HE DESCENDED  INTO  HELL

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 26 Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, is, “He Descended Into Hell.”

A PHONE CALL

Someone recently called the rectory. I was on duty and they asked, “What does it mean in the Apostles Creed when it says about Jesus, “He descended into hell.”

I gave the Caller the Catechism answer that it means that Jesus after he died - descended into the place of the dead - the state of the dead - the abode of the dead - the below, the under the earth, Sheol in Hebrew, Hades in Greek, Hell in English for some -  and Jesus then proclaimed to those there - who longed for God - longed for a, or the, Redeemer, the Good News of Salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church words it carefully this way -“to free the just who went before him.” [page 164]  Basically it’s saying that Christ went to the dead who had lead a good life and died before him - and lead them to paradise.

I don’t know whether that answer satisfied that Caller. Probably not.

In the Nicene Creed it doesn’t say that he descended into hell. It says, “He suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day.”

We’ve been saying the Nicene Creed at Sunday Masses most of our lives - so lately - I’ve been saying the Apostles Creed - page 10 in our Missalette. The changes in the Liturgy of 2 years ago  said we can do that. The Apostles Creed is the one we begin the rosary with.

If we say the Nicene creed we hear the complaint that they used the word “consubstantial” as the new English replacement for the words we were used to saying,  “one in being with the Father.”

“One in being with the Father” - “consubstantial” - as if we could understand or grasp the Trinity. “Hell” or “was buried” - as if we grasped the mystery of Salvation, Redemption, and what happens to us after we die.

So whatever we use - the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed  in the Sunday Liturgy,  people wonder about the words we use - and the words we say.

If that is true, that’s good. If that’s true,  then what’s your take on today’s gospel - this powerful story about a Rich Man and a Poor Man - and what happens to them after they die?  One descended - one ascended.

THE GREAT DIVIDE - ABRAHAM’S BOSOM AS OPPOSED TO  THE NETHERWORLD OR UNDERWORLD OR BURIAL GROUNDS

Today’s gospel talks about the great divide after death.

I don’t know about you, but it scares, I hope, the hell out of me.

Jesus, here in Luke, tells us the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Meow, meow! Woof. Woof. In this life the Rich Man is a fat cat - “Meow. Meow!” and the Poor Man has dogs “Woof. Woof!” coming to lick his sores - while like a dog he longs for scraps that fall from the Rich Man’s table.

In the next life, tables are reversed. The Rich Man sees Lazarus - now he knows his name - in the bosom of Abraham - the dream of every Jew. The Rich Man screams out in torment, “Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.”

Father Abraham tells the Rich Man, “Sorry! You had it good when you were on earth and Lazarus had it bad. Sorry! Now there’s this great divide - this great chasm - and you can’t switch sides.”

I see hope for the Rich Man in the next part of the parable. He thinks about others - his 5 brothers - and asks Father Abraham to send Lazarus to warn them about not ending up like me.”

And Abraham says, “Sorry.”  “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them!”

And the Rich Man - perhaps realizing he himself didn’t listen to the prophets  - but maybe his brothers would listen to someone who came back from the dead.

And Abraham replies with the harsh conclusion to today’s gospel, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”

LUKE’S CHURCH AND OUR CHURCH

If there is one thing I learned from the New Testament it’s this: Luke’s Church and Paul’s Churches aren’t that different from our churches.

Down through the years, what happened in the Christian communities in Antioch and Corinth, Thessalonica and Ephesus, also happen in Annapolis and Indianapolis, Rome, New York and Rome, Italy.

People are people. There are millions and millions of Bibles with the Prophet’s warnings in them - in hotel rooms and bedrooms and living room book shelves around the world. And people around the world in churches this Sunday heard the prophet Amos talking about people just like the Rich Man and the Poor Man in today’s gospel. Who listens?  And Jesus rose from the dead. Is anyone listening to him - the One who came back from the dead?

Will anyone who goes to church this weekend change as a result of the readings for this Sunday?  The readings we heard are being spoken not only in Catholic Churches - but many Protestant Churches as well.

The Pope and his new Super 8 Group of Cardinals - the “Ad Hoc Group” - will be meeting in Rome this week to take a look at and discuss our Church. Will anyone mention this Sunday’s readings - as a call to our church to make sure we’re not in the same position as the Rich Man - and there is this gigantic chasm between us and so many people in our world?

The title of my homily is: “He Descended Into Hell.”

HELL - HERE AND NOW

What’s your take on that part of the Apostles Creed?

What’s your take on today’s first reading from Amos about Fat Cats eating lambs and partying and listening to music while others starve and are gypped - as well as your take on today’s gospel about the Rich Man and Lazarus?

Using today’s gospel,  what scares me is not only the after death scare of what’s going to happen, but the here and now of hell in our midst.  Why wait till eternity to be scared?

I see the Gospel of Luke as one very scary gospel - and if we ate it - chewed on it - we would find some of it very hard to accept and digest.  Luke is the gospel for this year - Cycle C. It’s the gospel of the poor - and for the poor - and we all know that’s a button pusher.

I live in a very comfortable house on Duke of Gloucester Street in downtown Annapolis - over looking Spa Creek. We have plenty of food. Last Monday night and last Wednesday afternoon the rectory corridor was crowded with the poor at our door - and I want to publically say I’m moved by those men and women in our parish who work listening, screening, and trying to help the poor of Annapolis. I want to thank everyone who gives to the poor box - serve at the Light House - and help big time with the Thanksgiving and Christmas meals - for which lots and lots and lots of folks were signing up for at St. Mary’s this past week. The economy is not doing well for lots of folks - so thank you for your sacrifices and your generosity.

IN THE MEANWHILE

In the meanwhile - today’s gospel triggers for me - the reality that hell is also now. There are great chasms separating people from people. I’ve never been to India - where they still have the Caste System - but I’m reading that its walls between people are slowly crumbling.

The United States is still seen by many as “The Great Melting Pot.”  I lived in New York City - and saw what that meant  - especially on the Subway. I’ve been to Toronto - and saw the blending of people and colors - even more. Hang around till 2213 - and you’ll see surprise.

I see Jesus as the one who knocked on doors and tried to knock down walls that separate people from people.

But why not look right into our everyday lives right now! Are we living in heaven or hell?  Do we ascend into heaven every day or descend into hell every day?

There are people in our lives - right in our own families - right at our own desk or doorstep - maybe in our own bed - whom we ignore - don’t see - and don’t want to see. The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus can be happening at our doorstep or gate each day.

Haven’t we experienced descending into hell. Haven’t we experienced being ignored or not noticed. Haven’t we all started to say something - and another cuts us off - as if we don’t exist - and it feels like hell? Aren’t their old people in nursing homes - and children in our homes and our schools and our playgrounds - who long for scraps of affection that fall from our tables? Aren’t there people in our lives whose opinion we never ask - or we just assume they are dumb - and unimportant?

I’ll be dead before the Catholic Church finally sees today’s parable also applies to the people in our parishes - to all our women - to the unnoticed - to those who have dropped out of coming to church - for various reasons - one of which they feel unnoticed and unheard or they are hurting - or feel we have divorced them and not allowed them to eat at our table.

I don’t know about you - but I know I label people - put people in boxes - thinking they have no clue of what I know. I’m the rich one - the smart one. They are the poor slobs - the dumb ones.  

CONCLUSION

So when I hear the phrase, “He descended into hell” - I think of myself and all people who descend into hell each day - and I thank God the Father for sending Jesus who descended into my hell to reach out for me - and challenge me - and love me into wanting to rise from my deadness - and hell and ascend into heaven each day - and be with all the people I don’t seem to noticed - each modern Lazarus. Amen.  

HEAVEN! 

THE BOTTOM LINE

Quote for Today - September 29, 2013

"The bottom line is in heaven."

Edwin Herbert Land, Shareholders' Meeting, Polaroid Corporation, April 26, 1979

I - THOU, O GOD! 

OR 

I - IT, O GOD!

Quote for Today - September 28, 2013

"One of the silliest of all discussions is the question whether God is personal - it would be more useful to inquire whether ice is frozen."

Austin Farrer, Saving Belief, Hodder and Stoughton 1964

Comments: 

How do you take the quote above and where does it take you?

If you haven't read Martin Buber's book, I And Thou, yet, get thee to a book store or the library.  [I and Thou, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York,1958.] In my copy of Buber's book, I wrote the following just inside the front cover, "Martin Buber's doctrine may perhaps be summarized in this sentence: 'I-thou can only be uttered with the whole of our being; I-it can never be uttered with the whole of our being.'"  from Sven Stolpe, Dag Hammarskjold, A Spiritual Portrait, (New York: Scribner's, 1966) p, 44

CAN'T KNOW IT ALL

Quote for Today - September 27, 2013

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."

Howard Phillips Lovecraft [1890-1937], The Call of Cthulhu [1928], chapter 1

BACH AGAIN

Quote for Today - September 26, 2013

"Behind the glimmering cheerfulness of Bach there hangs a black thread."

Mary Oliver, page 88, in Long Life, Essays and Other Writings, Da Capo Press, 2004

DUST

[The following is  a  poetic type reflection on a word - “Dust” - from today’s gospel - Luke 9:1-6 - for this 25^th Tuesday in Ordinary Time.]

 I am always moved by the Ash Wednesday words, “Remember you are dust and into dust you shall return.” [1]

I am moved by T. S. Eliot’s  words, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” Those words are worth pondering. It’s in his long 1922 poetic piece called, The Waste Land. [2]

I think about the words in today’s gospel - Luke 9: 1-6 -  “Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”

I love it that people - when they are going to have guests - they dust their  house….

I’ve lived in many places - and in many states - and I’ve often wondered why there seems to be much more dust in some places - some rooms - than in other.

I like reading the poetry of Mary Oliver - who seems to be very, very, very interested in little things - well not as tiny as specks of dust - but almost as tiny. Reading her poems I can picture her stopping to see everything along her way - to hear every bird within earshot - to name them - to spot the ugly face of a snapping turtle - or to see

           “in the deep water

            the eye of a trout

            under a shelf of stone

            not moving.” [3]

Her friends tell her she has to see Yosemite and The Bay of Fundy and The Brooks Range - and she smiles and says, “Oh yes - sometime.” I laughed at that because I’m going to see the Bay of Fundy in 2 weeks. [4] In the meanwhile she keeps taking her little walks around her neighborhood and close by woods and water and inlets - and she lets in all the tiny gifts of creation around her.

Then at the end of a poem entitled, “By The Wild-Haired Corn” she writes,

           “I grow soft in my speech

            and soft in my thoughts,

            and I remember how everything 
            will be everything else,

            by and by.” [5]

Is there only so much stuff - so much skin - so much tissue - so much earth - so much dust - and it all makes up this world of ours - and does star dust slowly fall onto our planet and make us more?

I don’t believe in re-incarnation - but I do believe the corn we eat or the calf’s liver - is made up of earth - plants - that grew tall because it took in nutrients from the soil - growing onwards and upwards - becoming corn - or plant that a calf munched  - corn or pods or what have you - and then it too goes through a process of life and death - like us.

Remember you are dust and into dust you shall return.

And just as dust settles slowly and silently - in the night and in the day - sometimes we can see lots of dust floating in our living room - when the blinds are a certain way - and the light is coming into the room  a certain way - and it’s dust, dust everywhere - moving without air traffic controllers.

Poets like Mary Oliver and Isaiah and Jesus help us see we’re all coming and going.

And in the gospel for today - Jesus sort of says - there’s good dust and bad dust.

The good dust is the great visits - great meals - great times  - in various places - that have settled down on our soul - the memories that we have eaten - and experienced - hopefully on a day like today -As Tennyson says in his poem, Ulysses, “I am part of all that I have met.”

We are part of all we have me - we are our good times and our bad, our sickness and our health. We are what we have eaten. If I eat up good books, good music, good God, good food, good people around the table, they become us. We become our family, our spouse, our neighbors and our friends. We begin to sound like each other - taking on a Boston or a South Carolina accent without even knowing it. We can finish each other’s sentences as they say.

We are also the bad vibes - the bad conversations - the poison venting that can ruin a meal or a meeting or a moment. 

That’s the bad dust - that can settle on us - and Jesus says, “Shake that dust off your feet,” and get moving.

And we know how much a bad word - bad news - BadSpell - as opposed to Gospel - good news - can settle down on our brain - our memory. We can still get agita or indigestion from  a nasty comment a sister made at us in 1977. It still sits there in our craw like dust in the crevice of a piece of wooden furniture that we just can seem to dust away. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Jesus! It would be nice if we could simply shake that  anger from our throat - that dust from that house, that town, that experience - that rejected us -  and move onto better towns and better tables.

Right now in our church we are celebrating the good news coming out of the mouth of Pope Francis. Some of his sounds are resounding like church bells calling people home. I’ve heard about 5 times now - someone telling me about a neighbor or a son or a daughter - who said, “Hey, with this new pope, maybe I’ll take another look at the Catholic church.”  

After years of bad news about abuse by priests on the little ones - after years of bad news about bishops and popes, “Why didn’t they do something better about all this?” - after hearing over and over again stuff on abortion, gays, politicians, from the pulpit and the diocesan Catholic papers - people are hearing a new sound - Gospel Sounds - about less pomp and more circumstances with the poor, less meetings on how to meet people and more actual meetings with  live  people - that we work up a sweat - even smell like a sheep - in other words - to come up with less shrill sounds and more sweet sounds of “Welcome!” [6]

In the meanwhile, let’s have less worry about the dust and more with the readjust in our life for more laughter, love and joy.

In the meanwhile, let’s enjoy the time we have left  - instead of fearing the time we have left. Once more, as T. S. Eliot put it, “I’ll show you fear in a handful of dust.”  Instead let’s show our world handfuls of faith and hope and love -  as well as handfuls of laughter - even though our skin is flaking - we're losing our hair and we're losing height - and time. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From Genesis 2:7 - and used in the Ash Wednesday Liturgy

[2] T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, New York, Horace Liveright, 1922

[3] Mary Oliver, Long Life, Essays and Other Writings, Da Capo Press, 2005, page 100.

[4] Idem, page 91.

[5] Idem. page 95.

[6] Pope Francis recently said: "We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible.''

"The teaching of the Church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the Church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.''

I remember sitting at a meeting when a priest speaker said to those present, “Tell your priests that they must say something in every homily about abortion.” In the Question and Answer period after his talk I waited a while and stood up and said: “This is a statement - not a question - ‘I disagree with your comment about telling people to tell their priests that they should say something about abortion in every homily.’”  Silence!  Then he said to his credit, “Well you’re entitled to your opinion.”  And I said, “Thank you.” Silence - for a while.

REALITY

Quote for Today - September 25, 2013

"Human kind cannot bear very much reality."

T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral [1935]  This comment is also found in Four Quartets, Burnt Norton, pt. 1