Christ the King Sunday

This past weekend I had the opportunity to give the homily at all of our weekend Masses. It's been a while since I last did that, so I felt a bit of dismay when Fr. Tim also asked me to include a few words about Catholic Community Services during the homily, since next week is when we'll take up a special offering for it. (Don't get me wrong; I don't mind asking people to be generous, and I totally support CCS --in fact, I just sent them my own check this morning.) I solved my dilemma as follows below.

Good morning. This weekend we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. And sure enough, in all three readings today we hear the words king, kingship, kingdom, dominion, power, and glory. Even though we live in a democracy, we do have some notion of what an earthly king and an earthly kingdom might be like. But our gospel plainly reminds us that God’s kingdom is different from any earthly kingdom – as Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And that makes the difference not just one of degree, as in big or small; it's also a difference in kind. One of the best illustrations of that difference comes in that famous scene in Matthew’s gospel of the King at the Last Judgment, with all the nations gathered before him, where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, according to how they have treated the hungry and thirsty, the sick, the immigrant, the prisoner, the homeless – and the reason for this, the king says very plainly, is because he is present in all of these – in the least of those who are all around us.

It’s very fitting that around the time of this feast day our Catholic Church in Western Washington asks for us to join together and affirm the work of this Kingdom. This is the time of year when we’re called to support the Kingdom right here, locally, by making a Stewardship pledge for the running of our parish and all its works over the next year. You know, I really love our parish. I think St. Bridget is an outstanding community – and I really support the work we do in the adult education programs we offer, the strong parochial education we offer at Assumption-St. Bridget school; I support our youth programs and Mission trips, and our outreach to Children’s Hospital and Namitembo and more; I thoroughly enjoy our efforts to build up our community through our Welcome Committee with its Nametag Sundays, with our social events, and all the ways we gather and work together through our parish organizations; and of course, I especially find life in our worship together, whether it’s a wedding, or a funeral; daily or weekend Mass; our music, our common prayer, lifted up to our God. This is where we can begin to experience the Kingdom right here, in our life together … we must all support it, with our giftedness and our energy, our prayers, and our contributions – otherwise we will miss our calling. For it is of course possible for a gifted people of great potential to be a great disappointment...

Likewise, next weekend our diocese calls on us, and invites us to support the works of the Kingdom through all the great programs offered by Catholic Community Services. These are works larger than any one parish. You have all heard about one of those works, the Sacred Heart Shelter; it’s been one of our parish charities for about 17 or 18 years now, and we’ll support it once again through our Giving Tree this Advent. But of course, there are so many other good works -- a few days ago a number of our parishioners in the JustFaith program took time off during their busy week to go visit at another one of those programs, the Matt Talbot Center downtown, to just spend time talking with the poor: the men and women that the Center serves. I could go on and on, but I won’t; but the bulletin this weekend has a great brochure inside. Please take it home and read it; and over the next week, please make a decision about how you will support the Kingdom as represented in all the good works of Catholic Community Services.

And THAT kind of kingdom, whether it's our parish or CCS, is SO very far from what Pilate understood as kingdom! That’s why Jesus says to Pilate, “It is you who say that I am a KING. The reason I was born, the reason I came into the world, is to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to the truth hears my voice.” Let’s hear that again: “I came into the world to testify to the truth; anyone committed to the truth hears my voice.”

So come now, this statement says something even stronger, doesn’t it? This statement calls for even more than supporting the works of our parish, or the works of Catholic Community Services. Those things are absolutely very important, because those are about the daily tasks, and how we work and pray together, and give service to God’s Holy Ones: the hungry and thirsty, the sick, the immigrant, the prisoner, the homeless. But this statement to Pilate … it’s even more than that. It’s all about following Jesus, isn’t it? It’s about discipleship. It’s about hearing his voice, letting his words get inside of us, recognizing those words as truth, and then committing ourselves to Jesus and to the truth. It’s really about becoming authentic human beings, fully alive, in the best sense possible.

Christ the King Sunday marks the end of our liturgical year, and it might be good to hear again some of the truths from St. Mark’s gospel that Jesus has revealed to us over this past year… [The following were said with a different inflection for each quote, and a pause between each.]

“Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of living human beings.”

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me and the One who sent me.”

“If anyone wishes to be first, he should become the last of all and the servant of all.”

“Let the children come to me and do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world but forfeit his very self?”

"Amen I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it."

“Go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

“How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

“Many that are first in life will be last, and the last will be first.”

“Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”

“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; but give to God what belongs to God.”

“Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

“Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.”

“Go then into the world and proclaim this good news to all the people.”

I think these truths resonate even more clearly in our hearts when we hear them like that, one after another, like truth being piled upon truth. The message is inescapable.

Amen! And good morning to you.

Mark doesn't have a lot of "teaching" material; it's the shortest gospel, and Jesus is shown "in action" much more than as a teacher. Still, the sayings of Jesus that he includes are striking, particularly if you hear them all at once.

Suicide -- a Decidedly NON-Theological Point of View

Several days ago in Crystal's blog I made a short comment about suicide, and promised her that I'd write something up that was a little longer, about a young teenager here in the parish who had killed himself. This is what I sent her. I didn't have my notes from that homily years ago, but I remember very well the ideas that I was trying to put into words. The following is NOT very "theological," but it does represent, I think, what I believe about God's love, judgment, our free choice, and suicide.


Several years ago there was a young high school student in our parish who killed himself. When his parents were out, the young man had spent the previous night drinking at home with a friend. The next morning he was good and sick from drinking, and on top of that he got a good bawling out from his parents for what he did. Not much later that day he wound up taking his dad's gun and shooting himself in the head. The pastor was out of town on vacation, and so I spent several hours, with one family member after another, listening to their pain and questioning.

Of course his parents were beside themselves, since they had come down on him for getting drunk at home. But the whole community was in pain – other parents, the boy’s friends. There were a lot of his friends who said things like "If only I would have called him, he would still be alive."

I was asked to give the homily at his funeral Mass. I had known him fairly well. I had often talked with him when he served at Mass, which was often. I had plenty of things to say about him, all good things, things that many of his friends and family knew and had shared with me, about why he was a great kid and why they loved him. But I felt I had to say two things first, two things that everyone in that church was thinking consciously or unconsciously.

So I opened by saying that I was glad so many people came to church to be there that morning, at such a difficult time, to pray and to support one another and the boy's family. But then I paused and said that there were two things I felt were "out there" as things I needed to talk about, before we could go on with the service, to remember and celebrate the young man's life.

The first was just to talk about what had happened, along with the many feelings that I knew were “out there,” from talking to so many people about this tragic event. “What were we all feeling about this suicide?” We couldn’t just pass over that event in silence.

So I recounted the events that led up to his suicide... what he had done, and how he had rightfully gotten in trouble for what he did, in getting drunk... and that somewhere, in the physical pain from his hangover and in the emotional pain from having gotten in trouble, he did something really, really stupid, something that he couldn't take back afterwards. And I spoke what was the truth: that any one of us who were present at that service, if we had known what was happening to him, if we had guessed at all what he might do, would have intervened. We would have stopped him. We would have helped him. But we just didn't know, and we couldn't have guessed. In the state he was in, he didn't have the sense to reach out to any of us, when any of us would have tried to help him. So I told all of those present that they should not run themselves into the ground wondering what they could have done... that any of us would have done something if we had known, but we didn't.

But then I took up the second question, which I said that I didn't hear anyone talking about... and yet I knew that many people were thinking about it, so we HAD to talk about it. The question was, "What did God think about his suicide?"

I recounted what we had all been taught: that taking life was fundamentally wrong, and taking one’s own life was to destroy with our own hands the gift of life that God had given us. And the problem with suicide was that there wasn't any time afterwards to be sorry and ask for forgiveness. And without forgiveness, something so wrong as killing was would condemn the killer forever.

I asked myself aloud -- "Do I believe in hell?" And I answered, "Well, I certainly do, because if we're beings who are made for God, then for us to be without God for all eternity would certainly be hell."

And I asked again, "Do I believe that anybody is in hell?” And I answered again, “Well, it’s surely possible for people to willingly and freely choose to be without God in their lives, to want to live without God. And God usually respects our individual choice.” And I added that my idea of judgment is this: “I think we have the opportunity to look at who we are and what we’ve done. And we can say, 'Yes, that’s who I am, and I did this and that.' And I think that some people still choose and affirm those things that they know hurt others or even themselves. They still choose those things because that really is who they are. So they say, 'Yes, I know it was wrong, but he hurt me, and I don’t feel sorry for that.' Or 'Yes, I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway and I’m glad, and I really don’t care what anybody else thinks about it.'

“But right now, I know that Tim (not his real name) has his head buried in God’s chest, and he’s crying his eyes out, because there’s just NO WAY that he would have wanted to hurt all of you like this.”

And after saying that, I just looked around at everyone – family, friends, others – and after a few moments of quiet, went ahead with talking about the young man and his life.

The Quality of Mercy

On the first Sunday of November this year, instead of celebrating the "next Sunday in Ordinary Time," Catholics in most parts of the world celebrated the feast of All Saints Day, November 1st. I've always enjoyed this feast day, probably because we also celebrated two other days at the same time: Halloween, which is always a lot of fun, and All Souls Day, which is November 2nd. It always seemed like a great run of good days.

Halloween needed no explanation. It was pure fun. I enjoyed it as a child, and when my own children hit the age to enjoy it, I enjoyed it as an adult. I often dressed up in costume, and always went along with them, door-to-door. When we lived on Capital Hill, we designated our house as the place where all our friends could stop with their children and have a beer, while the kids could bob for apples and get plenty of candy. Once Joan and I dressed up as vampires together -- totally gross. But pure fun.

All Souls was really good too -- a time when we remember those who have died. Now that I'm older, I have a lot of friends and family members who have died before me, and it's a good time to remember them, and the part they've played in my life. But back when I was a child, I didn't know anyone who had ever died, so we'd remember those that no one remembered, especially those who hadn't yet gone to heaven and were still waiting, sorting through the things they had done wrong or people they had hurt ... They were called "the poor souls in purgatory," and I remember my mom telling me that whenever I was having a headache or toothache or any other kind of difficulty, that I should just offer it up to God "for the poor souls in purgatory," and they'd find relief, and eventually release. I found it was a wonderful way, actually, to be introduced to the redemptive power of suffering.

But All Saints day... I was never quite too sure of what it meant to be a part of the Communion of Saints, although we Catholics always declare our belief in it every time we recite the Creed. Oh sure, I knew that it was a grand Communion -- a community of all those, living and dead, who were open to God's love and grace... we were all Saints, even those of us alive if we hadn't sinned gravely, and even those nobody had ever heard of. It is a great idea, and one day I hope to really see what that Communion is all about.

But this is all a digression. What I especially enjoyed on that Sunday was reading the Gospel for that feast day... which is the Beatitudes, probably the best-known of all scripture passages. Even non-Christians applaud the wisdom of those lines in the Sermon on the Mount. They're good words to live by. Whenever I pray over those words, I allow myself to focus on just one of those beatitudes. This time, the words that hit me were "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain (receive) mercy."

And... at first it worried me. I don't often think about being merciful to others. What does that mean? I don't think about ever being in the position to dispense mercy... I've so often thought of mercy as something that a judge dispenses (or not) to people that are being sentenced. But you know, I really do WANT to receive mercy if I need it... and I am forced to believe that I need it, even though I don't like admitting that at all, much less on a blog! So this reflection drove me first to think of the things that I'd hope that I receive mercy for. You can start with the fact that I have a good warm home to live in with a roof over my head, and meals whenever I need them, and a bed that I could right now curl up in and be comfortable... when many of my brothers and sisters in the world lack even those simple things that I take for granted. It's so easy to feel that I've worked hard for these things, and I deserve them.

But I really know that the goods of this earth are supposed to be shared... and that the homeless, the hungry, the forgotten... all of them have a claim on me, if I forget them, and fail to remember their needs, and neglect to share the goods that I've been lucky enough to have and enjoy in this life. And so... if THEY should happen to be doing the judging, what would happen to me? YES, I would want mercy! I think of the story of Lazarus begging for mercy, just the mercy of a drop of water on a parched tongue... MERCY!

And so I've been thinking about mercy, particularly BEING MERCIFUL. Don't we have many occasions to be merciful? Perhap not in the usual sense of being a judge over someone else, but yes, it may still amount to being a judge! What about the scruffy-looking person standing on the street corner with a sign, "No job, anything helps, God bless." Don't we judge that guy every time we see him, especially if we avoid looking at him so he can't see that we see him?

I really have appreciated the JustFaith program I'm in this year (see earlier post). So I made the decision -- this is my MERCY coming through. I'm keeping an envelope in my car with a few one-dollar bills in it. Whenever I see one of those guys (they're mostly guys, aren't they? But not all, though) on the corner, I'm just going to give them a dollar, and my good wishes to boot. And why not? Why not indeed? First, I have the money -- I don't meet so many people like this that I can't afford to give EVERY guy on the corner a buck -- it is NOT going to amount to more than, say, $20 a month at the very most! Second, while I don't know how it will be spent, even if it winds up going to an alcohol or other addiction, I know they need it more than I do. This is not some lucrative scam they've got going... I'd NEVER want to change places with them. So isn't that part of what being MERCIFUL is about, regarding their condition in this life? And third, I really want to be free to look those folks in the eye... I really want to say that I wish them well, and mean it. I can still give to plenty of other charities, but from now on I really want to be able to be my usual cheerful self even when I meet a street beggar. Maybe even especially then. There but for the grace of God go I.

Afghanistan -- CRS viewpoint

The other day I signed up to be a part of a CRS webcast about Afghanistan.

I have a lot of respect for CRS. CRS stands for Catholic Relief Services, and it is a program developed by the US Catholic Bishops, representing their efforts to develop a global dimension for its social justice efforts. The fine organization is active in nearly every poor country in the world, and is trusted in many areas where the US government is NOT trusted. Contrary to its name, it is NOT primarily about relief (which is does supply, very admirably); it is primarily about development.

I have been connected with CRS for several years, and in 2006 went to Tanzania and Kenya as part of an "immersion trip" with a dozen others from Seattle, a delegation put together by Friends of CRS, a grass-roots organization in Seattle that I helped found, with a couple of others in the area. We saw first-hand both the grass-roots works that CRS was involved with, and the top-level professionalism and organization that makes it one of the best NGOs in existence.

Because of this, I was VERY interested when I heard about the webcast on Afghanistan. I should first disclose that I have a long history in peace/nonviolence. I was a "conscientious objector" during the Vietnam War, and have been arrested for peaceful civil disobedience in actions opposing the Trident missle base at Bangar, on the Kitsap peninsula, not far from Seattle. My wife Joan and I have both been involved, though not recently; one of my prized possessions is a framed picture of my daughter Janice, about 4 years old, carrying a cross during a Good Friday Stations of the Cross action at the base, with Archbishop Hunthausen standing right behind her -- it hangs in my office at the church.

I must say, though, that while I never, ever, would have allowed myself to be used as an instrument of war through military service in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else, I have been quiet about our government's involvement in Afghanistan. The US moved into that country for the purpose of disrupting or destroying terrorist base camps, and in so doing we removed the Taliban, a notoriously militant violator of human rights, from power, and succeeded. President Obama stressed during his campaign for the presidency that our country had stressed the wrong war, that our focus should have been on finding all of those responsible for 9-11 and the international terrorism that they espoused.

But now...I have really questioned what in the world we're doing there, and why. That's why I looked forward with great interest to hearing what CRS had to say about Afghanistan. CRS has 400 field people at work in the country -- 95% of them Muslims hired from within the country -- operating a variety of programs centered on relief and development. They're trying to make an important, moral difference, and they see it all.

The webcast lasts an hour, but you can check out about the first 20-25 minutes and get a good feel for what they're saying. The last part is devoted to answering questions (for once, I didn't ask any). I have a link to this posted on the St. Bridget parish web site -- check it out. Or, either check out or download the PDF files that provide a summary of their presentation. I'd be interested in knowing what you think.