John the Baptist According to Luke

A little on Luke, a little on Isaiah, a little from both of them on John the Baptist.  Audio here. 

Inaccuracies about the "Two Comings of Jesus" Framework

For at least several decades, there has been a well-circulated depiction of the Church's season of Advent as having two clear and distinct parts and, more challenging for priests and parishes, that the focuses of those two parts are to be kept separate. "The first 3 weeks of Advent are all about our anticipating the Second Coming of Jesus, and then only in the final week do we switch over and think about remember His birth in Bethlehem." So yeah, I wanted to preach on my reflection that this is, yes, built on some things that are true, but can be taken to extremes by some thinkers and liturgists, and is also impractical and kind of weird. (C'mon, how many 2nd Coming hymns do you know? Catholic hymns too, not Left Behind music.) 

The one thing I forgot to mention in this recording is that in the Mass readings previous to 1970 all of the scriptures are focused on getting ready for meeting Jesus in this life, and yet nobody thinks that Pre-Vatican II Advent wasn't focused on Baby Jesus on Bethlehem. 

Anyway, here's the homily. 

Last Two Sundays' Homilies

Here's two weeks worth of Sunday homilies. I've switch away from Internet Archive and its embedded players, at least for now. Sorry about that; maybe I can find a format with more controls like skips and playback speed. (Let me know if you've got suggestions.) I'm going to start going backward now and repairing or re-hosting previous audio on here.

Homily for 11/10/24, 32nd Sunday, Year B: Letter to the Hebrews and Temple Worship

Homily for 11/17/24, 33rd Sunday, Year B: Gems in Eucharistic Prayer IV

"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!

UPDATE: Due to the weird issues with Internet Archive in October 2024, I migrated the audio of the classes over to Google Drive and was able to add the Word docs which accompany them, so ultimately it was an upgrade. I'd love to figure out how to embed buttons, but for now, just Click Here.

You shouldn't need a password beyond that but if you do, try:  rzhf3qz

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.)

Horizontical Fixes

Of the three attempts at this homily on Ephesians (with a lot of Galatians and Genesis too), all of them had two or more flubs, so I just had to pick one. On the one here I didn't really deliver the opening story the best I could have, and also meant to come back at the end and emphasis that Paul's depictions of the Messiah's work really is horizontical. But the other two had bigger issues. Alas.

How Not To Impress People

I covered at a different parish this week, so I had to do a little bit of background on 2nd Corinthians before diving into the reading of the day. So if you've listened to another homily of mine in the last several weeks a small part will be a review/repeat. (Actually, to be honest, I've covered for three of the last five weekends and I'm getting a lot of mileage out of introducing people to 2nd Corinthians.)

A Short Survey of Second Corinthians

So many great letters by St. Paul for so many situations. You need encouragement? Read Philippians. Frustrated by imperfection in your church? Compare with 1st Corinthians. Kind of a masochist and like being yelled at? Try Galatians. Such variety, something for everyone. 

2nd Corinthians asks, "What about when you feel like you've lost everything you relied on: your friends, your health, even the very sense of hope itself? When your life turns into Job chapters 1-2, where do you turn? Where would a person who felt they could do nothing else to advance the kingdom of God look to find purpose and hope?"

Paul thought he knew the power of Christ's cross, but it wasn't until he felt he had himself been pressed, crush, persecuted, and abandoned, in imitation of Him, that he saw himself as being fully The Messiah's Man. A strong and eloquent traveling evangelist is good. A wounded, discouraged, tongue-tied beggar is an even better ambassador for the crucified messiah. 

Big Questions About God. And Rocks.

Kids are great. They ask great questions. Hard ones. I'm at a loss often, and frankly the questions about the one God are no easier than those about the three Persons.

Christian Love Is A Progression Out

St. John is definitely the poet of the New Testament writers (no offense, Paul). And if his Gospel is his Hamlet then his First Epistle is his collection of sonnets. The whole of 1 John 4 is worthy of close inspection and meditation on its own, and its genius only seems to grow when you absorb it with parallel thoughts in his gospel. We trace the agape love of the New Testament from the Father to the Son to the disciples to all the faithful and out into the world. And we see the lowliest Christian loving his neighbor with the same love that burn in the very depths of the Trinity.

Ascension Completes the Paschal Mystery

The Letter to the Hebrews takes a couple of things quite seriously. Important to the Ascension are two: Jesus' Ascension is part of the whole of the paschal mystery, and that his entrance into the heavenly sanctuary fulfills what the Day of Atonement had been pointing to for 1200 years. 

1st Communion Homily and Normie Homily

One Sunday, two homilies. You can try to shoehorn the regular Sunday topic in/around/alongside the First Communion setting, but it's usually rough on both crowds. So here's the normie, 4th Sunday of Easter homily and the 10am First Communion Mass homily.

4th Sunday of Easter, Year B

First Communion Mass

Should You Believe in the Resurrection?

I give the same homily whenever it's the first year that I preach on Easter in a parish. Every once in awhile we have to stop and ask why we're even here, doing this, believing that...Why? Every once in a while it's good to step back and ask the core questions again. Even to let ourselves doubt and wrestle with that.

Say Less

I didn't preach the parish Mass today, but I did cover the Spanish Mass in Tecumseh, so I'm just going to post the English text here. Yeah, sorry, no stumbling Spanish audio because 1) my desire for Lenten humiliation isn't that powerful, and 2) I never even considered recording it. But there are some benefits content-wise of having to switch languages. You know you'll be a lot slower. You know you can't ad lib. You know you can't use contemporary terms or references as much. Add that together and basically you're just allowed a little exposition and then make one point. Huh. Weird. How not-like-me.

Anyway, big shout out to my brother-in-law for fixing what Google Translate gets wrong and for crafting a much more "audience friendly" work than Spanish speakers would've ever had from me. There's no replacement for true expertise. 

Today we hear Jesus say: "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." This is from the gospel of John, chapter three. 

 

There is one other time in the gospels that Jesus speaks of himself being lifted up. It is also from the gospel of John, in chapter twelve. And we will hear it next Sunday. Jesus says: "And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself." And Saint John adds the statement: "He said this indicating the kind of death he would die."

So, from these two quotes in this same gospel of John we know two things. Firstly, that when Jesus says “the Son is lifted up” he is referring to himself being crucified and lifted up high on the cross. 

 

And secondly, that him being lifted on the cross is to be thought of as being like when Moses lifted up the serpent up high on a pole.

 

But what is this story? Neither the readings today nor next Sunday give us that story. So here it the short version: "With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses. The Lord sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died. Then the people said to Moses: 'Pray the Lord to take the serpents from us.' So Moses prayed for the people, and the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a serpent like these and lift it on a pole.' Moses made a bronze serpent and lifted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived."   

 

So, Jesus is saying that when he is lifted up upon the cross, dying, he will be in some way like the bronze serpent. And that, like that metal serpent, he and his cross will give eternal life. 

 

This seems very strange. This seems like a strange comparison. Jesus did not hurt us. He did not poison us. He is not the cause of our suffering and death. 

 

This is true. But as with Moses, God is taking the power out of the deadly thing and making it somehow into the cure for the problem. It's like a vaccine. We take the weakened form of germs, of bacteria and viruses, and put them back into our bodies as a protection against the sickness. The serpent is deadly, but God makes the bronze serpent like a vaccine against the deadly danger. 

 

Now, Jesus is not the danger. He is not the problem. But death is the problem. Suffering is the problem. Sin is the problem. They are the serpents that have bit us all. Jesus breaks the power of sin and suffering and death by going to the cross. 

To the people of Jesus' time, the cross means certain death. It means maximum suffering and maximum shame. It is the death for slaves and rebels and criminals. When Jesus endures the shame and pain of the cross, he breaks the power of death, the power of sin. The cross is now the vaccine against death. It looks like death, in the same way that a weakened bacteria looks like sickness, but it is actually the cure. 

 

His death breaks our death. His death cures our death. 

 

Keeping Promises, Even Beyond The Grave

We, very reasonably, have some questions about Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac. Unsurprisingly, we also have some questions about the Father letting the Son die (and for realsies, not just "almost" like Isaac). The early Church saw the parallels and the author of the Letter to the Hebrew wrote on it in chapter 11. If we are going to wrestle with sacrifices of Isaac or Jesus or both, we would do well to let Hebrews 11 be our lens. We will see through it a path that not only shows that God (and Abraham) are not monsters, but that the Isaac story sheds light on both the extremity of The Father's plan and the logic of The Son's response. 

Lenten Suggestion, Revival Proposition

We've only got a few months left in the U.S. Bishops' Eucharistic Revival and one thing I haven't seen a lot of is concrete suggestions on how to participate in the Eucharistic Feast. There's been good encouragement for Sunday-some-timers to become all-the-timers and for people to try spending more time in quiet prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, but I haven't seen a lot of "Hey, pastors and parishioners, try X or Y to see if it helps you to focus or to pray better or to "get more out of Mass". So after consulting with the pastor and principal here at our school, I made a pitch the last two days in the school Mass homilies about one thing they might want to try, and that Lent might be the time to try it. And I thought I'd share the outline of those here as well. (In case you're wondering, our school kids, K-5, attend Mass at the start of each school day.)

Monday

I want to talk about a cool thing that scientists tell us goes back and forth in our brains, connecting our thoughts and our actions. This is a big deal for us Catholics because we put a lot of emphasis on the idea of our physical actions and our internal thoughts going hand in hand. That's the whole idea of our sacraments, right? Our insides matching our outsides; the actions expressing the spiritual meanings. And sacramentals too. So we show reverence when making the sign of the cross. We're careful when bringing up the gifts. We want people to understand the amazing things happening during a baptism. 

Scientists like psychologists talk about body language. You've probably had parents and teachers talk about how what you do with your face or your body or your eyes communicates a lot of extra info, whether you intend to or not. Like if you cross your arms and look away when someone is talking, you're telling people you don't care or you're bored. Or like if I try to talk to K. there, but I stand here and I look at R. while I say, "K., let's go do something fun." That feels like K. doesn't matter and I'm really talking to R instead.

But folks have also learned that this connection works in the other direction too. How I do repeated actions starts to teach my brain about those actions. You can develop new ways of thinking about stuff by the kinds of actions you repeat around them. Think about how you line up. Your teachers have you do certain routines to help remind your brain what to think about and also how you're going to walk and act going down the hallways.

So with that in mind, I have a suggestion of something you might try for Lent. Lent is a good time to practice a new habit. Now, this is not required at all. It's not even a request. I'm just throwing out an idea that might give you cool new insights and experiences. My suggestion is to see if receiving Holy Communion on the tongue instead of on the hand begins to affect your thoughts about the Eucharist.  

Human hands are amazing. Seriously, even just having thumbs let us do so much more than any other animal can. And not just texting either. Thumbs are the difference between us and monkeys! Our hands are so practical, efficient, useful, skilled, effortlessly-in-control... They can write and draw and reach in between the cushions and tear up paper into tiny bits... 

But maybe we want our brains thinking something more spiritual at Communion time. If I take my hands out of the equation, perhaps it feels even more like I'm waiting to be fed by God. Maybe receiving on the tongue would put me in mind of trusting in God fully, a confident, childlike trust. Maybe even a feeling of surrender. "Jesus, I wait to be fed by You." Like a baby bird. Do you know how a baby birds eat? [C. says, "Mama bird takes it and chews it up and then gives it to the little babies,"] Exactly, and you picture those baby birds, heads back, stretching up, waiting, confident in being fed. Maybe that's a good image for us at Communion time.

So maybe that's something you want to try out. You could try it today, or wait for Lent, or never try at all. Again, it's not requirement or even a request. It's just a suggestion of something that might be cool to try out for Lent.

Tuesday 

I want to come back to what we discussed yesterday. So today: a little review, a few more thoughts, and some practicals. I had too much to squeeze in yesterday. 

So what was my suggestion?

And is this idea something anybody is going to expect you to do? A rule, or a request even?

Right. It's just a suggestion of something you might want to try out, and Lent is a good time to try on new ways of thinking. 

And that's the whole pitch: we know our actions and our thoughts are connected, so the idea is to adjust our routines and see if that teaches our minds any cool new things. 

And the cool new idea or image we are trying to build up in our minds is how special and different and truly sacred this meal is. Because that's what "holy" literally means. When we sing "Holy... holy... holy Lord," or "Sanctus... sanctus... sanctus Dominus Deus Sabbaoth," the words "holy" and "sanctus" are translating the Hebrew word for "different". God is different; He is set apart; He is not like other things. And that is what "holy" means: it's different, it's things that are set apart for God's special purposes. 

This church is a holy place. Should we run between the pews and play tag? No, because it's set apart for holy things. My chalice up there, should I fill it with Kool-aid and sit on the couch and drink it while I watch cartoons? No, it set apart for only one, very special thing. Or the saints. The word "saint" comes from that word "sanctus". A saint is a truly holy person, someone who lives different. Even in the church, that space up there is the sanctuary —same word "sanctus", again— because it's the most special part of the holy building. 

So again, think of your hands. They're incredible. They can do anything. You can make one hand into this perfect little bowl. And then your other hand with that cool thumb we've got makes like this perfect miniature claw. And you can grab anything in one hand and carry around any shape of items and just pick them up, one by one, all day. Cheetos, Fritos, tortilla chips. Or for tiny, weird things, peanuts or Skittles. It's so easy and comfortable. So practical and in-control. 

But is that the set of ideas we desire in our minds at Communion time? I step up, one hand out to catch things with, one hand to pick the Host up, then into my mouth, eat and keep moving... a smooth motion, very efficient, practical. Now, everybody has different thoughts and mental images, but I do feel like this sequence of ideas connects more with normal eating, normal food, a normal meal. So the question is: Would receiving Communion differently help my mind think, "This is a different kind of moment. This is food that God has set apart for holy purposes."?

Maybe that's why for over a thousand years, really until just recently, like less than fifty years ago, the only way people received Communion in our part of the church, the Roman Catholic Church, was to receive on the tongue. There was what they called an communion rail or and altar rail —and it was usually made of the same kind of stone or wood as the main altar, and it was even referred to as "the people's altar" because it seen as an extension of that altar— and you would come up to that, and spread out along it and kneel down at the rail and you'd wait there and you'd receive on the tongue. A hundred little details all whispering to your brain that it's not a normal meal. It's the Lamb's banquet. 

Ok, so you get the idea, now let's practice. Kindergarten and 1st, you'll be doing this before long, and 2nd grade, it's almost here! The rest of you, it's always good to know how to do both. Even if you receive on the hand normally, there's going to be a moment when you're carrying a baby, or walking up with a little kid who might try to run, or you realize your palms are dirty or you just sneezed in them. The summer after 2nd grade I broke my arm and I was going to daily Mass with my Mom that summer and no one ever taught me to receive on the tongue and so for months I received just barely on the tips of my tiny fingers that poked out of my cast. I wish I would've know there was another way. 

So everyone gets weirded out because you think you're going to be sticking your tongue out at the priest or will look dumb, so here's a trick to not feel so weird: tip your head slightly back (like that baby bird, right?) and then just place your tongue on your bottom lip. Really, you're not putting it out there hardly at all. Bottom lip and head tipped slightly should give the perfect place and angle. Ok, and so that no one feels awkward we're all going to practice a couple times. Ok, tongue on bottom lip on three... 1, 2, 3.

Ok, now you know it and you're confident. Again, it's your choice. It's just a suggestion, but you might find it adds something to your Lenten experience. Might affect how you see going to Communion permanently. 

Front Row to Peter's Preaching

In the seminary we heard a lot of hype on Mark's gospel. Some teachers hyped it because it might be the oldest gospel, and they thought that meant "the only really authentic one". Others, because they felt it had been forgotten over the centuries. Others, because they claimed it was more personal and immediate. That sounded like the best reason to be a Mark fan, but I never truly understand what that claim meant till I read Michael Pakaluk's 2019 translation-and-notes which goes by the name The Memoirs of St. Peter. Pakaluk knew how to translate Mark's unique Greek (sometimes pigeonholed by folks as "primitive") in a way that highlighted that "immediate" sense of Peter's storytelling without making it sound lowbrow. Sometimes the very people who spoke of Mark's power also made him sound simplistic and repetitive. So as we celebrate this Word of God Sunday (trademark by Pope Francis, 2020, all rights reserved) and begin in earnest this Year B of the Lectionary focusing on Mark's gospel, I hope you find new ways to appreciate the power of Peter's preaching and the genius of St. Mark's writing. 

Calendars, Cold Dips, and Chalk: An Epiphany Patchwork

Epiphany has a ton of traditions and trivia connected to it, so today's homily was a grab bag of Epiphany minutiae.