A rant about St. Francis (and Steve)...

A legend about St. Francis has been stalking my ministry and I just can’t keep silent anymore!! Everyone’s favorite St. Francis quote (which btw is actually a quote from some guy named Steve from 1993) is “Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary use words.” There is Gospel truth in this statement: they will know that we are disciples by how we love one another—Jesus taught us this 1,960 years before Steve. The lesson is found in John 13:

^“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Jesus and Steve are both correct; the most powerful expressions of love are selfless actions and LOVE is the most effective form of preaching. How fitting that Jesus washes his disciples’ feet at the beginning of John 13 before telling them to love one another? He’s awesome.

But notice that Jesus doesn’t say “Love one another as I have just loved you at the beginning of this chapter.” He says that they should love one another as He has loved them ALL ALONG. So to get a sense of this you have to read the whole Gospel… or get a fancy version that has Jesus’ words printed in red. You’ll notice that he NEVER STOPS TALKING!! Jesus has two primary ways of loving people: He (1) does selfless things, and He (2) speaks Truth to people.

Jesus heals people, He feeds people, He raises the dead, He embraces people, and He collects people at the margins of society…. but He also preaches, teaches, testifies, witnesses, prays out loud, speaks truth to power, convicts, rebukes, proclaims, cries out, weeps, calls, questions, answers, and uses words ALL THE TIME.

So what is my problem with the quote? My problem is that it’s an easy cop out… and I use it all of the time.

An atheist can do good works. I know people who believe in nothing and yet still feed the poor, comfort the afflicted, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, and love the rejected. If you ask them why they do this I know they will give passion-filled answers—like a sense of justice, the mutual connectedness of mankind, and moral responsibility—that would inspire you to do good works too.

However, when people see Christians do good works it’s different. When people ask us “Why do you do this?” our answers don’t just inspire them to begin doing good works too… our answers inspire people to CHANGE THEIR WHOLE ENTIRE LIVES!!!

I love people with my actions because God first loved me! Even though I was stuck in my own selfishness and sin the One True God—Creator of the Whole Freaking Universe—loved me more than anything else in Creation and if I didn’t share this love with the people around me I would explode!

I love people with my actions because my God allowed for His arms to be stretched out and for His hands to be nailed to a Cross to rescue me from the destruction of my sin… and daily striving to be just 1/1,000,000,000,000,000 as good to someone else as my God was to me is the only way I know how to say “THANK YOU!”

I love people with my actions because Jesus Christ told me to meet Him in the face of the poor, the hungry, the least, and I do—I do find Him exactly where He said He would be—and I can’t stop looking because I long to see Him more clearly.

I love people because I have been adopted by the Father of Jesus Christ and loving people is the family business—the chief thing that gives us our identity and reminds us day after day that no matter how bad things get, no matter how lonely we feel WE ARE NOT ALONE.

I love people with my actions because I look forward to the promised day when all people will be whole, holy, redeemed, and living according to the Will of my Father in the Kingdom and I take seriously my responsibility to build that Kingdom!

But nobody really knows any of this… because I NEVER TELL THEM. And when I am not telling them I make myself feel better—noble even— by saying some cliché “I’m preaching with my actions today!” version of Steve’s quote. And that’s not what Jesus wants me to do.

Of course you should do good things. After all, faith without works is dead. But works without spoken faith IS NOT PREACHING… it’s just a good deed.

Here, I have re-written Steve's wisdom: “Preach with words and live a lifestyle of habitual goodness so that you don’t sound full of crap.” It’s not catchy… but its so much more effective. And I'm willing to bet that St. Francis would approve!

How I won lent by being bad at it...

Obviously it's not possible to "win" Lent… but if the goal is to come to a new understanding of our own sinfulness and God's mercy, then I've scored. Here is a story about how God taught me a lesson, and then taught me that EXACT SAME LESSON all in the same day… God is pretty cool.

This all happened two days ago. I woke up and ate leftover pulled pork for breakfast and then later I had a buffalo chicken sub from Subway for lunch… yum. But why is that relevant? Because two days ago was FRIDAY. And not just any Friday… but a FRIDAY IN LENT. For those who don't know, Catholics "abstain" from eating meat on Fridays in Lent. It's not like a mortal sin to mess this up, but it's something that the whole Church is called to do, and whenever ALL of us are doing something, it's pretty special.

I think that most Catholics can resonate with the experience of completely forgetting that it was Friday, or even forgetting that it was Lent altogether and they had resolved to be different for 40 days. But what I did two days ago was different because NINE days ago (another Friday in Lent) I had chicken soup for lunch… GASP.

Later (two days ago) I was driving and was hit by a pretty powerful realization. Obviously Lent isn't about not eating meat on Fridays, but it IS about taking an intentional look at our relationships with God. See, I don't just forget not to eat meat on Fridays, I often forget that I am a follower of Christ.

I didn't eat the meat because I was feeling defiant and I don't sin out of defiance either. I ate the meat (and I sin) out of carelessness and inattention. And because my relationship with Christ is not first-and-foremost in my attention I frequently make choices that I would not make if I first asked myself, "Is this something a Christian should say… do… eat?" In many ways the defiant sinner is holier than I am because at least they are thinking about God when they choose to sin… I'm just not thinking about God at all.

But eating the meat was kind of an abstract lesson for me… one that God made VERY FREAKING CONCRETE like five hours later.

So when I had my "driving epiphany" I was driving to a retreat for Youth and Young Adult Ministers in the Archdiocese of Detroit. During the night prayer service they mentioned that the Sacrament of Reconciliation would be available to us and I wanted to go.

(A brief aside on my Sacrament of Reconciliation habits. I don't receive this Sacrament anywhere near as often as I need to, but I always go when it is offered, and in my line of work that is sometimes frequently.)

Now when I go to Confession I always have to go to go first. This is because I am an extremely impatient person and this ugly side of me seems to come out most noticeably in the Confessional line. This night was no different. I flew through my examination of conscience and went into the confessional. I had pretty adequately examined myself but I hadn't thought about how long it had been since my last Confession, so when the priest asked me my wheels started spinning. I knew it had been recently so I just said "about six or seven weeks ago" and proceeded to confess my sins.

But that was a lie because my last confession was not, in fact, six or seven weeks ago… it was TWO weeks ago (when I had been on another retreat such as this one). This minor chronological snafu (like eating the meat on Friday) would not have been a huge deal EXCEPT that I pretty much confessed all of the same sins that I had confessed two weeks earlier. MEANING that I went to confession… confessed a bunch of sins… then committed most of those sins again over the course of the next two weeks… and wound up needing to ask forgiveness all over again.

Again, I don't sin defiantly, I sin because of carelessness and inattention. Further proof that I need to make my relationship with God a more constant focus of my attention. These two experiences (eating meat and going to confession) probably had to both happen on one day because I would have missed their significance otherwise. I probably miss so much more on a daily basis.

So yeah, you can't "win" Lent… but we are supposed to reflect on our own sinfulness and upon God's mercy. The mercy part of all of this is that God is the furthest thing from careless and inattentive and that He continues to teach us, inspire us, humble us… no matter how often we sin (or eat meat on Fridays during Lent).

Why I defend Justin Bieber (and you should too)

November 2013

I am sitting in a breakout session of high school students during our Parish's Whole Community Catechesis event. The story we are focusing on is Ruth and Naomi and the topic is commitment to discipleship. Our extremely skilled catechist poses the question "Can you think of people in today's world that are committed to building the Kingdom of God?"

A freshman girl raises her hand, "Justin Bieber" she responds.

"Can you explain?" the Catechist asks.

"Well he visits kids in the hospital a lot." She replies.

An older girl in the room is troubled by this exchange and shouts out, "Are you kidding me?! He does drugs, mistreats his fans, and was even caught with a prostitute last week. He is a jerk and not a good example to anyone." Many other kids erupt with their own "Bieber bashing" before the Catechist calls the room back to attention.

The conversation moves on-- with somewhat more worthy examples of Kingdom building being named by the participants.

A week later…

I didn't think much about these Bieber comments until I received a Facebook message from the girl who had originally brought up Justin Bieber… and she was ANGRY. The message (in summary) said this…

"I am really mad about what people said about Justin Bieber! I didn't mean to say that he was perfect, but he DOES do good things! But I am EVEN MORE UPSET AT YOU! How could you not say anything when people were being mean to him? He is only 19 years old!!! Isn't it your job to love teenagers and support them? None of us is perfect, every one of us has problems. If God has given up on Justin then He has given up on all of us! You should seriously consider sticking your neck out to support young people like Justin when they are being put down at your church!"

Let that sink in for a minute…

Now this girl wasn't just angry… she was RIGHTEOUSLY angry. And she had a really good point. If any "real" kid in my Church did the things that Justin Bieber has done in his life (and some of them have), I would NEVER have allowed anyone to speak that way about them!

Last week…

Now I am standing in a prayer circle with a group of teen girls who are unrelated to the story above from November. It comes time to share our own prayer intentions and one of the girls says "I want to pray for Justin Bieber, may God help him to sort out all of the confusing influences in his life, and give him the courage to face his addictions and accept love from the people who truly have his best interests in mind."

Let that sink in for a minute…

Teens who "get" the Gospel apply the Gospel to Justin Bieber-- how can I not call that the Spirit of God at work in the World?

I'll admit that Justin Bieber really annoys me. My first reaction to seeing his goofy smirking mug shot is to dislike him. But guess what! Many people's first reaction to seeing me is to not like me either-- and I take solace every day in the knowledge that I am Beloved of my Father in Heaven.

I don't like what Justin Bieber does. I disapprove of drugs, prostitutes, drag racing, and bad music. And I still say all of those things frequently. But when saying all of those things I now also say that Justin Beiber is Beloved of our Father in Heaven. Of THAT-- I am a belieber!