October 2002

Homily for October 6, 2002 - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 5:1-7            Philippians 4:609            Matthew 21:33-43
I think of parents who tell me of the loving care and self-sacrifice with which they raised their children, but their children have grown up and rejected their parents’ values and faith and often seem unaware of how much mom and dad sacrificed for their happiness and well being...
I think of all the stories of the men and women whose lives were taken on Sept.11th. I think of all the carefully made plans of young families, and the near retirement hopes of older ones, all snuffed out like so many candles in a strong wind...
I think of those whose good, honest lives are interrupted by infidelity in relationships, or serious or chronic illness, or death, and how their hopes and dreams are littered on the shore, washed there by the tides that sank their ship of dreams...
I think of a church and its people whose centuries of work and faithfulness now yield a vintage of sour grapes, leaving so many so thirsty for a sip of something sweet and satisfying...
I think of Isaiah’s friend who tended his vineyard with great care, but still the crop was wild and sour...
I think of the landowner in Jesus’ parable who carefully planted and cared for a vineyard, but others robbed him of his share of the harvest...
Both Isaiah and Jesus tell us in these scriptures that God, who is the vintager and landowner in these stories, that even God knows the heartache of unappreciated sacrifice, of broken dreams, of dashed hopes, and of good work snatched from hands calloused by the harvest and effort...
The saddest stories I hear as a pastor are the stories of disappointment told to me by those whose hearts have been broken, by those whom they loved the most, those for whom they sacrificed the most, those for whom they hoped and dreamed the best.
And so it is with God. We are God’s choice vines. We are God’s vineyard.   We are God’s land. We are God’s crop and we are the harvest.
And too often, we are barren vines, we are dry land, we yield a wild, sour crop...
Too often: we are the ones who take the Lord’s healthy crop and allow it to spoil on the vine, or we hoard the harvest and keep it for ourselves, or we waste it without so much as a grateful nod to its source.
Still, the heartbroken vintager in the scriptures does not altogether give up on the land or the vines but rather looks for a way;
            - to make fertile ground of us
            - to harvest from our failures a sweet crop,
            - to urge us to share and distribute that crop justly
and to yield a vintage as fine and full bodied as our God had hoped and dreamed for us. How does the vintager do this, even after the tenants kill his son when he comes?
How do parents keep open the doors of their hearts even when their children have shut them out? How do those stunned or crippled by infidelity or tragedy or illness open their eyes to yet another day? How is it that we continue to gather here as the Catholic community with the bitter taste of wild grapes still so fresh upon our lips?
Perhaps the words of St. Paul to the church at Philippi, and to us, provide the key to an answer to these hard questions.
When Paul counsels us, as he did in the second lesson today,
            “Have no anxiety at all...the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds...”
such advice may seem too pious or not equal to the painful realities some of us bear. But Paul writes further...
“Think about these things:   think about what is true, what is honorable,   what is just,    what is pure, what is lovely, what is gracious, what is excellent and worthy of praise.”
“Keep on doing what you have learned and received,   what you have heard and seen in faith –   then the peace of God will be with you...”
This is exactly how the Lord deals with us
            - when we are dry land
            - when our vines are barren
            - when we refuse to share the harvest justly
            - when we yield a wild crop or sour vintage.
God never fails to love what is good within us, even when we fail, even when we ourselves may fail to see what there is, within, to love.
Good parents do not stop loving their children, even when their children disappoint them deeply, even when others may fail to see what there is to love.
We learn to live with and rise above the limitations that hurt, tragedy and illness visit upon us. When others may have no understanding of the source of our courage, our strength and our hope.
We look to what is true and honorable in our faith and in our church and we cling to that, and to our God and to each other as we live through this sour season. Even while some may be unable to see at all what it is that draws us together this morning. There is never a Sunday morning in our parish when this place is not home to disappointed hearts, broken hearts, hearts tired by failed hopes and wearied with broken dreams.
And there is never a Sunday morning in our parish when this place of word and sacrament is not a source of healing and hope that gives us the courage to love more deeply, to believe more deeply, and to take another few steps along faith’s journey.
We go, then, to the Lord’s table to be nourished by
   what it is true,  what is honorable, what is just,  what is pure,
what is lovely, what is gracious, what is excellent and worthy of praise: the sacrament of God’s very presence among us.
“Let us keep on doing what we have learned and received
            what we have heard and seen in faith -
                        that the peace of God might be with us...”

Rev. Austin Fleming
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Homily for 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time - October 13, 2002
Isaiah 25:6-10a            Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20            Matthew 22:1-10
When it arrives
It’s addressed to you in carefully scripted calligraphy. The envelope is thick with its content; an inside envelope; an embossed invitation; a thin slip sheet to protect the printing; a small pre-addressed, pre-stamped return envelope; and a reply card on which you can check your acceptance or regrets and indicate your preference for chicken, beef or fish.
You’ve been invited to a wedding!
What’s your reaction?
Mr. and Mrs. John Smith aren’t just requesting the honor of your presence for their daughter’s wedding ceremony. They’re probably asking for the better part of a weekend on your already crowded calendar.
You will be expected to buy a nice gift or to write a nice check. You may receive a subsequent invitation to a shower, with the expectation of another gift. You may feel required to buy new clothes to wear to the wedding.
If you’re invited to lots of weddings, you might understand completely the response of the folks invited to the wedding in Jesus parable:   the folks ignored the invitation; the folks who refused to come; and even the folks who laid hold of the messenger and did him in!
Of course, Jesus is trying to make a point here.
He’s explaining to the chief priests and the elders how it has come to pass that invitation to share in the promise made to the people of Israel, has now been extended BEYOND the circle of the chosen one and offered to the gentiles as well.
(And just so we’re all on the same page here: you and I are the gentiles so this is good news for us!)
As he so often does, Jesus is showing up our narrow concept of salvation and illustrating how deep and wide and broad is the reach of God’s arms opening up to welcome all peoples to that feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines, the wonderful specials on God’ menu which we heard Isaiah recite for us in today’ first reading.
The Lord is clearly trying to make us hungry for heaven here, and he offers us a lot more than a check list of chicken, beef or fish.
At this point in writing this homily, I was going to point out how, like the folks in the parable, we are too busy to accept the Lord’ invitation, or too preoccupied to pay it any attention. But I think it may run deeper than that - - at least I think it does for me.
I believe the problem may be this: I so easily, and so often forget just WHO it is who is inviting me; I haven’t yet sufficiently grasped WHAT it is God’s inviting me to; I don’t consider, honestly enough, just what it means to IGNORE an invitation from God.
I have been invited by God - you have been invited by God - WE have received an invitation from GOD: the maker of the universe; OUR maker; the creator of all things visible and invisible...
You and I are on God's invitation list. You and I are in God's address book. You and I are on God's Roller-dex. Listed or unlisted, God has our phone numbers.
And the God of the universe, the God of all creation, has invited us to a relationship of partnership and intimacy. Our God wants to get to know us. Our God wants us to get to know him better. Our God wants us to get closer to us. Our God wants something much more than the honor of our presence at a wedding: our God wants to be our neighbor, our sister, our brother, our mother, our father, our friend, our partner, our lover, our spouse.
In the parable in the gospel, Jesus is the son to whose marriage feast we are invited and WE are the unnamed bride: his spouse, his people. And if you and I ignore this invitation to intimacy with God?
   -then we ignore the greatest experience available to us as human beings - - bar none.
Nothing offered us in this life is greater than the intimacy God offers to share with each of us. Nothing offered us in this life can more easily enhance all our human relationships more beautifully or more deeply than our acceptance of God's invitation to intimacy.
After 55 years, nearly 30 of them as a priest I am still learning these lessons myself. I know this parable is about how the promise to the chosen became the promise for all - but the parable cuts deeper than that and we miss the heart of it if we miss what the invitation means for each of us.
In a few moments we will approach the table of the wedding supper the king has prepared for his son and for us, his bride.
The invitation to intimacy is clear here: the choice food is the very body of Jesus; the pure wine is his very blood; we are invited to CONSUME him, to take him into ourselves; he wants to be one with us.
No other nourishment offered us in this life is greater than the intimacy Jesus offers to share with each of us here in the Eucharist. And no other nourishment offered us in this life can more easily enhance and expand all our human relationships more deeply than our taking into our bodies and souls the intimacy Jesus offers us at his table.
- Rev. Austin Fleming
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Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time-A, October 20, 2002
Isaiah 45: 1, 4-6     1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b        Matthew 22:15-21
There's a particular store where I buy most of my clothes and a particular sales person, Barbara, who is often the clerk who rings up my purchases. This past week, unsure about whether a button-down shirt I liked would fit me, I asked Barbara, "Is it kosher to take this shirt out of the package and try it on?"
Barbara looked at me, quizzically, and asked, "Kosher?" And I answered, "Well, I mean, is it ok to mess up the neat way its packaged?" She said, "Sure, its ok." So I tried the shirt on and bought it. As I was leaving the counter, I noticed something I've seen before: a piece of jewelry Barbara always wears which, I believe, is the word "shalom" in Hebrew, in gold, suspended from a chain around her neck.
I asked, "Barbara, did my question offend you? Asking if it was 'kosher' to take the shirt out of its package?" She smiled, and shook her head. "No," she said, "I wasn't offended." So I asked her "Is kosher a word I shouldn't use in that way?"
She hesitated, so I said, "Would it just be better if I didn't use it in that way?" And she smiled and said yes. "Thanks," I said. "I didn't mean to offend you, and I learned something."
Now, if you think that either Barbara or I, or both of us, were being overly politically correct, you should know that even though I am a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, I cringe every time I hear a sports announcer use the term, "Hail Mary pass."
I wanted to learn more about kosher, so Saturday morning I went online, took a chance and typed in "www.kosher.com."
Turns out there IS a "kosher.com" website but all that was available was notice:
       "Shabbat Shalom! Good Sabbath!
        Kosher.com will reopen at 7:15 p.m., Saturday night. We close every Friday night at 20 minutes before sunset and reopen every Saturday night at 1 hour and five minutes after sunset. Thank you and have a good rest."
Imagine if we Christians kept our Sabbath as religiously
       as Kosher.com does!
Although kosher primarily refers to the ritual fitness of foods, it extends to other parts of life, too.
For instance, in today's gospel,
       it was not "kosher" for the Pharisees
       to have a Roman coin on their person,
       precisely because the Roman coin had a graven image of Caesar,
       and such images were prohibited by Jewish law.
Remember the "money changers"
       that Jesus drove out of the temple?
They were there in the first place to change Roman money into ritually fit coins that people might offer in the temple and maintain their ritual purity.
Jesus was showing up the hypocrisy of the Pharisees
       who were supervising the ritual purity of others
       over whom they had spiritual authority,
       while carrying in their pockets
       something they shouldn't be caught dead with!
There are obvious, contemporary parallels, but for our purposes, we might ask, "What are the things that make Christians "ritually impure"?
What should we not be caught with in our pockets and purses as we enter the temple of our prayer?
Well, in the new covenant, it is more a matter of what we should not be caught with in our hearts, rather than in our pockets. What renders the Christian ritually unfit
is a heart and a mind too ready, too accepting of violenceas the resolution of conflict.
What renders the Christian ritually impure
is a tongue sharp enough to rip through the reputations of family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers.
What renders the Christian ritually unacceptable
       is any injustice, and especially an injustice which makes even heavier the burdens of those who live on the margins of our plenty.
What renders the Christian ritually unfit
       is any prejudice that ignores or denies
       the indelible image of God in every human person -- bar none.
What renders the Christian ritually impure
       is any selfishness which oversupplies
       those who already have more than they need,
       while leaving untended the needs of the truly needy.
Jesus does not ask us to change our coins from one currency to another, but rather, to change the "currency" of our hearts. He is not interested in whose image is on the offering we make, but rather, with whose image our hearts are sealed.
We are about to gather at the table
       where the food we share is as "kosher,"
       as pure, as acceptable as any food can be
for we gather to be nourished by the heart and soul,
       the body and blood of Jesus.
By sharing in the purity of the sacrament he offers us here, we become "kosher" ourselves:
       pure, acceptable and pleasing to God.
- Rev. Austin Fleming

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Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - A October 27, 2002
Exodus 22:20-26 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10 Matthew 22:34-40
Of all the sins I have heard people confess over the past 29 years, I would say that the sin I have encountered

most frequently is one that I don’t actually “hear” confessed, but rather, one that I “ detect".
It’s the sin of self-deprecation, or self-hate, or self-doubt.I call it a sin in light of today’s scriptures.
Throughout his teaching Jesus calls us to love our neighbor and in this instance he instructs us

to love ourselves as we love our neighbor.
I fear that our church has not only utterly failed in teaching us
a healthy love of self, but that in addition our church has succeeded well in teaching us to distrust ourselves,
to be suspicious of ourselves,
to fear ourselves and even to despise ourselves.
For the record, and to be clear, let me say without reservation
that the scriptures also call us to accountability for ourselves:
to responsibility for our words and deeds,
and for our failing to speak and to act when we should.
The scriptures do not offer us any license
to simply do and say as we please, when we please.
To the contrary, the law of love is precisely that -- a law --and a law that makes great demands on us.
But what we may have lost sight of,
what our church has failed to teach us,
is that the subject of the law of love is the self as well as the neighbor,and that we are called to love ourselves and our neighbors precisely because we and our neighbors are creatures of God, indeed sons and daughters of God; we are the beloved of God
and together we are the spouse of God.
A woman in the parish told me recently
that her earnest prayer was that somehow
God might find her worthy of his love.
I quickly corrected her and reminded her that none of us is worthy of God’s love.
If it was all about being worthy we’d all be in trouble.
The gift of God’s love is precisely that -- a gift!
It’s not something we deserve, not something we earn,
not something we qualify for, not something we merit.
Far from it!
God’s love is pure gift
and it comes to us --all of us-- simply because God
loves us as sons and daughters,
befriends us as close companions,
desires us as a lover desires the beloved,
partners with us as if we were peers,
and chooses us as one chooses a spouse.
We have done nothing, we could do nothing, we can do nothing to be worthy of such love.
We have done nothing, could do nothing, can do nothing to separate us from that love.
Sadly, our upbringing in the faith
has so often contradicted these constant themes and truths found in the scriptures and in the best of church teaching. We so often look at the Christian life as the ongoing scraping together of enough points on God’s score card to merit divine approval.
We spend so much time watching for flags on our play
that we can begin to live as though our relationship with God is a contest in which God is both the opponent and the referee, in a game where the referee always favors the opponent!
God, our opponent? How did we get there?
If we want a more truthful image of our relationship with God it is this:
we are on trial, and Jesus is the judge
- and simultaneously, our defense attorney.
In the American system of justice,
such an arrangement would be unconstitutional.
In the Christian life,
it is simply how things are.
Jesus is our judge and our defense,
and more than that: he’s also our chief character witness.
And what Jesus testifies to is this:
that each of us, without exception, is lovable:
not because of something we have done;
not because of our love for God;
but simply because we are, each of us and all of us, loved by God.
From my office window at the rectory,
I often see the young man who lives next door
playing in his yard with his first-born toddler son.
What catches my eye
is the look in the dad’s eye,
and the way the dad watches his child.
Even from my office window on the second floor,
I can almost reach out and touch the love
that radiates from this man for his child.
And this dad loves his child simply because
he is his child. The child has yet to be able to do or say anything to earn or merit or deserve his father’s love.
This young dad simply has a heart overflowing with love
for the child he and his wife have brought into the world.
God’s love for us is something like that - only greater and deeper.
Perhaps one day that little boy will disappoint his father
and try his father’s affection for him.
But I’ll wager that somehow that father’s affection will win out over whatever his son had done or failed to do.
There is nothing that can try our God’s love for us.
No matter how we fail, no matter how seriously we fail,
no matter how often we fail, God will love us
and continue to delight in the child he has made each of us to be. Even now, God invites us to his table,
knowing that we are not worthy of the feast he has prepared for us; knowing that we have failed to love his son, Jesus, whose very life is the food we are invited to share here. But that will not keep him from welcoming us, in his love for us, to this healing and nourishing banquet. Like the young dad who lives next door to my office window, our God delights in each of us
and treasures us as the apple of his eye.
Pray with me that the God who loves us so
will teach us to love our neighbor and ourselves
and to find in ourselves and in each other
that image of the divine which God so treasures
and in which the Lord delights.
Rev. Austin Fleming