Previous Weeks' Homilies
2002 2003
Earlier this week,Tom Kean, co-chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States,said that 9/11 was “a failure of policy, management, capability and, above all, a failure of imagination.”
I heard those words and thought how some might say that the circumstances leading up to the reconfiguration of the Archdiocese of Boston constituted “a failure of policy, management, capability and, above all, a failure of imagination.”
Policy, of course, can be reviewed, reworked and rewritten.
Management is a function of people whose results can be evaluated,
and whose positions can be filled by more productive workers.
Capability involves investigating the value of resources,
and discerning who is more or less qualified, talented and gifted
for particular tasks and positions.
These levels of failure admit of rather practical resolutions.
But what about a failure in imagination?
Some might say the church has failed:
to imagine what might have been;
to dream of new possibilities;
to fantasize what God’s Spirit might ask or even demand of us.
How might the church learn to close its eyes - and begin to see -
what it may have failed to see before?
Sometimes we do need to close our eyes in order to see anew.
Perhaps that’s what Abraham is doing in the first lesson today.
He’s closing his eyes and dreaming about the unbounded sweep
of God’s mercy and forgiveness,
until he sees - until he SEES -
that God would spare a city for the sake of ten innocent people.
Of course, that’s only where Abraham stops pushing the envelope!
The unspoken conclusion is clear: there is not boundary to God’s mercy.
Neither God nor Abraham failed in imagination.
Jesus, in the gospel story, invites us to dream, to imagine
that the love of the Almighty God and Creator of the Universe
is as personal for each of us
as is the love of our friends for us,
as is our love for our friends for whom we would do anything.
This invitation to dream and imagine God’s intimacy with us
is at the heart of Jesus’ response to his friends’ request that
he teach them to pray.
“When you pray,” he tells them, say, “Father...”
The word he used in Aramaic was “Abba”
which would better be translated “Daddy” or “Papa.”
Our Haitian brothers and sisters praying in Creole say
not, “Pere nou,” but rather, “Papa nou.”
Jesus invites us to imagine God’s love for us
to be like that of a Daddy who loved us,
or to be like the Papa’s love we wish had been ours but may; not have
had.
Policy, management and capability in the life of the church -
are things we can change and revitalize.
But we will not be able to do even that
if we suffer a failure in imagination:
a failure to imagine the beauty of who God is;
a failure to imagine how great and deep is God’s love for us;
a failure to imagine what God dreams the church to be
and to become.
There is a more local application of this, too.
When we think of the closing of the Catholic parishes in Concord
and the establishment of a new one,
we must work on and think in terms of
policy, and management and the capabilities.
Our parish staffs and the Transition Team are doing just that.
But what if the people of the two parishes
have a “failure of imagination?”
What if we fail or refuse to imagine
what might come of this reconfiguration?
What if we fail or refuse to dream
of how much stronger a church we can become through this?
What if we refuse to dream beyond the confines of what WAS
and fail to imagine the vitality of what might BE?
Perhaps for us it is easier to imagine God as “Papa”
than it is to imagine God as OUR Papa:
a God who is Papa to every daughter and son in history,
every daughter and son on the face of the earth - even on both sides of Route
2.
To believe, to pray, to find Christ
in his people, in his word, and in the sacraments -
all of this requires the imagination of faith.
Imagination is prime evidence
of our being made in the image and likeness of God.
If we suffer a failure in imagination, we risk our community, our faith and
our hope.
As we come to the Lord’s altar today for the eucharist let us imagine
the table as Christ does:
a table of thanksgiving and communion
for ALL who dare to call God “Papa.”
- Rev. Austin Fleming
Homily for
the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time - C July 18, 2004
Genesis 18:1-10a Colossians 1:24-28 Luke 10:38-42
Too often we dismiss the stories in the scriptures as
confusing, dated and irrelevant to our own times.
Today’s story from Genesis,
with Abraham and Sara making lunch for their three mysterious visitors,
might fall into this category of the obscure.
But when we don’t understand the cultural background of a story
we may fail to find its original meaning as well as its meaning for us now.
To understand this story one needs to understand “hospitality”
as it was practiced in the ancient middle east.
Back then, hospitality was extended to strangers - only!
Friends and family were to be treated kindly
(as Martha and Mary treat Jesus as a family friend in the gospel)
but hospitality was something special for strangers.
In ancient middle eastern culture there were three stages of hospitality.
First, the potential host gave the strangers a once-over
to determine if they should be welcomed into their home.
(Hospitality was very generous but it wasn’t stupid!)
After that initial inspection,
the second stage involved the host’s efforts to make the visitors feel
no longer like strangers but like welcomed guests, like old friends.
You can see in the story that Abraham has given his initial approval to the
three strangers
and now is pulling out all the stops to make them feel at home:
- let’s get you some water so you can cool off
- come and sit and rest over here in the shade
- let’s get you something to eat, too:
how about some fresh homemade rolls with some cheese,
some roast beef, and something to drink!
- you just sit here in the shade and we’ll get everything for you...
Abraham and Sarah are about the business of going out of their way
to make the strangers feel like old friends.
The third stage of these customs for hospitality
revolves around the strangers’ response to what has been offered.
And in this story, the hospitality is complete
because the strangers not only gratefully receive what they’ve been
offered,
but they make an amazing promise:
they’ll be coming back to visit again and when they do
Sarah, an elderly woman, will have a child.
Abraham and Sarah were in their 80’s
and even though they grieved the fact
that they had never had a child together,
the last thing they were expecting was to have a baby.
But they did. Sarah gave birth to Isaac.
New life / born of hospitality / extended to and received by strangers.
So perhaps this story is not confusing, dated or obscure. Perhaps it’s very relevant.
In our own circumstances,
some on both sides of Route 2 are giving people on the other side that “once-over,”
trying to determine whether they will be open to others
beyond their well known circle of parish and family friends.
Many of us are in stage one - sizing up the other side.
We do not know yet if we will accept the grace God offers us to enter stage
two,
the time when we go out of our way to mix with strangers as guests
and make the effort to make friends with them.
Nor do we yet know about stage three:
will we be open to and accept the welcome that others may offer us?
The closing of our two parishes is an instance of the possibility of mutual
hospitality
where all are strangers and all are hosts - at one and the same time.
If we do the work of ancient hospitality
then it’s very likely that new life will be born in ways we never dreamed
or expected,
as surprisingly as Isaac was born to Sarah and Abraham.
If we refuse to offer and accept hospitality
what we already have and treasure may die,
and the promise of new life may never become a reality.
To nourish us for this hospitable work,
the Lord offers nothing so elaborate as Sarah’s picnic in Abraham’s
shady grove.
Our only shade is the shadow of Christ’s arms outstretched on the cross,
his gesture of welcome to us all,
as he feeds us the richest of foods, his body and blood,
in a morsel of bread and a sip from a cup.
Even in this meal does he already share the life he promises.
Who knows what life he might have ready for us
were we all to welcome each other as warmly and freely, as hospitably, as
he welcomes us.
-Rev. Austin Fleming
Homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time - C July 11, 2004
Deuteronomy 30:10-14 Colossians 1:15-20 Luke 10:25-37
We make a big mistake
if we think that the priest and the Levite in this story
were simply crass, uncaring, ignorant sons o’ guns
for not stopping to help the man who was mugged on the road to Jericho.
In fact,
they were faithfully observing religious law, tradition and custom.
If the man in the gutter were a gentile, or dead,
(or worse yet, if he were a dead gentile!)
then simply touching him would have rendered the priest and the Levite
impure, defiled, shamed and unfit for religious ritual.
Aren’t we glad that we are beyond such law and tradition and custom!
Or - are we?
There are some bishops in the United States -fortunately only a few-
who have declared that in their dioceses
elected officials who vote a particular way on particular issues
are not to be given communion on Sunday mornings.
Fortunately, a great majority of American bishops
have decided to handle this real and complex issue
in ways that do not make of the eucharist a political battle field,
and only a small minority of bishops
are taking the route of observing categories
of defilement that render one ritually impure
and unworthy of the sacraments.
Every time we celebrate the eucharist,
just before we come forward for communion,
we all pray these words:
“Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
but only the say the word and I shall be healed.”
In that prayer we justly acknowledge
that none of us is worthy of this sacrament
and it sounds as if we’re saying that a healing word will suffice
and so we won’t be coming to receive communion.
But we do!
Unworthy as every single one of us is,
we persist in approaching and receiving this sacrament
because we treasure it and need it,
and we know, we believe
that nothing can heal us more completely,
touch us more intimately or unite us more fully
than this gift none of us is worthy to receive.
It is a spiritual tragedy that among those who hunger most deeply
for the bread and cup of the eucharist
are those who refrain from receiving it because they deem themselves
unworthy of it, or perhaps, for some reason, “ritually unfit.”
Jesus came into the world breaking down the barriers
that keep “us, us” and “them, them.”
When Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan
he offers his listeners a surprise ending.
The one who turns out to be “neighbor to the robbers’ victim”
is the one they least expected: a hated, despised Samaritan.
Were Jesus telling that story today,
perhaps the surprise ending, the real neighbor, might have been:
- Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the State Supreme Court;
- or an Al Queda operative;
- or a bishop who closed your parish;
- or George Bush (for some) or Michael Moore (for others);
- or anyone wearing a Yankees’ baseball cap;
- or just someone from another part of town
from which no one believes any good can come.
There’s an article in today’s New York Times about Robert Fuller
who wrote a book titled, “Somebodies And Nobodies.”
The story of the good Samaritan
is not so much about being helpful to those in distress as it is about:
breaking down walls that create “somebodies and nobodies;”
breaking down walls that keep “us, us” and “them, them;”
breaking down walls that keep us from seeing the good in others;
breaking down walls that keep any of us from the Lord’s table.
Fortunately for us, God has no prejudice
and welcomes sinners as well as saints to his table.
Saints are invited to enjoy the harvest of their faithfulness.
Sinners are welcomed to be nourished at this feast whose food is
pardon, forgiveness and healing.
So, saints and sinners,
somebodies and nobodies,
us and them,
Samaritans and West Samaritans:
let us go to that table not one of us is worthy to approach;
let us share in the meal not one of us is worthy to receive;
and let us rejoice in the love God has for us all:
our only hope of being made worthy of this altar’s precious gift.
-Rev. Austin Fleming
Babies fit.
They fit US.
They fit in our arms.
They fit in the crook of our necks.
They drape perfectly over a shoulder.
They have a way of snuggling just right
to make a little bed of our chest when we lay them on top of us.
And although some mothers will correct me after Mass
and remind me (a man!) that nursing a child
is not always a happy or pain free experience -
still, there is a general design in nature
for babies to fit at a mother’s breast
and there to find comfort, and intimacy, and nourishment.
Babies fit.
They fit US.
Perhaps that’s why Isaiah offers us this image of God, and of Jerusalem,
as a mother holding -
carrying, fondling, caressing, nursing, comforting - her child.
We are meant to fit, too - and we are meant to fit God.
Such is the intimacy God desires with us.
And God desires that intimacy with us
whether we are 7 months old, 7 years old, or 70 or more years old.
We might be cute and cuddly and compact enough
to be cradled in someone’s arms,
or perhaps we are withered, weak and worn with age,
too fragile for the arms of a healthy hug,
or some place in between - it makes no difference.
Like a mother, God never ceases to care for us, carry and caress us,
to nurse us with the milk of her mercy:
no matter how old we have grown;
no matter if we think we have outgrown
the need for such comforts;
no matter how many times
we may have ignored or even refused
the embrace of her strong, gentle and everlasting arms;
like a mother, our God is there for us,
waiting to hold us again in that intimacy for which the human heart
never ceases to long.
Of course, we grow up.
And God gives us grown up responsibilities.
Jesus reminds us of these in the gospel today:
we will be sent like lambs among wolves,
with no money or travel conveniences,
sent to bring the peace of the gospel to all we meet and know.
We grow up and leave our mothers’ arms
but just as our mothers never cease being our mothers,
so the intimacy of our God’s embrace always awaits us,
as surely as God awaits us at this table in the eucharist.
As a mother feeds the child in her arms and from her breast,
so the Lord feeds us from his breast,
with his body and blood, the milk of his mercy,
fitting us to the shape, the shelter, the embrace of his arms.
from the outstretched arms of his love.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
-Rev. Austin Fleming
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