My friends, I began my reflections for today with somewhat of a heavy heart.  You see, I have been carrying, as I know you have too, the pain, anger, and lack of understanding of the actions of the hierarchy of the Catholic church, with regard to the clergy-sex abuse crisis and its cover-up by those who should have been protecting the most innocent among us and instead chose to protect themselves.  The pain and anger for me are about a Church that I have loved all my life and the lack of understanding are about how power for them could be more important so as to justify abuse, especially, of children, to protect it.

This Church that has been my beacon, (supposedly) for the way that I should live my life; has, in its hierarchy, lost its way, by forgetting the words of their leader, our brother, Jesus. And sadly, with so much already uncovered evidence in just one state in our union with the assurance that every state in our union has similar caches documenting more of the same types of abuse as was discovered in Pennsylvania; the People of God still await the word of our Pope and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as to what they intend to do to stop these crimes once and for all!

Our Scriptures for this 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2018 give them and us all the direction that is needed.  Moses in his declarations to the Israelites is clear: Observe [the Commandments] carefully, demonstrating wisdom and intelligence in your actions.  James, in the second reading continues, “Humbly welcome the word that is planted within you.”  Additionally, “act on this word—because if all you do is listen to it; you are deceiving yourselves.” I love James’ forthrightness! And finally,  he declares that, “pure, unspoiled religion” is all about coming to the aid of those in need.  For the Israelites, it was the widows and orphans.  For us, in our time, it is abused little kids, teenagers and young adults, male and female.

Jesus, our brother, our beacon to follow, says well I believe, the only way we can collectively, as a church of believers look at this situation, from those who occupy the pews, to those who dispense the sacraments and supposedly lead the faithful, “These people honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me—you disregard God’s commandments, but cling to human traditions.”

We read in today’s gospel how the Pharisees and others in Jesus’ time got “lost” in the rituals and forgot the message to love—because that is really what it is all about, right? Jesus tried to tell them.  We can look to ourselves as well and see the same.

Through my years of Catholic upbringing and for many of you too; we were diligent about keeping First Fridays, fasting during Lent, abstaining from meat on all Fridays, attending Sunday Mass and other such rituals. We might also reflect on our motives for these actions back then—were they actions completed out of love and a desire to grow closer to God through Jesus, or were these actions done more out of fear that if we didn’t; we would go to hell when we died? Like the Pharisees, it might be said that we lost our way, those in the pews, those who dispensed the sacraments and those who were expected to be our leaders.

If we did all the rituals out of love as opposed to fear, it might now be easier to see and realize that this current crisis in our church calls for the deepest and most profound commitment that we can muster.  It calls for all the gifts and fruits of the Spirit that we received at our confirmations; that of strength, forbearance, goodness in great measure, truth-telling—no matter to whom the truth must be spoken!

In an ideal church, our Pope, our local bishop, perhaps even one priest here might have spoken out publicly decrying a Church that would so grievously abuse its young and further cover-up the crimes to protect their power.  We, all of us must each do our part—many if not all of us know priests personally, perhaps the bishop, in our city or elsewhere—we must write them, talk to them, confront and demand that they act for themselves, for us, for our Church—whether that means talking with the bishop or speaking out individually—the credibility of our Church as a moral leader in our midst is at stake.  This is my challenge to each of us.

The Scriptures today are indeed clear—if we merely listen to the law and do not act upon it, Jesus tells us, it means nothing.  Giving lip service when “heart” service is what is called for, falls woefully short!  Jesus tells us today; it is not that which we take into our bodies (the wrong food, on the wrong day), that makes us “unclean,” unwholesome, or evil, but that which comes out of our hearts, of an evil nature—we are capable of both, good and bad.

The more the human heart is looked at by theologians and others, it is becoming clear that good and evil originate there, even more so than in our minds.  We never talk of someone having a “good mind” with regard to doing “good” actions in life—we might say, “They have a “good heart.”

How the Grinch Stole Christmas depicts a character out of the imagination of Dr. Seuss who was said to have a “heart that was two sizes too small.”  Therefore, I would add, all the good that can also come out of our hearts and we do not do, makes us “unclean,” unwhole, and less than Jesus’ followers too!

So, my friends, pulling this all together, our faith calls us in these distressing times to put forth all the good our hearts are capable of—speaking truth to power, speaking truth wherever and whenever we can, demand the action from the hierarchical church that Jesus would, and if you and I get “crucified” for it, we will at least know that we were part of the solution and not part of the problem, plus we are in some pretty good company!

Most of us have nothing to lose but our standing in our families, perhaps and, in our communities, but now is a pivotal time in our Church and if we don’t do the piece that we are called to do, who will?  The question we might ask ourselves this week, “Is our Church worth that much to us—its moral standing? Will history record this time, this year, 2018, when we were called to make a difference and we turned a deaf ear, or will it remember us and others as those that finally, finally put our faith into action!  Amen? Amen!

My friends, for the past 5 weeks; we have been pondering the meaning of Jesus’ words to us, that he is the “bread of life”  along with the call for us to be “bread,” his life for our world.

We have talked about what that entails for each of us—loving as Jesus loved this world and its people, speaking our truth, as we come to know it, inspired by the Spirit of God, within our families, at work, at church, in our wider world and speaking that truth whether it is to our priest, our bishop or our pope. We have learned recently what happens when the truth is kept in the dark from the People of God.

With that then as a backdrop; we move on to a new theme today in our readings—that of faith.  The issue of faith is not separate from our action of sharing Jesus with our world, in all its aspects, but faith, our faith, in fact, gives us the strength, based on what we know from Jesus’ life with us to remain strong to do what we must to become our best selves, walking in his footsteps.

To have faith, to believe as Joshua is asking the Israelites at Shechem in today’s 1^st reading is no small task.  First and foremost, he wants them to believe in some god—commit to following a force greater than themselves—he sees this as so important that he tells them if it can’t be YHWH, then choose to believe in the god of the Amorites that your ancestors believed in who previously lived on your land.

Joshua though, as all prophets do, leads by example—“He and his family will believe in YHWH.” The people do eventually follow his lead as they realize that the God of Joshua has been with them too when they lived in slavery and that this God brought them out of that land and time.

Joshua relates the story of how their God has loved and cared for them and that gratitude must be their response along with serving faithfully this God who has not    abandoned them and never will. Joshua doesn’t want them to be “wishy-washy,” but find and know in their hearts what it is that they believe and be willing to stand up and say it and act upon it in their daily lives.

As a bit of an aside; I wanted to call your attention to the name that Joshua uses to speak of God—YHWH, devoid of vowels. This text comes to us from The Priests for Equality, as you know.  Writing God’s name in this fashion is being true to the Israelites’ notion that they really couldn’t adequately speak of the awesomeness of their God.  Our church hierarchy today would do well to learn from their example that they can’t put God in a box, defining, in their minds, who God is, complete with gender—male of course, and made in their image and likeness so as to give to us, those that they supposedly shepherd, a God that supports all that they design and do.

I just finished reading John Shelby Spong’s latest, and in his words, “final book” entitled, Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today. It’s a remarkable book wherein he gives us 12 theses, challenging within them, the core tenets of our faith.

Spong, an Episcopal bishop for many years, as well as an international speaker and writer, has proven himself to be one, over his ministerial lifetime, a deep thinker and spiritual person of prayer and faith out of which his Spirit-filled ideas flow.  He writes and speaks not for his own aggrandizement, but for the good of the People of God.

Just some of the topics he challenges us to look at and either re-commit our faith to, or leave behind are: original sin, the virgin birth, atonement theology, Easter, the ascension, life after death.  It is not that he is in denial necessarily about these issues, but is clearly looking to have them make sense in our lives today. We have talked about that a good deal here as we try to make the Scriptures come alive in our day.

To have faith generally means to believe in something that we can’t completely understand.  That is different from being asked to believe in outdated concepts such as original sin, virgin births and atonement theology, Bishop Spong would say.  If a concept does not enhance our beliefs, but merely confuses us, then perhaps a further look is necessary.

Priests for Equality have aided us in this regard when we try to update our Scriptures,  being inclusive in as many ways as possible—in gender and in culture, to name just two, so that the Scriptures can become a living document for all.    Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today is a case in point.

This translation speaks of “loving your partners.” Older translations always spoke of, “husbands loving their wives.”  With the new translation, “loving your partners,” this once dead reading to gay couples is now opened up for them and is alive. Spong would say, “Updating our language allows us to see broader ideas rather than getting caught in words that exclude and divide.

And finally, in our sometimes struggles to understand and to believe, Jesus asks us all from the Gospel today, “Is this a stumbling block for you?  Are you going to leave me too?”

This last question from our brother Jesus today, lets us know that there were no doubt many who couldn’t believe or didn’t want to believe that doing what he asked,  loving radically and “wastefully,” as Spong says, as Jesusand his Abba did, would lead to anything good.

In our Catholic church today; there are no doubt many who if they haven’t already walked away, will now, over the revelations out of Pennsylvania of the sex abuse of over 1,000 children by 300 priests and the cover-up by bishops and popes.

This past week has also brought forth statements by authors, teachers, theologians—a letter signed by over 3,000 such individuals asking that all bishops within this country voluntarily resign as an action representing good faith in resolving this crisis.  Such an action is truly needed! Adding women as priests or allowing for married men won’t fix this broken system.  Change in total must happen—“clericalism,” the institution that sets clergy above the people they supposedly serve, has to go—now!

It has been suggested by some that a commission of 2/3 laity with full voting powers be set up to lead these necessary changes as it seems rather unlikely that these changes will come from the hierarchy.  Jesus’ question today, “Is this a stumbling block for you?” is certainly apropos.

Faith, in its truest sense calls us to be thinking, loving, compassionate people—faith only makes sense if we, each of us, are willing to say and do the hard things that will convict us of being Christians—followers of Jesus! Amen? Amen!