Author: Daniel Scofield, MTS

Theologians note that religious history through the centuries seems to affirm that God seemingly takes his time in the face of our impatience. Our scriptures are often a record of frustrated desire, non-fulfillment, and human impatience. It’s more the exception when God intervenes directly and decisively to resolve a particular human tension. We are always longing for a messiah to take away our pain and to avenge oppression, but mostly, those prayers seem to fall on deaf ears. Fr. Rolheiser writes that humans are forever impatient, but God refuses to be hurried. Why is God seemingly so slow to act? Why is God so patient, so plodding in his plan, when we’re suffering so profoundly? Why is God so excruciatingly slow to act in the face of human impatience? There’s a line in Jewish apocalyptic literature that, metaphorically, helps answer this question: every tear brings the messiah closer! There is, it would seem, an intrinsic connection between frustration and the possibility of a messiah being born. It appears that messiahs can only be born after a long period of human yearning. Why? Because real love and life can come to birth only when a long-suffering patience has created the correct space, the virginal womb, within which the sublime can be born. When a green log is placed in a fire, it doesn’t start to burn immediately. It first needs to be dried out. Thus, it lies in the fire and sizzles for a long time, its greenness and dampness slowly drying out. Only when it reaches kindling temperature can it ignite and burst into flame. Speaking metaphorically, before a log can burst into flame, it must pass through a certain advent, a certain drying out, a period of frustration and yearning. So are the dynamics of how real love is born in our lives. We can ignite love only when we—selfish, green, damp logs—have sizzled sufficiently. And the fire that makes us sizzle is unfulfilled desire. God is never in a hurry, and for good reason. Messiahs can only be born inside a particular kind of womb, one within which there’s enough patience and willingness to wait to let things happen on God’s terms, not ours. Ideally, every unfulfilled longing should lead us into a deeper and more sincere prayer. And all of our pained impatience for a consummation that seems forever to elude us should make us feverish enough to burst into love’s flame.

“If the Lord himself was right here, right now, asking you to help him spread the good news, would you sign up?” That is the reality of the reading today. But the problem is that most people’s “yes” is based on the premise that Jesus was actually standing in front of them. As a young man pointed out when he was asked a similar question, “Since that is not going to happen, why should I listen to you or these words?” It seems as if we have a problem identifying with the truth that Christ is truly present with us today through his Word and in the gift of Himself in Holy Communion. If we can acknowledge that Jesus is present in these truths, how do we then move beyond the excuse that these words of Jesus are only meant for those called to the priesthood or religious life? Here is why Jesus’ words today are meant for anyone who calls themselves Christian. If we say that we are followers of Jesus Christ, we are charged with the responsibility of trying to live our lives in concert with his teachings. What does that mean? For some of us, the call will be to religious life, but for most, it will be serving others through our chosen vocations that may help others or in our volunteer work. If we can see the beauty of this call by the master, we can change the world. By making a concerted effort to help others in need through simple acts of kindness, we can learn how sharing the love of Christ brings unsurpassed joy to our lives and theirs. We can also learn what this call means for the gifts and talents we have been given to give away to others. Everyone could answer the call of the master if we only focused on lifting our voice in daily intercessory prayer for the needs of the Church and the least, the lost and the forgotten, learning to care for others’ needs more than our own. There are so many ways to serve and so many excuses we can use

As we know, we have four Gospels, each with its own take on the passion and death of Jesus. Fr. Rolheiser writes that for Luke, what happened in the death of Jesus is the most apparent revelation ever of the incredible scope of God’s understanding, forgiveness, and healing. For him, Jesus’ death washes everything clean through an understanding, forgiveness, and healing that belies every notion suggesting anything to the contrary. In his account of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, he tells us that immediately after one of his disciples struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear, Jesus touched the man’s ear and healed him. God’s healing, Luke intimates, reaches into all situations, even situations of bitterness, betrayal, and violence. God’s grace will ultimately heal even what’s wounded in hatred. Then, after Peter denied him three times and Jesus was led away after his interrogation by the Sanhedrin, Luke tells us that Jesus turned and looked straight at Peter in a look that made Peter weep bitterly. Everything in this text and everything that comes after it suggests that the look from Jesus was a look of such understanding and empathy as Peter had never before seen, causing him to weep in relief, knowing that everything was alright and that he was okay. Finally, in Luke’s narrative, we arrive at the place where Jesus is crucified, and as they are crucifying him, he utters the famous words: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Those words, which Christians forever afterward have taken as the ultimate criterion as to how we should treat our enemies and those who do us ill, encapsulate the profound revelation contained in Jesus’ death. Unlike the narratives of Mark and Matthew, Jesus does not die expressing abandonment but instead dies expressing complete trust: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Luke wants us to see in these words a template for how we can face our own deaths, given our weaknesses. What’s the lesson? At the end of the day, when each of us faces our own death, this will be our biggest regret, that we’re not saints. But, as Jesus shows in his death, we can die (even in weakness) knowing we are dying in safe hands.

Christian discipleship calls all of us to be prophetic, advocate for justice, help give voice to the poor, and defend truth. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that not all of us, by temperament or vocation, are called to civil disobedience, public demonstrations, and the picket lines, as were Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Daniel Berrigan, and other prophetic figures. All are asked to be prophetic, but this means more wielding a basin and towel than wielding a placard for some. There is a powerful way of being prophetic that, while seemingly quiet and personal, is never private. Its rules are the same as those for those who, in the name of Jesus, are wielding placards and risking civil disobedience. What are those rules, rules for a Christian prophecy?
– A prophet makes a vow of love, not of alienation. A prophet risks misunderstanding but never seeks it, and a prophet always seeks to have a mellow rather than an angry heart.
– A prophet draws their cause from Jesus and not from an ideology. In our struggle for justice and truth, we must be vigilant and draw our truth from the Gospels, not from some ideology.
– A prophet is committed to nonviolence. A prophet takes Jesus seriously when he asks us to turn the other cheek in the face of violence.
– A prophet articulates God’s voice for the poor and the earth. Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.
– A prophet doesn’t foretell the future but appropriately names the present in terms of God’s vision of things. A prophet reads where God’s finger is in everyday life, naming our fidelity or infidelity to God and pointing to our future in terms of God’s plan for us.
– A prophet speaks out of a horizon of hope. Christian hope is based on God’s promise, which was fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection. This promise assures us that we can entrust ourselves to love, truth, and justice, even if the world kills us for it.
– A prophet’s heart and cause are never a ghetto. Christian prophecy must ensure that no person or group can make God their own tribal or national deity.
– A prophet doesn’t just speak or write about injustice; a prophet also acts with courage, even at the cost of death. A prophet has enough altruistic love, hope, and courage to act, no matter the cost. A prophet can discern at what time to park the placard and bring out the basin and towel — and at what time to lay aside the basin and towel and pick up the placard.

This last advice is, I believe, the most challenging for “quiet” prophets. Wisdom figures are not renowned for being on the picket lines, but that lies the challenge. A prophet can discern at what time to park the placard and bring out the basin and towel and at what time to lay aside the basin and towel and pick up the placard.

Christians have often preached a Gospel comprising words, attitudes, and inner salvation experiences. People say they are saved, they are “born again,” yet how do we really know if someone is saved? Are they actually following Jesus? Do they love the poor? Are they free from their ego? Are they patient in the face of persecution? It’s not enough to talk about some kind of new inebriating wine, some new ideas. Richard Rohr argues that transformation cannot be deep or lasting without new wineskins- changed institutions, systems, and structures. As Dorothy Day often said in her inimitable Kingdom style, “Nothing is going to change until we stop accepting this dirty, rotten system!” Personal “salvation” cannot be divorced from social and systemic implications. It’s easier to talk about the wine without the wineskins than to speak about salvation theories without any new world order. Unfortunately, Christianity has not always had a positive impact on Western civilization and the peoples it has colonized or evangelized. So-called Christian nations are often the most militaristic, greedy, and untrue to the teacher we claim to follow. Our societies are more often based not upon the servant leadership that Jesus modeled but on the typical domination and control model that produces racism, classism, sexism, power-seeking, and income inequality. That’s not to say our ancestors didn’t have faith that Grandma and Grandpa were not good people. But by and large, we Christians did not produce positive change in culture or institutions that operated differently than the rest. Christianity has shaped some wonderfully liberated saints, prophets, and mystics. They tried to create some new wineskins, but the church often resisted their calls for structural reform. For example, the father of my own religious community, Saint Francis of Assisi. He was marginalized as a bit of a fanatic or eccentric by mainline Catholicism, as illustrated by no Pope ever taking his name until our present Pope Francis. Even today, many Christians keep Jesus on a seeming pedestal, worshiping a caricature on a cross or a bumper-sticker slogan while avoiding what Jesus said and did. We keep saying, “We love Jesus,” but it is more like a God-figure than someone to imitate.

Morality is about fidelity, not success. Both in his words and in his life, Jesus taught this. We don’t live on bread alone. Jesus told us that. Our soul, too, needs to be fed, and its food is affirmation, recognition, and blessing. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that everyone needs to be healthily affirmed when we do something well to have resources within us to affirm others. We can’t give what we haven’t got! That’s self-evident. And so, for us to love and affirm others, we must first be loved, blessed, and praised. Praise, recognition, and blessing build up the soul. In complimenting and praising others, we are tapping into what’s deepest inside us, namely, the image and likeness of God. When we praise someone else, then, like God creating, we breathe life into a person, breathing spirit into them. People need to be praised. We don’t live on bread alone, and we don’t live on oxygen alone, either. But praise is not something we give out easily. We are so blocked by the disappointments and frustrations within our lives that we give in to cynicism and jealousy and operate out of these rather than our virtues. Genuine praise is never wrong. It simply acknowledges the truth that’s there. That’s a moral imperative. Love requires it. As Thomas Aquinas submits, refusing to admire when someone or something merits praise is negligence, a fault, selfishness, pettiness, and a lack of maturity. Conversely, paying a compliment when one is due is a virtue and a sign of maturity. Generosity is as much about giving praise as it is about giving money. We may not be stingy in our praise. The 14th century Flemish mystic, John of Ruusbroec, taught that “those who do not give praise here on earth shall be mute for all eternity.”

We’re told there that Jesus “spoke with authority, unlike the Scribes and the Pharisees” (many of whom were, no doubt, brilliant, learned, and sincere). What set Jesus’ teaching apart? Its effect. He cured people and changed their lives in a way none of the other preachers and teachers of his time could. The word of God coming from his mouth simply affected things in a way that this same word coming from other mouths didn’t. His words made sick people healthy, made sinners change their lives, and even brought some dead people back to life. Fr. Ron Rolheiser offers this assessment of his life regarding the topic of speaking with authority. “I’ve been in the business of teaching and preaching for thirty years and, from the normal indicators, have been successful enough. I’m in demand as a speaker, my writings are popular, and I receive my share of affirmation and compliments. After speaking to congregations and various audiences, I generally sense a positive reaction. What I don’t sense is that I speak “with authority,” even when people do positively affirm me in words. Why do I say that? I’ve never affected a physical cure, not that I’ve ever tried; never raised anyone from the dead, not that I’ve tried; and I wonder to what extent my teaching and writings have ever empowered anyone to truly convert and change his or her life morally. It’s one thing to be told you’re wonderful; it’s quite another to have someone actually change his or her life on the basis of your preaching. That isn’t true for everybody. Mother Theresa used to go out on a stage, face a thousand people, and say, “God loves you!” and everyone’s eyes would fill with tears, and they would know that this, the deepest of all realities, was true. She spoke with authority. There’s a lesson here, but it shouldn’t be misread. People will recognize us as speaking with authority only when they sense that, like Jesus, we are under divine authority ourselves, that our message is not our own, that our actual lives stand behind the message, that our words are meant to reveal God and not ourselves, that we love others enough to give up protecting ourselves, that our real concern is God’s kingdom and not how we impress others, that we consider the community bigger than ourselves, and that we are willing to sweat blood rather than get bitter or walk away.” I wonder in my own life if my failure to pass on our faith to my children, to effect forgiveness and harmony within my family and communities, isn’t predicated precisely on my incapacity to speak God’s word with authority. And that is my life’s continuing challenge to “walk the talk.”

As a youth, St. Christopher was gifted in every way except faith. He was a big man physically, powerful, strong, goodhearted, mellow, and well-liked by all. He was also generous, using his physical strength to help others. His one fault was that he found it hard to believe in God. Fr. Rolheiser writes that for Christopher, the physical was what was real, and everything else seemed unreal. However, he yearned to believe in God and deeply respected those who did believe. One night, as the legend goes, during a storm, the ferryboat capsized, and Christopher dove into the dark waters to rescue a young child. Carrying that child to the shore, he looked into its face and saw there the face of Christ. After that, he believed, for he had seen the face of Christ. The very name, Christopher, contains the legend. Christopher means CHRIST-BEARER. The story contains, within its very simplicity, a profound lesson. It gives us a practical answer to one of the most challenging questions of all: What should we do when our faith is weak? What should be our reaction in the face of the fact that God often seems silent, distant, and dead? How do we move from believing only in the physical, from believing in the reality of only what we can see, feel, touch, taste, and smell, to believing in the existence of deeper, spiritual realities? Christopher’s answer? Live as honestly and respectfully as possible and use your gifts to help others. God will appear. Faith is not so much a question of feeling as of selfless service. St. Thomas, who we celebrate today, equally had doubts. Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus. It is noteworthy that Jesus offers no resistance or rebuke in the face of this remark. Instead, he takes Thomas at his word: “Come here and place your finger in the wounds of my hand and the wound in my side; see for yourself that I am real and not a ghost.” The stories of Christopher and Thomas teach us that God is neither angry nor threatened by honest agnosticism. Faith, by definition, never equates to certainty. Neither is it the sure feeling that God exists. Conversely, unbelief should not be confused with the absence of the felt assurance that God exists. There are, for every one of us, dark nights of the soul, silences of God, cold, lonely seasons, and bitter times when God’s appearances to us cannot be genuinely grasped or recognized. Whenever this happens, we must become Christ-bearers, Christophers, and honest agnostics who use their goodness and God-given strengths to help carry others across the burdensome rivers of life. God does not ask us to have a faith that is certain but a service that is sure.

In the world’s schema of things, survival of the fittest is the rule. In God’s schema, the survival of the weakest is the rule. God always stands on the side of the weak, and it is there, among the weak, that we find God. Fr. Rolheiser writes that the great Jewish prophets, the forerunners of Jesus, coined a mantra that ran something like this: The quality of your faith will be judged by the quality of justice in the land, and the quality of justice in the land will be judged by how “widows, orphans, and strangers” (biblical code for the three most vulnerable groups in society) fared while you were alive. Jesus would agree. When he describes the last judgment at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, he tells us that this judgment will not be about right doctrine, good theology, church attendance, or even personal piety and sexual morality, but how we treat the poor. Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor. Jesus and the great biblical prophets make that clear. This challenge to justice doesn’t negate other religious and moral obligations. Still, it always remains a fundamental, non-negotiable principle: We are going to be judged by how the most vulnerable groups (“widows, orphans, and strangers”) fared while we were alive and practicing our faith. The challenge is a strong one.

The older I get, the less confident I become in some ways. I sometimes wonder whether I’m following Christ properly or even know exactly what it means to follow Christ. These words from Fr. Ron Rolheiser echo with many followers of Christ. He goes on to write that to be human is to be inadequate. Only God is adequate, and the rest of us can safely say: Fear not, you are inadequate! But a God who made us this way surely gives us the slack, the forgiveness, and the grace we need to work with this. I take consolation from the gospel parable of the ten bridesmaids who all fell asleep while waiting for the bridegroom, wise and the foolish alike. Even the wise were too human and weak to stay awake the whole time. Nobody does it perfectly, and accepting this, our congenital inadequacy can bring us to a healthy humility and perhaps even healthy humor about it. The Eucharist is, among other things, a vigil of waiting. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he told the disciples to keep celebrating it until he returned again. I stake my faith on an invitation that Jesus left us on the night before he died: To break bread and drink wine in his memory and to trust that this if all else is uncertain, is what we should be doing while we wait for him to return. The biblical scholar Gerhard Lofink puts it this way: The early apostolic communities cannot be understood outside of the matrix of intense expectation. They were communities imminently awaiting Christ’s return. They gathered in the Eucharist, among other reasons, to foster and sustain this awareness, namely, that they were living in wait, waiting for Christ to return. The Eucharist is our gathering point in our waiting for the Lord.