With grateful hearts we say goodbye to St. Mark and his wonderful Gospel. Over the last year, we have sung Marks'
prayer-song that it will be 'on earth as it is in heaven'.   We have nurtured this Sacred awareness of the presence of
God in our lives, and have been pulled back to earth with Heavens Agenda.  We are heavens children, with the earth in our hands, shaping it into the world God wants.
 
And now, as we begin 2019, we continue the journey in the company of St. Luke. Take his Gospel close to your heart
now.  Use it to nourish your prayer and understanding in the months ahead.  The golden thread of Luke's Gospel is his unashamed inclusion and exaltation of  the poor.   The Parable of the relentless widow  - our theme for the year -
captures beautifully the ebb and flow of justice and mercy hidden in every Parable, every encounter with Jesus.
 
On this first day of the new year - the first Sunday in Advent - I want to invite everyone to enjoy the Season of Advent. It is a precious time of preparation for the Great Feast and Feasts of Christmastide.  If we start celebrating too early, we might lose some of the depth and resonance Advent wraps around the Christmas story, which contain the first hints of the Resurrection of the Beloved Son of God.
 
We don't have to look very far to hear talk that our beautiful world is falling apart.  In today's Gospel, the lamps which God hung in the sky to give light are sending out alarm signals.  The polluted waters are fighting back, and the earth which  God  raised  up  in  the  waters,  to  give  us  a  place  to  stand,  is  being reclaimed  by  oceans  which  are  roaring  in  pain.  We  are  perhaps  more frightened now than we ever were of the consequences of the sins we commit on  the  world.   Perhaps  we  are  reminded  of  Noah,  and  are  looking  for rainbows.  Perhaps we are asking, 'Will God keep His promise, even though we keep breaking ours?"
 
The answer is a resounding Yes! But it is a new  Rainbow; and it is the Beloved Son of God.  He appears when everything is falling apart.  His Advent banishes fear and His strength empowers His disciples to stand up straight.  The Beloved Son of God is the new earth, the new place to stand.  The waters cannot drown Him.  He offers Salvation in the midst of a perishing world.
 
The collapsing world weighs us down. It fills our hearts with anxiety and paralyses us with fear.  There is no anaesthetic available for this pain. We try to protect ourselves from being overwhelmed.  But perhaps more from being blinded to the deeper reality. If we do not do this we will be sucked in, dragged down, because alone we are too vulnerable.
 
The remedy offered by Jesus is prayer and vigilance.  As we sink our roots into His spiritual landscape, we can reclaim that true self which cannot be destroyed.  Hand in hand with the Beloved Son of God we can find a new courage, not just to survive but to engage with the endings that are to come.  Far from cowering before the powers of destruction we lean into them.  We hold one another through and beyond every ending which invades our lives.
 
It does not matter if the ending is present in Global terms, or Social Terms, Political Terms or even in Personal terms.  All we know is that these things cannot be avoided. But Jesus teaches the supremacy of the spiritual because it survives whatever history can throw at it.  A beautiful story from the Vedanta illustrates this.
 
Two birds of golden plumage sat in the same tree.  The one above, serene, majestic, immersed in its own glory; the
one below restless and eating the fruits of the tree, now sweet, now bitter.  Once it ate an exceptionally bitter fruit, then it paused and looked up at the majestic bird above; but it soon forgot about the other bird and went on eating the fruits of the tree as before.  Again, it ate a bitter fruit, and this time hopped up a few boughs nearer to the bird at the top.  This happened many times until at last the lower bird came to the same branch as the higher bird and lost itself.  She discovered, in an instant, that there had never been two birds; only one, serene, majestic immersed in glory.
 
The spiritual instinct at the heart of this Parable  is easy to grasp.  How all that flows and changes and how all that
does not flow and change come together in the end. The absolute triumphs.
 
In the most threatening moments of our lives, the Beloved Son of God comes as a protecting shelter who will not allow final destruction.  To sit with a pair of binoculars watching for 'Him coming on the clouds of heaven' is a wonderfully imaginative portrayal and study of Grace.  But we should not forget, as we begin this new year, that He can only do this because earlier, and with a loud cry, 'He breathed His last' (Mark 15,37)

Politicians rarely answer questions and yet they are very good at asking them! Perhaps when we feel we have power over others we think we have the right to interrogate them. 
 
As far as Pilate is concerned, Herod is the King of the Jewish People.  If Jesus says He is a King, a rebellion can only be around the corner.  Jesus is not a politician and He answers Pilates' question as a Holy Man.  People are drawn to Jesus by the breadth and depth of His capacity for Love.  Is Pilate interested in this or is he focused somewhere else?  If His own community have turned against Him and handed Him over to the despised Romans, Pilate wants to know why. 
 
Jesus reassures Pilate  that  His eye is only on the Throne of God.  Since  time began, every social, political and religious institution have been built of violence and maintained by force.  Jesus’ disciples are not fighting to keep him out of the clutches of these systems.  And the reason for that is that the Kingdom in which Jesus is King cannot be found or grown through fighting.  But Pilate misses the point and sticks with what he knows best.  Is Jesus saying He is a King or not?  But King is Pilates word.  The Beloved Son of God receives the word 'King' from Pilate, breaks it open, shakes it till it is empty and then fills it with a news meaning.  Jesus exercises His authority by witnessing to the truth.  Those who are fixated on power and on territory cannot find the depths from which Jesus is speaking.  But those who know God's heart can.  The truth they know will lead them to the truth about Jesus. 
 
Choosing to become powerless is a huge decision.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, not quite a Saint yet, strikes with violence and launches the ear of the High priests servant into the shrubbery.  Jesus
stops him and heals the man, restoring his ear.  After all, Jesus has spent his whole ministry opening people's ears.  He knows, only too well, that violent words and actions spell the end of the dialogue.  Ears have to be restored for dialogue to resume and for violence to end.  The power of The Word is paramount for Jesus.  The world He inhabits relies on Love as its only strategy and protection.   
 
Jesus is, of course, THE revelation of God's unconditional love.  And He is also a mirror for the unknown territory of the human heart.  People somehow get  themselves  when  He  is  around  and  the  poor  find  Him  to  be  very attractive.  Even the 'other sheep' who are not of this fold move towards Him with joy.  But before the cruelty and might of his own leaders, and of Rome, He shows no muscle, no force and instead offers the magnet of revelation. 
 
Becoming  powerless  also  includes  making  no  threats.   The  revelation  of unconditional love is here.  If we do not get it or,  if we are honest, not really attracted  to  it,  Jesus  will  not  become  a  terrorist  and  scare  you  with  the prospect of disaster either side of the grave. Finally, torture - in all its forms - and death can no longer be used as a way to win disciples.  We might say that many of the strategies that His 'disciples' have used had already been rejected by the Holy One who simply offers the revelation once more. 
 
Violence is replaced by dialogue.  This is quite different from discussion, which has the same root as percussion and concussion.  All of these suggest striking something in order to gain territory.  Dialogue invites a free flow of meaning that becomes shared by all those involved.  It looks as if this is Jesus' preferred mode of influence.  As a way of being it was completely lost on Pilate.  What did he miss?  Only this.  Christ is King not because He can bend human will with all His might.  He is King because out of love He embraces powerlessness and continues to talk

The disciple is impressed by the power and grandeur of the Temple.  After all, it is the religious and economic  centre  of  his  world.   Every  decision  that  is  made  there,  touches  every  life  in  the community.  The disciple thinks this will last forever. 
 
Jesus looks with different eyes.  He sees the foundations cracking and the facade crumbling.  This building does not need minor repairs.  It is falling down and will fall apart.  It is a tree which bears no fruit.  It has become a den of thieves. 
 
Saint Mark describes Jesus as sitting opposite the Temple and opposing all that it stands for.  He has predicted its ending and his close disciples clamour for details.  They need to get ahead of what is coming.  But Jesus description of what is coming  is a bitter pill to swallow. Things will have to get worse  before  they  get  better.   The  destruction  of  the  Temple  will  happen  alongside  other catastrophes.  Nations will go to war, there will be all the usual horrors associated with that.  Out of this chaos, false prophets and leaders will emerge, promising a way forward.  But tragically they will only lead the disciples more deeply into the land of loss.  This is how it begins.  The death of this way of life is the birth pangs of something better. 
 
Few people get through life without facing the major collapse that Jesus predicted.  Our spiritual, social and political landscapes - which gives us a sense of meaning - can suddenly vanish.  The sudden death of a loved one, the unpredicted redundancy, the loss of love or trust are unwelcome visitors who arrive unannounced at any time.  No matter how resilient we think we are, we cannot skate through these events.  Sudden change or slow transitions often leave us feeling lost, feeling we have no compass and, worst of all that there is no end in sight. 
 
One of the most powerful images of this in-between time is of the trapeze artist who has let go of one bar and has not yet  grabbed the other.  It is mid-air living.  Our old world is gone and the new has yet to arrive.  People notice we are not ourselves. We grow tired of people asking us how we are doing with the same intensity as we are hurt when they don't.  Our friends try to push us through by telling us to 'hang in there.'   We'll find a way to deal with it, to adjust, to go on.  The losses that we will never get over we try to get beyond. 
 
But is there any value in these moments? Spiritual Teachers think there 
is much to be learned in mid-air living.  They seem to agree that this is 
the only place we can learn that we are more than what is happening to 
us.  Just  when  we  thought  we  were  drowning  in  loss,  we  watched 
ourselves rise above it and our soul caught a glimpse of the unchanging 
Love which is our life.  In other words, when it's all going our way, this 
spiritual truth does not come near us. God is always giving us a place 
to  stand  and  it  is  paradoxically  found  in  the  space  between  the 
bars!  The Sufi Mystic Rumi wrote that when the gift of this spiritual truth 
comes to bless us we should, "enjoy this being washed / with a secret 
we sometimes know / and then not". 
(Stormy Water in The Essential Rumi 1995) 
 
This seems to be the way of God.  We remember the infinite holiness of our lives when we need it and forget it when we don't. But moments of change, transition and loss can bring a clearer vision. When  the  dust  of  ordinariness  is  washed  away,  we  grasp  the  truth  in  a  way  no  other  time  will grant.  Rumi does not condemn this state of affairs or how easily we forget; instead he invites us to enjoy the surprises that come between the bars

​In spiritual terms, 'blindness' is the inability to notice, understand and integrate sacred things with ordinary things.  If we cannot do this, we are the poorest of the poor.  Not to know that we are loved more than we could ever know creates a spiritual homelessness in our hearts.  We become beggars.  We stretch out our hands and our hearts as we long to understand the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Blind, we sit by the roadside, on the road that runs from Jericho to Jerusalem where this revelation will unfold. We need to go to Jerusalem. But only Jesus can raise us to our feet and invite us to follow Him there. 
 
Jerusalem is the place where Gods' unconditional love will be revealed.  This is the Love that will not fail. Its light will cure our darkened eyes and illuminate our darkened hearts.  In our poverty, our begging becomes bolder.  Obstacles must be overcome - especially those that come from other people.  They are troubled by our naked desire.  Our heartfelt plea for mercy offends their more moderate ways.  If we persist, the One who hears all cries for mercy will come and stand before us.  Anyone who begs from the heart for sight will always be heard by the clear sighted one.  His call lifts us up from the ground.  But still - He will test the strength of our desire. 
 
The Beloved Son is not a magician. He is the Teacher, who wants to reveal to us the ways of God.  We have always longed for this but Jesus calls for a new way of seeing.  His death and resurrection are a new revelation; old eyes are blind to it.  Now that He has opened our eyes, we know where we must go.  There is no turning back.  With new eyes we must follow Him into a new understanding.  We join the others who are following Him. "They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed and those who followed were afraid." (Mark 10:32) 
 
The need to understand the longing for the Truth which will set  us free  is  in  all  of  us.  Those  who follow  their hearts desire  touch  the  door  to  a  mystery  -  a  mystery  to  which someone else has the key.  Usually, by the time we arrive at  the  door,  our  desire  will  have  transformed  us  into beggars.   The  Son  of  Timeaus  is  driven  to  see  and understand the revelation of the Son of David.  When the Son  of  David  hears  his  cry,  he  perceives  the  fury  of  his desire.   The  crowd  cannot  crush  it.   Jesus  matches  his passion with a summons that's brings him to his feet.  Eye to eye - what a meeting!  But the one with the revelation has met many who are not able to understand it.  Only faith will empower this person to take the first step.  Only faith will fuel his desire to go deeper. 
 
Any great desire will transform us into beggars.  In 'Zorba the Greek', Zorba tells his boss that the first time he heard the 'Sunatri'- a musical instrument - it took his breath away and he could not eat for three days.  He knew he had to learn how to play it.  His father berated Him.  But Zorba gathered his life savings and bought a Sunatri.  He then travelled to Salonica and threw himself at the feet of the Turk, Retsep Effendi.  He begged him to teach him, even though he had no money. "Are you really crazy about the Sunatri?"  The twenty-one year old Zorba answered, "Yes!"  "Well you can stay", answered Retsep. 
 
No amount of money can purchase our deepest desire.  We must beg the Teacher to teach us.  For us, as Christians, our deepest desire must be the longing to understand the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Every day we must begin by asking God to heal our blindness. The Father will ask, "Are you really crazy about Jesus?"

James and John approach the Teacher.  And the Teacher knows the best way to give the disciple a better understanding of their own heart is to ask them to reveal their desire(s).
 
As soon as Jesus hears their 'desire', He knows they don't quite understand Him yet. They want  it  all  and  all Jesus has to offer  is a  cup  of sorrow  that becomes a saving  cup. His invitation to a life lived in genuine loving service to others, of suffering for the sake of justice, and of losing in order to find make it clear that death and resurrection are a package deal.
 
Spiritual and Social climbers tend to upset other spiritual and social climbers!  The fantasy of being first has a tendency to make someone else feel they are the last.  When life becomes a  competition,  someone  looks  higher  than  someone else.  Those on top push around those beneath them. This is not the way of the new humanity which Jesus is bringing to birth.
 
Disciples  touch  their  true  greatness  when  their  presence  is gentle,  healing,  liberating,  compassionate,  loving  and  life giving - and through these activities others are set free from what hurts, debases,  imprisons and kills them.
 
The Buddha taught that for those who are overcome by ego, suffering spreads like wild grass.  Those who overcome ego open  a  doorway  to  a  larger,  eternal  world.   As  they  go, their steps leave no trace.
 
The Golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"' holds good but looks easier than it is.  The invitation of the prophets - This is what God asks if you, that you act justly, that you love tenderly that you walk humbly  -  is even more of a challenge.  But there is only one way to find out if what Jesus is saying is true and that's to dive in and try the water.   This  week,  when  as  a  parish  community, we  try  to  embrace a  more vibrant commitment to justice, peace and social responsibility, this Teaching supports us to take the next step together and not leave it for others

The running man is eager and respectful.  He is a true seeker.  He calls Jesus 'Good Teacher' and he is right!  But Jesus needs him to shift his focus elsewhere -  to the goodness of God.  Eternal life is God's gift to us.  It flows from the heart of love.  In this Sunday's Gospel, both seeker and disciple will receive a masterclass in how to understand God and the goodness of God.
 
The seeker has a problem or two! He is focused on being good in order to get the best.  He lives in a world of action and reward. He has kept the commandments from his youth.  He has a young person’s spirituality, all
eagerness, energy and EGO!  Before Jesus takes him to the next level, He looks at him and loves him.  All he has done has brought him to Jesus.  He has completed step one and now step two beckons him.  What Jesus is about to say is not a criticism but a leg up to the answer to his question. How does someone receive the life that flows from the goodness of God?
 
Suddenly Jesus starts talking about 'treasure in heaven' v.21. The thing we must prize more than anything else is our relationship with God.  The path to this 'God centredness' is to let go of all that now possesses him and give it to  the  poor.   The  seeker  understands  but  cannot  believe  what  he  is hearing!  In shock and grief he turns away.  Jesus sweeps a penetrating gaze towards his disciples and suggests that all who are weighed down by wealth will find it difficult to enter the kingdom of God.  His disciples are first puzzled and  then  astonished  by  this.   Then  Jesus  escalates  the  situation  from 'difficult' to 'impossible'.  Now His disciples are in shock.  The Teacher waits, then  makes  His  final  thrust.   He  must  lift  them  out  of  conventional consciousness  to  illumination.   What  is  impossible  for  human  beings  is possible for God!  This is the karate chop which will dismantle the obstruction and open their hearts to another Way.
 
The good God wants to give them eternal life and they must look to Heaven as Jesus does so often.  Humans are  addicted  to  looking  everywhere  else.   No  earthly  treasure  will  be  a  ticket  to  eternal  life.   Owning  and accumulating does not work in the world of the Spirit.  If the heart longs for 'eternal life' it is wrongheaded in the
extreme if the heart thinks it can do this by accumulating good deeds.   
 
Peter jumps in. "Okay, let’s not talk about this guy or other rich people. We haven’t walked away.  What's in it for us?"  Peter is still playing 'quid pro quo' with God.  In return for his sacrifice he expects a reward.  Peter is fearful of  being  cheated.   He  may  have  left  everything  but  his  mind  has  not.   Jesus  addresses  his  fear  with  comic exaggeration.  All you have given will be returned with interest - the good God is not stingy.  But the spiritual law still applies - If you want to be first, you will be last.  But if you are last, thereby opening yourself to the goodness of God, you will be first.  Every blessing has to be received as a free gift.
 
The drive to assuage insecurity can be ruthless.  It can make us extremely self-absorbed and, worse still, it leads to terrible injustices.  Even worse, we may tolerate injustice and cruelty as long as we benefit from them!  Couple the moral defects which come with the drive to accumulate, with spiritual ignorance, and the whole project is doomed to failure.  Accumulation is futile in the face of death.  Temporal life is insecure by its very nature.  No strategy within time will ever change that.
 
In Anthony de Mellos' 'The Song of the Bird', there is a great little Parable about holding onto life with an open hand.
 
In the 19th century an American tourist visited the famous Polish Rabbi Hafez Hayyim.  He was astonished to see that the Rabbis' home was only a simple room filled with books.  The only furniture, a table and a bench. 'Rabbi, where is your furniture?' asked the tourist. 'Where is yours?' Replied Hafez. 'Mine? But I'm only a visitor here'.
'So am I," said the Rabbi.
 
As someone who dances to the rhythms of time and eternity, we must live in time but have our eyes fixed on heaven.  This will turn our lives around,  we will instantly cure ourselves of anxiety and the desire to have power over others.  We must not delude ourselves.  Even while we have possessions, we must disown them.  We cannot allow them to own us in such a way that they close our hearts to the suffering of others or to the astonishing generosity and goodness of God. to edit.

​Salt is a symbol of the highest value.  It is a treasure of incalculable worth, so excellent that, if its flavour is lost, nothing higher can restore it.  In the Gospel, 'Salt' is the symbol for the works of Peace.  Jesus final exhortation for those who desire to be great is, 'Have salt in yourself and be at peace with one another'. (v.50) 
 
Jesus, the Teacher, has told His disciples that their desire to be 'great' will sabotage the work of the Kingdom.  But they have not understood, or integrated, this teaching.  In their defence, this is not an easy thing to do. Now they are reacting to an exorcist who does not belong to their inner circle.  He is immediately seen as a threat.  They guard their turf against anyone who might steal their sense of self-importance.  They are so competitive, they do not even see the ones who have been liberated.  The fact that a sister, or a brother, has been freed does not enter their minds.  They have become, in their own minds, a tight knit power group.  When good is being done, and they do not benefit, they want to stop it. 
 
The fact that they 'tried' to stop it may indicate that they failed.  Now they want Jesus to intervene.  But Jesus, as usual, has a different vision of what is happening. His heart is set first on the coming of the Kingdom.  Anyone who is helping that happen is a welcome guest.  They are part of the family because they are doing the Fathers will.  He urges His disciples to be more generous.  All are for them, unless they prove otherwise.  Until people exhibit hostility and hold values that go counter to the new humanity, they should be welcomed as allies.  Disciples must not exclude anyone. 
 
'Servants of the Kingdom' includes those who offer welcome, hospitality and  who  perform  small  acts  of  kindness.   They  should  not  be overlooked.   Those  who  want  to  “Lord  it”  over  others  sabotage  the Kingdom and might make those who do the little things question if what they  do  has  any  value.   For  Jesus,  the  little  ones  will  not  lose  their reward.  Their welcome, their hospitality, their kindness stand shoulder to shoulder with the great acts of teaching, preaching and exorcising. 
 
The best way for disciples to avoid causing hurt or scandal is to eliminate the causes in themselves.  The drive to be great, to save our self, to have power over others or to harm others in order to save ourselves are the ways of the world.  They are second nature.  They are like a hand, an eye or a foot.  If disciples choose to serve, to losing their lives for the sake of the Kingdom, being least of all and servant of all and not harming others, there must be clarity about what is at stake and a commitment to whatever surgery is needed to remain faithful.  When disciples amputate  from  their  hearts  whatever  is  preventing  them  from  entering  life,  the  fire  of  damnation  becomes  a purifying fire.  The emphasis here is clearly on what is kept and not on what is lost. 
 
The desire to be great is in us all.  We weigh everything, and probably everyone, in terms of whether they promote or diminish us.  The craving to be promoted and not diminished might drive and steer the course of our day to day lives!  We see examples of this all around us.  Hierarchies are everywhere and become the benchmark of how we are doing.  So how can Jesus command us to make ourselves last of all?  He can't.  He has to add one last piece to the jigsaw if disciples are not to become resenting servants.  Disciples must come to understand why Service is the only true greatness. 
 
Sam Keen (To a Dancing God [New York: Harper & Row,1970]17), was asking the question, 'What can I do to give my life meaning, dignity, density?’  In response he wrote, "The answer came suddenly jumping up and down in my mind with the force of an obvious fact long denied.  I woke one night in Manhattan with the words, 'Nothing, Nothing,' on my lips.  As I started to laugh at the comedy of my seriousness, my vertigo began to subside.  I saw that I had been obsessed with the wrong question.  In the face of uncertainty of life and the certainty of death, no 
human act or project could render existence meaningful or secure ... Either dignity and meaningfulness come with the territory or they must forever be absent.  Sanctity is given with being.  It is not earned". 
 
This is so true!  And Jesus with absolute clarity teaches this.   He asks us to  imagine the worst possible thing that could happen to us.  Then adds that it doesn't come close to the horror of extinguishing the light of love in another person’s heart.  The stakes are indeed very high.  Very high indeed!