Kent Beausoleil, S.J.

September 9, 2007

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

        Every once in a while the Lectionary of the Church presents us with readings that are both difficult to hear and even more difficult to preach on.  Today unfortunately is one of those days.  The reading from Wisdom, if we take it at face value, seems to insult human intelligence.  Our understanding of Christ as God’s revelation of love is subverted in Luke as Jesus calls us to hate our family, lose our life, and embrace our cross in order to truly follow Jesus.  And don’t even get me started on the Letter to Philemon’s light-hearted embrace of slavery and dark-hearted reality of imprisonment.  Fun Stuff.  I have been personally racking my brain and my heart in prayer over this past week to fathom the depths of the spiritual sentiment hidden within these scripture passages.

            And yesterday, as I was eating an awesome piece of cake for my birthday, the Holy Spirit helped me find some spiritual insights hidden beneath the layers of butter-cream.  Now don’t laugh but what helped me understand the reading’s spiritual intent was the art of baked goods and pastry making.  Now come on, I see you, no knowing glances to one another ‘oh how sad, just ordained and already lost his marbles, nor no wisecracks “that obviously the pastry and baked good ministry helped you out a lot Father”.  There is really a method behind this madness.  It’s less about the quantity of pastries and baked goods eaten and more about the artistry, wisdom, and love that goes into making them.

            In all humility I am a great baker.  The love and skill for baking was first instilled in me by a master desert maker – my mother.  She loved to bake and had a wonderful knack for it.  The love and skills that she had were transferred into me at and early age and her passion became my passion.  Years later, that passion was honed when I worked in this restaurant under a semi-tyrannical pastry chef.  Both my mother, and let’s just call him ‘pastry chef guy’, had a love, passion, and focus for their work.  The skills and art they put into their craft were really lessons about life and love.  These lessons about the art of pastry making then, for me, translate very easily into spiritual experience.  I mean who hasn’t taken a bite out of a wonderfully decadent desert and said “Oh My God!”

            Now before you get your thanksgiving pie orders ready for me, let me tell you that the art and passion for baking was born in my heart and soul through a lot of trial and error.  I guess then this is what the reading from Wisdom is trying to help us understand.  When we experience something for the first time, either baking or encountering the divine, we don’t have the necessary tools, wisdom, or understanding to begin to be able to learn or discern how to go about what we are attempting to do.

            Like my mother and the pastry chef guy who taught me their love of baking, God’s love for what God created is no less real yet still no less mysterious.  We need the work of the Holy Spirit then to help us understand this wisdom of the Divine.  So, like the mystery of a perfect chocolate souffle, when we contemplate and allow the mystery of God’s love in our hearts we let the Holy Spirit help us to understand the beauty of that love.  We find over time as we fathom this mystery something truly delicious – that we are loved.

            Let us now turn to a second baking lesson learned – better known as “The great burnt-cookie catastrophe” of 1973.  There is a goal in baking and that goal is a perfectly cooked and executed baked good.  I was 10 the first time I baked cookies – chocolate chip to be exact.  I was not paying attention to the cookies baking in the oven, distracted by a cartoon on the television, and I let the cookies burn.  My mom, in her wisdom, let me burn that batch of cookies to teach me by example what a perfect cookie is all about.

            Wisdom and Luke also urge us to pay attention, to pay attention to our spiritual life, to keep our eyes focused on what matters, to what is of value, and to find a life of spiritual perfection.  Wisdom says be wise in the ways of God.  And Jesus, in Luke, calls us to focus on him, the embodiment of the Lord’s love.  The divine life, although mysterious, teaches us about the wisdom and truth of what it means to be loved and saved.  Yes, we do get burnt at times in life.  This is our cross.  Yet, God’s love, and being attentive to that love, through keeping our eyes focused on Jesus allows for a richer, more perfectly formed and well executed spiritual life.

            Another baking lesson learned that helped me with today’s readings was “The ‘fallen-angel’, angel food cake fiasco of 1983".  The first time I baked an angel food cake I mistakenly put milk in the cake mix instead of water.  What came out of the oven could have been used as a boat anchor it was that heavy.

            Jesus, cautions us, in Luke to make sure that in life we put in the right ingredients, in the right order, and with the proper measurement.  Certain ingredients destroy the life God is creating in us.  If we add, as ingredients in our life: sin, addiction, anger, or anything that keeps us from having life to the full, then what kind of life will we have.  Like, a builder building a tower, or a king laying out plans, or yes, even a baker following a recipe, we must take stock of the ingredients that life has to offer and add those ingredients that make God’s love more manifest for us and for our world.  We must, discard those other ingredients, those possessions – yes, even discard our very own families, if they keep us from seeing Christ’s perfect love, keep us from living in that love, and keep us from being that love.  Jesus reveals that if we are to be disciples then we must not skimp on the recipe for discipleship.

            Finally, I experienced “The ‘banana-less’ banana bread bust” of 2005.  I was making banana bread one day and had my bowl of bananas all mashed up and ready to add to the mix.  Yet, after mixing up the batter, putting the batter in pans and in the oven, I turned around only to see in my horror a smashed up bowl of bananas still sitting on the counter.  By forgetting to add bananas to the mix the resulting bread was not full of the banana goodness I wanted.  Spiritually, Jesus says the same thing in Luke, when you forget to add him to your life, then the life of the Spirit, your life will is not complete.  There is something missing.

            If we add Christ, as the most important ingredient in our life, then our life comes out right, it makes sense, our relationships work, we are able to see Christ in others and be Christ for others.  Our life then, like banana in banana bread, becomes infused with Jesus.  Yet, forgetting Christ in our lives and relying on our family or our possessions as our only source of nourishment, may disappoint.  What happens when problems arise in our families?  When love is not present?  What happens when our possessions possess and we forget about our sisters and brothers?

            The only sure place for salvation, hope, and healing is with the Lord.  The art of life and love, of being a disciple to God’s love, is like the art of baking.  It involves hard work, It involves the cross.  And it involves first and foremost adding Jesus to the mix.  Like a mother teaching her child how to cook, God’s love and wisdom gives us the skills and passion to make of life something wonderful.  God’s love through Christ, when added as the fundamental ingredient in our lives, deepens the spirit within our hearts and within the hearts of all we meet.  When this happens, what we take out of our ovens then is a world thus made all the more sweet.