Easter Suffering

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Jesus-Peter-2The apostles “rejoiced that they were found worthy to suffer…”

“Worthy?”  What kind of word is that?  “Unworthy” is the easy word we use to describe ourselves so that we’re not responsible for anything or anyone.  After all, I’m “unworthy.”  Church prayers are loaded with “unworthy” sounding words and an optional rosary ending prayer has the folks “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.”  I guess those folks don’t live in the Highlands.  Too bad.

But to rejoice in suffering is a big leap for anyone of any religion.  It’s all about the pizza.

I got two new cats a couple of weeks ago.  Thank you for your sympathy cards with financial gifts.  (There weren’t any.)  When I put my previous two cats to sleep they did not suffer.  It’s not because of the injection, it’s because cats can’t suffer.  Only we can suffer.  Cats experience aches and pain.  We suffer because we bring meaning and purpose to our lives – even if we’re wrong in our analysis.  We all have aches and pains but they remain just that.  To suffer means to infuse meaning and purpose into our lives.

Now what about those meanings and purposes?  A seminarian fresh out of school glibly tells you that God doesn’t “permit” suffering but “allows” it.  (A loving God that allows suffering?)  Cute answer but doesn’t answer the question.

A quick list for you.
•    God is testing you like He did Job, but Job had a happy ending
•    In medieval times suffering was considered God’s wrath but then again they didn’t       have a 65” flat screen TV in their living room
•    God is is getting back at you, forty years later, for cheating on your third grade spelling quiz.  “Thank you Lynn for showing me your answers in exchange for a kiss.”)
•    God is punishing you for no other way other than He’s God and you thought you were
•    You need to learn a lesson but you’re not sure what lesson needs to be learned

As usual, this is an easy homily to give you today because who’s the subject of my short list?  You.  Because it’s always about “you.”  However I didn’t finish the Gospel sentence.  The sentence ends with “in your name.”  The apostles “rejoiced that they were found worthy to suffer in his name.”  The name of Jesus Christ.

That’s our Christian faith.  (I should have had my cats baptized!)  Our Christian faith gives us meanings and purposes beyond ourselves.  (It’s too bad more Highland people can’t be here to hear that last sentence.)

“Offer it up,” mother told the five of us countless times.  We knew to whom but didn’t know the result.  “Offer it up.”  Did it mean finding someone in more suffering than myself so I can feel better about myself?  What I talk to you about a month ago.  We knew she meant the “poor souls in purgatory” which we never understood because those “poor souls” were in a waiting room on their way to heaven.  Why didn’t we offer it up for those perpetual losers in Hell?

Suffering is a difficult topic in our sanguine society but it is a part of every human life.  I don’t have a definition but we all know true suffering when we see it and marvel at its power to demean, decrease and disassemble us or those we love.  But then we meet someone with cancer who’s smiling and happy.  What’s with that?  (“Those drugs finally kicked in?”)  Someone with disabilities I can’t imagine on myself endures and flourishes.  Someone with two months to live enjoys a pizza with friends.  Who are these people?

In your suffering, when it happens to you or is happening to you this second, I hope that you are able to find the Lord’s name in your meaning and purpose; in God’s faithful trust.  Not  to find the Lord’s name in the cause (useless exercise) but in His divine promises (the very definition of faith).  Pain is awful.  That’s my cats.  (When I took the two new cats to my vet for a checkup, I told him that this time “I’ll go first!”)

Those are aches and pains.  To suffer is to experience the same pain but now with a faith-filled response.  I wish I had a clearer, priestly answer for all those who suffer but I don’t.  I can’t.  (I was that glib seminarian but now I know better.)  Suffering is so personal and yet it’s so universal.  I can only repeat what the Gospel says today, the third time is a charm.  It took Peter three times to finally realize that Jesus loved him as much as Peter loved Jesus.

“Ready, set, go” should be the sounding gun in all times of our lives.  Those with aches and pains sadly stop at “ready” and stagnant there.  Those who reach “set” are those knowing their life’s journey is with the risen Lord but not quite sure of the “why” part.  (That’s most of us.)  Those who reach “go” are those who rejoice that they were found “worthy to suffer in his name.”  They too don’t know all the “whys” of their suffering but they’re enjoying pizza with their friends.  Balistreri’s calls it “pizza,” in this sacred place we call it “Eucharist.”

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“The Wizard of Oz” and Faith

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

4353288-wizard-of-oz-caps-the-wizard-of-oz-2028565-720-536Twice a year if they’re lucky and perhaps a wedding or funeral thrown in defines their yearly active faith.  They’re believers but of a different kind.  They’re seeking the wizard when it’s the Munchkins that make a spiritual life meaningful.

I have a battery powered red light that spins and stops, spins and stops.  Catching the attention of cats, they chase the outward light.  My two new cats stare and bite at the contraption itself.  After awhile of staring at the large, white thing they meander away, off to the next room and miss the circling red light.

It’s only been two weeks with these new cats but I fear I have “twice a years” in my home for many years to come.  They’ve missed the spinning red light of the Munchkins – the day to day struggles and rewards that faith both supports and defines.  My two newbies are interested in who the wizard is when it’s a question that will never be answered or solved.  I’m hoping that in time they will look outward to see the winding and stopping red light that they’ll happily chase but never catch.

After a few stares and bites, they clean themselves as though boredom has filled them.  “What’s next?” I suppose they say to themselves.  My previous two cats gleefully chased the circular red light as though it was life itself, because to them, it was.  They didn’t concern themselves with the unknowable origin – it was the elusive light that caught them.  That’s life.  That’s Munchkin life.

Searching for the wizard is useless unless you live among, within and circle the Munchkins.  Living within their circle, you will find and admire the wizard.

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“I Think It’s Important”

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

shoppingI’ve had a small rock on top of my bedroom bureau for years.  When I move, I pack the rock and again place it on top.  It’s to remind me of…  I’ve forgotten the “where or when” of the rock but to toss it out would be to forget what I can’t remember.

It looks like it was pulled from the east or west U.S. ocean.  Was it kept to remind me of something wonderful or to not do something again?  (Why would someone save something to be reminded not to repeat?)  The rock quietly rests there, collecting dust.  I rarely look at it but when I do I think to myself, “Oh, that must be important.”  When I move again, I’m sure I’ll take the small rock with me.  Easy to pack but not easy to remember.

Recalling an actor’s name may take days for my recall – I use the alphabet method.  I may be trying to remember something else and the puzzling actor’s name silently slips back into my memory.  “Oh, of course,” I say to myself.

Is it age?  Too easy.  Is it a growing disease?  Insurance help, I hope.  Is it too many names and information accumulated but never assimilated?  I choose the latter.  It’s safer and without medications or new housing.

It’s happening to me more and more.  It’ll be a song on the radio and I know I know the lead singer’s name but don’t know the lead singer’s name while driving  and wondering if the person behind me wants me to run that yellow or red light in front of me.

Luckily, the person behind me follows my lead and stops at the red light when I remember that it’s David Gates, the lead singer from “Bread” and their biggest hit, “I Want To Make It with You.”  I sigh with relief that I was not only saved from being killed but my memory kicked in when it needed to and one more memory query was resolved.

But I still wonder why that small rock is on my bureau.  Must be something important or why else would I have kept it?

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Easter Sunday: “Trial Separation?”

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Easter-clipartIt’s called a “trial separation.”  Kinda of a weird name for a marriage that’s about to break up, isn’t it?  Because you see if the “trial” of this temporary arrangement doesn’t work out, then you’re back to your failing marriage that caused the “trial separation” in the first place.  Kinda weird, isn’t it?  And who sets the timeline for this “trial?”  Husband, wife?  One month, six months?  Hospice gives you six months, so why not lawyers?

But, if the supposed “trial” does work out, then you’ve achieved success?  The two of you get a divorce and are now totally separated from each other.

We’ve had our experiences with “trial separations.”  We don’t hear God in our lives (or we’re just not listening) so we go our own merry way.  We separate.  “Trial,” of course.  We think it’s permanent until things fall apart and then we admit that the “trial” part didn’t work out the way you hoped it would.  So we get back together again, God and you, in this marital struggle like him and her except this time it’s between God and you.

We had our “trial separation” this weekend.  We got to kill him on Good Friday and suddenly this morning we find his empty grave.  We were positive that our divorce papers from God were final this weekend.  We signed the papers, wrong attorney?  What’s with this?

The problem is that we can kill Jesus but we can’t kill God.  (Remember the “three persons in One God” part of catechism?  The “Christ” is raised from the dead, Jesus lives now as Christ because we cannot kill God regardless of our so called petty little “trial separations.”

It’s called a covenant, folks.  It’s a binding covenant between God and us and was initiated by God, instituted by God, implemented by God and injected into us by our baptism.

Wow.  Four “I” words in one sentence that ignores our cute, little “trial separation.”  Initiated, Instituted, Implemented and Injected.  Sounds pretty solid to me.

Because you see all of our stupid failings and sins are the stuff of “Good Friday.”  That dark day when the nails hit and temple curtain was torn.  It was dark by three in the afternoon.  Climate change?  I don’t think so.

It is because of the covenant of God.  Unbreakable; sometimes unbearable and unpredictable but always un-eraseable.  Wow, four “U” words in one sentence to describe God.  Unbreakable, Unbearable, Unpredictable and Un-eraseable.   The last “U” word is a made up word but God can do that; after all, He’s God.

The prophet Jeremiah told us about this covenant hundreds of years before Jesus came along.  He told us that God’s covenant isn’t taught to us.  It doesn’t come to us from our parents or teachers, it’s not a quiz with multiple choice or true/false.  It’s not a tweeter tweet from the pope.  God’s covenant is written within our hearts.  Remember the last “I?”  Injected.

Whenever and where ever we do a “Good Friday” silly, stupid sin, God is always there with His Easter Sunday promise.  Whenever and where ever we pull a prankish push toward a “trial separation” with God, God is always there with His Easter Sunday promise.

“Good Friday” is for amateurs, guys thinking they can pull off a “trial,” holding out for a divorce from the Divine.  Good luck.  F. Lee Bailey is dead, no attorney will touch your case.  Many have tried and everyone, and I mean everyone has failed.

A “trial separation” from God?  Laughable.  That’s all “Good Friday” talk and that was, what, two days ago?  What’s two days in our culture?  That’s old news.

Today is Easter Sunday and it’s all about hope, promises that are kept and a marital union between God and humanity; it’s a marriage made in heaven.

book_coverA Great Gift Idea

A new book by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
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Paperback or Kindle is $14.95.  Enjoyable reading.

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The “Awesome” English Language

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

AwesomeIf I hear that something or someone is “awesome,” it’ll be time to turn my hearing aids off.  “Awesome” is if the moon would fall to the earth, anything less is “okay” or “good.”

“Pretty nice” doesn’t say much and the adjective describes appearance and not the experience as does “awfully nice.”  If your “thank you card” contains those words I’d question the writer’s sincerity.

“To be honest with you” as the beginning of a sentence tends to question all your conversations with that speaker.  “Finally, the truth?”  This leads to someone declaring the “absolute truth” about this or that.  “Truth,” I believe stands on its own without any modifiers.  As a priest I often think it’s overkill to say, “Almighty God” as though we don’t know who God is.

My hallway response to, “How are you today?” is the same, “Great.”  It keeps our walking  passed each other in sync.  It I was truly great than I’d be more productive in my job or have a better job.  “Truly,” as I just abused it, is another example.  Can great be made greater by adding “truly?”

One online site stated that a two-year old knows 300 words compared to the twelve-year old who knows the same 3,000 words he/she will use for a lifetime.  Whatever happened to learn a new word each day and use it in a conversation that same day and it’ll be yours for life?

The “if” word, small as it is, protects both its speaker and cleverly calms its listener.  “‘If'” I offended you is never an apology.  “No admittance but I appreciate the effort,” is its result.  How about Nixon’s team and their use of “at this point in time” instead of saying, “now” or “then.”

In the above paragraph I used “never” as though it’s the end of all endings.  A young person told me that he “never…” and I said back to him, “just wait.”  Young people should be forbidden to use the word “never” in their short, un-lived lives.

These days we seem to want to be emphatic in whatever topic we throw out for conversation.  “Awesome” and “unreal” makes my mind wander away from their comments.  If the vacation you completed was “unreal” then we’re all in trouble.

My favorite disarming comment is, “You look great today, for a woman your age.”  Tht’s when I walk a little faster down the hallway.

 

 

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Spouse’s Death

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

aid1420561-728px-Prepare-for-Death-of-Spouse-Step-6Bullet2“How do you do this death thing?  It’s been two weeks since his funeral and his suits still hanging in the closet.  I look at them and remember when each was worn; there’s the funeral suit, the anytime suit and the suit I told him to save when he wanted to give it to the Salvation Army.

How do you do it?  His war recognitions I’ll keep, that’s for sure and his two sets of cuff links.  Pictures of us I’ll store, just for me now.  There’s that stupid picture on the wall that he loved but I never liked, but now that he’s gone I like.  Keep it or dump it?  Salvation Army or Goodwill?

Decisions.  It’s the decisions that bog you down in your head when it’s the love that keeps him alive. “It’s the smell,” I think to myself.  I’ll keep the cheap cologne he loved.  I don’t know why but those tiny sniffs bring him into the bathroom with me.  Oh, and all of those newspapers that he saved because he loved one article.  Toss them all?  Didn’t he think of using a scissors and just save the one article?  He wasn’t like that.  He loved to save and now I have his savings surrounding me.  It’s only been two weeks.

Shouldn’t I wait a year?  Wow, that’s a long time from my time to walk past “that” or run into “this” or be reminded of that/this when I remember.  Remembering.  What a wonderful gift for our wonderful times but what a haunting memory.  I can’t remember simple things when I want to but things about him are crystal clear in my mind and heart.

How do you do it?  The beauty salon magazines offers me a list of ten things (always ten!) and I laugh at each one reading them as though the writer thought I’d be a whole person again after completing the ten bullet points.

Whole.  I now continue my life with a life I’ve only know with him.  Continue.  Continue what?  It’s the simple pieces that remain but never the whole which is  now gone.  It’s those remaining fragments surrounding me while forgetting his pain toward the end that is now over.  “Think ahead,” says good meaning friends and I smile until I get home and pass the suits and the whiff of his now-gone scent.

Salvation Army or Goodwill?  Don’t I some dice in the house?  Does it really matter if it’s meant to rid me of him and dress another?  The tenth point of all the beauty salon magazines ends with me feeling better about myself.  Was the point of my marriage and now his death to feel good about myself?  I disagree.  If I felt good with him in life then I can feel good again with him in his death.  And I mean “with him.”

“Feeling good.”  I don’t want to feel good.  I want to feel loved and needed and believe it or not, I still do.  “Feeling good.”  I feel good in my unpredictable tears and wandering thoughts over forty years.  He’s gone but not forgotten.  I don’t want to forget and I don’t care about “feeling good.”

I’ll keep the suit I like and the cologne but I still can’t decide between Salvation Army or Goodwill.  That decision will eventually come but the memories of him and his smilingly love for me lasts a lifetime.”

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. on Amazon include:
“Soulful Musings,”
“Living Faith’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”

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Holy Thursday: “Hands”

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

indexThe hands of time has handed us this time, right now.  I hope it’s handy for you because your hands may be full of other concerns.  But hands down, this begins the great three-some of the Christian religion.

All hands on deck for these next three days.  You may be an old hand at this and had this handed down to you by your parents but we don’t wish to bite the hand that feeds us because as we well know – “a bird in the hand is worth two…”

I have to hand it to you for showing up today.  There’s no obligation, no sin if you miss today so you must have a warm heart to match your “cold hands.”  It is good to be here for our Lord’s Supper because a helping hand defeats the devil’s idle hands.

By a show of hands can we give a hand for the man who gave us a helping hand toward salvation?

Hands.  We take these two extensions for granted until one fails us and we need to rely completely on the other, hoping the other will not fail us.  I’ve only heard this second hand but some of us are dealt a bad hand.

We’ll be hearing about hands over the next few days.  Not necessarily the physical but the emotional and spiritual hands.  Like the hands of Jesus which frees and cleanses, like the hands of Pilate that are bound by tradition and regulations, like the handcuffed hands of Barabbas which are falsely freed, or the hands that holds her dead son, or Joseph of Arimathea and his caring hands but too late to lend one of them.  How about that guy’s forced hands to help Our Lord’s cross, or the hands that wiped the sweat and blood off our Lord’s face?  What about the solider’s nailing hands?  Did they have an upper hand or so they thought?

What about our hands?  A helping hand to someone walking slower than last year.  A ready hand to swipe the cheek of a child who yelled at you.  A shoulder’s touch by your hand.  Extending your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.  The handshake of welcome before a meeting or a good meal.  The hand that holds a door for another when you’re in a hurry, the wave of a hand that offers her your chair.

Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.   The hand that waves goodbye to a good friend and the same hand that touches the gravestone whose goodbye is hard to handle.  Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.   The hand that picks up someone’s lost keys and then the same hand that unlocks your empty home where your husband, son or daughter once lived. Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.   The hand that twitches during a boring meetings but holds the baby’s head just right.  The same hand that lifts a drink in toast for a grand occasion and the same hand that ties your shoes in the morning.  Extend your hand to receive the Body of Christ this holy day.

Tonight we put our hands together and applaud the man we think will save us.  We hope will save us.  We pray will save us.  Tomorrow.  Ahhh, tomorrow deals us a different hand as we hand him over to Pilate’s washing hands and the nailing hands of soldiers.  But hands down, today is a wonderful meal.

“Many hands make for light work” as long as other folks do the work.  I don’t lift a finger because life is in my hands.  That’s our temptation in playing against God’s hand when He already has His hands full…and ours are conveniently but sadly empty.

Ahhhh, you gotta hand it to us God, we’ve gotten things out of hand by keeping our hands clean.  We’re simply too scared to be putty in God’s hands so tomorrow we may just choose Pilate’s washing hands and rub our satisfied hands together.  We’re willing to clap for you this holy day but it’s all hands on deck tomorrow.  We’re just not sure.  Are you the one or should we hand ourselves over to the hands of someone else.

You gotta hand it to us Lord, we are a handful.

But still.  Can you hand us that bread.  It’s free, isn’t it?

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Good Friday: “Hands Down”

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Hands-Thumb-Down-iconWe handed you over to die, Lord.  (Yes, I’m back to the hands thing.)  It was the handy thing for us to do, considering who you thought you were and who we were positive you were not.

We’re not sure if it was our left or right hand but one of our hands opened your palms making sure the nails fit tightly.  Less hands for Jesus to hand us another one of his wildly weird stories and self-proclaimed claims.  We truly handed you over.  Handy of us because it was purely for and about ourselves.  “Handle with care” was your underlying message to us about others but you just handed us a bunch of you know what, those two letters which don’t mean Boy Scouts.

You’ve got to hand it to us though.  We handed you over to Pilate’s hands and his hands were washed clean of any guilt.  What guilt do we handily wash clean of because we’re either not responsible or because it doesn’t involve us?  We’re in safe hands with that thinking as long as we stay within our comfortable and closed selves.

“He was a hand me down guy,” we say about you, Jesus, as we said before of all the prophets.  You were handy to us for awhile until you called us to something more than ourselves and we weren’t able to …well, handle you any longer.  So we crucified you.  Clean hands, have we.  Dirty hands, have we. If I asked for a show of hands this Good Friday, all of our second hands would go up but it’s too late…now.

Where were we when it was hands down to Pilate’s cleansing?  Where were we when the “hands
have it” as we passively joined a majority of losing opinions?  You were bound hand and foot and we were all close at hand as the hands of time stopped between 12 and 3 as we easily handed over our salvation just to keep our hands clean.  We clapped our hands welcoming you on Palm Sunday and then clapped our hands once more on this day, your death day.

After all, it’s Good Friday.  This is the day when our hands are tied.  Don’t blame us for your nailed hands.  This is the day when our hands are folded in deep prayer to save only ourselves.  Handy, memorized prayers directed to something or someone, we’re not sure to whom.  This is the day when our hands are hidden behind our backs so no one can see our actions.  Because you see the left doesn’t know what the right is doing this sad day.  This is the day when our hands block our eyes to keep them safely from handing us a problem to handle – from a new perspective or from a second thought.  How wickedly convenient Good Friday is for us.  How wonderful and ugly is this day we handed you Lord.  We’re the three monkeys on this glorious but sad day.  Good Friday hands us a greater handful of ourselves.  Good Friday hands us the glory of our own, selfish lives.  Hearing, seeing and speaking are all conveniently covered by, you guessed it, our hands.

We’re Pilates’ clean hands.  We have more time on our hands without doing anything for anyone else.  Hell, we can now say to anyone who approaches us looking for a simple smile or to share a story, “Hands off.”  Good Friday says that we have our hands full …hands full of ourselves.

You’ve got to hand it to us, we’ve had our hand in this since the beginning.  We handed over the the-would-be-Christ to Pilate.  Pretty handy of us, don’t you think?  The blood of Jesus is on our hands.  We could have told Pilate, “hands off” to our Savior but we chose instead to leave it in the hands of others – it was not our concern, our hope, our salvation.  Let someone else handle it.

We’ve got to hand it to ourselves.  None of us lifted a hand.  We washed both of them carefully with Pilate’s water.  It’s gotten out of hand and now He’s died.

Although even though it’s second hand, some say that the hand dealt Jesus is not yet played.  There’s a couple more cards handed to him.  But what’s the deal?  We know the cards handed to Jesus.  That’s the deal handed to Jesus.  What’s our deal?

How about on this Good Friday we take a hands off approach and just see what happens.  We may be handily surprised.

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Find A Less Fortunate and You’ll Feel Good

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

thHOC40AVCThis may surprise you but I’ve never met a selfish person.  Each of us believes in the “common good” for all and each of us believes how wonderful and benevolent each of us is.  Ahhhh.

The season of Lent can be practiced as our U.S. culture can be practiced – being selfish, thinking only of ourselves.  We examine our own little, personal lives during Lent in preparation for Easter’s redemption.  “Look inside your life” is Lent’s yearly command.  In our culture we can be self-centered in attitudes contrary to our basic beliefs about the care and concern of that “common good.”  “The ‘common good’ is good as long as it doesn’t affect me” is our internal feeling and thought.  “Get the government out of my life but don’t touch my Medicare payments,” is such a contradiction that it’s laughably sad.

“Not mine but ours” – ought to be our mantra in both church and society.
“Just think of the poor children in Biafra,” mom told us in the 1950’s and you’ll feel better about yourself and eat the crazy vegetable left on our plates.  The five of us had no idea where Biafra was and we couldn’t recall meeting any of them in our small Manitowoc town.  How our mom even knew about that African country baffles us to this day.  “Did I miss meeting one of the Biafrian kids on my way to school?” we thought to ourselves.
We use others to lessen our problems and the worst part of all is that we get away with it.  It happens often.   And it happened to me recently when walking through the hospital’s ICU to visit someone; I thought to myself how petty was my crying and lose of two cats of eleven years and putting them to sleep because of their age and organ failures.  “Who was I to lament?” I thought when I saw someone wired with numerous cords surrounded by hissing, digital machines.  The salve of that hospital comparison worked on me until driving back to work and realizing that I found a more unfortunate person to soften my misfortune.

Fortunately, I found someone with greater misfortune to allow me to feel fortunate again.  (Let’s hear that once more, please.)

Our five Manitowoc kids knew no one in Biafra nor could we locate their country on a map but we trusted our mother’s balm comparing people living in utter poverty with our failed grades or lost friends or no TV for one night.”  Fair comparison?

Comments like that make our lesses less and keeps their lesses less.  We need “them” to bolster ourselves.  If there was no one lesser then ourselves then how would we ever release ourselves from grief or sorrow?  My pain was softened by the greater pain of someone else.  How great of me to feel this way.  What a great country to condone those lessers to enjoy our more.

Jesus didn’t bring Lazarus back to life because they were best friends and Lazarus missed a planned lunch.  Jesus brought Lazarus back to life because he wanted to show us that “new life” happens in all shapes and forms.  It is because of Jesus, the cross.  Lent may begin with the “selfish me” but it has to end with a collective “us,” the Body of Christ or else this whole thing we call “church” is meaningless.  The “common good” that is good and obviously common among us all begins with us, individually and then expands to our nation.  Comparisons rarely work and many comparisons can be downright hurtful.

So, today, in front of all of you, I’d like to publicly thank all the Biafra, Africa folks for their poverty, their injustices and all the wrongdoings done to them.

Have we lost the meaning of the “common good” or a sense of perspective or did we ever have it in the first place in our Lenten lives?

Mother was right.  Biafra has truly comforted and soothed me through all my First World troubles and struggles – like missing a meeting, like being late for work, like wearing the wrong tie or like losing my two cats the same day.

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Jesus & “Fig Tree” Or Not

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

jesusandfigtreeThere will be various clues throughout this little charade.  It’s your job to guess who I am.

First clue: I’m rented, usually just for a weekend to make you look good for all the guests and all your friends who will never recognize you because of my coverings.  I guess some of you already know who I am but you still need to sit here and listen.

My shoes are shiny as a brand new car and there’s one darker stripe on each side of my leg balanced against my dark trousers.  I would provide you with a top hat if you saw someone else wear one first but your not going to be the first to wear a top hat in front of a hundred people.  Just wait until a Black singer wears one and then you’ve got your signal or permission telling you that now it’s “cool.”

(A side note:  It would have taken Whites a hundred years to turn a baseball cap around.  We never would have thought of that on our own.  Now I see 40 year old White guys with the turn-around cap and I smile to myself.)

Okay.  Back to the guessing, in case you haven’t figured it out already.

You will never see me at a Brewer game or a farmer’s market.  I only make you look good when you want to look good, like a wedding.  At some weddings I’m seen in a pukey blue with a ruffled shirt when my only truly color and my only true shine is in black.  Even Milwaukee guys look good wearing me even if they still can’t see their belts.  My black is distinguished, classy and dignified over my crisp, white shirt and black bowtie.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that my bowtie isn’t real.  Michael pulls it off but it is very difficult to create and pull off.  I can tell a fake bowtie as soon as you enter the room/  Those shiny shoes don’t distract me from that fake bowtie.

People used to wear me every night just for a normal evening meal.  Check out PBS to see how often I’m shown off at dinner and then cigars and a short liqueur with only the boys afterwards.

I am faith.  You think that I’m rented because it’s cheaper for you.  How could you ever afford something so great and enduring to wear daily as me?  How often in our lives am I returned on Monday morning after your wonderful weekend and then you return to your backward-turned baseball cap and dirty jeans.

In colors, black is the absence of color which makes all things possible on a theater’s stage and even on our stages of life.  Black can be filled-in with colors of all kinds that make for a magical celebration of life.

You feel special when you wear me for your short weekend.  You straighten me when necessary, flick away that annoying white string and you are totally aware that you are wearing me, if only for a weekend.  As you finish dressing and look at yourself in the mirror you undoubtedly wonder why you can’t look this way every day.  “Wow,” you say to yourself, hoping no one’s heard you.  But alas, you remember that I am only rented.  I am not yours to keep.  I am not yours to rely upon in troubling or doubtful times, I can’t share those joyful, glorious moments of your life – I am not yours for a whole lifetime of mixed experiences.

Faith is a “wow” experience.  Faith is the black we wear each day when every possible situation is presented or confronted to us.

The non-color black takes on as many colors as possible when needed.  The color red only knows jealousy and the color green only holds envy.  The color orange has us struggling who the Republican candidate for president will be and the color beige is the one who just follows the crowd.  “They must be right,” the color beige says to him/herself.

Faith grows within you because you grow and mature.  Life teaches you the tried and true lessons and principles that were owned and lived centuries ago by others and you are invited to rediscover, wear and live those lessons and principles today, in this season of Lent.

Faith is a tuxedo that wears well on all of us and fits us well – adapted, of course, for women.  Faith is the non-color black that empties us only to be filled again with something more of our lives that we’ve been missing.  Lent invites us to sincerely feel our empty moments and then fill those moments with stuff that’s colorful, that makes us open, and wanting, and needing, and healing, and meaningful; that we are significant.

Lent is a season of recommitment to that glorious gift of faith that is very much like a tuxedo.  And believe me when I say there is no total commitment to faith.  It’s not easy.  I don’t know how many saint stories you’ve read – most of them are made up and the saint stories that are true had a difficult and struggling life, folks like you and me who continued to prompt themselves through God’s grace to live their faith journey; regardless of anything.  That’s the total blackness of a tuxedo.  Don’t just show off my beautiful tux on a weekend but wear it proudly every day.  After all, black becomes you.

What about that fake bowtie?  Wear your tux for life’s beauties and challenges but keep the fake bowtie for your hounding doubts, periodic mistrusts, sometimes sleepless nights, suspicious but weary friends. That fake bowtie may even open you to an opening of a new door that you didn’t think was possible.  A faith based only in total blackness and certitude has no “open doors.”  Cue that fake bowtie.  Faith is not an end.  Faith is the blessed means and tools we use to live our lives as best we can.  If you say that you have “faith” then you’ve begun to clothe yourself in my beautiful tuxedo.

God’s given us a black ensemble to fully live and completely in God. The season of Lent reminds us of that.  Oh, and by the way, I forgot to tell you that God’s tux is “rent free!”  Jesus won that for us.  It’s not a fig tree, it’s a black tuxedo.  No returns necessary.  It’s yours for a lifetime of values and many purposes.

What the hell, go ahead an wear a “top hat” to top off your Lenten season – who knows…another White guy may copy you.  Start a trend.

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