Waffles Anyone?
17 Jul 2011 7 Comments
in Bible Essays, God, Holy Spirit, Matthew, Romans, Wisdom Tags: bible essay, God, hope, Kingdom, Love, parables
Have you ever made waffles? No I don’t mean open the freezer and pop a couple of frozen discs into the toaster. I mean make up a batter and heat up the waffle iron. Real waffles, the kind your mother used to make?
One has to learn the art of waffling. It’s not the batter, any good cookbook will give you the simple recipe. No, the art is in the pouring. Too little and the waffle is deformed with incomplete edges. Too much, and batter drips out of the iron and makes an awful mess.
Just right? Ahh, now that is a thing to behold. You learn by doing. Pouring and then watching as the batter oozes and slides around the patterned nubs. When you have the right amount, it runs slowly like lava until it has covered the entire grid. Close the lid, and wait until it’s golden and you have perfection.
Today’s readings remind me of waffles.
Jesus relates a number of parables all of which have a common theme: that the Word infiltrates throughout the world.
The good seed grows up among the weeds and at harvest can be separated. The mustard seed grows, it fills out into branches and twigs and becomes a wonderful full shrub that can support and care for those who nest within its intricate structure. The yeast permeates the entire dough, leavening it all over time.
We learn that if we live as vital members of the Kingdom, we too permeate all of creation and leaven it for good. Some of our “good works”, our “good neighborly” voice rubs off on those around us. Or as the Buddhist might say, good karma draws good karma.
We look at the world around us and there is little to be happy about. Governments worldwide fail miserably to serve their people. Our misbegotten practices, designed to satisfy our own greed has seemingly turned Mother Nature against us. People argue and war against each other over real or imagined wrongs, greed, fear, and other negative emotions. It is easy to believe that we are “going to hell in a handbasket” as the old saying suggests.
These parables give us comfort in remembering that that is not so. In the Hebrew Testament from Wisdom, we are reminded that God is always just, and when we emulate that justice, that mercy, and that forgiveness, we are most like God and we can be assured that we are seeping into the cracks of a broken world, working the magic that is love. We are joining together, uniting a fractured community and binding it together. We knit a network that provides hope and security to a frightened people.
Paul reminds us in Romans that we do not act alone, but that the Spirit of God is ever with us, perfecting our words and actions so that they are more than the woeful efforts of our individual desire. The Spirit residing within makes our words more loving, more gentle, more powerful. We reap a greater harvest than we perhaps can be aware of. We remember to trust that our meagre efforts will yield a hundredfold.
We are not alone as souls lost among the evil of our times. We are lighthouses providing the guiding light that calls home the frightened and tired sailor. We form an interconnected network that upholds and uplifts humanity to an ever-growing awareness of God’s center in us all. We are a thread in the tapestry that creates the perfection that really underlies all the mud we seem mired in.
Or we can be. If we remember.
Amen.
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 Romans 8: 26-27 Matthew 13: 24-33
Come Down Out of Your Tree
31 Oct 2010 2 Comments
in Bible Essays, Catholicism, Conversion, Dissent, Jesus, Luke, Magisterium, Wisdom Tags: arrogance, bible essays, Jesus, judgment, Luke, Wisdom, Zacchaeus
We are, as believers, quite familiar with Zacchaeus and his story. We are most familiar with the meaning of the story.
We know that Zacchaeus was well-known in his town. He was probably not liked, for he was a senior tax collector, meaning presumably that he been a tax man for a long time, and more importantly, that he had done exceedingly well at his job.
There is nothing to suggest that he had any intention to meet Jesus, rather, he seemed to want to take a “measure of the man,” this man who people were talking about in the surrounding countryside.
There is nothing to suggest that Zacchaeus had any desire to be “saved” or that he saw himself as a sinner. He was merely sizing up the man whom he had heard of, perhaps wanting to see if there was anything about him that suggested he was any of the things people were whispering about.
Jesus arrives at the tree that Zacchaeus has climbed and looks up. He orders him down. And he tells Zacchaeus that he intends to supper with him. This must have shocked Zacchaeus, since he full knew the opinion of the Pharisees about him. And it was true, they complained, loudly passing the word that Jesus was intent on eating with a sinner! But eye to eye with Jesus, something happened.
This man, who must have been hard-hearted in order to do his job, had a transformation. He immediately told Jesus he would give half of his wealth to the poor, and return four times over any money he had acquired by unfairness. What a transformation indeed.
I recall, as I proceeded through the catechumenate, learning about all the Catholic dogma about social issues, sexual to be exact. Certainly most of these were touched on quite lightly, they were trying to convince us to join the Church not run from it. I was troubled indeed about birth control, celibacy issues, homosexuality, abortion, and divorce. These rules basically went against my natural inclination. None of them touched me personally at that time, and perhaps I could have simply ignored them.
Instead, I tried mightily to understand why my Church taught these things. I struggled with them in my heart. I prayed about them. In the end, I conformed for one singular reason: my conversion had arisen from the sudden conclusion that I was not wise enough to overcome the depth and breath of intellect that, before me, believed. Here now too, I came to the same conclusion. I must assume the Church to be wiser than me–at least until I had spent time looking deeply into these issues.
I trusted in the general logic of Catholicism, the fact that there were no places of which I was aware where there were logical dead ends, or places of deep conflict. All inexorably fit together, and so I accepted what I was taught, albeit with a heavy heart.
Over time, I was to learn a good deal more, read a good deal more, have the benefit of learned teachers who had studied these matters thoroughly and come up with different ideas. Slowly, I came back to where I had been, and came to believe that the Church’s dogma was flawed, and understandable from its own history.
My point is simply, that I think excluding people as “sinners” for violating innumerable sexual prohibitions should lead anyone to feel exceedingly sad. We are, after all, desirous of having everyone partake of the Eucharist I presume. We want all to be saved do we not? To conclude that some folks must be denied is painful. It was to me at that time, and I would think it would be to all faithful orthodox Catholics.
Yet, this is not what I find. Instead, I find that old bugaboo, arrogance come to play. All too many “orthodox” Catholics are eager, almost joyous in their condemnation of those who aren’t being “orthodox” as they see it. They are eager to label people–”you Cafeteria Catholic,” they sneer. They tell me that “Catholicism is hard” and why don’t I “go to some feel-good Protestant church where they cater to what you want to hear”. When I protest that Jesus told us not to judge, they drag out plenty of ammo from Paul, about how they are they are not judging, but “admonishing the sinner” as they are “called to do.”
Some of them are quite ugly in their rhetoric. They clearly take great pride in “doing what is hard,” though I’m not sure what is hard about chastising others for not living up to their interpretation of things.
It all leaves me with a bad taste. Zacchaeus may have climbed a tree to see better, but some of our orthodox brethren are also up trees, just not to see. They are up there to pick out from the crowd those they believe must be culled from the congregation. They are there to spot the sinners and whisper loudly and complain–”these people have no right to be in God’s house!”
Perhaps, they will hear Jesus calling for them to come down, and eye to eye, they too might be transformed, as I ultimately was. Perhaps they will see that following Jesus was never about pointing out the sinner, so much as it was and is about ministering without judgment to all God’s creation. For we also learned today:
Yes, you love everything that exists, and nothing that has been made disgusts you, since if you had hated something, you would not have made it. And how could a thing subsist, had you not willed it? Or how be preserved, if not called forth by you? No, you spare all, since all is yours, Lord, lover of life! (Wis 11:24-26)
Perhaps, we might leave all this other stuff up to God to decide. After all, it’s His kingdom.
