HOLY COMMUNIONS

A few weeks ago in one of my rare occasions to preach now being retired, I was reflecting on Jesus’ words that we need to eat his body and drink his blood and how that all relates to my First Holy Communion (in caps) back in 1950 when I was eight years old. My point was, and still is of course, that Sunday in May was really not my first holy communion (not in caps). Rather my first holy communion and the holy communions thereafter took place at my grandfather’s home.

For whatever reason as a toddler Grandpa allowed me to share coffee with him. It was and still is the best coffee I have ever had. When I told my mom in later years how much I loved that coffee, she said that she thought it was awful and that the only reason I loved it was because I loved grandpa. Maybe so. Drinking coffee with Grandpa was a holy communion for me.

So were Sunday afternoons at his home. Each Sunday Grandpa would walk a mile or so to church, attend Mass and then return home to make Sunday dinner for our family. My parents, siblings and I would arrive around 4:00, have dinner and then spend some time in Grandpa’s and Uncle Dom’s company. Those Sunday afternoons were also times of holy communion.

Granted, I never realized they were such, until, in all honesty after all these years of preaching, I started to reflect on that Gospel passage about eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood. I suspect that over the years I was too caught up on visualizing such a reality, as did all those who walked away because they, too, could not imagine eating anyone’s body or drinking that person’s blood.

Jesus’ point was that his whole message was about how we are to form holy communions one with another, like drinking a cup of coffee or eating a meal with someone we love. In fact, the way to begin working towards holy communion with another or others is to first sit down and share a cup of coffee or a meal. If we cannot do that, there is no possibility of being in any communion, let alone a holy one, with another.

Sometimes that is easy as it was with Grandpa. Often, not so. Following Jesus is, at times, very difficult, as we all know. Sometimes we are not in communion with him because we deliberately do what we know such a communion would forbid, namely, when we act selfishly and hurt those we are in communion with or wish to be in communion.

Those holy communions I have been in and still are over the years have made me a better person, and I hope, helped me make others better as well. What I also know is that I am thankful for each and every one of them. I need to remember this the next time we share a cup of coffee or sit down to a meal together. How about you?

BACKGROUND AND FOREGROUND

 No two people are alike. We do not think alike, act or react alike, like alike. Each of us is unique, one of a kind. There was no one like us before nor will there ever be one just like us again. Never. While we may have very, very much in common, even sharing many of the same genes, no one of us is exactly alike.

Sometimes we forget that. And even when we remember how different we really are one from another, we usually do not give that fact much thought, especially in those moments when we most should. When we find ourselves in disagreement with another over a matter, be that matter large or small, theological, logical or simply a matter of taste, the main reason why we do not see eye to eye is that our backgrounds are different. Those backgrounds color what we see in the foreground. And it can be no other. We may overcome some of what happened to us as we grew up, but we cannot act as if it were never there. It is still very much a part of us, and always will be.

Our background is made up of many different and varying components. Where we were raised: country, city, small town, metropolis; how much money our family had: ranging from the hovels of poverty to the mansions of wealth or somewhere in between; the amount of formal education we had or did not have; whether we were an only child or had many siblings – all these color our foreground.

Even more: health issues, past or present, bear upon how we act or react, on how we think or what we think. So does our personal experience with other people and other cultures. If we have never left home, we will see reality differently than one who has “seen the world”. Our diet, our physical condition, our sense of humor, the climate in which we live all have an effect on our response to any given situation.

For the most part we are never all that conscious of our background. We know who we are and where we come from and all the rest. But it is back there in our unconsciousness somewhere and not up close and personal whenever we interact with someone else. The same is true for the other. And so when we argue about some point of personal importance, it is important that we understand not only our background but also where the other comes from as well. Until we do, we will never understand the other nor the other us.

What is more important than understanding the other, why the other thinks the way he does, we need to understand why we think and act the way we do. What we will discover is that as unique as we are, we are just as complicated. So much has gone into making us who we are that it is no wonder we often wonder why we do what we do, why we think the way we think, why we react the way we do. If we cannot understand ourselves, why we are the way we are, is it any wonder we cannot understand someone else?

The point is not that we are doomed to disagree or that we will never understand others. It is simply to say that we need to be less judgmental about why another is the way s/he is and ask the other to be the same for us. It will make life so much easier.

 

JESUS JOSEPHSON

From the day he was born over 2000 years ago to the day he died thirty-three years later he was known as Jesus Josephson, the son of Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth. For millions of people over the succeeding centuries he was never more than that. To be sure everyone who knew him said he was the kindest, gentlest, most loving person they ever met.  Good man, they said, a very good man. Too bad he was killed as a common criminal even though the authorities who ordered his death really had no legal reason to do so. He had broken no law. But bad things have always happened to good people haven't they?

Jesus Josephson: some said he not only was kind and caring, he was a good preacher, too. They did wonder how he got so smart with what little schooling he had. They said he could keep an audience enthralled for hours. They even missed a meal and did not even realize it. They seemed to be only hungry for the food for thought that flowed so easily and readily from him.

Jesus Josephson: not only was he a good man, one who spoke both well and profoundly, some said he even worked miracles. He gave sight to the blind, made lepers clean, healed the paralyzed and even, believe it or not, raised people from death. But you had to be there to believe Jesus Josephson was more than a special and gifted man. To believe Jesus Josephson was anything, any one, more than that, well, there have been countless people over the millennia who did not and have not.

On the other hand, there have been countless millions more who believe Jesus Josephson was more than a very, very good man who loved deeply, taught well, worked miracles and was put to death because he was somehow perceived as a threat to the authorities. There are those of us who believe this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, God’s anointed one, and not just the earthly son of Joseph the Carpenter.

Not only do we believe that Jesus Josephson, Jesus Godson, if you will, was put to death; we believe he was raised from death. What’s more, we even believe that we will be raised from our death to new life with this very same Jesus. What this new life will be like we have not the foggiest notion. But we also believe that it does not matter. What matters is that we will be raised to new life in our death just as Jesus was raised to new life in his death. We are willing to be surprised as to what that life will be like.

And so we who believe that Jesus was always more than Jesus Josephson, was God’s son, is God’s son, come together every Sunday (hopefully!) to celebrate our belief that he is who we say he is, that he was indeed raised from the dead, that we will be raised as well. 

For those who believe Jesus was no more special than any other good person unjustly put to death, Sunday is just another day. But for those of us who believe Jesus is the reason for the way we choose to live our lives, the model and example of what it means to be human, then every day, not just Sunday or even special days, is a very special day indeed. Celebrate today!

 

 

 

WHOSE WILL IS IT ANYWAY?

I know that God hears me, anytime, every time, all the time. God hears every word that comes from my mouth, sees everything I do, knows all of my innermost thoughts. Of that I have not the slightest doubt. So I know God hears me whenever I pray and for whatever I ask. I also know that I have not obtained all the requests I have made of God. A lot of my prayers go unanswered.

Or do they? I have not obtained all my requests. But they were my requests, what I wanted in perhaps my selfishness, even when I asked for something good for someone else: like a cure for cancer. It was my request, my wish, my will. When it was only mine and not God’s, my request went unanswered, unless the answer was “No.” That is an answer even if it is not the one I wanted.

The difficulty for me is to discern my will, my wishes, from God’s. That does not mean that my wishes are in opposition to God’s. What it means is that I have to discern what the real motive behind my prayer really is. The motive can seem so good, so pure, so holy, so right, when, in fact, in may simply be very selfish. It is not always that easy to discern which is which. Seeming good sometimes looks awfully good, even Godly. It is so easy for me to fool myself.

Sometimes I need to remind myself that whenever I discover that a prayer I have addressed to God is not answered the way I had desired, I must remember that the “I had desired” was not what God intended, wanted, desired. That is not easy for me because I so often think I know what God should do, what God should want. It is easy for me to play God. I do it every day. Often I do it when I open my mouth in prayer.

I also know that it is a very, very good thing that God does not think as I think and act as I do in response to what I am thinking. If God did, I would be one sorry person. My instinct, for instance, when someone hurts me is to hurt in return, repay an eye for an eye, if not worse. God’s immediate and first instinct, God being God, God being good, is to forgive. That is not the way I think nor the way I immediately react, I, in all honesty, must admit. I wish I were as immediately and totally forgiving as God.

I, we, need to let God be God. Then miracles will really happen as our prayers are truly answered by God in God’s own way in God’s own time. That will be a struggle because it has always been. Letting go and allowing God to be the God of my life does not come easy for me. I suspect it does not come easy for any one of us, human nature being what it is. On the one hand we are selfish, often vindictive, and sometimes reluctant to forgive, while on the other we are just the opposite. Is it any wonder that life often seems so confusing especially when we want to play God all the while wanting God to be God?

Daily we want to play God, to fix something, to do something, to change something, even to redress a wrong, because we will think we know best. It is in those moments we need to realize that only God knows what is best and that our prayer is to do God’s will and not our own, to let God be in charge, working in our lives God’s will and not our own.

NO GOOD REASON TO FEAR

 In the midst of the Great Depression, which ended before many of us were born or were too young to remember, when many people wondered if things would ever get better, President Franklin Roosevelt reminded the nation that there was nothing to fear but fear itself. Nineteen hundred years before that Jesus reminded his listeners that they had no reason to fear those who could kill the body. Rather, Jesus said and Roosevelt hinted, we need only fear those who can kill the soul.

We need to be reminded of such these days, it seems to me. We are being told either directly or indirectly that we need to live in fear: fear of terrorists, fear of immigrants (the illegal kind), fear of inflation, fear that our safe little world is no longer safe, fear that “they” (whoever “they are) are taking over or planning to take over our country; fear, fear, fear. To further inflate this fear we are pummeled with bad news, so much bad news that one is led to believe that there is no good news anywhere.

But we know, we know, we know differently. Let me emphasize that: WE KNOW DIFFERENTLY. We know there is more good news than bad news because we know there are more good things going on in our lives than bad no matter how bad the bad is at the moment. Every minute of every hour of every day more good things happen than bad. We know that to be a fact without having to prove it scientifically. For if the bad so outweighed the good, we would not be here to even reflect about it.

None of this is to downplay the evil in this world or that we should not fear those who would do us harm. It is to say that much harm is being done already, harm where it really matters, harm to our soul: the soul of our country, the soul of our church, the soul of our being. It is being done by those who want us to be afraid, who count on our being afraid of whatever fear it is they can instill in us.

I am not afraid of the terrorists of whatever ilk they may be. They cannot take away my soul because I will not allow them to do that. They cannot take away the soul of this country or the soul of our church. Oh, they can, as Roosevelt opined, if we allow them to do so. If we allow the prophets of doom and gloom, if we allow the fear mongers to have their way with us, we will indeed lose our very soul.

We won’t. That is the good news. They can’t. That is even better news. The reason they won’t is that we will not allow them. They cannot because we have one another and we have our love for our country and love for our church and love for one another. As Jesus reminds us in John’s Gospel, perfect love casts out fear. We are not there, of course. We do not love perfectly. But we do not not love. As imperfect as our love is, it is enough to waylay fear.

We cannot avoid the bad news nor should we. To believe nothing is bad or everything is bad is to live in a fantasy world. Our role is to overcome evil not with other forms of evil but with good. At the same time while we cannot escape the fear mongers, we can refuse to allow them to capture our soul. So we must.