"Would That All The People Were Prophets" and Prop 434

Sunday's homily. First part about the readings and the second part about the multiple propositions on the Nebraska ballot this November.

The Servant Songs Anchor the Gospel

It can be confusing for people when they hear that 1) the Jews were expecting their Messiah to be a second King David, a glorious, nation-saving warrior, and so they looked for those things in Jesus, but also that 2) this captured-and-crucified Jesus is the Messiah, the long-promised savior, fulfilling all the Old Testament prophecies. These two ideas together seem to say that either the Jews didn't read their own books, or that the early Church had to fudge on what the Scriptures said and wrench the prophecies to fit Jesus' very-non-warlord career and the fact that he died. 

And yes, there is tension between these two Old Testament images of a "savior messiah." And, yes, the Resurrection does serve as kind of God's final stamp that Jesus and the Church got the scriptural blueprint right. But really, the images of "great king who saves Israel and reigns gloriously" and of "suffering servant who saves us by bearing our punishments" are both in the texts and were ultimately true. The common perception in 1st century Judea seem to be simply that those were two separate personages: the hero-king and the exemplar-martyr. And frankly, that's not crazy, since the four Servant Songs of Isaiah never say the Servant is a king or the messiah. Many seem to have seen the Servant as "Israel, who has suffered so much," though that does leave the "suffered for us" part from Isaiah 53 unclear. 

From the first days of the Church though, they read it the other way: Jesus came to live the Servant role the whole way—"not rebelling, not turning back"—as Israel never quite could. He suffered, and his sufferings made us whole. But, as those Servant Songs (and Psalms 16, 30, and 116) all assured, God would not abandon the Servant to the grave; He would uphold and rescue the him and the Servant would reign gloriously forever. It wasn't that the earliest Christians were stretching the prophecies, in fact they took them even more literally. It was just that no one before the Resurrection could conceive that "freed my soul from death" and "will not leave me in Sheol, nor let me see decay" could be read as more than a metaphor for "protected me and saved me." Nor could one imagine "will rule on high forever" meant more than "a long reign, with sons to carry on the dynasty for ages." Well, at least till Easter Sunday. 

Jesus and Neusner: Just An Insightful Rabbi, or More?

This might not be the smoothest of deliveries, but it had more structure and hopefully avoid a potential place of confusion. To be clear: I love Jacob Neusner and I think A Rabbi Speaks With Jesus is a true monument and milestone in Jewish-Christian dialogue. And ultimately, his critiques make sense and it's reasonable that Neusner doesn't find Jesus compelling. Which is just fine... because the Christian argument was never where Jesus as a rabbi can convince you to rethink things. It's whether God raising Jesus from the dead is enough reason to trust what Jesus is telling you to rethink.

OCIA (RCIA?) Classes' Drop Page. Not Homilies

Hi there. As the title says, these aren't homilies. These are the audio files of the 75-to-90-minute adult education classes I lead on Monday nights. They used to call this stuff "RCIA" but now they're call it OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults); it's the parish-level class for people either looking to become Catholic or at least checking out the Catholic Faith. Also, plenty of current Catholics attend as well as a kind of review for what we didn't pay attention to in classes when growing up.😅

These are here right now while I try to figure out how to get them up on the parish website or something better. But until then, this is my drop spot.

This page will grow as weeks go on; no need to hop to a different one. All class audio will just be on this one page. Cheers!


Class #0, August 19th. Introduction, etc.

Class #1, August 26th. Revelation: Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium

Class #2, September 9th. Salvation History and the Bible

Class #3, September 16th. Creation: Angels, Demons, Humans

Class #4, September 30th. God is One, and Three: The Trinity

Class #4.5, October 7th. Second half of Trinity class

Eucharisitic Amazement

This took a lot of workshopping (and probably two befuddled congregations) to try to figure out how the turn the phrasing of the key distinction. For the last one, presented here, I went with a little less on the poetry/paradox phrasing and pushed harder on the extra words to explain. I think we got close to almost-intelligible in the end. 

Around the 12:45 mark I went off on different "moments of Jesus", and I wish I would've also put in the Last Supper, which is such a draw for people, with its fellowship and the time with Christ. And also should have mentioned Jesus with all the redeemed in heaven, that great reunification that we long for, with Him and with our loved ones.

Stomachs And Fists

Humans were created with passions. You can't be a human very well without them. And yes, the way Thomas Aquinas uses the word "passions" translates more accurately to our broader word of emotions, or even appetites—those feelings we undergo. But for the sake of this homily, it actually probably works to let more of the modern sense be heard too: that which drives us, what has a hold on our minds and hearts. 

Anyway, Aquinas divides the eleven passions/emotions in two main groups: the "irascible passions" (hope, despair, courage, fear, anger) which I messily described here as the fighty or pugnacious passions, and the "concupiscible passions" (love, desire, delight, hate, aversion, sorrow) which I've heard described as the "simple" passions, but for this I prefer the descriptor of the desirous passions, or the attractive passions. Those that are about what is pleasing, enjoyable, beautiful, and that which makes us feel content.

And the passions are not bad things. At worst, they are morally neutrally. At best, they drive us to work for important things. And people tend to have one or the other that leads them more: Is your first thought to revel in the good, the true, the beautiful? To want to marinate in the and find comfort in the gifts and works of both God and man? That's the desirous or attractive passions. Is your first thought to work, defend —even fight— for justice, for the unprotected, for that same good, true, and beautiful? That's the irascible or "fighty" passions. 

In the homily (pulling from the gospel) I ascribe the expression of "thinking with your stomach" to the desirous passions and "thinking with your fists" to the irascible passions. And hopefully I made clear that those realities of personal, mental alignment aren't bad. They just are the two ways we tend to talk ourselves into not listening to Jesus when he has hard lessons for us to hear.

Yes, It Was A Miracle. Also, Yes, It Was A Setup.

I assume that almost everybody over 50 years old has heard some variant of the sermon idea (spin? take? clown show?) that Jesus didn't actually multiple the five loaves and two fish, but instead pulled off a ""miracle of sharing"" and got the people to share the food they were hoarding. Well, at least John's account of the feeding wrecks that idea. And also unless it's a legit miracle, the moment utter fails to do what it appears Jesus is trying to set up: showing himself as God's own anointed with all that authority and raw power, and then put his followers on the spot with some hard truths and see if they would stay with him or dip. 

(I did miss a good point from my notes in this one delivery, which is that the description of the twelve baskets at the end as being full of the fragments of "the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat", is huge. Saying that 1. they are all the same original five loaves he started with, and 2. those five loaves themselves were more than anyone could eat.)