5th Sunday of Lent, March 17, 2013

Isaiah 43:16-21; Phil 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

          Today's gospel story is probably one of the most popular stories of New Testament, and Jesus' words about casting the first stone are repeated in an endless variety of contexts inside and outside the church. They are used most often as a check on moral self-righteousness. If we read the different commentaries considering this story we find different interesting information, such as:

          1. There are several irregularities in the scribes' and Pharisees' presentation of their legal case.

          a. For example, they provide no witnesses to sustain the case that the woman was caught in the "very act" of adultery. They needed at least two of them. Where are those witnesses?

          b. They  speak as if Mosaic law requires the death penalty for adulterous woman only and completely ignore the fate of her male sexual partner. Mosaic law, however, makes explicit that both man and the woman involved stand under the death penalty. In fact, the fundamental concern of Mosaic adultery laws is the protection of stability of men's property (their wives and their offspring), and the law is worded to focus primarily on men. For example, the commentary to that law, Mishnah, explicitly mentions only the man's punishment by stoning for adultery. Where is that man? Was he already stoned to death? Or he was let go because he explained to them that she made him do it, she seduced him?

2. Jesus' writing on the ground indicates his refusal to engage the question of the scribes and the Pharisees. It seems as he knew that regardless of what he would say that would be used against him:

         

a. if he said she should be stoned to death he would speak against the Roman Law which preserved the right of deciding the death capital cases in Palestine. They also could easily say that afterwards Jesus was not so compassionate.

b. if he said she should not be stoned to death they would definitely talk about Jesus disregard to respect the traditions of their nation and the laws of Moses.

The scribes and the Pharisees just wanted to entrap him, and the woman was used only as an object to reach that goal.

3. Some of us who are more radical could say the elders' departure signaled at least that they were able to recognize their own sinfulness and walked away. But many of our own bishops who covered up the abuse scandals for years or decades  never resigned on their own, or never admitted any guilt on their own.

          As much as we perhaps want to focus on and to talk about all those different interpretations of today's story the bottom line is this gospel story is not primarily about the scribes' and Pharisees' "sin" of self-righteousness nor the woman's sexual sin. Rather , it is about the challenge that Jesus brings to any embedded religious authority and at the possibilities of new life that arise from that challenge.  Jesus places his authority to forgive and to offer freedom over and against any religious establishment's determination of their categories of life and death.

          Today's parable is mainly directed to people like me! The people who hold the position of religious authority. We, the religious leaders, are to keep asking ourselves some challenging questions, and not only after reading today's story but on regular basis. 

The questions such as:

          What are the categories of life and death, or what laws or regulations, we might be choosing or supporting, for whatever reason, that they might against freedom and forgiveness which God offers to His people through Jesus?

          What does entrap us, the religious leaders, preventing us from following Christ and from being his disciples?

          Do we in our own cleverness entrap others?

          Do our own words and actions become an obstacle to others so they cannot fully experience the gifts of God's mercy and forgiveness, healing and freedom?

          What is it that puts us, the religious leaders,  on a collision course with Jesus and his gospel:

·       Our legalism?

·       Fostering of clerical culture?

·       Love of politics and our quite bias involvement in it?

·       The  love of riches?

·       Using the sacraments as the means of discipline?

·       Sacrificing charity, justice or well being of individuals to protect the institution?

          I hope that with the election of the new pope, Francis, and with an aid of the example of his life we will gain some new perspective and the new insights into how to answer those questions and how to address the issues which I have just mentioned.

4th Sunday of Lent, March 3, 2013

Jos 5:9,10-12; 2 Cor 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3,11-32

         

          To call today's gospel parable "The Prodigal Son" parable we emphasize only the first part of story and neglect the second half. Perhaps the better name for it would be:

          "A Man Had Two Sons," or

          "The Compassionate Father and the Angry Brother," or

          "The Prodigal Son, the Waiting Father, and the Older Brother."

           The younger son's demand to receive his inheritance was both disrespectful and irregular. His behavior afterwards carless. 

          But the truth to be told this parable is not as much about the prodigal son but about the father and the elder son. The conversation between the elder brother and the father forms the climax and focus of the entire parable.

The elder son seems to be proud of life he lives. He believes in justice and merit. It seems as he believes his younger brother should be dealt accordingly to what he deserves. 

But this is not the end. If we read very carefully dialogue of the older son and the father we will discover that the older brother was alienated from his father, perhaps even for the longer time. He has "slaved" for his father for years. He has never transgressed his commands. But he has never felt rewarded. Ad he deeply resents the father's joy at his prodigal brother's return. His rage is expressed in every word and gesture: the refusal to enter the house, the questioning of a servant, his response to this father's attempt at comfort. The anger he has toward the father is deflected onto the younger brother, whom he regards as privileged although unworthy. So he exaggerates the younger brother's sin, imagining his as consorting with prostitutes!

The term ASOTO used in the first part of the parable does not suggest by itself sexual excess. It means pending on a context also drunkenness, rebelliousness, passions, lawless idolatry. Some scripture translations when they talk about the actions of the younger son they talk about "living without control."

The parable leaves us with the question of whether the elder brother joined the celebration. Did he go in and welcome his brother home, or did he stay outside feeling wronged?

The parable ends here because that is the decision each one of us must make. If we go in, we accept grace as the Father’s rule for life in the family of the church. With Christ we receive and rejoice with others who in our eyes do not deserve our forgiveness or God’s grace. Those who live by merit can never know the joy of grace. Sharing in God's grace requires that we join in the celebration when others are recipients of that grace also. 

          A Jewish story tells of the good fortune of a hardworking farmer. The Lord appeared to this farmer and granted him three wishes, but with the condition that whatever the Lord did for the farmer would be given double to his neighbor.

          The farmer, scarcely believing his good fortune, wished for a hundred cattle. Immediately he received a hundred cattle, and he was overjoyed until he saw the his neighbor had two hundred.

          So he wished for a hundred acres of land, and again he was filled with joy until he saw that his neighbor had two hundred acres of land.

          Rather than celebrating God's goodness, the farmer could not escape feeling jealous and slighted because his neighbor had received more than he.    Finally, he stated his third wish: that God would strike him blind in one eye.

And God wept.

2nd Sunday of Lent, February 24, 2013

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Phil 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28-36

          The world is full of promises. We are promised that our lives will be changed, that we will be transformed, that our needs and desires will be fully satisfied.

          The cell phones, instantaneous access to internet, computer games, Facebook, Twitter, are to help us to have more friends, to communicate better, to be entertained, to find more quickly any desired information, to increase our business. Although, it is true,  our abusive usage of those means of communication can transformed us into individuals who are self-centered, rude, or anti-social, or living in an imaginary world, or who for example, might be addicted to porn.

          The medications which are given to us by pharmaceutical companies are promising us to enhance our performance physical or mental one, or to lose weight, or to give us the world free of pain, free of disease. There is no question that quite often many medications are necessary for us, for example Prozac. However, it seems as we tend to misuse many medications to avoid dealing with real issues in our lives. The medications promise us quick fixes. Because of that we also tend to dismiss their side effects. For example, some are  willing to risk possibility of going blind or having  a heart attack in exchange for a promise of great sexual experience.  Have you known that  The United States makes up only 4.6 percent of the world's population, but consumes 80 percent of its pain medications, its opioids?

          Tobacco and alcohol products are to make us looking cool, relaxed, or desirable. Fast food are to give us great convenience and easy access to not expensive food. But the truth is that some of those products if consumed in excess or sometimes even if consumed in small amounts can transformed us into sick or dying individuals. Than the promise of coolness or convenience is transformed  unexpectedly into our death sentence.

          The world is full of promises which cannot be delivered.

         

          The Lenten season is trying to remind us about this. It is encouraging us to put our faith and trust into the one who can truly satisfy our deepest needs and desires.

          The Church reminds us in its Vatican II document, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, which highlights are included as an insert into this weekend bulletin, that in Christ God reveals himself to us hoping that we will respond to His revelation, to His son,  in faith. The Holy Scripture and Tradition with an aid of the Church are to help us to understand and to interpret correctly whom God reveals to us and what God desires of us.

          For most of us it takes a long time and many life experiences to be able to grasp that, to fully put our faith and hope in Christ, to fully understand Him.

          Even the disciples in today's gospel after experiencing the transfiguration of Jesus still had not understood Him. Peter still denied Jesus, the others still looked for an earthly kingdom to be brought about by Him. Neither do Peter, John and James seemed to refer to the transfiguration experience in their preaching right after Jesus' death and resurrection. The Gospel of John does not contain an account of the transfiguration. The disciples seemed  not to be transformed by this particular "mountaintop" experience. It took them a while and many other experiences before they were changed.

          We are not much different from Peter, John and James, but hopefully, just as they were changed at one point of their lives, we would be also changed. We will be able to let go the empty promises which world present to us, and fully put our faith and trust in the one who can truly satisfied our deepest needs and desires.

          This might not happened during the Sunday Mass, or even in the midst of our own faith community, but that is OK. As long as it happens.