Jesus welcomes all into Kingdom joy – Mark 9:38-48

Twenty-sixth Sunday in OT, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

There’s really no good transition from plucking eyes out to anything else, so I’m not even going to try. I’m just going to start talking about St. Lucy’s day, and that’ll get us back to eyes soon enough. I don’t know if any of you have ever been to a St. Lucy’s day celebration. It’s December 13^th, and a traditional day in many parts of Europe to lessen the rigors of Advent and celebrate. It’s a Friday this year, so for people who want to have parties prior to the start of the Christmas season, I especially recommend it. Lucy’s name is derived from the Latin word for light, so in parts of France it’s a day to let off fireworks. I parts of Scandinavia, it’s an occasion for parades in which young women wear headdresses containing lit candles. As the winter darkness draws in (which it does much more severely further North than here), these things can be wonderful reminders of how the light Christ is scatters all that’s dark. But, there’s an aspect of St. Lucy I haven’t discussed. She was an early martyr, under Decian, and legend has it that as part of the torture they subjected her to prior to her execution, her eyes were gouged out. Iconography of her often features her holding those eyes on a platter. There’s something somewhat macabre about that, but it’s a thoroughly Christian kind of macabre: As much as Roman Imperial Power tried to degrade her, she lives in Christ; as much as they tried to snuff out the light of her eyes, she inspires festivals of light among so many people; her risen life as a saint with Christ, welcomed by him into the kingdom, is full of light and joy, so full that she doesn’t need her eyes back in her sockets to know heavenly joy.

Jesus embraces us – Mark 9:30-37, James 3:16-4:3

Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant church.

There’s a puzzle that British newspapers like to publish called ‘spot the ball.’  They’ll take a photo of a moment in a soccer match, use computer wizardry to render the ball invisible and invite readers to reconstruct where it must be.  It sometimes takes some thought, but it’s an eminently doable puzzle, because all the action really is revolving around the ball; everyone on the pitch treats it as the most important object in the world and focuses their attention on it.  It’s the same when someone really important, really valued, really great is walking somewhere.  They’re surrounded, in the center, all conversations and interactions are rooted around the great one in their midst.

The love of Christ urges us on – Mark 8:27-35

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

I read a human interest story earlier today about George Ruiz. George had retired after serving twenty years in the Coast Guard. He drove in to the Carolinas this weekend from Alabama, cutting down trees in his way, to come rescue people. Sometimes he can get someone out alone, sometimes he can use his expertise to get more accurate information to the emergency services and help them adjust their triage list so as people who are on the wait list to be rescued and be helped sooner if time is running out quicker than expected for them. Now, I don’t know George. I’ve never met him, probably never will. But, I’m guessing he’s not out there because he loves wind and rain. I’m also guessing he’s smart enough that it’s not that he has no fear of these things. He’s not there, I’m guessing, because he thinks putting himself in danger is fun. I’m guessing he’s there, in harm’s way, because of deep-seated love for humanity that won’t shirk from danger when he has an opportunity to express that love in concrete acts of saving people.

God makes every tongue sing – Isa 35:4-7, James 2:1-5

Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

A world of lack become a world of plenty: that’s the picture of first reading from Isaiah painted of what God is doing. Isaiah talked of transformation of the physical world, of deserts becoming places where water was abundant. He also talks about transformation of human bodies, of bodies that couldn’t walk becoming bodies that leap, and of tongues that can’t talk becoming tongues that sing. And it’s that last point that’s really stuck with me this week as I’ve been praying with these readings. It’s the climax of how Isaiah talks about the transformation of bodies, the mute singing, what leads into the influx of water into dry land. And it says something about God’s vision for humanity. That the reading doesn’t primarily talk about getting rid of pain, or of being able to lift really heavy things, no the ultimate image of transformed human bodies is of us singing. That means that God cares about what we have to say, and He doesn’t want what we have to say muted or mumbled, but sung out boldly. Singing is speech colored in.

God gives us goodness – Mark 7:1-23, James 1:17-27

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant.

Many great actors say that they relish playing villains.  Some stories create much of their delight and intrigue by making us root against someone.  If you come out of the movie theater thinking that Scar actually had some good policies, or that Darth Vader wasn’t such a bad egg after all, you’ve kind of missed the point of those movies.  But that way of engaging narrative, seeking out the baddies… that can lead us dangerously astray when we apply it to the gospels, or to our day-to-day lives for that matter.  Because if you look at this gospel trying to find the hero, that’s clear and right; we find Jesus.  But if we look for the villains, we’d be tempted to find the Pharisees and scribes.  We’d start to read this thinking that Jesus is out to vanquish them, and miss his love for them, his will to save them.  And we’d start to think that we need to distance ourselves from them, because they’re bad and they might defile us; too much contact with them might make us… impure?  And then the gospel turns its head on us, on the judgments that rise up within us, and Jesus would sadly smile at us and say, “No, nothing that comes from outside can defile.”