When Jesus sent out the seventy-two to proclaim the Kingdom of God, he gave them very specific instructions. He said, “Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you…Do not move from one house to another.  Cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’” (Luke 10:7-9)

These instructions provide an important message to all Christians who are trying to share their faith with others: Build relationships, serve people’s needs, and then share your faith and proclaim the kingdom of God.

How often have we tried to share our faith without first having established a relationship? Without the credibility of a relationship, without serving someone’s needs, our words about God and the life he offers through his Son and the Holy Spirit may ring hollow. 

After Jesus called Matthew, he dined and spent time with Matthew’s tax collector friends.  He invited himself to lunch with another tax collector, Zacchaeus.  He stayed on two days with the Samaritans after encountering the woman at the well, and John’s Gospel reports many became believers. (John 4:39)

The Parable of the Yeast seems to confirm the need to mix it up with the world in our relationships.  “The kingdom of heaven [God] is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” (Matthew 13:33) The yeast, which is the good news, needs to mix with the flour, which is the world, in order that the dough, God’s kingdom, can rise.

In my own walk, I can think of several people who reached out to me with sincere friendship that deepened my faith walk.  There was Father John, who gave me instruction to join the Catholic Church when I was a teenager.  We shared many hours together in our mutual love of music, in addition to his individual instructions about the faith.

In my mid-thirties there was Ann, a fellow teacher of Religious Education to teenagers in our church.  Ann had the radiance and joy of the Lord.  She kept inviting my wife and me to various charismatic Christian events, which resulted in my meeting Jesus in an entirely new way and experiencing a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

In my mid-40’s, I was introduced to Christians in Commerce, a Christian outreach to business, that helped me better live out my faith in the workplace.  All three founders of this ministry, who lived in different cities, spent time guiding me in becoming a better Christian at work.  They offered witness and friendship, and stayed with us whenever they were in town.

Like the seventy-two, Jesus sends us out and instructs us to build relationships, serve people’s needs, and then proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand.

How do you build relationships in order to share about Jesus?

After Jesus asks the disciples who people are saying he is, he then asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Matthew quotes Peter as saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13-16)

Jesus asks us the same question, “Who do you say that I am?”  Like Peter, are we willing to say that Jesus is the son of the living God?  Are we willing to follow him and his will in the daily decisions of our lives, large and small?

The following story illustrates an initial failure of this standard followed by the action of God’s grace in redeeming the outcome.

After working for Mobil for 37 years I started to sense that it was time to do something different with my life.  Following several months of prayer and discernment, I decided to retire early and accept an opportunity to work full-time with Christians in Commerce (now WorkLight), a ministry to the workplace.

I informed my boss of my intentions, but he asked me to hold off for a couple of months before I told anyone what I intended to do.  It turned out that he was involved in negotiating a possible merger with Exxon.  As a part of the merger there was a retention bonus if you stayed on until the merger was completed, calculated by various multiples of your annual salary depending on the level of your position.  A couple of months later the merger was announced along with the retention bonus.  I got caught up in all the talk about the amount of money involved and arranged with Christians in Commerce to delay the beginning of my work for them for six months. 

A month later I was flying home from a business trip, looking out the window at an interesting cloud formation and thinking about the future.  All of sudden I felt like the Lord was saying: “So, you tell me you want to work for me in ministry.  I arrange an opportunity, and now you put me off for some extra money!  Haven’t I taken care of you and your family?”  It felt like a slap in the face.  What had I done?

The next day I told my boss that I had made a mistake.  I had made a commitment to begin working for a Christian ministry and needed to keep my commitment. I could not stay on until the merger was completed.  I would forgo the retention bonus.  As it turned out, the merger took almost two years to complete.  Had I stayed on to receive the bonus, I would have surely missed the many blessings of having worked for Christians in Commerce for the next nine years of my life.

How have you been challenged in following Jesus and doing his will?    

Being prayed with for more of the Holy Spirit a number of years ago made a huge difference in my life.  It opened my heart and mind more to God’s word and helped the soil of my heart be more fertile for the Lord’s purpose in all aspects of my life.  While I am still very capable of messing up, experiencing the Holy Spirit in a fuller way has helped me be more attentive to God’s purpose and will. 

The Parable of the Sower may illustrate.  (See Mark 4:1-20)   A farmer went out to sow seed.  Some of the seed fell along the path and birds came and snatched it up, which Jesus likened to Satan taking the word away as soon as it is heard.  Some fell on rocky soil, where it was not able to take root.  Jesus said these were people who hear the word, but because it does not take root, as soon as they encounter trouble or persecution, they fall away.  Some of the seed fell among thorns where it started to grow but was choked by the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things.  Finally, some seed fell on good soil which grew and multiplied thirty, sixty and even a hundred times. 

Notice how Jesus observes that people whose soil accepts God’s word may produce different size crops.  The more fertile the soil, the greater the yield of the seed, the more fruit it produces in a person’s life, and the more a person can be used by God to fulfill his purpose and will.

Jesus is always knocking on the door of our hearts, waiting for us to invite him into our lives.  We have to be intentional in opening the door and inviting him in.  Once we invite him in, we need to spend time with him in prayer and with his word as given to us in Holy Scripture.   If we are a part of a sacramental church, we should partake in all of the available sacraments, for we receive God’s special grace through them.  The Holy Spirit is particularly beneficial in opening our minds and hearts to the meaning of God’s word and his will for us in the daily choices of our lives.

John tells us that the Word existed before all else and was God; and that the Word became flesh in Jesus. (John 1: 1, 14) Paul tells us that the Word of God is Spirit and is living. (Heb. 4:12; Eph. 6:17)  The Psalmist tells us that the Word is flawless. (Ps. 18:30 NIV)  May we prepare the soil of our heart so that the Word yields a harvest many times what is sown.  “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)

What is the condition of your soil to receive and nurture God’s Word?  

Ruth’s co-worker, Stella, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  After talking with Stella on the phone a few times, Ruth came to realize that the Lord was putting it on her heart to visit Stella and bring his word to her.  Ruth was initially reluctant.  “Lord, are you sure you want me to do this? I am not very good at this sort of thing.”  After some prayer and few sleepless nights, Ruth asked Stella if she was receiving visitors.  Stella said yes, and also mentioned that she had been having several dreams and that Ruth was in each of them.  Ruth took this as a sign that the Holy Spirit was bringing them together.

When Ruth visited her the following day, Stella spoke of her religious upbringing as a child; she asked about the right way to pray, and wondered if her illness was a result of something bad in her life.  Ruth assured her that was not the case and that God loved her more than she could comprehend.  All she needed to do was invite God into her life.

Ruth said, “Over the next few visits, we continued to talk and pray, and Stella invited Jesus into her life.  The last time I saw her she had an angelic, peaceful quality about her, and although she could barely whisper, she assured me that she was praying and would be fine.”

Although Ruth initially resisted the promptings she was receiving, she eventually yielded to God’s will to bring his word and offer of salvation to Stella before she died.  By doing so, Ruth was fulfilling God’s will and furthering her kinship with Jesus.

Three of the gospels tell a story about how we can grow in kinship with Jesus.  On one occasion when Jesus is surrounded by a large crowd of people, he was told that his mother and brothers were outside.  Jesus asks, “Who are my mother and brothers?  Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, ’Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:31-35)

This may seem to be a curious response by Jesus.  Yet, he is not denigrating his mother or kinship as much as he is raising those who do God’s will to the importance and level of kinship.  For most of us, there can be no more honored status than our mothers who gave us life.  Jesus is saying that those who do God’s will are similar in status and importance. 

Jesus is using what appears to be an extreme statement to get our attention on how important it is to do God’s will in all things — in all our daily choices, large and small. 

Are there areas in your life where you can seek greater kinship with Jesus by doing God’s will?

“A leper came to [Jesus} and said, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it.  Be made clean.’  The leprosy left him immediately.”  (Mark 1:40-42)

All of the Gospels report stories of Jesus’ great compassion for the poor, the sick, the blind and the lame as he taught and ministered to the people of Galilee.  Yet, we know from scripture that not everyone was healed.  We also know from our own experience that many people experience illness and other adversities, prayers are offered, and the adversity appears to continue. 

Why are some people healed in response to prayer and others appear not to be?  Maybe a better question is what is God doing in this particular situation or need? 

St. Paul says, “Affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope.” (Ro. 5:3-4) James tells us, “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James 1:2-4)

Our life experiences also teach us that we grow more in our trials than we do in our consolations and successes.  God often uses adversity to draw us closer to him.  He often uses final illnesses to bring us into his presence. 

A number of years ago, I was diagnosed with an advanced and aggressive form of prostate cancer.  My wife, children and friends prayed for my healing.  My treatment included surgery to remove the prostate followed by three years of hormone therapy.  The surgery revealed that the cancer had migrated outside the prostate to at least one lymph node.  One of my friends, who himself was suffering from renal cell carcinoma, prayed for me several times including in the pre-op room after persuading the nurse that he was my brother [Christian, that is].

While he and I were good friends and Christian brothers before my cancer, we became particularly close afterwards.  We now shared a similar adversity that could be potentially life threatening.  I prayed for him and he prayed for me.  When we were together our conversation often took on deeper meaning.

A couple of years later he died.  I am still alive.  We could ask why, but again, the better question might be what was God doing with us?  Perhaps my friend was ready to come into God’s presence, and I was not.  These are mysteries for which we will never know the answer in this life, “for who has known the mind of the Lord?”  (1 Co. 2:16, NIV)

While we may never know why God responds in different ways to different circumstances, we can know by faith that out of his great compassion and love he “wills” to do what is best for us long term. 

How has God used adversity in your life to draw you closer to him? 

“The Lord God called to Samuel.  He ran to Eli and said, ‘Here I am.  You called me.’ ‘I did not call you,’ Eli said, ‘Go back to sleep.’”  (1Samuel 3:4-5)

This happened three times before Eli realized that the Lord was calling Samuel who did not recognize the Lord’s voice.  Each time he heard his name being called, Samuel went to Eli, thinking it was he who was calling him.  After the third time, Eli guided Samuel to say, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”  Samuel went on to become one of the great prophets of the Old Testament.  “The Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.” (1 Samuel 3:19)

Knowing when we hear God’s voice is a major challenge for most of us.  Our lives are filled with continuous noise in today’s culture.   Television, radio, robo calls, texts, and e-mail boxes stuffed with spam — all contribute to a cacophony of noise that tends to drown out the Lord’s whispers to our heart and spirit.  Do we recognize God’s voice when he is calling us or asking us to do something?

When I was in my mid-30’s, I started to serve as a religious education teacher for high school students in our parish in Armonk, N. Y.  One of the other teachers whose name was Ann befriended me.  She was a noticeably joyful person and began to invite me to various prayer meetings, conferences and other spiritual related events.  After declining each of her invitations over several months, she started inviting my wife who agreed to attend a Life in the Spirit program at a nearby parish being conducted by some nuns from Scarsdale.  The program took place over five evenings from Sunday through Thursday.

My wife asked if I wanted to join her but I initially declined, indicating I had a brief case full of work.  Each night when she came home, I noticed how happy she seemed to be. On the fourth evening when she walked in the door, she was absolutely radiant.  Then she said, “You know I think I could forgive almost anything of anyone.” 

I thought to myself, “Wow! I have to check this out.”  I told her I wanted to join her the next evening even though it was the last evening and I had missed the four previous sessions.  That night, I met the Lord Jesus Christ in a new and very personal way, and my life was forever changed.  I was later prayed with to experience being filled with the Holy Spirit, and I have been trying to walk every day since with the Lord in all the venues of my life – family, work, social and ministry. 

Like Samuel, I was not recognizing the Lord’s call when Ann was extending me all of those invitations. It was what I saw God doing in my wife’s life that helped me to respond to his call in my life.

Are you able to hear the Lord’s voice through the noise of everyday life?

 “When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?  We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” (Mt. 2:1-2)

As we know from listening to the story of the Magi every Christmas season, it was the star that led them to the Christ child.  Saint Leo the Great, Pope from 440 – 461, said we should imitate the star of Bethlehem in guiding and leading people to Jesus.  

Just as God took on flesh and blood through the power of the Holy Spirit with the Virgin Mary, so too, he takes on flesh and blood in us through the power of Holy Spirit.  God calls us to be his presence in the world and to bring that presence to the people in our lives – family, friends, colleagues and strangers.  The following is a story of my friend, John, who did just that.   

John was a county prosecutor from Duluth, Minnesota.  One of his early prosecutions involved a former high school friend, Jim.  Over the next 26 years John would prosecute Jim a dozen times for theft-related crimes to support a chemical dependency.  During the first few prosecutions John looked on Jim as just another hopeless criminal.  Then he started praying for Jim.  In the last prosecution of Jim it was determined that he was terminally ill with sclerosis of the liver, and the judge assigned him to a hospice outside of prison.  Jim asked his attorney to ask John to pray for him. 

Over the next six months, John did more than just pray for Jim.  He visited him two to three times a week at the hospice facility.  They reminisced about growing up in the 1950s and talked about their favorite baseball teams.  They also started reading the Bible together.  That fall, Jim repented of his sins and surrendered his life to Jesus Christ.  He died in late November.

“Over those last six months I frequently called Jim ‘brother’ because we had become brothers in Christ,” said John.  “Jim loved reading and praying the psalms.  God used Jim to teach me about acceptance of suffering and perseverance, and he showed me that it’s never too late to say yes to the Lord, no matter what we have done in the past.”

John concludes, “Because God answers prayers, Jim said ‘yes’ to Christ before he died, and I know he is in paradise today – just like another thief who died on a cross next to Jesus 2000 years ago.”

Like the star of Bethlehem and the example of John, have you led anyone to Jesus through conversation, prayers, and love? 

After hearing the Christmas story over and over, year after year, its true meaning and impact may fade against the backdrop of today’s culture.  Yet, if we think about it, God’s willingness to become one of us is the greatest act of humility and love in all of history.  In John’s Gospel we read, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14 NIV)

Here we have God the Father, creator of all that exists, creator of the millions of galaxies and the billions of stars whose distance is measured in light years. Here we have God who created the atom and the molecule whose size is measured in nanometers – that’s one billionth of a meter.  This God, who created the human person with a body, soul, and mind, different from all other creatures, became one of his created in order to free each of us from our sins and the world from its bondage to sin – to reconcile us to him and one another.   

Father William Barry, in his book, A Friendship Like No Other, says, “God took humanity seriously enough to become one of us, and we do God no service if we downplay what God has done in becoming human.” 

It seems like it is easier for us to view Jesus in his divinity than it is for us to accept fully his humanity.  But God in Jesus was a real human person, born of Mary in the humblest of circumstances.  He had to be toilet trained, learn a language and be raised from childhood to an adult just as we all have been.  We can be sure that Jesus’ humanity felt the sting of the whip and the piercing pain of the nails.  God is no stranger to suffering.  God in Jesus knows what human life is like from the inside.  His desire for friendship, to dwell with us and in us knows no bounds.

Genesis tells us we were created in the image of God, but from the very beginning, we have failed to live up to that expectation.  God had to show us how to be his image by becoming one of us. After showing us by his example, he then sent us the Holy Spirit to live in us and enable us to be his presence and bring his presence to the people and circumstances of our lives.

A cobbler does not become a shoe, a cabinet maker does not become a cabinet, but God the Father and creator of all that exists became one of us.  Little wonder that history’s calendar is measured in terms of before and after this event.

Let us celebrate the birth of Jesus for what it is – the greatest act of humility and love in all of history.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” (Luke 1:46)

We may recognize this verse as the first line of Mary’s Magnificat, as she praises God for his request for her to be the mother of his Son, Jesus.  According to the Gospel of Luke, she offers this prayer right after entering the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth to serve Elizabeth during her pregnancy with John the Baptist.  Through the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth recognizes Mary as “the mother of my Lord,” and says to her, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:45) 

I would like to praise God for a particular blessing that he has bestowed on our daughter, Emily, who was born with Down syndrome.  After graduating from St. Paul VI Catholic High School in the Arlington, Virginia Diocese, one of the first Catholic high schools in the nation to offer special education, she subsequently went to work for a bakery and catering business involved in various food preparation tasks, including dog biscuits.  The bakery employed as many as thirty-five individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, some of whom included friends from her high school. 

Emily worked for the bakery for twelve years until a number of circumstances, including COVID, caused the bakery to close its doors.  For more than two years we have been searching for work opportunities for Emily, but none appeared to work for her. We prayed continuously that God would find something for her.

This past summer her sisters came up with the idea for her to offer “Coffee and Community” after daily mass at our parish church, St. Mark.  We got approval from our pastor, her sisters developed signage and name tags, and we were able to contract with a job coach to assist in making the coffee and set up.  In October she began to offer Coffee and Community every Tuesday and Thursday after daily mass. Emily helps my wife bake cookies to go with the coffee. The church staff is very supportive, and the people of our parish are getting the opportunity to interact with someone with a disability.

Emily was born with an inclination to love.  When she meets someone, her first reaction is to give them a hug.  During this season when we celebrate God becoming one of us, we praise God and give him thanks for his care and provision for Emily.  She is now doing what she loves to do most – greeting people with her beautiful smile and giving them a hug. 

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.   

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  (Luke 3:16, 17)

These are the words of John the Baptist describing Jesus who will come after him.  Like a lot of scripture, these words can have multiple levels of interpretation.  As in the parable of the Last Judgment with its separation of the sheep and the goats, here we have the separation of the wheat and the chaff.  Both references point to a separation of the good and the bad, with the potential consequence of determining our eternal destination.

John’s reference to the wheat and chaff likely relate to our present condition since he is talking about what Jesus will do for us – he will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. If we accept Jesus’ baptism of the Holy Spirit, he will separate the wheat from the chaff — preserving the wheat and destroying the chaff.

Because of our fallen human nature, we all have chaff in our lives.  Jesus invites us to accept his winnowing fan — God’s grace to separate and remove the chaff.  For most of us this is a life-long process.  The chaff can represent the more obvious sins such as those that violate the Ten Commandments, or the more subtle forms, such as failures to love as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, or failures to reflect the Beatitudes in Mt. 5:1-12.

In our preparations to celebrate God becoming one of us in the birth of Jesus, perhaps we could spend some of the same energy seeking Jesus’s help in removing the chaff from our lives as we do in buying presents, decorating our houses and preparing the Christmas meal.   

Some questions we might ask ourselves this week include: Am I patient and kind with store clerks when shopping?   At holiday parties, do I listen more than I talk?  Do I keep my anger in check when I feel I’m being slighted?  Am I willing to adjust my plans when someone needs help?  Am I spending time with Jesus as well as with family and friends?

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9: 6 NIV)