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Daily Scripture

+ 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Don’t be a ‘party pooper!’

Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridge groom is with them? But the days will come when the bridge groom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days. [Luke 5:34-35]

Do you remember the little ditty, “Every party has a pooper that’s why we’ve invited you – party pooper, party pooper?” My mom used to anticipate the song by announcing that she indeed was the party pooper – the first to arrive and the first to leave. As she got older, my mom didn’t like late nights. As I age, neither do I. When I leave for an evening engagement, I always look at the clock to determine my estimated time of departure. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good time, but I tend to get ‘antsy’ at a certain period. I’m pretty certain it has something to do with my ADHD.

But there are other kinds of ‘party poopers.’ They are the folks who wake up in the morning and say, “I thought sure I would have a headache today.” They tend to feel guilty about having a good day and tend to see only the negative in every situation. It’s all bad news.

There surely is enough bad news every day to make us feel down and so we need to rely on our faith to hold us up so that we can look beyond the news to the horizon of a new day with new possibilities and new opportunities. Easier said than done, I know. Even Jesus’ words seem to engender a certain tentativeness about the good times. “The days will come when the bride groom is taken away…”

Perhaps the key is to live in the now moment. Also easier said than done, but it’s the only time that real. If we invest in today to make it the best, we can be sure that God’s grace will be sufficient to bring it off and then tomorrow may be even better than today.

Second Sunday of Advent 'C'

Sunday December 10, 2006

Let’s connect all the dots.

The word ‘glory’ is mentioned six times in the scripture readings assigned for this weekend. “Glory” is the biblical expression for God’s splendor, a word that is also used several times in these readings. If we combine these two words with joy and rejoice and connect all the dots we have no choice but to come to the conclusion that God has left no stone unturned to assure us that we shall indeed “see the salvation of God.”

But where is God in this world of chaos? We connect the dots but we come to different conclusions. We wait for the ‘Day of the Lord’ but it has never seemed more distant. The landscape of humanity has become rugged and ragged. Nations at war, armed to the hilt; religious institutions battling over truth and turf.

But the Advent readings speak of hope and the Scriptures today demand a response from true believers. Connecting the dots will inevitably lead Christians to Christ.

Luke’s gospel is very specific about who Jesus was, when he appears and what he was about. Luke will be our ‘gospel guide’ this year. His portrait of Jesus is a little different from the other gospel writers. His accent is on the demanding but gentle love of God for everyone—no holds barred! In many ways, Luke is an artist who draws a portrait of a Jesus clothed in compassion mercy—a healer who makes the crooked straight, the rugged smooth and the ragged safe and secure.

Luke seems to use his right side of his brain more often than the left and so I have decided that perhaps it would be better to use my right brain today to make sense out of the prophecy of Baruch, the prayer of Paul and the ‘Good News’ of Luke.

So, here goes my attempt to connect all the dots with a bit of poetry:

It has been said
more than once that
only prophets and poets speak “the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth.”

But what is truth?
And how do we recognize truth
when so many lay claim to it?
I suspect it may be more
a question of who is prophet or poet
and who is not.

Who are they who dare lay claim
to clairvoyant understanding of the movement of God
in human affairs?
When in this life of trial and travail
we see only glimpses of truth through reflections
in broken mirrors —
shattered glass upon the grass
remnant of visions shattered by earthen vessels of clay;
windows “stained” in mud
telling stories that belie true bravery
dreams, turned into nightmares,
mythic heroes refashioned by reality
into warriors of barbarism
history revised to shape our thinking into just war theories,
refurbished slices of past achievements,
tarnished by human pride.

“No poets and prophets allowed here!”
cry the king’s soothsayers
“We stand for peace not war!”
We strike only in reprisal less they strike us first
at our borders
or even at our doorsteps.
We dare not rest until they are no more.
“Stay the course,” they say,
“victory is on the way, around the corner”
yea, over the bodies and bones of fallen soldiers
and maimed but unnamed children.
In the face of madness we choose the lesser scandal
a different brand of insanity.

The ‘king’ cries out: “Away with you prophets
with swords of peace.
and words that shatter visions of imminent victory!”

Indeed, war doth make enemies of kin and kind
and strange bedfellows of the divided foe.
Perhaps to truth itself we would prefer
the odor of contentment,
air freshener that takes away the stench of death and destruction.

But in God’s house there will be no exclusions
saint and sinners dwell together,
coming to table to break the bread of their lives;
searches and seekers who yearn for a better way.

So then let us pave the way,
and make safe the path for wayfarers
from those who prey on the poor and the hungry.

Let us tear down mountains of hate
and fill the deep valleys with hope
and connect all the dots for those who have lost their way.

Advent has come again
and with it, the prophets’ promise.

Will Jesus’ coming make a difference this year?

You and I must be that promise and that ray of hope.