How Cohabitation Is a Sin Against Social Justice

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How Cohabitation Is a Sin Against Social Justice

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Christ the King - The Original Inconvenient Truth

Christ the King – an Inconvenient Truth or Liberation? November 22, 2009

John 18:33b-37

We are invited to listen in on a conversation in today’s Gospel. Two men face off, one very powerful and influential by the world’s standards, the other – Christ. There’s a lot riding on the outcome of this encounter, although it’s clear Pilate doesn’t quite know the extent of it.

Picture a time when a society is clearly divided into those who have the power, those who want power, and those who will never have power. This was the situation in the Palestine of Jesus’ time, with Roman occupation men like Pilate had all the power and wealth, and the armies to enforce it.

Occupied Jews who were smart knew enough to stay on the right side of the Romans did fairly well. The Pharisees and the High Priests do OK by keeping things quiet, and they live a pretty good life as they await the coming of the Messiah to give them back their promised land.

Along comes Jesus to rock that boat, and they don’t quite know what to do with him.

He preaches a different kind of love of God – one in which after God, we are commanded to love our neighbour. To put our neighbour ahead of ourselves, because isn’t that, my friends, the definition of love – to put someone else’s needs ahead of your own?

But what does that mean? That all this striving for power and status and material possessions mean nothing at all? Apparently the poor are the blessed ones, the meek are blessed, and the lowly are in fact the first for God’s affection. Christ threatens the fabric of society of his time. He is not exactly the messiah the Jews have been waiting for, not only because he doesn’t arrive in a blaze of glory, but because what if they believe what he preaches they will have to renounce all that they believe to be true.

It’s no different for the Romans. If they believe what Christ says, their world will be very different indeed. If Christ is King, then he is the highest authority in the land, in the world, and that means going against the most powerful government on the face of the earth, with potentially disastrous results.

Christ has become the original inconvenient truth.

Two men face to face and Pilate isn’t keen on recognizing the King in front of him.

How is that different from today’s world? Don’t we tend to hold in high esteem those who have achieved positions of great wealth in our society? Beyond financial wealth, we value talent and good looks and physical fitness. We idolize our rock stars and our sports stars and our Hollywood stars and even the sons and daughters of the well to do, whose only accomplishment seems to have been that they were born to wealthy parents.

Oh come on. We want to be like them. Bigger houses. Nicer cars.

"You can do it. If you believe it, you can achieve it." We motivate ourselves by reading quotations from famous people. I have personally spent hundreds of dollars in the last 30 years of my business career attending seminars, buying books, motivational calendars – all with the goal of “making it” in the business world. The next promotion, the biggest bonus, recognition, maybe even elected office….

And you know, relatively speaking and in comparison to most of the rest of the world, we’re actually very wealthy. Even the relatively poor among us are doing well in comparison just by the accident of their birth on this side of the equator, or that they live in this country with all its natural resources, temperate climate and access to water, wood and oil…

Sometimes, though, just as the Jews and Pilate were, we are forced to face the truth in our midst. We are forced to see the poor among us. The poor in health, in hospitals and hospices across this country and in our community. The poor in spirit, the lonely, the elderly, the unemployed, the business person who’s just lost everything. The weak and the unsuccessful.

Often just two people face to face, like Jesus and Pilate. You see that scene played out every day across our community.

The street person asks the passerby on her way to the coffee shop if she can spare a few coins. The dying patient alone in the hospital asks the Hospice worker to sit with her a bit longer. A friend’s mother dies and she just needs someone to talk to. Just two people, one in need, the other being asked to give. A little like our scene in the Gospel.

Although it probably didn’t seem like it, and there isn’t a happy ending to the story, there is good news for Pilate in all of this. He has a choice.

The Christ is right in front of him. Jesus Christ has offered Pilate the chance to recognize him as King. Imagine the realization slowly dawning on Pilate that who he has in front of him is no mere rabble rouser, no run of the mill trouble maker for the Jews.

All the way through his ministry Christ has offered the truth and invited people to follow him, to become one with the truth. But, as I have said, it is an inconvenient truth.

Because if you believe, if you really believe, and embrace what Christ is saying, and follow him with all your heart, and proclaim him King – not a King but the King, then you must give up all that you hold valuable in this world in order to gain eternal life in the next. You must show a preferential option for the poor, you must recognize that those who have little or nothing are the blessed, and those who put wealth and power ahead of all else will have a difficult time finding their way to heaven.

It’s not going to be easy for Pilate to acknowledge Christ as King, but at that very moment, what if he had? What if Pilate had fallen to one knee and turned his life over to Jesus Christ. Christ never said it would be easy.

Pilate had an option, the Jews had an option, and the people of Jerusalem had an option.

We have an option. Not many of us are in a position with power of the magnitude of Pilate’s, but we are asked to deal with the problem of Christ in our daily lives. It breaks down into two parts.

The first is a question of what we hold dear to our hearts. What is it that motivates us? Is it material possessions, or status, or simply having more than everyone else? Any time we place something ahead of God we are worshiping false gods and false royalty. We know that, still it’s no easier for us to hear than it was for the people of Jesus’ time.

The good news is, the truth is, when Christ is at the centre of our lives in prayer, worship and in practice, those other things don’t quite matter as much, and we’re free to love our family, our closest friends and the strangers in our midst. A weight is lifted off our shoulders. The truth has set us free.

Secondly though, is a question of how we treat the poor, the lowly, and the down on their luck. Christ himself said, and this is what gets him in trouble in the first place, “when I was hungry you fed me, when I was thirsty you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome…” (Matthew 25)

Pilate just wanted Christ to go away.

We gain for ourselves a place in the Kingdom when we find ourselves face to face with the hungry, the thirsty, and society’s cast-offs, the lonely, the sick, the dying… and we face the truth. We forget ourselves for a moment, our ambitions and our possessions and our foolish pursuits and put their needs first as Christ loves us and puts us first even to the point of dying. We acknowledge Christ as King in the loving and prayerful service of others in the name of God.

This Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, was originally implemented in 1925 by Pope Pius XI who hoped that a day acknowledging Jesus Christ as King of the universe would act as a corrective to some dangerous political ideas of his time, and would help bring about peace and harmony and calm order in his time.

He could have issued a Papal encyclical, but instead established this solemnity, in his words “the annual celebration of sacred mysteries is more effective informing people about Faith and in bringing them the joys of the spiritual life… solemn documents are often read by a few…feasts move and teach all the faithful.”

This is a message of hope.

This man whose sacrifice for us we celebrate at the table of the Eucharist, this Christ; is he our King?

DMK Burger Bar - see, he get's it!

As I continue my quest for the world's best burger....

Chicago Chef Kornick Launching Burger Concept: 7 Reasons It Can Succeed

The sit-down restaurant, DMK Burger Bar, is scheduled to open its first unit in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood at the end of May.
Allison Perlik, Senior Editor -- Restaurants and Institutions, 3/10/2009 7:35:00 AM
Chicago chef Michael Kornick knows burger joints are the industry’s latest cliché. New gourmet chef-driven spots, upstart fast-casual chains and national fast-food giants seem to open doors to new locations daily, yet Kornick—known for acclaimed fine-dining restaurant mk as well as his work with the Las Vegas-based N9NE Group—isn’t fazed. Here’s the rundown on why he thinks DMK Burger Bar is destined for success:

http://www.rimag.com/article/CA6643097.html?nid=4658&rid=12863190

Greenmail

At work we talked today about greening the email process, with some reporting that they are forced to print emails unnecessarily because they don’t have time to organize their Outlook, and consequently fill up their allotted space. Courtesy of my good friends in I.T., here are some easy steps they suggested to avoid needless printing.

Use the tools available in Outlook, starting with “off-line”.

1. Your “Deleted Items” file is taking up space. The Solution? Set up your email to empty the “Deleted Items” folder upon exiting. This way all deleted emails are permanently deleted every time you exit Outlook. Tip: The downside of this is if you use your “Deleted Items” folder as storage instead of the trash bin it’s meant to be, you may lose important emails. Just use your offline for storage instead – read on…

2. You’re so darned popular! You can’t get to the huge amount of emails you receive daily as fast as you’d like to. The Solution? Create a “rule” to move emails or a certain size, or from certain people to an off-line folder and sort your emails from there. You might title it “sort” or something like that.

3. Size matters! You don’t get many emails but somehow you still fill up your allowable space. The Solution? Consider the size of your emails, not the amount of emails in your inbox and sent folder. One decent sized attachment can take up a disproportionate amount of allowable space.

4. Empty your “sent” file! You may empty your deleted file regularly, but you still get the “mailbox over limit” message. Consider this – if you forward an email you have received with an attachment it is now taking up the same amount of space twice – in your inbox and in your sent file. Tip: try sorting your emails by size, then move / delete / deal with the largest emails first. Make a point of regularly checking your “sent” file then file offline or delete sent emails.

5. Who cares who read what? If you’re tracking read or deleted emails you’re filling up your inbox with “read” receipts or “deleted” notices. Do you really need to know that I deleted your heartwarming “fwd: This will make you cry” email two minutes after you sent it to me? Do you really want to know that I deleted it without reading it? Really?

6. You’re not using your off-line. The solution? Start using it. We’re not getting any more space on our Outlook, they’re not growing trees fast enough for the paper we’re printing, and they’ve run out of decent plot lines (if they ever had them) so there isn’t going to be another “Fast and Furious” sequel. These are painful truths. Deal with it.


"It is estimated that 97 billion e-mails whisk through cyberspace every day. And according to GreenPrint Technologies, despite 20th century predictions of a paperless office, North Americans use enough sheets every year to build a 10-foot-high wall that would stretch from New York to Tokyo and beyond..."

The Southern Kitchen - Atlanta

A few years back...

It was in Atlanta, a restaurant called the Southern Kitchen. It was lined up so I sat at the bar and asked the bartender to bring me something to eat that would make me go back to Canada and talk about his restaurant. He started with a drink that was fantastic and to this day I don't even know what it was.

Then he asked me what kind of food I preferred, and I told him I would eat WHATEVER he put in front of me and love it. So he asked me to narrow it down to three choices, and the third was Fried Chicken. That was the one I didn't want, thinking I'd end up with KFC. So asked him which of the three he would have for dinner if he could.

He told me that if I left Atlanta without trying the Fried Chicken it would be a shame and that he would definitely have the Fried Chicken for dinner if he could. So I ordered it, even though I wouldn't have ever chosen it off the menu and I really didn't want it. But, if you're going to trust your server, then you trust your server all the way. He told me it was going to be the best chicken I would ever taste.

Turns out he was right. It remains to this day the very best experience of a server who knew his menu, appreciated his customers and was proud of his work. It was nothing like what I expected and every time I think about it I just want to jump on a plane, head down to Atlanta and order it again.

And here's the best part. I ate at the Southern Kitchen because a friend recommended it. It had been recommended to her and she loved it. And now I recommend it to you.

Whoever Wants to be First Must be the Servant of All

Deacon Greg Kandra writes beautifully on the subject of catechises (oral religious instruction) using this Sunday's Gospel Mark 9:30-37 (whoever wants to be first must be last of all, and servant of all) as his inspiration. Read on...

The Deacon's Bench: Homily for September 20, 2009: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Make meeting time more meaningful | Cincinnati.com | The Cincinnati Enquirer

After yet another dismal meeting with no agenda, no minutes from the previous meeting, and not surprisingly, no results, I long for the day when meetings are only held because they are the best course of action in the specific situation.

Make meeting time more meaningful | Cincinnati.com | The Cincinnati Enquirer

Ayn Rand rolls over in her grave...

So this really rich guy from Windsor puts down a million and a half on some sort of fancy sports car, and the Detroit dealership allegedly runs away with his money and doesn’t turn over the car. This makes the front page of the local rag and the reaction from the hoi-polloi is to criticize the newspaper for making it the lead story, and the rich guy for being so…rich, I guess.

Here’s my reaction. First, let that be a lesson to those among us who would put down a 100% deposit. I say hold back a couple of hundred thousand to make sure you get what you ordered – the colour you wanted, the CD player, that sort of thing.

Secondly, let’s call the criticism what it is: envy. Who are any of us to tell this self-made billionaire how he can legally spend his money. Would we really have the employees of the auto company go jobless while he gives the cash to charities instead? What if our town made high-end sports cars instead of minivans, how would the tune change?

And third, it is front page news. How many people do you know who can spend that kind of cash on a car? Many of us have met this man around town and didn’t even know he was a billionaire. His company, Atlas Tool employs several hundreds of people. He is an entrepreneur who has opened several successful businesses in the area, a philanthropist, he has endured great personal tragedy that would sideline a lesser man and kept his family and businesses together, and by all accounts is a great guy.

And his reaction to all of envious reaction to his misfortune? He hasn’t said a word, but hopefully, Atlas shrugged.

A Specialty Restaurant in Toronto

My son and I have had our eyes on this one for awhile, so when I finally got my chance to try it I was still tossed between which naughty pleasure I would enjoy while in Toronto for a convention ; Hooters (for the chicken wings, of course) or this poutine specialty restaurant. I went for the poutine. (Less to explain if your wife finds you dead of a heart attack than if she finds a Hooters receipt in your wallet).

The menu is basically a whole bunch of different combinations of stuff you can put on standard poutine, which of course consists of fries, curds and gravy, eh? I had the pulled pork on top of the heaping mound of poutine. I may never eat again. Heck, I may never see my feet again.

Good - fresh cut fries, hot gravy, real curds. Some places try and get away with using mozzarella cheese just because it's white and melts up real stringy. That ain't right - it's supposed to be curds. This place uses them.

Great - Pop Shoppe Pop in the bottle. I had the Cherry Cola. Aaahh, the memories.

Room for Growth - I deliberately don't name the restaurant because I don't want to wrongly accuse, or seem to accuse. Cashier / order taker / cook working alone rang up my order with cash drawer open. When I asked for receipt he had to ring it up again to print the receipt. Typically that may mean that a) that cash was never destined for the cash drawer, or b) the taxman ain't getting his full share because not all sales get recorded, or c) cashier is correcting a previous error by not getting management involved.

No matter how you slice it, this is a danger signal that could mean that this place won't be around much longer if controls aren't in place. The owner probably can't figure out why his sales are down and food cost is up. Glad I came when I did, I may not get another chance.

I can only imagine how good this place is at 2 a.m. after a few brews. I'll let you know after the party tonight.

The Naked Fish Market

When I decided to write about restaurant experiences for the benefit of anyone who feels like reading this stuff I started with only three rules:

1. If I was going to name the place I would always say something good. In a few restaurants where this was not possible I have told the manager/owner in person and left it at that.

2. Never write about a friend's restaurant.

3. Never write about a restaurant in my own backyard.

Today I break rules #2 and #3 to rave about The Naked Fish Market in Kingsville, Ontario on the shores of Lake Erie in beautiful Essex County. My friend Rob Taylor owns this little fish and chip shop. Rob and I go back 12 or more years in the restaurant business, and I have always appreciated two things about Rob - his creativity and his commitment to quality. That pretty much describes TNFM.

The menu gives choices of several types of fish combos and other great appetizer and entree offerings (like Pulled Pork). I especially like the self-serve ice cream bar - buy your cone or cup and fill it as high as you want, one trip only. Rob says that's pretty popular with the kids from Kingsville High.

The ambience is cool, with just enough "naked" references to make it fun without being scandalous. You can buy an "Eat Naked" t-shirt for $10, or trade in the one you're wearing and pay nothing. Rob always has a way of taking something ordinary and putting a fun twist to it.

The place is small, busy, trendy, fun and fantastic. Rob is friendly and welcoming and putting everything he's learned from Red Lobster to Applebees and countless other smaller non-chain restaurants over the last decade into making this place work. He's clearly learned what doesn't work and left it out of TNFM. Working in the restaurant business can introduce you to some really amazing people and some pretty unsavoury characters too. Rob has his own story to tell about how he became the accidental entrepreneur after years of sweating it out in other people's kitchens, but I'll summarize for him. When life handed him lemons, he cut them into slices and served them with fish. I had the breaded fish and french fries and my wife had the battered haddock and fries. Both came with coleslaw. You can choose the number of pieces you want in a dinner and the price is reasonable. The fries are fresh!!

It works. It's cool. Sure, it's deep fried trans-fat free so I won't be eating there often. But as the most interesting man in the world from those beer commercials might say, "I don't always eat fish and chips, but when I do, I eat Naked."