Greed

“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me” [Luke 12:13-21].

It's an old story – a family conflict over inheritance, something we’ve all seen happen so many times. What better advertisement for Jesus’ famous advice to give everything away – now!

Perhaps that someone in the crowd who wanted Jesus to take his side in his family’s quarrel may well have had a good case. Who knows? That’s a concern for a lawyer – a role Jesus refused to play. “Friend,” Jesus replied, “who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”

Jesus certainly made judgments about many things. But in this instance he looked beyond the immediate case at hand – to the bigger problem of what wealth (and our obsessive preoccupation with wealth) does to us. So Jesus warned: “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

The problem with that, as we all know of course, is that possessions are important. Possessin at least some things – sufficient food, some sort of shelter – having at least some things really is important, if we just want to survive. And possessing more things, while maybe not so necessary, certainly seems to make life a lot easier. Jesus didn’t deny that, but, like Qoheleth, the teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes [Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23],  Jesus understood how limited – and limiting – wealth’s benefits can actually be. For time too is limited. When we’ve only a limited amount of time, the length of which we cannot know for certain, what we actually do with that time, how we choose to live, the objectives we pursue, the priorities we express in the way we choose to live, all these become important questions – questions that concern who we really are, regardless of what or how much we have.

Greed (which Saint Paul equated with idolatry) - and its equally corrupting cousin, envy – can totally take over a person, leading to a seemingly obsessive need to compare oneself with others and a compulsive desire to acquire and acquire and acquire. There’s always that bigger house or cooler car or the latest model phone or whatever!

And yet it’s always a race against time – a race one can only lose.

“You fool,” Jesus says, “the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?”

Life is like a race that someone else always wins. Even the inheritors will lose the race in the end. Either it’s all maybe just one long meaningless vanity (as Qoheleth warned). Or it has some purpose beyond its apparent end. But, in that case, what we get to take with us will not be what we have (or, rather, at that point, what we had), but rather who we are, who we have become by the way we have chosen to live.

As Christians, our lives are shaped by the reality of the risen Christ, who is already (as Saint Paul tells us) seated at the right hand of God. Shaped by and focused on that reality, we can begin to look at our lives, already in the here and now, with a perspective that the greedy man in the parable obviously lacked – not just a resigned fatalistic acceptance of life’s limits, like what we heard from Qoheleth, but a freedom to face life and live it fully, based not on what we have, but on who we can become in Christ.

Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Holy Ghost Church, Knoxville, TN, August 4, 2013.

Why the Catholic Bishops are Right on Immigration

I’m not a regular reader of The Catholic Thing Blog. So cannot say how typical Brad Miner’s July 29 piece “Why the Catholic Bishops Are Wrong on Immigration,’ may be. I would not have known about it had I not seen it referred to elsewhere. So I draw no inferences beyond it. But I certainly can say that it is an appallingly weak argument for an appallingly bad position!

An example of the article’s poor argumentation is the implied comparison between the status of millions of undocumented immigrants and legal immigration and the implication of preference for Mexican immigrants over Swedish ones. The poverty of the author’s argument is captured in his silly question, “Are visas un-Christian?”

Now I have absolutely no idea how many Swedish immigrants come to the U.S. these days, and I certainly don’t know how many are legal and how many not legal. I remember that in New York City in the late 1980s there were lots of illegal Irish immigrants, for example. It’s a myth that all illegals immigrants are Latinos and that they all cross the border illegally. In fact, many illegal immigrants now in the U.S. are people who entered perfectly legally and then stayed after their visas expired. (Hence the absurdity of the over-emphasis on “border security,” which is really little more than an expensive stimulus program for certain constituencies).

Miner attacks the U.S. Bishops’ advocacy of immigration reform and their generally strong support for immigrants as a self-interested strategy to increase the number of Catholics. It is certainly true, of course, that the majority of Latino immigrants are Catholics and that it is in fact immigrants who have kept the Catholic Church at approximately one-quarter of the national population in spite of the loss of so many U.S.-born Catholics. It is, indeed, in the Church’s interest to encourage immigration and support immigrants once here. However, it is also the Church’s duty to look after its members, is it not? Moreover, the Church’s responsibility towards its poorer and politically powerless members is itself a subset of the Church’s larger responsibility to advocate for and assist our society’s poor and powerless, regardless of their religion. Two of the Church’s most noteworthy contributions to the quality of our civil society have been its impressive networks of educational and health care institutions.  While historically the Catholic school system has served primarily the children of Catholic families (in the past primarily poor and immigrant), Catholic schools today often serve significant non-Catholic urban populations. And Catholic hospitals have always embodied the Church’s charitable mission to all people regardless of religion or other identities.

Miner may be right in suggesting that Latino immigrants provide the Church in the U.S a demographic boost in the short term. He may also be right that the long-term prospects may be less positive. He refers to studies that show that in 1980 ninety percent of Hispanics in the U.S. were Catholic, but that today just over two-thirds are, and that that percentage is expected to decrease further over the next two decades. All that is interesting and important. But far from arguing against advocacy for immigrants what it ought to inspire is more rather than less intense evangelizing outreach efforts on the Church’s part to its Latino members. None of that, however, diminishes the Church’s moral responsibility to be of assistance to immigrants (of whatever religion) and to advocate on their behalf.

You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the Lord, am your God (Leviticus 19:34).

"Chi sono io per giudicare?"

As the regularly repeated, if somewhat tiresome analogies - Rock Concert, Catholic Woodstock, etc. - suggest, World Youth Day is an ecclesiastical "feel good" event. You bring together a couple of million excited, energetic young people, and, of course they are going to have a good time. So will the adults! How often, after all, do a bunch of bishops in habitus pianus get to get up and dance? And since WYD is admirably free of the drugs, sex, and violence associated with some other youth-oriented events, it's really a win-win situation for everyone.

 

The challenge of WYD is not to create an exciting religious experience for those participating (old as well as young). In that respect every WYD since Blessed Pope John Paul II started them in 1984 has been a great success. The real challenge (as with all experiential movements) is to sustain the enthusiasm afterwards, in the hard slog of ordinary life when religion may seem less exciting and when there is so much else competing with it.

 

And that may be the most significant thing about the Pope's unexpected, unscripted press conference on the return flight to Rome. John Paul II, before he became too ill to do so, used to engage the press on his travels. So the event was not completely without precedent. But it was unexpected, especially since Pope Francis had given the impression earlier that he would probably not be doing that. In the end, he did do it, did more than anyone would have anticipated, and did it quite well. 

 

But it wasn't just that the Pope engaged the press and answered their unfiltered questions. It was the way he did so. Thus, for example, the "gay" question. As John Allen observed on the PBS Newshour last night, in what might constitute the first time a Pope has ever publicly used that word, Pope Francis showed himself comfortable talking in ordinary language. As Allen notes, he didn't introduce the term into the discussion, the questioner did (admittedly in the somewhat pejorative context of the so-called "Gay Lobby"). But the Pope didn't use some euphemism in his answer. He used the ordinary word.

 

The Pope isn't just anybody. There are times when he has to speak very formally and precisely using technical theological language. There are times when, like any priest celebrating the liturgy, he needs to employ a specifically sacred idiom. But there are other times when, again like any pastor, he does well to speak the ordinary language of the world. Doing so on the plane suggests an understanding of the need to connect the elevated experience of WYD with the experience of daily life - for people at any age.

 

Of course, it was the substance of what he said that got most of the attention and also most demonstrated a connection with the concerns of people today - and, just as important, did so not in secular but in gospel-language. Commenting first on the accusations against one particular Vatican official, the Pope said:

 

"But I would like to add one more thing to this: I see that so many times in the Church, apart from this case and also in this case, one  looks for the "sins of youth," for example, is it not thus?, And then these things are published.  These things are not crimes.  The crimes are something else: child abuse is a crime.  But sins, if a person, or secular priest or a nun, has committed a sin and then that person experienced conversion, the Lord forgives and when the Lord forgives, the Lord forgets and this is very important for our lives.  When we go to confession and we truly say “I have sinned in this matter,” the Lord forgets and we do not have the right to not forget because we run the risk that the Lord will not forget our sins, eh?  This is a danger.  This is what is important: a theology of sin.  So many times I think of St. Peter: he committed one of the worst sins denying Christ.  And with this sin they made him Pope.  We must think about fact often."

 

Indeed, we must!

Then, returning to the  issue of the so-called "gay lobby," Pope Francis elaborated further:

"They say there are some gay people here.  I think that when we encounter a gay person, we must make the distinction between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of a lobby, because lobbies are not good.  They are bad.  If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person?  The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this point beautifully but says, wait a moment, how does it say, it says, these persons must never be marginalized and 'they must be integrated into society.'

 

"The problem is not that one has this tendency; no, we must be brothers, this is the first matter.  There is another problem, another one: the problem is to form a lobby of those who have this tendency, a lobby of the greedy people, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of Masons, so many lobbies.  This is the most serious problem for me. And thank you so much for doing this question. Thank you very much!"

 

Not only did the Pope explicitly separate being gay from the issue of the so-called "gay lobby," he also returned this issue to the ordinary realm of moral discernment rather than separating it out as problematically unique. 

 

The challenge of WYD (and of any religious experience) is to produce results that last and are in harmony with the fundamental message of the Gospel. In this instance, implicitly recalling Matthew 7:1 (Stop judging, that you may not be judged) may have been a very good place to start.

Becoming a Blessing

The excerpt we just heard [Genesis 18:20-32] from the Old Testament saga of Abraham takes us back some 4000 years to the heights overlooking the then great cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Those cities now no longer exist, because (so the story tells us) of the outcry against them – so different were their citizens from Abraham, who (recent immigrant though he himself was) cared enough for the established native population that he was willing to plead with God to save them from destruction.

For some, what stands out most strongly in this story is the picturesque image of Abraham bargaining with God, as if he were some tourist in some stereotypical middle-eastern marketplace. So strongly ingrained in the tourist mindset is that marketplace stereotype that some tourists, who have religiously read their guidebooks, feel compelled to bargain to the point of apparent absurdity. I saw that myself 20 years ago in my first Sunday in Israel. A group of us had walked to Bethlehem for Mass at the Basilica, but to save time decided to take a taxi back. Then the drivers stated their fares, members of the group started trying to bargain down the fare. Meanwhile, I did a quick currency calculation in my head and said to the priest in the group, “This taxi costs less than a subway ride back home. What are we bargaining about? Let’s just get in the cab and go!”

Foreigner though he was, Abraham was certainly no tourist – a pilgrim perhaps in a land not yet his, but certainly no tourist. And his relationship with God was anything but commercial or transitory. Just before today’s excerpt, God who (as we heard last Sunday) has just experienced Abraham’s generous hospitality, suddenly says he cannot hide from Abraham what he is about to do, because Abraham is destined to become a great nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him [Genesis 18:17-18]. In this serious debate in which the fate of civilizations literally hung in the balance, we witness Abraham already at work anticipating that promised blessing for all the nations of the earth.

Abraham is sometimes compared favorably to Noah, who (at least from what little the story tells us) had no comment on the fate of his neighbors. Abraham, however, cared not only for his nephew Lot and Lot’s family, who were then living in Sodom, but for the whole population of the doomed cities. For far too many of us, far too often, Noah’s narrow concern may seem normal. Expanding the boundaries that limit those we care about – expanding them to include others who don’t necessarily look or talk or act like us – doesn’t just happen. It takes some effort. Abraham, however, got it right – right from the beginning. In this he anticipated his greatest descendant, Jesus, who would intercede with God for the entire world.

Sadly, in Sodom’s case, only three were saved from destruction. Whether Lot deserved to be saved is a question. He seems to have liked his settled and comfortable life in the prosperous city and lingered when the time came to leave. But, for Abraham’s sake, God got him out in time.

The fate of those cities has never been forgotten. The prophet Ezekiel said they were proud, sated with food, complacent in their prosperity, and they gave no help to the poor and needy [Ezekiel 16:49]. Jesus used Sodom’s story as a warning. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words – he said to his disciples – it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town [Matthew 10:14-15].

In a sense, those corrupt cities stand for human civilization in its most advanced and successful state of development, complacently prosperous and comfortable and deserving of judgment – a salutary warning perhaps for other advanced and successful societies and for modern Lots who would likewise like to linger complacently in prosperity and comfort.

On the other hand, the story also suggests that for the sake of just a few innocent people God would have been willing to spare the cities. Unfortunately there were none to be found. If we, undeserving though we are, hope to be saved, that hope rests entirely in Abraham’s descendant Jesus, through whom all the nations of the world have finally been blessed once and for all.

The way Abraham insistently interceded for the citizens of Sodom says a lot about the seriousness of his relationship with God. After all, the way I ask for a favor always says something significant about my relationship with the one I’m asking the favor from!

Today’s Gospel [Luke 11:1-13] challenges to ask ourselves about our relationship with God. Is he a Father who can be counted on to give us that fish or that egg he knows we need even better that we may know it? A Father, who will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

In inviting us to call his Father our Father, Jesus enables us to enter into a special relationship with God similar to his own – sufficiently similar that we can confidently pray to God as frankly and freely as Abraham did and Jesus does. Thus, we may become more like Abraham and ultimately more like Jesus, who by becoming a blessing for us enables us to join our prayer to his and so become a blessing for the whole world.

Homily for the 17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, July 28, 2013.

God's Grandmother

Today the Church celebrates Saint Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary and thus the grandmother of Jesus. The Pauline calendar revisions removed her husband Saint Joachim's separate feast from the calendar and joined his memory with that of Anne in today's somewhat downgraded celebration. So today is actually the feast of both of Mary's parents, both of Jesus' maternal grandparents.

 

In terms of historical facts, all our information about Joachim and Anne – including even their names - is derived from 2^nd-century apocryphal literature, notably the Protoevangelium of James. The account of Mary’s birth in the Protoevangelium has a certain obvious resemblance (including the mother's name) to the Old Testament’s account of the birth of Samuel. In the East the Protoevangelium was accorded greater authority than it was in the West, and there was a church dedicated in her honor as early as 550. Eventually, however, the story of Joachim and Anne was incorporated by Jacobus de Voragine in his 13^th-century Golden Legend, after which Saint Anne became one of the most popular saints of the Latin Church. It was Saint Anne whom the young Martin Luther invoked when he was famously caught in a storm and fearfully prayed, “Help me Saint Anne. I will become a monk.” Devotion to Saint Anne has continued to be very popular in the Church, and she is fittingly the patron saint of grandmothers.

Grandparents are an important part of the social fabric. As family life experiences increased stress in contemporary society, grandparents are often called upon to play a larger role in the raising of their grandchildren. Of course, in earlier times - before the nuclear family became normative - grandparents were often on the scene in extended family networks and often played a prominent part in the care and education of their children's children. Growing up I had only one living grandparent, but she lived with us. My mother worked part-time. so my grandmother had an important part to play in how I experienced my childhood. I've often traced my lifelong interest in religion in part to her influence. Since she spoke no English, she was also a very vivid connection to our Italian heritage.

For most of history our elders were valued for their experience and wisdom. In contrast, contemporary society has seen constant change - especially technological change - which has seemingly rendered the experience and the wisdom of the old less useful to subsequent generations. Now that I too have achieved senior citizen status, I am acutely conscious of my technological backwardness; and (more problematically) I realize that the experiences that formed my values are not the same as those of today's youth, for whom my "wisdom" is irrelevant ignorance.

In his very first address to the full College of Cardinals after the conclave that elected him last March, Pope Francis addressed this issue. “Courage, dear brothers!” he began. “Probably half of us are in our old age. Old age, they say, is the seat of wisdom. The old ones have the wisdom that they have earned from walking through life. Like old Simeon and Anna at the temple whose wisdom allowed them to recognize Jesus. Let us give with wisdom to the youth: like good wine that improves with age, let us give the youth the wisdom of our lives.”

It is perhaps not the best thing - in fact, I am sure it isn't - that we clergy are so disproportionately old. A more balanced age distribution among the clergy would better reflect society and better serve the Church. (As a practical matter, it would also increase the Church's overall energy and give younger clergy more time to learn from the experience of their elders before being forced to assume positions of leadership).

That said, it is our reality right now, which we need to own. Even as energy diminishes and health becomes more fragile, we need to continue. But we need to do so in the same spirit suggested by Pope Francis - not just soldiering on, but generously intoxicating the world with the "good wine that improves with age."