Forty Years in the Desert

All of my life I have heard the story of the Israelites, being set free from slavery under the Pharaoh in Egypt, wandering in the desert for 40 years.  I always had the image of a people walking in the desert, slowly making their way toward the promised land. I had in mind that the Israelites knew their destination. That they were going somewhere. And I always imagined their children and grandchildren asking the Hebrew equivalent of "are we there yet?"

At various times in my life, I have felt that I was walking my own path in the desert. Wondering when I would finally reach my destination. Wishing that it would be sooner rather than later. But feeling as if I knew my destination, in a remote sort of way, and hoping that the sweetness of the destination would make the long wait worthwhile.  Familiar?  I think most of us have been there, and felt that sense of journeying.  Looking at the map and trying to figure out the best course to our destination.

Just a few days ago, quietly doing morning prayer over coffee, I once again prayed the familiar text of Psalm 95. Only this time I suddenly had a different image of the Israelites in the desert.  Hidden within the words of the Psalm (hiding in plain sight) I found a deeper understanding.

Today, listen to the voice of the Lord:
Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness
When at Meriba and Massah
they challenged me and provoked me, 
Although they had seen all of my works.
Forty years I endured that generation.
I said "They are a people whose hearts go astray
and they do not know my ways."
So I swore in my anger, "They shall not enter into my rest."

It hit me. What I had been missing the whole time. The Israelites were not wandering to their destination -- they were wandering around their destination.  The 40 years in the desert were completely within the control of the Israelites. The reason that they wandered for so long was because they could not see through their own blindness and sinfulness.  God showed them the way to go, but they kept their heads down and walked in the other direction.  It was only when they lifted their heads up and followed God that they were allowed to see the promised land. The road had always been before them, though they could not see it.

How very like life today.  I can't begin to tell you how many years I have wasted, wandering in my own desert, thinking that I know the way.  Refusing to ask for directions -- or refusing to follow directions, but thinking my way was the best way.  Walking around lost in circles, when the promised land was just over the next horizon, though I could not find the way. And the many things that have distracted me (and continue to distract me daily) from following the way that God tries to show me.

It reminds me of one of my favorite prayers, by the Blessed Thomas Merton:

Lord, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead. I cannot be certain where it will end. Sometimes I fool myself, pretending to follow your way, but knowing I am not. But I believe this: that the desire to please you does in fact please you. I hope I have this desire in everything that I do. And I know that if I do this, you will show me the right way, though I may not know it at the time. Therefore, I will trust in you always. When I may seem to be lost I will not be afraid, for I know you will never leave me to face my troubles alone. Thank you, dear God, for all you have given me, for all you have taken from me, and for all you have left me.

I Resolve Not to be Perfect -- Homily for 2nd Sunday OT (2020)

January 19, 2020

2nd Sunday OT (Cycle A)

Readings:

1. Isaiah 49:3, 5-6

RA: PS 40:2, 4, 7-8,8-9, 10 “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.”

2. 1 Cor. 1:1-3

G: John 1:29-34

I Resolve Not to be Perfect

You may have noticed some differences when you entered the church today. All of the Christmas decorations have been put away. The white altar linens are gone, replaced with the Green that will be with us until Lent, and the Nativity scene has been taken away.  You know where Mary, Joseph and Jesus have gone, right?  No, they’re not in Egypt. They’re in boxes in storage until next Advent. The wood of the manger has been taken away, and now we are left with the wood of the cross.

Thus ends the Christmas season, as we begin Ordinary Time with the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time.  Wait just a minute – the “second Sunday”? What happened to the First Sunday?  Somehow I feel cheated – like something has been stolen from us by the same people that steal an hour from our clocks when Daylight Savings Time begins.  Yes, this is the Second Sunday, called that because it is Sunday of the Second Week of OT. It’s easy to miss the First Week in OT, because it always starts on a Monday.  What would be the Sunday of the first week in OT is replaced by the feast of the Baptism of Jesus – which marks the last day of the Christmas Season. Mystery Solved.

So Christmas season is over, and we begin our march toward Advent. We follow along with the three-year path of Jesus in his public ministry, from the Baptism in the Jordan to his death on the cross. For our Gospel today, we depart from Matthew— which usually marks Year A of the three-year liturgical cycle —  to jump over to the Gospel of John – The only Gospel undeniably written by an eyewitness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  John’s Gospel is truly an eyewitness account. He was there and personally testified to the truth of Christ.[1]

As the gospel passage today opens, we see John the Baptist, Jesus coming towards him still dripping with the waters of His baptism. The heavens have opened, the clouds have parted, and the bright sun shines on everyone, and John points to Jesus and says:

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

If that line sounds familiar to you, and kinda makes your heart skip a beat, it should.  We hear that very same line in every mass, when the Priest elevates the Blessed Sacrament, fresh from consecration, just like Jesus coming up out of the waters of Baptism, and invites us to focus our eyes upon our Beloved Savior – Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.  That one line contains the fullness of our faith and confesses our belief in the true presence of Jesus Christ  — body, blood, soul and divinity —  in the Most Holy Eucharist. When I read that line in Today’s Gospel, my heart leaps for joy.  

But what is the “Lamb of God?” We use that term so often that it becomes easy for us to overlook its depth of theology and the uncontainable love that it conveys, of God in sending of his Son to dwell with us and die for us. 

One place we see the concept of the Lamb of God is in the 53rd chapter of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, written 600 years before Jesus. It describes the feelings that God’s people would have as they look at the Messiah on the cross. 

“It was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offences and crushed for our sins. Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth – like a lamb lead to the slaughter.

When we picture the symbolism of a lamb today, we have a an image of youthful purity, incorruptibility, cleanliness, innocence – sort of like the little babies in diaper commercials. But the ancient Jews would have had a different picture. The ancient Jews would have remembered that the peace offering to the God required an unblemished lamb.[2] OR they might have imagined the Sin offering,[3] where the sins of the people were transferred to an unblemished lamb that was then sacrificed in antonement for their sins. And surely they would have thought of the Passover sacrifice, to save the Israelites from death when the Angel of Death would pass over them. In the Passover sacrifice, first the head of the household would kill an unblemished lamb, then the blood would be spread across the top and sides of the doorpost, and then, everyone in the household had to eat the lamb. 

This is very deliberate imagery from John the Baptist, and imagery that would have been unmistakable in the eyes of the Jewish people. You will not find language like that anywhere else in the Old Testament, except in descriptions of the Messiah. 

John’s testimony is a prominent endorsement and marks the inauguration of Jesus’s Ministry.  When we say “Lamb of God” we are testifying with John that Jesus died for the atonement of our sins, and empowered us to become a living tabernacle of his saving grace for others. We join John in saying “Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

The renewal of the year also gives us a desire and opportunity to refocus and renew ourselves in other ways. This is the time to make New Year’s Resolutions and then forget them by Valentine’s day, right? Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year?  If you want to see just how unsatisfied we are with our lives, just look at gyms and weight-loss centers. This is the time of year for all of the great promotions to lock you in to an annual contract.  If you are frustrated that your gym is too busy now, just wait a couple of weeks and it will go back to normal.

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions several years ago, because I could never keep them.  It seemed like the “new me” was in a hurry to leave and the “old me” would always come back. But I have decided to try again this year, because I think I have found an approach that is guaranteed to succeed. If you have not made any New Year’s resolutions of your own yet, I invite you to share mine.  

Here is my first resolution -- This year, I resolve Not to be perfect.  I think I have a pretty good chance of succeeding at that one. And, if I fail – If it only lasts a few weeks and I mess it up– that just means that I have become perfect.

But seriously, I think that one of the reasons that most New Year’s resolutions fail is that we set unreasonable expectations for ourselves. We set our sights on perfection, and then we punish ourselves for being imperfect.  But, Brothers and Sisters, we are human beings. We are an imperfect people, ever since the sin of Adam.  We need to learn to accept that and forgive ourselves for not being perfect. There is only one who is perfect, and that is Christ Jesus. To actually achieve perfection in this life would mean that we sought to become equal to God.  And that was what started this whole hot mess in the Garden of Eden, when Eve reached for the Apple.  So, that means that, for the rest of us, perfection is only possible when we are joined to Christ in eternal life. Until then, we are not called to perfection, but instead we are called something else?  But What?

In the first reading today, we see the second of Isaiah’s “servant songs.”  Isaiah tells us that we are God’s servants, formed from the womb to bring the people back to God.  We are called to be a light to the nations, to carry God’s salvation to the ends of the earth.  – In other words, we are called to evangelization.  Not just collectively, as a Church, but individually, each and every one of us are called to be servants of God and to allow our lives to be light to others. We are called  to evangelize the salvation and the love of God.  

And how should we answer?  The words of the responsorial psalm, from Psalm 40, tell us what our answer should be: “Here I am Lord, I come do to your will.”  These words echo the “Yes” of Mary in the Magnificat, and the words of Samuel when he was called by God as a boy.  “Here I am.  I am ready. Use me.”

That should be our second New Year’s resolution.  We resolve to listen to God more often.  Whenever we feel that God is leading us in a certain way, to say “Here I am, Lord.”   To allow ourselves to be funnels of God’s grace, directing it where He wants it to go.

We are called to accept God’s grace and to evangelize, but, in a greater way, we are also called to make our lives holy. And this gets back to our idea of imperfection.  As St. Paul tells us in Romans[4] we are all imperfect.  All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Fortunately for us, we are not called to be perfect – we are called to be “holy.”  That means to be “reserved”  Set aside for some greater purpose.  Like the good china at our grandmother’s house, we are meant for a special occasion.  We are meant for God. To be his and his alone, and to allow our lives to be reflections of Him. 

And there is our third resolution. This year, to resolve to be holier.  To go to Mass a little more.  To receive the Eucharist more often. To pray more. To serve others more. To grow in our relationship with God and his people. To become a little less “us” and a little more “him.”

Well, there you have it.  Three New Year’s resolutions.  

To accept that we are imperfect, and that it’s ok.

To listen more to God, and answer his call.

To become more holy 

Easy?  I think so.  And when we succeed, our lives can become extraordinary. May we have the courage, like John the Baptist, to reveal the Lamb of God to the world. May we glorify the Lord by our lives. 

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[1] John 19:25

[2] Lev. 22:21

[3] Lev 4:32

[4] Romans 3:23