August 2009 Sánchez Sunday Commentaries & Sample Homilies (B)

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)August 2, 2009

Believing Is Seeing Beyond the SignPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Exod 16:2-4, 12-15Eph 4:17, 20-24John 6:24-35

Had Jesus been born into a place other than Judah and into a culture other than that of our Hebrew ancestors, the Gospels for the next four Sundays would probably have been a little different. In these Gospels, Jesus offers himself as bread: sapientially (the bread of his word) and sacramentally (the bread of Eucharist). But perhaps an Asian Jesus would have offered rice as the sustenance that gives life. A Latino Jesus might have offered corn or beans, while a Jesus born into sub-Saharan Africa could have provided matoke or plantains as the staple to feed the physical and spiritual hungers of his contemporaries. Wherever he might have ministered, whatever staff of life he chose, whatever sign he offered, the gift that Jesus gave was the gift of himself for the life of the world.

In order to accept and acknowledge that gift, we are called to look beyond the sign in order to see and believe in the one who has used that sign to offer his very self. As featured in today’s first reading from Exodus, the Israelites were being called to accept the manna and the quail as gifts and to see beyond those gifts to the God who had brought them into being and who, at that moment, was guiding them to freedom and a new way of life. Moses interpreted the sign for them: It was bread from the Lord, bread for the journey.

Jesus similarly provided bread and fish for the multitudes, but many became lost in the sign and came to him looking for more. As the Johannine evangelist picks up the thread of his lengthy Bread of Life discourse in today’s Gospel, Jesus is represented as addressing the people’s desire for signs. They cited the desert event and talked of Moses and manna. But Jesus redirected their attention to the true bread from heaven. That bread, of course, is his very self, who can satisfy every human hunger. Look beyond the bread and see beyond your stomachs, challenged the Johannine Jesus, so as to be able to sink your teeth into the real food he has to offer, the bread of life. Jesus could see beyond the bread he took and blessed and broke and gave, aware that he would be similarly taken and broken when he gave his life for the forgiveness of sinners. Jesus could also see beyond the crucifixion to the Communion celebration, where he would be remembered and would be truly present to his disciples.

Jesus, as William Bausch has explained, was engaging in what is called “consciousness raising” (Once Upon a Gospel, Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, Conn.: 2008). He encouraged people to move from one level to another, to see beyond and behind, to see as he himself sees. Jesus could see beyond the demands of the crowds for another “free lunch” and recognize the deeper hungers of which they had yet to become aware. He could see beyond the beggar to the blessedness God has bestowed on every creature. Jesus could look beyond the shamed adulterer and acknowledge the repentant sinner. Jesus could look beyond the betrayals and denials of his disciples and see in them the wounded beggars who would thereafter help

others to find the bread of his word, of his wisdom, of his very self. Jesus could see beyond skin color, gender, politics and socioeconomic status and recognize his brothers and sisters.

Some of the saints among us have shown a similar ability to see beyond. Mother Teresa, for example, could look beyond the filth of India’s poor and recognize in them the face of Jesus. Mohandas Gandhi and John Paul II could look into the faces of their would-be assassins and recognize a brother whom they could forgive.

If we are to accept the bread that God gives to us in Jesus, it is essential to look beyond and to see where the sign is pointing. Learning to look beyond in this way remains the challenge of Eucharist.

Exod 16:2-4, 12-15Like most people who embark on a long journey and soon find that their expectations and their

needs are not being met, the Israelites trekking through the desert were not “happy campers.” For that reason, readers of Exodus and Numbers will recognize a consistent motif of grumbling against God and Moses. Because of the similarities of their complaints in substance and structure (Exod 16, 17; Num 20), some scholars have suggested that the same incident was purposely repeated by the ancient authors for pedagogical purposes. Similar to the Marcan “secret” and the Johannine emphasis on “misunderstanding,” the murmuring or grumbling motif enabled the authors (or the preachers who bring the message to life) to point to Israel’s history with God and urge contemporaries to trust more readily in God’s care and providence.

In the desert, God’s gracious care had provided food for Israel’s journey. Manna — which is derived from the question “What is this?” or “Man hu?” in verse 15 — and quail were and continue to be naturally occurring phenomena in the Sinai. Manna is produced by the secretions of two species of scaled insects, Trebutina mannipara and Najococcus serpentius. Quail returning from their spring migration to Europe often light exhausted on the desert sands. Easily scooped up, they provide ready sustenance for the traveler. Even today the nomadic peoples of the central Sinai continue to gather and eat manna and quail. Believers agree with Moses and recognize these gifts as the food that God has provided (v. 15).

Although the manna and quail may have been natural, it is clear that Israel’s faith interpreted these events as supernatural “food from heaven” that God continued to provide on a daily basis until their journey’s end in the land of Canaan (Exod 16:5; Josh 5:12). Israel regarded these gifts as a sign of love from the God to whom they were united in covenant, and celebrated them in their psalms and liturgies. “God commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven. God rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. Mortals ate the bread of the angels; God sent them food in abundance” (Ps 78:24; see also Ps 105:40).

Because this event figured so importantly in their relationship with God, it was with great excitement that the multitudes received Jesus’ gift of barley bread and fish. Many thought that a prophet like Elijah (July 26) had come among them, or perhaps one like Moses. Only with difficulty was Jesus able to redirect the eyes of his contemporaries to see beyond the sign of bread toward the food that does not perish but endures for eternal life. To remind his followers of their need for this daily bread and for the God who will provide for every human need, he shared the prayer that we continue to pray: “Our Father in heaven, give us this day our daily bread.”

Eph 4:17, 20-24When asked by author Zoë Sallis about her moral code, Una M. Kroll, the first woman to be

ordained in the Church of Wales, responded: “My moral code is based on the Ten

Commandments of the Old Testament in Exodus 20:1-17 and upon the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). … By keeping these foremost in my mind, I am helped to behave in ways that lead me to become a more human being that I would otherwise be” (Ten Eternal Questions: Wisdom, Insight, and Reflection for Life’s Journey, Chronicle Books, San Francisco: 2005). When the author of Ephesians broached the same question, he attributed his moral code to Jesus Christ and the fact that he had “learned Christ” (v. 20). The ancient author knew that Christians’ holy education in the person and in the ministry of Jesus had the potential for transforming them. He encouraged his readers to cooperate with this grace by putting away their old selves in order to put on new selves of righteousness and truth.

Because learning Christ is a process that requires consistent devotion and plain hard work, the transformation that results from this learning is gradual. For this reason, the struggle of putting away the old self and putting on the new is a daily endeavor. William Barclay has helped readers of Ephesians by explaining the terms the ancient author used to describe the heathen life (“The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians,” The Daily Study Bible, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, U.K.: 1976). Aselgeia, or the corruption that results from an addiction to sin, can gradually overtake every freedom. One of the characteristics of aselgeia, says Barclay, is a total lack of shame. Rather than try to hide the sin, souls filled with aselgeia will behave like drug users who initially took drugs in secret but then openly plead for the drug that has taken control of and corrupted them. All this can occur when the person without Christ gives in to pleonexia, or deceitful and insatiable desires.

Pleonexia wants what it has no right to possess. It might manifest in the theft of material things. It might manifest in trampling on the rights of others to get ahead or to have one’s own way; it might manifest in sexual depravity. These explanations affirm that the specter of the old self is an affliction that is not restricted solely to unbelievers. Rather, this old self is ever ready to rear its ugly head and often does so at the least expected and most inconvenient moments. For this reason, believers are ever in need of returning to the source of their life, Jesus Christ. Centered in Christ, who teaches by word and example, we find our way once again.

If this text were lengthened a little to include the next few verses, contemporary readers would be further enriched by the exhortation to “put away falsehood, speak the truth … be angry but do not sin and do not let the sun set on your anger … the thief must no longer steal but do honest labor so that he may have something to share with the needy. No foul languages should be spoken but only such as edifies and imparts grace. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit (vv. 25-30).

John 6:24-35After Hurricane Katrina, because of widespread power outages, lack of running water, tree-

blocked roads and empty store shelves, essential commodities were scarce. When a truck from a nearby Army base came through the neighborhood with bottles of drinking water, thousands of people lined up for what was truly “manna” or “bread from heaven.” In those hot dog days of summer, the word spread quickly about the great “sign”; it said that someone knew and cared about our plight.

Perhaps something similar happened when the word got out that Jesus had provided bread for the many by the Sea of Galilee. Nevertheless, when the crowds came searching for Jesus, he invited them to look beyond that sign. While he was eager to feed their physical hunger, he also wanted to whet their appetites for the true bread of life come down from heaven.

Identifying himself as that bread, Jesus invited the sign-seekers to work not for perishable food, but for food that has an eternal self-life (vv. 27-28). When asked about this work seekers were to

do, the Johannine Jesus defined it as believing in the one sent by God: himself. Raymond E. Brown understood this dialogue as the Johannine response to the issue of faith and works that had already surfaced in the early Christian community, as we see in the letters of James and Paul (The Gospel According to John, Doubleday, New York: 1966). In this Gospel, Jesus was not encouraging faith without works or works without faith. Rather, he described faith as a work. In this regard, Brown quoted and agreed with Rudolf Bultmann, who said, “Believing is not so much a work done by man, as it is submission to God’s work in Jesus.”

Also reflected in this Gospel is the early Christian community’s evolving faith in Jesus as God. Just as God gave manna to their ancestors in the desert, so could Jesus perform the same gracious acts as God. Jesus’ power to do so derived from the fact that he was and is indeed God. There is no quibbling over this assertion in the fourth Gospel. From the prologue (“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh,” John 1:1, 14) and throughout the Gospel (“I Am” sayings) to the confession of Thomas (“My Lord and my God,” 20:28), there is no doubt as to Jesus’ identity and divinity. However, his person and his power could be perceived only by those willing to look beyond the signs.

As this Bread of Life discourse goes on over the next few Sundays, the Johannine Jesus will continue to challenge our seeing and believing. Like Jesus’ contemporaries, we too will be invited to listen behind the words and look beyond the bread so as to perceive the mystery of the sign that is the very bread of life, God’s life, Jesus’ life, your life and mine.

August 2, 2009 Sample Homily18th Sunday in Ordinary Time“Bread and Life” by Fr. James Smith

Since all three readings today do not coalesce into a coherent whole, let’s just spend a few minutes on each one of them. The first reading is Chapter 4 in “The Life and Times of God’s People.” As you read their story, they seem to whine a lot. The first human couple found something not to their liking even in Paradise. Later, the Israelites were deported to Egypt, where they complained about the hardships of slavery.We meet them today in the desert. Having been mercifully freed from slavery,

they now want to return there rather than face the hardship of the desert. Again, God gives in to their complaint. When God leads them out of the desert to the edge of the promised land, they complain that the inhabitants are too strong for them to defeat. The people of God act like children of God.We can be something like that. We seem always to want to be where we are not

and to want what we don’t have. Like the Israelites, we look backward with longing to the good old days while ignoring the bad old days. We keep straining for future joy while present gifts go unnoticed. But, like the original dissatisfied children of God, one day we will have to grow up into mature adults of God.The second reading seems self-evident. Paul is unusually clear in telling us

to be less physical and more spiritual. But Paul has hidden his cleverness in the verb “learned.” You notice that he did not say that we learned about Christ, but that we learned Christ. That may seem like a small difference, but consider how we learn other things. Some people learn about music by learning the scales and a few easy pieces. But others actually learn music by devoting their lives to it. In a similar fashion, some people learn about Christ by reading sacred

scripture or taking a course or listening to homilies or joining a group. But real Christians actually learn Christ himself. They make Christ the center of

their lives, they devote themselves to Christ; they don’t just do what he says, but do what he does.John is the most difficult Gospel because it is the most symbolic. It is in

fact called the Book of Signs. And we can get frustrated with signs and symbols if we try to read them literally. The symbol of bread, for instance.Bread is a multivalent symbol in scripture. It first means ordinary bread.

But since bread was the basic biblical food, its extended meaning is food in general. Bread had both secular and religious possibilities: It could be offered in the temple as “show-bread,” or one loaf could hire a prostitute.Since bread kept people alive, it was a sign of God’s life. And since their

spirits were fed by the word of God, bread was a symbol of God’s word and divine wisdom. Since Jesus was the personal word of God, the life of God, Jesus was called the bread of life. Then Jesus took the symbol to a totally different level: He declared that not only was he the bread of life but that the bread would become his flesh. The life of Jesus evolved from bread to flesh.A symbol is not a complicated way of saying something — it is the only way

of saying certain things. If Jesus could be explained, Mary would have written a book instead of having a baby. If bread could be explained, Jesus would have written a thesis instead of dying and rising.

NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)August 9, 2009

Bread for the JourneyPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

1 Kgs 19:4-8Eph 4:30-5:2John 6:41-51

In her book The Road to Santiago (National Geographic Books, Washington: 2003), Kathryn Harrison shares her experiences of pilgrimage. Harrison has joined the ranks of millions of others who for more than 1,000 years have walked the 400 miles from Saint Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, a sacred site where a shrine honoring the apostle James welcomes those who complete the journey.

Harrison wrote that she was looking for an experience that would be both physically and psychologically demanding. She set off with a heavy pack, very little Spanish, no hotel reservations and a willingness to go where the road would lead her. It was certainly not a vacation but a “time out of time” to “strip away the layers” and reflect on life’s large questions — mortality, family, friendship, the past, the future and the nature of endurance.

On her way, she ate whatever was available and convenient, a half-kilo of strawberries here, a few magdalenas there, bread, jam, sunflower seeds. Even though it simple food, it was delicious and even celebratory to Harrison because every morsel made her journey possible, along with the kindness of strangers who became her companions on the way and helped to make the journey a life-altering experience.

In the sacred texts for today, the praying assembly will be invited to share the travels of other pilgrims and to learn from them the same sort of life lessons that Harrison experienced on the road to Santiago. Elijah, who is featured in the first reading from Kings, had grown weary of his life’s journey, which he hoped would soon come to an end. There are so many experiences in any given human life that can result in a similar desire to give up and be gone. Losses of every sort — whether it be the loss of a job, a home, a lifestyle, a spouse or friend, or even of one’s good health, sound mind and independence — all might constitute an occasion for wanting to stop the pilgrimage that is life. But God had other plans for the prophet. To that end, God fortified Elijah with food and sent him an angel messenger with instructions to keep going. His journey was not to end there in the desert under a broom tree, regardless of how discouraged the prophet had become.

Elijah’s experience encourages the travel-weary to look for the angel messengers that come their way and to accept their support, advice and companionship. From the prophet, pilgrims can also learn of the necessity of good spiritual nutrition, the need to eat and drink daily from the good bread of life that God has given in Jesus.

Jesus’ gift of himself as bread is once again the theme of the Gospel. Because he claimed to be heaven-sent and because he offered bread that he described as superior to the manna that fed the Israelites in the desert, Jesus became an object of derision. His companions on the journey began to murmur against him, to question his origins and to criticize his teachings. Anyone who has taken a trip with disgruntled traveling companions can sympathize with Jesus. Questions like “Are we there yet?” and “How far is it?” and complaints like “It’s too hot!” “It’s too cold!” “I’m hungry!” “I’m thirsty!” “I’m bored!” “I want to go home!” make for a very unpleasant journey.

Despite the murmuring of those he wished to make his lifelong travel companions, Jesus was patient. He did not, however, alter or dilute his message to appease his detractors. Fully aware that a simpler message might draw more followers, the Johannine Jesus nevertheless insisted that the bread he would provide for every believer’s journey through life would be his flesh for the life of the world.

The disciples would only begin to see later, when their journey together would lead first to the upper room for their last supper together (John 13-17) and then to the cross, where he would be broken and given over to death for them (John 19). Only when their journey led them again to the upper room (John 20) and then to the seaside breakfast — where he again offered them bread — did the first disciples truly begin to see and believe and accept the purpose of their pilgrimage. On the strength of their seeing and believing and acceptance, we continue to avail ourselves of the bread Jesus gives to sustain and encourage our journey home to him and to God.

1 Kgs 19:4-8“May the gods do thus and so to me if by this time tomorrow I have not done with your life

what was done to each of them!” This curse, spoken by Jezebel, was the reason Elijah had fled to the desert. Angered by his fatal attack on the prophets of Baal, whom she had imported from her native Sidon, Jezebel was out for revenge. For his part, Elijah was off on a journey that would lead him nearer to an experience of God that would strengthen him to continue his ministry.

As Pauline A. Viviano has explained, the confrontation that sent Elijah into hiding occupies a central place in Deuteronomic history (“Reading Guide, 1 and 2 Kings,” Oxford University Press, New York: 1990). Jezebel and her prophets favored the worship of Baal in order to assure the fertility of fields and flocks. Elijah, of course, called for fidelity to the God of Israel. Although the Israelites did not abandon the worship of the one true God, they worshipped Baal

as well. This sort of syncretism was strongly opposed by the authors of the Deuteronomic history, who featured both Elijah and Elisha performing a series of mighty actions in God’s name, thus affirming the superiority of the God of Israel above all other gods.

However, as Elijah’s story is picked up in today’s first reading, the prophet is having a decidedly bad day. He is experiencing a gap between his mighty deeds and his doubts about his own future as well as that of his people. His journey into the desert had begun as an escape from what appeared to be a dangerous and untenable situation.

In today’s reading, Elijah seems to have considered his ministry to be at an end. Like Moses before him (Num 11:14) and Job (6:9; 7:15) and Jonah (4:3, 8), Elijah prayed for the permanent relief of death. But like all of God’s ministers, Elijah would soon learn the lesson of God’s surprising ways. When human resources seem useless and human hopes fail, God’s power can provide unexpected strength to us so the divine plan will proceed. Accordingly, the prophet’s itinerary was to be redirected. No longer was his journey an escape. It would prove to be a much needed time out of time, as was Kathryn Harrison’s pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

After being fed by God and encouraged by God’s angel messenger, Elijah would learn that the divine plan was much larger and more all-encompassing than the prophet had initially imagined. His journey was not ended. He was assured that God saw and protected him on every step of his way — the God who would be made known to him in the “still small silence” at Horeb (1 Kgs 19:12). This same God continues to feed and to guide the way of all who will believe and entrust themselves to a plan and a purpose greater than their own.

Eph 4:30-5:2In this short text, the Ephesians author appeals to believers to live in a manner worthy of the

Holy Spirit with which each has been sealed. This appeal references a practice of glyptic art, which can be traced to 6,000 B.C.E. Seals, or glyphs, originated as flattened stones or cylinders with designs for imprinting on clay and gradually evolved into signet rings, which served to identify their owners. Often worn as jewelry because they were aesthetically pleasing, seals were also used to conclude legal contracts and other formal agreements. Because it was representative of its owner, a seal was often given as a gift to the gods. The gift of one’s seal to another person also signified the conferral of authority, as when Pharaoh gave his signet ring to Joseph, thereby making him prime minister (Gen 41:42).

Considered against this background, the sealing with the Holy Spirit served to identify the believer as one who belongs to God and is bound “contractually” to God through the covenant of the cross. Moreover, the seal of the Holy Spirit confers special graces that endow each believer with a share in the very power of Jesus. Thus sealed in baptism, believers also become sacred vessels or holy places within which the Spirit dwells. For all these reasons, those who are sealed with the Spirit are thereby responsible for living lives that are responsive to and reflective of that gift.

Living under the seal of the Spirit, as Ralph P. Martin has explained, entails some down-to-earth patterns, which include love of the truth, honest purpose in daily work, altruistic concern for the needy, and sincere speech that has no truck with falsehood, anger, gossip or maliciousness (Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon, John Knox Press, Atlanta: 1991). Because of the seal of the Spirit, believers acknowledge that they are not their own but are called to a higher, deeper, fuller, freer way of life that has been revealed in Jesus Christ.

In Eph 5:1-2, the ancient author addresses readers with titles that Martin suggests “have a moral kick in them.” As children of God, believers are to imitate God’s loving nature. All God has

done for believers and all God continues to do in Christ gives us an incentive to behave with integrity and uprightness. Just as every moment of Jesus’ life and death represented an aspect of the sacrifice that has saved us all, so might the daily routine of a believer’s life represent a pleasing, aromatic gift to God. How might it make a difference in our lives if the good and the bad, the boring and the exciting, the meaningful and the mundane experiences of life were approached as if each were a note in a song of praise or a word in a fervent prayer? Sealed by the Spirit, all we are and do, all we say and think can become a gift to God that can be united with the supreme sacrificial offering of Jesus Christ.

John 6:41-51Throughout the Bread of Life Discourse, the Johannine Jesus referenced the gift of manna in

the desert in order to affirm the superiority of the bread that he was offering for the life of the world. This Gospel emphasizes the life-giving character of the living bread of Jesus. Not only does this bread sustain life here and how, but it also does so for eternal life. Those who ate the bread in the desert died. They were nourished only during the time they spent in the desert. However, as Beverly Gaventa has pointed out, Jesus, “who is the bread from heaven, gives the life of the age to come, the life that has about it the tang of eternity” (Texts for Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1993).

Another not-so-obvious quality of Jesus’ gift of bread also finds its roots in Israel’s experience of manna in the desert. In Exodus 16:35, the Pentateuchal authors attest that “the Israelites ate this manna for 40 years until they came to settled land; they ate manna until they reached the borders of Canaan.” It was, indeed, God-given food for their journey — a moveable feast that satisfied their hungers all along the way.

In the same way that manna fed Moses and the people, so does the bread of life that Jesus gives; this bread travels with believers all through their individual and communal journeys through life. With the bread of his word, Jesus offered life lessons that his followers carry with them from place to place and from person to person. With the bread of his very self shared as real food and real drink, Jesus invited his followers to enter into a communion with him whereby he was truly present with and within them. Through his gift of living bread, Jesus became their constant and caring companion, in the truest sense of the word. He became one who shared bread (pan) with (cum) his followers; this he did by being bread, which was taken, blessed, broken and given for the life of the world.

John Chrysostom, who was called the golden-mouthed Doctor of the Eucharist, gloried in the moveable feast that Jesus continues to offer to believers. In one of his many homilies on the Eucharist, the fourth-century bishop shared the following with his congregation: “What is the bread, actually? The Body of Christ. What do communicants become? The Body of Christ. In fact, just as the bread is the result of many grains, and although remaining themselves are not distinguished from one another because they are united, so we, too, are mutually united with Christ. We are all nourished from the same Body.”

Gifted with this bread, it falls upon believers to choose their response. Will we murmur and complain? Or will we summon all of our questions, our doubts and our arguments and surrender these to Jesus, who will feed us freely and fully without judging our worthiness or the depth of our faith?

August 9, 2009 Sample Homily19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“God Made Us to Love” by Fr. James Smith

We impatient modern people usually pass over the long genealogy of Jesus. We don’t know the people, it was long ago and far away — we find it boring. But it meant a lot to the ones who wrote it and read it. Its basic meaning for them was that the ultimate purpose of the lives of all of these people was to bring forth Jesus.The same is not true of our own genealogies. Some of us may be able to trace

our family tree a long way back. It might include ordinary people as well as horse thieves or royalty. But whoever they were, their existence did not get its meaning from being our ancestors. Rather, they each had their own life, their own purpose; they just happened accidentally to end up being our forebears. Give or take a marriage or love affair here or there, and we might not have been.Not so with Jesus. God had determined that Jesus was going to be, no matter

how it happened. And it was a circuitous route, no matter how it is recorded. Luke takes it back to Abraham to note the connection of Jesus with the chosen people; Matthew takes it all the way back to Adam to connect the DNA of Jesus with the whole human race.But either way, the ancestry of Jesus included the first sinner, the first

murderer, a few prostitutes and adulterers, some good and bad prophets, two great kings and two bloodthirsty tyrants — but mostly ordinary folk who went about their mundane lives with no idea that their primary purpose was to keep the human race going until it was fit to produce the singular humanity of Jesus.We can push the origin of Jesus back even further. Humankind was preceded by

other living things, which in turn were preceded by non-living things, which were preceded by … absolutely nothing. Through the hits and misses of creaturely development slowly emerged the species called human.Yet if the purpose of evolution was humankind, and the purpose of humankind

was Jesus, then what are the rest of us? Redundant, useless afterthoughts? Chopped liver? If the ultimate goal of creation was the perfect humanity of Jesus, then why didn’t God stop there? Why didn’t creation come to a close?It must be that God had something else in mind. We seem to think that God

made creation for God’s own benefit. That is why we do things. We build a house to live in, buy a car to drive, cook food to eat — for our own benefit.But we should not judge God’s purposes by our worst tendencies. We are not

always selfish. Sometimes we do things for other reasons. For instance, we have children so we will have someone to love and someone to love us back. Maybe that is why God created us. Maybe that is why God’s other name is Love. Maybe it is as simple as that.We humans limit our children, our love-creatures, because we have a limited

capacity for love. But God is infinite loveability. God is able to love each individual as if he or she were the only person who ever lived. Even if we are born after Jesus, we are not knockoffs, not unimportant. Even if God loves Jesus more, God does not love us less. No matter how populous creation becomes, it is important to remember that love is always personal, always one-to-one.Which means that God made the world just so God could love you. And to be

loved only as you can love.

TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)August 16, 2009

Come, Eat and BelievePatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Prov 9:1-6Eph 5:15-20John 6:51-58

Do you enjoy a good buffet? Most of us appreciate the variety of salads, main courses and desserts we find in a good buffet, and we like being able to pick and choose only those foods for which we have a particular yen.

Evidently, meals with an ample supply of food have been popular for millennia. Egyptian hieroglyphics attest to the lavish fare at their feasts — such as perfumed wines and tiny birds, eaten whole, accompanied by exotic fruits. Persian banquets included horses, camels, deer and a variety of birds, roasted whole. Even today, some of the Bedouin tribes in the Arabian and North African desert regions honor visiting dignitaries and celebrate weddings with what is purported to be the largest single dish in the world: Eggs are stuffed into fish; fish is then stuffed into chicken, which is stuffed into sheep. Then the sheep is stuffed into an entire camel, and the whole thing is roasted. No one, however, outdid the Romans, who served ostrich brains, hummingbird tongues, suckling pigs, vegetables mixed with flecks of gold, pearls and precious gems and even ice cream.

These lavish banquets, however, were extraordinary. As such, they were limited only to certain guests. These guests were pampered and plied with food and drink and entertained with music and dancing, while slaves and servants looked on and the poor could only imagine such luxury.

Aware of the popularity of banquets and the preciousness of even the most meager fare, the author of Proverbs used the motif of a great feast to entice the hungry to find their food not in a royal banquet hall, however lavish, but at Wisdom’s table. Invitations to Wisdom’s feast are not limited to a few. Rather, anyone who is hungry enough to hear and accept her invitation — be they slave or servant or poor — will be well-fed by Wisdom.

Wisdom’s invitation and generous offer of food for all had its roots in Israel’s past and offered a prelude of its future. Her great spread, offered freely “to whomever is simple,” recalled the manna in the desert that fed the Israelites who were willing to depend daily on God’s providence for their survival. Wisdom’s feast also anticipated the meals that Jesus would offer to any and to all. First among those meals was the supper of barley bread and fish, which fed the physical hungers of the great crowd who had come in search of him. Jesus is also attentive also to the spiritual hungers of humankind and continues to feed, with the bread of his word, all who will listen and learn and grow in responsiveness to his teachings, his challenges, his encouragement, his wisdom.

A third feast continues to welcome everyone who believes in Jesus as true food and true drink in the breaking of the bread, which he left to his followers as an everlasting remembrance. Today’s Gospel features this aspect of Jesus’ willingness to feed every human hunger. With a nod to Lady Wisdom, the Johannine evangelist has represented Jesus as Wisdom made flesh, who has come to dwell and move among us. As God’s Wisdom and God’s Word, Jesus has revealed the divine desire to give bread, to be bread for the life of the world. In order to provide this bread of life, Jesus was to be handed over, taken and broken on the cross so that his life could be given for us all.

Those who return again and again to be fed by Jesus’ word and wisdom and very self are indeed privileged. These visits at the table that Jesus continues to prepare and to host are life-sustaining moments of great intimacy. These meals continue to provide believers with the gift of grace, which enables us — once our hungers have been fed — to tend to the hungers of others.

Throughout our lives, we Christians remain God’s beloved beggars, invited to the banquet of God’s own making. Now it devolves upon those of us who have found bread to tell others where they, too, can find bread. It is not enough merely to give directions. Rather, we are to be companions on the journey and table-mates at the feast who are willing to be broken and given and shared so that others may eat and have life.

Prov 9:1-6Along with the other sapiential books, or wisdom books, included in the Hebrew scriptures,

Proverbs addressed a need among the ancient Israelites at a time when many of them were being drawn to other “tables” to be fed by fare other than what was provided by their own religious traditions. Located among the Kethibh, or “The Writings” of the Old Testament, this sapiential literary genre speaks to the entire gamut of human experience, from the mundane to the sublime, as well as to the manner in which one’s faith in God should affect those experiences. In their Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.: 2005), Bruce Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence Fretheim and David Petersen have described the book of Proverbs as “common sense permeated by God’s holy will.” This common-sense advice is dispensed in two forms. The first is a more didactic mode that advises what should not be done; the second form is constituted of sayings or verses that represent witty but sound reasoning designed to shape and govern social transactions, such as “Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife” (17:1).

Most of Proverbs is given over to these insightful aphorisms, which continue to offer sage and timely advice to believers. However, the first nine chapters of the book feature Wisdom (Hokmah in Hebrew or Sophia in Greek) represented as a female figure who stands out as a good counselor in contrast to Lady Folly (9:13-18; 14:1), who also vies for the attention of humankind. Speaking frequently in the first person (1:20-33; 8:1-36; 9:1-6), Wisdom identifies herself as God’s own compassion at creation as well as the origin of order in society and success in life (8:15-21). In that capacity, Wisdom invites the simple to turn in through her door and take their place at her table, where she will feed them. Lady Folly issues the same invitation. However, Wisdom’s banquet of meat and wine is hearty fare that results in life for her invited guests, while Folly’s meal of stolen bread and water leads only to perdition and death (v. 18).

Christians have come to recognize Wisdom’s feast as a preparation for and prelude to the great wedding feast to which the kingdom of heaven is often compared. As the revelation of God’s Wisdom in human form, Jesus will act as host at that table where every human hunger and thirst will be addressed and eternally satisfied. Wisdom’s feast also provides a background against which to appreciate and understand the eucharistic feast, where the wine and the bread are the wisdom or the words and the gift of Jesus himself as food. Each time believers participate in this eucharistic feast, Jesus-Wisdom feeds those who gather so that they, too, may go forth to feed the needs and hungers of the world.

Eph 5:15-20Setting the highest standard for believers, the author of Ephesians began this section of the

letter with the exhortation, “You must become imitators of God, as well-loved children imitate

their father. You must live in love as Christ loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice and an offering to God” (5:1). This quality of exhortation was continued throughout the letter to the believers in Ephesus and continues to call upon the best efforts of those who read this letter today. With God as the ultimate measure of every word, thought and action, believers can be sure that their lives are well-directed.

In order to be certain that we are imitating God, however, we must use discernment. “Try to understand what is the will of the Lord” (v. 17), advises the early Christian writer. Discerning the truth about how God’s will and God’s ways should figure into our lives as believers is not an easy process or one that is even possible without prayer. It remains one of the very important pastoral privileges and responsibilities of those who serve God’s beloved as their leaders.

Part of that discernment process will include avoiding foolishness and seeking wisdom (v. 15). This wisdom, as Ralph P. Martin has explained, will enable believers in God to face life, to make sense of its enigmas and to surmount its problems (Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon, John Knox Press, Atlanta: 1991). The practice of wisdom in everyday conduct, set in a hostile society, involves specific moral activities and choices.

In this advice from the author of Ephesians, the reader can hear echoes from the author of Proverbs, who emphasized the importance of choosing Lady Wisdom’s table rather than that of Lady Folly. Choosing wisdom would preclude us from engaging in overindulgence and excesses of every kind. When believers gather together, their belonging to Jesus Christ should dictate their behavior. In contrast to the foolish, who get drunk on spirits that come from a keg or a cask, Jesus’ followers are to be filled with the Spirit.

As Martin has further noted, “be filled” is in the present tense, indicating a continuing experience. In sharp contrast to those who are given to overindulging in wine, believers in Jesus are to let the fullness of the Spirit inspire their every move. Instead of being given over to bawdy drinking songs, the followers of Christ, who are privileged to imbibe the Spirit of God every day, are to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs that celebrate their faith and offer grateful thanksgiving to God.

John 6:51-58Henri Nouwen once described the Eucharist as the most ordinary and the most divine gesture

imaginable (With Burning Hearts, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.: 1994). Jesus is God-for-us, God-with-us, God-within-us. Jesus is God giving himself completely. He does not hold back or cling to his own possessions, not even to himself. He gives all there is to give.

Nouwen’s words were expressive of his faith; he earnestly believed that Jesus’ offer of himself as bread in this Gospel has more than symbolic significance. Our participation in Jesus’ gift of real food and real drink is a sacramental and eucharistic participation in the dying and rising of Jesus.

Through the centuries, Jesus’ gift has been variously analyzed and interpreted. From the second to fourth centuries, Clement of Alexandria and his disciple Origen, as well as Eusebius of Caesarea, were of the mind that the entirety of John 6 referred solely to the bread of Jesus’ teaching. The great fathers of the church John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa and the two Cyrils of Jerusalem and Alexandria emphasized the eucharistic and sacramental character of the bread from heaven. This emphasis was rejected by the reformers in favor of a purely sapiential interpretation. Perhaps the most balanced reading of John 6, and the one that appears to be truest to the Gospel, is one that uses both a sacramental and a sapiential interpretation. Raymond E. Brown, André Feuillet and Xavier Leon-Dufour have indentified John 6:35-51 (the Gospel for

August 9) as referring to the revelation of Jesus’ teaching, and John 6:51-58 as eucharistic in character. “Indeed,” wrote Brown, “Isaiah 6:51, ‘The bread that I shall give is my own flesh for the life of the world,’ might well be the Johannine eucharistic formula comparable to ‘This is my body which is given for you’ (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). Taken as a whole, the two parts of the discourse reveal that Jesus feeds his followers both through his revelation and his eucharistic flesh and blood” (An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, New York: 1997).

When his contemporaries objected to Jesus’ offer (v. 52, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”), the Johannine evangelist used that objection as an opportunity to elaborate. By using the same word, sarx, or flesh, here as well as in the reference to the Incarnation (“The Word became flesh,” John 1:14), it is clear that the evangelist understood that the living bread who came down from heaven was offering himself. In the eucharistic gift of his flesh for the life of the world, all the moments of the Christ-event are present, from the incarnation to the cross to the resurrection and glorification of Jesus. To eat of Jesus’ bread and to believe in his word is to participate in each of those moments and to penetrate the mystery of God with and within us.

Eating of Jesus’ bread and believing in his word is also a means of knowing God and experiencing eternal life. Later in the Gospel, during the lengthy Last Supper discourse, the evangelist would affirm, “Eternal life is this — to know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ” (17:3). In today’s Gospel, the Johannine Jesus insists that the experience of eternal life is not an after-death experience only. Rather, the one who eats and drinks Jesus’ true food and true drink has eternal life (v. 54) here and now, as well as in the future forever. This multidimensional experience is at the heart of every eucharistic encounter; we, for our part, are to listen and learn, taste and eat and believe.

August 16, 2009 Sample Homily20th Sunday in Ordinary Time“Together at Mass” by Fr. James Smith

Jesus speaks of the Eucharist from a personal perspective. We are familiar with that, so let’s look at the Mass from a group perspective, too.In every culture throughout history, individual members sometimes come

together. They leave their huts or mansions, walk or drive Lincolns to get to a central meeting point. And before the first word is spoken, this gathering already tells us some very important things about these people. Their coming together in the first place means they recognize that they need each other to do what they are unable to accomplish by themselves.After the community assembles and greets and mingles and solidifies, it

typically has some standard ritual to demonstrate that this is more than a social event. They wash their hands or paint their faces: They engage in some common, accepted action to transport them from the secular to the sacred realm.Once on holy ground, the group establishes itself in the world and in

history. They read the Torah or Gita or Testament. In illiterate cultures, storytellers recount the communal legends of how the world was made, how evil came into the world, how a divine person saved them, how they got to be who they are and came to be where they are right now.Having established themselves as this special people, they are in a position

to do what they gathered to do: join earth to heaven, communicate with the spirits, engage the eternal god in their temporal pursuit. They may have a rain dance or war march or hunting mime. Whatever they do, it is precisely what the original savior did. And they do it exactly the way it was handed

down to them from their ancestors. Because this is the sacred ritual that carries divine authority.In most of these religious celebrations, there is some kind of common meal

or sharing of the same earthly element. Some eat various parts of a sacrificial animal, some pass the peace pipe, some share a sacred drink. This symbolizes their solidarity with each other and with their god. After this, the individuals go back to their ordinary lives enriched by their common celebration. They reluctantly realize that this temporary experience was merely a symbol of the ultimate community in the future.When we gather for Mass, we add our faith to the human level of activity.

And it becomes a different world, a different experience. We come from all parts of the city first as members of the human race, then as members of the body of Christ. Before a word is spoken, our gathered community itself is the most important sign of God’s presence.The penance rite situates us as creature before our Creator. Then, sacred

scripture recalls our humanity in Adam, our rootedness in God’s chosen people, our baptismal incorporation into Christ and our continuity with the first generation of Christians.Then we do what Jesus did, and bread and wine become his body and blood.

This is such an amazing miracle that many people think holy Communion is first of all God inside them. That may be true on the psychological level, but on the human level, they already have God in them when they wash dishes or make love or mow the lawn. The first effect of Communion is not personal — it is to draw us closer to each other. Those who eat the same body become one body in Christ.Then we return to our individual lives and long for that day when we will be

able to remain together with God in the heavenly Mass.

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)August 23, 2009

Staying or LeavingPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Josh 24:1-2, 15-17, 18Eph 5:21-32John 6:60-69

In an article posted on the Lutheran Forum Blog on March 14, Pastor Paul H. Hinlicky expressed his desire for a divorce — not from his wife of 35 years but from his church. Hinlicky claimed that the covenant made between his church and its members was being violated on the “grounds of biblical infidelity.” At issue was an upcoming vote on same-sex marriage. Hinlicky insisted that church doctrine and biblical teaching cannot be put to a vote.

On the same blog, layperson George Erdner made mention of the practice of “moving one’s letter.” Within some Christian communities, members may choose to change from one congregation to another for a variety of reasons. Whether a member has relocated and is looking for a new community, or the member has simply found that another pastor or congregation is more supportive, the process of transference is called “moving one’s letter.” At times, there is an actual letter that expresses the believer’s intentions. At other times, wrote Erdner, because the

“bonds that hold us pew-sitters in our places are extremely tenuous, moving one’s letter is not especially difficult. It’s incredibly easy just to stop showing up on Sunday.”

Although the terms “divorce” and “moving one’s letter” do not appear in this Sunday’s sacred texts, it is clear that Joshua and his contemporaries and Jesus and his followers were facing the inevitable conflict that every faith community experiences at one time or another. Disagreement was in the air and difficult decisions were required, the consequences of which were serious and enduring.

Joshua and the desert travelers had gradually infiltrated the land of Canaan. Gathered at Shechem, they were no longer wanderers but settlers in a land they called their own. At that important turning point in their lives, Joshua called upon his contemporaries to make a fundamental choice concerning their loyalties and their identity. Would they remain the people of Israel whom God called out of Egypt and remain faithful to their Creator and Deliverer, or would they opt for a divorce and move their letter so as to worship the gods of Canaan? Although some were tempted to shift their allegiance and try to assure the prosperousness of their flocks and fields by worshiping the fertility gods, Joshua made his loyalties known. He was not about to turn away from God. He would not move his letter but would continue to serve the Lord along with his whole household.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ teaching about the bread of life challenges the faith and loyalties of his followers. Up to this point, they have been able to understand and accept most of his words and works, but now they are shocked.

This teaching especially shook them because they knew they could not remain mediocre, nor could they adopt a buffet-style approach to him, selecting what seemed feasible and taking a pass on what did not. Either they believed or they did not. Aware of their struggle, Jesus called them to a faith that moved beyond the feasible. Jesus challenged and continues to challenge his followers to have faith that can take a shock, be rocked by it, and then continue to remain with him. This faith carries believers to the point where they surrender their desire to understand everything in full over to God and to the mystery of the bread of life.

Despite his best efforts, some of Jesus’ followers did not believe and chose to leave him. But the Twelve remained. They did not opt for a divorce from him or move their letter or lessen their loyalties. Did they fully comprehend the mystery to which Jesus directed them? Probably not. Were they faultless in their faith and strong against all doubts? Probably not. Their flaws would be played out later for all the world to see. Their faltering faith would become more and more evident as the time neared for Jesus to be taken, broken and given over to death. Nevertheless, they didn’t leave; they stayed with the one who could feed them, body and spirit, unto eternal life.

From the experiences of Joshua and the Israelites at Shechem and Jesus and the crowds by the Sea of Galilee, contemporary believers can learn that faith is a challenging process. As this process evolves, we will find that we can disagree but not depart. We can dissent and even doubt without resorting to a divorce from Jesus or from the community of believers. Doubt and dissent can even prove to be valuable catalysts that deepen and broaden our belief. Therefore, when challenges and confrontations arise because of Gospel interpretation or church teaching, let us remain together in Christ. Rather than cut our losses and take our leave, let us say in fear and faith and trembling, as Peter did to Jesus, “To whom shall we go?”

Josh 24:1-2, 15-17, 18

The story of the conquest of Canaan — told with bold strokes and only from the perspective of the Israelite community — reads like a military operation carried out by an effective occupying force. This traditional version of events was questioned by 19th-century German biblical scholars who suggested that the “conquest” was more like a gradual infiltration that took approximately 125 years. This hypothesis has been further questioned by an increasing number of scholars who suggest that the Canaanites were overthrown by a peasant revolt.

As Bruce Birch, Walter Brueggemann, Terence Fretheim and David Petersen have explained, this revolt hypothesis holds, in a widely embraced redefinition, that the term “Canaanite” is not ethnically specific but is a pejorative, ideological term to describe the “urban elite” who controlled the economy and wielded considerable political power (A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.: 2003). Resentful of this arrangement, the peasants in the land (that is, the Israelites) rose up. Leaders such as Joshua were able to harness the peasant resentment and motivate the uprising by keeping the Israelites mindful of their great liberating God who had promised them a land and an identity based on their belonging to and believing in God.

With this relationship to God as the ideological force driving their efforts, the Israelites, led by Joshua, succeeded in establishing themselves in the land of God’s promise. Having done so, Joshua called for the Israelites to renew the covenant and solidify their relationship with God. That covenant reinstated Israel’s desire to serve God — that is, to abide by the Law, which was regarded as the terms of the covenant. At the heart of their observance was a single-hearted and faithful devotion to the God of Israel, which precluded their dalliances with other gods. Such dalliances were tempting to those newly settled Israelites who were attracted to the various fertility cults popular in Canaan.

Joshua set the example by wholeheartedly declaring his faith in the God who had brought them out of Egypt, led them through the desert and would continue to be their God, the one and only God in Canaan. Strict monotheism would not prevail for some time among the Israelites, but Joshua’s conviction is undeniable. No doubt the strength of his devotion to God encouraged others to follow his lead. Their response is also admirable.

Scholars suggest that not all those present at the Shechem gathering were Israelites. That would have meant the gathering also presented an invitation to the people who inhabited Canaan before the Israelite infiltration to turn from all other gods to bind themselves solely to God. If these added their voices to the pledge to serve the Lord, then the picture of Israel being shared here by the Deuteronomist is much more realistic. “Israel will not live in a clean, unambiguous environment but must always find a way for faith amid seductive alternatives” (Birch et al., A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament). Joshua found a way to believe, as did the others gathered at Shechem; their faith and their courage challenge us to do likewise.

Eph 5:21-32Jim Hill and Rand Cheadle collaborated to produce a book on the uses and abuses of holy

scripture titled The Bible Tells Me So (Doubleday, New York: 1996). Their stated purpose was to illustrate how the sacred texts have been used selectively to promote certain policies and actions and to condemn or criticize others. In the chapter devoted to defining the traditional role of women, a few verses from this Ephesians text have often been cited to support the equality of men and women in Christ as well as the dominant role of the husband over his wife in marriage. Hill and Cheadle ably illustrate the injustices done to the sacred texts when they are read selectively or taken out of context. To avoid perpetuating these injustices, readers of Ephesians

and all sacred texts are urged not to abridge or abbreviate passages but to consider the entire text as well as its literary form.

This text and others like it (Colossians 3:18-4:1; 1 Peter 2:18-3:7) have been identified as haustafel, or household codes. These codes were adapted by Christian writers from similar exhortations found in the writings of the great stoic philosophers and Hellenistic Jewish sages. They were intended to promote household harmony by clarifying everyone’s place and purpose. Although the codes among the Greeks and Hellenistic Jews supported the subordination of all in the household to its patriarchal figure, this Christian household code elevates the relationship to another level. Here, the Ephesians author referenced marriage as a metaphor for understanding the relationship between Christ and the church.

Considered in this way, the Ephesians call to be subordinate to one another is addressed to brothers and sisters — both husbands and wives. This action is likened to the love between Christ and the church; Jesus loved his own with a love so great that he handed himself over for them. Through Jesus’ self-sacrifice, the church has been made holy. So should husbands love their wives and wives their husbands, that in their mutual giving and self-sacrifice, each sanctifies the other in love.

Ralph P. Martin suggests that the ancient author’s appeal to married couples is made more emphatic in verse 28: “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies” (Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon, John Knox Press, Atlanta: 1991). Here the epistolary writer refers to Paul’s teaching on the church as the body of Christ and Christians as members of that body (1 Cor 12:12ff; Rom 12:4-5). Just as with Christ and the church, marriage makes a man and a woman one flesh; that is, no longer two persons but one. They are bonded together in a corporeal and spiritual union, nourished and sustained by this mutual relationship where each needs the other in order to be whole. To put it another way, each considers the other to be his or her better half.

John 6:60-69The declarations of Chapter 6 in this Gospel, and the challenge Jesus offered here, marked a

turning point in the Johannine Jesus’ ministry and required a decision on the part of his followers. Either they accepted the gift of the bread of his teaching (vv. 35-50) and the gift of himself as bread (vv. 51-58) or they did not. Like the gathered tribes at Shechem, those who gathered to be fed by Jesus were being asked to profess their faith. It is significant that the same challenges, revelations and graces were offered to all who witnessed Jesus’ works and listened to his words. However, being a witness to those events did not automatically evoke faith or commitment. A little daring was needed to make what Søren Kierkegaard called a “leap of faith.” This leap would carry those who dared to believe beyond the sign of the bread and into the presence of the One who gave not only bread but his body for the life of the world.

There is further significance in the fact that Jesus did not alter or dilute this message in order to ease the dismay or dispel the doubts of his disciples. Rather, he challenged those he fed to open themselves to the gift of faith that God would give: “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” Only with faith would they be able to draw near and participate in the three-dimensional mystery he was revealing among them: the Incarnation (“I am the bread come down from heaven”); the redemption he accomplished (“The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world”); and his ascension and glorification (“The Son of Man ascending to where he was before”).

So many of the joys and sorrows of the human experience come together in this Gospel. Bread is given, lives are shared, yet some are shocked by the intimacy of the gift and the companionship to which Jesus invites his own. Disbelief and betrayal are also in the air and those who are offended by Jesus’ hard teaching decide to leave him. They refuse his bread and the communion he offers. Charles Cousar has suggested that many people’s refusal to believe was due only in part to the “hard sayings” of Jesus about his flesh and blood (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1993). Some were probably put off by Jesus’ demand for participation in his death as the ultimate way to eternal life. Jesus’ question to the Twelve — “Do you also want to leave?” — echoes through the centuries and poses itself anew each time the community gathers to remember the Christ-event and to be fed on the bread Jesus offers.

Truly, it is easier to leave than to stay. It is more comfortable to part company rather than remain and continue the difficult work of believing and piercing the mystery of Eucharist. Peter, whose courage would later falter for a time, is very brave here. He chooses to believe without fully understanding; he chooses to place his trust in the one he has come to love and lean upon. With Peter, we too can lean on Jesus and learn from him, if only we dare to stay and believe.

August 23, 2009 Sample Homily20th Sunday in Ordinary Time“Sacraments Are All Around” by Fr. James Smith

People chased after Jesus because of the signs he worked. That was one reason why Jesus worked miracles: so they could be signs, symbols of the presence of God in the people’s lives. But many people got so involved with the symbol that they neglected God. Catholics tend to do the same with sacraments, symbols of grace.If agnostics go too far in thinking that religion is a little unreal, many

Catholics make the opposite mistake of denigrating everyday life. We are trapped in the illusion that there are two separate realities: earthly things that are passing, and heavenly things that are eternal. These eternal things are so important that we place them in a holy atmosphere separate from regular things. But in trying to protect them from daily dirt, we also deprive daily dust of eternal significance.Sacraments are symbols, signs of Christ’s activity among us. Jesus is the

sacrament, the sign of God’s activity in the world. But God is active in our world independently of symbols and signs. God is alive and present in every human situation. We say that sacraments give grace, but grace is just a theological term for God’s active love. The sacraments make that evident so we don’t overlook God.Karl Rahner wrote, “The world and its history are the terrible and sublime

liturgy, breathing of death and sacrifice” but also of life and freedom. The story of humanity and each human is the story of sin and grace, failure and success, freedom and slavery, dying and rising. The total human experience is capitulated in the life, death and rising of Jesus. When people become conscious of that fact and participate in it, they are celebrating Eucharist — thanksgiving.Imagine a person who feels that God is in love with him and everyone else,

that love is the ultimate meaning of life, that God has given himself to us and wants us to give ourselves back. If that person says “Yes” to this mystery, he has received the baptism of everyday life. Or imagine a person who maintains a sustaining hope in spite of the evident evil in life; who is a

witness to the spirit of grace loose in the world. That person is humanly confirmed with or without sacramental confirmation.People who daily judge themselves, ask forgiveness, easily offer pardon;

people who try to eliminate personal and social evils; people who are open to change, betterment, conversion — such people are celebrating the earthly sacrament of penance every day.People who tacitly realize that love of neighbor is love of God, who freely

entrust their lives into each other’s hands, who abandon their future into their mutual happiness — those people create a natural sacrament before it is fulfilled in sacramental marriage.A few people intuit that they do not live for themselves, that they are

consecrated to ultimate mystery. They live in a way that awakens others to the experience of God; they breathe the atmosphere of eternal expectation. They are more compelling signs of the priestly Christ than any number of sacramentally ordained hirelings.Those who endure patiently, who learn obedience from their suffering, who

accept their finitude, those who believe that they hand over their life and death into God — they are anointed with the earthly oil of healing.Ecclesiastical sacraments are obvious signs of God’s personal care for each

individual. Everyone is not so blessed — God saves them in a private way. But those who are gifted with visible signs of God’s love and reject them had better be prepared to explain their refusal.

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)August 30, 2009

Authentic HolinessPatricia Datchuck Sánchez

Deut 4:1-2, 6-8James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Have you ever felt that you were simply going through the motions of your day-to-day existence? We get up, get dressed, go to work, come home, have supper, go to a meeting, go to bed and then repeat the same routine the next day and the next and the next. Because of the unavoidable repetitiveness of our daily actions and responsibilities, we tend to fall into a rut that may be boring but is nevertheless somewhat comfortable in its sameness and predictability. In those times when this repetitive routine carries over into our spiritual life, we may find that our holiness is not real. Prayers become rote and participation at liturgy becomes more of a habit than a commitment. Like Eleanor Rigby in the Beatles song of the same name, we begin to wear the face that we keep in a jar by the door. Our piety become superficial, and because it is no more than skin-deep, we sink into that place of disconnectedness that we call hypocrisy.

Each of the sacred texts for today addresses this disconnect while urging believers toward integrity and authenticity of life. True piety is not a practiced and soulless routine but a holiness that arises from within a heart that is consciously in love with God. This God, as the Deuteronomist has affirmed, is “so close” that every human cry, every prayer, every sigh is heard. This God mediated a law through Moses, the observance of which leads to life and well-

being, to wisdom and intelligence. Clearly, the Israelites understood that the law was not intended to be an imposition or a punishment but a guide that would direct the truly observant toward holiness that was reflective of their God.

Although the law was initially rather simple in its governance of the relations between God and humankind (Commandments One through Three) as well as the relationships between human beings (Four through Ten), it eventually evolved into a complex maze of legislation. By the time of Jesus, ordinary folks needed professional assistance to make their way through the myriad details that governed every aspect of their waking lives. These religious professionals, the Pharisees, were revered and admired for their dedication, and rightly so. But eventually, as Jesus points out in today’s Gospel, their dedication to so many minute details skewed their judgment and sensibilities. Like so many very well-intentioned and holy people, they began to pay more attention to the letter than the spirit of the law. Gradually, their observance devolved into external rituals that were very conscientiously performed but were becoming less and less informed by interior holiness.

When Jesus recognized this lack of integrity, he warned his disciples against it. Quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus called forth a commitment from his disciples to assure that the faith they professed with their lips sprang from a heart that was given completely to God. Within such a heart, values can be properly ordered and priorities can be appropriately set. Then the disciple understands that true cleanliness arises from the purity of one’s interior inspiration and not from soap and water.

In order to promote this authentic holiness in his readers, the author of James (second reading) directed his readers to the word of God: Welcome the word, hear the word and be doers of the word. This word is planted within you, insists the ancient writer. Because of this, we must tend the living word of God that speaks its relevant truth to every era and every generation so it can grow and bloom and bear the good fruit of holiness. This holiness finds its first expression in us when we praise God at the Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist. Then, that same holiness is to be carried forth from the celebration and translated into the care and service of others, particularly God’s least ones.

Believers cannot remain true in holiness if we allow our piety to devolve into empty external ritual. To guard against this disconnect, we require a daily reconnection with God, with the truth of the word, and with others, whose needs, struggles and sorrows should keep us honest in our striving for wholeness and holiness.

Deut 4:1-2, 6-8Fundamental to the spirituality of the Deuteronomist was the conviction that those who do what

is right will be blessed by God, and those who choose to do what is wrong will suffer the consequences of their choices. Therefore, advised the author of the Deuteronomic history, “Choose life, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord your God and heeding God’s voice” (Deut 30:19). God’s voice, according to the ancient author, could best be heard in the precepts of the Law. The benefits of heeding the Law are affirmed in today’s excerpted first reading: The observant will have life (v. 1); a land of their own (v. 1); wisdom and intelligence (v. 6); and closeness to God, who attends every human need (v. 7). Keeping the law was regarded as a way to assure not only their sanctity but also their survival as a people.

Although the Deuteronomist insisted that nothing was to be added to the law or subtracted from it (v. 2), his advice was not always heeded. During the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods (539 B.C.E. – 325 C.E.), biblical law was the object of increasing restatement and elaboration.

By the time of Jesus, a lengthy legal compendium called the “Oral Law” was regarded as a necessary supplement to the written law. This “Oral Law” — also called “The Traditions of the Elders” — governed every aspect of life and legislated every conceivable circumstance from how to wash one’s hands and when to do so (see Gospel) to what constituted work on the Sabbath.

Later developments notwithstanding, the law that Moses is purported to have enjoined on the people (in a series of speeches in Deuteronomy) could be called an expression of love. God’s love for the people and the people’s responsive love for God formed the basis of their relationship and it was to be the appropriate motivation for their every word and deed. Nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures is this loving motivation for keeping the law better or more beautifully expressed than in the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength. These commandments which I give you today are to be kept in your heart” (Deut 6:4-9).

As Stephen L. Harris and Robert L. Platzner have explained, the idea that God can only be truly obeyed by internalizing the precepts of the law and by the constant application of the mind and the will can be found throughout Deuteronomy (The Old Testament, McGraw Hill, New York: 2003). The Israelites are told to circumcise the “foreskin” of their hearts (10:16) and are reminded that they do not “live by bread alone” but are to nourish themselves with “every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (8:3). Centuries after the Deuteronomist, Jesus would also call believers to an attitude of holiness and obedience to God that was not imposed from without, but that arose from within a loving heart, mind and spirit.

James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27Although the authorship of James remains a matter of dispute and certain Christians continue to

question its inspirational value, the ancient pseudonymous writer’s advice continues to serve the church. The letter was occasioned by a controversy concerning the relationship between the law and the Gospel. James addressed those who had misconstrued Paul’s ideas by claiming that the law no longer had any value and therefore no place in the life of the disciple of Jesus. James also attempted to correct the erroneous notion that faith alone could bring salvation, and that works or the works of the law were unnecessary. Calling the Gospel “the perfect law of freedom” (1:25), James understood works as a necessary aspect of a lived faith. For the next five Sundays, James will offer valuable and pertinent advice, the gist of which can be summed up in verse 22 of this text: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.”

Some have identified the “word” in verse 22 with the Jewish law. However, in the Christian scriptures, the term “word” reaches into the past to embrace not only the law but also the prophets, understanding that these were announcing and preparing for an even greater word — that of God’s revelation in the person and mission of Jesus Christ as well as in the Good News that continues to proclaim him. James exhorts believers to welcome this word as the ground welcomes a seed. Perhaps James was recalling 4 Ezra 9:31, which reads: “Behold, I sow my law in you and you shall be glorified in it forever.” Or perhaps James was remembering Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matt 13:1-8), which explained how the seed of the word can be sown in the hearts of those who believe. Belief creates the welcome for God’s word; belief or faith also moves the one who welcomes the word to live according to its truth and its challenges.

Part of that challenge, insisted the author of James, is to make religion real by caring for the needy. Threskia, which is translated in verse 27 as “religion,” is more correctly rendered as “worship” in the sense of the outward expression of religion in ritual and liturgy. William

Barclay draws attention to the important lesson that continues to teach all those who hope to assist or lead others in prayer (“The Letters of James and Peter,” The Daily Study Bible, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, U.K.: 1976). James is saying: “The finest ritual and the finest liturgy you can offer to God is service of the poor and personal purity.” A liturgical service may be splendidly performed within the church, but it dissolves into empty ritual unless it has a corollary of service outside the church. Thanks be to God for James for keeping us honest.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23Originally, the halakah, which means “how to walk,” included legislation regarding hand

washing that applied solely to priests. This Oral Law or Tradition of the Elders required the clergy to be ritually purified before eating or performing their liturgical responsibilities. However, as general contact with gentiles increased, the rules for ritual ablutions were extended to include lay persons. Intended to protect the law and assure its observance, these oral traditions, known as “fences around the law,” had become a virtual wall that separated and alienated people from one another and from God. Jesus, whose intention it was to end such separation and to draw sinners near to God, called these well-intentioned but misguided prescriptions a “burden” (Matt 23:4).

Also burdensome were the detailed instructions concerning the proper method of hand washing. Rules governed the amount of water used, the way the hands were positioned for washing and how often this ritual should be performed. So rigid were the rules that a rabbi who was imprisoned by the Romans used the water given him to drink for hand washing. As a result, he nearly died of thirst because he was more determined to be ritually pure than to satisfy his thirst and survive.

Jesus, however, pointed to the futility of hand washing as a means to attain holiness, which cannot be achieved except by a thorough inner purity. Quoting from Isaiah (29:13 LXX), Jesus also criticized the elevation of human precepts or traditions to a level of importance they did not merit. Because this practice continues, especially regarding liturgical practices, Jesus’ words continue to challenge the church to be authentic and simple in setting its priorities.

Having dealt with the issue of ritual or ceremonial purity, Jesus, in verses 21-23 of this Marcan passage, turns to the crowds to speak about moral purity or holiness. His “hear me” (shema) is reminiscent of similar invitations issued by the prophets when they called the people to attend to God’s will and God’s ways. Instead of laying heavy burdens on others, Jesus, who was moved by compassion for their plight (6:34), offered teachings that freed rather than constrained people. He assured the “regular folks” that purity and holiness are not achieved with soap and water but through faithful responsiveness to the overtures of God, who calls forth the best in everyone. Just as holiness originates from within, defilement and sin grow within a heart that is turned away from God.

As William Barclay has pointed out, this was “a shatteringly new doctrine” (“The Gospel of Mark,” The Daily Study Bible, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, U.K.: 1975). With one sweeping declaration, Jesus pronounced the traditional system of purity irrelevant. With that declaration, Jesus also put the onus for achieving and maintaining a holy way of life on the shoulders of each individual. Those who want to be holy must do more than consult a myriad of traditions and attempt to conform to them. Rather, those who want to be holy must look to God for grace and then look within themselves and find there the conviction necessary to live honest, just and holy lives.

August 30, 2009 Sample Homily22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time“Spiritual Desire” by Fr. James Smith

Jesus is right — we are driven by our desires. We are born of the overpowering passion of our parents to become literally one flesh. We emerge from the womb gasping for breath; most of our infant life consists of sucking everything into our voracious mouths.Our desires gradually direct us toward the future. A girl anxiously awaits

the onslaught of adolescence. For a boy, the first shave can be nearly a religious experience as he anticipates his entrance into manly mysteries. Youthful desires are the most poignant of all.But then we are immersed in adult desires. We want to graduate, we want a

job, we want a spouse, we want a home, we want status. And amid this welter of clamoring desires, we gradually or with a jolt realize that all our desires will not be fulfilled; that we are not important as we thought; that all of our symphonies will end unfinished.We learn to domesticate our desires, the way we train a pet. But then, whose

pet are we? Pet of the spouse, the job, the church, the culture? And what happened to our young passion? How did we become so dull?Partly, maturity happened. Experience dissolved our illusions. The lampshade

was torn from our protected environment and our life was exposed to the glare of a naked bulb. So that’s what reality really is!But why does this have to be? Why can’t the 50th shave be as exciting as the

first? Because natural things naturally tend toward diminishment.Fortunately, it is otherwise with spiritual desires. They are not diminished

by use but enriched, honed to sharpness like a well-used knife. The more we love, the more we are able to love; the more we hope, the higher our hopes; the more we dream, the bolder our dreams.So, if we are less happy than we used to be, less joyful, less excited, less

desirous, less alive, it is because we have allowed our desires to die. We have lost our passion for life; we have become bored.How should we be bored sitting in the middle of an expanding universe? Who

are we to be lonely surrounded by 6 billion fellow humans? Did God waste effort in creating such an exciting world? Should God have created only me and a TV, so I could watch unreal actors engaged with virtual reality?That’s a dog’s life. Almost. Because a dog cannot fondly remember the joys

of yesterday or eagerly anticipate the excitement of tomorrow. The dog is fixated on present physical pleasure. It is precisely our spiritual desires that raise us above animality. If we cannot share our space with foreigners, we are wolves guarding our turf. If we cannot give others part of our food, we are vultures defending our prey. If we cannot forgive an offense, we are dogs snarling at the stick that beats them. If we cannot love, we are a proud eagle scouring empty space for a lonely perch. If we are totally immersed in physical desires, we are pigs wallowing in slop.To be human is not to dampen our desires, it is to arrange them in proper

order. To be human is to discipline our desires, to direct them toward human goals. If we kill our desires we get bored; if we let our desires run riot, we are fatigued.Our ordinary life was once divinely lived. Jesus breathed the same air, saw

the same sky, walked the same earth — and look what he did with it. Jesus dreamed our dreams, lost our losses, loved our loves, lived our life with infinite desire. And still does.