees, deriders of miracles, blinded by medical science. Scoffing at their unbelief, From your mother’s heart you see that to which their eyes are blinded. “Bullshitt!” Our son is not blind, my womb, my heart telling me his sight is not limited to the darkness of shapeless shadows.”
Advanced in years, eyes creased with the smiles and wisdom of age, the ancient opthamologist, undimmed by unbelief peers into the eyes of our Luke. “Your baby sees, not perfectly, but will see beyond shadows and darkness, living the life given him.”
Within, your mother’s heart leaps, and raise his small infant hand in defiance and triumph!
Luke has conquered many obstacles in his life. I am so proud of him. In spite of all the troubles he has had in his life he perseveres. He is very much loved by his nephews and nieces. He remains the quiet guy he has always been (we discovered when he was nineteen that he also has Aspergers). Smart, funny, he continues to amaze me. I have learned much from him as I encounter my own obstacles and challenges in my life.
Happy birthday, Lukie!
Here is a song I composed for him in 2016.
For Luke, Psalm Offering 9 Opus 6 (c) 2016, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
Last Wednesday was the feast day of Blanche Schutrop. I had wanted to post this in memoriam on July 7th, but was having trouble posting on Word Press.
One of the first people I met at St Hubert in Chanhassen was Blanche. In my opinion, she was one of the living saints I have known in my life. Blanche was a very simple, unassuming person who packed a powerful impact on the lives of people. Born and raised in Victoria, Minnesota, she never got beyond the 8th grade. Like many people of her generation, she quit school to help support her family. She met her husband, Ivo, and moved to Chanhassen. I think the house they lived in when I was at St Hubert was the house they lived the entirety of their lives as a couple.
Blanche lived a life of service to others. She tutored many of the children who passed through St Hubert grade school. Many of these children who were struggling in education went on to higher education, I think, because of Blanche’s great compassionate service to them.
Blanche was the ex officio pastoral minister of “old” St Hubert. People would call her first, before calling either Fr Barry or Fr Steve or I, when they needed pastoral care. she organized and trained all our home communion teams who brought communion to those who were homebound. She did this for many, many years.
She also was the sacristan par excellence of St Hubert. She kept everything orderly in the sacristy and the sanctuary.
There have been 3 church buildings in the history of St Hubert. There was the old, historic church, which was used until Chanhassen grew to the point a new building needed to be built in the 1970’s. Then, the third building was built across Highway 5 when the second building could no longer hold the number of people attending Mass on the weekend.
Blanche lived across the street from the second building. She would go to daily Mass, and then spend about an hour following Mass meditating in the Eucharistic chapel where the Blessed Sacrament was reposed.
One morning, I encountered Blanche in the sacristy. She asked me, “Do you know when the most dangerous time in a marriage is?” I replied, “I don’t know, Blanche, perhaps after the first 10 years.” She responded, “No. It is when your husband is retired and he gets underfoot every minute of the day!”
Blanche, then, told me the story of going home after Mass and her daily meditation, and trying to drink a cup of coffee and eat a piece of toast in the kitchen. Her husband Ivo came in at that time to vacuum the kitchen floor (for some reason they had carpeting in the kitchen). He made her get up from the kitchen table so that he could vacuum where she was sitting. She was very put out by this. I remember the words she used to describe this. “You would think that he could wait until I was done. But, no! He took out that damn vacuum cleaner and made me get up and move!” I kidded her about how the well the peace she received from Mass and meditation that morning, aided her in this situation, admittedly, a dangerous thing to do. She just looked at me and said, “Oh, shut up!”
On these summer nights, I remember many times as I was leaving church for home, seeing Blanche and Ivo sitting in their screened in porch, drinking beer and watching a Twin’s game on their small portable television.
I learned more about pastoral ministry and day to day diaconal ministry from Blanche than I did in diaconal formation at the seminary. There are certain women who are/were natural deacons and far better deacons than I could ever be. Blanche, my wife, Ruth, and Trish Flannigan are on the top of that list. All they lacked was ordination.
God bless you St Blanche. You may not be on the Roman calendar of saints, but I know, all of heaven celebrates your feast day on July 7th.
Here is a song I wrote for Blanche and Ivo as a Christmas present in 1990. I composed a series of songs for many in the music ministry of St Hubert. The music was inspired by the episodes of the Christmas story. This is song was inspired by the story of the 12 year old Jesus being found in the Temple by his parents.
The Finding of Jesus in the Temple (for Blanche and Ivo Schutrop), Psalm Offering 8, Opus 3 (c) 1990, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
Hello. I have been having trouble with WordPress that for reasons totally beyond my expertise did not publish the reflections on those readings. I believe I finally have the problem solved. If you wish to read them, go to deaconbob94.org .
I realize that the
one drum I bang over and over is the command of Jesus to love one another as
Jesus loved us. If we are to be true disciples of Jesus, we must put into
action his commandment to love.
We
may be tempted to think that this commandment to love is far too remote from our
human nature that has been altered by
Sin, to far out of reach for us mere mortals. The author of Deuteronomy concludes
otherwise.“For this command that I enjoin on you
today is not too mysterious and remote for you. it is something very near to you, already
in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.”
(Dt 30: 11, 14) This commandment to love was placed in our mouths and
our hearts at the moment of our conception. We have the power to engage it in
our lives. We, also, have the power to ignore it, or repress it in our lives.
Jesus illustrates this so brilliantly to his audience in the
parable of the Good Samaritan. The one quality, the one virtue that presents
itself in loving one another is the virtue of mercy. The mercy of the despised
Samaritan toward the victim of the robbers, far surpasses that of the religious
authorities of the Jewish people, namely the temple priest and the Levite. Love
is expressed best in the mercy that we extend to others. “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the
robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with
mercy.” (Luke 10: 37)
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be people of
mercy. To live the commandment of love does not absolve us of confronting those
who live unmercifully. Indignation and confrontation is not inconsistent with
the commandment to love. Jesus, the embodiment of love, at times with great
indignation confronted the unmerciful of his time. As disciples of Jesus we
cannot standby silent when confronted with the unmerciful behavior of others. Discrimination
is a prime example of unmerciful behavior. Discrimination is a sin against the
commandment to love. Behaviors or unjust laws that discriminate against people
of color, culture, or sexual orientation cannot be excused or ignored by the
disciple of Jesus. To remain silent is to be complicit in the sin of
discrimination. We, as disciples of Jesus, must rise and confront with
indignation those who discriminate, including our own religious leaders.
Mahatma Ghandi’s criticism of Christians focused on the fact
that Christians have rarely believed and lived the commandments of Jesus. Our lack
of faith, as James points out explicitly, is evidenced in our own lack of
mercy. Whether it be immigrant children and families caged like animals on our
southern borders, or laws and actions repressing the rights of peoples and
nations, born and unborn, we must as disciples of Jesus confront our world and
remind the world, by our own actions, the unlimited mercy of God expressed in
the life of Jesus.
*All scriptural quotations are from the New American Bible.
Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ …Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.” (Luke 10: 5, 8-12, NAB)
The overriding focus of the readings for this weekend is “The Kingdom of God” or “The Reign of God” is NOW! Secondly, all disciples of Jesus are responsible for sowing the Kingdom of God in our world.
The first reading from Isaiah paints how the Kingdom of God is
experienced when it is established in the world. In Paul’s letter to the
Galatians, he informs the Galatians that the Kingdom of God comes at a price.
It was Christ’s act of love, dying for all of creation on the cross, that God’s
Reign was firmly established in our world. The only thing for which humankind
can boast is the cross of Jesus, and those who call themselves must embrace
that same cross in order to carry on the mission of Jesus. This segues into the
message of the Gospel in which Jesus instructs his disciples that he cannot do
this all by himself. Jesus initiates or breaks open the earth for the Kingdom
of God to be sown. However, we, his disciples must be responsible for sowing
the seeds of God’s Reign everywhere we go.
In order to be sowers of God’s Reign, we must:
Internalize
the peace of God within our lives. We have to face our own dark side and allow
the light of Christ to penetrate our own internal darkness. This will be a
lifelong endeavor.
When
we encounter others, the first words out of our mouths must be an expression of
God’s peace. If they are open to receive God’s peace, then it will be reflected
in the hospitality and healing that will take place within that community.
However,
Jesus also acknowledges that that not all will be receptive to God’s Reign in
their lives. No matter how much we may want to sow God’s Reign in that
community, the soil of their hearts is so hard, that it will not be sown. It
will be repelled. At that point, Jesus tells us to quit wasting our time with
that community. The comedian, W.C. Fields had an interesting way of expressing
this. Fields is quoted saying, “When at first you don’t succeed, try, try
again, then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
Lastly,
Jesus says to his disciples shake the dust of the place from our feet. We need
not curse them, for in denying the Reign of God to be sown in their community,
the community has chosen to be damned.
This Gospel reminds me of my assignment in 2004 to what once was St Stephen’s Catholic Church in the Whittier neighborhood of South Minneapolis. To the outsider, this parish seemed to be comprised of those who were the outcasts of our society and the Church. Among the parishioners were those who were former clergy and religious, former lay ministers of the Church, ex-offenders, many LGBTQ men and women, men and women who were developmentally disabled, the homeless, prostitutes, a Latino community, among whom were many who were documented and undocumented immigrants, and many others who felt disenfranchised from their former faith communities.
The soil of this very diverse parish was broken and receptive to the Reign of God because the soil of many of the lives of the parishioners were broken. The Divine paradox which the Gospels reveal is that God’s Reign takes root far better in the soil of the lives of broken people than it does in the hard soil of the self-righteous. The parish taught me that just being a member of the clergy does not mean that my own soil is receptive to God’s Reign. For me to participate in and assist in leading this community, I needed to break up the soil of my own life, confronting and acknowledging my own brokenness in order for the Reign of God to take root.
When I once asked a parishioner of St Stephen’s why he was a parishioner of St Stephen’s. He told me that when he first came to St Stephen’s, his self-esteem was so low he was contemplating suicide. He said, “When I came to St Stephen’s I discovered Jesus welcoming me, loving me, and embracing me just as I am, a gay man.”
The self-righteous would look upon those gathered at St
Stephen’s celebrating Mass as the antithesis of what it means to be a disciple
of Jesus. There was one such self-righteous group, many from St Agnes parish (a
parish known for its Latin Masses and very rigid ecclesiology), called “The
Rosary for Truth” who would gather at St Stephen’s prior to the 11 am Mass to
pray the rosary for all “the damned souls of St Stephen’s”. Many other
communities would have been insulted and would have expelled this group. I was
surprised at the reaction of the parishioners from St Stephen’s. They welcomed
them instead and prayed the rosary with them prior to Mass. The unwritten
mission statement of St Stephen’s at that time was “The Church is a big circus
tent, and all are welcome, except those who think someone should not be here.” After
some time had passed, I had to expell the Rosary for Truth group from the
parish for disrupting the worship of my parish at the 11 am Mass. St Stephen
parishioners had been willing to be “in communio” , in communion with the
Rosary for Truth. The Rosary for Truth was adamant about NOT being in communion
with the parishioners of St Stephen’s.
Why such a dramatic difference between two parish communities? St Stephen’s embraced the Social Justice teachings of Jesus and used those teachings as their way to be parish. St Stephen’s focused much of its resources in providing services to the poor in the Whittier neighborhood, which included a parish run homeless shelter in which 40 men sleep every night, assisting the poor with a food shelf, free store, helping the poor to find jobs, housing and many more other services. This eventually led to the creation of the non-profit, St Stephen Human Services who has continued all these services to the present day.
In contrast, The Rosary for Truth, like the Pharisees of
Jesus’ time, rooted their lives in a rigid Pharisaic living out of the rules
and regulations of the Church, ignoring the Social Justice doctrine of the
Church. Their home parish, St Agnes, is located in a multi-cultural, poor
neighborhood in the inner city of St Paul. At that time, the money raised by
the parish was lavishly focused on the opulently decorated Baroque church
building of the parish and its Latin Tridentine liturgies. To my knowledge,
very little of the parish’s resources goes to serving the poor of its
neighborhood. This reminds me of this verse from the first chapter of the
prophet Isaiah:
“What do I care for the multitude of your sacrifices? says
the LORD. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the
blood of calves, lambs, and goats I find no pleasure. When you come to appear
before me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! To bring
offerings is useless; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath,
calling assemblies— festive convocations with wickedness— these I cannot bear. Your
new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When
you spread out your hands, I will close my eyes to you; Though you pray the
more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean!
Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good.
Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the
widow. Come now, let us set things right.” (Isaiah 1: 11-18, NAB)
I ask you, in which of these two communities would the disciples of Jesus find welcome? Which of these two community would experience the disciples of Jesus shaking the dust of their community from their feet? To this very day, it remains very clear to me that of the two parish communities, St Stephen’s was far more open to the Reign of God. The likelihood of the dust of the Rosary for Truth group being shaken off the feet of Jesus’ disciples was far greater.
In conclusion, the Reign of God is now and we all must be sowers of God’s reign. Having prepared the broken soil of our lives and internalizing the peace of Christ, we must bring his healing message to all the places in our world, knowing full well, that Christ’s peace will be welcome in some places and rejected in others.
Postscript: In 2008, the parish community of St Stephen’s was expelled from its church home by the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis because it could not follow the strict liturgical norms of the Catholic Church. The community chose to become an Independent Catholic Community. Though independent of the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis, the Spirit of St Stephen’s maintains its Catholic culture and tradition. Over time, the parish moved to its present home, the former home of First Christian Church, where it continues its mission of Catholic social justice.
I feel about the same as this squirrel resting on the bough of a tree on a 100 degree 4th of July Day (picture taken by my daughter-in-law, Olivia).
I was sitting in one of the exam rooms at Mayo Hospital New Prague last Friday, very despondent. I had just been told that I would be having surgery on my left ankle at 2:15 pm that very afternoon. This brought back a flood of bad memories of other past late Junes in my life. I concede that there have been many very enjoyable late Junes throughout my life, but as of the last nine years, the enjoyable ones are fewer, and the ones with nasty surprises more plentiful. This is a poem that encapsulates what I was feeling last Friday.
THE LATE OF JUNE
The Late of June a time in the past of anticipated vacations, fourth of July fireworks, grilled brats and hamburgers with beer and sipped frozen daiquiris, escapes from the heat and humidity dipped into the frolic and laughter of cool Minnesotan lakes. Star gazing on the cool, cut lawn of the farm, while the sound of the National Anthem closed out another day of television broadcasting.
Como Lake, St Paul.
The Late of June, sitting on the front deck with the dog. a brandy manhattan moths and mosquitoes, watching and toasting the brilliant flashing colors of city fireworks, their sound, echoing and booming off the buildings of Main Street, as surrounding neighbors play a duet with their supermarket bought fireworks
Henri, our Great Pyr, awaiting the fireworks.
The Late of June has taken on the character of the Ides of March, about which Shakespeare warns us of betrayal. Assassins’ cries, the gleam of light too little, too late the awareness raised of flashing, descending blades soon to be dyed blood brown a prone, dying Julius whispering, “Et tu, Brute?”
The windchime Ruth gave me as a birthday present the day they removed my artificial hip. It was a sign of hope and healing over following 51/2 months when I didn’t have a hip because of the MRSA infection.
The late of June 2011, the dream of brats and beer and fireworks transformed into a MRSA quarantined room, yellow gowned nurses with gloved hands, the sound of squeaky wheels at 6 a.m., my squinting eyes looking through the sudden, blinding light, a blood tech’s greeting, tourniquet tight around my arm, as a gloved finger vainly pokes for a vein not already blown and scarred by vancomycin, as the needle held in the other gloved hand eagerly awaits a target. A Late of June introduction into a nightmare of multiple surgeries, failed antibiotics, near death, hipless, walker-hopping months, Shakespeare’s warning ringing loudly in my ears.
Mom and great grandson Ollie’s birthday card for her, June 4, 2017
The Late of June 2018, my mother’s memory unity stay, cut short by the snap of her left femur, onset of pneumonia, the weeklong vigil at her bedside as the breath of God filling her lungs, slowly retreats from her body, as she ever so gently, gradually, quietly slips into the fullness of God’s reign. Funeral home picture boards, filled reminders of her former life, of dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled, surrounded by memories and those who created those memories buried with her in the earth, alongside the life memories of my father and my sister.
My mother readied to be buried next to my sister and my father, July 3, 2018.
The Late of June 2019, descending the steps of retirement, a long life of service to others, resulting in a painfilled wince as ankle bones break and separate from ligaments. Sitting on cement steps, then prone on an emergency room bed, the surgical sentence postponed for four days later, the verdict delivered, and the nightmares of 2011 flood and fill my dreams as I slip into the sleep of anesthesia.
A picture taken by my daughter, Beth, of the birdbath/angel and red hibiscus that gave me such hope September of 2011.
The Late of June, harbinger of loss and disappointment? I sit in my chair, my ankle elevated, walker at hand for memory laden hops to the bathroom, to chair, to bed. A world seemingly upside down filled with calamity, pain and more loss. Is there a safe room, a safe house into which to escape these seven last days of June? A full voiced shout to the Almighty, “Now what?!” Silence … it is always silence, God’s usual answer to disciples. I guess I will just have to figure out on my own the answer I seek.
