Previous Weeks' Homilies
2002 2003
At the Chrism Mass on Tuesday of this week,
Archbishop O’Malley blessed the holy oils we use
to celebrate the sacraments.
In his homily at that Mass the archbishop described the United States
as a “hostile, alien environment” for Catholics,
a society he characterized as
“a culture of death, consumerism, hedonism and individualism.”
He referred to us as “exiles in the midst of Babylon.”
That’s very strong language; a severe diagnosis; a dire picture.
The first reading this night invites us to remember -----
as did our Jewish neighbors at Passover, earlier this week
----- to remember the people of Israel
who found themselves held captive in a “hostile, alien environment,”
under an authority which abused and enslaved them.
They needed deliverance and rescue: they needed a savior.
And so the Lord went through Egypt, as the book of Exodus tells it,
“striking down every firstborn of the land, both of man and of beast,
and executing judgment on all the (false) gods” of the land.
Only the blood of the sacrificial lambs,
smeared on the doors of of the Israelites’ houses
saved them from the destructive blow
visited upon the Egyptians by God’s hand.
Fortunately, despite Archbishop O’Malley’s ominous critique of
our culture,
he didn’t call us to strike down anyone’s first born
but rather “to resist the temptation to conform” ourselves
to anything except the movement of God’s Spirit within us.
But what about that world out there?
- that world all around us?
- the world in which we live?
- the world in which we work and learn and play?
What should our relationship be with a world our bishop describes as
“hostile, alien and hedonistic?”
There is a temptation here, of course, to condemn the world -
to strike down its cultural progeny,
to execute judgment on its false gods,
to destroy its society or flee it.
But Jesus, centuries after that first Passover meal in Egypt,
Jesus gathered his friends to celebrate Passover
and he gave us a different picture of things,
a different way of relating to the world.
Jesus invites us not to destroy the world
but to recognize its brokenness and to offer it healing.
Jesus invites us not to judge the world around us
but rather to meet it where it is (as he did!),
to speak truth to power,
and to lift up and celebrate all that is good,
letting anything less be sifted out.
Jesus invites us not to strike down the culture around us
but rather to suffuse it with what we know to be:
good, true, genuine, beautiful, whole, real and lasting.
Jesus invites us to change the world not through edict and power,
but through washing the sweat and dust and grime
from the world’s dirty feet.
Remember the words from our opening prayer?
“Stir our hearts by the example of our Savior
who welcomed to his table
even those who would betray, deny and desert him:
the Lord knew their weaknesses
yet bent down to wash their feet.”
Jesus invites us to transform the world by becoming its servant,
not its master.
That does not mean that we serve anything false,
but rather that we recognize in the world and in all of its people,
without exception,
the presence, the image, the breath, the finger print of God -
of God who “so LOVED the world”
that he sent is only Son as an offering for its sin.
In a time like our own, in a culture like our own,
it is easier to line up on opposite sides and duke it out
than it is to engage in honest, adult dialogue
with those with whom we disagree.
It is easier to assume the position of authority
and to wield its power
than it is to get down on one’s knees and wash the feet of one’s
foe.
At the Chrism Mass, Archbishop O’Malley said
that many people today are
“hungry for God, for spirituality and for answers.”
That is certainly true,
even of those who may not clearly grasp what it is they hunger for.
But if people of faith are
to touch such lives,
to feed such hunger,
to slake such thirst,
there is only one path to walk:
the path of communion,
the path that unites rather than separates us,
the path that joins rather than divides us,
the path which reveals the greater truth
rather than lead us further from it.
We, the church, need to learn this lesson again and again and again!
Just as the people of Israel continue to celebrate the Passover meal
as a “memorial feast and perpetual institution”
so we Christians celebrate every week our Passover in Christ
in whom we are delivered not from the world
but from anything in the world that does us harm
or leads us away from the truth.
To the Passover table and to the table of eucharist
we must bring the life the world,
and all of its joys and sorrows, its successes and failures,
and all of its problems and complexities,
and especially it woundedness and brokenness.
The Passover table of Jesus’ last supper
led him to that hill outside the city
where the history of human sinfulness and brokenness
was shouldered and healed
by the innocence of the One
who is our path, our way,
our truth and our life - the One who IS our communion.
If our Passover tables and eucharistic altars
are not firmly planted in the midst of the world
and open to all its people
then those tables and altars may slip easily and perilously
away from the heart of things to the edges of human life
and then fail to offer those who hunger for it most
the healing food of communion with God and neighbor.
Grateful to our Jewish ancestors in the faith
for their fidelity to the Passover tradition
and grateful to Jesus
for handing that feast on to us in the new covenant,
we go now to the table of the last supper
to share the meal, the communion he left us -
but first to wash one another’s feet, as Jesus did,
and to humble ourselves before the world, our neighbor and our God.
Rev. Austin Fleming
The Passover table of Jesus’ last supper
led him to that hill outside the city
where the sinfulness and brokenness of all time
was shouldered, forgiven and healed
by the innocence of the One
who is the way, the truth and the life:
the One who IS our communion with God and with one another.
Indeed, as we sang together last night:
“Our blessing cup is a communion in the blood of Christ...”
This year, perhaps as never before,
the attention of believers and non-believers alike
has recently been focused on the suffering and death of Jesus
- on account of a movie.
The film, and the discussion around it,
might lead us to believe
that the suffering Jesus endured, and his death,
were somehow “proportionate” or “equal” to
the sins and brokenness of humankind;
that somehow the suffering of Jesus was sufficient “payment”
for the debt our sins have incurred.
But that cannot be the case.
That cannot be why Jesus suffered and died.
In Jesus’ day, crucifixion was a common method of capital punishment.
Flogging the condemned before crucifixion
was standard Roman practice.
Other victims hung on their crosses
for considerably longer periods of time
than did Jesus.
Throughout history, even up to our own day,
others have been tortured more cruelly
than was Jesus.
If others have suffered more than Jesus did,
then what are we to make of his passion and death?
Be assured:
I do not want to minimalize the suffering of Jesus
on this day when we most solemnly remember his death.
And one need not have seen a movie
to understand what Jesus endured
in laying down his life for us.
But the suffering of Christ is not for its own sake.
It is not intended to draw us to itself,
but rather is meant to reveal something to us,
to lead us to a new relationship with God,
the Father of Jesus and our Father, too.
Like a sacrament,
the suffering and death of Jesus offer us an outward sign
revealing an inner, hidden, spiritual reality.
It is this inner reality
that is the heart of what happens in the gospel account we just heard.
The flogging,
the wounds,
the bleeding,
the weight of the cross,
the thorns,
the nails:
all these are the sacramental signs of what is truly happening on Calvary,
and what transpires on that hill outside Jerusalem
is of proportions universal, cosmic and eternal.
For there, on a cross,
falsely accused as a criminal,
there our God, in Christ,
our Creator,
the One who is, who was, and always will be,
pours himself out in love for us,
empties himself of everything, even life itself,
to reveal as never before
that there is no greater claim on the love of God
than ours: yours and mine.
In the suffering and death of Jesus
is the bittersweet communion of humanity and divinity.
And what is remarkable here is this:
divinity does not play its trump card early
in order to escape humanity’s demands and limitations.
No: divinity surrenders to humanity in a communion
holier than any other.
God infiltrates humanity in Jesus
and once among us,
surrenders everything for our sakes.
Such is the claim we have on God’s love.
Such is the claim God’s love has on us.
If our faith leads us no farther than the wounds of Jesus’ body,
it leads us only to the edge of the truth his suffering reveals.
In Christ:
the Healer of every ill
enters into communion with the pain
all mortal beings come to know.
In Christ:
the Creator of the world
enters into communion with the brokenness
every creature eventually suffers.
In Christ:
the Giver of all life
enters into communion with the death
every living being will experience.
The cross did not offer Jesus an easy way out.
Rather, it offered him passage, a path,
from life, through suffering and death, to life again.
So it is for us.
The cross does not offer us an easy way out.
Rather, it shows us the path to communion with Christ
who offers us safe passage
through our sufferings to the life he promises.
Like a sacrament,
the suffering and death of Jesus offer us an outward sign
revealing an inner, hidden, spiritual reality.
That hidden reality is communion:
communion with the very life of God emptying itself out
through the wounds in Jesus’ body;
communion with God’s love, seeping,
drop by precious drop,
from the side of Jesus into our blessing cup,
and upon our hearts with mercy and healing.
“Our blessing cup is a communion in the blood of Christ.”
The one who washed our feet last night
serves us again, not by bending down
but by laying down his life for us,
to offer us communion with God
in a life that has no end.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, king of endless glory!
Rev. Austin Fleming
Homily for Easter Vigil 2004
Luke 24: 1-12
“Their story seemed like nonsense
and they did not believe them.”
“Nonsense!”
Can’t you just imagine the men saying this
to Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James,
who have come back from the tomb
announcing that Jesus had risen from the dead?
“Nonsense! You’re tired, you’re confused! You’re
in denial!
Why don’t you just accept the fact that he died!”
What those men should have done
was to get down on their knees
and wash the feet of those three women!
But - no...
The first response made to the message of Easter,
the first response to the news of Easter is NOT,
“Praise the Lord!”
but rather,
“Nonsense!”
How strong must have been the bond of communion
these women shared with Jesus:
so strong was their communion with him
that they did not abandon him in his hour of need.
The walked with him the way of the cross,
in communion with his suffering.
They stood with him at the foot of his cross
in communion with his death.
They got up early the next morning to visit his tomb,
in communion with his memory.
They were the first to preach the good news of his resurrection,
in communion with his mission and his church.
They were the first to have their message rejected
in communion with him whose word of truth
is deemed by many, still, to be “nonsense...”
How strong must have been their communion with Jesus
that neither grief nor fear -not even death itself-
could keep them from being present to him,
nor him from being present to them.
There is no communion with the risen Jesus
unless it is rooted in communion with the suffering Jesus.
There is no communion with the suffering Jesus
unless it is rooted in communion with the love of Jesus.
And there is no communion with the love of Jesus
unless it leads us to a communion of service to our neighbor.
The world around us hungers, yearns, aches for communion.
Ours is a broken world: we need communion for healing.
Ours is a fragmented world: we need communion with God and with others.
Ours is a deeply divided world: we need communion for survival.
What does Jesus offer us -
if not precisely that communion that heals and holds us together.
To what kind of communion does Jesus call us?
Or as they say, “What would Jesus do?”
“Jesus would do:
whatever is just, true and pure,
welcoming and inclusive,
affirming and fair;
“Jesus would do:
whatever brings peace, freedom,
equality, liberty,
respect and reverence for life;
“Jesus would do:
anything that nourishes communion
among the peoples of this earth;
and anything that nourishes communion
between the earth and its people.”
If ours is to be a church rooted in communion with the suffering Jesus,
then ours much be a church whose arms open wide
to embrace and receive all men and women as brothers and sisters -
without qualification and limitation.
If ours is to be a church rooted in communion with the healing Jesus
then ours must be a church whose doors swing open much wider
than the doors of this building
for what we have to offer, communion with God,
is something for which every human heart is hungry.
And if ours is to be a church rooted in communion with the risen Jesus
then ours must be a church whose path to communion
is wider than the center aisle of our church building.
Let me be clear:
it is precisely that aisle and the communion table to which it leads
that nourishes us for the great work, the great mission of communion
which the gospel of Jesus enjoins.
But the work of communion is of proportions
as cosmic, universal and eternal
as the communion of life and death in Jesus on the cross,
and in the blessed, still emptiness of his tomb on Easter morning.
As God’s self was emptied out for us in Jesus,
as Jesus emptied himself out for us on the cross,
so are we, the church, called to empty ourselves out
in offering the communion of our faith
to all who recognize and hunger and thirst for it.
Tonight, two young women, Pam and Charlotte,
will be welcomed into full communion with the Catholic church.
After making a profession of faith and receiving the sacrament of confirmation,
they will, for the first time,
share in communion with us and with God in Christ
at the table of eucharist.
Pray with me that with Pam and Charlotte,
and with Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James,
pray that we will be nourished anew for the work of communion
which is the mind, the will and law of Christ’s love for us, his church.
Rev. Austin Fleming
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||