Homily for Sunday, 27 July 2014

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Psalm 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

This homily was given at The House of Mercy, a center for the homeless in Rochester, NY. My thanks to Sr. Grace Miller, RSM, for the invitation to celebrate Mass with the people of the House of Mercy.

If you were able to ask God for one thing‒ anything you want‒ what would you ask of God?

Our first reading speaks of King Solomon, one of the great people of the Old Testament, known especially for his wisdom. In our reading from the First Book of Kings, Solomon has just been made king of Israel. He is following in the footsteps of another great king, Solomon’s father David. And so would we hold anything against Solomon for being a bit unsure of himself and how he might lead Israel after the great reign of his father? I think not.

I can imagine Solomon, the brand-new king, as quite nervous as he begins his reign over Israel. And so God enters into the story of King Solomon; into Solomon’s dream. God makes Solomon an offer: “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” Now, if God made you a similar offer, what would you ask of God?

If God were to offer to give me anything I wanted, I would ask for peace in our world. I would ask for an end to war, violence, and oppression. I would ask for an end to poverty; underemployment and unemployment; racism; homelessness. I would ask for justice, especially in our nation’s social policy toward migrants and refugees. What would you ask for if God were to offer to give you anything you asked for in prayer?

Solomon could have asked God for anything he wanted. Does Solomon ask God for “a long life”? No. Does he ask God “for riches”? No. Does Solomon ask God “for the life of [his] enemies”? No. Solomon asks God for “an understanding heart to judge [God’s] people and to distinguish right from wrong.”

God, we hear in our first reading, is so pleased with Solomon’s prayer for wisdom; for “an understanding heart” that God gives to Solomon more than he could have imagined. God says to Solomon, “I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you.”

As remarkable as Solomon’s prayer for wisdom is, when he could have asked God for anything, God’s reply is as though Solomon could not have asked for enough. Whatever Solomon could have asked for, God would have gone beyond his wildest expectations. And no matter what we ask for, how many of us think that God would do the same for us as God did for Solomon? How many of us think that, if we were to ask God for anything we wanted, God would go beyond our wildest expectations?

This is what the story of Solomon is about and what Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom of heaven in our Gospel reading are about: God going beyond our wildest expectations.

How many of us want eternal life; to go to heaven one day? I think that would be all of us. Jesus asks us in our Gospel reading from Matthew to imagine what the Kingdom of heaven is like. Heaven is “like a treasure buried in a field,” Jesus says. “The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”

Let us picture heaven in our minds for a moment. What is it like? What is the treasure we would go to any effort to find; for which we would buy the field in which the treasure is buried? What is the pearl that we would seek at any price?

Every time we gather to celebrate our Mass; our Eucharist; when we pray the “Our Father,” the words that Jesus has taught us, we pray for this treasure; for the pearl of great price; for the coming of God’s kingdom. We pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray, on the one hand, that we will be received into God’s kingdom and, on the other hand, that God’s kingdom will come to us; a kingdom of justice, mercy, and peace here on earth. 

We have an idea; an image of what God’s kingdom might be like, and yet, while we live here on earth, the fullness of what heaven is a mystery; an image. Our understanding of it is incomplete. We are like Solomon, the new king asking for “an understanding heart… to distinguish right from wrong” so that he might govern his people wisely. God hears Solomon’s prayer; is pleased with it and exceeds Solomon’s wildest expectations. The same will be true of us when we pray for the kingdom of heaven.

God’s kingdom is like a treasure or a pearl that we seek at any price. God invites us to ask for heaven; to ask for eternal life, even if we cannot yet know fully what we are asking for. But let us not be afraid to ask. God will work with our partial understanding; will be pleased with our prayer for eternal life because we are creatures made for eternal life; made for life in and with God. Our God will forgive us; will set us back on our way to the eternal life we seek should we sin; should we fall short but then seek reconciliation with sincere hearts.

And if we ask for eternal life; if we pray to God, “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done”; if we ask for heaven as though we were seeking the greatest treasure or “the pearl of great price,” God will go beyond our wildest expectations. We will be received into the Kingdom of heaven we seek; the Kingdom of heaven for which we pray, but for now can only understand and imagine in part.

Homily for Thursday, 24 July 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 16th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13; Psalm 36:6-7ab, 8-9, 10-11; Matthew 13:10-17

How strong is our prayer life? How strong is our relationship with God, and how does our relationship with God; our prayer life connect with our life of service toward one another; our attention to social justice?

The answers to these questions may seem clear to most of us. Already we are gathered here to worship the Lord as one faith community at Mass. I hear on a regular basis from members of our community here at St. Kateri of how they serve the poor; visit the sick; comfort the dying or people who have recently lost loved ones, and many other acts of service, justice, and mercy.

Prayer and service; social justice; attention to what we as Church call “the common good” are fundamentally connected. The prophet Jeremiah in our first reading laments that the people of Israel have neglected this connection. Jeremiah says, in what is especially poignant to me, that “the priests asked not, ‘Where is the LORD?’”

To ask “Where is the LORD”; to keep in mind the connection between prayer and service is not just for us priests. It is a reminder to each and every one of us as Christian disciples. If we neglect to ask, “Where is the LORD” when we work among the poor; when we visit and bring communion to the sick; when we comfort the dying or those who have lost loved ones; however we respond to another’s needs, we forget how vital prayer is to all these acts of service and justice.

How often, then, do we ask, when we act kindly; justly; mercifully toward another person, “Where is the LORD”? How often are our actions of Christian service enlightened and enlivened by our prayer? I think that, in our Gospel reading, Jesus draws our attention to this same connection between prayer and acts of service; justice; kindness; mercy when he says, “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.”

Without prayer, even our acts of service, as outwardly wonderful as they are, become empty. We become like those who “have not” and so even what we do have, the gift from God to serve one another with justice, kindness, and mercy, “will be taken away.” Christian service and discipleship become devoid of God for those who neglect to ask, “Where is the LORD”?

And so we return to our first question: How does our relationship with God; our prayer life connect with our life of Christian service; with our attention to social justice? A long as these two aspects of our faith connect well with each other, we will be counted among those in God’s kingdom who have; those who in serving one another remember to ask prayerfully, ““Where is the LORD”? We will be a people to whom still “more will be given” and who will “grow rich” in God’s blessings.

Homily for Wednesday, 23 July 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 16th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 1:1, 4-10; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6ab, 15, 17; Matthew 13:1-9

If I were to ask all of us here, “When did you know that God was calling you to be a Christian; a disciple of Jesus Christ,” would it be possible for us to answer this question?

I ask this question as I reflect on the many times recently when I have been asked by family members, friends, and eve parishioners, “When did you know that God was calling you to be a priest?” I have trouble pointing to only one particular instance in which I knew I was being called to priesthood. In my case, it has taken many small encounters with God over the years; many seemingly insignificant experiences in which God was calling me to be a priest.

The first instance of our calling from God; our vocation to be Christians happens at baptism. But how many of us were baptized as infants and so could not possibly have any memory of our baptism?

In our first reading today, we encounter the prophet Jeremiah, who was called by God to be a prophet; a messenger not so much of what the people to whom Jeremiah would speak God’s word wanted to hear, but what they needed to hear. God says to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” Jeremiah’s first reaction is to dismiss God: “I know not how to speak; I am too young.”

Imagine if God were to say to us, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a disciple of Jesus Christ by baptism “I appointed you.” Would we think of God as strange? Would we simply dismiss God: “I know not how to speak; I am too young”; I am too old; I am not well enough; I have not taken the right courses or had the right experience? Or would we respond generously to God’s call to us in baptism to be disciples of Jesus Christ?

In countless ways many of us already respond generously and lovingly to our vocation just by gathering here to worship (as many of us do daily) and then living by the example of the God we worship in service to one another.

And yet how many of us think of and celebrate the origin of our common vocation to discipleship in Christ: our baptism? In one of the oldest prayers of the Rite of Baptism, we pray that God may open the ears and mouth of the newly-baptized to hear and then proclaim the Word of God. And so when did you know that God was calling you to be a disciple of Christ; a Christian?

We hear in our first reading that God knew and dedicated Jeremiah to his service as a prophet. In a similar way, God has known and dedicated each one of us to Christ before we knew our Christian vocation ourselves; “from the womb… before [we] were born” and sacramentally in our baptism.

Homily for Sunday, 20 July 2014

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43

Who among us enjoys gardening or farming knows someone who is a gardener or farmer? Who among us enjoys baking?

We have in our Gospel reading today from Matthew a God of many interests. Our Gospel presents us in three parables with God the farmer who sows wheat in a field, God the gardener whose crop of choice is mustard, and God the baker who introduces yeast into a batch of bread to leaven it.

The problem with these three activities, farming, gardening, and baking, is that their finished products can be unpredictable.

God the farmer sows wheat in a field. Has anyone here who has gardened ever tried, seemingly in vain, to keep a garden or a farm free of weeds? Each year, my parents grow a large vegetable garden. This garden is surrounded by an open field that is mostly clover and dandelions. The seeds of these weeds, along with those of even more infamous chickweed and Canadian thistle, are constantly blown into the garden, and so weeding the garden is a constant effort. At our house now, Fr. Joe is the gardener extraordinaire.[1] I know from living with him how much effort Fr. Joe puts into clearing weeds from his beautiful gardens.

I would enjoy gardening if it were not for having to clear weeds. I would like to adopt God’s strategy: leave the weeding to harvest time, pick the crop and the weeds together, and then sort the crop from the weeds, keeping the crop and throwing away the weeds. And yet this approach to gardening by me would be due to laziness; for God it is the approach of patience and mercy.

The weeds among the wheat in Jesus’ parable are “the children of the evil one”; of “the enemy”; the devil who sows weeds among “the children of the kingdom” so that the good crop and the weeds become undistinguishable from each other until harvest time, the time of God’s kingdom brought to its fullness. But we inhibit the final wheat crop, the Kingdom of heaven, from coming to its fullness if we pull up the weeds too early.

What will be of God’s wheat field, our world, in the meantime is somewhat unpredictable. Will there be more wheat than weeds; more good than evil or not? We cannot know this until harvest; until the end of time. God, in his patience and mercy, invites us to live with and even to nurture this unpredictability; to tend the field lovingly so that wheat and weeds grow up together.

God is not the typical gardener or farmer. And so would we not question God’s gardening techniques: God, why allow the weeds to grow up alongside the wheat? Why allow evil in the world and here in our nation and in our city? Why allow war, violence, poverty, and hunger to persist? Why not uproot these weeds immediately? What kind of farmer is our God anyway?

God is not much better as a gardener than as a wheat farmer. God the gardener would plant a mustard seed in the middle of his garden. If the seed grows, it will become a large bush and the ‘birds of the sky [will] come and dwell in its branches.’” This is great; just what we need, God. The birds will come and dwell in the branches of this giant bush that was once a tiny seed. Birds make a mess of gardens. They make noise. They carry seeds that grow into more weeds…

God the gardener; God who is patient and merciful; God who is “lenient” and whose might is justice as our first reading from the Book of Wisdom says, invites us to live with the unpredictable. God invites us to be confident that in the end, when the Kingdom of heaven reaches its fullness, evil will be no more. The weeds will be destroyed. The good crop, the Kingdom of heaven, that we pray to come in the Our Father during every Mass will come to fruition and will thrive. We do not know exactly how this will happen, but we are invited to live with this unpredictability; with the unknown. We are invited to be confident that, with our co-operation in tending and nourishing God’s garden; God’s growing Kingdom on earth, this garden will produce a bumper crop of goodness; of patience; of mercy.

And if we have difficulty living with the unpredictable; trusting that God will bring about the fullness of the Kingdom of heaven in time, a kingdom free of evil; a garden free of weeds and noisy, messy birds, we could always turn to God the baker. Wait, maybe this is not such a great idea...

In his parable of the yeast that we hear today, Jesus gives us a kind of recipe for the Kingdom of heaven: ““The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” The problem with this recipe is that, while we know to add “three measures of wheat flour,” God does not say how much yeast to add. To all among us who have ever baked: Do you not hate incomplete recipes?

There is, without doubt, a danger in adding too much yeast. I am reminded of my own experiments with my mother’s old (and somewhat temperamental) bread machine growing up. If I added even slightly too much yeast to the pot, the rising ingredients would overflow from the inside of the machine and make a mess of the kitchen counter.

God the baker; God the farmer; God the gardener invites us to live with this unpredictability in the process of bringing about the fullness of the Kingdom of heaven. If we trust in God’s patience and mercy, God the farmer will in time sort out good from evil; the wheat from the weeds. God will overcome the weeds; the evil; the sin of the world, once for all. God the gardener is, after all, a God who can transform a tiny mustard seed into a magnificent bush that gives shade; gives life. And so maybe, after a few spectacular messes in the kitchen, by the grace of God the baker we will eventually find out the exact amount of yeast needed to bake the perfect loaf of bread…

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[1] Fr. Joseph Trovato, CSB, is a priest of the Congregation of St. Basil living at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Irondequoit, NY.