Trouble and Grace: Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Again, I’d like to look more closely at the passage we heard from the Old Testament – this week from Isaiah 6. It is a bit reminiscent of a “good news, bad news” joke about a conversation between a lawyer and her client. She told him, “I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?” Her client replied, “Give me the bad news first.” “The bad news is that the DNA tests showed that the police found your blood all over the crime scene.” “Oh, no,” her client mourned, “What could possibly be good about that?” “The good news is that your cholesterol is down to 130!”

If we’re listening carefully, we know that the Scriptures contain both bad news and good news, sometimes referred to as both “trouble” and “grace”. Even most specific texts contain elements of both. So, when we hear God’s word, we need to be listening carefully to find, discern and pray about both. The Scriptures’ good news, after all, makes little sense until we recognize their bad news.

Today’s bad news is that when the living God graciously stoops to meet us, we realize that we’re sinners. Some believe that “human history is the history of sin.” Surely a quick look at the stories contained in any news source demonstrates that. And it seems to me that sin has no favorites – priests – politicians – parents – the famous and the private – lawyers – lovers – leaders – no matter what category of life we fall into – we are all sinners. Even Pope Francis said about himself, “I am a sinner, I am sure of this.” It’s the common trait that we all share, as much as the blood in our very veins.

But is the bad news that is the doctrine of human sin really so self-evident? People can, after all, almost always identify someone who’s worse than we are, whose done worse than we have. Not many of those who hear the words of Isaiah 6 have committed mass murder or greedily triggered a financial meltdown, but all of us who hear God’s word today know that we always have room to improve.

In this week’s Old Testament passage, a young Isaiah is in church, perhaps in a worship service, not so unlike all of us here this morning and those tuning in. In the midst of great national turmoil, God gives the prophet a vision that even now has the power to blow our minds.

After all, it’s almost as if God tugs the curtain between heaven and earth open just far enough so that the prophet can peek into the heavenly realm. In it he sees “the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted”, whom he also calls “the King, the Lord Almighty”. Isaiah also hears heaven’s angels crying out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory”. The prophet reports that it’s all enough to shake the temple almost to its foundations.

How does Isaiah respond? Isaiah’s vision of heaven overwhelms him with a sense of his own sinfulness and that of his contemporaries. When the prophet catches a glimpse of God, he sees himself as well as all people for what we really are: those whose sin has put our lives in danger. He, in other words, sees the bad news.

It might be helpful for us reflect on similar experiences. While I have never had a glimpse of heaven, like Isaiah, I have been exposed to people and situations that have so deeply touched me that they shake me to do better, to be better, to serve better. And I’m sure you have experienced the same.

One of those experiences I had recently was when I attended a session hosted by the New Jersey Prisoner Re-entry program, who invited Sr Normal Pimentel to speak.

Norma Pimentel is a Sister with the Missionaries of Jesus. As Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley for over 15 years, she oversees the charitable arm of the Diocese of Brownsville, providing oversight of the different ministries & services in the areas of the Rio Grande Valley through emergency assistance, homelessness prevention, disaster relief, clinical counseling, pregnancy care, food program(s), and the Humanitarian Respite Center.

Sister Norma chairs the local Emergency Food and Shelter Program that distributes federal funds to local agencies providing assistance to the area’s poor. She leads efforts in the community that respond to emergency needs and provide relief in times of disaster and crisis in the Valley. She was instrumental in quickly organizing community resources to respond to the surge of Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States and setting up the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.

These efforts captured the world’s attention, drawing news media from around the globe to the Rio Grande Valley to cover the plight of the countless and distressed refugee individuals and families, thereby compelling thousands from this country and others to contribute their time, talents, and treasures to serve and support the cause.

A most special moment was captured on September 2015 via satellite broadcast to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in which Pope Francis recognized Sr Norma for her work with the immigrants and asked her to come forward so that he could see her. He thanked her for her humility and her efforts and encouraged her to continue.

Sr Norma inspired me because she was able to show me in her words, in her actions, and in her life, that her work, and our work too, must be about people – caring for, loving, and serving people – especially the poor and most vulnerable. Sr Norma will come to our parish on Sunday, March 27 – I hope that her reflections will inspire you too!

I know that we come to church hoping to be comforted and encouraged. Some come seeking to be entertained, to hear Father’s joke of the week, to laugh and catch up with friends - looking for a kind of Catholic Disney World. But that’s not Church. When we come here, sometimes church thrusts us into a deeper understanding of the reality of our sinfulness, of our shortcomings, of our need to change … I know that it does so for me.

But then there’s the other side of being here … that’s that context in which Isaiah 6 speaks of as the good news: that is, sin doesn’t disqualify us from being God’s servants. In fact, it shows that God longs to make servants out of sinners. More pointedly, that God desires to use you and me, sinners among people, to bring his message, to do his work, to build up his Kingdom. Because after all, if God relied on saints, not much would really get done, would it?

So, as we heard today, one of the angels touches Isaiah’s mouth with a burning but cleansing coal. God’s messenger then announces the good news, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for”. Yet even then God isn’t yet done. Beyond the part of Isaiah 6 that we hear, the rest of the story says later that the Lord also commissions the forgiven prophet to “Go, tell this people …” .

He does the same for us. We have to stop hoping and pretending that God uses perfect people to do God’s work … nope … he uses us … look around. It started with the Apostles, to the disciples, and down through the centuries, now to us … broken, needy, sinful and imperfect people … called to the best of our ability to do God’s work here and now, without judgment, sarcasm, or hesitation

Listen again carefully to what’s really happening in the Gospel today:

Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,

but at your command I will lower the nets.

When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish

and their nets were tearing.

Their partners in the other boat came to help them and they filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.

Then the magic moment, LISTEN:

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,

Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

In other words, you don’t want me Lord, I’m a sinner and not qualified to do your work. And what does Jesus say to that honest, humble, self-assessment:

Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.

In other words, despite your sins, your incompleteness, the many things you need to improve, I will love you, I will use you, I will work through you and I will be with you.

So, let’s stop disqualifying ourselves, and perhaps more importantly here, let’s stop disqualifying and judging others whose sins and faults we see. Instead, let’s work together, all as patients in this hospital of sinners, to bring health, healing and hope to our world … in the name of Jesus, the Son of God we come today to worship, to love and to emulate.

Blessings!

RSM

February 6, 2022

Photo Credits: James Tissot (French, 1836-1902). The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (La pêche miraculeuse), 1886-1896. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, Image: 6 3/4 x 9 11/16 in. (17.1 x 24.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by public subscription, 00.159.87

Today is the Day: Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

The season of Ordinary Time, given that we are celebrating our everyday life together as people of faith, allows us the opportunity to take a deeper look at some of the things we know only superficially. In these days, I always like to look more closely at the readings from the Old Testament and see how God is speaking to me.

The passage we heard this morning from Jeremiah really functions to introduce us to the entire book of the prophet. For context, it may be helpful to be reminded that content in the book includes calls for repentance, announcements of judgment, reflections of personal laments, pronouncements against nations, and finally stunning announcements of hope, renewal, and recreation. Jeremiah is really a book for all seasons – even ordinary time!

The passage read today, the call of Jeremiah, shapes how we read the entire book because when we have the whole book in mind, we will not understand today’s passage as a reflection on “vocation” but rather something much more.

We are not urged to be like Jeremiah; rather, we are called to listen to Jeremiah. We are not enjoined to admire Jeremiah, nor are adolescent “youths” being encouraged to dream beyond their self-perceived deficiencies. We are challenged to heed his call!

Jeremiah spoke a commanded word, a word placed in his mouth. The metaphorical language however, cannot be understood as reducing Jeremiah to nothing more than a singing telegraph or a piece of audio equipment playing recordings of God’s words. Jeremiah is not a dispassionate instrument. The words he will be commanded to speak will have an impact on him too. In particular, he is not exempt from the dark message he is compelled to speak against his neighbors.

Before I formed you … before you were born, I appointed you a prophet to the nations

(Jeremiah 1:5).

Today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms (1:10).

The temporal span from before birth (the first passage) to the time when Jeremiah was a “boy” (the second passage) underscores the decisiveness of God’s call to Jeremiah.

Functionally, the call commences when it is declared to Jeremiah. It starts with the “today” of this call narrative, the day when Jeremiah says he is too inarticulate and young. But God responds with “go,” “speak,” and “do not be afraid.” Each day of Jeremiah’s prophetic work is a “today-I-appoint-you” day. That appointment is his only authorization and God bears the responsibility for it.

The word “today” appears a number of times in the writing. To the original audience, it heightens the importance of what is said. The message is not a general truism or something that may have applicability at some future point. The “today” pushes beyond the language of moral principles and doctrine. Rather, it has particularity and urgency; there is a present tense “now” at work. The recipient of the message needs to respond immediately, not merely take the message under advisement.

At the same time, each future moment is also a “now.” Thus, in the case of Jeremiah, “today” covers each day within the span of his life. Finally, it encompasses subsequent readers centuries later, readers like you and me to heed the message today and every day. The book of Jeremiah is a continual present tense proclamation. It is not merely an archival record of past proclamation from which we might derive a few still useful nuggets.

Where do we enter the historical story?

First, we enter at the point of the captivity of Jerusalem. This captivity is not a momentary relenting of the sunshine; or a bad day; and it’s not just a simple bit of pain. As readers, we know that any call to repentance was not accepted and calls for repentance classically lay out alternative futures:

If you repent, then the future will be good; if you do not repent, then the future will not be good.

Did you hear the inherent threat (“or else”) contained in the warnings? We know that calls for repentance and warnings went unheeded because later on in the story we read of the captivity of Jerusalem.

Second, we enter the story being told the purpose for which Jeremiah was appointed – to deliver the message, as uncomfortable and challenging as that may be. As readers almost 3,000 years later, who are also addressees of the book of Jeremiah, he is speaking to us, to you and me here in Summit, NJ. We are those:

· who are plucked up and pulled down;

· who are destroyed and overthrown,

· and who are built and planted.

All who want to be faithful to God’s call, to God’s promise, to live in conformity with God’s plan share in the effects of those verbs – plucked up, pulled down, destroyed, overthrown, but thanks to the gift of God’s son Jesus, we are also re-built, and re-planted – given a chance to start anew.

Like many people then, surely people now, will vehemently resist any suggestion that their projects and personal plans will be shut down and disassembled. Many people fight against, and reject a message of judgment, a message to re-form their lives, to start to live as God would have us live.

Many cannot imagine “build” and “plant” as anything but a ratification of their own prestige and virtues. But in the book of Jeremiah such thinking belonged to Hananiah and other false prophets. Let’s not be like them!

Six verbs are used to summarize the authorized the word of God in the book of Jeremiah. Our task today as contemporary believers, is to discern how those verbs apply to our lives here and now. As in the prophetic book, different moments will need to hear different commanded words.

1. Where do we need to be plucked up from? What’s dragging us down?

2. Or pulled down from? What has us arrogantly raised above the rest?

3. What in our life needs to be destroyed and overthrown? Are there people, or habits, or material things that are holding us back from being the authentic people God wants us to be?

4. How do we rebuild and replant?

Pauls’ letter to the Corinthians answers the question in one word – L.O.V.E. To measure how well we’re doing with re-building and re-planting, try substituting your name for the word love in the passage:

Bob is patient, Bob is kind.

Bob is not jealous, Bob is not pompous,

Bob is not inflated, Bob is not rude,

Bob does not seek his own interests,

Bob is not quick-tempered, nor brood over injury,

Bob does not rejoice over wrongdoing

but Bob rejoices with the truth.

How does that little test work for you? Where we cannot honestly replace our name with LOVE, then there we see where we start our work.

And the change, the rebuilding and replanting will take effort, work, patience, and persistence, not only because of our own shortcomings, but because no prophet is accepted in his own native place … that is, our friends and family will sometimes challenge and ridicule us for wanting to be more like Jesus. But let’s go back to the beginning, remembering:

If you repent, then the future will be good; if you do not repent, then the future will not be good.

And let’s never forget, TODAY is the day!

RSM

January 30, 2022

Baptism of the Lord

It’s very unusual for me to take the time to go to the movies. But this week, in a midst of a few days off, I was able to break away … and yup, just like the reported 1.1 million other people, I watched Spider-Man.

While I must confess that my childhood superhero was really to Batman, I think because back then I had a crush on Batgirl, Spider-man is a pretty good runner-up. The latest film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, is breaking all kinds of box office records and resonating with fans young and old. I think I know why …

Tom Holland’s consistently charming portrayal of Peter Parker picks up right where we left him in Far from Home. Doctored footage from a battle overseas exposed his identity as Spider-Man, and Peter must navigate finishing his senior year of high school with the eyes of every smartphone on him and every media outlet at his doorstep.

His friends suffer from their mere association with Peter, and the negative consequences befall his only living family member, Aunt May, played by Marisa Tomei. Aunt May, as both Peter’s legal guardian and director of the local homeless shelter, is Peter’s moral compass. She instructs him to always do good, even while carrying the burden of being misunderstood and facing the ire of others. “This is what we do,” she tells Peter, “We help people.”

In the movie, Peter takes on the daunting task of attempting to rehabilitate each adversary of their evil compulsions. No one is too far past atonement: “Everyone deserves a second chance,” Peter asserts.

… That brings us today to the Baptism of our Lord ... the reminder that everyone deserves a second chance … and when our ancestors turned their back on God … Jesus comes to save us.

Today we celebrate that even Jesus, like us in all things except sin, was baptized. The familiar story is a reminder in these first days of the new year that joining our baptism to Jesus always gives us a new beginning … if we are open and willing to work for it.

Deception, division, diversion, and discouragement are four strategies of Satan as he tries to prize us away from God … but baptism gives us goodness, grace, gathering and graciousness to live up to our prophetic calling.

There is a scene in the movie when despairing and humbled, Peter Parker’s comfort comes from the rallying of his friends who meet him in his sorrow. They call him out of himself and back to his mission of being a bringer of the good. “You have a gift. You have power,” … “And with great power, there must also come great responsibility.”

Most of our generation know this Spider-Man motto by heart. It sums up the entire ethos of who Spider-Man is. We all resonate with this call to step forward into greatness because we are literally made for such a task, to go out of ourselves and love responsibly, as a gift for others.

It’s the theme that I used in writing to our Confirmation candidates for this coming year. And it’s the theme that we focus on today … with great power comes great responsibility. We have been given great power, and now we have to live up to our responsibility.

Because … baptism is just the beginning of the story … it’s the realization of promises, God’s promise to us and our promise to God. That’s why when a family presents a child for baptism there is a process, because it’s the reminder and the assurance that this is not a 30-minute, magical ceremony ... one and done, No! Rather, it’s the public testimony that parents will do all in their power to raise the little one presented to know, love, model and serve Jesus in this world so as to prepare to meet him in the next.

The bulletin this week contains an interesting story about the important role of godparents. In fact, it reports that in one Italian diocese the bishop has suspended it because people presented for the role were not qualified, that is, not measuring up to the important role that a godparent plays in the life of faith of the little one. It serves as a good reminder to us all … we have to mean what we say and say what we mean, especially when we do so in faith.

As Peter Parker recommits himself to the good that Spider-Man will always work toward, so should we also “not grow weary in doing what is right” … our promise to God, even in the face of disappointment and failure. Jesus implored us not to despair in the face of earthly evil: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” God’s promise to us.

Spider-Man continues to resonate with each new generation because, just as with the Gospel challenge of Christ, we are all called, despite our faults and flaws, to be bringers of the good—to practice great love, coupled with great responsibility.

Let’s use this feast of the Baptism of the Lord to recommit ourselves to that. If we can be inspired from the themes of a movie, imagine how much more we can do for one another in real life …

Blessings!

RSM