The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds;
it does not rest till it reaches its goal,
nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds,
judges justly and affirms the right,
and the Lord will not delay.

As we glance over the word of today’s readings and Gospel, we would be quick to think that God steps right up to help the poor, the widow, orphans, outcasts, the downtrodden, those in need.

We like to think of God as the loving Father, Who, as in the story of the Prodigal Son, pours out every mercy to those in need.

We even get a little upset, sometimes perturbed, sometimes downright angry with God, especially when those cries go unanswered.

We ask: How could a just and loving God, who promised to hear our prayers, be so downright cold?

Brothers and sisters,

We fail see our expectations in light of the fact that God requires something of us. His mercy is boundless, His generosity unfailing. Still, that generosity, that mercy, requires a response from us.

Listen carefully:

From Sirach:

The one who serves God willingly is heard;
his petition reaches the heavens.

From Psalm 34:

When the just cry out, the Lord hears them,
and from all their distress he rescues them.

…and:

The LORD redeems the lives of his servants;
no one incurs guilt who takes refuge in him.

The one who serves God willingly is heard, the Lord hears the cries of the just, and He redeems the lives of His servants.

The Father sent His only begotten Son to us to teach us.

He never taught: Do nothing and you shall inherit the earth. Rather He taught that those who live in accord with His teachings —“ which are from the Father, will be saved. He taught that those who pray and command in faith will have their prayers answered and their commands fulfilled.

Our expectation must be this: That God will hear and answer those who live by His teachings. He will answer us in accord with our faith.

Certainly, His arms are wide open, as with the Prodigal Son. But there is always the expectation, God’s expectation. What will your response be my child?

The Prodigal Son and the tax collector from today’s Gospel got it right.

[He] stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

Both the Prodigal Son and the tax collector were in need. As you might recall, the Prodigal Son looked at his situation, hungry, homeless, feeding the pigs, and said:

—I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.”

Both stood off at a distance, certainly with expectation, but with something much greater than expectation, with faith.

My friends,

St. Paul, writing from prison after his trial said:

I have competed well; I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith.
From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the just judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for his appearance.

The crown of righteousness is ours for the asking. The crown of righteousness awaits us. But, we must long for it. We must live up to it. We must seek it with faith, and with a life lived with that crown as our only goal.

All we do, all we ask, and all we seek will be judged in light of our desire to repent and to live rightly, justly, faithfully, as servants, in accord with the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.

Seek…

and the Lord will not delay.

Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance.

When God created the heavens and the earth He created the United States, Poland, Italy, Japan, Russia…

Well, we know that’s not true. Yet, by His Holy Will we were created nations, peoples and cultures. God created man in such a way so that the gifts of humanity would be shared between us. He created man in such a way as to:

—…fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

God created the world in such a way as to apportion its gifts, its flavors, its beauty, and from that apportionment came the peoples we know today.

Brothers and sisters,

Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you

While God apportioned His gifts, everything He has taught us about Himself, from His commandments on Mount Sinai to the incarnation of His Son, Jesus Christ, tells us that God is One and we are to be one like Him.

So how do we take the places, the cultures, the families, and the history we each represent and become one?

The only way, the only perfected method is in Jesus Christ, at the Holy Altar, in His Holy Church.

In a Sermon on the Church on March 22, 1914 Bishop Hodur said:

We built a house of God. We desired God to come down and live among us. And He fulfilled our desires.

As diverse peoples we need to bond into a common purpose. We need to bond together in a common desire. Our purpose and our desire is that God live among us. This is why God has given us our Holy Church.

The Holy Church is the unifying force, the Body of Christ on earth. We are all part of that unified body, regardless of class, color, national origin, or culture. We are different, yet we are united.

This unity is not a false unity. It is not the unity given by governments, by the sword, by the promise of politicians. It is not a unity that requires dilution of our gifts. It is not a unity which says be different for no particular reason. Rather use your gifts for our common purpose and goal – that we all be joined in the heavenly Kingdom.

We teach that the natural gifts given to mankind are of Divine origin. That the cultures and heritage we each own is provided for a purpose. That purpose it the raising of our voices to God. To bring the gifts that are from and of our heritage into God’s Holy Church.

Of course we must use care.

In achieving the goal we must not toss heritage aside like so much refuse. In doing that we sin against the gifts we have been given. We call into question God’s wisdom.

To toss heritage aside is false unity, and it is no better than tossing food aside as part of a false diet. Heritage is a gift from God, and rightly understood, a gift to be used for God’s work.

At the same time, our heritage is not a fortress wall, a rampart intended to keep others out.

My friends,

From our immigrant experience we know the trials and tribulations faced by that —other— face in the crowd. We know the pain or rejection, of being thought of as less of a human being.

It cannot be that way in God’s house.

We welcome all so that by sharing our gifts in unified purpose, we might show the world Jesus Christ.

As St. Paul writes

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

The gifts we have been given are brought to perfection when they are clothed in Christ.

Brothers and sisters,

We are blessed by our heritage. It is diverse, but focused to one end.

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.—

The Great Commission is the task we must take up.

We must speak to all, drawing them and their gifts into the Church. We must build up the Church so that God may come and live among us. We must proclaim the name of Jesus to all, teaching all to live within the Body of Christ, rejecting sinfulness and joyfully sharing their gifts for the fulfillment of the Kingdom.

Amen.

God looked at everything He had made, and He found it very good.

As we walk through our readings and Gospel for the Solemnity of the Christian Family we should continually focus on the fact that God created everything good.

It is easy to loose that point. We can look at our lives, our jobs, relationships, politics, our fellow Christians, and wonder —“ if He made everything good, including His Church, why do things look so bad?

Starting at the first chapter of Genesis it is easy to see the good. The earth was clean, new, and beautiful. Man had not transgressed. Things were humming along.

It didn’t take long for that scene to break down. Man focused on what he wanted over and above what God wanted, and there you have it, sin.

As we read through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians we even begin to wonder about the Church. It starts off simple enough:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord.

and

Fathers, do not anger your children.

But then we get into this whole slave and master wording.

We get nervous —“ there’s a lot of history there, especially for us as citizens of the United States. We look at those words and we are struck with images that are painful, and fully loaded with repercussions that reverberate to this day.

We stop listening to what Paul writes and we replace his meaning and intent with our preconceived notions.

These difficult words have but one meaning.

As Christians we must do God’s will. God’s will and Jesus’ teaching are the only thing that matters.

Children are to obey their parents, not out of subjugation, but because they desire to live life the way God intends it to be lived.

Fathers are not to anger their children, not because they take a weak, comme ci comme í§a attitude towards their children’s behavior, but because they are to be fathers as the Lord God is our Father. Fathers are to train their children and instruct them as the Lord trains and instructs.

Being a master or slave is meaningless, and the institution of slavery is nothingness in light of the Kingdom of God.

Regardless of our state in life, our position, our relative degree of freedom as classified by the government, we are to live only as Christians.

Status, that is being a child, father, slave, or master, is all worthless classification. That classification only matters if we take our focus off our roles in the Christian family.

Brothers and sisters,

Now think for a moment.

Isn’t compromise our national motto? We all learned that the United States Constitution was developed in a spirit of compromise. Federalists, states rights, House and Senate, three part government, checks and balances. It all works out because people compromised.

The same thing happens in other life situations. Whether a project at work or school, what we’re serving for dinner, the running of the Parish Committee, or our domestic lives; regardless of the things that happen in life, we tend to focus on making peace and on compromising. We even misquote Jesus —“ the whole thing about being a peacemaker.

That, my friends, is peace at the cost of living the way God intends.

We loose by compromise. We break faith. We focus on what we want over and above what God wants. We sin.

What God created is God’s way. God’s way, the way He wants us to act, behave, worship, live, and believe is the perfect way. He looked at it and said it was good.

What God seeks, and the whole reason for His coming as man, was that God wants us to know and follow His way. He gave us the word, and showed us how to live it. He seeks the only reality that counts: man and God living together in complete harmony.

My brothers and sisters,

Jesus never saw compromise as an option.

Paul said that we must live life in accord with our baptism, as the Christian family.

Jesus didn’t tell the Pharisees that He saw their point. He didn’t tell adulterers that he understood their plight. He simply said, repent and follow Me. If you do that, you have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

When Mary and Joseph found Jesus sitting in the temple before the teachers, and questioned Him, He simply said:

—Why did you search for Me? Did you not know I had to be in My Father’s house?—

Jesus told them —“ don’t you see, this is how things are supposed to be.

God created everything good, and asks us to live in unity with the way of life He personally taught us.

How we live, what we profess, what we do with our husbands, wives, children, co-workers, fellow parishioners, friends and enemies all has to be in accord with God’s way, without compromise or abandonment.

When He looks to us, the Christian people, the Christian family who maintain and follow His way, He will say:

‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’

Those will be the sweetest words we will ever hear, words so sweet they are worth any cost.

Amen.

“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

I’ve been thinking about swimming lately. The subject has appeared in a few books I’ve read.

I’ve been reflecting on my inability to swim. I can certainly ‘swim’ across a pool, and I can float, but these are at a very basic level. I cannot seriously swim, nor could I tread water for any significant period of time.

I was at Mystic this summer, and a certain theme keeps coming up —“ something I learned there. Most sailors refused to learn how to swim. If their ship were to sink, they preferred a quick death.

Now, I would think that all of us have enough desire for life so as to struggle should we fall in, even if we couldn’t swim. Having said that, I would wonder how many of us carry enough faith so as to pick ourselves up and walk across the water.

You recall the passage from the Gospel according to St. Matthew:

But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
But immediately he spoke to them, saying, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.”
And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.”
He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus;
but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”
Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Do we have the faith to move mountains, uproot trees, and walk on water?

The interesting thing about faith is that for a few it is intuitive. Most of us struggle with faith because in light of our experience it is counter-intuitive.

We might react to God in much the same way Habakkuk did:

Why do you let me see ruin;
why must I look at misery?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and clamorous discord.

We know God’s promises —“ He Himself told us how things would be. Yet…

Yet He threw up a huge roadblock to easy faith. The cross.

Today our Bishop is visiting in order to bless our newly installed cross, the cross that is front and center, on the peak of the church’s roof.

He blesses the cross which is the stumbling block for so many; the cross, which is a contradiction to those who claim wisdom.

Brothers and sisters,

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us that the servant’s life is not easy.

“Who among you would say to your servant
who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field,
‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?
Would he not rather say to him,
‘Prepare something for me to eat.
Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink.
You may eat and drink when I am finished’?

It is easy to look at the master and say, ‘What a jerk.’ The servant worked all day —“ in the hot sun, out in the fields. The servant no sooner returns than he is told to wash up, put on his apron, and get right back to work. We feel sorry for the servant. We pity him.

We are wrong.

My friends,

That is the mystery of the cross.

Jesus stood His ground before the cross. He accepted it and took it up.

We are to do the same.

Our sinful inclination is to say ‘non serviam.’ I will not serve. I will not bow down.

It happens in big and small ways. Everything from abortion —“ I will not bear this child, to marriage —“ I will marry who I want regardless of Church teaching, to service in the Holy Church —“ Well Holy Orders should be open to me too, to eating those extra carbs you and I do not need.

In the face of the cross faith asks us to say yes, I accept suffering, loss, sadness, pain, loneliness, difficulties, and discomfort for the sake of my salvation and the Kingdom. I accept my place on the cross.

St. Paul reminds us, as he sits in his prison cell:

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but rather of power and love and self-control.
So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord

Our testimony is the cross, and our courageous acceptance of it.

Faith in the Holy Cross and its meaning in our lives is the prerequisite to moving mountains, transplanting trees, and walking on water.

Faith in the Holy Cross gives us what the world cannot give, true power, true love, true self-control.

That faith in the cross may be the size of a mustard seed, but as Jesus told us:

—…a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches—

With that seed of faith and our acceptance of the cross we will be victorious.

Amen.

‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’

Today’s readings and Gospel are an exercise in direct contrasts. They are also an exposition of God’s great love and mercy.

The first part of that statement is easy to see. We have the contrast between the people Amos was speaking to and the people Paul spoke to.

Amos prophesied against the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

As you may recall, Israel proper consisted of all twelve tribes.

The tribes were united under King David into the Kingdom of Israel. Eventually the kingdom broke down into two separate kingdoms .

In the south we find the Kingdom of Judah with Jerusalem as its capital and in the north the Kingdom of Israel.

Judah consisted of two tribes and Israel consisted of ten tribes, with most of the territory in Israel belonging to the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.

Amos spoke to the people of Judah and pointed out their idolatry, their complacency. They were living the good life. Listen to the list:

Lying upon beds of ivory,
stretched comfortably on their couches,
they eat lambs taken from the flock,
and calves from the stall!
Improvising to the music of the harp,
like David, they devise their own accompaniment.
They drink wine from bowls
and anoint themselves with the best oils

Then Amos says:

Yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph!

The largest chunk of the Northern Kingdom was in collapse. The two largest tribes, with the largest territory, Manasseh and Ephraim were captured by the Assyrians. Anyone who escaped the sword was carried into captivity. Manasseh and Ephraim were the sons of Joseph. Joseph had fallen, a few days journey north of Judah, yet Judah was throwing one big party.

Judah wasn’t just throwing a party, they were living a party. Judah forgot God, His commandments, what He had done for Israel.

Paul is telling Timothy and all Christians:

But you, man of God, pursue righteousness,
devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.
Compete well for the faith.
Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called
when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Brothers and sisters,

Two extremes, but one key point; it is about how we live.

Now we enter the Gospel of St. Luke, and we see the wages of the life we choose to live. The way we live has costs.

When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus at his side.

Oh, but deacon, are you saying I must live in the streets, beg, and be covered in sores.

Now a deacon or pastor in a wealthy parish would be quick to say, oh, no, that’s not it.

But let’s pause.

What is the kingdom of God worth to me? Where do I draw the line? Where do I buy justification for the way I live? If I had to choose between A and B, which choice would I make?

We all pray that we would choose God over any other choice —“ but I have the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t be that easy. Say I believe in God and die? Say I believe in God and lose my job? Say I believe in God and lose my spouse and children? Jesus told us in the garden:

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

He told us that the choice wouldn’t be easy.

Brothers and sisters,

The rich man forgot to stay awake. He forgot about Moses and the prophets. He forgot the lessons he learned at shul —“ the lessons read from Amos.

Jesus compares the rich man to the dogs. The dogs had better sense:

Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.

The rich man couldn’t even throw Lazarus a scrap of bread.

The rich man, the people of Judah all forgot how to live. The Pharisees didn’t get the message either. Jesus says of them:

…practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.
They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger.
They do all their deeds to be seen by men.

Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, but did they change their way of living? No.

My friends,

The questions for any thinking Christian are: Will I make it to the Kingdom? Am I in any way different from the Pharisees? Will I get to heaven?

To ask that question we must contemplate the terrible possibility of hell.

In all Christian truth we must admit that hell exists. We must also admit that going there is a terrible and fearsome possibility.

While admitting that we are not forbidden to believe that, by the mercy of God, hell is empty. That even Satan himself, crushed under the heel of Jesus Christ, could come to his senses and repent. After all, Satan, Hitler, bin Laden could all reach out to God, repent, and return. They are the children of God, given the desire for God by their very nature.

For you and I that is the hard part. We want absolutes. He or she —“ they’re on the highway to hell. That guy over there, he’s ok, he’ll make it. The rich man will certainly go to hell and its torments, Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom.

The vast un-crossable chasm Jesus speaks of is a chasm of our own making. It is only literal because we make it so.

Did the rich man look up and wonder —“ much less say: Lazarus, forgive me.

No, the rich man could not cross because he failed to recognize Lazarus lying outside his door. He failed to recognize him in Abraham’s bosom. He saw Lazarus as an annoyance in life and as a tool to bring him water, or a tool to save his family in death.

As in the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, the rich man fashioned his chain, link by link, by the way he lived.

That is why we must start today. We must make the choices that need to be made —“ a live life in accord with and for God, or for an unconquerable, self-imposed distance from God.

In life or death the distance is never finally unconquerable —“ but oh how hard it will be if we forget God and the image of God in each and every human being.

God’s mercy is great, but we must recognize it. No one will come back to tell us how we must live, for, neither will [we] be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.

Jesus Christ did, yet so many remain unconvinced.

Amen.

This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
who wills everyone to be saved
and to come to knowledge of the truth.

I was joking with Father Andrzej this past Sunday. He asked me to prepare the homily for this Sunday. I told him that I hoped that the readings and Gospel wouldn’t be all too difficult, too much of a downer, too incomprehensible.

I was hoping for a joyous set of readings and Gospel. This occasion, PolishFest, is obviously a joyous occasion for our parish. Those among you, who are here for PolishFest, are our guests. We celebrate the fact that you are here. We want you to feel welcome. We want to sing out our joy, and focus on the manner in which God builds up our community through this experience.

God obviously had other plans. I ended up with one of the most difficult set of readings, and indeed, the most difficult Gospel in the cycle of Gospels.

In our first reading Amos observes the cheating and the coldness of heart evident among the chosen people. They sat around, observing the formalities of the Sabbath, and every moment of the day they thought: When will this day finally be over so I can get back to business?

They fixed the scales; they bought the poor by fixing the terms of the sale, so they stayed indebted. Listen to the list:

“We will diminish the ephah,
add to the shekel,
and fix our scales for cheating!
We will buy the lowly for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;
even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!—

The cynical among us might ask: What has changed since then?

The sad fact is, not much. Maybe the people of the world are a little more sophisticated. They use terms like sub-prime, derivatives, short and put sales, rent-to-own, lease-to-buy. As a matter of fact, they won’t even wait till the Sabbath is over —“ go now, easy terms available.

Then comes the Gospel taken from Luke 16.

This passage is one of the most difficult in the Gospels.

Now being one of the most difficult does not present a problem, because with the power of the Holy Spirit and a touch of my Polish stubbornness I was determined to attack it.

From what we read Jesus would seem to be praising the crooked steward. Jesus seems to commend stealing.

And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
—For the children of this world
are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than are the children of light.
I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Now that can’t possibly be right. What is Jesus trying to tell us? Did St. Luke miss something? Did he forget to record a few lines?

I had to figure this out.

Now I’ve read so many exegetical comments on this Gospel, trying to make sense of it, that I felt like my head would explode.

No clear answer.

I read it over and over, and in context with the other readings. I prayed.

The light finally came on.

My friends,

What it comes down to is that the master and the steward were on the same wavelength. The master recognized that the steward had cooked the books to save his own skin and said: ‘Cool, you cooked the books, you and I are on the same wavelength.’

The folks that Amos accused were on the same wavelength as well.

We will diminish the ephah…
We will buy the lowly for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;
…even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!—

We will do it. We’re the people of the world. We revel in the world and the victories of the world. We are perfectly comfortable with the ways of the world and we recognize our fellow travelers.

Jesus is using these people of the world as an example for us —“ the people of the Kingdom.

Now you may be in church for the first time in a long time. You might be here for the cultural aspect of our worship, or for the music. You may be sitting here waiting for those delicious pierogi. You may be here every week.

Regardless, all of us are the people of the Kingdom of God. We are citizens by right —“ by our baptism into the body of Christ. As a citizen we have separated ourselves from the world.

My fellow citizens of the kingdom, Jesus is looking to us and is telling us that we need to be on the same wavelength.

It is about how we live.

Our ancestors, whose ways we celebrate and honor this weekend; those stubborn immigrants lived right lives attached to the Kingdom of God. They lived right lives in union with the Catholic faith. They held that faith precious and did not separate it from their way of living.

They weren’t interested in dishonest lives or cooking the books. They didn’t differentiate between the Sabbath day and the next, being clean, honest, and practically perfect on Sunday while going petal to the metal the rest of the week.

For them, each day was a day on the journey toward God and His heavenly Kingdom.

They built communities that celebrated who they were: God, family, community. Church was not a Sunday pass time or a disconnect —“ it was, and still is, the real deal.

Brothers and sisters,

I was on my way over to the Armenian Center over in Greenville this past Wednesday. Our Ecumenical group is invited there every September for an excellent luncheon and some fellowship. Fr. Stepanos and Fr. Bedros are wonderful hosts, and the Armenian food is simply wonderful.

Traveling down Route 32 I came across a sign. It said Family worship every Sunday.

This sign is deep in irony. What, exactly, are these folks being invited to worship?

It could just have easily said self worship, money worship, or pierogi worship.

As Christians we belong to the Kingdom —“ yes and I mean each and every one of us. What we must ask ourselves is whether we will be shrewd in our faith, putting God, the right and due worship of God, the building up of His kingdom, and living in accordance with all He teaches through the Gospel and His Holy Church before all else.

Jesus is challenging every Christian to ask this: “How much energy, creativity, ingenuity am I giving to the task living in union with His kingdom?” Are we as shrewd as this manager? Are we as motivated? As resourceful? As bold?

This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
who wills everyone to be saved
and to come to knowledge of the truth.

Be shrewd, motivated, resourceful, and bold in coming to God and in bringing your brothers and sisters to the kingdom. You are welcome to join us in doing so.

Amen.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.

How does it feel to be wrong all the time? How do you find your way out?

Now, I’m sure that you don’t think you’re wrong all the time. I certainly don’t, but the real problem is that we are far too sure of our self determined righteousness.

The Jewish people were sure of their righteousness. After all, Moses went up the mountain to meet with the Lord, and had been gone for many days. Would anybody have blamed them for relying on themselves?

Where was the leader? Wasn’t he self proclaimed? What right did he have in making us wait?

We know, from the readings, that God certainly expected more from them. But how were they to know?

The fact is that God does expect more from us. He expects us to know —“ because it is so simple, any child can grasp it. God says, here is My word, My example, My Son, and My Church. The rules to live by.

God expects us to live by His teaching and expects excellence in our conduct. Our conduct toward our brothers and sisters, and toward creation.

St. Paul, writing to Timothy notes:

I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord,
because he considered me trustworthy

The fact is, God does consider us trustworthy. In baptism we come into relationship with God, we are buried with Christ, literally buried in the water of baptism. We are made part of Christ’s body by our partaking of His body and blood —“ something that unites all of us —“ even the people we don’t like so much. We have the promise of eternal life, the pearl of great price, for which we should be willing to sacrifice all.

God gives us the strength we need, and like Paul we need to be circumspect about our righteousness.

Now remember that Paul, who was a Jewish Pharisee, considered himself righteous. He believed in his righteousness —“ a righteousness obtained through the observance of the Law.

Later, in writing to the Philippians he would say:

Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith

Today, Paul declares himself the greatest sinner of all —“ and proclaims the fact that he has been mercifully treated so as to be an example of fortitude to all Christians.

But for that reason I was mercifully treated,
so that in me, as the foremost,
Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example
for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.

That, my friends, is the key.

Righteousness cannot come from one’s own actions, nor from the simple observance of laws, rules, and regulations. The other son, in the story of the Prodigal son, made that mistake.

Rather, righteousness can only come from faith in Christ Jesus, and from God’s surpassing generosity towards us.

Brothers and sisters,

We are to acknowledge and act upon that gift by acting in the manner God expects from us. We are to bring our life into accord with the gift we have been given. We are to live lives that are in tribute and testimony to the gift we receive —“ the precious gift of faith.

Yet, for all the glory of the gift, for all the power of faith, for the example of the myriad saints and martyrs, for Jesus’ real and human example, we fall and fail.

When we sin we must rely on the confidence God has given us through His self-revelation. He let us know that He is the shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep. He is the woman that lights a lamp and sweeps the house in search of the lost coin, He is the Prodigal Father who will open His arms to His repentant son, and even love the surly, stubborn son.

His arms are open to us when we return in sorrow and in repentance; when we decide to make amends.

‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’

Not only will His arms be open to us, but He Himself, and His entire household, that is, the Holy Church, will celebrate.

‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.

We are not wrong all the time, but when we are, when we sin, it is because our self righteousness gets in the way of the true righteousness that comes to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

The way out is by repentance, living a life in accord with the gifts we have received, and ultimately reliance on God’s great mercy.

Praise be God for the gift of faith, through which we are made righteous. Praise be God, for His everlasting font of mercy.

Amen.

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’

Taken from the Gospel according to St. Luke, Tenth Chapter, Verse 29.

Now Jesus will take an opportunity to teach the young lawyer. He will instruct him on the requirements surrounding acts of neighborliness. Jesus will tell him in no uncertain terms that we are all joined together as brothers and sisters. Jesus will ask the lawyer to go and believe the same thing.

We do not know if Jesus’ words made an impact on the young lawyer. Did he go out and change his ways? Did he take the focus off his desire for personal justification? Did he learn that justification comes from living a life in accord with God’s way?

In the same way, we do not know that much about each other. How much will today’s readings, the message of this homily, the sacraments, bring about change in our lives? How much will this Solemnity of Brotherly Love bring about a change in us? Will we still ask: Who is my brother?

We are certainly pious. We are here every week. We work hard for the Church and for each other.

But are we changing?

The Orthodox Jewish singer Matisyahu sings about change in his song —Chop ’em Down.— In the song he sings:

From the forest itself comes the handle for the ax

Consider that: the forest provides the wood for the very ax that will change the face of the forest. From within the forest comes the tool that will make the forest over.

Brothers and sisters,

By our baptism we are God’s children. Jesus Christ is within us. That’s the starting point. Now we must accomplish great changes, both within ourselves, and across the world.

From the very depths of our being we must find the tool, the thing that will bring about change in our lives and in the world. We must recognize Christ within ourselves —“ the demanding and exacting Jesus who teaches all righteousness. Then seeing Him, we must live His word and see Him in each and every person we meet.

The lawyer’s idea of justification is wonderful. We can have life with God forever —“ and that’s great. But if, like the lawyer, think that the road to the justification is paved with easy platitudes, or pre-set formulas for accomplishing change, we are sadly mistaken.

It is not an easy road. The road to heaven, the road to treating each and every human being as a brother and sister, is most difficult.

Difficult, not only in recognizing Christ in our brothers and sisters, but also difficult in witnessing to them —“ witnessing by actions that accept them in love, witnessing in accepting and loving them while holding up Christian witness to the proper path and way of living. Witnessing, not be preaching to them, but by loving their humanity and by acting as Christ would. To live according to God’s ways.

We all have the thing in our personal forests that can be fashioned into a tool to make ourselves and the word over. We have the capability to treat each person as a brother or sister, for God is in us. That is a gift from God. It is not self made, nor is it put there to be admired from afar. It is there to be used, and used in doing right, worshiping right, and witnessing correctly.

God states, through the prophet Jeremiah:

I will place My law within them, and write it upon their hearts.

He fulfilled that promise in His Son, Jesus. He wrote His law in the flesh of our hearts. He writes it in each and every heart, and we are to recognize Him.

That is why each person is a brother or sister. That is why each is the image of God.

We are the instruments of change. We are the good Samaritans, we are the wood of that ax handle —“ the one that will change everything. We must take action to cooperate in making all things new.

We may never know the extent of the change in that lawyer, or in the person sitting next to you. That is really unimportant. The only thing we can know is the extent to which God has brought about repentance, change, charity, and compassion in our lives. How my eyes and your eyes have changed.

St. John concludes by telling us that:

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world.

If we bear Christ, if we are one with Him in our journey of change, if we bear His love, the gospel message, and our witness in treating all with brotherly love, then we will be confident before God’s throne.

Let us begin today.

—Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.—

How has the revelation of God, made real in His coming as man, helped us to understand who God is?

Can we narrow God down to a few faces? Can we place Him in the appropriate box with the appropriate label? Can we write a theological treatise and say —“ yes there, that’s the answer.

We have several limitations. Our minds cannot comprehend the totality of God. Further, we tend to take our life experience and our conception of the universe —“ the way things work —“ and stress a facet of God that fits with our philosophy.

In today’s readings and Gospel we are asked to suspend our pre-conceived notions. God asks us to be open to a new understanding, completed and made real in the coming of the Christ.

In the Book of Sirach we find this key passage:

What is too sublime for you, seek not,
into things beyond your strength search not.

The introduction to the Book or Sirach states:

The author, a sage who lived in Jerusalem, was thoroughly imbued with love for the law, the priesthood, the temple, and divine worship.

The Book presents wisdom that flows from love.

So this passage forms a sort of basis for the oft repeated phrase —“ who can understand love?

The love of God is not something dissectible. The face of God, His personality, ways, and reasoning are too vast for analysis. We can struggle with the search for a label, but is that struggle tied to the process of spiritual development we are required to undertake?

My friends,

When we decide for Jesus, when we are reborn and consciously aware of the goal to which we are all called —“ eternal life with God in heaven, we venture down the road of becoming. We take the steps necessary to set aside the pre-conceived notions of what life should be about. Our goal and focus changes —“ and all is held in relationship to our becoming more and more Christ like.

Besides setting aside the pre-conceived notions of what life should be about, we set aside our pre-conceived notions of who God is.

Brothers and sisters,

The letter to the Hebrews makes this plain.

The Jewish people remembered the receipt of the commandments of God, the receipt of the commandments on the Holy Mountain. That was the day that God came to visit them.

These are a few passages that paint the picture of that day:

The LORD also told [Moses], “I am coming to you in a dense cloud, so that when the people hear me speaking with you, they may always have faith in you also.” When Moses, then, had reported to the LORD the response of the people,
the LORD added, “Go to the people and have them sanctify themselves today and tomorrow. Make them wash their garments
and be ready for the third day; for on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai before the eyes of all the people.
…
On the morning of the third day there were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.
But Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stationed themselves at the foot of the mountain.
Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke, for the LORD came down upon it in fire. The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.
The trumpet blast grew louder and louder, while Moses was speaking and God answering him with thunder.
…
Then God delivered all [the] commandments
…
When the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the trumpet blast and the mountain smoking, they all feared and trembled. So they took up a position much farther away
and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we shall die.”
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid, for God has come to you only to test you and put his fear upon you, lest you should sin.”
Still the people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the cloud where God was.

The letter to the Hebrews asks the Jewish people to put that picture of God right in the forefront of their minds and then it tells them that in Christ everything has changed. Now they will approach Mount Zion:

and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and countless angels in festal gathering,
and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven,
and God the judge of all,
and the spirits of the just made perfect,
and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant,
and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.

Faithful friends,

How has the revelation of God, made real in His coming as man, helped us to understand who God is?

It has helped us understand God because God speaks directly to us. Not in trumpet blasts, fire, smoke, and thunder, but in words we can comprehend. His sacred word and the life of His son Jesus Christ has changed, challenged, and thrown over all pre-conceived notions.

God says to you and to me —“ approach my holy mountain and the new and heavenly Jerusalem. Come in faith, saying yes Lord, amen.

We are to change ourselves and admit our failure to comprehend —“ and that is humility. We are to be revolutionaries of the new Kingdom, overturning fear, hatred, bigotry, and the place society, the world, has set for each person. We are to say no, nothing for repayment, but all for God.

Jesus, fully accepted in our hearts, changes everything. In Jesus the foolish are wise, the child knows more than the adult, the blind see, the crippled walk, those who do without repayment are repaid, and all may come, in love, to the heavenly banquet.

Amen.

Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.

Brothers and sisters,

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Today we celebrate witness to truth.

Now Herodias had a definite grudge to bear. St. John the Baptist called her out on her sin, taking up with another man while being married to his brother, and she didn’t like that very much.

Now we look at situations like that and think, oh the rich and powerful, the crazy things they do. How can you be married to one man and take up with his brother at the same time? We also tend to think that since Herodias was consort to the king, she had the power, wealth, and resources to seek her revenge.

We watch as Herodias slides down, deeper into depravity, using, and prostituting her daughter Salome to accomplish the task.

Herod himself appears to play the role of the innocent bystander, taken in by Herodias and Salome. But if we look at some of the commentaries on the event, Herod was fully engaged in plotting as well. He set John up and played the taken-in fool for cover.

We can sit back, take a deep breath, and say wow, incredible. We do that all the time, incredulous at the sins of others; the clay feet of the holy, the machinations of the politicians, the greed of the rich and powerful, the depravity of the movie and music industries.

If John the Baptist were to stand outside your door, as you drive home from work, what would he call out? Would he look at you and say —“ oh, righteous one, you are blessed of God?

The psalmist pegged it well when he sang:

Where can I go from your spirit?
From your presence where can I flee?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I sink to the nether world, you are present there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
Even there your hand shall guide me,
and your right hand hold me fast.
If I say, —Surely the darkness shall hide me,
and night shall be my light——“
For you darkness itself is not dark,
and night shines as the day.

You have searched me and you know me, Lord.

Yes, God knows. You and I wouldn’t have too easy of a time with John standing across the street from us.

The point is, how will we react? Look at every criticism received, and let’s ask ourselves, how did I react? That is where we will find the answer. Down deep, do I want the critic dead?

Like Herodias we want to hide from sin, place our sins in a black bag, and only look at them while we are enjoying them. We don’t want anyone to notice them, or call us out on them.

In today’s culture of permissiveness we may even go so far as to ask those around us to celebrate our sin. Aren’t I cool? Don’t I just have it down? Look at me…

My friends,

Most folks grumbled quietly about Herod and Herodias. They spoke in whispers, but outwardly paid their respects. But not John! John spoke the truth —“ and died for it.

The respect of our fellows is worthless if it is only a faí§ade. The judgment of God and the truth proclaimed by His prophets is the better guide, the only one that counts. How we react, whether we repent, act in faith, and believe in the Gospel is what counts.

Perhaps, pondering our sins and what John would say to us, we ought to listen to Paul:

And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly,
that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us,
you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God,
which is now at work in you who believe.

Brothers and sisters,

Trust in the Word of God, that you received. It is at work in you. Take it up and turn away from sin. Be a witness to faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Amen.