Today we celebrate the conversion of St. Paul, and normally we would focus on Paul, and the road, the encounter with Jesus. Instead, there is another person without whom there would have been no ministry to the Gentiles, Ananias.
Today is also his feast day. Truth be told we know very little about St. Ananias of Damascus. What we do know is that when he was first called upon his response was simple, "Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man", and nothing he had heard was good. We human beings have changed little over the centuries. Bad news travels fast.
We know nothing about his many sources. Was it people who actually knew Saul of Tarsus or was it simply the same rumors that had been passed around so that many sources were repeating the same stories over and over.
What sets Ananias apart was that he was not locked into the image he had of Saul from the stories he had heard. Even though his natural tendency was to believe the worst, and the truth about Saul was bad, he was willing to take the next step, to move beyond second or third hand information and meet the man face to face.
It is easy for us to hate someone we only know from a distance, a face on television, a story on the internet. On some level they are not really people. It's a very different thing when we sit down and meet with them face to face. Ananias entered the house and laid hand on him. Suddenly Saul is no longer the devil that Ananias had heard about, Ananias now calls him "my brother."
Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized, and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength.
And the rest is the history of how Christianity moved beyond the tiny world of Galilean Judaism to the whole world.
Besides what this story tells about the power of forgiveness and conversion, it also tells us about human interaction. While email and text are great tools, there is a danger. When we are angry or unhappy about something it is far to easy to fire off the snarky email or text. People will email things that they would never say face to face. In person we cannot forget that the other is a person, with a family, and feeling just like us. Face to face it is hard not to acknowledge the humanity of others.
Ananias saw the person of Saul, and even touched him, and both men were changed.
Today is a time to not only remember St. Paul, but also St. Ananias and pray that we can say about every person, "my brother" or "my sister."
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
I learned Farsi,also called Persian, long before I ventured into Arabic. What most Westerners don't realize is that Persian is an Indo-European language that happens to be written with what we call the Arabic alphabet. Arabic is from a whole other language family.
One of my first surprises is that Arabic doesn't have a P. So one day I asked a Palestinian friend, "If there is on P in Arabic, where are you from?" Without missing a beat, he said "فلسطين filasitin." The light suddenly went on. and I laughingly said to him, better we call you Palestinian than Philistines, because that word has taken on a whole other meaning in English.
As a child when I heard the story of David and Golaith, I had always imagined a giant like the one in Jack and the Beanstalk. But that is a child's view of the world. We have to remember that the Bible is, more often than not, trying to describe how an experience felt, rather than get the measurements exact.
Regardless of how big the biblical Philistines were, the point of the story is God. Today's first reading reminds us of a very simple truth. When propelled by the power of God, a single person can overcome what appears to the world to be absolutely insurmountable adversity. Even when you and everyone around you can see no way for you to win, if you are doing the will of God, you will be victorious. It may be a battle. It may force you to the point you think you can't take any more. But if we hold tight to God we can win.
Today perhaps is a time for us to pray for an increase in the virtue of Hope.
One of my first surprises is that Arabic doesn't have a P. So one day I asked a Palestinian friend, "If there is on P in Arabic, where are you from?" Without missing a beat, he said "فلسطين filasitin." The light suddenly went on. and I laughingly said to him, better we call you Palestinian than Philistines, because that word has taken on a whole other meaning in English.
As a child when I heard the story of David and Golaith, I had always imagined a giant like the one in Jack and the Beanstalk. But that is a child's view of the world. We have to remember that the Bible is, more often than not, trying to describe how an experience felt, rather than get the measurements exact.
Regardless of how big the biblical Philistines were, the point of the story is God. Today's first reading reminds us of a very simple truth. When propelled by the power of God, a single person can overcome what appears to the world to be absolutely insurmountable adversity. Even when you and everyone around you can see no way for you to win, if you are doing the will of God, you will be victorious. It may be a battle. It may force you to the point you think you can't take any more. But if we hold tight to God we can win.
Today perhaps is a time for us to pray for an increase in the virtue of Hope.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
False dichotomy
As much as we like to think that we all know better than to judge by appearance, the fact is that we still do. To be elected president of the United State you not only have to be a man, but a tall man. We think we choose based on what a person stands for. More often than not we decide who we like based on appearance and the filter information that conforms to the choice we have made. We choose not to believe bad things about the ones we like, and we filter out the good about the ones we don't like.
Can a woman be both pretty and smart? Can a boy be a geek and a jock? Why do we feel the need to choose one or the other?
In today's first reading Samuel is told that God does not judge by appearance but by the heart. Then in the same passage we are told about David, that "He was ruddy, a youth handsome to behold and making a splendid appearance." So he was both chosen and handsome.
Even more to the point he will turn out to be both the greatest king in Israel's history, and one of the greatest sinners, committing adultery then murder to cover up the adultery.
Today's reading reminds us that the world and particularly human beings are complex. Composed of both a spiritual aspect and a material aspect, we are constantly in flux, constantly changing. If we are true to God's plan we are constantly being transformed by God's grace.
We want the world to be simple. We want it to be comprehensible and predictable. What we can forget is that when we try to simplify and categorize human beings we rob them of their humanity. When we reduce human beings to biochemistry or psychological models, we rob them of their freedom, the thing that separates us from the rest of creation.
Today's reading ends by telling us:
Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in hand, anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and from that day on, the spirit of the LORD rushed upon David.
Each of us received that same Spirit at Baptism and if we were confirmed, again at Confirmation. If we allow it that Spirit of God can be a spirit that heals, a spirit that brings us consolation, peace, and enables us to truly love.
Perhaps today is a good day to take another look at those people whom we have categorized in one way or another, and acknowledge the complexity, the mystery that is present in every human life.
Can a woman be both pretty and smart? Can a boy be a geek and a jock? Why do we feel the need to choose one or the other?
In today's first reading Samuel is told that God does not judge by appearance but by the heart. Then in the same passage we are told about David, that "He was ruddy, a youth handsome to behold and making a splendid appearance." So he was both chosen and handsome.
Even more to the point he will turn out to be both the greatest king in Israel's history, and one of the greatest sinners, committing adultery then murder to cover up the adultery.
Today's reading reminds us that the world and particularly human beings are complex. Composed of both a spiritual aspect and a material aspect, we are constantly in flux, constantly changing. If we are true to God's plan we are constantly being transformed by God's grace.
We want the world to be simple. We want it to be comprehensible and predictable. What we can forget is that when we try to simplify and categorize human beings we rob them of their humanity. When we reduce human beings to biochemistry or psychological models, we rob them of their freedom, the thing that separates us from the rest of creation.
Today's reading ends by telling us:
Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in hand, anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and from that day on, the spirit of the LORD rushed upon David.
Each of us received that same Spirit at Baptism and if we were confirmed, again at Confirmation. If we allow it that Spirit of God can be a spirit that heals, a spirit that brings us consolation, peace, and enables us to truly love.
Perhaps today is a good day to take another look at those people whom we have categorized in one way or another, and acknowledge the complexity, the mystery that is present in every human life.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Rationalization once more
So contrary to our modern Christian sensibility, we get lost in the slaughter and the point of the first reading can get lost on us.
Saul, after becoming king, goes on a killing rampage. God through Samuel says fine, but if you are going to kill you must kill everything and everybody. Saul likes the idea of killing everybody, thereby getting rid of all threats to his power, but decides not to kill everything. The best of the animals he allows to live, the spoils of war. This was precisely what God had forbidden. War may be necessary, but profiting from it was a sin.
When confronted by Samuel with his disobedience, he does what we humans all too often do. Instead of simply confessing his sin, he invents an explanation that sounds not only good but pious.
But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen, the best of what had been banned, to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal.
Notice the multiple layers of dishonesty. First of all he distances himself from the act. He claims he had nothing to do with it "the men" did it. Then, like the cherry on top of the cupcake, he drags God into it, claiming they kept the best animals to sacrifice to God.
God's response is to declare that Saul is no longer fit to be king.
One is left to wonder how different God's response might have been if Saul had simply said, "I did it. I messed up. It's my fault."
Saul, after becoming king, goes on a killing rampage. God through Samuel says fine, but if you are going to kill you must kill everything and everybody. Saul likes the idea of killing everybody, thereby getting rid of all threats to his power, but decides not to kill everything. The best of the animals he allows to live, the spoils of war. This was precisely what God had forbidden. War may be necessary, but profiting from it was a sin.
When confronted by Samuel with his disobedience, he does what we humans all too often do. Instead of simply confessing his sin, he invents an explanation that sounds not only good but pious.
But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen, the best of what had been banned, to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal.
Notice the multiple layers of dishonesty. First of all he distances himself from the act. He claims he had nothing to do with it "the men" did it. Then, like the cherry on top of the cupcake, he drags God into it, claiming they kept the best animals to sacrifice to God.
God's response is to declare that Saul is no longer fit to be king.
One is left to wonder how different God's response might have been if Saul had simply said, "I did it. I messed up. It's my fault."
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Walking in ignorance
One of the biggest mistakes we make is that we like to retroject knowledge onto people of the past. At the center of today's gospel is John. How often do we take what is written only in Lukw, mix it with parts of other gospel's and imagine that John had some kind of supernatural fore-knowledge of who Jesus was.
Today we hear the truth from John's own mouth, "I did not know him." He says it not once but twice, verse 31 and verse 34. And in the Gospel of John repetition always means he is telling us something important.
Like many Jews of the time, John was hoping for a Messiah. The Jewish people were dying under the weight of Roman occupation. Ritual bathing was a common part of the purification process used by many itinerant preachers like John.
What was unique was that John had been told by God, that the one on whom he saw the Spirit descend and abide, that one would baptize with the Spirit.
If we are to believe John, and I have no reason to doubt, it was not until the moment the Spirit descended on Jesus that John realized that Jesus was the one he had been hoping, waiting, and praying for. Jesus was the one, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."
Had John ever laid eyes on Jesus before that moment? Probably. But he "did not know him."
Two lessons seem clear
First of all, like John we can have God working right in front of us, and not see it. Particularly in difficult times we can ask "where is God?", without realizing what a ridiculous question that is. Is there any place on earth where God isn't?
Secondly, we so often make the mistake of thinking we know a person. Of all the languages I speak English is the only one that will dare to say both, I know his address, and I know him. Truth is, I may know lots of bits of data about a person, and simultaneously not know the person hardly at all. Most of us are lucky if as we get older we can reach a point where we know ourselves.
What puts John way ahead of most of us is that he is willing to admit his ignorance. We are loathe to say we are ignorant. We forget that ignorance is a curable condition. By being disciples (students) we can move out of our ignorance. We are never too old to learn.
How many of the people who grew up around Jesus never really came to know him, precisely because they thought they knew him. They thought they already knew who he was, when in reality they had no idea.
I will say I know about Jesus. I will say I believe in Jesus and all that the Church teaches about him. But do I know him, do I know him completely? I am not arrogant enough to say yes to that.
I a still a disciple, a student. Hopefully each day I fall deeper into the love of God and each day I come to know, my Lord, my God, my savior, my brother, the Lamb of God, just a little bit more.
John knew what he did not know. And it was this knowledge of his own ignorance that left him open to be shown the truth. May we all have the courage to embrace our own ignorance so that God may fill it with his wisdom.
Today we hear the truth from John's own mouth, "I did not know him." He says it not once but twice, verse 31 and verse 34. And in the Gospel of John repetition always means he is telling us something important.
Like many Jews of the time, John was hoping for a Messiah. The Jewish people were dying under the weight of Roman occupation. Ritual bathing was a common part of the purification process used by many itinerant preachers like John.
What was unique was that John had been told by God, that the one on whom he saw the Spirit descend and abide, that one would baptize with the Spirit.
If we are to believe John, and I have no reason to doubt, it was not until the moment the Spirit descended on Jesus that John realized that Jesus was the one he had been hoping, waiting, and praying for. Jesus was the one, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."
Had John ever laid eyes on Jesus before that moment? Probably. But he "did not know him."
Two lessons seem clear
First of all, like John we can have God working right in front of us, and not see it. Particularly in difficult times we can ask "where is God?", without realizing what a ridiculous question that is. Is there any place on earth where God isn't?
Secondly, we so often make the mistake of thinking we know a person. Of all the languages I speak English is the only one that will dare to say both, I know his address, and I know him. Truth is, I may know lots of bits of data about a person, and simultaneously not know the person hardly at all. Most of us are lucky if as we get older we can reach a point where we know ourselves.
What puts John way ahead of most of us is that he is willing to admit his ignorance. We are loathe to say we are ignorant. We forget that ignorance is a curable condition. By being disciples (students) we can move out of our ignorance. We are never too old to learn.
How many of the people who grew up around Jesus never really came to know him, precisely because they thought they knew him. They thought they already knew who he was, when in reality they had no idea.
I will say I know about Jesus. I will say I believe in Jesus and all that the Church teaches about him. But do I know him, do I know him completely? I am not arrogant enough to say yes to that.
I a still a disciple, a student. Hopefully each day I fall deeper into the love of God and each day I come to know, my Lord, my God, my savior, my brother, the Lamb of God, just a little bit more.
John knew what he did not know. And it was this knowledge of his own ignorance that left him open to be shown the truth. May we all have the courage to embrace our own ignorance so that God may fill it with his wisdom.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Hearing the voice of God
In some ways today's first reading fits easily into our image of God in the Bible. Samuel is sleeping; God comes and speaks to him. The piece that we can overlook is that without Eli, Samuel would have never understood what was happening or how to respond.
While our relationship with God is deeply personal, it cannot be isolated. The Christian faith is at its heart a communal faith. Left to our own devices we can misinterpret the messages. We can easily convince ourselves that God is calling us to whatever we want, and ignore any call from God that we don't want to hear.
God is constantly reaching our to all of his children. We all need Eli's in our life, those people who are wiser, more experienced than ourselves who can help us properly discern when and where God is calling us.
While our relationship with God is deeply personal, it cannot be isolated. The Christian faith is at its heart a communal faith. Left to our own devices we can misinterpret the messages. We can easily convince ourselves that God is calling us to whatever we want, and ignore any call from God that we don't want to hear.
God is constantly reaching our to all of his children. We all need Eli's in our life, those people who are wiser, more experienced than ourselves who can help us properly discern when and where God is calling us.
Monday, January 13, 2014
How long will we give him?
Today not surprisingly as we begin ordinary time, we begin reading, the oldest Gospel, Mark, and the beginning of Jesus's ministry. After the time in the desert, according to Mark, it was the arrest of John that set the ministry of Jesus in motion.
We like the way it happens in Mark's gospel, the speed with which it moves. John is arrested and Jesus starts. In fact all of Mark's gospel moves at lightening speed.
In contrast, today we start two weeks of reading the First Book of Samuel. We begin with the story of Elkanah and his two wives: Hannah and Penninah. While Peninnah had children, Hannah did not. No matter how much we talk about it is impossible for us to grasp how painful this was for women of that time. To make it worse Peninnah would mercilessly tease Hannah about this fact.
Year after year, they would go to Shiloh to offer sacrifice to God. Elkanah tried to do what he could by giving to Hannah a double portion. But apparently none of this was to any avail. Year after year they would go, and year after year she remained childless. One can only imagine the hours she spent praying and crying.
We like Mark's gospel. John is arrested and Jesus appears. Fortunately sometimes God does work that way. We pray for something, and God responds yes immediately.
Sometimes however we must be Hannah. We must simply be patient. We have to go through the pain, not around it. We must endure the taunting of people who take pleasure in the suffering of others.
The universe is too intricate for any human mind to grasp, and yet God sees how every piece of every life fits together in a seamless whole. Every free choice of every person and how it ripples through the lives of others.
Today as we pray, hopefully some of our prayers will be prayers of thanksgiving. Some of our prayers will surely be petition. How long are we willing to give God to respond?
It is true that sometimes the answer is no. But it is also true that sometimes the answer is "not now." Can we trust God? Can we like Hannah wait years and put up with people like Peninnah?
When the answer is not an immediate yes, can we still hold firm to what yesterday's gospel told us. We are the beloved sons and daughters of God. Can we know that whatever answer God gives, and whenever he gives it, it is the perfect answer.
We like the way it happens in Mark's gospel, the speed with which it moves. John is arrested and Jesus starts. In fact all of Mark's gospel moves at lightening speed.
In contrast, today we start two weeks of reading the First Book of Samuel. We begin with the story of Elkanah and his two wives: Hannah and Penninah. While Peninnah had children, Hannah did not. No matter how much we talk about it is impossible for us to grasp how painful this was for women of that time. To make it worse Peninnah would mercilessly tease Hannah about this fact.
Year after year, they would go to Shiloh to offer sacrifice to God. Elkanah tried to do what he could by giving to Hannah a double portion. But apparently none of this was to any avail. Year after year they would go, and year after year she remained childless. One can only imagine the hours she spent praying and crying.
We like Mark's gospel. John is arrested and Jesus appears. Fortunately sometimes God does work that way. We pray for something, and God responds yes immediately.
Sometimes however we must be Hannah. We must simply be patient. We have to go through the pain, not around it. We must endure the taunting of people who take pleasure in the suffering of others.
The universe is too intricate for any human mind to grasp, and yet God sees how every piece of every life fits together in a seamless whole. Every free choice of every person and how it ripples through the lives of others.
Today as we pray, hopefully some of our prayers will be prayers of thanksgiving. Some of our prayers will surely be petition. How long are we willing to give God to respond?
It is true that sometimes the answer is no. But it is also true that sometimes the answer is "not now." Can we trust God? Can we like Hannah wait years and put up with people like Peninnah?
When the answer is not an immediate yes, can we still hold firm to what yesterday's gospel told us. We are the beloved sons and daughters of God. Can we know that whatever answer God gives, and whenever he gives it, it is the perfect answer.
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