Just Opt Out

Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of unwanted email. I don’t know if I accidentally subscribed to a mailing list of some kind or if my email address somehow was marketed and sold. But lately it feels like I’ve spent a lot of time just clicking “unsubscribe” from various spam messages that arrive. It got me to thinking: wouldn’t it be convenient if we had an unsubscribe button for other unpleasant things in life? Taxes, or traffic, or illness, or family problems – wouldn’t it be nice to just have a button to click to make those things go away?

Of course, life doesn’t work that way. But while there are plenty of problems that we can’t just make disappear, it’s also true that some of our problems of our own making. In today’s Gospel, Jesus addresses one of the biggest sources of our woes: our own pridefulness. The context of this Gospel is a dinner in the home of a prominent Pharisee. Jesus has been invited to this swanky scene, but it’s clear that this is not the kind of thing to which he was accustomed. For an itinerant preacher, who ate with tax collectors and sinners, he must have felt out of place among these high society folks, who were all seeking places of honor at the table, jockeying for position in order to be recognized as important. I tend to think that, as he observed them carefully, the whole thing made him a little sad, and perhaps it is that which prompts the parable and the lesson that he gives.

Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (c. 1618) by Peter Paul Rubens

Perhaps like the people at that dinner, most of us probably wouldn’t think of ourselves as particularly prideful. We tend to think that pride is really only possible for people like the prominent Pharisee, those who have a lot of power, or fame, or wealth. The rest of us are just trying to make to do, be thought of moderately well, to be accepted in the social circles that we are in, whatever those might be. After all, who doesn’t want to feel appreciated, esteemed, and valued? The challenge though, as Jesus knows well, is that too often we seek that validation in the wrong places: by comparing ourselves to others, and by trying to show them – and ourselves – that we measure up by what we have, by what we’ve done, and by what we’re doing. From educational goals and career objectives, to the activities of our social lives, from what we do to maintain our own health and wellbeing, to the way we treat our friends or our relatives, and even to the ways we seek to give back, and to serve society – sometimes what we do is done as much to impress others, or to impress ourselves, as for any other reason.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus encourages us to simply opt out of that kind of behavior. Be humble, he says, and stop striving to make an impression. That can be a hard thing, especially if we struggle with insecurities or with our own sense of self-worth. The key then, as we hear in the first reading from Sirach, is to root ourselves in the knowledge of God’s love for us above all else. To be humble doesn’t mean to be diffident and demure, but rather to recognize that our identity and our importance comes not from ourselves, and not from others, but from the One who looks on us from above. We each have worth and dignity, not because we have had to earn them or claim them or flaunt them, but because God himself has bestowed those things on us, and because of that, we can’t be robbed of them. When we come to understand more deeply our own value, and the value of every person, then we can opt out of the prideful striving that can creep into a lot of our motivations and concerns. We can, if you will, simply unsubscribe.

If we need an example of how to do this, I’d encourage us to look at those for whom God has a special love: the poor and the needy. Often, they are the ones who know best that we find security not in what we have, or in whom we can impress, but only in the love of God and in his love for us. As a priest, I have often been taught this lesson time and again by those who are suffering from illness or physical ailment. For example, just this past week, a dear lady from my former parish in Stuttgart passed away after a long battle with cancer. She first got sick around the time I arrived there as pastor, but after a while, because of her illness and because of COVID, it wasn’t really possible for her to come to church. Instead, I would go to visit her, as did others in our community. As her illness increased, her movement became limited, and she was often in great pain. But every time I visited her, I was always impressed by the great patience and kindness she showed. As more and more was taken away from her, and as her interactions with others became more limited, she relied more and more on God’s strength and on the power of prayer, by which she stayed connected not only to God but to those whom she loved. She continued to touch the lives of her family and friends, and of our parish, by the spiritual example that she gave us, bearing the cross that had been given to her with great faith and humility.

Friends, consider who in your life shows you the value of relying totally on God. Of those who are needy, or suffering, or poor, what can you learn from them? What might they teach you about valuing what’s most important? Not all of the problems of our lives are like unwanted email, where we click a button and make them go away. But we can choose to opt out of the prideful motivations and desires that often guides what we do. If we seek to think less of ourselves, and strive more to measure up to what God asks of us rather than anything else, then we discover the freedom that comes from true humility. May the wisdom of the poor and the needy be an example for us, to reflect on who we are and what we are about in the light of Jesus Christ, he who became poor for our sake and who humbly accepted the Cross out of redemptive love for us. May we await, with great faith and humility, the resurrection of the righteous.

It's Who You Know

You probably know the old saying: “It’s not what you know but who you know that matters.” In other words, in life, relationships are just as important as achievements, and sometimes more so. This saying sometimes helps us explain why someone was passed over for some honor, like a job promotion or an award, despite the fact that they were deserving. Maybe they had more experience or better expertise, but because they didn’t know the right people, they didn’t get chosen.

We tend to think that sort of thing is unfair. In business or sports or entertainment, we believe that honors and privileges shouldn’t be decided by personal relationships. But when it comes to faith, it’s a little more complex, because in the spiritual life, it *does* matter who you know. At its heart, faith is not about learning facts, or meeting certain objectives, but about growing in relationship with God. When I was a seminarian, a priest once told us: “It’s entirely possible to know all about God but not to know him at all.” In other words, he was telling us that there was a danger, perhaps especially for us seminarians, to learn all the facts of our faith, to seek to impress others with our knowledge of theology and Scripture and church history, but never to actually come to know God himself. As someone who was intellectually minded, I remember that idea sort of terrified me, because I realized helping others to get to heaven, and getting there myself, was going to depend not just on studying and learning but actually coming to know the Lord in a deeper way. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus is asked a question about this very thing – who, in the end, will make it to heaven? Whoever asked this question – whether someone in one of the towns and villages where Jesus was visiting, or someone from his own traveling party – this person knew Jesus well enough to approach him and ask him and to expect a reply. But it could be there’s a kind of presumption in the question, too, as if to say, “Jesus, will only those of us close to you – those of us who know you – get to heaven?” This person seems to believe themselves to be in the “in crowd,” those whose own salvation isn’t in question.

As he often does, Jesus gives a surprising answer. On the one hand, he confirms that eternal life will be based on knowing him; he is the master of the house who will open the door only to those whom he knows. This would seem to be good news to the person who asked the question, right? They must have thought: “Knowing Jesus is the key to eternal life – great, I got it made!” But then Jesus says something surprising. Apparently, not all of those who are in his company, who ate and drank with him, who heard him teach, will in the end know him well enough to enter eternal life. In other words, those who think themselves to be part of the “in crowd” may be mistaken, and they may find that others who would appear to know Jesus less well, those from the east and the west, from the north and the south, will enter eternal life ahead of them.

James Tissot, The First Shall Be Last (c. 1890)

On the one hand, this Gospel should be Good News for anyone who may feel themselves undeserving of heaven, whether because of past experiences, or present circumstances, or whatever else. A lot of the things that we use to judge and distinguish in this life – ethnic background, education level, personal accomplishments, career accolades, financial success, family harmony, etc. etc. – those things aren’t going to matter at all. What will matter – the *only* thing that will matter – is how well we know the Lord, and that is open to anyone and everyone. The word “catholic” means “universal” and that’s what we believe about our faith – that it is open to all, no matter who you are.

At the same time, today’s Gospel is also perhaps a challenging one to people like us, sitting in the pews, because most of us probably like to think that we won’t have much to worry about when it comes to getting to heaven. Much like the person in the Gospel who asks the question of Jesus, we would hope that we would be considered part of his inner circle. We might think, “I say my prayers, I go to church on Sunday, I try to treat other people well. Surely, I’m in the clear!” Hopefully so, but Jesus’s words today should at least give us pause about the possibility of being presumptuous about eternal life. Saying our prayers and coming to church and treating people well are all good things; so, too, is the desire to learn about what we believe, to help explain or defend it to others, or to grow in knowledge about Scripture or doctrine or spirituality. But none of these things is itself a guarantee of heaven, just like, apparently, eating and drinking in Jesus’s company and hearing him teach wasn’t a guarantee for those in his day.

What matters, in the end, is not what we know but who we know, as that old saying says. And that means knowing Jesus himself – not just knowing about him, or knowing him in a casual way, but coming to know him personally and intimately, as a Friend and as a Savior. You might say, “Well, how do I do that?” It’s a good question but the answer depends on where we are in our faith journey. Some of us may need a true conversion – a turning away from something that is standing in the way of our friendship with the Lord, some aspect of our life that is sinful, in order to give ourselves over to Jesus and let him be the Master of our life. For others of us, it may be a matter of persevering – of enduring the difficulties and the disciplines that the Lord sometimes sends us, as a way of purifying and strengthening us, as the Letter to the Hebrews says. Finally, for some of us, it may involve not doing anything radically different from what we are already doing, but doing it with a new focus: saying our prayers, not just to say them but to dialogue and communicate with the Lord himself to know him more deeply; participating in the sacraments not just out of habit but as spiritual encounters with the Lord who loves us and who is drawing us to himself from heaven; treating people well, not just because we’re being nice, but because we’re displaying the Lord’s charity, loving Jesus in others, especially in the poor and the needy.

In the end, knowing Jesus means challenging ourselves continuously, examining our own actions and preconceptions, and asking ourselves how we can know the Lord more intimately. As he tells us, we will have to strive not to take the easy paths of the world, the ones that can dominate our daily activities if we’re not careful. It will mean not presuming that we have done enough, that we know Jesus well enough, but to keep striving each day to enter through the narrow gate, the one that is shaped exactly the Lord’s Cross. It’s the Cross in the end that helps us to know Jesus more deeply, and even more, to be conformed into his image and shaped into his likeness, so that when we meet him one day, he will recognize us because he will see in us an image of himself.

Friends, as we prepare for this Eucharist, let’s hear the words of Jesus our Friend and Savior, speaking to us personally, encouraging us to do whatever we need to do to come know him more deeply and to love him more fully. May the graces of this Sacrament help us not be presumptuous, but to keep striving each day, so that we may grow in relationship with the Lord now so as to one day be welcomed by him into the kingdom to come.

Faith of Our Fathers

One of the most recognizable hymns of our Catholic tradition, and one of my personal favorites, is “Faith of Our Fathers”. I won’t subject you to my attempt to sing from it, but I’m sure you know its famous refrain: “Faith of our Fathers! Holy Faith! We will be true to thee till death.” It was written in the mid-19th century by Fr. Frederick Faber, who was a Catholic convert from Anglicanism. He wrote the hymn to commemorate the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation: those men and women who laid down their lives rather than abandon the Catholic faith. As the hymn reminds us, we believe that our faith is our most precious possession, and it is our guiding light in times of uncertainty, difficulty, and even persecution.

Today’s readings also tell us about the faith of our spiritual fathers and mothers, from times even farther back in history than the English Reformation. In the reading from the Book of Wisdom, we hear how the Israelites, though still enslaved in Egypt, had faith in the coming Passover of the Lord, believing that God would destroy Pharaoh’s dominion over them and would free them and establish them in their own land. And in the second reading, the Letter to the Hebrews goes even farther back in time to remind us of Abraham, whom we call “our father in faith.” God called him to leave the land of his birth for a new country where he would become the father of many nations. And Abraham responded to God’s invitation with faith; he made the journey and accepted a covenant with God. The fullness of God’s promise wasn’t fulfilled during Abraham’s lifetime, but he believed in it, nonetheless, because of his faith.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus also speaks of a coming reality, one not yet seen but one which he nonetheless calls us to believe in: “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock. Your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.” Just as the Israelites believed that God would free them from slavery in Egypt, just as Abraham believed that God would make his descendants “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore,” so too the Lord Jesus calls us to believe in the nearness of the heavenly kingdom of God. It is Jesus, and he alone, who by his Cross and Resurrection has at last established a new homeland – a heavenly one, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us – so that those who have faith in him will no longer be “strangers and aliens on earth” but will arrive at last in the eternal city that God has prepared for all those who believe.

Still, we might ask: what exactly is “faith”? First, we should say what it isn’t. Faith is not primarily a feeling or a sentiment – something that we have at certain times but not at others. Faith is not a luxury or a hobby – something that we engage when we have the time, or when we feel like it. Faith is not a cultural heritage – something that we receive from our families, via our backgrounds, but which we personally and individually may or may not be all that interested in. No — faith, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, is “the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” In other words, faith is spiritual knowledge that assures us and helps us to understand that which is true and certain, but which is not yet visible – that which lies ahead. Faith is a gift from God that gives us insight into the future, so that we may understand what God is doing and what he will do, and to believe in it although we do not yet see it.

If this gift of faith is so important, then it is also important to be aware of how we can lose it. One way we can lose our faith is by what Jesus warns us about in the Gospel: spiritual short-sightedness. Those who heard Jesus preach were attracted to what he said, because he spoke to the deepest desires of their hearts. But Jesus also told them that the fulfillment of those desires – the final unveiling of what God promises to those who believe – is not going to come right away. It is guaranteed to come, but we will have to wait for it, and if we’re not mindful, if we don’t persevere and take the longview, then the waiting might cause us to become careless in the meantime. In Jesus’s parable, the servants are caught off guard by their Master’s return because they have grown lax in staying vigilant. The steward of the house, also, has become lazy and, even worse, selfish, thinking that he can indulge his desires because he thinks his Master won’t return anytime soon. In contrast to them, the faithful servants are not distressed by their Master’s long delay but instead hold fast to what they believe: that he will return, and when he does, they will be rewarded.

The Martyrs of Gorkum (1867) by Cesare Fracassini 

Jesus encourages those who hear him – “little flock” he calls us – to believe firmly and eagerly that the Father will give us a share in his kingdom. The heavenly kingdom to come is real, and certain, and we can know this by faith, even if we don’t see it right now. But to reach it, we must wait, and persevere in waiting for Jesus our Master’s return. In our waiting, we have to be on guard against becoming careless, or growing impatient, such that we seek the more immediate pleasures of this world rather than the joys that he promises to his faithful servants. Instead, like Abraham, like the Israelites in Egypt, like the Catholics of 16th century England, like all of our fathers and mothers in faith, we must hold fast through present challenges and difficulties – even persecutions, if it comes to that – to reach the heavenly homeland that God has prepared for us.

Friends, this week, perhaps each of us can do a little examination of conscience about our own faith, and about where we find ourselves in our journey of faith. Do I take my faith seriously, not just as a habit or a luxury, but as my most precious possession? Do I seek to be a faithful servant of the Lord, through daily prayer, weekly Sunday Mass, and regular confession, through loving my neighbor and caring for the poor? Do I try to guard myself against spiritual impatience, carelessness and laxity, making sure that each day I busy myself with seeking the things of heaven and not the allurements of this life? Surely, there is room for improvement for all of us, in one or another of these areas. It’s better to identify our areas of weakness now, and to make preparations for our Master’s arrival now, so that we may not be caught off guard later.

As we prepare for this Eucharist, let’s ask the Lord Jesus to make our faith stronger, so that he will find us ever vigilant as we await his return. May the graces of this Sacrament help us not only to sing but also to live: “Faith of our Fathers! Holy Faith! We will be true to thee till death.”