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The inner word

15 Sep 2013 - Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

"Who “brought you out of the land of Egypt”: The reading from the Book of Exodus uses this phrase three times, and each differently. First God reminds Moses he is the leader of the people, and it’s his job to tell them about God’s wrath. Then God tells Moses what to say, reminding the Israelites of what the God they are betraying did for them. Finally Moses turns these words on God: “Don’t forget that you who saved them made a promise, and that means you have an obligation not to destroy those to whom you made that promise.” This story reminds us that it can be easy to let someone else do the dirty work, to shift blame, to hold others to standards you yourself are not maintaining. It’s also easy to forget promises, especially when you’re angry.

promise Moses

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The inner word

03 Mar 2013 - Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

Though he had been set aside since infancy for a special purpose, the Moses we meet in the reading from Exodus today seemed a little lost. He was a fugitive and a “resident alien” in a foreign land and needed a job. All that of course was about to change—he would find his mission and return to his people—but though he knew he was in the presence of God, he still had some reluctance—not the last Israelite prophet to feel that way. If even a great figure like Moses could be out of place and struggle to find out what God was calling him to, it can happen to anyone. When you feel adrift or without purpose, how do you find direction?

Moses

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03 Mar 2013 - Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

"I AM sent me to you.” An apparently not-quite-ready-for-prime-time Moses was wondering if the whole thing about leading the Israelites to salvation was going to work. There he would be, an unknown appearing out of nowhere claiming God had sent him to lead God’s—and his—people out of slavery. He needed some credentials. God’s name would do, so God told Moses The Name: “I am who am. . . . This is what you shall tell the Israelites.” Moses was the first to hear this new name, which was not a proper name at all but a form of a verb: “to cause to be, to create”; “I am what I am”; or “I will be what I will be.” From this moment the “LORD-YHWH” would mean a God who is and always will be utterly free and powerful to do great things—like free God’s people.

Authors Joel Schorn

Moses i am who i am

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Homily stories

26 Jun 2011 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle A

In today's first reading, Moses tells the people that their hunger was a gift from God so they can come to know their deeper hunger and dependence on God. Many of the religious images in our salvation history have to do with being fed by God: manna in the desert, Jesus lying in a manger (a food trough that signals his role as food for the world), Jesus feeding the 5,000, the Eucharist on Holy Thursday and on the road to Emmaus, and more. It's typical with an admired person to toast them and their accomplishments and even what they stand for. But in the Eucharist, we don't just "toast" Jesus, we take him into ourselves, we consume him, are fed by him, and are transformed by him. And more than admiring him from afar, we hope that, in faith, we may become what we eat.

Moses Hunger manna Eucharist

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Exploring the word

27 Mar 2011 - Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

AN INTERESTING CONTRAST presents itself in our two big Bible stories this week. On the one hand we’ve got the grumbling nation behind Moses: reasonably thirsty, yet decidedly unpleasant about it. These are the same folks who’ve been recently delivered from a generation of slavery, miraculously led across a divided sea, and granted the unlikely gifts of quail and manna from heaven, right there in the Sinai wilderness. You’d expect a little show of faith from these people, an air of courtesy mixed into their request for water. But all we see is an ugly, snarling mob of ingrates. On the other hand we meet the woman from Samaria, obviously thirsty, too, or she wouldn’t be visiting the well at this difficult, sun-drenched midday hour. She also has reasons to be unpleasant: It’s hot, there’s a strange man hovering over her destination, and what’s worse he’s a traditional enemy to her community. Yet this woman chooses to keep the dialogue civil, calling the stranger “sir” and demonstrating, once more, a delightful spunk that is the signature characteristic of a biblical hero. Whereas the nasty mob around Moses repels us—we don’t want to be in the midst of these people more than necessary and are grateful they remain an anonymous sea of hostility—we find ourselves befriending the woman of Samaria. We want to know her name. We’d like to follow her home and find out what happens to her after her privileged encounter with Jesus. We know in general terms that the fates of the participants in these two stories couldn’t be more distinct. The nation behind Moses, ever wielding a blade of mistrust that could wind up in their leader’s back, gets their spring of water and miraculous rescue once more. But does it change anything? Won’t they be just as angry, aggrieved, and thirsty again tomorrow? The rock at Horeb provides them with water for a day, or a week. Still the place remains defined by the spirit of the people: Massah and Meribah, quarreling and testing. In the deepest and most real sense, the community remains parched and unsatisfied. By contrast watch what happens to our heroine of Samaria. She leaves her bucket unfilled by the well, no longer in need of the kind of water that lasts a day. She leaves her grievances by the well, too, running back to the community that has judged her behavior in the past with news too good to withhold. Living water has changed her, turning a notorious woman into a reliable witness. Once defined by a wearyingly eminent marriageability, she’s redefined in a sterling new relationship as the first apostle to the Samaritans. Thirst is not a bad thing, we realize. It can lead straight to our heart’s desire. Related scripture links God as El Shaddai, "The One of the Mountain": Gen. 17:1, 28:3, 35:11, 43:14, 48:3; Exod. 6:3; Num. 24:4, 16; Pss. 68:15, 91:1; Ezek. 1:24, 10:5 Places associated with God: Bethel: Gen. 12:8, 13:3, 28:10-11, 35:1-13; Horeb/Sinai: Exod. 3; Deut. 4:10, 15, 5:2, 9:8, 28:69; 1 Kings 8:9, 19:8; Shiloh: Josh. 18:1, 8-10, 19:51, 21:2, 22:9, 12; Judg. 18:31, 21:19-21; 1 Sam.1-4 Samaritans elsewhere in the Bible: 2 Kings 17; Ezra 4:1-24; Neh. 4, 6:1-13; 1 Macc. 3:10, 10:30, 38, 11:28, 34; Luke 9:52-56, 10:33-37, 17:16; Matt. 10:5-6 Catechism links Woman at the well: CCC 439; 544; 586; 606; 728; 1137; 1179; 2560; 2652 Waters of Meribah: CCC 694; 2119 Resurrection: CCC 988-101

Authors Alice Camille

living water Moses samaritan woman

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Exploring the word

28 Feb 2016 - Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

Let’s just say it out loud: This is a weird grouping of readings we’re invited to consider! We’ve got a bush that’s burning and also not burning. We’ve got a rock that migrates all around the desert and is the Christ. And we’ve got a fig tree that doesn’t produce figs. What are we to make of this biblical collage? The characters in these passages are trying to do the same thing: fit the pieces together so they can see what each puzzling series of events is about. First there’s Moses. He grew up in a palace raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. But he’s not an Egyptian, he’s Hebrew—a dangerous thing to be since Hebrews aren’t treated so well by Egyptians. Which makes Moses mad enough to kill. Which he does, murdering an Egyptian who’s beating a Hebrew slave. Now Moses is a man on the lam. Flash-forward to Moses 2.0. He’s the husband of the daughter of a Midianite priest. But Moses is no Midianite. Nor is he really an Israelite, since he’s never been circumcised. Moses sees a bush on fire that’s not actually burning. Weird! What’s even weirder is that the God of Israel is waiting for him there. God wants Moses to go back to Egypt and set the Israelites free. You’ve got to be kidding! Second reading: Paul is writing the Corinthians. They’re not Jewish. Paul’s not Greek. But Paul is something more than Jewish—he’s an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul tries to explain Moses to the Greeks by way of Jesus. This leads to a very strange metaphor about Christ being the rock from which Israel drank in the desert years. And it followed them around, of course, because what good is a drinking rock if it’s not there when you need it? We arrive at the gospel. Folks are discussing current events with Jesus. Pilate just had some Galileans slain. Hardly newsworthy: Josephus says Galileans were troublemakers, and Pilate had put mobs of them to death before. Jesus is a Galilean. The people telling him these things are probably not. Jesus is in Judea. So the reporters are Judeans. Jesus responds to them by noting that some Judeans were also killed in a tower collapse recently in Jerusalem. He equates the two events: Pilate’s cold-blooded killing with a random accident. The message: Don’t read the will of God into either of these things. Questions of identity permeate these readings. Who are we, and who is God? Is our identity in God, or just our ancestry? Is the story of God’s people our story or not? Is it enough to be planted in this rich soil of faith—or do we actually have to produce something? Related scripture links Rich man and Abraham: Luke 16:19-31 Love your enemies: Matt. 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36

Authors Alice Camille

Moses burning bush identity

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The inner word

28 Feb 2016 - Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

Though he had been set aside since infancy for a special purpose, the Moses we meet in the reading from Exodus today seemed a little lost. He was a fugitive and a “resident alien” in a foreign land and needed a job. All that of course was about to change—he would find his mission and return to his people—but though he knew he was in the presence of God, he still had some reluctance—not the last Israelite prophet to feel that way. If even a great figure like Moses could be out of place and struggle to find out what God was calling him to, it can happen to anyone. When you feel adrift or without purpose, how do you find direction?

Moses

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Homily themes

28 Feb 2016 - Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

“I AM sent me to you.” An apparently not-quite-ready-for-prime-time Moses was wondering if the whole thing about leading the Israelites to salvation was going to work. There he would be, an unknown appearing out of nowhere claiming God had sent him to lead God’s—and his—people out of slavery. He needed some credentials. God’s name would do, so God told Moses The Name: “I am who am. . . . This is what you shall tell the Israelites.” Moses was the first to hear this new name, which was not a proper name at all but a form of a verb: “to cause to be, to create”; “I am what I am”; or “I will be what I will be.” From this moment the “LORD-YHWH” would mean a God who is and always will be utterly free and powerful to do great things—like free God’s people.

Moses I AM i am who i am

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Gorillas in the cyber mist

18 Oct 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Lord is "our help and our shield," the psalmist says this Sunday. Endangered mountain gorillas in Uganda, who need to be protected from environmental degradation and shielded from poachers, now have a new ally in the form of a high-tech website that allows those who are unable to make a trek to the Dwindi Impenetrable Forest to get a good look at the gorillas living there. Not everybody can afford the $500 price tag for a real gorilla trek, but thanks to the fiber-optic tentacles of globalization anyone can watch a mother grooming her children, juvenile males fighting for dominance, or even feel the rush of being charged by a 500-pound silverback male, said promoters of a new conservation fundraising campaign. Joining the "Friend a Gorilla" website campaign will give users access to videos, pictures, and rangers' blogs on websites such as Facebook and Twitter. They will also be able to follow their new friends via satellite tracking, said Moses Mapesa Wafula, head of the Uganda Wildlife Authority. "By paying one dollar to Friend a Gorilla, everybody contributes to the conservation of this species." Organizers said the campaign is the first time social networking has been harnessed for conservation and hope it will generate $100,000 in the first three months and a further $350,000 within the first year. Source: An article by Hereward Holland for Reuters

uganda mountain gorillas dwindi impenetrable forest friend a gorilla moses mapesa wafula uganda wildlife authority social networking

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Thou shalt not, rules Oklahoma Supreme Court

02 Aug 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Moses the lawgiver, famous for delivering the Ten Commandments, plays a central role in the Exodus saga referenced in several readings this Sunday. Despite their historical significance, a stone monument of the Ten Commandments must be removed from the Oklahoma state capital, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday. The justices denied a request by the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission to rethink the court’s June 30 decision that the statue’s placement violates the state constitution’s ban on the use of state property for the benefit of religion. Homily hint: The issue of separation of church and state can be looked at from many angles, and certainly the state must remain impartial when it comes to religious background. At the same time, there are certain bedrock cultural icons that deserve a special place in our heritage, without denying the value of other heritages. Let’s work to find the right balance. For more on the Ten Commandments decision, see: Oklahoma top court agrees Ten Commandments stone at Capitol must go

Moses church and state ten commandments

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