2022 Homilies

It is hard to surrender what we know for what we do not.

"It is so much easier to stay in our comfort zones. But that is not what the Gospel is asking. The Gospel challenges us to go out of our way, and out of our comfort zones, for the benefit of people who are not us. It challenges us to redefine what ‘us’ means. It tells us that in order to listen to that tug to ‘go,’ we have to stretch out of our comfort zones. Any runner could tell you that—stretch before you go.”

“We get so focused on what we are supposed to do and how we can do it well, that we forget to prioritize the not doing. The intentional not doing. The pause. In this story Jesus is suggesting that Martha take a pause. He’s not turning her away from hospitality—we know from Abraham that this is a value that we hold dear. But he’s reminding her that she need not be busy all the time, she need not keep going and going so much so that she forgets to stop, to dial in, and to connect with what is sacred.”

"Abba" is a word that describes what any child would say to a parent who looked at her in a loving way, was eager to pick her up and embrace her. 

“[…] as Christians, we are called to do the work of unlearning the ways of the world in order to learn the ways of love. I don’t mean that we are meant to swear off worldly things, although some Christians do interpret our religion as such. But what I think this Gospel is saying is to reject the worldly notion that the goal is to have as much wealth, resources, and comfort as humanly possible. Reject the ideal that we are meant to stockpile our excess in a bigger barn. Reject those ideas, and instead, choose love.”

I have only one bumper sticker on my car. It is an oval with the letters CSP. If you get close enough, you can read the “Community of Saint Peter” around the margins, where we should be.

“The point is, the Gospel harshly reminds us this morning that no one is above the need to keep cultivating more justice and more peace. We can’t get complacent and think the good work is done, or we’re already good because we go to church, or give a lot of donations, or we read the right articles and newsletters, or we recycle. We need to keep challenging ourselves to step outside of the bubbles of our own experience and to grow.”

Jesus calls us to put more leaves in our tables, to extend them, inviting more people to gather around. It’s not just about opening our homes and our tables, but also about opening our hearts.

Jesus says he has come for division, not because he prefers us barking at each other, but because he wants us to work hard enough at living to know what works and what does not. 

God is all around and all through. So God’s mind is within reach. We just have to reach for it.
Is there a better use of our time

“We have all been the lost sheep. And, we have all been the shepherd, too. Or maybe, as the blessed and imperfect beings that we are, we are both the sheep and the shepherd at the same time. Feeling lost and unsure one hour, but being called to support the uncertainty of another in the next. […] We are the shepherd, and we are the sheep.” 

What comes to mind when you hear the prophet Amos declare what God says: “I will never forget a single thing you have done.”

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Our hopes for today? . . . To be whole again. To know the joy of Naaman and the Ten. In the interest of full disclosure . . .

   We won’t be healed of the reality that our flesh is from dust and heading back in that direction. We won’t be healed of our frailty, our finiteness, our daily dying and rising. None of us. We won’t be healed of the fact that every day we are all utterly dependent on the web of life, the forgiveness of creation, and sometimes, sheer dumb luck.

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  Jesus was very clear after the prayer time: one of the two went home “right with God.” The other did not. Where are we? We get to choose, you know.

   We come here for just a few moments on a Sunday to thank God out loud. But I am guessing there is a tax collector in each of us, humbly praying for mercy.

Is there a child in us still, at 60, 70, 80, or more? What is there about child-like-ness that is still attractive to us? Something, Luke hopes. Zacchaeus made it look easy. But there had to be an openness first. Readiness. Eventually a willingness. Finally, a yes.

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I respectfully, and maybe timidly, suggest that the feast we grew up knowing as Christ the King might just as easily be called Christ the Kin, Christ the Kind, and it wouldn’t bother Jesus as all. This is not a typo but a deliberate edit.

   Jesus lived like kin when he showed up in his hometown Nazareth in Luke 4, and he died like kin on Calvary between a couple of thieves> Anything we can do with and for the kin today will be a shout out for mercy, albeit in the shadow of an event two millennia ago. But shout we can.

 The announcement of his Christ’s coming is not intended to raise alarm, just awareness. Advent is a time to remember just how accessible God’s ways are.

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