bukas palad: February 2022

Feb

27

Homily: Clearer

Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 7 / Sunday
Readings: Sirach 27:4-7 / Ps 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16 (R/v cf 2a) / 1 Corinthians 15:54-58 / Luke 6:39-45

“Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own?" (Luke 6.42)

Ouch. I can only imagine how Jesus’ disciples must have felt when they heard him say this. They knew he was driving home an important point about the human heart – that what is in our hearts shapes our words and actions. Maybe it pricked their conscience. Does it prick yours now? It does mine.

Jesus’s words are strong. They are not the kind of Good News we are accustomed to hear. We much prefer hearing about Jesus loving, forgiving and healing. His tough words are uncompromising; they demand we live our Christian lives better. They are in fact Good News if we but understand He teaches to save us for God.

Today Jesus reminds us how foolish we can be, too quick to judge, too quick to notice another's fault or failure, while totally oblivious to our foolishness and failings. He speaks about the ‘planks’ in our eyes when we relate with others. Maybe we must close our eyes for a while in order to see around these.

But you and I usually don’t. We prefer to look for our good points and present them to the world. We want others to judge us virtuous, value our good character, and praise us worthy. We shy away from seeing the many ‘planks’ in our eyes.

It’s not that we cannot see them. It’s that we consciously and carefully curate that image of the good child, the good adult, the good Christian we want others to admire and celebrate. We hide those ‘planks ‘in our lives. We don’t want others to see them.

Many associate Jesus’s teaching about the ‘planks’ in our eyes with hypocrisy. With how we judge others for their sins even though we have sinned.

Could Jesus also be challenging us to see others more clearly? To see their goodness just as we are intrinsically good even when we sin. To see this truth about God’s creation – "and He created them good" – in order to honestly appreciate the sum of all our parts whenever we judge another, and yes, even when we judge ourselves.

When we judge another bad because of a mistake, condemn some as immoral because they are different, and exclude others as unworthy because of background, it has something to do with us. We let our individual differences, particular contradictions, singular disappointments and personal hurts prejudice our judgment. Isn’t this why we have hatred, injustice and war in our midst?

Wouldn’t it be better to step back, stop projecting on others our own biases and small-mindedness, and clarify our own vision? This is what Jesus wants us to do. To see clearer and better. He knows what we often forget or ignore: that none of us has perfect vision.

This is how Jesus’s teaching today saves. It humbles us and makes us more generous to understand and more charitable to help. It does because it reminds us first to be less quick to judge. Here is Jesus’s tender and relentless love rescuing us from our foolish failures of too quickly judging others for their faults while being oblivious to our own. We should welcome Jesus with our need for Him.

When we do, we will understand Sirach’s astute observation in the first reading that “the fruit of a tree shows the care it has had.” Like this tree, Christian life flourishes when others care for us in Jesus’s ways. They are growing and pruning us. This is how Jesus helps us to “gradually learn not only what to say in all manner of situations, but importantly when and how to say what we believe needs to be said, for justice, for forgiveness, for reconciliation, for charity and for encouragement.”*

Hearing Jesus’s teaching, it would be wise for us say more honestly how each of us is a mix of good and bad, of words that can inspire another and ridicule others, of hearts that uplift each other and hands that can tear them down. This is the complexity of our human nature.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus teaches us that God understands this complexity. In God’s eyes, this is part of the beauty each of us is. And God sees more. He recognises the promise in us to become better. This is how He always looks at us – lovingly with hope. In Jesus, this look forgives the adulterous woman. It includes Matthew the tax collector among his disciples. And in spite of Peter’s betrayal embraces him still as his own. We can only imagine the good Jesus will do as He looks at us – lovingly with hope

We begin Lent this week. We need to remember God’s look of love and hope as we enter Lent to appreciate its focus. It is not how unworthy we are because of sin. More correctly, it is God’s mercy that saves. Of God looking mercifully at the splinters and planks in us and removing them to save us. We need to cooperate with God for this to happen. So, let us close our eyes for a while and be guided by God’s look not just on us but, through us, on everyone – looking lovingly with hope to save.

Shall we?

*John Christman, SSS, A reflection for the eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
photo: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia website

Posted 27th February 2022 by adrian danker

Labels: Breaking Open God's Word

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Feb

20

Homily: The Way

Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 7 / Sunday
Readings: Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23/ Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13 (R/v 8a) / 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 / Luke 6:27-38

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6.36)

Today we hear Jesus’s command to his disciples to be merciful. Hearing His teaching, we might say we know it. We might justify that we are already doing it. Might it profit us to hear it once again?

Wise are we who really want to hear this teaching Jesus makes. He calls us, his followers, to a higher standard of living. One that is even more demanding than the already high standard of human behaviour we hold ourselves and others to – that we “treat others as we would like them to treat us.”

This even higher standard is contrary to the world’s practices of ‘dog eat do’ and ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ The first explains getting ahead at all costs. The second justifies revenge, retribution and settling the score.

A person of God knows better. Her choice will be different. We see this when David spares Saul’s life. Saul’s attempts on David’s life justify Abishai’s desire to kill him. The Mosaic Law permits this. Abishai encourages David to kill for he sees God delivering Saul into David’s hands. David refrains from killing. He secures Saul’s life. His compassion supersedes the Law. David acts with mercy.

In the Gospel, Jesus challenges us to the same measure of mercy. In fact he commands us to go one step further than David. It is not about harming or killing one’s enemies. Instead, Jesus says, “love them.”

Love them without expecting anything back when you lend. Love them without demanding a return when someone takes something from you. Love them without stinging or withholding back when others ask or demand for more. And yes, love them without reservation when another hurts you.

Isn’t this the kind of love God pours out when He enters into the messiness of our lives without us even demanding He must? Staying with us in our sinfulness without condemnation? Forgiving us without hesitation when we finally ask for it, and then lifting us up to fullness of life without regret?

Indeed, isn’t this the mercy we need? A loved one’s mercy to forgive when everyone clamours to stone us for our sins. A friend’s mercy that calls us down from our trees and invites himself to be our guest. A stranger’s mercy that we should sit at their table and break bread together. Even the mercy of second chances from some that we are more and better when many nail us to crosses of shame, guilt and failure for our mistakes, failings and sins.

Yes, you and I need this kind of mercy. God’s mercy. It is “our liberation and our happiness,” Pope Francis teaches. “We live through mercy and we cannot afford to be without mercy. It is the air we breathe. We are too poor to set conditions. We need to forgive because we need to be forgiven.”*

Jesus came to reveal God’s mercy. He also showed us the way to be as merciful as God is.

For the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jesus ‘cuts a path’ of grace ascending and grace descending. In his humanity, Jesus is creation’s highest response to God. In his divinity, Jesus is God’s Word to creation. Paul teaches us that we bear Jesus’s image. To be Christian us to live as Jesus did – as that path of grace that brings God’s mercy to all.

We all want to do this because we follow Jesus. Be prepared however for others to ridicule, shame, and persecute us for being merciful. They will because Jesus’s way of mercy is absolutely counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. Their first inclination is to act in the ways of ‘dog eat dog’ and ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ Do we act like them sometimes?

Jesus demands that we act first and always with mercy. It’s hard to do this, isn’t it? Especially when those we love, trust and hope in hurt, disappoint or betray us. We might throw up our hands after many tries and confess we can’t be merciful. It is beyond our ability. Of course it is!

True mercy comes with God’s help. He can stretch our hearts wider and wider, and show us how to be truly merciful. He will do this, if we dare cooperate just a bit.

It helps that Jesus teaches his disciples about mercy and loving one’s enemies as they make their way to the Cross. There, He reveals the fullness of his love for God and neighbour. There his disciples understand the fullness of mercy he has been teaching them.

We too are on the same way – the way of Jesus. We are learning daily how to love like Jesus. We are doing this together. Learning and re-learning, again and again, over and over, how to love mercifully in God’s ways. Jesus patiently shows us how to do this. He lovingly encourages us on our way. Yes, this is in fact what He is doing right here, right now in giving Himself to us through the readings and in the Eucharist.

Will we learn? Will we ever learn?

*Pope Fancies, ‘Mercy is the very heart of God,’ March 18, 2020

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
photo by Matze Bob on Unsplash

Posted 20th February 2022 by adrian danker

Labels: Breaking Open God's Word

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Feb

6

Homily: Stepping In

Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 5 / Sunday
Readings: Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8/ Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8 (R/V 1c) / 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 / Luke 5.1-11

“I preached what they preach and this is what you all believe” (1 Corinthians 15.11)

Paul closes his teaching to the Corinthians today with these words. They remind us of Paul’s mission: to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. Many have imitated Paul’s mission throughout history and handed this Good News down to many more. We have received this Good News too, and we believe.

Paul’s words today remind me of this instruction to deacons: “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practise what you teach.” It is said at their ordination. They are ordained not just for mission; they are ordained to a way of life – for service.

Today’s readings are about the call to service. Serving the Lord by serving His people. This call is not just for the first Christians or deacons. It is for you and me too. We know we are called to serve. Today, Jesus calls us again.

Paul reminds Christians that they believe what he preaches. He preaches Jesus, God-with-us, loving and saving us. He preaches with words, and, even more, with his life. It is one of selfless service that began with Paul’s ‘yes’ to the Lord.

We also want to say ‘yes’ to the Lord. We want to echo Isaiah and say. “Here I am, send me.” We want to do this to make our Christian life count for something. This is our holy intention. Following Jesus counts. Christian discipleship then makes faith come alive and life matter.

The honest truth is that we all struggle to do this. Like Isaiah, we know how wretched, how lost, and how unclean we are. We know this not because of our sinfulness. We know it because looking into the face of God when we sin, we encounter his immeasurable goodness and love. For many of us, this mercy overwhelms, and we want to run away from God and hide.

Run away: this is how the Evil One seduces us. Tempting us that we are never good enough. Never good enough especially for God.

Today, Jesus’s words and actions remind us that we are more than good enough. This is why he challenges us to stay with him. To stay and live his call to serve. With him on mission. With him beside us. With him who – first of all – steps into the boats our lives are.

Jesus does this by stepping into Peter’s boat. He steps into it without asking permission. He takes Peter’s place and job at the helm. He sets himself up with authority to preach and teach God’s people. Indeed, Jesus sets Himself up in Peter’s boat and the people’s lives as their Good Shepherd, always looking out for His own and caring for them.

To hear God’s Word, and trust and follow it. This is how the miracle of the surprising, plentiful catch of fish happens. This is the second lesson of Jesus stepping into Peter's boat. That Jesus makes out of the emptiness of our lives much good. A wasted night of fishing nothing is no more; now there is an overflowing abundance that even spills into the other boat. All this happens because Peter listens, trusts and follows Jesus’s instruction.

Jesus’s bold, even impertinent, act of stepping into the empty boat changes everything. This is not because Jesus takes possession of the boat or Peter loses owning it. Rather, it is the gift of both entering into friendship that makes faith, life and service come alive and flourish. Yes, when we partner Jesus, the empty nets in our lives will be filled, often with excess beyond our imagination. There will be fish for the catch, food for nourishment and life in abundance instead of emptiness or lack. What we don’t have, Jesus will provide, often much more. When we don’t have, Jesus will turn up and give, always surprising us. This miracle of something more and better out of nothing is Jesus’s assurance that God keeps his promise to be with us and for us.

For us who receive much goodness from God, much is expected of us. Again and again, Jesus reminds us what God’s expectation is: that we share generously, even better, we do selflessly. Many others need this goodness that sustains and nourishes, refreshes and remakes us and our lives. Once again, Jesus calls us to share through lives of service. Are we?

Today, Jesus is indeed stepping into the boats of our lives right here, right now. However fragile, broken, shabby, unsightly, even ill-fitted for the open waters, we are, Jesus is stepping into our lives through today’s readings, today's Eucharist.

Stepping into our lives because Jesus chooses us to serve everyone with Him. He lovingly values us worthy, even when we consider ourselves unworthy. Worthy, and, even more, worth His while and His love to be His. His boat to brave stormy seas to carry others to safety. His bark to journey far and wide across the waters to those in need at the horizons. His vessel to carry the life saving cargo of the Good News to all peoples.

Jesus does this for us, and through us, for everyone because He wants to. He desires so very much to step into our lives and set himself up in order to transfigure us for better. He will do this by forming us to:
believe what we read in Scripture,
teach what we believe to everyone,
practise what we teach in our lives.
Today we should be joyful that Jesus wants nothing less than to make us better to serve others. We can help Jesus make this happen by cooperating with Him in our lives. Let us begin by recognising this instruction He says to us, as he once said to Peter, “put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.”

Shall we? Dare we?

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
photo by shayan abedi on Unsplash

Posted 6th February 2022 by adrian danker

Labels: Breaking Open God's Word

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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: Clearer

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Homily: The Way

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Homily: Stepping In

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