A Regular Joe

Sunday, December 7, 2014

MOUNTAIN TOP VIEW

Scriptures: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

“Yesterday,” President Roosevelt said on December 8, “the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked.” He went on to say, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”[1]

December 7^th 1942, a day that will live in infamy. We hear the story of Pearl Harbor every year at this time. It has special meaning for the families who lost a loved one, a survivor, or those who participated in WWII. Yet the magnitude of this event did not come into my full understanding until returning home one evening driving from the North Shore over the mountains on the Likelike Highway. As I crested the mountain there was a moment where I could see all of Pearl Harbor. The view from a mountaintop can be a whole lot more than you might expect.

Advent comes around every year and each year we hear the Isaiah prophecy. Isaiah 40 is an invitation to the prophet’s mountain. The invitation from Isaiah is to come up and to see and to hear; to come up and sit for a while and take in quite a view. It’s a whole lot more than you expect, sitting here and taking in Heaven and Earth and the promise of God. Isaiah prophesied an almost unthinkable message of hope to the captive Israelites. For two generations they have been in exile and it is about to end. God has forgiven Israel’s sins and is calling them back to the Promised Land. “Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God.” (Is 40:3) “Go up onto a high mountain, Zion, herald of glad tidings; cry out at the top of your voice, Jerusalem, herald of the good news!” (Is 40:9)

Mark in citing Israel’s Sacred Scripture points to its fulfillment with John the Baptist’s message of faith; “A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’” (Mk 1:3) John’s ministry is characterized by “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mk 1:4) Last week Msgr. Page mentioned, “Advent is not a period of waiting, that there is something we must do.” “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Mt 3:2) Repentance involves getting one’s affairs in order with a view to reconciliation with God. Mark’s description of John the Baptist’s appearance (not wearing fine clothing), ministry setting (the wilderness – a place outside the control of structured society) & his humility (“One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.”) highlights his role in salvation history as the forerunner announcing the coming of the long awaited Messiah.

Which highlights a question from our second reading, “…what sort of persons ought you to be”? (2 Pt 3:11) Scripture tells us everything will pass away, and when this happens “the earth and everything done on it will be made known.” (2 Pt 3:10) John the Baptist – the message of faith tells us, “Prepare the way of the Lord…” (Mk 1:3) “Prepare” the key word for the Advent season. Prepare for the fulfillment of God’s desire “not wishing that any should parish but that all come to repentance.” Prepare a space for the Holy Spirit who can guide us to all we need to be prepared for the coming Messiah who desires for us to be with Him always & forever. Accept the invitation to the mountaintop of Isaiah; listen for the voice crying out of the desert. Spend some time with these prophets who know that all of Creation is shaped into a pathway from the wilderness to the Reign of God.

John the Baptist’s message of faith, calls us to the wilderness to discover whether we are in the midst of and aftermath of a Pearl Harbor attack, in the midst of a Babylonian exile spanning two generations, or in the midst of a personal desert experience, comes a highway for our God, a highway of restoration and rebuilding and redemption.[2]

[1] http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor

Sunday, November 9, 2014

COMMON GROUND

Homiletic Series: The Lord is King and There is No Other.

Homily IV: We Are God’s Building.

Scriptures: Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11,16-17; John 2:13-22

In his book More Than Houses Millard Fuller, co-founder of Habitat for Humanity International, writes: “A common meeting ground. That, from the inception of Habitat for Humanity, is what I envisioned the ministry to be from all faiths and persuasions. This hammer-and-nail ministry brings together all sorts of people for all walks of life. Foremost among my desires is the ministry’s potential of being a bridge for Christians—all members of the Christian faith in all its various denominations. Christian churches are so divided, and the divisions are on so many levels. There is high church and low church, liberal theology and conservative theology, charismatic and non-charismatic, evangelical and mainline, Catholic and Protestant. There is no agreement on communion: how often to take it or what it means. Churches can’t agree on how preachers should dress, much less what gender preachers are permitted to be, or even what to call “preachers”! The list of things that divide churches goes on and on. I have always thought it was shameful that the Christian family could agree on so little.”[1]

Seventeen (17) years ago I was invited to visit this “common meeting ground”. So taken by what I experienced that I could not help but immerse myself completely in the Habitat for Humanity movement. As a leader within our local affiliate for thirteen (13) years, I have been blessed to witness the power of this “common meeting ground” where government agencies, businesses, civic groups, Mosques, Temples and yes every sort of Christian are able to gather for a common pursuit, to serve a family in need of a simple, decent, affordable home.

I feel it would be a safe assumption that most of us understand the importance of a home for the health and well-being of our families. I also know there are those here, in our community, who know all too well the uncertainty when displaced from secure living accommodations.

It is the latter that the Nation of Israel is feeling during the Babylonian exile in our first reading. Ezekiel is given a different vision, a vision of hope. “He witnesses a life-giving river flowing out of the threshold of the temple toward the arid East. As the river flows, it brings life—freshening the salt waters of the Dead Sea, and causing living creatures to multiply.”[2] We have to understand, to the Jewish culture of this time, the Temple was the “common ground”. Paul picks up this familiar image and transforms it. Familiar with the temples and public building of the city, Paul explains to the Corinthian believers that they too are edifices (a building, especially one of imposing appearance or size), built upon the one foundation of Jesus Christ.

It may seem strange to celebrate the anniversary of the dedication of somebody else’s church building. The Basilica of St. John Lateran was given to the Church by the Emperor Constantine after he legalized Christianity. This is the Basilica of Rome, which the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, presides. This feast reminds us that our communion with the Church of Rome and her bishop is one of the things that unite us in the Catholic Church. In the baptistery there is an ancient inscription that reads, “There is no barrier between those who are reborn and made one by the one font, the one Spirit, and the one faith…”

This feast reminds us further, that part of our faith is the Church is the temple in which God’s spirit dwells, US, as individual living stones and collectively as Church, the Temple of God. So the feast challenges us to answer the Jewish question posed to Jesus in the Gospel, “What sign can you show us…?” (Jn 2:18) What sign can you give, that proves you are the way, you are part of the one Church built on the foundation that is Jesus?

I believe we have been answering this question throughout our four (4) week series, “The Lord is God and There is No Other”:

· Sermon #1: Living with conviction of heart. We discussed how it must become painfully obvious to the casual onlooker that our true allegiance belongs to God. That we are united and obedient to the lessons of the Gospel and the Church, even when social norms and distractions would tempt us to compromise our values.

· Sermon #2: Being Models of Faith & Imitators of the Lord. Here we discussed the bottom line, LOVE. That the response to many of life’s hard questions is love and as imitators of our Lord we must have a passionate concern for each other, especially the immigrant, elderly, orphan, and the poor.

· Sermon #3: Hope Does Not Disappoint. As believers we can have the audacity to hope beyond all hope, believe good will triumph even in the midst of trials and suffering. That even death does not have the last word, as we await the resurrection, where we will be raised by our Lord as God has promised.

We are God’s building! “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…” (1 Pt 2:5) on the one foundation Jesus Christ, who is our “common ground”.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

TRUE COLORS

Homiletic Series: The Lord is King and There is No Other.

Homily III: Hope Does Not Disappoint.

Scriptures: Wisdom 3:1-9; Romans 5:5-11; John 6:37-40

Can you feel it! Autumn is here! For true Floridians winter is here.

As many of you know Judy and I recently returned from our vacation. At least every two years we make an October drive up the East coast to visit friends and family. The highlight of our trip is the hope of catching the peak fall colors and prime apple picking season.

This year was the best fall colors we had seen in many years. Our stop in Stockbridge, MA was absolutely spectacular and educational! I relearned something about trees and the coloring of leaves. Did you know that the beautiful colors we see in the fall are always there? We just cannot see the color until the proper season.

Leaves are nature's food factories. Plants take water from the ground through their roots, take a gas called carbon dioxide from the air, and use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. Oxygen is a gas in the air that we need to breathe and plants use glucose as food for energy and as a building block for growing.

The way plants turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar is called photosynthesis, which means "putting together with light." A chemical called chlorophyll helps make photosynthesis happen. Chlorophyll is what gives plants their green color.

As summer ends and autumn comes, the days get shorter and shorter. The trees "know" to begin getting ready for winter. With less light the trees begin to shut down their food-making factories. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. As the bright green fades away, we begin to see the true colors that always existed.

Shorter days signify something else for us as Christians, the coming of a new season, Advent. The darkest day of the year is approaching, we’ll hear of death more frequently in scriptures and yet there is something more that exists yet not seen, something the “foolish” those that lack faith, cannot seem to see.

For those of us who live our faith with conviction of heart trusting in the grace, mercy and love of our God, our “…hope [is] full of immortality.” (Wis 3:4) What gives us the audacity to hope such hope? Because we believe “…God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8) Paul says, in sending the greatest gift of all, his Son who would die for us, God set no conditions. God’s love is given freely—all we need to do is accept it.

I found it interesting how this year’s most popular Halloween costume was characters from the “Night of the Living Dead”. How ironic, the church has been talking about the “culture of death” for a very long time. The culture of death is very selfish. Where living for self is resulting in broken marriages, because “I’m not happy” or the partner isn’t meeting “my expectations”; abortion is becoming the acceptable norm, because “it is my body” and I should have the right to choose; and a greater acceptance of assisted suicide, where it should be my choice to end my suffering. What happened to the Christian value of offering our self to complete the other, joined as one with each other and the Lord til death do us part, or respect for and acknowledgement of the miracle of life, being co-creators with our God; or uniting our earthly sufferings to our Lords own suffering and living as a Christian witness as we bear our cross of suffering?

All Souls’ Day celebrates a message of hope. Each of these candles you see represents a loved one of our community, whose earthly body experienced death this year. As part of the 12:15 Mass each candle will be lit, to remind us of the hope that our loved ones have been raised to meet Jesus face-to-faced and they remain full of life. We believe the human heart does not surrender to death, and has not, through all the fog and blinding obstacles that keep our true colors from view in this world. That we would be mindful that when Jesus emerged from his tomb and walked on the earth at the dawn of the day: Easter, the greatest day in human history, gives All Souls’ Day its awesome core of truth against all the odds and ends of reality.

The great Jesuit priest, Karl Rahner, who was acknowledged as the greatest theologian of the last century, has this to say about the dead: “Though invisible to us, our dead are not absent. They are living near us, transfigured into light and power and love.”[1]

With God’s promise, we the faithful know “…hope does not disappoint…” (Rom 5:5), because our God will raise us up to shine in our true colors forever.