March 2003

Homily for March 2, 2003 - Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time - B
A “dowry” was a gift that a bride’s family gave to the groom as part of the marriage contract.
The dowry might be cash, or jewels, or land or livestock.
In ancient Israel, there was also a gift that the groom gave to the bride’s family.
It was called a “mohar.”
In our own time and place, I suppose the closest we come to these betrothal gifts is the engagement ring,which the groom gives to the bride, and the cost of the wedding celebration,
which is usually footed by the family of the bride.
One of these gifts, the “mohar” is in today’s first reading from Hosea.
Here, the beloved, the bride is Israel, and the lover seducing her into the desert, the groom, is the Lord.
Perhaps by the desert moonlight, the Lord would get down on one knee,
offering Israel an engagement ring, asking to take her as his bride.
I tried to imagine what kind of engagement ring God might give to Israel.
Considering that it’s God who makes diamonds, it would have to be something pretty spectacular. So, it would probably come from Tiffany’s or Shreve’s,
    maybe something like this...
(Bring out silver Shreve’s box with oversized diamond ring,
     about 5 inches in circumference...)
The ring is brilliant - it gets your attention. It “engages” your vision!
It seems to say, as the ads suggest, that this is somehow “for ever...”
And that is just the kind of engaging love the Lord offered Israel - for ever.
But the Lord’s “mohar” in the reading from Hosea is not a ring.
His betrothal gift is greater.
It was right there in the first reading, in Hosea the prophet:
     “I will espouse you, Israel, (not with cattle or sheep or land)
     I will espouse you with justice, with love, and with faithfulness.”
Such is the “three carat” betrothal gift that God offers to Israel, his beloved,
     the people he wants to take as his bride.
And he offers the same to us, but we will find it hard to imagine this.
It is deeply unfortunate that so many of us imagine God to be
     a scolding parent,
     a policeman waiting in the bushes to catch us speeding,
     a private detective stalking our every move,
     a sentencing judge - someone to be feared, even avoided.
For some of us, God is an eternal flashing blue light
     in the rear view mirror of our lives!
We have almost no understanding of God as
     seducer, spouse,
     partner,   lover,
     admirer, close friend,
even though the scriptures are filled with instances of how God is revealed precisely in these images of desire and intimacy.
(Go to Shreve’s box to get handcuffs...)
Rather than imagine that God is ready to offer us an engagement ring,
  we’re afraid he’s going to pull out handcuffs and arrest us!
(These are from Shreve’s, too - they’re sterling!)
(Hold up giant diamond ring and handcuffs)
Which image of God do is ours?
Which image do we prefer? Which do we desire?
What “handcuffs” us to our old ideas and fears,
     keeping us from imagining God as friend, as lover?
If we are to open ourselves to images of God, new and different for us,
we will need to make changes, and to allow God to change us
just as the growing intimacy of friendship and marriage change us.
If we want to trade the handcuffs for the engagement ring,
     we will need new wineskins for the new wine of God’s desire for us.
Do you remember how Jesus imaged himself in today’s gospel?
     As the bridegroom, as the lover!
He says that what he has to offer us is so new, so rich
     that it will burst our seams if we stay as we are.
We must change if we want to drink in what he has to offer us.
Lent is just ahead of us. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday.
For many of us, Lent can be the high season of moral handcuffing!
Examining our consciences, finding our sins, asking for forgiveness,
     beating ourselves up, trying desperately to get our act together before Easter.
Instead of spending Lent trying to get closer to God,
what if we were to spend Lent wondering how God is trying to get close to us?
You can be sure that God is trying to get closer to us, 24/7!
And you can be sure that God is doing a better job of getting closer to us
     than we are in trying to get closer to God!
Instead of spending all of Lent taking inventory of our sins,
     what if we were to spend as much time in these 40 days
     taking account of all the ways God’s love has touched us?
What if we actually began to write down in a notebook
     the ways in which we have experienced and do experience
     the love of God in our lives?
Instead of spending Lent pleading for a lenient sentence
     before God the judge,
what if we were to spend Lent simply telling God, our lover,
     how much we need, how much we desire his justice,
          his love, his faithfulness...
St. Paul wrote to us today that the Spirit of God writes not on stone,
   but upon the hearts of God’s people.
As an eighth grader writes over and over again, page after page, “Billy loves Susie,”
so does the Spirit write upon our hearts, without ceasing,
     “You are my beloved.”
Is there any other explanation for our being invited to sit at his table; to share in feasting with the Lord, our bridegroom; to be nourished with the life he laid down for us, so great was his love for us.
It is no coincidence at all that the arms of the crucified Jesus are wide open, waiting to enfold us, embrace us, to hold us close.
Will we run away from an image of such great love,
     handcuffed by our old ideas and fears?
Or will be allow ourselves to be seduced, engaged, and thus saved
     by a God who desires us a lover desires the beloved?
Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for March 9, 2003 - First Sunday of Lent - B
Genesis 9:8-15          1 Peter 3:18-22          Mark 1:12-15
For those of you who did not make it to church on Ash Wednesday, I have good news:
contrary to popular opinion and conventional wisdom, Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation.
More good news:
     Ash Wednesday is not the first of the 40 days of Lent.
So, even if you missed Ash Wednesday, you still find yourself at the beginning of Lent                                                             this weekend. (The last day of Lent ends at sundown on Holy Thursday.
If you take your calendar and count back 40 days from Holy Thursday,
you will land, this year, on March 9, the first Sunday of Lent.
But more good news:
     if you missed getting ashes on Wednesday,
     you can still get one of our Lenten buttons with the cross of ashes on it.
But here’s some bad news:
     also contrary to popular opinion and conventional wisdom
          (and things your grandmother may have told you)
     the Sundays of Lent are indeed days of Lent.
So, if you gave up chocolate for the 40 days of Lent,
     you do NOT get to eat it on Sundays.
For those of us who DID come to pray on Ash Wednesday,
     (and who, at this point, are wondering why they did!)
     we got a jump start on the Lenten season and were privileged to take part
     in one of the most curious and beautiful rituals of our church:
      being smudged on our foreheads with a cross of ashes,
      the ashes of last Palm Sunday’s palm branches,
      as a sign of our desire to grow in faith this Lent.
So Lent, the 40 days of Lent, begin this weekend.
And at the end of Lent, at Easter -- there’s going to be a QUIZ!
But more good news!
I’m going to give you the questions in the Easter quiz - today!
The quiz is going to be given about half way through the liturgy
     at the Easter Vigil and at all the Easter Sunday masses.
Here are the questions for the quiz.
     Question One
          Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children?
     Question Two
          Do you reject the glamor of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?
     Question Three
          Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?
These questions may sound familiar because they face us
     every time we celebrate baptism at Mass in our parish.
Every time the church celebrates the baptism of a new member
it calls on the assembly of the all-ready-baptized
     to renew their baptismal promises -- beginning with these three questions.
Now, in the first draft of my homily there followed here
     two pages of explanation of the vocabulary in those three questions.
More good news!
I suggest in my letter in the bulletin this week, “let’s live Lent simply!”
So, in that spirit I have eliminated the two pages of explanation
     with a simple story.
A young Cherokee girl noticed that her grandfather, the chief,
     seemed very troubled and sad.
She asked, “Grandfather, what is wrong?”
He told her,
     “Granddaughter, my heart is troubled
     for it seems that there is a battle in my heart -- like a fight between two wolves.
          One wolf is evil: filled with selfishness, envy, greed, arrogance,
               lust, lies and pride.
          The other wolf is good:
               filled with kindness, humility, compassion,
               purity, truth and generosity.”
The little girl pondered the image and asked,
     “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”
And the grandfather replied, “The one I feed.”
This story gets to the heart of the three questions in our Easter quiz.
Lent is a time to discern which wolf we are feeding
     in our hearts, our minds, our imaginations, our lives.
Do I feed the wolf of “sin and the glamor of evil?”
Or do I feed the wolf of compassion and generosity?
Our Lenten practice:
     prayerful conversation with God,
     fasting, giving up things, and generous care for the poor
is meant to give us a clearer picture
     of which wolf within us we are feeding.
Our prayer, our hope in Lent is that come Easter
     the evil wolf will be starving to death
     and the good wolf will be healthier than ever.
We go to the Lord’s table now where Jesus will feed us.
He will feed in us only what is good,
     what is whole, true, pure and loving.
He will feed us with the life he laid down for us.
Christ will feed the good wolf within us;
     the evil one he has already overcome.
The one we call the lamb has overcome the evil wolf.
At Easter we will celebrate our share in his victory.
Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for Second Sunday of Lent - B     -     March 16, 2003
Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18     Romans 8:31b-34     Mark 9:2-10
You probably found this insert in your Sunday paper a few weeks ago.
     (Hold up insert...)
It’s a long list of descriptive words:
     rare                 spontaneous          unexpected          bold
     curious             intriguing               intuitive               fearless
     unusual            audacious              brash                  undaunted
     irreverent         daring                   dynamic              maverick
     unbridled         soulful                   provocative        strong
     wild                unwavering            romantic             genuine
     unorthodox     brave                    renegade             radical
     visionary          a dreamer
Quite a description!    Who is being described here?
If you open up the insert it tells you who’s being described here.
(Superimposed on a huge finger print are the words)
     “YOU are!”
(and, over a large hubcap, the words)
     “IT is.”
What is the IT that so perfectly matches YOU?
(Unfold the ad one more time we find that)
     The IT that matches YOU
     is the Infinity FX45!
When I first saw this ad, before I opened up to the interior folds, my homiletic mind was already in gear. I thought,
       “Hey! This is a list of many of the things people said about Jesus in the gospels - and in  one way or another, every one of them is true.”
How do we usually describe Jesus?
     Holy? Divine? Savior? Redeemer?
Do the terms we most often use to describe Jesus serve to ATTRACT us to him?
Or do the words we use to describe Jesus make him seem so much above and beyond us that they DISTANCE us from him?
The revelation of God’s identity in the first lesson today is compelling and immanent.
It commands our attention and engages our imagination. It prompts a response within us.
We are first horrified at God’s request of Abraham, and then relieved when Isaac is rescued.
I imagine that the Smart family in Utah could relate to how Isaac and his father felt
when their daughter, Elizabeth, was delivered into their hands.
In the gospel accounts of the call of the apostles, Jesus walks by the shore where fishermen are mending their nets, he says, “Hey, you guys! Come follow me!”
     and they drop everything - their livelihood - and follow Jesus.
What was so attractive about Jesus that these men leave their work to follow him?
In today’s gospel, Jesus is transfigured in the company of Peter, James and John.
These three are deeply touched by what happens. They are simultaneously terrified,
and yet they want to build tents to capture the experience.
Do our images of God attract us? engage us? make us want to hold on to the experience of God?
Or do our images of God leave us cold?
What attracts us to other people? What kind of people do we want to work with?
live next door to? socialize with? talk to? go to a Sox game with? go out to dinner with? Is Jesus the kind of person we might want to work with? go to a movie with?   hang out with? Is Jesus someone we really want to walk through this coming week with?
Or is it a little more comfortable just to visit with him on Saturday afternoon or on Sunday morning? Is Jesus like an elderly uncle in a nursing home whom we go to visit on weekends? Is Jesus someone we find attractive?
The church teaches that Jesus is “FULLY HUMAN as well as fully divine.”
Then certainly he must be:
     rare                    spontaneous          unexpected         bold
     curious               intriguing               intuitive               fearless
     unusual              audacious              brash                  undaunted
     irreverent           daring                   dynamic              maverick
     unbridled           soulful                    provocative        strong
     wild                  unwavering         romantic               genuine
     unorthodox        brave                     renegade              radical
     visionary            a dreamer
He was, he IS indeed, all of those things – and many more.
Imagine how shallow might be our personal knowledge of who Jesus is…
     -how limited might be the ways in which we can describe him…
     -how impoverished might be our ideas of who he is for us…
     -how dull might be our picture all that Jesus must be
          if indeed he is the very Word of God made flesh,
become human, for us,   fully human and fully divine…
It might be a helpful Lenten exercise for us to ponder what each of us needs Jesus to be in our lives. How does each of us need Jesus to be transfigured in our lives?
     in our hearts? in our imaginations?
We can ask Jesus to be what we need him to be for us so that we might be drawn closer to him and he might draw nearer to us in a kind of fully human mutual attractiveness
that is nothing less than -- fully divine.
That’s for the rest of Lent, for now, we can add to that descriptive list
even more words that also reveal who Jesus is for us.

He is:
     table          altar          host          server          bread          wine
     body          blood       soul          divinity        nourishment
     food           meal         sacrifice    and supper…
Come share at the table of him who is, indescribably,
     our holy, divine, saving Lord and Redeemer.
Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for Third Sunday of Lent - B - March 23, 2003
Exodus 20:1-17        I Corinthians 1:22-25        John 2:13-25
The shelves of book stores are filled with self-help books,
    and the internet is filled with all kinds of self-help sites,
    each one promising to help us live a happier, healthier, holier life;
       a longer, leaner, love-filled life; a simpler, safer, saner life...
          a richer, rosier, relaxed life...
                     the list goes on...
Curiously enough, many of these books and sites model themselves
    on the ten commandments.
A quick search on the Internet turned up:
        The Ten Commandments of Better Etiquette
        The Ten Commandments of Counterintelligence
        The Ten Commandments of Baseball
        The Ten Commandments of Managing Stress
        The Ten Commandments of Automobile Repair
        The Ten Commandments of the Separation of Church and State
        The Ten Commandments of Gambling
        The Ten Commandments of Venture Capital
        The Ten Commandments of Yellow Pages Advertising
Everyone of these is designed as a help, as a way of assisting someone to do a particular task in a better, more productive, less taxing fashion. And that’s exactly why God gave Israel, and us, the ORIGINAL Ten Commandments.
The Commandments were a gift,   the law was a gift to the chosen people to guide them in living a life which strengthened, rather than weakened,
their relationship with God and with their neighbor.
If we all lived by the Ten Commandments we would not be at war today.
The commandments are designed to enhance our life.
It’s a shame we so often think of the commandments only as negative and restrictive.
The commandments certainly do set boundaries on our behavior,
but the boundaries are designed to save us from our own foolishness and mistakes.
The law, as gift from God, was a proud possession of Israel.
The scriptures ask,
    “Who has a God as great as our God?
    A God who gives us a law by which to live,
        a law that will not fail to lead us to the truth?”
Those who heard Jesus preach heard him say that he had come not to destroy the law - but to fulfill it. And the fulfillment of the whole law is love:
self-giving love which serves the neighbor first as the primary way of serving God.
As we heard in today’s gospel:
Jesus identifies himself as the new temple of worship in truth;
just as he identifies himself as the sacrifice,
    the lamb of the new covenant in his blood;
and he is also the new law, the new commandment.
“Love one another as I have loved you,” he tells us,
    indeed, this is what he commands us to do.
As we make our way through Lent in preparation for our celebration of Easter,
we might do well to review the ten commandments and see how we allow them to save us from our own foolishness and stupid mistakes,
or perhaps to discover how much we need them
to strengthen our relationship with God and with our neighbor.
Lent is a time for us to grow closer to Jesus whose law is love,
        and whose love is law.
He who is our Lord, our law, and our love, invites us now to the table of the new covenant, the table where we remember that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,   the Lamb whose life was offered up because we could not save ourselves from our own foolishness and stupid mistakes.
Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for Fourth Sunday of Lent - B                  March 30, 2003
2 Chronicles 36:14-16          Ephesians 2:4-10     John 3:14-21
How would you like to be Nicodemus?
How would you like to be able to sit down with Jesus, face to face, and ask him all your questions
and get your answers from the source of all truth?
I’ll tell you, it sure would make it easier to be a pastor
if I could sneak off at night and get the real scoop on things right from the mouth of Jesus.
Nicodemus asked Jesus how it meant to be “born again.”
And he asked Jesus how God’s spirit moves in our lives.
What would you ask Jesus?
I think I’d ask Jesus what he thinks of what his church has become.
I’d ask him for some help on bringing back to the church those who have left because of the abuse crisis.
I’d ask Jesus why it is that bad things happen to good people.
I’d ask Jesus what he thinks about ordaining women, and married men.
I might ask Jesus to make a guest appearance here in West Concord
     as part of a fund raiser for our parish!
I’d ask Jesus what he thinks about war in general, and the war in Iraq in particular.
I’d ask him if he agrees with the Pope, the American bishops, and virtually all religious leaders on this question, or if he agrees with the President Bush and Prime Minister Blair,
of if he has an opinion about all of this that none of us has yet discerned.
I’d ask him how the nations of the world should deal with tyrants and terrorists
   without compromising our values and beliefs.
I’d ask him what we need to do to leave our children a world at peace.
I suppose we all have our own answers to these questions.
I wonder how Jesus would answer our questions.
He might be a little vague, as he was with Nicodemus.
    ”Here’s the answer,” Jesus said. “The light has come into the world
     but some prefer the darkness to the light...
“Those who do wicked things prefer the dark and stay away from the light.
“But those who seek the truth and live the truth draw near the light
     so that all can see that their works are the works of God.”
But we live in world which has learned to see in the dark.
We are a world which has learned to light up the night sky as though it were day.
What is the real darkness? What is truly the light?
Whose works are good? Whose works are evil?
Who prefers the darkness? Who draws near the light?
Must we be “born again” in order to find peace? And if we must be born again,
     HOW are we to be born again?
And how are we to know when it is the Spirit of God, and not some other spirit,
     who moves in our hearts and minds and deeds?
And that brings us back to Nicodemus, and Jesus:
     Nicodemus who waited for the cover of darkness
          to meet with the Light of the world.
We need not wait for nightfall. Jesus is ready to meet with us now,
     and to feed us at his table.
He is ready to share with us his life, laid down for us
     so that we might have life and have it to the full.
Pray with me that the Prince of Peace whose table we share
     will nourish in us a love for the light and for the truth it reveals.
Rev. Austin Fleming
                                          *********************

Simply Living Lent - Week Five
MORNING PRAYER
Dear God,
Slowly but surely there are signs of spring every where I look.
How much I need to see new life springing up
     in a world which is shaded by clouds of war.
How much I need to see the greening and flowering of life
     which has spent the winter buried beneath the snows.
How much I need to believe that you who bring the earth back to life
     will restore peace to the world, for you will not forget your children in their need.
Make a spring time in my own heart, too, O Lord:
     restore, refresh and bring to flower whatever the winter of my life has put to sleep.
And I have a special favor to ask of you, Lord, here it is...
You will not forget the people closest to my heart who need your help, Lord,
     but lest I fail to remember them today, I lift up their names to you now...
Lord, in your love and mercy, hear my prayer.
Our Father...
Mon              Tue               Wed               Thu               Fri               Sat               Sun
FASTING
This week, the particular food or beverage I will give up is
This week, the particular activity or pleasure I will give up is
This week, the old, bad habit I’ll work on is
Mon              Tue               Wed               Thu               Fri               Sat               Sun

CARING FOR THE POOR
This week I’m bringing nonperishable groceries to church for the Food Pantry
This week I’m shopping for my gift for the Parish Giving Tree
This week, I’m making a contribution to my Offering Box or my favorite charity
This week, I’m working on my own outreach to those in need
NIGHT PRAYER
Night and day you watch over those you love, Lord: you are always awake to our needs.
Your watchful care gives me reason to fall asleep in your arms,
     and to trust that you will be with me when I wake in the morning.
Bless my night with good rest and touch my dreams with your peace.
Watch over those who are afraid this night
     and who may be troubled with difficult memories and dreams.
Stand guard with those who serve and protect us,
     and with all who are in harm’s way this night.
As a mother tucks in her child, tuck in your world, Lord, under a blanket of peace.
Give us good rest that tomorrow we may be respond generously and graciously
     to those in need.
Hail Mary...
Mon              Tue               Wed               Thu               Fri               Sat               Sun
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