Jesus saves us from the zombie apocalypse

          I preached for the third scrutiny today and the readings centering around the Gospel reading of the Raising of Lazarus.  Enjoy!

Image from the scene of "Hungry Eyes" shot in Logansport 

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Homily: 5^th Sunday of Lent – Cycle C (Scrutinies)

          A couple of years ago, I was home visiting my folks and we were in the car going out to dinner when I noticed on the back windows of a couple of cars stickers that referenced a coming “Zombie Apocalypse”.  The one I remember clearly said: “Zombie Apocalypse Survival Vehicle”.  I turned to ask my sister if this was something I was imagining or if people really were worried about a zombie apocalypse and she told me that was kind of a “thing” that people were into.  Since then I’ve noticed that there seems to be a fascination with zombies: the TV series, “The Walking Dead”, the 2011 film “Zombie Apocalypse”, and the 2013 film “World War Z” all testify to this.

          In fact, poor Fr. Clayton received an awkward first impression of Logansport when, on the first day of his assignment here, as I was taking him out to dinner, we passed by a group of people who were all made-up like zombies for the filming of that scene of the film “Hungry Eyes” that was filmed here in Logansport.  I recall distinctly that he responded with what has now become his quite commonplace response: “Where am I?”

          So, why have we become so fascinated with zombies?  Well, that I can’t really answer.  As a subject for entertainment, however—that is, for those who are entertained by these type of gory thrillers—I can propose a few thoughts.  First, of course, is that they are “thrillers”—that is, they get our blood pumping—and in this way, they are kind of like roller coasters; which, if they don’t make us sick, are a lot of fun.  Second is that there is something about this idea of dead bodies coming back to life: only this time without any rational soul and with an insatiable desire to consume human flesh.  I mean, it’s our worst nightmare, right?  Every other threat to our lives we can stop by killing it, ultimately.  But what about those who are already dead?  How do you kill what’s already dead?  And how do you stop something that doesn’t seem to need food to survive, but nonetheless has an insatiable need to eat?  Yes, it’s our worst nightmare, but it is just far enough removed from any reality that we know that we’re not traumatized by seeing it portrayed on a screen.

          If we take a step back and reflect for a moment, however, we may realize that this nightmare is something that we are more ready to embrace and to face.  You see, in an era in which more and more people are turning away from the idea that there can be new life after death, anything that “re-animates” after having died will assuredly be monstrous: the idea of resurrection (that is, that life is renewed or reborn, not just resuscitated) is thought of as absurd.

          You see, death is a reality that we all must face.  For those of us in the Judeo-Christian tradition, death is a result of sin and the decay associated with death is the evidence that, separated from God, no life can be sustained.  We believe that God has the power to restore us to life, however, and so when Ezekiel says “Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them;” we don’t think of the zombie apocalypse (though, perhaps, now you will), rather we think about being resurrected to new life.  In a very real way, this is exactly what Jesus proved when he raised Lazarus from the dead and, more poignantly, when he himself rose from the dead.

          For those who have abandoned this tradition, however, death is simply the final part of life and the decay associated with death is simply the natural breakdown of the material body once the animating power no longer exists.  In this there is no power to restore life: only nightmarish concepts of bodies rising from graves by some unknowable power only to suck the lives out of those who are still living.  And so we see that, in a world in which God is denied (or simply ignored)—that is, a world without the resurrection of Christ—any concept of life after death can’t be anything more than the zombie apocalypse.  By acknowledging Christ’s resurrection, however, we come to realize that life after death isn’t something monstrous; rather it is something new and glorious and to be sought after.

          Eight of our brothers and sisters have acknowledged Christ’s resurrection and so have come to realize that God offers us something beautiful after this life is through.  Their desire is to be united to that offer (like the rest of us have been) through Baptism at the Easter Vigil.  To help them prepare, we have spent the last weeks scrutinizing them: calling them to turn away from sin and towards new life in Christ and today is our final scrutiny, in which we will remind them that only Jesus can save us from the death that sin has imposed upon us and ask God once again to free them from any and every attachment to sin to which they might still be clinging.

          And, of course, this message is also for all of us: a reminder of the necessity to remain vigilant against any attachment to sin that may creep into our lives.  One of the best ways that we do this, of course, is to make frequent use of the sacrament of reconciliation.  By making good and sincere confessions regularly throughout the year, we keep tabs on which sins in our lives have become habitual—and, thus, have become an attachment to our lives—so that we can take steps to remove these sinful habits and replace them with virtuous ones.

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, has proven to us that, while death will still touch all of us, life after death will not be a nightmarish zombie apocalypse: at least not for those who have been united to him in a death like his through Baptism.  Rather, it will be new and glorious if only we remain faithful to him throughout our short time here in this world.  Let us pray, then, for our brothers and sisters, the elect—and let us pray also for ourselves—that, strengthened by our celebration of this Holy Eucharist, we may come to the realization of that glorious new life that awaits us: the eternal Easter of heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 13^th, 2016

Searching for blindness

Just returned from another week at Saint Meinrad beginning the "Good Leaders, Good Shepherds" program.  What an awesome program!  Super well-researched and put together and the leaders were incredibly knowledgeable and prepared for the program.  One of the best all-around programs that I've every experienced... and this was just the opening module!

I have a busy couple of weeks ahead leading up to Holy Week.  Nevertheless, you know that I'll be watching closely to hear from our new Pope (whenever he's elected)!  Please keep praying for the Cardinal Electors!

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Homily: 4th Sunday of Lent – Cycle A (Scrutinies)

Some of you may be familiar with the story of Alice and Mark.  Alice, as the story goes, was blind, and she hated everyone.  Being blind, as we can all imagine, is a pretty heavy cross to carry and for Alice, that took its toll on her relationships with others.  Mark, however, was a patient man and he loved Alice deeply.  He was always there for her and she felt that he was someone that she could rely on.  One day she told Mark, “If I could see, I would marry you.”

Not long after that, Alice was notified that someone had donated a pair of eyes to her.  So she had the surgery and, after a week or so of recovery, when the bandages came off, she was able to see Mark for the first time.  Almost immediately, Mark smiled at her and asked her: “Now that you can see, will you marry me?”  Alice, however, was speechless.  You see, Mark was blind.  Immediately she knew that looking at his closed eyes would be a constant reminder of the blindness that she so longed to leave in her past and she wanted so badly to leave that memory in the past that she refused his proposal.  Alice’s blindness, it seems, went much deeper than physical sight.

In our Gospel reading today, the Pharisees are suffering from a similar type of blindness.  As we hear in the Gospels over and over again, these religious leaders were intensely focused on preserving the Mosaic Law and on ensuring that it was carefully observed by all Jews.  Being so “in tune” with the Law that God had given them, they were certain that they also knew what the Messiah, whom God had promised to send them, would look like.  He would emerge from an important family of obvious heritage to their great king, King David.  Jesus, however, didn’t fit that mold.  Remember that the history of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, and the great signs that accompanied it, was unknown to the general public while Jesus was still walking on earth.  Rather, all that people knew about him was that he was a carpenter’s son from Nazareth, who was generating a lot of buzz with his teaching and through his works.

No, Jesus’ heritage didn’t jive with what the Pharisees were looking from the Messiah.  Thus, although he was performing the works of God—healing the sick, raising the dead, driving out demons (and, in this case, curing the blind)—the Pharisees were blinded by their preconceived notions of the Messiah and couldn’t see him for who he was.  Like Alice, whose preconceived notion of what Mark would look like prevented her from seeing the Mark that she knew—the patient, caring man who had been with her all this time, the Pharisees’ preconceived notion of what the Messiah would look like prevented them from seeing that the Messiah was actually right there in their midst.

The man who was cured of his blindness, however, had none of these preconceived notions.  So much so that when the Pharisees question him his only response was to say “I know nothing about this man.  I just know that I was blind and now I can see.”  And when pressed by the Pharisees to make a judgment about Jesus, he doesn’t call him the Messiah, but rather a prophet.  What he is doing is speaking from the truth of his experience.  “I was blind, but now I see, which is a good thing.  And if it is a good thing, then it must be from God.  Therefore, this man must be from God.  And so the best that I can say about him is that he seems to me to be a prophet.”  Notice that he doesn’t try to push Jesus into being what he wants him to be, but simply speaks of him according to the truth of his experience of him.

The Elect, those who are preparing to be baptized this Easter, are kind of like this man.  They, like all of us, have been born blind, but, through an encounter with Christ in prayer, in his Word, and through the witness of this community, they have had their eyes opened to the truth of his love and now stand before us to ask for our prayers as they make their final preparations for their Baptism.  They ask for our prayers so that they may be cured of every spiritual blindness and so become like us, “children of light.”

And so to the Elect I have this to offer: the foundation of our faith is acknowledging the truth about our encounters with Christ.  Just like the man born blind—and the Samaritan woman from last week’s Gospel reading—we are called first and foremost to witness to the truth of our encounter with him.  “I can’t tell you if he is a sinner,” the man born blind states, “All I know is that I was blind and now I can see.”  “Come, see the man who told me everything about myself,” the Samaritan woman exclaims, “Could he be the Messiah?”  The scrutinies that the Elect are undergoing are about getting clear.  Just like Lent, for the rest of us, is about getting clear.  In other words, it is about eliminating all of our preconceived notions about God, religion, and what Church ought to be, and getting clear about our experience of Jesus, so that we, too, can worship him, like that man in the reading today, when we see him in his truest, glorified self—his resurrected self—on Easter Sunday.

After Alice’s rejection, Mark left feeling completely destroyed.  A few days later, she received a note from him that said simply, “Take good care of your eyes, my friend, because before they were yours, they were mine.”  Alice could finally see, but then sin—her desire for worldly satisfaction through her eyes—blinded her heart and she rejected Mark’s Christ-like love.  Mark, on the other hand, through making himself blind, truly died to his self and thus to sin.  As a result, he was able to see the sad truth about Alice.  May our Lenten observances blind us to the world—and, thus, to sin—so that we can truly see the love that Christ offers each one of us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 9th & 10th, 2013