Who among us will love Jesus into new life?

Dear Friends,

Today, on the Fifth Sunday of  the Lenten cycle, we hear the story of the adulterous woman that the Scribes and the Pharisees brought before Jesus for his judgment.

Stories of adulterous women keep reappearing in history. Remember Nathanial Hawthorne’s famed masterpiece The Scarlet Letter? A group of colonial New Englanders condemned a young woman as an adulteress and forced  her to wear the letter “A” writ large on her clothing, to acknowledge her sin. As recently as 2000, newspapers reported that a seventeen year old unmarried girl in Nigeria was flogged 100 times for having sex. It didn’t matter to the authorities that the girl said she was pressured by her father to have sex with three men. In our own jails, women are held for prostitution. To us, they are unnamed, invisible. We don’t know their stories or their pain.

But why is this encounter of Jesus placed here on the Sunday just before Holy Week? Two reasons come to mind.

First, this is one more instance of the Scribes and the Pharisees looking for – devising ways of trapping Jesus. Who knows, perhaps this woman is a pawn, a set up used to ensnare Jesus. And second, this passage shows us still again that Jesus does not condemn the bruised, the broken or the outcast.

In fact, Jesus demonstrates great tenderness for this unnamed woman, and throughout the Gospel, for all women.

When the Scribes and the Pharisees called for the death of this woman, Jesus seemed to hesitate, 

writing in the sand at his feet. But it was a moment of grace. The accusers drifted away. Only Jesus and the woman were left, taking each other’s measure.

With all this as a background, we finally come to the connection between the 5^th Sunday of Lent and Holy Week.  He who will not trap others, will himself be trapped. He who will not condemn, will himself be condemned. He, who will send no one to their death because it is the law, will be sentenced to death, because, as the Scribes and Pharisees put it: “We have a law, and by this law, he must die.”

Jesus loved this woman into new life.

Next week, who among us will love Jesus into new life?

As we come to immerse ourselves into Christ on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and at the Easter Vigil, will we bear the Jesus of today’s Gospel in our hearts? Will his mantle be on our shoulders?  A mantle that proclaims “I will trap no one. I will condemn no one. I will love the outcast into life.”

If we allow it, God, as it says in today’s first reading from Isaiah, “ will be doing something new “ in you and me.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Be the Embrace of the Father

Dear Friends,

Today is the Sunday of Rejoicing during Lent.  Some would suggest that we rejoice because Lent is now more than half over. But that’s not the real reason. The deep and real reason is found in today’s readings. They tell us that this is how God really is:

Forgetful of the past

Embracing us in the present

Ready to move with us into an unknown future.

Put the past behind, God says to the Israelites, settling into Canaan in the first reading. Put the past behind, Paul tells the Corinthians. Be reconciled to Christ who first reconciled himself to us. Put the past behind, the Father says to his two sons in the Gospel. What God says to the people of biblical times, God says to us today. Put the past behind. Stand in the present. Stretch out toward the future.

We are called upon to make the Father’s forgiveness and welcome our own –

To be like God

To love like God

To embrace like God.

You and I know people who have been away in a far country – like the younger son in the Gospel. Away from family, the sacraments, away from the church.  And we know people who don’t necessarily value staying home, but they stay, like the older son, because they are driven by duty and ambition to stay. They stay resentfully, not being recognized for what they consider their great generosity.

With Holy Week and Easter coming, family members, friends and acquaintances who have been away may feel that same stirring that the younger son felt. It is a scary thing to come home. We might anticipate harsh words, rejection. Hopefully, instead, the one returning will find the Father’s welcome, embrace, delight. If they return at all, it is because they believe that someone wants them home. Is it you?

Your simple invitation may be just what’s needed.

Not just: Why don’t you go to Holy Week services?
But “I’m going to Holy Week services this year. I would love it if you would come with me for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.”

Or maybe you’re the one who has been away. Look around. The light of the Holy Spirit will rest on someone and it will be clear that she/he is the one to go home with you. Ask. Seek. Go together.

One way or the other, let us, together, be the embrace of the Father, who can’t wait for the prodigals to come home.

-Sister Joan Sobala

Will we bear fruit in this new moment?

Dear Friends,

In today’s Gospel, Jesus returns to his vineyard imagery. Except this time, he focusses on a fig tree planted there. Most vintners are pretty exclusive about what else they plant in their vineyards because grapes need all the richness  the  soil can offer. This fig tree is planted in a privileged place, yet it did not produce. But it was given a second chance to bear fruit. Jesus does not tell the rest of the story. (Jesus has a way of leaving the ending out! I have a bucket list for when I cross over into eternal life. On my list is this fig tree. I want to know if it lived up to its second chance.)

What the story of the barren fig tree tells us is that we can’t just accept the privileged place of our lives We have to bear fruit. Thank God we have a second chance. But will we bear fruit in this new moment?

Now, in the middle of Lent, as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the mysteries of Holy Week and Easter, we pause over this reading. Take it to heart. Will we accept a second chance? Will we give others a second chance, or will we be totally absorbed in the privileged world in which we live?

Remember Oskar Schindler? He was a young, ambitious, pleasure-loving German when the Nazis took over in the 1930’s. Oskar Schindler was not a particularly good person. As a result of some dubious deals, Schindler found himself running a large factory in Nazi-occupied Poland. The work force in his plant was entirely composed of forced labor – mostly Jews  - everyone destined for the extermination camps. What is remarkable about Schindler is that, over time, he became a shrewd and courageous protector of his workers. Schindler put his disreputable talents to work to save thousands of lives. He survived the war, and the Jewish people never forgot what he did. Schindler is buried in Israel and is numbered among the righteous Gentiles who gave so generously so that endangered Jews might live.

Oskar Schindler is a splendid example of what happens when ordinary men and women, not necessarily heroic or saintly, are overcome by divine impatience in the face of human cruelty and suffering. God graces them with the strength to overcome their indifference. They receive a second chance, and the people they serve receive a second chance.

If we have not been particularly mindful of the needs of others, God offers us, as Jesus offered the barren fig tree, a second chance to find ways to bear the fruit of compassion toward others. Look around. We are just where we need to be –  in the privileged place where human need awaits our generous help.

However we become aware, however we feel the divine nudge, will we be like Oskar Schindler and do what we are called to do?

-Sister Joan Sobala

Helping Others Live as Fully as Possbile

Dear Friends,

Within one week in March, St. Patrick, St. Joseph and St. Oscar Romero are celebrated as great men of God.  March 17, 19 and 24. These three saints, each of whom loved God deeply, came from different historical periods and walked very different paths to God.

Patrick, an Irishman by birth, was taken to Gaul as a slave. Eventually, he was released and became a priest who could have worked among the Celtic people on the continent. But he yearned for the people of his homeland, went back and worked tirelessly so that Ireland would be ardently Christian.

Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, had expected a normal length of years, with a wife and family among his own people. But God called him to a remarkable journey as the spouse of Mary and the foster father of Jesus.

Oscar Romero was a priest in El Salvador. In one small town where he ministered, Father Romero was exposed to the plight of his parishioners at the hands of government agents. He experienced a conversion to embrace the cause of the poor. As the bishop of San Salvador, he died at the altar for it.

What was common to these men? Certainly their faith and their perseverance. But there is something very basic in all of them. It is that they were other-centered.

Other-centeredness is the opposite of self-centeredness. Infants are by their very makeup at that  point in their lives are self-centered. Their needs are all they know. The symbol of the self- centeredness of an infant is how they put everything they can in their mouths. Parents have to be vigilant, lest they take in something harmful.

It takes diligent effort to move from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. It is the work of a lifetime to become other-centered – to expend oneself for the good, the well-being of others, to open the way for others to recognize God’s abiding presence and treasure it.

Certainly Jesus is our primary example of other-centeredness through his life and through his death. One person in the gospel who mirrors Jesus’ other-centeredness is the Syro-Phoenician woman – the foreigner who came to Jesus begging for her daughter to be cured. And how about the man whom Jesus met at the foot of the mountain right after the Transfiguration.  The man wanted healing for this son. The disciples still, seeking to be first in the kingdom of God, were not other-centered enough to heal the boy.  But Jesus did so. Jesus recognized other-centered people when he met them. Still, he loved and worked with his disciples who were “on the way” but not yet other-centered.

During this Lent, as we take time to honor and celebrate the great generosity of Joseph, Patrick and Oscar, let’s ask our Gracious God that we might become bigger of heart and mind, so that others may live as fully as possible.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The World Would be Better if We Try

Dear Friends,

Every year, early in March, I pull out of storage the framed cover of LIFE magazine dated March 19, 1965 so my memory, sadness and ire will be stirred again.

The headline reads “The Savage Season”, and the photo shows two (of many) troopers  waiting for John Lewis,  Hosea Williams and a long stream of marchers crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge leaving Selma, Alabama.  Moments later, the somber marchers, theirs eyes downcast and their hands in their pockets in classic non-violent posture, would be attacked by troopers and deputies, on horses and with dogs, using cudgels of all kinds to beat down the marchers on their way to the state capital in Montgomery. Later that month, at the order of President Lyndon, federal troops escorted the marchers along the route to Montgomery. In August 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to strengthen the Civil Rights Act of 1964. People who sought justice and equality were hoping for an end to racism.

But if we look at the Democrat &Chronicle for February 21, 2019, the headlines tell of increased  violence  embedded in hate crimes. Everyone is in the mix: racists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, neo-Confederates,  anti-Semitic groups. The list is long. The march from Selma to Montgomery goes on.

Yet Jesus would have us be and do otherwise. While words like racism don’t appear in the Gospel, hatred and animosity among people who lived shoulder to shoulder are evident. None of this is of Jesus. He teaches that each life is valuable. Every person is of equal value with everyone else. No one is a throwaway.  “In my father’s house there are many rooms”  (John 14.2) - room for every person of every race, each gender, ethnic group, sexual  orientation, without exception.

In 2019, what do we need to do personally, minimally and daily so that racism gives way to unity and peace? 

1.   If possible, get to know one person of color. Really know that person: his/her desires, hopes, struggles and vision of life. Let that person get to know you as well.

2.  Treat everyone you met with respect. Let it show. If that person does not treat you with respect as well, let it go. Don’t give back in kind. S/he may be living through suspicion of the other born of pain and maltreatment.

3.  Do not take part in derogatory conversations about people of color. Often these include name-calling. The “N” word. Speak otherwise.

4.  Call on God, who is the Significant Other of all of us, to help us overcome  the outlooks we have constructed to keep us and others confined to separate non-overlapping  spaces.

5.   As the spiritual writer, Ron Rohleiser says: “Bless more and curse less!” Words matter.

6.   Do not judge. Rather be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. (Mt.5.48)

Try on one or more of these attitudes this Lent, and work at making it fit our minds and hearts.

Hard work? You betcha!  Worthwhile? The world will be better if you try, if I try, if we try together.

-Sister Joan Sobala

Lent: Fasting and Following the Lord: Some worthwhile ideas

Dear Friends,

Lent begins on Wednesday, all fresh and new. I hope you have some good, simple ideas to draw on that can help Lent be fresh even a month from now. Here are two short pieces that others have written which I have found helpful in past Lenten times. You may want to weigh the ideas within them for their worth.

The first is an excerpt from the Abbey of the Arts by Christine Valters Paintner. She says, and we can echo

   “I am called to fast from being strong…to allow a great softening…

    I am called to fast from anxiety… and enter into radical trust…

    I am called to fast from speed…causing me to miss the grace shimmering right here…

    I am called to fast from multitasking...beholding each thing, each person, each moment…

    I am called to fast from endless list-making…and enter into the quiet and listen…

    I am called to fast from certainty and trust in the great mystery of things…”

This second piece is from an unpublished  article by Rochesterian  P. David Finks;

   “Lent is the time for getting into the habit of following Christ, but never letting following
    Christ become an empty habit…following is not easy business.  It requires a tranquil 
    and trusting spirit…In order to follow, you need to be free from the bonds of any place or
    time, you need to be free from the chains of possessions or habits, you  need to be free
    from the shackles of selfish expectations…Jesus walks into the place where we are and
    says ‘Follow me.’… Right here, right now, in the midst of the everyday facts of life. His call
    is that we follow him into all the broken places of life to renew and make them who call is
    still hard, and his call is still easy to evade and avoid…Yet hearing that voice speak your
    name, saying ‘Come, follow me,’ you can do nothing else but lay down control and
    selfishness and all your self-absorbed fussing, and take up the cause of this stupendous
    stranger whose mission is light and life and love. Lent means following  Christ – trying to
    express in our lives the same kind of reconciling love he did.”

Fast and follow – two loaded words to imprint on the inside of our eyelids so that we see them every morning as we are struggling to wake up. Lenten words to live by: Fast from the destructive interior motor that drives us – literally drives us into not seeing Christ and not hearing his call to follow him.

I wish you a slowly unfolding Lent which promises the companionship of Christ daily.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Do Not Strike Back

Dear Friends,

If the name Abishai was called for on the Jeopardy category “Biblical Figures”, most of us would probably miss the answer. Abishai only appears once  - in 1Kings - as David’s military advisor. But obscure as he is, Abishai lives on today.

Here’s the backstory to today’s reading from 1Kings.

The older Saul and the still young David were in conflict, battling over a kingdom. Saul was about to kill David, when David fled, with Saul’s army in fruitless pursuit. As our reading today unfolds, David has a stroke of luck. David and his friends come upon Saul, asleep, unguarded and defenseless. “Kill him,” Abishai whispers to David. But David refuses. Saul is his king, the Lord’s anointed. Trusting in God’s wisdom and power, David leaves Saul to God to deal with. But David did take Saul’s spear as proof he had stood over Saul and had a choice to kill him or not.

Can you imagine how Abishai might have reacted to David’s refusal to heed his advice? “What kind of fool are you, David? Saul would kill you if he could. If you don’t kill him first, he will do away with you. Act now, David! Here’s your chance. Kill Saul! ” Later, David would tell why he didn’t follow Abishai’s advice. David chose to be guided by mercy, justice and compassion. Saul, in turn, moved by David’s thinking, entered into a kind of peace with David.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus stands with David over against Abishai. Jesus, too,  urges his followers to choose mercy, justice and compassion when dealing with conflict. Teaching his followers a Godlike generosity, Jesus wants us to do  good to those who have done evil to us.

How hard it is to break the cycle of violence, hatred and evil by returning compassion for violence, love for hatred and good for evil. What a challenge it is to live this way.

Abishai is alive and well in our world today. Is it his voice, urging you onto strike back,that you listen to? Who is the mentor of the moment who seems to have the answer that will solve everything? Today’s Abishai, cloaked in modern terms, tells us that unless we attack those who attack us, all is lost. Jesus and David would have it otherwise. They resist the undertow of revenge and tell us to do likewise. These readings are a lesson for world leaders about how to treat their own people as well as their enemies, but they are also a lesson for me. How about my own tendencies to be aggressive and violent in my personal relationships? My own ways might be more subtle and calculated, but Abishai whispers in my ear too. Abishai becomes active in me when I strike back against those who harm me.

Begone, Abishai. Come to me, Jesus. Stand with me, David.

Help me not to judge, or condemn, or find novel ways of striking back.

Help me to pardon, give, love, forgive, be compassionate and just.

-Sister Joan Sobala