Betrayal

John 13, 21-38

The Gospels for Monday to Thursday in Holy Week take us away from the crowded temple area in Jerusalem where Jesus spoke to the crowds and his avowed enemies and bring us into homes where “his own” join him to eat a meal.

In Bethany six days before Passover he eats with those he loved: Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead. In Jerusalem on the night before he dies he eats with the twelve who followed him. During the meal in Bethany, Mary anoints his feet with precious oil in a beautiful outpouring of her love.

But the Gospels for Tuesday and Wednesday point not to love but betrayal. Friends that followed him abandon him. Judas betrays him for thirty pieces of silver and goes out into the night; Peter will deny him three times; the others flee. Jesus must face suffering and death alone. (Judas’ Betrayal, J.Tissot)

Are we unlike them? Does a troubled Jesus face us too, “his own,” to whom he gave new life in the waters of baptism and Bread at his table. Will we not betray or deny? Are we sure we will not go away? The Gospels are not just about long ago; they’re also about now.

People Who Go Back And Forth

Our gospel today (John 7, 1-2,10,25-30) recalls Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles, a popular autumn feast drawing crowds of visitors to the city. News of his teaching and the wonders he worked in Galilee had already reached the center of Judaism. John describes the reaction of the Jewish leaders: “the Jews were trying to kill him.” Along with them, his coming also draws the attention of “the inhabitants of the city.”

Who are they?

“The inhabitants of the city” are not the leaders who later put him to death. They’re the ordinary public who watch the leaders, who know what’s happening in the city, who follow trends and pass gossip. They watch Jesus with curiosity as he enters the temple area and teaches.

“Do our leaders now believe he’s the Messiah?” “How can he be, because he’s from Galilee and no one will know where the Messiah is from?” They’re people who go back and forth, the undecided who wait to see who wins before taking sides. Like Pilate, they would rather wash their hands of blame, but they’re involved just the same.

Jesus does not absolve them from responsibility. In John’s gospel, though immediate blame for rejecting him and putting him to death falls on the Jewish leaders, the “inhabitants of Jerusalem” are also responsible for their blindness to the Word in their midst.

In the larger perspective, then, aren’t we all “inhabitants of Jerusalem” who bear responsibility for not recognizing Jesus and putting him to death? Our Christian tradition sees the sins of us all responsible for the Passion of Jesus.

Following Jesus through the Lenten Gospels

Don’t forget we’re following Jesus through lent and the lenten gospels are our guides. During the first weeks we read from the gospel of Matthew, a favorite of the early church, which took us to the mountain in Galilee where Jesus at the beginning of his ministry taught his followers that they are children of God, how to pray, how to forgive, how to live together.

We follow Jesus our teacher.

Today’s gospel is from Luke’s account of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.(Lk 11,14-23) Gathering disciples to accompany him, he teaches them through parables and performs miracles, like healing the man who is mute. Driving out the demon who holds the man makes it more than a physical healing; the miracle is a sign that the kingdom of God has come. The Evil One is powerless before Jesus.

The miracles signify that Jesus is the Messiah. When he heard about them, John the Baptist asked, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Jesus replied they were indeed a sign he was the expected Messiah:

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” (Luke 7,18-23)

Jesus is the Messiah.

Next week, the 4th week of Lent, we begin the gospel of John, which take us to Jerusalem where Jesus performs great signs, like the healing of the paralytic and the raising of Lazarus from the dead, but he also engages in extensive arguments about his identity with the Jewish leaders in the temple area.

Jesus is the Son of God.

All that we learn of him leads to the mystery of his cross and resurrection.
There he is our teacher, our Messiah, our Lord.

Wednesday, 3rd Week in Lent

 

Mt 5, 17-19

Jesus ascends a mountain and gathers his disciples to teach them, according to Matthew’s gospel, chapters 5-7.  Moses before him brought God’s word to the Israelites from a high mountain.  Now, Jesus teaches as the New Moses. He does not abolish what the great patriarch taught; he brings it to fulfillment.

Lent gathers us again to listen to the Sermon on the Mount.  Sublime promises of a Kingdom are made to us; our God is gracious and near. But this part of the gospel reminds us of little things, the small steps, the “least commandments,” we must keep to enter the Kingdom of heaven.

This is a season–our reading reminds us– for remembering that small things like a cup of cold water, a visit to the sick, feeding someone hungry, clothing someone naked, speaking a “word to the weary to rouse them” are important commandments of God.

Yes, lent calls us to think great thoughts and embrace great visions of faith, But the law of God often comes down to small things, and the greatest in the kingdom of God are the best at that.

“The most important things for you are: humility of heart, patience, meekness, charity toward all, and seeing in your neighbor an image of God and loving him in God and for God.” ( Letter 1114)

 

What small step do you want me to take today, O Lord?

What can I do to help the neighbor I meet,

Who is made in your image?

Tuesday, 3rd week of Lent

Peter’s question about forgiveness ( “How many times must I forgive my brother?”) isn’t just his question. He’s asking the question for all of us.

Your forgiveness must be measured by God’s forgiveness–beyond measure, Jesus says. The two servants in the parable are part of a money operation gone wrong, and money brings out the worst of people. There’s a big difference in the money owed. The first owes ten thousand talents, a huge sum, and in a unexpected display of mercy, his master forgives the entire debt.

After being forgiven so much, however, that servant sends off to debtors prison another servant who owes him a few denarii. The ten thousand talents his master has forgiven him would be worth about 10 million denarii. Big difference!

A parable isn’t our only teacher, however.  God’s unmeasurable forgiveness finds its greatest expression in the passion and death of Jesus: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” he cries out from the cross. He pleads, not for one, or a few, but for the whole world. He reveals the mercy of God beyond measure. We measure our forgiveness of others against his.

The Weather of God’s Blessings

The first reading from today’s Lenten Mass describes God’s blessings in terms of the weather.

“Just as from the heavens

the rain and snow come down, and do not return there

till they have watered the earth,

making it fertile and fruitful,

Giving seed to the one who sows

and bread to the one who eats,

So shall my word be

that goes forth from my mouth;

It shall not return to me void,

but shall do my will,

achieving the end for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55,10)

Can this reading help us understand how God blesses us?  Like rain or snow God’s blessings come, making our lives fruitful. Yes, they will surely come, but how about the times we have to wait, when no rain or snow comes at all?

God’s blessings are like the weather.

Or think of God’s blessings through the Sign of the Cross. We say “we bless ourselves” when we make this sign. Sometimes God’s blessing comes through the cross of glory and we receive blessings never imagined through his tender mercy.

Sometimes his blessings takes another form of his cross; disappointment, suffering, failure, sickness, death. There God’s blessings are mostly hidden and hard to see.

In Matthew’s gospel today Jesus offers us a way of praying. Does this blessing also follow the weather. Prayer is a gift, but it’s a gift like the rain and snow. It’s one of God’s greatest gifts to us, yet sometimes we find it hard to pray while at other times it wells up within us.

The blessings of God are like the weather.

What am I going to do for Lent?

Lent begins  Ash Wednesday. What am I going to do for Lent? The supper table is a good place to ask myself the question, because Lent is about renewing ourselves as we are and where we live. The supper table is where we usually look at  life here and now.

We usually  face those closest to us there. Doing something for Lent must mean doing something for them, first of all, the people across the table–or maybe those who have left our table. A scripture reading early on in Lent says: “Don’t turn your back on your own.”   Renewing our relationship with those closest  to us is one of the ways we renew ourselves.

Besides the supper table, I guess we should also ask that question “What am I going to do?” in the place where I work, or where I go to school. Don’t turn your back on them either.

Lent is for renewing ourselves as we are, in real life and real time. It’s not about changing us into different people or changing the world we live in or going to Mars.

The Ash Wednesday scriptures tell us to pray, to fast and give alms. What am I going to do for Lent? How about praying everyday? How about fasting from my own hard opinions of others? How about thinking about others and not just myself?

What am I going to do for Lent? I hope I can get closer to God, and that means for me to get closer to Jesus Christ. Where should I begin? Let me look in the scriptures, especially the scriptures we read during Lent.

One thing we shouldn’t forget when we ask that question  is  another question: “What’s God going to do for us during Lent?” That’s even more important. Lent is a time of God’s grace, more than we can hope for, beyond what we could possibly earn. The great sign of God’s limitless giving is the Passion of his Son, a wondrous gift beyond all others.

Ash Wednesday and Mystical Death

A letter St. Paul of the Cross wrote about “mystical death” may help us celebrate Ash Wednesday.

“Life for true servants and friends of God means dying every day: ‘We die daily; for you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God.’ This is the mystical death I want you to undergo. I’m confident that you will be reborn to new life in the sacred mysteries of Jesus Christ, as you die mystically in Christ more and more each day, in the depths of the Divinity. Let your life be hidden with Christ in God…

“Think about a mystical death. Dying mystically means thinking only of living a divine life, desiring only God, accepting all that God sends and not worrying about it. It means ignoring everything else so that God can work in your soul, in the sanctuary of your soul, where no creature, angelic or human, can go and there you can experience God working and being born, as you mystically die.

“But I’m in a hurry, and this note is getting too mystical, so listen to it with a grain of salt, because we don’t get it.”    (Letter, Dec 28, 1758)

Ash Wednesday’s a good time to try to “get” what the saint is saying.  Ashes are placed on our foreheads in the form of a cross and some simple words are said: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

A reminder we will die. Yet, this brief symbolic acts says much more. A daily mystical death is also taking place within us. Our physical life will end, the ashes tell us;  the day and hour unknown. But ashes in the form of a cross say Jesus Christ changes death. “Dying, you destroyed our death. Rising, you restored our life.” Jesus Christ has made his risen life ours. His gift is hidden from us, yet he promises we will experience it when we enter his glory.

Meanwhile, the mystery of his death and resurrection is at work in us now. Enter this mystery mystically,  St. Paul says. Daily, deliberately, attentively accept God working within you. A new life is being born in you, though you may not see it.  Desire it, accept what God sends, without worry. God is working within you through the mystery of the Lord’s cross.

Yet, as the saint says in his letter, he has to hurry off, like the rest of us,  to something else. He’s going somewhere, or has something to do, or someone to see, and he tells his correspondent that you can’t think about deep things too long. No, we can’t.

And so, we only glimpse this mystery as ashes are placed on us. Still, let’s hear the Lord’s voice in today’s readings and the signs of the liturgy. Ash Wednesday is an ambassador sent by God reminding us he is at work in us; he’ll send  graces through the days of Lent and Easter. Yes, in all the days of our life.

Let us embrace his cross each day and die mystically and be born anew.

If you’re interested in more on Ash Wednesday and Lent, go here.

Following Jesus Christ in Lent

The lenten scripture readings  call us to  follow Jesus  from his baptism by John in the Jordan River to his resurrection in Jerusalem after he died on the cross. On the 1st Sunday of Lent we go to the Jordan River where Jesus is led into a deserted place by the Spirit and tempted for 40 days after his baptism. Our journey with Jesus begins  in a desert.

The weekday gospels for the first three weeks of lent bring us to Galilee where Jesus begins his ministry. They’re mostly from Matthew, the early church’s favorite gospel for teaching about him.  Peter’s confession at Caesaria Phillipi is the highpoint of this gospel. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Peter says to Jesus. “You have the words of everlasting life.”

Lent invites us to make that same confession.

The readings from Matthew take us to the Mount of the Beatitudes where Jesus speaks “the words of everlasting life.”  Be  faithful to prayer, the Lord says , for you gain wisdom there. ( Tuesday and Thursday, 1st week of Lent)  Love your neighbor, even your enemies and “the least,” whom we can tend to overlook. ( Monday, Friday, Saturday, 1st week of Lent)

But can we  possibly love that way? we ask. The love Jesus asks for on the mountain is so lofty and challenging.  There’s no watering down the challenge, however.  Far from making us comfortable, Lent sets our sights on loving more. It calls for our best; the bar is higher than we like.

Yet, look at the reading for the Saturday after Ash Wednesday; who does Jesus call to be his disciples?  Matthew the tax collector and people like him–not very good keepers of the law. Are we outsiders and sinners like them?  Welcome to the lenten season where the Lord calls us as he called them.

Matthew’s gospel leads us from the Mount of the Beatitudes to Jerusalem, to the Mount of Calvary. Like most sacred writers, Matthew likes mountains. You see the distance more clearly from them. On the 2nd Sunday of Lent, we go up to the Mount of the Transfiguration to glimpse the  glory found ahead. By the 4th week of Lent,  we arrive  in the Holy City, Jerusalem,  and then most of the weekday lenten gospels will be from John. I’ll say something about them when we get there.

You can follow the lenten readings online here.

A Book for Lent

Lent begins this Wednesday, so may I  recommend a book to read each day of Lent.

A Lenten Journey with Jesus Christ and St. Paul of the Cross:Reflections on the readings for the days  of Lent in the light of the wisdom of St. Paul of the Cross.  $15.00

You can get it the old way by writing to:

The Passionist Store

86-45 Edgerton Boulevard

Jamaica, New York  11432

Or calling:  718 739 6502

Or send an email to me:

www.vhoagland@mac.com

Sorry, by we can’t ship outside the US