Parish Missions

Make It Worth Something

Someone once wrote this about the true religion:

A religion

that does nothing

that gives nothing

that costs nothing

that suffers nothing

is worth nothing.

This might be the basic theme of the Sacred Scriptures today. The ancient law of the Israelites was precise and thorough. It flowed from Yahweh's constant loving care and had its roots in justice. What follows in the passage we proclaim today is Yahweh's command that as chosen people the Israelites -- and we -- must work at responding to that law daily. We must never forget Yahweh's great love for us.

Yahweh’s great law of love must mean something to us. We must make love of God and of neighbor our life's work. We must do something with the law; our love has to mirror God’s love. Yet our current political atmosphere is charged with anything but God’s unconditional love. Like the Israelites, hardly consistent in their fidelity to Yahwah's commands, we are being asked to give evidence to the nations that our God is with us.

As the nation mourns the loss of Senator Edward Kennedy, we remember that he, like the Israelites, had a somewhat checkered past. Nonetheless Senator Kennedy possessed a vision of bringing the common good to the nation’s consciousness that was very much in keeping with Deuteronomy’s vision:

"This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people."

The Letter of James puts the same command to us. The Word of God must take root in us; it must mean something in our daily lives. "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves." James' letter is known as one of the pastoral letters because he challenges his readers to bring the Word to fulfillment in concrete ways by pastoring as would a shepherd.

To pastor the orphans and widows is the specific mission he offers in today's reading. Widows and orphans were the marginalized in the society of Jesus' day. They had no legal standing, not unlike today’s immigrants; they had no means of support; they were non-entities. These are the ones to whom James directs us to pastor, to shepherd.

Jesus brings these Biblical challenges to the heart of our own ritual observance. Does our worship reflect what we do and say in our daily lives? The community for whom Mark wrote this Gospel was struggling with what it really meant to be a disciple of Jesus. So he asks them and us: Do we simply give lip service to Jesus' message and mission, and then ignore it when we leave here? Do we relish the prescriptions of the law and yet possess what an earlier translation called an "obtuse spirit"? (The current translation uses the word "folly.")

Jesus warns us that such an "obtuse" spirit is "flat," "dull," incapable of making an impact and so produces all sorts of evil -- and all of the ones listed in the Gospel are those evils which flow from thinking only of one’s self. Internally the "obtuse spirit" is full of self. So what good is the external ritual? Our liturgical celebration is hypocrisy if it is not the visible sign of an internal frame of mind.

The Good News today is that Jesus offers us, in Word and Sacrament, in story and meal, the opportunity to focus on the true meaning of discipleship: not in observance of human traditions, but in the divine message of self-giving love which this Eucharist represents. The Good News today is that the power of the Risen Christ can transform us and empower us to transform the world if we are willing to make this ritual celebration really mean something.

We might say of the liturgies we celebrate what was said of “true religion.”

Worship must

do something

give something

cost something

suffer something

so that it will be worth something.

Perhaps a more telling dismissal from our liturgy might be:

“Our celebration has begun, let us go in peace of Christ.”