Previous Weeks' Homilies
Homily for September 8, 2002 -Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary
Time
Ezekiel 33: 7-9 Romans 13: 8-10 Matthew 18:
15-20
When I was a child, religious education included the memorization of many
lists of many things. I was reminded of this recently when I saw on an internet
bulletin board, a list of the 9 ways of being an accessory to another person's
sin.
Does anyone remember them?
You could be an accessory to another person's sin
- by counseling
someone to do wrong
- by commanding
someone to do wrong
- by consenting
to a wrong done
- by provoking
someone to do wrong
- by praising
or flattering the wrong doer, or the wrong done
- by concealing
the wrong doer or the wrongdone
- by partaking
in the results of someone's wrong-doing
- by keeping
silence about a wrong doer or a wrong done
- or by
defending the wrong doer or the wrong done
At least a few of these 9 ways are at the heart of the church's current crisis.
Were there ways in which anyone in the church;
- concealed
the abuse of minors?
- kept
silence about it?
- defended
the wrong done, or the wrong do-er?
In our own lives, on a daily basis, at home, at work, at school and in our
community,
we are often faced with the possibility of being an accessory to the wrong
doings of others
precisely in the 9 ways on this old list. The scriptures today
are getting at this point.
The Lord charges the prophet Ezekiel (and all of us, too!)
with the
responsibility of dissuading others from doing wrong.
This, as we all know, runs hard against the grain in our own times and culture.
The pro-choice movement may be primarily concerned with the legal right to
have an abortion,
but pro-choice thinking -- the notion that no one has the right to tell anyone
else
how life is to be lived, that philosophy colors;
our politics,
our entertainment, our school systems,
our legislative
process, our judicial system,
and what
we say, or fail to say, to our families and neighbors.
The scriptures today are NOT calling us
to be self-righteous,
holier-than-thou,
self-appointed,
arrogant loud mouths!
The scriptures ARE, however, calling us
to speak
and act on what we believe and know to be true
particularly
when silence or inaction might threaten
the spiritual,
physical or moral welfare of others.
Key, here, is what St. Paul names as the greatest commandment of all:
"we
nothing to anyone - except to love one another."
Humble love of our neighbor, not arrogant superiority,
is the
ONLY basis on which we -all of us sinners-
dare counsel
our neighbors with regard to their wrong doing.
A wonderful and positive example of this was in the newspapers this week.
A recent study shows that:
Teenagers are less likely to start having sex when their mothers are involved
in their lives,
have a close relationship with them, and successfully communicate their values
on sex,
this is according to new findings from the largest survey ever conducted with
adolescents in the United States. The study showed that while the vast majority
of mothers
strongly disapprove of their teens having sex, large numbers of teens often
don't realize
how their moms feel about this. In the context of a close and loving relationship
between parents and their teens, a decision to speak the truth of one's values
and
convictions without reluctance or embarrassment has a powerfully good chance
of safeguarding the spiritual, emotional and physical welfare of their children.
The words of Jesus in the gospel today lay out a rather rudimentary process
for dealing
with wrong doers in the church community.
While this plan may not be sophisticated enough
to deal
with the structural and criminal abuse in the church,
we must not fail to note that Jesus places at least initial responsibility
for the correction of faults primarily in the hands of the faithful:
first among individual members,
and then in the larger church community,
with the people of God in assembly and in collaboration with their leaders.
The responsibility laid out here for the church is daunting and will only
be carried
successfully if shouldered by all, and not by just a few.
Were you and I standing on a street corner, and saw a stranger next to us
walking,
without looking, into the path of an oncoming car,
we would, without hesitation, reach out pull that person out of harm's way.
The scriptures call us to do the same whenever we see a neighbor walking into
the "traffic"
of any physical, moral or spiritual danger. These are hard sayings from
the scriptures.
We need strength to hear them - let alone to live by them.
We go, then, to that table where the bread of life and cup of salvation
will feed us and nourish us for the work of dissuading one another from
wrong doing,
empowered
by that love which is the only thing we owe one another.
Rev. Austin Fleming
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Homily for September 15, 2002 - Twenty-Fourth Sunday in
Ordinary Time
Sirach 27:30-28:7
Romans 14:7-9
Matthew 18:21-35
They brought in a servant who owed the king
"a
huge amount."
Another translation of the scriptures is more specific
and names
that amount as "10,000 talents."
Now, a talent was the equivalent of 6,000 denarius,
and a denarius
was approximately a day's wage.
To pay off the debt of ten thousand talents, then,
the man
would need to work seven days a week
for more
than 164,000 YEARS!
That's a long time without a vacation!
The numbers, here, might compare to what
some Enron
officials would need to do to pay off their debts.
Then comes the second servant who owes the first servant
"a
much smaller amount."
That same, older translation specifies this smaller debt as "100 denarius."
Remembering that a denarius was about a day's wage,
this person would need to work a little over 3 MONTHS to work off the debt.
But the first servant refuses to wait the three months and so,
has the other one thrown in jail.
Since this is a parable about God's mercy,
the lesson
here is oh-so-obvious:
the generosity of our God is awesome, prodigious, and beyond our imagining
and if we hope to benefit from such mercy,
we are called to IMITATE it
and certainly not to parcel out our good will, if at all,
like the
ungrateful, miserly piker the first servant was.
Is it possible that many, perhaps most of us,
have not
taken the time to ponder the wideness of God's mercy
because we do not consider ourselves in need of it?
Is it possible that many, perhaps most of us,
have failed
to contemplate the depths of God's mercy
because we do not count ourselves as sinners?
Is it possible that many, perhaps most of us,
have not
marveled at the mercy of God
because we believe our failings to be only small
and not in need of such grace?
It is certainly possible that, in like fashion,
the first
servant in today's gospel passage
threw the other servant in jail
thinking that such mean-spiritedness was a minor transgression
and one that brought with it no small amount of
smug satisfaction and control.
Perhaps the first servant, like us,
thought
that his failing wasn't, after all, all that serious...
These scriptures are about two ends of the spectrum.
On the one end we have the inestimable mercy of God
beyond
the reach of which no sin can strand us.
On the other end we have
our petty
wrath and anger,
our resentments
and grudges,
our hurts,
and the chips on our shoulders.
As the first scripture today reminded us,
"wrath
and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight."
The sin is LESS the wrath and the anger
and MORE
the attention and affection we give them -
attention
and affection we owe to God and our neighbor.
When nourish hard feelings within us,
when we
feed our resentments -
all of this turns us in on ourselves
and diverts our attention away from God,
and away from our neighbor.
The curious thing about forgiving someone else is that the first person who
benefits
from forgiveness is the one who forgives.
Forgiveness first frees the forGIVER from the burden of the offense,
the grudge, the resentment carried.
If my neighbor offends me I carry about the weight of that offense.
My wrath and anger can add to that weight until I carry two burdens.
Letting go frees me and the one who offended me in the first place.
The "letting go" is sometimes instantaneous,
as when
the beloved is offended, and forgiven, by the lover.
Sometimes, however, the original hurt is so great,
the pain
and the anger so deep,
that it
takes years to let go, years to be set free.
Many people struggle with living the kind of forgiveness
Jesus preaches
here.
Many have been so deeply hurt by others
that forgiveness
seems impossible.
(“I find it impossible to forgive:
the
terrorists, the one who abused me, the one who betrayed me,
the one
who hurt the one I love, the one who lied to me,
the one
who was unfaithful to me, the one who defrauded me.")
Sometimes the greatest thing we can do
is to hand
over the offender to God, in prayer, saying,
"Lord, for too long I have carried the burden of this hurt
and the
burdens of anger and shame that came with it.
I do not know how to forgive in this case,
I don't think I can - it seems impossible,
and so
I want to place in your hands
the one
who offended me, the hurt itself,
and all
I have carried on account of it.”
“Heal me, Lord!"
Such a prayer pleases God and satisfied the command to forgive as the Lord
forgives.
We who follow Jesus must seriously consider this parable on God's mercy when
we
consider our response to terrorism and the possibility of a first strike on
Iraq.
We must consider this parable when we think of everyone connected to the crisis
of the abuse of the weak and innocent in our church.
We must consider this parable when we ponder our stance on capital punishment.
We must consider this parable in the stories of our families, our neighborhoods,
our friendship circles, our parish and our community.
No part of the human story falls outside this parable.
This parable does NOT provide an easy or simple answer
to every offense, hurt and conflict,
but for Christians,
it provides
the ONLY STARTING PLACE for DISCERNING
the resolution of every offense, hurt and conflict.
Now, we turn to that table where Jesus has called us, sinners,
since the
night before he died.
Here he nourishes not our hurt or anger
but our
desire to be healed and to be at peace.
Here, like a mother who so freely forgives
the child
of her womb,
here Jesus forgives us who have been born again
from the
womb of our wounded and healing church.
Here, in the bread of life and the cup of salvation,
Jesus forgives us so that we might forgive one another
and that
we might find peace.
-Rev. Austin Fleming
******************************************************************************************
Homily for September 22, 2002
Isaiah 55:6-9
Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a
Matthew 20:1-16a
When my sister and I were children and it came to sharing an extra dessert,
or the last cookie in the jar, or a Snickers Bar, my mother would always
say,
"OK
- one of you gets to cut the candy bar in two,
and the
other one gets to choose first between the two pieces."
Oh, with what precise care and caution one of us would cut that candy bar
in two,
being oh-so-careful
that neither piece was even just a little larger than the other.
In this process, if I'm the one who cuts the candy bar in half I make sure
of two things:
(1) I get what my fair share, and
(2) my sister doesn't get any more than HER fair share.
I got what I believed I deserved and made sure that she didn't' get even a
speck more
than what she deserved.
Something like this is at work in the parable Jesus offers in the gospel today.
Of course the stakes are higher when it's not a candy bar but a day's pay
that's in question.
And in the illustration from my youth, there is only one candy bar to be had.
while in the parable it's clear that the landowner owns the Candy Factory
and can
pass out Snickers Bars to his heart's content!
And there's the rub in the story.
Suppose my mother had two Snickers Bars and promised me and my sister each
one
if we came right home from school. And suppose I get home on time and
my sister
is 15 minutes late. And suppose my mother gives her a Snickers Bar just
the same.
"WELL, WAIT JUST A MINUTE THERE, MOM!"
"You said you'd give us a candy bar if we came right home from school
and Ruthie
came home late. It's just not fair!"
And suppose my mother says,
"Look: I told you I'd give you a Snickers if you came home on time.
You came home
on time and I gave you the Snickers. That's what you and I agreed on. Ruthie's
a little late,
but I've decided to give her one, too. Can't I be a little forgiving and a
little generous
here?" "A LITTLE LATE? She was 15-whole-minutes-late
and you got mad at me
last week when I was FIVE minutes late, and now when SHE'S late -
oh, sure - that's OK - because you always liked her more than me, anyway,
and I knew that and now I really know that because she still gets a candy
bar!"
Of course, my mother wasn't loving my sister-who-was-late MORE
than she
loved me-who-was-on-time.
She was simply loving my sister-who-was-late AS MUCH
as she
loved me-who-was-on-time.
Because my mother's love for each of us was, in the end,
not determined
by what we did or failed to do,
but rather my mother's love for each of us
was simply
her love for each of us
in spite
of what we did or failed to do.
If we have trouble understanding that God loves us
at least
as much as a vineyard owner
might generously over-pay some day laborers,
perhaps we can more easily understand that God loves us
as a mother
loves her children,
not on
account of how they follow her rules -
but simply
because they are her children.
A loving mother does not dole out her love
in proportion
to how her children behave,
unless, of course, she understands that the child who misbehaves
may need
an extra portion of her forgiving, loving care
in order
to be coaxed onto the right path.
In the same way, the Lord, like a mother,
does not
dole out his love in proportion to how we behave,
unless, of course, he sees that some of us who fail
may need
an extra portion of his forgiving, loving care
to coax
us back onto the right path.
It was not by mistake that Jesus so often ate with sinners.
He knew, and he knows, that some of us need an extra portion
of the
loving, forgiving nourishment he offers at his table.
Of one thing we can be sure,
he will
feed each and all of us just what we need,
and to those whose failures have made them more hungry for his mercy
he will
offer an extra helping,
Let us rejoice that he gives each of us what we need,
and all
of us a little more than we deserve - especially when we need it.
- Rev. Austin Fleming
********************************************************************
Homily for September 29, 2002 - Twenty-Sixth Sunday in
Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 18: 25-38
Philippians 2:1-11
Matthew 21:28-32
To get at the story of the two sons in the gospel today,
permit me to tell you the story of one daughter.
I have a young cousin who's a freshman in college in Florida. She recently
e-mailed me a wonderful story about a little girl, Jenny, who saw a gold colored
bracelet at the store and asked her mother if she could have it. Mom told
her that she would have to do some extra chores to earn the money to buy it.
Well, Jenny looked for every opportunity
to earn a little money until she had saved up the $1.95 that she needed to
buy that bracelet.
At the cost of a couple of bucks, it wasn't real gold,
but Jenny loved that bracelet nonetheless!
And she wore it everywhere: to school, to play, to church, and to bed.
But Mom wouldn't let Jenny wear her bracelet in the bathtub for fear that
if it got wet,
it might turn Jenny's wrist green!
One night when Mom was tucking Jenny in bed,
she kissed her good night and asked, "Jenny, do you love me?"
And Jenny said, "Of course, Mommy, you know that I love you."
And Mom said, "Then will you give me your bracelet.
"Oh, Mommy, not my bracelet!
But you can have Princess - the white horse from my collection. The
one with the pink tail. She's my favorite."
"That's okay, honey," said Mom. “I love you.
Good night."
About a week later, at bedtime,
Jenny's Mom asked again, "Do you love me?"
"Mom, you know I love you."
"Then will you give me your bracelet?"
"Oh, no - but you can have my new doll -- the one I got for my birthday."
"That's okay," said Mom. "Sleep well. I love you."
A few nights later when Jenny's Mom came to tuck her in, Jenny was sitting
on her bed with her legs crossed.
As Mom came close, she noticed a silent tear rolling down Jenny's cheek.
"What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"
Jenny didn't say anything
but lifted her little hand up to her mother
and when she opened it, there was her bracelet.
Jenny said, "Here, Mommy, it's for you."
With tears in her own eyes,
Jenny's kind Mom reached out with one hand
to take the dime-store bracelet,
and with the other hand she reached into her pocket
and pulled out a blue velvet case with a 24K gold bracelet and gave
it to Jenny.
She had it all the time.
She was just waiting for Jenny to give up the dime-store stuff so she could
give her a real treasure.
Are we holding onto things which God wants us to let go of? Are we holding
on to harmful or unnecessary
partners, relationships, habits and activities
which we have become so attached to
that it seems impossible to let go?
Sometimes it is so hard to see what else there might be,
what else we might find
if we were to let go of what we so tightly grasp.
Remember St. Paul's words to us this morning:
"Jesus, though was in the form of God
did not deem equality with God something to be grasped..."
he did not hold on to that,
rather he let it go, to the point of death,
and in letting it go he found life.
What were the two sons in the story holding on to?
Did the
one son want an extra day off?
Did he
want to safeguard his laziness?
Did the
other say "yes" just to keep his father happy, knowing full well
he had not intention of doing the work?
What were they afraid to let go of?
What do we tell ourselves, and others, we're going to do- but fail to do?
What do we tell ourselves, and others, we're going to let go of, but still
cling to?
What are we missing my holding on and not letting go?
We go now to the Lord's table
where he gathered his friends on the night before he died, and where he gave
them this meal, the eucharist,
that we might never forget how much he let go of, for us, so that we might
have life, and have it to the full.
We gather under the outstretched arms of Jesus letting go of everything for
us. Nourished by such love, can we do any less?
- Rev. Austin Fleming
**********************************************
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
************************************************************************************************
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
*******************************************************************
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
******************************************************
Homily for 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time - November 3, 2002
Malachi 1:14b--2:2b, 8-10 1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13 Matthew 23:1-12
Malachi, the prophet, speaks for the Lord
and curses those whose failures in ministry
have abused and scandalized the people
and caused many to turn away from the faith.
In the gospel passage, Jesus comes down heavy on religious leaders
who do not practice what they preach;
who burden others without lifting a finger to help them;
and who enjoy exalting themselves,
taking places of honor and accepting signs of respect
of which they are no longer worthy.
Certainly these passages hit home for us in the fall of the year 2002.
These scriptures are a clear indictment of priests and religious leaders
who abuse their office, their people
and the sacred trust that is theirs as ministers of God’s grace.
But sandwiched between the condemnations in Malachi and Matthew,
we find St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians
and offering us respite, consolation, hope,
and a very different image for ministry.
Recall the soothing words that we just heard in the second reading:
“Brothers and sisters:
we were gentle among you,
as a nursing mother cares for her children.
With such affection for you,
we were determined to share with you... day and night...
not wanting to burden any of you...”
Perhaps if we more often imaged ministry in the terms Paul uses here,
we would be much better off in the life we share as God’s people.
“We were as gentle among you
as a nursing mother cares for her children...”
Imagine how it would be were this our primary image for ministry,
for priestly service...
“We were as gentle among you
as a nursing mother cares for her children...”
A nursing mother is the source of her child’s nourishment;
she is food for her child,
her breasts are the table at which her child feeds,
and she is the waiter who serves at that table.
A nursing mother must be available, round the clock.
A nursing mother must respond to insistent cries at inopportune times.
A nursing mother does for her child
what no one else can do in quite the same way.
A nursing mother gathers the one she serves to her breast
and knows an intimacy unlike any other in human experience.
Nursing is not always convenient, or comfortable, or easy or pleasant,
but in the giving and the taking there is, as St. Paul puts it,
an “affection” born of the determination
“to share oneself with another”
as only a mother can share with her child.
How very much the church, whom we often image as our mother,
how very much the church needs this maternal image of ministry
especially when the images of
paternity, power and position,
have been found so devastatingly wanting.
These ancient paternal images
need to be reinterpreted, reformed and redeemed
if they are to continue to serve us in any meaningful fashion.
And at the same time,
we must, as the church, find new ways
to lift up maternal images of ministry and of priestly service:
images of nourishment, intimacy, fidelity and vulnerability.
As a nursing mother is food, table and waiter for her child,
so is the priest called to be the same for God’s people.
This three-fold image of being food, table and waiter
is not my own invention.
It comes from the 14th century,
and as you might guess, it is the genius of a woman,
St. Catherine of Sienna, who wrote this prayer:
“I shall clothe myself in your eternal will,
and by this light I shall come to know
that you, eternal Trinity,
are table and food and waiter for us.
You, eternal Father, are the table
that offers us as food your only-begotten Son.
He is the most exquisite of foods for us,
both in his teaching, which nourishes us in your will,
and in the sacrament we receive in holy communion,
which feeds and strengthen us...
And the Holy Spirit is indeed a waiter for us,
for the Spirit serves us this teaching
by enlightening our mind’s eye with it
and inspiring us to follow it.
And the Spirit serves us charity for our neighbors
and hunger to have as our food.”
We go now, to share that meal where the Lord, like a nursing mother,
is food and table and waiter for us.
May the food we share at this table,
the food the Lord serves us which is his very self,
may this food nourish us to be more faithful ministers
of his teaching
and of that communion we are all called to live
“as gently as a nursing mother cares for her child...”
- Rev. Austin Fleming
**********************************************************************************
Homily for 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A - November 10, 2002
Wisdom 6:12-16
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13
This past week, President Bush said, I think a lot of people are saying, Gosh,
we hope we don't have war. I feel the same way. I
hope we don't have war.
I hope this can be done peacefully. It's up to Saddam Hussein, however, to
make that choice.
Today's scriptures provide a rich context in which we might consider just
who should make the choice about our having
a war with Iraq. Should it be Saddam Hussein? Should
it be President Bush?
Should it be the United States Congress? Should it be the Security Council
of the United Nations?
Indeed, should ANYONE be empowered to make a choice that we should have
a war?
We'll come back to this question in a few moments...
As the commercial world gears up for it's annual sales bonanza, (some
stores are already decorated for Christmas!) the church year is winding down
to its end with reminders of that time when everything will end
and Jesus, the bridegroom, will come to take us, his bride, home to that reign
of peace that has no end.
The scriptures today remind us that those best prepared for the time
when the Lord will return are those who have allowed Wisdom to embrace and
fill them, those who have truly asked to see life, humanity and the world
as God sees them.
In the scriptures, Wisdom is almost always imaged in the feminine and the
proof of having received her gift is that she gives us a vision of life as
God sees it, a vision unimpaired by the cataracts of our selfishness, our
arrogance, our pride and our greed.
Through God's eyes we see that the world belongs to God, it is on loan
to us, entrusted to our care and into our hands. And we will be held accountable
for what we have done with and to creation. In God's eyes love is a law, not
an option and that law of love makes demands on us, particularly when
we have more than we need while others go without even the most basic necessities
of human life.
This is how God sees things and wisdom is seeing things as God sees
them. Foolishness is pretending that our vision is 20/20 and that God needs
bifocals.
The first Christians believed that Jesus, the groom would return soon to meet
his bride, the church, and to take her home with him. As we saw in Paul's
letter today, the first believers saw that Jesus, like the groom in the parable,
was long delayed in his return: in fact, some 2000 year later, we still pray
at each Mass, deliver us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the
coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
That leaves us in the position of the 10 wedding attendants the five wise
and the five foolish, in today's parable. While you and I wait for the Lord
to come, what are we doing?
Are we seeing things with Wisdom?
Are we looking at life through God's eyes?
Do we ask for, do we even want the wisdom to see as God sees?
Do we pray for the wisdom to see as God sees?
to judge
as God judges? to forgive as God forgives?
to love
as God loves? to live as God calls us to live?
... Back now to the question I raised at the beginning of my homily:
Who should be empowered to make a choice that we should have a war?
Is it not curious that as we debate this week the possibility of war in the
middle east, that the gospel of Jesus has, as its primary image,
a comparison of:
who has the OIL?
who needs OIL?
and the consequences of running out of OIL?
Indeed, some things just never change!
Who should be empowered to decide whether or not we have a war.
President Bush? Saddam Hussein?
Congress? the United Nations?
Certainly we must add Wisdom to that list of candidates. And what would Wisdom
tell us? How would she advise us on war in the middle east? How does she see
the nations of the world? What does she want for her children? What does she
ask OF her children? Will she come and find us with our oil lamps burning
brightly, rejoicing that the the Lord, our groom, has come for us,
his bride? Or will she find us in the dark, with blood on our hands and grief
in our hearts.
In the Hebrew scriptures we read that Wisdom builds a home for her children
and sets a table where she feeds them. In the Christian scriptures, the Jesus
is our wisdom, and like Wisdom, like a mother, he gathers us, the household
of his love, and feeds us from his breast, with the sacrament which
is his body, and with the milk which is his blood.
And let us pray, then, and hope that we don't have war, that this can
be done peacefully as it will be if we allow nothing less than the Wisdom
of God to be the one who makes the choice.
- Rev. Austin Fleming
***********************************************************************************************************
Homily for 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A - November 17, 2002
Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31
1 Thessalonians 5:1-6
Matthew 25:14-30
A few weeks ago, a group of Canadian Catholics spoke in opposition to the
church’s rule about celibacy for priests. This group of Catholics is
concerned because in their part of Canada there are parishes where Mass is
only celebrated three of four times a year, and they claim that one very significant
reason for the drop in vocations is the celibacy requirement.
This vocal group of Catholic Canadians wants change in the system, and they
see the celibacy rule as one of the first things that needs to be changed.
Who are these Canadians?
The group I refer to consists entirely of the Roman Catholic bishops of the
seven dioceses comprising the northern two-thirds of Canada. They made their
case in October at the annual meeting of the Canadian Conference of Catholic
Bishops.
Unlike the third man in the parable in today’s gospel, these
bishops have not, out of fear, dug a hole in the ground, to bury, for
safe keeping, what was entrusted to them.
No, these are bishops who want, desperately, to take what they’ve
been given and to make it into something more than they originally received.
These are bishops who see that their people are hungry - hungry for
the eucharist - for the food of the Lord’s Supper which they are being
denied, in large measure, because the Roman Catholic church has chosen to
say that the question of a married clergyis simply not open to discussion.
In the meantime they, and we, are told to pray for vocations.
You know, I’ll bet that the third man in the parable who buried
his one talent in a hole in the ground actually did some praying about it
after he buried it.
He acknowledges that he knew his master was a demanding person,and that even
as he dug the hole he was afraid of what the master might think. I’ll
bet that as he dug he prayed, that something good might come of his fear.
But rather than do something fruitful and beneficial with what had been entrusted
to him, he BURIED it, for safe keeping, and prayed about it.
How much has the leadership of our church buried for safekeeping?
How much has our leadership failed to work with the realities of our time,
to trade, to invest, to bring to harvest the heritage entrusted to them? How
much of our heritage as Catholics is drying up in OUR hands, yours and mine,
because we have allowed it to be buried out of fear? How much does the silence
and the inaction of millions of Catholic people make them complicit in the
burial of spiritual treasures that we may one day find ourselves unable to
pass on future generations?
Last week our American bishops met in their annual fall session. The
news reports showed us a hotel ballroom filled with men seated at long conference
tables. All men - everyone in a Roman collar. No women at all were given a
voice or a vote. No lay men, either. Not a married person in the
bunch; not one parent among them.
The majority of the membership of the church in the United States, the
baptized, lay faithful, had no say in what was traded, what was invested,
what was preserved or what was buried at the bishops meeting this past week.
Unlike the Catholic people of northern Canada (and many other parts of the
world as well) we take it for granted that Mass is celebrated here, in this
church, not four times a year, but four times EVERY WEEKEND.
We take it for granted that the same thing happens just a few miles
away at St. Bridget’s in Maynard, at St. Elizabeth’s in Acton
and at St. Bernard’s in Concord center.
But the time will come, in our life time, when three priests will be
available to serve the five parishes of the Concord Cluster, and eventually
fewer than three for the five parishes. And then, because some things will
have been buried, out of fear, we, like our brothers and sisters to the north,
will no longer be able to take the frequency of Sunday Mass for granted.
Before the Master returns, before fear and a desire for safekeeping bury
the sacraments out of our reach, too, before we lose what has been entrusted
to our care, we need to let our voices be hear. In prayer? Yes!
But not just in prayer, in protest, too, speaking out like the Roman Catholic
bishops in Canada.
May the food of the Lord’s table which is readily available to
us now make us as wise and productive as the woman in the book of Proverbs
and may we, like her, be praised at the city gates because in our safekeeping
we did not allow anyone to bury our spiritual gifts but, like faithful, loyal
servants, we saw to it that they were traded and invested and nurtured to
a ripe harvest for the mission of the Catholic church which you and I love
and for the sake of the world our church is called to serve.
Rev. Austin Fleming
**************************************************************************************
Homily for Solemnity of Christ the King - November 24, 2002
Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
Matthew 25:31-46
About once a month,
the company
that prints our Sunday bulletin
sends us
a sample copy of the bulletins
from another
dozen-or-so parishes
to provide
the parishes they serve with new ideas.
Our monthly sample arrived this week
and I was
taken by the letter one pastor wrote to his parish
in which
he roundly condemned two incidents of anti-Semitic graffiti
at a local
synagogue and a public school
in the
city his parish serves.
He wrote of his absolute horror and disgust
and condemned
these actions as
deplorable acts of hatred and bigotry.
He wrote that no follower of Jesus Christ could ever condone or excuse
this type of scandalous behavior.
I was less taken, however, by another paragraph in the same letter
in which
the same pastor wrote:
Thanksgiving is fast approaching
and it would be nice to remember those less fortunate than ourselves during
this time of celebration.
What’s wrong with that statement?
These words:
It would be nice..
In the Christian scheme of living,
remembering those who are less fortunate than we
is not a matter of being nice.
No.
As Jesus says so pointedly in the gospel today,
caring
for the poor, the sick and the marginalized
is much more than a matter of being nice.
But rather, caring for those in need
is the
work on which our eternal salvation hangs.
If we take this truth for granted,
we do so
at our own peril.
It was two weeks ago when I saw on television
the first
of the Christmas shopping ads for this approaching season.
I groaned out loud when I saw it.
And then, I thought,
How sad
that I should groan at the approach of Christmas!
But it’s not Christmas that I dread,
It’s
all the stuff AROUND Christmas
stuff that steals our time,
drains our emotions,
empties our checking accounts,
touches our most sensitive memories and hurts,
builds unattainable expectations,
and leaves many of us feeling, on December 26,
depleted, deflated and despondent.
I believe it would be fair to say that about 95% of what we identify
as Christmas
and Christmas spirit has little to do with Christ whose birthday we celebrate.
Do I sound like the Grinch?
I don’t mean to, honestly!
I have
no desire to take away whatever is good and joyous
about the
ways in which we celebrate this season.
My JOB, however,
is to take
us at least one step beyond believing
that we
can, as Christians, be satisfied with thinking that
it would be nice to remember the less fortunate
during the coming holidays.
My job is to remind us
that how
we respond to those in need
is the
ONLY standard Jesus proposes
as the measure against which he will judge us
as fit or unfit for eternal life.
This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving,
a day on
which our nation pauses
to be grateful
for what we have.
But will we even take a breath
between
the turkey and the pigskin
to sit and ponder, and to thank God for,
all that they have?
How will we call ourselves, our families and our friends,
this Thanksgiving,
to name what we are grateful for?
How might these coming weeks, the holidays
be a time
for us
to seek out the lost in our families and neighborhoods;
to reach out to those
who have strayed from our families and church;
to heal those whose feelings we have injured;
to feed the hungry;
to welcome the stranger and newcomer;
to clothe those who dress in rags;
to reach out to the sick and those in prison?
To ponder these needs and to respond to them
is more
than something nice to do.
is precisely what the Lord expects of us
who
bear his name as Christians.
The word eucharist actually means thanksgiving.
Our weekly table of eucharist, then,
is a weekly
thanksgiving celebration.
Here, in the bread and cup of the Lord’s supper,
the Lord
reaches out to us in our need
precisely
to heal us,
to be with us, satisfy our hunger and slake our thirst,
to comfort us,
and to
nourish us for doing the same for him
as he lives
among the least of our sisters and brothers.
Rev. Austin Fleming
*********************************************************************
Homily for Solemnity of Christ the King - November 24, 2002
Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
Matthew 25:31-46
About once a month, the company that prints our Sunday bulletin sends us a
sample copy of the bulletins from another dozen-or-so parish to provide the
parishes they serve with new ideas.
Our monthly sample arrived this week and I was taken by the letter one pastor
wrote to his parish in which he roundly condemned two incidents of anti-Semitic
graffiti at a local synagogue and a public school in the city his parish serves.
He wrote of his absolute horror and disgust and condemned these actions
as deplorable acts of hatred and bigotry. He wrote that no follower
of Jesus Christ could ever condone or excuse this type of scandalous behavior.
I was less taken, however, by another paragraph in the same letter in which
the same pastor wrote: Thanksgiving is fast approaching and it would be nice
to remember those less fortunate than ourselves during this time of
celebration.
What’s wrong with that statement?
These words:
It would be nice..
In the Christian scheme of living remembering those who are less fortunate
than we is not a matter of being nice. No.
As Jesus says so pointedly in the gospel today, caring for the poor, the sick
and the marginalized is much more than a matter of being nice. But rather,
caring for those in need is the work on which our eternal salvation
hangs. If we take this truth for granted, we do so at our own peril.
It was two weeks ago when I saw on television the first of the Christmas shopping
ads for this approaching season. I groaned out loud when I saw it.
And then, I thought, How sad that I should groan at the approach of Christmas!
But it’s not Christmas that I dread, It’s all the stuff
AROUND Christmas; stuff that steals our time, drains our emotions, empties
our checking accounts, touches our most sensitive memories and hurts,
builds unattainable expectations, and leaves many of us feeling, on
December 26, depleted, deflated and despondent.
I believe it would be fair to say that about 95% of what we identify as Christmas
and Christmas spirit has little to do with Christ whose birthday we celebrate.
Do I sound like the Grinch? I don’t mean to, honestly!
I have no desire to take away whatever is good and joyous about the ways
in which we celebrate this season.
My JOB, however, is to take us at least one step beyond believing that we
can, as Christians, be satisfied with thinking that it would be nice
to remember the less fortunate during the coming holidays.
My job is to remind us that how we respond to those in need is the
ONLY standard Jesus proposes as the measure against which he will judge us
as fit or unfit for eternal life.
This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving, a day on which our nation pauses
to be grateful for what we have. But will we even take a breath between
the turkey and the pigskin to sit and ponder, and to thank God for, all that
they have?
How will we call ourselves, our families and our friends, this Thanksgiving,
to name what we are grateful for?
How might these coming weeks, the holidays, be a time for us to seek out the
lost in our families and neighborhoods; to reach out to those who have
strayed from our families and church; to heal those whose feelings we have
injured; to feed the hungry; to welcome the stranger and newcomer; to clothe
those who dress in rags; to reach out to the sick and those in prison?
To ponder these needs and to respond to them is more than something nice to
do. It is precisely what the
Lord expects of us who bear his name as Christians.
The word eucharist actually means thanksgiving. Our weekly table of
eucharist, then, is a weekly thanksgiving celebration.
Here, in the bread and cup of the Lord’s supper, the Lord reaches out
to us in our need precisely to heal us, to be with us, satisfy
our hunger and slake our thirst, to comfort us, and to nourish us for doing
the same for him as he lives among the least of our sisters and brothers.
- Rev. Austin Fleming
******************************************
Homily for December 8, 2002 - Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 2 Peter 3:8-14 Mark 1: 1-8
What a week this has been!
I’d like to address some of what has happened in the past week,
but I know that many parents are concerned, justly so, about the issues I
address publicly in my preaching within their children’s hearing.
So! I’m going to speak to the boys and girls here this
morning and invite the grown-ups to read between the lines.
Boys and girls, I want to tell you about a wonderful bishop who lived a long
time ago. In fact, he was born in the 280. Now, this is the year
2002, so you can see how long ago this bishop lived. He was born on
the Mediterranean coast and he was the bishop of Myra. This great
bishop’s name came from two Greek words: laos and nike (pronounced
nee-kay). You may not know what laos means but if I pronounced nike
as an English word, it would sound like nigh-kee. So, how many of you
are wearing Nike shoes? Do you know what the name of your sneakers means?
It means, in Greek: victory! And laos means, in Greek: people!
Nike-laos: victory for the people! And those two words come together
and make this bishop’s name: Nicholas! So Bishop Nicholas
name means, one who is victorious with and for the people.
Bishop Nicholas is a patron saint of sailors
because on a voyage at sea once a terrible storm threatened the lives of all
aboard the boat. In the middle of the story times, the crew,
very much afraid, came to Bishop Nicholas and asked for his help. So
Bishop Nicholas prayed with them right through the storm, until the sea grew
calm. His prayer had rescued the sailors from their time of danger.
Bishop
Nicholas is also the saint from whom we trace the origins of Santa Claus.
Our name, Santa Claus, is a contraction Saint Nicholas! If you say Saint
Nicholas one hundred times, really fast, by the time you get to 100, Saint
Nicholas will sound like Santa Claus.
Bishop
Nicholas was, himself, an orphan who had a special love for children, and
a very special love for poor children. The story is told of a very poor
family who had no money at all. The parents were so poor they were considering
selling one of their children to get some money so that they could feed their
other children. Bishop Nicholas heard about this and he feared, rightly
so, that the child would be sold into the abuse of prostitution. So,
in the middle of the night he went to the house of this family and threw a
bag of gold coins through the window. In fact, he did this three times
to be sure that the family had enough money and would not have to sell their
children
On the
third night, the father heard the coins spill on the floor and he ran out
to see who was helping his family. He saw Bishop Nicholas but the bishop
asked the father not to tell anyone where the money he came from - he was
only interested in keeping the children safe. Caring for the poor, all
of the time, was something Bishop Nicholas was known for.
Sometimes
I wish that Bishop Nicholas would still come and throw bags of gold coins
in our windows! But every year at Christmas, in the middle of the night
- (here, I held up a large, stuffed, red and white Christmas stocking)
someone comes and fills our stockings with gifts, reminding us of that
good bishop who wanted to keep his good deeds secret, under the cover of night.
Perhaps
you’ve never seen a bishop. Well, a bishop wears a funny hat!
(Here, I held up a bishop’s miter, white with read trim and decoration.)
Now, it took a few hundred years I’m sure, but slowly and surely, the
bishop’s miter morphed into - (Here, I held up, next to the miter,
the traditional Santa’s cap, also conical in shape, red and white in
color) - Santa’s hat!
A bishop
carries a shepherd’s staff which is called a crosier. Now Santa
doesn’t carry a staff, but shepherds do, and good bishops are like shepherds,
who guide and protect their people through stormy times, and who rescue them
from danger. Remember today’s first scripture? Isaiah the
prophet wrote of the Lord coming like a shepherd who feeds his flock, who
gathers the lambs in his arms, carrying them and leading them with great care.
The good bishop, like Bishop Nicholas, is the shepherd who wins victory for
his people so that they can find comfort and forgiveness and peace.
We have
a custom in our parish, that on the Sunday nearest St. Nicholas Day, December
6, we give out candy canes. The candy cane can remind us of the shepherd’s
crook, with which the shepherd leads and guides his sheep to comfort and to
victory.
Of course, the real shepherd of us all
is not any particular bishop but it is Jesus! And if you turn the cane
upside down, it becomes a J which is Jesus initial. Someone even told
me after the 7:30 Mass that if you turn the cane on its side, it looks like
the runner on a sleigh - and we know who arrives in a sleigh!
I hope
all of the boys and girls here today, from 6 to 60, will take a candy cane
home with you today to remind you of good Bishop Nicholas, and of Jesus who
is our shepherd and whose birthday we are preparing to celebrate.
We go to
our shepherd’s table now, the table of Jesus, where he not only invites
us to be close to him - he truly gives himself to us in the sacrament of his
body and blood. Like a shepherd Jesus feeds us and guides us.
He stays with us through the stormy times. He ransoms us when we need
to be rescued, and he gathers us into the pure love of his arms, into the
sweet tenderness of his embrace.
Rev. Austin Fleming
******************************
Homily for Third Sunday of Advent - December 15, 2002
Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
Rejoice always!
So writes St. Paul.
Always?
Well, that’s what Paul counsels us.
How about this week just past -
should we rejoice over the resignation of Cardinal Law?
I, for one, do not take any joy in his resignation.
I do find some measure of relief in his leaving, and the events of the past
week do give me some hope that we
have taken an important step down a long path of healing, reconciliation,
justice, compassion, and much needed change.
But I do not rejoice in the cardinal’s resignation. In fact, I
know that I need to be careful in these angry times not to nourish
bitterness or resentment in my heart - something that tempts me often these
days.Rather, I need to look at myself, at my own life as a Christian
and as a minister of the gospel,
and, as St. Paul also counsels us,
“to test everything:
retaining
what is good,
and refraining
from what is not.
If we are learning anything from the current events in church life it is this:
that in preaching the gospel there
must be:
no tolerance of arrogance;
no appetite for control;
no thirst for power; and
no secrets kept
to hide from the larger church
what is very much the business of the larger church.
Rather, there must be a fostering of humility; a surrender of control that
tries to manage the people of God rather than minister to them;
a relinquishing of power that it might be shared with the powerless;
and a transparency that strips away anything that covers what must be held
up to the light of the gospel message.
I say all of this as much of myself and the ministry of our own parish as
I say it of Cardinal Law and, now, Bishop Lennon
and the Archdiocese of Boston, as I say it of the Pope and
of the whole Roman Catholic Church.
Isaiah the prophet was delighted simply to have good news to bring to the
poor,
to have healing to bring to the brokenhearted,
to be able to proclaim liberty to those who were held captive,
release to those who where shackled,
and the promise of God’s favor in the lives of the
whole people.
John the Baptist was thought by many to be one more crack pot announcing the
coming of the Messiah. Only those who understood his call for repentance
took him seriously;
only those who understood that in their own hearts there needed to be
cleared a road,
a path along which the Messiah might make his way into their lives.
The joy in Isaiah’s heart and the rejoicing that Paul tells we should
do - always -
is a joy which does not depend on yesterday’s news or today’s
stock market,
or tomorrow’s weather.
Rather, it is a joy that survives the worst of times and lifts us up in the
best of times.
Joseph Campbell, of public television fame, spent his life studying the world’s
religions.
He summarized the goal of all faiths and mythologies in these words:
“to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.”
To participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world...
That is, to confront and reach out in healing to the sorrows around us
confident that sorrow will not have the final word, that
despair will not win out,
that the deepest of wounds can be healed.
As we approach Christmas this year we do so mindful of much sorrow,
of damage done to souls, and of faith shaken and rocked.
We must look and pray for that deeper joy, the joy that helps us wade
into the waters
of the world’s sorrows trusting that we will not drown in them
and that, indeed, we can reach out in
rescue to those who have lost the joy that saves us from despair.
Our church, like all faiths, is meant to help us participate joyfully in the
sorrows of
the world. And in these days, we need God’s grace to help us reach
out to the sorrows of the abused, and to participate joyfully in a faith
shaken by the sorrows of its own story.
Isaiah promised the people of Israel a healing and liberty they thought to
good to be true.
St. Paul calls us to a kind of joy which many may think has passed them by.
John the Baptist calls us to a repentance that roots out what inhibits the
deepest joy
and clears a path for the joy that only God can give us.
Each time we celebrate the eucharist we participate joyfully in the
suffering and death of Jesus, and through Jesus,
we participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
May the healing and favor he offers us in the sacrament of this altar
nourish in us a deep joy and a healing peace we can offer to those whose sorrows
have become our own.
Rev. Austin Fleming
****************************************************************************************
Homily for Fourth Sunday of Advent - B
December 22, 2002
About a month ago, in my letter in the bulletin,
I invited you to respond to this question:
“What continues to
draw you to Mass at Our Lady Parish
at a time when many Catholics have
decided
not to worship with the church
on the Lord’s Day?”
I have received nearly 100 replies to that question,
the greatest response I’ve received to anything in
the last 8 years.
In the responses I received there was the recurring theme
that people are faithful to Sunday worship in our parish
because they find here a family, a community,
in which the scriptures are preached in a compelling fashion,
in which outreach to the poor enjoys a high priority,
in which the praise of God is offered up in beautiful music,
in which the company of other believers
offers support and encouragement,
and in which the table of the Lord offers the gift of the
eucharist.
The family, the community people find in our parish
is like the house or the household of faith
in today’s first scripture.
To the people of Israel God promised a household of faith
to which he would be faithful
and in which he would fulfill his promises.
In Jesus, the doors of that household are opened even wider,
inviting in all who would answer the call of faith.
In the gospel today, we read how Jesus took up residence
in the “house of Mary’s womb.”
It is either fascinating or predictable - or both! -
that God should choose to enter our lives
by confining himself,
the One to whom all power and might
belong,
by confining himself to the intimacy of a woman’s
womb,
and by nestling himself against the nourishing warmth of
her breasts
once he was born of her body.
We read that
Mary, the mother of Jesus,
was startled and frightened by this prospect
but we, perhaps, have come to take it for granted,
as we sometimes take Jesus for granted.
The danger in our God’s coming among us as a poor child is that,
like so many other poor children throughout history,
he might get lost in the shuffle,
forgotten
and abandoned, taken for granted.
The image of “house” is not only in the scriptures.
In one of our favorite seasonal classics we read,
“T’was the night before Christmas and all through
the - house -
not a creature was stirring, not
even a mouse...”
We all hope that Saint Nicholas will visit our house...
In fact, we are willing to reform our lives
in preparation for his coming:
“He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re
awake,
He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’
sake...”
In anticipation of the gifts St. Nicholas might bring to our households,
we are willing to work at being “good for the sake
of being good...”
Not just on Christmas, but every day of the year,
Jesus wants to visit our house:
the house of our parish,
the household of faith,
the house of our family,
and the house of our own hearts.
Every day of the year,
Jesus wants to confine himself to the womb of our hearts
and to nestle himself warmly and close to us
in an intimacy that may at first startle and frighten us
but an intimacy which is meant only to bring us peace,
and to nurture in us a deeper hunger for his presence.
Over the next few days we will be making our homes ready
to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Bethlehem means “house of bread”
and we are gathered in the house of God’s people
right now
to share in the bread of his house, and the cup of his
table,
with which he nourishes us, his household, his family of
faith.
May the food we share at this table
open our hearts to his being born within us, and from us.
Rev. Austin Fleming
**********************************************************************
Homily for Christmas 2002
There was a certain danger about the birth of Jesus,
in God’s venturing into time as we know it,
a danger that the One who is beyond all time, who is eternal,
for whom yesterday and now and tomorrow are all one
a danger that God, in becoming one like us long ago,
might one day in the future be forgotten,
or remembered only as an historical
curiosity.
Indeed, there are people in our lives
whom we only remember on their birthday or at Christmas,
and of course there are those who only remember Jesus
on Christmas which is his birthday.
The was a danger in God’s coming among us as a poor child,
a danger that Jesus, like other poor children,
might be taken for granted,
get lost
in the shuffle, or be abandoned.
And how tragically we have learned in this past year
how easily children can be taken for granted...
There was a danger in the pure unity of humanity and divinity in Jesus,
a danger that we would prefer his divinity to his humanity
and place him, like a statue, on
a pedestal
and somehow miss the whole point
that it is in his humanity
and in our relationships with one another
that we will most easily discover
his presence among us.
We bow to what has been cast in plaster
and are numb to his shoulder pressed tight against our
own
in a crowded church or in the press
of crowds at the mall.
There was a danger in Jesus being born
in obscurity, in poverty, in confusion, in fear, in homelessness
-
a danger that we would sanitize all of that,
make it warm and glowing,
and not come to understand that
in all ages, including our own,
Jesus continues to reveal himself especially
among the marginalized, the poor,
the frightened
and the homeless.
There was a danger in Jesus’ being born
in a time when the world was at peace,
a danger that we might come to think that peace is his work,
and not understand that the crafting, the making
and the keeping of peace is our
work
entrusted,
especially, to us who believe in him,
who follow
him, and who celebrate his birth.
There was a danger in God becoming one like us in Jesus,
a danger that we would not “get it,”
that we would misunderstand, that we would turn it
inside out,
that the season of celebrating his birth would become,
as Dickens wrote,
“a time of want felt keenly
by the poor
and a time
of rejoicing for those with plenty...”
...all upside down, backwards and inside out...
Listening to a radio talk show early this morning
I heard one caller, an atheist,
complain about all the Christmas
hoopla
through which he was expected to
live at this time of year.
A subsequent caller took the atheist to task
reminding him of how important Christmas is for the retail
economy
and that without it we would be in danger
of even deeper fiscal trouble.
Nonsense!
Take away Christmas
and we will find another reason for the season of spending,
another reason for spending too much money
on things that are passing, things that do not last,
and very often on things that do
not matter at all.
So much of our Christmas celebration does not depend on Jesus at all
and, in fact, has little to do with Jesus.
And therein lies the blessing in all the danger.
If we are willing to contemplate seriously and prayerfully and honestly
the danger of how God chose to come among us
we will find a well spring of grace in what is left
when pare away all that we have done
to hide the dangerous beauty of
our God taking flesh
and choosing
to live among us, and even within us.
This past year our own faith tradition,
especially in the archdiocese of Boston,
has had cause to examine carefully how dangerously careless
how tragically thoughtless we can be
in living with, touching, the incarnate presence
of God among us.
I hope, I pray that we have learned that in the mind and heart of God
the offer of grace is always in the now, and just ahead
of us,
and is offered to free us any ways
in the past
when we
have put the institution before people,
prestige before honesty,
and favor before law.
How much we need, this Christmas,
to contemplate the innocence,
the purity, the vulnerability of
the Christ child
and to know that every time we care for a child
we care for Christ himself,
and every tim