Don't Cut and Paste Your Bible (Lent.3.C)

There’s probably not a single person in the congregation—and certainly not a single person listening online—who doesn’t know what it means to cut and paste. You highlight the text you want to move, perform a few keystrokes, and you’ve edited your text.

As with many common expressions, we rarely if ever think of where this comes from. One of the ways of editing in the days before computers or even typewriters was cutting a text in strips and pasting it on a sheet with glue.

That’s exactly what Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, did with the Bible. Using a razor and glue, Jefferson cut and pasted until he had a book without miracles, hard sayings, or the divinity of Christ.

The so-called Jefferson Bible ends as the stone is rolled over the entrance to the Lord’s tomb.

It’s not widely known that the full first name of our former assistant pastor, Father Jeff, is Jefferson. Certainly, he and Thomas Jefferson were kindred spirits in one respect since he did take the time to improve some of the grammar in the King James Version during his project!

The Jefferson Bible is more than a historical curiosity: it’s a monument to a way of thinking about Christianity that’s even more popular today than it was in 1804.

Almost all of us have a sort of Bible in our heads from which we’ve cut out some of the teachings of Christ. We discount some of the harder sayings because they don’t square with modern psychology or our own ideas.

The philosopher Peter Kreeft asks, “Do we judge God’s word, or do we let it judge us?” 

All too often we judge God’s Word. And that can take us dangerously close to what Kreeft calls “a new religion, a religion that comes from us, not from God.”(Food for the Soul, Reflections on the Mass Readings, Cycle C, Third Sunday of Lent.)

The second reading today would be a prime candidate for some cut-and-pasting. St. Paul reminds us of the harsh fate of the unfaithful in the Old Testament. Nowhere do we find the “bad news” of the Bible more than in the stories of the Old Testament; nowhere else do we encounter the wrath of God as much.

In fact, the contrast between God in the Old Testament and the New can lead some people to think they are two different Beings.

Yet not only does St. Paul remind us of these hard truths, but he also threatens us with the same fate as some ancient Israelites. “Do not complain,” he says, “as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”

The hard stories of the Old Testament were recorded for our instruction, firmly alongside the merciful teachings of Christ.

Perhaps we could just forget about Paul, who was known to be rather an irritable fellow. My own father would say of something he didn’t like in Paul, “he must have hit his head when he fell off the horse.”

But we can’t forget about Jesus, who adds his own warning to us in today’s Gospel.

How many of us have long ago edited out his words “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did”?

And Jesus illustrates his point with a story about the owner of a vineyard who has grown impatient with a fruitless tree. In the context, even the one-year reprieve from the axe is not entirely comforting.

Is there anyone who isn’t convinced that many Catholics today have become quite selective in their reading of the Scriptures and their acceptance of Church teaching?

I could convince you instantly if I had the courage. Were I to lay out in uncompromising detail two or three of the toughest teachings of Jesus there would be pickets around the church in hours—and some of them might even be members of the congregation.

I’m not talking only about controversial points of morality. My friend Ralph Martin, a leader in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal from its earliest days, has faced sharp criticism for teaching without compromise a clear-as-a-bell Scriptural doctrine.

He bases his teaching squarely on Jesus, who said that “the gate is wide, and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Mt 7:13-14

He says, “the words of Jesus could scarcely be clearer.”

And yet despite those words, and Church teaching and tradition, many of us think the opposite is true, even if we wouldn’t stand up and say so. Hell may exist, we’ll admit, but it’s probably empty. We’re all going to heaven, whatever we think, do, or say.

I’m a sinner myself, so I like that idea as much as anyone. It’s just that we can’t square it with what Jesus taught.

The idea that most if not all of us will be saved has specific consequences. For starters, if we don’t believe that the message of Jesus is a life-or-death matter, we have little reason to share it with those who don’t believe. And if we’re all going to heaven, there’s little reason to stand up or to grieve when our children or siblings embrace an immoral lifestyle.

And, of course, there’s much less reason to resist sin in our own lives.

This mid-point in Lent is meant as a wakeup call for us. One of the reasons for Lent and penance is to remind us that the road to life is not easy.

Ralph Martin writes that “All around us we see men and women shutting out the truth of the gospel and settling for a way that seems easier. You can have more of what you want now.  That’s what the world tells us. You can disobey the commands of God seemingly without consequence.

“You can add those things of God that attract you to the things of this world. You can compromise on the truth and get away with it. You do not need to deny yourself, to take up your cross and to follow Christ.

“You can take the easy way.”

We should be grateful for God’s patience, God who always seems willing to give us extra time to produce fruit that shows our repentance. But we should not try God’s patience. As St. Paul says, “now is the acceptable time… now is the day of salvation.”

If we’ve walked the wide and easy path thus far in Lent, it’s time to change course and to head in the direction that leads to life.

We can do that in several ways. First, by starting or renewing your Lenten penance. If you got off to a bad start, as I did, now’s the time for a fresh start.

Second, by reflecting on what our second reading says about those thirsty Israelites who drank water from the rock during their journey through the desert. St. Paul tells us that the rock was Christ, who calls himself the living water.

If you’ve been complaining, or dry, or in some way displeasing God, come to church this Saturday at 7 for an evening of peace and prayer, asking God to reorient your heart. It’s no accident that our Lenten adoration event is called “Water in the Desert.”

Finally, by looking at our schedule of regular and extra confessions with its many options and marking your calendars as a firm commitment to meet the Lord in this healing sacrament.

Whatever you do, don’t play the busy-ness card. God called Moses in the middle of his workday, while he was tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Moses took his eyes off the sheep long enough to look towards the burning bush and was rewarded by an intimate revelation of God.

Cut and paste that moment into your own life, and God will reveal himself if you’ll stand beside him on holy ground during the remaining days of Lent.

Transfiguration not only for the Apostles (Lent 2.C)

 

I’ve never forgotten the excellent homily one of my professors gave when I was in the seminary. Unfortunately, when I heard it a second time, I hadn’t forgotten the first time he’d preached it, four years earlier.

Msgr. McConnon was, shall we say, recycling his material. He didn’t think we’d remember. But we did.

Maybe he did it on purpose. Certainly it taught me that if I wanted to reuse a homily, it better be at least five years old.

This morning I am going to recycle thoughts that are only one year old—from a homily I have on the second Sunday of Lent, 2021> Not because I am lazy because I think it’s very interesting to reflect on where we find ourselves one year later.

On this day last year I talked about reading a chapter of a book titled “My Soul is Tired.” I confessed that those words captured exactly how I felt that Sunday. 

And today I say it again: My soul is tired.

I’m sure many of you feel the same way; in fact, I know many of you feel the same way, since you’ve told me so.

Not my heaviness or yours comes directly from the pandemic. Some are just coincidence. But there’s a lot happening to make our souls feel weary.

In his book Heartstorming: Creating a Place God Can Call Home, Robert Wicks writes about the “gray” times in our lives. He says that we can truly benefit from them if we don’t just ignore or play down our troubled feelings.

Our “low” points, he says, can bring spiritual blessings if we intentionally bring God into the times that are “difficult, disappointing, troubling, confusing… or sad.”

I don’t know about you, but my first thought is to ask God to get rid of these feelings, not to invite him in. But Wicks says by exploring them with God we can learn a great deal about ourselves and, more importantly, a great deal about God’s love.

But we can’t stop at exploring our own lows… today the Gospel invites us to explore one of the great highs in the lives of three apostles. And to learn from their experience.

First of all, the Transfiguration shows us how much Jesus cares about how we feel. Since the Transfiguration is only a preview of the Resurrection, what’s most important is not what happened but why it happened.

Jesus is strengthening three key disciples to face his suffering and death. He cares enough to want to prepare them in advance with a preview of the happy ending to the story of his Passion.

He wants us too to be strengthened by his Resurrection from the dead—to be strong enough to face any and every trial. As I said in a funeral homily yesterday,  once we believe that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, everything else is only relative.

The Transfiguration also says something to us as the restrictions on Mass attendance disappear. Jesus granted Peter and James and John more than knowledge; he gave them an experience—an experience not only of himself but of Elijah and Moses, who were so present on the mountain that Peter wanted to build them each a little mountain chalet.

Two thousand years later, Jesus wants to give us that experience—an experience of his glory, the Law and the Prophets, and each other. He wants to gather us around him, right here in this church.

The live stream Mass has been a godsend in the darkest days of the pandemic. But Christians are an experiential, incarnational, and existential community. We are meant to gather. It is good for use to be here, as Peter said to Jesus.

The beginning of the end of our isolation from one another has arrived. And unless we have medical reasons we should be eager o be back in church, every Sunday.

And let’s do some thinking about that book Heartstorming, with its lovely subtitle Creating a Place God Can Call Home.  As we move out of these “gray times,” let’s work and making our parish a place God can call home.

Obviously those of you who are at Mass today don’t need to be told how good it is to be here—to be back as a community of faith gathered around the altar, a Mount of Transfiguration for each of us.

But you all know someone who is hesitating—call them and tell them how good it is to be here; remind them of the joys of worshipping in person. And these gray times come slowly to an end, invite them to walk into the light that can transfigure us all.

There's an excellent way to invite the hesitant back to church: our "Water in the Desert" evening of quiet, music, and adoration every Saturday evening in Lent at 7 pm. Last night lifted me right out of my gray zone!

Having Scripture at the Ready in Times of Temptation or Trial (Lent 1.C)

I’m conducting a survey this morning. But don’t worry—I won’t be asking you to raise your hands or go online to answer questions.

But please answer this one right now: do you have a favourite verse from the Bible?

I’ll stop for a second so you can think about it. Are there words from Scripture that straight to your mind when I ask if you have a favourite saying?

Now that you’ve thought about it, I will announce the results of the survey. More than half of us answered no. There’s no verse from Scripture that is printed clearly on our minds or hearts.

Okay, that wasn’t a very scientific survey! The only answer I can report is mine—I do have a favourite verse, as many of you know. But I sure didn’t have one for more than half of my life.

If I am right, the complex readings for this first Sunday have Lent contain a very simple lesson that’s well worth learning.

First of all, there’s great encouragement for those who answered no and who wish they did have a scriptural saying at the center of their heart or mind. In the second reading today, St. Paul—quoting Moses—says “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.”

A treasured promise from the Bible is not found in research, but in your heart. It arises from your experience of God in your life. But it can’t stay deep in the heart if it’s to be effective. We need that Scripture verse on our lips, quoting it often, even if only to ourselves.

And that’s just the warmup. In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the perfect example of the power of God’s word when we face difficulties of every kind.

Life is full of challenges. Not everyone faces the same ones. Some deal with illness, others with emotional pain,  a few with failure.

But everyone faces temptations. Maybe that’s why we read the story of the devil’s temptation of Christ every year on the first Sunday in Lent. No-one can say they can’t relate. Being tempted in one way or another is a universal experience.

To be offered practical help in dealing with temptation at the very beginning of Lent is a blessing for all of us.

We might miss the lesson of today’s story if we’re distracted by the drama. Few passages in the Gospels are more striking and powerful.

The lesson is not in the drama, not in the devil’s words.

The lesson isn’t even in Jesus’ words. He speaks no words of his own in this earthshaking conversation between good and evil. All our Lord does is quote three short texts from the Old Testament.

What quotes they are! All three are from the Book of Deuteronomy. Each of them perfect for demolishing each of Satan’s three big lies.

Jesus says in the Gospel of John “the truth will set you free.” Today we see how the truth—the truth of God’s word—will also bind Satan.

Notice that Satan himself quotes Psalm 91. (The Church reads that psalm at Mass today, perhaps to insult him.)

As Shakespeare wrote in the Merchant of Venice, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” We’re not talking about dueling verses here. When the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active,” it’s not talking about words on a page, but the word wielded in faith as a sword of truth.

The Gospel writers tell almost every story in the briefest way possible; this is one of the amazing aspects of the Bible as literature. But I think the encounter between the devil and Jesus in the wilderness probably was brief. Jesus didn’t need to ask the devil for some time to think over his proposals.

Rather, the Scripture verses that neutralized these temptations likely came swiftly to the lips of Jesus. Not necessarily because he was God, having a perfect biblical database, but because he learned these words as a child.

Jesus drew on human memory of lessons learned as a Jewish boy. But not by recalling the memory work he was no doubt assigned—many times since he’d reflected on these key verses from the Torah, the core of Israel’s faith.

For Jesus, the word was near, on his lips and in his heart.

I started by asking if you had a favourite verse of Scripture. But one treasured line does not meet every situation. It’s just the start of learning to turn to the Bible when we’re confronted with temptations or tough decisions.

Look at the Gospel again. The first temptation is the one most of us can relate to easily. Who hasn’t been tempted to put the material ahead of the spiritual?

We don’t want any of our human hungers—for food, for rest, for comfort—to take second place to our religious duties. We find immediate relief from the stress of getting up for Mass by deciding we really need more sleep.

The second temptation rarely comes to us the way the devil presented it to Jesus. We’re rarely offered a stark choice of choosing the world and losing our soul. Yet many have temptations to compromise with the world by staying silent in the face of an injustice at work or school, or by refusing to stand up for our faith. We serve false Gods of influence, acceptance, even power or money.

It's safe to say the third temptation comes to us only indirectly. We think that God will protect us from the consequences of our wrong choices or imprudent living.

The three verses that Jesus uses to confront the three temptations might not be the three we would choose to memorize ourselves, but at least one of them should be in every Christian’s spiritual toolkit: “Man does not live on bread alone.”

As an example of another Scripture we can all use in various times of difficulty, Father Robert Spitzer tells us that “Thy will be done” is one of his favourite prayers.

I offer you a Lenten challenge. When you get home write three familiar lines of Scripture on a piece of paper and ask which one you should memorize for emergencies.

If nothing comes to mind, Google “favourite Bible verses” and see what stands out.

And if you find this too difficult, there’s a shortcut in today’s readings. St. Paul says, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Even more simply, he writes “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And in his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us that “no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”

“Jesus is Lord” is the shortest Christian creed. Those three words alone have the power to send the devil packing.