Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 'A'

Saturday January 15, 2011

Make it practical or, “Fake it until you make it.”

For over fifteen years, noted author, Harvey Cox, taught a course on “Jesus and the Moral Life” in the large theater reserved for rock concerts at Harvard.

In the introduction to his book, “When Jesus Came To Harvard—Making Moral Choices Today,” he states that “despite all the sacred formulas and pious bumper stickers, and behind all the doctrines and dogmas about him, rightly understood, [the] Galilean still has a powerful, even imperative, moral significance for our times.”

Young people today are often heard to say, I’m not very religious but I’m spiritual. Whatever our take on this observation, I think we ought not dismiss it too quickly or write off this categorized millennium generation. At its best, religion protects spirituality and spirituality at its best authenticates and animates religious belief.

Most scholars and preachers agree that Jesus insisted that his disciples respond to the presence of God in the “here and now.” He spoke of the “Reign of God” as something imminent, indeed actually present. “The reign of God is within you,” he said.

We return this weekend to ‘Ordinary Time,’ in the liturgical ‘year of grace,’ and are introduced once more to Jesus as if for the first time. In fact, we are not living in ordinary times and we never have. My father said the only reason the good old days were good is because we survived them. How do we know what Jesus would say to us who are confronted with a host of moral issues to which Jesus was never exposed? Were he to appear in the town square this afternoon saying some of the things he said two thousand years ago, few might take notice or write him off as an eccentric on a soapbox in a world of eccentrics in the soap operas of life. “The man has no common sense,” we might say. It is so much easier to relegate Jesus safely to the past as he is depicted in stained glass windows or on pious wall hangings.

The Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord last Sunday took precedence over the first Sunday in Ordinary Time. The scriptural lessons this weekend however, continue to reinforce the implications of Jesus’ baptism both for his disciples and for us. “Jesus is the reason for the season,” is a trite but popular phrase used to remind us that Christmas is not just a secular holiday. In the words of St. Paul, Jesus is the one “in whom we live and move and have our being” today! Jesus is the reason for every season!

If we are going to follow Jesus, we need to know about him but even more importantly, we need to know him in the Biblical sense, i.e., to know him intimately as we know a spouse or a brother/sister or a friend. This is the kind of knowledge that brings Jesus to life in our time and place. In essence, we need to become ‘partners’ with God in Christ.

Although each one us was empowered individually at our own baptism to continue the work of Christ, we might look to other believers who image Jesus not just from a soap box but in their daily commitment to discipleship with Jesus. We need to look to one another for both challenge and positive reinforcement. When we come into this assembly and hold hands around this table literally or figuratively, we become the “Body of Christ.” His mission is our mission. He is the foundation on which the church was established.

It is within this context that we see the words of Isaiah in today’s first reading fulfilled. Though Isaiah was referring to Israel as the ‘servant of God’ and the light to the nations, we in the Christian tradition apply the text to the ‘People of God’ within the Church that with all its warts and faults and failings is called to be an instrument of saving grace to the world and a servant to the nations.

So, it is not enough to say that we are Christians in name. Our faith and love must show themselves in concrete deeds. In truth we can do together what we can’t do alone. Martin Luther King understood this very notion in his defense of civil rights and his determination that one day all men and women would be judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” It is for this reason that we form a community so that we can make practical, the work of the Gospel.

Harvey Cox makes a major point about Jesus style. In many ways, he was a disturber of the peace. He rarely gave pat answers but he engaged his listeners in a reflective process that would lead to answers, and when there were no answers, at least lead to the right questions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our leaders could do the same today?

I think the best way to say it is that we as a church, as a parish community of faith, need to reestablish our partnership with Jesus within the context of the Gospels.

In the words of Harvey Cox, we need “to bridge the gap between Jesus and ourselves. The secret lay in recovering the link between the rabbinic story-teller on the one hand and our own human imaginations on the other.”

What does it mean to be a light of saving grace to the nations?

Here it is in a nutshell:

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never e enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

[“The Final Analysis” is a version of the “Paradoxical Commandments” by Kent M. Keith, quoted from “There’s a spiritual Solution to Every Problem” by Wane W. Dyer, Quill, Harper Collins, NY 2003

There’s a great expression in AA that may be helpful when you get stuck or are tempted to give up: “Fake it until you make it!”

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