Fourth Sunday in Lent

2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23
Ps 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6
Eph 2:4-10
Jn 3:14-21

Let my tongue be silenced if I ever forget you.
What would you do for those you love? What would you do to keep them safe, to protect them? We all make sacrifices for the ones we love, but how far are you willing to go? Would you give up everything? In wartime we always hear these stories, a platoon of soldiers are in an enclosed area when a hand grenade is thrown into their midst. With nowhere to go, ands no time to get there, they are all surely going to die, until one soldier throws himself on the grenade, taking the brunt of the explosion and saving the others. If you were one of the soldiers saved by this act of bravery, this act of love, could you ever forget the one who made that sacrifice? I don’t think it would be possible to forget, you would think of that act, that person, every single day for the rest of your life, a life you have only because of that person. Not only would you never forget, you could never be silent about it. This is a story you would recount to anyone and everyone who would listen. It’s a story you would tell even to those who wouldn’t listen. Silence would be impossible. Each of us, each one of us has been saved by just such an act. Each of us has been saved and given new life by one who came and died for us. The most famous passage of scripture in the world, John 3:16. Watching a basketball game yesterday I saw someone in the stands holding up a sign, John 3:16. For God so loved the world… We have all been given life by the one who lived, died and rose, for us. You would think that we could never forget, but somehow we do. We forget the gift that we have been given, the gift given at great cost, the gift given out of love. We forget, and we remain silent. How can we be quiet about what has been done for us? How can we not tell everyone, everyone who will listen and everyone who won’t? For the rest of this Lent let each of us take time each day to remember, to remember what we have been given, what was done for us. Let us remember and speak out, not afraid or ashamed, but joyful that we have life through the sacrifice made for us.
Let my tongue be silenced if I ever forget you.

Deacon John
Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 22, 2009

Third Sunday in Lent

Ex 20:1-17 or 20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17
1 Cor 1:22-25
Jn 2:13-25

Rules. We certainly seem to have enough of them. Why should we have so many? Why have any rules at all? We are, after all, free agents, able to do what ever we want. Ah, able to do what ever we want. So I suppose that explains why we have so many rules. We need a guide, something to follow, something to help us understand what we need to do, what we should do. In the first reading we have the basic rules, the Ten Commandments. These Commandments are the basis for much of our law, church and secular. These rules should be so much a part of us that we follow their guidance almost automatically. The only problem is that we don’t. We rebel, we hate rules, we hate being told what to do. We want to make sure we are taking care of number one, and if that involves bending or even breaking a few rules, well too bad. In the Gospel Jesus encounters those who are certainly watching out for themselves, not caring about what rules or norms they may be violating. They set up shop in the midst of the Temple precincts and fleece the worshipers as they go into the Temple. Were they providing a needed service? Yes, they provided the items needed for proper worship and sacrifice. But they were also turning the Temple into a marketplace. They lost sight of why the Temple was there, what the purpose of the Temple and even the purpose of their presence there was. Worshiping God, offering praise to God, seeking help from God, expressing love for God. That was the purpose of the Temple. It was the place to do these things. It was not meant to be a place of commerce and profit. It was meant to be a place about love, God’s love for them and their love for God. Remember that love, and suddenly the rules make sense, the rules do become easy to follow.
Why gather today in Church? Do we come together to worship our God, or do we come for other reasons? There are many things that can be factors in why we gather, rules being one of them. Nothing wrong with that, it is good that we come together, because by coming together and giving ourselves to worship, giving ourselves to God, we begin to understand that there is a better reason for our gathering, a reason that surpasses any other. When this happens the rules have served their purpose, they bring us to God, they bring us to love.

Deacon John
Third Sunday in Lent
March 15, 2009

P.S. On a completely non-theological note I have to say LOUISVILLE CARDINALS, CHAMPS OF THE BIG EAST OVERALL NO 1 SEED. WHOO-HOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Second Sunday of Lent

Gn 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18
Rom 8:31b-34
Mk 9:2-10

Terror. Pure terror. That must have been what Isaac felt when he realized the sacrifice was him. How terrifying was it when his father bound him, placed him on the altar, raised his knife, fully prepared to kill him. What did Isaac feel when he was suddenly reprieved? He was spared by God, his father stopped from killing him, and a ram offered in his place. Did Isaac feel relief, joy, gratitude, or was the whole thing just too hard to accept? He should have been dead, but he was alive. Did he feel that in some way he had risen from the dead?
Terror. Pure terror. That must have been what Peter, James and John felt on that mountain top. Before their eyes the one they had been following changed, became dazzling, blindingly bright, hard to look at. Jesus revealed the glory that is God to them, and they were terrified. Perhaps they thought they had died and gone to heaven. When the episode ended, did they feel they had in some way been brought back from the dead? Then Jesus tells them not to tell anyone what they had witnessed until He had risen from the dead. They did keep quiet, they did not understand what risen from the dead meant.
Terror. Pure terror. Something we may feel occasionally when we realize the sacrifice should be us. When we honestly look at ourselves, our selfishness, our failures to love, we should feel terror. We understand that we do not deserve mercy, we do not deserve love, we act in a way that is often totally unlovable. But like Isaac, we are reprieved. Another stands in our place, the one who stood before Peter, James and John and was transfigured. We are saved by the death of Jesus, who dies for us. We are saved by the Christ, who rises from death, who enters new life and gives that life to us, if we are willing to see that we have, like Isaac, been reprieved. When we love as we are loved, we come to understand what risen from the dead means. We rise, and will be able to see the dazzling, blindingly bright glory that is God.

Deacon John
Second Sunday of Lent
March 8, 2009

Ash Wednesday

Jl 2:12-18
2 Cor 5:20-6:2
Mt 6:1-6, 16-18

When we speak of God’s love and forgiveness to someone who is questioning, we all too often use big examples. Does God really love Hitler? Does God really forgive Hitler? Does God really love Charles Manson? Does God really forgive him? Does God really love and forgive Stalin? We glibly answer yes, because it is so easy to do. It’s abstract, not real. How about a more reality based question. Does God really love and forgive me? Now it’s personal. We may say yes, knowing intellectually the truth, but in our hearts the answer is no. How can God love me? I am so bad, I am so unlovable, there is no way God loves and forgives me. I don’t deserve to be loved, I don’t deserve to be forgiven. Well you’re right, you don’t deserve to be loved and forgiven, but you are nonetheless. You are because our God’s love for us is unimaginable and completely without condition. God loves us, God calls us to repentance, yes, but more importantly God calls us to relationship, to share in God’s unconditional love. We are not beyond redemption, we are not beyond salvation, we cannot escape God’s love. God wants us, the only thing holding us back is us. We are afraid to turn to God, to accept the love that is ours for the taking. As we hear in the hymn Hosea, “ Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life.” What are we afraid of, changing, of things getting better? It’s so good now? Again what are we afraid of? As we enter this season of Lent let us work to overcome our fear, let us strive to understand there is nothing to fear. Turn to the Lord, for as Paul tells us, “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
Deacon John
Ash Wednesday
Feb. 25, 2009

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Is 43:18-19, 21-22, 24b-25
2 Cor 1:18-22
Mk 2:1-12

A man is carried to Jesus so that he may be cured. Paralyzed, being borne on a mat, there is no way through the crowd, no way to reach Jesus unless they circumvent the crowd and go through the roof. The man is carried to the roof, a hole is opened in the roof, and he is lowered into the room, into the presence of the Christ. Jesus must have been taken by this novel approach and forgave the man and healed him of his illness. What faith, what courage, was shown here. A faith and a courage and a determination that led to healing, spiritual and physical. Such tremendous faith and love. I’m not speaking of the paralyzed man, but the ones who carried him to Jesus, who opened the roof, lowered him in, and made it possible for him to be aided by the Christ. What faith and what love! They had nothing to gain. No one remembers them, no one thinks of them. They are a sidebar to this story, almost forgotten. Yet without them this story does not happen. Without them the paralyzed man stays paralyzed. They are who we, who claim to believe, should be. Through their anonymous act of love they helped another reach faith and healing. We can imitate them by the way we live, by how we act, what we say and what we do. In living our faith, in striving to serve the People of God, in anonymously helping others to find Christ, we find Christ ourselves. So many are paralyzed, so many need our help. We, the Body of Christ, are called on to help them, and in helping them to help ourselves. We may be as anonymous as the men carrying the paralytic, but we are not forgotten, not by the One who matters. We may forget those four, But Jesus did not. Remember what the Scripture says, “When Jesus saw their faith…”

Deacon John
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Feb. 22, 2009

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lv 13:1-2, 44-46
1 Cor 10:31-11:1
Mk 1:40-45

Leprosy was a terrible thing. People who had this disease, who suffered from skin ailments, who were contagious, had to live apart from the community. People with this disease were separated from community life. They were unclean, untouchable, no longer one with their community. One with a sore or pustule had to present themselves to the priest who would declare them unclean, unfit to live with the rest of the people. Should the sore go away, should that person appear to be healed, they would cease to be unclean. They could return to the community. How did one get healed? Perhaps a miracle, perhaps a treatment worked, perhaps the sore simply went away on its own. Healing was, however, the only way back into the community.
A leper approached Jesus, seeking healing. Jesus granted the request, healing the man and instructing him to go to the priest to show that he was indeed healed, that he was no longer unclean. The former leper went away rejoicing, praising God, and telling everyone what Jesus had done. He no longer had to live apart from his neighbors, he could rejoin the community, the family of faith he had been separated from. We find ourselves in the position of the leper. We separate ourselves from the community through our disease, our leprosy, sin. Sin sets us apart, removes us from the community, makes us unclean. Through sin we cut ourselves off from our community, from God, from life. We, however, have the opportunity to do as the leper did. We can approach Jesus and seek healing from our spiritual leprosy. We ask for healing, we seek relief, and it is granted. We have no need to fear, no reason to stay apart. We need not wait for healing by chance, it will not come. We need only to turn to the Christ, to Jesus, and our healing will be complete. Our stain of leprosy is wiped away, we are restored to the community. We need not live apart, all we need to do is turn to Jesus and ask.

Deacon John
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Feb. 15, 2009

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dt 18:15-20
1 Cor 7:32-35
Mk 1:21-28

Here in Louisville it’s been a difficult week. A major ice storm roared through the city on Tuesday night and Wednesday, coating everything with inches of ice, causing tree limbs and entire trees to topple under the weight of ice, tearing down power lines causing a massive power outage, with about 250,000 people losing power. Even as I write this on Sunday morning about 95,000 people are still without electricity. Four people have died trying to find ways to heat their homes. Personally, we lost power sometime on Wednesday morning and didn’t get it back till late Friday evening. Like most people, we were not adequately prepared for this emergency. We had been warned, all the weather forecasters told us, this is coming, it’s going to be bad, get ready. We want weather reports, but when we get them we too often fail to pay attention. Weather forecasters must, at times, feel like Old Testament prophets, speaking truth to the people, only to be ignored. Moses, speaking to the people of Israel, tells them, you asked for a prophet and one is given to you, now listen to the prophet who speaks in God’s name. Listen to the one who speaks with authority. They too often failed to listen, to heed the words of Moses and the prophets who followed. They said they wanted to know, but did not heed the warnings they were given. They continually wandered away from the path God laid out for them.
Jesus spoke in the synagogue, teaching not as the scribes, but as one having authority. Jesus spoke the word of God to those who would hear. The people were astounded, by Jesus’ words and actions. “He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” Jesus’ fame spread, more came to hear him, and some listened, learned, heeded what he said, and followed. Jesus, the Word of God, walked among us, teaching, showing us the path we are to follow. We hear the Word, but do we listen? The path we are to take is clear, yet we too often act as many did when weather forecasters warned of this storm. The Word is with us, the way is clear. Follow the path and be ready for the storms that come.

Deacon John
The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Feb. 1, 2009