Thank Goodness

 

My good friend Denny volunteered his son, an electrician, to repair Maggie’s kitchen light that has been flickering for three months and driving her bonkers. It took me three months to find an electrician, but Cory had the repair completed in 20 minutes. When Maggie asked how much, he kindly nodded no thanks that he was glad to help. A nice God moment.

 

However, let’s be honest there are times when Jesus is outrageous when he teaches that everybody gets to receive the treasure of the kingdom and the blessings of grace no matter how much they have done.

 

Denny is a farmer and this week he will be harvesting his corn crops with the help of his sons and neighbors. He asked me to come and take photos of the harvest. This reminds me of another farmer who needed some help at harvest time. So he goes to the labor pool to the marketplace where the labor is gathered and he hires people for a normal day’s wage which today would be about a $100. Later he needs some more help so he goes back and he hires some more people. He does this several times throughout the day all the way till almost sundown and there’s not one hint that he’s going to pay everybody the same amount.

 

The people who worked all day, the people who worked eight hours the people who worked four hours the people who worked only an hour. Some worked in the blazing sun all day got the exact same pay as Johnny come lately. It wasn’t only unfair, what’s worse is there is no explanation why and it just drives me crazy.

 

It reminded me way back to 9/11 and the years afterward when Osama Bin Laden became a household name and so it took a lot of guts that day when the man who was teaching the children decided to teach the kids about Jesus’s greatest commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. That’s always a tough lesson because a lot of us really don’t want to love but the man’s example was even harder Osama Bin Laden. He asked the kids that day in church the whole world hates this man do you think God loves him? Everyone in church squirmed in their seats thinking of sons and daughters overseas at war yet somehow I think the teacher understood best of all God sends His reign on the just and the unjust.

 

According to the Scripture God is kind to the wicked and even to the ungrateful. God can act however He wishes. He’s free to love however He desires whether we deserve it or not, whether we like it or approve it or not. God is God and we are not. Frankly Jesus sounds a little outrageous even offensive doesn’t he and you know what, “thank goodness.”

 

Thank goodness that God is not just a God who gives us what we deserve but is also a God of grace. Thank goodness that no matter how much we may think that we’ve somehow earned God’s blessings and gifts the fact remains that we don’t. No one in this world is perfect only God is and everyone of us has regularly missed the mark in our lives. We may think that somehow that we’ve earned God’s favor but as soon as anyone thinks she’s worthy it’s good to remember no matter how good you are there’s always someone better no matter how much you have done. There’s always someone who has done more. None of us matches the holiness and perfection of God.

 

I thought I gave a lot to God until I saw the widow hobble up to the offering plate and give her last coin to invest in the kingdom of God. I thought I worked pretty hard for God until I read about a fellow who led a group of two million whiny complainers through the wilderness for 40 years and then Moses didn’t get to enter the Promised land. I thought I knew what suffering was and until I looked at the body of Jesus my savior, My Lord hanging on the cross bleeding, asphyxiated being pulled apart all the way to death no matter how much you do there’s always someone who has done more. So I say thank goodness, thank goodness we don’t get what we deserve or what we have earned instead verse 12 tells us that we have all been made equal thank goodness that God offers the same grace to the faithful elderly lady who attended Mass every Sunday for 63 consecutive years as He does to the thief gasping for his last breath as he welcomes Christ just moments before dying on the cross right next to him the ultimate holy moment of all. Thank goodness.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Frineds who are thankful to God for we deserve nothing but we have been given everything. Jesus is outrageous and for that I say, thank goodness.

God's Love Isn't a Reward

 

God’s blessings go out lavishly to those who don’t seem to deserve them.

There comes a point in life when our major spiritual struggle is no longer with the fact that we are weak and desperately in need of God’s forgiveness, but rather with the opposite, with the fact that God’s grace and forgiveness is overly-lavish, unmerited, and especially that it goes out so indiscriminately. 

 

God’s lavish love and forgiveness apply equally to those who have worked hard and to those who haven’t, to those who have been faithful for a long time and to those who jumped on-board at the last minute, to those who have had to bear the heat of the day and to those who didn’t, to those who did their duty and to those who lived selfishly. 

 

God’s love isn’t a reward for being good, doing our duty, resisting temptation, bearing the heat of the day in fidelity, saying our prayers, remaining pure, or offering worship, good and important though these are. God loves us because God is love and God cannot fail to love and cannot be discriminating in love. God’s love, as scripture says, shines on the good and bad alike. 

 

That’s nice to know when we need forgiveness and unmerited love, but it’s hard to accept when forgiveness and love are given to those whom we deem less worthy of it, to those who didn’t seem to do their duty. It’s not easy to accept the fact that God’s love does not discriminate, especially when God’s blessings go out lavishly to those who don’t seem to deserve them.

 

I have been a priest for over 46 years, and if someone asked me “If you had your priesthood to do over again, would you do anything differently?” My answer would be “Yes.” “I’d would encourage my superiors to be easier on people. We need to risk the mercy and forgiveness of God more.” 

 

As I get older I’m finding it harder and harder to accept the ways of God. Now that I’m old I’m struggling with all kinds of bitterness and doubt. That’s natural, I guess. But what upsets me is that I look around me and I see all kinds of people, young people and others, who’ve never been faithful, who’ve lived selfish lives, and they’re full of faith and are speaking in tongues! I’ve been faithful and I’m full of anger and doubt. Tell me, is that fair?”

 

In the end, we need to forgive God and that might be the hardest forgiveness of all. It’s hard to accept that God loves everyone equally—even our enemies, even those who hate us, even those who don’t work as hard as we do, even those who reject duty for selfishness, and even those who give in to all the temptations we resist. Although deep down we know that God has been more than fair with us, God’s lavish generosity to others is something which we find hard to accept.

 

Like the workers in the Parable of the Vineyard who toiled the whole day and then saw those who had worked just one hour get the same wage as theirs, we often let God’s generosity to others warp both our joy and our eyesight.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we are grateful that God’s grace is amazing. Our struggle with God’s mercy points us in the right direction. May we again pray: Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner and merciful to all my neighbors too and really mean it!

 

Forgiveness is Hard

 

 

I’m not a good forgiver. There’s something inside me that likes to cling to old wounds and injuries. There’s a part of me that just has a hard time of letting go, but I really want to become one. And I discovered that for most of us that’s really hard to do.

 

Sunday’s gospel reading is a tough one we like to avoid for it challenges us to be a good forgiver. Challenge number one, it somebody bullies you, humiliates you, or worse abuses you, you go to them and tell them to stop. It may be the hardest thing you have ever done and sometimes it becomes a holy moment and sometimes anything but.

 

The second step is if that failed, take the leaders with you so you have witnesses and third if that still does not work tell it to the whole church. You want to make this thing right if at all possible.

 

Sadly, if it’s still not resolved let the person who has harmed you be treated like a tax collector or gentile, in other words “shun them.” However to shun,  does not mean punishment rather it’s intended to be a hopeful discipline. We take this step in the hope that the person who has hurt us will miss being a part of the community, our family, so much that they will repent, that they will return and apologize, make amends and restore themselves with the community.

 

We want you here not out there, we want this correction to actually be a holy moment because as Christians we are more about restoring than we are about punishing. We are more about healing than we are about revenging. We are more about loving than we are about hanging on to the grudges and nursing old wounds.

 

Remember when it comes to forgiveness remember how Jesus teaches us to pray in the Our Father: “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Help me to be right with you O Lord and with the people around me it’s important because if I can’t love other people how can I possibly love you Lord.

 

Jesus teaches us to forgive seventy times seven that 490 times hoping to restore, to heal, to reconcile in other words love knows no limits. On the cross as people ridiculed, mock and gambled away his clothes, the soldier who won his garment playing craps overheard Jesus last words: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, have mercy on us sinners. Forgiveness is hard. Help us to forgive the people who harm us just as we hope to be forgiven by them and by you. Help us truly to be a person of peace, to seek healing, to pursue love. Lord Jesus have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

 

 

You Can Do Better

 

Mom called her son who was priest to come over for Sunday afternoon dinner. She was making lasagna his favorite. When she brought the tray out, took the aluminum foil off the top. he took a look and blurted out – “What’s that?

 

Mom very simply responded “Lasagna” – “But – What happened to it?” At which point his dad was trying to stop himself from laughing. His mother, now holding a knife in her hand just said “Nothing…nothing happened to it” “But why does it look like that?” It kind of looked like a flat tire… Angrily slicing it and serving it, she said “Just shut up and eat it…it’s good – just try it”

 

Denying there was anything wrong or different about it, he went over to the garbage – which she tried to block me from doing… and found an empty box what was labeled “No boil lasagna.”

 

He knew there was something wrong but this was no way near as good what his mom normally makes.

 

The reality is that none of us likes to hear “You can do better…” 

If it’s just some random person who offers unsolicited criticism we might respond: “Who asked you, Jerk???” But if it comes from a teacher, a coach, our mom, or a really good friend – that’s quite a different thing, isn’t it? In those instances, we realize it’s coming from someone who cares about us, who knows us, and probably knows – we’re capable of much more than whatever it is we’ve offered. 

 

How about us? We know all too well how difficult, how challenging it is to follow Jesus Christ, follow his teachings ourselves. We struggle, we’re tempted, we fail and fall. Sometimes multiple times a day (an hour?) But hopefully what makes it possible for us to dare to come before the is that in spite of those struggles and failures, we have experienced, we’ve come to know and believe in the immense love and mercy of God for us. God never tires of forgiving us, it is we who get tired of asking for forgiveness. Jesus casting his light into our darkness isn’t meant to hurt or embarrass us. It’s to help become the best person we can be.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we do not get discouraged when the recipe does not rise, or our efforts fail to please. Instead of getting mad at our spouse or friend, give us the  humility to understand that Jesus is telling us we’re worth the time, worth the concern… He knows us, knows how capable we are – the potential we hold. He knows we can do better.