Ezek22 Lectionary Reflections

Today’s Readings (text):

• Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
• Psalm 4
• 1st John 2:1-5a
• Luke 24:35-48

The story from the gospel today is that of Jesus’ return to the unbelieving disciples after his resurrection. He tells them, “Why are you troubled? Why do questions rise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.”

If he were a ghost, he says, he would not have flesh and bones. He continued to instruct them in the ways of scripture and then they ate. He charged them to preach forgiveness in his name to all the world.

Pope Benedict XVI said in his Easter vigil homily that the “world needs the light of Christ and the light of faith, because darkness always attempts to obscure people’s vision of what is good and evil and what is the purpose of their lives.”

In our first reading today, Peter tells the crowd he understands they have acted in ignorance in the past, but that the new light of the Lord is upon them. It has shown a new light, which the current pope recognizes as necessary.

Darkness obscures vision, he notes. How can we see what we truly want, what we truly seek, if we are living our lives in darkness? This darkness could be confusion, evil, or anything that leads our lives away from what is good in humanity. Although the darkness may be temporary, it may still lead us permanently away from Christ and on a road to destructive decisions.

In these times, we need to find the road back to Christ, back to what is good, back to prayer, to good deeds that give glory to God rather than to man or to our dark, sinful ways.

Only then will our lives have meaning. Only then will we be able to find freedom. Only then will our existence fulfill the mission God has for us.

Look at the hands and feet of people standing right in front of you, people that God put on your path for a reason. They are real. Many of them care about you, but it is sometimes difficult to see that in the presence of other forces in life trying to persuade you to a life of evil, away from Christ and his church on Earth.

The path of Christ may not be as exciting or rock with a forceful bass drum, but it rocks the house pretty good. True power is only in God, so any false notion of power on Earth (money, drugs, sex) cannot last long. Go for what lasts: the steady beat and tuneful melodies, the forgiveness of sins, Christ’s glorious resurrection and his teaching about real love. Have hope in a new world that leaves the old one in the dust.

And go for what lasts in other aspects of your life as well. Don’t settle for what gives immediate pleasure but ends up in a dead end. Get an education in a field you love. Apply it to the best of your ability. Give it your all, every moment of attention, and do it for God’s glory and for the comfort of his children everywhere. To do otherwise is just a lie, and your life is worth so much more than that.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Isaiah 52:13-53:12
• Psalm 31
• Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9
• John 18:1-19:42

Today’s service (it’s not a mass, even in Roman Catholic churches) features long, long readings. Volumes are written about the Lord’s passion, which comes today from John’s gospel, and I will not add to the fire. Instead, I’d like to focus on Isaiah’s message, specifically just the first few lines of it. In today’s Old Testament lesson, he wrote:

See, my servant shall prosper,
he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him,
so marred was his look beyond human semblance
and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man,
so shall he startle many nations,
because of him kings shall stand speechless;
for those who have not been told shall see,
those who have not heard shall ponder it.

We know many things in our lives aren’t what they appear to be. I recently began a new project in my organization, one that endeavors to help students in Illinois schools. They have lots of problems: bullying, parents who are missing in action, Facebook in the hands of an adolescent, getting proper nutrition and physical activity, and so on. And these problems don’t even scratch the surface of their issues when it comes to learning science or math.

In order to accomplish this purpose, I needed a lot of help. I hired one young woman from Baltimore whom I had met when she was working as a waitress and happened to start a conversation with me that eventually led to her working for me.

When you see her, you immediately think “waitress,” but what you can’t see is that she is working to finish her college degree and then possibly go to law school and start a practice with one of her good friends who is also planning to go through law school. After that, she doesn’t really have any plans.

When people in Jesus’ time looked at him, they saw sometimes a broken man, sometimes a teacher. But what they didn’t know — and which took us a while to figure out — is that he would lead them to salvation. In fact, he was their salvation. His actions on the cross, much more than his words, led our Father in heaven to forgive our sins.

Now we know what happened on the day Jesus died. Entire universities have been established for that purpose alone. Kingdoms have been built and fallen in his name and his name alone.

I appreciate his great and perfect sacrifice, and I live the rest of my life trying to find ways to give thanks to him for what he did. But we need to consider our lives today, and this is the real meaning of faith. Even people who are evil think Jesus died to save them from their sins. Simply believing that something happened isn’t faith.

Rather, faith is being at ease, at peace, with the understanding that things are going to work out just fine. It’s very difficult to let your thoughts be at ease with that concept sometimes. For example, I am often uncomfortable with some of the times I have been disappointed at work. I find myself ready to just call the whole thing off and cut my losses.

But knowing that there is prosperity ahead in terms of the organization’s goals (and in terms of my personal goals and my employees’ personal goals) keeps me going. Business isn’t a one-time act like Jesus’ dying on the cross, but it’s rather a commitment to an ongoing partnership. Kids’ suffering is so complex that doing one thing only isn’t going to make much of a difference. And to keep coming back, revising the plan, and trying new and improved strategies takes faith.

It’s a faith that people are exactly who they say they are, despite what you might see as evidence to the contrary, and even if they don’t actually “say” who they are; a faith that people’s motives really are pure, despite any signs that there is deceit afoot; and a faith that they will do what they say they’re going to do, despite any disappointments along the way.

This is Christian faith, direct from Christ himself. It may not look very good on the surface, but after a while, you’ll understand what really happened.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Isaiah 42:1-7
• Psalm 29:1-10
• Acts 10:34-38
• Matthew 3:13-17

“In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation, whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him,” Peter tells a gathering of people in the house of Cornelius in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

At this time, the US seems to be a deeply partial nation, and what’s worse, nuts on the right wing as well as the left resort to violence. There is no reason or cause that could justify the taking of innocent life yesterday morning, including US District judge John M Roll; Christina Green, 9; Gabriel Zimmerman, 30; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Schneck, 79, all of whom died by the hand of Jared Lee Loughner, 22, when he was aiming for US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona.

We will avoid belaboring the obvious point that Mr Loughner did not act uprightly, and his actions would be found unacceptable to the God of whom Jesus’ disciples spoke. And we know the left has just as many deranged, unjust people as the right.

But my point here, along with today’s lessons in Christian churches around the country, is that God doesn’t take sides. People who claim to be Christian have used hateful words, such as “crosshairs,” “job-killing,” and other words tainted with violence in expressing their points on Web sites, profitable broadcasts, the floor of the House of Representatives, and in other venues.

Information today is immediately available and unfortunately falls just as quickly on the ears of sane compassionate Americans who value human life as it does on the ears of insane assassins like Jared Lee Loughner. Americans appreciate lively debate and fully comprehend the underlying meaning of hyperbole in speech (no one actually thinks Sarah Palin wished the representative from Arizona’s Eighth District dead). It is so unfortunate, then, that those same words can be taken out of context by insane people on both sides of the political aisle and inspire the violence we saw yesterday.

Answers to most of the complex problems facing us are often long in coming. It is time to take a deep breath and reflect on the words of the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, the man who is currently third in line to the presidency: John Boehner, Republican of Ohio.

“An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve,” he said.

This is exactly what Peter meant. God is completely impartial to political viewpoint. Rather, those who act uprightly — as Rep. Boehner said, who “serve” — are acceptable to him. This violence doesn’t represent who we are as Americans. It isn’t who we are as Christians, though it is clear from his actions and words that Mr Loughner is not a Christian. And I wouldn’t even care about that if he would choose to act uprightly.

We Christians should strive to follow the example of Christ and of God, as taught to us from the Bible. Partiality is not of God. Peter made that clear right in today’s reading. And we should pray that those who do not follow the Christian God, that they too may find inspiration in righteous acts of good people, not in the hateful words of profit-seeking monsters.

Received today in email:

Don’t look for a punch line; there isn’t one.

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

“When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.

“Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.

“Where is the natural order of things in my son?”

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued: “I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.”

Then he told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, “Do you think they’ll let me play?” I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, “We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.”

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.

Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, “Shay, run to first! Run to first!’

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, “Run to second, run to second!”

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, “Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay!”

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, “Run to third!Shay, run to third!”

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, “Shay, run home! Run home!”

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

“That day,” said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, “the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.”

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the “natural order of things.”

So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats its least fortunate amongst them.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Isaiah 66:10-14 (alt in RCL* 2 Kings 5:1-14)
• Ps 66:1-7, 16, 20
• Galatians 6:14-18
• Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Rather joyous words we hear from God on this, the 234th birthday of the independence of the United States from Great Britain: “Even the demons are subject to us because of your name,” the 72 declare to our Lord.

In the reading from the Book of Isaiah, the prophet speaks of the plentiful bounty the Lord will bestow upon Israel: “Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts!”

We send fireworks into the air at our country’s independence, but in fact, we celebrate our dependence on our families and friends as we gather at picnics and at other places on this holiday weekend. In the online publication AnnArbor.com, one adoptive mother wrote, “[Regarding] our right to life — a life together, as a family — each of us have relinquished something important: independence, personal dreams, even the most intimate relationships. We are in a very real sense dependent on one another. Without each other, we could not be the individuals we were created to be.”

Heidi Hess Saxton was writing about motherhood and the things she gave up when she accepted that role in her life, but her ultimate conclusion is that she got something much more valuable in return.

We all know that following a life in Christ doesn’t always lead us to do the things we would do for ourselves without him, but if we are to suck fully the milk of heaven’s abundant breasts, let’s take to heart Jesus’ words in our gospel passage today: “I have given you the power to ‘tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

This is one passage where Jesus proclaims how little it matters what our “enemies” are saying or doing. You can define “enemies” in any number of ways: England in the Revolutionary War, terrorists in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, Protestants during the Reformation (or Catholics), priests and ministers in the church sex-abuse scandal, and so on.

But in the end, when your time comes to meet God, either your name is written in the book or it isn’t. Heaven is big enough for a huge number of people. What you have to ask yourself is, Will you be among them? It doesn’t matter who else is or isn’t in the book. Your story — not mine, not bin Laden’s, not Hitler’s, not your mom’s, not your pastor’s — is all that matters.

And that is why Jesus gives his “advice to travelers” speech to his friends. Don’t take any change of clothes when you visit, because that would be making a huge assumption. Let them show you their hospitality. And if they don’t, just move on.

A generalized disgust in America of people who purport to believe in God but accomplish their selfish objectives by harming others has indeed led many people to use the very existence of evil in these criminals as a rationale for not believing in God, in miracles, in God-given goodness. Atheists like to put up billboards that say things like, “Are you GOOD without GOD?” This suggests that a belief in God leads us to kill and harm others with whom we don’t agree. You have to like their bumper sticker-length slogan, even though actions that harm others reflect more a general disbelief in God — or at least an utterly incomplete understanding of the messages taught in the Bible, Koran, and other religious texts — than a belief in God.

Still, a part of me, going off today’s gospel passage, thinks these unbelievers have a good, albeit stereotypical, point. If all the atheists in the world could be good and not hurt anyone else, then their existence wouldn’t matter to me one bit. There are bad atheists out there, though, just as there are evil people who label themselves Christians, Muslims, and so on. So much for that hope.

However, the Lord awaits my personal presence in heaven, regardless of who else does or doesn’t get in. I rejoice not because I can defeat atheists, showing their belief that religion causes all the mass murders in the world to be an inaccurate premise, but rather, because I am optimistic in praying that my name is written in the Lord’s book of life.

Today’s Readings (text):

• 1st Kings 19:16, 19-21
• Ps 16
• Galatians 5:1, 13-18 (RCL* -25)
• Luke 9:51-62

We know when Jesus was alive, lots of people claimed to be exorcists. They all thought they could cast out demons. In today’s gospel passage, we have a story of Jesus, James, and John coming across some of these people, on their way to Jerusalem through Samaria. These people, we are told, refused to welcome Jesus, probably seeing him as some sort of competitor.

Knowing what they did about Jesus’ power, James and John wanted to bring down the wrath of God on these men, who treated our Lord so badly, disrespecting his beliefs. But Jesus told them they should not do that and instead moved on to the next town.

The prevailing message here is one of tolerance. Perhaps no one preached a stronger tolerance message, with Jesus’ teachings, than John Wesley, who founded the United Methodist Church. Mr Wesley’s brother left his church to join the Roman Catholic church, and Mr Wesley, famously, said to him, “Whether in this church or in that I care not. You may be saved in either or damned in either…”

We see above, John Wesley being tolerant of Catholicism. Christians should take a lesson from this, since it is so clearly what our Lord taught. Lutherans should be tolerant of Catholics, Baptists of Pentecostals, and so on and so forth. What matters is our love for the Lord. In fact, John Wesley made the call to prayer in the United Methodist Church something akin to that: Let all who love the Lord come here.

But why stop there? Jesus didn’t. In fact, he surely knew that these other exorcists were preaching a false creed. Yet, he would not allow them to be eliminated. What about Muslims? Or, for that matter, what about Buddhists or atheists?

God works in mysterious ways, you know, and all we really know is that we know absolutely nothing about the truth — certainly, our minds are way too small to understand even a speck of what God had in mind when he created us. I’m sure God can figure out a way to work through atheists and Muslims, as well as Christians. Out of love for all of God’s children, even if he gave them life in a Muslim or atheist tradition and created them in that way, we should not strike them down because of their beliefs.

Rather, let us recall the words of Abraham Lincoln, who, when reminded that it was his duty to “destroy” his enemies, noted that he had destroyed his “enemies” when he made them his friends.

It is with that spirit of love, caring, and friendship, that Jesus taught us to preach. We are not indifferent to the disbelief of atheists. Rather, we seek to understand it, in order to learn more about our loving God. They don’t know any more about truth than any Christians, so we seek not to convert them to Christianity, per se. Instead, we seek to convert all people to a gospel of love, as we Christians have learned through the teachings of Jesus.

As we are reminded at the end of today’s gospel passage, the moment of opportunity is now. For example, do not mistakenly assume our Lord would have you strike down the traditions of Haitians who practice Voodoo. Don’t try to convert them to Christianity by kidnapping their children and disrespecting their laws. You have missed the opportunity to teach them our Lord’s message of love, which came for a crucial moment and then, in a fleeting instant, evaporated.

Like the second man in our gospel, whose father probably was not already dead, by the way, he either joins Jesus at that crucial moment or never comes at all. We all find opportunities like that in our lives — of saying “thank you” or “I love you” to someone, etc. The more we let these moments pass us by, the less likely we are ever to act on these urges. Sometimes, we let the emotions themselves serve as substitutes for the actions that those emotions should bring. That is no way to live a Christian life.

Every time some idiotic church group kidnaps a bunch of children, every time a pedophile priest molests a child, every time a preacher says something untrue or irrelevant, an opportunity is lost for conversion of hearts to a gospel of love. As St Paul tells us in our epistle reading today, those who serve the Spirit (love, God) do not serve the flesh (worldly or personal gain).

Our prayer is that people study what Jesus taught (or whoever your heroes may be), learning to love others and respect them. If you are Christian, learn to respect them as children of God, as Jesus taught you. Our Lord would not have you strike them or their traditions down. You may believe they are mistaken, but first of all, you don’t know the truth either, and second, your only chance of converting their heart to one of friendship and love is to treat them with love as a friend.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Zechariah 12:10-11, 13:1
• Ps 63:2-9
• Galatians 3:26-29
• Luke 9:18-24

Tony Hayward is not feeling very happy these days. He’s the chief executive of BP, the company that drilled the well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, the well that exploded on April 20 for unknown reasons, costing 11 lives, dumping millions of gallons of crude oil into the gulf and threatening the environment and wildlife.

Here is an excerpt from Mr Hayward’s prepared statement to Congress, delivered in testimony on June 17:

As the scope of the unfolding disaster became more apparent, we reached out to additional scientists and engineers from our partners and competitors in the energy industry, as well as engineering firms, academia, government and the military. Among the resources that have been made available:

• Drilling and technical experts who are helping determine solutions to stopping the spill and mitigating its impact, including specialists in the areas of subsea wells, environmental science and emergency response;

• Technical advice on blowout preventers, dispersant application, well construction and containment options;

• Additional facilities to serve as staging areas for equipment and responders, more remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for deep underwater work, barges, support vessels and additional aircraft, as well as training and working space for the Unified Command.

Events leading up to the explosion suggest that opportunities were missed that could have kept it from happening. Why didn’t we bring all these resources Mr Hayward talks about to bear back then? Mr Hayward acknowledges at the beginning of the excerpt above that the company waited until the scope of the disaster had become apparent. Why on Earth did they wait that long? Anyway, at least there is now some measure of a response.

The answer to why we waited so long may be that it is not in our human nature to give freely like that unless we’re backed into a corner, as the government has backed BP into a corner. We just don’t do stuff like that unless we have to. Cows don’t do it either: They won’t just walk up to you and give you their milk. They have to be coerced into a stall so they can’t get away. Even then, they only give about 10 liters of milk per session. Now that there’s a disaster in the gulf, BP gives us 10 liters from its udder.

Continuing with our little analogy, BP has offered to devote a vast number of resources to the clean-up and recovery. And perhaps because this altruism is sort of unexpected and not exactly according to human nature, people are confused about how they should respond. Should we stop drilling offshore? Or, should we send this company as much help as we possibly can?

Happily, it wasn’t like that with God. The Romans didn’t actually have to nail him to the cross in order for him to die. As was foretold in today’s Old Testament reading, God “will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and petition; and they shall look on him whom they have pierced … as one grieves over a firstborn.”

Our Lord gave his life willingly as he “poured it out,” thousands of years before we were born, so that we might be saved from the sins of this worldly existence. He didn’t wait until after we had sinned. Thank God for that!

Many people don’t know quite how to respond to our Lord’s free giving of salvation, either, and I suppose the main reason for our confusion is that his act of laying down his life for those who believed in him is not really part of our human nature. If our confused response to BP’s offer to clean up an oil spill and make financial amends to people who have been put out by it says anything about human nature, how much more confusing must it be for people to figure out how to respond to God’s offer of salvation!

Lucky for us, Jesus isn’t only human. What is human nature for us (trying to escape anything that makes us empty ourselves) was not part of God’s plan for him: He gave his life freely, as he says in John 10:18 and in today’s gospel passage from Luke: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

If only BP had followed our Lord’s example and freely devoted all these resources before they were backed into a corner, the whole situation might have been avoided.

We take so much of this for granted. What we should be doing is giving thanks: to both BP executives for giving what they can to clean up the mess they made and to Jesus for giving everything he had to save our souls.

How should we do that? Well, for BP, the answer is easy: We should work with them in every way we can in order to determine the best way not only to clean up the current disaster but to prevent catastrophes like this from happening in the future. If we can only accomplish that by cornering them to counter their human (or corporate) nature, then so be it.

But as Mr Hayward said, “we will not rest until we stop this well, mitigate the environmental impact of the spill and address economic claims in a responsible manner. No resource available to this company will be spared. We and the entire industry will learn from this terrible event and emerge from it stronger, smarter and safer.” On the face of it, if BP lives up to that promise, it sounds good to me.

In terms of Christ, the original gift was much greater, and our thanks should be complete, as he tells us himself:

If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

To reframe Mr Hayward’s words, let us emerge stronger from our sinful lives, emptying ourselves of everything we have and giving it to our neighbors out of love, as a way of giving thanks to our Lord for his free and not-exactly-human gift of salvation.

Today’s Readings (text):

• 2nd Peter 3:12-18
• Ps 90:1-4, 10, 14, 16
• Mark 12:13-17

According to an editorial filed by the Becket Fund on the Catholic Exchange, the town of Leon Valley, Texas, is trying to prevent a church named “The Elijah Group” from conducting worship services on Sunday, even though the town has allowed the use of the church’s building for daycare and other purposes.

“It is shocking that a church would not be allowed to hold church services because they are not profitable to the City,” the story quoted Lori Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund, as saying.

Other ministers have picked up the story as well. For example, I received an email from the Lutheran Hour Ministries, in their daily devotion for Monday, May 31, as follows: “… let me observe the world has devised all manner of means to stop the Gospel from being proclaimed. Some of these prohibitions are threatening and violent. That kind of persecution we see in some of the Islamic countries of the world.”

Although persecution and the squelching of the free exercise of religion may exist in many places around the world, including in the US, that is not likely the bottom line of the story in Leon Valley. Preachers should know this, since it is not difficult today to get both sides of a story.

The town of Leon Valley has issued a statement, mentioned in neither of the one-sided stories cited above, that claims the blocking of certain uses for the building — namely of holding worship services — is within the law and supported by the courts.

The town says “… this is not a case about tax revenues or excluding churches. It is about a bank attempting to maximize its profits.”

The facts of the case are these: The Elijah Group offered $1.3 million to the bank to buy the property, which was a foreclosed church, and the bank would like to get that money. The deal, however, is contingent upon the changing of the zoning laws within the city to allow worship services. If the church can’t conduct worship services, the Elijah Group won’t buy the building.

The bank has an offer of $575,000 for the building from a retail group, but obviously, the sale of the building as a church would bring in more money. The building is in a retail zone, which would make its use as a church illegal.

As I said, the building was once a church, so the Elijah Group could have been grandfathered in as a church. However, a window of opportunity for doing that expired. Now the Elijah Group, with the Becket Fund as its agent, wants to rewrite the zoning ordinance to allow them to hold worship services in the church and allow the sale of the building for the higher amount to go through.

As Jesus says in today’s gospel reading, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.” We need to take into account the words of our Lord, and we need to realize, all of us, that he is not advocating anyone breaking any civil laws here. In fact, he is advocating our compliance with civil laws.

The bank in Leon Valley and the Elijah Group knew the laws, but they were hoping to get those zoning laws changed. The city was not obligated to do that just because a window of opportunity had expired. The building is within the city and falls under the city’s ordinance, and we support the city of Leon Valley in this decision.

An appeal has been filed with the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, and we will follow it for our own purposes. However, motives on the part of the bank are about profit. That makes our decision easy, since this is not a case about squelching free religious practice, as so many have cast it to be.

My advice to the church known as The Elijah Group and their friends would be to look elsewhere for a better deal. Keep your money and remember that you are here to serve God’s people, not the city of Leon Valley or the Happy State Bank. Let them keep their building and their taxes, and give to God your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Proverbs 8:22-31
• Ps 8:2, 4-9
• Romans 5:1-5
• John 16:12-15

At St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix several months ago, Sister Margaret McBride, a senior administrator at the hospital, authorized an abortion for a 27-year-old woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension, secondary to her fourth pregnancy.

In ruling that Sister McBride was “automatically excommunicated” from the church, the Most Rev. Thomas J Olmsted, bishop of Phoenix, wrote, “An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother’s life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.”

The premise for this ruling, that an unborn child is not a disease, is a complete misrepresentation of the medical facts underlying the case. Pulmonary hypertension during pregnancy is a known and pernicious pathological condition.

Furthermore, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has a slightly different take, in Part 4, Issues in Care for the Beginning of Life, No. 47: “Operations, treatments and medications that can have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child.”

In fairness, we must note in this case that doctors said the pregnant woman’s death from pulmonary hypertension during pregnancy and delivery was not 100 percent certain. Nor was the probability that she would carry the pregnancy to the point at which the unborn child was viable.

You will have to decide for yourself whether Sister McBride did the “right” thing, but I tend to think that is a matter between her and God himself.

What concerns me is the message her excommunication sends to other Catholics and people of all religious traditions who believe in the infinite value of every single human life. Sister McBride has been described, almost universally, as a “saintly” person, one who has exercised great compassion and Jesus-like care for the people of her community, God’s children every one of them. The church has now said they don’t want her any more. She can no longer receive Christ’s body and blood in the Most Holy Sacrament.

St. Paul writes in today’s passage from his great letter to the Romans, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith.” As Sister McBride has already gained this access, the church’s official declaration of her excommunication can be considered irrelevant, especially since the logic behind that decision contradicts the published statements by the Conference of bishops.

We find ourselves not caring so much about what church leaders have to say when their bishops can’t even follow their own testimony about our Lord. Turn instead to the words of our Lord. Follow his example. This will show you how to love. This will teach you how to be of compassionate service to one another in our world today.

As for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, their language can be considered a reasonable compromise, since neither the pregnant woman’s nor the baby’s life has a greater value than the other. They are equal in value, and that value is infinite.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
• Ps 67:2-8
• Revelations 21:10-14, 22-23
• John 14:23-29

Happy Mother’s Day (officially, the apostrophe goes before the s, making “mother” singular). My mother died several years ago, but I celebrate Mother’s Day every year as well, knowing, as Jesus told his disciples in today’s gospel passage about his own death, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.”

Americans will spend an estimated $670 million on greeting cards, according to the National Retail Federation, for mothers today, and there is no problem with a little patting on the back on one day out of 365 days of toil.

But Jesus also told us, “Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”

This is a fairly common theme throughout Jesus’ teachings: that what we expected from God, based on our worldview, is not what God actually has in mind for us. And since I have no (living) mother to send a card to, I feel that a tribute of a different kind is in order, to honor my mother and my God.

The US doesn’t have a terrific maternal mortality record. In fact, depending on which data source you read, we’re somewhere between 37th (The Lancet) and 41st (Amnesty International) when it comes to mothers who die because of their pregnancy. A mother is about twice as likely to die because of her pregnancy in the US than in Europe, the Lancet report says.

And mothers’ problems in the US are definitely mild in comparison with their problems in other countries. In many African countries, such as Niger, pregnant women can’t go to the doctor’s office unless it is specifically allowed by their husbands. Thus, if the man is not at home when an emergency during pregnancy occurs, the woman may die right at home.

Less serious is a problem known as an obstetric fistula. During childbirth, this injury can make a woman incontinent so she leaks waste uncontrollably. If a fistula develops, the woman may become repulsive enough that she will be outcast, but the condition can usually be fixed with a $450 operation. The work of the Fistula Foundation helps heal these women, and this year, I sent them some money.

Of course, I’m not so conceited as to think my contribution is anything more than a monetary donation that I probably would have used on my own mother, had she been alive. But when I read the gospel passage about not doing things like those in this world, as Christ would have done out of pure love, my mind sees the natural irony between the $670 million we spend on greeting cards for this day and the great need to help not only mothers in other countries but in our own as well.