Readings - http://www.usccb.org/nab/103110.shtml
Normally, I begin my Sunday homilies during Ordinary Time by reminding us that generally the Readings offer us a theme from our day to day lives and invite us to find Jesus or the Gospel in that aspect of our day to day existence.
This week, however, I’m going to proceed a little bit differently because we’re confronted by a really lovely first Reading from the Book of Wisdom (Wis 11:22-12:2) that I believe is worth BOTH “cutting and pasting” and placing on our refrigerator or bathroom mirror at home, AND taking some time to pick it apart, line by line. First the text in its entirety:
Before the LORD the whole universe is as a grain from a balance
or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.
But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things;
and you overlook people's sins that they may repent.
For you love all things that are
and loathe nothing that you have made;
for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.
And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it;
or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?
But you spare all things, because they are yours,
O LORD and lover of souls,
for your imperishable spirit is in all things!
Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little,
warn them and remind them of the sins they are committing,
that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you, O LORD!
Now let’s pick it apart:
Before the LORD the whole universe is as a grain from a balance
or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.
Often enough, our day to day lives are limited by the spaces of our homes, cars, and offices. We’re not able to see much past the kitchen counter, the tv set in the living room or past our cubicle in the office. Our world is “small.”
It is therefore important to occasionally get out of the house and take a walk. And it’s well worth going to take that walk at a place which is “unconstrained.” In Chicago, I’ve found a great place to take such a walk, to see “a bigger picture” is to go to the Lake. As my nieces once happily said, Lake Michigan _not_ like a lake. “It’s like an ocean.” (Actually it’s really a lake but a really big lake). Looking out onto Lake Michigan, one can not see the other shore. One just sees the water blend into the horizon. And the water itself acts like a sea. Some days it seems as smooth as glass. Other times there are five even ten foot waves. Depending on the wind and weather, the water can be blue, green, grey, and of course, in the winter, white. It is a little bit of awesomeness and it reminds me, that there is a whole world out there which is far bigger than me and my current concerns.
The writer of the Book of Wisdom reminds us that God is bigger than all of this, bigger than Lake Michigan, bigger than the entire Universe, whose Creator he is.
But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things;
and you overlook people's sins that they may repent.
But precisely because God is so great, God is also compassionate. Every major religion which is either monotheistic (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) or simply tends toward the absolute (like Buddhism) appreciates this. It is precisely because God is so Awesome, indeed Omnipotent, _can_ “do all things” that God _can_ care, _care_ about _all things_, care about _us_.
For you love all things that are
and loathe nothing that you have made;
for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.
We were ALL created by God. Hence are ALL loved. The famous phrase of the much belittled Rev. Jesse Jackson is ABSOLUTELY TRUE – “God does not make junk.”
And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it;
or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?
We are here because God wants us here. No matter how often we may hear voices either internal or external, that we are not worthy of consideration, _not worthy of being_, we ARE worthy, ALL OF US, because GOD MADE US AND SUSTAINS US. NO HUMAN BEING, OR GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS HAS THE RIGHT TO TAKE OUR INFINITE VALUE FROM US.
But you spare all things, because they are yours,
O LORD and lover of souls,
for your imperishable spirit is in all things!
And we are not merely “made by God”, in Baptism, we become part of the Body of Christ, hence we become PART of God in this world and GOD’S SPIRIT does breathe within us!
Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little,
warn them and remind them of the sins they are committing,
that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you, O LORD!
And yet WE ALL KNOW that could do better, that we all fail, that we all sin.
But God does not beat us for our failings, for our sins. HE DOES HOWEVER REMIND US, and remind us consistently that we are called to do better, _gently_ calling us to rise to bigger heights, to resolve the obstacles, mostly internal, that keep us down, keep us from respecting each other and to see both ourselves AND Others as God sees us all.
***
OK. This reading from the Book of Wisdom is GRAND. But now how can we relate it to the Gospel Reading which we hear today?
Well, it has been said that Jesus brought “down to earth”, _incarnated_, _fulfilled_ that which the previous Scriptures (the Old Testament) promised.
And we see the Incarnation, Fulfillment of the Old Testament Reading in Jesus’ meeting with Zacchaeus in the Gospel Reading.
Zacchaeus, in many respects, represents all of us. Indeed, I really believe that Zacchaeus represents a lot of Annunciata’s parishioners very, very well. Okay, it’s possible that Zacchaeus was richer than most Annunciata’s parishioners would consider themselves to be.
But Zacchaeus’ behavior in this Gospel story would be _very recognizable_ to many of us: He was rich, he was enthusiastic (full of life), but he also _felt himself “small”_, not really worthy.
We see this at Annunciata. All kinds of people come out to support the parish at Annunciata Fest. All kinds of people come together if there is someone who is in need. All kinds of people will come out and buy raffle tickets to support the Parish financially as well.
But ask people to Read (to be a Lector), to be a Eucharistic Minister, to join the Choir, to join a Bible Study group and many ... most ... shirk away. It’s that they are not interested. It’s generally, that they don’t feel themselves _worthy_.
So they salute the Priest at a distance, often sincerely and with a great and sincere smile, perhaps with a beer in one’s hand. But they feel that they’re not worthy, that they’d look like fools reading, or embarrass themselves trying to sing, or feel almost hopelessly distant from the Scriptures they hear proclaimed Sunday. They prefer to stand on a branch, sincerely enthusiastic, but afraid to do more than watch Jesus pass by.
But Jesus stops. Jesus, invites himself into Zacchaeus’ life into Zacchaeus’ house.
And yes, Zacchaeus would have been right. The people around him IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO MURMUR – Doesn’t Jesus know who Zacchaeus is? Doesn’t he know how unworthy Zacchaeus is of a man of God’s company?
But Zacchaeus, now invited, does not let go of the invitation. He begins to make promises that perhaps he doesn’t keep (we _don’t know_ if he kept them). But we can recognize them as certainly sincere at the time: “I’ll give half of what I own to the poor, and if I’ve defrauded ANYONE, I’ll give that person 4x back what I took from him.”
Zacchaeus is changed. And Jesus is happy, because as he notes, “this man is ALSO a descendant of Abraham.”
AND THAT COULD BE SAID ABOUT US: WE ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE BODY OF CHRIST. Perhaps for years we don’t act that way, but by virtue of our Baptism we are. AND WE ARE INVITED, EVER GENTLY, TO STAND UP AND TAKE OUR PLACE IN THE BODY.
Yes, we are invited GENTLY to do more than just buy raffle tickets (as _important_ financially to the Church/Parish as this is). We are invited to proclaim God’s praises, to hand out Christ’s Body, we are invited to Sing.
God bless you, us, all ;-)
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
24 Oct 2010 - 30th Sunday of Ord. Time - "Our Salvation DEPENDS on God Loving Us All"
Readings - http://www.usccb.org/nab/102410.shtml
As I’ve said many times here, during Ordinary Time, the Readings on Sunday generally touch on some aspect of our day to day lives and invite us then to find Jesus and the Gospel in that aspect of our day to day existence.
This Sunday, identifying the aspect of our lives which we are asked to take a look at is rather easy – our attitude toward our brothers and sisters with which we share our lives.
Indeed, this Sunday’s Gospel Reading begins with the words:
Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
And then continues to give the example of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector arriving at the Temple to pray.
The Pharisee, actually a rather good guy, one who sought to live his life according the law of God, honest, faithful, arguably generous, nevertheless betrayed an arrogance in his living in such a way: “I give you thanks O Lord for not being like the others – greedy, dishonest, adulterous, or even like that tax collector over there...”
In contrast, we’re told that the Tax Collector, no doubt know exactly who he was, “would not even lift his eyes toward heaven but beat his breast saying, ‘O God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
And we’re told, of course, that the Tax Collector’s prayer was heard while the Pharisee’s, again, arguably in good part a good guy, was not.
Why?
Well, if God is Our Father then we are all God’s children. There is no such a thing as a “better” child. To our parents, we are ultimately all equal. And as it’s usually the case “at home,” if one or another of the children starts to think of him or herself as better than the rest, then the parents usually step in to say “Hey, cut it out. You all have good points, you all have bad points, and we love you all.” And that may be frustrating to the “good kids” but it’s the truth.
There are _many dangers_ when seeking to compete to be “better than others.”
First of all, all of us are more than our sins, mistakes and failings. In my first year in the Seminary, when I was still unbelievably optimistic and enthusiastic about what I was doing, I volunteered to go visit weekly a prison as my ministry project for that year. No one at that school had done that for some time, but actually as a result of my deciding to give this a shoot, soon there were 4-5 of us were going in a group. And all of us would come back each week amazed. Why? Because we were surprised how easy it was to talk about God to the prisoners that we visited.
Reflecting on why that would be the case, I came to the conclusion that contrary to the popular perception, often presented to us in the movies that “Everybody in jail thinks that he/she is innocent,” when talking to “clergy” actually the opposite seemed to occur. Most of the prisoners _knew_, in fact, that they had screwed up. So the hard part of the preaching the Gospel was over and all that was left was, in fact, the GOOD NEWS, that despite that, God still loves us anyway.
In contrast, outside the jail, most of us carry masks, and insist we are better than the loser over there, of the floozy of a cousin or sister one had, etc, etc. And it’s hard to preach the Gospel to people who think that they are better than others.
And it’s also simply the truth that even those prisoners sitting in jail had people once had loved them. Even people like John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy probably made breakfast for their moms a few times for mother’s day. Even people like them probably bought a nice card or two for an aunt or grandmother when they were younger. And their aunt or grandmother would have appreciated them for that, and GOD WOULD HAVE SEEN THAT.
So God would know that all of us are more than sins or failings. And certainly we visiting the jail that year were invited (I do say by God) to start seeing the people in that way. Yes, they screwed up, yes, they deserved to be where they were, but yes, they were still capable of being loved. And if THEY can be loved, then so can we.
In constrast, if we insist on underlining our superiority to others, well ... we put in peril our own salvation. Because if we are better than others, then certainly there would be others better than us. And Jesus did underline in his preaching that NONE OF US is absolutely good.
So in reality, we are ALL in need of God’s mercy – God’s ability to overlook OUR SINS, OUR MISTAKES, OUR FAILINGS.
How arrogant it is to beat-up on the failings of someone else (and let’s face it, often someone weaker than ourselves) for the sake of hoping to “look good” in contrast.
In contrast, why not look at the good of that person and understand if God can forgive the failings of others, then there’s a much better chance that God can forgive us our own failings.
Because in the end, what we celebrate here, the Eucharist, each Sunday is a reminder, that at the end of our lives as God’s children, we’re going to be invited to the same table as the rest of God’s chindren (the rest of the family). And we’re going to be expected to ‘get along.’
So wouldn’t it be great to just let go of “the games” and just started trying to get along now?
May God bless us all, and help us to understand that even the people who annoy us are our brothers and sisters who are loved by the same God who loves us too.
As I’ve said many times here, during Ordinary Time, the Readings on Sunday generally touch on some aspect of our day to day lives and invite us then to find Jesus and the Gospel in that aspect of our day to day existence.
This Sunday, identifying the aspect of our lives which we are asked to take a look at is rather easy – our attitude toward our brothers and sisters with which we share our lives.
Indeed, this Sunday’s Gospel Reading begins with the words:
Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
And then continues to give the example of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector arriving at the Temple to pray.
The Pharisee, actually a rather good guy, one who sought to live his life according the law of God, honest, faithful, arguably generous, nevertheless betrayed an arrogance in his living in such a way: “I give you thanks O Lord for not being like the others – greedy, dishonest, adulterous, or even like that tax collector over there...”
In contrast, we’re told that the Tax Collector, no doubt know exactly who he was, “would not even lift his eyes toward heaven but beat his breast saying, ‘O God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
And we’re told, of course, that the Tax Collector’s prayer was heard while the Pharisee’s, again, arguably in good part a good guy, was not.
Why?
Well, if God is Our Father then we are all God’s children. There is no such a thing as a “better” child. To our parents, we are ultimately all equal. And as it’s usually the case “at home,” if one or another of the children starts to think of him or herself as better than the rest, then the parents usually step in to say “Hey, cut it out. You all have good points, you all have bad points, and we love you all.” And that may be frustrating to the “good kids” but it’s the truth.
There are _many dangers_ when seeking to compete to be “better than others.”
First of all, all of us are more than our sins, mistakes and failings. In my first year in the Seminary, when I was still unbelievably optimistic and enthusiastic about what I was doing, I volunteered to go visit weekly a prison as my ministry project for that year. No one at that school had done that for some time, but actually as a result of my deciding to give this a shoot, soon there were 4-5 of us were going in a group. And all of us would come back each week amazed. Why? Because we were surprised how easy it was to talk about God to the prisoners that we visited.
Reflecting on why that would be the case, I came to the conclusion that contrary to the popular perception, often presented to us in the movies that “Everybody in jail thinks that he/she is innocent,” when talking to “clergy” actually the opposite seemed to occur. Most of the prisoners _knew_, in fact, that they had screwed up. So the hard part of the preaching the Gospel was over and all that was left was, in fact, the GOOD NEWS, that despite that, God still loves us anyway.
In contrast, outside the jail, most of us carry masks, and insist we are better than the loser over there, of the floozy of a cousin or sister one had, etc, etc. And it’s hard to preach the Gospel to people who think that they are better than others.
And it’s also simply the truth that even those prisoners sitting in jail had people once had loved them. Even people like John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy probably made breakfast for their moms a few times for mother’s day. Even people like them probably bought a nice card or two for an aunt or grandmother when they were younger. And their aunt or grandmother would have appreciated them for that, and GOD WOULD HAVE SEEN THAT.
So God would know that all of us are more than sins or failings. And certainly we visiting the jail that year were invited (I do say by God) to start seeing the people in that way. Yes, they screwed up, yes, they deserved to be where they were, but yes, they were still capable of being loved. And if THEY can be loved, then so can we.
In constrast, if we insist on underlining our superiority to others, well ... we put in peril our own salvation. Because if we are better than others, then certainly there would be others better than us. And Jesus did underline in his preaching that NONE OF US is absolutely good.
So in reality, we are ALL in need of God’s mercy – God’s ability to overlook OUR SINS, OUR MISTAKES, OUR FAILINGS.
How arrogant it is to beat-up on the failings of someone else (and let’s face it, often someone weaker than ourselves) for the sake of hoping to “look good” in contrast.
In contrast, why not look at the good of that person and understand if God can forgive the failings of others, then there’s a much better chance that God can forgive us our own failings.
Because in the end, what we celebrate here, the Eucharist, each Sunday is a reminder, that at the end of our lives as God’s children, we’re going to be invited to the same table as the rest of God’s chindren (the rest of the family). And we’re going to be expected to ‘get along.’
So wouldn’t it be great to just let go of “the games” and just started trying to get along now?
May God bless us all, and help us to understand that even the people who annoy us are our brothers and sisters who are loved by the same God who loves us too.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
17 Oct 2010 - 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time - On Perseverance in Faith
Readings - http://www.usccb.org/nab/101710.shtml
During Ordinary Time, the readings on Sunday generally offer us a theme from our day to day lives and invite us then to find Jesus or the Gospel in this theme, and this Sunday the theme is very easy to identify – perseverance in faith/prayer.
The First Reading, taken from Exodus, is about a rather grueling battle between the Israelites and a desert people called the Amelek, where success depended on Moses’ ability to keep his arms extended in prayer. In the Gospel Reading were given the example of a widow who through her persistence, was able to wear down even a dishonest Judge to render a decision in her favor. We even find St. Paul’s admonition to Timothy to be “persistent” in the Second Reading. Rarely is the theme so obvious.
Now something that makes the theme interesting is relating it to the theme of last Sunday’s readings which were about healing. In last Sunday’s readings, we are presented in the Old Testament Reading with the Prophet Elisha’s healing of Naaman a military commander from a neighboring country called Aram, a people, when all things were considered was not particularly powerful, like the Amalek of the Old Testament Reading of this Sunday. In the Gospel Reading, last Sunday we were given the case of Jesus healing 10 lepers and one, a Samaritan it turns out, coming back to thank him. In the first reading last week, Naaman as well thanked Elisha for healing him, somewhat to Elisha’s embarrassment because Elisha did not particularly like (probably because he was a foreigner, hence a pagan, and even a military commander of this foreign, and presumably rival country).
So the Readings from last Sunday were about healing while the Readings this Sunday were about perseverance. Do we see a connection from the experience of our day to day lives? Probably because most of us don’t necessarily get healed right away. And some of us may actually never get healed, or see the healing of a loved one, despite our most sincere or urgent of prayers.
Taking this a bit further, we can be certain that if our prayers are specifically for healing, every single one of us will come to a point in our lives when that specific prayer will not be answered, as everyone of us will one day die and thus leave this world.
So what is the point of being “persistent” when we know that this prayer will at times not be answered (or will be refused)?
Well the first readings of the last couple of weeks may help us understand. By all accounts, the book of Exodus was compiled a number of hundred years after the event. The priests then putting in writing the account of Exodus, probably during the time of the Israelite monarchy, would have remembered (or chosen) to include the account of the Israelite battle with the Amalek in the desert of Sinai, probably because the story resonated with them (and the Israelite people) in their own time. The Amalek may have been the first foreign enemies of Israel but they were certainly not the last. In the time of the Judges and the Monarchy, the Israelites faced the neighboring peoples called Philistines, the Moabites, and the Edomites (interestingly enough, they never actually fought a significant war with Naaman’s Arameans). And in each case, there would have always been the worry, “will we prevail?” And the message of the priests was “pray to our God and we will succeed.”
So the people prayed and Israel eventually defeated the Philistines. The people prayed again, Israel defeated and occupied the neighboring country of the Moabites. And the people prayed once more when going off to battle against the Edomites – there are even Psalms in the Bible which note this impending battle against the Edomites – and once again the Israelites prevailed. But these were all, if worrisome battles, nevertheless against “B class” countries like Naaman’s Aram from last Sunday’s Readings.
Eventually came the bigger hitters. The Assyrians. The Israelites prayed, and they lost. Or at least the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed. After destroying that Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Assyrians continued to southward to lay seige to Jerusalem, threatening the destruction of even the Kingdom of Judah. But there suddenly the Assyrian army was beset by plague. A very fortunate turn of events, indeed possibly a miracle! The Assyrian army turned around and went home. And Judah was safe for another 100 years.
But then came the Babylonians. In the time of the prophet Jeremiah they laid siege to Jerusalem. The people prayed once more. And this time, they lost. . The Babylonians came and destroyed the city, the temple and those who they did not kill, they dragged off to Babylon to slavery. End of Story.
Or was it the end of the story? And how does this remind us of our own lives?
When in trouble, we all probably pray a lot to God. And if we’re honest, _a lot of times_, we somehow get by. Little miracles do seem to happen. Even big ones do seem to happen.
But eventually, our luck seems to run out. (And I’m using the word _luck_ here with purpose). And we know that it certainly will run out eventually, because every single one us will eventually die (to meet our maker).
So what then is the point of praying if it all can be explained by luck? And yes, THE SAME SET OF EVIDENCE (both in the Bible and in our own lives) can be interpreted as both the result of luck and God’s intervention.
So why believe?
Well, the crises in our lives will not go away whether we believe in God or not. And I do believe that it _is_ easier to navigate them, if one believes that there is a God on our side helping us through them. Further, when finding ourselves staring at disaster, and despite the odds, suddenly things turn better, if we believe, we have someone to thank.
When I was in the seminary, we went several times to the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei in Italy. There among the _hundreds_ of ex-voto pictures given to the Shrine in thanksgiving to miracles attributed to the work of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I counted no fewer than 4 incidents in which a child fell off a train and miraculously survived. Now, one _could_ attribute this merely to coincidence that the child happened to fall into a field rather than into a post or building or street or fall under the train itself. But what an unbelievably fortunate coincidence, that the child lived! And if one does not believe, who would one thank? It would seem _to me_ rather inconceivable to not be able to thank _someone_ for such a wonderfully fortunate coincidence (miracle).
So (1) the difficulties of our lives do not go away whether we believe or not, (2) the fortune incidents in our lives (when we suspect we deserved much worse but somehow squeaked by) don’t go away whether we believe or not, and whether we believe or not, (3) we will all eventually fail and die.
I do believe that all of these realities are much easier to navigate if we do believe that we do have God in our lives and at our sides. And even regarding the final failure that faces us all, death, IF WE BELIEVE, we believe that even death doesn’t have the final say, that in Christ’s death and resurrection, which we celebrate each time we come to Mass, we remember that this final say belongs to God. So while we may not search for death, we believe that even death is not the end.
So what a great gift we have in our Faith! And why it is something that can help us throughout our lives, in the good times, in the bad times, and especially when we approach our end here on earth. If we believe, we _can_ navigate it all, remembering that truly nothing can separate us from our God who created us, who loves all of us, and who will eventually bring us all home.
During Ordinary Time, the readings on Sunday generally offer us a theme from our day to day lives and invite us then to find Jesus or the Gospel in this theme, and this Sunday the theme is very easy to identify – perseverance in faith/prayer.
The First Reading, taken from Exodus, is about a rather grueling battle between the Israelites and a desert people called the Amelek, where success depended on Moses’ ability to keep his arms extended in prayer. In the Gospel Reading were given the example of a widow who through her persistence, was able to wear down even a dishonest Judge to render a decision in her favor. We even find St. Paul’s admonition to Timothy to be “persistent” in the Second Reading. Rarely is the theme so obvious.
Now something that makes the theme interesting is relating it to the theme of last Sunday’s readings which were about healing. In last Sunday’s readings, we are presented in the Old Testament Reading with the Prophet Elisha’s healing of Naaman a military commander from a neighboring country called Aram, a people, when all things were considered was not particularly powerful, like the Amalek of the Old Testament Reading of this Sunday. In the Gospel Reading, last Sunday we were given the case of Jesus healing 10 lepers and one, a Samaritan it turns out, coming back to thank him. In the first reading last week, Naaman as well thanked Elisha for healing him, somewhat to Elisha’s embarrassment because Elisha did not particularly like (probably because he was a foreigner, hence a pagan, and even a military commander of this foreign, and presumably rival country).
So the Readings from last Sunday were about healing while the Readings this Sunday were about perseverance. Do we see a connection from the experience of our day to day lives? Probably because most of us don’t necessarily get healed right away. And some of us may actually never get healed, or see the healing of a loved one, despite our most sincere or urgent of prayers.
Taking this a bit further, we can be certain that if our prayers are specifically for healing, every single one of us will come to a point in our lives when that specific prayer will not be answered, as everyone of us will one day die and thus leave this world.
So what is the point of being “persistent” when we know that this prayer will at times not be answered (or will be refused)?
Well the first readings of the last couple of weeks may help us understand. By all accounts, the book of Exodus was compiled a number of hundred years after the event. The priests then putting in writing the account of Exodus, probably during the time of the Israelite monarchy, would have remembered (or chosen) to include the account of the Israelite battle with the Amalek in the desert of Sinai, probably because the story resonated with them (and the Israelite people) in their own time. The Amalek may have been the first foreign enemies of Israel but they were certainly not the last. In the time of the Judges and the Monarchy, the Israelites faced the neighboring peoples called Philistines, the Moabites, and the Edomites (interestingly enough, they never actually fought a significant war with Naaman’s Arameans). And in each case, there would have always been the worry, “will we prevail?” And the message of the priests was “pray to our God and we will succeed.”
So the people prayed and Israel eventually defeated the Philistines. The people prayed again, Israel defeated and occupied the neighboring country of the Moabites. And the people prayed once more when going off to battle against the Edomites – there are even Psalms in the Bible which note this impending battle against the Edomites – and once again the Israelites prevailed. But these were all, if worrisome battles, nevertheless against “B class” countries like Naaman’s Aram from last Sunday’s Readings.
Eventually came the bigger hitters. The Assyrians. The Israelites prayed, and they lost. Or at least the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed. After destroying that Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Assyrians continued to southward to lay seige to Jerusalem, threatening the destruction of even the Kingdom of Judah. But there suddenly the Assyrian army was beset by plague. A very fortunate turn of events, indeed possibly a miracle! The Assyrian army turned around and went home. And Judah was safe for another 100 years.
But then came the Babylonians. In the time of the prophet Jeremiah they laid siege to Jerusalem. The people prayed once more. And this time,
Or was it the end of the story?
When in trouble, we all probably pray a lot to God. And if we’re honest, _a lot of times_, we somehow get by. Little miracles do seem to happen. Even big ones do seem to happen.
But eventually, our luck seems to run out. (And I’m using the word _luck_ here with purpose). And we know that it certainly will run out eventually, because every single one us will eventually die (to meet our maker).
So what then is the point of praying if it all can be explained by luck? And yes, THE SAME SET OF EVIDENCE (both in the Bible and in our own lives) can be interpreted as both the result of luck and God’s intervention.
So why believe?
Well, the crises in our lives will not go away whether we believe in God or not. And I do believe that it _is_ easier to navigate them, if one believes that there is a God on our side helping us through them. Further, when finding ourselves staring at disaster, and despite the odds, suddenly things turn better, if we believe, we have someone to thank.
When I was in the seminary, we went several times to the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei in Italy. There among the _hundreds_ of ex-voto pictures given to the Shrine in thanksgiving to miracles attributed to the work of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I counted no fewer than 4 incidents in which a child fell off a train and miraculously survived. Now, one _could_ attribute this merely to coincidence that the child happened to fall into a field rather than into a post or building or street or fall under the train itself. But what an unbelievably fortunate coincidence, that the child lived! And if one does not believe, who would one thank? It would seem _to me_ rather inconceivable to not be able to thank _someone_ for such a wonderfully fortunate coincidence (miracle).
So (1) the difficulties of our lives do not go away whether we believe or not, (2) the fortune incidents in our lives (when we suspect we deserved much worse but somehow squeaked by) don’t go away whether we believe or not, and whether we believe or not, (3) we will all eventually fail and die.
I do believe that all of these realities are much easier to navigate if we do believe that we do have God in our lives and at our sides. And even regarding the final failure that faces us all, death, IF WE BELIEVE, we believe that even death doesn’t have the final say, that in Christ’s death and resurrection, which we celebrate each time we come to Mass, we remember that this final say belongs to God. So while we may not search for death, we believe that even death is not the end.
So what a great gift we have in our Faith! And why it is something that can help us throughout our lives, in the good times, in the bad times, and especially when we approach our end here on earth. If we believe, we _can_ navigate it all, remembering that truly nothing can separate us from our God who created us, who loves all of us, and who will eventually bring us all home.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
10 Oct 2010 - 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Who are the People We are Challenged to Respect?
Readings - http://www.usccb.org/nab/101010.shtml
Over the years, I’ve been asked a number of times by various parishioners to post my homilies online. Indeed, some years ago, I did that for about 6 months, when I created a geocities based page (geocities has since gone defunct) for Annunciata’s youth group. Anyway, I’ve decided to give it a shot again, and so here we go...
As always in Ordinary Time, the Sunday Readings touch some aspect of our daily lives and offer us the opportunity to reflect on this aspect and to find Jesus and the Good News present within it.
This Sunday, the Readings challenge us to reflect on how we choose to interact with people who we don’t particularly respect or like.
In the First Reading, Naaman, a military commander, indeed, general from a neighbor of Biblical Israel seeks assistance for healing from the prophet Elisha. And initially, Elisha dudn’t even want to meet with him. Instead, he had word sent to him to go to the Jordan River to get cleansed.
It may have been Elisha’s expectation that Naaman, a pagan, would not be healed, and since his country was found on the other side of the Jordan River from Israel, would then simply pick himself up (after not getting healed) and go home without Elisha ever having to have to deal with him directly. Instead, Naaman is healed, and comes back, GRATEFUL, to thank Elisha. And seeing Naaman coming back, healed, one could imagine Elisha saying to himself “Damn!”
Now here it must be noted that Naaman came from a country, Aram, that Israel not only didn’t like but did not particularly _respect_. Unlike Assyria, Babylonia or Egypt (the great empires of the time), Aram was like Edom or Moab or Israel/Judah for that matter - a “b-player." Thus Aram was deemed by the people of Israel/Judah at the time of not being worthy of either affection (the Arameans were pagans after all) or respect (because Aram, like biblical Israel, militarily scared _no one_).
So Elisha did not deem Naaman, a “military commander” from a not particularly threatening if rival state bordering Israel, worthy of his time and consideration. It must have come as something of a surprise to Elisha that Naaman appeared to be worthy of God’s time and consideration, enough so, that God healed the man.
In the Gospel Reading as well, Jesus is confronted by 10 lepers asking for healing. All were healed, yet only one, a Samaritan, again from an ethnic group that the Jews of the time did not respect, comes back GRATEFUL, to say THANK YOU. Jesus asks the man, where are the other nine (most of which were presumably Jewish, that is, of the "more correct," "orthodox," "higher" group at the time)?
So we are invited to ask, who are the people we deem “not worthy of our time and consideration?”
In our part of the Chicago, it would be easy to take this in a racial direction – after all, the “Anglos” (actually mostly Poles and other Slavs with some Italians and others) have lived together with the Hispanics (mostly Mexicans, with a smattering of Puertoricans added to the mix) _for decades_ though often enough not particularly cordially.
But the story can be taken more generally. Who are the people that we don’t particularly respect?
I know that I have trouble with people who come across as particularly “needy.” I’ve had to deal with people who’ve come to confession, not to confess anything, but simply to talk. They talk so fast and for so long (seemingly 5-10 minutes at a time, without taking a breath) so as to try keep one from cutting them off. And yes, I find this very annoying, even though stepping back, I do understand.
I remember when I was still studying chemistry, and I’d be asked at a party “what do you do?” And I knew I had about a minute and a half to tell them when I do before their eyes glazed over. And so, often enough, I tried to explain but it was largely pointless. Almost always, I got the response “You must be smart” and it wasn’t meant as a compliment.
One of the advantages of being a priest is that pretty much everybody knows what a priest is and what a priest does. The person still may not like what a priest does or what a priest represents, but I don’t have to go through this exercise.
So I of all people ought to be more patient with the people, so obviously broken and who so obviously need someone to talk to, who come to me and talk 15-20 minutes without taking a breath about everything under the sun from their very point of conception to the present moment without confessing fault in anything or leading all this up to a request for money. But often, I confess, I’m not that patient, and though it’s often impossible to stop such a desperate person once he or she starts talking, I do find myself resenting being “taken hostage” in this way.
Yet, if even someone like me, who like Elisha in the first Reading is supposed to be representing God in the matter does not find it possible to give a person in clear need the time of day, what does that say? So obviously, I have to work on my patience.
But it’s also a challenge really for everyone as _people of faith_. Who are we disrespectful to, and do we realize that no matter how annoying that person may be, that person is still a beloved child of God, the God who loves _us_ too?
Over the years, I’ve been asked a number of times by various parishioners to post my homilies online. Indeed, some years ago, I did that for about 6 months, when I created a geocities based page (geocities has since gone defunct) for Annunciata’s youth group. Anyway, I’ve decided to give it a shot again, and so here we go...
As always in Ordinary Time, the Sunday Readings touch some aspect of our daily lives and offer us the opportunity to reflect on this aspect and to find Jesus and the Good News present within it.
This Sunday, the Readings challenge us to reflect on how we choose to interact with people who we don’t particularly respect or like.
In the First Reading, Naaman, a military commander, indeed, general from a neighbor of Biblical Israel seeks assistance for healing from the prophet Elisha. And initially, Elisha dudn’t even want to meet with him. Instead, he had word sent to him to go to the Jordan River to get cleansed.
It may have been Elisha’s expectation that Naaman, a pagan, would not be healed, and since his country was found on the other side of the Jordan River from Israel, would then simply pick himself up (after not getting healed) and go home without Elisha ever having to have to deal with him directly. Instead, Naaman is healed, and comes back, GRATEFUL, to thank Elisha. And seeing Naaman coming back, healed, one could imagine Elisha saying to himself “Damn!”
Now here it must be noted that Naaman came from a country, Aram, that Israel not only didn’t like but did not particularly _respect_. Unlike Assyria, Babylonia or Egypt (the great empires of the time), Aram was like Edom or Moab or Israel/Judah for that matter - a “b-player." Thus Aram was deemed by the people of Israel/Judah at the time of not being worthy of either affection (the Arameans were pagans after all) or respect (because Aram, like biblical Israel, militarily scared _no one_).
So Elisha did not deem Naaman, a “military commander” from a not particularly threatening if rival state bordering Israel, worthy of his time and consideration. It must have come as something of a surprise to Elisha that Naaman appeared to be worthy of God’s time and consideration, enough so, that God healed the man.
In the Gospel Reading as well, Jesus is confronted by 10 lepers asking for healing. All were healed, yet only one, a Samaritan, again from an ethnic group that the Jews of the time did not respect, comes back GRATEFUL, to say THANK YOU. Jesus asks the man, where are the other nine (most of which were presumably Jewish, that is, of the "more correct," "orthodox," "higher" group at the time)?
So we are invited to ask, who are the people we deem “not worthy of our time and consideration?”
In our part of the Chicago, it would be easy to take this in a racial direction – after all, the “Anglos” (actually mostly Poles and other Slavs with some Italians and others) have lived together with the Hispanics (mostly Mexicans, with a smattering of Puertoricans added to the mix) _for decades_ though often enough not particularly cordially.
But the story can be taken more generally. Who are the people that we don’t particularly respect?
I know that I have trouble with people who come across as particularly “needy.” I’ve had to deal with people who’ve come to confession, not to confess anything, but simply to talk. They talk so fast and for so long (seemingly 5-10 minutes at a time, without taking a breath) so as to try keep one from cutting them off. And yes, I find this very annoying, even though stepping back, I do understand.
I remember when I was still studying chemistry, and I’d be asked at a party “what do you do?” And I knew I had about a minute and a half to tell them when I do before their eyes glazed over. And so, often enough, I tried to explain but it was largely pointless. Almost always, I got the response “You must be smart” and it wasn’t meant as a compliment.
One of the advantages of being a priest is that pretty much everybody knows what a priest is and what a priest does. The person still may not like what a priest does or what a priest represents, but I don’t have to go through this exercise.
So I of all people ought to be more patient with the people, so obviously broken and who so obviously need someone to talk to, who come to me and talk 15-20 minutes without taking a breath about everything under the sun from their very point of conception to the present moment without confessing fault in anything or leading all this up to a request for money. But often, I confess, I’m not that patient, and though it’s often impossible to stop such a desperate person once he or she starts talking, I do find myself resenting being “taken hostage” in this way.
Yet, if even someone like me, who like Elisha in the first Reading is supposed to be representing God in the matter does not find it possible to give a person in clear need the time of day, what does that say? So obviously, I have to work on my patience.
But it’s also a challenge really for everyone as _people of faith_. Who are we disrespectful to, and do we realize that no matter how annoying that person may be, that person is still a beloved child of God, the God who loves _us_ too?
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