"SHALL WE PULL UP THE WEEDS?"

Homily for July 28^th, 2018: Matthew 13:24-30.

The suggestion of the farmer’s slaves that they should pull up the weeds in his field was entirely reasonable. The farmer rejects the suggestion nonetheless. There will be a time for separating the weeds from the wheat, he says. But that is later. Until then, he orders, “let them grow together.” 

          The parable is important for people who are scandalized because the Church contains so many hypocrites: people who come to church on Sunday, but whose lives the rest of the week are inconsistent with the words they hear and speak in church. Jesus knows that his Church will always contain people who, because their hearts are far from God, are not part of his kingdom. Every attempt to create a “pure” Church of true believers has ended in failure. Only God can purify his Church; for only God can see people’s hearts 

          Which one of us would not like to have a Church in which everyone from First Communion children to the Pope always practiced what they preached? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? But creating such a pure Church is God’s work, not ours. And the time for God’s final purification is not yet.

          Note that I said “final purification.” Purification of the Church through suffering, repentance, and forgiveness goes on all the time. The Second Vatican Council said that the Church is “always in need of being purified” (LG 8, end). The time for final purification, however, is not yet.

         That “not yet” contains a warning, but also encouragement. The warning is contained in the farmer’s order at harvest time: “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning.” God delays his judgment because he is patient. One day, however, patience will give way to judgment. That is the warning. The story’s encouragement is its message that the Lord’s Church has room for everyone. 

          I’d like to leave you with a question, for your own reflection: If the Church were really as pure as we would all like it to be, can we be confident that there would be room in it for ordinary, weak sinners like ourselves?

 

"SOME SEED FELL ON GOOD SOIL."

Homily for July 27^th, 2018: Matthew 13:18-23.

Most of the seed which the farmer sows is wasted. Only at the end of the story does Jesus tell us: “Some seed, finally, landed on good soil and yielded grain that spring up to produce at a rate of thirty- and sixty- and a hundredfold.”

          A modern Bible commentator writes: “A 20-to-1 ratio would have been considered an extraordinary harvest. Jesus’ strikingly large figures are intended to underscore the prodigious quality of God’s glorious kingdom still to come.”

          The parable is Jesus’ antidote to discouragement and despair. So much of our effort seems to be wasted. So much of the Church’s work seems barren of result. The Christian community for which Mark wrote his gospel was discouraged, as we are often discouraged. They had been banished from the synagogue which they loved. They faced the same hostility as their Master.  Despite the rising hostility he could see all round him, Jesus refuses to yield to discouragement. He remains confident — and tells this story to give confidence to others. “Jesus is not only the sower who scatters the seed of God’s word,” Pope Benedict XVI writes. “He is also the seed that falls into the earth in order to die and so to bear fruit.” 

          Are you sometimes discouraged? You have made so many good resolutions. How many have you kept? You seem to make no progress in prayer. When you come to confession, it is the same tired old list of sins. You wanted so much. You’ve settled for so little. If that — or any of that — applies to you, then Jesus is speaking, through this parable, very personally to you. Listen.

          ‘Have patience and courage,’ he is saying. ‘Do your work, be faithful to prayer, to your daily duties. God has sown the seed of his word in your life. The harvest is certain. When it comes it will be greater than you can possibly imagine.  The harvest depends, in the final analysis, not on you, but on God. And God’s seed is always fruitful, his promise always reliable.’

"TO ANYONE WHO HAS, MORE WILL BE GIVEN."

Homily for July 26^th, 2018: Matthew 13:10-17.

          “To anyone who has, more will be given, and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” Those words from today’s gospel reading  seem terribly unfair, don’t they? To understand what Jesus is saying, we must note first that he speaks in the passive: “more will be given;” and “what he has will be taken away.” As I have told you before, that is what Bible scholars call “the theological passive.” It is a way of saying the God will give more to anyone who has, without actually pronouncing the word “God,” which was forbidden to Jews; and that God will take away from anyone who has not.

          Even when we have understood this, however, we are still left with the seeming injustice. What Jesus is saying is this. Those who open themselves in faith and hope to Jesus’ message of God’s love and salvation quickly grow in understanding of the message. Those who close themselves to the message, demanding some “sign” – a dramatic proof which will compel them to believe – are unable to understand the message, and forfeit the offer of salvation.

          Teachers see something similar in the classroom all the time. Students who work hard, do their homework, and listen closely, grow rapidly in understanding. Those who are lazy, or think they know it all already, quickly fall behind and, over time, understand little or nothing. This is not a question of justice or injustice. It is simply the way things are.

          Jesus’ concluding words, “Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear,” are his grateful tribute to those who have opened the minds and hearts to him. Remembering that the word “blessed” also means “happy,” we pray:

          “Lord, if today we hear your voice, harden not our hearts.”

 

FAITH -- FIRE IN THE HEART

August 5^th, 2018: 18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.  John 6:24-35.

AIM:  To deepen the hearers= faith.

 

AThis is the work of God,@ Jesus says in the gospel reading we have just heard, Athat you believe in the one he sent.@ Or as another translation has it: Ahave faith in the one he sent.@ What is faith? For many of us, I think, faith means belief in the truths contained in the creed which we recite every Sunday at Mass. Faith in that sense is more properly called Abelief@: mental assent. Important as that is, faith has another meaning: personal trust C an affair not just of the head, but of the heart.  Even the creed begins not AI believe that@ but AI believe in.@ To believe in someone is to trust that person. ABelief is a truth held in the mind. Faith is a fire in the heart.@ (Joseph Newton). Let me tell you a story about such trusting faith.

Some Alpine guides in a Swiss village organized a climb late in the season, after all the tourists had departed. They reached their chosen summit without difficulty. They were disappointed, however, not to have found an edelweiss, the delicate star-shaped white flower that grows only at high altitudes and is prized by mountaineers as a souvenir of their exploits.

The group had already started their descent when one of them spotted a single edelweiss on a narrow ledge some thirty feet below. To get it someone would have to be let down on a rope. There was no time to linger, for the weather, which changes rapidly in the mountains, was deteriorating. The climbers turned at once to the youngest and smallest member of the party, twelve-year-old Hans, making his first major climb with his father. It would be easy to let him down. In five minutes they could be on their way again. 

AWhat about it, Hans,@ they asked. AWill you do it?@

Hans peered anxiously at the narrow ledge with the treasured white flower C and at the sheer drop of hundreds of feet immediately beyond.

AI=ll do it,@ Hans replied, Aif my father holds the rope.@

That=s faith B unconditional trust! That is what Jesus is talking about when he says in today=s gospel: AThis is the work of God: have faith in the One he sent.@ The people Jesus was addressing had asked about something else entirely: AWhat must we do to perform the works of God?@ Raised, like many Catholics today, in a tradition which emphasized a long list of commands and prohibitions, they expected Jesus to give them a set of Do=s and Don=t=s. Instead he demanded simply trusting faith in the One God had sent. 

Still thinking in legalistic terms, the people counter with a request for some authenticating Asign@ to justify the faith Jesus was demanding. AWhat sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?@ The people go on to mention what Moses had done when, as we heard in the first reading, he had given their ancestors manna B mysterious bread from heaven during their desert wanderings.

Gently, Jesus corrects their account of Moses= work. That bread, Jesus explains, had not come from Moses. It came from God. The manner in which it was given had itself been a test of faith for those who received it. AEach day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not.@

Some of the people failed that test. Unwilling to trust God, who gave them the food, they disobeyed the command to gather each day only enough for that day. Some hoarded the manna B only to find that it spoiled overnight (cf. Exodus 16:16-20). Behind the hoarding was a lack of faith. They failed to trust God. They did not believe that the One who fed them today would also provide for their needs tomorrow.

What about ourselves? Do we trust God only when we can see results, when we have proof? Or are we willing to go on trusting when we cannot see, because all is dark, and life seems meaningless? That is the kind of faith Jesus asks of us. And faith of that kind is truly, as Jesus tells us in today=s gospel, Athe work of God.@ It is God=s work because it is not something we can produce or summon up merely through willpower. Nor is it something for which we can take credit. Faith that trusts, and goes on trusting even when there seems to be no reason for trust is, in the most literal sense, God=s work and God=s gift. 

God bestows this gift on all who ask for it. He may not do so in just the way we want, or at the time we expect. Being willing to leave the manner and time of this gift to God the giver is itself part of faith, a test of our sincerity in asking for faith. To encourage us to ask for this gift of faith, and to keep on asking, Jesus tells us: AWhoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.@ 

Those are tremendous words. What they mean is simply this: those who come to Jesus with trusting faith possess something so precious that bodily hunger and thirst sink into insignificance. 

That is the personal promise of Jesus Christ to each one of us. To discover that his promise is true, we must take him at his word. He is inviting us to begin, right now.

 

""WHAT GOOD ARE THESE FOR SO MANY?"

July 29^th, 2018:17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.  John 6:1-15.

AIM:  To show that our meager resources are transformed when offered to God; but that God=s power is not at our disposal.

Responding to the rectory doorbell, a priest encountered a young woman he had never seen before. She was weeping and wanted to talk to a priest. Amid tears she stated her problem: AMy husband is having an affair.@ Her heart was broken.

Somewhere in this church right now there is a person with a broken heart, or at least a bruised one. Perhaps it is a family problem, financial difficulty, or some bitter injustice. Or maybe the problem is your inability to get your life together.  When you look within, you see a tangle of loose ends, broken resolutions, and failures. You ask yourself: AWill my life ever be different, better?@ And deep in your heart you fear that the answer may be No. 

The gospel we have just heard describes a problem every bit as insoluble as any we face: the impossibility of feeding a vast crowd far from any source of food.  Jesus= friend Philip says the situation is hopeless: ATwo hundred days= wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.@ Philip is your classic pessimist. No sooner is a solution proposed for a problem, than the pessimist says at once: AOh, that=s no good. We tried that before and it didn’t work.@

Another friend, Andrew, is a bit more practical. Instead of concentrating on the magnitude of the problem, he looks first at the means for solving it. AThere is some food,@ Andrew says. AThere is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.@ Yet even Andrew has to acknowledge that these resources are pitifully inadequate, for he adds immediately: ABut what good are these for so many?@

This brief exchange between Jesus and his two friends is merely the prelude to the story. Jesus wastes no time in discussion. Instead he acts. We must leave to the scripture scholars the question, AWhat really happened?@ The preacher=s task is not so much to explain the gospel stories, as to show their significance for us today. What this story tells us is this. When we place our resources, however inadequate they may be, in the hands of Jesus Christ, we discover that they are inadequate no longer. 

You come here with your burdens, your problems, your pain. Some of those problems may seem insoluble, the pains unbearable. If you look only at your own strength and your own resources, you have every reason for discouragement C perhaps even for despair.

But offer those resources, however inadequate they maybe, to Jesus Christ, and you will find that they are transformed beyond imagining. When to our weakness is added the strength and power of God, made available to us in his Son Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, then great things can happen in and through even people as weak and poor as we know ourselves to be.

Look down C at your problems, your woefully insufficient means of dealing with them; look at your weakness of will, your inconstancy, your many compromises and frequent falls C look down, I say, at all that, and you will indeed have every reason for pessimism. But look up C up into the face of Jesus Christ, your divine Savior, but also your brother, your lover, and your best friend. Place your pitifully inadequate strength, which you know to be little more than weakness, into his hands; and then you will find that the impossible happens. The problem you thought insoluble may not disappear, but it will not ultimately defeat you. The pain which seem unbearable can be borne, the heavy burden carried. Whenever we place our littleness into the hands of Jesus Christ, it becomes greatness. The impossible happens. Where before there had been only discouragement and despair, there is hope and joy.

I could stop there. But this story has more spiritual nourishment for us than the message of hope for those who think their situation is hopeless, their problems insoluble, their pain unbearable. The people who experienced Jesus= miracle were so impressed that they wanted to capture his power, to make sure that it would be available to them always. That is the significance of their desire to make Jesus a king. Here, they think, is the one who can get this hated Roman government of occupation off our backs. Someone who can feed such a vast crowd here in the wilderness is surely capable of greater things still. In this expectation, however, the people are disappointed. Jesus, we read, Awithdrew to the mountain alone.@

Jesus Christ is never at our disposal. We are at his disposal. The power of God, which is at work in Jesus, is not some kind of automatic solution that we can turn on at will, like the electric light. You cannot Acapture@ Jesus Christ, any more than the people in today=s gospel who wanted to make him king could capture him.

In Jesus there is power, certainly. It is not power, however, to do our own thing. Jesus empowers us to do God=s thing. Jesus= power is the power of love.  Love is creative. Once truly touched by love, we become capable of things that previously seemed beyond us. People in love sacrifice for the one they love: they are happy to sacrifice. People touched and filled by love can run where before they could scarcely walk. That is the power of Jesus Christ: the creative power of love, a force which will not always transform our problems, but which will infallibly transform us, if we will but entrust ourselves to Jesus, and to his love for us, without reserve.

Here in the Eucharist, Jesus repeats the miracle recounted in today=s gospel.  Here we, the hungry and weary people God, are fed by Jesus Christ with bread in the wilderness of our earthly pilgrimage; that Adaily bread@ for which Jesus taught us to pray: ordinary bread, transformed on the altar through the power of the Holy Spirit into the Lord’s crucified and risen body: nourishment, support, and strength as we stumble onward toward our heavenly homeland, lying down to rest each night a day=s march nearer home.

"WHAT GOO ARE THESE FOR SO MANY?"

July 29th, 2018: 17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.  John 6:1-15.

AIM:  To show that our meager resources are transformed when offered to God; but that God=s power is not at our disposal.

Responding to the rectory doorbell, a priest encountered a young woman he had never seen before. She was weeping and wanted to talk to a priest. Amid tears she stated her problem: AMy husband is having an affair.@ Her heart was broken.

Somewhere in this church right now there is a person with a broken heart, or at least a bruised one. Perhaps it is a family problem, financial difficulty, or some bitter injustice. Or maybe the problem is your inability to get your life together.  When you look within, you see a tangle of loose ends, broken resolutions, and failures. You ask yourself: AWill my life ever be different, better?@ And deep in your heart you fear that the answer may be No. 

The gospel we have just heard describes a problem every bit as insoluble as any we face: the impossibility of feeding a vast crowd far from any source of food.  Jesus= friend Philip says the situation is hopeless: ATwo hundred days= wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.@ Philip is your classic pessimist. No sooner is a solution proposed for a problem, than the pessimist says at once: AOh, that=s no good. We tried that before and it didn’t work.@

Another friend, Andrew, is a bit more practical. Instead of concentrating on the magnitude of the problem, he looks first at the means for solving it. AThere is some food,@ Andrew says. AThere is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.@ Yet even Andrew has to acknowledge that these resources are pitifully inadequate, for he adds immediately: ABut what good are these for so many?@

This brief exchange between Jesus and his two friends is merely the prelude to the story. Jesus wastes no time in discussion. Instead he acts. We must leave to the scripture scholars the question, AWhat really happened?@ The preacher=s task is not so much to explain the gospel stories, as to show their significance for us today. What this story tells us is this. When we place our resources, however inadequate they may be, in the hands of Jesus Christ, we discover that they are inadequate no longer. 

You come here with your burdens, your problems, your pain. Some of those problems may seem insoluble, the pains unbearable. If you look only at your own strength and your own resources, you have every reason for discouragement C perhaps even for despair.

But offer those resources, however inadequate they maybe, to Jesus Christ, and you will find that they are transformed beyond imagining. When to our weakness is added the strength and power of God, made available to us in his Son Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, then great things can happen in and through even people as weak and poor as we know ourselves to be.

Look down C at your problems, your woefully insufficient means of dealing with them; look at your weakness of will, your inconstancy, your many compromises and frequent falls C look down, I say, at all that, and you will indeed have every reason for pessimism. But look up C up into the face of Jesus Christ, your divine Savior, but also your brother, your lover, and your best friend. Place your pitifully inadequate strength, which you know to be little more than weakness, into his hands; and then you will find that the impossible happens. The problem you thought insoluble may not disappear, but it will not ultimately defeat you. The pain which seem unbearable can be borne, the heavy burden carried. Whenever we place our littleness into the hands of Jesus Christ, it becomes greatness. The impossible happens. Where before there had been only discouragement and despair, there is hope and joy.

I could stop there. But this story has more spiritual nourishment for us than the message of hope for those who think their situation is hopeless, their problems insoluble, their pain unbearable. The people who experienced Jesus= miracle were so impressed that they wanted to capture his power, to make sure that it would be available to them always. That is the significance of their desire to make Jesus a king. Here, they think, is the one who can get this hated Roman government of occupation off our backs. Someone who can feed such a vast crowd here in the wilderness is surely capable of greater things still. In this expectation, however, the people are disappointed. Jesus, we read, Awithdrew to the mountain alone.@

Jesus Christ is never at our disposal. We are at his disposal. The power of God, which is at work in Jesus, is not some kind of automatic solution that we can turn on at will, like the electric light. You cannot Acapture@ Jesus Christ, any more than the people in today=s gospel who wanted to make him king could capture him.

In Jesus there is power, certainly. It is not power, however, to do our own thing. Jesus empowers us to do God=s thing. Jesus= power is the power of love.  Love is creative. Once truly touched by love, we become capable of things that previously seemed beyond us. People in love sacrifice for the one they love: they are happy to sacrifice. People touched and filled by love can run where before they could scarcely walk. That is the power of Jesus Christ: the creative power of love, a force which will not always transform our problems, but which will infallibly transform us, if we will but entrust ourselves to Jesus, and to his love for us, without reserve.

Here in the Eucharist, Jesus repeats the miracle recounted in today=s gospel.  Here we, the hungry and weary people God, are fed by Jesus Christ with bread in the wilderness of our earthly pilgrimage; that Adaily bread@ for which Jesus taught us to pray: ordinary bread, transformed on the altar through the power of the Holy Spirit into the Lord’s crucified and risen body: nourishment, support, and strength as we stumble onward toward our heavenly homeland, lying down to rest each night a day=s march nearer home.