Homily Sixth Sunday of Easter May 5, 2024

 Sixth Sunday of Easter    May 5, 2024            Homily

The Scriptures today, among other themes, contain the theme of CHOOSING, or CHOICE. 

Making choices is something we do all the time.  Mostly small choices.   Regular or decaf?   Vanilla or chocolate?  ABC, NBC or CBS news?  *  Making choices can be fun.  Or it can be difficult, even painful, especially if the consequences of choosing are serious. 

For the most important choices of life, for our eternal relationship with God, who does the choosing?   Naturally we think that we make the choice.  But that is not so.  Our Gospel today clearly has Jesus declare: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”

Our relationship with Jesus Christ is not a choice we made.  Rather Jesus chose YOU.  And ME.  We have been chosen by The Lord to be His Disciples.  As Jesus says in the Gospel today: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.”  

So, if you think that you chose Jesus, and chose to be a follow Christ, get over it. 

You have been chosen, and you have not been chosen because of your stellar character, nor your moral uprightness, nor your good looks, nor any quality of yourself, but because Jesus Christ chose you to go and bear fruit that will last.  You have been chosen to do something, to accomplish something, to “go and bear fruit that will remain.”

How you respond to being chosen is up to you, but Christ Jesus does the choosing, not us.

Well, who gets chosen?  The morally upright?  The good people?  Those with the right spiritual pedigree?  Nope. 

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In our first reading today St Peter and some fellow disciples go to the house of Cornelius, who is NOT Jewish, but a Gentile.  One of those others, the pagans.  One of “them.” 

Peter is urged in a vision to go there, and once there, Peter preaches, and the Holy Spirit comes down on all who were listening, and the pagans begin to glorify God and exult in tongues.  And our Scripture reading states: “The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit would have been poured out on the Gentiles also.”  Why were they astounded?  Because the Holy Spirit was choosing people that they would never have considered, much less chosen.  But the Holy Spirit is not confined to our criteria, our likes and dis-likes. 

The Holy Spirit is very independent, and frankly, a little contrarian. 

Those that are chosen by the Holy Spirit may very well not be the ones we would have picked.  The uncircumcised pagans didn’t follow all the rules, they had many gods, they ate pork, they didn’t know the law, they spoke a different language.  They were different. 

None-the-less, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word, and the gentiles began speaking in tongues and glorifying God.  //

We do not decide who gets chosen.  It may be immigrants.  It may be Q-Anon devotees.  It may be Aggies.  Whatever, it is the Holy Spirit, not us, who chooses. 

 

Finally, how are we to respond when we are chosen?  Should we feel good about ourselves?  Smugly wait for our redemption?  Let everyone else know that we are among the favored chosen?    Of course not.

THREE                THREE                THREE                        April 05, 2024

 

Jesus tells us what we are to do.  “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, …”  If you are indeed chosen then you have been given a commission, an appointment, a job to do.  Namely, “to go and bear fruit that will remain..” 

The fruits of the Holy Spirit, according to St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians are: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-3).   This is the fruit that remains.  That is what we are to produce.  So be fruitful!

 

And then Jesus sums up the whole reality of being chosen in a succinct statement: “This I command you: love one another.”  That is the essence of being chosen.  Love one another.   AMEN. 

 

Homily ASCENSION SUNDAY May 12, 2024

 Homily   ASCENSION SUNDAY       May 12, 2024

 DIVERSE versus DIVISIVE?

In our second reading today, on the Feast of the Ascension, we hear from St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.  It starts off with Paul saying, “I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, …”  So, Paul is in prison.  Scripture scholars think that Paul is writing this from prison in Rome, somewhere around 61 to 63 AD.  Or CE for the more relevant.  In any case, we know how Paul’s imprisonment in Rome ended, by his being beheaded with a sword.  Hence Paul holds a sword in his statue up there.  Therefore, this is near the end of his life.

And what kind of life does Paul urge the Ephesians, and also us, to live?  He says “I…urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, …” 

Humility, gentleness, patience.   Hmmm.  Doesn’t sound particularly Texan to me.  But then again, humility, gentleness, patience don’t sound particularly like New York values either.  And frankly, it doesn’t sound an awful lot like St Paul. 

Maybe Paul mellowed towards the end of his life. 

Perhaps, but Paul’s great concern through this passage, and through his Letter to the Ephesians and hence to us here today, is UNITY.     Paul stresses humility, gentleness and patience as “bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:  one body and one Spirit, … one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all the through all and in all.“

 

This Pauline emphasis on UNITY is very appropriate for today’s Feast of the Ascension.  Because with the Ascension Christ is gone from us in a particular and concrete way.  We could say Jesus is gone in His physical, though resurrected, body.  Therefore, we need to be Christ’s Body in the world at work today. 

Essential for our effectively being the Body of Christ in the world here and now, is our UNITY.  St. Paul stresses unity not simply for its own sake, but so that we can truly be the Body of Christ in Austin and Texas in 2024.  Only “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:” can we truly be and act as the Body of Christ to people today.

Humility, gentleness and patience may not be values stressed and encouraged by our society and culture.  But humility, gentleness and patience are necessary for us to truly be who we are called to be, the Body of Christ, serving in His name. 

Each of us has a particular and unique call to serve as a Member of the Body of Christ.  St. Paul tells us: “And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others a evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the  body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, …, to the extent of the full stature of Christ.”  

St Paul is stretching for language here to speak of the ultimate goal of our being a Christian community.   In calling for unity Paul is NOT calling for uniformity, for all to be the same.  Quite the opposite.  Paul sees that we each have different, and complimentary, gifts.  He says: “grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”  

 

None of us is the complete Body of Christ, and every one of us has a unique piece of the whole.  It is like a jig-saw puzzle: you cannot have a picture if every piece is the same, and every piece is needed to see the true picture.   Likewise, every one of us has a unique contribution to make to the Body of Christ, and every one of us is necessary for the full functioning of the Body of Christ.

The virtues of humility, gentleness and patience may not be popular and flashy and attention grabbing.  But St Paul tells us they are necessary for us to be the Body of Christ. 

Jesus has ascended to the heavens.  He will come again.  Meanwhile, we have the duty, and the privilege, of being His Body, His presence in Texas today.  And this is Good News.   AMEN. 

 

HOMILY PENTECOST 2024 St. Austin’s Austin TX May 19, 2024

 HOMILY    PENTECOST 2024    St. Austin’s     Austin TX                              May 19, 2024

 

          HAPPY PENTECOST!!!     In our first reading today the Holy Spirit appears as a “strong, driving, wind”.   Certainly, we in Texas know about strong, driving winds – in tornadoes and hurricanes.   We have at least seen the videos of trees swaying violently in the wind, of debris flying through the air, of transformers exploding in a shower of sparks, of great old trees uprooted and pushed over, of all sorts of wind damage.

          And it is true that the Holy Spirit is strong, VERY strong, and can push us, and humble and awe us with the Holy Spirit’s power.

          There are times we most desperately need the power of the Holy Spirit.  When we are all too weak in the face of temptation, when we are tired and spent and ready to give up in facing the challenges of life, when we are bored into being a zombie by the endless drudgery and sameness of life, then we need the power and guidance and the PUSH of the Holy Spirit to keep on going to become fully the Body of Christ.

          But there is another side of the Holy Spirit that we need now as well, and perhaps even more than the Holy Spirit’s power:  and that is the Holy Spirit’s comfort.  For the Holy Spirit is not only a mighty, irresistible wind, but also the refreshing coolness of a gentle breeze on a hot, sultry day.   Texans know the value of a cooling breeze in the middle of August.  The Holy Spirit’s POWER is balanced and accompanied by COMFORT. 

          Indeed, one of the titles of the Holy Spirit is “Comforter”.   And living through a dangerous and difficult time of conflict and fear, we now need the comfort and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

          In one translation of the Sequence for Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is described thus: “Come, within our bosoms shine. / You, of comforters the

TWO                             TWO                    TWO          Pentecost 2024

best; / You, the soul’s most welcome guest;/  Sweet refreshment here below;/  In our labor, rest most sweet; / Grateful coolness in the heat; /  Solace in the midst of woe.”

          What does that solace look like?   Well, it is rather ephemeral, subtle and easy at times to miss.  In the Gospel Jesus breathed on them and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit."  A mere breath, so small and seemingly inconsequential; and yet so powerful, so potent!  This breath gave new life, and changed everything.

I had a powerful experience of this once, many years ago when I was in Alaska.  My first priestly assignment was at St. Nicholas Church in North Pole, Alaska, near Fairbanks.  Just like the Summers here in central Texas are loooong, and can be brutal,, so the Winters in the interior of Alaska are loooooong, and can be brutal.  I lived through four of them.   It is bad enough that it is dark most of the time, with only three hours of available daylight in the Fairbanks area on the shortest day of the year.  And it is bad enough that it is darn cold all the time, and just to go outside requires a major effort of putting on coats and boots and masks and gloves and so on.  The coldest I ever experienced in the time I was there was 62 degrees below zero.  That’s cold.

But Alaskans, like Texans, are tough.  The Alaskans can handle the cold and the dark.  But the worst is the ice-fog.  Ice-fog is the frozen exhaust from people and building and cars that forms a very thick, impenetrable cloud, thicker than any fog you see here in Texas.  And it builds up.  You cannot see in ice-fog, even with your lights on.  It makes driving very dangerous.  Schools never cancel in Alaska due to the cold, but they do cancel when the ice-fog builds up.  You feel trapped, confined, THREE                THREE                THREE                Pentecost 2024

hemmed-in, because you can never see very far.  Usually this lasts only a short while, until the first little breeze comes along, which blows the ice-fog away. 

But the winter in the Alaskan interior can be very still; deadly still.  The snow builds up for inches on telephone wires, because there is no breeze to knock it off.  And when the mercury drops below 20 below zero, and there is no wind or even the slightest breeze for days and days, then ice-fog builds up. 

One year was especially bad.  People got depressed, irritable, feeling blue and down.  School was canceled.  It was dangerous to go out.  You felt cooped up. Hemmed in.  Trapped.  There was not a breath of air, not the slightest breeze.  And the ice-fog got thicker and thicker. 

Finally, there was a slight breeze, just a breath of wind, and the ice-fog suddenly and totally disappeared.  Everyone’s mood abruptly changed: instantly, dramatically and for the better. I have never seen such a big change in an entire community, all because of a mere breath of air.  So insubstantial, so amorphous, and yet so very powerful.  

That is what the Holy Spirit is like.  That breath that blows away the fog, allows us to see and understand, to be free to go out to live again, that lifts up our hearts and spirits. 

It is the Holy Spirit that gives us the ability to comprehend and see God’s love for us, to understand what is really important in this life.  The Spirit gives, not just intelligence, but wisdom; the ability to know what matters in life.  The Holy Spirit enables us to hear the other, to keep an open mind, and the greatest miracle of all, to change our hearts.

FOUR                  FOUR                  FOUR                  Pentecost 2024

The 2^nd Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation puts it beautifully:  "…by Your Spirit you move human hearts (so) that enemies may speak to each other again, adversaries join hands, and peoples seek to meet together.  By the working of your power it comes about, O Lord, that hatred is overcome by love, revenge gives way to forgiveness, and discord is changed to mutual respect." 

That is powerful!  And that is so badly needed today in our world.

The Holy Spirit is nebulous, insubstantial, almost tenuous, but has the power to enter into the very fiber of our hearts and souls, and change us from within.   The Spirit seems fragile and inconsequential.  A mere breath, flimsy and feeble as a soap bubble, but so very, very powerful.   Jesus breathed on them, (blow bubbles) and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." 

A mere breath.  (Blow bubbles).  And yet beautiful and oh, so powerful.

¡Come Holy Spirit!           AMEN.

 

Holy Trinity Sunday May 26, 2024

 Holy Trinity Sunday      May 26, 2024

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday.  Generally, this is NOT the favorite Sunday of preachers.  Preaching on the Trinity is rather difficult.  Hard to say much about a mystery.  But here goes.

Any second or third graders here???  Can you tell me what 1 + 1 + 1 equals??   THREE!   And that is true if you went to Fairbanks, Alaska, or down the southern tip of South America, or way over to China, or even to France.  1 + 1 + 1 = 3 since the beginning of time, in all places, even far distant galaxies, and will be true even when our youngest member (???         ) grows old, and far beyond that. 

It is certain that 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, EXCEPT when we come to today’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  Because then we say, rather oddly and contrarily, that 1 + 1 + 1 = ONE. 

How come?   Because of our experience.  You see we are, like all the children of Abraham, monotheists.  Along with our spiritual brothers and sisters who are Jews and Moslems, we all trace a spiritual heritage back to Abraham, way back in ancient times.  And Abraham, our Father in Faith, received the revelation that there is just ONE God.  One God, and all the other so-called gods are phonies.  False gods. 

The false gods are still with us.  No longer idols and statues and grotesque images, but the false gods of money, of power, of pleasure, of the exalted self.  There are still plenty of false gods.

Anyway, Abraham rejected all that and held to the belief that we have inherited from him, of ONE God.

Nice and simple.  But then experience began to get in the way. 

Because unlike Moslems, for whom God is always and everywhere distant and wholly other, we Christians experience a God who was so in love with us, so caring for us, and so anxious to be and share with us, that this wholly transcendent God, Who is wholly Other, none-the-less, became fully and totally one of us.  Simply out of love for us. 

This is, of course, Jesus Christ.  And in Jesus, in His teaching, in His preaching, in His actions, in His giving of Himself totally and completely for us on the cross, we see the human face of the Divine.  Jesus is God.

But still, all one God.          Then things got even more complicated.  Because not only do Christians experience God as all-powerful Creator, existing before all ages and totally different from us, and not only do we see and experience the Divine in the life, death and resurrection of our brother, Jesus, we ALSO experience God as closer to ourselves than our own heart and soul; sustaining us, comforting us, challenging us, leading and guiding us, sanctifying us:  the Holy Spirit of God. 

          Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Three ways of experiencing God, each as real, and yet mysteriously only One God.  That is the Trinity.

So, for today, if you said 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, you are correct. 

But if you also said, 1 + 1 + 1 = 1, you are also correct. 

The mystery of the Trinity however is not about mathematics.  It is far too important and vital for that.  The Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is about our relationship to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that makes a full and complete relationship with the Divine possible, real and full.  And that is certainly something to celebrate.

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.