What Would Jesus Think of Social Democracy?

In 2018, we have witnessed the Democratic Party in the United States moving relentlessly to the Left toward Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism.  It is important to realize that these are two different things (see this explanation from Marian Tupy in The Atlantic).  Democratic Socialists believe in Government ownership of banks, auto manufacturers, and in fact all means of economic production.  Social Democrats are capitalists who advocate redistributive tax policies to achieve social objectives such as the elimination of poverty and the reduction of economic inequality. Both advocate the redistribution of wealth to achieve social justice.

What is Wrong with Redistributing Wealth?

So what is wrong with wealth redistribution?  Let's examine the biblical arguments pro and con.

The Biblical Argument FOR Wealth Redistribution

It will help to begin with the Christian argument for wealth redistribution, which is actually pretty simple:  It is what Jesus told us to do.  "Go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." Those are Jesus' words to the Rich Young Man in Matthew 19:21.  

Luke in his Acts of the Apostles, a recounting of key events that launched Christianity following Jesus' death and resurrection, shows us how the first Christians put Jesus' commands into practice:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:44-45) 

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.  They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. (Acts 4:32-35)

As the Christian centuries passed, other Christian communities embraced this practice, from the Benedictines and Franciscans who continue to share all things in common to this day, to the framers of the Guildford Covenant on June 1, 1639, who declared

we will, the Lord assisting us, sit down and join ourselves together...to be helpful to the other in any common work, according to every man's ability and as need shall require...  

In other words, "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability," a phrase later and infamously co-opted by Karl Marx.

Is There a Biblical Argument AGAINST Wealth Redistribution?

What then is the Christian argument against wealth redistribution?  Consider the following passage from Saint Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians:  "If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either." (2 Thessalonians 3:10)  Paul is clearly addressing a problem that has arisen in a Christian community practicing wealth redistribution, just a Jesus told them to.  Some people are taking advantage of Christian charity without contributing anything back to the community.  

Some Christians will use Paul's instructions to the Thessalonians to say something like, "Well, yes, the early Christians did practice a form of socialism (wealth redistribution), but very early on they ran into serious problems with freeloaders and finally had to abandon the practice."  But we may note that kind of statement goes far beyond what we can actually learn from Scripture.  It is fair to say that the early Christian practice of wealth redistribution led to problems with freeloaders, and the Apostle had to take action to correct the problem.  The solution wasn't to stop redistributing wealth -- how could it be when that is what Jesus had told them to do?  The solution was to put a stop to freeloading.

If there is a Biblical argument against wealth redistribution, it can't be Saint Paul's injunctions against freeloaders.  So what would the argument be?

A common claim of Christians who oppose wealth redistribution is helpful at this point.  The claim is that the wealth sharing Jesus commanded and the early Christians practiced was voluntary.  No one took wealth from anyone and gave it to someone else.  This claim is in fact accurate.  Consider the story of Ananias and Sapphira from Acts chapter 5:1-11, quoted below at length:

But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. “Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!” Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him.

After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.” Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things.

The key to interpreting this story is found in verse 4:  "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal?"  The sin committed by Ananias and Sapphira was not that they held back some of their wealth; it was, rather, that they lied about it.  They were under no compulsion to share their wealth with anyone.  Whether they did share it was a purely free choice.

So now we see that a decent Christian objection to wealth redistribution is merely an objection to compulsory redistribution.  No one would complain about voluntary redistribution, which we might more fairly call "sharing".

Where does that leave us?  Jesus told us to share our wealth with those in need, so Christians who support the Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism seem to be on firm ground.  At the same time, the story of Ananias and Sapphira demonstrates that such wealth sharing is to be voluntary, and so seems to put Christians who oppose compulsory redistribution on firm scriptural footing as well.

Or does it?

What Does Compulsory Mean in a Representative Democracy?

First of all, let's consider whether the wealth redistribution in a democracy can legitimately be considered to be compulsory.  In one sense, it obviously is; hence, for example, the much maligned and recently repealed individual mandate and fines for opting out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  But in another sense it is not, for it is clear that the nation freely chose, through its elected representatives, to implement the ACA.  In that sense, wealth redistribution in the United States is a collective choice fairly made under the rules of our representative democracy.  But perhaps those on the Right have a point:  it is compulsory sharing for those who voted (or would have voted) against it.

Can a Nation that Chooses Not to Redistribute Wealth Be Considered Christian?

But the second thing to consider is whether a truly Christian community would in practice choose not to redistribute wealth to those in need.  To find out, let's conduct a thought experiment.

Suppose that the early Christian community had chosen not to redistribute their wealth to each according to their need.  Wealthy Christians simply kept their wealth for themselves, and the poor simply starved, as was their God-given destiny.  In what sense would that community have still been Christian?  In the sense that they believed Jesus was the Son of God who died for our sins, then rose again and ascended into heaven, from whence he will return to judge the living and the dead?  To quote from James 2:19, "the demons also believe, and shudder."

Obviously, believing all the right things about Jesus but not following his command to "sell your possessions and give to the poor" doesn't make anyone a follower of Christ.  Jesus himself told us what will make us Christians:  "You are My friends if you do what I command you."  (John 15:14)

Now apply the results of this little thought experiment to a Christian community of any arbitrary size, from a tiny community of believers in North Texas (say) to a vastly large Christian nation of three hundred million people, if there were such a thing.  The same reasoning would hold.  Any community of any size that claims to be Christian but does not do what Jesus commanded ("sell your possessions and give to the poor") is a fraud.  It is not Christian.

Did Jesus Command Christian Nations to Redistribute Wealth?

But someone might object that while Jesus commanded individuals to share their wealth with those in need, he never said that nations must do so.  Where in Scripture do we find Jesus saying what a Christian nation should or should not do?

So let's admit right away that Jesus didn't say anything at all about what Christian nations should do because, quite simply, there weren't any at the time. There was a pagan empire (Rome), many pagan nations within and outside that empire, and one Jewish nation, of which Jesus was a member.  But there were no Christian nations.

And yet Jesus did talk about what people and even nations should do.  The Gospels are rich with examples, including Jesus' dialog with the Rich Young Man, his Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Parable of the Rich Fool, and perhaps most importantly the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, found in Matthew 25:31-46. Notice how it begins in verses 31-33:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Notice that it is nations that he separates into sheep and goats, the one on his right, and the other on his left. Jesus' reference to nations in this parable can leave little doubt that he is in fact referring to how nations should behave, and how the people within those nations will be judged. 

Next notice what the criteria of that judgment are, spelled out quite clearly in verses in 42-43:.  

1. I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat.
2. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.
3. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in.
4. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me.
5. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.

These criteria raise an obvious question (verse 44): “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?"

And Jesus gives the astonishing answer (verse 45): "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

It should be obvious that each of these criteria by which the nations shall be judged involves sharing (redistributing) wealth:  feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, and caring for the sick.   So it seems quite clear that here in this parable Jesus is in fact saying what a nation should do.  Such a nation will be following Jesus' commands and therefore by definition be Christian (John 15:14).

Actually, this is not at all surprising for at least two reasons. 

First, nations are made up of people, and what democratic nations do is what the people within those nations decide to do. Jesus' commands to the individuals within a nation should, if followed, manifest itself in the nation's behavior. 

Second, Jesus as a first century Jew would have had a Jewish perspective on the responsibilities of nations, and in particular the nation of Israel. His perspective would have been shaped by the Jewish Scriptures (our Old Testament), including of course the Prophets such as Amos, who were particularly concerned with how the nation of Israel treated its poor. Note for example the following passage (Amos 2:6-7):

Thus says the Lord:

For three transgressions of Israel,

    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;

because they sell the righteous for silver,

    and the needy for a pair of sandals—

they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth,

    and push the afflicted out of the way.

In this passage from Amos, God's judgment is on the nation for how Israel has treated its poor and needy. Jesus would surely have had this and similar passages of Scripture in mind as he told the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats as well as many of his other parables.  This point becomes especially clear when we read Jesus' condemnation of the Scribes in Luke 20:46-47:

Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love respectful greetings in the market places, and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, who devour widows' houses, and for appearance's sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation.

To fully appreciate the context of Jesus' condemnation of the Scribes, consider that these men were probably judges and lawyers who represented various factions within the Jewish establishment.  As we can see from Jesus' condemnation of them, they interpreted the Law to serve the interests of their powerful sponsors while trampling upon the weak (see Jewish Groups at the Time of Jesus and Scribes-and-Pharisees).

What is really going on here is Jesus' condemnation of the national leadership, the ultimate symbol of which was the Temple in Jerusalem.  Not surprisingly then, Jesus' condemnation of the nation's leadership translated into condemnation of their seat of power, the Temple itself, as a "den of robbers" (Mark 11:15-18) doomed to destruction (Matthew 24:1-2) where "not one stone here will be left upon another."

What all of this means is that Jesus was talking about not only what individuals should do but also about the behavior of the nations those individuals lead and direct.  So while Jesus never used the term "Christian nation", he actually did say what a nation should do if it were Christian (that is, following his commands), and he said so quite clearly and unmistakably.  So clearly in fact that they crucified him for it.

The Bottom Line

We have seen that Jesus commanded Christians to share their wealth with those who are in need. Throughout  the Gospels, Jesus quite clearly called for a redistribution of wealth, and the early Christian community enthusiastically did exactly that.  Moreover, Jesus' command applies to communities of Christians of any size, from the tiny to the massively large, even entire nations.  And so it is that all nations will be judged against Jesus' command, most especially nations like the United States where the majority are Christian.

Secular humanists since at least Madeline Murray O'Hare (who drove prayer out of the public schools) have been trying to convince us that our nation is most emphatically not a Christian nation. If we ever give in to that dreary assessment, we will be giving up on our most fervent hope and dream as Christians: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  Happily, many Christians on the Right have not given up on the dream.  They want our nation to be truly one nation under God, a nation embracing and driven by Christian values even as we welcome all those who may not share our faith in Jesus or God.

As Jesus spoke to the Rich Young Man, he might well speak also to us:  "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me" (Mark 10:21).

Why is Evolution Slow and Cruel?

Recently, I was asked to comment on John F Haught's book on God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution.  Below is what I wrote.

In chapter one of God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution, John F Haught asks “But what if God is not just an originator of order but also the disturbing wellspring of novelty? And, moreover, what if the cosmos is not just an ‘order’ ... but a still unfinished process?”  He is asking, “What kind of God would create a Universe like this one?”

This is the same question Job asked when he cried out demanding a reason for his intense suffering.  Haught asks why did God create a universe where evolution proceeds in such slow and cruel fashion?  It is the same question a grieving parent asks when a child dies from cancer or a congenital defect or for no apparent reason at all.  God's answer to Job is not the answer Job was hoping for.  God begins by challenging Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”  And yet Job ultimately accepts God's non-answer when he says “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”  And he repents in dust and ashes.

Why is evolution slow and cruel?  What kind of God would choose to create a universe like that?  Is he a God we can believe in, love, and pray to?  We could begin to answer this challenging question by asking whether evolution really is slow?  What is a few billion years to an eternal God but a brief pinpoint flash of light?  It seems slow to us only because we are poor creatures locked into time.  We cannot see how things look to God.

But why does evolution have to be cruel, filled with tragedy?  Why did a child's mother suffer a long, drawn-out, agonizing death?  Why did a hurricane destroy so many innocent lives?  Why does suffering and death seem so integral to the very fabric of creation?  Couldn't God have made the Universe in some other way?

When we ask these questions, we are implying that there can be no divine purpose that could justify creating such a miserably cruel Universe.  But how could we possibly know that?  God's mind is infinite, beyond our minds even more than ours are beyond the insects building their nests in our backyards.  Even if God did tell us his purpose in creating such a Universe, how could we possibly understand it?

Haught will propose that God had to create such a Universe as ours in order to make beings like us possible – beings who could freely choose to love him.  He may be right, but that is cold comfort to the grieving father weeping over the grave of his dead son.  I prefer the answer of faith – that God has a purpose but one we cannot grasp just as we could not grasp the reason for a beautiful Persian carpet if all we ever saw was its underside with its meaningless collection of knots.

What is a Sacrament?

A Protestant friend of mine recently asked me to explain what Catholics mean by "sacrament".  Before getting into that, let's just note that Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians understand there to be seven sacraments:  Baptism, the Eucharist ("the Lord's Supper"), Confirmation, Holy Orders, Marriage, Reconciliation, and Anointing of the Sick.

At the root of Catholic Sacramental theology is the Incarnation. God didn’t just tell us he loves us. He took on human flesh and showed us. He didn’t just forgive us our sins in some invisible way and then tell us about it, he showed us by dying on the Cross. He didn’t just tell us about a new life, he showed us in Jesus’ Resurrection. So the principle is that God speaks to us in visible and tangible form.

We can apply this principle to each of the seven sacraments, but for now I will focus on three:

• God makes the new birth (being born again) visible in Baptism. 
• He makes receiving Christ into our lives visible in the Eucharist — receiving Christ in the form of bread and wine. 
• For those already baptized but having fallen into serious sin, he makes repentance and restoration visible in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

St Augustine famously defined a sacrament as an outward sign of an inward grace that does what it signifies (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrament).  We can also add that each sacrament was instituted by Christ himself, a topic for a later post.

Trusting God in Times of Trouble

I would like to share with you a Scripture passage that has come to mean a great deal to me in the past few years, but most especially recently.  It is Proverbs 3:5 and 6.  I memorized this passage many years ago.  In the King James Version, it says:

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Growing Up

When I was just a small boy growing up in Seattle, my parents – especially my mother – taught me about Jesus and I developed some basic idea of what it meant to trust in the Lord.  Because my parents were Southern Baptists, I was not baptized until then, when I was six years old. In the years that followed, I grew up pretty much like any other boy in a poor working class family.

When I was 13 years old my aunt gave me a copy of the Living Bible for my birthday.  It was a modern English paraphrased translation.  I started by reading the New Testament and suddenly the Bible came to life for me.  From that time on, I was hooked:  I loved to read the Bible and couldn’t seem to get enough.

Encounter with the Holy Spirit

Two years later in 1968, when I was 15 years old, I had a dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit.  It happened one Friday night at, of all places, St Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle where there was an Episcopal priest named Dennis Bennett who was teaching his parish about an experience he called “being baptized with the Holy Spirit” and experiencing spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing. That night, several people prayed over me to experience this encounter with the Holy Spirit.  No one was more surprised than me when I suddenly began speaking in tongues.  It seemed as if the Holy Spirit had suddenly flooded me with himself.  I was electrified.

Lost at Sea

I remained a fervent young Charismatic Christian all throughout high school and into my first two years of college.  But in my third year of college, I became distracted by many things and gradually over a period of time my faith darkened and cooled.  By the time I finished college and started graduate school, I was no longer sure what I believed, and I began to wonder if I even really believed in God.  I entered a decades-long period of being a nominal Christian at best and often not even that.  I was in a spiritual sense lost at sea.

God works in amazing and wondrous ways though.  Although I may have abandoned him, he never abandoned me.  By God’s grace, it was during this period of my life that I became a Catholic.  (How that happened is another story!)  It was also during this period that I met and married my wife, Espee.  When we met, I already had two children, Chris and Julie; and Espee had two children as well, Marlo and Maeliz.  By God’s grace (again!), we were able to be married in the Church, and before long we had two more children, Marty and Monica.

Help My Unbelief

As time passed, Marty and Monica began to attend Saint Monica’s Catholic School.  They would come home talking about what they were learning, and sometimes talked about Jesus and Mary.  Each time they spoke about these things, something moved within my heart.  One day in the winter of 2002, I can remember vividly standing in the family room of our home and telling God, “Lord, I want to believe, but I can’t seem to.  If you are there, please help me.”

God answers prayer.  That summer for our vacation we went to visit one of Espee’s sisters in Albany, New York.  She invited us to go with her to the Friday night Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting with the Filipino community there.  That night, as I listened to these Charismatic Catholics praising and worshiping God, for the first time in decades I remembered that joy I had felt on that other Friday night back in 1968 at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit.

But although I felt the Holy Spirit calling me back to him, I resisted because I was not sure that I was really ready for this.  Yet one afternoon later that same summer, in August 2002, sometime around 6:00 pm, I was in a hotel room in Denver, Colorado.  I was working there on a project.  I was getting ready to go out to dinner when suddenly I felt like praying.  I lifted my eyes and my hands to God, and I let go of all my doubts and hesitations and said, “Lord, I give myself to you.”

An amazing thing happened then.  Something warm and electric rushed to fill my whole body.  I was immersed in this warmth.  I raised my hands as high as they would go, and for the first time in 30 years, I began speaking in tongues.  I cried for joy.

The Beloved Disciple

After I got home, I told Espee that I wanted to find a Catholic religious community that we could be a part of, something like the Franciscans or the Benedictines.  We looked around and eventually, again by God’s grace, we discovered the Companions of the Beloved Disciple.  The Companions are a community of lay men and women affiliated with the Brothers of the Beloved Disciple, a Marianist religious community of brothers and priests who are active in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

A key part of Marianist spirituality is to become more like Jesus by growing in his virtues.  Four of these virtues are “Silence of the Mind”, “Imagination”, “Obedience”, and “Detachment from the World”. I am going to come back to these virtues in a little bit, but first I have to tell you what happened to Espee and me that made them so important.

Our World Crashes Down

There is something that I skipped over until now.  It happened a few months before Espee and I joined the Companions of the Beloved Disciple.  I was on the road, working on a project in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  It was Thursday, March 25, 2004.  I flew home that evening and my plane landed around 11:00 pm.  I got home about 11:30 pm.

I Lost Her

Espee was outside on the front porch of the house, collapsed onto her knees, convulsing in tears.  Getting out of the car, I ran to her.  “I lost her,” she screamed.  “I lost Malloy!”

“Malloy” was our nickname for Espee’s oldest daughter, Marlo.  As I was soon to learn, Marlo had died that day in a car crash at about 2:30 in the morning, both she and her boyfriend, and their unborn child.  The three of them flew into eternity together.

It had taken the police the entire day to find out that we were her parents and where we lived.  Espee had learned of her death just moments before I arrived home.  Marlo was nine months pregnant when she died.  It was about three weeks before her 20th birthday.

The next two years were difficult, as you can imagine.  But the Holy Spirit was with us and guided us through one of the two most difficult periods of our lives.  As time went by, we were able to accept Marlo’s death, and the deaths of the two souls who went with her.  Through the Companions we learned how to listen to the Holy Spirit, and we made the Lord the center of our lives.  About a year later, the Lord called us to start a Bible Study in our home.

Monica

It was a warm Friday evening in June, less than 30 minutes before people would start arriving for our home Bible Study.  I had been busy the whole day.  Besides preparing for the Bible Study, I had been working that day with the staff at Santo Nino Catholic Church to get their new website up and running.  Espee had been cooking all day, preparing the food that we would share with our Bible Study group.  Espee was now in the shower, Marty was in his room playing with his computer, and I thought Monica was playing somewhere in the house.  So I went downstairs to get things ready for the Bible Study.  I still needed to select the music for the songs that we would sing.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw Monica.  Exactly what happened after that is too painful for me to recount to you.  I will just tell you that she couldn’t breathe.  I tried to save her.  Espee called 911.  The paramedics came, they tried to save her, and they called in the AirLife helicopter to fly her to Methodist Children’s Hospital.  People started arriving for our Bible Study.

As the ambulance drove off, and as more people came, we gathered in our living room and prayed.  As we prayed, we heard the AirLife helicopter take off, and at that moment I felt a burst of hope that Monica was going to survive.

Gone to Heaven

Noel Hamilton and Sylvia Gonzalez drove Espee and me to the hospital.  During the long drive, I kept thinking that there was still hope.  When we arrived, we were greeted first by a Catholic chaplain, and both Espee and I knew at that moment that Monica was gone.  Shortly thereafter, a doctor and a nurse came in to tell us what we already knew but couldn’t believe.  The words suddenly made it real, and the world crashed down around us.

I haven’t told you what caused Monica’s death, and the reason is that I don’t know.  The doctors were unable to find the cause.  What I do know is this:  Monica went to heaven when she was ten years old.

The Marian Virtues

There are no words that can convey to you how hard it was (and is) to bear Monica’s death.  In the early weeks that followed, I wanted to die too, and I know that Espee felt the same way.  There were times when I thought that I might go crazy.  But little by little God brought us through.  And those four virtues that I mentioned earlier – Silence of the Mind, Imagination, Obedience, and Detachment from the World – played a big part.

Silence of the Mind

I will begin with Silence of the Mind.  Losing Monica left me not only with grief at having lost her, but also with anguish over questions that can never be answered:   “What if I had done this?” or “If only I had done that.”  And there were painful regrets over the times that she asked me for something and I told her “later”, or “next week”, or “next summer”.   And there were all the things that we were planning to do together but somehow never did. “Silence of the Mind” is the virtue of letting go of these regrets and of all the other things in the past that can torment us.  It is giving the past to Jesus.  Remember when he said, “Let not your heart be troubled.  You believe in God, believe also in me.”  (John 14:1)

When we trust Jesus, when we lay everything including the past at his feet, those mental daggers that cut and torment us fall away in silence.  In the quiet, we can begin to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us.

Imagination

When our minds achieve this silence, we face yet another challenge:  our imagination.  Right after Monica’s death, the future seemed unbearable.  How could we continue living in the same house?  How could I go back to a job that requires me to be on the road almost every week?  What was going to happen to Marty?  How would seeing his sister die affect him?

Although God knows the future, for us it exists only in our imaginations.  So fear of the future is really fear of what we imagine the future holds.  But just as the past belongs to Jesus, so does the future.  In the Gospels, Jesus called us not to worry about the future but rather to trust in him.  He said:

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…  Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.  (Matthew 6:33-34)

Of course this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan for the future!  Rather, it means only that we shouldn’t let fear of the future guide us.  James said that we should plan, but that in so doing we should give our futures to the Lord.  He wrote:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit” – you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.  You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.”  (James 4:13-15)

This realization has helped me to put things in perspective, to realize that Jesus transforms the future just as he transforms the past.  He transforms even death.  Jesus in his earthly life faced the Crucifixion and conquered death!   So we can relax and leave the future to Jesus, knowing that he will be with us always, come what may, even to the end of the world.  (Matthew 28:20)

Obedience

Once we know that Jesus transforms our future, it is easy for us to trust him and to obey him.  This realization was important for me because, in the aftermath of Monica’s death, I wanted to make some big changes in my life.  For example, I didn’t want to travel in my job any more.  My boss told me that I could transfer to another department where I could work from home, if that is what I wanted to do.  But as I thought about this and other choices, and as I was able to get beyond the shock of Monica’s death, I realized that I really didn’t know what God wanted me to do.

I wanted to obey God, but how could I know what God’s will was?  Have you ever had the experience of looking for something such as your keys, only to find that you had them in your pocket all the time?  Well, in a way, God’s will is like that.  We have the means to know God’s will already, but sometimes we just don’t realize it!

You see God reveals his will to us in many ways, but especially through those people with whom we are united in a covenant community.  Perhaps the most important covenant in my life (besides the New Covenant of Jesus Christ!), is my covenant relationship with my wife Espee.   Of course you remember Jesus’ words:

‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife…’  So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  (Matthew 19:5-6)

 Now think about it.  If Espee and I are one flesh, then whatever God’s will is for me must also be his will for Espee.  It is just logical.  So if I think that God has revealed something to be his will for me but Espee disagrees, then either I am wrong, or God just hasn’t gotten around to telling Espee yet!

So obedience, in part, means being open to God’s will as he reveals it to us through our Christian wives or husbands.  But God speaks to us through other covenant communities as well.  Saint Peter wrote:

Be subject to the presbyters. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another. (1 Peter 5:5)

The King James translation of this passage says:  “All of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility.”

I have learned that God speaks to me through the various Catholic communities to which Espee and I have belonged:  the ACTS community, the Knights of Columbus, our Parish, and the Companions of the Beloved Disciple.

But community is not the only way that God reveals his will to us.  Proverbs 3:5 and 6, the passage that I quoted earlier, shows us that if we trust God, he will direct our paths!  Things will happen.  Doors will open,  and other doors will close.

It was meditating upon this Scripture that allowed me to discover God’s will about whether I should keep traveling or transfer to a work-from-home position.  I realized that God had given me my job, and that he had made me in such a way that I am good at it.  The Lord showed me that he sends me on the road for a purpose.  In each place I go, he brings people to me whom I would otherwise have never met.

But remember that Espee and I are one flesh:  if God is showing this to me, then he must be showing it to Espee too.  So I talked to her about it, and she confirmed that the Lord had been showing her the same thing.

Detachment from the World

So God gave me my job.  It is part of my vocation, and he expects me to do it to the best of my ability.  The danger of success in our work, though, is that we may begin to become attached to the things that success can bring, such as career advancement and more money, a beautiful home, a fancier car, fine clothes, the latest electronic gadgets, or luxurious furniture. These are simply temptations that the world throws at us hoping that we will forget about God.  The Devil might not mind so much that I am a Christian if he can get me to become preoccupied with worldly success.  Jesus talked about this very thing in the Parable of the Sower when he said:

As for the seed that fell among thorns, they are the ones who have heard [the Word of God], but as they go along, they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life.  (Luke 8:14)

That is why Jesus called us to detach ourselves from the world when he said:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.  But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.  (Matthew 6:19-20)

Obviously, detachment from the world does not mean that God wants all of us to make ourselves poor.  Although he does ask some of us to do this, if everyone were poor, then who would there be to feed the poor?  So that can’t be.  What he does ask is that if we have wealth, we should not use it for ourselves but rather use it to help others.

Espee and I have realized that the things we used to think are so important really are not.  So we have begun to simplify our lives, to let go of some of our possessions, and to give more to the Church and to those in need.

Conclusion

You may know of John Henry Cardinal Newman’s meditation that begins:  “God has created me to do him some definite service.”  In the years since Monica died, the meaning of that line at the end of the prayer has become so clear to me:  “I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling.”

We may not know what God’s purpose is for us in our life.  He doesn’t ask us to know.  He asks us only to obey.

I would like to close by quoting from another part of Cardinal Newman’s meditation.  He wrote:

Therefore, I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away.  If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him.  He does nothing in vain.  He knows what he is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me; still, he knows what he is about.

Strength in Weakness

How many of you have faced tough times?  You know what I’m talking about.  Times when things got so bad that you just knew you couldn’t go on.  I had an experience like that not too long ago.  On June 16, 2006, my youngest daughter Monica died.  We don’t know why she died – the doctors were unable to find the cause.  All we know is that suddenly she was unable to breathe.  She died on the AirLife helicopter as it flew her to Methodist Children’s Hospital.

Monica was the second child that my wife Espee and I lost.  Two years earlier, our nineteen-year-old daughter Marlo died in a head-on collision on I-35.

Devastated by the loss of two children, it felt to us that there was no way we could go on.  We had a Bible Study ministry in two parishes here in San Antonio, one at Saint Monica’s and another at Santo Niño.  I still remember that first Bible Study following Monica’s death.  The people were coming into the classroom at Santo Niño.  I had my notes in front of me and I was trying to review them.  And I said to the Lord, “I can’t do this.”  But the Lord reminded of St Paul’s words in Philippians 4: 13:  “I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.”  And I remembered what St Paul wrote in Second Corinthians 12:10:

Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

God kept his promise.  He gave me the strength I needed because somehow I was able to keep going.

What I want to talk to you about tonight is weakness, and how Saint Paul’s idea that God uses our weaknesses if we just let him.  Actually, it wasn’t really Saint Paul’s idea.  As we are going to see, he got it from Scripture, which for him was the Old Testament.  Specifically, I want to talk about three kinds of weakness:

• Weakness in our lack of something
• Weakness resulting from sin
• Weakness in the face of overwhelming circumstances

Weakness in Our Lack of Something

How many times have you said, “I can’t do something because I don’t have the ability, knowledge, skill, or resources?  You know, there were a lot of people in the Bible who said something like that.  One of them was Jeremiah.  Let’s take a look at Jeremiah 1:4-5.  It says:

The word of the LORD came to me thus: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

Now you see that God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet.  And how did Jeremiah respond?  In verse 6, Jeremiah says:

"Ah, Lord GOD!" I said, "I know not how to speak; I am too young."

You see, right away Jeremiah says he can’t do it because he has two big problems:

• He doesn’t know how to speak
• And even if he was a good speaker, no one would listen to him because he was too young!

But look at how the Lord answers Jeremiah’s objections in verses 7-8:

But the LORD answered me, Say not, "I am too young." To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak. Have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.

In effect, God says “Do you think I would call you if you couldn’t do the job?  You think you can’t do it, but I know you can…because I am going to be with you!”

Now how did Jeremiah respond to that?  Well, he must have said “Okay, Lord.  I will do it” because in the very next verse, look at what happens:

Then the LORD extended his hand and touched my mouth, saying, “See, I place my words in your mouth!”

So now think about yourself here for a moment.  Are you like Jeremiah?  Is God calling you to do something that you think you can’t do?  It could be anything:  teach a Religious Education class, lead a Bible Study, become a missionary, feed the poor, or give shelter to the homeless?  And you’ve been saying you can’t do it because, well, you can’t teach, or you don’t know enough about the Bible, or you don’t have the faith of someone like Mother Theresa.  It doesn’t matter what ability or skill or resource you think are lacking, if God is calling you to do something, you can be sure he is going to give you the strength to do it.  He will extend his hand and touch your mouth, just like he touched Jeremiah’a.  All you have to do is say “yes” to him.

And doesn’t that remind you of someone else who said “yes” to God?  Didn’t Mary set the example for us?  She didn’t give God a lot of reasons why she couldn’t be the mother of the Messiah.  She just said, “May it be done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Weakness Resulting From Sin

There is another kind of weakness that comes not from our lack of some ability but rather comes from sin.  You can see it in someone who may have been the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets (besides John the Baptist):  Isaiah.  Turn with me to Isaiah 6:1-4:

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple.  Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.  “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!” they cried one to the other. “All the earth is filled with his glory!”  At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.

Now put yourself in Isaiah’s place.  Scripture doesn’t say what he was doing at the time that he had this wonderful vision.  But I can imagine that he was doing something perfectly ordinary.  If he had been a twenty-first century man, he might have been mowing his lawn or maybe working in his garage.  Suddenly, he finds himself in the middle of this vision, seeing God himself:  “I saw the Lord on a high and lofty throne!”

Now Isaiah is no fool.  He knows that God doesn’t give people visions like this for no reason.  He can see what is coming next, that God is going to call him to do something, and he is absolutely terrified.  He cries out in verse 5:

“Woe is me, I am doomed!  For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips!”

He says, “I am a sinner!  God is calling me into his service, and I am not worthy!  I can’t even stand in his presence or I will surely die!”

How many of us are like that?  God is calling you to do something, and you think “No!  You don’t know what a wretched sinner I am!  I am not worthy to be God’s servant!”

But look at what happens in verses 6 and 7:

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

What you need to notice here is that Isaiah did not make himself holy.  He didn’t purify himself.  Rather, it was God who purified him.  In the same way, it is true that you and I are sinners, and that our sin left uncleansed does indeed disqualify us from serving the Lord.  And it is true that we can’t cleanse ourselves.  But God can make you clean and me clearn.  How does he do it?  The Beloved Disciple himself gives us the answer in 1 John 1:9

If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.

You see, you just need to do what Isaiah did:  Confess your sins, and then God himself will make you pure.

But, you say, you don’t know what my sins are!  You don’t know the terrible things I have done in my life!

So let me take you to a passage of Scripture that most people never read – they just skip right over.  It’s Matthew 1:2-6:

Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab. Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.  Obed became the father of Jesse, Jesse the father of David the king. David became the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.

Now you are probably thinking the fact I just read a genealogy to you is proof that I have lost my mind.  What on earth does that genealogy have to do with strength in weakness or weakness resulting from sin?

Well, did you notice those four women in the genealogy:  Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah?  Let’s take a look at three of them.

In Genesis chapter 38, we learn that Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in law who became a widow when her husband, Judah’s son Er, died.  Sometime later, here is what happened:

Years passed, and Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died.  After Judah completed the period of mourning, he went up to Timnah for the shearing of his sheep, in company with his friend Hirah the Adullamite.

When Tamar was told that her father-in-law was on his way up to Timnah to shear his sheep, she took off her widow's garb, veiled her face by covering herself with a shawl, and sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah…

When Judah saw her, he mistook her for a harlot, since she had covered her face.  So he went over to her at the roadside, and not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he said, "Come, let me have intercourse with you." She replied, "What will you pay me for letting you have intercourse with me?"  He answered, "I will send you a kid from the flock." "Very well," she said, "provided you leave a pledge until you send it."  Judah asked, "What pledge am I to give to you?" She answered, "Your seal and cord, and the staff you carry."

So he gave them to her and had intercourse with her, and she conceived by him.  When she went away, she took off her shawl and put on her widow's garb again.

Later, Tamar was found to be pregnant and Judah was about to order her to be killed for her adultery until Tamar proved to him that he was the father.  (Remember that pledge she had demanded of him: the seal, the cord, and the staff?)  Nine-months later, Perez was born.  And Perez, it turns out was the great-great-great-great grandfather of Boaz.  So what, you ask!  Well, hold on.  We are about to find out.

Now what about Rahab?  We learn about her in Joshua 2:1:

Then Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent out two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, reconnoiter the land and Jericho.”  When the two reached Jericho, they went into the house of a harlot named Rahab, where they lodged.

Remember now that Rahab the harlot was the mother of Boaz – remember, Perez was his fourth-great grandfather – and Boaz was the father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David the King!

Two down and one to go!  So now we have the wife of Uriah, who was the mother of David’s son Solomon.  You remember that story don’t you!  It’s in 2 Samuel 11:2-5:

One evening David rose from his siesta and strolled about on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, who was very beautiful.  David had inquiries made about the woman and was told, “She is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, and wife of (Joab's armor-bearer) Uriah the Hittite.”

Then David sent messengers and took her. When she came to him, he had relations with her, at a time when she was just purified after her monthly period.  She then returned to her house.

But the woman had conceived, and sent the information to David, “I am with child.”

So this was Bathsheba, who would later become the mother of Solomon.

So look at what we have here – three big sinners.  These aren’t genteel ladies who told little white lies over tea on Bridge night.

• Tamar tricked her own father in-law into getting her pregnant.
• Rahab was a harlot and may even have been running a brothel.
• Bathsheba committed adultery with King David and then plotted with him to cover it up, leading ultimately to her husband’s murder.

Now let’s look again at that genealogy in Matthew.  Whose genealogy is it by the way?  You’ll find the answer in verse 16.  Are you surprised?  It’s the genealogy of Jesus Christ!

Now there is something else I want you to notice.  Look at verse 1 again.  It starts out by saying, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.”  In the Greek, the word that is translated “genealogy” is actually “genesis”.  The great Catholic Bible scholar Scott Hahn thinks that Matthew probably used the word “genesis” deliberately, thinking of the book of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament.  Now Genesis tells us about the creation of the universe, doesn’t it?  So Matthew is giving us a big hint that Jesus came to bring about a new creation!

This whole idea of a new creation is very big in the New Testament.  You see it 2 Corinthians 5:17 where St Paul says:  “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”  And again in Galatians 6:15 where he says: “For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation!”

So do you see what is happening here?  Just like Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba, you may have sinned and even done terrible things.  But God can take you just as you are, just like he took them, and make you a new creation.  You see, we are talking about the God who created the entire Universe out of nothing!  Do you think it is too hard for him to take your sins and turn them into good?  Whatever you may have done in your life – no matter how bad it is – God can use it to make something good happen.  He can use you and make you a part of his plan just like he did with Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba!

So now back to Isaiah chapter 6.  We left Isaiah standing in God’s presence, and the Lord had just purged him clean from his sin just like he can purify you.  What happened next is in verse 8:

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”

And now you can respond with Isaiah, and say, “Here I am, send me!”

Weakness in the Face of Overwhelming Circumstances

So far we have talked about weakness in our lack of something, and weakness caused by sin.   But perhaps you are already trusting God to give you what you need to serve him.  And perhaps you have laid your sins at the foot of the Cross and allowed the Lord to make you holy.  And you are saying, “Here am I, Lord.  Send me!”  But still you face some overwhelming obstacle that you think makes it impossible for you to succeed.

There was a man like that in the Old Testament.  His name was Joseph.  No doubt you remember the story.  Joseph brothers planned to kill him but eventually decided to sell him into slavery instead.  Eventually he wound up in prison with no hope for escape, and you have to think that Joseph must have fallen into the blackest despair as looked around at how hopeless his situation had become.  And yet, God took Joseph’s predicament and turned out around, didn’t he?  Eventually, Joseph became the most powerful man in Egypt second only to Pharaoh himself.  Then of course a great famine came over all the land and as you know he was able to save all his family, including his brothers, from starvation.  And do you remember what Joseph said to his brothers on the day that he revealed himself to them at last?  The story is in Genesis 45:4-8:

“Come closer to me,” he told his brothers. When they had done so, he said: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you once sold into Egypt.  But now do not be distressed, and do not reproach yourselves for having sold me here…it was not really you but God who had me come here; and he has made of me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.”

Now notice that God did not just get Joseph through his trouble – those overwhelming circumstances that it seemed like he could never overcome.  No, God did much more than that!  He used those terrible things that happened to Joseph to make wonderful things happen.

Now this point takes me back to where I began this talk, with the death of my daughter Monica.  Remember, I said that Espee and I thought that there was no way we could get through that horrible experience and yet somehow, with God’s help, we did.  What I didn’t tell you is that God didn’t just get us through that experience – he used it to make some wonderful things happen.

I would like to tell you about two of them.

The first thing happened just a few weeks after Monica died.  My mother, who had been a Southern Baptist all her life and who has always made it quite clear that she intended to stay a Southern Baptist, just out of the blue said she wanted to become a Catholic!  Shortly after that, she enrolled in RCIA.  Then the following Spring, during the Easter Vigil, my mother was received into the Church.

The second thing has to do with one of my other daughters.  Several years ago, she rejected everything my wife and I believed in, and she charged headlong into a rebellious life of sin.  She joined the Navy, traveled around the country, and eventually landed in Florida where she married a practicing Pagan who was deep into the Occult.  Then shortly after Monica’s death, she told us that she was coming back to San Antonio.  She arrived in January, exactly one day before a Women’s ACTS retreat was set to start in our parish.  I asked my daughter if she would go to the retreat, and to my surprise she said “Yes.’

That retreat is where a miracle happened.  The way she puts it: she was the lost sheep that Jesus went looking for, and he found her at that retreat.  My daughter gave her life to the Lord that weekend, and a few weeks later she attended a Life in the Spirit seminar and experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Then another miracle happened:  she enrolled at Saint Mary’s University where she complete a Masters degree in Theology.  Today she is a leader in Catholic education.  In fact, she is the Superintendent of Catholic schools in her diocese!

So yes, Monica died.  And I think she must have been welcomed into heaven by Saint Therese who said that she would spend her heaven doing good on earth.  Because that is what Monica has been doing.  God has used Monica through her death and through her intercession to bring my mother into the Church and my prodigal daughter back home.

Conclusion

I’ve been talking about strength in weakness, about how God uses our weaknesses.  We have focused on three kinds of weakness:

• Weakness in our lack of something, where God gives us what we need, and all we have to do is trust him.
• Weakness resulting from sin, where God cleanses us from our sin, makes us holy, and even uses our sin to bring about his purpose.
• Weakness in the face of overwhelming circumstances, where God not only gets us through the trials we face, but also uses those trials to make miracles happen.  

You see, it is God who overcomes our weaknesses.  Not that we will never fail.  But if we fail we can be sure God will use even our failures to achieve his purposes.  For as Saint Paul wrote so many centuries ago:

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)

Give Thanks in All Things?

Thanksgiving. You probably already know that the word Eucharist actually means “thanksgiving”, and of course the Eucharist is at the center of the Mass, and therefore thanksgiving is at the very heart of our life and worship as Catholics.

You shouldn’t be surprised then to learn that some form of the word “thanks” or “thanksgiving” appears in the Bible 147 times. For example,

• 1 Chronicles 16:8 says “Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name; make known among the nations his deeds.”
• Psalm 30:5 says “Sing praise to the LORD, you faithful; give thanks to God's holy name.”
• Psalm 106:1 says “Hallelujah! Give thanks to the LORD, who is good, whose love endures forever.”
• The Prophet Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 33:11 that we should “Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good; his mercy endures forever.”
• In Colossians 2:6-7, Saint Paul wrote, “So, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
• And in Revelation 11:17 we read that “the twenty-four elders who sat on their thrones before God prostrated themselves and worshiped God and said: ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God almighty, who are and who were. For you have assumed your great power and have established your reign.’”

I could go on and on – that’s only six instances, and there are 141 more!

But there is one verse in those 147 that I really want to focus on. It is First Thessalonians 5:18. Some of you probably know this one by heart. This is the verse where Paul writes “In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

Give thanks in all circumstances! Now when Paul says “all circumstances”, you know he doesn’t mean just the good and happy moments in life. After all, we really don’t need Paul to tell us to give thanks for the good times – most people will do that naturally. He gives a list of the kinds of circumstances he means in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:

Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure.

So Paul is saying to give thanks even when all kinds of bad things happen. Give thanks when you are shipwrecked! Give thanks while you are being nearly stoned to death! Now when you say it like that, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Who in their right mind would give thanks while being stoned to death?

I know many of you have gone through some pretty tough circumstances of your own, and some of you are probably going through tough times right now. Recently, a friend of mine got himself into such serious financial trouble that he couldn’t buy food to feed his family. Another young man I know lost his apartment and had to move into a cheap hotel; every penny he made working in a restaurant went to paying his daily hotel bill. If it wasn’t for the free meal he got each day at the restaurant, he would have starved.

A wonderful friend of ours, a bright and happy lady who loves God with all her heart, recently learned that she has cancer of the kidney. I have an aunt who lives in Seattle. One morning a few years ago she got up out of bed and collapsed. It turned out that she has a degenerative muscle disorder that  put her into a wheel chair for good.

Several years ago our nineteen year-old daughter Marlo died in a car accident, a head-on collision, along with her boyfriend and their unborn baby, who would have been our first grandchild. A year later, our ten-year old daughter suddenly couldn’t breathe. She died as the AirLife helicopter flew her to Methodist Children’s Hospital.

How can any of us give thanks in circumstances like these? What is Paul really talking about? I want to spend some time thinking about this question with you. And I think it will help us if we break this question down into two questions. First, what is it we supposed to give thanks for? Second, how should give we thanks?

What Are We Supposed to Give Thanks For?

Every year most of us celebrate Christmas in one way or another. On Christmas morning, the same scene will be played out in millions of homes across the country and the world. Little Johnny will unwrap his present from Grandma, and to his delight find that it’s the new toy he has been telling everyone he wants. Immediately, he will start to run off to play with it, but his Mom will stop him and say, “Now Johnny, what do say?” And what does Mom expect Johnny to say? Thank you, of course!

Saying “thank you” is what you do when someone gives you a gift. So if Paul tells us that we should give thanks to God, it must be because God has given something to us.

In Second Corinthians, Paul gives us a hint at what he is thinking about. In chapters eight and nine, he is writing to the Corinthians about his project to collect money to provide financial relief for the persecuted Christains in Jerusalem. He starts out in chapter eight bragging about the Macedonian Christians who, even though they were severely afflicted and in profound poverty, overflowed in generosity and gave beyond their means (2 Corinthians 8:1-4). In chapter nine, he puts this project into a much larger perspective. He says God has enriched the Corinthians so that they too can be generous, and their generosity not only relieves the suffering of the saints, but it also overflows “in many acts of thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:12). Then in the next few verses Paul says that the Corinthians are glorifying God by their generosity “because of the surpassing grace of God” upon them. And then he exclaims, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:13-15).

You see, Paul is describing a circle that begins when God pours out his surpassing grace to us, which we then share with others. The circle is then completed when all of us together raise our praise and thanksgiving to God. So it is “God’s surpassing grace” that sets the circle of thanksgiving into motion.

Now Paul’s idea that we give thanks in response to God’s surpassing grace probably makes sense to you, although you might be wondering what exactly Paul means by “surpassing grace”. You might also be asking if this could really be what Paul had in mind when he said to give thanks in all circumstances. Did he mean, for example, that in the face of our daughter’s death, my wife and I should thank God for his grace? You might well be thinking that whatever God’s grace is all about, it is hard to see why we should give thanks for it or anything else in the face of such tragedy. We might be much more likely to ask “God, where were you when I needed you?”

Paul answers these questions in one of the most beautiful and powerful passages in the Bible. It is Philippians 3:7-11. Here is what he says:

Whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Here Paul is telling us what he means by God’s all surpassing gift of grace. He tells us that it means three things. First and foremost, it means the “supreme good” of knowing Christ Jesus! By calling it the “supreme good” Paul means that there is nothing– indeed there can be nothing– greater than knowing Jesus. Second, it means that God gives us the righteousness that comes by faith, the kind of righteousness that we could never attain by ourselves. And third, it means attaining the resurrection from the dead.

Let’s look at each one of these in turn.

Knowing Jesus

Did you notice how Paul says that, compared to knowing Jesus, all of our other accomplishments in life, no matter how wonderful, are like trash to be thrown away? To understand why Paul says this, I think it helps to look at the Gospel of John, specifically John 14:8-9. Here is what it says:

Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father?”

To know Jesus is to know God.

Paul makes the same point in Colossians 1:15-17:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

To know Jesus is to know the creator of the Universe. But he did not just create the Universe and then walk away from it like some people think he did. For Paul says, “in him all things hold together.” So when you know Jesus, you are in communion with the power behind the sun and the stars and all the galaxies, the same power that is at this very moment holding the atoms in your body and in everything else together. And that power is not some mysterious, unnamed force that you can only wonder at. No, that power is a person, Jesus Christ, and the exciting news is that you can know him personally.

The Gift of Righteousness by Faith

The second thing grace means is the gift of righteousness by faith.

To understand what this gift really means, we first need to realize how much we need it. In Psalm 24:3-4, the Psalmist summed up our need for righteousness this way:

Who may go up the mountain of the LORD? Who can stand in his holy place? The clean of hand and pure of heart.

The Psalmist is recognizing what God said to Israel in Leviticus 20:7, God said “be holy; for I, the LORD, your God, am holy”. So how can we be holy, clean of hand, and pure of heart?

We probably know what clean of hand means, but what about “pure of heart”? In the Gospel of Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained it like this:

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, “You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.” But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment… You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:21-22 and 27-28)

You see, it is not enough to be clean of hand, that is, holy in your actions. God also demands of you to be pure of heart, that is, holy in your mind and in your thoughts as well. And yet how many of us can say that we have attained holiness of both hand and heart? If someone does claim to have achieved such holiness, they might want to read 1 John 1:10, where John writes, “If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” Remember, John wrote that to Christians.

So it looks like we’re in a lot of trouble. God demands of us perfect holiness, but no matter how hard we try, we can’t be holy. We can’t even get close.

But Paul has good news. In Second Corinthians 5:21, he wrote, “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Jesus took our sins to the Cross so that his righteousness could be ours. We can’t do it for ourselves, but Jesus can do it for us.

So now you might be asking, how we can take advantage of this wonderful gift of righteousness? Paul tells us the answer to that one too. The key is that phrase in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “in him,” meaning “in Christ.” For Paul, being “in Christ” is the key to everything. In Galatians 3:26-27, he wrote:

For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

That beautiful phrase says it all. When you were baptized, you were clothed with Christ, and his righteousness became yours.

Resurrection from the Dead

That brings us to the third meaning of grace: resurrection. In that wonderful gift of righteousness that we received in baptism, there is a surprise. Listen to what Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-5:

Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.

That is amazing, isn’t it? In that passage, Paul tells us that hidden in the gift of Christ’s righteousness, there is another gift: being united with him in the resurrection.

Now when Paul talks about the resurrection like this, there is a sense in which he is talking about the future when, at the end of time, God will raise both the righteous and the wicked to face judgment. Jesus talked about this double resurrection in John 5:28-29. He said:

The hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.

Paul himself also talked about this future resurrection in Acts 24:15, when he said, “There will be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Now think of what that means for so many of us who have lost loved ones, whether they are children or parents or brothers or sisters or whoever your loved ones may be. To be in Christ is to be included in the Resurrection of the Righteous. I can tell you that I dream of that day, when we will be standing before God united with Christ in the Resurrection, and Marlo and Monica will be standing there with us! And your loved ones with you!

But Paul doesn’t leave it there.

Listen to what he says in Colossians 2:12:

You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

Did you notice the subtle difference compared to what Paul said in Romans 6:5? In Romans, Paul said “we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.” Shall. Future tense. Not yet. But in Colossians Paul said, “you were also raised with him”. Were. It already happened. It’s here and now.

So although there is an important sense in which the resurrection lies in the future, there is another equally important sense in which the resurrection has already happened. When we enter into Jesus Christ through baptism, we enter into his resurrection life. If you are in Christ, your resurrection life has already started, because Jesus’ resurrection is already a reality. It is true that your resurrection body lies in the future. But your resurrection life is already here.

That is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Why Give Thanks

We see now why we can’t help but give thanks in all circumstances. Because we have been baptized into Christ, we have a personal relationship with the creator and the sustainer of the Universe. He clothes us with himself and gives to us the indescribable gift of his righteousness and the power of his resurrection life. No matter what happens to us, whatever challenges we may face, whatever tragedies may come our way, we know that in the end, our Lord, Creator, Sustainer, and Savior is to going set everything right in the resurrection. And perhaps the most amazing part of it all is that our resurrection life, while awaiting its ultimate fulfillment in the future, has already begun.

How Should We Give Thanks?

So let us give thanks in all circumstances! But how should we give thanks?

Well, of course, we can always say “thank you” to God, and that is exactly what we do when we praise and worship him, as indeed the Psalms tell us that what we should. Psalm 100, among many others, says in verse 4 “Enter the temple gates with praise, its courts with thanksgiving. Give thanks to God, bless his name.”

But remember back in 2 Corinthians 9:12 where Paul talked about “overflowing in many acts of thanksgiving to God”? God wants us to thank him not only with our songs and our speech, but also in our actions such as giving of ourselves to others as the Macedonian Christians had done.

But there is more. In Leviticus 22:29-30, we read this:

Whenever you offer a thanksgiving sacrifice to the LORD, so offer it that it may be acceptable for you; it must, therefore, be eaten on the same day; none of it shall be left over until the next day. I am the LORD.

Obviously, Leviticus is talking about an animal sacrifice, so we see that giving thanks the way God wants us to involves sacrifice. And of course, we offer just exactly this kind of sacrifice every time we go to Mass.

But we also read in Hebrews these beautiful words: “Let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13:15). Now before you get too excited about how easy that sounds, remember that in the first century, to publicly confess Christ with your lips often led to a death sentence. So the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving really involves offering God the sacrifice of our lives.

And that realization helps us to understand Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:1:

I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.

So yes, we should and do give thanks to God with our lips in song and praise, and we offer him the sacrifice of thanksgiving in the Eucharist, the Mass. But let us also give him thanks by offering him our lives, our very selves.

Faith in the Age of Science: Death through Adam, Life through Jesus

The Problem: Death Came Through Adam

This post is NOT your typical discourse on how science and faith are really not enemies but good friends after all. Instead, I am writing about how modern science may lead us to find new ways to think about our faith.  There are many examples of this, from how we understand creation for one, and life-after-death for another.  I will not discuss either of those in this post, at least not directly. Rather, I will look at something Saint Paul says in his letter to the Romans.  Here it is:

...sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.  (Romans 5:12)

Paul here assumes the Roman Christians know that before Adam sinned there was no physical death in the world.  Living things (people, animals, plants) didn't start dying until Adam sinned. Paul then uses this common knowledge to set the Romans up for the Good News that Jesus has conquered the very death that Adam initiated by sinning.

This passage is difficult for those of us living in the twenty-first century to accept, however.  Most of us know (or think we do) that death reigned on earth for billions of years before Adam. So death could not have entered the world due to Adam's sin as Paul and his contemporaries thought it did -- death was already here when Adam appeared and had been killing off living things for millennia.

From our point of view, therefore, Paul's statement that death came through Adam's sin reflects a pre-scientific belief we now know to be false.  Things seem to get worse.  Because here is what Paul says just a couple of sentences later:

If, because of the one man’s [Adam's] trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17)

There are two ways to understand what Paul is saying.  First, he could mean that Jesus' defeat of death on the cross depends on physical death having come into the world through Adam's sin. Some Christians understand Paul to mean exactly that.  Accordingly, these Christians feel compelled to reject modern evolutionary science in order to defend Paul and, they believe, their Biblical faith.

The second way to understand Paul is like this:  he is trying to explain how it is possible for the death and resurrection of one man, Jesus Christ, to bring life to all.  He knows the Romans already understand that sin and death came into the world through one man.  So he says in effect, "You know that death came into the world through one man's sinful disobedience, so you get the basic principle that what one man did can affect all of us. So it should not really surprise you that death has been undone by another man's perfect obedience; that other man, of course, is Jesus Christ!"

In this second reading of Paul, he is not telling us we should think Adam's sin did bring death into the world.  He is just using the Roman's belief that this is what happened to help them understand how Jesus' death and resurrection could affect everyone.  This view assumes that if Paul and his first readers (actually, hearers -- because his letters were meant to be read aloud in public) had known that death had existed in the world for billions of years before Adam, he would have developed some other way to explain how Jesus' death and resurrection worked.

Not everyone will find this second explanation acceptable.  Some  will see Paul making a strong statement that what Adam did through his sinful disobedience, Jesus undid through his perfect obedience.  Paul could just as well have said that Jesus is the "anti-Adam".  Thus, they argue that even if we can excuse his saying physical death came into the world through Adam's sin as pre-scientific ignorance, we can't easily get away from the direct connection Paul makes between Adam and Jesus, and the strong implication that Adam was a real, historical figure.

Who Was Adam?  What Did He Do?

In one sense, there is no problem in thinking of Adam as a historical figure.  There must have been a first human male and female.  We know that "Eve" means "Mother of the Living", and modern science tells us that all human beings are indeed descended from a single female.  "Eve" is a pretty good name for her!  While science has not yet been able to show that we are all descended from a single male, it is quite reasonable to believe that we are because, in typical primate behavior, the alpha male does not share his mate!  And because the name "Adam" is just the Hebrew equivalent for "human" (and is derived from "adama", meaning "earth"), it is a pretty good name for the first man too.

The real question is whether there is any more we can know about Adam, the person Paul has in mind?  Who was he?  What did he do?

As to who Adam was, there are at least three possibilities:  (1) he really was the first human male, or at least the human male from whom all of us are descended; (2) he was a man who somehow got things started off on the wrong foot, perhaps the founder of human civilization; (3) he is a composite character who represents all of us.  In a moment, I will consider each of these in turn. But first we must ask what it is that Adam did.

What was Adam's sin?  A straightforward reading of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden tells us that Adam ate of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Most theologians and biblical scholars today regard this story in Genesis as poetry drenched in rich symbolism.  In the story, for example, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could just as well be called the "Tree of Death" in juxtaposition with the "Tree of Life", that other tree in the Garden.  These two trees then seem to represent the choice we must all make between the ways of life and death, a dominant theme running throughout the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation (for example: Deutoronomy 11:26-21, Sirach 15:16, Matthew 7:13-14).

If we accept that the tree is symbolic, then it follows that eating the forbidden fruit is likewise symbolic and therefore not to be taken literally.  This means of course that we don't know what exactly Adam did.  And yet we do know something.  For recall the serpent's temptation: "You shall be like gods!" (Genesis 3:5). And this corresponds very nicely to something Paul himself tells us in the wonderful Philippians hymn:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-11)

Of course, Paul is telling us about Jesus in this passage rather than Adam, but he is also telling us something about Adam's sin when he says "[Jesus] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited."

Remember that Paul understands Jesus to be the anti-Adam:  what Adam did, Jesus undid.  So the way we should understand Paul here is this: in contrast to Adam, who was not God, and who tried to make himself equal with God, consider that Jesus, who was God, freely chose to empty himself of his divinity and take the form of a slave.  In short, the nature of Adam's sin was simply this:  he tried to make himself like God. 

With this insight in hand, let us now consider the three alternatives as to who Adam was (or is).

Literally the First Man.  Whether created directly from the dust of the ground, or gradually through billions of years of evolution, at some point there came into existence that first human male from whom we are all descended.  According to the first alternative, that first man is Adam.  And that is all we really know about him, except that he made some kind of choice -- we don't know precisely what -- in which he tried to make himself like God and forever set the course of human history down the wrong path.

God-King, Political Genius, and Founder of Human Civilization.  According to this alternative, Adam was a real historical figure but not necessarily the first human male.   Consider that all of the key characters in the Biblical story were people who initiated some critical turning point in human history.  Besides Adam, these include:  Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, and Paul.  The first few of these were tribal chieftains, great judges, kings, prophets, or other sorts of leaders.  Thus Adam too could have been some sort of ruler who did something so significant that it set the direction of human history and determined what kind of people we would be.  Perhaps he founded the first civilization.  Perhaps he was the first king who set himself up as a god and demanded to be worshiped, and thereby set the pattern for kings, emperors, fuhrers, and "dear leaders" to come.

Literary Symbol for You and Me.  The third alternative is that Adam is a literary symbol rather than a historical person.  If so, then we are faced with the uncomfortable reality that Adam's sin is ours.  For we too choose everyday to make ourselves our own masters, lords of our own lives, the very centers of our own universes. And by insisting that everyone else make our desires and our needs their priorities, we make ourselves their lords rather than their servants.  In a word, we make ourselves God and demand their worship.

Some Christians will not see Adam, the Literary Symbol, as a viable alternative.  If Adam is just a symbol for you and me, they will say, it is hard to take Paul's strong view of Jesus as the anti-Adam seriously; that too becomes just another literary way of expressing things.

But I am not so sure.  Perhaps Jesus undid what each of us does every day:  put ourselves at the center of the Universe, making ourselves our own little gods. 

Conclusion

So who was Adam?  Perhaps he was all three:  the first man, who set himself up to be worshiped by everyone else, and thereby became a symbol for all of us.  I'm not really sure that it matters too much which of the three alternatives is the right one, or if the truth is something else altogether.  What does matters is that whoever Adam was and whatever he did by whatever choice of arrogance and self-aggrandizement, this was undone by Jesus' choice of obedience and humility. Death came through Adam, but life came through Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

A Protestant Convert's View of Catholic Teaching About Mary, Mother of God

I became a Catholic when I was almost 40 years old.  My parents raised me as a Southern Baptist, and in college I became an Episcopalian, so my journey to the Catholic Church was a gradual one with a few twists and turns along the way.  But this post is not about that.  Rather, it is about how I as a Protestant convert have come to see the Church's teachings about Mary, the Mother of God.

Most Protestant converts struggle with Catholic teachings about Mary.  For me, the biggest challenges were (and are) the teachings concerning the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, and Mary's Perpetual Virginity.  There are also Catholics who believe that Mary is the dispenser of all graces, but I am not concerned here with that particular belief because the Church has carefully avoided declaring this to be an infallible teaching (even though we have had Popes who believed it); that is, Catholics are not required to believe it. 

Before I get too deeply into this post, I should take a moment to clarify what these three challenging doctrines are and why they are hard for Protestants to accept.

The Immaculate Conception is the idea that Mary, unlike everyone else, was conceived free of original sin and during the course of her life was protected from ever committing a sin.  I recently heard a priest take this idea a step further to declare that it was actually impossible for Mary to sin.  This teaching is tough for Protestants to accept because (1) it is explicitly stated nowhere in Scripture, (2) it seems to be explicitly contradicted by Paul in Romans 3:23, and (3) Catholic apologetics aimed at showing how the doctrine is implied by Scripture seem rather complex and certainly non-intuitive.

The Assumption of Mary is the teaching that although Mary died a natural death as everyone does, she was immediately taken body and soul into heaven.  Her assumption into heaven is why Mary can physically appear in the various apparitions that have been attributed to her.  Protestant objections to this teaching are that, again, it is (1) found nowhere in Scripture and (2) contracted by the Bible's teaching that the resurrection will take place at the end of time.  Catholic apologetics in defense of the Assumption as rooted in Scripture are again complex, arcane, and unintuitive.

Mary's Perpetual Virginity entails three separate ideas.  First, Mary conceived Jesus as a virgin through the power of the Holy Spirit rather than through the normal way.  Second, when Jesus was born, her physical virginity remained intact; that is, Jesus was born without actually passing through the birth canal in a normal physical birth.  Third, Mary remained a virgin her entire life even though she was married.   Liberal (so-called mainline) Protestants object to all three of these ideas because they reject the idea of miracles in principle.  Conservative Protestants reject only the second and third.  The problem with the second is (again) that it is found nowhere in Scripture and (more seriously) seems to contradict the idea that Jesus was fully human -- a baby that can pass from inside to outside Mary's body without passing through the birth canal is, it would seem, a magical being and not a human baby.  The problem with the third is that it (1) seems explicitly contradicted by Scriptural references to Jesus' brothers and sisters (for example, Matthew 13:55-57) and (2) requires us to believe that Joseph and Mary never consummated their marriage -- something which frankly most of us find so unbelievable that one wonders why we are even discussing it!

So these are the three Marian doctrines with which Protestant converts must struggle the most.  Notice that I have not mentioned the title "Mother of God".  Although many Protestants do in fact object to this title (because, after all, God can not logically have a mother), that objection merely reflects a simple misunderstanding.  Catholics call Mary the Mother of God because Christians believe that Jesus was God in the flesh:  he was fully human and fully God from the moment of his conception.  Once Protestants realize the title Mother of God is nothing more (and nothing less!) than an affirmation of the incarnation, the substance of their objection to this title vanishes.

Now I must confess that I have read several apologetic arguments by writers such as Scott Hahn in defense of these three Marian dogmas and generally remain unimpressed.  The fact that one can construct complex logical arguments in favor of these challenging doctrines does not prove the doctrines true or Scriptural.  Ultimately, these apologetics prove only that the apologist is very clever.  It takes more than a clever argument to prove a counter-intuitive assertion.  Nevertheless, Scott Hahn and other apologists have successfully demonstrated that reasonable Scriptural justification for these doctrines is at least possible.  Such demonstrations do give Protestant converts Scriptural cover, should they feel the need for it.

But there may be another way to look at these various Marian doctrines.  The problems and objections above are all with respect to a literal interpretation of these doctrines.  If we are faced with a binary choice between literally true or literally false, then the objections remain.  But suppose the choice is different.  Suppose the choice is between what these teachings mean being true or false.  What then?

So let us look at what these teachings might mean to a Protestant convert.

The Immaculate Conception.  The way Catholic teaching about the Immaculate Conception is formulated is this:  Mary was redeemed from sin by her Son by virtue of his death and resurrection just like everyone else, the only difference from everyone else being that for Mary this occurred prior to her conception (CCC 490-492).  The key is that she was redeemed by Jesus' death on the Cross and his Resurrection; her immaculate conception is not about her but is rather all about her Son.  So if we think of Mary as a prototype for all human kind, as the new Eve, the mother of all the living (an idea that goes back to at least Justin Martyr in the second century; see this article from the University of Dayton), then the Church's teaching of the Immaculate Conception is nothing more and nothing less than an affirmation of Christ's redemption of humanity through his death on the Cross.

Mary's Assumption into Heaven.   Here again the key to discovering the meaning of Mary's Assumption is to be found in the Catechism (CCC 966):  "The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians."  So again, if we allow Mary to represent all of us as the New Eve, the mother of all the living, then the doctrine of the Assumption is not about her but about our hope: it is an affirmation of our own future Resurrection.

There is another aspect of the Assumption that is also quite important -- and generally neglected by nearly everyone, Protestant and Catholic.  And that is this (again from CCC 966):  upon her Assumption, she was "exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things," or as Catholics often say, she was crowned Queen of Heaven.  The central meaning here has nothing at all to do with Mary other than that she is the mother of Jesus, the Messianic King.  For Scripture's model of the Messianic Kingdom is the Davidic Kingdom, where the queen is always the king's mother (see for example 1 Kings 2:19).  In other words, to call Mary "Queen of Heaven" is to affirm simply that Jesus really is the Messiah, the fulfillment of all God's messianic promises to David and the Hebrew prophets.  So naturally we call his mother Queen.

Mary's Perpetual Virginity.  With the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, the crucial significance of these doctrines is found by seeing Mary as the representative for all humanity, as the New Eve, the mother of all the living.  The meaning behind her perpetual virginity is not so easy; if we look for it there, we are not likely to find it.  Rather, the central meaning is to be found in history, particularly the history of the first century where the story of Mary's virginity originated, and by the end of which her perpetual virginity was very likely established as a common or at least growing belief (see the interesting article on Catholic Answers).

The story of Mary's virginity first appears in writing with the New Testament gospels of Matthew and Luke.  In both cases, the story derives its meaning from the context of Imperial Rome.  The emperor Caesar Augustus was the son of God, Lord and Savior of the World, born of a virgin (see Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan's fascinating book on this subject.)  The story of Jesus' virgin birth was simply the first move in a new narrative, the point of which was to say that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.  This theme runs through the entire New Testament from Matthew through Revelation.  And it is the point of the Virgin Birth, the first of the three aspects of Mary's perpetual virginity.

The second and third aspects likewise derive their meaning from the historical context in which they developed.  For the event of Jesus' birth was so fundamentally earth-shaking and transformative that merely telling the same story as any pagan emperor hardly did it justice.  The point of Mary's perpetual virginity and of Jesus' miraculous birth without passing through the birth canal was that this event was something more than merely special but utterly unique in human history, something far beyond that which any pagan emperor could claim for himself or his predecessors.  It drew attention to the utterly transcendent otherness of the Incarnation where the Infinite Creator of all that is, visible and invisible, emptied himself of his Divinity to become one of us, as Saint Paul so wonderfully put it in Philippians 2:6-11.

Conclusion

So there you have it: this is how one Protestant convert has resolved the difficulties and challenges posed by Catholic teaching about Mary.  Are these teachings literally, physically true?  I know many Catholics who are convinced that they are.  And of course God can do anything at all (except deny himself; 2 Timothy 2:10-13).  The question in my mind isn't whether God could have done these things; only whether he did.  Perhaps he did, but I think that focusing on whether he did or didn't is to completely miss the point.

What matters to me is what these Marian teachings mean.  For me, the Church's teachings about Mary mean that the Incarnation was a special event, unlike anything else that has ever happened or will happen again in human history.  God came into the world and redeemed us, all of us.  And because he did so, we all have a wonderful future before us, a future in Christ because of his death and resurrection.  For although we do not yet know what we shall be, we know that we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).