The Greatest Challenge

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enemies, forgive, Jesus, kindness, light-beings, love, Matthew, praye, random acts of kindness, Sermon on the Mount, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

People thought Jesus was crazy – or maybe they hadn’t really heard him correctly the day he preached that “Sermon on the Mount” (MT 5-7). He was certainly a charismatic preacher who drew people in easily by his powerful words and the way he treated people. On this day, however, he crossed into the territory of the outrageous with a challenge to his listeners.

“You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. (Okay so far) But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” That’s just ridiculous. How can you call someone your enemy if you love them and pray for them? Impossible, right?

That was obviously the point but we still don’t understand the depth of meaning in his words. We say things like: “Well, I can love her but I don’t have to like her.” That’s rather absurd, don’t you think? But how could Jesus be (still) asking us to love everyone? What about the tyrants, murderers and other individuals who perpetrate the horrific crimes that make the news every day? How is it possible to love them?

I admit that this is one gospel passage whose essence still escapes my embrace but I do believe that when we achieve that ability to forgive and truly understand the breadth of God’s love, the world will truly be saved. I need to trust that such a possibility exists and that I can be part of the realization. The only way forward as I see it, however, is consistent prayer and imaging of ourselves as light-beings, bringing God’s love to the world. Unless we believe that, it will never happen. And if we continue to say we believe it without the sustained practice that will effect a change, nothing will be achieved.

Start small with acts of kindness and prayer for someone in your life whom you avoid as often as possible. One by one, accept those “enemies” and then move on to the bigger challenges on the world stage. It’s the only way for all of us – starting now!

Found In Translation

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debts, fidelity, forgive, hallowed, love, Luke, Matthew, Peace, praying, Sermon on the Mount, spiritual path, The Lord's Prayer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trespasses

The gospel in today’s lectionary is probably the most commonly known prayer in Christianity: The Lord’s Prayer, also known as The Our Father. The text is found in two of the four canonical gospels, Matthew (6:9-13) and Luke (11:2-4). Most of us know it as it comes from Matthew’s version, appearing in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. Reading Luke this morning made me think that his version might have been easier to learn for children who had trouble memorizing prayers; it’s very succinct and yet seems to cover all the requisite items for our living. It comes in Luke’s gospel as the response of Jesus when he himself was praying and one of his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. Luke reports him telling them: “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed (holy) be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.” Period – the end.

On second thought, although the words may be easier to learn than those of Matthew, there is a tiny word that changes things for those trying to practice what they pray. In Matthew we hear: “Forgive us our debts (trespasses) as we forgive…” Does it mean: “to the extent that (or in the way that) we forgive others?” Luke seems to think that our forgiveness of others is a foregone conclusion – something already done – by using the word “for” meaning “because” in that same sentence.

As I get mired in these semantics, I remember that translation is not an exact science and everything I’m writing could be challenged by scholars of Aramaic and Greek and Latin… My point is only and always to delve into what can bring us closer to God on our spiritual path and what can motivate us to treat others as Christ would have us love them. So let us say our prayers and get about the day’s work in peace and the promise of fidelity, to the best of our ability today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raqa!

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anger, baby, emotions, empty, human being, inflammatory, Lenten journey, Matthew, miracle of God's creation, negativity, Peace, politics, presidential campaign, Raqa, respect, reverence, Sanhedrin, Sermon on the Mount, spiteful, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, useless, venomous language

Yesterday one of my housemates received a text from her nephew with a sonogram image of his expected child. His wife is only three months pregnant, yet the technology was so clear that we could already see the brain forming in his (yes, it’s a boy!) well-formed head. We marveled at the amazing miracle of how this baby – and all of us – are formed in our mother’s womb. I was reminded this morning of how babies need do nothing in order to garner the attention of anyone who crosses their path. We are all in awe of the beauty and wonder of such an amazing creation. What happens to us as we age that causes us to forget how to reverence one another?

In today’s gospel (MT 5: 20-26) – near the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus is speaking about a deeper way to follow the commandment, “You shall not kill.” He says, “…whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin…” The Sanhedrin was the supreme religious body in the land of Israel, comparable to the US Supreme Court. I always just passed over raqa when that reading appeared, figuring that it meant something mean that was said in Hebrew by someone who was angry. Today, I decided to research it and found that I was correct to a point but that raqa speaks of a kind of anger that erupts from someone whose anger is dangerously spiteful. Raqa means useless, empty and of no value. These days we call that kind of language used against another verbal abuse. When someone hurls those words at another person, it is as if the word becomes an arrow, piercing to the heart, and the damage can be devastating.  No wonder Jesus was so emphatic in his critique.

All this brings to mind the venomous language that is present in the political sphere during a campaign for an important office. Sometimes it is not only the candidates who denigrate their opponents but those in the different supporting  “camps” who are drawn in to such inflammatory rhetoric. We are in such a moment in our country now and need to take care, lest we lose ourselves in negativity rather than make intelligent choices on the issues.

In our personal lives as well we need to take care to monitor our emotions. Proceeding on our Lenten journey, let us seek out people and experiences that will remind us of the miracle of God’s creation that is the human being. Moreover, let us treat one another with respect and reverence, eschewing anger at its beginning to avoid any words that we may regret for the damage they inflict on another person. Peace be our path today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Treasure

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books, heart of God, Jesus, Matthew, relationships, Sermon on the Mount, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, there also will your heart be, treasure, Where your treasure is

The more I reflect on the words of Jesus, the more I realize how great a role the process of discernment must play in life. Each section – sometimes each line – of Matthew’s rendering of the Sermon on the Mount (Ch. 5-7) strikes a chord worthy of some consideration. Today there’s consideration of what constitutes treasure in our lives. As I look around my room it is clear that my most treasured possessions are books – not just words on a screen but actual, physical books that I can hold in my hand, feeling the texture of paper as I turn the pages, savoring the musty smell of the oldest of them…you get the picture. But then I think that more important treasure for me lies in relationships, beginning with family and community, multiplied with the hundredfold of friends and teachers, co-workers and guides that have carried me forward in life and led me to the greatest treasure of all: life in God.

If I’m honest I have to admit that sometimes I get sidetracked into “treasure” that seems to be gold but turns out to be dust. I think we all get hooked in that way, at least occasionally. The way of vigilance in avoiding that kind of temptation is simply offered in MT 6:21 where Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” So I ask myself today if I could let go of my books if necessary…and if I recognize that some relationships are forever but some are purposed for a particular time in life…and I look to my heart for surrender, reminding myself to always set my heart in the heart of God.

Hard Questions

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bad and good, commandment, John, love, love one another, love your enemies, Matthew, pray, radical message, Sermon on the Mount, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The gospel acclamation for this morning heralded the radical message about a new commandment that was about to be proclaimed. The verse from John that preceded the gospel says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” (JN 13:34). That alone would be enough for more than a day’s reflection. But the message from Matthew (5:43-48) that winds up the Sermon on the Mount must have put a shocking conclusion on what was already foreign territory for the listeners of Jesus. It may cause us a bit of soul-searching too. Read it aloud if you will: You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes the sun rise on the bad and the good and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is so unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?

A Higher Law

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covenant, creation, Deuteronomy, God, heart, Israelites, Jesus, letting go, Lord, love, Matthew, perfect, perfection, Sermon on the Mount, soul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Much more comfortable with readings that speak plainly of love than of law, I wasn’t thrilled this morning to see Deuteronomy show up with a first line of “this day the Lord God commands you…” I was pleasantly surprised, however as I read on and heard that the observation of the law was to be not with the mind and will (although that would necessarily be involved) but with “all your heart and all your soul.” The entire section (DT 26:16-19) was based on an agreement that sounded quite mutual, resulting in the Israelites becoming “a people peculiarly his own, as he promised.”

Jesus took this theme and expanded it at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (MT 5:43-48) – an extraordinary section that calls us to love those we would not and sometimes think we could not: our enemies and those who hate us. There is that line at the end that people (including myself) are always trying to translate in a softer way than what we learned as children. It says be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. What dawned on me this morning, however, in putting the two readings together (I really am a slow learner sometimes!) is that the perfection is not the perfection that comes from the mind – working hard at while still resisting internally what the “law” calls for. Rather, Jesus is talking about that law of the covenant in Deuteronomy, that agreement of God with his people that comes from the heart and the soul. That law is not about resisting anything but rather letting go of what holds us back and allowing love to flow through us as God does in the entire creation. The perfection of love is what God already is. It is only in God that we can accept the terms of this law and move toward it each day anew so that, in the end, when we see God “face to face” we will recognize ourselves in God’s eyes the way that God already sees us.

In the Cloud

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a cloud of witnesses, access lives of holy people, Auschwitz, Catholic Worker, Dalai Lama, Dorothy Day, Hebrews, Jesus, Maximilian Kolbe, Pope John Paul II, Rev. Michael Himes, saint, Sermon on the Mount, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Paul, the cloud, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

These days when we speak of “the cloud” many of us are aware that the reference is not to the weather. The latest technological “storage facility” is still a mystery to many but for others it is a great revelation and advance.

In today’s first reading (HEB 12:1-4) Paul urges: Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us …He is speaking, of course of what the Church calls “the communion of saints.” Once I heard Rev. Michael Himes, theology professor at that time at Boston College, use that reference as one of the best reasons for the continuance of the Catholic/Christian Church (and I would expand the notion to include other faith traditions for it seems appropriate in the broader sense as well). What he was implying was our freedom and ability to access the lives of these “holy people of God” across the centuries for examples of faith, perseverance, service and love. We may, in an imaginal way (which is not to say imaginary but rather with our deeper intuition), “have conversation with” those who lived in the first century – dropping in on the listeners to the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps, or sitting with the apostles gathered on the beach for breakfast with Jesus after the Resurrection. We can follow St. Francis of Assisi as he did his best to “rebuild the Church” in the 1200’s or accompany Catherine of Siena as she courageously led the Pope back to Rome from Avignon in 1377. In our own time we might ask Dorothy Day about her fervent service to the poor at the Catholic Worker. “How did you do it?” we might ask, “giving everything …open to everyone?” Or maybe it’s Maximilian Kolbe who gave his life in exchange for a family man at Auschwitz and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982 who puts a modern face on the willingness of Jesus for us.

This year as we celebrate the 100th birthday of Thomas Merton, I see in my mind pictures of him sitting in conversation with the Dalai Lama and know that deep sharing can bring the understanding of which Paul speaks today. We often hear folks say, “S/he was a saint,” when speaking of those newly departed from the earth. Why not look around – even as we look up or look in – to find conversation partners in that great cloud or still here in our midst.

Time Is Short

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beatitudes, Corinthians, Gentiles, hungry, Luke, Matthew, poor, Sermon on the Mount, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wake up call

Chapter 6 of Luke’s gospel is the alternative reading of the famous Beatitudes in Matthew 5: the “Sermon on the Plain” rather than “the Sermon on the Mount” which is perhaps an indicator of the content as well as a location since Luke speaks in a more “down to earth” way – about the “poor” rather than the “poor in spirit” and the “hungry” rather than those who “hunger and thirst for justice.” Luke’s gospel was written for the Gentiles, not those for whom Matthew wrote. Matthew’s audience was the “chosen people, a royal priesthood…” those waiting for the Messiah who would restore “the throne of David.” Luke was concerned about everybody else.

As I think of our world today I’m unable to separate the poor in Africa from those in the United States – or people in war-torn countries from myself. Because we have the benefit of knowing about anything we can Google, it’s difficult to exclude anyone from our circle of concern. It would be easier to be ignorant (which doesn’t really mean “stupid” but simply “unknowing”). There would be less to worry about, fewer issues to be considered.

The reason my thoughts went this way this morning, I’m sure, is the last line from Paul’s message to the Corinthians (1Cor 7:31) where he predicts that “the world in its present form is passing away.” There are many implications – hopeful as well as dire – in that one line that cause me to reflect on my place and responsibility as a world citizen. It sounds like a “wake up call” to me. Prayer, concern, education and action are all words that come to mind. I’d better get busy…

 

It’s the Law

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Deuteronomy, Jesus, Matthew, Moses, Sermon on the Mount, ten commandments, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

All of the readings this morning are focused on law. As we hear in Deuteronomy (CH 4), Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai as a way to live in the land that God was giving to his people. In giving the laws Moses instructed the people to “observe them carefully, for thus you will give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations…” He also warned the people, “Take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children’s children.” It seems then that the laws were not laid on people as a burden but as a guide to right and wise living and were made more intelligible if people looked at them in the light of their own experience. When I think of the Ten Commandments (which is admittedly only part of the Mosaic Law), I usually consider them as rather negative but if I look at them in terms of the culture of the time and fold in these words of Moses this morning, I see that perhaps, after the imperatives of the first three positive statements of how the Hebrews were to relate to God, the proscriptive 4th through 10th commandments were simpler to grasp for a people used to slavery and self-preservation as a way to survive. A new way to think about the Commandments, to be sure.

In the gospel today we find another reference to that Law. Jesus grew up reflecting on and living by it and it’s instructive that he said, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” By the time he arrived on earth, there had been some progress in the way the covenant with God was understood by the Hebrews. The statement from Matthew just quoted is part of the great Sermon on the Mount where Jesus lays out eight statements on how to become holy (“Blessed are…”). It seems then that the way to live a wise and intelligent life could be learned by reflection on the meaning of both sets of laws seen through the cultural filter of Jesus’ time as well as that of our day.

In our current large and litigious culture we might ask ourselves how we might articulate the law of God for Church and society. What would eliminate the rampant greed and violence and focus us again on the good and compassionate works that lead to holiness?