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January 26, 2008

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Purely By Chance?

I'm sure most of us from time to time must ask ourselves, "How the heck did I ever end up doing what I am doing today, living where I am, married to the person I am married to, following the career I'm presently involved in?" When you think about it, so many events in our lives seem to be a great mystery, as though they seemed to have happened purely by chance. And yet, here we are, doing what we are doing hardly even questioning it.

Yet, think about it: Our life could have had many different options, it could have gone in a thousand different directions. The reason why we happen to be where we are, doing what we are doing is because somewhere in our life we made a deliberate decision to do this and not do that. So, what seems at first to be pure chance is not pure chance. It happened for a reason and the reason is in our choices.

We need to say then that many things in life are pure chance, but many others happen by intention.

I'm sure also that many of us may look back in our life and say: "Gosh, if I'd only taken that job out in Los Angeles, life would have been completely different. If I had married my high school sweetheart perhaps my life would also look differently.

Over all then we must say that the history of each of our lives is a series of choices, a choice taken or a choice declined. We simply need to live with that. The old saying, "not to choose is to choose" seems to find a place here.

In my own life I have often reflected on the reality that everything that has happened to me is somehow linked to something else. If I had not been in the right place at the right time, my life could have been completely different. Somehow that also seems rather scary!

It has often occurred to me too that there are many human events narrated in the gospels that seem to appear as pure chance. But whether they are chance or not, our lives as Christians, the life of the Church have been determined by those choices.

Let us simply look at the story in the gospel today about Jesus choice of Peter and Andrew, James and John as his first disciples. Think how coincidentally that all happened.

Let's say, for instance, that Jesus had decided to begin preaching the kingdom in a large city like Rome or Alexandria or even in less important cities like Jerusalem or the bustling Galilean city of Sepphoris. That's obviously where the action was. But Jesus deliberately chose not to do that, of course. Nonetheless, would he not have attracted many more people than he did by preaching in the small peasant villages of Palestine?

Or, let us say that Jesus had decided on that particular morning to go walking up in the hills or in the desert rather than on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Or, let say that Jesus had decided to ask several intellectual giants or high powered business men to follow him rather than four ordinary fishermen.

Would that have affected the future of Christianity? I suspect it would have.

Or, let us say that these four fishermen had responded to Jesus' invitation like this: "Hey, listen, Jesus, we're just ordinary blue-collar guys; all we know how to do is fish; we've never given as sermon in our entire lives. Moreover, we have no idea what this "kingdom" is all about." In other words, if these four had declined Jesus invitation to follow him, would that have changed the face of Christianity? Doubtless, it would have.

Again, all that sounds rather scary because it sounds so "chancy" but that is exactly the way it probably happened and history took care of the rest. There was no plan on Jesus part to pick fishermen rather than teachers or politicians. It just happened that way. It does no good to try and figure out why things happened the way they did in Jesus' life.

I think the only way to understand all these "chancy" questions is to try and place them into the context of history. The even better question is to ask is what these individuals did after those decisions were made. What did thousands and thousands of others in the history of the church do with their choices? In other words, it takes a broad perspective to understand what impact these decisions have had on the course of history.

All of this, of course, has some relevancy to our own lives. Those of us who are Christian or Catholic could ask ourselves: "How did I get this far? What makes me Catholic? Well, obviously, a lot of decisions on the part of a lot of people in our personal history brought all this about.

The better question is to ask what we are doing with these choices that have been made for us or that we have made for ourselves. From that point of view nothing is pure chance. Our Christian life looks like the way it does because we have taken charge of it and have made it look this way. That's all that counts.

Finally, all of these events can be traced back to the life of one person, Jesus of Nazareth, who made a deliberate choice one particular day to go out and preach God's kingdom. The fact is, he simply needed some help and that's where it all started.

I'm personally happy that it all worked out the way it did in the course of history. Actually, there is not much I can do to change it now anyway, even if I wanted to.

The scriptures: Isaiah 8: 23-9:3, 1 Corinthians I: 10-13, 17, Matthew 4: 12-23

Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:39 AM.

January 19, 2008

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - ID Please

I suspect that any of us, even those of us who travel by air only occasionally, will ever be happy with the process we need to go through at the security area at airports. We all know the routine: No change in your pockets, jacket and hat off, shoes ready to be kicked off, laptops out, ticket and federally recognized identification ready for the agent. Even for the seasoned traveler, those can be tense moments, especially if you happen to drop something not realizing it. I have gotten fairly adept at the whole process: Everything needs to be ready once we are in the line; perfect concentration on the task at hand. I know exactly where my ID card is so that I can flash it at the right moment.

We know, of course, where all this need for caution comes from and most of us don't fuss about it. We live in a different sort of world today than we thought existed before 9/11/01. Since then everything has changed. Security is the prime requirement today if you want to travel by air. In other words, you need to prove who you are if you want to use public transportation. Most of us don't even care much what the photo on our drivers license looks like, but it has to be the person whose name appears along with it on the card. No forgeries allowed.

It is interesting to note also that there are other situations where our identification is demanded. If you should happen to run afoul of the law, the first thing the officer in the police cruiser will do is to check your name against the federal identification list to see if you have any former citations.

The bottom line is that very few of us can remain anonymous in these times. Even large cities have "snooper-cameras (web cams) mounted on tall poles that survey the citizenry on the street twenty four hours a day. Perhaps living in the Alaskan wilderness or out in the desert somewhere is our only option if we wish to remain totally free from surveillance.

Of course, it is always nice to know who you are and that your name matches your character. Sadly, elderly folks who suffer from dementia or loss of memory often do not know who they are. We are all saddened to hear of a friend who is losing touch with what we call, for lack of a better word, "reality."

On a more positive note, I should imagine most of us are proud of our identity; we like who we are and are proud of our heritage. We know that most likely there is no other person in the entire universe quite like ourselves. We are more than happy to provide for whoever asks a bit of our personal history, our autobiography.

At the same time, we are proud that there are specific ways that people can identify us even though as we grow up we know that our personality is changing. Nonetheless we are sure that we are still the same person we were at birth.

Finally, it is interesting to notice how the folks we associate with in our lives have a way of defining our identity. People will give us certain "nick-names" for instance, or recognize certain characteristics that set us off from others.

With that long introduction, I simply wanted to lead into the scriptures for today's liturgy that offer us some identification for the one we call Jesus of Nazareth. Obviously, Jesus is the name he was given at birth, Jeshua bar Joseph, Jesus son of Joseph. My hunch is that Jesus carried that name as his ID throughout his entire life. But it is interesting to notice that because of his life style or his choice of career, he was given other names or designations. Some of these were given to him by the early Church after the resurrection of course. But in any case, people recognized him by the work he did or by quality of his life.

In the scriptures today the Church looks back into the Old Testament to find certain titles which could match Jesus character: Israel the nation was called God's servant, a title which would fit Jesus perfectly. Light of the nations is another way Israel was identified. The early Christians transferred that to identify the one they called Christ the Light of the world.

When Jesus came to the Jordan River for the ceremonial washing, John the Baptist pointed him out and told people, "there comes the Lamb of God, the one who will take away the sin of the world." The Lamb, of course, refers to the lamb that was sacrificed at the Passover Supper. For the Christians, Jesus was the Lamb that was sacrificed for sin.

So, you see in all those instances Jesus is given, names that do not identify him as a person, but rather refer to him as the divine Son of God. They refer to what the Christians thought of him and his work in history. Other titles were also given to Jesus: The Christ, the anointed one; the Redeemer, the Savior. They all have to do with how the early Christians thought of Jesus son of Joseph.

That brings us to ask the question, not of our name, because we already know that, but rather the question of how we think of ourselves, how we identify ourselves as Christians. Does it make any difference to us that we are more than our name, that we, like Jesus, are called to accomplish certain tasks in life that will make a difference in the world around us? We all have a human identity but we also have a Christian identity and the two are different. I imagine most folks whom you associate with know you by your name. The question is, can anyone identify you as a Christian?

The scriptures: Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6, 1 Corinthians 1: 1-3, John 1: 29-34

Posted by Julie Galligan at 05:00 PM.

January 12, 2008

Baptism of the Lord - The Sacrament of Nature

I never thought the day would come in my Iifetime when so many Americans would become seriously concerned about nature, the environment and specifically about its gradual annihilation. I can remember a time when people who expressed concern about the natural wonders of our world were mockingly called "greenies" or "tree-huggers". Those were not complimentary words!

In my entire lifetime it seems to me that we Americans have been under the impression that there will always be an abundance of material things to sustain the human race: Water, air, birds and animals, growing things of all sorts.

But surprisingly and suddenly we are becoming aware that the earth cannot sustain the human race forever unless we take better care of it. Already, some areas of the world and our own country are worrying about the availability of water. The city of Atlanta, for instance, underwent a serious drought last fall to the point where water needed to be rationed.

Scientists are seriously concerned about the disappearance of the glaciers and the Greenland ice cap. Here in Alaska, the native people of the Interior are noticing the decline in the numbers of sea life and the gradual thawing of the tundra. It's called global warming and it's caused by the amount of hydrocarbons that we have been spilling into the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We never realized all this was happening until it became evident in the world around us and now many people are becoming "greenies." All to the good, of course!

I got to thinking about all this some while back and it occurred to me that perhaps Christian folks ought to be the first to be concerned about the natural world precisely because so much of our liturgy and our sacraments are symbolically related to nature. Our liturgical year follows the seasons: Easter, for instance always occurs in the spring. The end of our liturgical year happens in late fall when nature is gradually dying. Fire and water play an important in the Easter Vigil. Each year our scriptures that we read at Mass remind us that we are stewards or caretakers of creation! But whether we Christians, Catholics are better stewards than the rest of the population is doubtful.

It seems to me, however, that the power of nature can help us to understand and celebrate the sacraments. Take just two elements of nature: Fire and water. They have both been prominent in the news. In October thousands of acres of forest burned in Southern California. Many homes and businesses were lost. Perhaps better care of the environment would have prevented some of that.

We all know the word Katrina, of course, and the great floods that struck the coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana two years ago. Suddenly, we all learned the power of wind and water and the need to be prepared for such disasters.

Well, given all this reflection on the environment, we can now turn our attention to the symbolic power of water in the liturgy. We celebrate today the Baptism of the Lord, a turning point in Jesus life when he came to John and asked for the same penitential washing that all those hundreds of others were seeking.

Now, obviously this baptism of Jesus was not the same sacrament we experience as Christians today. Jesus did not cease being a Jew to become a Christian on that day. So, what is the implication of that ritual described in the scriptures for this Sunday?

The point is that people of all the ancient cultures have used water as a symbol not only of washing or cleansing, but also as a sign of inclusion. For centuries those Eastern cultures have welcomed new aspirants with some sort of initiation ceremony. That is precisely what Jesus experienced on that day in his young adult life: This was the day he recognized his call from God, his vocation.

Now, obviously, in our own times baptism is for the most part celebrated in the early years of children's lives, Some will ask, of course: Why not wait until they are young adults so that they can make their own decisions regarding whether or not they wish to be Christians?

From my own experience, I can only say that I am happy that my parents decided to make that decision for me 6 days after I was born. It was heartening to know that they cared enough about me to welcome me into the faith of our ancestors long before I was capable of making that decision for myself. Had they waited for me to do that, it's hard to know whether I would have had the good sense to ask for baptism later on. My parents decided that they would like to share all those great Christian treasures with me that had been handed on to them. If I decided to forgo all that later on, that would be my problem.

All this reminds us of the importance and power of water and of fire, those elements of nature we all take for granted. They are both part of the Christian sacramental experience. Maybe without meaning to, the environmentalists, those "greenies", those tree huggers have called our attention to the fact that there is something transcendent something sacred about the environment. We just have to take the time to look around and treasure it. It's all grace.

The scriptures: Isaiah 42 1-4, 6-7 Acts 10: 34-38 Matthew 3: 13-17

Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:28 AM.

January 05, 2008

Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord - Aha!

Once in a while as I am listening to those smart news anchor people on National Public Radio, I will hear them use a word that I always assumed belonged in the Bible and not out there in the secular world. A few days ago, for instance, one of the announcers said something to this effect: "The discovery of penicillin was truly an `epiphany' moment in the history of medicine."

I said to myself, "hey, wait a moment, Epiphany, doesn't that have something to do with some Eastern kings following a star and coming to visit the child Jesus?" Obviously, yes, but I'm finding out that an "Epiphany Moment" is a modern metaphor to describe a sudden amazing discovery. Another word people often use in place of "Epiphany Moment" is an "Aha Moment." Amazingly there is such a word in the dictionary and it's used when we want to describe the discovery of some amazing fact or triumphant satisfaction and excitement.

Well, I'm not sure those Three Kings or Wise Men, whoever they were, thought of their visit to Jesus as an "Aha Moment", but I suppose that is what it was.

Anyway, it just goes to show you that there are some words in the scriptures that are used by people in the secular world when they are looking for just the right description of something. Indeed, I suppose most of us have used that "Aha" word when we have been looking for an answer to something and suddenly it just comes! We say, "Aha."

I'm sure too that high school math teachers must occasionally see that happening when they are trying to explain a problem in calculus to a "slow" student and all of sudden he or she "get's it"!

In a sense, we are dealing with an "Aha Moment" as we come together today to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. This is a feast of the Church that contains some history but also a lot of theology and metaphor.

Regarding the history, we don't know a whole lot, except what is contained Matthew's Gospel, the story of three kings, wise men, astrologers who came out of the East (the place of light) to confirm their information about the presence a new-born king.

I will not attempt to explore any more of the history of that event. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of theology and metaphor contained in that lovely story that applies to the life of the Christian.

Here are some critical words or ideas in the story. First, the men (I'm assuming they were men, perhaps accompanied by their wives) are astrologers, that is, they study or follow the stars for an answer to their quest for the location of the newborn King. The important point here is that they are following the light and when they arrive at their destination they discover the One whom we Christians say is the Light of the World. So, again, the "light comes on" when they discover Jesus.

The second and most important theological lesson in the story is this: These three astrologers are not Jews, they are people of another culture, background and language and yet they are coming to Jesus, the Light of the world to learn something new and astonishing about God. The theological lesson here, of course, is that Jesus is the light for all people, Jew and Gentile. So, this is the first evidence we have in the scriptures that the Christian faith is open and available to all people.

The third, and less important lesson in the story is that the astrologers are on a journey. To discover the Light of the World, they travel from a place of darkness, that is a place of ignorance, to a place of light, a place of wisdom. In theological terms, West is considered the place of darkness and the East the place of light, the place where the sun rises.

So, you see, whether the story of the astrologers is true history or not, there are several critical metaphors there that we can apply to the Christian life: Metaphors like light, journey, faith, endurance, discovery, et cetera.

Let us pursue the notion of journey because that is part of the Epiphany story. At the moment I am trying to finish that great novel: Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It is one of those classic stories that came out of the Dustbowl Thirties when thousands of families were making their way from the dry Midwest to California. Grapes of Wrath is one such story, a tale about the Joad family who have been "run" off their tenant farm in Oklahoma and now they (all twelve of them packed into one old, broken down truck) are on Route 66, heading west. So, the story is all about the journey and all the things that happen on the way: Struggles for food, water, transportation, the realities of love, birth, life and death, war and peace, all happening as they travel. The goal, of course, is California where there will be endless fields of grapes, apples, peaches and the rest. What keeps them going? Their faith, obviously, their belief that they have no other option (other than death) than to get to California...and the grapes!

As I read the book (all 500 pages of it) I thought, this is the human story, the story of the lives of most of us even though we may never be heading off to California.

Like the Joads, we travel life's road from birth to death. What keeps us going are a number of things: Our faith that God is "riding" with us, our faith that this is God's will for us at this moment in our life, our conviction that there is some goal that we will achieve at end of this journey even though it is not clear to us at this moment what it is.

So, all life and the Christian life as well, is one long journey. We don't know exactly how it will end, but like the three astrologers seeking the Light of the World, we never give up the quest because we know that it must be the right one. There seems to be no other.

Perhaps then, like the wise men, we travel our life's road from darkness to light, not always knowing clearly where we are going, but believing, nonetheless, that when we get to where we are going it will be what God has promised us for being faithful. And then, finally, we will say: "Aha."

The scriptures: Isaiah 60: 1-6, Ephesians 3: 2-3a, 5-6, Matthew 2: 1-12

Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:21 AM.