My friends, once again this homily was written with Michael Maher in “my rear-view mirror,” so to speak.  His passing—his death, as one of you said to me, “makes me so very sad!”  Yes! And yet, we know that life and death are a reality for each of us…In my past bereavement work, I have often said to families, “Our heads understand that, but it just takes a while longer for our hearts to catch up.” So, this is where we find ourselves today. 

   As I began work on this homily—I started with the Scriptures, as I always do, and I sought out some added wisdom, especially, for the first reading from Samuel.  The story of David sparing Saul’s life is, Scripture scholar, Diane Bergan says, “a striking example of respect and forgiveness, of doing unto others what we would want them to do unto us,” as our brother Jesus teaches in today’s gospel from Luke. 

   Jesus’ examples of “turning the other cheek,” giving repeatedly, not only the top garment, but our inner garment too to those who would ask, spells out quite well the extent to which we must consider sharing with others.

   I think that Jesus always made the point of carrying the example to the extreme because he knew of our human tendency to give less than we are capable of giving.  The idea, I believe, in praying over Jesus’ message is to look for a balance in our lives that cares for ourselves, at least doesn’t leave us out, with enough left to do our share in raising others to a level of dignity that each person deserves. 

   Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians today, reminds us that we must not only model ourselves on the first human—Adam, but on the second human—Jesus.  In other words, we must remember that we are comprised, each of us, of both human and spiritual tendencies; and blending the two; we can come, more and more, to image our brother, Jesus, the Christ. 

   Diane Bergant writes more on this golden rule of, “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us” by saying that sometimes our culture encourages us toward an opposing rule, that of, “doing unto others before they do unto us.”  We all struggle within our lives—the body against the spirit, to treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves—it’s the journey each of us makes with our one, wonderful life. 

   These past two weeks, as our community has been “storming heaven” for Michael’s healing and through to his death on this past Wednesday, stories have been coming to me from all corners of this city and beyond about how people’s lives have been made better because of his “doing [for] others…”  He didn’t do any of it because he expected a return, but simply because that was who he was and perhaps that is the way, we can carry on—by emulating those actions we saw as good in him, in our own lives.  Our time has perhaps come to carry on for him. 

   Michael was an extremely gifted man—he excelled in archery, woodcarving, of which, Sophia, Feminine Face of God stands here in testament.  He enjoyed cycling, kayaking, he was an educator, and in all these areas, he had a group of friends that he shared these pastimes with. He shared whenever asked and as another of you said, “The only time he said, ‘no’ was when he was already, otherwise occupied.” 

   So my friends, with regard to how we respond to our world and the people we encounter and associate with, as baptized followers of Jesus; we are always called to take the high road, never acting out of the human tendency “to do first” before it is “done to us,” but most assuredly, to do unto others as we would expect and want them to do unto us.  Anything less is simply, not Christian, nor in the footsteps of our brother, Jesus, nor we might add, our brother Michael. 

   And as I stated earlier, this means keeping ourselves as part of the equation—it is never good or right to allow ourselves to be abused with the notion that this example of “turning the other cheek” is what Jesus wants us to do.  Balance, always balance, respects the fact that our God loves me as well as all others.  An alternative way to speak about the golden rule is to say, “Love your enemies, and love yourself.”  It’s a package!

  In conclusion then, I started today with some reflection on our brother and friend, Michael Maher—one who will be missed by us all because of the ways he touched the world that we all share.  Sometimes after a loved one has died, there is the tendency to make more of them in death than they were in life.  None of my sharing here today was to say that Michael was perfect—he had his faults as we all do, but I can say, in all honesty, that he never stopped trying to be his best—to stop caring about others and helping in the ways that he could.  If that can be said of any of us after we are gone, we would, I believe, have succeeded in our one, wonderful life. Each of us as Paul basically says to us in today’s 2^nd reading are of earth and of heaven—Michael is now of heaven. —Amen? Amen!

My friends, this Sunday’s homily comes out of my heart that is deeply saddened as I know many of your hearts are as well over our brother, Michael, who lies in wait in a coma in the hospital in Lacrosse—healing, we hope, but also grieving too over the fact that he may not be able to come back to us, as we have known him.  Time will tell; but for now, we hold onto hope because we simply don’t know. 

   Our Scriptures for this Sunday are, amazingly, about hope and trust.  The prophet Jeremiah gives us the following: [Those who turn away from God,] “are like a bush in the desert with no hope,” and, “blessed are those who put their trust in God, with God for their hope.” 

   The psalmist too, in Psalm 1 proclaims, “Happy are those who hope in God.”  And additionally, our brother in faith, Paul, in the 2^nd reading from Corinthians, says it again, “our hope is in Christ.” 

   Now Paul, of course, is speaking about the Resurrection of our brother Jesus and because of his rising to a new and inexplicably, wonderful life; we too have that assurance for ourselves, that one day, we will experience this new life.  And that is important on a very personal level as we contemplate the fragileness of human life as we know it, here and now. 

   Our gospel today from Luke takes all of this a step further as we read from the Beatitudes, “Blessed are you who are weeping…you will laugh.”

   Jeremiah seems to be comparing the human heart and the emotions contained within to “trusting in God,” saying that, “to trust in God,” is the best thing. I would say that “trust” in someone, God, or another, doesn’t come out of nowhere.  We come “to trust” because we have seen something else first and I would suggest that “something else” is “love” or at least, “caring.”  Love, as we know, is usually “paired” with the heart, as the source of this wonderful, human emotion, at its best.    Now, granted, the word, “love” has been misused throughout time and let us be clear, the love that I am speaking of here doesn’t stem from, as Jeremiah seems to suggest, “selfishness,” but from “a deep caring” for the other.

   The author of many spiritual books, Cynthia Bourgeault, has said that the “heart” is about, “seeing the Holy in all that is.”  This next week, we celebrate “Valentine’s Day” –a day even though, majorly commercialized, is intended, at its best, to be a day that we let those who we truly care about, know that they are truly loved. 

   I began this homily sharing my sadness over our brother Michael’s accident and one of you shared with me this past week that on the day that he was injured, he was about two kind acts, taking the food route for Home Delivered Meals as a substitute for another, and bringing meals to folks in need.  I think we all would agree, he was about “love” that day. 

   When speaking about “true love” –in its best sense, we talk about, “the heart being broken open.”  This is to say, that the center of emotional response really is, the heart.  We never talk about “the head” in this way.  

   In the best sense my friends, we want “hearts that can break open” because that means that, as Jesus asked, our hearts would be of “flesh” and not “stone.”  I believe we can all understand the meaning that Jesus intended—that the people,  and the world that we meet each day could, as Bourgeault said, be seen and treated as “Holy” –to be respected and cared for.   

This past week—a lovely piece came through my Face Book feed entitled, “We Are the World” –a musical rendition done by the Clarksville Elementary School children.  To see the answer to all that may be wrong with our world so simply and beautifully put by children, is to “break open the hearts” of those who listen to it –causing us all to realize that, if we have the will, we can make this world good for all. 

   Love can be illusive –we may not always know if we are acting out of love, but as Jesus said, “We will know by our actions” –anything that brings good and not bad, is surely, at its base, about love.

  I always think of Tevye’s question to his wife, Golda in Fiddler on the Roof: “Do you love me?” Golda goes through a series of tasks that she has done for him for 25 years; cleaning his house, preparing his food, giving him children and so on.  He persists, “But Golda, do you love me?” To which she finally says—that basically, doing all that, “I guess I do!”

   Jesus, in many ways and in many places talked about love and its good affects in our lives, and how in fact we would know it when we saw it.  He talked about it in common terms so that people would be very clear on what love was.  He used parables –stories about peoples’ everyday lives –that of the Good Shepherd, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal and so on—each and all, stories of love.   

   If we look closely at Jesus’ short life among us, we can only truly understand the meaning of his life through the “eyes of love.” Any other explanation really makes no sense.  Unfortunately, the standard belief for many, if not all of us growing up, was about a vengeful, heartless Father-figure who needed to be appeased for the failings of humankind.  Think of how much more wonderful it is to imagine a God who loves created life so much so as to send Jesus to basically show us how to live and to ultimately, bring us home. 

   So my friends, bringing us full circle, this week’s readings call us to hope and trust in a God who loves us immeasurably –who only wants good for us and not bad.  This same God, while not changing what life brings, necessarily, is always “walking with us,” giving us the strength and comfort that we need. 

   This past week, as we have prayed for one of our own, Michael, his daughter Becky has told me she has felt the strength of all of those prayers.  Again, we recall our loving God’s words today – “Blessed are you who are weeping.  You will laugh.”

   Friends, we are called today to trust and hope and love our God who has first trusted, hoped and loved us—in Jesus.  Jesus did his piece, “broke open” his heart for us and now we are asked to do the same for others.  Amen? Amen!