In today’s Gospel Jesus seems to be questioning or challenging his disciples to be more aware of their own behavior before they go about judging the behavior of others. The image of having a log in one’s eye and attempting to remove a splinter from the eye of another person is quite ridiculous but clearly makes Jesus’ case to his followers.

It appears that Jesus is condemning his disciples of being too quick to judge others while remaining blind to their own shortcomings and missteps. They have missed Jesus’ example of being quick to forgive rather than to judge.

Even though they have been the recipients of the lavishness of Jesus’ mercy they themselves evidently have failed to, in turn, act as Jesus has acted. In this they have failed as students, for the teacher has taught the lesson but they missed the meaning.

He then goes on to instruct them that what is inside will be manifested on the outside… “a good person out of the store of goodness in their heart produces good…just as a rotten tree produces rotten fruit and a good tree produces good fruit.”

Jesus instructs them that the goodness or the rot of the heart will show forth in a person’s speech. It seems that in our age we do not value truth in speech -- we find it hard to trust the words of political leaders, church leaders, our newscasters. They often say one thing but do another. Most of the time we are able to spot dishonesty and the lack of integrity in someone’s words and none of us likes to be deceived.

Just as Jesus called his disciples to reflect on how quick they are to judge others so we too have the opportunity to remove the log from our eye in order that we might be able to remove the splinter from our neighbor’s eye.

And, as we prepare for the season of Lent, let us begin to reflect on the fruit that our lives bear?

​Blessings,
Fr. Tim

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.” Jesus is not calling the disciples to become “door mats” but rather, he is attempting to make a key paradigm shift from violence to nonviolence.

He is challenging his disciples to be willing to go beyond what the law allowed -- such as “an eye for and eye” -- and embrace something much more difficult; to embrace “the other”!

Jesus is calling them -- calling us -- to embrace the one who is not on our side, the one who actively hates us and injures us. This paradigm shift he is calling them to is a shift that will turn their world upside down and inside out!

Love your enemies? Imagine being hearers of that for the very first time…it must have sounded like Jesus had “lost it”. How could he expect that his disciples would love their enemies and pray for those who mistreated them? And yet this is what he was asking of them…and asking of us as his disciples!

Jesus knows that love has the power to change an individual; that love is transformative. Jesus knew that in loving our enemies we would be transformed…and that…being loved holds the power to transform the one who is loved.

And it seems to just keep getting tougher…Jesus calls us to be merciful as God is merciful! Now he wants his disciples “to be like God”! How are we supposed to be able to live up to that challenge? It can overwhelm us and lead us to feel rather defeated.

How is all of this humanly possible? It seems too much! God’s goodness and mercy is so great, how can any human act be as good and merciful as an act of God? Some theologians say that God’s goodness and mercy comes down to “generosity” -- a generosity so grand that it created all known reality.

Our theology sees the incarnation as a self-giving act of God, to and for the sake of the world. And Jesus’ death as his resurrection are both acts of “Divine generosity” as is our salvation. So then this “generosity”, this “out pouring” of God’s self into the world empowers us, fills us, emboldens us and ultimately changes us to become our best self -- more generous, less violent, less bent on getting more and more for ourselves…it changes us into being kinder and more
loving to “the other”.

So, we work for racial justice and for ways in which our society makes room for the marginalized and for the immigrant and the refugee, rather than looking for ways to keep them out. This spirit of generosity calls us to let go of racist, misogynist, and other bigoted attitudes towards others and to work for true justice and peace in our homes, our communities, our nation and in our world.

Perhaps this generosity of spirit grows from first finding our own gratitude for being loved so deeply and passionately by
God, just as we are. And from this gratitude then grows our ability to be generous and merciful towards “the other,” who in truth is my sister, my brother.

So, at the beginning I spoke about Jesus ushering in a paradigm shift; moving us from a way of violence to a way of non-violence. But not laying down and becoming door mats because he is still calling us to stand with and for the poor and marginalized. And to respond to injustice by demanding and working for justice here and now, calling out hatred and cruelty for what it is.

So we continue to resist, we will not hate and act like bigots, racists and misogynist, nor be among those who refuse to welcome the stranger, as Christ has demanded we do! We will continue to boldly live our discipleship…aware, as Jesus reminded us of last week, there are those who will come after us precisely for living out our discipleship. But it will not deter us. We will stand together as disciples, emboldened and guided by the Holy Spirit that dwells within each one of
us, and we will overcome, and we will continue to build the “peaceable kingdom”; to build God’s dream for our world – not a project that’s main goal is to exclude and demean people’s human dignity, seeking to further marginalize those on the periphery of society, whose ultimate aim is to increase the power and wealth of the few at the cost of the many.

Let us respond to this time of national crisis by boldly living our discipleship and resisting that which we know is ethically
and morally wrong, keeping front and center the quest for building a more peaceful and just society.
 
So, let us ask ourselves this week: In the midst of all the chaos and turmoil swirling around us, for what am I grateful for in my life? From the Spirit of Generosity that dwells within me, to whom will I be generous and merciful towards this week?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

This weekend’s Gospel presents to us Luke’s presentation of the beatitudes. In Luke, the sermon takes place not on a mountain side as in Matthew’s Gospel, but rather on level ground. So we have the Sermon on the Plane instead of the Sermon on the Mount.

But the differences go far deeper than simply the place in which Jesus gives his sermon on the beatitudes. In Luke, besides the blessings, there are “the woes to you who…” are rich, are full, laugh, whom all speak well of, “for their ancestors treated the false prophets this way.” It is a warning that good things are not coming their way even though things are going well for them right now.

So, in Luke’s Gospel Jesus names those who are blessed and those whom woe will come upon if they don’t change their lives. We normally focus on the blessings and not on the woes but the “woes” are there for a reason -- to warn us! To get us to reflect on our lives and how we are living with the poor and the hungry, how we are comforting the weeping and how we treat those ostracized on account of their discipleship of Jesus.

In Matthew’s account of the sermon of the beatitudes he says “blessed are the poor in spirit” while Luke writes of Jesus’ sermon as, “blessed are the poor”, a very different message. In Jesus’ socio-religious reality, his contemporaries believed the poor were poor because they had done something that angered God. And that the wealthy were rich because they had gained the favor of God, and were blessed by God.

In this Gospel, Jesus is preaching the exact opposite of this understanding of how God relates to human beings. Jesus is disconnecting poverty from sinfulness and curse. Luke’s Gospel is often referred to as the Gospel of the poor, or the Gospel of women, or the Gospel of the marginalized. It is so referred to because these are the categories of persons who are raised up in Luke’s Gospel, to a greater extent than in the other two synoptic gospels.

In both Matthew and in Luke, Jesus calls blessed all those who are hated, excluded, insulted or denounced on account of him. It is an important proclamation that Jesus utters, as in fact many of his disciples and the apostles will eventually be denounced, some imprisoned and others even martyred for their faith in Jesus.

Jesus promises them that in spite of what they suffer on account of their allegiance to him, they will not be abandoned by Jesus and that they are “the blessed ones”.

I think ultimately that the beatitudes and the woes we encounter in Luke’s Gospel challenge us and call us to holiness through reaching out to the poor and to all who are excluded and marginalized, to all who suffer in this world. And we are promised that to the extent that we reach out to the suffering, to the extent that we “do justice,” we will become more fully “the blessed of God” and find fulfillment and happiness in our lives through helping to build up the Reign of God!

As we take time this week to reflect on ramifications of this central Gospel message of Jesus Christ in light of all that is happening in our nation at this very moment, as we reflect on all of the lives that are being torn apart and forever changed by the new administration’s callous and unjust actions, let us focus on one or two of the beatitudes and ask ourselves: in what concrete ways might I live them out today? Who is grieving that I might comfort them, hungry that I might feed them, poor that I might reach out to them and offer a hand?

Am I willing to live out my discipleship by writing to and calling my local and national governmental officials to speak up on behalf of the millions of lives that are being put at risk by the cruel and thoughtless actions of those relatively few individuals who clearly care nothing for the future of our country nor the needs of its people? Will I call for Congress to stand up and protect the poor and the marginalized, and to defend our civil rights, and to safeguard our institutions and the federal financial safety nets that keep our vulnerable sisters and brothers from utter ruin? Let us live the beatitudes!

Our discipleship of Jesus Christ calls us to act now!

Blessings,
Fr. Tim 

We find ourselves living, perhaps better said “struggling” to make it through one day at a time in a country filled with fear and anxiety over what our futures hold…as individuals, as families, as communities and as a nation! We ask ourselves: what is happening to the order of our lives; what can we count on; how are we going to carry on with our lives? Scripture scholars believe that this is very similar to the geo-political reality of the people living in the Kingdom of Judah after the death of King Uzziah. His reign had been marked with constancy, economic growth, safety and an overall sense of wellbeing. But after his death people were fearful of the future and what would happen to them and what kind of ruler his son would indeed turn out to be.

It is into this socio-economic and political turmoil that the great prophet Isaiah was called by God and rose up to provide guidance and assure the people that God was with them and that God sent him to speak his word to them.

Times of transition from one governmental administration to another whether kingly or democratic in nature, often cause
fear, anxiety and uncertainty -- especially when those in leadership show no care or concern for lives and the welfare of those they are called to govern. When leadership acts in ways that show a lack of respect for the dignity of other human beings and disrespects the rules and laws of the land, they show themselves to be unworthy to be leaders.

It is precisely in these times when we are most in need of prophets’ words, and need to look to God for guidance on how to respond and how to move forward.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, is written to a divided and troubled Church. There are serious disputes over leadership and allegiance to different leaders. There are disputes over the Gospel itself and Paul is writing to them to call them back to return to the unity that they had once shared and to correct the errors that had crept into their preaching. He sought to do this by reminding them of the central message of the Gospel and of the way of life that discipleship in Jesus Christ called them to live. And it would be through living their discipleship that they would avoid falling into the wickedness and depravity of the city in which they lived.

And in the Gospel we have the story of the great call of the first disciples. Jesus preaching to a crowd of people along the shore of Lake Gennesaret and in an effort to escape the crush of the people, he gets into Simon’s boat and goes out into deeper water. Here he performs the miracle of the great fish catch, so large that it threatens to swamp the boat. But it seems that what is most poignant in this Gospel story is the response of Simon, James and John…“they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”

The focus of the passage seems to be found the final words, “they left everything and followed him.” It is the utter abandon
with which they take to Jesus and leave behind their family and livelihoods. James and John left their father there on the shore with the hired help; did they know what lay ahead for them, were they going just for a moment? Well, it would appear not as Jesus tells them that from now on they are going to be fishing for women and men. So he is proposing something totally new for them, something they likely had never thought of doing before.

Remember that in the Gospels, Jesus was preaching the inbreaking of the Reign of God, coming into their very presence in a new and exciting way. He was calling everyone to a new way of life --by loving God with their whole being and their neighbor as themselves. And we are called to the same, in the here and now.

We are called to speak out against those governmental actions and directives that harm and seek to diminish the dignity and safety of any of our sisters and brothers.

Amongst the list of human rights listed by the Church are the rights to:

food, clean water, adequate housing, a right to a good education, a right to a just wage and safe working conditions. A right
to health care, a right for immigrants and refugees to be treated with dignity and respect by the host country. Many of these rights are being violated at this very moment and a whole host of others.

And we know that hundreds of thousands of faithful government worker’s jobs are threatened by callous and immoral persons who seek to destroy all of the federal programs that support and uphold millions of our sisters and brothers, not to mention the millions of children and adults who will suffer famine at the loss of USAID feeding programs.

And so what does our discipleship call us to do when faced with such overwhelming discord and injustice? I think we are called to join peaceful protests, letter writing campaigns, phone calls to all elected officials, Democratic and Republican. For those who are not directly affected, think about reaching out to friends and neighbors who are being adversely affected by what is happening in the US Government today; we all know Federal Employees and contractors who are or will be affected. Think about how you might be able to help our immigrant sisters and brothers, especially members of our parish. We are currently working with multiple immigration legal services trying to connect them with those in need of their services. When someone is arrested or deported, or loses a job, they and their family may well be in dire straits and need help, even if it is a bag of groceries or some food cards -- reaching out to them is a sign that you see them and you care about them.

The truth is that lives are being destroyed and forever changed. We cannot stop all of it at this very moment, but we
can try to make a difference in those whose lives we can touch.

Our discipleship of Jesus Christ calls us to stand up and to seek to be heard and to work towards a different future from what we are seeing being laid out now -- a different future where all women, men and children are treated with dignity, respect and equality.

Blessings,
Fr. Tim