Matthew - The Park Forum

June 21, 2018June 19, 2018

Accepting Jesus

Scripture: Matthew 1.20
Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Reflection: Accepting Jesus
By John Tillman

Matthew’s wording is interesting. Mary is reported to literally “have in the womb” the Holy Spirit. We don’t know how this report reached Joseph. It could have come directly from Mary. But just as likely it did not.

Joseph had every natural inclination to think of the unnamed baby, Jesus, as an invader. His plans for an honorable and simple workman’s life were derailed and disrupted by his young wife’s impossible pregnancy.

But even before knowing that her unbelievable story was true, he elects to be kind—granting her mercy not common in that culture. This tells us as much about his character as any of the more grand and dangerous things he later does, under angelic direction, to protect the child.

Joseph, the man who needed no angelic intervention to be kind to an alleged adulteress, was the perfect earthly father for God’s son.

Beyond simple human jealousy or suspicion of adultery, Joseph overcame a spiritual reality that would have been difficult to accept culturally. God spoke to a woman.

In the Garden, the serpent spoke first to Eve and God spoke with finality to Adam. But now—God speaks to the woman first. Mary, standing in for her ancient parent, reverses the curse. And the mystery of the incarnation begins.

She takes within her body
The cure for the sickness of sin
She gives the maker of the Garden
Tiny feet to walk earth again.

From woman, formed of man
And formed of earth
God takes on flesh.
Though prophets are dumb
Profound cries of God
Are heard within the creche.

Her body returned to dust,
Like all who lived and died.
But that part she gave to him,
Is incorruptible! Eternal! Alive!

Adam and Eve were the first to reject God in the Garden. In the gospels, we see another couple, Mary and Joseph, being the first to accept God back into the world.

The Gospel starts with dreams and visions. God will walk with a couple again. And will join their family.

May we dream with God.
May we listen for his cries.
May we, poor family that we are, join the holy family in redemptively reversing the curse.

Prayer: A Reading
Jesus taught us, saying: “remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. — John 15.4

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 53 (Listen – 2:39)
Matthew 1 (Listen – 3:29)

Additional Reading
Read More about how Christmas is Upside Down
The Spirit that overshadowed Mary and grew Christ within her body, longs to birth Christ to the world through our actions. May we be the Lord’s servant as she was. May we manifest Christ.

Read More about Good News to the Poor
Christ’s incarnation is about granting access. For homeless shepherds. For despised Samaritans. For foreign immigrants and those of other faiths. The Annunciation, the Magnificat, and Christ’s Nazareth sermon all prominently focus on granting access to the poor and the outcast.

August 1, 2017August 10, 2025

Mistakes of the Past

Scripture: Matthew 23.30
And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Reflection: Mistakes of the Past
By John Tillman

After Japanese planes attacking Pearl Harbor roared over their church, three miles from the base, the Hirano family, like every other Hawaiian family, set about a new rhythm of life—building bomb shelters and helping their community. But then, due to their Japanese heritage, their experience diverged from the rest of America.

One day there was a knock on the door. I answered it and there stood two men with rifles. They asked me where my father was. I told them in the back yard. When he came in they told him to get his toothbrush and underwear and come with them. My father did as instructed, and that was the last we saw of him for the next four years. — Dr. David Hirano, from passage included in Stormy Road for This Pilgrim, by Nelson Hayashida

Temporal provincialism tells us to blame mistakes of the past on our grandparents, asserting that we’ve progressed so far as to never make such errors today. Christ rebuked the Pharisees for such attitudes (Matthew 23:29-32) and we must listen to his rebuke as well, resisting our tendency to judge ourselves more righteous than our forbears simply due to our having the benefit of hindsight.

Christian theology confesses that humanity and governments are flawed and Christians should be willing to confess rather than deny our part of the sins of both. We also should recognize that in the midst of these conflicts, there are Christians imperfectly living out their faith, following Christ.

Though little is written about it today, there were protests and opposition to internment, much of it from Christian leaders in the Pacific region. In Hirano’s account, the people who reached out to take care of his family in the midst of their injustice, were Christians. Historian Gerald Sittser notes that although churches failed to stop interment, they organized to meet the needs of the Japanese community.

Our situation is not so different today. Christians living out their faith will always be in tension with cultures, industries, and governments, as in today’s reading from Acts. Though Christians are called to be good citizens, we must remember Jesus never asked Peter (or by extension, the Church) to lead a country, he asked him to feed lambs. No matter the errors of current or past governments, feeding lambs and sheep—taking care of the vulnerable—is our path to influence in our culture.

A Reading
…It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognize you as my disciples…

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Judges 15 (Listen – 3:13)
Acts 19 (Listen – 5:47)

January 27, 2017January 27, 2017

The Sense of the Ineffable

We must go back to where we stand in awe before sheer being, facing the marvel of the moment.

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

Scripture: Genesis 28.12

And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!

Reflection: The Sense of the Ineffable
By Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

The world presents itself in two ways to me. The world as a thing I own, the world as a mystery I face. What I own is a trifle, what I face is sublime. I am careful not to waste what I own; I must learn not to miss what I face.

We manipulate what is available on the surface of the world; we must also stand in awe before the mystery of the world. All we have is a sense of awe and radical amazement in the face of a mystery that staggers our ability to sense it.

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference to everywhere to mystery beyond all things.

Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

Faith is not belief, an assent to a proposition; faith is attachment to transcendence, to the meaning beyond the mystery.

Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe. Awe precedes faith; it is the root of faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith.

Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish you ability to revere, and the universe becomes a marketplace for you.

*Abridged from Who Is Man? by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Prayer: The Refrain

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” — 2 Corinthians 4:6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phylis Tickle

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Genesis 28 (Listen – 3:17)
Matthew 27 (Listen – 8:45)

January 26, 2017February 18, 2019

Blessings in Modern Times

My grandmother blessed me for two reasons: because I was the oldest and because it was her way of saying good-bye forever.

― André Aciman

Scripture: Genesis 27.36

Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”

Reflection: Blessings in Modern Times
The Park Forum

On snowy mornings I would often catch a ride to high school with my best friend. As we exited his mother’s minivan in front of the school she would recite the Aaronic blessing over us. I remember feeling awkward that I was riding to school instead of walking and even more awkward that a priestly blessing had been recited over me just before 8am swimming.

These semi-frequent exchanges had faded from my memory, thankfully, along with most adolescent embarrassments, until I came across André Aciman’s account of being blessed by his grandmother inside a terminal at JFK:

My father asks the attendant for a few moments, then turns to his mother: “I want you to bless him,” he says, indicating me. This is a first. I had no idea that my father believes in religious practices, much less that he would ask her to bless me in public. But it is clear to me now that, without saying anything to me, the two of them know that we’ll never meet again.

She asks me to come closer and, in front of all the young people my age… she places her right hand on my head and begins to mutter a prayer in both Hebrew and Ladino. I wished she hadn’t done that.

I want it over and done with, but she is dragging out the prayer as if she means every word of it. I am so embarrassed. Everyone is staring at us. I roll my eyes, hoping they’ll notice. I even smile in an effort to scoff the whole thing away, to show I’m merely putting up with the old lady’s antics.

Embarrassment aside, I was struck by Aciman’s explanation of a blessing’s effect:

What grants blessings their peculiar power is that they are usually given by people who are either very old or on the point of dying—in other words people who are no longer tied to the things of this world and who already have a foot elsewhere.

I didn’t understand the Aaronic blessing until I had children of my own. It has become my heart’s cry for them. In a way, I have come to see blessings in much the same way as Aciman—though he is not religious—they are for those who “have a foot elsewhere” and have decided that nothing else they have to give is of value in comparison.

Prayer: The Request for Presence

For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him. — Psalm 62:6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phylis Tickle

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Genesis 27 (Listen – 6:27)
Matthew 26 (Listen – 10:01)

January 25, 2017January 25, 2017

The Sojourner’s Trust

Do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it.

― Annie Keary

Scripture: Genesis 26.3

Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.

Reflection: The Sojourner’s Trust
By Elisabeth Elliot

What do we really want in life? Sometimes I have the chance to ask this question of high school or college students. I am surprised at how few have a ready answer. Oh, they could come up with quite a long list of things, but is there one thing above all others that they desire?

“One thing have I asked of the Lord,” said David, “this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” To the rich young man who wanted eternal life Jesus said, “One thing you lack… go sell everything.” In the parable of the sower Jesus tells us that the seed which is choked by thorns has fallen into a heart clogged with the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.

The apostle Paul said, “One thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

A quiet heart is content with what God gives. It is enough. All is grace. Response is what matters. Remember that our forefathers were all guided by the pillar of cloud, all passed through the sea, all ate and drank the same spiritual food and drink, but God was not pleased with most of them.

Their response was all wrong. Bitter about the portions allowed they indulged in idolatry, gluttony, and sexual sin. The same almighty God apportioned their experiences. All events serve his will. Some responded in faith, most did not.

God came down and lived in this same world, as a man. He showed us how to live in this world, subject to its vicissitudes and necessities, that we might be changed—not into an angel or a storybook princess, not wafted into another world, but changed into saints in this world. The secret is Christ in me, not a different set of circumstances.

*Abridged from The Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter, March/April 1995.

Prayer: The Refrain

“How sweet are your words to my taste!* they are sweeter than honey to my mouth.” — Psalm 119:103

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phylis Tickle

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Reading
Genesis 26 (Listen – 4:31)
Matthew 25 (Listen – 6:04)