Sunday Homily, Octrober 7, 2012, 27th Ordinary Time B

Readings: Zechariah 9, 9-10; Psalm 145 (second stanza, a favorite); Romans 8, 9-11; Matthew 11, 25-30

Zechariah:  Zechariah is the 11th of the 12 Minor Prophets and lived just when the Hebrews were released from the 70 year long Babylonian Captivity, ca 535-520 B.C.  In Jerusalem he encouraged the people to rebuild the temple.

He was a favorite of the N.T. writers because he is rich in messiah predictions.  Today we have one of those visions. 

Psalm 145, 8-9: Terrific line: “The Lord is gracious & merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.”

Independence

Last Sunday, June 29th, there was a column in the Points section of the Dallas Morning News.  The writer, Peter Lovenheim of Brighton, NY, described how he became aware that he did not know any of his neighbors.  With all the tools at his disposal to keep in touch instantly with people, even around the world, he was detached & out of touch with his own little neighborhood.

Peter decided to do something about it.  He actually began to invite himself to spend the night at his neighbors and write about their lives and his experiences with them.  Naturally, he was turned down often, but he did find some people willing to take him in and even discovered one woman with cancer needing help she could not get other than through her neighbors. 

It was his first experience of spending the night with an elderly guy, Lou, that turned out to be the article in the paper.  He called it, Why I Woke up in my Neighbor’s Spare Bedroom.  He even describes how he & his neighbors discovered, then helped the elderly lady dealing with cancer. 

I remember when my mom lived in the house in which Rosemary & I now live, how once a year or so there would be a block party and everyone came to have a picnic under the oak trees in someone’s yard or drive.  I also remember that in the neighborhood in which I grew up in University Park we did not have block parties.  However, we did know all the neighbors, or let’s say they all knew Johnny Stack & were wary of him.

I talk about this today for two reasons. 

• First, we have just celebrated Independence Day. We revisited our national roots Friday and have come away proud of what our ancestors did to establish an independent country. As a child I wanted to grow up to be equally independent. Independence equals maturity. Dependence equals immaturity and is something I dread and hate.
• Secondly, as good and noble as independence is, taken to an extreme, independence involves not necessarily maturity, but rather isolation and loneliness. Lovenheim called his original neighborhood situation detachment. I would also call it independence, the opposite of that old dreaded dependence.

I suggest there is a healthy middle ground: interdependence.  The old cliche’ No Man is an Island is only partly true these days.  There are numerous often elderly people living on islands of abandonment in our neighborhoods.  To avoid the either/or trap and focus on interdependence, I suggest two things:

• Pro-activity. I  take the initiative. I  look around. I  pick out my neighbor or neighbors whom I don’t know at all or don’t know well.  I make a move. I  take steps to build a small community.
• Spend time. It takes time to build. It takes time to visit someone or call them or talk with them when I see them. Granted, time is often one of our most precious commodities.  The relationships are worth it.

This is what I see us doing here at San Vino, building community, taking time.  I think one reason why a number of mega-churches have so many people is that the administration sets up multiple small communities, teen-agers, young adults, golden agers, unmarrieds, divorced, etc.  People feel like they belong.  This is why I love to have our seasonal brunches. 

My hope is that no one in our community feels alone on an island.  We know one another and care for each other.

Who is the unknown neighbor in your life?

AUDIO:   http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2008-07-06.mp3

The Brain Trust.

Readings:

Habakkuk,  1, 2-3, 2,2-4, I cry for help, but you do not listen

Psalm 95,  If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

2 Timothy 1, 6-8, 13-14, Stir into flame the gift  of God.

Luke 17, 5-10,   We are unprofitable servants.

You see this Buddy!  He has the whole Blessing of The Candles memorized!

Where is the spirit these days?

I never know from where or why suddenly something or someone will really touch me.

On floor #1 on board the Viking Sea there is a grouping of 2 small & one larger room with workout equipment.  6 to 7 every morning I used to work out.  Get this, even Rosemary joined me.  Then at 7:00 we would head down to the atrium on the same floor where there is a small bar that serves the best lattes on the ship.

The Candle Lighting Girls, Tori & Zoe.

About the third morning out I am working out on a stand up elliptical when I hear the clear and friendly voice of a guy on a treadmill behind me.  It seems like he enjoys talking with everyone. 

The room has three elliptical & 4 stationary bikes in one line and a second line of maybe 6-7 treadmills, all facing the big windows outside of which the sea is going wild.

The Offertory Team, Bill, Fred, and Martha.

I chat up the guy when he finishes and we are both drying off.  This goes on maybe 4 more days when one morning we all 3 get talking at the water fountain in the corner.  In answer to his question, whatever it was, Rosemary & I share the story of our marriage.  He goes crazy.  I tell him he is welcome to share it with others and he does.

Maybe 2-3 days later I realize the guy is working out twice a day.  I am impressed and see why he looks to be in such good shape, being in his late 50’ or 60’s.

Tara, where did you get that megawatt smile??!!

We go on for another 2-3 days until we arrive at L’Ance au Meadow in Newfoundland, a fairly recently discovered area where a Viking village existed some hundreds of year ago.  To get from the village where the ship moored to the former Viking village Viking Cruises had to requisition 10 or more buses, school buses no less.

Lo and behold, at the Viking village we meet up with our new friend and get talking.  It was a delightful sunny day, mild temperature.  We asked him more about his life.  We already knew he was a university professor.

Fred & Martha, So good to see you both in town and with us.

Turns out he had to watch both of his parents slowly deteriorate one from Alzheimer's & one from Parkinson's.  Because of this he tries to stay in the best shape possible.  This news really stunned me.  Just that he shared it meant a lot.  No wonder he works out so faithfully, something I certainly appreciate and emulate. 

When was the last time your spirit was touched?

(What about Izzi’s baptism last Sunday!)

The Best Music with Shonda, Ben, & David

Readings:  Isaiah 60, 1-6, Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem, your light has come!; Psalm 72, Lord, every nation on earth will adore you; Ephesians, 3, 2-6, The Gentiles are coheirs; Matthew 2, 1-12, The Magi arrived from the east asking, "Where is the newborn king of the Jews?"  

Isaiah, a review 

Here is another of those passages which make me love Isaiah so much.  I said this on the 3^rd Sunday of Advent, when we read Isaiah 61.   

Today we have Isaiah III talking again to the Jews who have returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian Captivity, about 550 years before Christ. 

When he says Jerusalem or Zion, you may consider it a metaphor referring particularly to us, to you and to me.

Ephesians

Paul is directly talking Epiphany, that is God to Gentiles, to us.  

Sources: Good News Bible, The New Interpreter’s Bible

Epiphany Every Day?

    Almost every evening Rosemary & I take Aviana for a walk along our street.  Usually we meet a variety of neighbors and neighbor dogs.  It is a fun connection. 

    This past week we were walking when we met a lady who lives across and down the street.  She had tragedy hit her family.  A daughter with 3 young kids died 18 months ago with cancer.  It had been a lengthy fight and numerous neighbors had helped out. 

    We asked her how she was doing.  She waited a moment and then with a gulp she said, “Ollie has cancer.” 

    Ollie is a 3 year old son of the mother who died.  A week or so before Christmas the family noticed that Ollie had a lump on his forehead.  They took him to get checked and discovered that he has a very rare and aggressive form of child cancer.  Only about 350 cases occur a year in the States, hitting children between ages 1 and 5.  Ollie is 3. 

    The lump has been removed but a port has been put on Ollie’s chest for chemotherapy.  He is expected to receive chemo from 6 to 11 months.  Meanwhile, another small tumor I think in his lymph nodes grew about a centimeter in just about 10 days.  

    Folks, this was an epiphany moment for me.  I wanted to cry with our neighbor.  My heart went out to Ollie, his dad, his brother & sister, and to my neighbor & her husband, to the whole family. 

I would suggest that an epiphany is

    1.  a God light breaking through, especially through & into those corners of myself where I don’t go,

    2. a deeper awareness of the fragility of the Gift, the Gift of life & health & control

    3.  a deeper awareness of my normal insensitivity & ingratitude.   

The Accident was an Epiphany.  Check Rosemary.  

    I suggest that there are large, small, and medium epiphanies.  However, they occur daily.  At home, at work, at Tom Thumb, on the roads, at the Bridge & Austin Street Shelter, at Vines.   In fact, we can be epiphanies for others. 

Your last epiphany?  

Picture 1:    Mass Begins

Picture 2:    Our Father   

 Picture 3:    Taylor & Zack

Picture 4:    Torri walks

Picture 5:    Sienna

Picture 6:    Cole

Readings: 

2 Samuel 5, 1-3, You shall shepherd my people Israel.

Psalm 122,  Let us go rejoicing to house of the Lord.

Colossians 1, 12-20,  He is before all things.

Luke  23, 35-43, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

Emma, "Welcome, Everybody."

History of the Christ the King Feast: date, author, reason it was declared.

Date: Not during the early church, not during the time when Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Empire, not during the time of Luther & the Reformation, not during the time of Pius IX with the Italian Resorgiamento & his Infallibility statement (1870), but in 1925.  Fairly Recently.

Author: Pius XI, pope 1922-39

Reason(s): at least 2 factors–The Times and Modernism/Secularism

Leo, "I love coming here."

1.  The Times:

a) End of WW I and build up to WW II   

b) Mussolini & Hitler: the same year Pius XI became pope, Mussolini became prime minister.  By 1925 he had become a dictator.  The feast was to counter the dictatorship.  "Christ is king, not you."

Cowboy Cole supervising the operations.

2.  Modernism & Secularism:

a) Modernism.  Despite being scholarly and pro-scientific methods, Pius XI was suspicious of biblical scholarship which questioned, for example, biblical inerrancy, the nature of bible miracles, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the atonement theory that God demanded his son suffer & die for a single sin by a human.

b) Secularism coming out of the Enlightenment said that all people were equal, people should have a say in government as in democracy, and backed the separation of church/state, like proposed by Jefferson.  The Catholic Church was against democracy.

 Sources: Living with Christ, Nov., 2009; Wikipedia

We begin the Feast of Christ the King.

Our Blessings

Thanksgiving, as many of you know, is my most favorite celebration and feast of the year.  For three reasons.

1.  It is family and friend focused.  Gather around the table and have a great meal with people dear.
2. No gifts are expected.  Gifts can create tension in me.  What do I get for people?  Will I get more than I give?   
3. Once we reach Halloween and turn toward Thanksgiving, I begin to count the gifts and blessings of my year.  I love doing this and the memories fill me with peace, joy, and consolation.

Zoe coming to have a great time.

This season I have come up with a half dozen or eight really special gifts.  I would love to share with you my top three.

First, as Rosemary would say to you, “That cowboy has married up.”  I agree, folks, and I am enjoying every moment of married life.  Rosemary and our home, Aviana, and the fun we all have.  I lived for years with loneliness, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and doubly especially when I lived in Tanzania.   I am not lonely anymore. 

Buddy ready to welcome everybody.

I bet you won't find another Catholic priest counting his marriage as his biggest blessing of the year.

Secondly, you people.  This community.  You people are an amazement to me and to many others who cannot be here.  The warm hospitality, the generosity, and the mutual support and acceptance of one another, especially of the kids.  Do you realize that we have been celebrating here for nine years this coming Sunday?  I will never forget that first Sunday we gathered here. 

Torri following her brother.

Thirdly, I’ve had some marvelous bike events.  The 5 Boro in N.Y. coupled with the big McGinn family reunion.  The week long ride across Iowa, like riding in a circus.   The exhausting but exhilarating Hotter ‘N Hell ride out of Wichita Falls, 100 miles, 100 degrees temp.

Cupcakes of The Week to Frank and Mary, and Jean with Cliff.

Connected with these events I include our 9 day Yosemite back packing trip, my most favorite park and my most favorite trail, the Matterhorn Canyon trip.  The last time I took this trip was 2009 and I knew that I would never again be able to hike like this with my factory edition hips.  You know the rest of the story.  This was the first time I traveled the Matterhorn Canyon since 2009 and I thought then that I would never see it again.  I was moved to tears on occasion.

And more Cupcakes for John and Joe.

Two bonus gifts.  Rosemary & I every Monday evening have a date night.  Guess what we do.  We are dancing again.  At the Farmers’ Branch Senior Center, a fun place with a bunch of old geezers who can really dance. 

And, finally, my French. 

I am most grateful.

Your biggest gifts this year?  Your biggest gift.

Ann receives her Cupcake of The Week.

Readings: Isaiah 49, 1-6; Psalm 139 (good); Acts of the Apostles 13 22-26; Luke 1, 57-66.

Isaiah: One of the 3 great Old Testament prophets, he lived about 700 years before Christ.  Actually the book itself has about 3 authors. The section we read this morning emphasizes the call Isaiah received from Yahweh to be a prophet. It ties in with John the Baptist, today’s feast. 

How to Get There

Last week when we confirmed Erica & Susie we talked about six qualities of the person who is becoming more mature and more whole. The qualities were curiosity, hope, gratitude, love, zest, and humor. 

This morning I would like to focus on the road to these qualities. How do I get there? I have five suggestions plus one. The first five I picked up somewhere, liked them, and wrote them down. 

The five plus one suggestions are: no hatred, no worry, give more, expect less, live simply, and accept.

With hatred I would distinguish between the feeling of hating a person and the state of being a person of hatred.  It is normal to hate. It is a feeling. To deny it if I feel it is more dangerous.  Because of guilt I may try to stuff the feeling. Then watch it become a state. If I hate, process it and then for me it has helped to forget.  Note that underneath hatred is probably anger & hurt.  That was where I was when I got kicked out of East Africa. After talking about it with trustworthy people, I had to just forget. And it worked.

Worry often involves the game of "What if?"  What if my child gets hurt?  What if I fall down? The opposite can be used as the antidote: "What if not?" Worry does not mean that I do not care or take care. Worry involves fret over a future I have at most limited control over. 

What is the hardest thing for me to give more of? Money, things, time, my attention?  That is where the path to greater peace lies. It may even involve giving care to myself, what I call self nurturing. I occasionally see people fearful of nurturing themselves because they consider it selfishness. 

Expecting less can really get tough when I focus on people. When my expectation of a person’s behavior is up here and they behave down there, I get mad & hurt. My dad always used to get upset on Saturday nights when he & my mom were going out. Mom was always late & dad’s expectation of being on time was up there where mom did not go.

Living simply takes work these days. When I lived in Tanzania, it was pretty easy to live a simple life style. In Dallas there is so much stuff. Wardrobes can go out of sight.  Cars, houses, things.  They weigh us down.

Finally, I add acceptance. Acceptance involves not only things & events, it involves me, accepting myself. It comes up constantly in daily life. 

Using these six little rules for happiness, we can become more peaceful and more whole people. One may be more challenging than the others. 

Which challenges you more?

Click here to download to an mp3 file:

Readings: Genesis 22; Psalm 116; Romans 8, 31-34; Mark 9, 2-10. 

Genesis:

Reminders: First book of the Bible, going from Creation, Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah & the Ark, Tower of Babel, up to our selection today, the first of the 3 Patriarchs of Israel, Abraham (plus Isaac & Jacob, also called Israel).  Multiple authors, put together from, say, 1000 to 500 BCE.

Today's Selection: We jump from last week's story of Noah and the promise Yahweh made to him of no more floods, signed with a rainbow, to Abraham, the first of the 3 Patriarchs.  In some ways this is an astounding story.  Remember it is fable, a vision of God had by one person or a few people, then written down after it passed around orally for many decades. 

Transfigurations

Last Monday Bob McGrath, Bill Hammond, & I had lunch with 50 college kids in the yard of a Christian church in San Leon, Texas.  Folks, I bring you good news this morning.  These kids, from St. Bonaventure U., Buffalo, were dedicating their spring break week to hurricane recovery work in the the Galveston area. 

San Leon, which I had never heard of, is a tiny coastal village not on the Gulf like Galveston, but on the southwest corner of Galveston Bay.  The bay is shaped like a vertical football.  At the toe, right side or southeast, is Galveston slanting up the right side.  San Leon is just above the toe on the other side, the left side or south west.  It faces directly east into the bay.  Houston is a mass on the northwest corner or the upper left.  In September last year San Leon got hammered by Hurricane Ike and had water 6 to 8 feet high over the village.  It is a mostly poor community without even a police force.  So it had a lot of crack shacks, which were wiped out, to the local population's delight.

We were having lunch in the church yard after spending the morning picking up trash in the drainage ditches on either side of a 3 mile, straight road that headed directly into the bay.  At one point after the food had arrived, bread, peanut butter, jelly, and some granola bars, someone said, "Food is ready, come and get it."  And everyone got up and began helping themselves around the food table.

I was standing back a bit and noticed another boy was standing back with me.  I said to him, "You better get over there before all the food is gone."   His reply stunned me.  He said, "I'll let the others get their food and then I can get mine."  I was really moved by this tall kid's sensitivity and I told him so.  In fact, we had evening sharing sessions, some of which I got roped into coordinating.  I shared with the whole 50 what had touched me, one of my blessings of the day. 

I was touched again later that afternoon.  It was 3:30 and the 25 or so kids I was working with picking up the trash were pooping out.  I'm thinking we either call it a day or take a break and then put in another hour.  I pass out water bottles trying to get a feel.  Suddenly ahead of us a guy pulls out on the road with his little tractor & big trailer and asks help to clean the trash out of a forest off his property.  Like an 8 foot wave passed through & back leaving all sorts of garbage everywhere.  We talk about it and decide the group will split in two, half continuing with the drainage ditches, the other half cleaning the forest. 

Everyone jumps in with renewed energy despite the fatigue.  At the end of the hour during which we loaded the guy's trailer perhaps five times with mountains of trash, I am ready to call it, when the guys find a big pile of trash crowned by a fiberglass boat.  I am suggesting we leave it because the trash is endless, but those kids wanted to load the trailer one more time and get that boat out of there.  They did, and they even unloaded the trailer on the road edge.  (check Friday's blog for pictures of the boat and the lunch)

This spirit of generosity and sharing characterized the whole week and repeatedly humbled me.   The evening sessions carried us to a new level.  I felt I was walking sacred ground with sacred people.  In fact, I was. 

Two other phenomena touched me unexpectedly.  First was where we stayed.  University Baptist Church.  Apparently the month after Ike hit Galveston and volunteers started showing up to help clean up and repair, University Baptist, a small, probably 100 seat modern brick church, began to house volunteers.  When our 50 plus arrived there were already 17 members of another team on the premises.  What the church did for us was they handed over their church as a dormitory for the kids, a row of chairs down the middle, boys on one side, girls on the other, cots everywhere.  They had a trailer with shower rooms for males & females, 4 showers per set.  They had installed a portable building in which were housed another 30 people, including some of us.

This week the church plans to house 100 more university students spending spring break.  In fact, to help accommodate the number, I had a team of about 6 regulars and lots of passer bys sanding & painting 17 Army surplus bunk beds that would augment the cots.  I don't even know where the 100 will all go.  What I do know is that I was again humbled by the amazing spirit of this little community.

Then, finally, the group of 17 men.  They were Baptists from Springtown in Fort Worth, all old geezers who are retired or semi-retired.  They know plumbing, electricity, carpentry, all the needed talents.  They can do a make over in days.  In fact, the church where we ate in San Leon had been helped by a similar group.  In 5 days that group had demolished the remains of the former church building and built up a delightful, simple, brick facade church  with bathrooms and auxiliary rooms.

I bring good news this morning, folks.  I was hit over the head by these people.  I witnessed transfiguration.  Despite all the gloom these days, people, kids are transforming their environment and themselves.  At the beginning of Lent, I mentioned trying sensitivity and service.  I am privileged & have been made richer by this week.

Your Transfiguration?

AUDIO:  http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2009-03-01.mp3

Picture 1:  Lunch in church yard, San Leon, TX, "Come & get it."

Picture 2:  Jim Mahar(Faculty sponsor), Rob (guy at lunch), J.S., Pastor Billy, Bob, & Bill

Picture 3:  Mike painting army surplus cots for 100 incoming spring break volunteers this week

Click on this link to see a Houston TV special on the work in Galveston:

 http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6686990&rss=rss-ktrk-article-6686990