The Answer to Everything

This past week, I watched some of the third and final presidential debate. Don’t worry; I said all that I want to say about our political and civic responsibilities in my homily last week. But watching that debate, I noticed how both candidates always had a response to anything they were asked. Sometimes their responses actually answered the question, sometimes not, but no matter what they were asked they always had something to say.

In the Gospel today, Jesus is asked to answer a question, and just like the question in last week’s Gospel about paying the census tax to Caesar, it is a question designed to trip him up. In fact, at this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is asked a whole series of questions, all of which are antagonistic. They come at the very end of his earthly ministry, after he has triumphantly entered Jerusalem to the acclamation of the crowds, and after he has cleansed the Temple by throwing out the moneychangers. The scribes and Pharisees have long been annoyed by Jesus, who has criticized them, called them hypocrites, and eroded their authority with the people. For that reason, they’ve been repeatedly trying to discredit him, but to this point they’ve failed. The questions they ask him in Jerusalem, then, including the question we hear today, are a last ditch effort to trip him up – to get him to say something that will undermine his moral authority with the Jewish people.

Jesus, though, is always ready to meet their questions with an answer – not a pat, flippant response, not an avoidance of the question, or a harsh dismissal of it, but an honest and direct answer. Jesus’s answers were also incredibly insightful – far more insightful than the wisdom of the scribes and Pharisees, the supposed religious authorities of their day. In Jesus, the Jewish people saw that God had sent them the One who could answer all of their questions. As Christians, we go one step further. Jesus doesn’t just have the answer to all of our questions; he is himself the Answer – he is the “Logos” of God: the Word, the Reason, the Design. As the Second Person of the Trinity who has come to share our nature and reality, he speaks with an authority that is at once divine and human. He reveals to us the mysteries of God but also the deepest truths about ourselves.

The Pharisees and Sadducees Come to Tempt Jesus (c. 1892) by James Tissot

You and I also need to hear the answers Jesus provides, and what only he can teach us. What God wants us to understand from his Son are not just truths and revelations from long ago; they are things we still must understand and live out today. And, indeed, today’s Gospel tells us that what God commands us is not something distant or esoteric, but straightforward. “The whole law and the prophets,” Jesus says – everything that is contained in what we call the Old Testament – consists in loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

The principle is just that simple: to love God and to love others. But as we know, living it out is much harder. We know all too well how hard it can be to love in practice not just in principle. We are aware of the different circumstances in our homes and family lives that can make it difficult to keep ourselves focused on loving God above all and to loving others in the way that we should. In our workplaces, in our relationships, in the particular questions that make up our lives in the here and now, we know the different scenarios that don’t always provide an easy answers about how to love. Even in our Church, we wrestle at times with uncomfortable realities, painful pasts, and uncertain futures that can distract or discourage us from the simple if challenging command to love. In short, when Jesus tells us that the whole of the moral life can be summed up by loving God and one another, it feels that often we might find ourselves prompted to respond, “Yes, Lord, but *how*?”

Let me share two thoughts that might be helpful. The first is to keep asking ourselves questions and keep striving for answers. One of the greatest dangers to loving well is becoming satisfied with our where we are at – becoming lazy spiritually. We think, “Oh, I’m too old or too set in my ways to seek God, or to grow in my faith, or to learn how to love more deeply.” There is a spirit of indifferentism that can afflict us when we don’t want to keep striving to grow and to deepen our faith, when we take it for granted in search of other goals. Jesus calls us all of us to holiness, and holiness according to the standard of loving well. If we want to reach it, then we will have to keep asking ourselves important questions – questions like: “Do I love God?”; “Do I love him with my whole being; my heart and soul and mind?”;“Do I seek to love my neighbor, whoever that may be – not just the persons I like, or admire, or who make me feel good about myself, but even the persons I don’t like, the persons who bother me, the persons who have aggrieved me?” Asking those questions isn't easy, and we won’t always like every answer to them, but that’s okay. It’s important to keep asking them, because they point us toward where we have room for further growth.

The second thought is to repeat what I said at the start: Jesus is himself the Answer to all of our questions. In the end the love of God and the love of others is united in the love of Christ. In him, we fulfill both of the commandments of this Gospel: we love God in the Person of his Son who reveals to us his love for us each day; and we love others by loving Christ present within them. If we really want to learn to love well, not just in principle but in action, we must learn to love Jesus wherever we find him: in the face of one who is suffering, in the cries of those who demand justice; in the encouragement of one who calls us to growth and conversion; in the mercy of one who forgives us our faults and transgressions; above all, in the Church, in the sacraments we receive, especially the Most Holy Eucharist.

Friends, seek out the Lord Jesus this week in prayer: in your home, here in church, or in any place you find conducive. Seek him not out of obligation, and not out of malice as the scribes and Pharisees did, but with humility and love. Ask him some questions – about your own life, about how you can love more deeply – and listen for what he says in response. It may be that you will come away with some answers, with insight into what he is asking of you right here and now. If nothing else, you will have spent time with the One who loves you, who is himself the Answer to all your questions, and who gives you the strength to love in return.

What Belongs to God

Have you ever heard the phrase “between a rock and a hard place”? It comes from The Odyssey, the epic of ancient Greece. In the story, the Greek hero Odysseus is trying to sail back to his homeland when his ship must pass between two terrible dangers: on the one side, a dangerous cliff, on which dwells the man-eating monster Scylla, and on the other side, a treacherous whirlpool, known as Charybdis. To be between a rock and a hard place is to be caught between two undesirable outcomes, or to be forced to choose between them.

In the Gospel today, we might say that Jesus is between a rock and a hard place. The Pharisees are plotting to trap him and they decide to do so around the question of political authority: they ask Jesus how Jews should relate to their Roman occupiers. It’s a question without an easy answer; in fact, it’s designed so that Jesus can only give an answer that will get him into trouble. To deny Caesar’s power would be to risk putting himself in danger with the Roman political authorities, perhaps even to the point of being arrested for sedition. On the other hand, to acknowledge Caesar’s authority too blithely would be to risk betraying his identity as the Jewish Messiah and the religious mission his Father had given to him.

Of course, Jesus escapes their trap, and in doing so he gives us an important teaching: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” Caesar, or any political authority, or politics in general, can make a lot of demands on us: they ask for our involvement, our decision making, and our allegiance. As Catholics, we have a responsibility to participate in political decisions, but never to the point of forgetting that we have a higher allegiance to God.

The Tribute Money (c. 1612) by Peter Paul Rubens

As you know, our city, state, and national elections are just a couple of weeks away. In fact, early voting begins tomorrow. As a pastor, to speak about political matters, especially in advance of an election, is to be caught between something of a rock and a hard place. If I do so too directly, or not in the right way, I risk running afoul of the law and perhaps more importantly overstepping the proper role I have to guide and teach you, but not to tell you what to do. However, to not speak at all about the elections would be to shirk the responsibility I have as your pastor to address the moral issues that impact our lives and to form you about how we should view them.

And so, while it may be uncomfortable to do so, and while I may risk saying something that upsets you or is misunderstood, I think this weekend’s Gospel presents just too plain of an opportunity to speak on some of what our political responsibilities are as Catholics. I’d like to do so in the lens of what I mentioned above: yes, political matters and the issues related to our citizenship have certain claims on us, but God has a higher claim. At times, we can forget that; in fact, I think today especially political matters often present a particular threat to understanding rightly who we are in the eyes of God and what we owe to him.

I realize most of you have already decided how you will vote, at least in some of the bigger races and issues; maybe some of you have already done so by absentee balloting. If that’s the case, or if you think it’s unlikely my words will be helpful, then think of these comments as not so much about this election, but rather about choices we make in general, whether in politics or in any other moral arena.

So how should we look at this election, and more broadly at political matters in general? Always in a way that ensures we don’t end up giving to Caesar something that is due to God. I think there are three ways – or, at least three – that our involvement in political matters can sometimes threaten what we owe to God.

1.    The first is when we fail to view political issues as moral issues, or don’t think about our political choices as also moral choices. To understand how we should vote, it’s not enough to study the different issues at stake, or the different political platforms of the candidates. We also need to form ourselves by understanding what our Church teaches. In their document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the bishops of the United States have outlined the values that should be foremost in our mind when we are considering our political choices. Those values are: the defense of human life, especially against the evils of abortion and euthanasia, which the bishops call “the preeminent threats to human life and dignity” in our day, but also genocide, torture, human cloning, and more; the promotion of peace and avoidance of war; the support of marriage and family life, including providing all workers with a just wage; freedom of religion and freedom of conscience; preferential concern for the poor and a commitment to economic justice; access to affordable health care for all persons; the rights of migrants; support for education, especially for Catholic parents to form their children according to their faith; promoting justice and non-violence, and combatting unjust discrimination; and global solidarity and care for the earth, as our common home. If you’ve never read the document, I encourage you to look it up and to consider how your own political views align with the priorities outlined by our bishops.

To weigh all of those different factors appropriately in order to actually make a decision in regard to a particular issue or candidate – that’s an individual responsibility left up to each of us, to our own prudential judgment and also to our conscience. By conscience, I don’t just mean our firmly held opinion or belief; rather, our conscience is our understanding of the teachings of our Church applied to the present reality and the issue at hand, especially about how we are to act. To rely upon our conscience also means we have to form our conscience, and to form it primarily by what our Church teaches, and not the voices of political pundits and secular commentators.

2.    A second way that our political involvement can obscure what we owe to God is when we feel forced into choosing something, or someone, that we think is wrong. Political decision making is often challenging, both for elected officials and for voters. We have to take our choices seriously, and wrestle with the issues we’re asked to vote upon, or the candidates we’re asked to choose. It’s not a morally acceptable option to not care, to be apathetic. But at the same time, sometimes it’s perfectly legitimate to make the choice of refusing to choose among bad options, especially after serious deliberation. Don’t get me wrong –sometimes we use the language of “Well, it’s just a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.” If by that we mean that among these candidates or ballot issues or amendments, neither option is ideal, but that one is still good in itself, and better than the other, then that’s fine. But, if our conscience has determined that neither option is good or morally acceptable – indeed that both or all options are bad, evil – then we shouldn’t make a choice between them. It’s something of an unusual circumstance, but in such cases, to refuse to choose is actually the morally correct choice. Why? Because whether it’s in politics or any other area of our moral lives, a good outcome does not justify an evil means. In other words, we can never do evil for the sake of good, and that includes choosing a lesser evil – if it really is an evil –over a greater one.

3.    A third and final way that we can give to Caesar what really belongs to God is when we become so hyper-focused on politics and political matters that it dominates our worldview. We have created a religion out of politics in this country, and not only has it obscured our devotion to God, it’s tearing apart our social fabric. We need to get back to doing politics well, and that means putting it in its proper place: as important, with real consequences that we must wrestle with, but not as something that is going to define the fate of the world. Only God can do that, and he has done so, in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. He alone is the Savior of the world, and if we don’t really believe that – and live out that belief daily – then we’re going to go astray in how we look at politics, because we’re going to be looking there for our salvation and our saviors. 

Friends, in a few weeks, we are going to celebrate the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Feast of Christ the King. In that feast we state our belief in Jesus as not just the King of heaven, but the King of earth as well. Indeed, we say that he is the King of the universe, and of all things within it, which includes our hearts, our minds, and our souls. Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves this election is not just how are we going to vote, but what do we believe, and who do we believe in. Our political choices are important, and we should take them seriously, but never so much so that they distract us from or substitute for belief in the One who rules over all.

May this Eucharist give us strength to focus ourselves in prayer and praise of God above all else, so that with his grace he might assist us to choose well in the affairs of this world. May God bless us all, and may he bless our country.

Highway to Heaven

I’m very happy to be back with you, after a period of being away that was longer than I had anticipated. I very much appreciate your prayers while I was gone. I certainly felt them, and I hope you felt my prayers for you too. 

The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot about how we live. There are the day to day effects of having to social distance and wear a mask, but we experience how things have changed perhaps most profoundly at the bigger moments of life. Think of a wedding, for example. In normal times, it’s maybe the most joyous occasion we know of, a chance for the friends and relatives of two different families to come together in celebration. In a pandemic, though, plans have to be changed, and precautions have to be taken to keep people safe. Fewer guests might be invited; some guests who might have come before will decide not to. Such is life in the middle of a pandemic. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus gives a parable about a wedding feast that is affected not by a pandemic but by the apathy of its invited guests. The idea of celebrating joyfully at a wedding probably sounds great to us, especially because we can’t do that right now, but even in normal times, we know that conflicts come up, and different obligations prevent us from what doing what we want. But the invited guests in the parable are different — they don’t *want* to attend. They make excuses about needing to attend to their farm and to their business. Those things can wait — after all, it’s the king who is inviting them! It’s the king’s son who is being married! But they’re not interested. 

The Parable of the Great Banquet (c. 1525) by The Brunswick Monogrammist

This parable comes shortly before Jesus’s final entrance into Jerusalem. It’s very clear that he is the son for whom the wedding banquet has been prepared. What is this wedding banquet? It is the union of heaven and earth, the final fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation of the human race through the person of his Son. We might say that in Jesus, and especially in his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, God has married himself to us — he has joined himself to our reality and redeemed it. And he has made us worthy of himself; he has invited us to dine forever in the eternal banquet of heaven. Ultimately that is the only thing that will last – not the world we see around us, certainly not the present pandemic – but the joyous celebration of the union of our reality and God’s in the eternal life of heaven. 

The question is: are we interested? Are we preparing for that final heavenly banquet? Or do we take it for granted, or worse, are we missing the chance to RSVP because we are focused on the things of this life, like the invited guests in the parable? This is perhaps especially a temptation in times of suffering, whether general suffering like a pandemic or particular suffering like a personal struggle or private tragedy. In those moments, when it can be so very hard to look beyond our present grief, we especially have to remember that the final reality will be one of joy, where “the Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face,” in the words of Isaiah. 

The good news is that each time we come to Mass we have a chance to refocus ourselves again on that joyous celebration to come. Why? Because in the Eucharist, we have a preview of the Son’s wedding feast; by receiving this Sacrament, we receive him — his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity — and we remember that there is nothing more important we do on earth than to united ourselves to him, he alone who can carry us from the sorrows of the present world to the eternal joys of the world to come. The Eucharist is nothing less than a foretaste of that heavenly banquet. 

Blessed Carlo Acutis, pray for us!

Friends, yesterday in Assisi, Italy, an Italian teenager named Carlo Acutis became the Church’s newest blessed. He died in 2006 at the age of 15. He was a pretty regular teenager; he loved games and computers and the internet. But more than anything else, he loved Jesus and he loved receiving him in the Eucharist. When he was diagnosed with leukemia, he knew that his sufferings were as nothing compared to the joyous celebration of heaven. He said that the Eucharist was his “highway to heaven” and yesterday that was proven to be true. May this Eucharist, and every Eucharist, be the same for us – a preview of eternal life, and the very means of getting us there.