My friends, the psalmist in section 95 this week challenges us to ponder something quite significant: “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.”  Now, at face value, we are being instructed, “to be open,” “receptive,” to God’s call, and whether the request is easy or difficult—in our minds, the psalmist is saying, “listen, don’t turn away.” 

   I think too, it is interesting that the challenge from the psalmist concerns the “heart” and not the “head.” In other words, we are probably not supposed to “over-think” this, but just do! 

   Coming back then to, “hearing God’s voice,” can we ever be sure that it is God who is speaking and not someone or something else like, our egos?  Over the years, and in my attempts at “being my best self,” I have come to realize that God does speak through other people, times, and events, and if I am living in the present, and not in the past, or in longing for a future time, I will hear God’s voice. 

   Additionally, when I am in doubt about what I am hearing or feeling about the “truth,”  the “rightness” in any request, I have to be aware of my own, interior state of mind and heart.  I have come to realize that when there is “peace,” basically, even though I may be experiencing some anxiety over “moving” or “acting” in a certain way, the request is coming from God.  If peace can’t be found in what I am attempting, then it is not of God. 

   That moves us into Paul’s words to the Romans in today’s 2^nd reading.  Along with finding “peace” in what we are attempting to do, we should also ask whether “love” can be found in this action.  Paul says that “Lov[ing] your neighbor as yourself” and acting accordingly, is all that is needed—all the commandments that he followed as a good Jew (over 600) are really nothing to worry about in the end, if “love” is being addressed in what we are attempting to do.

   So what does this really mean?  Paul continues, we owe “no debt, except…to love one another.”   In other words, our decisions to, “harden not our hearts,” moving in “love” in our world, are necessarily about, not only love of ourselves, but additionally, and always, “love of others.” 

   The prophet Ezekiel, in today’s 1^st reading spells this out by basically saying that each of us is responsible for our sisters and brothers, and when we witness others doing, “evil,” we must speak up! 

   Now, you are probably thinking; who am I to tell anyone else that what they are doing is wrong?  Again, it will ask us to place ourselves in the present—it will demand that we be people of prayer, that we seek out trusted others to help, and clarify our concerns, and then move ahead only when we are as sure as possible that our actions are based in love.

   Moving into the gospel selection today from Matthew, I find myself, once again, attempting to hang onto hope that our bishops and pope will strive to find common ground, moving not from their “heads,” but from their “hearts” to lead us all into a Church that is about “love” and not just, “law.” 

   Pope Francis, I believe, is for the most part, trying to listen to the Spirit of God, through all those telling him to be more open and inclusive,  as he is diligently working toward the Synod on Synodality this fall with the world bishops and next year, with the entire Church participating.

   The bishops in our country have been a very real, “thorn in his side” as they are working in an opposite direction on a Eucharistic Congress that is basically looking toward—in a very black and white way, uplifting—in peoples’ minds, the Body, and Blood of Jesus, on the altar.  Additionally, this same group of hierarchical men, minus the pope, seem resistant to, or unable to see our brother Jesus’ human characteristics in the poor and suffering of our world. 

   That was always Jesus’ intent for those who would lead and those who would follow—to take what we do at the table, each week, into the times and places of our world.  This is how we accomplish Ezekiel’s challenge that we [be] “responsible for our sisters and brothers.” 

   You may have noticed that I have alternated between “altar” and “table,” and that is precisely to get our attention away from “sacrifice” (altar) and move it on to “self-giving,” (table) which was always, God’s first, and only reason for sending Jesus among us. 

   Several of our gospels in the past couple of months, including today’s, have included Jesus’ wonderful command to those who would lead after he was no longer physically with us: “Whatever you declare bound or loosed on earth, will be so.”  In my mind, it seems that the hierarchy over time has heard only part of this command, that is, “to [bind], which seems about “being in control,” close-minded, and certainly not about the self-giving love of our brother Jesus. 

   Our world, Church, and State, is so in need of fearless leaders who will instruct and lead from their hearts, along with their heads. Both entities need women and men of truth, justice, mercy, love, and concern for all of creation—not egotistical individuals concerned only for their own advancement. 

   I will end today with another line from today’s gospel that I found new meaning in, for the first time.  Matthew quotes Jesus as saying that, “if two of you join in agreement to pray for anything whatever on earth, it will be granted you by my Abba God, in heaven.”  Most of us are probably in the habit of praying for all our “perceived” needs, realizing that some we will get, some we won’t.  When, after the fact, we take the time to figure this all out, we realize that sometimes what we ask for may not have been the best thing for all involved. 

   Today, with this Scripture, I found myself thinking, in a different way, that perhaps I/we don’t actually take Jesus as seriously as we should—perhaps we don’t believe enough, that God does want good and not bad for us.  Jesus continues, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in [your] midst.” In other words, we never have to do any of the above alone.  Amen? Amen!

My friends, the Scripture readings for today are, it seems to me, all geared toward each of us, as “Godly” people and as followers of our brother Jesus, to be “engaged” and even, “on fire” with a message for life that is bigger than ourselves. 

   Jeremiah says of it, “God’s message within is “like a fire burning in my heart.”  The psalmist in section, 63 today adds a piece to Jeremiah’s lament that seems to add an additional thought: “My soul thirsts for you, O God.”  Even though Jeremiah, on the one hand wants to speak the words that God has planted in his heart, doing so has caused the people to turn against him, which is hard for any one of us, as we all want to be accepted, even loved.  But in the end, even though it was hard, Jeremiah found that he could not help but speak. 

   During the month of August just passed, we were called to remember a woman from Nazareth by the name of Mary, who was called by God to give the world a wonderful gift. She, like Jeremiah, no doubt feared that she might not be believed, accepted, and loved, by her family, and friends. Yet, like Jeremiah, there seemed to be nothing her heart would allow her to do but say, “yes.”  It was like that for me saying “yes” to ordination—it was never should I do this? —it was always, “yes!”

   Each of us is, likewise, called in our world through our commitment to our brother Jesus to say our “yes” to often times being counter-culture so as to make life better for all.  Most, if not all of us can consider ourselves “blessed” with much good in our lives—while everything may not be perfect, or the way that we might want, we do have homes, food, and to spare, and those who care about, and even love us. 

   Paul, in his letter to the Romans today, instructs us [to] “not conform [our] selves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of [our] minds, so that [we] may judge what is God’s will, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

   Our pope was able to answer Paul’s instruction recently in his weekly address, saying, “some backward conservatives in the U.S. Catholic church have replaced faith with ideology.”  He makes it clear that, “a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.” 

   The article goes on to say that “conservatives have blasted Francis’ emphasis instead on social justice issues such as the environment, and the poor, while also branding as heretical his opening to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive the sacraments.”  Clearly the words of Scripture that, “The Spirit is continually renewing the face of the earth,” have been missed by this group in our Church.  And even deeper, and more expansively, I have to wonder, what part of Jesus’ message didn’t this group get?  And granted, if we are going to follow truly in Jesus’ footsteps, it will mean some hardships for us too.

   In today’s gospel from Matthew, we see the apostles struggling with the reality of Jesus’ message: it will mean suffering and death for their friend and teacher, and their human response through Peter, is, “No!” –this isn’t what we expected!”  And again, Jesus reminds them and us, “You are not setting your minds on the things of God, but of people.”  And further on, he clarifies, “if you would lose yourself for my sake, you will find [your life—as it really is].

   We humans, probably by nature, will often seek out the easier, more understandable to ourselves, answer, and that is why, even Church fathers come up with the notion that God sent Jesus to die for our sins, rather than, “to simply show us the way home,” in Richard Rohr’s words, through the self-giving of his life, death, and resurrection. 

   Another Franciscan, Sister Ilia Delio says it like this, “to accept the death of Jesus as necessary to save us from our sins is to have missed the point.”  She goes on, “Jesus’ death was all about him taking on the worst humanity could offer in order that we, his sisters and brothers could then recognize him in the sufferings of others.”

   My friends, unfortunately, doing what is “most loving” in any situation is not going to be the “easiest” action, but it will always be the “right” one. 

   It was always in God’s plan that we would be about loving each other—always!  Our prayer today should be that we will each have the strength and grace to do what is the most loving thing even when we perhaps may have to stand alone.  Our God, through Jesus and through each of us wants to love our world and its people—pray that we don’t let ourselves get in the way. Amen? Amen!

My friends, if you were looking for a place in Scripture where our brother, Jesus presented himself in less than his best way, this gospel passage would be it!  I think we all cringed a bit, especially we women, at the unkindness and down-right rudeness with which Jesus spoke to the Canaanite woman.  The apostles are no better telling Jesus “to get rid of her!”

Jesus of course, along with the apostles, is showing his true humanity here—his imperfect nature and this woman, in the best of her humanity challenges him to basically, “Stand up and fly right!” Probably a strong reason for our Church to share leadership and ministerial roles with women—providing a “check and balance” for each other. 

That having been said, we need to consider all that is back of Jesus words, to make sense of what he is saying and why.  The Canaanite people were looked down on by the Israelites because they wanted to keep their land holy and being that the Canaanites didn’t believe in the Jewish God, they thought they should have nothing to do with them. Reminds me of pre-Vatican II times when we Catholics were to have nothing to do with Protestants. (:

In addition, there were gender issues to deal with—a male didn’t speak to a woman in public.  Both of these issues were ones that Jesus would have grown up believing, as a “good” Jew.  Still, it doesn’t excuse his purely, less than perfect, human behavior.  Now, this might be disconcerting to some who have an image of Jesus always being perfect—showing us the way, as it were. 

Scripture scholar, Diane Bergant has this to say: “If we don’t accept Jesus’ at times, shortcomings—than that minimizes the extraordinariness of those of his actions that break through the limitations of his culture, his humanity.  Being completely human, Jesus became a man of his own limited time and culture—but at the same time, he was open enough to break out of that limitation.”

For my part, it gives me a great deal of hope to know that as I strive to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, I have someone who struggled with the same limitations as I do, but almost always rose above them to be his best self.  It is worth noting that each of us is also filled with the same divine nature as Jesus was, and it is all about “choosing” that, “better,” while often, “harder” part, to do in our Christian lives. 

So, let’s turn to the other Scriptures to get a unified sense of the full message for today.  In looking over all three, I see a “justice coupled with mercy” theme.  It’s evident in the already discussed passage from Matthew that a merciful heart will do justice in our world as portrayed through Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman.  Isaiah the prophet, in the 1^st reading is basically telling those in his time, before Jesus, “to do what is right—[to] work for justice.”  Jesus of course, being a good Jew, would have most likely been aware of, and “written these words on his heart,” so to speak. 

Isaiah speaks about “foreigners” coming into the fold, about keeping the “God-given” covenant.  I would suspect that this command to be “inclusive” rose to the forefront for Jesus when the Canaanite woman challenged him to the same.

And finally, Paul’s letter to the Romans, berating the Jews for not following Jesus’ message of love, which includes seeing a bigger picture than the black and white rules that they were accustomed to following, to show mercy to those seeking a better way, not condemnation. 

So, my friends, in the end, following Jesus calls for more than small-minded responses.  As noted above, the apostles’ response to Jesus, “Get rid of her,” simply will not do!  All the “life” issues, birth to death, “the seamless garment” as spoken of 50 years ago by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin in Chicago, must be considered.

• Advocating alone for life-in-the-womb, simply will not do! 
•  Caring for babies once here through good housing, food, and education—support for families, social programs that assist and support parents to be good parents. 
• When life doesn’t go as individuals would hope and incarceration may be needed, assisting our sisters and brothers, so confined, to become their best selves through appropriate programming.  With Winona’s new jail planned to open in October, just this type of programming as opposed to the “warehousing” of people is being considered. 
• And for those considered, “the worst among us” 27 states within our country still use the death penalty. For me, it seems that no one is helped in this regard, besides the fact that many more people of color are on death-row with many, over the years, proven to be innocent. 

It would seem that for those of us serious about following Jesus, the less than good measures, simply will not do.  So, my friends, as today we celebrate 15 years as a parish, trying to respond to our world as our best selves, remembering those dear ones who have gone before us who have shown us the way, there are no easy answers to the multi-layered, complex questions that I have laid out here today, but we, like Jesus, have it in us, to be our best.  Amen? Amen!