A recent survey young people in the United States said that the majority of them don’t expect to have lives better than their parents.  A recent discussion with friends led to a disturbing conversation about the state of the world, and the fears of over population and famines, a belief that our society is in decay, that governments should make the choices for us - who is educated, who is not, which people receive aid, which do not.  Conversely, we have a string of world leaders - who seem devoid of ideas, who are long on rhetoric, and short on action.

There is a lack of hope.

The world needs people willing to stand up, and challenge.  The world needs people stout of heart.  The world needs people with faith.

The world will try to knock them down, the world will mock, will make fun of, will point out the trials and tribulations as reasons why we should let the decay happen, why we should retreat.

But that isn’t new.

For people of faith, people of hope, laughter and derision are common place.  They look for the spark in the darkness.

But the spark still burns.

Jeremiah spoke of it - “The word of the Lord has brought me derision and reproach all day.”  But yet, he can’t hide from it, “I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more.  But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.”

Paul speaks of it to - of not conforming, of not giving in to those who speak fear, “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Hope, and love, bred hardship and pain.

The greatest sacrifice was that of our Lord who gave his only Son for us.  He suffered, died, and was buried, but was raised up to save us.  The suffering was necessary.  Out of the horrors of death came the spring of hope that welled up to the very reaches of heaven.

Before he died, Jesus, like Paul, gave us a challenge, a challenge to discern, but once that discernment is done, to act.  As Jesus said in the Gospel of Mathew, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life, will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

In our everyday lives, we are called to live lives extraordinary.  I vividly remember the day that my father, a man who didn’t cook and hadn’t done laundry in years, brought home my mother from the hospital, even when the doctor recommended a nursing home.

“I promised for better or for worse….this is just the worse part…”  Was his response.  As painful as it was for Dad, and for the family, the blessings, the hope that sprang from that love called for nothing less.

In the material, worldly way, it was foolishness.  It was hard.  It was painful.  At the heart of the matter…was love.

In a world losing hope, each of us is called.  Each of us must discern, and hear the call.  Each of us must act.  Each of us must bear our cross. Each of us must be a beacon of hope, faith, and love.

 Discernment is a word that we don’t use often enough today.  By simple definition, it means to judge wisely. In the colloquial sense, it means to find the right course, to find the path for one’s life.  The church encourages us to discern on religious vocations.

The rest of society, the rest of life, tells us to move along to get along. Chase the money, the big house, the power and prestige.

Now I’m not judging that life, or that choice, but we have to ask where are we heading, and though we may get those things - will it really make us happy?  We may not judge wisely.

Solomon discerned very well.  When approached by God and given the chance to have anything he might want as a young king with a very famous father - riches, power, long life - the choices were all before him, and yet - young Solomon asked for nothing but wisdom to chose good over evil and rule his people wisely.

That is good judgement.

How hard it is among the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, among the shouts of men and women, the advertising on television and radio, the massive information on the internet, and pressure from family and friends to truly listen to what we are called - by God - to be and to do.  How many of us hear what we ought to hear in the quiet of the night when God calls to us?  How often is it more like a slap in the face when we refuse to see and hear the path he has given us?

When it comes down to it, our faith is an active one.  We are not meant to be armchair saints.  We are meant to get down into the world and get our hands dirty.  Sometimes that can mean great pain - personal, physical, mental, spiritual pain.

But it is like the story of the man who found the treasure in the field.  He knew it was there - so he sold all he had to buy the field.  How much are we willing to give up?  How much are we willing to sacrifice if we are called to some life’s work?

The world shouts to us: Conform!  Conform!  Our senses are dulled.  Our perception is narrowed.  Our ability to discern is constricted by the smallness of the mind.

But is the mind working with the heart and the spirit through prayer, reading, and reflection where we will hear the word.  St. Paul tells, us, “We are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose, and turns everything to their good.”

Like Solomon, I pray that we can hear it, and then - as difficult as the path is - to follow it.

Growing up on the farm, we learned pretty quick what a week was.  If it was in the garden, it was our job to get it out.  If it was in the pasture and the cows wouldn’t eat it, we had to cut it down.  If it was in the field, we had to spray it.It seemed like there was a pretty clear line between what was a weed and what wasn’t.

In our crop and weed science class at university, we learned the more practical definition of a weed - it was anything that grew where it wasn’t suppose too.  That meant that a corn plant might be fine - but not in the middle of a wheat field.  Or barley was fine, but not in the oats.

Weeds were not that straight forward.  Nor is the parable of the wheat and the weed seed.

It would be fine if we could divide the world into good people and bad people - the wheat and the weed, in truth, it isn’t that easy.

Each of us has a capacity for a tremendous amount of good.  Each of us have the potential, like the mustard seed, to grow big in our faith, to become bigger then we are - to use all of the potential we have - to become objects of good, to leaven the world with good works and mighty deeds.

But each of us has the capacity for a tremendous amount of evil. Each of us can be cruel.  Each of us can think small thoughts and kill the dreams of the dreamers, to think small thoughts, to be petty.  To be weak, not as the world knows weakness, but as the Lord sees it.

But we are not alone.  We are not the farmer in the story, that is the work for God.  And we should only have faith, as St. Paul tells us:  ”The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words; he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit means because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God’s holy people are always in accordance with the mind of God.”

Or as Psalms prays: “Lord, God of tenderness and mercy, slow to anger, rich in faithful love and loyalty, turn to me and pity me. Give to your servant your strength, to the child of your servant your saving help.”

In the end, the choice to be wheat, or to be the weed is ours.  We can chose by our daily actions if we wish to be planted where we are wanted, or to be the weed - spoiling the crop, sprouting discontent, fear, and sin.

It is often not the easy decision - usually, it is far easier to be the weed.  But if we fear we are too weak, we only have to call on master hand of the farmer to kindly and gently give us the strength we need.

 Growing up on a farm, there were some things that just had to be done.  The cows had to be fed and milked.  The young stock had to be cared for.  The manure had to be cleaned out of the barn.  The fields had to be tilled.  Seed had to be put in the ground.  The crop had to be harvested and stored.

Each of them had their time and season.  Each of them needed to be done right for the proper impact to be had.

The Bible loves farming parables (maybe that is because farmers are usually pretty stubborn people…you can always tell a farmer, you can just never tell him much…)

In Isaiah, we hear “As the rain and the snow come down from the sky and do not return before having watered the earth, fertilising it and making it germinate to provide seed for the sower and food to eat, so it is with the word that goes from my mouth: it will not return to me unfulfilled or before having carried out my good pleasure and having achieved what it was sent to do.”

In Psalms, “You water its furrows abundantly, level its ridges, soften it with showers and bless its shoots. You crown the year with your generosity, richness seeps from your tracks, the pastures of the desert grow moist, the hillsides are wrapped in joy, the meadows are covered with flocks, the valleys clothed with wheat; they shout and sing for joy.”

And in the Gospel of Matthew: “He said, ‘Listen, a sower went out to sow.  As he sowed, some seeds fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate them up.  Others fell on patches of rock where they found little soil and sprang up at once, because there was no depth of earth; but as soon as the sun came up they were scorched and, not having any roots, they withered away. Others fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Others fell on rich soil and produced their crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Anyone who has ears should listen!’ ”

There is nothing like a good farming parable.  The interesting thing is that all of these are written as what Jesus is doing for us.  Even in the parable, it talks about the hearts where the word is sown and how they react.

But farming is all about action, even if we count on God to water the landscape, we still need to do some of the work.

And in the Gospel story, that is true as well….

God might plant the seed, but it is our job, our sacred duty, to make sure that the field of our hearts are ready for the planting.  We must protect the seed along the path, and ensure that it isn’t carried off - in farmers parlance, we should rake the soil to cover and protect it.  The rocks in the field of our heart should be picked clean, and dug out if needed.  Weeds and thorns should never be allowed in a farmer’s field.

Each field on every farm is different, each requires its own special care.  Some are sandy soils, some are filled with peat, some are high in clay.  Some need more fertilizer, some less.  Some need better drainage, or more weed control.

A good farmer takes care of his field.

Our hearts too require regular upkeep.  They grow hard overtime and must be loosened with the hard tillage of forgiveness, prayer, and understanding.  Sometimes we lack the fertility in our hearts to allow the seed to grow - that can be increased with alms, service to one another, and regular prayer.  Rocks need to be picked out of our field of the heart - that takes reflection and contemplation.

Being involved in farming and agriculture my whole life, I can tell you that this is the toughest field to care for….but there isn’t a crop more valuable….

 I like it when the practical and the spiritual come together.  Today is one of those days.

There has been a country song, sung by Brandon Rhyder that has been stuck in my head for the last week or so, a week of a couple of twelve hour days.  The song is called “Battery,” and it talks about going back to where you came from, to refresh, and recharge.

I feel like I need that.

As much as I enjoy the travels that work has taken me on, as much as I enjoy Australia and all of the friends that I’ve made, my energy is wearing thin.  I know I need some time at home.

Theodore Roosevelt, one of my favorite presidents, would know what I was talking about.  He travelled the world, he waged wars, started cattle ranches, and took the political world by storm.

But Theodore, like me, knew what was needed to recharge the batteries.  He would routinely retreat to his home on Long Island, Oyster Bay, to recharge and refresh.  When even that wasn’t enough, he would quit all that he was doing and disappear into the wilds somewhere.  The Maine Wilderness, Colorado, California, Africa, or the Amazon Basin - none were out of reach, and all did their purpose.

Even Teddy Roosevelt, the man that cracked the robber barons, the man that let loose the Great White Fleet, the man who negotiated treaties with the Russians and Japanese that sealed his Nobel Peace Prize, the man who seemed to have no end to energy - needed a recharge every now and then.

He knew it.

As Christians too, we need to recharge the batteries.  We need to know from where our strength lies, and we need to be humble about who we are.

Even Jesus was humble - The King of Kings, riding victorious on a donkey.  God either has a very good sense of humor, or a very good understanding of the human phycology…or both.

At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland, the priest put the explanation very simply to the children today - he suggested that we think of an oxen, plowing in a field.  We are that oxen, but next to us, carrying that load is our Lord.  There is never a load that we can’t handle.  Never a cross that we can’t bear.  As long as we don’t try pulling by ourselves.

Our Lord is there, pulling it right along with us.

The Spirit calls us to our mission, the Spirit calls us to where we need to go, what we need to do, and as great as that challenge may be, raising a family, being a priest, watching a loved one die, leading a community, standing against that same community when it choses a wrong path - as difficult, as challenging a path - we will not be a lone. 

Jesus says, ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.  Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’

We might still need to recharge those batteries, but our job, our effort is not our own - we move on, but for the grace of God.

 Cyril was thirty-three years of age, when said that enough was enough.  He had left home, served the US Army in Korea, came back to the US, lived and worked in and around the cities, went to school on the GI Bill, but decided that he had enough.

He was going home.

When I heard the words from Deuteronomy, I couldn’t help but think of my friend Cyril, “Remember the long road by which God led you for forty years in the desert, to humble you, to test you, and know your inmost heart - whether you would keep his commandments or not.  He humbled you.  He made you feel hunger….”

I’m sure as Cyril negotiated the twists and turns of life - war, work, society, family, and the hosts of daily trials, he was sometimes afraid, sometimes confused, sometimes angry.

Finally, one day, he had enough.  It was time to go home.  His time of wondering in the desert would come to an end and he would come home and live out his days as a bachelor farmer on the plains of northern Minnesota.

I’m not sure if it was a call from his heart, or a call from some higher authority, or some frustrations that finally broke the camel’s back that told him - it was time to go.

I do know that through all this, Cyril never lost faith.  He continued going to church, he continued to believe the words that Jesus promises in John’s Gospel, “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, for the life of the world….Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in Me and I live in that person.”

He knew, that even as he turned his life away from what the world said should be his future, life and work in the city, he knew that he would not go alone.  Through the Eucharist and through faith, he was part of the body of Christ, and no eye can see the glories that wait.

And Cyril didn’t have to wait long…

At his going away party in the cities, they made him next to a girl ten years younger.  And though she was pretty, she was from the cities - a different world and a different generation.

Then his so called friends ignored them both all night…forcing them to talk to one another.

Two years later, the bachelor farmer that shunned the civilized world to while away his life back on the farm from whence he came was married to that lovely young girl.  They would proceed to have not one, not two, not three, not four, but five healthy, happy children.

Each week, they would go as a family to church.  Each of their children raised in the same faith.  Each child taking Holy Communion, becoming one branch, one of many, in that same body of Christ.

For Cyril, this wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning.

And for me too, it was a beginning of sorts…for Cyril, well, Cyril isn’t his full name - it is only his middle name - Robert Cyril, would go on to marry Mary Margaret - and their fourth child, their fourth son, would be me.

My apology to Paul Harvey…but in some ways, there might be a fitting rest of the story that fits for all of us:

“Do not then forget Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the place of slave-labor, who guided you through this vast and dreadful desert, a land of fiery snakes, scorpions, thirst; who in this waterless place brought you water out of the flinty rock; who in this desert fed you with manna unknown to your ancestors, to humble you and test you and so make your future the happier.”

 It has been some time since I’ve posted a reflection on this page.  There are excuses of course - going home for Easter, busy at work, busy seeing the countryside.

The truth is, I’ve thought about it, but sometimes, no words came.  Or I didn’t take the time to think about them like I should.  Part of it is the daily toil and struggle.  Trying to make the time, take the time, when all else seems lost.  When discouragement seems to be the thought of the day.

But there was a line from Exodus today, a line that Moses addressed to the Lord that I found particularly helpful, “If indeed I do enjoy your favour, please, my Lord, come with us, although they are an obstinate people; and forgive our faults and sins, and adopt us as your heritage.”

I am an obstinate person.  Stubborn.  Filled with faults and sins.  I where them, I suffer with them daily.

And we, I became his heritage.  Though I’m not Jewish, I became his heritage through his son, Jesus, that he sent to earth, but more than His heritage through His Son, we also have the gift of the Holy Spirit, which descended amongst those first believers as ‘tongues of flame’ at Pentecost.  The gift of the Lord, living here on earth with us, among us, and in us.

St. Patrick supposedly explained the relationship of the three as a three leaf clover - the three parts as a part of a whole.

But perhaps the best story I’ve heard was a tale of St. Augustine, who was pondering the mystery of the Holy Trinity while walking along the seashore.  He found a small child, digging a hole, and with a small cup, was walking back and forth to the ocean, taking a small cup of water out of the ocean, and back to his small hole.

“What are you doing?” St. Augustine asked after watching for a while.

“Emptying the ocean into my hole.”  The child said matter of factly.

Laughing, St. Augustine replied, “How do you expect to fit that mighty ocean into your little hole?”

The child looked intently at St. Augustine and said, “How do you expect to fit the mighty mystery of the Trinity into your little mind?”

And the child vanished.

I’m a thinking man of reason, in a sometimes irrational world.  But my mind wouldn’t compare to Augustine’s and so the mystery remains.

St. Paul perhaps says it best, not trying to understand, but to call out our needs, even today, and the help of the Trinity, “To end then, brothers, we wish you joy; try to grow perfect; encourage one another; have a common mind and live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you…..The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

In truth, the discouragement continues.  The daily battles continue on.  The life on the treadmill continues…but the end is there - joy, perfection, peace - and the need to encourage one another - with the gifts of grace, love, and fellowship from our Father.

 I grew up in a pretty black and white world.  Things were good or bad.  People did their best.  You hoped for rain for the crops, not a lot of mud on the cows, and a girl to go to the movies with on Saturday night.  People treated each other with respect, education was the way forward, and neighbors where there to help you out.

Maybe that’s why I struggle with Palm Sunday.  Don’t get me wrong, I like it, I enjoy it, and I’ve read the story.  I know what the week brings, both in the form of worship, as well as the story.  I struggle with the paradox.

Here is Jesus, the King of kings, making his triumphant entrance into the seat of the Temple of the Living God - Jerusalem.  He is met on this journey into the city by thousands of people, meeting him with shouts of joy and singing.  They spread out palm branches in His path.

By the end of the week, this cheering crowd would abandon Him, or worse, would turn on Him.  The triumphant entrance into the city would fall into the horrific exit only five days later as He left the city a condemned man.

Here is a man going through the heights of glory, being cheered on by the masses, and yet four days later he would be going through the Agony of the Garden, sweating blood due to the pain and the guilt.

Here is God, Creator, come to earth and crucified.

The week is about paradox.

But in a larger sense, the week is about us, it is about human frailties, it is about the paradox of our human existence.  The idyllic community that grew up in wasn’t so idyllic.  There was pain, and loneliness, and loss, and betrayal.

The thousands that met Him on his way into Jerusalem cheering were the same ones cheering for his crucifixion only five days later.  Most wished Him to be something He wasn’t; an earthly king, a political leader, and first rate magician, and their idea of what the Messiah should be.

In the Agony of the Garden, was it His knowing what he was going to face during the next few days, or was it the weight of our sins - our sins - humanities sins - that hit Him.  The unbelievable guilt of uncountable of wrongs, generations of spiritual decay, the sins of the our small town, of our state, of our country, of our world, of our history and our future.  Our consciences suffer under the weight of one - how much pain, emotional and physical, must come from all.  It is amazing that the weight of it all didn’t kill Him there, which proves His divinity.

We have an advantage in that we know how the story ends.  With light and trembling earth, the sins of our fathers - and our children - are redeemed and the gates of heaven opened on Easter.  The triumphant entrance into Jerusalem must have been a pittance compared to what greeted Him as He lead, and continues to lead, that triumphant procession into the New Jerusalem.

 Jesus mourned his friend Lazarus.  Jesus cried at his tomb.  Jesus, though God, had our humanity, and he wasn’t immune to the sting of separation, the sting of death - so Jesus wept for his friend and for those that mourned him.

But Jesus, as Lord, knew what would come next.  He knew that the stone would be rolled back, and with a prayer to His Father, He would call Lazarus out.  He would make Lazarus live again.  Though Lazarus was already four days in the tomb and decay had already began its work, He wiped away the dirt and decay, with a prayer for His friend and with a call to come out of the tomb, Jesus called Lazarus out.

Physical death is inevitable.  Even for Lazarus, it wasn’t a permanent called to immortality, but a once only call from the tomb.

But part of the call to Lazarus is more than a call from death, it was a call to live.  To make the most of what we have.  To build lives, families, and communities that bring happiness, strength and courage to our world.

We are called to live lives of goodness.  We are called to bring hope.  We are called to bring justice.  We are called to give words to the weary, words that will rouse them.

But this isn’t easy.  The natural place for us, as strange as it seems, is inside our own tombs.  We let our minds focus on the dirt and decay.  We get trapped inside the darkness of sin. Our bodies are corrupted by pettiness.  Our bodies, our minds, our souls, are laid low by addictions, by malice, by petty thoughts, by materialism, by apathy.  It is easy to live in the darkness.

We may not be dead in a physical sense, but we are far from alive.

Jesus calls us, every day, every hour, every minute, to come out, to live in the light.

But we aren’t called to do this by ourselves.  With Lazarus, Jesus commanded that those standing near by take off the burial cords from his hands and feet, to remove the shroud from his face.  To set Lazarus free.

Each of us is called to do this for one another.  We are called to help those with addictions, to forgive, to aid.  We are called to support those that fight loneliness and depression.  We are called support those that are sick.  We are called to forgive those that have wronged us.  We are called to loosen the bonds of pettiness.  We are called to open our eyes beyond conventional wisdom.

We are called to live.  To love, to laugh, to forgive, to serve, to hope, to pray, to sing, to live courageously, as the Spirit commands us.

“The surgery went well.  Leave these goggles on for the next twenty-four hours, than come back in for a check-up.”  The doctor said.After twenty years in glasses, I had surgery to have my vision laser corrected.  My eye sight had been bad. I couldn’t see things that were in front of my face without my glasses.  For the next twenty-four hours, I stayed in a hotel room, sleeping (thanks to some good pills that the doctor gave me) and then hopped on the van the next day.

Once the doctor took the goggles and the bandages off my eyes, they rinsed them with saline, checked my vision - it was 10-20 - and let me go.

Walking outside of that doctors office for the first time was an exhilarating experience.  I saw things for the very first time, without the scratched lenses of glasses, without the blurred edges where the glasses ended.  The very grass seemed greener.

But I think of all of the things that I’ve seen in the span of my life, how my eyes have been open by love and hate, by distance and time, by friends and family, by the experiences and the wonders, by prayer, and sin, and forgiveness.  The power of refreshed eye sight pales in comparison to vision that I’ve been granted.

When Samuel went looking for a king among Jesse’s son, he was certain he had found him, standing before, but God intoned to see, not as man sees, but God looks at the heart.

When Jesus cured the blind man on the Sabbath, he gave the man sight - the physical ability to see, but the wider story is the lack of vision, the lack of sight of the people around them.  Their vision was clouded by sin and doubt and selfishness.

They viewed Jesus’ actions as a sin because he performed the miracle on the Sabbath.  They viewed Jesus’ actions as against God - therefore, how could Jesus get the power to cure?

The people, the scribes and Pharisees lacked the vision to see beyond what they knew, to look with deeper meaning.

We are called to a deeper meaning as well.  As wonderful as it was to see once they took those goggles off for the very first time, to see the true color and texture of the grass and the blue of the waves, so it is awesome to see the love of family and friends.  To see clearer into our minds and our souls after confession, To see the world, and our own hearts, after the Eucharist.

It took me twenty years to see, to physically see - how long will my spiritual vision be blurred?  How long will my heart be blurred?  What must I do to see?

Perhaps Paul said it best:

“Try to discover what the Lord wants of you, take no part in the futile works of darkness but, on the contrary, show them up for what they are.  The things which are done in secret are shameful even to speak of; but anything shown up by the light will be illuminated and anything illuminated is itself a light. That is why it is said: Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

“I would like to beg you dear sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

                               - Rainer Maria Rilke’s 1903, Letter to a Young Poet