Send Down Fire!

Do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?

The response James and John recommended for the Samaritans' lack of hospitality,

What did they expect from the Samaritans?

There was a deep rift between these Israelite cousins.

The Jews and the Samaritans.

They'd been at odds with each other for hundreds of years.

And their chief disagreement was over the proper center for worship.

The Samaritans said it was Mt Gerizim.

The Jews said it was Jerusalem.

And Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem—

How could they welcome him?

The Samaritans' refusal of hospitality was indeed a slight, an act of disrespect.

And John and James felt entitled to righteous indignation.

Their pride was wounded.

They felt the sting of rejection for themselves and for Jesus.

But Jesus rebuked James and John for their suggestion of overblown retribution.

And simply passed by and moved along to another town.

Jesus didn't suffer from his disciples' sense of pride.

He had proper perspective.

He had an understanding, merciful heart.

The Samaritans' disrespect was actually fairly minor.

At least in comparison to the disrespect that awaited him in Jerusalem.

The Samaritans' action really amounted to a lost opportunity for themselves.

It had it's own built-in punishment.

They were depriving themselves of time with Jesus.

A chance to learn, a chance to grow, an opportunity for wisdom and grace.

Their action was something to be lamented rather than further punished.

Unlike those Samaritans, we have no deep rift holding us back.

Because Jesus continued on and completed his mission in Jerusalem.

He reconciled us to our understanding, merciful God.

So let's learn from the Samaritans' mistake.

Let's make time to spend with Jesus.

Let's always welcome him.

Let's invite him into our lives—into our daily actions.

And not from fear of fire from heaven.

But from fear that we might let opportunity pass us by.

John and James had the wrong idea.

But, as it turns out, they stumbled onto the right words.

God has sent down his fire from Heaven.

And it awaits us—offering to fill us with His consuming love.

Tuesday, 26th Week of  Ordinary Time

Lk 9:51-56         Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Family

The other day I came across an old photograph.

My distant cousin, Joe Schulte, sent it to me a few years ago.

It’s a group portrait of about 50 people gathered and posed on their lawn.

Joe said it was taken in my home town—Covington, Kentucky—in 1910.

At a gathering of the Bockweg family.

Joe’s great grandmother was a Bockweg girl, Elizabeth, who married into the Schulte family.

So Joe and I share her father, Heinrich Bockweg, as a great-great grandfather.

(I think that makes us 3^rd cousins.)

When we look at this picture, there’s Heinrich, 87 years old and seated in the center of the group.

Joe sent me the picture because he didn’t know who all the people were.

And he was looking for help in tracking down some of the names.

1910 happens to have been a census year.

So we know many of the names of the people who are probably in that picture.

We just don’t know who’s who.

My grandfather was 12 years old at the time, so he's probably one of the young boys.

And my great grandfather is probably one of the middle-aged men.

We know from the census data that his wife isn’t in the picture—she died before 1910.

Most families have old pictures like this, or old documents, or an old Bible with names.

Why do we even care about our families from over100 years ago?

These people we can’t even identify.

Well, looking back at our ancestors brings a sense of belonging.

A sense of our place in a continuing history.

It also helps to ground us in our true roots.

It brings us closer to those to whom we owe our very existence.

I knew my grandparents, but I know only a little about those who came before them.

It seems that none were especially rich or famous.

But they seem to have been mostly bright, hard-working, good people.

I’m happy with that family.

And it’s a good thing that I am.

Because there’s an old saying,

You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.

But really, that’s only partly true.

As Jesus tells us today, we can choose to be recognized members of his family.

True family—like his mother and those he grew up calling his brothers and sisters.

We can return to our most true roots.

We can draw closer to the one who really gave us our very existence.

If we can just try to hear his word—and act on it.

Tuesday, 25th Week of  Ordinary Time

Lk 8:19-21         Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Extravagance

A friend of mine once mentioned that we should aim for a higher place in Heaven.

That surprised me.

I always envisioned everyone as being equal in Heaven.

The worldly ranks and honors and statuses left behind.

We'll all have the beatific vision.

We'll all see God.

We'll all know everything that can be known.

Eventually we'll all have perfect, gloriously resurrected bodies.

We'll all be ecstatically happy in Heaven.

If you're blissed out, you're blissed out.

How could it get any better?

My friend's a very thoughtful, wise and holy man.

So I had to consider that he might be right.

Maybe there are different levels of Heaven.

Maybe there isn't full equality among all the triumphant.

Jesus's parable in today's Gospel deals with equality of effort and reward.

All the laborers received the same reward.

Whether they'd worked twelve hours, through the heat of the day.

Or just the one final hour of the workday.

Those who worked the full 12-hour day were content with their promised full-day pay.

Until they saw that those who worked only one hour were getting a full-day's wage.

When they saw that, they assumed they'd get something extra too.

So when the master didn't give them a bonus, they grumbled.

They felt somehow cheated.

They were envious of those who got so much pay for so little work.

We can all relate to that.

Do football commissioners, CEOs, movie stars or the Wall Street wizards

Really deserve to make hundreds of times what we make?

But, on the other hand,

Do we really deserve so much more than the hard-working struggling poor of the world?

At the surface level, Jesus's parable aptly applies to material rewards in our daily lives.

At the deeper level, it deals with our spiritual efforts and the reward of Heaven.

Jesus makes it clear that the reward is not directly proportionate to our effort.

Some may be called to service early in life.

Some may not hear the call until later.

The important thing is that when we do hear the call, we answer.

But the reward of Heaven isn't really something we can deserve or earn.

What could we ever do to earn it?

It's a gift—totally a gift.

A gift that God wants to give each one of us.

He wants so much to give it to us, that he keeps calling us—repeatedly.

He pursues us throughout our lives.

Perhaps even meeting us with a final offer at the instant of our death.

Today's parable is a story about the Good News.

The Good News that Jesus asks us to spread throughout the world.

So we need to know what the Good News is.

It's the revelation and assurance from Jesus—from God Himself—that:

There's more to life than this worldly existence.

There is a God.

A God who loves each one of us—as we are.

A God who wants us to be happy with him in Heaven for eternity

A God who is extravagantly generous and merciful and forgiving and patient.

When we're slow to hear Him, He's patient

When we slip up, He's forgiving

When He judges us, He does it with abundant mercy.

All he asks in return is that we acknowledge Him.

That we love Him.

That we show that love by loving ourselves and others.

That we believe this Good News and share this Good News.

That we claim the place that He has already prepared for us in Heaven.

It's good to contemplate on Heaven; to build an expectation of what it might be like.

That helps us keep our goal in mind.

And we don't have to worry about building our expectations too high.

Jesus has told us that Heaven is greater than we could ever imagine.

When my friend spoke of a higher level of Heaven, I asked him what that might be.

He agreed that we'd all be completely happy in Heaven.

But he believed that, in this life,

We can expand our capacity for happiness in the next.

So that in Heaven each of us is indeed existing in total joyful bliss.

All filled to the max and overflowing.

But some of us will have developed a greater capacity than others.

And those will be able to reach a higher level of joy in Heaven.

If that's the case, then there is a bonus for the long-laboring after all.

Not only do they have a longer time in this life to enjoy the satisfaction of their labor.

They also build a greater capacity for joy in Heaven.

But neither those of us who labor long nor those of us who labor only briefly

Have any cause to envy God's generosity to the other.

None of us would even exist, let alone be going to Heaven,

Without that extravagant generosity.

25th Sunday of  Ordinary Time

Mt 20:1-16          Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Daddy Told Me

Sometimes there’s deeper truth in our words than we realize.

The people of Nain in today’s Gospel knew the young man who had died.

They were his family, his friends and his neighbors.

They knew, beyond any doubt, that he was truly dead.

And there was nothing anyone could do to bring him back.

But then they met Jesus.

And, out of compassion for the widow who had lost her son,

He told the young man to arise.

They all stood there and witnessed the impossible happening before their eyes.

They knew that this was clearly the work of God.

And so they exclaimed, “God has visited his people.”

But they didn’t mean that literally.

They weren’t ready to proclaim that Jesus was God.

They meant it in a figurative sense.

God had shown his existence.

He had reached down and intervened in their lives.

He had worked a miracle for them—through a great prophet.

He “visited” them through his action.

It would still be quite some time before anyone would recognize that

Their statement was literally true.

God was visiting his people, and walking among them in person.

Peter may have been the first to grasp the deeper truth.

The day later came when Jesus asked his disciples “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter said, “You are the son of God.”

And Jesus blessed him for knowing that –

He said Peter could know that only through personal revelation from the Father.

Today, how do we know this deeper truth?

How do we know that Jesus is truly God.

We know it the same way Peter knew it.

Tuesday, 24th Week of  Ordinary Time

Lk 7:11-17         Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Invisible

The other day I read a children's book with my 6-year-old grandson.

It was called The Invisible Boy.

The main character was a boy about his age.

It turns out, the boy wasn't really invisible.

People just treated him like he was.

Treated him like he wasn't there.

His teacher was too busy with “problem kids” to pay much attention to him.

He was quiet.

His classmates didn't bother to get to know him.

He ate lunch alone, didn't get invited to the birthday parties.

Classmates never chose him to be on their teams.

But he didn't complain, he just quietly bore the neglect.

A pretty sad story.

But it had a happy ending.

A new boy moved to the school and the two boys struck up a friendship.

It was actually the invisible boy who made the first move in that friendship.

The new boy's novelty made him popular with the classmates.

And he used that popularity to lead the whole class

To finally see and accept and appreciate the invisible boy.

To choose him as a welcome addition to their group.

The book showed that this was good for the invisible boy.

It was good to be accepted, recognized, appreciated.

It was good to finally be chosen.

But it was also good for all the class.

They found a hidden treasure they had overlooked for so along.

In today's Gospel, Jesus chooses twelve Apostles from among his disciples.

Surely they were all happy to be chosen for their special positions.

Even later, when they realized that being chosen brought new responsibilities.

Even burdens.

We should be happy too.

Because we too have been chosen.

Just like those Apostles.

We were chosen and given the gift of faith.

And also chosen to meet the responsibility of sharing that faith.

Much like the new boy at school.

We come with something new, something fresh.

A New Evangelization.

Good News made relevant to modern times by our own modern lives.

We can help others to finally see the invisible friend that dwells among them.

See and accept and appreciate the invisible treasure they've ignored for so long.

Tuesday, 23rd Week of  Ordinary Time

Lk 6:12-19         Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Who Is This Guy?

Yesterday we jumped into the Gospel of Luke.

At the start of Jesus' campaign in Galilee.

His public ministry.

His work to get his message out.

And we see that people are struggling with the question:

Who is this Jesus guy?

He's already getting a reputation as someone special.

A group of followers have gathered around him.

The front-running prophet, John the Baptist, has stepped aside.

Thrown his support to Jesus.

Telling his own disciples to follow Jesus instead.

Then Jesus makes a stop-off in Nazareth, his home town.

The locals are impressed and amazed at his words and his wisdom.

But then they say—

Hey, isn't this just Jesus, son of Joseph the carpenter?

He's just one of us.

Can he really be so special, so great?

So Jesus heads back down to Capernaum.

People there are amazed at his teaching.

He teaches so clearly; he doesn't merely cite the laws.

He speaks as someone who fully understands what's really important in the law.

Someone who knows what God thinks.

Someone with authority.

He further demonstrates that authority by driving out a demon.

The people are astonished that he has such power.

They agree that he really is so special, so great.

And, of course, we know all the other signs that are soon to come.

The brilliant teachings, the compassion, the miracles.

The Passion, Death and Resurrection.

And yet it seems we must still be struggling with that old question.

Like those folks in Nazareth and Capernaum.

Who is this guy—really?

As Christians, we say as St Peter said:

He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

We know that, not just through the Gospel,

But through that speaking of that Spirit that dwells within us.

That Spirit from God who St Paul describes to the Corinthians.

We believe, and yet it seems that if we truly, fully, deeply believed—

We'd be more amazed, more astonished.

More dedicated to making the continuation of his mission our top priority.

It seems that we need a periodic reminder, a periodic recharge.

So it's good to stop and ask ourselves:

Who is this guy who sent his own Spirit to dwell within us?

Let's reflect on that.

Let's be amazed and astonished.

Tuesday, 22nd Week of  Ordinary Time

Lk 4:31-37         Read this Scripture @usccb.org