Homily for Wednesday, 6 July 2016– Ferial

Wednesday of the 14th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Hosea 10:1-3, 7-8, 12; Psalm 105:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Matthew 10:1-7

Optional memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr

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

For how many of us, after hearing today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, does Jesus seem to exclude entire groups of people from having “the good news” proclaimed to them, for no particular reason?

After choosing his twelve apostles, Jesus says to them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Does Jesus’ instruction here not contradict other well-known instances in our Gospels in which Jesus goes out of his way to include the otherwise excluded: Gentiles; Samaritans; essentially anybody not Jewish; sinners; those with physical or spiritual illnesses; outcasts? We know, for example, of the story of the Good Samaritan or of Jesus’ healing of a Roman centurion’s son, in which Jesus teaches us that God has created; loves; and wills to save all people, not only the Jews or, later, us Christians.

And so why would Jesus instruct the Twelve to avoid the Gentiles and Samaritans; to “proclaim the good news” that “the Kingdom of God has come near” to only “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”? After all, among Jesus’ apostles are Peter, who would deny Jesus and leave him to die on the cross, “Matthew the tax collector”… “and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.” Why accept these people as apostles, among essentially a group of unknowns if not worse, but deny the hearing of “the good news” to the Gentiles and Samaritans?

Or is Jesus as exclusionist as it seems when we hear today’s Gospel? I suggest not. My interpretation of Jesus’ instruction to the Twelve here (and please feel free to differ from me but, more importantly, take some time to reflect on this or other parts of Scripture you may find troubling) is that he is not saying, “No, do not go to anybody but the Jews,” but “not yet.”

Many scholars consider Matthew, among the four Gospel writers, to be most concerned about a Jewish audience: Early Christians who had Jewish more than pagan (Roman, Greek, Assyrian or other) backgrounds. The Samaritans of Jesus’ time were considered by many to be on the borderline between Jews and pagans, not “pure” Jews. Matthew is clearly most concerned about the well-being of communities of these early Jewish Christians. Here, might we make a distinction between the time-conditioned and the timeless aspects of our Scriptures?

Jesus’ “not yet” through Matthew has, I think, become our “now.” We recognize more than ever our Jewish sisters and brothers as those who first heard the Word of God. And we might recognize ourselves as, while usually faithful to God, occasionally among “the lost sheep” in special need of God’s mercy. May we then be a people who continues to seek out “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”; the lost sheep among ourselves, to proclaim God’s mercy to our world without exclusion. Now, more than ever, “the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”  

Homily for Wednesday, 15 April 2015– Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 5:17-26; Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; John 3:16-21

How many among us have ever taken on a task or become involved in a way of life from which we were confident that something good would result, but we were unsure where it would lead?

This is the situation in which Jesus’ first Apostles find themselves in today’s reading we hear from Acts. This group; this movement has been founded by Jesus Christ; filled with the Holy Spirit; commissioned to preach and to live the way Christ lived. But to this point the way these Apostles live has no name besides the fairly nondescript “the way.” And then, we hear today, they are imprisoned for their efforts. The religious authorities of the day, the Sanhedrin or class of temple priests in Israel, must have been concerned about this group of adherents to Jesus; to a movement these authorities had tried to stifle by having Jesus crucified.

To a point, can we not empathize with the Jewish religious authorities of this time? Have we not all heard of political and even religious movements in our world that lack a focus but nevertheless seem to draw followers and even cause trouble among groups of people; seem often lead to violence in regions of our world? I see the Sanhedrin of the earliest Apostles’ time as concerned with precisely this kind of unrest in Israel.

Of course, we know in hindsight that this Jesus movement would lead to great good; would develop a focus, inspired by the Holy Spirit. But today, in our first reading from Acts, we hear just the beginning of our Christian story. The first Apostles have been imprisoned, but are set free by an “angel of the Lord.”

And what is the instruction to the Apostles by the angel as they are released from prison? “Go and take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life.” Here the Jesus movement, long before we became known as “Christians,” is given its first name; its first focus: “This life.” I wonder: How reminiscent, for the Apostles, were these words of the angel to Jesus’ words; to how they knew Jesus: “I am the way and the truth and the life”… “I have come so that you might have life and have it abundantly”?

What is “this life” about which the angel speaks? Here was the first focus of the first Apostles, and our focus now: Preach and do what is most life-giving in the name of Jesus Christ. Build a world in which nobody is in need of basic necessities of life; a world of kindness. Build a world ready to forgive our failings freely; to heal “the wounds of sin and division.”

The most life-giving action will depend on the circumstances of our lives. For some of us, this will mean caring especially for those who are poor; sick; unemployed; underemployed; homeless; refugees or migrants… For many of us this might mean making a special effort to be kind or to pray for somebody difficult to us, or enjoying time with our wives; husbands; children; relatives, or simply a smile; a random act of kindness…

“This life”: Here is our focus, that we might all have life in the name of the risen Christ.