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The Paradox of Suffering, Ministry and the Kingdom of God
Thoughts which carry me, a broken pastor, to Jesus and the Cross
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.Even all the hairs on your head are numbered. So do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:28–31, NET)
One night as blessed Francis was reflecting on all the troubles he was enduring, he was moved by piety for himself. “Lord,” he said to himself, “make haste to help me in my illnesses, so that I may be able to bear them patiently.” And suddenly he was told in spirit: “Tell me, brother, what if, in exchange for your illnesses and troubles, someone were to give you a treasure? And it would be so great and precious that, even if the whole earth were changed to pure gold, all stones to precious stones, and all water to balsam, you would still judge and hold all these things as nothing, as if they were earth, stones and water, in comparison to the great and precious treasure which was given you. Wouldn’t you greatly rejoice?”
“Lord,” blessed Francis answered, “this treasure would indeed be great, worth seeking, very precious, greatly lovable, and desirable.”
“Then, brother,” he was told, “be glad and rejoice in your illnesses and troubles, because as of now, you are as secure as if you were already in my kingdom.”
The Christian faith has only one object, the mystery of Christ dead and risen. But this unique mystery subsists under different modes: it is prefigured in the Old Testament, it is accomplished historically in the earthly life of Christ, it is contained in mystery in the sacraments, it is lived mystically in souls, it is accomplished socially in the Church, it is consummated eschatologically in the heavenly kingdom.
This river of liturgy flows from the heavenly throne, pools up in the Church, and overflows its lip to flood our personal lives.
I have a friend in Sicily, a wise old priest who suffers greatly from physical distress, who has become more than an older brother in the faith, he is one of those heroes of the faith, and in the ministry. He cares for his people enough that he humbles himself to perform mass in a chair behind the altar, for the small group of faithful who need the Eucharist as much as he and I do.
I am a quarter century younger that this man, and he inspires me for he understands intuitively than even in his sufferings, Jesus is made clear to his people. And they learn to endure, they learn that faith is more than knowledge, but a complete dependency on the presence of God in our lives.
The liturgy he prays with his people is the kind that Fagerberg speaks of–something that pours not just from mouths, but from the Throne of God. It comes from deeper than Fr. Guiseppe, or from Pastor Dustin, for it is the Spirit that is allowed to work trhough the cracks of our shattered lives, making those words come alive, giving hope to others that are broken.
This is what real ministry is, helping those who are broken find their way home into the Kingdom of God.
And that is only found in the our death and resurrection with Christ Jesus!
That is what truly gets us through each day, this mystery that should flood over us through the worship service, that doesn’t demand our praise, but causes us rejoice in even the struggles and troubles, for we know His peace and love.- which not only is beyond all understanding, but provides us with our refuge.
Pasquale, G., ed. (2011). Day by Day with Saint Francis: 365 Meditations (pp. 322–323). New City Press.
Fagerberg, D. W. (2019). Liturgical Mysticism (p. xx). Emmaus Academic.
The Transformations of Easter, God changes our Demographics
The Transformations of Easter
The Change to Our Demographics
Acts 10:34-36
† IHS †
May the mercy of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ so heal and transform our lives that we continually hear His desire that all come to the same healing and transformation. And may we dedicate our lives to this very work!
Whose conversion would leave you “out of your mind”?
Have you ever been so confused that you felt out of place? That life all of a sudden was so jumbled that you wondered if you were out of your mind? That life didn’t make all that much sense, that your world seemed to be turning upside-down, inside-out and backward,
You aren’t alone. I’ve had those days myself. Matter of fact, I’ve had more than my share of them!
So did the apostles. Imagine how you would feel if at the next combined service – with two hundred people to feed, we only had 5 filet-o-fishes from McDonald’s, and Jesus said, “No problem, let me pray and then hand out what you’ve got?”
Or the time Jesus was asleep in the middle of the storm, wakes up and tells the sea to be still. That one left them more afraid of Jesus than the storm.
Think about how things changed that night when Jesus, who they witnessed dying on the cross, just walked into the room and told them to stop being afraid, to stop being anxious. That confused them a bit, don’t you think?
The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus transforms everything in our lives, and sometime, okay, most of the time, we aren’t even ready for it.
Like in the story from Acts today, when the Roman soldier and his family, the enemies of Israel are saved. The word for amazed in our translation is the word existemi – to be displaced, or more bluntly, to be out of your mind.
That’s what happens when God transforms your enemies into your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.
Yeah, your enemies. God wants to transform them and welcome them to our family.
Whether that is the ISIS leader, some politician you don’t like, your neighbors whose dog keep you up last night, there is someone whose salvation might confuse you a bit.
You see one of the transformations of Easter is God changing the demographics of His people, to include people of every group on earth.
Including you.
the Challenge of Grace
As we walk through life, we are going to encounter those people who are described with words like enemies, adversaries. They may seriously threaten us, or they may simply irritate us.
For the most part, the Romans were counted among the former group in Peter’s day. And the animosity and fear were mutual. Jews were taught that non-Jews were not people because they weren’t allowed to be people of God. That isn’t what the Bible taught, but it was so often heard in synagogues that it became part of the religion.
This resulted in a culture of fear, and the oppressive Roman government didn’t help much, nor did the extremists like the zealots, who made every issue a critical one. Jewish men weren’t supposed to go into the homes of Gentiles, whether, Greek or Roman.
We may not feel this way about a nationality or race of people today, but most of us do have people we find hard to love or accept. Maybe it is because they are of a different economic class, or because they belong to a different political party. Maybe they are family, these people who you would struggle with, And maybe your own reaction to them causes you to grieve, to be filled with anxiety, to even give up hope for reconciliation and healing.
Maybe we have even been dealing with the brokenness of a relationship so long, we believe it beyond God’s ability to heal?
For the Jewish people, these relationships with Greeks and Romans, even with their Samaritan neighbors, had long since been shattered. Even though, God had promised Abraham that his descendant would bless all nations, even though David and Isaiah wrote about it, even though Solomon dedicated the Temple to both Jewish and non-Jewish people praying to God there….
The relationships were shattered; there was nothing there but animosity, fear, resentment, division and hatred. Simply put, they were shattered by sin.
As have our relationships…indeed all relationships… until the hope of Easter transformed our relationships.
Among the things we can “take away” from this passage, it is the hope that realizing how “out of their minds” the Jewish believers were, when they witnessed their natural enemies and adversaries being touched by the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit who they counted on, who they were comforted by, who transformed their world, in a moment healed the broken relationship Cornelius’s family had with God, and therefore healed all the brokenness between them.
It is as radical as if we got a call from the leaders of Isis, to come share God’s love with them, and we ended up baptizing them and their families.
It is as radical as the guy who killed and captured pastors, coming to know Christ’s love, and becoming an incredible missionary,
It is as radical as God saving you, or I.
Making us the body of Christ, the people of God, the friends of Jesus.
As it happens, as God transforms this Roman military commander, and his family and household, there is confusion and joy and a myriad of emotions as they realized that God doesn’t have a list of types of people that are welcome before His throne.
There are people of every nation, every culture, every language, every economic class. People who grew up worshipping idols, people that grew up knowing of God, but needing to know Him. All types, all kinds, all ages,….
And those who, when God begins working in them, cause us to pause, to wonder, and then to be beside ourselves with joy!
That is why we don’t lose hope for those we struggle with; that is why we try to live at peace with them, care for them, love them. That is our hope for dealing with them and seeing reconciliation happen.
Because it can, and it has….
Because of a cross, a burial and a resurrection of Jesus Christ the son of God.
Yes, because of that we can all know the peace of God, which passes all understanding, and guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
AMEN!
