Friends, I would like to dedicate this homily to a woman that I’ll call Karen (not her actual name) to protect her and her family that I have “walked with,” in the spiritual sense for the past year and who went “home” to God this past week.  I dedicate it to her out of respect for the relationship that we had, but even more so, in the light of this homily, because the readings for this Sunday speak so well to an issue that she and I addressed often in our time together, that of the mercy and love of God.

But first, a bit of back story so that you can know my friend better.  I had not known Karen before a year ago when I was called by one of her friends, who also knew me and thought I might be able to be of help to her friend.

Karen had been diagnosed with cancer at the stage 4 level and was trying to come to terms with that.  Not only was she beginning to deal with her own passing, but a year before this, she had suffered the loss of one of her sons, also to cancer—a death that parents can never really get their minds and hearts around—that of their children .

So Karen was grieving—a feeling, a state of mind and heart she had come to know well in her life that also included the loss of her mother at a young age and two failed marriages.  Her first marriage did give her three children—two sons and a daughter and her two remaining children, along with their spouses, gave her four grandchildren.

It was clear to me early on that these children and grandchildren and extended family meant the world to her and the pain and grief that she was experiencing was all about leaving them—would they be all right?—the concerns of any good parent!

Karen decided to fight the cancer aggressively with chemotherapy and after two cycles, it seemed she was getting more ill, rather than better, so she stopped the aggressive part and moved into comfort cares.

Many of us, unfortunately, were raised to believe that God came to redeem us, in Jesus, and required payment for our wrong-doing in life.  Not much, at least not enough in our training was about the mercy of our good God.

The reading from Colossians today, supposedly from Paul, speaks to this issue in the idea of “washing us clean of any original sin.”  Modern day Scripture scholars—“revisionists,” they are called, tell us that everything we read in Scripture may not have come out of the mouth of the particular writer “credited” with it and I would suspect this is an example of that.

Formerly-active Catholic priest, Matthew Fox, now an Episcopalian priest, speaks of each of us being an “original blessing,” not a “sin.”  As a small aside, when I was in chaplaincy training, an Episcopalian priest on staff at the hospital where I trained told me my only Episcopalian joke and basically it is the definition of an Episcopalian which is “Catholic Lite,” one-half the guilt.

When I think of God as depicted by Jesus in such stories as the Prodigal, the Good Shepherd, the Good Samaritan, the Woman who Lost a Coin and turned her house up-side-down in search of it, and by the way, this is the female version of the Good Shepherd who left the 99 in search of the one lost sheep; I find myself agreeing with Matthew Fox—God sees us as “blessing,” not “sin.”

Stating that from the beginning, humankind is “sin” in need of redemption, rather than “blessing” from our good God, sets up a chain of events that keep humankind quite miserable, beating our breasts and makes God a masochist demanding the life of Jesus to appease God’s anger for our imperfect natures, which in fact God created!  I don’t know about you, but it makes it quite difficult for me to love such a mean God as that. But of course those who devised such a plan don’t want us to think, but simply to obey.

So, in my time with Karen, I assured her that she was mightily loved by our God and then, she as a Methodist, growing up, and me, a Catholic, shared prayer and communion many times over this past year, remembering not the vengeance, but the  love of the God we both shared

Due to the accumulated grief experienced in her adult family with partners struggling for connection with their children and the ultimate care of them, on Karen’s part, the relationships weren’t always smooth, so in this last year of her life, Karen’s main concern was that this family could be a family in the best sense of the word.

The apostles in today’s gospel ask that Jesus would teach them, “how to pray.”  This question bespeaks the desire for a relationship with God—going to a trusted friend, not to someone that they feared.  These same apostles often saw Jesus go off alone, “to pray,” and of his relationship with the one he called, Abba, translated, “Daddy” or “Loving Parent,” and they saw the strength and power that he had to teach and heal after his time away. They wanted that strength and that relationship too!

Often times with Karen;  I would tell her to ask Jesus to help her carry what she couldn’t carry alone and over the year we spent together, she saw the relationship between her adult children grow—that her grandchildren were spending more time together and we prayed prayers of gratitude.

We don’t often enough realize how much God wants to be part of our lives—wants a relationship with us—if we would just ask.  We are often told not to read the Scriptures literally to get the true sense of their meaning and that was never so true as in the first reading today from Genesis.  We read, God said: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great…their sin is so grave, that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.”  We read this and wonder—if God is all powerful and all knowing, God doesn’t need to go anywhere, God knows!

And then we look at the discussion on how merciful this God might be.  Our trouble friends, as humans, is that we always assume that God’s ability to show mercy, caring and love is on a par with our own, when in reality, there is no end to the ability of God to love us.  It reminds me of when my grandson, Elliot and I are playing against the monsters—our opponents, or the “bosses” as he says, our strength to fight against them is in the “bazillions!”  When you think of the love and ultimate mercy of God, think my friends, in the “bazillions!”

So, I began this homily, dedicating it to my friend, Karen,  and I will end it there as I know she is presently experiencing this over-the-top love of our God as she will now for all eternity and that Jesus who promised that God would never leave us will watch over her family too and be with each of us as well.  We can never out-do our God where love is concerned—that is our hope and our promise! Amen?  Amen!

My friends, this week’s readings from Ordinary Time, that odd-named time, in my mind, calls us to go deeper as many times is the case in these in-between times in our Church calendar.  In fact, “In-Between Times” might be a better name for this season that is anything but “ordinary.”

The theme of “traveling,” that of a “traveler in the faith,” seems evident in each of the readings today. Travelers are received and cared for in the first reading from Genesis.  In Paul’s reading to the Colossians, the notion of “traveling through life,” making the best of all that comes our way, even the hard times, coming to the understanding that basically, “God is always about making us complete in Christ.”

Luke’s gospel selection for today tells the familiar story of Martha and Mary, addressing Martha’s need, “to go deeper,” traveling, as it were, into herself, helping her and us by extension to see that life calls for more than mere hospitality, caring for people’s physical needs and that they have other needs as well, which we will address in a bit.

Another theme then that is addressed in today’s readings is that of “hospitality” and even though this is a good thing, it is meant only as a tool to a greater good—we see this in both the first reading from Genesis and in the gospel reading from Luke.

Just as we are each hard-wired to love, from the beginning, the Israelite people through their culture and belief systems were hard-wired to extend hospitality to the stranger, traveling through their country.

Their very history of being “sojourners in a harsh land,” taught them to extend hospitality to the stranger, even if their enemy, in need of assistance as they traveled through the land. It was like, “Doing to others what you would have them do to you,” kind of thing. We see a prime example of this in the Genesis reading where Abraham and Sarah work so hard to extend physical hospitality to the three travelers who came their way.  It is good to spend a moment or two thinking about the lengths they went, to care for these travelers—killing the fatted-calf and roasting some of it for a meal was, I am thinking, an all-day process.

The same thing is going on in the gospel story of Martha and Mary—physical hospitality—something hard-wired into the very psyche of the Israelite people. But there is a third theme weaving its way through these readings that needs to be addressed today and that is the virtue of “listening” and I believe it is this virtue that we are expected to take away from these readings.

The three travelers in the Genesis reading had a specific purpose in stopping by the tent of Abraham and Sarah beyond the need for physical hospitality—a purpose we don’t discover until the very end of the reading—they came to announce that next year, at this time, Sarah and Abraham would have the long-awaited child of all their married years together—the answer to their prayers.  This couple, you will recall, was quite elderly by this time!

Now if this couple had been aware at the outset that the three travelers brought such wonderful news, would they have “cut to the chase,” so to speak, dispensing with the good action of a meal for strangers, to learn through their true connection with the sojourners, the purpose of them stopping by?

It would have indeed asked them to make a sea-change in their thinking, but it would seem that this is what Jesus is asking of us today in the gospel.

There have been so many homilies given over time since Jesus lived trying to answer the question of who was doing the better deed, Martha who prepared the meal or Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to his words.

It is important, I think, to keep in mind that while Jesus was a human of his time in history; he was always about “turning things on their heads,” taking people deeper. We need not spend time trying to decide whether Jesus was unkind to Martha, slaving in the kitchen, telling her that “Mary had chosen the better part.”  We must go to that deeper place with Jesus and try to understand what he is telling Martha and those of us, “busy with many things.”

We have always been “spiritual beings here, having a human experience,” as someone wiser than me has said, and it seems Jesus’ mission here, among other things, is to remind us of that, giving those we encounter, what truly fills the soul—that of being listened to, understood and appreciated for what another walks with.

We can only imagine the human need that our brother Jesus had when he came for respite among his close friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus, to be listened to and understood without the questions, accusations or ridicule that he often found from those he encountered in his ministry. No doubt, his days weren’t always filled with the beatific vision!

“Being busy about many things,” is our human way, I think, to not get totally involved with others.  I was reminded of this at a meeting I attended this past week.  One of the participants who is also a board member for the Winona Warming Center, operated from November through the end of March each year, mentioned that they had a discussion at one of their meetings recently, asking how “welcoming” we are when guests arrive to spend the night?  What is the first thing they are exposed to, but a set of forms to fill out?

I believe they decided that a more welcoming gesture would be to get the guests inside, settled, warmed up with some refreshments and then later in the evening, fill out the paperwork.

“Being busy with many things,” things that may indeed make others’ lives better, while good, may not be what people most need—again the example of those who frequent the Warming Center or the Catholic Worker House might benefit from a warm welcome, or a simple conversation as much as the warm space or the delicious food we put before them.

Again, I want to stress that hospitality on one level is not bad; even Jesus did not say what he did to Martha until she complained that Mary wasn’t helping her prepare the meal. It was at this point that Jesus seemingly reprimands her. Actually, what he is doing is asking her to get beyond her “busyness” so that they can really share and grow closer.

So much of the message friends in today’s readings is about making the connections with others with whom we share this planet, hearing each other’s stories, walking with them and they with us, all of us connecting on deeper levels, not just in our own backyards, but around the world. The Spirit will give us these opportunities if we are open to the possibility.

I made a mini retreat with the Sisters and Cojourners in Rochester the past few days,  and during a celebration prayer service for the Sisters celebrating 50 years of commitment as a Sister, the congregation was asked to share in twos the ways that we had encountered God through our lives. I was sitting next to a Sister whom I have known in the past and we connected on that deeper level sharing concerns, frustrations, and joys and in that time together, gave each other, hope—something we were both looking for.

Paul’s idea that God is always about making us all “complete in Christ,” is a theme in present day Franciscan authors, Sr. Ilia Delio and Fr. Richard Rohr.  Both write about the “Cosmic Christ” and of how Christ is for all of us, wanting our best, calling us to all that we can be and this demands that we be good listeners of other’s stories. We must always put a human face to any “seeming problem,” put ourselves in that same place as another and then it ceases to be as much of a problem and more of an occasion for completion in the human story.

Spewing accusations and racist comments and ramping up such rhetoric for political gain is just plain wrong and those of us who know and realize the danger of this kind of action for what it does to the necessary connections that we must all make in life, beyond ourselves, must address it and say that we do not agree!

So, I have never told you that Ordinary Time is a time to sit back and “lollygag,” (don’t know where I ever got that term, but I think you understand my meaning!) but a time to be our best, act and treat others as we want to be treated, love even when it’s difficult, and never, never lose hope that this all makes a difference! Amen? Amen!

 

This past week as Robert and I were looking for a movie “to escape” the news that is far from “good” these days; we came upon the older film, Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks, and to my mind, watching him totally immerse himself in a role is always a good use of two hours.

It had been a while since we had seen this one and I had forgotten what a really wonderful film it is.  Most of us who have seen it always remember the catchy line, “Mama always says, “Life is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re going get.”  (Mama, you’ll remember was played by Sally Field, another fine actor).

This week Jesus asks us to think about and really take into our hearts, the question, “Who is my neighbor?” as he tells the story of the Good Samaritan.  Forrest Gump discovered the “Good Samaritan” in the person of Jenny, a childhood companion, who became a life-long friend, supporting him throughout her own troubled life, due to being sexually abused by her father as a child.

Jenny struggled throughout her life with abusive sexual encounters, drugs, and attempts at suicide as she tried to make sense of the abuse heaped on her, only to realize at the end of her relatively young life that she had been steadfastly loved from a young age by her friend, Forrest who had put up with his own abuse for not being born with a high I.Q.

I chose to remind us today of Forrest Gump because it struck me that his steadfast love for Jenny, no matter what she did or how she lived her life was akin to how our God loves each of us, in an over-the-top way, no matter what we have done during our lives.

Why our Church or any other Christian church, in the supposed memory of Jesus of Nazareth would ever teach his followers that “if you have done a lot of bad things during your life, then, when you die, you’re going to hell,” I simply can’t understand!  Such teaching flies in the face of the story of the Good Samaritan told by Jesus today.

In order for us to totally grasp the full intent of this story, we need to remember who the Samaritan people of Jesus’ time were.  During their exile to a foreign land, not all of the Israelites were taken.  Those that were not led into exile, living around Samaria began to intermarry and become lax in their Jewish faith—customs and beliefs.

When those in exile returned, they began looking down on their fallen away sisters and brothers and from that time on until Jesus entered the picture, Samaritans became the group to look down on, certainly not the ones they would name in answer to Jesus’ question, “Who is your neighbor?”

And as we know from our study of Scripture, Jesus was always one to turn things on their heads.  If the Samaritan was the only one who would show compassion to the traveler who had fell in with robbers, then what does that say about the long-held belief, lived out in the lives of the Israelites, that the Samaritans are ones to shun?

One theme that Jesus continually deals with throughout his short adult life of teaching and preaching and one that is significant in the story of the Good Samaritan is that of differentiating between the letter and the heart of the law.  The priest and the Levite who saw the suffering person and walked out of their way not to engage and connect with the suffering, were following the letter of the law—“such an encounter would make me unclean,” might have been part of their thinking or, it may have been the Sabbath, when no physical work was allowed, or we may have given the excuse when called on to help someone on the “other side of the road,” “across town” or anywhere else for that matter, that, “I don’t have time today, someone else will help, or, I don’t know them”–all excuses that I have used, sadly.

Jesus calls us to the heart of the law—to compassion.  Sometimes we truly can’t help, but “having compassion for,” “being concerned about,” another suffering person is the very least that is expected of us.  Also, by the fact that no nationality, or culture, or gender or belief system is mentioned regarding “the traveler” in Jesus’ story; we can be sure that Jesus means that there would be no limits, no boundaries around who we are required to help! Our concern can’t simply be about, “my kind, my people, my family—but about anyone and everyone who asks, even if all we can offer is our “troubled heart” in that we can’t do more.

I was very pleased and proud of an action that the All Are One board took this past week, in our name, in giving $500 to Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas where two Rochester, MN Franciscan Sisters, Mary Kay and Arnold work bringing compassion and support of all kinds to these needy and suffering in our midst.

I am reading a book now in preparation for a partial retreat I will be making with the Midwest Group of Women Priests in early August. As we think of so many traveling hundreds of miles, trying to escape unbearable living conditions south of our border, there are similarities to be found in the book by Brian McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion is Seeking a Better Way to be Christian.  He is basically dealing with the issue of “heart versus law.”

Many today who are leaving denominational churches behind are doing so because they are hungering for something authentic, something real, that speaks to the very best within them—gets to the heart of the matter, because friends, unless something in this day and age can engage one’s heart, giving true purpose to what every day brings, many people just don’t want to make the effort—keeping the law for law’s sake is basically quite boring and useless to people—all of us who are hard-wired to love.

The people that McLaren talks with express the fact that they want to hear the message of Jesus in the churches they attend and they don’t–it is all about “obeying, praying, in the loosest sense of the word, and paying.”

Jesus hones in even closer in his message of the “heart versus the letter” of the law.  In his questioning of the lawyer, in today’s gospel, Jesus asks him to basically spell out the law—how does he interpret it? The lawyer answers correctly—“You must love the Most High God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

It is at this point that Jesus clarifies the law in the telling of the story of the Good Samaritan; basically that it is no good to say that we “love God” and “fail to love our neighbor,” whomever she or he may be.

The message today from our brother Jesus is confirmed in the other readings as well.  Moses in the first reading from Deuteronomy reminds the people that the law is already in their mouths and in their hearts—that it isn’t a hard law to keep, but that they will always have to remember to let their “hearts” lead.  God made each one of us already hard-wired, as I said above, this way—with love, with compassion.

Paul, in his letter to the Colossians reminds us that Christ, now, in his Spirit, “holds all things in unity,” helping us to do our best.  We, each of us have to make suffering, any suffering in our world—personal.  What if this was happening to my family—my child, to my sister or brother, or husband or wife—how would I respond then?

The Scriptures are clear friends—there is no way that we can get this one wrong.  It reminds me of an email I received recently with a new hymn by composer, David Haas, entitled, “Christ, You Spoke to Us of Children.”  As the hymn begins in rather somber tones, an image of a child and an adult looking through a chained-link fence began to appear in the background and ever so slowly, as the hymn continued, the image grew and by the end, a Madonna and Child were clearly present.

Today’s Scriptures, friends, as every week, call us to never ignore suffering of any kind, because our God, in Jesus, who loves each of us so mightily, lives in that suffering! Amen? Amen!