Jesus in the 21st Century

One of my philosophy students asked me last week how I manage to write a sermon.  I responded by telling him I like to have the Bible in one hand and the New York Times in the other.  So, it was no surprise when last week there was an article by James Carroll in the Sunday Review section of the New York Times titled “Jesus and the Modern Man.”  James Carroll a former Roman Catholic priest is a novelist and author of several books about religion and the Church.  He latest book is titled, “Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age.”

James Carroll asks an important question for the Church in our secular world.  Acknowledging the religious disenchantment of our time, he asks “Why the church at all?” and responds by stating, “unlike many Protestants, Catholics have long put their practical faith more in the community of belief than in the person around whom that community gathers.”

Carroll then points out that for Pope Francis “the church exists for one reason only – to carry the story of Jesus forward in history, and by doing that to make his presence real.”

Later in his article Carroll asks, “in what way, actually, can Jesus be said to be divine?  A scientifically minded believer wants to discard that notion, but before he does, he should remember that if Jesus were not regarded as somehow divine almost from the start of his movement, we would never have heard of him.  And if faith in the divinity of Jesus is left behind because it fails the test of contemporary thought, Jesus will ultimately be forgotten.”

“Jesus... revered the Temple, along with his fellow Jews.  If, as scholars assume, he caused a disturbance there, it was almost certainly in defense of the place, not in opposition to it.” He was concerned about God’s purpose for Israel and for the future of humanity.

Jesus’ Parable of the Talents as we heard in today’s Gospel is a story about the future direction of Israel.  And it is a story about God’s purpose for our human future.  The scenario is  extravagant.  A talent was equal to 1,000 pieces of silver or, at that time, 15 years’ worth of wages for the average worker.  What master would entrust his servants with such huge sums of money?  Jesus is making the point that God is the kind of master whose trust is beyond measure.  The amount of money, the talent, was entrusted to each person “according to his ability.” 

The two successful servants in the story took risks and speculated with their master’s money.  As a result they each made a 100% profit.  The point is that the master, God, expects us to use the gifts we have been given to the very limit.  A modest profit is acceptable, but to go for a far greater return is better.  Historically, the bankers in Jerusalem paid excellent rates of interest to the merchants who entrusted their money to them.  Profit was made through foreign trade, and profits were high since the Romans kept the trade routes safe from pirates and hijackers.

Jesus’ use of the parable was an allegory about God’s call to Israel.  The issue of the day was the function and future direction of Israel.  Israel had a critical mission -- to make God known.  To neglect that mandate meant to lose any and all meaning in history.

How do the disciples and we, the followers of Jesus, live out our vocation?  Our stewardship is our God-given responsibility.  We are not owners of the realm of God, but we are caretakers of worldly resources, including the personal resources of our minds, bodies, energies, abilities, intellects, money, and emotions.  These are the resources that are ours to give.  How we give them is the subject of our story, the Parable of the Talents.

The Parable of the Talents speaks best to a time like ours in which greed and self-interest threaten to rob us of our identity as Christians, as faithful users of God’s gifts.  We must be vigilant watchers for signs of God and give them room to flourish.  We must risk using the gifts we have been given, the skills we have and our money, on behalf of God’s kingdom.  We must go the extra mile, be generous givers with all our resources, always ministering to the needs of our sisters and brothers of every class, race and religion.  Only by risking our talents, whether we have one, two, or five thousand; only by embracing life and living fully; and only by developing a real sense of life’s possibilities and opportunities for everyone, can we be truly thankful.  James Carroll is right in saying that putting our faith in Jesus, the person around whom the community gathers, is what matters.

St. Paul commented when he wrote to the Thessalonians, “You are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake … and put on the breastplate of faith and love. …Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.”  May we all give thanks to God for his generous gifts to us.  Amen.

Sharing the Gift of Life

On this first November Sunday of the year we celebrate All Saints’ Day.  It is our named day as All Saints’ Memorial Church.  Generally, we think of saints as those people we have known who have gone before us.  They are members of generations past who have left for us the life we now live, lives of blessings as well as burdens.

At the time of the writings of Matthew’s gospel with the Beatitudes given by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, and the writing of the Revelation to John, the early Christians were living under Roman rule and they were often persecuted because they failed to obey the Roman imperial authorities.  The language in the Book of Revelation is symbolic; it contains images of the last days.  Those who do evil deeds will be punished by a just God while the faithful who persevere will be rewarded in heaven.

In Revelation a great hymn is sung around the heavenly throne: “All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’” 

This hymn of blessing is about faithfulness and fidelity.  The fidelity of the early Christians mirrors God’s eternal fidelity.  The writer of the Revelation of John encourages suffering Christians to look forward, to keep their thoughts and visions on God’s eternal realm of heaven as they deal with and endure problems and persecutions.

Both the familiar beatitudes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the Revelation of John show that those who suffer most receive the greatest joy in heaven.  But don’t we all hope to attain great joy in heaven?  Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.  Are they the only ones to rejoice and be glad? 

You and I are people who want to be happy and successful.  We like to enjoy leisure time, watch or play sports, travel and have a good life. We work hard and we struggle against feelings of grief, suffering, pain and anger.  How odd it seems then that those who mourn, the poor and meek and persecuted are the only ones whose reward is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

We need to listen carefully to what Jesus said and what he is saying to us.  He doesn’t say that destitution is a blessing; the disciples are to relieve the suffering of those who have less than they need.  Those who mourn are blessed because they care and grieve over the injustice and oppression suffered by others.  Those who are truly poor in spirit do not spend time obsessing about their misfortune, they reach out to the bereaved, and they empathize with them in their grief.

Jesus asked the disciples to suffer with others during a time when the Romans despised pity, and when the stoics looked skeptically at compassion.  When mercy and compassion move the disciples in their concern for others, then the God of mercy extends mercy and compassion to them.

The blessing for the meek indicates that it is reserved for people who can face conflict without resorting to violence.  It implies strength, moral fortitude and spiritual courage.  The meek do not run away in the face of difficulty.  They show reverence for God and good will towards others.

The pure in heart are the people whose minds, emotions and wills are committed to God.  Their vision is free of greed and arrogance.  They are whole-hearted and seek a greater and deeper unity of being, a deeper relationship with God.   

The beatitudes are outrageous expectations of an extravagant God.  Outrageous because they go against all that we are taught about what it means to be a success, to really make in it banking, law, medicine, business, or politics, and to look out for number one.  Our cultural standards for success and human dignity are self-sufficiency, individualism, independence, and autonomy.  The  Beatitudes are different; those who take God at God’s word are the ones who are truly blessed.

Who then are the saints today?  They are not only those who have preceded us.  As the late William Stringfellow, a lawyer and theologian who lived on Block Island said, saints are "those men and women who relish the event of life as a gift and who realize that the only way to honor such a gift is to give it away.” 

Deepening our relationship with God by sharing the gift of life with those in need enables us to join with “all the angels [who] stood around the throne and … worshiped God singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”  Amen.