How has the experience of the death of one you have loved affected your own faith journey?

 

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT  A  2023

 

 

 

In today’s Gospel of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the account is grounded in the human heartache of death..  Mary said to Jesus:  “Load, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he was deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”  So they said to him, “Sir, come and see.”  And Jesus wept.

 

Confronted by the searing loss that physical death brings, Jesus himself begins to weep.  Jesus feels the cold sting of a loved one laid in a tomb.  Jesus wept because he felt our pain, shared our pain.  Yes, Jesus was God.  But Yes, Jesus was also fully human; and, as such, know the profound grief of the death of one we love.

 

This Gospel account describes love among friends -- Jesus with Martha and Mary.  The account portrays the profound grief that comes with the death of one we love.  Isn’t it true that in the mystery of life, the first kiss given to the one we love has the potential of being the source of our tears.  We mourn deeply because we love deeply.

 

In our parish community this past week, we grieved over the death of three long-time faith filled parishioners – Charity Chinelly, Elly Fermoil, and Marge Salmon.  Their deaths spoke to me of the meaning of today’s Gospel in the Raising of Lazarus.  While the raising of Lazarus is a story of human heartache, it is also an account of the divine power of the resurrection.  Death is a painful reality in our lives, but it is not the final word.  Jesus is our final word.  We are transformed in death into our sharing in the fullness of the Risen Life of Jesus.

 

The Gospel is a story of faith.  The Lazarus account illustrates the deepening of faith that comes through an experience of death.  Whether the death of a loved one or one’s own death, it is the moment where one realizes that all depends on God.

 

Jesus can and does bring Lazarus back to earthly life.  This is an incredible miracle.  But we are called to believe in something even more profound.  We are called to believe in a resurrection that transforms, a resurrection that is lasting.  Jesus is the life we are seeking.  True faith has to include a belief in Jesus as the source of unending life.

 

In the stories from the evangelist John, there is a constant double level of language.  Those who talk to Jesus speak to him on what is important to them on the physical level, while Jesus tries to lead them to a spiritual level of meaning.  By inserting these Gospel stories in the liturgy, the Church reminds us that Jesus is still struggling to get us to see deeper spiritual realities.   With the raising of Lazarus, Jesus is not simply renewing a life that ends in a grave, but offering a life whereby one does not die at all.

 

In our Lenten Gospels, the symbols of water, sight and new life are symbols closely associated with Christian baptism; and so, the stories centered on them lead us to reflect on our baptismal faith.  In the account of the Samaritan woman, Jesus wasn’t just speaking of physical water, but of the water that springs up to eternal life.  With the healing of the blind man, Jesus leads us to a spiritual sightedness.  And the Lazarus story illustrates the deepening of faith that comes through an experience of death.  Jesus tells the Lazarus story in such a way that we are led to a deeper understanding of Lazarus’ death.

 

 

 

This Gospel is both a Lenten and an Easter Gospel.  This Gospel of the raising of Lazarus anticipates the Resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus says to Martha:  I am the resurrection and the life.  It is a Gospel about the non-finality of death.  Divine love is more powerful than death.  Jesus entered into the worst of human conditions – the experience of death – and invited us to be transformed by hope.

 

This Gospel is also a Lenten Gospel.  The story of Lazarus is the story of all of us.  The word Lazarus means that God helps.  We all live in Bethany.  In its root meaning, Bethany is the house of the afflicted.  This Gospel is the story of everyone because in our pain we seek the help of God.  As with Martha and Mary and Lazarus, sometimes it is God doesn’t deal with our pain as quickly as we would like.  Jesus delays.  Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is stench because he has been dead four days.  The Lenten journey is about dealing with the stench of the human condition – our own stench.   We need to deal with the stench of our sinfulness and the sinfulness of the world.  As you recall the Ash Wednesday mantra that was given to us, we are to turn away from sin and to be faithful to the Gospel.  

 

 

 

 

In this Lenten time of spiritual renewal, from whatever tombs we dare to emerge from in our Lenten journey, may our faith community welcome us and accompany us on the road out of the darkness and into the light of the Risen Lord.

 

Now is the time and place for leaving behind whatever threatens to entomb us and to keep us from Christ. 

 

In our journey of faith, there are many challenges we face that test our trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Such was the experience of the blind man in last Sunday’s Gospel.  Who of us has not faced hardships and brokenness in life that has left us feeling very vulnerable and a bit insecure?  Facing death often constitutes a unique challenge to faith.  The experience of death is perhaps the darkest of our dark valleys.  Death will never be easy.  A prayerful question for us all to reflect upon is:  How has the experience of the death of one you have loved affected your own faith journey?

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

The Samaritan woman went from being an outsider to being an enthusiastic evangelizer bring people to Jesus.

 

 

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT  A  2023

The intriguing account of the Samaritan’s woman encounter with the Lord is a most beautiful story of an outcast, an outsider, a Samaritan woman, someone who has endured the school of hard knocks, one who is even cynical and sarcastic and suspicious even when someone is trying to be kind to her.  And yet, through her encounter with Jesus at this well in Samaria, she is transformed from being an outsider to becoming an enthusiastic evangelizer inviting other people in town to come to know Jesus.

Jesus,  the Son of God, the Savior of the world, wasn’t too busy to listen patiently and dialogue with and affirm with considerable love this outcast of society.  If we are to follow the way of Jesus in our ministry, may we take the time to listen and to affirm the beauty of people in their time of need.

This is a most dramatic conversion story.

As we pray over this Gospel, may we find our story in the story of the Samaritan woman.  Imagine a situation in your life in which you felt like an outsider, an outcast – maybe you did get not the promotion you were hoping for, maybe you had to deal with the after effects of a relationship that has gone wrong in your life, maybe you are being misunderstood by someone you love, maybe the
Church you love is making you feel like an outsider, maybe the nation you are so proud of is turning upside down --  whatever it is.  My hunch is that all of us at one time or another or maybe several times,  have felt like the outsider.

May we observe closely the dialogue of Jesus with the Samaritan in three stages:

1.        In the first stage, the Samaritan woman displays her mistrust, her sarcasm, and the hurt she has felt over a long period.  She says:  “What you a Jew asking me, a Samaritan, for a drink.”  Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans; men don’t talk to strange women.  Are you trying to make a fool of me?

But in this encounter, Jesus was breaking previously drawn lines in the sand and listened to her anger and hurt with great hope in the dialogue.  Jesus saw much more beauty in the Samaritan woman than she saw in herself.  He listened to her with kindness and believing in her dignity.

The beginning of the conversion story for the Samaritan woman was that she was listened with much compassion and understanding and affirmation of her inner dignity.

I have counted a great blessing to my life when I am listened to and filled with hope when I wasn’t able to see a way forward.  The way forward was revealed through the listening heart of another.

May we know that the dialogue Jesus has with the Samaritan woman is the dialogue the Lord wishes to have with each one of us,  especially when we are feeling fragile or vulnerable.  This is the real message of the Gospel.    Because she felt affirmed in her dialogue with Jesus, when she then was confronted by Jesus in saying that indeed the person you are living with is not your husband -- Indeed you have had five previous husbands – she did not become defensive as many times I have become defensive when confronted or criticized.  Why was she able to listen with openness to Jesus?  The answer is simple in some ways.  Jesus had first listened to her and affirmed her as a person of worth and dignity.  Even when confronted, she was confronted with great love in the heart of Jesus.

When we know that we are loved and affirmed, an inner lock is released within us and we are able to listen to critique that invites our growth.  Is it not true we can listen better to others when we know that we are understood and loved.   In the spiritual life, it is a conversion in our lives when we know how much we are loved and affirmed by Jesus.

3.       Finally, Jesus reveals to the woman at the well that he is the living water, the anointed one, the Savior.  Jesus was calling her to a life that she cannot imagine for herself.  Please note that Jesus did not send her away, admonishing her to avoid further sin.  Instead Christ makes her an evangelist, sending her out to call others to him.

The woman at the well has a complicated and tragic past but becomes a wellspring of hope for her village.

How is her story our story?   It is not God’s plan for us to be trapped in the darkness of sin.  It is not God’s plan for us to be the outsider.  Rather the Lord wished to affirm us that we are loved and forgiven and we too are called to be a wellspring of hope for others.  In God’s plan, the greatest sinners are often enough those whom the Lord calls to lead others to him.

The church provides us this Gospel during the Lenten Gospel because it is only in opening ourselves to God’s plan for our lives, by our openness to embracing even the crosses of life, by opening ourselves to dialogue and pray with Jesus that we genuinely encounter the Lord in a way that transforms our lives.  Indeed this beautiful Gospel prepares us to share in the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus, prepares us to share in the joy of the Risen Lord.

 

              Have a blessed day.

How well do we listen to the call of God in our lives?

 

Second Sunday of Lent  A 2023

In this homily, I would like you to focus on three simple words spoken by God the Father in the Gospel account:  Listen to him.

As the apostles experienced the transfigured glory of Jesus, Peter says: “Lord, it is good that we are here.”  While he was still speaking. Behold, then from a cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him.”

To this point, the apostles have been unable to understand Jesus’ predictions about his upcoming suffering, death and resurrection. They have not listened.  In fact, there was no need to listen because they already knew what they wanted the Savior to be like – a successful, prestigious, powerful Messiah.  Now the voice of God commands them to listen.

How about ourselves:  Are we good listeners?   How well do we listen to the call of God in our lives?  Do we do more speaking than listening in our prayer life?  We certainly want God to listen to us in our prayers of petition.  Are we sometimes like the first apostles who had no need to listen because it was already clear to them what God should do?

Are we good listeners?  Do others know us as good listeners?  Are we able to listen to the voice of God when things aren’t going as we planned?

Do we hear the cry of God’s poor?  Are we responsive to the needs of people locally and around the world?

From the first Scripture reading in the Book of Genesis: “The Lord said to Abram: ‘Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you.’”

What was asked of Abram sets the stage for us to reflect on our own cost of discipleship.  The detachment that was asked of Abram is this:  Abram is commanded to leave his country, his kinfolk, and finally his father’s house, that is, what we would call his entire support system, material and psychological, the whole deal, and depend on God alone.

Does this not challenge us to reflect on our cost of discipleship during this Lenten season?   Lent’s call to stark honesty compels us to ask if our discipleship of Jesus is too comfortable.  Our Lenten conversion process requires some measure of detachment from self-centeredness and attachment to values and priorities and preferences that may be countercultural.

The call of Abram who was later named Abraham was to leave home and settle in a foreign land.  God asked and so Abram went.  He had trust and hope.  How do we respond when God asks us to move beyond our comfort zone and to more fully trust in the plan of God for us?  We are all used to what we are used to.  There is the tendency in all of us to say my way or the highway.  But if our call to discipleship is any way similar to God’s call of Abram, we will need to revisit that old wisdom.  In some way, the Lord asks of you and the Lord asks of me to let go of some of my comfort zone and to trust more fully in God’s plan for us.

Jesus message is that his disciples must be willing to join Him in His passion and death.  The disciples had difficulty hearing this reality.  We too have difficulty listening to Jesus when our discipleship involves dealing with the crosses of life – the cross of sickness, the cross of the death of a loved one, the cross of coping with a relationship that has gone wrong.

It’s easier to listen to the Lord on the mountaintop when the blessings of life are very apparent.  It is more difficult to listen when we come down from the mountain and are in the midst of the valley of loneliness, of fear and of anxiety.

The apostles were given the vision of the transfigured Lord to overcome their resistance to listening to Jesus in moments of suffering.  What the apostles experienced in this beautiful Transfiguration experience was like the end of the story appearing in the middle.  Why?  The apostles needed their faith to be strengthened to have a faith and hope in accepting their Savior as one who was going to be crucified in his journey to resurrection and new life. The apostles had balked at the future Jesus was insisting upon.  The privilege of witnessing Jesus’ Transfiguration was for the purpose of confirming Jesus as someone to whom they must listen to.  They have, as of yet, not understood the mission of Jesus.  They must open themselves up to what Jesus is saying about his suffering, death, and resurrection.

The real action of discipleship is not just on the mountaintop but in the upcoming events of death and resurrection in Jerusalem.  As we pray over this Transfiguration Gospel, know that the message for us is not just the identity of Jesus in his transfigured glory but it is a story for us to reflect on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  In the words of the Father:  Listen to him.   As with the first disciples, we need to let go of old notions of discipleship that get in the way of listening to the message of Jesus.  We need to accept the cross in our own lives and to trust more fully in God’s plan for our lives.

Please God we all can identify with Transfiguration events that put us in touch with the glory of the Lord.  For me the glory is revealed in the sacredness of the ocean as well as on the mountaintop.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in the friendships of my life that are so life giving and I so deeply treasure and need.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in sacred moments of ministry.  Recently I vividly recall being in the hospital room at Strong and praying with patient who was about to go home to the Lord.  I was praying with his wife and son as well.  It was apparent to all that God was with us and all will be well.

We all need those treasured moments of faith to strengthen us for the times we will be vulnerable and fragile and wonder why God is asking to embrace this cross in our life.  The crosses in life we will experience as individuals, as families, as the faith community of St. Joseph’s, and as a nation.  There will be no dimension of our lives in which we get a free pass from the cross.

May our journey of faith have those beautiful Transfiguration in which we say with the apostle: “Lord, it is good we are here.” And may we be able to listen to the call of God in our journey of faith when we need to lead go of our familiar comfort zones and embrace the cross and Gethsemane in our lives.

 

Have a Blessed Day.