Month: September 2020

When Jesus traveled from town to town, proclaiming the Good News, He was rarely alone. In addition to His twelve apostles, who usually accompanied Jesus in His travels, women were also present. In today’s Gospel, we hear about the famous Mary Magdalene, as well as Joanna and Susanna. Their role in the group was two-fold: they were invited to listen to the preaching of the Master, and in exchange, they saw to the physical needs of the group, ensuring that everyone was fed and cared for.

Jesus Christ accepted all kinds of people into His group. It didn’t matter what kind of baggage you brought with you, or what you had done in the past. It didn’t matter what kind of job you had, or how much money you made. Tax collector? Not a problem. Made some poor life choices? Don’t let them stand in your way. Homemaker? There’s room for you here too. Formerly possessed by seven demons? Welcome home. All are welcome here, even you and me. Especially you and me.

There is room for all of us in the Body of Christ. Jesus knows what is on our hearts, and as long as our repentance is sincere, our past sins will never be an obstacle to walking with Christ. Christ’s love of us is transformative. He can turn a hotheaded fisherman into a leader, a possessed woman into a devout disciple, a tax collector into an evangelist. We are washed clean, our sins are erased, and we are born again in Christ. We are a new creation, and our spot in the Body of Christ is already paid for. We just need to claim it as our own.

In today’s Gospel, we see that Christ has called all people to follow Him. Men and women become brothers and sisters. Sinners become saints. The rejected ones become the redeemed. We are all children of God, and we are all called to be disciples of Christ. We are all invited to play our role in the Body of Christ. Some of us will preach and teach. Others will heal and protect. Still others will serve and nurture. There is a place for all of us, no matter what our talents and abilities might be, and no matter where we might have come from. We are all needed. We are all wanted. We are all loved. We are all called. The remaining question is, how will you serve in the Body of Christ?

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When I was a child preparing for my first confession, it seemed to me that Jesus had “superpowers” in the Gospel stories I heard. I was amazed that the people walking down the street at the same time as Jesus saw an ordinary man, and they would even argue with him. But then he would, like all superheroes, engage his superpowers at just the right time, and in just the right way. His power is never destructive or, well, overpowering, but it is dazzling just the same.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus uses several of these powers. The Pharisee says something to himself – thinks something in his mind – and Jesus REPLIES to his thought! Not in a condescending or reprimanding way, but in an inviting way. He asks a question so that Simon can think a NEW thought, if he chooses. Jesus knows that his thought is negative and judgmental: “Doesn’t Jesus know what kind of woman this is?” In place of that, Jesus gently encourages the Pharisee to look beyond superficial appearances and look to the heart. In place of judgment, Jesus encourages the Pharisee to understand mercy. The Pharisee is busy mentally condemning the sinful woman and Jesus’ lack of prudence, and Jesus gently points out that in many ways, the woman is more generous and loving than the Pharisee.

Jesus expresses another “superpower” in this scene when he turns to the woman and tells her that her sins are forgiven. The others at the table are astonished at this bold statement. How can he forgive sins?! Only God can forgive sins! Exactly. Jesus is making clear Who He Is, if they will accept it. He is here to “make all things new” – our hearts and minds, our actions and our relationships. He is here to heal and enlighten and invite each of us to a new thought, a new way of seeing, a new way of being.

In the Church, He does this in a direct way through the sacraments. We are baptized into the Body of Christ, into his very life in the Trinity. We become one with him when he gives himself entirely to us – and we give ourselves entirely to him – in the Eucharist. And when we fall short, like the woman who was a sinner, we go to the confessional where he says the same words to us that he said to her: “Your sins are forgiven…go in peace.” These are the words that free us anew and set us on a renewed path. Let us pray to be filled with the same loving gratitude for the gift of mercy and peace that emboldened the sinful woman to weep at Jesus’ feet and cover them with kisses and precious ointment!

Jesus, I trust in You!

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Sometimes you just can’t win.

My friend recently lost both her cats to illness and old age, and I’ve been trying to be supportive of her… but some days that’s more difficult than others. If I say, “maybe you need to grieve your loss before you adopt a new cat,” she snaps back about how lonely she is. If I say, “you’re a person who needs to have a pet,” she’ll accuse me of not allowing her space to grieve.

Like I said, sometimes you just can’t win.

You can feel that notion simmering just under the surface of today’s Gospel reading. Jesus, too, seems to feel there are people who just won’t get it. “You didn’t like John the Baptist because he didn’t eat or drink; you don’t like me because I do eat and drink.” I can picture Jesus smiling a little ruefully as he watches people perform the mental gymnastics necessary to try and impose order on a world rife with cognitive dissonance.

Our brains aren’t crazy about cognitive dissonance: we want predictability. My friend, I reason, can’t have it both ways; yet somehow she does. We want patterns. When we can’t find them, we invent them. Even if it means performing the aforementioned mental gymnastics.

It had been decided at some level that John the Baptist was to be dismissed out of hand. A crazy man living in the desert, pointing to Scriptural antecedents to his mission? He eats—locusts? No, no: if we’re to have a new prophet, let’s make him someone presentable. (Never mind that figures like Jeremiah and Amos and Isaiah in their day weren’t exactly the people you wanted to bring home to meet Mummy.)

Along came Jesus, and for a while he was presentable. He gathered something of a following but then he started doing uncomfortable things, too. Hanging out with the wrong people. Talking about forgiveness and love and prayer and peace. Challenging the way we’ve always done things. So he couldn’t be judged acceptable, either.

And because both couldn’t be true, people struggled. There was no one criticism that could apply to both John and Jesus. And when people struggle to make sense of their world, they sometimes behave—badly.

I’ve been there. Recently, even. I live in a country that feels very out of control indeed, ravaged by a mysterious virus and climate change and still dealing on its streets with its sins from the past. Feeling less and less control in the major facets of my life, I’ve begun asserting it in the smaller ways, becoming petulant about the grocery store not stocking my favorite brand of bread and annoyed when a client questions my work.

Jesus is looking at the unsuccessful ways in which we try to make sense of things we don’t understand, and what he’s seeing is childishness in the way some adults subsequently behave.

Listen to the news. Spend time on Twitter and Facebook. Check out what your neighbors are talking about. So much of the social commentary of our age is like the children shouting in the marketplace—transitory, inescapable, momentarily engaging but ultimately shallow. It draws us in because it gives us a sense that there may be one event, one theory, one candidate, one vaccine that will make all the bad things go away. I go on Facebook and listen to people who believe the same things I believe, saying the same things I’m saying, and we’re all ultimately just children in the marketplace, calling to one another with our petty grievances and limited worldview.

Is that who we want to be? How old do we sound? Six, seven, eight years old? Bickering instead of finding solutions, because it’s too difficult to balance all the contradictory information we’re given every day. Easier to have a tiff on Twitter, a meltdown on Facebook. Easier to demonize those who have different beliefs, different priorities, different backgrounds. “I’m right and you’re wrong…”

Jesus would say not, I’m afraid. In fact, what Jesus is doing in this brief passage is holding out a hand to us, making us an offer. Come with me, he says, and experience fullness of life. Let go of the pettiness and the petulance. Look ahead to the Kingdom. Grow up.

Grow up. I’m telling myself that, even as yet another grievance rises in my head. If I don’t like what’s going on in the world, the most powerful way to change it is to change myself. Stop the pettiness, the arguing. “Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

If I can take the time, today, to let the surface chatter go and to listen for God, who speaks in the depth of my heart, then the cognitive dissonance recedes. I realize it’s not on me to make sense of the world, just to respond to it—to have a part in making it a better place for everyone. As a Christian, I can connect with a lasting, truer message than anything I’ll find on social media.

And when that happens, everyone wins.

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