My friends, the readings this week from the prophets, Elisha, Jesus and Paul, call us to consider the virtue of faith, what it is, what it is not, and what it personally means to each of us.  We all come out of somewhat the same experiences, given our ages, as far as faith goes.  Prior to the 2^nd Vatican Council when Pope John XXIII was about, “opening windows and doors,” speaking poetically about letting, “fresh air” into our beloved Church that hadn’t known any significant changes in belief or practice in hundreds of years, we all were trained to be “black and white” believers – that is, if Father said it, it was so – “Father,” the priest, was pretty much synonymous with God.

   Then came Angelo Roncalli – “Good Pope John” who wanted our beloved Church to be more open, inviting, and compassionate, where basically “love” would supersede law.  And history tells us that this was no simple fix – we humans very easily get stuck in our ways and find change hard, even if it is for the best.  In fact, we see a concerted effort at present within our Church, among some of the bishops, our own especially, to back track to pre-Vatican II times.

   So, that brings us to today’s readings which I said in the beginning revolve around our faith.  So, what is faith anyway?  If I were to ask each of you, the answers may be somewhat the same, yet somewhat different.  I will jump into the middle here and say first what I believe faith is not.  It is not “lack of doubt, but really the opposite.   So, to give us a working definition, I would say, “faith is believing in something or someone that we don’t have all the answers about, yet we believe, and trust in that “truth” anyway. 

   Think of the articles of faith that you have believed in, or perhaps accepted all your life that we really don’t have proof of:  creation of our beautiful world by a benevolent God who supposedly wants good and not bad for us; that this benevolent God became one-of-us in Jesus, to show us the way, that this same Jesus lived, died and rose from the dead, to give us a path to follow, and so on.  Now, we don’t have proof of any of this, except that if we look historically, there was a man, Jesus, from, as some have said, “the little backward town of Nazareth,” that did indeed live, but beyond that, the rest we take on faith from those who first believed.  And, without a doubt, our human ability and willingness to believe, has been abused over the years and centuries by those with power, to write the story for their own benefit. 

   In the past I have shared the untruth around the belief in our mother and sister Mary’s immaculate conception, which would have us believe that she was conceived and born without the “original” sin that the rest of us were supposedly “stained” with.  Now, it must be remembered that to be “human” means that we are “imperfect.”  If Mary was without sin at birth, or ever, then she was not human, which was why supposedly Mary was needed – to give Jesus the human component. 

   My friends, this is just one example of how those with the power in our Church decide what the narrative that they want to promote will be, and then they back track, to basically make it so.  And that chosen narrative was that we humans really “blew it,” God became angry with us, and only the death of his beloved son could make up for our sins, and make us right with God again. 

   Now, if you have ever doubted that such a story could be true, I would submit that your faith is intact!  Because you see, faith does not mean that we have “certainty” about a given thing, but in fact, we may doubt because we just don’t know, but yet, we can believe perhaps in a bigger concept, such as, that our God loved us enough to become one-of-us, and live-with-us.  If we have “certainty,” then there is no need for faith. Let me repeat that: If we have “certainty,” then there is no need for faith.

   So then, let us turn to today’s Scriptures for the ways they can enlighten us.  In the 1^st reading, Naaman, a man with leprosy is asked to believe in the prophet Elisha who tells him to wash in the river Jordan in order to be “made clean.”  He takes the prophet’s word on faith, not knowing if what he hopes for will come to pass.

   Paul, in his 2^nd letter to Timothy tells us that, “there is no chaining the Word of God,” unlike the chains that imprison Paul as he writes to Timothy.  My friends, when our “faith” is based simply on “black and white” rules – do this, don’t do that, no questions asked, and often set in place by those, as I said earlier, who want to control the story, so as to control the people, then “faith” ceases to exist.  Faith, grownup faith that is, shouldn’t necessarily come easily –ideally, it is something that we should struggle with. 

   Jesuit priest and musician, Dan Schutte has rightly stated that our faith must be approached through both our hearts and minds, beginning with our hearts.  Using this approach, of starting with the heart, allows us to apply love, compassion, and understanding, to a situation which can really “open us up” to much more than just beginning with our minds – basically, the law says no, therefore it must be wrong. 

   Naaman’s cure from leprosy was about believing in something he couldn’t fully understand, yet trusted in – somehow…  Paul’s counsel to his student Timothy, was, “the Word of God couldn’t be chained” – boxed in, that is. 

   I have shared many times over the years that my personal call to priesthood moved outside of a man-made law that said, “this couldn’t happen” in order that I could hear, “the Word of God,” that wasn’t, “chained,” that could move beyond the law, in order that love, compassion, and understanding could happen.

   Finally, the story in Luke’s gospel today about the one man with leprosy, now cured, who returned to “thank” Jesus is compelling for us simply because of the more expansive reaction (love-gratitude) that his faith brought forth.  We see this same reaction in the response of Naaman to the prophet Elisha in the first reading today, who cures him from leprosy. Naaman wants to gift Elisha for what has been given to him, but Elisha won’t accept a gift for what he feels God has done through him. Still, Naaman takes the next step, which you may have wondered about, asking Elisha to give him “two mule-loads of earth” to take to his home – Naaman’s purpose was that he would kneel on that earth each day to pray to, and show gratitude to the God of Elisha.

   Jesus’ reaction to the man – a Samaritan in fact, who most Jews at the time looked down on, “your faith has been your salvation,” could no doubt be discussed at length as to what Jesus actually meant, and I would simply suggest that he meant more than physical salvation, but “heart and mind” salvation too, that ability then, going forward toward  becoming more open, more loving , more understanding – of all that he would meet. Amen? Amen!

My friends, we are challenged once again this week to see beyond the “black and white” story as presented in Luke’s gospel today about the poor, sick man, Lazarus, at the gates of the rich man, hoping only for the scraps falling from an abundant table. The story might be seen simply as one selfish man refusing to share with an unfortunate neighbor. 

   But actually, as is always the case with our brother Jesus, he is asking us to see more.  The actual “sin” here is not the selfishness of one human to another, but the sin of being “complacent” which the prophet Amos is railing about to his Israelite neighbors in the 1^st reading today.  He says, “Woe to [you who are] complacent!” 

   When we become complacent, we don’t recognize evil when it is right in front of us, or we can’t be bothered, and eventually this attitude blocks us from being our best selves, which is really what following Jesus is all about. 

   Again, looking deeper at the gospel story, you may have noticed that the poor man is named while the rich man is not.  We are told that this lack of naming the rich man is a way to downplay his actions while uplifting, through naming, the plight of Lazarus. 

   By uplifting the poor man Lazarus, Jesus calls our attention to him, the good he embodies, and the need to recognize him, and others like him – or in other words, not be complacent.  As we spoke of last week, we may not be able to totally fix every problem that we encounter in our world, but we must have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that engage with those in need, doing what we can. 

   I recently, through one of you, was introduced to a really wonderful book, entitled,  Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan.  In the first chapters, I was a bit concerned as he seemed to be down-playing so many of the events and places connected to Jesus as historically not possible – events that we remember in our yearly liturgical calendar, such as Jesus being born in Bethlehem and his parents traveling to Egypt to escape King Herod. 

   Now, Aslan isn’t the first to write in this fashion about the historical Jesus of Nazareth who did live, teach and preach, and die as a result of how he had lived, and he won’t be the last, no doubt, but his book in its entirety has led me to believe even more so than before in all that Jesus did and has meant to our world.  Let me tell you why. 

   As with everything that we read in the Bible, we must go to the heart of the message.  Our God did send our brother Jesus to be one of us, encouraging each of us through his own life to live, as we heard today in Paul’s letter to Timothy, “as one dedicated to God, [striving] to be a person of integrity, [one who can reverence all of creation] filled with faith  and love, [one who is] patient and gentle. 

   Aslan, in his book, relates the message of Jesus of Nazareth as those first followers knew him and believed him to be the Messiah, alongside Saul of Tarsus, who later would become Paul, who gave the world Jesus, the Christ.

   We must remember two things here – Jesus’ 1^st followers didn’t necessarily think of him as both human and God, whereas Paul, who never knew Jesus in the flesh, proclaimed him, in his belief, as the Christ, a God big enough for all believers – not just Jews.  Writers like Franciscans, Sister Ilia Delio and Father Richard Rohr speak of Jesus as the “Cosmic Christ” in this regard – again, a God big enough for all of us. 

   Aslan, in Zealot, lays out the real struggles between the church in Jerusalem headed by James the Just, most likely Jesus’ brother, and not his “cousin,” as we Catholics were told through the years,  and the church of Paul who took Jesus’ message to the Gentiles. 

   Over time, the two belief systems would be melded, and in Aslan’s words, [the person, Jesus of Nazareth] “would be almost lost to history.”  Personally, I always wondered why I very seldom, if at all heard the message, the words and actions of Jesus lifted up in my brother priests’ homilies.  Aslan helped me see perhaps a bit of the answer. 

   Believing in mysteries such as God coming among us in human form, [however that may have happened] living a time, dying, rising, and ascending into heaven – actions that we humans are really not capable of, make the belief in such a God/human in some ways more palatable then believing in a human/God who journeyed through life as we do – trying and succeeding at doing his best – encouraging us to do the same – in fact, expecting us to!  Aslan says that “this is a shame, because the one thing any comprehensive study of the historical Jesus should reveal is that Jesus of Nazareth – Jesus the man, is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus, the Christ. He is in short, someone worth believing in.”  And I would add, modeling in our own lives. 

   So, my friends, what is the author of Zealot  saying here?  That Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus, the Christ are two different beings?  No.  What I think he is saying is that the two are one, but that we must take the whole package and especially, “not be complacent” in following our brother Jesus who spoke truth-to-power when needed, even if those who needed to be challenged were so-called leaders in Church or State.  To be a Christian, not to be confused with those who today tie this title to “nationalism,” means that we will “have to be bothered,” we can’t look away, we must respond as Jesus did, because “not responding” seems to be the true sin spoken of in today’s gospel.  Let’s not be guilty of that sin – complacency.  Amen? Amen!