Richard Bollman, S.J.

4^th SUNDAY of the YEAR A, 2008

Scripture: Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13; I Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12

Behind the teaching of the prophet this morning

lies one of the central problems of Jewish tradition:

what is the meaning of our suffering, our diminishment?

One way of finding meaning is to notice how suffering has tested the people,

and so they have become both humble and strong in soul.

These are the Remnant of the people of God,

the ones who are left, and their virtues

are humility, honesty, seekers of the truth of God.

Paul speaks to the Corinthians out of this same slant of faith,

that the people God chooses are often not the mighty of this world,

not the noble or powerful,

but rather the lowly, the foolish.

With these words in our ears,

we hear the famous beginning of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount

as a very Jewish teaching of Jesus,

discovering as he does great promise

in the most ordinary of human circumstances:

poverty, grief, humility, work for peace and righteousness.

HOMILY. "Making our Way into Lent"

(Three glass jars prepared ahead: Mardi Gras beads, ashes, narcissus bulbs)

People come earlier on Super Bowl Sunday,

to clear space for the game, which is more than a game.

Even I know that. I even helped to host a Super Bowl party,

out at Milford in the Rock House.

You’ll know the exact year better than: when the Bengals

were playing in the game, during the ‘80s.

Total celebration: friends, food, lots of talk, the game itself, the commercials.

How do you do it in your own house?

24 hours after that, it’s Mardi Gras. Total celebration.

We’re not a carnival city, though there are a lot of them in the U.S.

besides New Orleans: Detroit, St. Louis, Mobile (which claims to be first),

and Rio, Madrid, Venice.

But surely we’re all involved at some level.

I’ve had a kind of ambition to get to Bourbon Street at this time of year,

just to be able to walk around in a mask

and enjoy the unexpected: the music of the tribe,

the childishness, the excess, the food and drink.

(Pour out the beads).

The colors of Mardi Gras: purple, green, gold

they stand for justice, faith, power,

the come down from French heraldry.

In the beads, they are brought down to earth, a form of play.

A mother described her son’s fascination for them,

he’s barely three, how he believes they make him look "fabulous"!

Especially in a crowd on the streets, I would suppose,

maybe with a rum drink.

But they’re just beads, you can treat them lightly.

How does the carnival atmosphere of the week speak to you?

Maybe its more Super Tuesday than Fat Tuesday.

Polls and predictions. It conveys something. But, treat it lightly.

Another part of carnival this year.

The beads were made to be thrown; you find them on trees in the morning.

(Throw out some strands.)

Much of the human carnival is on the surface.

There is a skull, a skeleton underneath.

The figure of death comes and goes in the carnival crowd.

(Ashes).

Just a few hours hours later, it’s Lent.

The ashes make everything still and quiet and honest.

The ashes remind us to wait a moment.

Maybe there’s something deeper to recognize.

They invite a certain kind of courage in the face of life’s limits.

Ashes too were meant to be worn.

But for now, maybe you’ll just come to be marked on Wednesday

I think the Gospel today, the Beatitudes,

are a celebration of the deeper, inner kind of happiness

that fits more on Ash Wednesday,

more in Lent itself, more secure than the happiness of Mardi Gras.

In the beatitudes, you hear from a Jesus

who is acquainted with the human struggle: he looks around and sees it:

poverty of spirit–how am I going to handle my kids’ education,

what is the best answer to the lonely afternoons and evenings I feel,

will I be able to get into the college I want, the job I need;

what about my mother aging now, without dad, is she getting dementia.

Poverty of spirit: someone asked me what it meant, and I thought,

it’s everywhere, how can you miss it.

It’s where we can’t pretend, we can’t invent our own solutions.

But right in the poverty there is something for us.

Take some time this week to ponder it: poverty of spirit.

The kingdom of God opens up there.

How else can happiness happen.

Right in the most aching kind of need you can feel,

in that you will be satisfied.

God is at work in the hard places.

You are not alone in what you suffer or what you desire.

So we enter into the safe and happy way of Lent.

This is the Christian way, which is both hard and easy.

C.S.Lewis talks about this in the book "Mere Christiantiy."

Here’s a paragraph someone sent me this week.

"The Christian Way is different, harder and easier, Lewis writes.

Christ says, "Give me all,

I don’t want so much of your time

or so much of your money

and so much of your work:

I want you.

Hand over the whole natural self,

all the desires which you think innocent,

as well as all the ones you think wicked–the whole outfit.

(Hand over, I’d add, everything that you find impossible.

Even our groaning and unequal society.)

And he says, I will give you a new self instead.

In fact, I will give you Myself, my own way shall becomes yours.

This way is both harder, and easer, than what we are all trying to do."

That’s the line that stays with me: the way of Christ,

the beatitude of the good news,

is both harder, and easier, than what we are all trying to do.

(Bulbs)

It’s like these little flower bulbs.

A friend found them in her basement from last spring.

She passed a few of them along.

You do what you can: you find a little receptacle,

add some water,

give them some time in the dark, then the sun. You wait to see.

"Hand over the whole of yourself,

and I will give you a new self, My own self,

the way that shall become yours."

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[The three signs of this transitional week

were brought together by parishioner Margaret Quinn

leading a prayer group, inviting some reflection on our entry to Lent.]