My friends, today is the last Sunday in Ordinary Time that we will celebrate until after the Lenten and Easter seasons. This next Wednesday we begin the holy season of Lent, a time of 40 days that basically, in the most positive sense, invites us to look into our hearts to see what we find there and strive to become perhaps, a better version of ourselves. These 40 days can be seen as an opportunity to be better, if we look at them through the eyes of faith, hope and love, rather than a time to punish ourselves for our failings.
All the readings for this Sunday can prepare us well for our journey through Lent as I suggested above. The 1st reading from Sirach does a lovely job I feel of comparing our speech— “our talk,” that is, “to the sifting of grain, a kiln, and the pottery within, and an orchard, and the fruit that grows there. Each example, Sirach suggests will be as good as the farmer, the potter, and “the keeper of the fruit” is good—doing their work to the best of their ability. Our speech likewise will demonstrate, what is in our hearts—whether good or bad. As Jesus says in today’s gospel: “All people speak from their heart’s abundance.”
Perhaps a bit of clarification: In my understanding of the function of our hearts in determining our actions, it seems that if we are “engaging” our hearts in any action that we do, then the result will be good, as our hearts are the “well” of where love resides. When any of us do what we would consider “evil,” it would seem that we did not first lay that action on our hearts.
The psalm choice today, 92, would seem to give us assurance for the good that we attempt to do in life: “The just flourish like a palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon, [even into] old age.” Simply put then, it would seem that the 1st reading and the psalm response are all about developing and demonstrating, “good character” within and for us, and as well for and toward others.
Paul, in the 2nd reading to the Corinthians encourages them [to be] “fully engaged in the work of Jesus.” We must ask then—just what does that mean? It’s all about love, I would suggest—taking whatever you are dealing with on any given day and laying it on your heart. To me, it seems that, “engaging our hearts” will always give us a good outcome. We may not be living within a stated law at times, but we will be doing, in a higher sense, the right thing.
In these times in which we are living, when it seems too many in positions of power over others are choosing to live, not from their hearts, wherein they could see and hear the injustices that many are being asked to live with, but from their own selfish and greedy desires, the Scriptures are calling all believers to something bigger than themselves, to balance.
When we have balance in our lives, we can experience “righteous anger” over injustices in the lives of others, and work through words and actions to make a difference. This past Thursday, over 25 people gathered at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse and wrote 300 postcards to Congress –both sides of the aisle suggesting and imploring them to work from their hearts for the betterment of all.
Jesus’ familiar words in today’s gospel from Luke of “removing the log from our own eyes, before seeing the speck in another’s eye” is a powerful piece to consider when we attempt to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. “Righteous anger” can easily shift to “self-righteousness” and something to always be aware of. I am sure that Jesus, being totally human as well as totally divine, was aware of this tendency within himself.
Another human tendency for each of us to remember is that of wanting to be accepted—appreciated, even loved by our peers, which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but this tendency can sometimes get in the way of us being our best selves.
Scripture scholar, Diane Bergant speaks to this issue when she says, “we only have one chance to make a good first impression.” The trouble with “good impressions” is the criteria used to determine what in fact is “good,” she says. Our culture tends to look too much at externals to judge this, the clothes we wear, the shape of our bodies, gender, color of our skin, and so on—how unfortunate if we look no further or deeper. Sirach and Jesus’ examples point to this—only a good tree produces good fruit—the product of the kiln shows the craft of the potter. And only in living and through experience do we acquire the wisdom to truly know what others are made of –what we ourselves are made of.
I can speak to this tendency of putting great store in externals having grown up in a home that uplifted the importance of “what others will think.” All my life since I broke free of that kind of measuring, I have had to struggle to beat down such thinking—that people are more than 1st impressions might show us.
A bit more on the speck versus the log—self-righteousness and all. Robert Barron, Winona/Rochester bishop recently gave an interview to the Rochester Post Bulletin wherein he discouraged the viewing of the new film, CONCLAVE which many of you know looks at the inside story of electing a new pope at the death of the previous one. Our bishop’s reason for “not viewing it” was, because the film, in his mind, uplifts the entire “woke agenda,” which he feels is all wrong. I for one would challenge the bishop to look at Jesus’ agenda and see how similar it is to the woke agenda.
Paul’s statement caught my attention today in that regard—“sin gets its power from the law.” I humbly submit that one could only make such a request, as has our bishop regarding CONCLAVE if indeed they were operating out of the law alone, instead of the heart, or more directly, out of love.
Additionally, regarding our parish, All Are One, it would seem that a leader who would refuse to sit down and talk with a group who asked him to, could be said to be acting out of the law, disregarding love. My read of Scripture lets me know that Jesus spoke with everyone who asked, availing himself, to even go to their homes—not demanding first that they abide by “the law” before he would come.
My friends, walking in Jesus’ footsteps is always about love and if it is about law, then that law must always, in the end, be about the law to love. Amen? Amen!
All Are One Church 