EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

31 JULY 2022

 

          We have been hearing from Saint Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  In that letter, he has been reminding them (and us) of the implications of our baptism.  We have been buried with Christ in the waters of baptism.  But we have emerged to share a new life with Christ, intimately united with him and members of his Body, the Church.  Today, he tells them (and us) not to be complacent about our baptismal status.  We need to continue to live our baptismal promises.  We do that best by seeking what is above.  Saint Paul uses the present tense.  In seeking what is above, we need to think about what it means to be baptized into the Lord Jesus.  We need to be intent on avoiding whatever separates from Christ.  We need to set our mind on living the Gospel message and recognizing our baptismal unity.  There is no “us” or “them” in Christ.

            Jesus addresses a danger that we fact in living our baptismal promises – the greed that leads to idolatry.  We can become so immersed in ensuring a good life for our families and ourselves that we think that the value of our lives rests in what we possess.  In today’s Gospel, he is asked to resolve a family quarrel about inheritance.  It is a quarrel that many of our families have had to resolve to this day. 

He tells this parable about the rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.  The man regards his wealth as something he has produced on his own.  Instead of being grateful to God for the abundance he enjoys, he asks himself what he should do with his abundance.  He does not turn to God.  He decides to tear down his barns and build larger ones so that he can say to himself, “You have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, and be merry.”  There is no evidence whatsoever of sharing a portion of that wealth with others or setting some of it aside for future generations.  God demonstrates to him what Qoheleth warns in that first reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes:  “vanity of vanities!  All things are vanity.”  The rich man discovers that his life is vanity – a vapor, a breath, something short-lived and futile.  Apart from God, human life means nothing.

            Jesus addresses this parable to us, disciples as we reflect on the implications of our baptism.  He reminds us that everything is a gift from God.  God gives us our lives.  If we prosper to provide comfortable lives for our families and for ourselves, it is because God has given us the opportunities and the skills to accomplish these things.  Qoheleth points out that everything belongs to God.  We are stewards of all of those gifts. 

When we realize that we are stewards, then we can avoid the mistakes of the rich man.  We gather here every Sunday to give thanks to God for all the gifts we have received.  At Mass, we express our gratitude for the sacrificial gift that Jesus has given to us:  the complete gift of himself on the cross.  As stewards, we can commit to the stewardship of prayer, service, and sacrificial giving.  Good stewards dedicate a generous portion of time, talent, and treasure.  We can renew our trust that in giving away that portion, we are sharing in the dying of Christ.  But we can also renew our trust that the Lord will provide and give us a share in his resurrection.

The rich man makes his decision out of fear.  He fears for his own safety and quality of life.  That fear can become monstrous, because we all have an instinct to acquire more things.  Jesus reminds us that an abundance of possessions does not insure a good life.  We also know that acquiring more things simply leads to a greed that centers everything on ourselves and ignores the legitimate needs of those who are suffering.  Qoheleth is correct.  Life is a vapor – a vanity of vanities, unless we live our baptismal promises and center ourselves on Jesus Christ and our gratitude for all that he gives us in life. 

 

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

24 JULY 2022

 

          The disciples of Jesus have observed Jesus praying often.  He prayed before every major event in his ministry.  He prayed before calling his disciples.  He was praying when he was transfigured on Mount Tabor.  He prayed when Peter confessed that he was the promised Messiah. He prayed before revealing the truth about his suffering and death.  He prayed on the night before his arrest in the Garden.  According to Luke, Jesus uttered three sentences as he is dying on the cross.  Two of those three are in the form of prayer.

            The disciples ask him to teach them how to pray.  They have noticed that prayer for their master is the driving force, the renewing wind that renews him with strength and focuses his sense of mission.  They have come to understand that this type of prayer needs to be taught, and not just observed.  In response, he teaches the model prayer of all disciples:  the Lord’s Prayer.  It is a shorter and terser version than the one that we pray from the Gospel of Saint Matthew.

            However, the parable that Jesus tells after teaching the Lord’s Prayer can be confusing.  The man finally gets what he wants, because he is so persistent in banging on his friend’s door.  We might think that we can get anything we want from God by persistently pestering him with our prayers.  With this attitude toward prayer, asking, seeking, and knocking is like putting a coin in vending machine to get the desired object.  All of us know from our own experience that “the squeaky wheel does not always get the grease.”  We have prayed fervently for many good and worthy causes – like healing from cancer or some other deadly disease for a loved one.

            Jesus himself prayed fervently in the Garden that he be spared from a horrible death.  His prayer was not answered.  The key to understanding the power of the prayer of Jesus is the very first word of the Lord’s Prayer:  “Father.”  Jesus has absolute trust in the unconditional love of his Father and invites us to imitate that same trust.  In fact, we often miss the real meaning of the parable.  The father is reluctant to answer the door because he does not want to disturb his children, who are safely sleeping in their locked home.  All of us who have experienced the love of a father, or the love of one who has treated us as a father, understands this point.  Good fathers or father figures would never hand us snakes or scorpions.  How much more would the Father, whose name is hallowed, give us what we need?

            The other important element is the awareness that God’s Kingdom has come.  Fatal illnesses, tragic accidents, racism, wars, and all kinds of divisions continue to exist in the world in which we live.  However, God’s Kingdom is in our midst.  “Seek and you shall find” makes sense when we become more conscious that the gift of God’s kingdom has already been given to us.  There is nothing we need to do to earn it.  In that Kingdom, there is healing for grieving families and reconciliation for those who are divided.  There is sharing in the rising of Christ in the midst of our dying to self.  That is what we need to understand in hearing the prayer of Abraham.  It seems that he is bargaining with God in his failed efforts to protect Sodom from destruction.  What Abraham is doing is more complicated.  He is trying to balance mercy with justice.  In his prayer, he comes to understand the mind of God.  There is so much wickedness in Sodom that God’s justice must prevail.  But in his mercy, God delivers Abraham and his family.

            The Lord invites us to be persistent in prayer, trusting the Father’s unconditional love and looking for signs of the Kingdom in our midst.  We will receive our daily bread.  We know the Lord’s forgiveness of our sins and extend that forgiveness to others.  We can trust that we will not be subjected the final test, as Jesus persisted in denying Satan’s tests in the desert.

 

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

17 JULY 2022

 

            Last Sunday, we heard Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.  Jesus tells that parable to explain the importance of the commandment to love our neighbor.  He broadens the definition of “neighbor” to anyone whom we encounter who needs our help.  He shocks his original audience by introducing a hated and uncouth Samaritan as the one who acts as neighbor to the victim of violence.  He challenges us to take risks and do the same.

            Today, Saint Luke focuses our attention on the first of those two commandments:  to love God.  Jesus goes to Bethany, the home of his good friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.  Like Abraham and Sarah, Martha is busy preparing an elaborate feast to welcome him.  Mary, on the other hand, sits beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.  When Martha complains that she needs her sister to help her in the serving, the original listeners would have expected Jesus to agree and send Mary to the kitchen.  After all, that is where women are expected to be working.  Only men are allowed to sit at the feet of wise teachers and listen to their wisdom.  But, just as Jesus shocks the original listeners with the introduction of the hated Samaritan, he shocks them here also.  He defends Mary’s decision to sit beside him at his feet and listen to him.  He says that Mary has chosen the better part, and he will not take it from her.

            Over the centuries, too many people have used this parable to contrast the active life of believers with the contemplative life of those hidden in monasteries.  However, that reading is far too simplistic and not helpful to us who hear this Gospel today.  Let’s face it.  Most of us are like Martha – involved in the active daily life of providing for our families and committing to ministries of service to those who are neighbors.  We know that Jesus would have gone hungry if Martha had joined her sister in sitting at his feet.  Our families and our parish would be neglected if we failed to be actively involved in providing for them. 

            But this Gospel is giving a warning to us Martha types.  Jesus very gently addresses her as “Martha, Martha,” telling her that she is anxious and worried about many things.  The same can happen to us in our active service.  We can become so engaged in our work and in our service that our anxieties and worries can cause us to forget that we cannot love our neighbor on our own.  We must step back from our activities and do what Mary does:  to sit beside the Lord and listen to him speak.  That is why we are gathered here every Sunday.  We listen to him speaking to us in the Word.  We express our gratitude for all that he has given us, especially the sacrificial gift of himself to us.  We are nourished by the Eucharist and sent back into our active lives.  We learn from our own experience that we need to carve out time during the week to spend time in quiet, reflective prayer.

            Martha eventually learned this lesson.  In the Gospel of Saint John, Martha is a leader of the Christian Community.  When Jesus comes to Bethany to raise her brother from the dead, she listens to what he says.  She readily embraces his message that he is the resurrection and the life.  We can grow in that same understanding.  Without sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to him, we can burn out in our activities.  We can become bitter and resentful when others do not work as hard as we do, or when others do not share our same commitments.  We can learn what Saint Paul learned.  The Lord has manifested himself to all of us, men and women, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, calling us to love God and our neighbor.       

 

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

10 JULY 2022

 

          This parable of the Good Samaritan is probably the most familiar of all the parables of Jesus.  We can interpret it in any number of ways.  People who stand at street corners hope that we become a Good Samaritan and give them a handout.  Many years ago, I drove a van to take a group of Sisters from their motherhouse across from Marian High School to a funeral in Fort Wayne.  It was a bitterly cold day in January.  On the way back to Mishawaka on US 30, we ran out of gas.  As one of the Sisters and I walked toward Columbia City to get gas, a kind motorist stopped to offer us a ride.  The kind motorist was the Bishop!  I have often associated the Good Samaritan with the person of Bishop McManus.

            Because the parable is so familiar, we might lose the original shock value of this story.   Traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho is very treacherous, going from the height of Jerusalem to the lowest place on the earth.  Robbers and villains find many hiding places.  Both the priest and the Levite are highly respected members of the community.  The priest’s job is to offer sacrifice in the temple.  The Levite is a layperson assisting priests in their roles.  Both have good reasons to be wary of helping a victim of violence.  If the victim is dead, both could become ritually unclean in their roles if they touch him.  The victim might be bait set for them by the robbers.  If they stop to help him, they might become victims of violence themselves.  The original hearers of this parable would understand the many reasons why the priest and the Levite pass by.

            Jesus shocks his listeners when he reveals the caring person.  Not only does he take real risks in helping the victim.  The caring person is a hated Samaritan.  The listeners would have profiled him as uncouth, unclean, untrustworthy, and ungodly.  Jesus invites us to imitate his example and to be attentive to ways in which we can be neighbors for others.  That person may be a stranger in need of our care.  It may be a person with whom I disagree or who belongs to a group that I find offensive.  Being a neighbor to that person can take many forms.  Being a good neighbor might even include the people with whom I live and work and find incredibly annoying.  Being a neighbor might even be as simple as having the humility to treat that person with respect.  Children, you can become a neighbor when others pick on another classmate.  You are a neighbor when you stand up for your friend, instead of joining the rest of the crowd in mocking him or her.  Being a neighbor involves looking on the person with compassion, taking risks, and not using excuses to pass by that person, as did the priest and the Levite.

            Saint Augustine give us an interesting take on this parable.  He said that Jesus Christ is the Good Samaritan.  He encounters us beaten up by the sin and divisions of our world, stripped of all dignity, and being near death.  He is moved with compassion and pours oil and wine over our wounds.  He bandages us, takes us to the inn and cares for us.  Saint Augustine identifies the Church as the Inn.  Jesus Christ is the innkeeper who attends to us in our wounded state through the Sacramental Life of the Church.  He will come again in the fullness of time to transform and change us through his own wounds, his own death, and his own resurrection.

            Jesus asks the scribe:  “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”  The scribe could not even say the word “the Samaritan.”  Instead, he responds with the words:  “The one who treated him with mercy.”  Jesus says to us what he says to the scribe:  “Go and do likewise.”