Podcast transcript:
The scripture this evening presents us with 2 different stories, yet stories that have a lot of similarities. The first reading, from the book of Genesis, is a story of Abraham as he greets and meets visitors that come in the desert. One of the reasons why we like that story, upon reading, in perhaps a more modern context, based upon what the experience that we have been sharing.

And we may write the story very differently: rather than going into his tent to gather Sarah to prepare food for these strangers – we would have probably gone into the tent, gathered the servants, got their weapons, and prepared themselves to protect themselves from these unknown strangers who were coming into their midst.

The desert was a dangerous place. Abraham was a very prosperous individual. And so he really had no knowledge of who these 3 individuals were. Were they coming to attack him? Were they coming to seize his possessions?

But he doesn’t do that. The story is very clear. He goes out to them. He welcomes them. He tells them, “Come, let me get you a basin to wash your feet, so you might then relax from the journey. And let me have my wife, my servants prepare a meal for you, so you may eat and be nourished as you continue on your journey.”

Why? What motivated Abraham to literally operate out of what would be the normal human ambition? And you would have to conclude there were always this difference in Abraham, in respect to God. You might have heard earlier in the book of Genesis, there is again this dialogue about Sodom, between God and Abraham – very intimate with one another. Abraham even gets to bartering with God about Sodom and Gomorrah. So Abraham had a very close relationship with God. And that gave him strength to be different and to act in a different way, out of what would be the expected behavior in that circumstance, that situation.

And when you come to the Gospel, it’s again, Jesus being welcomed to a home for the purpose of a meal. The focus of the story, we hear, seems to be on Mary – Mary who chooses to sit at the feet of Jesus.

You would say, what’s so different about that? Well again, remember the culture, remember the time. In those days, as is still true in many parts of the world today, there were great differences between the use of space and the roles of people. The women’s role was the kitchen – to prepare the meal, to serve. The dining room was where the men gathered, to converse and enjoy each other’s company, perhaps to debate, perhaps to resolve problems, perhaps to explore different opportunities.

Mary seems not willing to go into that box. Mary won’t accept it, and she won’t accept it: by invading and then sits, and not only invading and then sits, but taking the role of men at that time and in that society, by placing herself at the feet of Jesus, the position of a student in the presence of a teacher. And she does sit in a concrete way, because of the love of Jesus, to give expression, to give thoughts, and attention to the Word.

And it also fits into Luke’s work. To Each His Day – a review of the commentaries – one of the things that’s noted, said this particular episode of Mary and Martha, and the Gospel that we listened to last Sunday, of the Samaritan, are 2 unique stories that Luke includes in his Gospel, but not in the other Synotics or in John. They’re only found in Luke.

What was Luke contending? What was he trying to get at by including these 2 stories in his presentation of Jesus? Now, I think what Luke was really getting at – which was the overall theme of his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles – the overall theme that God has initiated a new day, and it takes a new order that is being brought into being, and that order is premised on courageous action. It is premised on trust, the trust that we have in loving God that tells us things don’t have to be as they are. They can be different. And they can be different, because if we listen to God, to the Word of God, it will show us a new way of living. It will show us new opportunities. It will show us the excitement of realizing our human potential.

Now yesterday, even thought it was rather subdued, it was the 50th anniversary of the first human walking on the Moon. You may have caught some of the preliminaries, the work, the presentations that came, that in a sense, echo mystery.

I know people there, I can see them in the mirror, sitting with a bunch of younger people that were very into seminary back then. And we had our youth group, and we were sitting in front of the television in one of their homes, watching this tremendous achievement – unthinkable, unthinkable! – that we could leave the atmosphere of the Earth, that we could travel in an unknown dimension, in outer space, and actually land, and put our foot on the Moon. And then we come back, which is probably even a more exciting new void, the fact that we had figured out how to do this. And this began a whole new moment. It excited the world – because to show that in the midst of all of the terrible things that were going on at that time.

Remember, it was the time of civil unrest. It was the time of Vietnam and a lot of other war. It was the time of just unspeakable, unspeakable events. Yet, with this, we see a vision, we see possibilities.

You might remember that the words of the astronauts had quite the religious significance. It was, they, in a sense, trusted in God, because they were really alone. Not only did they trusted in the Lord, but they were realizing the great potential that God had designed into the new, into the new and the unknown.

In a sense, the Scriptures today are saying the same thing to us. You don’t have to do things out of fear. But if you operate out of trust with God, if you are willing to allow yourself to be connected to the Word of God, then great things are possible.

You know I wish some day, I wish you could go through the experience of a moving, a very special and momentous moment in history. How much do we miss by not doing more like that? The space race didn’t end with landing on the Moon. It opened it up for all. And it is something that we will go and reflect on. How many years now have we had a space station travelling around the Earth? And how we have sanctioned this, because it does not represent the divisions of the Earth, of the human community, but it represents the unity of the human community. Arch enemies – the U.S. and Russia – working together in scientific endeavours to improve the quality of life of human people.

Today, I would think that positive use of our potential is satisfying. Since it represents, not with fear, which is promoted at this point in time, not with fear that is being promoted at this time. But hope, hope that we learn to respect, learn to listen, learn – in a sense – to meld together our potential. We have great opportunities, great opportunities, to great commonalities, which was like Abraham did in the desert, like Mary did in that home. There are great barriers.

Open the door to the wisdom of God – the new age, the new creation, to the glory of God, all ends to the Kingdom.

Podcast transcript:

At last week’s Gospel, a scholar of the law asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus – good teacher that he is – asked what he found written in the Law. The scholar answered to love God and neighbor. Jesus agreed with him and told him to put it into practice. Good lawyer and the scholar he asked for further clarification: “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded by a shocking story that forced the man – no doubt very reluctant – to include the hated and feared Samaritans as neighbors.

Today’s Gospel follows immediately on this, and asks how are we to love God. Jesus’s answer to this will be no less shocking. Jesus was an itinerant preacher, and would have expected to be greeted by the leading people of any town he visited. One family would host him in their home and would invite the leading men of the town to listen to him. The women, of at least that family, would be expected to prepare a meal for them. As Jesus was prestigious, they would be expected to outdo themselves to increase their status within the community. Before continuing, we should note that this was a noble activity, and should not be despised. Jesus is not making a general statement about sharing the housekeeping . He is saying simply to fulfill the injunction to love God, we need to listen to His word, about which is more important than any other duty or condition: male or female is incidental to discipleship.

Luke is very careful to maintain parallels. Several chapters before this, Jesus said to a potential disciple, “follow me.” The Man replied, “Lord let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered, “let the dead bury their dead, but you go and Proclaim the kingdom of God.” Knowing, loving, and proclaiming the presence of God and the world is more important than anything else. That Jesus placed women as equal to men and were to be instructed and formed in the same way would have been shocking to his audience – those born Greek as well as Jew – as telling the scholar of the law that the Samaritan was his neighbor. The great commandment of God to love God and neighbor cannot be accomplished without undermining the social structures of the day.

As we look around us, we may find the same situation. What will need to be put aside, if not a way for us to be able to listen to God’s word, not to put it into practice. You can call attention to the situation on our own borders and we ask you to listen carefully to the announcement at the end of Mass, but there is still more to be said about the specific situation of men and women in the Church, particularly the early church.

As it happens, we will celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene tomorrow. Now we use the word Feast loosely, usually for any liturgical celebration of the saints. There are actual four levels of commemoration: Feast has the second-highest surpassed only by solumnities such as Christmas or the Assumption. Pope Francis has made the celebration for Saint Mary Magdalene a feast with its own prayers and readings. If you’re interested in this kind of inside ecclesiastical baseball, you can find more information on our website or in the weekly email yesterday.

The point is that we acknowledge St. Mary Magdalene as the Apostle of, or to the Apostles. She is found in all the Gospels usually leading a group of women, and is always mentioned first. Also she is the first in all the gospels to experience the empty tomb and to bring this news to the other apostles. Thus the Apostle – one sent – to the other apostles.

In all the Gospels it is women who first experience the empty tomb. Now some commentators have developed ingenious theological reasons for this. I do not find them compelling. I think they’re simply recording a fact, and indeed a rather embarrassing one: men weren’t there. Luke, always seeking balance, included the story of the male disciples on the road to Emmaus, but however beautiful a story, it seems a little bit too contrived and convenient for me. It has been noticed that the women were there to perform a religious task of caring for the body of Jesus – that this may have occurred, but it was simply a female role.

Let’s look at this for a moment. This week, I was out with some friends, and one of them introduced me to a few of his friends. They were businesspeople, so he told them that over the years I have merged a number of parishes and started a charter school. It was a language they could understand, and I am happy – dare say proud – that I was able to have the chance to do that.

But looking back over 40 plus years of ministry, they are not what I most remember, or for that matter of what I find the most valuable. What brought me the closest to Jesus and gave me whatever insights I’ve been able to pass on to you was obtained by visiting the sick, especially the dying. For most of my ministry I have cleared at least one – before I was a pastor 2 days – a week to visit people and their homes or nursing homes or hospitals and bring them communion but mostly to listen to them, and often just hold their hands. That has been my empty tomb. I know that this is a ministry which does not depend on being male or female, young or old, educated or uneducated. It is simply being present to people.

Isn’t it interesting, however, that it is usually done by women. Now, I understand that many women object to the statement of a “female genius”, or emphasizing supposed female talents. I’m certain that there are differences, but like Luke I question how important they are for a vibrant ministry. The call of Jesus is still the same, and I feel many Christian men become Marthas – busy about many things, but it is women who have chosen the better part that leads to knowing Jesus.

Jesus has left the tomb and is now found in his body – the Church – most clearly and strongly in its weakest members: the poor, the outcast, the sick. Those who minister to this body and as a literal sense as possible, will be the first to encounter Jesus. Whoever they are, they are like Mary, the sister of Martha, and have chosen the better part, no matter what others may say. They are like Mary Magdalene: they will be the apostles to the rest of us. They will have the most important message, no matter what we think is more important.

Podcast Transcript:

Good morning, everyone. It’s great to be back here with you in New York. I think the last time I was here it was like freezing, and now it’s just like sweltering. So I always come back to the East Coast when were in these weather extremes, which is the complete antithesis of what I’m used to now in the Bay Area and Berkeley, by San Francisco, because it’s like everyday it’s 70 and breezy. It’s like, it’s amazing how easy forget about weather extremes when you’re living out there, so I’m guess I’m happy that I was reminded that there are other parts of the country that really struggle with weather. So I’m in it here with you as well, so thanks for being here this morning as we’re all trying to get through this hot weather.

Today’s Gospel, I can’t help to think, is just one of those stories with Jesus that just seems all too human, all too real. How many of us have just dealt with just the frustration of someone close to us, perhaps a family member or friend, who doesn’t seem to be pulling their weight. When we’re overextending ourselves and trying to do something, and of course this is the case of, you know, Jesus, as the guests at this house of these two sisters Martha and Mary, and he see that Martha is doing everything to make sure that the house looks right. Everything’s put together, and of course what’s Mary doing? While she’s just kind of was listening and hanging on to everything that Jesus is saying. It’s almost as if, like, you know, Mary’s that’s like Jesus’s biggest fan, and just can’t wait to just get everything out of him.

Well, Martha’s the one in the in the back, you know, kind of running the concession stand, making sure that, you know, everything’s working, and of course there’s this resentment. Martha’s because she is doing all this work and Mary seems to be getting a free ride. Not only is Martha serving Jesus and making the house good for Jesus, it seems as if Martha is also making sure that Mary is okay, as well. You know, twice the amount of work almost, right?

And when we look at the story, of course, as it is with everything in the Gospel, there’s probably a deeper spiritual implication going on, and many of us will take away from this story – well there seems to be two different ways to live the Christian Life. There is the life we would say of the full-time contemplative, the full time prayer, and then there’s the life of the full-time active minister – social worker, if you will. The person who’s always trying to make things and make an impact in society, and of course in our Catholic Christian tradition, we could probably look upon many examples of different Saints, many different notable people who we can think of, many Saints who were monks and nuns. People who are true contemplative people who left the world as a way to reform greater intimacy with God, and in that presence of being with God they were able to engage the world in a different way, as a way to look at the world as something that is passing, and it’s a way for us to prepare our souls for eternity.

The tons of even recent examples of people who were contemplative in modern times – the 20th Century – to think of someone like Thomas Merton, for example, who was, who lived a very active life here in New York City going to Columbia University, and then becoming a Catholic and leaving the world and going to a monastery in Kentucky, where he was able to develop his life to prayer and spiritual writing, and which many of us have maybe been influenced by. And of course then we have the great other extreme: people who work very hard in the world trying to make an imprint on bringing relief to the poor to the sufferings of those are marginalized. And of course in the Twentieth Century, again we can think of someone like a Mother Teresa, who is clearly right in the thick of things in Calcutta, working with people who are suffering from leprosy and other harmful elements in the midst of extreme poverty. And so looking at those two types of streams of how to live the Christian Life, we kind of look at this Gospel as a place where it’s find the origin, Mary being the great contemplative at the feet of Jesus, Martha being the great active social worker in the world making a difference.

Yet today, Jesus seems to give Martha a hard time, almost saying that all this activity is not really what’s important. Yet, when you look at it in a far deeper way, is perhaps not Jesus’s criticism of the activity – it’s more of Jesus being mindful that the thing that Martha was struggling with is something that I think we can all identify with and that is anxiety. Jesus says that Martha you are anxious about many things. Anxiety, I think all of us understand what it means to be anxious, to be worried. And what is anxiety? Anxiety is simply us not living in the present moment. What I mean by that, because if you really think about it, our anxiety is always worrying about things that might happen, that could happen, that maybe even will happen. But yet, they’re not actually happening right now.

All of us right now this very moment may feel anxiety because you may think about what you have to do after you leave church. You may have to think about ways to deal with the rest of this week. You may think about something that’s happening right now and your family life and your personal life, but if you’re really honest with yourself, if we are all honest with ourselves at this very moment, as we sit in these pews, we really don’t have to worry about anything. We can just be. But yet, our anxiety takes us to someplace else and Jesus is very, very delicately and very gently – I would say – gently reminding Martha that anxiety takes us outside of the presence of God, because the presence of God is always in the present.

The presence of God is a journey. Now there’s not a presence of God that’s found in the past, or presence of God that’s found in the future, because God doesn’t operate in time the way that we understand. If God exists outside of time, he’s beyond time. We’re the ones who think in a very linear progression. God is simply the Eternal Now – “I Am Who Am”. As he reveals His name to Moses and how do we practically deal with that, what we deal with it as we’ve tried our best to become more contemplative.

Now that doesn’t mean that we’re all going to run off and become monks and nuns call to be contemplative. The Christian should always be one who is constantly contemplating the presence of Jesus Christ in the now, in the present, because only by contemplating where Jesus is in the present moment. Will anyone be able to know what he or she should do with his or her life if you’re thinking about the future and always worrying about what’s going to happen next? And how we’re going to deal with things, or if you’re even dealing with the regrets of the past? Those things do not help us learn how God wants us to live our lives today.

Now let me give up a short little example of this happened to me this week as I was coming back from California. For those you may not know, I’m out in California studying at Berkeley, and I came back on a flight that was supposed to arrive at 9:30 at JFK on Wednesday evening, but there were thunderstorms here in New York and the plane was delayed, so I didn’t get to make it back here until midnight at JFK. So of course I have to try to get back from there over to here to Brooklyn, and I want to take the subway, so had to get to the Howard Beach station to take the train back into Brooklyn. But since it was so late, I arrive at the platform at Howard Beach and there was track work being done and now it was going to rain, just so you had to be like, you know, get onto the the train, go to two stops, get off the train, get onto a bus, go to – that would take you to Euclid Avenue, and then from there you go up on another train and shoot into Brooklyn. So of course, my 5-hour flight from San Francisco to New York was now going to be equally matched by probably a 5 hour commute from JFK to Brooklyn.

And here it is almost midnight and there was a man on the platform with me. He’s, okay, “where’re you going?” – so I go and say, you know, Brooklyn running out to Jay Street. “That’s where I got to go too – let’s split an Uber!” Like I just checked it out, like 50-some dollars or something like that. Now of course I was tempted, I guess, for a moment to think that, all right, well I guess it would make more sense to me and I am kind of tired and I should probably get to sleep, have a long day next day on Thursday.

But for some strange reason, I just felt that, you know, I kind of made a commitment that I was going to take the train back, and yeah, I could afford to take the Uber, so it’s not like I’m some type that’s financially-strapped, but there was a great desire on my part to stay, and it’s because I want to be present to this moment, because there are a lot of other people who do not have the luxury of just hopping on an Uber right now. There’s lots of people right now on this platform who worked a very long day, most likely at the airport, and have to go through this whole process of hopping on the train, and dealing with this bus shuttle, and going on the other train, again to bed probably way too late and having to wake up way too early. And while it’s very tempting to think that I can just kind of be removed from that, for some reason I just really felt the presence of the Spirit saying to stay. And so I did, stop after all – the different exchanges and things like that.

I probably ended up in a bed around 3 in the morning, but it’s amazing what you are able to behold on the New York public transportation system at that early hours, right, because you see a lot of stuff, right? You see people who really are just spent from the day of working a very long shift, and you hear the conversations, and you’re hearing their anxieties, and they’re worried. And of course you see people who are dealing with their own issues of mental illness, drug addiction. You see the homeless. You see the young teenage couples making out. You see everything.

But you know what you really see in the midst of all that? You see Jesus Christ. You see Jesus Christ in each and every one of those people on that train and on that bus, because Jesus comes to us in the present moment, through each and every person and most especially through their wounds, through their suffering, through their trials, through their anxieties. We often have to remember that we worship a Jesus who’s hanging on a cross. That’s the Jesus we worship, that’s the Jesus we behold. We don’t behold Superman Jesus. We don’t behold Jesus is just somehow above all the worries and stresses of the world. We behold a very broken Jesus on the cross. That’s how we’re able to encounter the same broken Jesus in each and everyone around us and it’s what gives us hope that in our own brokenness, in our own pain, and yes, even in our own anxieties, there is tremendous hope – tremendous because as much as we gaze upon the crucified Christ, we know the story does not end there.

We know that the death of our Lord is so intrinsically connected to his resurrection, that they are almost one in the same. They are contingent on each other – our longings and our sufferings only increase our desire more for wholeness. Yet if we are always thinking about how we wish things were somehow different or if we’re always thinking about how we personally have to manage things or handle things, we can neglect to see exactly what Jesus is offering us in the present moment, in our own situations. And through the people around us what we need to respond to as a way to not only get through what’s happening but also find joy and what’s happening in our lives yeah it’s impossible to do this just simply by having a change of attitude.

Martha could very well continue to be working in the kitchen getting things ready, but rather than trying to tell Jesus – telling God – what to do, to allow her work to reveal in of itself a certain type of wholeness, a certain type of contemplative presence. Because the reality is that Martha wasn’t happy doing what she had to do. She wasn’t happy that she had to go through all this process of work. She didn’t see the joy in the suffering of work, just like it’s probably not fun to have to actually just hang out on the platform of the train and hop on the bus and do all these other things – exchanges – to get back home one night. That’s not a fun thing to do and I could very be tempted to say no when I get out of this Uber, Lyft. But yet when we’re able to enter into contemplation, we can see that even the roughest, toughest commute can be a moment of joy, because we are united more closely with Christ, with Jesus, in his wounds.

We do that today when we come to this Mass. Once again we approach the altar, and we are united with Christ in Holy Communion. We receive His Body – the same body that’s bruised and broken on the cross. We receive that Body and we are one with Jesus’s brokenness. Just as the priest breaks the host, we are then clearly entering into the broken body of Christ. Yeah, we also receive at the same time the resurrected Christ – Christ of completeness, of wholeness, of healing, as we receive Jesus today in this very hidden presence of what looks to be bread and wine. Maybe then leave this church and once again behold and reveal the Hidden Presence in the broken bodies of people that we see all through our city, and maybe especially on our trains and buses in our city.

I know that we are in solidarity with each other in our own brokenness, and only by being in that place we’re able to heal each other, because the same Jesus who unites us in brokenness is the same Jesus that is helping us all to heal, as we contemplate today what we’re being called to do next.

God bless you all.