Needs and wants

“…one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15)

Luke 12:13-21  (Year C: The Seventh Sunday after Trinity, 4^th August, 2019)

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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS

COI	RC (18th Sunday in Ordinary Times)
Ecclesiastes 1: 2–23	Ecclesiastes 1: 2–23
Psalm 49:1-12	Psalm 90
Colossians 3:1-11	Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21	Luke 12:13-21

There are no direct parallels to this passage among the other canonical gospels.

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SERMON NOTES (778 words)

Needs and wants: what is the difference between them?  I need a new smartphone or do I just want one?  We live in a highly stressful and competitive age where we are told we must have or we must look a certain way or dress in a particular fashion or think in a certain way. But, what do we need? And where does money come into it?

What we need – in addition to shelter, clothing and food – is kindness and love. Friendship is crucial and so is a happy and reasonably balanced life overall. It is possible to live happily on a little while being miserable with much wealth.

Clearly, we need money and goods to live a reasonable life. There is no point in comparing us to our ancestors when standards and expectations of living were very, very different to that what they are today. Neither is there any point in comparing ourselves with those in some of the poorest regions of the world (but we should be concerned and active in helping people far and near to the extent that we can).

In spite of all the progress made in Ireland in the space of a few decades (what was a day’s journey from one side of the island to the other is now a few hours), there are still large inequalities in wealth and income. Just walk down the main street of your city or town and it is clear that we are a country of contrasts. And much poverty is hidden and even subtle.  And, yet, we wonder about so many things and constantly strive to increase our wealth and income one way or another. Many of us also spend a lot of money (and time) insuring ourselves against this or that calamity including sickness or loss of job or income.

Now, there is nothing wrong with working hard to provide a good standard of living for ourselves and our families as well as contributing to our communities. However, how much is enough? Where is the thin red line between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’?

In today’s Gospel reading we hear a story about a rich and foolish man who thought life was about striving after more. Fool! This very night you will die and who will own all of your wealth says the Lord?  The irony of this story is that it begins with a question to Jesus (as so many stories in the gospel do).  ‘Tell my brothers’ to divide the spoils of inheritance fairly. O yes – more family feuds have been fought over dead persons’ estates (or persons thought likely to be dead in the not too distant future). We are not much different today.

Jesus concludes the story or parable by urging us to be ‘rich before God’. 

How do we become ‘rich before God’? The answer lies in letting go of our attachments and our cravings for this and that good (or experience). It is about growing inwardly in the grace of God by allowing ourselves to be shaped by gospel values of kindness, generosity and readiness to give as well as to receive. The impulse to be ‘rich before God’ is written deeply in our hearts and it is God’s Holy Spirit that we must follow in the depths of our hearts.

The gospels, including that of Luke, do not provide a detailed blueprint for how we should organise society. Rather, the good news provides signposts to how we can reset our priorities and put human dignity first before any institution, ideology or interest.  Trusting in a higher love that guides our lives as well as in a code of behaviour that de-thrones the gods of money and social status remains a challenge for Christians today as it did in Jesus’ time. The person in the crowd who sought free legal aid and intervention by Jesus in the case of a family quarrel over inheritance is a proto-type for us today as we confuse ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ and end up never being satisfied because we want what we do not need and we need the very things we do not want to face up to.  As always, Luke turns everything upside down in this crazy upside-down world.

For the Christ came not to enchain but to set free. He came not to condemn but to save. And He came not to impoverish but to enrich. We, too, can be rich in relationship, hope and care. This is what we bring with us at the end and this is what we leave behind for others to treasure. And this is what matters.

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SOME IDEAS FOR INTERCESSIONS

With trust in our heavenly Father and the riches of his grace we pray for:

True freedom to live as God’s children rather than slaves of wants….

Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer

For those excluded and left behind as a result of the greed of others…

Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer

For our communities, families and churches that we may be places of sharing and generosity and so become more credible witnesses in a world waiting for change…..

Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer

For all those who are away on holidays – keep them safe and bring them home safely.

Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer

For all those who are visiting this place at this time of vacation…

Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer

For all those who for one reason or another cannot get away on holidays – may we be open to sharing our time and goods with others…..

Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer

For the grace, this week, to be truly wise and rich in what matters to God.

Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer

For one another….

Loving God gather up our prayers – those spoken and those unspoken in the depths of our hearts. In the places we live, work and communicate, may we be channels of peace and reconciliation in a tormented world.

A simple religion

“…Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:37)

(Year C: The Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 14^th July, 2019)

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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS

COI	RC
Amos 7:7-17	Deuteronomy 30:10-14
Psalm 82	Psalm 69
Colossians 1:1-14	Colossians 1:15-20
Luke 10:25-37	Luke 10:25-37

Parallel gospel readings to that from Luke may be found in Matthew 22:34-46 and in Mark 12:28-34.

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SERMON NOTES (1,090 words)

This week’s passage from Luke comes in three complementary parts: a reaffirmation of rock solid Old Testament foundational teaching, (ii) a story to explain the point, and (iii) a clear-cut command to each of us.

Rock solid OT teaching

A ‘lawyer’ (it is a ‘pharisee’ in Matthew and a ‘scribe’ in Mark) tried to test Jesus by asking something along the lines of ‘how do I get into a heaven?’  A not unreasonable question and not unknown one among religiously inclined persons, even today.

As a good Teacher, Jesus got the learner to figure it out by posing a question in response to the Learner’s question. Jesus draws on a key passage from scripture – the basis of the daily Shema recited by devout Jews then and now (Deuteronomy 6:4-9):

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Jesus, however, goes further and draws on Leviticus 19:18:

you shall love your neighbour as yourself.

Loving God with all our being and loving our neighbour as ourselves – are two sides of the one coin. In one way, Jesus was not saying or doing anything new. It was all there in the sacred scriptures when God spoke to his chosen people. In another way it was all new because Jesus was restating an Old Commandment and making this very emphatically and very centrally the basis of all other commandments.

It was a matter of radically simplified moral theology! 

It might have seemed that these two commandments entailed loving God first and then our neighbour as an afterthought. Not so. It means loving God with all our being and loving our neighbour as ourselves at one and the same time.  Loving God comes first in terms of the order of commandments but loving our neighbour comes first in terms of action because it is in loving our neighbour that we know for sure that we are loving God. God is in our neighbour – poor, excluded, lonely, oppressed and hungry as well as in the next person beside you at this moment on a bus, at a counter, in a queue, online ….

And who is my neighbour, again? Jesus as an excellent Teacher spells it out by means of a story.

A story about love

There once were four persons somewhere on the way between Jerusalem to Jericho …

One of them was lying on the side of the road critically injured and possibly close to death.  With great irony, two religiously respectable persons – one a Levite (an assistant in the Temple according to scripture scholars) and the other a priest – made for the other side of the road. Perhaps they were in a rush somewhere (a religious ceremony?).  Or, perhaps they were taking no chances because the scene might have been a trap to lure others only to be robbed and attacked? Perhaps they were heading to report the incident to someone else so that proper and timely help could be organised? (somehow I think not but I am trying to be non-judgmental towards the priest and the Levite in this story!).

Moreover – and this seems to be key point in this story – to touch someone who is dead they would invite ritual defilement (from a distance the Levite and priest might not have been able to tell if the person was dead).  Mercy took second place to a cultic religious observance.  The fact is that it took a foreigner and someone not of our tribe and religious practice to do the decent thing and to save this victim’s life. Yes, it could have been a trap. How was the Samaritan to know? But, she/he was moved by compassion and she/he did not stop to weigh up the risks. Following emergency treatment the Samaritan took the victim to a local inn and did the modern equivalent of leaving his/her credit card details and PIN with the innkeeper. There were no questions of private health insurance, a promissory note to repay or a contract with terms and conditions. There was just compassion.

In this one gesture and story Jesus cuts through the nonsense, hypocrisy and cruelty of what passes for religion then and now.

Translated into our times and context the story urges us to put compassion first even if, sometimes, this entails some personal risk. Of course, prudence is required. However, we can often cite prudence or the call of other duties or cares to evade a duty of compassion towards the person right in front of us right now.

But, we would be missing the point if we understood this story to be about one person acting compassionately towards another. The truth is that the Samaritan displayed a measureless love for another human being and that measureless love was the love of God unleashed in a broken and divided world. God’s love moved the Samaritan but the response of this foreigner and outsider was one of love with all of heart, all of soul, all of strength and all of mind. 

And that’s not all (Matthew 22:40):

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

In one swoop Jesus reduces the 613 commandments of the ‘Old Law’ into two commandments not so much by abolishing them as by rooting them in the essential. And his listeners were left speechless.

How we could simplify our lives and our laws and our canon laws and our rules of community if we took to hear the simple truth that underlying ‘all the law’ and the scriptures is the commandment to love God with our all and to do so sincerely by loving the person next to us now.

A clear-cut command

The key thing to not about the lawyer who questioned Jesus is that he knew his theology. In fact not only did he understand the all-importance of these two great commandments but he got the message of the story about the Samaritan. There was, however, one thing that he needed to do: he needed to put into practice. And so do we.

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SOME IDEAS FOR INTERCESSIONS

Blessing and honour to God. We are, each, made in his image. Let us love one another as he showed us how in his son, Jesus Christ. Together with all peoples throughout the world we pray for:

Compassion in places and situations of war, hatred and bitterness…..

Those who minister to the sick, the homeless, refugees and others on the margins of our society…

The entire Christian church throughout the world as well as every local church that we may be carriers of that faith, hope and love which Paul urged the disciples in Colossae to have.

The Churches in Ireland that we may witness to the diversity and unity in the Body of Christ on the island of Ireland….

Those in our community and parish who may feel alone, abandoned or forgotten about. May we reach out in practical ways to each as a neighbour

One another….

Other named persons ….

Remembering with thanks those who have gone before us….

… praying in silence….

Loving God accept gather up our prayers – those spoken and those unspoken in the depths of our hearts. In the places we live, work and communicate, may we be channels of peace and reconciliation in a tormented world.

Merciful father: accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.  Amen

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A PRAYERFUL WALK THROUGH LUKE 10:25-37

Following the Gospel this passage comes after the hostile encounter with the Samaritans in chapter 9. As if to prove a point, Luke situates the dialogue somewhere in or near Jerusalem where Jesus tells a story about a thief, an injured victim, a truly good and compassionate Samaritan and a religiously upright Levite and Priest walked on the other side of the road. This is a lesson in what true compassion and, therefore, true religion is about. It starts in a conversation between a doctor of the law and Jesus and ends with a parable or story that illustrates Jesus’ teaching.

v.25   A question to try Jesus

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 

We may note two things: (1) here in Luke the one who questions Jesus is a ‘lawyer’ while in the corresponding passage from Mark it is a ‘scribe’ and in Matthew it is a Pharisee, and (2) the focus of the question asked in Luke is on what one must do to inherit eternal life while in the other two synoptic Gospels the focus is on the matter of the ‘greatest commandment’. These differences in emphases and detail are not crucial to the reader today but reflect somewhat different audiences and contexts in which and for which the Gospel writers operated. A religion of good works and reward sees in religion a means of individual salvation and reward.

v.26-28   Quoting scriptures

He [Jesus] said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

The Lawyer got it right citing Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18. You can’t beat a lawyer when it comes to quoting the Law!

V.29   still more ….

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 

Religious neurosis demands precision. Jesus rises to the challenge in what follows.

V.30-35   the missing part

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 

Jesus had to spell it out for the Lawyer by means of a story.  The example is one of compassion, decency and love. Ironically, it was not the religiously undefiled (the Levite and the Priest who may have thought the man left by the road as dead) or the learned scholar (the Lawyer) who needs to be taught who feature in the example given by Jesus: it was someone from the outside group from Samaria.

36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

The hardest bit is letting go

“…Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’ (Luke 9:62)

Second Sunday after Trinity, 30^th June, 2019 (Year C)

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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS

COI	RC
2 Kings 2: 1–2, 6–14	1 Kings 19:16-21
Psalm 77:1-2,11-20	Psalm 16(15)
Galatians 5:1,13-25	Galatians 5:1,13-25
Luke 9:51-62	Luke 9:51-62

Parallel Gospel Readings to Luke 9:57-62:

Matthew 8:18-22

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SERMON NOTES (732 words)

Human life has many a valley and many a hill. Just when we might have thought that we were secure and happy something arrives to blow us off course. We make plans but God has other ones for us. He loves us very dearly and gently leads us in ways that we might never have imagined.

Again and again Jesus reminds the disciples (and us) that the way forward will not be easy. Once we set out on a journey we must keep going. It starts with a choice, a simple but profound yes to God. Where it leads is unknown to us. How can we plan or plot our future when so many things can arise to change our lives in the flash of a moment. We can only trust. But, we must keep our eyes fixed on the ultimate destination and there must be no looking back or harking after the past. Letting go is the most difficult challenge in life. This is especially so as we approach death. Letting go of good things, good people and good relationships for even better ones planned for us by God is part of the journey. A death, a breakdown in relationship, a loss of job or income, a traumatising experience of one sort or another can knock us off our course. Yet, if we trust in God and let the past go the more free we are to live in the now. That is the best way to prepare for what lies ahead.

In today’s Gospel we hear that Jesus ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’. Other translations render it as: ‘Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem’. Setting out on a particular journey, especially one that leads to certain challenge as was the case of Jesus, is a tough call. Such is Christian discipleship. Anyone who decides to follow Jesus and live as he teaches us is bound to meet with major challenges and sufferings. The only alternative is not to follow him which leads to even more challenges and sufferings!

But, there is another sub-plot in today’s reading. It concerns how we relate to those who are different to us. Jesus came to unite people and not to set them apart. He came to save and set free and not to condemn or imprison. I am particularly struck by a line from Luke’s gospel which is contained in some ancient manuscripts. It is the following:

Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.  For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. (Luke 9:55-56)

(King James version)

How often in small ways as well as big ways we undermine others whether by things we say or the way we behave? Or, perhaps, others may undermine us and seek to deprive us of the dignity we are owed because we are, all, children of God. No matter how correct or upright we may think we are we are not of the spirt of Jesus Christ if we destroy the dignity of others.

Jesus, we have heard, was making his way through the territory of a foreign people called the Samaritans as he was heading towards Jerusalem. This might be roughly the equivalent of a group of Donegal lads passing through a very Protestant town in Tyrone in the 1970s on their way to a GAA match in Dublin. Or, it might be the equivalent of the Ballylumford Defenders making their way down the Falls Road on their way to the Field outside Belfast!  The more alike people are by virtue of ethnicity, language and professed Christian faith the more they squabble over land, power and details of belonging and belief!

We should not forget that in the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus provides us with an example of human compassion by someone regarded as a foreigner or an outsider. If only we realised that the one who disrupts our lives might be a type of secret messenger serving God’s purposes even in the most difficult and unfair of circumstances.

May God set us free to persevere on life’s journey. May He show us once again his unfailing kindness, mercy and grace. May we let go of what is in the past and what needs to be so. May we embrace the future by living fully in the now. Amen.

The Blessed Trinity: from concept to living experience

“…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5)

The Visitation of Abraham or the ‘Old Testament Trinity’ … a fresco in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, interprets a Trinitarian and Eucharistic theme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 16:12-15 (Year C: Trinity Sunday, 16^th June, 2019)

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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS

COI	RC
Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31	Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31
Psalm 8	Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5	Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15	John 16:12-15

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SERMON NOTES (746 words)

Meeting the Trinity

Every Sunday is special in some way. The Liturgy never fails to provide us with a new challenge and new opportunities for growth. This Sunday we focus on the Holy Trinity – the unity and diversity of God as One but diverse in a communion of Persons. Like many aspects of our shared faith explaining the Trinity to ourselves let alone to those around us who do not share our Christian faith is a challenge.

The Trinity in our Liturgy

Perhaps we take the Trinity for granted. After all, we pray to the Trinity and in Trinity in the Gloria (Glory be to the Father…) several times in morning prayer or evening prayer. The Trinity is at the centre or our celebration of the two great Gospel sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist.

Explaining the Trinity

Why is orthodox (with a small ‘o’) Christianity unique in teaching that there can be only One God but Three Persons in the One God?  Why three or even two Persons? Or, as our ancestors believed, why not have many gods? I suggest that the answer is that the One True God loves diversity. Not only that, He (strictly God is neither He or She but we may follow tradition in addressing God as a He) loves the created material world so much that he could not pass the opportunity of becoming material, human and one of us. In that way, we were ‘divinised’ or raised up to godliness as our sisters and brothers in the Eastern Christian traditions like to emphasise. In short, God likes to get down and dirty in our messy and mixed up world. Put another way, Christianity is a materialist religion in the best sense of that term. Our God became one of us in order to raise us up and bring us safely to our eternal home.

Listening

‘I still have many things to say to you’ says Jesus to his disciples in the passage of John’s Gospel that we have heard. In other words, we have a lot of learning and listening to do in life. Yes, we will find the full and complete Truth in the scriptures. However, we need the practical help of the Holy Spirit to travel deeper into a life of communion with one another and with God in his Oneness and Threeness.  The Holy Spirit provides when our words and thoughts fail as they must at some stage.  Jesus, the Word, came to speak love and life to everyone. Some listen; others don’t and quite a few listen, only, to what they want to hear.  But we must listen to everything that the Holy Spirit is saying to us today.

Lifelong learning

Being open to the Holy Spirit means divesting ourselves of useless and destructive patterns of thinking and acting. It means – in a certain sense – being ‘empty’ and ready to be filled. We need to let go; we need to let God act in us through his Holy Spirit. If we trust in God’s Holy Spirit to guide us then we will find freedom to live more and more in the present moment firm in the conviction that God will guide us, step by step, to that place or that decision or that response which will be right at the right time. It is not a question of receiving the whole picture or truth in one go. The Holy Spirit leads us gradually towards the complete picture (John 16:13).

And so often we fret and worry about how we will perform or what we will say whether in a situation of a written examination, or a very difficult conversation with someone (e.g. breaking the news of a serious illness) or an interview for a job. The list is endless. Each time, we can slow down, rest in the present moment, breathe easily and let the breath of God emerge in our thoughts and actions.  As Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel:

But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say. (Matthew 10:19)

In that moment of trial we will be given the words and means to bear witness as we should. Trust! But we must conclude with a warning: be alert and ready because we don’t know where the Holy Spirit leads us. We only have the light of today and of this moment. Walk in that light.