My friends, this Sunday brings us to the reality that we live in a country where little kids can be shot while going to church.  There really aren’t words to express the sadness and grief that we feel when such a reality is the truth, and this is probably why I haven’t addressed this latest, senseless taking of life with you.  I realized my inaction when I read Pastor Danielle’s bulletin this past week where she said basically the same, “that there aren’t words!”  So, my friends, I wanted to begin here today with my omission and my commission to once again say that we as a country must follow other countries and put into law that arming our population with weapons of war is wrong, and simply must stop! 

  The mayor of Minneapolis said as much in addressing the vice-president of our United States’ comments uplifting, “thoughts and prayers.”  And again, this issue is bigger than politics—it is about humanity, about our deep spirituality, our values, Christianity among them.  It is bad enough that there are individuals out there who are so wounded, that they are filled with hatred for seemingly, “everyone;” but worse that we as a country give them “the right” to purchase and use weapons of mass destruction to express their woundedness, basically, no questions asked. 

   Let us turn then to today’s Scriptures to find some direction, some hope going forward.  The prophetic words of Sirach today are a guide to follow: he instructs us to “be gentle,” to “behave humbly,” and to “listen to our teachers.”  The writer to the Hebrews seems to be saying to turn toward God with our troubles that at times can seem insurmountable – we do have a God who is “touchable.”  And finally,  in the Gospel from Luke our brother Jesus encourages us to come to know who we are and who we are not – “those who exult themselves will be humbled, and so on.”

   So now, let’s look deeper…I believe Sirach in encouraging gentleness in our lived actions, humility in considering who we are and who we are not, knowing our place in all of creation, and listening to those more learned than us, speaks to the preparation that we must take before we act. 

   Sirach continues along this vein – “our hearts [are called] to discern the parables.” In other words, listening to others to find our way, must necessarily go through “our hearts.”  As someone said, “the heart is wiser…”  As we ponder the issue of  the “gun epidemic” in our country, it seems it will take, “all of our hearts,” united, to find a solution that we can literally, live with.  To that point, one of the parents, a dad who has children at Annunciation Catholic school in Minneapolis, who weren’t injured, spoke to a reporter, and was in tears over the grief he felt for the families of the dead and injured children, expressing the confusion he was experiencing in never expecting someone to target children in a church. 

   My friends, I think “the hope” that we each look for at such a time of bewilderment has to come from a bigger place, from forces stronger than us, whether we call that “God” or some other, and from each other to keep choosing what is best in all of us.

   Our brother Jesus has shown us the way in his own personal, human life, speaking truth to power, even when he knew it might bring his physical downfall.  We can look  to our nation’s capital in the past few days to see examples of folks doing just that – speaking their truth to bring change. For those of you who have written Congress people about your disgust over detention centers for innocent victims whose only crime seems to be that they have the wrong color of skin, one such center, jokingly named after flesh-eating animals, appears to be closing soon due to your advocacy and that of many others across our country. 

   Again, the words of Sirach come to mind, and hopefully, to heart also – know who you are and who you are not – “the greater you are, the more you should behave humbly.”  Being “humble” seems to me to have a sense that, “I am not in control” – I, like others, have a part to play, but all is not in my hands.  In other words, this is not about “dictators” but about “being servants,” for all.  Keeping our eyes on Jesus and following his way seems the best “way” to go. 

   Looking back once more to the letter to the Hebrews, we read that the people needed to be reminded that their God wasn’t “untouchable, nor gloomy,” but in fact, just the opposite.  We may wonder why the people had this negative view of God, that the writer of this letter, one of Paul’s disciples, would have surely shared, was one they could confidently turn to for help. 

   The truth is no doubt a situation that many believers, us included, find ourselves in from time to time.  The Hebrews had made their bountiful God in their own image, perhaps not very “approachable,” even “gloomy” at times.  If their God is “less than approachable,” that gives them permission to be “less” too in their actions with others.  But if indeed, our God loves us in an over-the-top way as described by Jesus in parables such as The Prodigal and the Good Shepherd, then we are called to much more as well. 

   My friends, in the times in which we live, the words of the psalmist today in number 68, are especially compelling, letting us know that “our God has a special interest in the poor and downtrodden.”  Our brother Jesus reflected this interest of his Abba God to care for the “poor and downtrodden” and we as Jesus’ followers must do the same with love, mercy and justice.  The Scriptures can’t just be “nice stories,” but as our call for truth, when we hear lies, our call for humility in those who are in positions to lead, and our call to expect moral behavior, whether in Church or State. 

   In conclusion, friends, we humans, I believe, for the most part, strive to be our best, but sometimes the sheer immensity of problems we face, can be overwhelming.  So, just for today, I want to share some wise advice that our grandson Elliot and his class heard from their third-grade teacher, Mrs. Ratz a few years back – that seems good advice for today, for all of us as well.

   When you think, “I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this—or in groups, we can’t, they won’t—any of these negative, defeatist words, invite in the word, “yet” to help bring growth.  So, when you feel like, “I can’t make a difference in all that is wrong in our world, think, “yet!”   We are always called to more my friends, and together, with God’s help, we can do it!  Amen? Amen!

My friends, I have often said in the past, that the season of the Church Year that we are in, “Ordinary Time,” should really be re-named, “Extra Ordinary Time” because of the great challenges that we are presented with during these months, basically, to be our best.  I believe those who named this time “ordinary,” were simply looking one-dimensionally, thinking these many Sundays aren’t about the major, reflective feast times – Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, thus just, “ordinary.”  It is my belief that living in our brother Jesus’ footsteps is never for the most part, “simple,” so “ordinary” doesn’t adequately name what should be happening during this time. 

   So, why am I spending time today discussing the “ordinary” naming of a time in our spiritual-religious lives, when so much, it seems, that is going on in our world, needs to be addressed?  My answer is, because the way we name our reality has at least something to do with how we act in our world. 

   If we fail to see that our presence in the here and now as followers of Jesus, as Christians is more than ordinary – ho hum, than we forfeit the strength and power that we have to make a difference in our present-day world that seems to be operating and stressing, from the top-down the lowest common denominator that we humans are capable of.  And please hear these comments, not as political – as it seems our world is moving, in its present configuration, way beyond that, showing us if we care to really focus, what is lowest in our common humanity:  arrogance, selfishness, lack of vision beyond the moment, pride, rhetoric filled with lies – lack of justice, caring for the least among us, and more…

And Jesus told his 1^st followers when they asked whether some people could be counted among them – “check the fruits” – if goodness, love, mercy and justice are present, then “they” can be considered part of us. 

   Looking then to the Scriptures, Isaiah tells us today that [our God] “is coming to gather the nations of every language” –to me, that says, everyone, everyone is welcome.  A present-day example for those who demonstrate on Winona’s main streets every Monday is the fact that there are no people of color out there because they know, in the times in which we live, that they are susceptible to the worst that we humans are capable of – yet these same people of color, drive by and applaud the action of demonstrating on their behalf. 

   The psalmist in 117 today would agree with the prophet Isaiah that “our God is coming to save us all,” as this person instructs those who are listening, [to] “go out to all the world and tell the Good News” – clearly, this is a statement that says, “we are all welcome!” 

   The writer to the Hebrews seems to seal the deal – “we are all God’s children.”  This begs the question then of why so many in positions of power within our country, who claim to be Christians, followers of Jesus, fail to act as we would expect Christians to act. 

   This is true for those who lead our Church as well.  Except for a few; the likes of Bishops, Peter Baldacchino in Las Cruces, NM, Gustavo Garcia-Siller in San Antonio, TX, and John Wester in Santa Fe, NM, who have been demonstrating at the borders about the United States present policies concerning deporting immigrants in our country, our bishops are silent on the abuses done to others in our world, and our bishop, Robert Barron is included here.  Any rhetoric about “uplifting the Eucharist” devoid of seeing Jesus’ body and blood in our world is useless in the long run! 

   So my friends, as we look at our human condition, our default stance, we could probably agree, is to take care of ourselves, and this is especially true when we are tired, discouraged, frustrated, thinking that we have no power to make change.  But the truth is, and we know this in a whole other part of ourselves, we are capable of so much more. 

   Many of us have lived long enough to realize that the time we have left is far less than the years we have lived.  This was brought home to our family rather clearly this past week, as we lost Joan Redig’s husband, Wayne, and two other of our brothers-in-law, ended up in the emergency room with age-related conditions.  If we have the personal habit of “reflecting on the past” in order that we might do better in the future, we are aware of those times when we have been our best, stood up for those “less fortunate” perhaps; and even though what we did in those times may have been hard, not knowing the possible outcome, it is those same times that ultimately gave us the most joy. 

   Jesus in today’s gospel tells us “to try and go in by the narrow gate,” a command that made perfect sense when he lived, as it was speaking about the “ease of a camel getting into the city through the Needle’s Eye Gate,” as opposed to a “rich person getting into heaven.”  Now the camel would have had great difficulty with the Needle’s Eye Gate, so we can take it from there. 

   I look at Jesus’ command that, “we try to go in by the narrow gate to simply mean, “try to be your best.”  Our world isn’t always accepting of that stance though: of not returning violence with violence, turning the other cheek, which may be about, “giving no power” to violence, but simply trying to love the one doing the violence, which becomes truly hard when that person may simply, drive us crazy.

   I don’t know about you, but when I give in to the “hate,” a word, by the way that I really hate, and don’t like to use, — afterward there is no satisfaction that I feel; whereas when I try “the narrow gate,” LOVE, there is peace. 

   Very often here I talk with you about living our spiritual journey, in search of God, trying to see this entity, however we personally see God, in bigger than black and white ways, breaking open the “small boxes” we have placed God in. When we keep our God “small,” we give ourselves permission to love in small ways too.  Keeping God small allows we humans to write laws in Church and state that direct us to the lowest common denominator of action in our human sphere.  So much of what I hear in the daily news is about this very thing…

• “I can’t trust because the other is untrust-worthy,
• I can’t stop going to war until they do,
• We can’t seem to do anything about the gun epidemic in our country because we consider the rights of gun owners more important than the rights of our children to stay alive,
• We can’t give the Body and Blood of Christ to others until they believe our narrow thought processes,
• We can’t respect how someone says they were created and called to love in our world, because it isn’t in our narrow way,
• Our Church hierarchy sees our loving God as loving very exclusively, and in narrow ways when it pontificates that God calls those who serve at our tables of prayer and blessing worthy only if they have certain body parts.”

And the list of narrowly loving, if at all, goes on. 

   Why do we as Christians persist in seeing and acting in our world in narrowly conceived, black and white ways, when as someone said, “Our God sees in technicolor?!  Amen?  Amen!