Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time  -  August 24, 2003

Some years back, when this passage from the book of Joshua came ‘round,
I told you that my mother had a framed print
     of Joshua’s words posted at her front door,
     just between her living room and dining area.

The print featured a kitchen table and window  with the sunlight pouring in.
And in the corner of the print were Joshua’s words,
     “As for me and my household,
          we will serve the Lord...”

You may also remember that I inserted copies of that quote
     in the parish bulletin that Sunday
and it has been a pleasure for me to find, over and over again,
     those inserts posted your walls, your refrigerators,
          your bulletin boards, and even framed on end tables,
as I have visited your homes in the parish.

Of course, it is much more important for us to “post” those words
     on our hearts, than on our walls.
If our hearts don’t match our walls,
     then it’s all a kind of show or pretense.

But I know that in many, many cases
     the hearts of the people of our parish
     are very dedicated to serving the Lord.

Just as an example:
I just learned that since January 1 of this year,
     some 106 different people in the parish
     have helped in preparing and serving
     our monthly lunch at Rosie’s Place.
That’s 106 people over 8 lunches.

“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord...”

Although there is always a need for more and more food,
     our church door baskets for the food pantry are filled,
     over and over again.

“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord...”

I recently received a call from the director of Concord Park,
     the assisted living facility in West Concord Center.
The director left a long message in my voice mail,
     filled with grateful enthusiasm for all the ways
     that a number of parishioners have reached out in service
     to her residents.

“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord...”

The list of parish activities could be quite long but I’ll stop there.
And that list doesn’t even begin to touch
     the hundreds and hundreds of ways
     in which the people of our faith community    
     quietly and consistently reach out in service
          to their neighbors in need.

“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord...”

As nice as it is to see those words posted in your homes,
     it is even more important to see how these are words
     you have posted in your hearts.

Here in the church we post things, too.
Sometimes on the bulletin boards at the entrances,
     and sometimes taped to the glass doors.
Some things, however, are “posted” in a more permanent way:  in stained glass!
If you look over there, about half way down the aisle,
     you will see that “posted” in one of our stained glass windows
     are the two tablets of the ten commandments.
Shades of Alabama!
Of course, more important than their presence in our church window
     is their imprint on our hearts and lives.
How we LIVE those commandments
     is critically more important than where we post them.

I can’t help but note that Joshua did NOT say,
     “As for me and my COURT-house, we will serve the Lord...”
but rather,
     “As for me and my HOUSEHOLD, we will serve the Lord...”

How grateful we should all be
     that every courthouse in our nation
     is charged with insuring our right
     to enshrine the image of the ten commandments in our house of worship.
How said and tragic is the reality
     that those same courts so often fail to honor
     the substance of God’s law in their verdicts and decisions,
and most notably in those decisions
     where the right to life itself is threatened.

In our homes, our hearts are more important than our walls,
     and in the halls of justice, decisions and verdicts
     are more important than sculpture.
And in both places,
     we should not mistake the one for the other.

Just as Joshua offers Israel a choice,
     so does Jesus offer his friends a choice.
Many of his followers are so troubled by some of his teaching
     that they leave him and return to their former ways of life.
Jesus asks the Twelve,
     “Will you go, too?”
Peter answers for them,
     “Lord, where would we go?
     Only you have the words of eternal life.”
Or as Joshua said, and, as I hope,
     we, the family of Our Lady Parish can say,
“As for us and our households, we will serve the Lord...”

Precisely to nourish our hearts in that service,
     the Lord now invites us to the table of his household
     to be fed with the bread of his life and the cup of his salvation.


- Rev. Austin Fleming

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