Hoping in Christ Amid Troubling Times

The Visitation

The liturgical readings for the fourth Sunday of Advent are Micah 5: 1-4a, Hebrews 10:5-10, and Luke 1:39-45. You can view the readings here: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/122312.cfm

In the Advent season, we ascend towards a peak expectation for Christ’s coming that plays out this fourth Sunday. The readings today unequivocally proclaim the coming goodness, exuding hope in these final moments before we celebrate the Incarnation!

Yet, life’s daily demands coupled with so many troubling moments these last few days may challenge our participation in the joy of Advent’s peak that Scripture calls us to. On Catholic LGBT issues, the news this week reveals an undercurrent of strengthened anti-equality messaging from the Vatican and the rejection of LGBT students at Catholic schools. Travesties such as the Newtown massacre add to this challenge of truly hoping in Christ.

In the first two readings, the prophet Micah and St. Paul address religious communities short on hope and weary of living their faith. Micah preaches against those who dutifully perform rituals while sustaining an unjust society, instead favoring a return to just human relationships as God’s truest desire for us. In today’s excerpt, we hear:

“You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah
too small to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel…

“He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock
by the strength of the LORD,
in the majestic name of the LORD, his God;
and they shall remain, for now his greatness
shall reach to the ends of the earth;
he shall be peace.”

The peasant prophet identifies a marginalized community as the place from which the greatest ruler of Israel and restoration of thriving religious belief will emanate. For Micah, it is the suffering and outcast communities that create and catalyze this return to righteousness, not the established institutions or most ritually pious. From the margins comes the hope, the joy, the peace, and the love that we must create in the world.

Perhaps, even when tough news dominates, we can learn to leap with joy like John the Baptist does in Elizabeth’s womb, as today’s gospel describes. We should embrace love of each person in place of religious legalism that obfuscates Christ’s presence. We should welcome all persons into our churches, focusing on the presence of love in each person and every relationship. And when we cannot love as such and feel pained or powerless, we must remember the words of Oscar Romero that speak to the true origins of our hope:

“We can hope for [justice], not because we humans are able to construct that realm of happiness which God’s holy words proclaim, but because the builder of a reign of justice, of love, and of peace is already in the midst of us.”

May we always be aware of this reality and respond joyfully to it, even in troubling times.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

What Should We Do? Rejoice!

The liturgical readings for the third Sunday of Advent are Zephaniah 3: 14-18a, Philippians 4: 4-7, and Luke 3:10-18. You can view the readings here http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121612.cfm .

How long must we wait before the entire church, including the hierarchy, treats LGBT people as equals?  That question has been put to me many times in my years working here at New Ways Ministry.  It is usually asked in a despairing tone, with no expectation that a positive answer will be offered.

The readings from today’s liturgy, however, do offer a positive answer to that question of how long we must wait.  The answer is we don’t have to wait.  The reign of God is already here.  It’s up to us to recognize and live that reign of justice and equality, and one way to do that is simply to rejoice!

Rejoicing is what today’s readings urge us to do.  Today, the third Sunday of Advent, is called Gaudete (Latin for “Rejoice”) Sunday.  Why should we rejoice, especially when we see so much injustice surrounding us?  Because, as Christians we believe that God is already with us in the struggle for justice.  In the first reading, the prophet Zephaniah says:

“Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
he will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.”

And in the second reading, St. Paul exhorts us:

“Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all. . .”

We are faced here with one of the great Christian paradoxes:  we are awaiting God, yet God is already with us.  The appearance that God is not already with us makes it tempting for us to despair.  The fact, revealed by faith, that God is indeed with us causes us to rejoice.

Rejoicing can help our spirits.  It can remind us of God’s presence with us even when empirical facts seem to proclaim an absence.  Rejoicing helps us to believe: it strengthens our faith that God’s reign has come.  And with our faith strengthened, we can start doing the works of mercy and justice that will actually make our faith in the reign of God more manifest to others and to ourselves.

In the Gospel, the followers of John the Baptist, who has been preparing people for the reign of God, ask him “What should we do?”  John tells his followers (and us) that we need to start acting out the reign of God:  act justly, live mercifully, do the things that you expect to see when God’s reign is in effect.    In effect he is telling them the same message from the much-quoted saying of Gandhi:  “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

For those involved in the work of justice and equality for LGBT people, today’s readings challenge us in two ways.  First, we must not give into despair, but, instead, rejoice.  God is already with us!  Others in the church may not yet see it, but we know that it is true.   The glass is half-full.  Already wonderful things are happening in the church that reflect God’s reign of justice for LGBT people.

Second, to hasten God’s reign and make it more evident, we need to live as if that reign already existed.  So many of you already do that: you act with justice and equality towards LGBT people and you continue to struggle for their rights.  Those are the kinds of actions that make our church and society more welcoming places.  Those are the kinds of actions that are more powerful than any homophobic nay-sayers.  Those are the kinds of actions that make God present in the world and call for even greater rejoicing!

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

 

Mountains Made Low, Valleys Raised Up

The readings for the second Sunday of Advent are Baruch 5:1-9, Philippians 1:4-6,8-11, and Luke 3:1-6. You can view the readings here. http://usccb.org/bible/readings/120912.cfm

Zealous hope and urgency towards action emanate from the readings of Advent’s second Sunday, signaling the coming reign of God. Foremost in today’s readings, we hear the refrain that God’s coming kingdom is a great equalizer. In Baruch:

“For God has commanded
that every lofty mountain be made low,
and that the age-old depths and gorges
be filled to level ground,
that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God.”

And in Luke, quoting the prophet Isaiah:

“Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The winding roads shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

In the lowering of mountains and raising of valleys, the ground is leveled and all walk forward together on equal footing into God’s goodness and salvation. In the Church and in society, this equal footing eludes us in deep ways. We fail to progress “secure in the glory of God” because  as a faith community, as a nation, and as a human family, we allow the marginalization of others.

LGBT ministry in Catholicism is largely a leveling ministry struggling against the marginalizing tendencies of some.

We endeavor to make low the mountains upon which the powerful reside when we structurally support welcoming parishes, when we engage theology for a healthier and more holistic understanding of the human person and sexuality, and when we witness against actions falling short of Gospel love.

We endeavor to fill to level ground those persons who are seen as “less-than” when we secure basic rights that protect all persons, relationships, and families, when we enable our loved ones and neighbors to take off the “robe of mourning and misery” to “put on the splendor of glory from God forever” by being who God created to be, and when we celebrate in community the love common to all, without exclusion.

The coming of God’s kingdom was imminent for the early Christians, who truly believed the Second Coming would occur in their lifetime during the first century. When Paul reminds the Philippians, “that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus,” this is not idle speculation. This good work could find completion any day and John the Baptist’s exhortation to “Prepare the way of the Lord” hints at immediacy.

To our modern selves, it seems that Jesus’ return has taken longer than the first Christians desired. That said, we cannot allow a two thousand year delay to stifle the abundant hope and sense of urgency clung to by these earliest believers. Advent provides an opportunity to renew and reinvigorate our leveling ministry on the LGBT front.

At times, the mountains seem domineering and unconquerable, while valleys are so deep we cannot peer into their darkness. Today’s readings provide us the vital nourishment of unending hope and urgent action so we can, repeatedly at each new step, scale the mountains to lower them and reach into the valleys to exalt them.

Then, together as equals, we walk forward in the light of God to the coming glory that awaits us.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

Embracing the Superabundance of Love

The readings for the first Sunday of Advent are Jeremiah 33:14-16, 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2, and Luke 21:25-28, 34-36. You can view the readings here.

As Advent begins, Catholics worldwide prepare themselves for Christ’s entrance into creation. In the already/not yet nature of Christianity, these weeks both anticipate Christ’s coming anew and celebrate  the Incarnation that brought us a historical Jesus. Each week we hear encouraging messages of hope, joy, and peace.

For LGBT advocates within the Church, we begin this Advent  on a particularly positive note with recent victories for marriage equality and as we witness a growing trend of acceptance, affirmation, and welcome amongst Catholics at large.

In this hope-filled Advent context, this Sunday’s readings seem jarring in their use of  harsh apocalyptic images to refer to the coming of God’s kingdom, which is elsewhere shown as peaceful and just. Catholic LGBT advocates also know of the harshness of a hierarchy doubling down in its oppressive anti-equality work as we struggle to ensure each person and every family are legally protected, at a bare minimum.

Luke’s gospel (Lk 21:25-28) has Jesus identifying nations in dismay, roaring seas, death from fright, and the powers of the heavens as signs of this new era when God’s justice will reign. Jesus’ further exhortation to be ready for what will surprise us and to remain strong during the trials seems a tall order. Jesus’ words can seem terrifying for the Christian — exactly the opposite of what we desire to aid us at Advent’s hopeful beginning.

Thankfully, the second reading from First Thessalonians contextualizes how preparedness, vigilance, and prayer demanded by Jesus may be lived out. Paul writes to the emerging community in Thessalonica in this pastoral letter, the earliest book of the New Testament and thus in close proximity to earliest Christian belief.

Couched amid apocalyptic passages, the reading today comes from Paul’s blessing for the community. We hear two parts proclaimed. The first desires an increase in love and the second calls for a strong Christian witness by the early Christians (1 Thes 3:12-4:2):

“Brothers and sisters:
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love
for one another and for all,
just as we have for you,
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen.

“Finally, brothers and sisters,
we earnestly ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that,
as you received from us
how you should conduct yourselves to please God
and as you are conducting yourselves
you do so even more.
For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

We in the 21^st century Church find ourselves desperately requiring this same blessing that the Thessalonians received. Paul does not merely pray that they may love, but directly addresses Christ in his prayer. To quote the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Paul “asks for a superabundance of love directed within and beyond the community” where the apostles lead by their humble witness.

In this, Paul demands the Church’s ministers lead by examples of love, and we can hope that the bishops and other church leaders will do the same. Given present affairs, we cannot wait on them to be loving witnesses to Christ — this superabundance of love must come from the laity and supportive religious and clergy. In this preparatory period of Advent, when we begin life with Christ again, it is this superabundance that might be a powerful focal point.

Superabundance isn’t a sufficient amount; it isn’t even more than necessary. Superabundance is gratuitous. It is overflowing. It is uncompromised, unrestrained, and perhaps unwieldy.

A superabundance means all, without exception, find their places in community and all, without exception, find more love than would suffice for even the most suffering people. It means that LGBT persons with their loved ones, their children and their families, their friends and their allies are not merely accepted, but eagerly invited to participate in a life with Christ anew.

I challenge myself this Advent to extend beyond just working out of love for structural changes and legal victories. These are essential, but only loving an ordinary amount comes from a love that two millennia of Christianity has tamed far too greatly.

This Advent, while we ready the way for Christ, let us re-embrace the superabundance of love found amid the earliest Christians, unconcerned with doctrinaire thinking and always concerned with how the community enacted its faith-filled witness.

Then we can be Christians that will stand before Jesus when God’s kingdom nears, confident that in loving superabundantly each person we lived well.

-Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

Awesome Sights and Mighty Signs: A Reflection on the End of the World

Today marks the 366th day of the Bondings 2.0 blog, which means that tomorrow will be the blog’s first anniversary!  (2012 was a leap year, so there were 366 days in it.)

Anniversary times, beginnings and endings, are always good times to reflect and ponder.  The mood of this time of the liturgical year prods us to reflections about end times and new beginnings.  Last Sunday, we celebrated the feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday in the liturgical year.  This week, the scripture readings for Mass are all about the end times.  Next Sunday we will begin Advent, a season of joyful expectation.

Today’s Gospel passage, Luke 21: 5-11, offers some items to ponder for those who work and wait for LGBT equality in church and society.   If you are involved in such work, you probably often feel like Jesus’ early followers who asked him when the end times were coming and what signs would precede it. Jesus answers them, rather cryptically:

” ‘See that you not be deceived,
for many will come in my name, saying,
“I am he,” and ‘The time has come.”
Do not follow them!
When you hear of wars and insurrections,
do not be terrified; for such things must happen first,
but it will not immediately be the end.’

“Then he said to them,
‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues
from place to place;
and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.’ “

Though “end of the world” talk is often scary and doom-ridden, for Christians, we know that the end of the world will usher in God’s reign of justice, the thing for which we most long.  What I see as one message Jesus offers us in this passage is that we should not be upset by cataclysms and catastrophes that happen to us as we wait for this reign of justice to be realized.

Jesus notes that there will be things that terrify us, but that we must remember that these are not the end of the story.  While we may witness battles and earth-shaking events, we also need to wait to see “awesome sights and mighty signs.”

I’m no prophet, so I can’t interpret what those sights and signs will be.  Indeed, I believe they will be different for different people.  Anything that reminds us that the struggles we are involved in are not the end of the story is one of those signs.

Our job is to remain courageous (“do not be terrified”) and keep firm in our faith that God will bring about the reign of justice for which we long, and work, and pray.

Stay tuned for Advent, coming next Sunday, when we will enter a period that celebrates our waiting in joyful hope for the Redeemer to enter our world.

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

 

“The Dawn From on High Shall Break Upon Us”

I imagine that for many of you it has been a hectic week as you make last minute preparations for Christmas.  It has been that for me and for everyone I know.

Regardless of what you still might have left to do today,  be sure to take a moment to reflect on the gift of peace which we celebrate on this upcoming silent night.

The gospel reading for this morning’s liturgy contains one of my favorite lines from Scripture.  The reading, Luke 1: 67-79,  is the Canticle of Zechariah, and ends with these words, which are worth contemplating as we spend our final day waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ:

“In the tender compassion of our God,  the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

May it ever be so.

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

No Room at the Inn?

Sad news comes from Most Holy Redeemer parish, San Francisco, a community that has done excellent outreach to the local LGBT community in the Castro district where they are located and throughout the Bay Area.  

The Bay Area Reporter carries a story that Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco has made the parish disinvite three gay and lesbian clergy members  from speaking at the parish’s  Advent services.   The three are Rev. Jane Spahr, a retired Presbyterian minister who has been prominent in LGBT issues in her church; Rev. Roland Stringfellow, a minister in the Metropolitan Community Church and the coordinator of welcoming congregations at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry of the Pacific School of Religion; and retired Episcopal Bishop Otis Charles, former head of the Utah diocese.

Rev. Spahr was gracious in her response to the disinvitation.  The news story reports that she wrote an email to Most Holy Redeemer parish, noting that the community has been

“in the forefront of loving people through HIV and giving us the opportunity to thrive in expressing the fullness of who we are as we integrate our sexuality and spirituality.”

“Your ministry there in the Castro has helped save so many lives,” she wrote. “How sad for the archbishop that he is missing the depth and breadth of your ministry and how he still sees you as ‘one issue’ rather than the fullness of who you are. The heart of your ministry embraces true hospitality and welcome, the kind of ministry Jesus lived.”

She said that congregants at Most Holy Redeemer “do not have to apologize” for the archbishop’s decision.

“We will pray that his heart will open as he experiences your love and grace,” she added.

As we approach the feast of Christmas, the birth of the Redeemer born in a stable because there was no room at the inn, let’s keep the parish in our prayers, that they may be strengthened to carry out their welcome to the LGBT community and not be disheartened by this directive.  Let’s do as Rev. Spahr suggests, and  pray, too, that Archbishop Niderauer’s heart will be opened to welcome those he might think are strangers.  Let’s pray for all in our church who shut the inn door out of fear and ignorance.  Let’s pray for ourselves, when we are the ones who shut the inn door.

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

‘He was not the light’

On the third Sunday of Advent, the gospel focused on John the Baptist.  The people around John are confused as to his identity, and ask if he is the Messiah.  John responds:

“I baptize with water;
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.”

While we often think of Advent as a time of waiting, another less emphasized theme that runs throughout this season’s liturgies is the theme of recognition.  Yes, we are waiting for the Messiah, preparing the way, but will we recognize the Messiah’s arrival when it happens?

What makes John the Baptist a great model is that he can recognize the Messiah because he knows  that he is NOT the Messiah, even when others try to make him such.  He knows that he is a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Messiah.  John knows what his role is, and he knows that he does not have to do everything.   His job is to prepare the way, and also to recognize the Messiah. Remember in the Visitation gospel that John moved in Elizabeth’s womb when the pregnant Mary arrives. He was the first to recognize the Messiah.

In the reading from Isaiah 61, we learn how to recognize the Messiah by hearing how the Messiah’s arrival is proclaimed:

“[God] 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.”

As we work for justice for LGBT people in the church and society,  our job is to recognize and celebrate when God’s saving power and justice are made real in the world.  While we may sometimes grow wearisome of  being voices crying in the wilderness, we should remember that we are not called to save the world, but to prepare the way for the One who does the saving.   Our job, like John’s, is simply to testify:

“He [John] came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.

–Francis DeBernardo

“How Can This Be?”

How God Sees Time

The second reading on the second Sunday of Advent was from the second letter of Peter.  The reading began:

“Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.”  (2 Peter 3:8)

There is great comfort in realizing this cosmic perspective.  As Advent teaches us how to wait, it’s good to know that part of why waiting seems so difficult is because God’s perspective of time is very different from our own.

How is that comforting?  Three ways.  First, it reminds me that what I might think of as needing to be accomplished urgently and immediately may not be on the same schedule that God has.   In an earlier post, I mentioned that folks involved in LGBT ministry and advocacy can instinctively resonate with the Psalmist’s cry, “How long, O God?”  The line from Peter makes me remember that God’s time is different from my own.

Knowing that God has a different perspective on time is comforting in another way.  When I reflect on how long it takes me to work through correcting imperfections in my life, when I think of how long it some times takes me to forgive someone, when I think of how long it can take to muster up the courage to do the right thing–at all these times, and, sadly, at many more times, too, I am glad that God’s view of time is somewhat longer than my own.

Finally, to know that “one day is like a thousand years” helps me to remember that everything that I or anyone else might do, no matter how small,  is important. If in God’s eyes a day is thousand years long, that tells me that even the small acts that I do can have an effect far into the future, most likely in ways that I can’t imagine.

Does this line from Scripture resonate with you?  How does your understanding of time help or hinder your ministry or your life?

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry