Homily for Thursday, 20 June 2019

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11; Psalm 111:1b-2, 3-4, 7-8; Matthew 6:7-15

Thursday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

“Please put up with me”: Am I underestimating the probability of success in beginning an important message or trying to convince somebody with such a plea? Well, we know from the fairly spread of the Christian faith in the time of St. Paul, especially in large cities of the then-Roman Empire like Corinth that developed thriving Christian communities even under intermittent persecution from Rome and some Jewish leaders, that St. Paul was quite successful and convincing in spreading our faith.

I think it is important for us to remember that these Corinthians of St. Paul’s time were especially difficult people to bring to the Christian faith. Corinth was a rich city and proud of it, thanks to its possession of not one but two ports on the Mediterranean Sea, which allowed for increased trade by sea and therefore wealth to enter the city. Change, especially conversion from one faith, Greco-Roman paganism, to another, Christianity, is a tough sell when all is going so well for a city the way it was for first-century Corinth.

Scripture scholars often refer to St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians as his “tearful letter.” St. Paul pleaded with the Corinthians in bringing them to the Christian faith to the point of tears, out of a deep love for them, like no other people or city to which he wrote and ministered. To the Corinthians especially, St. Paul’s message, his preaching of a poor, humble Christ who freely accepted death on a cross to save us was, we could say, a religious culture shock.

In wealthy cities like Corinth, one paid handsomely to study under an elite teacher. This clashed, as we hear from 2 Corinthians today, with St. Paul’s preaching of “the Gospel” to the Corinthians “free of charge.” No self-respecting teacher or preacher in an ancient Greek city like Corinth would have taught or preached “free of charge” as St. Paul did, not only to a few wealthy students but to the whole city and to the world. Yet St. Paul’s strategy, along with pleading with the Corinthians to “put up with” him, worked splendidly anyway, no doubt by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

If we reflect on St. Paul’s loving pleading with the Corinthians to the point of tears, “Please put up with me,” what are the messages we find most difficult to accept today in our lives? Have we ever had difficulty accepting change even when change is necessary or right?

Maybe we have difficulty hearing somebody and accepting her or his message when this person differs from us politically or in understanding of the Church and its mission, for example, or when another person does not share our Christian faith or moral understanding at all. Maybe as difficult for many of us (if I have heard accurately from some of us here at St. Kateri Parish) is the impending change in leadership in this parish after anywhere from nine to forty-three years of Basilian leadership here.

I pray that we at St. Kateri will not only “put up with” but come to love St. Kateri’s new pastor when he begins here next week. I pray that everybody who leads, who prays, and who loves in this parish will continue to lead, pray, and grow in love with a new pastor and vicars, as the Corinthians went from putting up with St. Paul in his time to leading, praying, and genuinely loving him and one another for the growth and unity of the Church.

Homily for Thursday, 10 August 2017‒ Feast of St. Lawrence

Thursday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 9:6-10; Psalm 112:1-2, 5-6, 7-8, 9; John 12:24-26

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Lawrence, a deacon and martyr of the Roman Empire’s persecution of Christians under the emperor Valerian. Yet when we celebrate feasts of martyrs in our Church, people who have literally given their lives for Christ and have been killed out of hatred for our faith, I often ask how we might relate to these martyrs. Are our chances of being killed for our faith not slim to nil?

Of course, more Christians have been killed for our faith in the past century than in all the previous centuries of Christianity combined. But here in Canada, while we may encounter misunderstanding, incredulity, and even ridicule if we are truly living our faith, our lives are more or less safe. And so how might we relate to martyrs like St. Lawrence? What are common aspects of our lives with those of martyrs like St. Lawrence?

The readings we hear today might give us clues to answering these questions. Our Gospel reading from John is a classic call to martyrdom; Jesus’ glorification of anybody who would give up their lives for his sake, as he himself was about to when he spoke those words: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains… a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

St. Lawrence died indeed, and a gruesome death at that. Let me suggest, though, that his death alone was not what made him a martyr. Before his death, St. Lawrence had practiced for many years a kind of living martyrdom. The most important ministry of deacons of the time in Rome was to ensure that the necessities of life of the poor were met. This St. Lawrence did with distinction. Legend has it that, when St. Lawrence was arrested and brought before the Roman prefect, he was ordered to bring with him the treasures of the Church to be confiscated. Lawrence presented to the prefect a large group of poor people of Rome, saying: “Here are the treasures of the Church”!

We say in our Psalm response today, “Happy the merciful who give to those in need.” And in our first reading, from 2 Corinthians, we hear that “God loves a cheerful giver.” St. Lawrence was certainly “the merciful” and “cheerful giver” to anybody in need. He gave his life to this ministry, long before he was killed for his and our faith. It is foremost in these works of mercy and in his regard for the poor as “the treasures of the Church” that St. Lawrence is an example to us. St. Lawrence’s free acceptance of a martyr’s death only flowed from the martyr’s example of the rest of his life.

God calls us, as he called St. Lawrence, “happy” insofar as we “give to those in need. God calls us still to give cheerfully; to ensure that the least well off among us are not in need of necessities of life and human dignity. God calls us to value the least among us as “treasures”; to challenge social structures that marginalize and dehumanize many while enriching a few. This is living martyrdom; a true counter-culture we are called to live as St. Lawrence did, dying to ourselves in the process, as humble grains of wheat fall “into the earth” to die and, only so, to “bear much fruit.”

Homily for Tuesday, 20 June 2017– Ferial

Tuesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 8:1-9; Psalm 146:2, 5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a; Matthew 5:43-48

Is there anybody here who is comfortable speaking about money, especially asking other people to give generously of their hard-earned money, even to worthy causes? I cannot speak for our other priests and staff of St. Kateri; I am only able to speak for myself. But I sense that, whenever we need to ask for added money contributions from St. Kateri parishioners, this is not one of the things we feel most comfortable doing, mostly because we recognize how generous so many of us already are.

In this part of 2 Corinthians from which we hear today, St. Paul is speaking of a collection that was taken up from the other Christian communities of the world to send to the church in Jerusalem, which was extremely poor at the time. St. Paul, like many if not all of us today, felt some unease at having to ask the other Christian communities for money to support Jerusalem.

Yet St. Paul speaks to the Christians of Corinth, a very wealthy church at the time, of the spontaneous generosity of another church, that of Macedonia, toward Jerusalem. Macedonia was neither extremely rich nor extremely poor, although it had its significant challenges and even “a severe test of affliction” from time to time. Despite not having much excess wealth, the Macedonian church begs Paul and his companions “insistently for the favor of taking part” in the collection to help Jerusalem.

My sisters and brothers of St. Kateri, I wonder if we here are more like the Macedonians and less like the Corinthians of St. Paul’s time. There are quite wealthy people, and some quite poor people, in our parish. But most of us are neither extremely wealthy nor extremely poor. We here at mainly “middle class” St. Kateri, as in “middle class” Macedonia of St. Paul’s time, have an opportunity here; a calling here to generosity with the resources we have.

And by resources, I do not mean only money or material wealth. Amid St. Paul’s appeal to Corinth to be like Macedonia, except much wealthier, in supporting Jerusalem, he also sends them Titus, whose mission it was to direct the Jerusalem relief effort; the collection in Corinth. I imagine Titus’ mission in Corinth was a difficult one, unless (and I imagine not) he was the type of person who was comfortable asking people for money.

In a few weeks, we at St. Kateri will welcome a new Parochial Vicar, Fr. Michael, in place of Fr. Morgan who is beloved of many people here, and rightly so. Might Fr. Michael be like St. Kateri’s latest Titus? Not only are we invited to be generous with our material resources, but also with our welcome of a new voice; a new (to us here) priest; a new way of preaching and living the Word of God, and so forth. As the Macedonians were generous toward Jerusalem in a way that was an example to other Christian communities, and as St. Paul called the Corinthians to receive Titus with generosity and love as he was entrusted with a difficult message and mission to them, may we ever be an example to everybody around us, to other parishes, of generosity and love, by “the grace of God.”

Homily for Friday, 16 June 2017– Ferial

Friday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Psalm 116:10-11, 15-16, 17-18; Matthew 5:27-32

Who among us is intense about our faith or knows somebody who is? I would describe most if not all of us here as intense in living our faith, simply because we are here now on a Friday morning at St. Kateri Parish at St. Cecilia Church to celebrate the Eucharist. How many people, even among the most devout Catholics, devote part of a Friday morning; part of almost every day for many of us, to our celebration of the Eucharist? We are in the minority, my sisters and brothers in Christ!

Please let me be clear: Many of our sister and brother Catholics, for reasons too many to count, are unable to be at Mass every day. They work, they raise families, they are aging, sick, or homebound… And many of these people live our faith just as intensely and devoutly as we who are here do. Add to this those among us who engage in ministries in the Church, or who work passionately for social justice causes including, fundamentally, the defense of the dignity of all human life and all creation.

I would say we are quite an intense group of people. And today our Word of God speaks to us and celebrates two of the most intense people who have ever walked this earth, St. Paul and Jesus. St. Paul encounters the intense pride of the wealthy Christian community of Corinth of the earliest Church. Yet Corinth’s intensity meets its match in St. Paul, who compares his ministry to death, uniting it in particular to the death of Christ.

A saint is one who knows how to die. A saint has received from God and applied in her or his life the grace of how to die to her or his own pride insofar as it inhibits this person’s ability to serve God in serving the needs of God’s people. A saint knows to die to any form of injustice, of lack of love or charity in action or speech. A saint knows when to die to one form of ministry or service to move to a new one. A saint knows the grace of death to partisan ideological narrowness; to gossip; to needless divisiveness. A saint knows how to die, in order to rise again; to ascend and transcend with Christ. A saint dies as she or he lives: Intensely.

This grace of dying in order to rise is true of St. Paul, so much so that many in his Corinthian audience likely found his message challenging, if not outright frightening, even morbid. And the same is true of Jesus himself. Jesus, and St. Paul after him, lived, died, and rose intensely. Today we hear Jesus’ second of six of what have been called “intensification” sayings in Matthew’s Gospel: “You have heard” this commandment, “but I say” live it more intensely; more demandingly.

It is not enough to obey this sixth of the Ten Commandments, not to “commit adultery.” If we so much as look at another person as no more than property to be used; to be taken from another (which is how Jesus views adultery, specifically the taking of another’s spouse for one’s pleasure), we will bear God’s judgment due to this sin. But the more we live self-control out of love, which is more demanding and intense than the commandment requires, as a kind of death to self, the closer we will be to rising to intense and eternal life.

Homily for Wednesday, 14 June 2017– Ferial

Wednesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 3:4-11; Psalm 99:5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Matthew 5:17-19

What might we make of the contrast between how the law is understood in our first reading today, from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, and in our Gospel, from Matthew?

St. Paul speaks of the law‒ as in Matthew’s Gospel, in 2 Corinthians St. Paul is referring to the Law of Moses or laws of the Jewish faith, much of which has influenced our Christian faith and law‒ or “the letter” in rather dark terms. St. Paul calls “the letter” of the Jewish, then Judeo-Christian, law “the ministry of death, carved on letters on stone.” He contrasts this written-on-stone letter of the law with the “ministry of the Spirit” or “ministry of righteousness.”

Near the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that spans three full chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, five through seven, we hear Jesus affirm the law in much more positive terms than St. Paul seems to do in 2 Corinthians. Jesus has “come not to abolish but to fulfill” the law, he says. “Not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass from the law,” which would suggest that, in spite of St. Paul’s view of the law, there are at least elements, if not all of the law that are worth holding onto and obeying.

And so which is it: Is the law something to be cast aside as “the ministry of death” or “of condemnation,” or something that is life-giving and to be maintained and obeyed?

I think we risk making a serious mistake if we try to or think we need to choose one of these perspectives on the law over the other. We miss the point of both St. Paul and Jesus if we understand law (whether of our faith or secular law, that of the state) as something to be disregarded as limiting our freedom or, worse yet, dealing us “death” or “condemnation,” or as something life-giving and requiring blind obedience for its own sake.

What, then, is the common point St. Paul and Jesus make in our readings we hear today? I suggest that St. Paul’s and Jesus’ common point is that the law is good, but only if it points us to something‒ or, better yet, somebody, that is, God‒ greater than and more “glorious,” in St. Paul’s words, than itself.

Obedience to law, religious or secular (even the word “obedience” is from the same Latin root for listening attentively), does not mean a kind of slavishness to “the good old days” when all seemed morally, liturgically,  or otherwise certain; when there were clear rules governing what we, especially as good Catholics, ought and ought not to do without exception. The reality is that “the good old days” never existed and never will exist or, as my Basilian brother of blessed memory here at St. Kateri, Fr. Peter Etlinger, once said, “Don’t tell me about the ‘good old days.’ I was there; they weren’t so good”!

Neither is the law a means to strike at and divide ourselves from those who, as we see them, differ or disagree with us on various matters, or even who behave less morally than we do. Instead, only if we understand and live law as a kind of light on our path to God, to salvation, will it be “fulfilled,” as Jesus says, and will it become, as St. Paul says, “the ministry of the Spirit” who always exceeds our written letter; our expectations; our imagination.

Homily for Wednesday, 10 August 2016‒ Feast of St. Lawrence

Wednesday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 9:6-10; Psalm 112:1-2, 5-6, 7-8, 9; John 12:24-26

This homily was given at the chapel of Kateri House Women's Residence of St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

“God loves a cheerful giver,” St. Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians. And Jesus says “to his disciples” in John’s Gospel, “Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.”

Who here is able to name “a cheerful giver,” somebody who is known for generous service to others; to our Church; to the world? When I think of a generous, “cheerful giver,” I think of a person like Mother Teresa, who founded the Missionaries of Charity to serve the poor around the world. Here in our own country, and longer ago than Mother Teresa, we might include Canada’s saints: Marie de l’Incarnation, who  established the Ursuline Sisters in Québec; Marguerite d’Youville, founder of the Grey Nuns; the Canadian Martyrs; many missionaries; more recently André Bessette… We may think of philanthropists who have given to their communities.

But so many “cheerful,” generous servants and saints are unheralded. Although he is named (many, even, I imagine, the vast majority of saints are not even known by name), we might consider St. Lawrence, whose feast we celebrate today, among these unheralded cheerful and generous servants. Most of what we know about St. Lawrence is legend or at least second-hand. Tradition back to the Acts of the Apostles was to appoint seven deacons to help the pope in Rome to serve those in need in the city. Under Pope Sixtus II, also a saint and martyr, St. Lawrence was one of these seven deacons during the reign of the Roman Emperor Valerian.

We might be familiar with St. Ambrose’s humorous, if graphic, account of The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence: As St. Lawrence was being burned to death, he asked his executioners: “Would you turn me over? I’m not done yet on the other side”!

Dark humour aside, I think another story from the same work by St. Ambrose even more beautifully captures the spirit of St. Lawrence, the kind of “cheerful giver” and generous servant of God whom Jesus promises “the Father will honour.” After Pope Sixtus was led to his death, three days before Lawrence was martyred, Valerian demanded the treasures of the Church of Rome be brought to him. On the day he was executed, Lawrence (we might imagine tongue-in-cheek) brought with him a delegation of the suffering, the poor, the sick, and the crippled of Rome, and announced to a furious Valerian, “Here are the treasures of the Church”!

Who are the cheerful givers; the servants among us whom “the Father will honour”? Who will present before God “the treasures of the Church”: The people of God most in need of our service; the people whose dignity is most vulnerable to being exploited? Perhaps the better question is to ask ourselves to what extent we are prepared to be servants ourselves; to recognize the suffering, the poor, the sick; people with disabilities; the unborn; the elderly as “the treasures” of our Church; of our world; of God’s creation.

We will most likely not be martyred for our efforts as St. Lawrence was. We may not even gain a name for ourselves, except before God. And yet, if we serve not for our own glory but glorifying God, we can be sure that God will love and honour the cheerful givers; those who serve generously.    

Homily for Sunday, 5 July 2015

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 2:2-5; Psalm 123:1-2, 2, 3-4; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6

This homily was given at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish, Annunciation Church, Rochester, NY.

When have we recognized, or failed to recognize, the presence of God in our midst? How are we called to be changed; transformed by God to recognize better the presence of God among us?

These are key questions to ask ourselves when we examine our consciences. Are not many if not most of us familiar with the practice of examination of conscience? An honest examination of conscience is a valuable way to prepare to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation. Examination of conscience can be not only excellent preparation for reconciliation, but it is a practice I encourage us to take up daily. To make an examination of conscience is not only to recognize when we have sinned or done wrong, although this is part of it. It is primarily, I think, or recognition of moments when God has been present in our lives; in our encounters with one another; in prayer; in worship. It is, first and foremost, a profound act of trust in God’s mercy.

We pray in our Psalm response today: “Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.” What is God’s mercy? Do not many of us; many Catholics; many Christians have a sense of God’s mercy as something we plead for when we have done wrong; when we feel guilty. How many of us have made a confession like this when celebrating reconciliation: “Father, forgive me for I have sinned. I did x twice and y five times and z ten times”? This kind of confession of a list of sins in number and in kind is well and good. I do not wish to criticize anybody who has made this kind of confession. We are meant to confess all serious sins and the number of times we commit them. I have made the “number-and-kind” confession myself. But God’s mercy; our trust in God’s mercy is so much more than this.

What is God’s mercy, then? What does it mean for us to trust in God’s mercy? For me, to trust in God’s mercy means first to be as aware as we are able of God’s presence in our lives through prayer; through works of service; through people we encounter; through worship. God’s mercy; God’s presence in our lives can and often does convict us of sin. God did precisely this through the prophets of the Old Testament. Prophets like Ezekiel in our first reading were sent to urge the people of Israel to repent from sin; to recognize their sin, their unfaithfulness to God and their injustice toward the most vulnerable of their own people. But they would only recognize their sin if they first recognized that God was not out to punish them; that our God is a God of mercy who loves us and wants us to love God and one another above all else.

Yes, God describes the people of Israel to Ezekiel as “rebels… hard of face and obstinate of heart.” But even in these harsh words there is hope for the people of Israel. God would not have sent Ezekiel or many other prophets to the ancient Israelites if there were no hope for them to repent; to turn away from sin and once again renew their trust in and faithfulness to God. This is God’s mercy at its heart: God hopes in us. God has created us as all-good. Sin is not of God but is our willful choice not to love as God loves us; not to act with God’s mercy and justice toward one another; not to act for peace; for one another’s good; the good and unity of our families; our friendships; of the Church.

God’s mercy can and does convict us of sin and urge us to repent. God’s mercy works this way through the prophet Ezekiel. God laments to Ezekiel that the people of Israel have become “rebels… hard of face and obstinate of heart”; that the future of their nation is at stake if they do not turn to God and away from sin. Yet God maintains hope that at least “they shall know that a prophet has been among them.” The people of Israel will have encountered the presence; the mercy of God, “whether they heed or resist.”

God’s mercy works in a similar way in our Gospel reading from Mark God’s mercy convicts of their sin those who do not repent and believe in Jesus; those who belittle him as “the carpenter, the son of Mary.” Jesus returns to “his native place… to teach in the synagogue” of his hometown. We would expect that many would have recognized and rejoiced in Jesus’ presence in his hometown. And probably many did. After all, by this point Jesus had become famous for his miracles; his healing the sick; his regard for the poor; his preaching and teaching. But enough people in Jesus’ hometown synagogue dismiss him as a mere “carpenter” so that Jesus “was not able to perform any mighty deed” in “his native place.” There, in Jesus’ home, “he was amazed at their lack of faith.”

But all is not lost with this bleak ending to Jesus’ visit home. Can we imagine that, if nobody there had faith in Jesus as God in their midst; if everybody had dismissed Jesus in his hometown, there would have been no Christian faith to hand on for over two thousand years. We would not be here if enough people who first encountered Jesus had not recognized him as God; had not been willing to be changed; transformed; healed; forgiven by him. Even in our Gospel reading we hear of “a few sick people” upon whom Jesus laid his hands to heal them. This is God’s mercy at work the day of Jesus’ visit home; this is God’s mercy at work among us now.

God’s mercy convicts of sin; convicts us when our faith is lacking; urges us to repentance. But God’s mercy works in so many other ways. God’s mercy keeps us steadfast; forms our conscience when we know we are acting rightly and justly. God’s mercy also keeps us humble: We recognize that we need God; God’s mercy; God’s grace to live as God has created us, for love of God and of one another.

Perhaps nobody in our Scriptures knew the reach of God’s mercy more deeply than St. Paul. By God’s mercy, St. Paul had experienced conversion from being a persecutor to an apostle, preacher, and builder of our faith. The same mercy of God kept St. Paul steadfast in his faith; in the knowledge that his works; the Gospel of Christ he preached were right. This same mercy of God kept St. Paul humble and yet confident in his mission (yes, it is possible to be both humble and confident!). St. Paul is able to endure times of seeming ineffectiveness in proclaiming and spreading our Christian faith. Especially in Corinth, a rich, independent, and stubborn community that was particularly troublesome to St. Paul, he is able to endure while being humbled by this “thorn in the flesh.” Because of God’s mercy, St. Paul has the boldness to proclaim to the Corinthians what would be beyond our logic without God’s mercy: “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

By God’s mercy we, like St. Paul, find strength when we are at our weakest. By God’s mercy we are able to proclaim and spread Christ’s Gospel confidently yet humbly. In mercy God convicts us of sin; urges us to repentance; makes us better able to confess when we have sinned; transforms us; heals us. By God’s mercy we are able to show one another mercy. By God’s mercy we are able to recognize the presence of God in our midst.

Homily for Thursday, 18 June 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11;  Psalm 111:1b-2, 3-4, 7-8; Matthew 6:7-15

Have you ever encountered somebody who has said or done something foolish? Could it have been the person who made an unconvincing argument or the person who inattentively cut ahead of you in line or in traffic (I am guilty as charged on this count!)?

The Corinthians addressed by our first reading had encountered somebody they thought was foolish: Paul of Tarsus. Might we be asking, “Why be so irreverent and critical toward a great saint and apostle like St. Paul?” I love St. Paul, one of my favorite saints in Scripture, but in his second Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul even admits his own foolishness. He says to the Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, if only you would put up with a little foolishness from me”!

What could possibly have made the great St. Paul appear foolish, at least in the Corinthians’ eyes? St. Paul admits that he is not the most gifted speaker. He admits that he is not like the philosophers in Corinth and other large pagan cities of the time who drew students to themselves and could command a fee for their teaching. “I preached the Gospel to you without charge,” St. Paul says to the Corinthians. But neither being “untrained in” speaking nor teaching “without charge” at the time would have made St. Paul appear foolish, even to the many arrogant Corinthians.

No, St. Paul is considered foolish by many Corinthians because he is in love. And we know that love is irrational; foolish even at times… St. Paul loves the Corinthians; loves and lives by the Gospel he is preaching, the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen. St. Paul is in love with the true Christ behind the Gospel message of our faith, and so the Corinthians label him as foolish!

And who is the true Christ whom St. Paul preaches in Corinth? The true Christ is the Christ of our Gospel reading; the Christ who invites us not to “babble like the pagans” but to trust in our “Father who knows what [we] need before [we] ask him.”

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What kind of prayer is this, Jesus, in today’s world in which many do not revere God’s name; do not even know or want to know God; do not revere God in creation or in the dignity of all human life?

“Give us this day our daily bread.” What kind of prayer is this amid individualism that will not admit when we are in need; that we need God; Christ’s real presence in the “daily bread” of our Eucharist?

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive… and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” But can we not simply deny evil and sin;  deny our need for forgiveness; our need to forgive others if only for our own peace, as many do? 

What kind of prayer is this? This is a prayer of the foolish! Yet Jesus has made himself so foolish out of love for us that he died for us! And if Christ is a fool out of love, then he invites us to be fools for him, because we love as he loves us.

Homily for Sunday, 14 June 2015

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34

Jesus asks us in Mark’s Gospel, “To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God”? Jesus then compares the Kingdom of God to “a mustard seed.” How does the Kingdom of God compare to a tiny mustard seed? Why did Jesus not compare the magnificence of God’s Kingdom to a larger seed or plant than a mustard seed? At least Ezekiel, in our first reading today, compares God’s Kingdom to a mighty cedar tree planted on “a high and lofty mountain” for all to see.

Why a mustard seed? Jesus succeeds here as a teacher and storyteller if only because his comparison between the Kingdom of God and a mustard seed is so unusual. Yes, the little mustard seed in Jesus’ parable grows into “the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” But have you ever been in a desert; seen how mustard grows in a desert? There are more magnificent plants, especially in a desert, than mustard, which grows more as a low shrub than a tall, beautiful tree under the desert heat and in poor soil. Could Jesus’ point have been in the last line of his parable: “So that the birds of the sky can dwell in [the] shade” of the mustard plant? Could Jesus have been trying to emphasize the nurturing, sheltering qualities of the Kingdom of God; the love with which God nurtures us; cares for us in the way a mustard plant shelters birds from the desert heat?

I imagine this could have been Jesus’ intended focus of his parable of the mustard seed. After all, would our taking this focus from the parable of the mustard seed not fit with our experience; our understanding of God as all-good; as the creator who cares for and nurtures all creation; who loves and wants a relationship of love with us? In this way, Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed could easily point us toward God’s goodness. Ezekiel’s image of God’s kingdom as the cedar atop a high mountain could point us toward God’s greatness; God’s power. And can we not imagine our God and God’s Kingdom as both like the mustard seed and like the cedar; both good and great; both nurturing and powerful?

But still: Why a tiny mustard seed to describe God’s Kingdom? Is this Jesus’ unusual way of inviting us to trust in God’s wisdom; to trust in the God who can transform even the most insignificant, like the mustard seed, into something magnificent that serves our good: The mustard plant; the Kingdom of God that shelters us; nurtures us; is our eternal home; our salvation?

What would my ideal image of the Kingdom of God be, if not a mustard seed? Imagine the Kingdom of God as a tomato vine. Why a tomato vine, we may ask? Many of us know Fr. Joe as an expert gardener among the priests of St. Kateri! Just outside the back door of our rectory are Fr. Joe’s tomato vines. They are just beginning to leaf out and to climb up the tomato cages. A few days ago, Fr. Joe and I were returning home from breakfast with friends. As we were about to enter the house, Fr. Joe noticed the first tomato of the season on one of the vines: Only about the diameter of a dime; like a small marble in size and bright green. This tomato has a while to go before it can be picked and eaten. And yet I wish I could do justice in describing Fr. Joe’s joy at seeing this first tomato of the season on his plants. Fr. Joe gave emphatic thanks to God for this promise of an abundant harvest of tomatoes this summer. I could not help but share in Fr. Joe’s joy in this little green tomato!

The Kingdom of God is like a tomato vine. The gardener plants it. The day-to-day growth of the vine up the tomato cage is not noticeable to the gardener who waters it; cares for it; clears weeds from around it. One moment the gardener, if he is Fr. Joe, is praying, seated next to his beautiful garden. The next moment, looking up from his book of prayer, he shifts to a mildly threatening gaze to warn away pesky chipmunks…  One day, with great joy the gardener sees the first little green tomato on one of his vines. He gives thanks; prays to God to continue to sustain its growth.

It is only a little green tomato on a short vine. It is vulnerable to being eaten by animals or damaged by insects. It must be protected from a late frost. It is far from ripe. And yet this little green tomato is God’s promise of a fruitful harvest. By the end of the season the tomato plants will be weighed down by big, red, ripe, delicious tomatoes. They give shelter to many small creatures, including, I am sure, a few pesky chipmunks… These tomatoes will help to give yet more joy to the gardener. They will nourish him and those who live with him or are our guests at table for the work of the Kingdom of God; of service to this, our parish, and to God. These seeds that give rise to shoots, then vines, then little green tomatoes that ripen and are harvested seem insignificant. But with trust in God, love for those who will benefit and be nourished by his harvest, and hours of hard work, the gardener faithfully tends these tomato plants.

In the words of our second reading, from St. Paul’s second Letter to the Corinthians, the gardener’s work is an exercise in walking (and nurturing the plants) “by faith and not by sight.” The gardener’s work is one of patience. The gardener trusts in and becomes a source of God’s great wisdom, the gift of God’s Holy Spirit that brings about a fruitful harvest; the Kingdom of God; our salvation, all from apparently insignificant beginnings, like little green tomatoes... or mustard seeds in the desert, or mighty cedar trees on mountaintops, which themselves begin as small shoots.

“To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God”? Unlike Fr. Joe, gardening has never been my strength. Neither, maybe, is composing and speaking in parables. But whether we imagine the Kingdom of God as a mustard seed planted in the desert, a mighty cedar tree on a mountain, or a tomato vine in Irondequoit, is the point of all these parables not the same?

God invites us to trust in God’s wisdom. The wisdom of God brings about a great harvest from insignificant beginnings. God’s wisdom brings about our salvation; our experience of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. And, here and now, God loves us; wants a relationship of love with us. God gives us just enough of God’s own wisdom, here and now, that we can co-operate with God in building and nurturing God’s Kingdom.

We are called to co-operate, guided by the wisdom of God the Holy Spirit, in building and nurturing a kingdom of kindness; of patience (except perhaps with pesky chipmunks!); of joy even in the small beginnings of what we are promised will be: Fullness of the Kingdom of God; our salvation, whatever image we have of this. And all this from a tiny mustard seed, a cedar shoot or, if you will, little green tomatoes…