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The promise
There’s something about beginnings that makes us happy, that brings us joy.
And it really doesn’t matter what kind of beginning it is.
Even more than our love of the new and the different, there’s an unavoidable joy in beginnings.
Because every beginning is a promise. Without saying a word, every beginning is a promise of something better. A promise of more to come.
It’s something that you and I know instinctively. It’s why we’re excited when a baby is born. Or at the start of a new school year. Or when people get married. There is a joy that we just can’t avoid.
And that’s what today’s Gospel – which shows us the joyful scene of the discover of Christ’s resurrection on Easter morning – is all about.
It seems kind of random. Just a couple of days before Christmas, and we’re talking about Easter Sunday? And yet, it’s not random at all. Not in the least.
Because Easter Sunday is exactly where the whole thing is going. Christmas is the beginning. And the promise of Christmas? Is the triumph of God.
The triumph of God’s love and forgiveness over everything that would hold us back.
Over everything that would come between us and God.
Over everything that would keep us from becoming exactly who God made us to be.
That is the promise of Christmas. The gift of God’s unconditional love, given for you and for me.
Giving us every reason to be joyful this Christmas.
Today’s Readings
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Waiting
Take everything to God. Everything.
Whether it’s your hopes and dreams, or your fears and worries – take it all to God.
God answers every prayer. Sometimes God’s answer is “yes.” Sometimes it’s “no, I’ve got something better for you.” Sometimes it’s “wait.”
That last one, where God’s answer is “wait,” is the hardest one for most of us. I know it is for me.
When you’ve been praying for something for a long time, you can lose hope. Because of the way that waiting can weigh on your heart.
Waiting can lead you to doubt. It makes you wonder whether it will ever happen. It makes you ask whether it’s been too long.
We see it in today’s Gospel. Zechariah and Elizabeth have been believing and praying for a child. For years. Elizabeth is still believing for a child. But not Zechariah. They’ve been waiting for so long that Zechariah has lost hope.
Elizabeth has to be heartbroken. Not only is she struggling with waiting on God, but Zechariah – the person who should have been her strongest support – isn’t there for her. Elizabeth has to carry on alone, because Zechariah has given up.
We see it in his response to the angel telling him that their prayers are being answered. Zechariah doesn’t buy it.
The beautiful thing about it? The angel doesn’t turn to Elizabeth and say, “I’m sorry, God would have given you a child, if Zechariah hadn’t given up.”
Instead, Elizabeth (who would have been overjoyed with any child) gets more than she asked for – a child who would become the greatest of the prophets.
Zechariah’s doubts have no impact on God. Or on God’s answer to Elizabeth’s prayers.
The only person Zechariah’s doubts have any impact on is Zechariah. Who gets struck mute by the angel.
I’ve often wondered whether the angel’s swipe at Zechariah didn’t have more to do with him emotionally bailing on Elizabeth than it did with doubting God.
Each of us knows an Elizabeth or two. Someone who’s believing and praying. Someone who’s waiting on the Lord. Maybe for a long time.
Today, reach out to the Elizabeths in your life. Pray for them. Support them as they wait on the Lord. Let them know that you’re there for them.
Don’t be a Zechariah.
Today’s Readings
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Worth doing badly
One of the most harmful ideas that we have about God is that God demands perfection.
The spoken or unspoken notion that God expects nothing less from us than perfect performance. 100%. Every time. Or it’s not good enough.
Or we’re not good enough.
That idea is the source of so many terrible things. Ranging from crippling anxiety to turning your back on God. And it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Because God isn’t looking for perfection from you and me.
What is God looking for? We see it in today’s Gospel, in Jesus’ story about the two sons.
One says that he will do what his father asked him to do. But then doesn’t do it.
The other says that he won’t do what his father asked him to do. But then does it.
That is what God is looking for.
Not the one who says they’ll do it. And then does it. Perfectly.
Actually, that isn’t even an option in Jesus’ story. Because in reality no one ever does that. So Jesus doesn’t even bring it up. It’s like He knows us or something.
What God is looking for is the one who does it. Period.
Not the one who says they’ll do it. And then does it. Perfectly.
Not the one who says they won’t do it. But then turns around and does it so amazingly well that it more than balances out their initial “no” to God.
Just the one who does it. Even if they got off to a bad start. Even if it’s not perfect.
As G.K. Chesterton puts it, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”
Not that you’re trying to mess things up. But when it comes to the things in life that truly matter – telling someone that you love them, raising a child, your relationships, including your relationship with God – you doing it is worth the risk that it won’t be done perfectly.
Why? Because that isn’t the important part.
The important part is that you did it. That’s the bit that matters.
That’s what God is looking for. Even if it’s not perfect.
Today’s Readings
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Family tree
(for someone who needs to hear this again)
Genealogy is interesting. Kind of. If it’s yours.
Somebody else’s genealogy? Not that interesting. Unless you know something about the people listed in it.
Today’s Gospel is the genealogy of Jesus. At first glance, it’s little more than a list of who was the father or mother of someone. Mostly names you’ve never seen before.
But if you start looking more closely at the people on the list, a picture emerges. But it’s not one that we would necessarily expect.
The list includes kings and priests, farmers and warriors. But it also includes murderers and adulterers, prostitutes and thieves. C.S. Lewis called it a bloodline with “both honor enough to raise the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the proudest emperor.”
God is calling you to do something. God put you here for a reason. If you’re still drawing a breath, there is something that God is calling you to do.
And God will give you everything you need to do what He’s calling you to do, if you let Him.
If you’re holding back, because you don’t think you’ve got what it takes. If you’re thinking, “I could never do that” – because of how you were raised, or the problems in your family, or your ethnicity, or where you’re from – take a look at the family tree of Jesus.
It’s a mixed mess. One that God intentionally chose to be the gene pool of His only Son.
God intentionally chose it. Not just to fulfill the prophecies about where the Messiah would come from.
But to give you and me the most personal example possible (His own Son) of what really matters. For Jesus to show us, with His life, that living fully in God’s will for our lives (think Garden of Gethsemane) is the only thing that really matters.
That no background or baggage can keep you from fulfilling God’s will for your life, if you give yourself fully to God.
Today’s Readings
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God always offers you a second chance. It's called tomorrow.
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Who we’re really worshipping
Sometimes it seems like people are reading from different Bibles.
I don’t mean different translations.
Depending on who it is, listening to what they say about the Bible. And the way they talk about what it means. It’s more like they’re reading radically different books.
It’s always made me uneasy. Still does. But I never understood what was going on until I was studying to become a deacon.
When one of my instructors started explaining all of the different ways that people read the Bible. Going over my notes after class, it occurred to me that (except for the ones designed to reduce the Bible to dreary academic trivia) all of them were really just different ways of doing one of two things.
Either they were a way for me to impose my ideas onto the Bible.
To make the Bible say what I wanted. So I could pretend that God agreed with me.
Or they were a way for me to get God’s ideas out of the Bible.
For God to cut through the clutter and speak to my heart. Even if it isn’t what I wanted to hear.
Especially if it isn’t what I wanted to hear.
This is what the debate in today’s Gospel speaks to.
Do we accept the truth from the words of God? Even if it’s not what we want? So that we can gain the eternal, even if it comes at a price in this present?
Or do we try to pretend that it means something else? So we can get what we want in this passing moment? At the price of losing the eternal?
If we’re honest, we already know the answer to this one. We just don’t want to admit it.
Because it threatens our feeble and increasingly desperate efforts to pretend that we’ve got this.
It grates against our unspoken sense of entitlement. That God owes us something for being the wonderful people that we are.
And it lays bare who we’re really worshipping.
“They measure God by themselves, and not themselves by God.” – St. John of the Cross
Today’s Readings
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I pray my relationship with God gets even better.
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Not good enough
(for someone who’s still beating themselves up)
Think of the best thing you’ve ever done.
The most noble, most generous, most God-honoring thing you’ve ever done. Now, what could you do to make that even better?
You need to know something. If you did that. If you did the even better version of the best thing you’ve ever done.
Someone would still complain about it.
It’s a response that (literally) makes no sense. You have done something noble, generous, God-honoring. Even without that understanding of the nature of what you’ve done. Just looking at the facts, somebody’s life is better because of what you did.
But someone is still going to find fault with it.
I’m not talking about legitimate criticism, about the constructive feedback that Isaiah calls iron sharpening iron.
What I’m talking about is venom, the sort of thing that fills the person spewing it with malicious joy. Garbage that goes something like this,
You didn’t feed all the homeless people. Or if you did, what about feeding them tomorrow? Or if you took care of that too, what about the causes of homelessness? Or if you solved all of that, what about some other problem?
This endless round of “not-good-enough” wearing the mask of legitimate criticism has been one of the hardest things for me to get my head around. It’s been a real source of heartbreak in ministry. And life in general.
Until I got the point that Jesus is making in today’s Gospel.
That the fault-finding actually has nothing to do with the good that’s being done. About whether what I’m doing is good enough. Or whether I’m good enough.
And everything to do with the person doing the fault-finding.
It’s their problem. Not yours. Not mine.
Which means? Their fault-finding is garbage. Once you see it for the garbage that it is, don’t let it sit around stinking up the place. Treat it like any other garbage. Throw it out.
And then? Jesus tells us the next step, “wisdom is vindicated by her works.”
In other words, respond to their fault-finding in the best way possible. Let the good things you’re doing do the talking.
Keep your eyes on God. And keep doing the good that God is calling you to do.
Today’s Readings
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Blind faith
I got the most backhanded “compliment” from someone the other day.
She told me that she grew up in a non-denominational church. One that’s on its way to becoming a mega-church.
She told me that she doesn’t go much anymore. If ever. She told me why.
After the death of her father, she started struggling with her faith. So she started asking questions. And was basically told to sit down and shut up.
The “compliment?” After finding out that I was a practicing Catholic and an ordained deacon, she said, “I wish I had your blind faith.”
The subtext being (from her experience of church), “you must be an unquestioning idiot to still buy into to all that stuff.”
It’s a toxic view to have about the Faith. One that far too many Christians (of all stripes, including Catholics) are guilty of fostering. One that’s simply not Christian.
But you can’t blame her for seeing things that way. That perspective was taught to her by the people who blew it when they responded to her.
Because asking questions should never get you shut down. Or worse.
Responses like that don’t serve God. Because they don’t come from God. Responses like that come from the Enemy.
God isn’t threatened by our questions. Or our doubts.
How do I know this? Try today’s Gospel, the Annunciation.
Where the angel tells Mary that she will conceive and give birth to a son. And Mary (like any sane person) asks “How’s that gonna work?”
The angel doesn’t shoot back with “How dare you!” Or “Shut up!” Or “Never mind, we’ll find someone who doesn’t ask questions.”
Instead, the messenger of God answers Mary’s question.
It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to struggle with the Faith.
Some of the greatest moments of personal and spiritual growth only come through that struggle.
Remember, it’s Baptism. Not brainwashing.
God isn’t threatened by our questions. Or our doubts.
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One more thing
Too often our lives are busy. Busy to the point that we’re barely capable of doing everything that we have to do. Everything we’re supposed to do.
We’re running on fumes. Making mistakes. Because we’re exhausted.
When life is like that, the last thing we need is one more thing.
Someone else to please. Another set of required activities. With appearances to keep up. And more have-to’s.
For a lot of us, especially when we’re running on fumes, God can seem like little more than one more thing.
Which can make it easy to take a pass on the whole God thing. Because the last thing anyone wants is more have-to’s.
If that’s our view of God – as one more thing, as more have-to’s – then taking a pass on that makes perfect sense. It’s something that no one wants.
And something that isn’t God.
Today’s Gospel – where Jesus says, “Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” – shows us who God really is.
Which is? Kind of the opposite of one more thing. More of what you need. Instead of all the have-to’s.
Today, no matter how busy you are, especially if you’re exhausted, take a moment to set it all down.
Trust God with everything that’s weighing on you. Stop trying to do it all by yourself.
And rest in the One who has been waiting for you from all eternity.
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One more thing
Too often our lives are busy. Busy to the point that we’re barely capable of doing everything that we have to do. Everything we’re supposed to do.
We’re running on fumes. Making mistakes. Because we’re exhausted.
When life is like that, the last thing we need is one more thing.
Someone else to please. Another set of required activities. With appearances to keep up. And more have-to’s.
For a lot of us, especially when we’re running on fumes, God can seem like little more than one more thing.
Which can make it easy to take a pass on the whole God thing. Because the last thing anyone wants is more have-to’s.
If that’s our view of God – as one more thing, as more have-to’s – then taking a pass on that makes perfect sense. It’s something that no one wants.
And something that isn’t God.
Today’s Gospel – where Jesus says, “Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” – shows us who God really is.
Which is? Kind of the opposite of one more thing. More of what you need. Instead of all the have-to’s.
Today, no matter how busy you are, especially if you’re exhausted, take a moment to set it all down.
Trust God with everything that’s weighing on you. Stop trying to do it all by yourself.
And rest in the One who has been waiting for you from all eternity.
Today’s Readings
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