Here I am (now, whaddaya want me to do?!)

We were on our way back from a spring break service trip to Kentucky, where we spent a rain-drenched week helping build houses with the Christian Appalachian Project. Having spent the night on our two-day trek back to Massachusetts at a hotel in Philadelphia, I dragged my weary body to the lobby to grab some free continental breakfast. The "morning people" in my group (I'm definitely not one) were already finishing off their cereal, muffins, and cups of bad hotel coffee when I arrived, but Jaime, our campus minister, stayed at the table with me so I wouldn't have to eat alone. As we chatted about the week, Jamie asked, somewhat casually, "Have you ever thought you might have a calling to ministry?" At that moment, something clicked. For just a split second, everything seemed clear. It wasn't a dramatic thing - I didn't jump out of my seat and yell "Here I am, Lord!" or prostrate myself on the ground and sigh "Speak, for your servant is listening." But in a more subtle way, in that moment, I felt myself open up to whatever it was that was pulling me. What that was, I had no idea, but somewhere deep inside, I answered it anyway.

Lately, this brief moment of clarity seems a distant memory, and I look back at my younger self, so sure and so eager to answer the call, with envy. I finished my MDiv in June, yet I feel directionless, and, lacking something concrete to orient me, I'm frustrated and restless. I find myself constantly questioning the whole concept of calling. I want to know what I'm called to do. I want clear directions from on high, blueprints for the ark, to hear the still, small voice tell me "this is your life's work, go and do it" – and then give me clear and specific directions for how to get it done.

But today's readings remind me that that's just not how it works. In the first reading, Samuel answers God when his name is called. Despite Samuel's words, "speak, for your servant is listening," the passage doesn't tell us what God said back. In fact, it doesn't even tell us that God spoke back. For all we know, Samuel didn't hear anything concrete in reply, yet we are assured that God was with Samuel, guiding his life and work. Similarly, in the Gospel reading, Andrew drops what he's doing to follow Jesus, despite not knowing, really, what he was getting himself into. I imagine that when he saw Jesus, and heard John refer to him as the Lamb of God, he had a moment like mine, where something clicked and things felt clear, though he had no concrete idea of what to expect. I know that others have answered a call without knowing what, exactly, the call is. This doesn't make me feel any less frustrated, and it certainly doesn't erase my desire to have plans laid out for me. But it does help to be reminded that, just because we don't have a clear idea of what our calling is, doesn't mean that we aren't answering it. Perhaps, like Samuel, even as I type, God is ensuring that my words will not be without effect?

Kate Henley Long is a nanny, choreographer, queer activist, writer, and wannabe TV critic. She lives with her partner in Cambridge, MA, and spends much of her time in a general state of religious and existential crisis.

Vulnerability and Prayerful Discernment

Reading today’s Gospel, I felt uncomfortable. I find that a feeling of discomfort around something I come across in Scripture or in life usually points to something bigger that I should start paying attention to.

I felt uncomfortable because I identified with the “man full of leprosy,” this incredibly vulnerable person whom Jewish society rejected and deemed necessarily sinful by virtue of his physical state, an apparently humble person who threw himself down on the ground when Jesus approached, pleading with him to make him “clean.” When push comes to shove, I don’t like to think of myself as vulnerable, nor does the idea of being unclean necessarily appeal to me. Quite to the contrary, I would rather think of myself as perfectly capable of dealing with whatever comes my way, and like most people, I would imagine, I like to think of myself as a good person, not any more sinful or unclean than the next person. But here it is, just the same—that discomfort, that reminder that just like the leper in the story, I am filled with vulnerability and in need of Jesus’ healing.

And I felt uncomfortable because I identified with Jesus, too. I like to think of Jesus as the ideal person, in some ways, an example I’d like to emulate. Today’s reading made me realize that I have come to make an idol of busy-ness, of doing, that my expectation of Jesus was to bustle about, healing every ailing and vulnerable person he came across. Yet his example convicted me, helped me realize that I don’t want to take the time to “withdraw to deserted places to pray” as Jesus did. I’d much rather busy myself with the good work to which I feel called, but, in reality, discernment is ongoing. With the end of my MDiv now in sight, I need to be right in the thick of that prayerful discernment in the months ahead.

Moving forward into the day, to what vulnerabilities does this Gospel reading call your attention? To which deserted places are you being encouraged to withdraw and pray?

Jen Owens took the above photo on her first full day in Belize City, Belize, around this time last year, when she accompanied two University Ministry staff members and ten Marquette students on a service and immersion trip there. Jen still wears the solidarity ring that Fr. Dick Perl, SJ, gave her and the other participants, because it makes her feel just a little bit uncomfortable.

Birthing God: Luke 1:26-38

We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? Then, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us. --Meister Eckhart

I think of Advent as pregnant time. It's a cozy time, a preparatory time. As the days shrink towards Solstice I become more of a homebody, hunkering down waiting for the rebirth of the sun, as well as the Son. This year, the fourth Sunday of Advent falls on that darkest, shortest day of the year.

I am studying to be a doula (a specially trained assistant and advocate for women giving birth), and so I spend a lot of time thinking about pregnancy and birth, especially for someone who has no children. I've been interviewing friends who have given birth in the past year. It's amazing to hear how their lives and relationships, their very bodies, have changed and stretched to welcome the unexpected.

On this final Sunday of Advent, we hear Luke's story of the Annunciation. Mary receives the surprising news that she is has found God's favor and is being asked to carry the Incarnation into being. "But how can this be?" she asks, incredulous. The angel answers: the Holy Spirit will be upon you. 

God is calling out to each of us, "Hail, full of grace, I am with you!" God is asking us to carry the Holy Child to everyone we encounter. "How can this be?" we may ask. But as Mary quickly learned, when we let the Spirit in, surprising things happen. Our lives are stretched and rearranged by bearing God. It is often uncomfortable, sometimes awkward, but always magical. And the world is waiting for our "Yes!" in these chilly dark days. God is asking for our permission to create something new with us and through us, to bring love to the unloved, justice to the oppressed, and companionship to the forgotten.

Sometimes I think Mary gets terribly toned down in our remembrance of her. This gospel passage, however, shows us a Mary who talks backs, asks questions, and makes the bold decision to allow her life to be altered to birth God into an aching world. This is the Mary that I aspire to live like.

As Advent draws to a close, how will you let the Spirit in? What does it mean to be the handmaid of the Lord? What does it mean to give birth to God in this time and place?

Johanna Hatch is a feminist activist, writer, and amateur hagiographer living in Wisconsin and working in non-profit administration. She is a graduate of the College of Saint Benedict and the recipient of the Katharine Drexel Scholarship at the Washington Theological Union. She currently resides in Wisconsin with her spouse Evan.

Picture from ClipArt.com

Baptizing With the Water of Good Works

When I read the readings for today, I encountered memories that remind me of why I continue to call myself Catholic. When my brothers and sister and I were growing up, my mom decorated the house in Advent and Christmas colors—the branches of the tree were beautiful, glowing with purple, pink, gold, and white, and angels adorned the walls of our home. Back then, I was almost embarrassed by it, envious of friends’ houses that celebrated a more mainstream Christmas, with the characteristic reds and greens and Santas and Rudolphs. But as time has gone on, I’ve become more grateful for what my mom taught us, in big ways and small ones, about claiming this faith as our own.

There were the everyday things that she taught us were important. That we should always include everyone on the playground, that it’s not fair to leave classmates out of our games. It was how we learned to live the idea that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon [us],” as we hear in the First Reading. And this extended to the way in which we were to treat strangers, especially the poor. To the point that we eventually started a program feeding the homeless in a park near our parish, sharing lunches prepared in the kitchens of our family and our friends with our neighbors who struggled to make ends meet. It was how we learned to live the idea that we were “sent to bring glad tidings to the poor.”

In my mom’s faith we never saw the kind of polarization that seems to characterize the contemporary Catholic Church in the United States. She “prayed without ceasing,” a daily Mass attendee, and she worked among the “lowly,” treating them with the kind of dignity and respect that should be afforded all people. And through her example, she taught us that these actions, though hardly unique to Catholicism, put us in the lineage of John the Baptist, baptizing with the water of good works, “making straight the way of the Lord” during this Advent season.

Gaudeamus! Third Sunday of Advent

Infinity, they say, is played upon in real time and space.
In the real work of the people, the liturgy extends beyond, and beyond, and beyond.
Nebulous and That which is Divine moves and changes.

"Who are you? What are you, then?" the Levites and priests ask
But John only knows his (k)nots:
"I am not the Christ."
"I am not Elijah."
"I am not the Prophet."

"There is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me," is John's positive reply. One whom he may not recognize: Divinity moves.

Harry Potter and company have demonized the shape-shifters.
Divine is on the move, shifting shape, but never becoming less
Second person of the Trinity engendering,
Sent and come and coming,
Oh Awe,
I'm coming!
"Do not quench the Spirit," Paul reminds us.

"The garden makes its growth spring up.
So the Lord God makes Justice and Praise spring up."
And a pink candle glows to remind us that

Incarnation changes everything.


Kate Lassiter tries to draw her dreams, nightmares, and visions, but mostly she just uses words.
Photo Credit: http://mix.msfc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIUM/0203045.jpg

Clearing Away the Distractions

On this Second Sunday of Advent, the first reading from the prophet Isaiah (Is 40:1-5, 9-11) and the prologue to the Gospel of Mark (Mk 1:1-8) both proclaim the message to “Prepare the way of the Lord!” Sandwiched between the first reading and the Gospel, the second reading (2 Pt 3:8-14) urges Christians to repent and prepare for the Second Coming, or Parousia. The early Christians to whom Peter was writing were becoming impatient and losing hope that Christ was going to come again. This letter assured them that Christ will come again, despite the delay and unknown time of arrival. There is no missing the themes of preparation and repentance in this week’s readings. But I am left wondering how do I prepare and for what exactly am I preparing during this Advent of 2008?

The first half of the Advent season focuses on the Parousia, or the Second Coming of Christ, and then the third and fourth weeks remember when God first entered the world with Jesus’ birth. This week in spiritual direction, I explained to my director that my mind wanders frequently during prayer. The other morning, my mind drifted and I began thinking about the Second Coming. Would God come as a woman next time? What nationality/ethnicity or even socio-economic background would God assume? Then my mind jumped to, “Will I recognize ‘her’ or will I be too busy doing other things to even stop and notice?” My spiritual director said to me, “Never mind the first and second coming, what about Christ being present now?”

The opening prayer for the liturgy on this Second Sunday of Advent asks God to “open our hearts in welcome” and to “remove the things that hinder us from receiving joy.” This prayer is a prayer for the present. So as we read or hear the readings this Second Sunday of Advent, it seems that this season of preparation should not only remind us of what God did through the Incarnation or what the risen Christ will do when “she” comes again, but how we can enter into this mystery now. Often times, this means clearing away the distractions that hinder us from recognizing Christ in our midst in this very moment.

M. Nelle Carty is working on clearing away the distractions, but still very easily distracted. She is especially looking forward to the end of this academic semester when she can spend time with family and loved ones.

Image painted by Robert Hutchinson, "Advent." Used with permission. www.rogerpaintings.com

Keeping Watch, Becoming Witnesses to Life: Ita, Maura, Dorothy, and Jean

Jen will deliver this homiletic reflection in Andover Chapel this Wednesday, 3 December, for this week's Noon Service at Harvard Divinity School .

To begin, I’d like to read an excerpt from what would be the last letter that Maryknoll sister Ita Ford would write, with her characteristic lightheartedness, from Chaletenango, in El Salvador, to her mother in New York, dated 1 December 1980.
“Dear Mom,
I guess we’re into celebrating life—birth, birthdays, and my own grudging acknowledgement that I’m still alive for some reason. So here’s to three generations of Fords thankful for the gift of life!” (from Jeanne Evans' "Here I Am, Lord": The Letters and Writings of Ita Ford, 247)
In a place that had become so influenced by death and destruction, Ita Ford became a witness to life. And I think this witness has something to do with our readings as we begin this season of Advent.

We remember Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan because of the witness to life that they offered. Before coming to El Salvador, Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Maryknoll sisters, had lived for many years as missionaries in Nicaragua and Chile. Jean Donovan, a lay missioner who was 27 at the time of her death, had left a business career and an engagement in Connecticut for work among the poor in El Salvador. Dorothy Kazel, an Ursuline nun, had been in El Salvador the longest of the four. As the work of God’s hands, they committed themselves to work alongside the most vulnerable among us. In the face of death, these women became witnesses to life.

These four women lived in the midst of the beginnings of the Salvadoran civil war, which was supported in large part by the US American government and lasted until 1992. This largely was a war against the poor, who made up the vast majority of the Salvadoran population. Influenced by the hope of liberation theology, the poor had begun to organize for their rights, and they faced violent opposition from those in power as a result. In the face of death, they became witnesses to life.

Ita, Maura, Dorothy and Jean kept watch and read the signs of the times in El Salvador. They worked among refugees fleeing political persecution and economic poverty. They provided sanctuary for priests who had been organizing against oppressive governments. They offered pastoral care to catechists who lived in fear of the work of the military in the midst of the civil war. And twenty-seven-year-old Jean often baked cookies for Archbishop Oscar Romero on the days that he delivered his famous homilies broadcast over Salvadoran radio. In the face of death, these women became witnesses to life.

On their way home from the airport on December 2nd, 1980, Salvadoran soldiers in civilian clothes stopped the jeep in which they were riding. Two of them were raped, and the four of them were “shot in the head at close range” (from Robert Ellsberg's All Saints, 526).

In the face of death, these women became witnesses to life. As we begin this season of Advent, we reflect on what this witness might mean in light of our readings. In the first reading, we hear of a God who is a loving parent, that “we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” If we really believe in a God who is a loving parent, that we are shaped by God’s hands, we will respond in a way that reflects the example of Ita, Maura, Dorothy, and Jean. These four women understood what it means to live and what it means to love. They knew God intimately and demonstrated with the commitment of their lives that they were the work of God’s hands. They loved the people of El Salvador in the most real way that they could, one that did not allow for injustice to be perpetuated against them. Let us have the strength to watch, as Jesus encourages us in the Gospel, for those threats to life in our midst. Let us work together in service, to struggle toward justice, building up the Kingdom of God, living each day in a way that shows we are the work of God’s hands.

Lessons in Livestock

I am a vegetarian and I grew up in the suburbs. Therefore, what little I know of sheep I know from what others with more livestock experience have told me. In light of the widespread metaphors about shepherds, flocks, lambs and other pasture and barnyard creatures that we find in scripture, preachers and theology teachers have been some of my greatest informers about the nature of these farm animals.

Naturally, I turned to their instruction when I encountered the first of this week's readings: sheep, with their tiny brains, are incredibly stupid animals. Thus, they desperately rely on their shepherd to survive. Ezekiel employs this metaphor to assert that we, like sheep, helplessly rely on the mercy of God, our Divine Shepherd, to survive. The repetition of "I will" and "I myself" serves to emphasize God's agency as the shepherd directly responsible for the endurance of the dependent flock.

When I discovered more sheep in the Gospel reading, however, I was surprised to find that Christ's pronouncements challenged my limited knowledge of sheep. Unlike the lessons I commonly encountered in church and bible studies, Jesus does not characterize the livestock as simple, helpless animals. On the contrary, his sheep are attentive to the needs of the world, particularly among "the least." Christ actually chastises those who do not utilize their agency, acting on their responsibility to care for Christ by caring for others.

So, then, what does it mean to be a farm animal in the Divine Shepard's flock? In the kin-dom of "Christ the King"? Do these readings call us, God's livestock, to humbly acknowledge our dependence on God's mercy, or do they demand that we acknowledge our free agency by taking responsibility for our interactions with other members of the flock?

In an effort to create the most comprehensive notion of "we, the sheep," I began to wonder whether an awareness of God's mercy can—and should—lead to the type of agency Christ expects, rather than a meek self-image that leaves me feeling ineffectual.

Who are we, the flock? And who is this Shepherd, Christ the King, who provides and needs, forgives and demands?

Jessica Coblentz is 22, and she writes from her parents' house in the Seattle area. She currently utilizes her Religious Studies degree as a nanny for the cutest pair of toddlers in town.

Image from: http://www.fellwalk.co.uk/sheep.jpg

Double or Nothing

This week’s readings are weird, starting with the first. I don’t feel much related to this praiseworthy woman. It sounds pretty—I want to say hey, thanks, cool that you got around to talking about us ladies—but as you can see I’m feeling cranky.

And what about the second reading? My only encounter with apocalypse occurred one day in high school when people said the world was going to end and everyone grew giddy and stuck a sign over the mural in the chorus room, so “The Music of Our Lives” was now “The End of Our Lives.” We kept living.

By the time I get to the Gospel, I want help. My best friend doesn’t like this parable. My girlfriend thinks the master is just a jerk, until I point out that these masters usually symbolize God. “Oh,” she says. Oh indeed. What is up with Jesus lately? Last week with the whips, this week with the redistribution of wealth in a seriously non-Marxist way.

Cranky? You and me both, Jesus, and now I’m questioning myself. I don’t know my quantity of talents or if I’m investing them wisely. I don’t know if I’m a wakeful child of light, or a worthy woman, and I don’t know if I should be

I’d like to say that the bottom line in these readings is not to live in fear. To respond to God without worry about being pretty enough. To live gracefully without fear of a sudden end. To use what you have, to risk, to increase, not to bury or cower or fear a capricious master.

And it might be. But if it were, couldn’t we leave out the stuff about teeth-gnashing? Couldn’t we skip the thieves in the night? Couldn’t we just say that women helping the poor are awesome and leave out stuff about husbands and flax?

The problem is, the world still feels like a big old cipher, and sometimes scripture is just a cipher on a cipher, and sometimes it seems like a better idea to dig a hole, bury the talents, and walk away.

The problem is, no matter what I believe, there comes the day when I am left alone, with the creepy stories and the good stories running up and down my brain, when I must choose the bottom line myself.

Is that a leap of faith? Am I a faithful person? This plot of ground might have a light underneath. Or it might have a slavering sharp-toothed critter. Jesus might be going crazy, and I just don’t think I’m the kind of girl the Bible people had in mind. I wanted you to know before I ask. Should we dig? Should we invest? It might be serious—even dangerous--nonsense. Wanna play?

Rebecca Fullan is trying to write a novel in a month, and therefore cannot blame all her crankiness on Jesus, who she has to admit she quite likes, even in his moods, and she hopes such sentiments are reciprocated.

Laying Foundations

Today is the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. It is a feast that celebrates the building in which the bishop of Rome is seated; it is the cathedral of the diocese of Rome. The basilica and the land upon which it sits has a long history, beginning in the time of Constantine when the land was donated by the Lateran family. It is the place where popes were consecrated until the Avignon papacy in the fourteenth century. When the pope returned from France, the church and the palace were in ruins. The building we now know at the Lateran Basilica began to be built in 1646. Most Catholics think of St. Peter’s as the pope’s church, but truly it is the Lateran Basilica which is. And likewise, it is the people’s church because it is the home of Catholics worldwide.

It seems odd, then, that the Gospel reading recounts Jesus’ anger in the temple, and his promise to destroy the temple. Perhaps it is even stranger to listen to today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which speaks of individuals being temples. “Brothers and sisters,” Paul says. “You are God’s building.” This Sunday then points to a creative human tension that exists: we celebrate the dedication of a building as a place that shelters and empower, heals and shepherds the people of God while also acknowledging that the power to build comes not from a physical structure and the trappings of it, but from the people who dwell in and around it.
The river that flows down side of the temple, as described by Ezekiel, does not just pool. If it did, it would become stagnant and unfruitful. Instead, it flows past the temple and waters the fruit trees whose leave and fruits serve to both nourish and heal. The people of God act the same way, then, streaming out of the basilica and into the larger world in order to promote greater healing and care for all people of the world. And yet this feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica gives us great pause, causing us to recall that no building can do what individuals gathered together can.

Kate Lassiter recalls laying bricks with her Dad, the handyman, when she was in 5th grade. She remembers being amused by the seeming orderliness of the lining up the bricks in a repeating pattern, while knowing that the brick sidewalk was built on a bed of sand.
Photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Shebli2.jpg

"What Love Looks Like in Public": 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflecting on this week's readings, I am reminded of my first tour of the LA Catholic Worker community--the spirit of welcome that they shared, the look of the smoggy skyline from the top floors of the house, the delight they took at sharing bits of the house's story, and the photos on the walls of prophets like Dorothy Day, César Chávez, and Dan Berrigan, SJ, whose lives I had only read about. That wall of pictures had a way of making me feel like the stories were still going on, that the community carried them forward, that others would continue to do so in the days ahead.

The liturgy interwove the stories that the pictures told with those of the wider Catholic community. The presiders added to them, reflecting the diversity of those who gathered there. Whether a priest led our celebration or a layperson did, a man or a woman, celibate or not, they all communicated their passion for the Gospel with humility and sincerity. The homily was infused with the fruits of the Bible study in which the community members had participated that week; everyone had the opportunity to reflect on the Gospel after it was proclaimed. The kiss of peace lasted as long as it needed to, not complete until you had hugged or helloed everyone in the room.

Maybe it was because members of the community made the Eucharist that I remembered that most people came to the Catholic Worker literally to be fed, that no one is turned away. Maybe it was because the people there, in their brokenness, had in their hearts the radical kind of love to which Jesus calls us this week, that I felt there was room for the rest of us, too. Maybe it was because they put that love into action, in a very public way, that I was reminded of the meaning of justice. The soup that would later be served on Skid Row was blessed at the end of the communion meal, and I reflected on the cost of the kind of discipleship these women and men practiced. One of the community members played at his guitar, and we sang:

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turnin' back.

No turnin' back.

The quote in the title of today's post is attributed to Cornel West, in his definition of justice.

Image Credit: Christ in the Breadlines by Catholic Worker artist Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990).

What Belongs to God

Dedicated, with thanks, to Father Geoff Farrow, and, with hope, to ourpresidential candidates.

Listening to the presidential debates, I’ve hated the bug-on-water dance that the candidates do around the questions.And here’s Jesus in the Gospel this week , sounding similar. The questionposed to him is salved with praise—but Jesus is savvy. He knows these are razor-edged smiles.

So is Jesus being politic? “Yes, it’s lawful to pay the tax,” and he’s a collaborator, a disloyal Jew. “No, it’s notlawful to pay the tax,” and he’s a trouble-stirring rebel. Maybe Jesus is merely hedging his bets.

But let’s give him the benefit of doubt. It’s the Christian thing to do. Let’s say there can be can’t-catch-mewords that are also life-words (“Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but to God what belongs to God”). I am left with an image, concretely—looking at a coin, I can see the face on it. But I don’t see the face of God stamped on anything, unless we’re counting crucifixes, and I doubt Jesus was gunning for a big pile of crucifixes. I come out of this story knowing what to give to Caesar, but with much less clarity on what to give to God.

Where is God’s image? Where is God’s inscription? In me, I want to say, pointing to Genesis, in us. But what does that mean? I’ll be a bad debater here—I’ll reach out for something of which I can’t guarantee the truth, much less the palatability, and I’ll tell you what I suspect it means.

I must look beyond the easy, stamped-on meanings I have made of myself, and remember that there is a mysterious self-- deeper, stranger, more frightening, and far less politic, and it is the impulses and creativity of this selfthat I owe to God. It is this that shall be taxed, and taxing, not out of punitive greed, but because without it my system will cease to function, its parts ungraced, unfunded.

Do you know that self? It wakes me restless and draws me through the flames of fear. It wrecks my routine, devours easy lies and willful ignorance. In what world is it good citizenship to ignore a crumpled stranger? Not my world, says this self. In what world do you swallow your true words for sugared acceptance from anyone, includingyour church? Not my world, it insists. I want to shrug it off. But this week Jesus tells me that I am accountable, and that I must hunt for the currency with which to pay. The truth is I am rich in this coin, and you are also. I only hope we will have the courage to render it forth.

Rebecca Fullan recently received her Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She is currentlyliving in New York City and searching for employment that will enrich her, she hopes, in both Caesar’s and God’s currencies.

(Photo Credit: Charlotte Rahn-Lee)

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In Masses that I have attended this particular 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time , the priest or deacon serving as homilist has often offered a catechismic interpretation on these readings, following an argument that the Church as divine institution knows the secret of being well-fed: place ultimate trust in God, that through God alone, all persons will be cared for. As a hearer of these homilies I have walked away with the following principle: to be fit to receive to the Eucharist, the bread of life, ensures that you will be prepared enter the feast of the Kingdom of God. One becomes fit by being content with the church as it is. Fit by making yourself ready to receive the Eucharist, confessing sins great and small to receive absolution on Saturday afternoon from the rector or monsignor. Fit by wearing clothing appropriate to mass. Fit by kneeling at the appropriate times. Fit by adoring those bells that still ring at many diocesan parishes at the point of epiclesis, moment of the Holy Spirit's descent. It feels like familiar territory where ordained clergy, also all male, lest we forget, proclaim that receiving the Eucharist, adoring the Eucharist, with the hope of the forgiveness of my sins--for only venial sins are forgiven with my contrition and reception--will bring more me fully into the Kingdom of God. Credo. Yes, I believe.

But I don't want to be merely penetrated by the idea of my lack, my lack as a female, a layperson, one who must pray and hope for my own redemption. The kin-dom beckons us to believe in something more than what is conveyed in the homilies I’ve heard on this Sunday at diocesan parishes. I don't know what that something more is exactly, but, Credo, I believe that is has to do something about not only taking Jesus, the Eucharist as the bread of life, into our being, but believing that somehow we are enough with or without reception of the Eucharist. Unsought for abundance is the central theme of the readings. Wine overflows; oil overflows; Paul is full; the banquet table is laden with food. How then is a theology of abundance subverted in a theology of proper observation of the Eucharist?

"My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?"

And she was reduced to silence.

The king said to his attendants,

"Bind her hands and feet, and cast her out into the darkness."

Many are invited. Few are chosen.

These words are the oft neglected part of the reading for this week. They do not fit neatly into the storyline. The king has invited anyone who can be found in the street to celebrate his son's wedding. "Come to the feast!", the servants call, gathering good and bad alike. The hall is full. But the king spots someone with no wedding garment. She is cast out. Commentaries note how wedding garments may just have meant clean clothes and that for an individual to be invited, not despite, but regardless of last minute invitations, and to arrive in soiled garments would be an insult to the host. Who do we truly insult with our dirt and soil, sweat and shame? Is it the God beyond God who will destroy the veil that veils all peoples or those who walk about the hall filled with guests?

In addition to preparing for doctoral exams in religion, Kate Lassiter farms with friends in Nashville, Tennessee, where they know what it means to be both well-fed and overwhelmed by the amount of fresh produce to can, dehydrate, and process during the growing season. She can be reached at kate.lassiter@vanderbilt.edu.

Bearing Fruit: Matthew 21:33-43

This week's gospel reading from Matthew is confusing, as many of Jesus' parables are. Jesus describes the landowner's tenants as murderous and cruel, attempting to steal his son's inheritance by killing him. He warns the people listening that they will lose the kingdom of God and it will be given to those who will produce fruit.

In reflecting on this gospel, I feel that I am being asked to reconsider easy definitions of who is holy and righteous. The verse after the reading cuts off in the lectionary tells us that when the chief priests and Pharisees heard Jesus tell this parable, they knew he was speaking about them. As public leaders of religious life and their communities, those charged with maintaining tradition and law, the priests and Pharisees were unnerved. Jesus was turning the notion of what it meant to be chosen by God on its head. Jesus was asserting that laying claim to the land was not enough: to stay, you must tend it.

This passage, therefore, is a challenge to me. What fruit is my life producing? Going through the motions, following the law to the letter and denying the spirit of love will give me no claim to the kingdom. And those who give Him produce at the proper times may be those I least expect, or those who I am willing to write off. Picture my friend, I'll call her Red, a self-described libertine and hedonist who smokes hand rolled cigarettes and was last in church at my wedding over a year ago. Red and I met the first day of our first year of college, and have been close ever since. Red is the person I call when I am in crisis, has opened her home to me, drove me back and forth from college to home for three years and never once asked for gas money. She loves justice and lives compassionately. She produces the fruit at the proper times.

Traditional notions of piety are no longer enough for me. They can be comforting, but Jesus' call is clear – bear fruit, or lose your inheritance. While this may seem counter to our belief that God's love is a free gift to all, by refusing to bear fruit, we are refusing God's our ability to conduits of grace to those we encounter.

Johanna Hatch is a feminist activist, writer, and theology school dropout living in Wisconsin with her spouse, Evan Creed. Her favorite things about fall in the Midwest are the sound of geese and the smell of leaves.