Kobe Beef Christians

Catholic values and American politics, sacrificial giving of our treasures, ongoing spiritual and faith formation, and now a life of servant leadership. These are all messages we’ve heard over the past month. Collectively they came seem daunting.  We might feel uncomfortable, nay, even pain under the pressure to live these moral invitations.  We might even reject them saying, “who has time for faith formation?” or “The Church needs to stay out of politics!” or “Stop telling me to give, darn it all.”

I’m not all convinced that the pressure we are feeling to live out our Catholic faith is something the Church is doing to us.  Rather, I believe it is the secular culture we find ourselves situated in that causes our mental anguish whenever the preacher says “live your life for Christ.”

We all struggle with living the Catholic faith.  There isn’t anyone of us that isn’t touched by sin in some way; be it social or personal sin.  And, for many of us, our western secular society has worked hard at making us “fat, dumb, and happy” or in other words, “comfortable” like a Kobe beef cow.

Kobe beef is suppose to be the best cut of meat anywhere on earth. It is tender, fatty and delicious. It gets this way through a Japanese tradition of providing the cow a life without stress.  The cows are fed incredibly well, hand massaged daily, and given beer to drink to calm their nerves.  They live such grossly sedentary lives that they have difficulty walking due to the lack of exercise.  But this life of leisure has one purpose, Kobe beef cows are made for slaughtering. The life of the Kobe cow only matters for the meat it provides to its consumer.

Like Kobe beef cows, we can fall into the trap of filling our lives up with comfort too. This is one of the social trappings of living in the Suburbs. And with individualism, which is pandemic in our culture, we can grow cold to the needs of other people or at least 47% of them.

The Gospel is a message that is life giving but it is also daunting for it calls us out of our selves  - to stop trying to die in comfort; but rather, to live in serving God and the common good –even if it’s painful. (This is a theme in the movie Matrix too.)  In short, we exchange the comfort the world can provide in this life for the comfort we experience in knowing the true and living God in this present moment and for all of eternity.

As a foot note: the Romans struggle with Gospel living too. St. Paul wrote, “I urge you therefore, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.  Do not conform yourself to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2) Living the Gospel requires faith that God will provide and that God will keep his covenant with his people.  It also takes wisdom, to make sure our acts are not fool-hardy but truly bring about greater good for all.

Independence...Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

Our second reading at Mass today is a little odd to the modern ear: “A thorn in the flesh was given me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:7-10)

 If you read the Acts of the Apostles, you’ll learn Saint Paul had a rough life once he was a Christian. A man of growing power, a rising star in the religious/political life of the Jews in Jerusalem, he loses all his prestige and wealth upon his conversion. He goes from being the chief persecutor to becoming persecuted. Temporarily blinded by the presence of Christ, rejected by the Apostles at first, rejected by the Jews who believe in Christ, he heads out to proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles only to be beaten almost to death, thrown into prison, and actually shipwrecked from a storm. On top of that, his pastoral letters are written to his church-plants because the people had given up the faith, slipped into immorality, listened to false teachers, and fought amongst themselves politically within their new communities. Through it all, some scholars suggest that Saint Paul had ongoing problems with his eyes. Perhaps that was the “thorn in his side”.

 What do we learn from his experience? God said to Saint Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for (my) power is made perfect in (your) weakness.” Elsewhere, Saint Paul writes, “God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power…”(1 Cor. 10:13) In reading of Paul’s story, we learn how God carried him each step of the way. Although he still experienced great suffering, God gave him the grace to persevere through it. Over and over again, Paul writes about his joy, hope, and longing for heaven. 

Often, we think we can do everything ourselves. In the States, we’re brought up with value of independence, that ability for a man or woman to “stand on their own two legs” without help from anyone to conquer the world. We want to believe we are powerful people, capable of accomplishing anything we put our minds to, if we can just get past this present suffering or this present problem. Walt Disney, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump all teach us to follow our passion, follow our dream, work hard, be smart, and we’ll be successful.

But Saint Paul teaches us something else. Real power, power from God, comes when we admit our weakness. It’s not until we confess, “I can’t do this by myself” that we free ourselves from the bondage of trying to possess power. It is only when we admit we are not in control of our lives and give control of our lives over to God that we discover true power, as Saint Paul mentions, "When I am weak, then I am strong.” Instead of combating suffering with our own limited abilities, suffering becomes a means to see God’s grace working in us and to carry us through it. We witness God’s greatness in our weakness.

 In the movie “Caddyshack” a young caddy tries to manage an enormous golf bag, far too large for her size. An older caddy says, “Hey, let me take that,” and her prideful childish reply is, “I can do it!” The scene goes on with her spinning around the bag and unable to lift it off the ground.

 Perhaps God allows difficulties in our lives to bring us to our personal edge; to give us the opportunity to witness his loving power to carry our burden. But do we push his “hand away” like the little caddy and say, “I can do it!”?

Jesus the Radical Cowboy

A pastoral reflection on John 2:13-25 (Jesus in the Temple with the Money Changers)

Radical...growing up, I had a lot of images of Jesus but never an image of him being radical. Jesus sitting with children, with a lamb on his shoulder, teaching his disciples, but Jesus the radical? Where did I miss that? Perhaps Mom and Dad wanted me to be domesticated, trainable, and obedient so they spoke more of the soft, lovey-dovey Jesus.

But, Jesus the table tipper? The whipper of money changers? The driver of cattle stampedes? The ruffian who knocks money boxes out of the hands of merchants? Oh yeah, he’s all that too. On that day, he must of worn a rubber bracelet that said, “WWJWD” (What Would John Wayne Do?).

On that day, Jesus was the man that wrangled all the “bull” to make a straight path for others to enter into deeper worship and relationship with his Father.

What bull is in your life that needs to be wrangled and driven out so that you can grow deeper in worship and relationship with God...to have deeper spiritual freedom and a larger capacity to act in love?

Now, our spiritual freedom and ability to love has three villains: the flesh, the world, and the devil.

“What the Scriptures call the flesh, the old man, or the sinful nature, is that part of us that always wants the easiest way out...To put it bluntly, your flesh is a weasel, a poser, and a selfish pig. And your flesh is not the real you.”* It is what psychologists would say is your false self. The faker who cowardly believes his own bull, “who deliberately chooses to push down his true strength in Christ and lives a false life.”* It’s the person who denies what their heart is really saying to them. They shrink in fear instead of confronting the thoughts, feelings, and problems in their life.

Now, “the World...is any system built by our collective sin, all our false selves coming together to reward and destroy each other...Take all the posers out there, put them together and you get a carnival of counterfeits,—that’s the World."* The money changers were just that—selling a false path to God and making a profit. Resisting "“The World” is not referring to a shallow approach to holiness like never drinking or dancing or watching rated R movies."* Rather it’s the system that corrupts our true strength, that causes us to support the false self, often through pride and a false sense of power.

"The devil no doubt has a place in our theology, but is he a category we even think about in the daily events of our lives? Has it ever crossed your mind that not every thought that enters your mind comes from you?"* Do we ever stop to say, in a Texan draw, “Wait a minute, partner, who else is speaking here? Where ‘em ideas a coming from?” “It’s the image of God reflected in you that so enrages hell; it is this at which demons hurl their mightiest weapons.”

Jesus was a radical and a zealot—that’s how much he loved you and me. Jesus wasn’t afraid to stand up and fight for us, to die for us. He wasn’t a poser. He could gently love children and still fight the World. Like two cowboys in a duel, he could face the devil in the eye and say “Go ahead, take your best shot, ‘cause after you do, I’m going to rise up and defeat you.”

But this isn’t just a story of the past, Jesus is here with us today in word and sacrament. His word and sacrament are like his whip of cords to drive out our false self, to knock over the world, and to defeat the devil. He fills us with his Spirit so we too can be part of his posse. He’s ready to wrangle the crud and bull in your life, to give you a clear spiritual path to his Father. So, which side of the table will you stand on?


* - Much of this post was inspired and quotes taken from John Eldredge's "Wild at Heart"

Living on the Edge (1 Cor. 7:32-35)

The second reading in today’s Mass (1 Cor. 7:32-35) is interesting to reflect on from a mature perspective. Surrounding this passage, St. Paul is pastorally working with the community in Corinth regarding issues of marriage. Note his first statement, “...I should like you to be free from anxieties.” The anxiety St. Paul is referring to is the anxiety to be prepared for Christ’s return. Remember that the early Church sincerely believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. So, they were anxious about how best to be prepared for his glory. Two thousand years later, our anxiety is a little different isn’t it? Who doesn’t secretly think that Jesus isn’t going to return in our life time? We cannot sustain an artificial anxiety, pretending to ourselves that Jesus could return today. Believe me, I tried it for years, eventually time wins the argument. Don’t forget we pray at every mass, right after the Our Father, that God would remove our anxiety. That’s not anxiety over paying the bills, that’s anxiety over our final judgment—the same anxiety St. Paul is dealing with at Corinth here in this passage.

But St. Paul hint’s at how we are to live in his next sentence. “An unmarried [person] is anxious about things of the Lord, how s/he may please the Lord.” Note that the task for the single Christian is to “please the Lord” - there’s no place for self-centeredness. In the single life, one is chaste for God. Chastity is not a burdensome discipline that robs us of one of life’s great pleasures. Chastity takes our natural drives and redirects them into other forms of creativity and when directed towards God, increases praise. Many a person in history and today have put aside strictly sexual acts to express a deeper powerful creativity through broader acts of art, science, and charity that is just as fulfilling, if not more, than explicit sexual acts. (But our culture of addiction doesn’t want you to believe that because they’re making money off of the addition.) But, true freedom for the single person is to let go of the addiction to find the right sole mate and look to pleasing the Lord in their life.

The Church has always lifted up the high value of marriage and recognized that marriage between a baptized believing man and a woman is a Sacrament—in other words, a way in which God’s grace and the love of Christ is manifested in the world. At first, St. Paul seems to be down playing marriage but what he’s trying to do, in context with the entire chapter, is to help the Christian first understand that their lives are about pleasing the Lord first and foremost. From that central perspective, the task of the Christian spouse is to see how s/he could please their spouse. Again, there is no room for self-centeredness. Marriage is a vocation, a sacrament of godly service to honor Christ by manifesting God’s love specifically in the world through this human bond. The married person’s fulfillment is found inbeing Christ for their partner and allowing their partner to be Christ to them. And, God willing, in the procreation of children. Marriage expresses God’s permanent, personal, and productive love in the world by transforming this natural filial relationship into an expression of God’s unilateral covenantal love to us.

St. Paul hint’s at what the root of anxiety is at the end of his paragraph. Anxiety comes to us when we’re distracted from our central purpose of pleasing the Lord, regardless of our marital status. If we feel restrained, unhappy in our life then our focus is on ourselves and not in outward loving expression to God. We’re called not to live in fearful anxiety for Christ’s return but rather we are happiest when we are living on our spiritual and physical edge—pushing ourselves to fully and creatively express our devotion to God with the gift of our very lives. It is living on our personal edge for God that prepares us for his second coming—not out of fear but out of becoming fully human through devotion to God.