A QUESTION ABOUT FASTING

Homily for July 7^th, 2018: Matthew 9:14-17.

          To understand the question about fasting in today’s gospel we must know that in Judaism fasting is a way of mourning. It is also a way of expressing sorrow for sin. Still today observant Jews fast on the Day of Atonement, when God’s people fast to express sorrow for the sins they have committed in the past year. The people who ask Jesus why his disciples do not fast are disciples of John the Baptist. He has taught them to fast, because repentance was central in his preaching.

          Responding to the question about why Jesus has not taught his disciples to fast, he replies simply that as long as he is with them, fasting is inappropriate. This is a time not for mourning, Jesus says, but for joy. God has come to earth in human form. Taking up a theme which is frequent in the Old Testament, Jesus refers to himself as the bridegroom. Israel’s prophets said repeatedly that despite the sins of God’s people, God would not always remain estranged from them. He was going to invite them to a joyful wedding banquet, a symbol of unity between God and humans. (See Isaiah 25.)

          This invitation is renewed every time Mass is celebrated. Despite our unworthiness God uses us priests to extend his invitation: “Everything is ready; come to the feast.” God, the host at this banquet, longs to have you with him. He wants to fill you with his goodness, his power, his purity, his love. 

          He cannot fill you unless you come.

          He cannot fill you unless you are empty.

He cannot fill you unless you confess your need, which means preparing by acknowledging your unworthiness.

          How often have you heard this invitation before? How often will you hear it again? One day you will hear it for the last time. Then you will receive another invitation: to appear before your divine Master, your King, your Creator, your ever loving Lord. Are you ready for that invitation?

THE CALL OF MATTHEW

Homily for July 6^th, 2018: Matthew 9:9-13.

          “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.” Matthew was a tax collector. He was not the kind of tax collector we know today, a civil servant. In the Palestine of Jesus’ day the Roman government of occupation entrusted the collection of taxes to tax farmers, as they are sometimes called, who bid for the right to collect taxes. In doing so, they enriched themselves by extorting more than the government required. They were hated, therefore, for two reasons: for preying on people financially; and for serving the despised Roman rulers of the land. 

          Jesus speaks just two words to Matthew: “Follow me.” Without hesitation, Matthew gets up and follows Jesus. Other disciples of Jesus have already done the same, when, at Jesus’ command, they abandoned the tools of their trade as fishermen, their boats and nets, to follow Jesus. What motivated this immediate obedience? I think that if we could have questioned any of them, Matthew included, they would have replied: “There was something about this man, Jesus, which made it impossible to say no.” 

          As a parting gesture Matthew invites his friends to dinner at his house, with Jesus as the honored guest. As we would expect, many of those friends were Matthew’s fellow tax collectors. Others were simply “sinners,” as the gospel reading calls them: Jews, like Matthew, who did not bother to keep all of God’s law.

Observing these disreputable guests, the Pharisees, proud of their exact observance of God’s law, ask Jesus’ other disciples how their Master can associate with such ruffians. Jesus supplies the answer himself: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. … I did not come to call the righteous [by which Jesus means ‘people like you Pharisees’]. ‘I came to call sinners.’

What is the message for us? If we want Jesus’ loving care, we need first to recognize and confess our need. And the first thing we need from Jesus is forgiveness.

"THEY TRAMPLE THE HEADS OF THE WEAK."

Homily for July 5^th, 2018: Amos 7:10-17.

Should the Church get involved in politics? Many people say, ANo way. Religion and politics don=t mix.@ Others disagree. Whenever fundamental moral issues are at stake, these people maintain, the Church must get involved. Our first reading today introduces a religious figure who was severely condemned for involvement in politics. Like his countryman, Jesus, centuries later, Amos was a layman. God called Amos while he was still a shepherd and farmer, and commanded him: AGo, prophesy to my people Israel.@

         Amos had no crystal ball to predict the future. Instead Amos, like all true prophets, was summoned to speak Aa word of the Lord@ to the people of his day: to warn, to admonish, to rebuke, and to encourage. As a simple countryman, Amos was scandalized by his glimpses of city life during his visits to market. “They sell the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the weak … and force the lowly out of the way.” Without mincing his words, Amos pronounced his corrupt society ripe for God=s judgment.

If Amos were to come back today, what are some of the things he would denounce in our society and tell us we needed to repent of? One which was often mentioned by Pope St. John Paul II, and by his two successors, is consumerism: the false idea that we can buy happiness by amassing more and more possessions.

Something else which cries out for repentance is hedonism: the mindless philosophy that says, AIf it feels good, do it.@ Hedonism wrecks lives, relationships, and marriages, every day. We need to repent also of the hard-hearted selfishness which ignores the needs of the poor and oppressed in our midst; or which thinks that our obligation to them can be discharged by gifts to charity from our surplus goods, with no examination of unjust conditions in society that cause poverty and oppression. 

That is a short though incomplete list of the things in today’s society that require repentance. Jesus speaks of this often in the gospels.  And the repentance to which he summons us is not somewhere else, tomorrow. It is here, and it is now. And repentance begins not with someone else. If it is to begin at all, repentance must begin with ourselves.

 

"THEY TOOK OFFENSE AT HIM."

July 8th, 2018: 14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.
Ezek. 2:2-5; 2 Cor. 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6.

AIM:  To challenge the hearers to respond to Jesus Christ as we encounter him in his Church.

                                             

On Independence Day, last Wednesday, we celebrated 240 years of national history. We Americans have a reputation in the world for optimism. Our nation=s history has made us optimists. The earliest settlers all came from Europe. They needed huge amounts of optimism to build a new nation in the wilderness, and to push its frontier westward until it spanned the continent. Despite all the blood, sweat, tears and treasure which this nation-building involved, until the Vietnam war it seemed that just about every major problem confronting us was soluble. From small beginnings, and protected by two oceans, we became the richest and most powerful nation on earth. If you=re rich and powerful, you cannot expect to be universally loved. Confronted today with hatred and terrorism, our troops and other public officials the daily target of sniper and guerilla attacks in the Middle East and elsewhere, we wonder anxiously how long the American success story can continue. 

Today=s readings are not about success and power, however, but about rejection and weakness. In the first reading God warns Ezekiel that he is sending him to a rebellious people, who will reject the prophet=s message. The second reading records Paul=s prayer for deliverance from what he called Aa thorn in the flesh.@   

Some biblical scholars think this was a psychic or physical ailment. Others think it may have been the same opposition from within his own community which faced Ezekiel. Whatever it was, Paul says that God answered his prayer not by taking away the thorn, but by giving him strength to bear it. Through this experience of personal weakness, Paul writes, he learned to rely not on himself, but only on God. AFor when I am weak,@ he writes, Athen I am strong.@

The gospel tells us of Jesus= rejection by his own community. AThey took offense at him,@ the gospel says. Jesus offended people in three ways. For some he was too ordinary: AIs he not the carpenter?@ they ask. What makes him so special?   Others were offended because Jesus was not ordinary. AWhere did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!@ Others still were offended because Jesus seemed so weak. This was the judgment of the bystanders at Calvary, who jeered: ASo you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days! Save yourself now by coming down from that cross.@ (Mk 15:29f). Such taunts were the final judgment of Jesus= contemporaries on this man who seemed to make himself equal with God, yet who, when the chips were down, was unable to save himself from a criminal=s death.  

By any normal worldly standards Jesus= life was anything but a success story.  Most of those who knew him remained quite unimpressed. Many took offense at him. That was true then. It is no different today. True, Jesus no longer comes to people in his human body. Today he comes through his mystical body, the Church.  People encounter and judge Jesus Christ today through those who have become members of his body in baptism C in other words, through us. We have been made eyes, ears, hands, feet, and voice for Jesus Christ. He has no other. 

Many people today say that they accept Jesus Christ, but want nothing to do with the Church. For some the Church is too ordinary. The Church is full of hypocrites, they say, people who are no better than anyone else. Others are offended because the Church is not ordinary. They find us remote, hopelessly out of date.  The Church, they complain, preaches irrelevant dogmas to people who need practical help coping with life=s daily problems. They are offended because the Church C and that means us C lacks compassion for people who cannot live up to the Church=s unrealistically high moral standards. Still others are offended because the Church seems so weak. Why doesn=t the Church do something, they ask, about the terrible problems of society: urban poverty and blight in the richest country on earth, crime and terrorism, injustice, greed, and the rape of the environment?

People today, in short, are offended by the Church for reasons very similar to those that caused Jesus= contemporaries to be offended at him. Many seek a Apure@ Church: one that is not ordinary, not remote, not weak. Some C including many Catholics who are no longer with us C think they have found this pure Church in a community of Aborn again Christians@ who exclude the lax and the lukewarm.  Others find the pure Church they are seeking on television. The worshipers you=ll see there on Sunday morning are all squeaky clean. The preacher always has a polished and uplifting message. The singing is always fervent and on key. How many Catholic parishes can compete with that?

The Catholic Church doesn=t even try to compete. Like its Lord, the Catholic Church is, most of the time, very ordinary and quite unimpressive. It is the Church of saints, yes. Yet it is also the Church of sinners C and never more obviously so than right now, when the media still bombard us with lurid stories of priestly failings and sins. The Catholic Church is and will always remain the Church of sinners for one simple reason. It stubbornly insists on making room for people who slip and fall and compromise; who are weak in faith C whose faith, in not a few cases, is difficult to distinguish from superstition. Who are these people? We are! We need to ask ourselves this question: if the Church were as pure as I would like it to be, would there be room in this immaculately pure Church for an ordinary weak sinner like me?

The Catholic Church, in short, is human, as Jesus was human. It is ordinary, as he was ordinary. It can be remote, as Jesus was sometimes remote. And it is often weak, as Jesus was weak. Hidden behind this ordinariness and remoteness and weakness, however, is all the power of God; all the compassion of his Son Jesus; and all the strength of his Holy Spirit, who came in flaming tongues on the first Pentecost to kindle a fire that is still burning; and to sweep people off their feet with a rushing might wind that is still blowing.

Most of Jesus= contemporaries took offense at him. As another translation of our gospel has it, AThey found him too much for them.@ What about you?

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

Homily for July 4^th, 2018.    

             The 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia 240 years ago today pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Have you ever wondered what happened to them? 

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants; nine were farmers and large plantation owners: men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that if they were captured, the penalty would be death.

         Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts,  

and died in rags. Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Continental Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of 8 others [Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton].

At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt. Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

As we give thanks to God for the courage and generosity of these founders of our beloved country, we need to remember: Freedom is never free!

THOMAS WAS NOT WITH THEM.

Homily for July 3^rd, 2018: John 20:24-29.

          On the evening of Jesus’ resurrection, Thomas was not with the other apostles. He did not see Jesus until he rejoined them a week later. Then he uttered what many scripture scholars believe may have been the last words spoken by any of Jesus’ disciples in the original version of John’s gospel: “My Lord and my God!”

Thomas’s experience has an important lesson for us. Faith is not a private me-and-God affair. Jesus taught us this in the one prayer he gave us. It begins not “My Father,” but “Our Father.” We pray as members of a community. We need each other. Why? Here’s one answer.

Dwight L. Moody, founder of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, tells about visiting an old friend. As they chatted in the evening by the friend’s fireplace, the host said to Moody. “I don’t see why I can’t be just as good a Christian outside the Church as within it.” Without replying, Moody used tongs to pick up a blazing coal with tongs, allowing it to burn by itself.  In silence the two men watched it smolder and go out.

 Dwight Moody believed that the support which believers give one another was an affair of this world only. We Catholics believe more. When we say in the Creed, “I believe in the communion of saints,” we are acknowledging that the community which we entered through baptism extends beyond this world. It includes the saints and our beloved dead. A passage in the letter to the Hebrews expresses this belief. It comes at the beginning of chapter 12. The preceding chapter recounts the great heroes of faith in the Old Testament. The writer portrays them as spectators in an arena, cheering on and encouraging us, who are still competing in the race which they ran before us. Then come these words. I discovered them as a young teenager. They thrilled me then. They thrill me still:

          “Seeing then that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which clings so close, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the beginning and end of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

ARE JESUS' STANDARDS TOO HIGH?

Homily for July 2^nd, 2018: Matthew 8:18-22.

          Jesus has spent a whole day healing. He is drained: physically, but also spiritually. Immediately before the start of today’s gospel reading Matthew writes: “Seeing the people crowd around him, Jesus gave orders to cross to the other shore.” Before he can get into the boat with his friends, however, there are two other petitioners he must deal with. The first is a Jewish scribe who tells Jesus he wants to join him: “Teacher, wherever you go, I will come after you.” Jesus tells him that discipleship has a price. “The foxes have lairs, the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Matthew does not tell us whether the scribe was put off by this or not.

Another man, already a disciple of Jesus, says: “Lord, let me go and bury my father first.” To which Jesus replies, no less sternly: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.” Burying the dead was a sacred duty for Jews. For Christians it is one of the so-called seven corporal works of mercy. Yet Jesus does not hesitate to say that the call to follow him as precedence over every other call.

            Jesus’ standards are high, no doubt about it. For unaided human nature they are too high. That is why he offers the help of his Holy Spirit to those who ask for it. When the tasks that Jesus sets before us seem impossible, we need to pray for that help. Here are some verses of an evangelical hymn that do just that. They go like this:

Precious Lord, take my hand

lead me on, let me stand,

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn

Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light,

Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.