Laughing . . . with the Gospel!

Looking ahead and kind of wondering.

Will we hear any laughter in our churches this coming weekend? And as I raise that question, I also need to acknowledge that in some of our Christian Faith congregations a different Gospel will be heard because a number of traditions observe this coming Sunday as Transfiguration Sunday. However, as to the rest of us . . . will there be any laughter? Or even some chuckles? Or will we even see a smile breaking through the somberness as the Gospel is proclaimed?
In spite of the fact that Pope Francis has reminded and continues to remind us that there is and should be joy in the Gospel, for so very many church-time is serious time and that means somber time and that means leave those smiles outside the doors!
Did it ever occur to you that Jesus did have a sense of humor. Or perhaps more correctly, Jesus does have a sense of humor. He is fully and totally human and that should means that humor and smiles and laughter cannot be left out.
Remember that time when Peter, seeing Jesus walking in the middle of the storm on the choppy waters, asked to join Him? Jesus said, "Come on, Peter!" And I can just picture Jesus with a smile as He said that, thinking to Himself, "Oh, Peter, watch out for what you ask!"
Anyhow, while so many will likely miss it, this coming weekend, for those of us using the Common Lectionary and reading from Luke for the Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, we get a big glimpse of the sense of humor that Jesus has.
His examples are funny. Try to imagine them.
This blind guy asks another blind guy to lead him. Neither knows the other is blind! Picture them walking along the road.
Use your imagination and just visualize that walk!
And then there is the image of that beam of wood sticking out of an eye while beam-eye tries to help someone remove a speck from theirs!
And that delicious looking fruit tree, enticing until a bite is taken from the fruit and it is worse than lemon or maybe just filled with rot! Surprise!
Images designed to make us smile and then pause and think.
Why must Jesus be pictured as always speaking with chimes and a choir of angels humming in the background?
Can you picture Jesus smiling? Laughing? Telling a joke?
Can you picture Jesus laughing with you? Or maybe (often?) laughing at you?
Can you picture Jesus down to earth?
Et incarnatus est!

(Now I invite your thought and comments on this in the comment section below.)

February 20, 1895

Yes!

February 20, 1895!
So what is so special about that particular date?
Well, I found it mentioned and thought it appropriate to mention here as well especially since we are coming to the close of Black History Month and even more especially considering some of the current climate in our society these days.
February 20, 1895 is the day that Frederick Douglas died.
I found that mentioned in a reflection on him and his life in a little monthly devotional to which I subscribe. The monthly is Give Us This Day and it is published by Liturgical Press.
So, as I reflected on what was written about Frederick Douglas, I began to wonder how many are even familiar with that name. How many know this particular and important piece of United States History?
Frederick Douglas?
Oh - wasn't he that slave?
You know - the one who . . . ???
Indeed, he was that slave, for the first twenty years of his life he was a slave, mistreated, beaten, forced to endure and witness some terrible cruelties at the hands of his masters, folks who professed to be Christians and who found justification for their behavior in their religion.
Mr. Douglas came to conclude that this was a blasphemous distortion of the Gospel.
He managed to escape to freedom and eventually became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. From his pulpit he preached strong words against churches that supported slavery and fostered racism. In his writings he captured this thought while declaring, "Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference."
I strikes me that we need to hear those word even still today.
They call us to examine our own living of our faith.
How closely do our daily lives truly reflect what we hear from our pulpits on Sunday?
Last weekend, this and the next - our three weekends before this year's Lent, we are hearing some very strong words from Jesus, from Luke's Gospel, chapter 6, the section called the sermon on the Plain.
These are not just words about racism but about the whole way we order our lives, about the values we hold, the things we count as important. They are challenging words but words that Jesus intends to be taken seriously.
Jesus intends that these words are embodied in our lives  - no compromise, no watering down!
As we hear these words of Jesus, we should find cause for reflection, for examination.
Between the Christianity of my life and the Christianity of Christ, how wide is the difference?
We may be discovering our Lenten call to action!
A preacher who passed some hundred and twenty-four years ago speaks to us today and  calls us to listen carefully to a Preacher who spoke words of life some two millennia ago.
Listen!
And more importantly, take seriously!

Septua . . . What???

It is almost time for Septuagesima!
And if you know what Septuagesima is, you are old! I mean really old! Like almost as old as am I!
We have not actually had anything like Septuagesima since around 1969.
But we did at one time have it and if we had it still, it would be starting this weekend - February 16/17.
Septuagesima!
The word means "seventy" and it begins a sort of count-down to Easter.
Of all of our days and all of our feasts, none excels Easter.
It is like Mother Church just cannot wait.
Lent begins out immediate preparation for this great feast.
But there was a time in our history when we even began to prepare for Lent.
That was Septuagesima.
On that Sunday we already pulled out the penitential purple.
It was time to get thinking about and planning for - what are you going to be about in your journey to Easter this year.
Septuagesima said - Gang, we only have around seventy days to get ready for Easter. So, get moving gang! Get moving!
This is too important to just let slide on by.
That tongue twisting word - Septuagesima gave way to the following week - Sexigesima Sunday which said - Now you have only about sixty days to get ready. Shake a leg, gang!
And then cam the Sunday right before Lent began. That one had the name Quinquagesima! Fifty days more and Easter will be here.
This is too important a time!
Get into it and do it NOW!
Well, the little season of pre-Lent disappeared with the new calendar in 1969.
Too bad!
We are heading to the center of our year, the total focus of our attention. We are moving toward the most important of our days.
We need to take this time seriously.
We need to take this opportunity seriously.
Before those ashes mark our foreheads, we need to ask ourselves what the ashes will call us to this year.
More importantly, we need to ask what that marking of ashes will have God calling us to.
We may not have a Septuagesima Sunday but that should be no reason for us to not start getting ourselves into the mode of personal renewal.
Gang, Lent really is around the corner.
Get into the mood!
Make it dynamite!
Happy Septuagesima Season!

Hey, Phil!

Maybe that is why they are called "smart phones."
First thing I see on my phone screen this morning is the information that Punxsutawney Phil has announced that spring is near and we will have a shortened winter.
Then came the second item.
"But don't get your hopes up. He is usually wrong."
Smart phone indeed!
Anyhow, that got me to some memories. You see, I have actually been to Punxsutawney. Or perhaps more correctly, I have been through Punxsutawney. It was on my way to Rossiter, Pennsylvania. And, yes, there is such a place as Rossiter, Pennsylvania. Google it!
I did and discovered that presently, according to the 2010 census, it is considered a CDP, census designated place.
Never heard that term before actually. A "census designated place."
Not a city; not a village; not a town even.
A census designated place.
Which means a place where people live, a group of people. In the case of Rossiter according to the 2010 census that group of people totals 646.
I believe it.
When I visited there, back in the 1960's, I nearly missed it completely. Drove right through and then realized, "Oops! That was it!"
And so what was I doing in a place like that?
Tracing a bit of family history.
My mom's family originally settled there. Back then Rossiter was a booming coal mining town.
I went there because a handful of family still lived there.
I got to spend some time with them.
They took me to the original and only parish church in Rossiter. At that time it was St. Francis of Assisi but, evidently, this has clustered and is now a part of Resurrection Parish. The old church, however, still stands! And Mass there this Sunday is at 8:30 AM It's for John Kollar from his wife, Evelyn and family.
I also got to see the field where my grandparents once lived. OK - when grandma and grandpa Kopas  lived there, there were houses but the houses are long gone as is the coal mine and so what remains is a field.
And I had dinner with the remaining Rossiter Kopas family members.
I got in touch with some roots.
And to get there I had to pass through Punxsutawney.
Didn't see Phil there.
Probably was in hiding for his wrong call for that year.
Besides, it was summer when I made that trip.
And the weather was summery.
And the sun was shining.
And poor Phil was probably hiding from his shadow.


This Week's Parish Bulletin (Resurrection Parish - Rossiter)