Scripture scholars recognize that by the end of the 5th century B.C.E. the prophets of Israel strangely fell silent…God seemed to have stopped raising up mouthpieces to speak his words to his people. And then Jesus comes along and not only spoke with authority and cast our demons but what he said touched the people deeply. His words rang true to their inner hearts, just as Jeremiah, one of the later prophets, had predicted.

Jesus spoke with the power of the Lord! Something that had long disappeared from the land of Israel…the prophetic voice that had gone silent was speaking once again but more powerfully than ever before. In today’s Gospel it is pointed out he was from Nazareth! The demon was trying to put down Jesus by calling out his “backwater” home town… recalling Nathanial’s words from John’s Gospel, ”could anything good ever come from Nazareth?” But finally, the unclean spirit recognizes Jesus as “The Holy One of God”! And the people are astonished by Jesus’ authority with which he taught and that even unclean spirits obeyed him!

But the religious leaders and the elders of the people would become fearful of Jesus and the power he exercised in word and deed. What they couldn’t see is what the “unclean spirit” was able to see, Jesus’ oneness with God! His power was from his identity as “The Holy One of God”!

Who are the prophetic voices we listen to today? And what are they calling us to?

Are you being called to be prophetic in word and action? Through our baptism each one of us has been anointed to be a prophet, to live prophetic lives, lives that challenge the injustices of the world, lives that challenge racism and bigotry and misogyny, lives that heal and bring wholeness to the wounded and suffering of the world. You and I, we are called to be prophets who speak out and act out on behalf of the immigrant and the refugee, to be builders of peace and makers of justice! This is our prophetic call received at our baptism and sealed in the power of the Holy Spirit! Now is the time to live our discipleship, to claim our prophetic role in building up the Reign of God, to live and to love as the children of God whom we truly are!

God’s Blessings,
Fr Tim

The theme this weekend, again, is God’s call and our response, but there is a focus on the urgency of responding…an urgency in building up the Reign of God…NOW! The Gospel tells of the disciple’s response to Jesus’ call, they respond without hesitation, dropping what they were doing and following him immediately. As disciples we too are called and expected to drop everything and follow Jesus…not only proclaiming the Gospel with our words but through our actions. Discipleship is about following “the way”…God’s way. And God’s way is “the way of love”… of being for the other as Jesus is for us…and this truly is the Good News. It seems more than we can do, and it would be without the Holy Spirit right there with us every step of the way, guiding us and gently pushing us along!

There is urgency in discipleship; we are not to tarry and be about many other things but rather to live in such a way that our very lives proclaim God’s amazing love for all people. It is such a monumental task, but we can, each one of us, each in our own way live it out…not perfectly, but with the willingness to listen for the call and respond to the best of our ability at that time, and if we fall, getting back up and trying again. The Good News is preached by our loving of each other, especially by our loving the poor, the marginalized, the immigrants, the “Dreamers” and the refugees, by loving the one who is “other” than us and loving those most in need of being loved…not just with our words but with our actions. We are called, as Pope Francis has said, “to draw close to them”! We are called to work for racial justice we are called to work for an end to white supremacy and white nationalism! We are called to be ambassadors of the Reign of God, where all of those previously mentioned negative realities cannot exist and are antithetical to the Reign of God. We are called to not just preach about it but making it present by how we live our lives…lives of peace-making and justice-building, guided by and built upon the principles, values, words and actions of Jesus Christ as proclaimed in his Gospels.

What Gospel values or principles are most evident in the way I live my life? What other Gospel values or principles might I work on manifesting in my life, so as to more fully proclaim the Good News? What part of the Gospel do I find most difficult to embrace and put into action in my own life?

God’s Blessings,
Fr Tim 

There is a clear theme of being called in today’s readings. In the first reading Samuel is called and called and called even a third time before it is made known to him that it is God who is calling him and finally he responds “speak Lord for your servant is listening.” The psalm, correspondingly, proclaims “here I am Lord; I have come to do your will.” And the Gospel reading we hear today tells of Jesus’ calling of the first disciples. As Jesus walked along the road, John the Baptist saw him and cried out “behold, the Lamb of God.” Several of John’s disciples leave him and begin to follow Jesus asking him where he is staying and Jesus responds “come and you will see”…and they follow him. It is interesting to note that when one of the disciples (Andrew) brings his brother to Jesus, Jesus immediately changes his name from Simon to Peter!

In the Bible when there is a name change, such as Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah or Saul to Paul, it often signals a significant change in the person and their relationship to God. It can also signal that their lives are about to change, that they are about to swerve from the road they are traveling down onto a new path…one specifically chosen for them by God. Peter’s name change is no less significant, he is about to become “the chief” of this, as of yet unformed, band of followers of Jesus. In Jesus’ act of changing Simon’s name he is calling him to come and follow him. If he accepts the name change, then he accepts the invitation to follow Jesus. I often think that it was so much easier for the disciples to hear the call and to follow since Jesus was right there, physically present to them. They could audibly hear his preaching, they could see, and read, his facial expressions and his hand and body gestures…but for those of us who come later to this band of followers…well it’s a little harder for us to know exactly what the call is and where it is leading us.

Sometimes the call is clear and well articulated, but sometimes it is not so clear or well-articulated. Sometimes it seems muffled and downright confusing. So we have to pay close attention and listen carefully…especially as there is so much competition for our attention. There are so many other voices that seem to all speak at the same time -- we can be like Samuel, a bit confused and not sure at first…but if we stay engaged and “make time” to listen for that small still voice of the Holy Spirit that dwells with in each one of us…then, perhaps, we will hear the invitation to “come and follow” and we will find the path we are being called to travel. In the end the invitation is clear, but the many “voices” of our lives and the world around us distract us and gain all of our attention and so we can find ourselves confused and unsure of the path to follow. But by refocusing our attention and making time to listen we can, like Samuel and Simon, “come and follow”.

The Gospel message is surely “the call”. It records Jesus’ words and actions, what he called his disciples to do, how to live, how to love one another and to welcome and love the one who was “other” and the one who was “the stranger”, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, to reach out to the poor and the marginalized. The Gospels are the “lens” through which we are called to view the world around us and through which we can judge and decide upon what action we are called to take. The Gospel is the Word of God and it seeks to speak to us, to call us to the path that we, as disciples, are called to follow.

With all the violence and chaos that has erupted in our nation, and around the world, and here at home that threatens to get worse in the coming days we need to hold strong to the Word of God that has been spoken to us through the Gospels and to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us to respond to it. Let us remember “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (Jn 1:5) In the midst of the pandemic and all of the political turmoil there is so much darkness, but The Light shines, and it shines within you and me, it shines within all of us as the community of The Light! Let us listen to the call of the Holy Spirit and let us use the Gospels as our guide for our response to the chaos swirling around us and let us not give up hope for a brighter day! Let our light shine by standing up against and working to root out the sins of systemic racism, white supremacy and nationalism! Let us live up the to clarion call of the Gospels to love God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves, fighting the great lie that one group of people is worth more or better than another! And let us pray for and work towards a more peaceful and just nation!

What are the competing voices of my life that make it difficult for me to really listen for God’s call to me? How can I best stand up to and fight against systemic racism, white supremacy and nationalism?

God’s Blessings,
Fr Tim 

The Christmas Season officially comes to a close with the celebration of the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. In the Jewish tradition water was seen as purifying and healing but John brings to the waters of baptism the concept of baptism as “an act of repentance”, and thus Jesus in choosing to be baptized by John identifies himself with the sinfulness of humanity when he accepts this “baptism of repentance”.

And it is in this very human act of Jesus humbling himself in repentance that his divinity is exposed. It is in this moment that Jesus hears the voice of God say you are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased! Who among us doesn’t long to hear those words…to be proclaimed “my beloved…in whom I am well pleased?” And the fact of the matter is that we are at our truest selves the “beloved of God”. And yet we struggle with accepting that identity, perhaps because we feel unworthy, too broken or too unimportant in the scheme of things to truly be “the beloved of God”. We live our lives based on who we think we are. We make decisions and choose to do or not to do, based on who and how we identify ourselves in relation to the world around us. So coming to embrace the reality that you are the “beloved of God” greatly impacts your life. It is in and through our identity as the “beloved of God” that we become “grace” to the world around us.

In accepting this identity we are transformed and all our relationships are transformed as well. When we begin to live out of the identity of being the “beloved of God” we begin to see the world differently and we begin to act toward ourselves and others differently…with less judgment, less selfishness and with more mercy. We begin to live with more openness to self and others and we become filled with more gratitude and generosity.

Embracing that we are the “beloved of God” changes not only how we see ourselves and how we see others, but changes what we give value to in life and what we believe to be important or unimportant in life; what we are willing to live for and what we are willing to die for.

In the midst of all of the hatred and division, the racism and misogyny, the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee and white supremacy that swirls throughout our nation, it is so vitally important to come to terms with who we are at our core, who God created us to be! Only then can we move away from the hatred and division, the racism and misogyny, the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee and white supremacy that cripples us as individuals and as a nation.

Standing in that place of grace, being the “beloved of God” changes everything! Do I accept my true identify as God’s beloved child? What self-image might I have to let go of to more fully accept being the “beloved of God”…and how might it change my life? And after the mayhem and death that we saw happen at the Capitol this past week, may each of us pray for the grace to accept our truest identity as a beloved child of God, and by this may we be the change this nation and the world so desperately needs!

God’s most abundant blessings to you all in this New Year!

Fr. Tim