bukas palad: May 2019

May

26

Homily: Peace

Year C / Eastertide / Week 6 / Sunday

Readings: Acts 15.1-2,22-29/ Psalm 66.2-3,5,6,8 (R/v 4) / Revelation 21.10-14,22-23 / John 14.23-29

Sisters and brothers, have you ever read a sentence in a book or article that touched you deeply and transformed how you live?

When I taught English Literature, I would instruct students to pay attention to grammatically correct, eloquently expressive and purposefully meaningful sentences. In particular, they were to find that one sentence that would make them marvel at the goodness of life and help them savour it well.

I think these words in today’s gospel invite us to do the same: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you”.

As Christians, we should definitely marvel at and savour them very well. We should because they speak of our deep human longing for peace and where we will find its fulfillment — in Jesus.

Our gospel reading is from Jesus’ farewell at the Last Supper. It anticipates the unimaginable trauma and loss the disciples will face when Jesus is arrested and put to death later.

Like them, we too face harm and suffering in our lives. Short-lived relationships hurt us or leave us lonely. Broken marriages end with angry spouses and bitter children. Unexpected misfortune or death drowns us in wretched disappointment and inconsolable grief.

In such moments, we struggle to find a way to continue living even if it seems impossible to. We want to survive. How can we?

Our world offers us simple blessings to get on with life: a rainbow after a storm; a friend’s embrace in our disappointment; a home-cooked meal with the family at day’s end.

But this same world also troubles us when innocent people suffer through famine and die in terrorist attacks. It disappoints us because narrow-mindedness, discrimination, and hatred still prevail. It pains us when many well-meaning efforts to mend and improve come to naught. And it saddens us when beloved family and friends fall into addictions, succumb to violence, or slip away in death.

In such moments we are confused, lost, and pained. It is easy to feel helpless and give up.

We believe Jesus knows our struggles when he looks at us. He certainly did when he looked at his disciples at the Last Supper and what awaited them. Because he was one like us, Jesus knows that we have heartaches and struggles, face oppression and injustice, fear darkness and despair.

He responds by giving us peace. “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid”.

Is Jesus’ peace good enough for us to survive and, more so, to continue living, breathing and flourishing as God created us for — to have life to the full?

For many, peace is a very personal matter. I will be “at peace with myself” when I say sorry. I will meditate to find inner peace when the pressure mounts. I will sit by the sea and be at peace when I need to retreat. All of these are good.

But they are not the kind of peace Jesus speaks of. In John’s gospel peace means eirene in Greek. Eirene is peace between people, peace within a community, peace that knows no rage or havoc of war.

After this moment, Jesus tells his disciples, "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world." Here Jesus speaks of a peace that encourages us to "take heart", which is tharseo in Greek, meaning” “have courage”.

Peace is eirene. When everything is good and right. When everyone is in communion though different. When all bring what they have, share in common, and multiply these in the love of God

Peace is tharseo. When everything is in its place and we are assured. When God's light and goodness safeguards and protects us from sin and evil.

Peace as eirene; peace as tharseo. Such peace is God’s shalom, and in Jesus we know how true and good and beautiful it is.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He walks on water and clams the storm, and the disciples are at peace He fills water jars to the brim with the finest of wines and the bridegroom is at peace. His peace knows no bounds: it comes as sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and mobility for the lame to get up and go home.

Yes, the shalom of God is truly the peace that can enter the tomb on Good Friday only to render it empty on Easter morning.

This is the kind of peace Jesus wants us to have. Peace that encourages us to fear nothing. Peace that heals the wounds of sickness, the pain of hatred and the wrong of sin. Peace that comes when friends forgive and families reconcile. Peace that uplifts the burdened and suffering. Peace that renews our hearts and frees us for life.

Jesus does not give us this peace for ourselves or to shelter us from the world. No, his peace is to empower us to enter more deeply into the world and to do what he did: to love and save.

Indeed, it is Jesus’ peace that gives us the courage to live more fully and boldly as his disciples. Jesus commanded them to go into the world and make disciples of the nations. This world, however, persecuted Christians.

Today, Jesus gives us this same peace so that we can depart from this sacred space, return into our less than perfect world and simply love our neighbors, just as Jesus loved us.

Love all by being at peace with them — eirene. Love all by giving them peace to take heart and carry on — tharseo. Indeed the peace Jesus gives allows us to have faith when the world denies God. This same peace empowers us to live and serve like Jesus who loved all in a world lacking mercy and compassion.

When we live in Jesus’ peace and share his peace, these words from John’s gospel come alive in our midst: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” to save us (John 1:14).

This is why we must take Jesus’ teaching today seriously and live them: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).

If we dare do this, then the promise our second reading presents can come true: that holy city Jerusalem will down out of heaven. Yes, with peace, heaven can reign on earth.

Our readings proclaim that God labours to enter into our world and to dwell with us. This is what Jesus did. He entered our world, loved it, served it and saved all, no matter how spoilt, soiled and stained it was. Yes, he came so that God’s peace will reign in our hearts and on earth.

Don’t we still have a long way to go and much to do to make God’s peace real for many, even ourselves? So what are we going to do about this?

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you”. These are words worth marveling at and savouring. They are life-giving words. They are Jesus’ words.

We should ponder on them by following Mary’s example of prayerfully reflecting on God in her heart. We would be wise to do this because here is Jesus teaching us God’s wisdom to enjoy life to the full. It is so when we are at peace with one another, with ourselves and with God.

So, let us not only marvel at and savour Jesus’ gift of peace in our lives.

Let us make Jesus’ peace our own peace, and go forth from here to share this peace — a peace that surpasses all understanding — with one and all.

Isn’t this how we can work with Jesus so on earth God's peace reigns and goodwill is ours toward all peoples (Luke 2.14)?

Sisters and brothers, what are we waiting for?

Preached at the Church of the Transfiguration and St Ignatius Church

photo: www.desiringgod.org

Posted 26th May 2019 by adrian danker

Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter

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May

19

Homily: Just As

Year C / Eastertide / 5th Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 14.21b-27/ Psalm 144.8-9, 10-11, 12-13ab (R/v c.f 1) / Revelation 21.1-5a / John 13.31-33a, 34-35

Sisters and brothers, having heard today's readings proclaimed, I’d like to reflect on love – on its absence that brings division and on its presence that unites all.

Let me begin with this anecdote. In primary school, we played football during recess. We would divide ourselves into teams: into who is on this team and who is on that team. After choosing our teams, we would look around and see all those we excluded: the unpopular, the fat and clumsy, teachers’ pets, the boys we disliked.

Dividing. Separating. Setting aside. This is how children play. Sometimes, we do the same in life. Consider:

The moneyed are welcomed; the poorer are ignored.

Those with connections get their way; the rest lose out

The beautiful and clever, we admire; the ugly and stupid, we shame.

Those who praise or do good to me, I applaud and love; those who challenge or hurt me, I reject and despise.

As a church, we say, “all are welcome”. Do we really, when some of us still point fingers at who is Catholic enough and who is not, who can receive communion and who cannot?

Life is easier, neater and safer when we know who is on our side and with us and who is not. So, we act in the most human of ways: we judge, segregate and compartmentalize many in our lives. Snobbery, prejudice, and self-righteousness are some reasons we act like this. Sometimes, fear and ignorance play a part.

In Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Loving), Pope Francis declares these ways we interact with one another to be unchristian. If you don’t know another, understand his joys and pains, empathize with her interior struggles, stop being unchristian, Francis insists, Stop judging him another unworthy. Stop condemning her useless. Stop branding them “sinners”.

We know how challenging it is to follow Francis’ instruction. Just look at how all of us, myself included, often fail when we gossip about someone else’s life, actions, and failings. Our gossip judges and condemns them. Others push them aside because of our gossip.

This is why Pope Francis tells us that it is good to shut up. It will stop us from gossiping uncharitably, insensitively, and irresponsibly. For Francis, to shut up is the most merciful way to love one another.

In today’s gospel, Jesus calls his disciples and us to love one another. This is how we glorify God. The first and second readings echo this theme. Paul and Barnabas proclaim God’s love to the Gentiles. John writes of God dwelling amongst us and making all things new because God loves.

Together, the readings invite us to reflect today on our Christian mission to love like Jesus loved.

Catechism classes attended, homilies heard, retreats made, and spiritual reading done call us to love like Jesus. We can by imitating Jesus.

Original sin, however, makes it hard for us to do this. It keeps us too self-focused, self-absorbed, and self-centered.

Just look at how we share our travel stories on Facebook and Instagram or when we take out our phones to show off the countless holiday photos. Are they not often about me here, me there, me everywhere? Do we not narrate what I eat, what I see, how I enjoy, what I buy? The vacation story is more about me, I and myself than it is about others with us or the experiences we shared. Isn’t this how we sometimes live our Christian life – it is all about me and God only?

Contrast this to Luke’s narration of Paul and Barnabas’ missionary works. He tells us about how they baptized new Christians, encouraged disciples facing hardships, appointed elders for the mission and shared God’s saving work with many in no less than 7 cities. We learn about those Christians as we do about Paul and Barnabas. Here, everyone is part of the story of God’s salvation and all have a part to play.

To be part of God’s story. By reaching out to others and making them part of God’s story, we can overcome division and difference. We do this better when we include them in God’s life of loving and saving. To include is better than to just reach out.

There are three ways we can do this. First, by remembering that in God, all of us are sinners yet beloved. Second, by celebrating that in Jesus all of us are saved. Third, by believing that in God’s Spirit all of us enjoy life to the full.

For Jesus “loving one another” must be the firm foundation for us to do one or all of these well.

There is nothing new about Jesus’ call to love one another, some would contest. After all, God made the same call throughout the Old Testament: love the widow, the orphan, the outcast. Others might add that the ancient Greeks, Indians, and Chinese also preached it: do onto others as you would have them do unto you.

Yes, it is good to love another. Sadly, we sometimes love another on our own terms. I will love you like this and not like that. I will only love you if you meet my expectations. I will love when you do this, this and this.

Yes, we should love one another; but often we love by dividing, separating, compartmentalizing, and even demanding.

Jesus calls us to a new and different kind of loving. “Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.”

Jesus loved by serving others, by washing their feet and by dying on the Cross for them. Only a self-sacrificial life loves truly. Only a life that empties itself loves completely. Only a life that loves fully to the end, even if it ends in death can love unreservedly.

This is the kind of love that can change the world. It can because such love reconciles and uplifts. It cares and restores. It saves and redeems. Such love knows no boundaries, has no categories or does not divide. It places no expectations on another. It is not a reward for the good and obedient. Such love gives itself to all. It simply loves.

Such love can do all this because it shares in God’s living.

Does our loving others witness to our life in God? Does our loving draw them into God’s life?

Often times, we make excuses that we cannot love like Jesus. “I’m only human” we lament. But if only we were truly human! Truly human as Jesus values us. I am confident that Jesus believes and knows that humankind is capable of his kind of loving. Why else would he give us this commandment: “Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another” (John 13.34)?

Scripture scholars remind us that this ‘as’ or kathos in the original Greek is very significant. It means with the exact same quality of love. Indeed Jesus believes we are capable of loving as he does – with exact same quality of love that he loves. Are you surprised that this is why Jesus commands us to love?

If you are, then let’s not water down the quality of love that we are capable of having, practicing and sharing.

Today Jesus’ commandment is to love as he loves. Does this disturb or challenge you? If it does, very good. For it is only in loving one another just as Jesus loves that all we believe Easter proclaims is indeed true.

That all are saved.

That nothing can divide us from the love of God.

That there is no division between God’s people.

That in the risen Jesus all things and all humankind are made new.

Our second reading directs our gaze towards the Easter hope that there will be “a new heaven and a new earth”. This can be because in the risen Jesus God’s love will transform us to love all with Christ-like love. When we love with Christ-like love, we can indeed make all things and all peoples new as Easter promises.

As Christians, there is no other way to love others then but to love in the Spirit of Jesus. With a love that is patient and kind. A love that is capable to forgive and keeps no record of wrongs. A love that believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.

If we can love like this then our Christian lives will lead others into life with God and into community with us. I know all of us gathered here strive to love better each time. Because we do, we can be confident that God will empower us to love like Jesus eventually.

So, on this 5th Sunday of Easter, let us examine if our words and actions, our lives, even our silence, lead others to live with God and with us united in Jesus’ love, and not divided by our sins?

How we answer matters: because where love is, God is.

Preached at St Ignatius Church and the Church of the Transfiguration, Singapore

Photo:vaticannews.va

Posted 19th May 2019 by adrian danker

Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter

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May

12

Reflection: Voices that Matter

This is a reflection to close the day's celebrations of Good Shepherd Sunday and Mother's Day.

Year C / Eastertide / Week 4 / Good Shepherd Sunday

Readings: Acts 13:14, 43-52 / Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 5 (R/v 3c) / Revelation 7:9, 14-17 / John 10:27-30

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me”. Jesus says this about all who know and follow him. We hear this in the gospel reading on this 4th Sunday of Easter.

You and I are Jesus’ disciples, and we follow him because we believe he is indeed the Good Shepherd. We want to hear his voice for he guides us to live and move and act in God’s ways.

What allows you and me to hear that voice? Perhaps, it is our familiarity with the tone and timbre of the voice. Maybe it is the assuring knowledge that we recognize him when we hear his voice. It could even be the certainty that Jesus’ voice is the right voice we must listen to.

Whatever the reason, I think we hear and follow Jesus’ voice because Jesus shares a relationship with us. However we describe this relationship at this time – be it close or distant, or even lost – the truth is that we have all experienced it before, in one way or another, intimately.

Intimately, like sheep rescued from danger by the shepherd who holds us safe in his arms.

Intimately, like sheep whom the shepherd seeks out when we stray everywhere from God to satisfy our selfish wants.

Intimately, like sheep from sheep pens whom the shepherd calls out of our comfort zones of self-righteousness and narrowmindedness, pride and arrogance for us to graze freely on greener pastures and to run freely through them to enjoy the fullness of life.

Intimately, like sheep who can rest at night assured that the shepherd lays down his life to at the gate to safeguard and protect.

In all of these, the shepherd cares for us so intimately that he cannot help but smell like us. Why? Because he has dirtied his hands with the grime and grittiness of our plights and pains. Because he has immersed himself in our joys and hopes.

Love, only selfless love, empowers Jesus to shepherd us in these ways. We believe this because we know this to be our life experience. What should surprise us however is that Jesus’ love remains the same – singularly for us, totally for us – even when we fail and sin. His love does not change.

In daily life, we experience intimacy like this divine love – never fully, always a foretaste and a glimpse – through our interactions with those we live with as they care and uplift, forgive and love us. They do all this because they keep faith with us. Theirs is a faith rooted in love for us, even loving us still when we disappoint and dismay them.

Today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. We also celebrate Mother’s Day. God’s providence brings these celebrations together to help us better appreciate what we also give thanks and pray for today: vocations.

The mother’s’ vocation is not just to give birth, to care, and to nurture us to become the persons God wants us to be. It involves a bit more. To mother is to also help us learn the beauty of mothering. That act of loving another totally, selflessly and to end. Mary loved Jesus to the end in death, as only a mother can. I see such loving in my mother, and I believe you see it in your mothers too. What we see and experience in each of our mothers is a reflection of God’s love selflessly shepherding each of us into the fullness of life – totally, selflessly and to the end.

Let us give thanks today for our mothers who mother us best because they shepherd us as Jesus did. In their mothering, they remind us that shepherding is indeed how the varied vocations we have - married or consecrated, ordained or lay – are to care and uplift, forgive and love one another as Jesus did.

Isn’t this why we want to hear the Good Shepherd’s voice because it gathers, guides and directs us to love God and to love others?

If you agree, then, you will know why there is no other voice that soothes us in pain like a mother’s voice, or delights us like a mother’s happy voice or advises us with honesty like a mother’s truthful voice. And isn’t this also why there is no other voice that can better lull us to rest than a mother’s lullaby?

photo: ulric danker (circa 1960s)

Posted 12th May 2019 by adrian danker

Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter

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bukas palad

with open hands, we give what we have first received. and with open hands, we receive what we will divest, once again. this is blessing itself: the giving and receiving of life and love, the sharing of faith and God.

Homily: Peace

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Homily: Just As

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Reflection: Voices that Matter

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