Gospel text for Sunday 24 January 2016

Luke 4:14-21        Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Reflection        This is the “year of the Lord’s favor.” From birth to death in every breath the sacred, God, is present.   

What if we really believed that? And what if we let that deeper knowledge about ourselves and our lives influence our choices and actions? I wonder if our choices and behavior would look more like Jesus who lived and breathed and found his being in relation to God and the goodness of creation? 

When we consider the broad sweep of Jesus birth, ministry, suffering and death we cannot help but notice how consistently Jesus respected the value and uniqueness of each person he encountered. In all that he said and all that he did Jesus intended to actually fulfill the commands of the Hebrew tradition; the commands to give priority to loving God and all God’s people which is another way of saying, to see every aspect of life in relation with God and the goodness of creation. 

How was Jesus able to do this? First and foremost, Jesus embraced his identity as the Son of God which means he found his deepest truth and direction in relation with God. Second, Jesus also identified with the troubles and the delight of friends and strangers as he said in Matthews gospel, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matt 25.40)

Which begs the question. How do we measure up? Are we living in imitation of Jesus? Are our words and actions motivated by our recognition of the sacred, God, in every aspect of life or are they motivated by fear or desire for  security, safety, attention, esteem, power or control? Are we making  choices and living our lives in faith that the sacred, God, suffuses every aspect of life or are we acting as if the sacred, God, is distant, disengaged and we are left to muddle through tragedies and every kind of suffering relying on our wit alone? When we come to church are we skipping through ritual motions to check the box, been there, done that? Or, do we experience our coming together as One body, the Church, an outward and visible experience of the deeper interior knowledge that we are bound and committed to the care and well-being of one another? 

The brutality, greed and misuse of power that confronted Jesus continues with us today. What are we to do? Live in imitation of Jesus who lived and breathed and found his being in relation with God and compassion with suffering humanity. Jesus put his faith in God rather than himself. He understood that only when we are in conscious and conscientious relationship with the sacred mystery we call God do we know what to say and how to live.

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Gospel text for Feast of All Saints Sunday 4 November 2012

John 11.32-44

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

Reflection

We preach this gospel in Lent. We preach this gospel at funerals. One of the reasons we preach this gospel is because it speaks to our grieving hearts when we have lost our physical relationship with someone we love because of illness, change in life situation or death. We preach this gospel not only to affirm that loving and weeping are integral qualities of the human experience but also to proclaim  that loving and weeping are fundamental revelations of Divine Presence.

When Jesus saw Mary and the Jews weeping, “he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved,” and he too began to weep. Jesus, the Word made flesh, the revelation of God present with us and for us, is united with us, with all of humanity, in our quintessential experiences of love and grief. Jesus personally experienced both the fullness of love and the emptiness of grief and was “deeply moved” as he shared these experineces with Mary and the others who were present at Lazarus’ tomb. And so Jesus reveals to us three things about grief. It is personal. It is universal. It is Divine. 

The thing about grief is that it feels so lonely. Emptiness and loss abound. Other people’s words and presence seem hollow and pointless. It is as if we are floundering in an ocean with no land in sight. All that we can do is weep. And, it is in our weeping that we are united with all of humanity and with God. In the depths of our desolation there is an unexpected seed of consolation. Sometimes we recognize it in the teary eyes of a friend come to sit with us in our sorrow. Sometimes we hear it in the words of a prayer offered to God on our behalf. Sometimes we feel it in the warmth of hands laid on our shoulders. However we may glimpse it, when we allow ourselves to be “deeply moved” we are intimately connected with all of humanity and with God. And when in the midst of our grieving we believe God is indeed present with us then like Lazarus we too are unbound and set free from the tomb of our isolation.

Gospel Text for Sunday, 26 February 2012

Mark 1:9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."