St. Ann Catholic Church | St. Louis, MO

[Take out and show a plastic kite.] One of the sayings that we heard a lot growing up was, “It’s easy as flying a kite.” I don’t know where that came from or who said it first but they didn’t live in my neighborhood! There would be days when I’d see the wind blowing in the tree tops, but nothing down on the street level. And no matter how fast you ran, that kite wouldn’t get airborne. On other days, when the wind was strong, it was tough to keep the kite in the air – it seems to have a kind of death wish that would spiral it into the ground or to the nearest tree. And even once the kite is high in the air soaring, farther and farther away, you risk the string breaking and the kite going free.

While flying a kite has never really been easy, it is thrilling, isn’t it? When you are holding that kite up in the air, it’s almost like you are there with it, soaring, flying. You imagination kicks into high gear, and the stresses of the world just seem to vanish. There is a particular joy -for people of all ages- to fly a kite on a windy and sunny spring day. It’s a great feeling, whenever we get to help something soar.

That’s the image I love most from about the feast of the Ascension we celebrate today. Jesus soars ahead of us, so that we too might soar. This feast of Jesus being raised up to heaven is less about what will happen to us after death than it is about how we are empowered to rise in our lives here on earth. Jesus and the Spirit of God which he gives us – inspires us, breathes through us, and connects us to that first wind that swept over the formless wasteland of earth, so that we can be re-created in our own lives, reach our potential, use and offer our gifts – to soar in and for the world as high as our efforts and our gifts and God’s spirit will take us. Isn’t that what we mean when we speak of a God who raises us up? Isn’t that the obvious image of the ascension of Jesus when he tells us that we must follow him? To fulfill our task, we are to use all of the gifts and energy at our disposal to lift ourselves and our world along with us. “You are witnesses of these things.” Jesus tells us. We are meant to soar, and we are meant to help others to soar as well.

That’s why I think flying a kite is such a great image, not just for the Ascension, but for Mother’s Day. After all, while we acknowledge that we are called to go where Jesus went, it is often our moms, or the mother figures in our lives who prepare us for that journey.

Mothers spend a lifetime trying to get their children off the ground. They run breathless with us trying to get us to launch; they watch with sadness as we sometimes spiral and crash. They pick us out of the tree and patch and comfort, adjust and teach, all the while assuring us that someday we will fly. Hopefully and finally, they see us lifted by the wind and soaring in love of God and service of our neighbor. And though it is a bittersweet moment, whether on graduation day or a wedding day or the first child or whenever – that experience of seeing your children soar is the reward of your vocation.

That is why Jesus can be so serene, as we hear in Luke’s account, when he leads them as ‘far as Bethany and is taken up to heaven.’ He knows the joy of seeing the potential for his disciples to soar. So the letting go is okay. The surrender is necessary. The disciples are meant to soar.

So, too, our seniors and those transitioning on from this community – the same image applies – you too, are meant to soar, to take the love you have known and experienced in this community to all the places you will go. To know that you have been commissioned as disciples, and to go from this place with the intent of helping all of our brothers and sisters soar with God’s love.

[Pick up kite again] Here is what I know. Being made out of plastic and wood, this kite would last a long time if I just left it here in front of the altar. But that is not what kites are meant to do. They are meant to soar. So, too, you and I – we are meant to soar…to be witnesses of the love we know at this altar and this cross. In your prayer this week, take a lesson from a kite – and be ready to soar. [Pause] Better than that, take one from our ascended Lord.

Continue Reading

A few weeks ago, the Kempf family gathered at 7433 Brightwood Dr. to say “Goodbye” to our old house. We were finally closing on the house we grew up in, with mom well established at Our Lady of Life Senior apartments. So, before the new owners moved in, my family all gathered there one last time and walked room to room through this tiny house, sharing the memories of our time in its walls.

We laughed a lot. We found a few tears in our remembering. And it was comforting to hear that I was not the only one who was frightened of the old pantry that used to be in corner of the basement. I would dread the times when mom asked me to get a can of tomatoes from the pantry. “You’ll stay at the top of the steps, won’t you?” We were sure that as soon as we turned our back, SOMETHING was going to come from the shadows and ‘get us’ before we got to the steps.

Then it was time for a toast. We toasted the memories and blessings of our time there. We said we were sorry for any ways we did not love each other well there. We prayed for those who would come after us, the new residents of 7433 Brightwood Dr. And then we adjourned to light a few bottle rockets OUTSIDE, just for old time’s sake. (We were really sorry for the ones that went off inside the house years ago.)

It was good to look back, to remember the ways that my years growing up there had shaped me: The love; the fighting with my brothers, the simple goodness and immeasurable blessings of that time and place. The countless elements that go towards who I am now… and who I will somehow be forever.

Do you ever look back? Do you stop from time to time and read through an old journal; look at old photos; reflect back on the days of your life past? There are some I know who refuse to look back at all. “I’m not going there. The past was just too painful; I’ve blocked all of that out of my consciousness.” Others look back perhaps TOO eagerly, too wistfully, with a nostalgia that paints the past as prettier than it really was.

Today Jesus speaks to us of the importance of a healthy looking back. It is a value to him because he knows that there is a way that we can look back that will help us live this day. Speaking at that final meal he shares with them, he promises his frightened disciples ‘Peace, not as the world gives it.” Knowing that his crucifixion is staring him in the face, and will be such a difficulty for the disciples – he invites them to look back to this moment, to all the moments he has been with them. He says, “You don’t have to be afraid. Remember my words. I promised that I would always be with you. Stop sometimes, look back and see: I WAS there, wasn’t I? So, you can trust that I am with you now. And always will be.

Jesus knows our tendency to get so worked up, frightened and anxious. He never pretends that life will be easy. He knows we will suffer. He does not want us living in any form of denial, including distracting ourselves from the pain of living. But he doesn’t want us to get too far down that road of fear and anxiety. “Peace” he says. “I’ve made a dwelling with you. I will be with you. Remember that I have promised that. So that you can trust that I am with you now, look back and see I’ve been true to that promise. You were never alone. You never will be.”

It is that promise – of a peace, not like the world gives – that helps me get through. When I pause, in the middle of the rough times to remember how Jesus HAS ALWAYS been there, (not always in the way that I might have wanted) that ‘looking back’ helps me to trust going forward. It is one of the tools that helps me through the tough times…

How about you? Didn’t you survive the fact that your brother broke your favorite toy in 3rd grade; or that the girl you liked in 6th grade had a crush on someone else? It broke your heart when you buried your grandpa, but don’t you now have an extra compassion for others who are sad? You’ve healed from that broken leg, finished the first round of chemo; or whatever – wasn’t God there? And not just in the tough times, but in the good ones? Can you see that? In whatever you face at this time in your life, can you remember His words today, and choose again to trust?

Our little house at 7433 Brightwood Dr. has been sold. But all those memories and history are a part of me now. God was there. I knew that in the looking back. And because I looked back, I can trust that God WILL be HERE… each step of the rest of my days. And God will be with you, each day of the rest of yours.

Continue Reading

“Then, I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.” I don’t know about you, but I am very ready for that new heaven and new earth. I grow tired of reading the papers, watching the news, surfing the net only to hear the same, tired story of this murder or that tragedy or this lawsuit or that conflict. It is so tempting, just to unplug from the data stream – to do the ostrich thing of sticking my head in the sand.

Perhaps you feel that as well. It is so easy to want to escape from it all, to think that ‘that kind of stuff’ –whatever that might be – only happens to the people ‘out there’. The pull of hoping for a new heavens and a new earth, even if that hope is born in faith, can become a kind of spiritual escapism. Like those summer movies that provide a respite from the intensity of our problems and world, and the work that is ours to do, we lean on the scripture promise of a new heavens to bring us a kind of peace in a troubled world.

“Then, I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.” It is easy to see these words of John as precisely that – a kind of spiritual escapism. John, writing on that tiny island of Patmos, disconnected to the ‘data stream’ of life in Jerusalem, can ‘see’ God: “wiping away every tear from their eyes,” ending death, mourning, wailing and pain; “making all things new” at some point in the future.

What is easy to miss, in the passage from Revelations, is the little time bomb midst of those revelations. John tells us simply of the voice which says: “Behold, God’s dwelling IS with the human race.” Not will be, or used to be, but NOW, HERE, IN THIS PLACE and THIS TIME – God is with us. That is the truth that changes everything for John, his conviction that God IS WITH US, as he promised. It is that believing that allows him his bold kind of seeing, even in a world that was dominated by the reigns of the emperors Domitian and Nero – who initiated persecutions against the early church.

Living in a time of the tragedies in Newtown and now in Boston, and the countless lives that are lost daily to gun violence, it is sometimes hard to believe that God is with us. It is hard to ‘see’ that there could be a new heaven and a new earth coming to be. And that is where the work of our faith comes into the fore. We have to believe it before we see it.

Growing up, my mother dragged my brothers and I to the cafeteria at Our Lady of Providence for several weekends, beginning at thanksgiving. There we helped carry bags of clothes and toys and items to be given to the poor, and sometimes helped in the sorting through of the items. (and sometimes we just played) But I remember thinking I wish I could have the toy that I was putting into a box for some unknown family. “Mom, could I have this?” “No”, always came the answer. “The poor need it more than you do.” I don’t know if I was ever convinced by mom’s rationale that that was a true statement. But I was convinced by her love of people that she had never met, that this was worth the doing. Mom believed that God had a special love for the poor. Because of that belief, she saw the need of people who were struggling more than we were, and so she began the work of wiping tears away from kids at Christmas time with her clothing and toy drive. Because she believed, she saw that a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ needed to come to be, and she did what was in her power to create it.

John didn’t have much at his disposal on that island of Patmos – but a quill and some parchment – and the belief that God was indeed dwelling with his people. So he set down the vision that still calls each of us who are ever tempted to spiritual escapism. God is dwelling with us – so get busy comforting mourners, wiping tears from eyes, ending the same sad story that we read in the daily paper. There is a new heaven and a new earth coming to be. Believe it. See it. And then, like my mom, like John, like the countless generations of believers who have seen because they believe – get busy creating it.

Continue Reading

There is an unwritten liturgical rule somewhere which states that you may not have a funeral mass without the song “On Eagles Wings.” I don’t know where that law is, but it’s there somewhere. Yet, for all of its familiarity, that refrain resonates with us in a powerful way. It continues to make a promise about God’s commitment to us especially in the face of loss or tragedy or fear that is profound. (sung a capella): “And he will raise you up on eagles’ wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.”

That refrain could be inspired by any number of scripture passages, perhaps Isaiah 49:16, “See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name.” But I think today’s gospel is also a source of that promise, where Jesus assures his followers: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.”

“No one can take them out of my hand.” I can’t decide if we believe it because it is part of the deposit of scriptures or because we want so badly to believe it in the face of our own hurts and fears. Perhaps a little of both, but we do want so badly to believe, don’t we: that someone is holding us, that someone is protecting us, that we have a direction and a purpose and that life endures through the tough time. We need to believe that someone (sung) “holds us in the palm of his hand.”

When homemade bombs kill children and wound a cheering crowd, don’t we want to know that, that we are still held somehow and protected?

When an explosion at a factory, where people just like us work to eke out a living for their families, kills dozens of people, don’t we want to hold onto our belief that someone is holding the wives without husbands and children without mothers and fathers?

When our loved one is dying or terribly sick and we cannot help them or fix it or get their suffering out of our heads, don’t we want to believe that someone is leading us somewhere?

When we can’t make ends meet or things work out at home, when the grades aren’t right and the friends don’t work out, when things just haven’t gone as we planned, and we’re not sure when they will, don’t we at that point really want, perhaps even need, to hope in a Good Shepherd? Someone who (sung) “will raise us up on eagles’ wings…”

Isn’t that the power of the gospel, of the 10th chapter of John’s that is read on Good Shepherd Sunday every year? The promise that Jesus knows us, knows you and me, and we have a chance to hear his voice even in the midst of so much around us that might be calling us in other directions. The promise that we are not alone even though our loved ones have passed on or let us down. And more than that, that we are loved, held, safe no matter how great the storms and tribulations that shake us. Isn’t that the core teaching of Easter anyway, that Love conquers everything, even death? That we will not only get through what we’re going through, but actually rise because of it? Because as important as faith is for teaching us about life, so much of its power comes in its promise about death, all of the deaths that touch us large and small. It tells us that no one less than the source of all Love and Life has promised to raise us above those sadnesses to a greater love and a new day. Isn’t that, in fact, so much of what Jesus offers us, and what we, in trust, look for in a Savior? In a shepherd?

I was thinking how much our country needs this kind of shepherd in light of the tragedy at the Boston Marathon. So many people want to run this most historic and prestigious race, that you have to qualify to do so. Only 10 percent of marathoners can run well enough to do that. What must it have been like for them, then, to be able to share in the longest running marathon in U.S. history only to have that day of your great triumph stolen from you by senseless violence and tragedy? To have so many of the wounded suffer the amputation of the very legs that carried them to that finish line. It’s just wrong, and sad, and I don’t understand it.

But I don’t understand so much of life: cancer, violence, poverty, heart-break. It all just makes me want to cling all the more tightly to Jesus’ promises today. It reminds me of my need for a good Shepherd, my need to be protected against so much that I cannot control or manage or even understand. Perhaps it is your reflections on Boston that makes you know your need for a shepherd; or something else that triggers it for you. Whatever the experience that opens up in you the awareness of your need for a shepherd, let the words of that great song wash over you now, and in the moments of your struggle, with the promise of our God that you are always, always, always, held in the palm of a hand that will never, never let you go.

(Join with me in singing): “And He will raise you up on eagles’ wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.”

Continue Reading

For most of my life that I have been praying and studying scriptures, until 2:53 Saturday pm, I have pictured this scene in the gospel along the lines of a scene from Fiddler on the Roof. In the musical, there is this wonderful moment where Tevye, a man trying to hold to tradition in a rapidly changing world, asks his wife: “Do you love me?”

She answers by telling him all the things she has done for him. It’s not enough. Tevye persists:”Do you love me?” Golde answers: “I’m your wife.” He says, “I know. But do you love me?”

She then sings, “Do I love him? For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him, fought with him, starved with him, twenty-five years my bed is his. If that’s not love, what is?” Tevye concludes, “Then you love me?” She says, “I suppose I do.” He says, “And I suppose I love you too.” Together they sing: “It doesn’t change a thing. But even so, after twenty-five years, it’s nice to know.” (Lights fade to black…)

And in my mind, that is the scenario going on in today’s gospel. Jesus pulls Simon aside and has a little heart to heart, just as Tevye is using a moment when the room is quiet in the run up to Sabbath and he is alone with Golde to do the same. Jesus gives Simon a chance to make it right, to say aloud what he couldn’t say and do in the courtyard of Caiaphas. Three yes’s for the three No’s.

Yet, something in the text kept nagging at me. If this was in that context – a private one on one – why would Peter be hurt/embarrassed enough so as to say such strong words: “You know everything, you KNOW that I love you…” It’s overkill for that situation.

As I was praying/thinking about that, at 2:53pm, I suddenly realized what the gospel narrative DIDN’T say. It didn’t say that Jesus pulled Simon apart from the others. Nope. He asks this burley fisherman, right there in front of his peers, if he loves him! This is no warm, fuzzy scene from Fiddler on the roof anymore. Right there in front of the others – 3 times which would instantly remind the other disciples of the three times Peter denied him – he asks him about love, and tells him the consequence of it.

And then the other piece clicked into place. Our tradition always speaks about the “Primacy of Peter” – his role as ‘head’ of the apostles. The image of Peter being the one to haul in the net with 153 fish (the number of known ‘countries’ in the world at that time according to some scholars), is symbolic of him exercising that function, and of that primacy. And now, very publically, he is being asked about his love for Jesus. Jesus is up to something!

This is the commissioning moment for Peter. This is not a sentimental ‘Fiddler” moment, but the rock hard, put your feet to the road moment. Jesus says to Simon: “Peter, it is not about fishing anymore. It is not about going back to life as it used to be any more. DO YOU LOVE ME – then get to work! Do you love me?” then feed my sheep! Do you love me? Then be the leader of this motley crew that I am commissioning to bring my good news to the corner of the world. Oh, and by the way, it will cost you. You’ll be led to places you would rather not go, to do things that you would rather not do. This is what I ask of you in my love for you – to go where I send you.”

Do you hear that difference in the unfolding of this scene in the gospel. Certainly we can pray about in in the context a chance to tell Jesus that we love him and to let him tell us in the Eucharist he loves us too. But that is not the most important part of this scene in the gospel.

Feeding my lambs! Tending my sheep! – that is what matters. So, too, for us. The Lord appears to us and asks US whether we love him. If so, there is a bill in the Missouri legislature – #446 that would preclude any possibility of mediations for people in the foreclosure process that many people are still struggling with. Social workers and local governments think this is a bad idea. A section of the banking community thinks it is a GREAT idea. (hmm…) Find out about it and make a response. Or, our bishops are encouraging us to stand up for religious liberty in the face of the HHS mandate which would deny the conscience rights of employers. And to make a stand for the scriptural definition of marriage as defined by God as something between a man and a woman. There are prayers to be prayed and fasts to be undertaken and congressmen to be written to. And on the local level, the Vincent de Paul society continues to do that feeding and tending and supporting the poor in the very tangible way Jesus asked Peter to do… Give them a hand.

“Do you love me?” Tevye asks Golde. “I suppose I do.” “It doesn’t change a thing,” they both sing, but “it’s nice to know.”

“Do you love me?” Jesus asks us. “We suppose we do,” – that’s why we’re here this morning. But, unlike the play, this changes EVERYTHING….

Continue Reading

When Yosef saw that his seventeen-year-old granddaughter, Eli, had gotten a tattoo on her arm, Yosef began to cry. It was not so much that Eli had gotten a tattoo. It was the nature of the tattoo she got. Eli’s tattoo was this sequence of numbers: 1-5-7-6-2-2

When grandpa saw it, with tears in his eyes, he bent his head and kissed the new tattoo on Eli’s left forearm. You see, Yosef has the same tattoo: the number 157622. The number was permanently inked on his own arm by the Nazis at the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Nearly 70 years later, his granddaughter, Eli, got hers after a high school trip to Auschwitz. Eli wanted her grandpa to know that she stood in solidarity with him in his suffering, and that she would not forget the oppression that he – and millions of others – experienced at the hands of the Nazis.

There is something profoundly bonding when we know that someone else is with us in our suffering. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the best people to work with alcoholics in recovery are recovering alcoholics. Or why there are so many support groups for grieving parents led by parents who themselves have lost a child. When we know that the other has suffered as we have suffered, somehow we can trust their love, their outreach, their compassion for us.

Today’s gospel tells us plainly: “Then he showed them his hands and his side.” It was important for the resurrected Jesus to do that for his disciples. In part, he does that because it is a proof that he was who they thought he was – that there is continuity from his earthly life to his resurrected life. Jesus is still marked by the scars of his love for us and our rejection of that love. That is the first part of the showing of his hands and side.

But as Eli knew in getting that tattoo, there is another side to showing the wounds. It is all about solidarity in suffering, all about standing with the disciples in their fear and loss and pain. “Peace be with you” can be trusted when they see the wounds. From that experience of having suffered – Jesus can offer peace. And he can promise them that their suffering, their guilt for having abandoned him will not triumph.

That is why Thomas had to see for himself. He, like the others, was trapped in his own guilt, his own abandonment of the Lord. He had heard the stories of his appearance to the others. But he had to see for himself that there was a power stronger than the suffering, a force able to push through the guilt and offer redemption. He asks to see Jesus’ wounds, but in some ways, he is speaking also of his own wounds. [looking at ‘my hands’, speaking with Thomas’ voice] “Show me that there is life beyond these wounds, past this brokenness in my heart. Show me that there is recovery from my addiction, life even when cancer is killing my body, hope even when Alzheimer’s is clouding my mind.

2,000 years later, Jesus still shows his hands and his side. He does it when WE symbolically share the tattoo on our arms – the addiction we are working through, the anger we are letting go of, the suffering we are willing to enter into, the helplessness in the face of ALS that has gripped a friend. When we make clear to others that they are not alone, that we suffer with them in their pain, our solidarity will help them to rise up. That is the incredible power – and responsibility – we have each been given from the One who showed us his hands and side. We can stand with all those who struggle, all those who suffer, and, united with the wounds of our savior and our own suffering, help them to rise… This week – pick someone you know, and ‘tattoo them across your heart’ – write a letter, drop by, share a cup of coffee – let them know that they are not alone.

157622 – a powerful tattoo, etched permanently into the skin of a loving granddaughter. Nail marks in the hands, spear thrust in the side – an even more profound tattoo – the wounds of a savior that set us free and invite us to stand with all who suffer…

Continue Reading

A teacher was working with her first grade kids, trying to teach them about the seven last words that Jesus spoke on the cross. “Does anyone know the last words that Jesus spoke before he died?” she asked. Little Johnny, after a bit of a pause, raised his hands excitedly in the air. “I do. Jesus’ last words were: ‘I’ll be back.’”

Maybe that is not the most theologically nuanced understanding you’ll ever get, but little Johnny certainly understood the most important part of the Easter story. Jesus would indeed be back from the tomb. The great revelation of Easter is simply this: Like Jesus, we were born to rise. You see, if Jesus did not remain in the grips of death, if this tomb could not and would not hold this one life, then it will not hold us either. Jesus indeed is back, and nothing is the same.

And so that unsettling question, asked of the women coming early to the tomb takes on a special significance for us. “Why do you look for the living one among the dead? He is not here…” That is not what the women expected to hear. They expected death at the tomb. They expected a body to anoint. They came to the tomb, knowing that it was over.

We know that same fruitless journey, don’t we? Even though we “KNOW” the resurrection has happened, we still keep going back to the same behaviors and decisions and patterns that don’t work for us, don’t we? We keep visiting the tombs that keep us from life.
• That nagging little bickering we do at family gatherings around an event that happened 20 years ago.
• The protecting of our time and our calendar when people ask us to step outside our comfort zone to help the neighbor or serve the broader community.
• The shaming that we do to ourselves when we fall in our human weakness, and stop believing that God can and does forgive us.

On a societal level, we hear the bellicose saber rattling of North Korea, and so to ‘calm things down’, we fly two nuclear bomb capable stealth bombers over the south… That’s the best we have?

In a hundred ways, we journey back to the tomb, as if it is not empty, as if it holds no promise of change, no hope to believe in, no power to transform our lives. We keep looking for life in the same places that have only held death or partial life, expecting that something will be different. It is so easy to hang on to things that don’t work anymore because it’s easier than risking the emptiness of the tomb.

Do you know that like I know that this Easter? It was not as good of a Lent as I would have liked, precisely because I kept going back to the places that only partly work for me, hoping that it would be different this time. Why was I looking for the living one among the dead?

Perhaps you know that experience of life. To the degree that you do, hear again that three word “theology” by that 1st grade student: “I’ll be back”, which tells us we don’t need to go to the same places any more. He is NOT there where there is death. But “He is back” in a way from which we can draw life and power and love… We are meant to rise with Him.

We can choose a different path, a different way of living.
• You who are with us this Easter and suffering from depression or even despair, for whom life feels flat and without joy … hope and meaning will find you again. You are made to rise.
• You who have been victims of others’ sometimes horrible, always selfish choices. You can know again your dignity and your deep down inviolate goodness. (It is in you to forgive.) You are meant for love.
• You who are paralyzed by some fear … you are made for courage
• You who are shamed by your sin … you can rediscover your innocence.
• You whose doubts haunt you … You can sing your alleluias again.
• To you who are discouraged by the institutions in your lives, be it church or nation or any group, the crumbling of things can begin their rebuilding into something even better.
• You who face your own impending death … or the death of a loved one. You can find the confidence that you – and they – will be well. We are born to rise.

My friends, in other words, no matter what has happened to you or ever would nothing, nothing, nothing can keep you from rising.

Johnny was right. Jesus is indeed BACK. And because of that, NOTHING can keep us from rising.

Continue Reading

Much has been made in the media of our new dear Pope Francis. His style certainly has caught people’s attention. Perhaps it is merely the media fascination with something that is new. Or the media being introduced to what you and I know to be Christianity’s best kept secret: our preferential option for the poor. But somehow, these humble gestures from a humble man have had a profound impact on people’s perceptions of the church and of the papacy.

And, the good news is that Francis keeps surprising us. (And at the same time, giving headaches to his head of security – by stopping motorcades and kissing babies and touching the people and letting them touch him.) And in case you didn’t know, today, in Rome, he chose to celebrate Holy Thursday mass in a juvenile detention center, washing the feet of convicted offenders – both male and female. “WOW” says the media.

Yet, why should this be so surprising? According to one blogger, “It’s amazing that we are shocked, stunned almost at his humble gestures and tenderness. When all the while that is exactly what our Church leaders should have been doing all the time – the humble works of mercy and compassion. This should be the norm. I’m so grateful for this renewal in our Church…”

IT IS WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING ALL THE TIME… Maybe you have that perspective down. Maybe what this new pope is doing is not surprising to you at all, because, like him, you have made it a habit to bake a monthly casserole or stop by the grieving widow’s house, or do the roommates dirty dishes. But, like the media that can’t quite figure this new pope out, it is so easy to get caught up in so many things, that we forget what really matters. That is why tonight is such a remedy for us, such a blessing in our world. Tonight, in humble gestures of washing feet and having our feet washed, we are reminded of what really matters, and what we SHOULD BE DOING ALL THE TIME.

In Francis’ own words to the prisoners today, he said simply: “This is a symbol, it is a sign… This washing is a symbol of the LOVE that breaks your real chains.” Most of us don’t have chains like those kids in Casal del Marmo prison. We are not locked up in a correction facility, symbolically shacked inside prison walls. Instead, it can be pride, jealousy, careerism, unforgiveness, or a kind of narcissism that only sees how things effect us, that chain us, that keeps that greatest force – THE humble gesture by the humble man – Jesus – from setting us free to love.

And that is what tonight is all about – whether it is in the meal that is before us on this altar, with the hill of Calvary looming behind it, or the towel and basins that are waiting to be used… They are invitations to know the freedom of loving without counting the cost, of serving without caring about who notices,

Tonight, let these simple gestures, begun by a humble savior and repeated in wonderful ways by a humble shepherd in Rome, be your invitation to break whatever chains your heart, and allow you to do what the church should be doing, and IS doing, all the time…

Continue Reading

Who cleaned up after the parade?  Someone had to clear the streets after the triumphal entry.  To make the road passable for the carts and donkeys and foot traffic.  It is the part of parades that even now we don’t give much thought to.  Picking up all that was left behind.

So, in my imagination, I began to wonder – what went through that un-named person’s mind.

Maybe it was the practical side:

•    What a waste of perfectly good shade.  This is not very environmentally friendly…

Maybe it was the forlorn side:

•    Great.  Another party that I didn’t get invited to.  So why am I always the one who has to clean up after everybody else’ mess?  But maybe it was the redeeming questions that went through his heart:

•    What do people see in this Jesus that I don’t see?

•    What is it about him that so attracts so many people to follow him?   To put their cloaks down in front of him?

•    What allowed these folks to reverence him enough to follow with their lives?

If there is a question that this triumphal entry might leave with us this day – can it be just that:

Do I reverence our Lord enough to follow him with my life?

Continue Reading

Imagine this retelling of the Palm Sunday Passion from the perspective of those who expected a military and political Savior – and that was almost everybody.

For days, Jesus and his disciples meet secretly outside Jerusalem. They plan where their weapons will be stored, where horses will be waiting, where various militia will assemble and wait until they receive the word to strike. They also organize crowds to hit the streets at just the right moment (to create intimidation, distraction, and fear in the Romans and all those in Jerusalem who collaborate with them). “Operation Sacred Vengeance” is about to begin.

Then on Palm Sunday, Jesus mounts a white horse. He is carrying a huge sword, but has it hidden in a palm branch. His disciples are similarly well-armed with swords, daggers, and shields, all camouflaged behind palm branches. They are mounted on warhorses, prepared for battle. The word goes out and the crowds assemble. In each man’s right hand is a sword or dagger raised to the sky, concealed beneath a palm frond or coat. Younger men and boys carry concealed torches, ready to light them, march on the city, and create mayhem when the battle begins.

“Hosanna!” the people shout. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord to execute vengeance on our enemies!”

Word spreads and people stream out from the city to welcome the freedom fighters.
As they cross the brow of the hill near Bethany and the city comes into view, Jesus gives a rousing speech. “It is wrong for the heathen idolaters to have power over the faithful people of God!” he shouts. “That wrong must end today! We have suffered enough. Now we will make our persecutors suffer!” The people cheer and chant, “Victory! Victory! Crush the Romans! Kill the collaborators!”

The Pharisees hastily interrupt, nervous now that bold words are brimming over into action. “Shouldn’t we wait a little longer until we have more weapons and troops? Some of our advisors think this battle is premature.”
“Are we trying to be Goliath, or are we David?” Jesus asks defiantly. “Those who live by restraint will die by restraint. Now is the time. Now is the day of annihilation for our enemies.”
“Who is with me in our holy cause?” Jesus asks. The crowds shout, “We are!” in a roar that echoes across the valley into the streets of Jerusalem. “Who is willing to fight to the death and avenge the blood of our ancestors?” Again the crowds shout, “We are!” “And who will shed a gallon of Roman blood for every drop of our blood that is shed?” Again the crowd erupts. Then the branches and coats are thrown to the ground and blades glisten in the sun.
And so the battle for Jerusalem begins. << put down notes >>

No. That is not what happened. The real story is very different, and maybe even harder to hear. Listen now to what really happened, for the differences here strike at the very heart of Christianity itself. Which is to say, the difference strikes at our own hearts.

Continue Reading