I have a problem with gambling
I am against it
In fact I abhor it
Old ladies nickeling and diming their social security away in slot machines
Lottery tickets
Bingo games run amuck
Family’s incomes being swallowed up in online addictions
The whole culture of gambling is laden with subversive greed, the desire to get more, make more, have more.
I have never gambled in my life.
Perhaps its because I am cheap
More likely it is a remnant of unredeemed fundamentalist religion
Fine. Whatever. I can live with that.

Jesus, however, as we might expect, has a slightly skewed perspective

In the cosmic game of chance, Jesus says, go for broke

Give away, Jesus says
Don’t hold back
Bet the bank and never look over your shoulder
Don’t flinch poker face
There is no need to because, ultimately when we gamble everything on God, we are not gambling. We always win.

And yet, like the servants, we hold back, putting our lives in a handkerchief
We fail to give God everything, absolutely everything
Out of fear, out of faithlessness, out of selfishness
We hold back
Nickeling and diming the slot machines of fortune and blessing
Clutching to our chests the chips of grudges, old hurts, prejudice, sour dispositions
Bingoing our way into oblivion.
Because, in all our hearts is a dead place that like a stone keeps us from soaring up to God
Jesus says: Cut it out. Put it on the table
In our spirits is a leaden earthboundedness and Jesus says: Dare to soar! Pull the handle
Give up your life and you will truly learn how to live
Sacrifice yourself completely to the service of your brothers and sisters and learn the meaning of authentic discipleship

Root out all the cheapness in your character and bet everything on his grace
Roll the dice of indifference to power, wealth, youth, materialism.
The doubles sixes of the eschaton are yours

Take all the cards and God will give you a full house of joy, wonder, anticipation, freedom

Bet all on His Grace and your life will be transmogrified with the sure thing of God’s compassion and invitation.

Whatever we hold back is all we will ever have., and we will be faced with the prospect of single-coining our way into eternity.

Jesus knew all of this because he was taking the ultimate chance.
He continued on his way to Jerusalem.
All of us have taken a chance in coming here, in being here, in giving up here.

And in the sacrifices we make, God does not stint on giving us everything, even his body and blood, even his very life on this altar.

Gamble everything, Jesus says, and you will win.
You can bet on it.

We are unprofitable servants;we have done what we were obliged to do.

I have to tell you that I am not that into “nice” restaurants. Haute Cuisine is completely lost on me. Give me a good old buffet anytime. Occasionally, however, the job calls me to dine rather than feed and I find myself in some rather upscale establishments. And frankly I am bewildered. The evening usually goes something like this. The waiter tells us what is being served. “Our feature this evening is ratt tatt tatt of pork on a bed of curls of celery, prepared with a foi gras foam and an infusion of slivered bamboo.” Now, I can assure you I have no idea what that is but when it arrives two hours later I am surprised to find a huge white plate with what looks like a raw slice of meat the size of a nickel and an artistically placed piece of dental floss. This is food as art and the art of the day is minimalist. Needless to say on the way home, Arby’s is on the agenda. Why? Because I’m fat and I’m hungry.

Minimalism may be haute cuisine and it may be art, but it ain’t discipleship. Jesus chastises the disciples who only do the minimum, just enough to eek in the side door of salvation. That’s enough for us they say. Jesus upbraids them for their lack of initiative, their lack of creativity, their mendacity. Why? Turn to Sirach
God formed man to be imperishable;the image of his own nature he made them.
By the devil the death of minimalism entered the world.

Catholics are plagued by minimalism. How much do I need to do to achieve my ticket to heaven? Just give me the basics please; too much spiritual food may give me indigestion. How many classes do I have to attend? I want to get married, not become a nun. How long is mass on Sunday? 17 minutes is all I have for God. Just show me the hoops, Father, I can jump, just not too high

And sometimes we leaders can send out the message that all of this Catholic stuff is really not too demanding. Just show up every once in a while, pray a little, confess a little, and drop a little something in the basket.

And little by little we eat away at the substance of our faith. Minimally, we grow smaller and smaller until we despair of the bounty of God. And then we despise religion for its meagerness like a restaurant that has the audacity to serve dental floss to hungry people.

But here is the truth. God is big, God is huge, God is everything and we must be careful that we do not pare down the overwhelming reality of God, a reality in which we are created, in which we hope, in which we dream, in which we long to live, into an entrée that cannot satisfy.

Here is the truth of God, the richness of this altar. Bring it on. Belly up to the buffet sisters and brothers. Let’s get fat on the largess of the Kingdom. Mind your manners, true, but don’t be too picky. God isn’t. After all he created and called us to lives of spiritual excess, overflow, abundance, so let it not be said of us:
We are unprofitable servants;we have done what we were obliged to do.

After this I had a vision of a great multitude ...

Lively
Lame
Athletic

Frightening
Crippled
Worn

Lovely
Sad
Pathetic

Worried
Withered
Torn

Lowly
Small
Majestic

Blind
Diseased
Sustained

Loved
Unloved
Incarnate

Word in Church Proclaimed

These are the saints
Meek, mourning, merciful, mendicant, maligned
Our Fathers venerated veterans vibrant in their wisdom and depth of understanding
Our Mothers tender and wise in ways beyond comparing
Our Sisters gathering, gathering endlessly the concerns of a ravaged world into the folds of wimples and veils, the inner reaches of prayer
Our brothers toiling hours and hours in anonymous fields, laboring for the Kingdom they see and the Heaven they cannot yet see

And they are living still, like their faith in spite of dungeon, fire and sword
The dungeon of faded memory
The fire of cynicism
The sword of secularization
They are living yet
In every act of charity unselfishly united to the sacrifice of Christ
In every muttered, uttered prayer reserved for the heart, the heart of the Savior
In acts heroic and challenged, in blood shed carelessly in love, in fortitude
In depths unsung and un heralded that make the difference between life and death
In goodness that glows on the skin like the remnants of summer sunshine
In love patient and passionate poured out without regard to cost or care or concern, compassion careening off the caryatids of this world’s pillars
In the face of the wounded one, the face of Jesus crying, smiling, laughing, sustaining in our midst

They are martyrs boldly axed
Confessors rightly syllogized
Virgins singing sweetly
Husbands huddling wives and children
Wives nursing, nurturing
Children wildly trumpeting
Lovers softly cooing
Students diligent and earnest
Teachers wise and wondrous
Races bound together in common acts of worship and sustenance
Nations venerating nations in acts of love over acts of war
Tongues clucking, clicking strange syllables that sound like praise
People, So many people, so many radiant people

And they are calling out to us today, on their feast


Calling us higher into the very mists of mysticism
Calling us into the very heights of incomparable compassion
Calling us deeper into the sinews of God’s own heart
Calling us beyond ourselves and into that corporate community of care, concern, companionship, communion

To Rise above the materially mundane, the mendacic
To Climb imperiously upon the shoulders of angels, ancestors, our elect antecedents
To join in their ascent to the very throne of God

Why?

Because brothers and sisters, this is our home, our homeland, our heritage, inheritance

We are not made for the ground from which we came; we are wondrously, gloriously made for angel choirs
We are made for the brilliant shimmering shook light of a city of adamant and crystal, not the murky sulfurs of a confining earthboundedness
We are made for clarion voices, united in the thundering timbre of the Trisagion, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts

We are made for incandescence, the air of transcendence and not the acrid atmosphere of animosity, rancor

We are made for Him who made himself us for us, who made himself base for us, who made himself death for us, so that we might become saints, rising on his baseness, living on his death

Beloved, we are God’s children now;what we shall be has not yet been revealed

When it is revealed we shall know

The saints are not our fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers alone, they are us. Church triumphant in Church militant.

Church sustaining Church
Church interceding for Church
Church enlivening Church
Church inspiring Church

Encapsulating itself, insinuating itself, ingratiating itself, engaging itself in the whole, the corporeality of connectedness, the Body of Christ.

Happy are we drawn here today into this great company, this cloud of witnesses who are what we are and long to be.

After this I had a vision of a great multitude,which no one could count,from every nation, race, people, and tongue.They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.They cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne,and from the Lamb.”