God provides – Gen 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18

Second Sunday of Lent, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

We hear this reading of the Transfiguration every Second Sunday of Lent. It’s the reminder we need before we enter into the darker parts of Lent of Jesus’ glory. It helps us remember that Jesus’ shiny glory is never actually extinguished even when human sin threatens to dim it. But, the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son, Isaac, at Mount Moriah, a story called the Akedah (which means ‘binding’ in Hebrew), we only hear that once every three years. So, this week, I looked back on what I’d preached 2^nd Sunday of Lent 2015, and I was kind of disappointed with it. I’d started with a cute story, which I’ll probably tell again at some point, then I’d talked about the gospel reasonably competently, and it’s certainly an important gospel, but I left the Akedah hanging. I don’t know if I was hoping people would just have forgotten about the first reading by the time we got to the homily, but I don’t think we have. Or at least I hope we haven’t. Because a story about God telling someone to offer their child as a sacrifice isn’t something we should just gloss over, even if the slaughter never actually happens. Recall that God had promised Abraham a great line of descendants, but Abraham and his wife Sarah thought themselves too old to naturally create life, then God gives them Isaac. And, then, God says to Abraham, “take your son, your only son, your beloved son… and sacrifice him.”

God commits to us – Mark 1:12-15, Gen 9:8-15

1st Sunday of Lent, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

I have to admit that I’ve never really understood why Noah’s ark is included in every abbreviated children’s bible going. I mean, I guess it’s cute to have all those animals. But, at is heart, the flood story is about the unrepentant wickedness of humans, a level of wickedness that drove God to destroy almost the entire world. What we heard as our first reading is God’s promise to never to do that again. And, I have to admit, that sometimes when I read the news, I wonder if God gets tempted to break that promise sometimes. But, he won’t, because God is ever faithful.

Jesus loves us to loving intimacy with the Father – Mark 1:29-39

5th Sunday of OT, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

Jesus seems to be having a pretty good day.  Today’s reading picks up right where last week’s left off, and maybe we should have preceded it by a “previously, on ‘the Gospel according to Mark.’”  He showed up in Capernaum, preached in their synagogue, freed someone from a demon and everything was amazed at him, and marveled at his teaching.  And the day goes on.  Now, he heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, gets a good meal out of it, casts out more demon, cures many more sick people.  The whole town turns up at his door, seeking his help.  People are responding to the call!  It appears he’s up half the night with these people.  And then he leaves, quietly, when no-one’s watching.

Jesus moves us – Mark 1:14-20

3rd Week of OT, Year B; Holy Infant.

I know someone who fell in love while dancing to a Beatles song, but not exactly to the person she was dancing with. Let me back up. When I was at Notre Dame, one Spring break I led a bunch of students on a trip to spend a week at a L’Arche house. L’Arche houses are places community where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together as peers, creating communities of faith and friendship. I taught a class where for the first half of the semester, we studied the L’Arche movement and the spiritual and theological principles that undergird it, then we spent Spring break living it and the rest of the semester unpacking that experience. One of my students told me afterwards that she was going to apply to spend a year living as part of one of their communities. “I still want to be an attorney,” she told me. “I still want to help people professionally in that way, maybe run for office someday, but I need more of this first.” “Can you expand that, what’s ‘this’ for you?” I asked her. And that’s when she told me about the Beatles song. We’d been in the kitchen, preparing dinner. The student had shown up a minute or so late to the work shift, and there wasn’t really anything for her to do, all the tasks had been assigned. She told me how frustrating this was, as she’d come here to help people, but then that opening harmonica riff of “Love, love me do” came on the radio, and one of the core members (the community members with intellectual disabilities), asked her to dance. It was while dancing that she realized that there’s something more fundamental than helping people, and that’s loving, loving life, loving people. I encouraged her to remember that moment of clarity, that delightful dance, whether that be through journaling, telling her story to others, sketching it, whatever works for her, because things won’t always feel that naturally easy, even if objectively they’ll still be just as beautiful.

God shows us loving dwelling – John 1:3b-10, 19

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

There are some questions that don’t allow for short answers, that open things up that can’t be simply put back in their can. “Harry, how was it you got that scar again?” “Ishmael, did you ever happen to meet a ship’s captain, name of Ahab?” “What an interesting piece of jewelry around your neck, Frodo!” Well, when the disciples ask Jesus, “where are you staying?” that ends up being one of those questions too, whose answer is very much longer than the question.

God brings us exiles home – Isa 40:1-5,9-11, Mark 1:1-8

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year B; Holy Infant parish

To exiles, comfort is spoken, comfort is tenderly spoken.  The Israelites heard this comfort after living for well over a generation in Babylon, after the Babylonians had razed Jerusalem and brought them captive to Babylon.  So many had grown up with talk of their Land, their own king, their own Temple being foreign to them, being something almost unimaginable, something they had never known, something that they know engenders a sparkle in the grandparents’ eyes, but not something they had ever touched or seen for themselves.  They were Israelites who had not known Israel, but only Babylonian captivity.  They had only known lush gardens they were shut out of.  They had only known themselves as foreign, as alien, as unwanted except as cheap labor.  They tried to sing their people’s songs in a strange land, but the melodies had never been wrapped around their tongues in their homeland.

Christ meets us in our offering – Isa 63:16b-17, 19; 64:2-7; Advent I collect

Advent I, Year B; Holy Infant church

Our readings today began without could have been understood as a formulaic profession of faith, “You, God, are our Father.” But it’s not just a statement of fact. Actually, in the Hebrew that verb “are” isn’t there, the reading would just begin with a list of titles for God: “You… God… our Father! Redeemer! (so named for ever)… Why do you make us stray from you, God?” It’s a long introduction to a question, a long crying out to God, to God whose absence is felt very keenly.