Third Sunday of Advent

Third  Sunday of Advent

Jesus quotes the Isaiah passage in the beginning of his ministry.  Isaiah provided the scope of Jesus’ work:

“…the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God.”

Jesus did the big things - like changing water into wine, healing a young child from  a distance, feeding the 5,000, walking on water, and raising Lazarus - but what I find the most moving is the part about Jesus’ emotional connection with the people around him. While Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the line that strikes me is, “Jesus wept.”  It was a total human reaction. Some interpret his weeping as that of shared grief, other’s interpret it as Jesus weeping over the tragedy of the state of unbelief.  Perhaps it’s both.

Jesus’ presence in sharing the sorrow over the loss of his friend Lazarus was enough for Martha and Mary, but the raising of Lazarus from the dead was for unbelievers. They needed a sign. For those of us who believe, it’s enough that Jesus walks with and among us. It’s enough that he shares in our struggles, it’s enough that he would sit and drink with sinners rather than judging them. It’s enough that he would feel the desperation of a group of friends who would lower their paralyzed man down from the roof into a room of crowded people.  But for those who don’t believe, they need Jesus to change the circumstance of struggle and sorrow.

I am convinced that Jesus isn’t about making things better for me or changing the world around me to fit my need for comfort or control.  With the deaths of my brother, then father and now my mother - I have come to know that Jesus isn’t going to change the circumstances around me. Jesus interest is about how I will change given the circumstances that I myself cannot control. 

Jesus doesn’t point to the past, but toward the future. The gospel from today, for instance, points to the future. John says, “but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”  John the Baptist points to the one who is to come. People were trying to keep John tied to the past, by asking him who he was.  They’re trying to control John and control the growing excitement in people’s interest in a coming Messiah because were fearful and they couldn’t control what John the Baptist was saying or how people were reacting to his preaching.

We must do better than those who opposed John. Moving toward the future means that we cannot be caught up in fear otherwise we’d be stuck.  If we’re fearful, we cannot retreat and go backwards.  If we’re uncomfortable, we cannot hide until things around us get better.  We won’t move forward if we’re grasping to hold onto the past or trying to control the outcome.  There’s a way that we can overcome our fear: joy

In 1 Thessalonians Paul bids us to rejoice and pray without ceasing.  This means that our every waking moment isn’t defined by fear, regret, shame, or any thoughts that would leave us immobile, paralyzed or unmotivated. Living in joy allows us to push the boundaries and be bold.  Paul says, “Test everything; retain what is good.”  Living in joy means that we’re ready to take that chance, step up and step out.

For me, joy doesn’t mean an exuberant emotional release, but rather deepening the knowledge of God’s love.  Monasteries are one of the most joyful places but you won’t see them singing “alabanzas” or dancing. You will; however, meet monks who are joyful in their hearts. Their disposition toward the world is love, not condemnation.  It’s a resolute confidence in God’s presence, not a fear that they are under attack by an unseen enemy.  Joy is something that is worn on the inside, not on the sleeve.  When Isaiah says, “like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem (and a) bride bedecked with her jewels.”  This line refers to the interior spiritual disposition of the believer. Joy gives a certain confidence so that we can face the unknown with a sense that things will be okay and that whatever happens won’t destroy us forever. 

Am I there at that point of joyful confidence? To be honest, no.  But that’s okay. I’m a work in progress.  I believe that God will continue to work on me and that though his loving hand will not change the circumstances, God will shape who I am in the midst of what’s happening around me. Letting go of all the stuff around me is freedom. I look to the day when I can be free to live in the joy of the present moment without being anxious about a future that is yet to be realized.

Look at these roses: they’re given by the broken hearted, depressed, weary, those held in captivity by either an addiction or a bad and abusive relationship, given by those who had been profiled by police, and those who received deportation orders.  These roses tell me that you are already free even though you have suffered a lot in your life.

On this weekend we are reminded that Juan Diego’s journey wasn’t easy. His journey began when he encountered the Divine in the Apparition of Guadalupe. Mary’s tenderness and affection for Juan Diego changed him. She could relate to his oppression, for she too spoke Nahuatl and had dark skin. She wore the clothes of the indigenous people, not the flowing robes of Spanish nobility. Guadalupe de Tepeyac, Maria Tonatzín, like Jesus, simply wept at the plight of her people.

La Morenita’s loving tenderness awaked Juan Diego’s inner-being, his cultura - his identidad. He was at last free. Juan Diego’s freedom didn’t come because the Spanish retreated from the land or that the system of exploitation and misery was vanquished, but rather, Juan Diego was left with a more important gift: joy. That no matter what the Spanish tried to do in terms of military might - they couldn’t take his soul, his alma. Maria Tonatzín gave Juan Diego the ganas to be free and in his freedom he dared to be resistant. He stood up to ridicule from his peers, prejudice and hostility from the Spanish clergy, and, most importantly, he stood up to his own inward fears.  Juan Diego wasn’t held back being the messenger of God’s love manifested at Tepeyac in the appearance of the Virgen de Guadalupe. And that is the very definition of what it means to be free.

So let us move forward together - sons and daughters of Our Lady as free people with a joy that is deep within us and that no one and no thing can ever take from us.

Second Sunday of Advent:

Second Sunday of Advent

One of the things that we miss about the people we love is how they have physically held us - how they lovingly held us. My mom would touch my face and give me a gentle kiss when I would get home and one when I would leave. I’ll miss a lot of things about my mother, but that simple touch I will miss the most. Just thinking about it, triggers a bunch of memories of love. Change is inevitable and to be honest, unwelcome. But in spite of change, I still feel connected to my mother. The healing process or as some call, “the grieving process” will take time.

I’ve met with widows and widowers who have lost loved ones over years and they speak of the memories and many of them shared their own memories.  There are mementos that they keep around the house that trigger a connection with their husband or wife. It’s interesting because these things, these small seemingly inconsequential things are actually tokens of remembrance that keep those who have been separated by death somehow connected.  The desire to keep connected through tactile objects is unique to our species. It’s part and parcel of our humanity to want to remain connected with people whom we’ve loved.  But those of us who have lived with grief also recognize that we cannot isolate ourselves and look backwards. We must also look around to those who are present to us today.

God made us to be in relationship with others. When a relationship is severed, our species has a tendency to move toward a repair or healing mode. Isaiah the prophet spoke about “speaking tender to Jerusalem.” Isaiah called his people to restore the landscape to what God intended: to fill in valleys, to level mountains and hills, to make rugged lands fertile.  Restoration for Isaiah is about reshaping the landscape. Restoration won’t happen through violent means, but by a gentle touch.  When we have gentleness, we have transformation.

Our emotional landscape is transformed in gentle ways by gradual increments.  Our resistance to change is because we fear we will lose something. Fear keeps us from transformation.  What we have to realize is that even as our mountains are made low and our valleys are filled, we have a constant, unchanging center: the Christ.  Jesus Christ is the unchanging reality in our life, even as things move around.  With Christ, we’re ready to accept the change in our own interior landscape.

John the Baptist’s task was to sensitize the people to repent of sin and be reconciled to God. He called for the people’s interior landscape to change. His was  a baptism of repentance and liberation.  By entering the River, the people admitted that their actions had damaged others. By entering the water they also recognized that their sins weren’t just harming a single person, but that their actions had a social impact - sinfulness unraveled the bonds that held people together which eroded trust in the community. Sin disconnected people and as a result, evil thrived because no one was there to put an end to evil.

Jesus’ baptism goes beyond John’s. Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit gives new life to us. It promises not only forgiveness, but fulfillment. With Christ, we are never really alone. Things around us may change - and some of these changes may be unwelcome and inevitable - but what remains constant and unchanging is the Christ we find in one another.  When we see Christ in others, we will forever be connected to that other person, that will be a bond that won’t be broken no matter how much the landscape changes.

So let mountains be made low. Let the valleys be filled.  Make the crooked ways straight and make fertile the lands that are rugged. Advent is the interior change in landscape that will manifest itself in real change in the world. With ourselves as being changed on the inside - emerging - as it were - from the River Jordan, we rise out of the river and go out into the world. Rising from a river of grief, I will find ways to reconnect and find new meanings in a changed landscape of my life.  Jesus will gather all of us into his arms as the shepherd gathers his lambs and will lead the fragile and vulnerable with care. He will lead us to find a way to connect with others and create a place where forgiveness is lived out between peoples and nations, where all are fed.  And until that day, let this meal remind us of the precious love that he has promised us. 

First Sunday of Advent: we are all the work of your hands.

First Sunday of Advent

People have been asking me how I’m doing.  I respond, “OK. As best can be expected.”  And that’s completely true. If I were to give a detailed description of what “OK” actually feels like, I’d say that I didn’t ask for the events of this past month, but it happened and I’m dealing. I’d also say that in spite of all the hardship and heartbreak, I do feel and see God’s hand in all of this.

Things have happened that I had no control over and I’ve had to come to learn to accept what I cannot change. I am finding out that peace comes when I let go - that is when I surrender. Surrendering means I have to be malleable, like clay.  God is like a potter, constantly taking clay and molding it into something beautiful. I am the clay.  In Isaiah, “You are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.” As a potter God takes the clay and fashions it. The clay doesn’t lose any of its pain and sorrow, but as the clay is molded in the strong but gentle hands of the potter, sadness and loss are slowly fashioned into hope and serene acceptance.

When I was about 11 or 12 years old, my mother sent us to a day arts and crafts summer camp in Oddstad Park down the street from our house. Our art teacher had us kids spend hours “feeling” the clay and squeezing the clay in our hands and in-between our fingers. We were taught to imagine something that we really liked or something that our mother would like. And then we were told to let our hands mould the clay into what we saw in our head.  My mother saved everything that we ever made her. In fact, she still had the ash trays and a giant hideous yellow cat that I made her from that summer.

Scriptures teach us that God fashioned the world and that God so loved the world that he became flesh and made his home among us.  The world is blessed because God not only made it, but that God entered into it. This is the mystery of the Incarnation: the potter and the clay are one! Jesus taught his disciples that the world, therefore, was not a place of fear, but rather a place of blessing.  God isn’t a referee at a soccer match or a self-appointed vigilante looking to bust some heads or a mean yard duty teacher looking to punish kids that got out of line. No! Jesus taught us that God is our loving parent and that the world is a place filled with opportunities to serve and create.

Our task as his disciples is to be watchful and alert for precisely those opportunities to serve the poor and create new structures that are just for all people. “…you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”  Watchfulness in this passage implies that we must always be ready to act on love.  Jesus’ message in about the most powerful act of selflessness: giving one’s life so that others can live.  To forgive debt rather than hold something over another person. To heal rather than injure and to gather together rather than divide and scatter.

But before we get ahead of ourselves and go out and save the world, we must first of all be watchful of ourselves, that is, to see what is happening within us. The work that is being done within us is GRACE.  This grace is given to all of us and it continues to fashion us. St Paul writes that “the grace of God (has been) bestowed on (us) in Christ Jesus, that in him (we) were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge…(we) are not lacking in any spiritual gift…”  So when I become more aware of Grace moulding me from the inside out, I begin to learn to let go of things I can’t change. I become more aware of accepting of the present moment. My head doesn’t obsess over the future. When I am fully present to the present moment, I am fully present to not only myself, but most importantly, to those around me. And when I am serene and in recovery - when I am just “OK,” I am more able to be there for others. I want to quote the FULL and ORIGINAL version of the famous “Serenity Prayer”  by Reinhold Niebuhr. 

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;  Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; 

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life  and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.”

So as we come round this altar to receive the gifts of the Living Bread and the Saving Cup, the Body and Blood of Christ our Lord - I know that concretely Jesus will manifest his Grace drawing us not to just to him, but putting us into contact with one another. It will be a fitting start to my Advent Journey - and I would hope a good beginning place for you.

"Living Under The Shadows"

I believe that today’s readings provide a strong message for our society today…here in San José. This past week - as in every week - we had a number of people come to the parish for help. A grandmother came in asking for rent support. She’s caring for several of her grandchildren. One of her daughters is in jail and the one living with her now has special needs. Because of her limited resources she was forced to sign two of her oldest grandchildren over to foster care.  A couple weeks ago there was a conflict with the landlord and he evicted this family without warning. He got away with it because the grandmother paid rent in cash and he gave her no receipt. When the eviction came, she had no proof of paying rent.  She’s been living in shabby hotels and in her car with her grandchildren. She can’t get a permanent place because no one will rent a room to a grandmother with four young children and two adults.

Another woman came in looking for help for her family. The family is currently renting in a space in a garage - that is, she’s renting half of a garage. The other half has a family of four! Her daughter is graduating high school and applying for college. Each application costs a minimum of $50. The mother barely makes enough to pay for rent with her $11.00/hour job and she can’t help her college bound daughter.  Once her daughter turns 18, this woman will lose public assistance for her daughter.  This will severely affect the rest of the family. Also it turns out that his woman’s take home pay disqualifies her for getting assistance.  Apparently $11.00/hour is too much money. 

There’s a young 13 year old boy, Pedro or “Peter” as he identifies himself, who wrote about his situation on a social media site, GoFundMe. (See:

http://www.gofundme.com/g2m5q0?fb_action_ids=349110855256528&fb_action_types=og.shares&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B734692109912916%5D&action_type_map=%5B ) This site is a social media site popular with most people who use the internet as a part of school or their job.  Peter tells his story on the website. Once people read his story, they are given the option to donate to help out his family.

Peter helps his single mother raise his sisters and brothers. This past month a massive infestation of roaches and bed bugs have driven all the tenants of his apartment building out of their homes. Peter says that they’ve been living in this situation for over 4 months.  Because of the bedbugs, the children had to get rid of all their clothing, beds and bedding. The exterminators have evacuated or evicted everyone from the building and Peter’s family has until October 31st to get out of their unit.  They won’t get their deposit back because of a change in property management and they are completely broke.  All their belongings are in backpacks.  Five backpacks. 

Peter wrote on his GoFundMe webpage, “My mom has worked so hard over the last few weeks to try to find us a new place and come up with the money for the first month of rent and deposit on a new apartment.  She is even taking on a second job.  With 5 kids and being a single mom, this is just too much for her.” I was blown away by Peter’s initiative in getting this GoFundMe account.  Peter, his mom and siblings have their story for sure, but their story and the story of the grandmother and the single mother isn’t unique.  They are, we are, the untold story of Silicon Valley. If our stories aren’t told, the truth remains in the shadow. When our stories are known, we are known: we are no longer hidden in the shadows.

We are the workers behind the scenes. We clean up their offices after they go home to their spacious homes.  We stand behind the counter serving them coffee and scones and we come by their tables to wipe up the messes their children left behind. We work behind the scenes as construction workers, gardeners, nanny’s, care takers, and hotel workers. No one sees our face, they look at our badge or our uniform.  If they even use our name, they mispronounce it. Mostly they call us, “hey you” or “Miss” or “Excuse me!”  We make $11.00 an hour. We live with 10 other people who are not our relatives in a crowded duplex in a neighborhood that is not entirely safe. We live in the shadows because no one knows our story.

When working folks are forced to live in their cars, or behind dumpsters in a shopping mall or church, or rent cheap hotel rooms week to week because they can’t pay for groceries and rent - they are living in captivity. There’s a Facebook meme that I came across that captures this point, “When the entirety of your earnings are exhausted on food and shelter, your labors are no longer viewed as an opportunity for economic advancement, but rather as an act of self preservation. In the real world that’s called SLAVERY.”

The Exodus reading speaks about this injustice in no uncertain terms. Let’s revisit some of those verses, “You shall not molest or oppress an immigrant, for you were once slaves in the land of Egypt…You shall not wrong any widow or orphan….If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors…you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge…you shall return it to him before sunset."

Today when we read Exodus, we, like the Jewish people, cannot forget that at one time we were - if not now - are or were immigrant slaves. There are some immigrants who have done very well - they start technology companies, grocery store chains, cleaning services, construction companies!  But there are many more who have not done so well. 

This brings us to the task that I believe we all have to face: how to deal with those who live in the shadows. Sure, our story is sad - it’s tough to hear and there are no easy solutions, but what we face isn’t hopelessness. Our story is  ultimately a story of resilience and resistance. We, like the Hebrew people, will not be slaves forever.  We will overcome. We will overcome just as that grandmother is overcoming her obstacles by reaching out and finding support. Like that the daughter of the single mother who is living in one half of a garage and applying for college hoping to help out her family by getting a college degree. Like 13 year old Peter, whose faith in his mother makes him hopeful, innovative, and creative rather than resentful and dejected.

Jesus reminds us that the love of God is inseparable from the love of neighbor. If we are neighbors, no one lives in the shadows. No one is a slave. If we love our neighbor, we will find hope in one another and find hope in the midst of struggle. We will find the strength to take just one more step. Love will give us joy even if it looks like there’s not a lot to be joyful for. And when we’re joyful, we have the confidence to believe that we have something to offer, not just to ourselves, but to our neighbor.

So in love, we come before Christ to this altar, bringing the gifts born of our struggle. We bear the gifts of our lives - trusting that what we surrender unto God will bear fruit in someone else. And in return, we trust that what we receive from this altar - the Body and Blood of Christ - will be enough for us.

St. Ignatius’ prayer, the Suscipe

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

Open Our Eyes

Not too long ago I was in a store with a group of friends who aren’t exactly on the same page as me about social justice. We talked about the price of food - they were complaining - and I responded to their complaints that a lot went into the food that we were buying. I asked them if they ever stopped along the freeway to look at the kind of work that farmworkers do - that is, what it takes to put strawberries into boxes, watermelons into trucks, stooping down to cut lettuce and asparagus and going through the vineyard pushing through the branches and leaves to cut grapes. No one had. I shared how the food was packaged and put into trucks to be sent to processing centers for sale and distribution. Still not convinced about the so-called “food chain,” I told them about my own mother who put herself through business school by working as a cannery worker. This changed the conversation.  I discovered I needed to make a connection with them that was real. I needed to connect the story of the individual with the the systemic mess of injustice. People had to “see” the suffering to come to a conversion point.

Jesus opens our eyes not only the suffering of the farmworker that suffers from heat stroke, but he opens our eyes to the entire system that makes farmworkers work long, hard hours in 110 degree weather in the Imperial Valley.  We must open our eyes to the realities of a 16 year old Oaxacan fieldworker in Greenfield, a 10 year old child making Michael Jordan shoes in Viet Nam, a young woman locked in a factory in rural China assembling iPhones. In today’s Gospel, Jesus is opening the eyes of the Jerusalem Pharisees by making the point when he holds up the coin that everyone is caught up in the web of Cesar and his unjust system.  But we all have to make a choice once we see the injustice.  When the Pharisees admit that they personally benefit from an economic and social system that is sustained by labor coerced by force and economic realities that make people essentially slaves, they will have to make choice about how they will continue living their lives knowing that their well-being is possible at the expense of invisible people who undoubtedly suffer much.

What Jesus sees at stake in the matter of the coin is not a matter of the separation of Church and State.  Jesus is arguing that one cannot continue on living one’s life without taking a serious look at what makes your life possible. He is trying to uncover the violence underneath every day life in Jerusalem.  To understand this point, we have to understand where Jesus came from.

Before Jesus and Pontius Pilate were born, the Roman conquerers flooded the markets with Roman money as a way to coerce the people into depending more on the Roman system. Putting Roman coins in the hands of a conquered people was the way that Rome maintained social and political control.   At the time around Jesus’ birth the Romans instituted a census tax. This tax was not well received and a rebellion began.  In Galilee there were a few insurgents that led the rebellion, but they were crucified.  When Jesus was a teen, a rebel, Judas of Galilee, cried out, “Taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery!” Romans were cruel in their counter-attacks. Galilee became known as a hotbed of political unrest. (see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/galilee.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_of_Galilee)  Jesus’ background as a child and youth was formed in the rebellious environment of Galilee. It is therefore not a surprise that Jesus was willing to take on a good fight.

Jesus tried to open the eyes of the Pharisees. They knew what Jesus knew, they just didn’t want to open their eyes.  In fact, everybody knew that the system was corrupt and people were hurting because of this system. Jesus the Galilean was not going to let it go. Jesus’ preaching was dangerous because Jesus taught that there was only one legitimate Kingdom: that of God.  All other principalities - including Cesar’s, were false and illegitimate.

The Jerusalem Pharisees and the Sadducees, Scribes, Temple Priests and all other powerful people in Jerusalem realized that if Jesus were to continue his preaching and bringing together all sorts of people a across gender, economic and social lines, Pilate would understand these assemblies and speech as rebellion and he would be forced to address this rebellion with swift action. The power brokers of Jerusalem were coming to the conclusion that the brutality of Pilate’s response would be too harmful to the people. Ultimately their treacherous actions were guided by the principle that it be better than one man die, then suffer the entire community. They were willing to tolerate injustice in order to keep on living  the way they were. 

Jesus wanted more than anything to free those who were trapped by the system. He believed that challenging people and getting them to question the things all around them would give the the idea that they could be free and they did not have to be victims of their own oppression. The awareness of the very possibility of liberation is HOPE. Jesus called them to join his cause and to unshackle themselves of their fears.  He gave them a way out. Regrettably, the vision of freedom made his detractors only more defensive. They couldn't get on board with Jesus’ message of HOPE built on liberation and resistance. It was far easier just to accuse Jesus of blasphemy.

This Gospel is very important for us today.  Jesus knew the Kingdom of God is about creating justice for those who have been left out of the picture. The Kingdom is about the 100%, not the 1%. In trying to open the Pharisee’s eyes, he asked someone to produce a coin. One of the Pharisees gave the coin to Jesus. This simple act of producing a coin exposed the first level of hypocrisy. Jesus knew that these guys were with him in his critique of the Romans. The Pharisee had an unclean object in his pocket.  The image on the coin and the pagan symbols made everything unclean.  Carrying a profane object by the Temple, the most sacred space in Israel, was a significant offense. Jesus continued to probe the hypocrisy. He pointed out the image on the coin - the image is Cesar.  The Pharisee’s coin represented the entire system of oppression and coerced peace. This coin was, in effect, an instrument of the Jewish people’s oppression.  Jesus exposed the sad reality that his entire society was unwittingly participating in a fundamentally evil system. The coin didn't belong to the people, in fact, the coin belonged to Cesar and everything he stood for: a society controlled by the constant threat of crucifixion, a class-conscious society that excluded entire segments of society from participation, a society that rewarded the strong and punished the weak. Cesar was owned nothing.

We too have coins in our pocket.  Our national interests are protected by our troops invading lands with oil, by policies that  opened borders to lure workers in, but sealed the borders behind them to make them slaves. Our national interests are protected by investing resources in bailing out Wall Street and crooked companies and investors, while ignoring the millions of people displaced by foreclosure. We cannot have it both ways. We either serve God or we serve Cesar. We either serve the 100% or the 1%. 

In a few chapters Jesus will indeed have a confrontation with Pilate and this confrontation will come at a cost.  Jesus died so that we could rise. And that we are risen by virtue of our baptism means that we too, rebels of Galilee, will take up the cross of resistance and hope!  

I can do all things in him who strengthens me.

In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.  I can do all things in him who strengthens me.

I love that line, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” This past week the priests of the diocese had a retreat with Fr. Greg Boyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Boyle), of Homeboy Industries - a re-entry training and employment program helping ex-felons and gang members leave their old lives behind.  Fr Boyle, or as he is known on the streets as, “G,”  told stories of how homies from “East Los” moved from the life on the streets to getting jobs, training, and getting on with life. The stories of these men and women is captured in the line, (“I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”).  Our retreat with G helped us understand that the “homies” are our kin.  His homies are not distant people disconnected from us; they are literally our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers, our flesh and blood.

G’s stories served one central theme for our retreat: that when we find kinship with others, we will find kinship with God within our selves.  This interior kinship with God is something that cannot be taken away or forgotten. It is something that changes us for ever. Like a tattoo on the heart.

When G went to Dolores Mission, he started out ministering with the idea that intervention would save the people in the community. After having worked at the Mission for several years, he came to the conclusion that salvation is not about saving people from themselves, but having people be restored to themselves. He had to come to understand that salvation is about seeing ourselves as God sees us and ministry as the opportunity in which people find their way back to their true self.

G is one of the best storytellers I know. He told stories about gang members who entered into Homeboy Industries right out of prison had their life changed by the Homeboys program. One one side the program is practical: participants achieve stability and acquire new skills - but the real change happens when participants make a heart-connection to former enemies, to staff and most significantly, with themselves.

When people connect with themselves they begin to see themselves in a much more gentle, graceful way.  He told the story about a young man who was covered head to toe in tattoos who went into the Men’s Warehouse to buy a new suit because that man, G and a couple other homies were going to DC to meet the president in the White House. G brought the young men to the store to buy suits for the occasion. When this one guy came out of the dressing room and stood in front of the mirror, he saw himself as if it were for the first time. 

The way that G told the story, the young man saw something that he hadn’t noticed earlier in his life.  Standing at the mirror, looking at his reflection in silence, the young man for the first time saw the real person who dwelt inside him.  This hard-nosed gang member covered in tattoos and scars from old scuffles, realized that he wasn’t just ink and old wounds. He was much more.  He realized at the most intimate level of his life that he was a someBody. He wasn’t just a gang-banger, a former hoodlum or criminal. He was God’s beautiful child. The veil of self-deception that would have led to his death fell away. 

On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever.

This young man had to come to a reckoning with himself. While his fingers touched his tattoos and old scars as he stood in front of that mirror, he knew that he couldn’t just erase the past. He had to make peace with the past. When we reconcile within ourselves, our kinship to God becomes ever more powerful. Kinship with others and self-acceptance makes us experience God in a real, concrete, tangible, visceral way. God isn’t a distant concept or theological construct.  God is a real force of healing and confidence.

The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face; the reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken. …This is the LORD for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!” For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.

When any of us see ourselves in a gentle, loving way, we see ourselves as God sees us and when that happens we start living differently than our old way of life.  While transformation is possible, it is not an easy task. Jesus said, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” Transformation happens when we find kinship rather than enmity, when we find resolution rather than conflict. When we find forgiveness rather than resentment and love rather than separation.

The homies who’d been given the opportunity to go to the White House, had been living their lives differently, but they still lacked one thing. They needed to see themselves differently. The last part of their transformation was self-realization - standing in front of the mirror, wearing a suit, saying, “Damn, I am someBODY.” The suit was just a simple outward sign of the inward change.   Today they don’t need the suit. They have faith.

One day we too will be invited to show our inner self to another person. One day we will stand in front of a mirror - maybe a real mirror or a spiritual mirror and look at our reflection and ask, “What do I see?”

When we come to this Table, we have been invited to a banquet of kinship. The point of our Eucharistic banquet is to share in the one cup and the one bread as an outward sign of what we are feeling on the inside: kinship, connection, a bond with our sisters and brothers. The host in the parable kicked out the guest who wasn’t wearing a wedding garment. The guy wasn’t tossed out because he couldn’t afford garments, he was tossed out because he didn’t see the point of connecting to the event, to the groom nor to the host. So, like the host at the wedding feast who expected his guests to adorn themselves with a wedding garment that expressed honor and support for the families of the newlyweds, we too will be asked to put on the garment of kinship as we come to this banquet.

It is my hope that as we come forward, we have prepared ourselves to share in this banquet now. 

To Act justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

The passage today from Isaiah is a tough one. Like Jesus’ parable, it deals with corruption. Isaiah’s passage deals with the corruption of the institution whereas Jesus’ parable deals with the corruption of people within the institution. Isaiah’s passage and Jesus parable aren't about other people. It’s about all of us and how corruption enters into the vineyard and how each of us consciously or unconsciously participates in that corruption.

Religion and churches don’t start out corrupt, but, history has shown over time that churches, synagogues, mosques and temples inevitably have to deal with bad grapes. What causes a bad harvest? What causes corruption in the institution?  How is it that good people do bad things? 

Corruption enters the vineyard when people seek ways to damage, hurt destroy and eventually kill anyone or anything that would threaten their power base.  Group behavior like this is not surprising if we look at the behavior of spousal abusers. When an abusive spouse feels that he or she has lost their grip on their victim, they become even more cruel.  Abusers will attack not only their victims but also helpers.  They may even claim that they themselves are the real victims. 

Isaiah’s “Song of the Vineyard” starts out with establishing that the owner of the vineyard had given everything to build up his vineyard. Clearing the desert land of rocks and putting up a watchtower indicates that the owner is clearly interested in a return for his investment. Grapes require patience because they don’t come up fast like wheat or corn. After years of tilling the the soil and trimming the vine, the vineyard will produce a proper harvest. Workers must be dedicated to the crop and successful vineyard owners must treat their vineyard as a long-term investment and not just a job. Vineyard owner and worker must cooperate with one another in order to produce grapes. The owner must treat the workers justly and the workers must realize that they must do their job, not the owner’s job.

In the Middle East grapes were an important crop - they would become wine which would provide some nourishment in the desert and raisins for food in times of hunger. If wild grapes were all that were produced, the effort of the owner would have been in vain.  In the original Hebrew, it is very clear that the word for wild grapes is equated with that of a “bitter harvest.” Poorly aerated soil and poorly grafted vines will result in wild or bitter grapes.  The word, “bitter harvest” is also used in the Bible to reference a harvest of injustice and repression.  Thus, this particular song reminds us that the sweet harvest requires that all of us do our jobs in the vineyard, being attentive to the task at hand. God’s intent is not that we yield a bitter harvest of injustice and repression because of neglect, but that we yield a harvest of love, compassion and mercy because of fidelity.

In Jesus’ parable another dimension is added. Jesus addressed the motivations of those who do violence. In Jesus’ parable the workers in the vineyard thought that they were the owners and that because they worked in the vineyard, they deserved the full harvest.  Now, let’s go back Isaiah’s song. The workers of the vineyard aren't the owners. The vineyards’ workers didn't invest in the vineyard nor did they place themselves at risk for the harvest…yet they demanded control of the harvest…and they were ready to kill to take control.

Earlier this year, the parable of the Vineyard came up in a daily mass reading. The Pope asked, “What happens when we want to become the owners of the vineyard?”He continued saying that those who want “to take possession of the vineyard…have lost the relationship with the Master of the vineyard.” Those who would take possession of the vineyard, “think they are strong, they think they are independent of God.” In effect, the usurpers have severed themselves from the loving and patient intentions of the owner of the vineyard.  He said, “They have become worshippers of themselves.” (http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-the-corrupt-harm-the-church-the-saint)  When the owner’s Son arrived, were they grateful to hand him over the harvest or were they resentful?

A bitter harvest can happen in the offices of the Vatican or any given parish in the world. When our theology, preaching and actions make people dependent on US rather than dependent on God, we will for sure yield a bitter harvest.  Sure we can preach about Jesus. We can utter his name a thousands times, but if the recitation of his name and our words engender fear in people rather than make them confident in God’s power, we are doing something horribly wrong. I believe in the attempts Pope Francis is making to change the Church from being a dogmatic, self-engrossed institution to being a gentle, outreaching, compassionate presence in the world. That change won’t happen by fiat or command from the top, but because priests and local bishops are doing what they can to be more concerned about the well-being of others more than being concerned with self-preservation.

When we put ourselves in the center rather than the one died for our sins, we do no service to anyone. If our words and deeds do not reflect grace and forgiveness, then who is being served?  By preaching about fear and the terror of the unknown, all we do is make people dependent on us, not God. Grace, on the other hand, always points back to God. Preaching forgiveness always leads to community.   When we have community we have the possibility for open-mindedness and when there is open-mindedness, we have the possibility for service to others.  As workers we are obligated to be sure the vineyard is doing what it’s supposed to do: produce good grapes of righteousness and justice.

The story of the vineyard in both Isaiah and Jesus’ parable - reminds us that everything we have is due to God’s GRACE, not our merits. We have been entrusted with an opportunity that we are called upon to care for: the vineyard.  We are called to share the bounty of the vineyard with everyone - that no one hunger or thirst. As JOYFUL workers in the vineyard, we do not use the tools of fear and repression scaring people with hell or being captured by the clutches of the devil. We, above all, are joyful. Christianity is about GOOD news, not threats or spiritual torture. 

So… we come to this Table with a spirit of thanksgiving. We are extremely aware that the Eucharistic Harvest belongs to Christ, not us. We are at best, workers in the vineyard - not the owners - and all we are doing is what we were called to do in the first place: To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.