Saturday, February 26, 2011

Thanks Giving

It's happened to me, it's happened to you, it happens to everyone. You're walking by yourself or with friends and suddenly you are confronted with THE QUESTION, "Hey buddy, can you spare a dime", (adjusted for inflation of course). Quickly you try to assess as much as you can about this person and instinctively initiate maneuvering thrusters for a graceful detour.

As a child growing up in a REALLY small town I understood that the homeless problem was self-inflicted, and that they were suffering because of their own behavior. "If they really wanted to get their lives back together they would get a job, or quit drinking, or stay away from drugs". I believed that for a long time and who knows maybe it was true at one point, in any case I felt justified in gracefully detouring around anyone asking for help. When I got a bit older, I began to realize that there was more to the issue of homelessness, and eventually I took a more humane view of the problem. It is true that drinking and drugs may be involved, but only sometimes, and like everything else today it's a complicated issue. I've accepted the presence of the homeless (which in itself probably warrants additional thought) and I no longer employ the tactic of avoidance.

The fact is that I can help, albeit in an incredibly small way, by treating the person with respect and offering them a little bit of encouragement. After all I have been blessed in so many ways, and their life is hard enough without someone adding to their misery. As Matthew 25:31-40 makes clear, "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me". Jesus didn't put me on the earth to judge others, and so I don't worry about what my help will be used for; instead I hand them a dollar or two (or a power bar) and say, "God bless you and be careful". He uses these opportunities for my benefit, and when He gives me the chance to share I try to look at the homeless person in front of me and see Jesus in their eyes.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Church, Theology, and Culture - Class 2

Tonight our instructor began be defining Eschatology as the study of the end times, and pointing out that Jesus taught that The Kingdom of God was at hand. The characteristics of the Kingdom of God are important because from this comes the church. It's interesting to note that Jesus' life is missing from both creeds. Jesus was definitely not a Zealot or an Essene, he was possibly a Pharisee. Jesus did not pick an end date like apocalyptic, so He was not referring to a literal "end of times" although people took it that way. The Disciples quickly understood that Jesus himself was the "end times", and realized that He was "The Kingdom of God". They did not preach what Jesus preached, but instead preached Jesus himself. The Gospel of John assumed each reader already understood the Kingdom, and so he spiritualized the story of Jesus.

It's important to understand time. On the first level, what we perceive is actually duration which is something we measure, usually in increments like minutes and hours or days. On the second level, when duration is stopped by something "out of the ordinary", we're lifted out of time, and it's these moments that give our lives meaning. Steven Hawking wrote about these ideas in his book "The History of Time", in which he talks about duration, process, and time itself. Our goal should be to live in the second level, because although we don't experience time, we do remember the things that happen to us. To us, there is history, present, and future. The third level is eternity, which for us begins at death.

The Kingdom of God is now! Don't just look forward (horizontally), look into the depth of time (vertically). What we do (or don't do) is for now and for eternity. Man is limited by the sense of duration but he can move beyond that limit to an understanding of time as God sees it. See the world as charged with the Kingdom of God, which Jesus himself referred to as the "the fullness of time". The Greek had two words for time, chronos which refers to the idea of duration, and kairos which refers to the idea of moment. Infinity embraces the finite, and includes eternity (because God cannot be limited), so infinity includes time itself. God is an active God and He is with us acting in history. Eastern religions avoid time (by trying to overcome the present condition) whereas Western religions embrace time.

God loves us, and He does not need to be convinced of our worth because He loves us infinitely. The gap between man and God is smaller than the gap within our own hearts. The Greek idea of the immortality of the soul implies separation, but the soul cannot exist without the body, even though it does relate to events outside of the body. When a human is very close to death the human body becomes aware that it is not confined to this existence alone. The Church is comprised of people that understand the transformation of death, which helps us understand "out of body experiences".

Jesus did not establish the church; He laid down the foundation of the Church which began at the time of faith in the resurrection. The Church began from the acts of Jesus which include life, death, and resurrection. All of reality was transformed at Jesus' death and resurrection. On the road to Emmaus the story tells us that "they did not recognize him" indicating that Jesus was transformed, and after his resurrection he only appeared to those with faith. This suggests that the people on the road to Emmaus were no closer to Jesus than we are today. We recognize Jesus in spirit just as they did later. Paul did not even know the physical Jesus. The objective fact is that Jesus is alive, and the subjective fact is that Jesus was seen by others. Both are required, both are important, and both must be united for this event to have become earth shattering.

When this happens Church is born. We the church are the heirs of the original intersection of the objective and subjective understanding of the resurrection. God is not an object or a subject; He transcends both the objective and subjective events of his life. We tend to project God as an object, and in fact it's only the West that produces agnostics and atheists because it's only the West that tends to objectify God. Those who deny the reality of God start with their own subjectivity and then try to explain the objectivity of God. You can teach your pet to be affectionate but you can't teach him love; you can teach your child love. When you love someone they are not just an object, that person is subjectively connected to you. We are not objects of God, we are his subjects.

Love is not a feeling, it is the reunion of the separated. Sacrifice is the power within us convincing us that we are not the center of the universe. If you want your life you must be willing to lose it. Love is always the same, weather its' the love of a spouse, the love of a child, or the love of a parent. Each of these includes a drive towards reunion; it's the feelings that are different. The child entertains itself with everlastingness, and it's the child in all of us! The cross was (is) not a satisfaction for God's justice. Theology starts with the "that" of the cross and develops a "how" for our lives. On the sacramental level, the Paschal Mystery is a celebration of what is possible, and on the eschatological level, it is the meaning for our own death. What's important is rejecting the desire towards anger and cruelty.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

I’m Ok! You’re OK!

Remember the 60's, Ok sorry, how about the 70's? For those of you that should remember the 70's but don't, and don't even remember why you don't remember the 70's, let me explain. During that period in time there was this notion that "everything’s cool", and if you remember that the word "man" went after that phrase you know what I'm talking about. Everything was OK, and nothing was considered too much except for rules of course, which were "a downer ... man". We got along with phrases like "chill out", and "be cool", and "look at all the colors ... man".

Ok, so I'll admit I didn't push any boundaries and that wasn't me. Luckily I was overprotected as a child and didn't understand what was happening until it was too late. I'm still very grateful to my parents, because I can remember the 70's, and because I missed the whole "anything goes" culture thing. Today more than ever we need rules! We need an understanding of our place in the world, and more importantly of our place in the Kingdom of God.

I was disturbed the other day when I discovered that one of the confessionals in my church was being used for storage. Unfortunately, the 70's lingers on in the form of "everything’s cool", "why worry", and "who cares"; and it still leads to trouble. People have forgotten, or no longer care about the "wages of sin" (hint: DEATH!). Avoiding sin is not about avoiding prison, following the Ten Commandments, and being a good person. Sin is anything that gets between you and your relationship with God. I've always believed that it isn't the big things in life that matter most, it's the small things, and that goes for sin as well.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Church, Theology, and Culture - Class 1

Ecclesiology is not the history of the church; it is the history of how people understood the church. It's interesting to note that the second largest denomination, after practicing Catholics, is Catholics who are no longer practicing their faith. This is not just a problem within the church; it is also a cultural problem. Today, there are two world views; one is traditional in which community is more important than the individual, and one is modern in which an individual is more important the community. Another way to look at it is to say that in traditional culture people derive their identity by participating in the center, in community.

Before Western society began in about 800 AD, society was a community with orthodox beliefs. People within the community looked toward the center to define themselves, and at the center they found the Church. After Western society began, community ceased to dominate society and people began to look outside the circle for answers. In affect a door was opened that allowed individuals to explore outside their immediate community, and outside the influence of the Church. Once this door was opened in traditional culture people also began to define themselves outside of the circle, orthodoxy died and people began to focus on themselves. This modern view says that an individual has the right to do what they want.

Neo Orthodox is people who are trying to be orthodox, but have "been outside" and are now trying to close the door. These religious fundamentalists want security. For example, what the Christian church went through in a few hundred years, the Islamist church is now going through in about 50 years. Being Catholic is to understand that "Grace perfects nature". Catholics want to understand and participate in the world outside the circle, and it's important for the Church to have a greater intellectual foundation, by reaching out to understand what people are thinking. (Incidentally, my instructor pointed out that for him New Age might be pronounced newage, which rhymes with sewage.)

Choice defines Post Modernism, and the choice of values is what is killing us as a culture. People cannot live without some form of mythical meaning in their lives. Any theology of the church is historical, and it exists to make sense of the meaning of God. Society values diversity and the Church should value diversity, because theology begins with the experiences of diversity and social justice. We as a church must continue to bridge the gap between tradition and experience. One institutional mistake after Vatican II has been a retrenching of the closed circle. The Diocese of San Jose is a very special place actually. This diocese is blessed with an appreciation of diversity, and has an overabundance of gifted laity who are empowered by the very gift of Baptism.

The method for doing theology is basically correlation of scripture, encyclicals, and teaching. Creeds gives us a "that" (belief) and theology gives us a "how" (theory). Theology changes as forms of faith change. Theologians who were creating an ultimate theology for all time didn't understand their own position in history. Every human being has questions that are philosophical, even if they are not about the meaning of life. Ultimately what matters is our relationship with Christ; this is the eternal truth, we teach church, we embody church, we are church. Even if all questions cannot (and must not) be answered we need to ask questions about life, and these questions must be answered in the same form as the question. Some of the questions the Church must answer are 1) What is going on in our culture, 2) What are the needs of the church, 3) What are the needs of the people, and 4) What is the service of church? Good Theology answers questions because it takes the "that" and applies it to life.

Jesus did not understand the word church although it's found in Matthew two times, so where did the idea of Church come from? Thessalonians was the first book of the New Testament, written in about 50 AD, or about 20 years after Jesus' death. Paul was trying to name or describe the followers of Jesus, who were called "The Way" or The "Nazarenes". Paul knew Hebrew scripture, and Gahal Jahwel, "The People of God", was translated into Greek (for the Septuagint) as Ekklesia, "Those who call out to God", which was later translated into English as church. Originally it was applied to each individual community, and much later it was applied to the universal church. Today even though the church as institution is incredibly complicated and varied it still consists of "those who are called out" and it is still "the body of Christ".

Saturday, February 12, 2011

The Greatest Valentine of all Time

"For God so loVed the world
 that He gAve       
 His onLy    
 begottEn    
SoN
         so thaT Everyone
 who believes In him         
       might Not perish
but might have Eternal life."   

John 3:16

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

There was no class tonight.

We're taking a well-deserved break; or at least it feels well deserved. I don't think I've mentioned that my weeks are over full. My wife and I are in a small Bible study group on Monday nights, I assist my wife's Spirituality Tuesday meetings on Tuesday nights, I'm in the ILM class on Wednesday nights, and we attend either the Taize Prayer service or the Zacchaeus Course on Thursday nights (they run on alternate weeks thank goodness). Then there are the weekend chores, errands, and everything else that didn't get done during the week. Keeping up with everything is a bit of a challenge and I apologize for falling behind at times.

Although it is a lot of work I enjoy sharing what I have learned at the Institute for Leadership in Ministry. I doubt that I am truly doing the program justice and my attempt to condense the classes into one post always feels incomplete. The program is well organized, the staff is professional (and friendly), and the training is exceptional. Each class manages to impart important knowledge to someone in our class, and usually we all learn something new or at least understand it more clearly. You can imagine that the five or six classes don't really provide enough time to adequately cover the subject, but the instructors keep the lectures very interesting despite the pace of each class.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who is reading my blog, and I hope that you are learning something too or at least finding it interesting. I occasionally check the traffic and reader statistics information and am often surprised by the number of readers and where you are located. It's a bit overwhelming to discover that what I write is available to anyone in any country. It re-enforces my desire to faithfully reflect my belief in Jesus' love for us, my witness of God's grace in my life, and my understanding of the Catholic Church in the world. Thank you again for taking this journey with me and please feel free to comment if you wish.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

The Church as Organization - Workshop

In the same way that each of the Wednesday night classes begins with a simple and short prayer, usually by someone who volunteers, the Saturday class begins with a longer more organized prayer service, presented by a small group of students. I think this group did an excellent job, the service was very fulfilling, and I was blessed by the prayers, song, and readings. Today’s class was broken up into three sessions, with the theme of how the Church is Organized.

The first morning session was an overview of the Universal Church, and was supposed to be presented by the Bishop, but a recent injury required a substitution, so a Vicar filled in at the last moment. He began by drawing a large circle on the board, and indicated that the circle represented the world. Then he drew a cross on the top of the circle and indicated that the cross represented the Universal Church. He pointed out that Peter didn't establish the church in Rome, but that he was the first Bishop in Rome. He agreed with a student who suggested that when the church becomes dominate (historically) it has become lazy, but then asked a follow up question, "If the church hadn't become the religion of Rome would we be here today?"

The second session was an overview on Leadership in the Church, and the structure of a typical Parish. He presented a vision of ministry that included examples of well organized ministry teams, and discussed various organizational styles; such as autocratic, benevolent, consultative, and shared. He suggested that the last style is the typical expectation in California. Shared leadership has a philosophical component because it is natural for the human spirit to want to have input, it has a theological component because of our shared baptism, and an ecclesiological component because there is more lay people involvement than ever. A good leader must allow participation, allow the team to share responsibility, and make the decisions as a group.

The afternoon session was an overview on Canon Law, which basically regulates areas of the church, such as ministry, structure, and processes. It came from four sources, 1) Old Testament scripture, like the law found in Leviticus and Numbers, and the New Testament, 2) Roman law, such as the court system, and ideas such as advocacy, jurisdiction, and pronouncements, 3) Decrees of Bishops, including the Pope, and 4) the various ecumenical councils. Actually, decrees form the bulk of the Canon Law, and of the twenty one councils four were especially important.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Christology - Class 4

Tonight our instructor began by defining Soteriology as, the saving work of Christ. There are three aspects of this work, Apolutrosis or redemption, Katallasso or atonement, and Hilasterion or expiation. Each of these is equally supported biblically and traditionally. Then he did a quick review of the various heresies; Arianism, countered by the council of Nicea I, believed that Jesus was a creature, Monophysites, countered by the council of Chalcedon, believed that Jesus had only one divine nature, Nestorianism, countered by the council of Ephesus, believed that Jesus was two separate persons, and Monothelites, countered by the council of Constantinople, believed that Jesus had only one will. The problem with each of these beliefs is that each of them compromises salvation. Each of them missed the main understanding that God didn't just get close to (or experience) being man, He became man.

Our instructor went on to describe sin as a misuse of freedom. He also pointed out that although the church has described who Jesus Christ is, it has not tried to describe salvation, because the way in which Christ interacts with us is a mystery. We will not be able to fully grasp the concept of salvation until it is fully experienced by us. Essentially, any God that can be fully defined is not the true God. Salvation remains an object of hope, and an actualization of reality, and it does not mean simply "not going to hell". Jesus remains our example, because by saying this is who Jesus is, we are able to say this is who man is. The positive traits of Jesus reveal the negative traits of man.

Those who need redemption were (and are) slaves and prisoners. Redemption is the price paid by someone else, because redemption cannot be paid by oneself; it is a gift. The point is that everyone is a slave or a prisoner if they choose not to follow God's will for their lives. True freedom is deciding to follow God's will in total submission (there's that paradox again). Exodus is the story of a people liberated from bondage, but the people's freedom came from their acceptance and understanding of God's law. Jesus manifests what life in total obedience to God looks like; the perfect image of love that reached its height on the cross. The final lesson of the cross is that it is the ultimate manifestation of love, without reservation or calculation of the cost. God is love. At the top of the scale is Agape (God's love for us) and at the bottom of the scale is Eros (our struggle with desire) and in the middle, where the two meet, we find Jesus. When God's love for us meets our desire for God, Jesus will determine everything else in our lives. All we have to do is expose ourselves to God's love.

A garden is an image of living in communion, with a gardener and an architect who work together to keep it beautiful. When sin comes in to the garden it breaks that communion, which is symbolic of the basic problem in humanity. We cannot hope to be like God by ourselves, we need each other because when communion fails others and/or God, our image and likeness is scattered. Why did Jesus have to die? Anselm, in his book Cur Deus Homo, asked, “Why didn't God just forgive us?” After all, there are lots of other options as to how God could have saved us. His conclusion was because nothing would have changed. Sin is a breakdown of our primary relationship with God. When that happens everything comes unraveled, resulting in spiritual death, not biological death. Forgiveness doesn't restore the relationship, reconciliation is required. God's dignity and honor is seen by us in His love of and for the world. The sin of man was an offense against God's honor that demanded an infinite repair, and because man is finite and because he committed an infinite offense, someone who was both infinite and finite (divine and human) had to stand as our representative to repair the offense.

This points to the sacrament of reconciliation, because without the sacraments man would be back to where Adam and Eve started. With the sacraments God restores more than what was lost, because His Grace is greater than the loss. The Theology of Representation suggests that Jesus stood in for us on the cross, and we must stand up with Jesus here on earth. Through the sacrament of reconciliation, which is a dialog between sinner and priest, man is empowered and can authentically say, "I am sorry". All sacraments connect us with the passion of Jesus, because they connect us with the love of Jesus. Why did Jesus have to die the cross? Death by crucifixion was not for citizens, but was for rebels, bandits, and runaway slaves (those who fall outside the law as explained in Deuteronomy). All death is awful, but a brutal death on the cross captures the significance of the death. Old age is a process that can be endured, and Jesus didn't wait for old age. His death was given to us as a love offering. We've heard it said that, "Outside of Christ there is no salvation", but is anyone really outside of Christ? Jesus died on the cross, suspended between heaven and earth which reveals to us his identity. He died with his arms outspread to welcome both the Hebrews and the Gentiles. Jesus entered into the horrors of death so that we could enter in the glory of life.

Jesus' ministry is full of healing, cleansing, forgiveness, and touch. The fear of contamination, and desire for cleansing developed a language of disease or contamination. Groups, then and now, are labeled as "other", and often called "a cancer on society" or "vermin" to justify genocide, or cleansing. Obviously, then and now, the source of the problem is never the "other". Both Testaments point to sin as a disease, and recognize that you (me) are the source of the contamination. We should never blame "others". If you cannot offer forgiveness to others then you have not fully accepted forgiveness for yourself. The use of sprinkled blood to cleanse is counterintuitive, but it was because blood is life! This very early instinct was later confirmed by science; blood circulates oxygen which is breath or spirit or life. The language of Jesus' death was that He died on the same night as the Passover lambs are being slaughtered. He died and gave his blood to save us. The cross is the theological conclusion of this sacrifice. Yet the key is not the destruction of victim, it is in encouraging the community. The cross is salvific because of God's overflow of love, a cruciformed life is a life shaped by the love of the cross.

The Trinity, or Tri Unity, suggests that life or existence is like a play or drama. The author is God the Father, the director is God the Spirit, and the star of the show is God the Son. The players are us. God's Son saves us by making us co actors with him, letting us know the script because without the script we don't know the author's intention, and without knowing the author's intention we can't follow direction, and without following direction we can't contribute to the drama. God gives each of us a role in the play, a new identity, and we become a new person. A vocation is not a career; it is a calling, or something that happens to us. It is not a decision. Our role is a variation of Jesus' role; our Christian life should include the aspects of redeemer, reconcilator, and healer. The Sacraments help to configure our belief in Christ, and in the Eucharist we are given the body of Christ so that we can become the body of Christ. Suffering isn't something only to be endured; it can also be an offering to God. We all have a mission or role as Christians, our job is to figure out how God is calling us, and to know why God has put us here.