I AM THE GREATEST: Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mk 10:35-45

 

This particular Gospel narrative appears in all three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  Matthew may be a bit more memorable because in his telling James and John have their mother ask Jesus for assurance that her sons would sit at His left and right.  Their mother has no role in the accounts of Mark or Luke.  

 

This episode occurs late in Jesus'  ministry. He had foretold his passion and death but the apostles didn't always get it.  Soon, however,  they would see and begin to understand. This particular section is titled:  Position in the Coming Kingdom.  In each telling the apostles are seeking greatness or arguing about who is the greatest.  For their part, James and John misunderstood Jesus’ question when He asked if they could drink the cup He was to drink. They thought Jesus was referring to the wine of the heavenly banquet but He was referring to the vinegar of His suffering and death.  

 

But, even if they had understood what Jesus meant,  their reply "We can" would have been no different. We are always the heroes in our fantasies. It is easy to be brave in theory but difficult in real time.  One of the recurring themes in the Gospels  is the price of discipleship and the cost of following Jesus.  It is not easy, risk-free, or glamorous.  It is a life of quiet  service that under the best circumstances passes unnoticed.

 

" . . . whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

 

Jesus’ instruction remains relevant today.  A life of unsung and unacknowledged service may be much more difficult than a swashbuckling career in the public eye.  There are tens of thousands of working scientists; the percentage of Nobel Prize winning scientists is vanishingly small.  But, the work of even the most obscure scientist may contribute to what becomes a world-changing discovery.  For every Mother Teresa of Kolkata there are tens of thousands of missionaries who will neither appear on multiple magazine covers or be formally canonized.  All service builds up the Kingdom of God.  All prayer contributes to keeping the universe from blowing apart, be it the public prayer of the Pope or that of the Carthusian hidden in cell.

 

In the end, biggest crises facing the world are not climate change, covid-19, or the 'isms,' 'ists,' and  'phobias' that have become tools of bullying and character assassination in U.S. society.  The true crisis is the absence of prayer in too many lives. 

 

Those who serve others rather than demanding that they be served, those who serve others without expecting to be declared heroes--a very much overused word today--or to be praised for that service also help to bring about the Kingdom of God.  A life distinguished only by its lack of being distinguished will cause great rejoicing in heaven as he or she is welcomed with the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

 

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Some photos from around sunset in Ljubljana.  Dawn is a nice time to shoot but I've always preferred the light at sunset, particularly in the autumn.

 + Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

 

 

To Quote ABBA: Money, Money, Money: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Wis 7:7-11

Ps 90:12-12, 13-15, 16-17

Heb 4:12-13

Mk 10:17-30

 

Some of the most exquisite images in scripture describe the attributes of Wisdom.  It should be so. Wisdom is one of God's greatest gifts.

 

Wisdom is not innate or genetic. It is never present at birth or during the earliest stages of development.  It has nothing to do with IQ and even less to do with educational level.  It is acquired and molded through long experience of successes and failures. Wisdom is the special possession of those with a listening heart who have the courage to enter into silence, prayer, and self-reflection.

 

Wisdom defines and supports civilization. Wisdom is fundamental to being human.  Wisdom definitively and perpetually  separates us from all lower animals, no matter how cute, cuddly, majestic, or clever they might be. Only humans are capable of becoming wise, of developing wisdom.

 

Somewhere in the bowels of MIT beneath the water level of the Charles River, grad student-worker bees are slaving away at what they call AI--artificial intelligence.  Note:  no one is working on artificial Wisdom.  

 

A computer can be programmed to check the spelling of and even translate the lyrical passage just proclaimed.  Recall though, that a lot of computer-generated translations leave much to be desired though they are a reliable source of comedy.   Despite the translation programs, spell and grammar check, and other tools, no computer can be programmed to create something as splendid from its circuit boards.  

 

The Book of Wisdom, and the rest of the Wisdom literature, such as Proverbs and Sirach, gives us advice about how to live, how to love God, and how to love others. The Book of Wisdom is not inert. It is not an historical curiosity that explained the world to the benighted, non-scientific, and unsophisticated peoples of the Ancient Near East.  Wisdom recognizes and supports all that God does in the world.  It should undergird all that we do in the world. Though there is a pragmatic dimension to it, the Wisdom literature is not a handbook along the lines of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It is much more than that. 

 

Wisdom reveals the mystery of God, a mystery we cannot begin to approach through any literature but the mystical, the numinous, and the poetic.  We come closer to understanding the mystery of God through the poetry of the psalms than we do through books of systematic theology or historical-literary criticism of the Gospels. 

 

In 2007 British neuropsychiatrist Sir Michael Trimble published: The Soul in the Brain: The Cerebral Basis of Language, Art, and Belief.  Placing a heavy emphasis on neuroanatomy and physiology he describes the role of the brain in the genesis of language and art as the basis for religious belief.  Language and art-- particularly poetry--are the most important means of transmitting those beliefs. It is a brilliant book that does not fail to acknowledge the ancient wisdom of the philosophers. 

 

Whether speaking of the Ancient Near East or the early years of the 21st century in the U.S. one must ask what Jesus meant by the startling and uncomfortable image of the camel passing through the needle's eye more easily than the wealthy.  Does wealth automatically condemn?  Are all the wealthy excluded from the Kingdom of God? What income level is damning? 

 

Jesus is not warning against wealth.  He is warning about a human behavior that hasn't changed in two millennia.  That behavior is the drive for more and more.  The behavior that suggests the wealthier one is the more time, energy, and attention is spent in maintaining and trying to increase that wealth, oftentimes to the detriment of caring for and about others, if not outright destroying them. Too often the more one has the less one shares.  We've become almost jaded to news detailing the latest financial scandals involving obscenely paid business executives who, it appears, want even more.

 

The current trial of Elizabeth Holmes, foundress of Theranos Corporation, is a morality tale of greed mixed with the pursuit of wealth and fame combined with a callous disregard for the health of others, both those foolish enough to work for her and the patients who received erroneous results on their lab work.

 

We tolerate, and even rationalize, the greed of overpaid athletes whose whiny behavior and associated demands for ever more astronomical salaries, that have pushed the cost of taking a family to a game beyond the ability of many.  

 

There are also the middle and lower level atrocities in the pursuit of money committed by those with similar mindsets but much smaller budgets.  These rarely reach the level of newsworthy.  Consider the Little League treasurer or the secretary of the PTA who skims thousands from the organization to support a LIFESTYLE.  

 

When I first arrived at Georgetown in 2002 the front page of the Post detailed the greed of the former president of the teacher's union and her minions. They used tens of thousands of union dues dollars for the usual: fur coats, vacations, jewelry, a $50,000 set of antique sterling silver, and so on. She received a well-deserved nine-year prison term plus three years supervised parole.

 

Money, it seems, wants more money no matter the cost to others, no matter the cost to oneself, be it prison or the loss of the Kingdom of God.  It is not the hard cold cash that Jesus is decrying. Jesus is warning against the mind-set of wealth craving more wealth that is the opposite of what is needed to enter the Kingdom of God.  That is what Jesus is condemning. 

 

Unlike membership in a country club, unlike a place on Forbes Magazine list of the 1000 wealthiest people in the country, salvation does not derive from human achievement.  One is not automatically saved because of rank, bank balance, or the number of toys possessed upon death.  Wealth is not one of the keys to the kingdom. It need not be an impediment to entering the kingdom,  but it will never move anyone to the front of the line. 

 

True wealth is not what one possesses,

true wealth is what one gives. 

 

True wealth is not what one hoards, 

true wealth is what one shares. 

 

The more we share our treasure with those in need, the treasure of money, giving time to the needs of another,  or the gift of presence, the larger the eye of that needle becomes.  

 

. . .  and that there camel gallops right on through.

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Photo shot through old distorted glass at sv. Višarje in the Julian Alps.

+ Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Radical Teaching: Homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gn 2:18-24

Ps 128

Heb 2:9-11

Mk 10:2-16

 

There are certain readings make a preacher break out into a cold sweat when he looks ahead for the coming week.  Today's readings are of that type. 

 

There are, of  course, a few ways to avoid saying anything controversial. 

 

Tell a few cute stories from your past about how your family stopped at

Dunkin' Donuts after Mass every Sunday.  

 

Toss in a joke about a rabbi, a priest, and a minister.  

 

Cite a few pious platitudes. 

 

Decide it would be a good day for the deacon to preach. 

 

Or plunge in. 

 

Were a teacher or professor to say to a class today that "from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female" and indicate that there are only two sexes, the teacher's job would be on the line for contradicting the delusion that men can become women and women can become men  with multiple other options between.  That is a homily in and of itself. 

 

Then we come to the matter of divorce,

 

Donahue and Harrington begin their commentary on this passage with a short summary that says it all: "Mark presents Jesus’ radical teachings on marriage and divorce.”  Radical is the key word.  

 

The teaching on divorce is as radical, challenging, and difficult today  as it was when Jesus answered first with a question of his own and then a teaching on marriage. 

 

Jesus’ teaching was radical in His time because of the nature of marriage. Marriages were arranged and negotiated for financial, political, and social reasons.  Love or attraction were not important factors. After a couple was engaged or betrothed they got to know each other for about a year before the woman moved into the man’s home.  

 

In their attempt to trap Jesus into giving deviant teaching on marriage the Pharisees were alluding to two texts in Deuteronomy regarding divorce.  

Jesus, on his part, cited more ancient writing  from Genesis, as expressing God’s original plan:  “and the two shall become one flesh.”  Then, He elaborated and extended the teaching:  “Therefore what God has joined together,  no human must separate.”   This charge is repeated following the giving of consent in the sacrament of marriage as performed in the Catholic Church.  

 

Divorce was the exclusive prerogative of the husband in the Ancient Near East.  The procedure was simple.  The husband gave the wife a certificate of divorce and sent her away.  She was now free to marry someone else.  

 

From Donahue and Harrington again, “In a society in which divorce was widely accepted and the controversial issue was the grounds for divorce Jesus’ teaching about no divorce went against custom and the cultural grain.”  The more things change the more the stay the same.  

 

The early Church struggled with the question as mightily as we do today.  There is Paul’s advice to those who found themselves in “mixed marriages” or marriages in which one party reverted to paganism.  And there are the “exceptive clauses” found in Matthew which permit divorce for porneia or what is translated as unchastity though that translation does not fully capture what Matthew meant.  

 

We continue to struggle with the meaning and implications of Jesus’ teaching on marriage today.  

 

Some time in the early 2000s I first heard a woman with whom I worked gleefully note that even at the wedding the family was referring to the groom  as her sister's starter husband. Even more mystifying are the celebrity types,--and many non-celebrities--who have been "married" six or seven times.  After a certain point it seems silly to bother with the paperwork.

 

When considering Jesus' teaching we have to ask if it Is an ideal to shoot for, a challenge to be faced, an extreme example, or divine law?”  Another line of questioning asks which part of New Testament evidence is more compelling: Jesus’ prohibition of divorce or the exceptions introduced by Paul and Matthew?”  These questions are destined to be debated for a very long time

 

In today's world and, one can assume, in Jesus' time, there are marriages that should and must end.  Many never should have taken place.  One doesn’t have to be a psychiatrist to realize that; just watch the horror of so-called reality TV. 

 

Perhaps one of the saddest commentaries on the misuse of Church teaching against divorce comes from the life of the actor Spencer Tracy who carried on a twenty-five year long adulterous affair with Katherine Hepburn. The affair ended only with his death.  However, he remained legally and ecclesiastically married to his Episcopalian wife for 44 years.  

 

As several sources confirmed he wouldn’t divorce her because of his "staunch Catholicism." Apparently adultery posed no problem whatsoever to that staunch Catholicism.  While some see Tracy-Hepburn and similar stories as great romantic epics, they are merely examples of adultery at its worst.  

 

We live in odd and very troubling times marked by a frightening arrogance and egocentrism.  They are times in desperate need of prayer.  

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A woman walking down an alley in Ljubljana.  I saw this particular photo forming.  Waited.  Waited.  Waited.  Shot. 

Fifty yards to the right of the aboe photo stands the Franciscan Church, shown here reflecting in the Ljubljanica River that flows through the center of the city .

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD