Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Friends (Easter 6)

Is it presumptuous to say that God is our friend? It would appear right to refer to him as creator and ruler or the one on whom we are utterly dependent and to whom we owe our love and obedience. But “friend”? The Christian answer is in chapter 15 of John’s gospel, where Jesus tells the disciples that they really are his friends.

Jesus wants us to befriend other people, too, and not just the ones we live with, study with, work with, or naturally like. Sometime we have trouble with that.  We are more likely to give all our love and attention to those we are closest to and those who are the easiest for us to be around. Emily Dickinson wrote that “The soul “selects her own society/ Then shuts the door.” But Jesus came to open doors, and when he opened the biggest one by ending our estrangement from God, he made it possible to open all the others as well.

There are many ways to define what the church is, but I think it’s that group of people who Jesus called his friends and asked to love all his other friends and not shot the door against anyone. That’s a tall order, but it’s the commandment Jesus gave us. Its realization, even if not 100%, is one of the most telling signs of the power of the Resurrection to make things new.

Night Lights

How We Stay (Easter 5)

In the gospel for the fifth Sunday of the Easter season, Jesus asks his disciples to stay with him and promises that he will stay with them. We might think that “Stay with me” is an easy thing for Jesus to say. After all, he is divine and can love unconditionally, so when he says he will never abandon us, we can depend on that. But we aren’t Jesus.

We are fickle and restless beings who can’t keep our attention on anything for very long, including God. Not only that, we stray from God, wandering off to places where we shouldn’t go and which endanger our spirits.  Clearly, we can’t stay with Jesus in the same way he can stay with us.

But we can understand staying with Jesus if we think of it as more a matter of returning to him again and again, whether we come back amazed at life’s goodness or preoccupied with worry about something or other, whether we come back like a first grader proudly bringing home a drawing made at school or like the prodigal son, full of shame and regret. As long as we keep coming back, I believe that is enough and all that Jesus asks for.

So, though we can’t do it in the same way Jesus does, he is not asking too much of us when he invites us to stay with him. And he promises that our staying with him — that is, our continual turning back to him — will make our lives fruitful for us and for others, too.

Spring Trees

Our Shepherding God (Easter 4)

In chapter 34 of Ezekiel’s prophecy, God, in effect, gives a pink slip to Israel’s leaders, accusing them of living off the sheep (the people) instead of feeding them, leaving them exposed to danger instead of protecting them, and ruling them with harshness rather than compassion.  Instead, God promises that he himself will shepherd the people.

That chapter of Ezekiel was clearly in Jesus’ mind when, in this Sunday’s gospel, he called himself the Good Shepherd; he was telling the leaders of his day (especially the religious leaders) that they had failed, as had happened in Ezekiel’s time, and that he, Jesus, would do what God had done then. He would be the shepherd for God’s sheep; he would be the Good shepherd.

In our day, people have become suspicious of traditional leaders and role models, whether religious or political or social. People who have responsibilities to care for others’ money or health or faith life or security or basic rights haven’t always done their duties, and people have been hurt. But that doesn’t mean that we are simply left to fend for ourselves.

On the contrary, we believe that no matter how well or poorly human leaders act, ultimately it is God on whom we rely because he is unlimited in his ability to care for us and he is committed to watching over each one of us individually and all of us together. Psalm 23 says it all: God is our shepherd. We have his word on it.