THE PHARISEES TELL JESUS TO FIX THE CIGARET LIGHTER

3/6/13




Tomorrow’s Gospel reading, from the 11th chapter of Luke’s account, presents, as do most gospel passages, a situation from the time of Jesus with distinct echoes into our time.



As Luke tells us,



“(Jesus) was driving out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute person spoke and the crowds were amazed.” Luke 11, 14



We don’t see many exorcisms (or instantaneous cures for epilepsy, as many, but not all, of these reported exorcisms of Jesus were) nowadays. But bear with me.

What was the reaction of “some of them,” as Luke refers to a group of people probably comprised of Pharisees and/or Scribes?



“By the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Luke 11, 15



Jesus goes on to admonish those who contended that He was an agent of Satan. That admonition, in which He speaks of a “kingdom (in other gospels, a “house”) divided against itself,” was quoted, or paraphrased, by Abraham Lincoln in his speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for the Senate in 1858 has thus become part of the fabric of American history. But Jesus’ eloquent retort to His critics is not what I find most interesting about this passage.



Note that the “others” who ascribed Jesus’ power to the devil were the same people who had been constantly asking for a sign earlier in the gospel. And one can understand the demands for a sign; Jesus was expounding some radical ideas, ideas that would change Judaism and shake up the leadership in Jerusalem. When a guy speaks this big, he’d better have something to back up the big talk. So Jesus gives them the sign they seek, though clearly His motives were healing the possessed person, not satisfying the demands of the Pharisees.



What do the leaders of the day do in response to the sign? They dismiss it as the work of the devil. It was as if they were ancient versions of Jake Blues. Jake, as you will recall, was complaining that his brother Elwood had traded in the Bluesmobile (a Cadillac, no less) for a microphone and had replaced the Bluesmobile with a used Des Plaines (I think Des Plaines; it may have been Mt. Prospect.) cop car. When Elwood explains that the car’s



“…got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch mill. It’s got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks”



and demonstrates the new Bluesmobile’s prowess by leaping over an open 95th Street Bridge, Jake’s only response is



“Fix the cigaret lighter”



when he finds the lighter doesn’t work.



There was nothing Jesus was going to do to satisfy the authorities of the day, just as there was nothing Elwood could do to satisfy Jake.



To further illustrate the obstinacy of the Pharisees and “others,” Luke recounts, right after the Beelzebub comment



And still others to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. Luke 11, 16



Wait; hadn’t Jesus just performed what certainly looked like a sign from heaven in driving out the demons? The demands just kept coming, and the demands could never be satisfied.



Many of us treat God the same way. Ascribing to the popular theory that God is some kind of cosmic Short Order Cook, we make demands on Him. “Give me this, this, this, and that. And throw in something for my Uncle Bruno and Aunt Bernice.” When He doesn’t give us what we want, we complain, feel cheated, and maybe even challenge His existence. And when He does give us what we want, we aren’t satisfied and ask for more.



Like the “others” in this Gospel, we don’t listen to Jesus’ message, or we do listen but don’t like its implications. So we demand that God “prove” His message by some miracle or gift. If the miracle doesn’t come through, we can continue to ignore the message. If it does come through, hey, our order has been filled and we can go ahead and order desert in the form of something else we think we need. There is indeed limited downside to such a practice of Christianity, or such an approach to God, and plenty of upside. We don’t have to do anything or heed any message, and there is plenty of potential for goodies to come our way.



Things don’t change much over the centuries.

“DO AND OBSERVE ALL THINGS” THESE HYPOCRITES TELL US?

2/25/13




Tomorrow’s (Tuesday, 2/26/13’s) Gospel reading comes from the 23rd chapter of Matthew, in which Jesus says to His disciples:



“The scribes and the Pharisees

have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.

Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,

but do not follow their example.

For they preach but they do not practice.

They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry

and lay them on people’s shoulders,

but they will not lift a finger to move them.

All their works are performed to be seen.

They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.”



Jesus goes on describing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but you get the idea from this portion of the reading.



This is one of the most troubling and demanding of the teachings of Jesus, or at least it is for me.



One can easily see Jesus speaking not only of the Pharisees of His age, but of hypocritical elements of the religious leadership of all ages. For us, of course, the most relevant application of this teaching is to the religious leadership of this, our, age. Though obviously amplified by the mere fact that we are living through it, the hypocrisy, the pride, the obtuseness, and the utter poltroonishness of our many of our religious leaders seems to match that of any age. Just read the papers, which, of course, our hypocritical and vainglorious religious leaders tell us not to read because they are on some kind of campaign to “get” the Church. I don’t doubt that many, or at least some, elements of the press are hostile to the Catholic Church, and some are antagonistic toward all churches. But if the Church’s tone deaf, generally out of touch, and full of itself leadership didn’t give its enemies so much ammunition, perhaps the Church wouldn’t be pounded as hard and as often as it is currently being pummeled, generally deservedly so. But I digress.



Why is this reading so troubling? Because Jesus tells us to “do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,” despite their hypocrisy, greed, pride, and general display of those attributes that will surely separate us from God. Therefore, if Jesus is talking to us through the ages, He is telling us to “do and observe all things whatsoever” (Matthew, 23, 3) the Church leadership tells us despite, in the eyes of many Catholics (and in the eyes of many Christians of their own church leadership), the many shortcomings of many in that leadership.



I, for one, do not want to “do and observe all things whatsoever” I am taught by elements of the Church’s (and other Christian denominations’) leadership who are silly, two-faced, out of touch, full of themselves, pompous, fatuous, mendacious, falsely pious, criminal…or worse. This is indeed one of those passages in which I hope that Jesus doesn’t mean what He appears to mean. Can you imagine the abuse to which these words can be put? Oh, wait…we’ve already seen the abuse to which such words can be put.



He can’t mean this; can He? Perhaps it is a question of who holds true teaching authority, the latter day equivalent of the “seat(s) on the chair of Moses.” Perhaps many who think they occupy such seats occupy them only in their own minds. Or at least I hope so.

THE WOMAN WITH A HEMORRHAGE: WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T MAKE JESUS MAD! ?

2/5/13




Today’s Gospel reading is Mark’s account of the “two miracles,” the cure of the woman with a hemorrhage and the cure of the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official. (Mark 5, 21-43)



Like most Gospel stories, even in Mark’s fast-paced, and short, narrative, this one is dense with meaning and lessons. Perhaps the most obvious is the power of Jesus to work miracles and the evidence such power provides that He is indeed, the Son of God. Just a bit deeper, and maybe more important, is the role of faith in the saving mission of Jesus Christ. While both the woman with a hemorrhage and Jairus, and certainly those who observed these miracles, may have thought that the miracles were effected by contact with, or the actions of, Jesus, it was the faith of recipients that resulted in the miracles. Both the woman and Jairus believed that Jesus could save them; they didn’t doubt and they didn’t hesitate. Neither thought “What the hell, nothing else has worked, so I’ll give this Jesus guy that everyone is talking about a whirl. What have I got to lose?” No. Each was convinced that Jesus could, respectively, cure the hemorrhage that had been afflicting the woman for twelve years and save Jairus’s daughter from what looked like certain death.



There is something else about the story that has long caught my attention. The first of the miracle stories recounts the woman’s touching the cloak of Jesus and being cured. Jesus “aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked ‘Who has touched my clothes?’” (Mark 5, 30) Note that the story does not indicate that Jesus was disturbed or angry; He simply asked who touched Him. But then the story goes on



“The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth.” (Mark 5, 33)



This woman was conditioned, perhaps from the teachings of the Old Testament conveyed by the rigid, stern, rules-obsessed teachers of the day (the Pharisees, but does this sound at all familiar?), to believe that Jesus would be angry with her, perhaps for seeking His mercy without His explicit permission or the permission of the religious authorities or for the temerity she, a woman, displayed in touching a man, or even his clothes. But what does Jesus do?



“He said to her ‘Daughter, our faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.’” (Mark 5, 34)



He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t appalled that the woman had broken some kind of man made rule. He was delighted to have been able to cure her and was amazed, and marveled, at her faith.



That’s the way God is; He wants to help us and to cure us because He loves us. He doesn’t hand out favors and cures as rewards for slavishly following “the rules” somebody claims to have made in His name. We don’t have to beg God for His miracles; He wants to perform them for us. All He asks is faith and, in a sense, permission to do those things He does so well and so lovingly.