May 3 - 5th Sunday of Easter

Bellarmine University

“Interconnected and Interdependent”

Rev. Ronald Knott

May 3, 2015

I am the vine, you are the branches.

without me you can do nothing.

John 15

Am I imagining it, or am I just an old cranky man? Is there a growing attitude of people who think and act as if they live on this planet by themselves, displaying a total disregard of how their behaviors affect other people, displaying an attitude of “I am going to do what I want and I don’t give a hoot how it affects you or anybody else”?

Recently, I am finding my anger level hitting the boiling point when I see people throw garbage out of car windows, roll down their car windows and turn their car speakers up so loud it that it rattles the windows of my house, carrying on loud cell phone conversations in public places, letting children run wild in grocery stores and restaurants, trashing public facilities and vandalizing public art, just to name a few.

This excessive individualism is, no doubt, a reaction to an over-emphasis on the common good, when individuals felt crushed and controlled.  It’s the age old story of running off both sides of the road, trying to balance the good of the community with the good of the individual.

This is a very old problem. It goes all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve.  According to that story, at the end of creation God, humans and the animals lived in harmony – interconnected and interdependent. As a colorful Baptist preacher said at one of my graduations, “In the beginning, God was happy being God. The animals were happy being animals. Human beings, however, were not happy being human beings. They wanted t be God one day and animals the next!”  Adam and Eve were tempted to believe they could do without God. Their children, Cain and Abel, were tempted to believe that they could do without each other. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” With this, we see the sin of denying our interdependence begin, a sin that has been repeated in a myriad of ways ever since. Interdependence is the recognition that we are responsible to and dependent on others. To deny it is a sin. Interdependence recognizes the truth of our dependence and independence and weaves them together in a delicate balance.

The scriptures are full of stories emphasizing our interdependence.  Today’s gospel presents us with one of many. In the gospel today, Jesus gives us the parable of the vine and the branches. The Father is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.  Just as Jesus and the Father are one, we are one with Jesus.  “Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”  We are interconnected, whether we want to recognize it or not. As Celie, in the movie “The Color Purple” put it, “It ain’t easy trying to do without God. Even if you know he ain’t there, trying to do without him is a strain.”

Saint Paul has many more examples of our interdependence. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.”  “Everything is lawful, but not everything builds up. No one should seek his own advantage, but that of his neighbor.” “Avoid giving offense, whether to Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but rather that of the many, that they may be saved.”  “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, through many, are one body. Now the body is not a single part, but many. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.”  No part of the body can say to another part I don’t need you!

The Kentucky motto is “United we stand. Divided we fall.” This could be the motto of our country, our church, our parishes, our schools, our marriages, our families and our neighborhoods. It is the message of our scripture today, as well as all of Scripture.  Some people advocate personal freedom and independence as the ultimate good; others advocate communal responsibility and interdependence as the ultimate good. Interdependence recognizes the truth in each position and weaves them together. It is only when people choose either independence or dependence, only, that we get into trouble.  We are both independent and dependent in a delicate balance. We are interdependent! We are interconnected and we need each other. No man is an island, but part of the main. As John Muir, the famous conservationist put it, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” 

This is a timely message for our country and our church. In both worlds, there is a meanness and a “them versus us” kind of attitude that make enemies, winners and losers, rather than partners of each other.  We have even found out recently that we cannot even do without the “illegal immigrants” who pick our vegetables, clean our hotel rooms, roof our houses, landscape our lawns, nanny our children and dig our ditches. We have found out that we cannot do without Middle Eastern oil or clothes from China. We have found out that we cannot do without people in places like India when we try to get our credit card bills straightened out or our computers fixed.. We are finding out that we cannot even keep our parishes going without priests from Africa, Poland and Central America. We are not as independent as we think we are. In fact, we are becoming more interdependent than ever, thanks to modern communication and travel.

“A branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine.” This is true spiritually as well as socially. 

April 26 - 4th Sunday of Easter

Bellarmine University

"Good Shepherds"

Rev. Ronald Knott

April 26, 2015

I am the good shepherd. I know mine and mine know me.

John 10

I may be retired, but I am not finished yet. In fact, so far, I can hardly tell the difference. I am still running around the United States and Canada leading priests retreats. I have led over 100 of them in 8 countries and I have 15 more to go - this year and the next. The simplest way to put it might be to say that I go to these places to deliver my crash course in "team shepherding."

Because of a couple of little books I put together on the subject of "spiritual shepherding" a couple of years ago, called The Spiritual Leadership of a Parish Priest, Intentional Presbyterates and A Bishop and His Priests Together, I have probably spoken to well over 20,000 priests, bishops and Cardinals in over one hundred dioceses around the world.

All these invitations, are not about my great personal talent or ability, but about the crying need the church has for "good shepherding." As you already know, lay people are dying for quality spiritual leadership from their priests and are often left disappointed. For some reason, I was simply able to notice this and try to do something about it by writing about it earlier than a lot of others. I am known for my "simple, hard-hitting, straight forward and direct" speaking style.  From priests, I usually hear something like this: "You hit us right between the eyes, you pushed every one of our buttons and you got away with it!" From bishops I hear, "Thanks for saying things to my priests that I cannot say. They listened to you and they even laughed while you were doing it!" I always try to remember  the words of  Oscar Wilde who said, "If you are going to tell them the truth, you had better make them laugh or they will kill you."       

I am the good shepherd. I know mine and mine know me.

What has my work in dioceses around the world have to do with you?  I would say that it has everything to do with you. Most of you already know, at least intuitively that the most pressing need facing the Catholic Church today is the quality of its spiritual leadership - the ability of your designated shepherds to lead you to holiness. We still have about 67,000,000 Catholics on the books in this country, but we also about 20,000,000 who now call themselves as ex-Catholics, former Catholics or non-practicing Catholics. In the past, organized religion could impose unquestioned rules of behavior on its members, but not today! No amount of ranting and raving from our shepherds about how they ought to be listened to and no amount of new rule books will fix this. We need credible spiritual leaders who have the ability influence people, to inspire people, to move from where they are to where God wants them to be! Ordinations alone, Roman collars alone, new editions of the Catechism or Canon Law alone will not fill this gap. We desperately need spiritual leaders, not just in name, but in fact! Without "good shepherds," the flock will continue to be ravaged by wolves and it will continue to run away from hirelings who are only interested in what the sheep can do for them.

In the gospel we read today, Jesus is called the "good" shepherd. In my teaching at the seminary and to priest groups around the country, I like to point out that there are two possible Greek words for "good." Agathos means morally good as in she was a good person. That is not the word used here.  The word used here is kalos which means good at as in he was good at playing baseball or good at playing the guitar.  When the gospel says that Jesus was the Good Shepherd, it means to say that Jesus was good at shepherding, not just a good person. Jesus wasn’t just a fine person, he was good at finding grass and water – and he was good at keeping the wolves at bay!

When  speak to priests and seminarians, and most of them are very good people, holy people, I tell that that being holy, being good, is not enough! They must be good at leading you to holiness.  I always get a laugh when I tell them that their goal is not to have golden light coming from the priest’s house, but to have golden light coming from the homes of the parish. Their job is not just to become personally holy. They must be able to lead you to holiness.

Most of you will be called to be spiritual leaders as well - maybe not as priests, but certainly as married partners and parents. In fact, the Catechism is clear.  Those in Holy Orders and Marriage are both called to lead others to holiness - priests their parishioners and married persons their partners and their children. So those of you who are disappointed with the spiritual leadership of your priest must also examine your conscience about your own spiritual leadership within your families. You will be called to be good personally, but also good at leading your partner and children to holiness.  You must protect your children from predators, find the nourishment they need and teach them to graze safely in a complicated world, both physically and spiritually. You too must be good at being a marriage partner and good at parenting.  The "Good Shepherd" is a model for those of us in ordained ministry, but also those of you who will be marriage partners and parents. I will say to you what  say to our future priests, "If you are going to marry or be ordained, for God sake make sure you have what it takes to be good at it!"  

April 19 - 3rd Sunday of Easter

Bellarmine University

“PEACE BE WITH YOU!”

Rev Ronald Knott

April 19, 2015

Peace be with you!

Luke 24:35-48

I would describe myself, in my early years, as an “anxious” person. To be “anxious” is to be “uneasy and apprehensive about something uncertain” or to be “worried.”  It’s all about that awful thing mighthappen next.  Living in anxiety is a lot like living with a ticking time-bomb strapped to your leg – only all day, everyday. It is living in dread, living on “pins and needles,” “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” waiting to “hit bottom” after falling. It is no way to live and only those who have been there understand. 

As a small child, anxiety was a simple, passing experience – the terror of hiding under covers, wide-awake, after your older sister had told convincing ghost stories or during the height of a crashing, booming rainstorm.

As an older child, living with a parent who had a propensity for fits of anger and rage that came from nowhere, our home was an emotional mind field, loaded with unseen triggers everywhere. You never knew if your next step would set off an explosion of curse-filled name-calling – and worst of all, knowing that there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from it. You had to stand and take it until the storm passed, only to have it return again without notice. 

As a young man still in school, it was about the fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of being laughed at and bullied, fear of not having enough to live on and the fear of going nowhere from where you were, the fear that “this” was going to be “as good as it gets.”

As a young priest, it was about being threatened by the Klan, being scorned in public for being a Catholic by Protestants and for being a liberal Catholic by fundamentalist Catholics, being stalked by a knife wielding schizophrenic, watching years of work and dreams crack and almost fall to the ground in front of you, sleeping with one eye open for years after having your home burglarized three times, being ashamed of being a priest and of being falsely accused, during wave after wave of bad news about the sexual abuse scandal, waiting for the results of a biopsy that might have been cancer. 

“Peace be with you!”

At 71, this may be the most anxiety free time of my life. Today, I know “peace,” the opposite of “anxiety.”  I have a safe place to live. I have enough to live comfortably and a little saved for the future. I have a few successes behind me and I have a variety of wonderful jobs to wake up for every day. I feel loved and accepted by myself and by most of those who know me.

But most of all, I am more at peace now than I have ever been because I have discovered the “good news” that Jesus came to bring. I know that I am loved by God, without condition, and in the end that everything is going to turn out OK, even if I may still have to face the challenges of old age, bad health and, God forbid, a painful death.  Because of the peace that God gives those who believe in his “good news,” I am confident that he will help me handle whatever comes my way, the rest of the way.    

“Peace be with you!”

As many of you know, I officially “retired” last June 30th. Before I retired, I worked for several years on a project that would help me and other retired priests across the country do exciting and interesting things we had always wanted to do, but never got a chance to do – things that would help the church and keep us engaged for several more years. I managed to get it funded, I was going to run it in my own retirement, it was all set to be launched when it blew up on the launching pad. Because the plans for my own retirement, as well as many others who were looking forward to this new program, were in ashes due to a couple of dysfunctional people, I was left angry and hurt and confused.  My peaceful center was shaken to the core. At my lowest point,  I wrote in my journal that I wanted to believe that when plan A falls apart, it just means that God has a plan B that he is about to reveal that could be even better.  Well, God’s plan B for me just may have been revealed over the Easter holidays! Indeed, we should be careful what we pray for because God is certainly capable of delivering some big surprises!

This last Holy Week, I went down to the Caribbean island countries of Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to help Bishop Jason Gordon with a prayer day for his priests preceding the annual Chrism Mass at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Bridgetown on St. Vincent. That was followed by leading services on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday at two parishes in the center of the island.

Before you think white sandy beaches and beautiful hotels, think poverty, heat, bad roads and foreign mission work! I am still reeling from one of the most challenging Holy Weeks I have ever been through. The people were very poor, the water risky, the roads a mess and the whole island was lacking in beaches and gorgeous hotels.  However, the people were friendly, they welcomed me with open arms and they can put Catholics in this country to shame when it comes to singing in church!

I am going back. Bishop Gordon, himself a native of the island country of Trinidad, wants me to come back two or three times a year mainly to do some ongoing formation for his handful of priests and deacons, as well as help in parishes whenever possible. He wants me to do some of these thing in both of his dioceses - Bridgetown (Barbados) and Kingstown (St. Vincent and the Grenadines). It’s tough, lonely, uncomfortable and demanding work. One has to have the heart of a missionary and a huge amount of God’s grace to serve down there!

I had no idea this opportunity would present itself. I don’t know how fast I can get involved, but I am certainly willing to explore these possibilities. I started out in the home missions of our diocese, now it looks like I could end up, part of the year at least, working in the foreign missions. One toe at a time, I am willing to take the plunge.  My peace and excitement has been restored.

“Peace be with you!”

These words of Jesus were not only addressed to the terrified disciples, huddled together and cringing in fear, in that upper room after his crucifixion, these words are addressed to all of us today; whether you are a student worried about grades, finances or the fall-out of a bad choice made in the heat of passion; whether you are living in abusive relationship or an unsafe environment or with constant discrimination of being different; whether you are unemployed and in debt up to your ears or barely handling a chronic health problem; whether you are a single parent trying to make it on your own; whether you are religiously scrupulous and live in constant fear of a punishing God and can’t let go of it. Jesus addresses his words to you today. Peace be with you! Calm down! It’s going to be OK! When all is said and done, things are going to turn out just fine. I am with you! Trust me!

Anxiety is worry about what might happen. Peace is the awareness that everything will be OK no matter what happens.  Trust in God is the only way to peace. Peace is God’s gift to us and it is based on the “good news” that we are loved and that great things await us – because God said so!

“Peace be with you!”

April 12 - 2nd Sunday of Easter / Sunday of Divine Mercy

Bellarmine University

“The Whole Picture”

Rev. Ronald Knott

April 12, 2015                            

                              

   The community of believers was of one heart and mind.                                                  

 Acts 4

I cannot go through the Easter season without remembering the simple traditions we had growing up. Unlike today, when people buy clothes all year round, back then, especially in the country, Easter, along with Christmas and the start of the school year, was one of those times of the year when we got new clothes. New outfits also brought out the camera for pictures. Our family album was full of pictures of smiling kids, standing in front of the house, in new clothes: suits and ties for the boys, frilly dresses and hats for the girls, clutching Easter baskets. 

The family picture album is a very important part of remembering and sharing the history of the family: births, baptisms, first communions, confirmations, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, going off to college or the military, Thanksgivings, Christmases, Halloween parties, beach vacations and proms. Smile! Look this way! Stand up straight! Say cheese!

As wonderful as a family picture album is, it never tells the whole story, does it? Unless you were really weird, you never got the camera out to get a shot of Mom the moment she was diagnosed with cancer, you probably didn’t get a shot of Granddad taking his last breath or Grandma in her coffin, you didn’t get a shot of dad in a drunken rage, uncles and aunts not speaking to each other or old girls friends that didn’t work out, you probably didn’t get a shot of Dad when he lost his job or the response on your parents face when they found out that your unmarried sister was pregnant. 

   The community of believers was of one heart and mind.                                                  

Acts 4

What we have here is a beautiful snapshot of the early church in its finest, on one of its best days.  It is only one beautiful snapshot among many beautiful snapshots of the early church. The Scriptures, however, are disarmingly honest and, unlike most families, has included some not so beautiful snapshots of the early church.

Not everything was sweetness and light. Keep reading and you will see another side of the very early church.  (1) We read that people sold their property and possessions and divided them according to each one’s need, but we also read that the Greek speaking widows complained that the Hebrew speaking widows were getting a disproportionate share of that division.  One of the couples, Ananias and Sapphira,  made a pledge to sell their property and give it to the church, actually held back some of the proceeds and later lied about it. They both dropped dead for lying. (2) We read that “all who believed were together,” but we also read that Paul and Barnabas, two of the greatest missionaries of the early church, had such a bad falling out that they had to part ways and quit working together. We also read that Paul called Peter, the first head of the church, “two-faced” because he followed one set of rules when he was with Jewish believers and another when he was with Gentiles. (3) Even Paul, before his conversion, we are told, is out rounding up Christian and having them jailed for heresy, even holding the coats of those who stoned  St. Stephen to death. A new convert by the name of Simon, we are told, was so amazed that the Holy Spirit was being conferred by the laying on of hands, seeing a gold mine of opportunity, offered to pay money for that kind of power. These are a few of the not-so-flattering snapshots of the church, even at its beginning, that Scripture has the courage to include.

If we read only the good passages, without reading the rest of passages, we can actually get a distorted picture of the church in its reality at its beginning. When we idealize our history and make it sound so perfect, we erroneously conclude that the church today has wandered so far as to be nothing like it “should” be, and because it is not as it should be, it is OK to leave it!   If you do not know of the other early church snapshots, you might be tempted to be critical and even bitter about the weaknesses of the church today.  I believe those who leave the church because it is “not like it used to be” simply do not know how the church “used to be!”

Jesus was right, the church is like a field of weeds and what growing together. We are blessed with our great saints, embarrassed by our miserable sinners and most of us are somewhere in the middle. After a dozen years or so of watching our sins and dirty laundry aired on TV around the world, we can now stand proud of one of our great leaders, Pope Francis. Even Protestants, Jews, Muslims and non-believers are pouring on the praise. Before him, we watched the funerals of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II, beloved by people great and small, within and outside the church. Over the next few years, the world will no doubt focus on the faith, strengths, simplicity, honesty and good works of Pope Francis, a man who has made all of us Catholics proud of our church once again.

Yes, the church is that field of weeds and wheat growing together. Yes, it is tempting to get disgusted by the sins of some of our members and leave in a huff, as if we are so good and righteous ourselves that we do not want to be sullied by association with them. But the fact remains, that that field of weeds and wheat grows within each and every one of us. As one native American Elder put it, “Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. Which dog wins? The one I feed the most!”

We have a saintly side and a sinner side and just as God loves us for better or worse, we must love Christ’s Church for better or worse. In the end, there is no room for self-righteous indignation over the sins of others, because if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. To paraphrase one of our hymns, “Let the faith of the Church be renewed and let that renewal of faith begin with me!”     

March 22 - 5th Sunday of Lent

Bellarmine University

“THE EYES HAVE IT:” Part 5, “Coming to Sight”

Rev. Ronald Knott

March 22, 2015

                            

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the

ground  and  dies, it  remains just a

grain  of  wheat;  but  if  it  dies,  it

produces much fruit.

John 12

As some of you know, I grew up in the country. (Maybe you can tell?) I have helped plant wheat, corn, barley, soy beans and gardens of all sizes and varieties. In fact, I used to have a retreat house down in Meade County that some of our students stayed at during their “alternate spring break” that sat in the midst of some fields that will soon be planted with soy beans, wheat, barley or corn. Last year it was corn. Next year it will probably be wheat. (Farmers do that so as not to wear out their soil.) It’s always amazing to me that the farmers come in with one truck full of seeds in the spring and come back in the fall and harvest several truckloads of grain.  It is a sight to behold!

In a way, these farmers come in with their precious little grains, dig little “graves” for these small seeds, cover them over and come back months later and “boom” each little grain has turned into 30 to 60 new grains. One grain gave its life so that 30 to 60 new grains could come into being.

Jesus must have watched this process many times. In fact, the gospel has several references to the planting of seeds and the walking though standing grain. We know that Jesus’ disciples got into trouble in one place in the gospels for walking through a grain field and pulling off heads of wheat and eating the grains. The Pharisees saw what they did and labeled the simple acts of pulling, rubbing and eating as “working on the Sabbath.” It amounted. in their eyes, to harvesting winnowing and preparing a meal - all of which was forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus dismissed their concerns as silly and accused them of “straining out gnats while swallowing camels.”

Like he did many times, Jesus used his everyday experiences as tools for teaching.  Just as one grain of wheat must die so that the wheat species can continue to have life, Jesus said that he must die so that all of us can have life. In the image he used today, Jesus refers to himself as the grain of wheat which must die so that all of us may have eternal life.

When Jesus used the image of the grain “dying” in reference to us, he was not just speaking of our dying at the end of our lives. Sure, in the church, we believe that when this body is placed in the ground like a small grain of wheat, we will someday rise to a new and better life like a stalk of wheat adored with many grains of wheat. What Jesus wants us to know is that this happens, not only at the end, but all throughout our lives here on earth.  It is not just a future event, it can happen each and every day while we live here on earth. Let me offer a couple of examples.

A sperm and an egg, planted in our mother’s womb had to also “die,” in a way, so that we could come into being. Even when we were born, that baby had to “die” in a way so that we could grow into an adolescent. That adolescent had to “die” in a way so that we could grow into young adults - on and on until we die into eternal life.

In a similar way, each Fall we watch the trees and flowers “die” only to come to life again in the spring, bringing with them even more life. All this happens in the world of nature, automatically, but as human beings we can actually choose “to die” in a parallel way, so that we can increase life within ourselves as we go from one day to the next.

If we seek to always avoid these little “deaths,” we actually choose stagnation and a stunted life. For example, parents who protect their children too closely, holding them back and holding onto them too long, can actually retard the growth of their children into full human beings. If they really love their children, they will put them on the school bus when the time comes, in spite of their tears and protests, so that they can learn to relate to other children and learn necessary life skills. That process is like a small “death” for parents and children, but without it there is no new life for those children. Trying to cling to what was, is perhaps the surest way to sabotage any advanced growth as they grow older.

Those same parents come to a day when their children fall in love, marry, leave home and start their own families. No matter how much parents would like to hang onto to their children and keep them at home, they know this “death” is necessary, no matter how much crying goes on when they walk down the aisle and they kiss them “goodbye” at the altar. It is like Jesus said: “Whoever loses his life will keep it and whoever hangs onto his life too much will end up losing it.” Like Lennie, in Steinbach’s novel Of Mice and Men, who squeezes his precious bunny so tight that he kills it, holding onto life as it is for too long can actually lead to the destruction of the very life we love so much.

This “wisdom” makes very little sense to the world, but it is so true. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and control.  Choose too much ease and you will slowly die – whether it is exercise or food – but choose the difficult and you will slowly have more life. Give into your appetites and laziness and you will slowly turn into a big slob of an unhealthy disease-ridden couch potato. Eat selectively and push your body to its limits with regular exercise and you will enjoy a lean, trim, vigorous, disease-free body that can serve you well for years to come. Indeed, “no pain, no gain.” Anyone, as well, who has ever been successful in a recovery program knows this life-giving principle of death and resurrection: the old addicted person must die a slow and painful death before a new and healthy person can be brought to life.

Students! All of us are given a choice each day: the easy way that leads to death and the hard way that leads to life. A well-adjusted adult understands this life principle and freely embraces necessary pain. A childish adult resists such pain, choosing ease at every turn. He will certainly come to know that with each lazy choice, his life gradually withers away.  As the old song from the 60s puts it, “If we are not busy being born, we are busy dying.”

Dying and rising are actually part of a healthy life. These little everyday “deaths” simply prepare us for our big death at the end. We believe that if we choose to die with Christ here, we are also choosing to live with him for all eternity.

Here is the great mystery! Pain before gain! Cross before crown! Death before resurrection! Then, as St. Paul puts it, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, not has it even dawned on human beings the great things that God has in store for those who love him.”

    

March 15 - 4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)

Bellarmine University

“THE EYES HAVE IT:” Part 4, “Choosing Sight”

Rev. Ronald Knott

March 15, 2015

Serpents were biting people and many died.

So Moses made a bronze image of a serpent,

put it on a pole and made them look at it.

Numbers 21

If you have ever been in the hospital or flipped through the phone book looking for a physician, you’ve seen the image – two winged serpents wrapped around a staff. It is known as the caduceus. It has been the symbol of the American medical profession for nearly a hundred years – a decidedly odd symbol for doctors until you begin to investigate where it came from and its underlying meaning.

This ancient symbol of healing is referred to today’s first reading and the gospel. In their trek across the desert from the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land, the People of God underwent all sorts of trials and troubles. The one mentioned today is their plague of biting winged serpents. After praying for delivery from this awful plague, God instructs Moses to make a bronze image of the same serpents, put it on a pole and invite the people to take a good hard look at it. When they looked at it hard and long, they recovered.

Now this may sound like some kind of voodoo magic, but it isn’t! It’s primitive psychology! All you future nurses, doctors, psychologists and mental health professionals, listen up! What Moses did here is still good practice! What he is saying here is that the road to healing is always through looking at the problem squarely. Failing to look at problems squarely is the best way to keep them going! 

The worst thing you can do, if you have a mysterious lump on your body, is to pretend it isn’t there! You need to pay close attention to it and have a professional examine it carefully and as soon as possible. The worst thing to do is to look the other way and pretend that it isn’t there! Healing begins with noticing!

The worst thing you can do, if you are having financial problems, is to keep on spending and pretending that the problem doesn’t really exist! If you are having such problems, you need to face some hard facts and get some help as soon as possible. The worst thing to do is to look away and pretend the problem does not exist! Recovery begins with facing that which is painful to face, squarely!

The worst thing you can do, if you or one of your friends has a drinking or drug problem, is to look away and pretend that it isn’t there! Reality must be faced squarely and help must be sought as soon as possible. The worst thing to do is to look away and pretend the problem does not exist! Recovery begins with facing facts squarely! That’s why people in AA must first of all say to themselves and others, “I am an alcoholic!” before their healing can begin!

We live in a world that has avoidance down to a fine art! If we don’t like something, we look away! Nowhere is it more obvious than the mushrooming credit card debt, when people spend and spend when they can barely pay the interest, even using one credit card to pay the interest on another!  

Nowhere is it more obvious than in our national obesity problem.  Instead of facing this problem individually, every time we sit down to eat, we keep stuffing our faces with massive amounts of bad food, while we wait for that magic pill that will melt fat away as we sleep. According to Dr. Phil’s new massive diet program, for the first time in our history the next generation will die younger than their parents because of obesity related problems.

Moses didn’t put it this way, but this is what he meant – all of us need to “wake up and smell the coffee” in several areas of our lives! As a culture, we are addicted to our denial. Whatever it is, we need to open our eyes and take a good hard look at reality and quit going to sleep just because it is comfortable and feels good for the moment! 

And, yes, on a spiritual level, looking at Jesus dying on the cross – looking intently at it and understanding what it means – not looking away and not avoiding our responsibility in considering its implications  - is the path to our eternal life as well!    

March 8 - 3rd Sunday of Lent

Bellarmine University
“THE EYES HAVE IT:” PART 3, “Losing Sight”
Rev. Ronald Knott
March 8, 2015

Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace.
John 2

In a moment of great humility, something rare for our church at that time, the bishops of Vatican II admitted in writing that the church is “semper reformanda,” “always in need of reform.” The human side of the church, like all human organizations, has a tendency to fall into sin and decay and must be called back to fidelity, over and over again as it moves through history. As it was in the beginning, is now and shall ever be, as long as it is on the earth. Yes, even in Jesus’ day, the church needed a good cleansing.

In a dramatic and public gesture of outrage, Jesus anger boils over. It is very important to remember that the anger of Jesus was not directed at people who sinned or failed in all its everyday ways. His anger was directed at those who controlled religion and used it to abuse simple people. He had pity and compassion on the outcasts, the sick and sinner, but he was outraged at what had happened, at the hands of its leaders, to the religion he loved. In some of the most blunt words from the mouth of Jesus ever recorded, he called them “snakes, fakes, phoneys and frauds. He called them “whitewashed tombs,” “all clean and pretty outside, but filled with stench and rot inside!” It is important to note that Jesus was not against organized religion, but what these people had done to organized religion. As this gospel story tell us, he did not come to tear down the temple, he simply came to clean house! Instead of serving the religious needs of their people, they used people to serve their own needs. The temple had become a market place and they were getting a cut from every corner of it!

Even so, Jesus is not interested in a shake-up of temple administration. He knew all that “religious business” came from hearts that had turned away from God. He wanted conversion and transformation of minds and hearts, not just some cosmetic changes in the structure. He was more interested in people changing than making changes in the material world, because he knew that if people turned to God, the organization would get better.

It is sad that many people never get below the packaging when it comes to religion. They see only the earthenware jar and never the treasure it holds. The purpose of religion is to serve, not be served. The purpose of organized religion is the transformation of people, not using people to serve organized religion.

It is also sad that many people naïvely assume that organized religion is always evil simply because it has gotten off track here and there in history. Jesus was clear that he did not come to destroy organized religion, but to lead it back to its original purpose, to do the right thing and to do it for the right reasons, to protect the “truth of the gospel.” Without organized religion the truth of the gospel would not have been passed from one generation to another. Without organized religion, we would never have heard the “good news.” Without organized religion, we would not have the sacred scriptures. Without organized religion, we would be split into millions of personal opinions and small little cults. Without organized religion, we could not be the unified “Body of Christ” in the world today. Without organized religion, the followers of Christ would not be able to take the “good news” of Christ to the ends of the earth. Without organized religion, we would not have a way to offer support to other believers around the world. Yes, the church may always be in need of reform, but that does not negate the need of the church to be organized. Yes, the church may need a good “house cleaning” ever now and then, but the organization of the church is always needed.

Students! The church of the recent past has been too closely identified with its leaders. These days we have re-discovered and re-emphasized the fact that we, each and ever one of us, is the church. For the last thirty or forty years, people have operated out of a romantic notion that all the ills of the church reside with the institution – so that if only we could reform it, we ourselves would be better Christians. The truth quite often is the other way around. The institution will get better when each one of us are reformed and transformed. These days, we are called to renew the church, not by focusing on the weaknesses of the institution, but through personal conversion, one heart at a time. No church can be strong when every member of it is weak. We are the church. We are called to “clean house” one person at a time! The problems of the church begins right here in our own hearts and in our own lives. When I get better, the church will get better. It’s like the old song about “peace.” “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me!” Let there be a renewed church and let it begin with me!