My name is Don and I’ve been a Catholic priest now for over 50 years. And during that time I keep going back to the same readings over and over again, only to discover that they contain something I never understood was there before. It gives me new enthusiasm and excitement for the message that keeps revealing itself. And I pray that the message that I’m sending you will be valuable. And if you find it so please share these podcasts with your friends. Thank you.

Good morning. Before we begin the Liturgy of the Word for this Sunday, I want to talk to you and share my thoughts. And one of the thoughts I have is how much I appreciated hearing from a number of you after I mentioned it would be nice if you’d touch base with me. And it was just really life giving for me to hear some of your responses. They were positive, which made me feel wonderful. And also they just gave me a greater sense of connection.

And I realize that’s the heart of what I teach, the idea of God using us to connect with one another. And I want to make a suggestion and give you some information. One of the things that I do love hearing is hearing from you. So if you would do that for me, I would love it if you’d like to. And you can do that easily by going to our website, pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and you can leave a message there, email me or something like that. But then also I want you to know that I’m on all social medias, also Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.

And our YouTube channel is really the one I want you to, I want to draw your attention to. Because when I started at last, Lent was a daily reflection where I just take a topic and give a few thoughts on it that stimulate your imagination, stimulate your heart’s longing for these things that God promises. And they were well received. And so we’re not doing it every day, but we do it once a week. So one of the things I’d love for you to have is not only the Sunday homily, but in the middle of the week you could get something from me just by subscribing to it again on that YouTube channel. And you would receive a reflection.

And often those reflections are building from, from and on the homilies that I’m doing. So it’s a way of a midweek check in. So I would love for you to do that. So I just want to let you know those things and hopefully we continue to grow because that’s what we’re here for, to grow in our understanding of who this God is, and how wonderful he is, how loving he is, how much he wants to free us from everything that robs us of life. So let’s see what he says this Sunday. And we begin with the opening prayer.

O God, who have prepared for those who love you, good things which no eye can see fill our hearts. We pray with the warmth of your love so that loving you in all things and above all things we may attain your promises which surpass every human desire. Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. It’s a reading from the Old Testament. From the book of Jeremiah, 38th chapter, 4th through the 6th verse, and 8th through the 10th verse.

In those days, the princes said to the king, jeremiah ought to be put to death. He’s demoralizing the soldiers who are left in this city and all the people by speaking such things to them. He is not interested in the welfare of our people, but in their ruin. King Zebukiah answered, he is in your power, for the king could do nothing with him. And so they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Prince Malachi, which was in the quarters of the guard, letting him down with ropes. There was no water in the cistern, only mud.

And Jeremiah sank into the mud. Ibn Melech, a court official, went there from the palace and said to him, my lord king, these men have done something wrong in all that they have done to the prophet Jeremiah, casting him into the cistern. He will die of famine on the spot, for there is no more food in the city. Then the king ordered Ebed Melech the Cushite to take three men along with him and draw the prophet Jeremiah out of the cistern before he should die. The word of the Lord. Lord, come to my aid.

I have waited, waited for the Lord, and he stooped toward me. Lord, come to my aid. Lord heard my cry. He drew me out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud of the swamp. He set my feet upon a crag. He made my steps firm.

Lord, come to my aid. He put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God. Many shall look on in awe and trust in the Lord. Lord, come to my aid. Though I am afflicted and poor, yet the Lord thinks of me. You are my help, my deliverer.

O my God, hold not back. Lord, come to my aid. A reading from the New Testament, from the book of Hebrews 12. Four brothers and sisters, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of Witnesses. Let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us, while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him.

He endured the cross despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right throne of God. Consider how he endured such opposition from sinners. In order that you may not grow weary and lose heart in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. The Word of the Lord. Hallelujah. Verse My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord.

I know them, and they follow me. Hallelujah. The gospel for this 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Luke 12th, chapter 49 53. Jesus said to his disciples, I’ve come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing. There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished.

Do you think that I’ve come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, a household of five will be divided three against two and two against three. A father will be divided against his son, a son against his father, a mother against her daughter, a daughter against her mother, a mother in law against her daughter in law. A daughter in law against her mother in law. The Gospel of the Lord Satan SA this is such an interesting set of readings for me to work on, because I feel I’m so close to what they’re talking about.

And what I want to start with is the whole notion of sin. What is it? Well, there’s a theme in this particular set of readings that really does expose what sin really is, and that is it’s based in a lie. And it’s when somebody believes that lie and starts living and basing their life on that lie, they’re living in a place of darkness and sin. And the interesting thing about that is that there’s this sense of missing the mark. And that’s what sin is, is sometimes missing it right under our noses.

And we don’t even realize we’re missing it. Let me see if I can explain. Let’s take for right away the gospel we just listened to. And what is interesting in that is what you’re hearing so clearly is that this thing that God calls the truth, what it is, is, is a way of seeing the world. And we identify with that way we see the world. And so if you’re living, let’s say you’re living a faith life and you believe so much, and God is the heart of everything, and everything about you and around you is.

Is happening because God is in charge. And he’s taking you on a journey where he’s going to teach you how to trust in him more than trust in yourselves. That’s one image of religion, and I believe it’s the true one. It’s the one I believe and the one I teach. But there’s other ways of imagining religion. And the other way is the way I grew up with religion, where it seemed that it was based not so much on what it is that I am supposed to become in relationship to my dependence on God, but it’s more about what I need to what become so that I can please God to earn salvation.

If you look at so much of what was going on at the time Christ entered the world, there was a way in which a person could get God’s favor by doing exactly what he asked them to do. Follow every one of the rules and laws, and God would bless you. What are you doing in that relationship? You are the one at the center of it. Your ego’s at the center of it, and you’re performing so that you can get something from God. I don’t know about your family of origin, but my family of origin and along with the religion that I was living with in the 40s and 50s, really did underscore that by telling me and reminding me that God had asked me to do all these things that are required not to.

Sin was the big one, to be sure. And go to Mass on Sundays and go to confession and all of that. And I would please God and He would love me. And that was the way my parents loved me. I always felt that I was having to prove to them that I was worthy of their love. So if you can feel this, I’m trying to say that there’s something in us in a relationship that is out of balance when we’re talking about our relationship with God.

When we’re the one at the center, we’re the one creating the relationship. And there’s nothing, nothing really true about that. Look at the, you know, the first reading. It’s. It’s about the truth coming into the world. It’s about if you’re in a.

In a world of earning salvation by what you do, your performance, then that truth is something that is grounded in you and you’re not ready to let go of it. And so when you’re in an error and sin comes, there’s a reaction that you have to it. And that is. I don’t want to listen to it. I want to get rid of it. And I love this story from Jeremiah because he’s such an interesting prophet.

He was young, he was excited about wanting to change the world. And the more he tried to change the world by giving the truth, I think he thought, maybe I’m projecting that he would be really successful and they would look up to him. Thank you for giving us the truth. No, they did the opposite. They rejected him completely. And the image of the truth being rejected here is so fascinating to me because what you.

What’s done in. In this image is these people who want the people of the city to be successful in a battle that’s coming up. And the king is not in favor of, but the princes are. That’s a long story. Why the princes were stronger than the king, but the princes were running it, and they wanted success. They wanted to win the battle like we want to win the battle against sin, so God will love us.

And so Jeremiah’s going around and said, you know, there’s another way to do this. Right now, you guys in this city are in trouble because the people that are going to come to attack you, you’ll never able to withstand their strength, and you will be destroyed. So the best thing you can do is surrender. Surrender, lest you be destroyed. Hang on to that thought. So what it means is that there’s something about the truth that when you surrender to usually means you’re going to surrender to something that exposes yourself as not the center, not strong enough to gain your own salvation, not perfect enough.

All of those kind of fears are hidden in a person who’s earning their salvation. So they’re in this situation where they’re in great danger unless they give in to the reality of who God is and who they are. And that God is not interested in you earning anything from Him. In fact, if you’re doing that, he’s not able to reach you. He’s not able to convince you that the only way in which you make it through this world is through his generous, loving, forgiving presence that aids you through an experience that we call baptism. Baptism.

What is it? I love the image in the scripture where it talks about what Jesus wants to do, what his goal in life is. He’s come to set a fire on the earth. What the fire represents purification. He wants to purify the world of all its illusions and all of its attraction that engages a human being in the process of earning his salvation by pleasing God. With his actions.

A relationship based on that, based on your performance, is not the relationship that you want. It’s not pure enough. It’s not open to the flow of life between you and the source of all goodness. It blocks it. So what, what you’re hearing in this image, then is that God is saying that you tend to put too much emphasis on you, on you, on you. Let go of that.

And so I want to go back to something I learned a long, long time ago about human nature. And there’s something about the books, early books of the Bible, especially the book of Genesis. There’s so much truth, so much wisdom in it. And I remember listening to those early stories of the human race in their relationship with God. And I remember the first one, of course, is the Adam and Eve story. And you all know that story so well, you’ve heard me preach on it and teach on it.

But it may be true that you could look at this story and realize that the disobedience of our first parents not doing what God asked them to do, that that was the origin of all evil in the world. And I suppose that makes sense in one way to say, well, you know, God didn’t make bad people. God made the good people, and then they acted badly, and that’s where sin came from. Well, that doesn’t really make that much sense to me when I think about what this story is really saying. In a way, Adam and Eve seem innocent to me about what they did. They didn’t know much.

They didn’t know what life was like. They didn’t know about how to develop a relationship with God. They were infants, in a sense, in their consciousness. And what they were told is, don’t you have do anything except don’t eat of that one tree. And of course, they probably thought, okay, we won’t. But then when they get there, there’s another voice that people don’t give enough credit to.

Adam and Eve that they were seduced by another voice, a strong, powerful figure. We don’t know what it was. It’s depicted as a serpent. But it was something stronger than them. They said, no, no, you misunderstood God. He wants you to eat of this tree so that you can be like him.

Isn’t that interesting, to be like God? God is perfect. God doesn’t sin. So if we want to please God, doesn’t it make sense that we should be perfect and not sin? And so they were kind of seduced into this. So what I really think it’s saying is that in each human being, there is a desire to earn, to please someone else by their efforts.

It’s our ego. It’s our desire to be someone that achieves things. I always love seeing the story that they didn’t like living in the garden because everything was taken care of and they wanted to do some of their own work. So just imagine this story is about human nature needing to be in charge and needing to be powerful and effective. Notice the next two stories. Cain and Abel.

Cain kills his brother Abel because Abel was please God. There it is again. Please God with his offering. And God liked him better. And Cain was insanely jealous because he wanted to be the best Adam and Eve. Human beings want to achieve something of value.

Cain and Abel, they want to be the best at it. The Tower of Babel is next. They want to be able to do anything they set their mind to. All of that is a story about the ego that’s in human beings. And when that ego gets in the way of a relationship with God, you’re going to experience a baptism. And what is a baptism?

It’s learning how to die to everything that isn’t real and true and to rise to a new life. So in your relationship with God, what you’re going to find him doing, at one point, it’s called the dark night of the soul. He’s going to let you feel the impotence of your efforts to please God by your performance. He’s not interested in you performing. He’s interested in you being remade, reformed, renewed in an understanding that you have never been the source of the reason God loves you. God loves you in your sinfulness, in your brokenness.

And what he wants you to realize is, is that not only do you not need to earn his love, but you don’t need to be the source of your own sense of value, your own sense of value. If I’m working in a relationship to please you because I want you to love me, I’m putting myself at the center again. And I am counting on my performance to give me the sense that I am loved. Think of that in your relationship with God. How can he love you in your imperfection? Because that’s who you really are.

When you experience that imperfection not being enough, and that’s the dark night of the soul, you will come to a point where the thing you rely upon most to give you a sense of security is impotent and can’t do it. It’s like God takes away from you in some mysterious way. Maybe it’s a disease, maybe it’s the loss of some ability you have to perform at a high level and that’s gone and you’re left with nothing. That’s because you’re not. You’re too much of. It’s too much of you, too much of me.

So those moments when you feel panicky and worried and scared that you’re not going to be enough to gain the relationship you want with God, you know that he’s doing something beautiful for you. He’s saying. Saying it has nothing to do with your performance. It has nothing to do with what you think makes you valuable in my eyes. You are already valuable in my eyes. And if you don’t know that, you can’t experience the depth of my love.

And the love is not just telling you you’re safe and everything’s going to work out. No, it’s giving you your value. The God that created you isn’t looking for you to do anything to please him so that he’ll love you. He loves you as his very essence. He is love. And I don’t know how to say this, but when you believe that your life is changed and the core of you works out of another source, not you, but God in you and you in God.

Free us from the fear of failing, the fear of not being acceptable. Take away that anxiety in its place, a peace not as the world gives it. Not because things are going the way they’re supposed to. Because you are in charge of everything and everything works together for our good and the good of our relationship with you. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. The music in this program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner.

I’m excited for the opportunity to awaken your spiritual journey. If you enjoy this program, please subscribe and share it with a friend. This ministry also needs your support, so make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on on our website. Thank you so much for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible.