On May 31^st, in her monthly publication, Monastic Way, Sr. Joan Chittister shared these words from Robert Kennedy:

“Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance!”

Today in the country of Yemen, people, many of them children are literally starving to death while Saudi Arabia and Iran fight with each other for power and control of the area.

Closer to home, this country debates, whether the rights of gun owners are more important than the rights to life of our school children.

In both examples, you may be thinking that I have simplified them too much as to not understand the total picture.  Sometimes when problems appear so big that we seemingly can’t do a thing to make a difference, I think the simplest answer might be the best one!

If fighting is keeping the food from those who are starving, then it behooves all of us as responsible people living in a world that has become incredibly small, to do what is necessary to feed the hungry.

If guns kill people and we know that this is so, then as responsible people in this country, we can’t make it so easy for those who want to kill people, to do so!

The Catholic hierarchy that supposedly follows in the footsteps of Jesus who was nothing if not inclusive of women in life and ministry, reiterated its 10 year ban on the ordination of women this past week.  Coming at this one with the simplest response, I would say, “Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus!”

Today we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi—The Body of Christ.  This is a beautiful feast if we see it in its fullness.  Contrary to what the Catholic church Universal has lifted up for us over the centuries—that of respect and love and honor shown to the elements on the altar—which we should do; this feast calls us to so much more.

We are grateful to our brother Jesus for leaving us a tangible way to be close—the Eucharist, but I believe he never intended it to end there, as a personal, intimate  comingling with the divine.  Jesus was always a person of action in his humanity—always reaching out, uplifting the poor, the down-trodden and calling the powers-that-be to do the same!

The gift of the Eucharist that Jesus left us on that first Holy Thursday was meant to be an action word and substance, a verb, if you will, not a static noun, to be honored. When we receive the bread, the wine, made, by our words at the consecration, Jesus’ body and blood—a mystery we can only take on faith, the intent, I suggest, was always to transform this gift, make it part of ourselves and carry it to our world, through our actions of justice, as Robert Kennedy once suggested that we do.  The real transubstantiation that needs to take place is that we, each of us would become “bread” for our world.

So, you see, this feast isn’t a complicated one at all, but really quite simple!

Friends, if, when we receive the Eucharist—we do not allow it to transform us, then we, have fallen short of truly walking in Jesus’ footsteps.  The examples I gave in the beginning are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak of areas in our city, country and world that need the love, mercy, understanding and justice of our brother Jesus, so let’s continue our work! Amen? Amen!

 

 

 

Each year friends, our Church sees fit to celebrate a Sunday that not only allows, but actually implores us to look deeply at who God is for us.  The word, “trinity,” we all know, speaks to the phenomenon of a God who is present to us in theology and in other ways as three distinct persons, yet comprising one God.

We are asked to believe this whether we can fully understand it or not.  And when it comes to matters of faith, things that we can’t really get our minds around; I think it is best to come at them with our hearts.  Our hearts are wiser.

Whether we can truly understand the concept of three persons in one God is not as important, I think, as understanding the idea that we are truly loved by our God.  And how do we know this? We know it in Jesus, who as the second person of this Triune God became one of us humans in time.  That too; we can’t truly understand, but we can understand the motive behind the action—LOVE.

Contrary to an older theology, still touted by some today that Jesus came primarily to redeem us from the fires of hell by dying on the cross; Jesus actually came as many present day theologians suggest and I agree, as a direct and pure expression of a God, who as Creator, loved creation beyond all measure.  Jesus lived, loved, taught and shared life with us humans, always showing us the way to be our best selves.  And in time, he died a cruel death designed for those who didn’t follow the rules. He died because of how he chose to live, demanding that all were equal and that we, as his sisters and brothers, must do the same. Understandably, his demands were met with some push-back, especially from those in power.

Now, to design a theology of errant humanity in need of redemption is perhaps an easier way to go than to give humanity the true picture of a God who loves over-the-top.  When we teach the later, that of a God who loves without end, our task in this world becomes much more pronounced too—we can hardly do less!

Today’s readings give us three pictures of God.  It is important, I think, to see them in progression to get the full image of who God truly is for us.  If we were merely to stop with the first reading from Deuteronomy, we might tend to see our God as exclusive, choosing a small band of Israelites over all of creation. Better that we continue on through to the New Testament readings from Paul and Matthew to see the completion in Jesus who said upon leaving the earth, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the world!”

Paul fleshes this out for us in his letter to the Romans expanding the theology.  He says that through the Spirit, our God has adopted us, adopted us all—we are heirs, with Jesus, in the great family of God.

Now the notion of God choosing us as a people in Deuteronomy is a good starting place as long as we see the completion of that in Jesus’ stories of the Prodigal and that of the shepherd leaving the 99 to go in search of the lost one. Both stories depict the over-the-top love of the Creator for the created!—a love intended for all!

So, on this Trinity Sunday, a day that calls us to consider who God is for us; I will share who God is for me.  I often speak of God in the Trinity as Creator, Savior and Spirit.  This concept is devoid of gender, per se, except in the person of our brother, Jesus, who when you think about it, probably gave us the most androgynous view of the good of both genders, female and male.  I can most effectively have a relationship with Jesus because of his presence, in time, as a human being, and I believe this was the wisdom of our God in appearing in human form—to tell us in a way that we could understand, how much we are loved and cherished, each one of us.

God as Creator, I choose to see in all of created life—in all the beauty, the joy, the attempts to be people of peace and understanding.

The Spirit, for me, is that force within that gives me the courage to say the hard things, to do what I might not always want to do for fear of being rejected.  The Spirit is really the life of Jesus, in a new form.

Friends, let us pray today for each other to allow God to be who she/he is as we each come to know this force in our lives ever more profoundly. Amen? Amen!