21st Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle “C” August 21, 2022

 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time   Cycle “C”        August 21, 2022

 Do you remember the responsorial psalm we just sang?   If you are like me and have a very short attention span, you may have forgotten it.  So let me remind you.   “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.”   I like that because it is positive.   In this time of difficulties, woes and strife, we can certainly use some Good News.  Would you agree?  So it is good for us to sing, “Go out to all the World and tell the Good News.”

People really, really need to hear good news.  There is so much bad and depressing and sad news that it gets us down, makes us sad, and even irritable and angry.  Have you experienced that?   Of course you have. 

But to go out and tell the Good News you first of all have to hear the Good News.  Have you heard it?   Not just with your ears, but with your mind, and your heart, and even with your guts.  You have to invite in the Good News to come and live and thrive and flourish in you.  That is much more than just passive listening.  You have to open the ears of your heart and actively listen. 

Listening is not easy.  Listening is work.  It means pushing aside distractions, focusing on the Word of God, opening and being receptive to whatever God wants to tell you and not go through the agenda of things you want God to do.  And that sort of listening takes work.

It takes discipline.  Our second reading today, from the Letter to the Hebrews, tells us “do not disdain the discipline of the Lord.”  The Letter to the Hebrews instructs us: “At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” 

You need the discipline of quieting your concerns, your thoughts, your impulses, to rather attend to the Lord and listen.  //  Listen. 

And when you listen, and you hear the Good News of God’s love for you, and for every person on earth, and take that Good News into the core of your being, then you can, as our Psalm Response says, “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.”  

This is not only, nor even primarily, a verbal telling of the Good News,  Much more powerful and effective is a silent telling of the Good News by living it out.  You need to look and act like you have heard Good News, the Good News of God’s saving Love for us in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. 

You should look and act with such conviction of God’s overwhelming love for you and for every person that other people will wonder what is up with you, what motivates you, what are you on? 

Because the Love of God, when you truly realize it, and genuinely live it, is a high.  The people I have known, who truly love God, radiate that Good News.  They shine.  They are illuminated.

Brothers and Sisters, there is lots and lots of BAD NEWS out there: in the world, in the Church, maybe in your neighborhood and your own family.  You don’t need to go looking for it.   It will come seek you out.  There is no shortage of bad news.

But we have GOOD NEWS.  The Good News of God’s love for each of us, and all of us together, in Jesus Christ.  And we have the privilege, and the responsibility, of proclaiming that Good News by our lives.  “So strengthen your drooping hand and your weak knees.  Make straight paths for your feet.”   Take to heart our Psalm response today:  “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.”               God bless! 

HOMILY Nineteenth Sunday of Ord Time Cycle C Aug 8, 2022

 HOMILY   Nineteenth Sunday of Ord Time  Cycle C  Aug 8, 2022

 If you are a fan of horror films, which I am not, you may have come across the phrase, “Be afraid.  Be very afraid.”  Anyone ever heard that?     

Unfortunately, you do not have to watch horror movies to have this sentiment.  All you have to do is watch the news, which I contend is much scarier than any fictitious film.  Inflation, recession, monkey pox, war in Ukraine with the ominous shadow of nuclear war, runaway climate change with drought, endless days of triple digits, huge floods in the mid-West and Kentucky, growing tensions with China, widening splits in the Church, increasing violence and crime, …and oh yes, Covid.  It sounds sensible and realistic to be afraid, be very afraid.

However, Jesus, Who knows all about this stuff, in the first line of our Gospel today states: “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock…”  

Why, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, does Jesus instruct us to not be afraid?   Is Jesus out of touch, overly optimistic, not based in reality?  No.   Jesus tells us why we are not to be afraid in the very next line: “for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.”

The Father is pleased to give us, all of us, the kingdom.

I would like you to note two things:  First, the reason we can let go of fear is not anything that we have done.  It is not anything that we accomplish.  It is not our doing.  It is totally because of God.  “your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.”  We cannot accomplish this, but neither can we screw this up. It doesn’t depend on us.  It depends on God.

Secondly, what the Father gives us is not any limited, partial, temporary benefit, something that will fade and pass, but rather the kingdom, the kingdom of God which lasts for all eternity. 

          God’s Kingdom is indestructible and enduring.  And the Father is please to give us the kingdom.  So says Jesus.

While this is wonderful, and totally is God’s gracious gift, it does require a response from us: a response of trust and hope.  Jesus tells us to start living the Kingdom of God.  “Sell your belongings and give alms.”   Jesus radically calls us to make real our hope, not in the things of this world, but in the promise of God.

Jesus goes on: “Gird your loins and light your lamps…”   OK.  ¿Are your loins girded?  Or girt?   What does this mean?  The NRSV translates this as “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.”  Girding your loins has to do with the long robe people wore in the time of Jesus.  Girding your loins means to tuck up the bottom of your robe into your belt so that you can move more freely and quickly.  Maybe you have seen me pick up the bottom of my robe when I go up or down steps to that I don’t trip on it.  Girding your loins means getting ready for action.

The point here is that we cannot simply sit on our virtues and wait for God’s Kingdom to come along on its own.  Jesus tells us “Blessed are those servants (that is us, we are the servants), Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.”

To be vigilant means to be prepared and ready for action; the action of building up the Kingdom of God.  And that starts by not living in fear, but rather living in hope.

Fear is very real and prevalent in our world today.  So many people turn to hate, to division, to drugs and alcohol, to violence and acting out, to crazy conspiracy theories.  At the root of this self-destructive behavior is fear.  People are very afraid, afraid that they are irrelevant, that they don’t matter, that they have no say or control over their future.  So they hate and kill and destroy to make themselves feel potent,    that they matter.

But Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock…”  

We have to do something about that.  Not by our words, but by our actions, living out our faith that God is pleased to give us the Kingdom:   the Kingdom of righteousness, the Kingdom of compassion, the Kingdom of truth, the Kingdom of love.  God’s Kingdom. 

So gird your loins for action.  Light your lamps against the darkness of cynicism and despair.  Let your light shine.  And know that in doing so you are truly blessed.  AMEN.