Ending up with something that is of real value...

It is significant that Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount with the parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders. Throughout the long day Jesus had been preaching to the vast multitude. They listened to him with amazement and awe. But Jesus warned them that that was not enough. It is never enough simply to listen to the words of Jesus, even though we may listen with reverent approval. If His words are to have any genuine effect in our lives we must not only hear them, but also act upon them. We must incorporate them in the events of our day-to-day living.

To drive the point home Jesus told the compelling story of two builders who each built a home. Standing inside these homes, going from room to room, there was little to no difference between them. Even from the outside one might say they were virtually indistinguishable from one another. But, said Jesus, the foundations, one built upon the rock and the other upon sand. When Jesus spoke about houses and foundations he knew what he was talking about. He was a stonemason by trade and his family was most likely in the construction business.

The people there, listening to Jesus' teaching, understood well the significance of building upon rock verses sand. But very few people in ancient Palestine wanted to live in the rocks. It meant grading the side of a slope and hauling up materials. Living in the hills made for more difficult travel. Water had to be toted and winter winds were colder. Most people followed the path of least resistance and built along the riverbeds. The scenery more pleasant, the water more conveniently located, and the house was sheltered from the cold winds of winter. And though flooding was a danger, most of the year the streams trickled pleasantly down the hillsides into the river nearby.

But on rare occasions, perhaps only once a generation, the 100-year flood would come. There would be a combination of an unusually heavy snow, a quick spring thaw, a torrential downpour. The result was a vicious flashflood which swept away everything in its path. Entire hamlets were washed away. House after house gone and great would be the fall.

That's the image drawn here. It comes from the life of these people gathered around Jesus on that day he delivered this sermon. Jesus was not simply telling here what I call a preacher story. A preacher story is an illustration that may very well fit the point that is being made, but one that doesn't sound very believable. On the contrary, Jesus was talking about a situation that was very real in the life of the people.

How and where do we build our homes? Our real homes. Not just the places we live, but what about this place? Have we ensured it built solidly on the desperately difficult location of rock, or are we more than willing to just leave it on sand, in the pretty view places where the scenery is grand and the air so pure, and the work so easy and leave it at that? How do we care for it? Do we give generously to help the work of God, or leave to someone else? And, after we build it fully, will we occupy it, or just point to it in our silly pride? Will we actually go about doing the work God calls us; will we welcome the bleeding and the unclean with open arms or will we just come and put in our $5 dollars and leave it at that – leave the hard work - the real work - for someone else to do while we go back home and enjoy our pretty view?

I wonder what will happen – what will happen when we find ourselves in a place where that once in a generation time comes – that once in a 100-year flood comes and finds us at home – sitting on our favorite chaise lounge with a nice fruity drink in our hand and one of those umbrellas off to the side couched in between two pieces of fresh fruit and our feet up as we gaze off to the distance…so content with ourselves.

What will we do when real life comes, and the storms are upon us, and we are left with nothing of real value?

Longing for Forgiveness...Learning to Forgive

There is a universal longing, a hunger in every human soul for forgiveness; both to be able to give it, and to receive it. As we approach Father’s Day this weekend, I am reminded of one story from Ernest Hemingway. He tells of a young man who wrongs his father and he runs away from home to the city of Madrid. Out of great love for his son, the father takes out an ad in the Madrid newspaper, 'Paco, meet me Hotel Montana, 12 noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. Papa.' Now Paco is a rather common name in Spain, and so when the father gets to the hotel, he finds eight hundred young men waiting for their fathers.

Yes, we long for forgiveness: to be able to forgive and to be forgiven. If that is so, then why is it so hard for us to forgive? It wasn't any easier for the first followers of Jesus. Not even for the apostles. It isn’t often for me either. It is a dog eat dog world out there. Not a dog forgive dog world. Even the apostles are having a hard time with forgiveness.

The Rabbinic teaching of that day said that when someone wronged you, you should forgive up to three times, and then you could stop forgiving. So, to be on the safe side, or maybe on the pious side, in a later story, Peter doubles that and adds one more perhaps for generosity of spirit sake and says, 'Should I forgive him seven times, Lord?'

Jesus’ answer then is somewhat startling. 'No,' he says. 'Not seven times. Seventy seven times'. Now the literal Greek here can be translated either seventy seven or seventy times seven, which would actually be 490. But we are missing the whole point if we think that Jesus is talking about a literal number. No. What he is talking about here is how grace is to be operative in the life of a believer when it comes to the difficulty of forgiveness.

It is a mistake if you and I try to understand forgiveness in some sort of a clinical way. If you and I try to understand grace, which is at the heart of forgiveness, by dissecting the law, we are going to miss it. Grace is best understood by story.

Forgiveness is always all about grace. It is all about grace, and grace always says, 'I won't give her what she deserves, I will forgive her.'

This forgiveness thing is so important in our lives as Christians, that I am willing to step out right now and risk ruining the Lord's prayer for you forever more. Go back to the Prayer and right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer is a phrase that you and I, if we are not careful, just pray mindlessly when we say the Lord's Prayer. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

Have you honestly thought about what you are asking God to do there? Many times when we pray the Lord's Prayer, I want to fall silent at this point. This is the part of the Lord's Prayer I hope to God he does not answer. You and I are asking God to treat us, to forgive us, exactly the way that we deal with other folks who have wronged us.

How far are you and I willing to go with this forgiveness thing?

A Summer Respite and No Beating You Up? Can it be true?

Dear Friends of Saint Miriam:

The poet Mary Oliver asks: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” God has gifted us with one precious life and it is meant to be lived to the fullest. But, there is a need to simply rest and find peace.

Respite: a time away to enjoy your creative gifts in the company of others who will do the same. An opportunity to learn how to quilt or to work on one of those unfinished projects, scrapbooking, painting, or other projects. A time to relax on the beach, walk in a forest, sit in the sun or feel the rain. Respite. We all need it and our lives demand it. But, even in those times of respite, there is God.

At Saint Miriam we appreciate that summertime is a time of love and family, of getting away and letting go of some pressure. You should not be scolded because of this, you should be rewarded and loved and embraced. So, beginning this Sunday, we will off a little booklet to help on your summer journey away.

We are giving you a splendid resource so that you can have an informal family liturgy when you are away on vacation from us here at your parish. In other words, we are blessing you for taking a Sabbath ...

Remember us, here, while you are there (wherever ‘there’ is!) and come back soon. In the meantime, enjoy your time and your summer. Remember in every morning and evening to celebrate our gifts of beauty and wonder and thanksgiving. And some time in the afternoon, find time for some rest, reflection, walks, visiting local sites, or to simply ‘quilt’ with God!

Blessings and peace,

Father Jim+

PS To receive your copy in hard form or via PDF in an email – contact us at Info@mySaintMiriam.org

The Irony of Hate

Today at about 1PM, as many of you already know, a white supremacist walked into the nation’s Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and killed a security guard named Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. This guard, like so many others like him, gave his life to protect others. The shooter was also a radical denier of the Holocaust. Sean and I also have a close friend, Neal, who works in this very museum as a curator. He is fine, but all are shaken and wounded in so many ways.

As a parish who stands firm with a Jewish Synagogue on a shared campus, I call on us to renounce this hatred and to be beacons of hope for change. I pray this day for peace and I ask for all of you to join me in extending our love and hope to Officer Johns' family. And, in his memory, our Mass this Sunday will be said for his soul and intentions.

We must all act to stop hatred. We must stand together and bring peace to a broken world.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace…

Blessings and peace,

Father Jim+

Community Invited to “Building Bridges to Understanding: Jewish-Christian Joint Bible Study

Mishkan Shalom, the Jewish Reconstructionist
synagogue in Roxborough, and Saint Miriam Catholic Church, which shares its home with Mishkan Shalom, invite the community to a two-evening program of Bible Study. We will explore similarities, differences and ‘hidden treasures’ in one another’s interpretive traditions and how scriptures influence our lives today. We hope this experience will enrich our own study of scripture as well as enhance understanding and friendship between our two communities.

Themes to be explored include: Modes of Biblical interpretation, commentary and translations and the meanings of the concepts “Sacrifice” and “Atonement” in the Akedah (the story of the command to sacrifice Isaac), the “Sonship” of Jesus in the Baptism story and the “Suffering Servant of God” passages in Isaiah.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 (7:30 – 9:30 p.m.) The first session will begin with a discussion of Biblical interpretive modes from the two traditions. The Command to Sacrifice Isaac (the Akedah): Gen. 22:1-19 and The Baptism of Jesus: Matthew 3:13-17.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24 (7:30 – 9:30 p.m.) The reading for the second session will be: The Servant Passages: Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 52:13 - 53:12 and The Passion of Jesus: Matthew 26:36-28.

Each session will begin with a niggun (a simple, wordless, meditative chant) and a Jewish blessing and close with a Christian blessing. Each session will start with a short presentation of the theme(s) of that session by a member of each tradition, followed by joint reading of scripture and discussion. Sessions will be facilitated by Phyllis McHugh of Saint Miriam and Lillian Sigal and Harold Gorvine of Mishkan Shalom, who will prepare questions to discuss based on the themes and readings of each session.

Both programs are free and open to the public. Those who wish to join the Bible study are asked to enroll with either Lillian Sigal (lilsigal@verizon.net) or Phyllis McHugh (phyllis@mchughclan.org). This will help the facilitators prepare for all who wish to attend.

PHYLLIS McHUGH coordinates Music and Choir for Saint Miriam.

LILLIAN SIGAL and HAROLD GORVINE serve on the Library Committee of Mishkan Shalom and teach often in Mishkan’s Adult Education program.

Are We Not All Really ONE?

Our sign was stolen. Well, actually I should say that our parish sign was vandalized yet again. Five times now it has been vandalized or taken from our parish grounds and five times it has always occurred after we have received press about the work we are doing at Saint Miriam. I hate to think it, but I must: are there people so bereft of common sense that they think themselves the only true religious expression of Catholicism? Is the Roman Church so devoid of common sense that they actually believe their own press now? Believe it so much that they would vandalize another church simply because they disagree with their expression of the Church Catholic? Are they not aware that we are really at our core...one?

There's a story which many of you have heard and it is a fitting introduction here. A group of new arrivals in heaven met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. He began to show them around, pointing out areas of interest and filling them in on the rules of the kingdom. There were many "oohs" and "aahs" from the crowd, and they were obviously enjoying themselves immensely. Suddenly Saint Peter stopped a short distance from a massive building which was miles-wide, long and high, and without doors or windows. "While we pass this building," he said, "you must walk quietly and utter not so much as a sound." So the entourage tiptoed obediently past the monolith without a word.

Once they were past, however, an inquisitive soul inquired, "Why did we have to be so quiet when we passed that building?" Saint Peter responded, "God put the Roman Catholics in there; they think they're the only ones up here."
It isn't just Roman Catholics who think they are the only ones who have got this God business right. There are other denominations that also give the impression of exclusiveness and project the feeling that it is only natural that the blessings of God should fall upon them. They are probably just as amazed as we are to see that it "rains on the just and the unjust alike” (see: Matthew 5:45).

I suppose that is not strange, since we have been brought up on a diet of theological ingredients which are not only palatable for us, but have come highly recommended by God; at least that's what our clergy tell us. So we are suspect of those who indulge in denominational dishes of a different sort.

It is important to realize, however, that God's doctrinal tastes are not so narrow. According to Jesus, all who love the name of the Lord are welcomed. Notice, that while he wants us all to be one with him and the Father, he doesn't suggest that our unity is dependent upon our ability to develop a theological recipe which all Christians everywhere could find tasty enough so that we all can feast together as one, a gigantic universal church.

In other words our unity need not be the result of sitting down at the negotiating table and trying to map out a theological menu for the church that would appeal to all concerned.

Bishop William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury, once said, "We meet in committees and construct our schemes of union; in face of the hideous fact of Christian divisions we are driven to this; but how paltry are our efforts compared with the call of God! The way to the union of Christendom does not lie through committee rooms, although there are tasks to be done there, it lies through personal union with the Lord so deep and real as to be comparable with his union with the Father...."

Temple has penetrated through the superficial. His sense of union in Christ is beyond togetherness. He moves past even the appealing call to our common humanity, illustrated most commonly in the words of Pastor John Donne many years ago, "... No person is an Island entire of himself; every one is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. If a clump of dirt be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the Less, as well as if a Mountain were, as well as if a House of your friends or your own were; any person's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Humankind; and therefore never send for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

The genius of God's plan then becomes more and more obvious. If we recognize that we are all members of the same family, if we acknowledge that God desires to hold us in a single peace then, ideally, we will stop fighting with each other and destroying one another and instead begin standing with one another and working together to bring people to Christ and to become an answer to prayer for those who cry out to God for help.

The prayer of Christ for unity does not compel us to rush to the negotiating table in an attempt to reduce our Christian differences to a bland recipe of faith which offends no one so that we end up with a church that is weak and powerless. The oneness for which Jesus so yearns is something beyond togetherness. In fact unity is not even something we can decide to do or work toward. Being made one with Christ is something that has already been accomplished; it is up to us to accept it and begin to live it! Therefore we are called forward to proclaim the good news that God has reconciled the world to himself and in harmony work with one another in carrying out Christ's merciful ministry to the world.

In the words of Emmett Jarrett, "Our unity is God's gift, because it reflects the unity of Jesus with the Father, without which we are nothing. Let us pray for that unity, of suffering and glory, of faith and of service, in love and in hope."

I pray for the vandals this day, and I pray selfishly for myself to stop hating them with so much passion.

The unvarnished truth of the Gospel; the hard stuff of life

Today’s gospel includes the story about Jesus washing the disciples' feet. I wonder how many of us arrive at this text accepting of the tough and demanding words from Jesus? Jesus says, "So, if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also must wash one another's feet."

There it is, the unvarnished "bad news" in the good news of this Gospel story -- Jesus' demand for lowly, foot washing service. But the tough types do not flinch at this mandate. They want no euphemisms, no spiritualizing metaphors. They know that foot washing means exactly what it sounds like -- humble, ignoble, service to needy people in the name of Christ. It will mean things like cleaning up the church, working at a soup kitchen, letting others take the glory for the successful church program even when you know that you did all the ‘real’ work, comforting people whose not-so-nice lives are coming apart, loving the unlovely, being ready to see the worst side of others and still being compassionate and present – truly present. It means putting your own lives aside in order to serve the lives of the ‘other’.

None of this will be easy, of course, but, the Gospel isn't supposed to be easy. Dirty feet are dirty feet, but they still must be washed. That's Jesus' tough word, and when the going gets tough....

The irony, however, is that the toughest word in the story is not this one. The toughest word in the story about Jesus' washing the disciples' feet is not that they will have to turn now and wash each other's soiled feet. As hard as that may be on occasion, they can do that. The genuinely toughest word in this story is that, first, before they do anything, the disciples will have to sit still and allow Jesus to wash their feet. Notice that the disciples do not balk when Jesus commands them to wash others' feet; the resistance comes -- voiced by Peter -- to being washed.

So, the hard message in this text is not that we will have to give; it is that, before we have anything to give, we must receive from Jesus. Jesus did not wash the feet of only one disciple; he washed the feet of all of them. He did not wash Peter's feet alone and then say, "All right, you have the idea. Now Peter, you do that to James, and James to John." No, each disciple was obliged to put his feet into the basin, to feel the water between his toes, to experience the hands of Jesus, his Lord and Savior, rubbing away the dirt and drying his ankles with a towel.

So, if we are searching for the unvarnished truth, the real "bad news" in this good news story, it is this: "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me" (John 13:8). In other words, without receiving this ministry from Jesus, we cannot be a disciple. Lacking His grace, apart from His service, without His act of self-sacrifice, we have nothing, absolutely nothing to give. "Nothing in my hand I bring," goes the old hymn, "only to the cross I cling."

Theologian Karl Barth once said of priests and ministers that the only appropriate attitude for them to assume was embarrassment. That we should be embarrassed, said Barth, because we stand before congregations to give them what they do not, themselves, have -- the Word of God. We are utterly dependent upon what we do not possess and what we cannot ever control, God's freely given grace; without that, we have nothing to say.

The same is true of all of us. The church has no wisdom but God's, no mercy but Christ's, no insight but the Spirit's. Unless we stretch out our dirty feet toward the basin of Jesus' grace and allow ourselves to receive from him, we have no gifts to give.

There is a story of a certain church that had for many years taken an extra offering collection on the last Sunday of every month for the poor. During the singing of the final hymn, members of the congregation stream down the aisles with their offerings and place them in baskets on the communion table to feed the hungry. Half of the money goes to local hunger needs, the other half to global relief programs.

This fairly affluent congregation was deeply committed to social causes, so the monthly hunger offerings are always quite substantial. They are rightfully proud of the amount of money they have raised over the years, the hunger programs they have helped finance, and the difference their offerings have made in the lives of the poor.

One Sunday morning, however, as the final hymn was being sung and as people were making their way forward with their offerings, a stranger moved down the aisle toward the communion table. She was clothed in the unmistakable dress of one who has spent the night in the street. As she drew closer to the offering baskets, many in the congregation began to notice this homeless woman and watch her curiously. Was she planning to make a contribution? She, after all, was the kind of person this offering was meant for. Some even suspected that she might attempt to take money from the baskets and so they began to move toward it to safeguard the collection.

When she got a few feet from the communion table, this slight of women, in her unclean appearance paused; she then slowly folded her hands gently and began to pray silently. In her own way, she made an offering that was the only offering she had to give, but it was the most fitting and generous offering made that day. This woman, in her extreme poverty, taught a tough-minded and affluent congregation – this unwashed woman revealed to this well-scrubbed parish – that our common human need is that we all have dirty feet, and unless our Lord washes us clean we have nothing really to offer. She taught in her offering of silent prayer that ministry is not a matter of our strength, but of God's and of God’s alone.