A Warning About Cheap Grace

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. Yesterday we considered the interplay between Jesus and Zachaeus, as well as the crowd’s reaction to the interchange. The dialogue and invitation raise another question to consider: Is it possible to be too gracious?

Should Jesus have told Zacchaeus to straighten up his act before he invited himself to his house? Couldn’t Jesus’ actions have been interpreted as condoning the tax collector’s sinfulness? Isn’t that the accusation against the Christian Churches of Germany after WWII? Continue reading →

Now more than ever

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With two weeks before the mid-term elections the “volume” has been turned up on political ads. Locally there is only one item on our ballots: seat for this district’s seat in the US House of Representative. The television market place is saturated with political ads. The internet has places that saturate the moment, e.g., YouTube. I think we have all grown so accustomed to the unrelenting, intense bombardment of political ads that we don’t listen and just hunker down ans take shelter until it is over. Too much money and the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United v. FEC have make all this possible – the funding, technology and access. But the content is a different matter. Continue reading →

Jesus and Zacchaeus – Conversion

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. Yesterday we considered Zacchaeus’ quest and the ongoing Lucan question: who can be saved. Today, the story continues.

Zacchaeus, in spite of his reputation, is an attractive person. In our brief meeting, qualities akin to those of Peter emerge. Zacchaeus is spontaneous and impetuous, given to extravagant statements. But there is a deep genuineness. Though he is a person of some importance, his position does not prevent him from climbing the sycamore tree nor from publicly admitting his guilt and professing his repentance. Jesus says this is a son of Abraham, even if he is a tax collector. He should not be ostracized because of his failings but helped to find his way back to the flock. Continue reading →

When no one is watching

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Today’s first reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. If one step’s back for “the big picture” the letter deals, however, not so much with a congregation in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor as with the worldwide church, the head of which is Christ (Eph 4:15), the purpose of which is to be the instrument for making God’s plan of salvation known throughout the universe (Eph 3:9-10). Yet this ecclesiology is anchored in God’s saving love, shown in Jesus Christ as head of the Church (Eph 2:4-10), and the whole of redemption is rooted in the plan and accomplishment of the triune God (Eph 1:3-14). Continue reading →

A man on a quest

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This coming Sunday is the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. Yesterday we look at the parallels and connections within the Lucan narrative as Jesus, moving steadily towards Jerusalem, continues to prepare his disciples for their evangelical mission.

At first glance we might expect this to be another parable challenging the rich. The rich have not fared well in Luke’s gospel. Jesus pronounces woes upon the rich (6:24). God called the rich farmer a fool (12:16, 20) and required his soul of him. The rich man went to Hades while Lazarus went to the bosom of Abraham, and Jesus observed how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (18:23, 25).  Zacchaeus is a “wealthy man” (19:2) Continue reading →

On this day in history…Oct 25th

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On this day in 1415, (Saint Crispin’s Day) the English army, led by Henry V, scored a decisive victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years’ War. There had been several decades of relative peace, when the English resumed the war in 1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. Henry V of England was a claimant to the throne of France. Henry’s claim was through his great-grandfather Edward III of England, although in practice the English kings were generally prepared to renounce this claim if the French would acknowledge the English claim on Aquitaine and other French lands as outlined in an earlier treaty. Continue reading →

Living in the Light

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In today’s first reading, believers are reminded to speak “as is fitting among holy ones” and warned with a list of items which are considered “out of place.” Instead we are admonished to speak words of thanksgiving.  This admonition about speaking “as is fitting among holy ones” follows one of the great passages from Ephesians that is not used in any weekday or Sunday liturgy. The verses speak to the role of anger in our lives – which seems to me the polar opposite of thanksgiving. Continue reading →