Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't--28th ORD Time

Listen to this homily.
Praise the Lord! “Sure, I'll give you hand,” as our neighbor once again can't get his car started and needs a jump. There's that all to familiar feeling that what we've done is good and we pat yourself on the back for taking a risk of goodness. We feel good when we give don't we? We can be IN-gratitude for the lives given to us or we can lives lives of ingratitude. Where do we find ourselves today...living IN-gratitude or living lives of ingratitude. When we are grateful for the life given to us, our giving takes on an authentic benevolence. When our lives are lived with ingratitude, even the good that we do can be shallow and hollow, not really reflecting the love of Christ. We can love, but do we love with the love of Christ? Completely unconditional without counting the cost or filling up our own ego because of the good we have done?
Damned if you do, damned if you don't! There is a contradiction between today's first reading from 2 Kings and our Gospel from Luke 17. All the lepers but one forget to thank Jesus so their damned because they didn't thank. Naaman thanks Elisha for his cure, but then is told not to say thank you so he's damned for doin' it—for thanking someone. Jesus expects a thank you from the lepers and Elisha does not. Jesus welcomes the gratitude of the healed, but Elisha shuns the grateful gift of Naaman...what gives, who gives, why do we give? How is it that Jesus says, “Give me the thanks I deserve,” while Elisha says, “Buzz off, you don't have to thank me for anything, Naaman!” The entire difference is the fact that Jesus is God and Elisha is a man of God and knowing the difference between what we do and the good we do through God.
Elisha, the man of God, gives instruction to Naaman to plunge into the waters of the Jordan. Miraculously, Naaman's leprosy is healed. Suddenly, his skin becomes as soft as a baby's butt. Well, it doesn't say that exactly in scripture but he is restored, brought back to health. He is saved and washed cleaned by the waters of baptism, a prefiguration of the one baptism of Christ. After being healed, Naaman returns to Elisha, this man of God, to thank him for receiving this great gift. He is grateful to Elisha and wants to show it. And what does Elisha say, “Don't thank me! Don't give me any gift for what I've done because I wasn't really the one who did it!” Elisha says, “As the Lord lives whom I serve, I will not take it (the thanks that is) and despite Naaman's urging, Elisha still refuses to accept the gratitude. Elisha knows that he is a man of God, not the son of God. Elisha knows He's God, and he's not! Naaman finally wises up to this fact and is brought to faith by offering sacrifice in thanksgiving the one true God, the God of Israel.
There's a fine line between believing your a man of God and not God! I'm being politically incorrect by using man as a general normative for all humanity. Don't worry...I'm not chauvinistic, but truly an advocate of a genuine feminism at heart. Realizing that you are a man of God is to recognize that you are a recipient of God's power, not the instigator of it. Yet how many times do we find ourselves expecting some thanks for what we've done for someone. This condition is called egoism; the ultimate act of pride because it is not acknowledging that it is God working through you for the good of the other. If we are simply, “do-gooders” to fulfill our own selfish egos, the “good” we really do is pretty darn shallow. If our actions are only to exalt our own ego at the expense of denying God's greatness, then we are the most pitiable of all people. As St. Paul says, “If we deny Him, He will deny us.” Think of how many times our actions of goodness are tainted by a conditional norm of expectation.
This past week, I fell into that trap. I was invited to say Mass at Xavier High School. Man, it was fun! Mass went for two hours from what I heard, but when we're praisin' God I didn't think we kept time! Well, evidently we do, and of course, there were some faculty miffed by the fact that we would actually worship the one true God of Israel longer than one hour...what was I thinking...interrupting the all too important calculus class to give thanks and praise to Almighty God, the reason why Catholic education exists in the first place. Catholic education isn't to create little, “successful rich yuppies, but true disciples of Christ, soldiers in God's army rooted in prayer. But there I was, allowing my ego to step in the way of being grateful for the opportunity to simply be there to celebrate the greatest thing on earth...the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! To be IN-gratitude, rather to than to be ungracious.
We often do good to be acknowledged. At the core of this behavior is our denial of God's majesty! The psalmist says, “The LORD has revealed to the nations HIS saving power.” We are not to reveal our saving power, yet this is often our approach to philanthropy or goodness. We look for the glory rather than giving Him the honor and the glory We look for the accreditation rather than accrediting Him the power!
Then there's that Jesus guy again! Gosh, He really ruffles my feathers! Good! He should! Look at Him, healing those lepers again. The gall...who does He think He is?! God? YES! He is God! That's exactly who He is and who we're not! You know the Creed thing...fully human and fully divine! The Alpha the Omega, the beginning and the end, the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, Jehovah, Messiah. He could heal those lepers and expect a thanks because the power of the goodness emminated from Himself through the power of His Heavenly Father! He could heal them just by commanding them to go show themselves to the priests. His power is the power of God Himself, not our power, not our innovation, and certainly not the priest's power.
And Jesus has every right to say to Himself after the fact, “I wonder if any of them will come back to say thank you?” You see, Jesus can expect a thank you because he is God's Man—the incarnation of God Himself on earth. He is the primordial sacrament! Elisha knew that he couldn't lay claim to the healing because he is a man of God...he is not God Himself! He knew that all glory belonged not to him, but to HIM...up there! The “up there” is now “down here” healing everywhere! Damned if you do...Naaman. Damned if you don't...the nine lepers. And they could have really been damned! After Jesus' healing, he has an expectation to receive thanks. He and only He has this right to expect a thank you because His power is the power of God Himself.
When we have an expectation of being thanked for what what we do, we are placing ourselves in that spiritual bankrupt state of ingratitude. What does this leprosy look like? Ingratitude looks like this: Head under the pillow, eyes tightly shut, listening to the muffled noise of the annoying alarm clock wrapped up in your warm and cozy blankets on a Sunday morning deciding not to go to Church—this is the spirit of ingratitude. People don't go to Mass giving the excuse that it is boring or dull or old-fashion. The real reason for a lack of their enthusiasm to attend Mass or to let let Mass go longer than an hour is the leprosy of ingratitude. We think we are entitled to our pleasures, luxury, and convenience rather than giving Him thanks for everything we have...what a spiritual decay our current culture lives in! What do you suppose Eucharist means—THANK YOU GOD! That's what it means, but we want to pon it off as meaningless. I tell young people that if they think Mass is boring and dull, its not because the Mass is boring and dull, it's because their boring and dull! If adults say they don't believe that Mass or Sunday morning worship is relevant and just want to send their kids to a Catholic school because it's private and not participate in the life of the parish because they don't believe it to be relevant or pertinent, this is a cop out! In reality, they are saying that they would rather worship their own ego and affluence rather than the God who created them!
St. Paul says, “Beloved: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David, such is my gospel. What's your gospel? The gospel of life and love? Or the gospel of self-love? Ingratitude is the worst type of leprosy because it is our own self ambition to place our ego before an acknowledgment of the God of Israel, the one True God! Will we thank ourselves for the goodness we've lived or put the credit to where it really belongs? To the God who is Goodness itself. The God who heals us through Christ. To be living in the spirit of gratitude is to sing to the Lord a new song. It is to realize that he has done marvelous deeds. HIS right hand has won victory for us, not ours! HIS salvation is to be known! HE has revealed justice. HE has remembered his faithfulness and kindness.
Worship is the thanksgiving of our lives, it is to return to the Lord like that one leper, recognizing that we've been healed. Adoration and glory is giving thanks to God for what He has done for us and doing for others the same thing without counting the cost. We can join the choirs of angels and proclaim HIM, the Lord of our lives. Sing joyfully to the Lord all you lands breaking into song, sing praise! Plunge into the waters of your baptism even more fully! Die with Him to live in Him. Persevere to reign with Him because...you know what..we're damned if we don't! Now and forever!

Fearless Faith Warriors

If you would like to listen to this homily click: Here!

Praise the Lord! We have all demanded something out of someone at sometime. We begin at a very early age and it develops in ever more complicated ways. Give me this or give me that. The phrase, “give me” is not isolated to being a toddler, but grows into our teens and even the twilight of our years on earth. The disciples are not that much different in this regard. They say to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” “Give me some more of that faith, Jesus...now!” Imagine Jesus' reaction to them, to us when we lay claim this demand upon Him. Jesus is like, “Increase your faith!” Man, you guys are dimwits! I'm sure he didn't say this, even thought it to Himself, but who knows right? “Increase our faith...for Pete's sake...wait Peter's right here,” as He glances to Peter's all too often blank stare. What kind of stupid plea is that anyway...when will they ever learn! And here we are demanding the exact same thing from our Lord, asking...demanding God to increase our faith. And we keep asking. Then it is our turn to role our eyes. “There goes Jesus again giving us some stupid visual about a Mulberry tree...what is a Mulberry tree anyway? (FYI Mulberry (Morus) is a genus of 10–16 species of deciduous trees native to warm temperate and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa and North America, with the majority of the species native to Asia.) And why tear it out of the ground and plant it in the ocean? Is this some weird zen budda meditation thing the Lord is asking us to visualize? You can see it now, Peter, John, and the boys sitting around the campfire Yoga style like Appleton North's football team envisioning their superhuman zen faith powers. I'm not knocking Appleton North--they're winning. I can picture Matthew with his hand under his chin looking into the night sky dreaming of a faith schemed money laundry racket using his super faith powers to steal tax money. But coming back to reality and asking himself, “Wait, zen bad, Jesus good. What is he saying to us?” This servant shepherd guy putting on an apron, serving at the table, eating and drinking only after the master is finished. Doing what I'm commanded to do? Obligation, I'm obliged to do something in order to receive more faith? Just give it to me JC, come'on! Give me that faith!”
Lies. Lies. Lies. That's all we get from a secular culture with an increasing void of a Christian world view. Take for instance the term, “separation of church and state.” Ask the majority of Americans and they think the term is actually in the 1st amendment...that's what the Appleton Post Crescent would have us believe along with wayward legal agencies like Freedom from Religion. Show me where that term is, it's original intent and then show me how you can possibly legitimize the events in Kimberly with this convoluted interpretation of the law. And we've been lied to by the biggest liar of them all...Lucifer. Yes, He is alive and active, prowling about the world seeking to devour us. He sugar-coats devastation saying there is no real eve of destruction, except in Kaukauna of course, telling us to live it up now in concupiscence because nothing has eternal consequence.
As we heard in the first reading, “clamorous discord, destruction, misery, ruin, strife, and violence,” these are the results of sin. Yet we tend to believe that these words are part-n-parcel with a world of disarray and disbelief. We tend to believe these conditions are inherent within us and we begin to believe that they are unsolvable or unredeemable. Giorgio Frassati (aka, The Man of the Beatitudes, beatified by John Paul the Great and patron of World Youth Day) a saint I strongly urge you to get know says, “With violence you sow hatred, and you harvest its bad fruits. With charity, you sow peace among men—not the peace that the word gives, but the true peace that only faith in Jesus Christ can give us in common brotherhood.” We lack faith. We realize we lack faith and then ask God to, “increase our faith...” We demand it from Him, when in fact we lack the faith to believe that the world and us were created to be good and never were intended to become what it has become...that is sin, our own decision to disobey God. This is our reality.
Simultaneously we realize that destruction and anguish are inherent in sin only after we've committed the sin! In the meantime, we legitimize sin and culturally call it okay and acceptable because the “everyone-else-is-doing-it” mentality glosses over its catastrophic implications. There are stories of the Evil One's presence in the world...tangible stories of the dark lurking reality of sin. Not just superficial/medieval “Harry Potter” sorcery, but lurking evil, wickedness and snares all the more sinister and complicated in a post-modern world. Yes, we have been deceived and we gourd ourselves at the table thinking that we deserve to be there with our master rather than serving Him. We enjoy every morsel reaching an obesity of alienation, addictions, and destruction.
Which lies have you believed, are believing, and could potentially believe in the future?
...You don't have to get up in the morning to prayer, Fr. Quinn.
...You don't really have to go to Mass on Sunday.
...You don't really have to practice natural family planning.
...You don't really have to put your kids before you.
...You don't really have to be honest while taking this stupid standardized test.
...You don't really have to love yourself for who you are, you're ugly anyway...you aren't loved.
...You don't really have to believe the Church's teaching or 2000 years of sacred tradition. Anyway, it's old, outdated, irrelevant, and just a regulatory religion.
...Let's face it, your faith is weak and you're not obliged to do anything really. Sit at the table and enjoy.
You don't really have to serve that Master after a hard days work in the pasture. Just sit in front of that television, space out and watch the junk they're dishin' out.
Lies. Lies. Lies. This list goes on, all the while we are tuned into these lies. This past week the lie I almost believed was thinking that I didn't have to take on anymore responsibilities in my priesthood. The retired priest in Mackville can't continue to do the masses and Father Tom and I were asked to help out. I was obstinent at first not thinking that I was obliged to help out in obedience to where God could call me. Obligated to help out there, my assignment is here. A lie I could have easily convinced myself to believe. I said to myself, “I'm not obliged to serve the Master in this particular way...not me. Sit down and enjoy the voice would say...in my mind faithlessness was as good as faithfulness.
We have difficulty increasing our faith because we believe the lies we've been told, the lies of the wicked servant. He serves pride, avarice, gluttony, lust, sloth, envy, and anger. And He wants us to believe that serving these ends can be fulfilling if we gorge ourselves in moral relativism and the comfortable, “I'm okay, you're okay” mentality. Give me a break Jesus says, who do these disciples think they are, “Give-me faith!” The audacity! How can you possibly have a morsel of this faith if you continue to buy into these lies? We buy everything else, why not buy our death.
Jesus tells his disciples that if we want any faith, even a sliver of faith, or faith the size of a mustard seed, we have to stop believing the lies and believe in HIM who is the TRUTH. “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts!” One or the other must rule our lives. The prince of lies or the prince of peace? Who's it gunna be? To gain faith, we must realize that we are obliged to serve the Master, to stop lying to ourselves and do what He commands even after a hard day's work...to go even further than what we think we are capable of doing. Jesus is saying to us, “Tuffin' up and listen! Put on that apron, get outside yourself and your petty self-pity and serve others.” We must be missionary. In a book I'm reading right now called, From Maintenance to Mission: Evangelization and the Revitalization of the Parish, the author states, “The very being of God is to exist for the other. Personhood in God means self-donation, being other-oriented, and being toward-the-other rather than for oneself.” (64) So true, to gain faith we must gain an appreciation that our lives are meant for others. We must do the work of love. Thomas Merton, a contemporary St. Augustine said, “To say I am made in the image of God is to say love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.” Jesus is telling us to wait on HIM by waiting on OTHERS...that is how we'll find faith. And at the end of the day even after we have done this we are to go even further and say, “I am an unprofitable servant, I have done what I was obliged to do. This is a totally different mentality. We move from thinking we deserve faith or demanding it to working toward it.
This self-entitlement, I deserve mentality, pat your self on the back boring life is a lie and we're suckers for believing it. We are called to serve others, not ourselves and it is through this service of others that we find faith. Jesus has faith in us. He looks at us across the campfire as he did with his disciples and passionately and compassionately, maybe even a bit frustrated is faithful to us even in our faithlessness to Him. He knows are unwillingness to go where He will go. Jesus, out of His great love for us fulfills His obligation to serve so radically that he was willing to sacrifice his life on a cross. The tree of faith that He died upon is now suddenly uprooted and planted in a sea of faith. Our baptism opens up for us the reservoir of Truth and all of a sudden, faith becomes an overpowering torrent gushing into our lives, enabling us to give, to sacrifice ourselves like He did for us. To serve Him at the table by serving others and engaging life not as expecting anything from Him, but giving to Him in a life of faithful gratitude.
St. Paul says, “Stir into flame the gift of God you have made.” Interesting that scripture uses the phrase, “you have made.” This implies that the flame of faith needs to be kindled by our own decision to attain faith through love. We are not meant to live a life of self-depreciated “cowardice.” We are called to live the Truth of power, love, and self-control that comes from serving Him and serving others. “Bear your hardships!” St. Paul exhorts. Fulfill the obligations of faith not because of a requirement to do so, but out of reciprocated love. Truly experience the strength that comes from God, from Gold's Gym to God's Gym, guard this rich Truth with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us and defines us more so then even the lies of sin.
“Increase our faith, Lord.” Not much different than a child, we ask Him to do it for us. We must not expect Jesus to do it for us. We've go to get into the arena and discover the Truth and work towards faith. Only then will we find that the obligatory norms of faith are an ovation, a symphony of love and the fullness of life both now and forever.