Active Indifference

From Choosing Christ in the World by Joseph Tetlow, S.J.:

• My life world offers me a welter of wonderful things-careers, places to live, consumer goods, travel, various educations. After l have set my face against anything sinful, how will I decide which among them to go for?

• I could choose in several ways:

First, I could simply follow fad and fashion.

Hankering after the latest clothes and activities, exciting trips, l could do what everyone else is doing right now.

• Or second, I could simply follow my own native taste.

I grew up loving open country, so I could choose that way of life.

I could choose to live in a suburb simply because prefer it and for no other reason.

If my natural preferences could lead me to pursue some profession, I could simply follow that lead, figuring that God would not make me hanker for something that would do me harm.

• Or third, I could set some definite goal for myself, to bring me to transcend myself, reach fulfillment, and do some real good for others.

For example, I could ambition being a federal judge or having total financial security or making some important discovery in genetics.Then I could aim everything toward that goal.

• A fourth way would be more difficult. I could begin with the premise that I will never do anything to break my relationship with God my Lord, but will choose only what my conscience freely allows.

Then I will wait to find out what God hopes for in me.

To achieve this mind-set, I have to believe that I can know what God hopes in me, and I have to hope that I can find that out.

I will also have to hold tremendously careful balance among all the welter of wonderful things that my life world offers me. I will not let myself get so stuck on any of them that it will incline me to this or that decision. That would mean that I would not follow the first or second way of choosing-by doing what everyone is now doing, or by merely following my own native preferences.

And not even the third-by setting my own life goal for myself without asking God what my Creator wants in me. To put that another way: I would not try to tell God what will make me happy (that judgeship or a heap of money or a brilliant scientific career). l will wait to find out what God has been hoping in me-and live confident that it will make me happy.

• Of course, I cannot sit back and expect God to strike me the way God struck Paul of Tarsus. I have to pray, and consider, and take counsel with trusted friends. I have to attend to what the whole Church now engages in and hopes for, and what the official teachers (bishops and theologians in their own ways) are teaching. I have to try this or that and see how it goes. But I will always be hoping to find God desiring in me, God shaping my life world, God bringing the Reign to reality. I hope to find what God wants first, then I will decide what I let myself want and what I will choose.

• Holding this kind of indifference among God's almost infinite number of gifts makes a person a great force for good. What a power she is who does not much care where she lives as long as God's hopes are being realized!

What a power he is who does not much care whether he lives wealthily or not, only as long as God's justice is being done! Such a person truly finds God in all things-God creating, God raising up justice and peace in all things,God working busily so that no one will be lost, but everyone brought to the Reign.

Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 17, 2024

He who loses his life will save it

John 12:20–33

Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me.

“I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?
‘Father, save me from this hour’?
But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven,
“I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”
The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder;
but others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Jesus answered and said,
“This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.
Now is the time of judgment on this world;
now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I will draw everyone to myself.”
He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

Music Meditations

• He Was Despised—Handel
• Be Still My Soul—Gentri
• Don’t Be Afraid, My Love is Stronger—Mennonite Congregation of Boston
• Jesus—Chris Tomlin

Opening Prayer

Dear Lord, keep me from clinging to things of this world which may distract me from Your love and my love for You. Help me to love my life enough to participate in the things and relationships which matter; help me to let go of these when it is time to do so. Letting go is hard, Lord, as You yourself know. Give me strength to welcome whatever comes my way as part of your plan for me. Keep me faithful to Your word.

Companions for the Journey

By Jude Siciliano, OP. From “First Impressions” (2012), a service of the Southern Dominican Province:

A regular Scripture reader will notice a repeating theme throughout both Testaments: that of human sin and failure. Actually, we don’t need to read the Bible for that insight into our human condition. We meet sin and failures in ourselves and the world around us regularly. At times the picture can be quite grim and discouraging.

The other day I stopped reading the daily newspaper mid-story. It was about another suicide bombing with civilian victims in Afghanistan. (Today news came of a soldier there who went on a killing spree and killed 16 civilians, including children!) I had just finished reading about a shoot-out in Juarez, Mexico. The gangs used weapons smuggled across the border from America. The business pages were no refuge, they spoke of another Ponzi scheme resulting in losses of victims’ life savings. What to do, I wondered, just read the daily comics—and nothing more? Not watch any television? Not turn on the Internet?

The Scriptures don’t whitewash our broken condition. For example, Jeremiah had warned Judah that the Babylonians would destroy the nation because Judah had forsaken her covenant with God. The Babylonians did come, defeated the nation and took the people off to slavery. Human sin and failure, with resulting bitter consequences—nothing new in that.

However, there is another motif throughout both Testaments. After naming the people’s infidelity the prophet Jeremiah introduces what God will do. It begins with “But” and pronounces quite clearly that despite their sin, God is going to make a new covenant with the people. God doesn’t give up on us, but keeps coming back with new proposals of love.

We are well into Lent and, if we have been praying and reflecting, we have probably been made aware of ways we have fallen short in our covenant with God. In today’s classic passage Jeremiah offers us hope—nothing we have or haven’t done can turn God away. “… I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.” God seems to do a lot of forgetting in the Bible and once again we are reminded God will “remember” our sin no more. Shall we trust God’s Word and receive forgiveness from our God who takes on a willing amnesia for us?

Our reading from Hebrews reminds us that Jesus was not an other-worldly creature disguised as a human. He did not live above the world of the body, detached from suffering and limitation. Instead, he took on our human state sharing with us our common lot—even unto death. Indeed, he prayed with “loud cries” to God; the way we do when life presses us down. His cries were accompanied by tears. His prayers, though heard by God, did not spare him from suffering. He may have prayed, not to escape suffering, but that God’s love would support him in it. And God’s love did.

As much as we would like it to be otherwise, when we accept the cross and Jesus’ way of living, we cannot escape pain. But Hebrews also suggests to us that by accepting the cross we will be transformed into the mind and heart of Jesus. Paul would say we are educated in Christ and have put on the mind of Christ; that is, we will think and act towards one another like Christ (Philippians 2:1–11).

Throughout John’s Gospel Jesus had been saying that his “hour” had not yet come. He wasn’t continually looking up at the sun to reckon the time. His “hour” refers to his hour of glory, when he would return to his Father by his passage through suffering, death and resurrection. Today he announces, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” What caused him to make that announcement at this time? The “Greeks,” from the Hellenistic world (representing the world beyond Judaism), had come seeking him. In the preceding verse the Pharisees spelled it out, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”

But the outreach to the Gentile world would only happen after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The “grain of wheat” must first die in order to produce “much fruit.” All humanity will be saved by Jesus’ death and glorification. The world comes looking for light in its darkness and we, illumined by our faith, provide that light by the sacrifice of ourselves for the well-being of others. What Jesus said of himself, is also said of his followers, “The grain of wheat must die in order to produce much fruit.” Then the Gentiles, who asked, “to see Jesus,” will discover his light in us and they will “see” the Lord.

Jesus says that those who wish to serve him must follow his path. How do we gain access to our glorified Lord? Not primarily through the occasional phenomena of visions and miracles, but first by accepting the gospel and then, in response to what we have heard, by a life of service and dying to self. Jesus teaches that we lose our life when we cling to it and win our life when we are ready to give it up. He is inviting his disciples to follow his path of service into glory.

The “glory of God” here means discovering the presence of God who, at first, is hidden. We look in the wrong places with the wrong expectations. The gospel invites us to see God shining forth in Jesus’ crucifixion; God shown to us in loving service for all humankind. We don’t want to romanticize Christ’s suffering. He died in a cruel and agonizing way. The forces of darkness crushed life out of him. Yet on the cross the world’s darkness was defeated because of Christ’s love.

Contrary to all our usual instincts and logical conclusions, Christ invites us to follow him even when his ways seems foolish and defeated. To belong to Christ means a willingness to participate in his “hour” so as to come to know that resurrection, as improbable as it may seem at times, is the final glory in which we will share. We, baptized into Christ’s life and death, have resurrection-lens. We don’t shrink from following Jesus into the daily dyings because we already “see” the end of the story—his and our resurrection.

Further reflection:

• Commentary on John 12:20–33 from “Living Space” >>

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Whoever loves his life, loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• Have you ever felt that you were at a crossroads, approaching a significant “hour” in your life?
  What decisions did you have to make or carry out?
  Did you have doubts?
• Did you have a time in your life when you were facing something unpleasant, but knew that you had to undergo the unpleasantness?
  Did you try to see if there was an alternative?
  Did God play a role in your decision to persevere?
• Dying on the cross was, ultimately, Jesus’ calling. What do you think is your calling?
  Was Jesus free to accept or reject His calling, do you think?
  Are you?
• Is making a mistake a sign that we did not follow God’s will?
  What good might come out of making a mistake?
• “He who loves life will lose it”. How does Lent help me refine my choices about what matters in life?
  Does this mean we should hate our lives and eschew pleasure of any kind?
• “He who loses his life, will save it”. What, in my life, must I lose in order to save it?
  What in my life must I “lose” to become spiritually and emotionally more healthy?
• When Jesus confessed that he was troubled, was that a surprise to you?
  Did you think He was just playing at being human until He could get back to being God again?
• Does doing God’s will mean we can escape pain?
• Do I sense God always walking with me on my journey, through good decisions and bad ones, through good times and bad ones?
• One description of surrender to God’s will is when our actions and thoughts flow from a heart turned to God. What method or discipline do I have that helps me listen to my heart?
  What do I need to be simplified and cleared away to help that listening process?
• Do I really “want to see Jesus”?
  What will it cost me?
• From Faith Book 2015:
  What kind of dying is asked of me in my service to Christ?
  Do I see the fruits in my life of that dying?
• What if I am afraid to answer God’s call completely, like the rich young man?
  Does that mean God will no longer love me?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Adapted from Father Walter Burghardt in Grace on Crutches:

Yes, you CAN see Jesus. The question is how? What does it mean to see Jesus…now?…to see Jesus here on earth is to encounter Him, to experience him, to come into contact with him… One way focuses on the people who touch your life day after day; another way focuses on you.

First focus on others…Jesus himself declared, in Matthew’s striking passage, that when we feed the hungry, slake the thirsty, when we clothe the naked and house the stranger, when we visit the ailing and the jailed, we are doing this to Him. Not just a favor to him; we are doing it to him. This would be a good time, during lent, to ask yourself if you are actively encountering others in the way Jesus is calling us to—not by donating money, not by sending an e-card, but by engaging actively with someone who could use some help. Do you ever actually get out of your little “bubble” and get your hands dirty? But it would be a mistake to identify Christ with the disadvantaged alone, to see His face only in the crucified. All of us reflect the face of the Lord. Do you look at those you love and think that you are seeing the eyes of Christ looking back at you? Can you hear the voice of Jesus in the needy friend or the annoying relative who is seeking your attention or the one who always screws up, is sorry, and needs bailing out? Are you grateful for the gift of others in your life?

But there is still another way of focusing on Him; by focusing on yourself. Look at yourself. At this moment, the living Christ, the Lord who died for you and rose for you, the risen Christ, is alive in your heart. Don’t take my word for it; listen to Him the night before He died: “If anyone loves me…my Father will love him, and we will come to her and make our home with him. What does all of this do to you—this gift of God dwelling within you? Concretely, do you encounter Christ? You, as intelligent love, have the power to give yourself freely, profoundly, totally to another; the power to make an unreserved gift of yourself to those you meet in life every day. Christ, in loving you, has made you loveable. Now what?

Christ is calling you, inviting you, attracting you, to a total self-giving in love and faith and hope. Can you say yes?

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship

Adapted from John Ortberg, What is God’s Will for my Life?:

Imagine that you are Jesus, and this trip to Jerusalem has made it clear to you that following the will of your Father is going to entail some difficult times ahead. This path you are on will probably get you killed. Are you sure this is what you should be doing at this moment? Do you wonder if you really need to go this far? Is there more left for you to do? Are you afraid? Do you toy with the idea that there might be another way to do the will of your Father?

Jesus follows a tradition which we see in scripture of those struggling to do the will of God when they have moments of doubt, when they are troubled and worried about the path they are on. As John Ortberg puts it:

The sequence in the Bible is usually not:

• Calling
• Deep feeling of peace about it
• Decision to obey
• Smooth sailing

Instead it’s usually:

• Calling
• Abject terror
• Decision to obey
• Big problems
• Repeat several times
• Deeper faith

Just look at the exodus from Egypt. Man, were there second thoughts! And those second thoughts in no way were an indication of God’s displeasure, nor were they in any way a prediction of the future of the Israelites. Ortberg again:

It took God one day to get Israel out of Egypt. It took 40 years to get Egypt out of them. Even in scripture, God’s call is met with resistance: Think Moses, Jonah, The Rich Young Man, Isaiah. But when in the Bible does God ever give anybody an easy job? When does God ever call somebody, set before them an open door, and say to them “This won’t inconvenience you much. You can polish this task off in a couple of minutes. I don’t really want it to be a burden on you”? Never. God never says it will be easy. What he does say is ‘I will go with you”.

Speak to Jesus about his experience and about yours. Where are you troubled? Where does the way not seem clear? Where are you afraid? Ask for His strength and His help as you live out a particular decision to follow God’s will in your life right now.

Literary Reflection:

Read the following poem by Denise Levertov. What does it say about placing our present and future in the hands of God?

As swimmers dare
to lie face to sky
and water bears them;
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace

Closing Prayer

Sometimes Lord, I think my prayers consist of a constant desire for life to work out on my terms. How often I say “Your will be done”, but really mean “my will be done”. Help me to remember that you are always with me, in good times, but especially in bad times. You know what is means to suffer, to be rejected, to be abandoned. You understand my fears because you have been there. Help me to trust in your presence in my life.

Commentary on John 12:20–33 from “Living Space”

Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33

We are just one week away from Holy Week and our celebration of God’s love for us in Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. Today we look at the meaning of what Jesus did for us. Jesus is the fulfilment of the New Covenant that Jeremiah prophesied about in the First Reading.

In today’s Gospel, some Greeks, probably converts to Judaism, approach Philip (whose name is Greek), saying: Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip tells Andrew (also a Greek name) and they both go with the request to Jesus. We are not told if those men ever did see Jesus, but we do know what seems at first sight the rather strange response that Jesus gave to his disciples: Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.

The grain, of course, does not actually die, but is totally transformed into something completely new: roots, leaves and fruit. Similarly, a caterpillar lets go of being a caterpillar to become transformed into something altogether different and often much more beautiful – a moth or butterfly.

Seeing Jesus

To see Jesus is not just to look at him, which is what those Greeks presumably wanted (recall the curiosity of the tax collector, Zacchaeus, who climbed a sycamore tree to get a better look at Jesus as he passed by underneath.) To see Jesus is to enter totally into his way of thinking, to understand why he had to suffer and die and rise again.

Like the grain of wheat, Jesus has to let go of everything, including his own life, in order to bring new life to himself and those who believe in him. In the process, both he and we will be transformed. If we cannot see this as the core of Jesus’ life, we have not really seen him.

But Jesus goes further and says we must have the same way of thinking: Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

And, if we want to be close to Jesus, we have to walk his Way: Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

It means walking with Jesus and with Mary all the way to Calvary, wherever that happens to be for each of us.

Ready to let go and let God

Are we ready for that? Are we afraid to let everything go? Is Jesus asking too much? Let us have no doubt, Jesus himself was afraid, deeply afraid:

Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour’? It is clear that is the prayer Jesus would like to pray. The Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews puts it graphically: In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death… Letting go did not come any more easily to Jesus than it does to us. But, after his prayer, when he sweat blood in fear and trembling, he was able to say “yes” because: Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him… As Jesus himself says at the end of today’s Gospel:

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

“Lifted up” refers to the cross:

He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

But “lifted up” also refers to the glory of the Father where we are invited to follow.

So today, let us learn to see Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospel. The Jesus who let go of everything for us and who invites us to be with him all the way. Let us pray for his courage and his trust in his Father, that the life and happiness and fulfilment we all long for is in that letting go and letting God.

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 10, 2024

Gratitude for God’s love and the gift of Jesus

John 3:14–21

Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness,
so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned,
but whoever does not believe stands condemned already
because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
19 This is the verdict:
Light has come into the world,
but people loved darkness instead of light
because their deeds were evil.
20 Everyone who does evil hates the light,
and will not come into the light
for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light,
so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done
has been done in the sight of God.

Music Meditations

• Jesus the Light of the World—The Rose Ensemble with Time O’Brien
• Sogno de Volare--Christopher Tin (a Stanford grad)
• Ode to Joy--Beethoven
• Goodness of God--CeCeWinans

Opening Prayer

God, You love the world. This is my faith, Lord. Sometimes it seems to be against the evidence when floods, earthquakes, droughts and tsunamis devastate poor people… Central to my faith is the figure of Jesus, lifted up on the cross, knowing what it is to be devastated and a failure, but offering Himself in love for us. I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.

Companions for the Journey

GOD’S LOVE IN JESUS CHRIST: 4th SUNDAY OF LENT B

By Brian Gleeson CP <bgleesoncp@gmail.com>

Are you and I being saved? If so, how?

When I was going to Catholic elementary school a long time ago, Christian teaching was taught by the question-and-answer method. One question the catechism asked was this: ‘Why do we call Good Friday “good”?’ It answered in these words: ‘We call that day “good”, on which Jesus Christ died, because his death has shown how much he loves us, and has brought us so many blessings.’ The answer endorses the famous and treasured saying in the gospel of John today: ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life’ (3:16) So St Paul of the Cross, Founder of the Passionists, has called the Passion and Death of Jesus, ‘the greatest and most overwhelming work of God’s love’.

But in telling and re-telling the story of what Jesus did and what happened to him, not everyone has highlighted God’s love. Take the stirring hymn, ‘How Great Thou Art’, which ranks in the top five of nearly every survey of most-loved hymns in the English-speaking world! (It rocketed to fame in Billy Graham’s 1954 London Crusade). I can comfortably join in the singing about wandering through the forests, looking down from lofty mountain grandeur, feeling the gentle breeze, and praising the greatness of their Creator. I can join in the fourth verse about looking forward to the joy of that day, when Jesus will come to take me home to God. But when it comes to the third verse, I have to stop singing the words, because they seem to suggest that Jesus died as a substitute sacrifice for my sins!

And when I think that God his Son not sparing
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in.
That on the Cross my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin.

No! God the Father did not send his Son into the world to die on the cross. Only a monster God would do such a thing. The Father sent his Son to live and love – to show and tell everyone, just how real and deep, how everlasting and unchanging, is God’s love for all human beings, bar none.

On the part of Jesus, his response to God was to be faithful to his mission from God – to make God’s kingdom of truth, love, healing, peace, and joy, happen everywhere on earth. No matter what happened to him, Jesus would not take back his commitment to that mission. But the response of his enemies was to reject God and kill Jesus. So, it was not God who created the cross, but human beings. Human malice, scorn, and hatred put Jesus on the cross. So, the cross is, first of all, a symbol of human sinfulness. In the second place, it is also a symbol of continuing divine love and fidelity. In fact, ‘God the Father both inspired Jesus with courage and love and waited on his free decision to suffer for mankind’ (Gerald O’Collins, echoing Thomas Aquinas).

The response of God the Father to the rejection of Jesus by human beings, and to the fidelity of God’s Son, was to raise him from the dead. So, God remained loving and faithful, despite human infidelity, and hostility. Indeed, in raising Jesus to life and glory, ‘God transforms the brutal and wicked act of crucifixion into an event that brings healing and liberation’ (Denis Edwards) to all who connect to the cross.

It would be a big mistake to isolate the death of Jesus from his life and ministry before it. It must be seen as the climax of the way he lived, the result of all he did and endured for the coming of the kingdom of God. The evidence of the bible suggests that Jesus was expecting both a premature and violent death, the lot of the prophets before him. It even seems that he adopted a kind of ‘bring it on’ attitude when he drove out the buyers and sellers from the Temple. But, as he saw it, what awaited him was not disaster but destiny. He accepted his cruel and unjust death, trusting that not only was it necessary for the kingdom of God to happen, but that his beloved Father (his Abba), would vindicate him, and do so personally. His trust, of course, was richly rewarded, rewarded when he rose in his body from the grave.

Salvation in Jesus may lead us to reflect with Christopher Monaghan CP: ‘God loves us with a love that is so deep that we cannot even begin to plumb its depths… In John’s gospel, Jesus is lifted up to lead us home, not to judge or condemn, but to give us life. We all need beacons in the dark that point us in the right direction, and Jesus lifted up on the cross is that beacon that will bring us safely home.’

Further reflection:

• Sermon for Fourth Sunday of Lent (year B) >>
• Reflections on Fourth Sunday in Lent (B) from “First Impressions” >>

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

For God so loved the world that He gave His only son…

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• How hard is it for me to get rid of the notion that Jesus had to die to redeem us from our sins?
  What kind of God would demand this?
• “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world”… do I really believe this?
  Do I see the death of Jesus as an indictment by God of my sinfulness?
• Do I see the cross as a symbol of guilt and remorse or as a source of renewal, life, liberation and joy? (Merton)
• Are there places in my heart when light has never shone?
  What can I do to bring the light in?
• Some have said that it is through the cracks that the light gets in. Are there cracks in my armor or in my defenses that let others in?
  That let God in?
• What am I grateful for?
• Has anyone in my life been a mirror of God’s love for me? Have I told her so?
• Have I ever withheld love from someone who clearly wanted my love?
  What was my reason? (I disapproved of his actions, she irritated me, or I like the power that this person’s apparent “neediness” gave over me, or something else)
  Is that what I think God would do?
• How can prayer make me more aware of God’s light in the world?
• How can prayer help me shine that light on others?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

“God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end. Not because thousands of people have been converted and are not praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found.” (Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p.114)

God is continually offering us the opportunity to rejoice with him at his holy banquet, if we can tear ourselves away from our own affairs to attend. What in your life distracts you from being joyful in the Lord? What can you do during this Lenten season to slow down and take joy in God’s love and care for you?

How are joy and gratitude related? What are you grateful for this very moment? If you cannot think of anything, ask yourself what is blocking you from the simple appreciation of the good things you do have in favor of bemoaning the things you don’t have. Once you have come up with something (or maybe even many things to be grateful to God for, sit in God’s presence, expressing your thankfulness and joy.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

We all know someone who is not quite satisfied with his/her gifts. Perhaps she wishes to be taller, more athletic; perhaps he wishes to be smarter, a better artist, or to have a talent for acting. Resolve to spend some time this week reinforcing his sense of giftedness, or helping her to see that she is God’s work of art. (from Songs of Life: Psalm Meditations from the Catholic Community at Stanford)

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

“Before a word is on my tongue you know it, O Lord, through and through. For it was you who created me in my being, knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139)

Think of all the times God’s love and providence has been active in your personal history. Which events stand out? Write them down, then compose your own psalm of gratitude, ending each phrase with “Your love endures forever”.

Literary Reflection

from Denise Levertov, late of the Stanford English Department:
How does this poem look at John 3:16? Does it cause awe? Gratitude? Wonder? Humility?
All of the those emotions?

“On the mystery of the Incarnation”

It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

Literary Reflection:

Read the following poem by Wendell Berry. Does it describe how we as humans generally respond to the gifts God has bestowed? Can you see ways in which our ingratitude for the very life and goods of this world have harmed it?

“Two Questions”

If you provided a marriage feast
and the thankless guests crowded
at the table getting the food
without tasting it, and shoving
one another away, so that some ate
too much and some ate nothing,
would you not be offended?

If, seated at your bountiful table,
your guests picked and finicked
over the food, eating only a little,
refusing the wine and the dessert,
claiming that to fill their bellies
and rejoice would impair their souls,
would you not be offended?

Some more poetry to enjoy:

“JOY”

When it comes back to teach you
or you come back to learn
how half alive you’ve been,
how your own ignorance and arrogance
have kept you deprived—
When it comes back to you
or you yourself return,
joy is simple, unassuming.
Red tulips on their green stems,
Early spring vegetables, bright in the pan.
The primary colors of a child’s painting,
The first lessons, all over again.

—Thomas Centolella from Lights and Mysteries

“Praying”

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones, just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest, but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

—Mary Oliver, from Thirst

Closing Prayer

Lord, we stumble around in the darkness, not realizing that the light of Your love is all around us, if we but open the eyes of our hearts and souls… Let us, as You did on that cross, turn our disappointment and sufferings into love for others

Sermon for Fourth Sunday of Lent (year B)

Are you getting tired of Lent, yet? If this were the fourth Sunday of Advent, we’d be nearly done with the purple of penitence and preparation. We would be anticipating the celebration of Christ’s coming in less than a week – Christmas Eve would be just around the corner!

But this isn’t Advent. It’s Lent. We have a ways to go before the end of this 40-day journey into the wilderness. There are still two more weeks before we can wave palm branches at the entry into Holy Week. We have three more weeks to fast and pray and prepare our hearts for Christ’s resurrection on Easter morning.

Here in the middle of Lent, we could sure use some joy. I think that’s why, centuries ago, someone thought it would be a good idea to make the fourth Sunday of Lent be Laetare Sunday, a Sunday when we get to ‘rejoice in the Lord.’ It’s kind of like that third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, when we light a rose-colored candle instead of a dark purple one. And what better gospel passage to bring us joy, than the third chapter of John? This is where we find the famous verse that sums up the whole gospel message – “For God so loved the world…”

And this brings us to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a rabbi, who comes to Jesus under cover of darkness. Maybe Rabbi Nic comes to Jesus at night to keep his conversation a secret from the other Pharisees. Maybe he doesn’t want to admit publicly that he is in contact with Jesus.

Or maybe he was only trying to speak with Jesus when he had a better chance to spend some significant time in conversation, after the crowds have left for the day. Whatever motivation caused Nicodemus to wait until darkness had fallen, his appearance at night is unusual enough that later, when Nicodemus re-enters the story (7:50), he is referred to as “the one who came to Jesus at night.”

It’s pretty clear that Nicodemus comes to Jesus in a state of confusion and spiritual blindness, and he can’t seem to grasp what Jesus is trying to teach him. Whether he’s being stubborn or simply misguided in his lack of understanding, Nicodemus is completely in the dark when it comes to comprehending how God actually works.

It’s also clear that Nicodemus has been keeping an eye on Jesus. He has seen him teaching in the synagogues, and he recognizes that Jesus teaches with an authority he himself would never dare to claim. The conversation Jesus has with Nicodemus is focused on the idea of new birth, of being born both of flesh and of spirit. When Nicodemus leaves Jesus, we aren’t sure if he has decided to become a disciple or not. We won’t know that for several more chapters.

But after Jesus speaks to him, Jesus turns to us, and begins to speak in second person plural terms. He is addressing all of us when says, “If I tell you all of earthly things, like wind and water, and you don’t get it, how will you be able to grasp heavenly things, like spirit and rebirth?” (v 13) Jesus continues to speak:

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (John 3:14-21)

Throughout the Gospel of John, we find an emphasis on the contrast between light and dark. In the opening prologue, John writes, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light” (1:5) and a few verses later, “The light was in the world, and the world came into being through the light, but the world didn’t recognize the light.” (1:10)

And now Jesus says, “this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” (v 19) These are harsh words. They don’t have the same “warm fuzzy” feel of that familiar verse that starts “God so loved the world…” These words sound harsh because Jesus isn’t talking to someone else. He’s talking directly to us.

Here in the heart of Lent, God calls us into a face-to-face conversation. We aren’t hearing a nice story about Rabbi Nic’s encounter with Jesus. Nicodemus has gone home. We are the ones looking Jesus in the eye. He is talking directly to you and to me and to everyone who claims him as Lord and Savior. Ours are the deeds that are being held up to the light in judgment. And ours is the belief that is being called into question. Do we really believe in Jesus as the Son of God? Where is the evidence? How does that belief show itself in the things we do? When our deeds are held up to the light, is it clear that they have been “done in God?”

We don’t like to talk about judgment much. We don’t like to think about those who are condemned already because they have not believed in the Son of God. And we sure don’t like to have our behavior scrutinized for its godliness. Because we know we fall short. Every one of us falls short. We all need God’s grace, that ‘unmerited favor’ God offers to everyone he loves.

If you don’t get anything else out of John’s gospel, be sure you get this: God loves you. These words of Jesus go deep into describing the way God loves us – not “how much,” but how.

• God loves us by lifting up his Son so we can believe in him. (14-15)

• God loves us by sending his only Son to give us eternal life (16)

• God loves us by saving us from our sin (17) – not just our petty little everyday sins but from all our Sin with a capital S.

• God loves us by shining the light of Christ into the dark places in our lives, the places where we try to hide our sin (19)

• God loves us by drawing us into the light, so that what we do is “done in God” (21)

Why would God bother to love us in this way? Why doesn’t God just write us off as a loss? It seems rather foolish of God to waste divine love on our sorry lot. But that’s who God is. God loves us because of God, not because of our worthiness. God loves us because God is love. That’s the primary identity out of which God operates.

God is willing to be a fool for love, giving us his own self, even when we don’t deserve it, can’t grasp it, and don’t love him back. He keeps loving us through it all. He keeps loving us through our rebellion, through our complacency, through our poor attempts to keep control in our own hands. If this were anyone but God, we’d laugh at how foolishly he loves.

For God loved the world in this way: that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

How are you like Nicodemus? What keeps you in the dark, preventing you from turning toward the light? How do you try to keep your faith hidden, or separated from the other parts of your life? What assumptions do you hold onto, that prevent you from experiencing the peace that comes from confessing Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, and trusting in his grace alone? What keeps you from naming Jesus as your Lord and being born anew of the Spirit?

Remember the rich young ruler who went away sorrowful because he had many possessions? We never know the end of his story, because the gospels never mention him again. But we do hear from Nicodemus again – twice. The first time, he defends Jesus to the other Pharisees and priests, asking the other leaders to give Jesus a fair trial (7:50). The last time we see him, he is at the foot of the cross, with Joseph of Arimathea, taking down Jesus’ broken body and preparing it for burial with an unusually large amount of spices (19:39).

Did he finally come into the light? Did he eventually experience a spiritual birth? I think so. I think his actions demonstrate an awakening to the light of belief in the Son of God. Nicodemus shows us that sometimes we don’t get a struck-by-lightning experience. Sometimes, the process of claiming Jesus as Lord and Savior takes a while. Some of us can’t identify a single moment when we suddenly realize our salvation is secure, but we still claim Christ’s grace, and we confess Jesus as our Lord.

Is Jesus calling you out of the darkness, into the light of his saving grace? Are you ready to make him Lord of your entire life, not just the part that you think of as “belonging to church”? Are you ready to step out of the darkness, and into the light of God’s love for you? For God loved you in this way: he gave his only Son, so that if you believe in him, you will not perish but you will have eternal life.

It’s no accident that Lent began on Valentine’s Day this year. This is how God loved the world. The cross is the ultimate expression of God’s love. Craig Keener writes, “No where in this Gospel does God say, ‘I love you’; rather, he demonstrates his [seemingly foolish] love for humanity by self-sacrifice (13:34, 14:31), and demands the same practical demonstration of love from his followers.” [1]

Throughout this season of Lent, some of you have been reading Michael Frost’s book, Surprise the World. Each week, we’ve practiced new ways of demonstrating tiny sacrifices of self – from blessing others with words of encouragement and acts of kindness, to giving up our regular eating habits so we can share a table with someone else. These are all ways to lift up the cross of Christ – not in condemnation, but in love. As you leave today, I’d like you to accept a small gift. It’s a pin that shows a cross and heart fused together. You can wear it as reminder of the way God loves you. And you can also wear it as a conversation starter. If someone asks you about it, you can tell them you wear it to remember the way God loves you. Let the Holy Spirit take it from there.

[1] Craig Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volume 1, 566-67.