Keep Asking for the Sugar

“Knock and the door will be open?”  It seems such an archaic concept.  This dawned on me recently when I went to visit someone’s home.  Instead of knocking at their door, I texted them on the cell phone to let them know that I was there.  Is knocking becoming obsolete?  Or again, if we really think about it, how often do we knock on our neighbor’s door?  I remember as a kid my mother would send me up the block to Old Lady Lucy’s house.  That’s what we called her anyway.  I would run up the rickety stairs of her old white house on the corner and ask for a cup of sugar. Old Lady Lucy, well, she was as sweet as the sugar.  Then there was also Grampa Wolf who lived across the street, the chain smoker he was, we would often head across Lansing Street to have him when we were in need of cleaning a school of rock bass and perch that we had just hauled in.  We always knew we could knock on the back door.  I remember knocking on the Sewernce’s door once with my nieghborhood friend Seth.  We were selling day old news papers so we could make $1.25 to purchase nachos and cheese at the Hole ‘n One gasoline station.  That was before they were called convenience stores.

The point being that perhaps in the past we may have knocked more often.  Now it is much different.  It is the pre-arranged pick-up point, the multiple text back and forth hammering down a time and a place.  A voice message telling so and so to meet us here or there at a determined time.  The spontaneity of the knock has been lost in our culture.  So much as changed in so little of a time that it seems difficult to really relate with Jesus’ words in today’s gospel reading, “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  To ask, to seek and to knock all entail a vulnerability that we would no sooner avoid both in our daily lives of interaction with others and in our own spiritual lives.

Asking, seeking and knocking carry within them an antiquated form of living that we have rather left alone and it is called humility.  Asking for something opens us up to the possibility of making others aware that we are in need of something.  Seeking is an admittance that we don’t have all the answers to something.  Knocking is the awareness that in order to receive what I don’t have, I must do something about it.  But how often in life do we allow the opportunities that behold us slip away from the fear of asking for the help we need.  And on the flip side of that, in today’s world how sad it is that when asked for help, when we indeed knock, seek or ask we are rejected and turned down by the other because it is all but and inconvenience.  We have battened down the hatches, we have retreated into our hobbit-life existence in order to preserve a perverse and distorted sense of security.  At the heart of it all lies a deep seated fear of the unknown and the inability to make ourselves vulnerable and open to the lavish gifts that God would like to pour out upon us if only we would ask.  

It would be good here to quote again from Francis, “...we continue on our way, it’s none of our business; and we feel fine with this. We feel at peace with this, we feel fine! The culture of well-being, that makes us think of ourselves, that makes us insensitive to the cries of others, that makes us live in soap bubbles, that are beautiful but are nothing, are illusions of futility, of the transient, that brings indifference to others, that brings even the globalization of indifference. In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn't concern us, it’s none of our business.”  We have indeed become indifferent because we have lost the vulnerability of the cross.  Our fear as vanquished the love it takes to reach out to our neighbor and we no longer go out to seek, to ask and to knock.  

Vulnerability means placing ourselves in harms way.  It means continually taking the risk to love someone because that is what Jesus Christ has done for us.  Certainly, we can not do this if we ourselves do not comprehend the wonderous love of God that he has come first to knock on our own hearts.   That Jesus Christ, himself has come to seek out our lost, abandoned and forlorn souls that we don’t even care to admit are those things in the first place!  That Jesus is asking of us today to make ourselves vulnerable like himself on the cross.  Yet our neighbor, our brother and sister in need is alone because we have not knocked on the door of their hearts, we have not sought them out to console or help them.  We have not taken the risk to ask them how they are doing and really mean it.  Our pitiable state has isolated ourselves from one another and fear is running rampant.

Why would we think that if we ask for a bit of sugar that we’ll get a slap in the face from Old Lady Lucy or if we ask Grampa Wolff to help us clean fish that he’ll stamp out his cigarette on the ground in front of us and slam the door on us?  What makes us think that if we make ourselves vulnerable by asking for help that it makes us any less of a man or a woman?  Asking for something is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of one’s understanding of vulnerability and solidarity with Christ.  As Christ himself says, “What father among you would hand his son  a snake when he asks for a fish?  Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?”  No, our retreat into our own selfish lives and calculated “risks” have spiraled us into this vanity of indifference.  Even those brothers and sisters in our midst who are in need of something, we are completely unaware of because of our self-engrossed life-styles of comfortable control and complacency.

“Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.”  Sure he did.  Many times it is easy to begin to think that God is not answering our prayers.  That he is silent and still not heeding our distress calls for help.  When we are in this vein of living, we are living in the field of self-pity.  We are falling into the temptation of the mentality that, “woe is me.  Poor old me.”  There is an old adage that one must sometime pull themselves up by their own boot-straps and while this verifiably has some merit, the truth is that that only one to pick us up is Jesus Christ.  Abraham petitioned God several times before God finally gave him the answer.  We usually stop at one or don’t even get to one.  Our perseverance in prayer is continually undermined by the fear that God is going to hold back from us, that he is not a lavish giver and lover, abundant in his generous outpouring of mercy and love.  We then in turn, pull back from relationships and others in order to secure what we in fact don’t have and it becomes a black-hole of self-remorse and isolationism.  Jesus says, “I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.”  Let’s not pass the blame on someone else or some external situation.  We are are not the victims, Christ is!  He became like a lamb led to the slaughter for our own sins.  He is the one who continues to knock, to seek and to ask.  He is the one going door-to-door of our souls not with the phone in his hand in a psuedo secure digital world, but the one who has made himself vulnerable for us.  He is rapping on the doors seeking to see if anyone indeed is willing to be open and become vulnerable to him.  We miss Jesus because we somehow inherently know that if we acknowledge him that life will be messy and complicated and we don’t want that because that means the cross for us.  Listen again to Pope Francis and what he just proclaimed at WYD on the 25th, “I would like us to make noise, I would like those inside the Dioceses to go out into the open; I want the Church to be in the streets; I want us to defend ourselves against all that is worldliness, comfort, being closed and turned within – Parishes, colleges and institutions must get out otherwise they risk becoming NGOs, and the Church is not a Non-Governmental Organization”.

It comes down to Saint Paul exhortation to us in the second reading, “We were buried with him in baptism.  We were raised with him through faith in the power of God.  Even when we were dead in our transgressions, he brought us to life.  He has forgiven us all our transgressions.  He has obliterated the bond against us.  Jesus has nailed the legal claims opposed to us to the cross.  If we truly believe what we do, then we will not allow the darkness that keeps us locked inside from going out to our neighbor once again.  We will begin to realize that the God who has sought us, who daily knocks at the door of our own hearts.  The Christ who delivers us asks us to become vulnerable with him once again.  And we respond with a resounding AMEN.  Yes Lord, I will take the chance again because you have for me.  And mind you, this is the sweetest, the whitest and purest sugar we can ask for.

Martha Martha Martha!

There are those certain saints that get the bad wrap.  There’s Saint Thomas, also known as ‘doubting Thomas’ who doesn’t believe in Jesus resurrection until he places his fingers in the hands and side of Jesus.  There’s Mary Magdalene who is accused of being Jesus’ girlfriend and hopelessly lost in the sin of promiscuity.  Then there is good ‘ol Saint Peter who denies Jesus three times.  St. Peter who consistently blunders and fumbles in word and deed.  Last but not least, we have Martha, who in today’s Gospel, obviously missed the point of being at Jesus’ feet.  All these saints get the bum rap at some time or another, but upon further review, let’s give Martha a little bit of credit in her apparent snafu.

“Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.”  We have to give Martha credit.  She ran out to welcome Jesus while Mary stayed back.  St. Ephrem the Syrian said, “Martha’s love was more fervent than Mary’s, for before Jesus had arrived there, she was ready to serve him.”  

In the first reading, Abraham is sitting in his tent.  Three men, symbolizing the Holy Trinity and God himself are standing outside his tent.  Abraham “looked up” and “he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them.”  Not only that, but he bowed down on the ground.  So Abraham and Martha have a lot in common.  They are two peas in a pod.  Both rushing out to greet God.  Both eager to serve and do the loving.  

Pope Francis says this, “Jesus speaks about in the parable of the Good Samaritan: We look upon the brother half dead by the roadside, perhaps we think “poor guy,” and we continue on our way, it’s none of our business; and we feel fine with this. We feel at peace with this, we feel fine! The culture of well-being, that makes us think of ourselves, that makes us insensitive to the cries of others, that makes us live in soap bubbles, that are beautiful but are nothing, are illusions of futility, of the transient, that brings indifference to others, that brings even the globalization of indifference. In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn't concern us, it’s none of our business.

We’ve become indifferent to the need of greeting Christ.  Martha exemplifies the ability to zealously go out and meet Jesus.  But somewhere along the way she sorta gets it wrong.  What happened?  It is obvious that Martha’s heart is in the right place, but she misfires, she goes down the wrong path.  Instead of staying focused on doing what she was doing for Christ and Christ doing through her, she begins to put the burden of service upon herself.  What’s the remedy?  How can we not run into the same problem of bringing the burden of service upon ourselves?

Saint Paul gives us the vaccine in the second reading.  He says, “IT IS CHRIST IN YOU!”  It is Christ within us doing the work through us.  We are the instrument, not the player.  We are the messengers not the message.  He is God and we are not.  More often than not we make the drastic mistake of taking it all upon ourselves.  Then we actually command Jesus like Martha, “Tell her to help me!”  As Father Barron observes:  There is no greater indication that we are off our rocker than when we tell God what to do!

So lets not count Martha out.  Her heart is in the right place.  She isn’t indifferent, but wants to make a difference.  She isn’t complacent, but active.  At times, however, like Martha, we can begin to lose sight of how Christ is at work within us.  We need help to not be indifferent to the needs of others.  We need God’s help to lead us to his Son’s feet, like Mary so that we may chose the better part and receive from the font of life to be poured out for others--to welcome others, to greet other with the love of Christ found within.

Resolute to Jerusalem

Praise the Lord!  Freedom.  What does freedom mean to you?  I say freedom, you think... (fill in the blank)  When I think of freedom, I think of my childhood.  I grew up in Sturgeon Bay, twenty minutes south of here.  My experience of childhood was perhaps very different than yours and now I am the one who is old.  Freedom is summer in Door County.  Freedom is being in the water down by Otomba Park making drip castles on the beach.  Freedom is being set loose all day long on a hot July day floating on an innertube playing rock with friends, fishing for crayfish and fishing for perch.  Freedom is sailing and putting together an old catamaran with a friend to float far away from all the noise.  It is riding my Chip’s big wheel and Huffy dirt bike and my Trek road bike everywhere all the time.  Freedom was being on the water with friends in high school and skiing all day long and camping in our backyard with the next door neighbors, the Robertsons making smores.  The end of the freedom itself was freedom, my mother calling us in for dinner from the back porch of our house.  My mom had the wisdom and wherewithal to set us loose and trust that the adventures of uncontrolled environment would set us free to be imaginative, creative and dangerous.  Hate to really admit this, but I remember really enjoying a song on the radio in middle school that was being played a lot from Enya called Sail Away.  Freedom was the ability to follow fancies and wims in the large backyard of Sturgeon Bay.

Listen to what the Catachism of says of the threats to freedom:

Threats to freedom. The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything. It is false to maintain that man, “the subject of this freedom,” is “an individual who is fully self-sufficient and whose finality is the satisfaction of his own interests in the enjoyment of earthly goods.”33 Moreover, the economic, social, political, and cultural conditions that are needed for a just exercise of freedom are too often disregarded or violated. Such situations of blindness and injustice injure the moral life and involve the strong as well as the weak in the temptation to sin against charity. By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighborly fellowship, and rebels against divine truth. (2108, 1887)

The freedom of being on the run and set loose at home was followed up by the parameters set by neighbors, friends, a parish community and of course mom.  There were controls to that freedom.  For instance, I once paddled across the bay on a small air mattress to see a friend.  His mom was so shocked and alarmed by the “dangerous feat” that she sent me home on the sidewalk carrying the small air mattress under my arm.  The Church in many ways is this neighbor, this mother guiding us at times in a direction that guards freedom’s ideal law.

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem and he was floating aimlessly in his mission.  He was resolute in the destination to calvary and his surrendering his freedom to the mission at hand.  Door were closed constantly being closed on Jesus journey.  Remember, door may open in life but more often than not they close and this is the way God works.  He may may close ten for us to become open to the one that leads to life.  The Samaritan village would not welcome Jesus.  Why wouldn’t they welcome him?  The scriptures say because his destination was Jerusalem.  Jesus’ mission was not in step with the Samaritans.  There were sharply divided and did not associate with one another because a break in the kingdom.  Jerusalem was the city of the Israelites, not the Samaritans.  Instead of getting all in a huff about it, Jesus rebukes his disciples for their desire to smit the rude Samaritan village.  James and John ask Jesus, “Lord do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”  Jesus simply decides to move on to another village.

When a door closes on us in life, we can very easy keep rapping on it over and over again.  We become like the disciples and want to retaliate on the infringement of freedom.  Instead of embracing the situation for what it is, we dig our heels in and can even become vindictive.  This is bad spiritual place to be and when it comes to recognizing the authority of the Church’s discernment in the matter we will have nothing to do with it.  Our response must be more like Jesus in this regard.  He accepts the will of God and submits personal freedom to do what he may want and does rather what he ought.  Remember, Jesus has an affinity to the Samaritans.  He probably wanted to hang out with them for a while.  He really enjoyed that woman at the well and she seemed pretty nice and all so why not now?  Jesus knew his mission.  Jesus was focused.  He was resolute.  Our use of freedom is so often tainted by personal ambitions and agendas that we fail to access freedoms ultimate purpose to link us to the Cross, to Christ to Calvery.

Now two more times in scripture, the use of personal freedom is put to the test.  Someone says, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  Maybe Jesus is put off from the previous rejection and is in a bad mood, but I’m willing to bet that’s not it.  He doesn’t say, great come on along with me to Jerusalem.  Instead he says, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”  He is saying to us directly that we may have an inkling of what it means to journey to Jerusalem, but it is far too tainted with our own agendas.  Recognizing this Jesus challenges us to not be grounded in a nest of our own comfortable surroundings for burrow ourselves in a den of stagnant self-will, but to have the freedom of a fox traversing the forest or a bird flying in freedom in the air.  Locked into the will of God and the resolute determination of his mission, Jesus teaches us that attachment to the world is the greatest distortion of freedom’s ideal law.  The paradox of course, is the strapping down the nailing down of his will to that of the Father’s in the seemingly dead end of the cross.  Remember, Jesus’ hands were open on the cross, not a closed fist of a self-imposed will scared of what God’s will may be in life.

Lastly, Jesus challenges someone to, “Follow me.”  And they reply that they can’t because they have to bury their father.  Jesus rebukes a third time, “Let the dead bury the dead.”  For the family-centered culture of the time, this is a seemingly impossible responsibility to tear away from, but Jesus’ resolute determination of the passion, death and resurrection overshadows even the most seemingly ‘important’ objection we throw his way.  This is where we get tripped up the most.  Jesus is asking us to follow him continually but we have a myriad of excuses centered around our own worldly pursuits and pleasures.

Our notion of freedom is challenged three times by Jesus.  His resolute determination to follow the Father’s will to the Cross is what keeps him clear on the objective of human freedom.  Recently, the folly of the worlds freedom was on display for us at the Supreme Court whereby they deemed marriage to be defined by their own limited focus of freedom.  However, this grose distortion could not be further from the truth of freedom’s ideal law--LOVE.  Justice Kennedy stated this in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey in 1992:

“At the heart of liberty, is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

Nothing could be further from the truth of freedom.  It is ultimate hubris for us to begin to believe that we define our own concept of existence.  There are other names for this and they are called anarchy, culture of death, and totalitarianism.   Ruses and guises of freedom are abundant in the world and we know of them all to well, but what we must first recognize is the chaos of our own soul’s inability to submit ourselves to the authority of Christ through the Church.  She as bride of Christ is the means by which freedom will be preserved for eternity because she respects the free will of men and knows of its powerful contingency on our very relationship to God.

Like Jesus, we are called to submit to the guiding authority of God’s paradox of freedom.  To relinquish the control of our life and place our lives at the disposal of the missions mandate to journey with Christ to the cross.  We won’t stop in the village of secularism, we won’t make nests and dens of our own musings, we won’t consider worldly tasks to trump divine will.  We, like Christ will be “sub-missio,” submissive instruments of grace cooperators with the Church and confidently trusting in her lead as bride to the grooms heroic salvific act of love.

Bishop Ricken shares a prayer with us.  “Lord, help me to do your will nothing more and nothing less.  Help me to do your will not a moment sooner or a moment later than you will it.”  Freedom then becomes a grand adventure for us in the spiritual life.  It becomes the memories of a child-like faith and a mother-like trust in the free-will of a rambunctious child clammering for adventure.  Authentic freedom is Christ’s journey to Jerusalem and our encounters with him along the way.  You Lord are my inheritance.  Only you.  We will serve one another through love, not serve ourselves through the negation of freedom’s ideal law of love.  We will allow Elijah to throw his cloak over us as well burning our history of past mistakes and blunders.  We are confident of God’s will and his purpose.  We will float across that water not on the fears of failure, but on the feelings and inspirations of faith.  We will remain resolutely determined to journey with our Lord to Jerusalem.  God alone has given us our freedom, we in turn must use it responsibly and this is gaged only by one test--are with with Jesus and His Church or are we not.