When you hold a Banquet, Invite the Poor

“When you hold a banquet invite the poor”
August 29, 2010: 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time
Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29 Heb. 12:18-19, 22-24 Luke 14:1, 7-14

Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord

Being humble

On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. Noticing how some of the guests were choosing the places of honor at the table He told them a parable:

When you’re invited to a wedding banquet, don’t grab the best places at table. A more distinguished guest than you might be invited by the host, and then the host will say to you, “Give your place to this man.” Embarrassed you will have to step down and take the lowest place. Rather, take the lowest place first, and the host will say to you, “My friend, go up there to the front table.” Then you will enjoy the esteem of the other guests at the table. For everyone who makes himself great will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be made great.

Inviting the humble

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors. They might invite you back, and then you will be repaid. Rather, when you give a banquet invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and blind. Then you will indeed be blessed. They will not be able to repay you, but the Father in heaven will repay you at the resurrection of the just.”(Lk 14:1, 7-14)

The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction
The nation’s liturgy

The Nation’s liturgy began with the Memorial Day Weekend. It climaxed with the Fourth of July. Soon it will taper off with Labor Day. This time of the year is a turning point: things move swiftly now into a new mode and mood as kids go back to school. Before we know it, leaves of brown will be tumbling down, and the first dusting of snow will spray the landscape. Then “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house” we will go, to conclude the nation’s liturgy with Thanks Giving. After that, the Church’s liturgy takes over with the first Sunday of Advent in preparation for Christmas 2010. It’s that time “of the rolling year” when things start moving really fast.

Jesus & Luke’s predilection

In Luke’s gospel Jesus lines up a litany of people whom, He says, we should invite to a banquet: “When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed.” (Lk 14: 13-14) Immediately following this passage, Jesus tells another parable which reiterates that selfsame litany, and which shows that Jesus and evangelist Luke have a predilection for such people.

A master, who intends to hold a banquet, sends his servant to invite various friends, but they all make excuses for not coming. That infuriates the master who sends his servant out into the streets and alleys of the town to bring in “the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame.” (Lk 14: 15-24)

A friend writes, “These two passages of Scripture cut me to the quick. I must admit that my social interaction is often based on what I like and whom I like. I certainly don’t think Jesus is frowning on family banquets or quiet dinners with friends, etc. I do believe, however, that His exhortation to hold a banquet for people who can’t repay us is profound and fundamental to the Christian essence. Still, I must say His exhortation conflicts me, for I am nurtured by a society which trains me to be good to those who can repay me, and to pass by those who can’t.”

A symptomatic floor plan

The Church is at her best when she reflects Jesus and evangelist Luke’s predilection for poor. However, down through the centuries she has not always been at her best. In the papers of Simon Greenleaf (1783-1863), a scholar in American history and an active Episcopalian churchman, there was found the floor plan of an Episcopal Church in Cambridge or Boston. What rivets one’s attention is the fact that the pews were "rented" out to families at different rates. The most expensive pews were those right in front of the pulpit and five rows from it. From those seats direct eye-contact could easily be made with the preacher. Then the prices of the pews lowered as you moved away from direct eye-contact with the preacher in the pulpit.

That floor plan is symptomatic, and it is an indictment of the Church in all ages. Jesus has a different floor plan for His Church; At the Sunday Eucharistic banquet He would place the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind “right in front of the pulpit and five rows from it,” and He asks his Church to do the same!

A banquet for the poor at the Hyatt

In June of 1990 the Boston Globe carried a very unusual story about one who went out into the streets and alleys of the town to invite the chronically uninvited to a banquet. A couple had arranged to have their wedding reception at the Boston Hyatt Hotel. Years before, the bride-to-be had managed to pull herself out of poverty; she found a good job and managed to set aside a sizable nest egg. The couple had expensive tastes, and the bill on the contract came to over $13,000. But on the day the invitations were to go out, the groom got cold feet and asked for more time to think matters over! That infuriated the jilted bride-to-be, and when she tried to cancel the reception, Hyatt told her, “The contract is binding. You’re only entitled to $1,300 back. You have two options: to forfeit the rest of the down payment or go ahead with the banquet. We’re sorry.”

A way of life!

Angry, she decided to go ahead with the banquet, but in an utterly strange and surprising way, which by the way reflected her humble origins. She decided to “go out to the streets and alleys of the town”, and invite the chronically uninvited. She sent invitations to shelters and rescue missions throughout Boston, and invited them to a night on the town. That summer evening, people who were used to eating leftover pizza or whatever good scraps they could find in garbage cans were eating chicken cordon bleu and being served hors d’oeuvres by waiters dressed in the fine tuxedos. The chronically uninvited of Boston ate, drank, and listened to big-band music late into the night. That night the Hyatt Hotel hosted a banquet such as it had never hosted before.

For the jilted bride, that unusual banquet for chronically uninvited people was an angry expression (and perhaps also a sweet-sour reminiscence). For a disciple of Jesus such a banquet should be a way of life!

A banquet for the poor at St. Benedict’s

It is a way of life on State Street between Ninth and Tenth in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There stands the historic church of St. Benedict the Moor -- the first Catholic church in the city dedicated to ministry in the African-American community. There a daily banquet (not just at Thanksgiving and Christmas) is offered to the poor, the blind, the lame and the crippled of central city. They come in droves – three or four hundred every day, especially in these economically hard times.

It’s not your typical soup kitchen; it’s a veritable banquet hall. The meal is prepared by countless families from the suburbs. The families take turns preparing the meal in their own kitchens. Then they bring their homemade dinner down to the church hall in central city where they personally serve it. It’s suburbanites obeying Jesus who asks them to hold a banquet for the chronically uninvited, and who promises that the Father in heaven will repay them at the resurrection of the just. (Lk 14:14)

Repaid already

The good news is that those suburbanites don’t have to wait for the resurrection of the just in order to be repaid. In some strange way they’re repaid already in this life, for there at the Benedict Community Meal all are fed, even the suburbanite! And what he is fed -- what he ingests - is a sympathetic understanding that the poor, the homeless, the maimed, the alcoholic, the demented, the estranged, etc. of State Street have complex and painful stories behind them. And that understanding nourishes him. At that inner city banquet, he soon discovers that his `solutions’ to the glaring problems before him are either simplistic at best or self-righteous at worst. And that understanding also nourishes him.

Best of all, the suburbanite in that central city banquet discovers that there is something of the saint in central city’s chronically uninvited, and that sainthood isn’t as clean and neat as we are accustomed to think. On State Street he discovers that his thoughts are not God's thoughts, and that his banquets are not God’s banquets.

Liking as Jesus likes

Jesus likes tax collectors and sinners, whom the chief priests and Jewish elders do not like. (Mt 9:9-13; Mt 21:31-32) Jesus likes Samaritans whom his Jewish brethren not only do not like, but also soundly despise. (Lk 10:25-37; Lk 17:11-19; Jn 4:1-42) Jesus likes the woman of ill repute in town, whom Simon the Pharisee does not like. (Lk 7: 39-50) Jesus likes the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind whom His host does not particularly like, and whom he does not invite to his banquet.

What G.K. Chesterton writes of St. Francis of Assisi holds all the more for Francis’ master and model – Jesus: “Francis liked as he liked; he seems to have liked everybody, but especially those whom everybody disliked him for liking. ” The New Testament from beginning to end shows Jesus as liking all those people whom everybody else is disliking, and inviting us to like as He liked.

Conclusion
Repaid already in this life

We hold banquets at Christmas and Thanksgiving, or on the occasion of weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. To those banquets we invite our friends, brothers, relatives and well-off neighbors. They in turn reciprocate. Jesus, who went to a wedding banquet in Cana of Galilee (Jn 2: 1-11), endorses such human and happy celebrations. But He also asks us to hold banquets not only for those who will reciprocate but also for those who can’t, and He promises that we will be repaid in the next life. In some strange way, however, those suburbanites who hold a banquet in central city Milwaukee feel repaid already in this life. Perhaps even that jilted bride who held a banquet in central city Boston, when the sun set on her failed wedding day, also in some strange felt repaid.

Lord, Will Only a Few Be Saved?

“He puts the stray sheep on his shoulder carries it back home.”
(Luke 15:5-6)

“Lord, will only a few be saved?”

August 22, 2010, 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time
Isaiah 66:18-21 Hebrews 12:5-7; 11 Luke 13:22-30

Second reading from Hebrews

Brothers and sisters, have you forgotten the encouraging words which God speaks to you as His children?

Second reading from Hebrews

Brothers and sisters, have you forgotten the encouraging words which God speaks to you as His children?

My son, do not get angry when the Lord disciplines you, and do not be discouraged when He reproves you. For whom the Lord loves He reproves, and whom He favors He chastises.[1]

Therefore, endure your sufferings as being a father’s punishment. For your sufferings show that God is treating you as His sons. At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain. Later, however, discipline brings forth the fruit of righteousness.

The Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God

Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.

Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as He went and making His way to Jerusalem. Someone asked Him, “Sir, will only a few people be saved?” Jesus replied, “The door to heaven is narrow, so work hard to get in. For I tell you when the head of the house has locked the door, it will be too late. Then you will stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will reply, ‘I do not know you!’ And you will answer, ‘But we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ Then He will say to you, ‘I do not know you!’ What great wailing and gnashing of teeth there will be when you will see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, while you stand outside. People will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. Then those who are now last will be first, and those who are now first will be last.”

The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Introduction
Like pages off the calendar

Here it is the fourth Sunday of August already and the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time. Many of the kids are back to school. The fruits of the harvest will soon be gathered into bins against the long winter ahead. Soon leaves of brown will come tumbling down like pages off the calendar. By late August, time always seems to go into high gear and start rushing headlong to Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which will be here before we know it. This is the time of the year when we feel `a sense of passage,’ and a kind of melancholy sets in on some of us.

Few will be saved

A staunch religious blogger complains about preachers “who go so far as to say that those, who are sincere in whatever beliefs they hold, will be saved. Such preachers,” he says, “are in effect saying that the door which opens to heaven is very wide, while Jesus tells us that it is very narrow. I believe Jesus, and not those preachers.”

Another staunch religious blogger complains,

People don’t want to be reminded of the hard sayings in the Bible. Those of us who claim that the door which opens to heaven is narrow are labeled as “narrow minded.” That’s OK; we’re in good company: Jesus Himself said, “Narrow is the door that opens to heaven.” Like it or not, only a few will be saved! Whether or not we think this makes God a failure, whether or not that makes us sad and upsets us, isn't really important. If the Bible says it, that settles it. (That reminds us of an old bumper sticker which some Bible people proudly sported: “God said it! I believe it! That settles it!”)

`In good company’

Surprisingly, those who blog in such a vein seem to be in good company. In Romans St. Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah: "Though the sons of Israel be as numerous as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved. For quickly and decisively will the Lord execute sentence upon the earth.” (Rom. 9:27; Is. 10: 22f)

Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604) writes equally gloomily: “Behold how many are gathered here for today's feast-day. We fill the church from wall to wall. Yet who knows how few of us shall be numbered in that chosen company of the elect? -- In the late 1870s Charles Taze Russell (founder of the Jehovah Witnesses,) gloomily limited the number of those saved to 144,000, because the book of Revelation speaks of 144,000 people “who had the seal of God on their foreheads, and who washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev 7:1-14) 144,000 human beings is but a drop of water in the whole sea of humanity.

All will be saved

Universalism (a religious movement which affirms that all will be saved) was a reaction to the gloomy view that only a few will be saved. In his autobiography, John Murray, an Englishman who migrated to the New World in 1770, recounts a conversation he had one day with a gloomy Calvinistic preacher.

He told me that he traveled nine miles on foot every Saturday to preach. I asked him, “How many people does your congregation contain?” “About a hundred,” he replied. “How many of them do you suppose are predestined to everlasting life? “I cannot tell,” he replied. “Do you believe fifty are predestined?” “Oh no, not even twenty.”“Ten perhaps?” “Yes, maybe ten.” “Do you think the non-elect can do anything to get themselves out of this terrible situation that heaven has decreed for them?” “Oh no,” he replied, “they might as well try to pull the stars out of the heavens.” “And do you think your preaching can assist them?” “Certainly not. Every one of my sermons will simply sink them deeper and deeper into hell.” So, then, you walk nine miles every Saturday to sink ninety persons out of a hundred deeper and deeper into never-ending misery!

Universalism: a reaction

Reacting to the gloomy preacher Murray went to the opposite end of the spectrum: in the place of an extremely severe and arbitrary God he chose an extremely merciful and forgiving One. To the question will only a few be saved Murray answered, “Everyone will be saved! Nobody will be damned!” That’s called Universalism, and for its proof Universalists quote various Scripture texts like,

Then Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:31-32)

For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being. For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. (I Cor. 15:22) Etc. Etc.

Many will be saved

Between the gloomy blogger's contention that "Few will be saved!" and the very optimistic stance of Universalists' that "All will be saved!" there stands a blessed middle ground: "Many will be saved!" If one of Jesus' sayings seems to say rather explicitly that only a few are saved (as today's gospel does,) and if many of His other sayings seem to affirm that many, indeed, will be saved, then Jesus' many sayings should trump His one difficult saying. Fr. Andrew Greeley writes,

This is a chilling gospel. It sounds like Jesus is tired and in a bad mood and probably fed up with people asking him such a silly question like will only a few be saved on the last day. If the people had heeded all that Jesus had told them about his Father in heaven, they would have known that God is nothing but forgiveness and love, and they wouldn’t have been asking such a silly question like “Will only a few are saved?”

A theme of Jesus’ preaching

What, in fact, does Jesus tell the people about His Father in heaven? He tells the people a salvation parable: A sheep-herder has ninety-nine sheep and one of them goes astray, and he goes in search of the one lost sheep. When he finally finds the bleating animal, he throws it over his shoulders, carries it back home and calls in his neighbors to celebrate with him, because “there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine respectable people who have no need of repentance.”(Lk 15:1-7) That’s what Jesus told the people, and it should have assured them that many more than just a few will be saved.

Again, Jesus tells the people a salvation parable: One day a son grabs his inheritance and goes off to a foreign land. There he squanders his money on wine and women, and is finally reduced to hiring himself out to a farmer who sends him off to feed his pigs. He finally comes to his senses, makes his way back to his father’s house and is welcomed home with open arms. (Lk 15:11-32) That, again, is what Jesus told the people, and it should have assured them that many more than just a few will be saved.

Few will be saved?

“Few will be saved!” Is that seemingly gloomy saying of Jesus trumped by His many other hope-filled sayings?

“Few will be saved!” Do these words of staunch bloggers and gloomy preachers reflect a very strange psychological need in some people to limit the number of the saved to just a very few? Do they feel that such a gloomy stance, in some very strange way, will merit for them a place among the few who will be saved? At the end of the day, does that stance smack a bit of self-righteousness?

“Few will be saved!” Is that a fear-tactic used by preachers who want to make and keep people religious? At the end of the day, the fear-tactic approach to salvation raises a profound question: Is it possible to make and keep people religious, when the hell factor has been taken out of the equation, or at least greatly removed to the background? Which is better: religion which thrives on fear, or is inspired by love?

In reaction to staunch bloggers and gloomy preachers who have a very strange need that the majority of people be not saved, the Universalists shout back, “Everyone will be saved!” Is Universalism a reaction to unimaginative preachers who need hell to make and keep people religious?

Conclusion
A stray sheep found

Scripture seems to say few will be saved. Scripture also seems to say many will be saved. For some, Scripture even says everyone will be saved. At the end of the day, you can use Scripture to prove anything you want to prove. Those, who have a strange psychological need that only a few be saved, line up the Scripture texts which prove their point.

On the other hand, those who have a great personal need that many be saved, because they’re well-aware of their own sinfulness, line up the Scripture texts which prove their point. Deeply aware that they’re sinners, they find great hope and consolation in Jesus’ salvation parables. They light up when they hear the story of a prodigal son who’s welcomed back home by a loving father. They’re given hope when they hear story about a stray sheep found by a worried shepherd, and carried back home on his shoulders.

[1] Proverbs 3:11ff.

Assumption: A Harvest Feast

Assumption: A Harvest Feast
August 15, 2010: The Solemnity Mary’s Assumption
Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6, 10 I Corinthians 15:20-27 Luke 1:39-45

Second reading

Brothers and sisters: Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through man, the resurrection of the dead came also through man. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ all shall be brought to life. But each one in his proper order: Christ the first-fruits of the harvest; then those who belong to Christ at the time of His coming. Then the end will come; Christ will overcome all spiritual rulers, authorities and powers, and will hand over the Kingdom to His God and Father. For Christ must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed will be death. For Scripture says, “God has put everything under His feet.[1]”

The Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believedthat what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Introduction
August 15 -- Feast of the Assumption

Today would ordinarily be the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, but since it’s August 15, the feast of Mary’s assumption into heaven, the feast takes precedence over the 20th Sunday. GK Chesterton said: "I love my religion and I love especially those parts of it which are generally held to be most superstitious." Many suspect that the bodily assumption of Our Lady into heaven is one of those superstitious aspects, despite the fact that it has been universally observed in both Eastern and Western churches at least from the late 7th century. The origin of the precise date of August 15 is not clear. Theological debate about Mary’s assumption into heaven climaxed on November 1, 1950 when Pope Pius XII

defined it a dogma of faith:

By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul
into heavenly glory.

Assumption – a harvest feast

In this hemisphere the middle of August is always a turning point. Soon the first hints of fall will appear. Driving along we’ll suddenly come upon small swaths of gold and red on herds of maple trees grazing on a hillside. Soon from wide-opened windows at night we’ll drink in wafts of cool fresh air, as we lie cozily under an extra blanket, listening to crickets singing of summer spent. As the first fruits of the harvest come rushing in, some of us old-timers, who aren’t addicted to supermarkets, will hasten to preserve the fruits of summer in canning jars for the long winter ahead.

The feast of Jesus’ Ascension into heaven in late spring is a harvest feast. It proclaims that one of our own, a man, has been harvested body and soul into heavenly glory and now sits on a throne at the right hand of the Father. In the second reading today, Paul calls Jesus raised from the dead "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." (I Cor. 15:20) The feast of Mary’s assumption into heaven is also a harvest feast. It declares that another one of our own, this time a woman, has been harvested body and soul into heavenly glory and now sits on a throne at the right hand of her Son and reigns as Queen of Heaven.

At the end of the day, the feast of the Mary’s Assumption declares that the harvesting which began in the body of Jesus in His resurrection has now spread to the body of Mary his mother, and will eventually spread to all our bodies, when “in the twinkling of an eye, the trumpets shall sound and all the dead shall rise incorruptible from their graves, and we shall all be changed.” (I Cor. 15:52) The Assumption is a singular participation of Mary in her Son's resurrection, and it is also a singular anticipation of our own resurrection when on the last day the trumpets will summon us from our graves.

The problem with the Assumption

What bothers Protestants in general and Lutherans in particular about the Catholic feast of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven is that it lacks a clear explicit scriptural basis. They’re right in that. At the end of the day, however, that really shouldn’t be a sizeable obstacle for Bible people. For it simply says that the heavenly glory which began in the resurrected body of Jesus (and which scripture promises will spread to all our bodies) in Mary’s case has simply been anticipated.

More importantly, what particularly bothers Protestants is the “dangerous proximity” it posits between Mary who is the Deipara (the God-bearer) and Jesus Himself who is God: both are now seated side by side on the throne of eternal glory! That, good Lutherans say, endangers the unique supremacy of Christ, from which no true son of the Reformation will budge. Despite that fear of Lutherans, we note that in his sermon of August 15, 1522 (the last time Martin Luther preached on the Feast of the Assumption) he stated: “There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know. And since the Holy Spirit has told us nothing about it, we cannot make it an article of faith . . . It is enough to know that she lives in Christ.[2]"

Man’s inhumanity to man in the 1st half of the 20th century

Was it simply coincidental, or was it a very meaningful and opportune moment when Pope Pius XII declared and defined Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century (Nov. 1, 1950)? The first half had been horribly tumultuous and cruel. It had endured two world-wide wars. Out of the dust and ashes caused by the bombs which leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it had ominously witnessed the dawn of the atomic age. In the Holocaust which had annihilated six million Jews in the gas chambers and crematories of Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald, the first half of the 20th century had experienced man’s inhumanity to man in a way which had never been experienced before.

A response to that inhumanity

Was the Pope’s declaration of the bodily assumption of a woman into heaven a response to this inhumanity of man to man, which peaked to an unspeakable height (or rather sank to an unfathomable depth) in the first half of the century? Was that declaration a response to the masculine element of creation which had gone absolutely mad in two world-wars, the Holocaust and the bombings which ushered in the atomic age? Was the Pope’s declaration of a woman’s bodily assumption into heaven a strong affirmation of the feminine and gentle element built into creation? Was the declaration meant to awaken the slumbering power of that feminine and gentle element, and summon it to address the woes inflicted by the masculine element gone mad in the first half of the 20th century?

Carl Jung and the Assumption

While some Protestants pulled back from the Pope’s declaration as not very conducive to ecumenical relations, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung startled everyone by his very positive reaction to Pius’s proclamation of the dogma. Jung grasped the profound significance of that declaration in the middle of the 20th century. In fact, he considered it to be “the most important religious event since the Reformation.[3]." For Jung the Church's

declaration of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven addressed “the profoundest problem afflicting the human psyche: an imbalance which favored masculine principles and archetypes over the feminine ones.[4]” For Jung the papal declaration went a long way towards redressing that balance.

In the declaration that Mary had been physically assumed into heaven, Jung saw the Church as accepting at long last the physical world. But more importantly, in that declaration which affirms that a woman has been bodily assumed into heaven and has taken her seat on the throne of glory, Jung saw the Church as harvesting and celebrating the feminine and gentle element built into creation. In his work Answer to Job Jung writes,

One could have known for a long time that there was a deep longing in the masses for an intercessor and mediatrix who would at last take her place alongside the Holy Trinity and be received as the Queen of heaven and Bride at the heavenly court.[5]

The feminine element built into a nesting robin

One spring a robin nested on the elbow of a downspout outside my kitchen window. I watched her go through all her appointed rounds. Following an eternal blueprint, she built her nest according to specifications. With patient fidelity she kept vigil over her eggs, and with blind obedience to an internal law she brought them to term. With maternal instinct she sheltered her chicks against a late winter blizzard. Out of the sparseness of late winter and early spring she managed to scrounge up a daily feast for them. Then bulging with growth and well-being they burst their nest and flew away. That’s the feminine and gentle element built into creation. That’s what the Assumption of Mary celebrates and harvests.

The feminine element built into a mama cat

One day a very sick cat appeared at my door. She was practically dying. Matter was running from her eyes. Her long hair was matted with mud. I put her under a faucet, washed away the mud, cut away the hair tangled into knots, fed the poor thing and then let her go. Daily she would come to my door for a feast of Purina One and Fancy Feast. Day by day good health began to transform her. Eventually she grew plump not only because of her fancy feasting but also because she was pregnant. She eventually gave birth to three kittens which she secretly deposited for safe keeping near my shrine of St. Francis. When I discovered her secret deposit, I built a little `cat house,’ and there the four of them took up housekeeping.

One day when a thunderous rainstorm threatened, they all disappeared. Lo and behold, through a window left open in my car (parked in the garage with the garage-door open) mama cat had safely deposited her little ones in the driver’s seat of my car! In short order I re-deposited them right back into their little `cat house.’ But to no avail! An hour later she had them all re-deposited in the driver’s seat! “You win!” I said to myself. I took the whole gang into the house, and in the following weeks and months I was treated to a first class course on the feminine and gentle element built into creation. That’s what the Assumption of Mary celebrates and harvests.

Machismo

That feminine and gentle element is built not only into nesting robins and mama cats but also into tigers and lions. It’s built not only into women but also into men. But down through the millennia, machismo, which proclaims that this is a man’s world, has diminished, hampered, belittled, suppressed the feminine and gentle element built even into man. If women, whose wombs bear the world’s babies, and whose breasts nursed them, were in the driver’s seat, we ask: would world wars be possible, would gas chambers and crematories even be conceivable and would the atomic bomb still be waiting to be invented?

It's Machismo which puts burqas [6] onIslamic women in order to make them invisible. It’s machismo which demands that a woman caught in adultery be stoned to death, but not the man[7]. Yes, it’s machismo (in a very refined and insidious form) which puts woman on a pedestal where she can be venerated, but where she doesn’t have to be taken seriously. With the Church’s declaration of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven Mary has been transported from an earthly pedestal to a heavenly throne where she now has to be taken seriously.

Conclusion
“A vein of rich spiritual ore”

The Assumption of Mary is a harvest feast, and what it reaps is the feminine and gentle element built into creation. The Assumption of Mary is a liberation feast. It liberates men from machismo. It liberates the feminine and gentle element built not only into women but also into men. Some might call that `liberation theology.’ Others might call it “a secret hidden from generations past but now [in the middle of the 20th century] revealed in the fullness of time.” (Col. 1:26) Eugene Cullen Kennedy calls the Assumption a “vein of rich spiritual ore that runs beneath the surface of a teaching that is radically diminished when it is presented literally. [8]”

[1] Psalm 8:7; Philippians 3:21

[2] Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works (Translation by William J. Cole) 10, p. 268.

[3] Carl G. Jung, "Answer to Job" in Psychology and Religion: West and East, trans. by R.F.C. Hull (New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), 461-462

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[4] Fr. Edward Shillebeeckx O.P. (1914-2009) -- noted theologian and a `peritus’ for Vatican II.

[5] Carl G. Jung, "Answer to Job"

[6] Burqa: an outer garment worn by Islamic women. It envelopes their entire body so as to keep it out of view of men who are not their husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, sons and grandsons. Some Islamic women wear also veils with little peek holes for the eyes.

[7] As of this writing, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, age 43 and mother of two children, was slated to be buried up to her chest so Iranian men could throw medium sized rocks at her as a punishment for alleged adultery, a ritual act called stoning.

[8] What are we to assume about the Assumption? by Eugene Cullen Kennedy on Jul. 15, 2010

Not by Works but by Grace

"Not by works but by grace”
Good Works Don’t and Do Work
August 8, 2010: 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Wisdom 18:6-9 Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19 Luke 12:35-38

Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.

Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Be ready for action with belts fastened and lamps alight. Be like servants who wait for their master’s return from a wedding party, ready to let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake and ready when he returns. He himself will seat them at table, don an apron and will serve them. And should he return at midnight or even later, and find them still awake and ready, blessed are those servants.

The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction
Ramadan August 11, 2010

This coming Wednesday, August 11, 2010, Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting begins. During Ramadan Muslims fast from food and drink from dawn until sunset. The fasting is meant to teach Muslims restraint and spirituality. During Ramadan Muslims try to be more prayerful, they beg God forgiveness from past sins, they pray for guidance and they recommit themselves to good works. What Lent is to Catholics, Ramadan is to Muslims. On some issues both of us are on the same page.

Good works work for man.

In the 12th chapter of Luke Jesus tells a parable about a master who puts a servant of his in charge of his household, and then takes off for a wedding party. The servant is a hardworking and reliable man. He doesn’t drink with the drunkards in town. He doesn’t beat up on servants in his charge. He’s kind to them and gives them sufficient food at feeding time. He is vigilant and doesn’t sleep on the job. No matter when the master comes home, whether at midnight or later, he’s ready to open the door as soon as he knocks. Such a servant is blessed; a reward awaits him. On the master’s return home from the wedding, he’s so pleased with his servant’s good work that he dons an apron, spreads a good table, and bids him to sit down and eat, while he gets up and serves. (Lk 12:35-38)

The good work of the servant had the power to literally `turn the tables’: the master seated his hard-working servant down at the table, while he himself got up to serve him. The moral of that parable: good works work; they work for man.

But they don’t work for God!

In the 17th chapter of Luke Jesus tells a parable with an apparently opposite moral. Another hardworking and reliable servant is outside all day long in the scorching heat, dutifully plowing the fields and caring for the sheep. At sunset he returns to the farmhouse very tired but feeling good about the full day’s work he’s just put in. What’s more, he’s expecting a pat on the back from the master. When the weary servant arrives at the farmhouse, to his dismay the master doesn’t thank him, doesn’t gird himself with an apron and spread a good table, and then invite his servant to sit down and eat, while he gets up and serves. Instead, the master says to his servant, “My dear man, remember, you’re an unworthy servant; you’ve simply done what you were supposed to do.” What’s more, the master even says to the tired servant, “Hurry up now, put on your apron, prepare my supper and serve me while I sit down to eat and drink. After that, you may eat and drink.” (Lk 17:7-10)

The good works of the servant had no power to `turn the tables’: the master insisted on himself sitting down first and eating, and then his servant (who has simply done his duty) may eat. The moral of that parable: good works don’t work for God! And that, indeed, is a strange moral!

The gospel’s bias against good works

The gospel has a bias against good works. It’s present also in Jesus’ parable about laborers in a vineyard; some start work at 9 A.M., others at 12 noon, and still others as late as 5 P.M., but all are given the same pay! More work isn’t given more pay, and less work isn’t given less pay! (Mt 20: 1-16) “Foul!” we want to cry. That bias lurks also in Jesus’ parable about the two men who went up to the temple to pray: a Pharisee who brags about his good works and a tax collector who has no good works to brag about, but who asks God to be merciful to him a sinner. Scripture says, “The tax collector and not the Pharisee went home that night justified in the sight of God.” (Lk 18:9-14)

Paul’s attack on good works

St. Paul does not only show a bias against good works, he downrightly attacks them! That attack constitutes the bottom line of his preaching. He writes, “The gospel reveals how God justifies us -- how He puts us right with Himself: it is not through our works, but it is through our faith and trust in Christ to save us.” (Rom. 1:17; confer also 3:24) Again Paul writes, “Christ has freed us from the curse of the Law [with its heavy burden of works].” (Gal 3:13; confer also 15:1)

Luther’s attack on good works

After Paul came Martin Luther (1483-1546). He attacked good works even more fervently than he attacked the corruption of the 16th century Church. Luther, a devout Roman Catholic Augustinian monk was emotionally and theologically plagued by the question of justification: what must Luther do in order to become justified – set right with God? There are other ways to state his problem: What must Luther do to appease God’s anger and make God feel good about him? Or to put it in the bluntest terms possible: What must Luther do to buy God off? He thought the answer to his urgent problem was to simply launch off into a sea of good works. So he tried to be as scrupulous as possible in his monastic observance. He subjected himself to arduous praying, strict fasting and bodily scourging. But to no avail! Despite his intense regimen of good works, he ended up with a terrible gnawing doubt: Had he performed enough good works, and were they good enough to buy God off? At the end of the day, Luther discovered that his good works hadn’t worked for him! At the end of the day, he ended up terrified not only by his vices but now also by virtues.

But faith works

What pulled him out of his sea of terror? One day as he was studying St. Paul’s Epistle to Romans in his heated study in the tower of the Black Cloister in Wittenberg, he came upon the words, “The gospel reveals how God justifies us -- how He puts us right with Himself: it is not through our works, but it is through our faith and trust in Christ to save us.” (Rom. 1:17) At that moment, Luther tells us, he rediscovered the gospel which the Roman Church had lost: the good news that our good works don’t work, but only faith in Christ’s good work on the cross works. At that moment, Luther tells us, all heaven opened, and a deep peace came upon his terrorized soul. God wasn’t a terrorist but a loving Father who, in His Son Jesus, did for Luther what he frantically tried to do for himself but couldn’t

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God the terrorist alive and well

God, the terrorist, doesn’t die easily in religion, whether Judaic, Christian or Islamic. In pre-Vatican II days Catholics were terrified of God because they were divorced and remarried, and were `living in sin.’ Or they were terrified of God because they had entertained some sexual thought or had performed some sexual act and had not confessed it. Or they were terrified of God because they were practicing birth control and weren’t feeling sorry about it or confessing it. Or terrified of God because they were in a gay or lesbian relationship. Or terrified of God because they had eaten meat on Friday, never confessed it and went to Communion anyway. When some Catholics today refer to themselves as “recovering Catholics,” that’s what they’re talking about. Those who didn’t want to put up with a terrorist God left their Catholic faith and turned to another or no religion at all. Others simply decided to stay put in the Church they love, and to believe with Luther in a God who wasn’t a terrorist.

Lutherans are right!

Good works don’t work for God, and that is good news. It’s good news because it frees us whose pockets are empty from the terrorizing thought that we have to buy God off. We don’t have to buy God off. We can’t buy God off. He’s for free. That’s the profoundest meaning of “grace.” That’s the wonderful good news which the Reformation sang about in its hymn “Amazing Grace.”

Good works don’t work for God. That’s good news also because it introduces us to a brand new kind of God who doesn’t transact; He doesn’t reward more work with more pay and punish less work with less pay. He doesn’t hate us because we’re bad and doesn’t love us because we’re good. He loves us, period! Again, good works don’t work before God! That’s not only good news, it’s also strange news, for from mother’s milk our elders and our religion have always admonished us to “Be good, and God will love you!” At the end of the day, Lutherans are right: good works don’t work for God. And that, strange as it at first might seem, is gospel – mighty good news!

Catholics also are right

But good works do work for us. In today’s parable they worked for the hardworking and reliable servant; his master was so pleased by his servant’s good work that he donned an apron, spread a good table, and bade him to sit down and eat, while he got up and served.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan’s good work on the road to Jericho didn’t work for God (who doesn’t transact) but it did, indeed, work for the poor man waylaid by robbers. It lifted him onto the Samaritan’s donkey, carried him off to the nearest inn, and paid for his care and cure. But more importantly, his good work worked especially for the Samaritan himself who needed his good work even more urgently than the victim. It turned him into a great human being. It turned him into the immortal Good Samaritan of all ages.

Good works do work for us; Jesus said they do. At the last judgment He the judge will say to those lined up before Him, “I was hungry and you gave Me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink. I was naked and you clothed Me. Come, therefore, you blessed of my Father and take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of creation.” (Mt 25:33-40) At the end of the day, Catholics also are right: good works might not work for God, but they do work for us.

Conclusion
Freedom from & bound to good works

After all is said and done, good religion frees us from good works which God purportedly needs in order to be bought off. At the same time, good religion binds us to good works which our neighbor needs, and which we need even more in order to become great humans like that immortal Good Samaritan.