Sunday Homily, November 22, 2015, Christ the King

Readings: Isaiah 49, 14-15; Psalm 62, Rest in God alone, my Soul; 1 Corinthians 4, 1-5; Matthew 6, 24-34.

Isaiah reminders—

 Author: This is Isaiah #2, the composer of chapters 40-55.  January 6 we had a first reading from this same chapter 49, verses 4-5, talking about Yahweh’s people being a servant and light to the nations.  I talked about the taxi driver whose son had been killed for his pickup truck in Cuernavaca.

 Date:  Ca. 575 before Christ.  The Jewish people of Jerusalem are defeated, crushed, & in the Babylonian Captivity.  Isaiah #3, chapters 56-66, is writing after the Babylonian Captivity.

 Today’s Message: Even though life is bad, Yahweh says he will never forget his people, somewhat similar to the reading from January 6.

Sources: Good News Bible

 

Don’ Worry About Tomorrow? 

 Yesterday afternoon I did a funeral celebration for a lady named Rebecca Sides.  It took place at Turrentine Funeral Home on Ridgeview.  She died of cancer at 58. 

 I did not ever know Rebecca personally.   I knew her through Jean Atwood’s son Sean, who married one of Rebecca’s three daughters, Terra.  Rebecca was the payroll supervisor for the city of Plano, so there were numerous Plano City people there, including her supervisor and an assistance police chief, both of whom gave excellent talks. 

 Of all the things I heard about Rebecca the quality that struck me the most was the way she had her priorities in order.  Her number one priority was her family.  She seemed like the family matriarch, a magnetic force that brought members together, especially her 4 grand kids. 

 

 I talk about her because she exemplified what Matthew’s two lessons are trying to teach us today and what he has been trying to teach us all during this sermon on the mount.  Namely, getting our priorities in order.

 I want to say a word about each of Matthew’s points, serving two masters and not worrying about tomorrow.  One preliminary reminder.

 Matthew is again using exaggeration, hyperbole, and infinite demand to convey his message.  Do you not want to say, ‘Are you nuts, are you crazy?’  There is another half, infinite acceptance, like the line, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, never gets angry, and is abounding in love.”  Psalm 103 & other places. 

 

 First, ‘Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, your body, what you will wear.  All these things will be given to you.’  Everyone can see this is like crazy.  And this is the negative aspect.  So it all gets dismissed. 

 The positive is the word  ‘worry’ repeated four times and the reference to the birds and flowers.  We can have our priorities and goals without worry.  We can emulate the birds and flowers to a point.  Worry leads to anxiety, to high blood pressure, and to strokes. 

 Secondly, the idea that we cannot serve two masters.  The negative part of this lesson is that it is either/or, black or white, God or mammon.  More exaggeration. 

 More positively, do we not serve a number of masters in our life?  God may be an ultimate master.  Do we not have numerous sub-masters?  Could it be possible I am my own master?  I wonder.

 
 

 All these lessons seem to be telling us to get our priorities in order.  From what I heard, Rebecca had hers in order.

 What are your 3 biggest priorities in life?

 Picture 1:   Leo with his baby sitter, Lynda  

 Picture 2:   Marlene & Cindy

 Picture 3:   Penny

 Picture 4:   Zoe

  

 

 

 Readings:

Genesis  14, 18-20,  Blessed be Abraham.

Psalm 110,  You are a priest forever  in the line of Melchizedek.

1 Corinthians 11, 23-26,  Do this in remembrance of me.

Luke 9, 11-17,  Give them some food yourselves.

 

 

Genesis:  for observations, please check the Sunday Homily for Pentecost, May 19.

 

 

Today we had the pleasure of hearing the personal story of Reggie, a resident at Soul's Harbor.

Reggie went to OU on a football scholarship, left OU, and hit the bottom with drugs, even to eating from dumpsters and sleeping in port-o-potties in the winter.  He said that he cannot go around Olive Garden resaurants today because he used to survive on the food in their dumpsters.

With Soul's Harbor he has gotten his life back and become Brent's right hand man at the residence. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosemary's Blessing:

O God, we thank you for the fact that you have inspired men and women in all nations and in all cultures. We call you different names: some call you Allah; some call you Elohim; some call you Jehovah; some call you Brahma; some call you the Unmoved Mover. But we know that these are all names for one and the same God. Grant that we will follow you and become so committed to your way and your kingdom that we will be able to establish in our lives and in this world a brother and sisterhood, that we will be able to establish here a kingdom of understanding, where men and women will live together as brothers and sisters and respect the dignity and worth of every human being. In the name and spirit of Jesus. Amen.

 

Taken from The prayers of Martin Luther King Jr.  by John Dear appearing in the National Catholic Reporter, January 15, 2013

 

 

 

The Production Team.

 

Thanks to the Team

Music, Shonda & Ben

Readers, Rose & Patricia,  & Buddy, the candle blessing

Eucharistic Prayer & Gospel, John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers, Mike & Ben & Becky & Richard & Tom

Final Blessing, Rosemary

 

 

Almost time, 9:30

 

Readings:

Exodus, 34, 4-6, 8-9, The Lord, gracious and merciful, rich in kindness & fidelity. 

Daniel (Psalm) 3, Glory & Praise forever.

2 Corinthians  13, 11-13, The Grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.

John 3, 16-18,  God so loved the world…

 

 

On air.

 

Please Remember these special people:

For Jim Esparza, the son of Frank & Mary, who just passed Saturday with sepsis;   For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery;   For Jim Esparza, the son of Frank & Mary;   For Joe Hogan with cancer;  For Loretta's aunt Alicia;   For Ryan, Rosemary's nephew, who had surgery; For Bill Hammond,    For Sydney;  & For Sir Charlie;  Shonda's mom;   for Michelle;  For a friend, a neighbor, & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free.;    For Hue;  For John O'Donnell;    For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health;  For Anthony & Sabrina;    For a young man who is suffering from depression;  John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini;  Virginia Mattingly

 

 

Becky & Tom.

 

Birthdays:  Shonda (last Week), Deacon Mike ordained '78, Bill Ekes, Alison DeGenova 

Anniversary:  The McClurgs, Diane & Kent, 48 years, & Diane's knee replacement this week.

 

 

 

On air with Ben.

 

This  week's Readings:

 

Download MASS 20 0607 Trinity Readings

 

 

Homily by John Stack

Here it is, folks, that line again, the one that says The Lord is gracious and merciful, never gets angry and abounding in love.  That summarizes for me who our God is.

I want to talk this morning about a black lady I knew when I was teaching at Jesuit '65-'68.  She was one of the first important black persons in my life who exemplified this description of God.  You ever heard of Juanita Craft?  A big lady with a big voice and a bigger heart.  She was elected to the Dallas City Council after I had departed Dallas.  She came to my '71 ordination in a police car at the old St. Rita.

Juanita taught me at least 3 lessons.   First she taught me how to take charge and get things done with grace.  This came about because she invited me to join her and about 25 young members of the Dallas NAACP on a greyhound type bus trip to the annual NAACP convention in Atlantic City.  I must admit that I gulped a time or two, then accepted her invitation.  I was the only white guy on that bus.  Juanita charged each of those kids to be the best  & clean that bus every time we got off that bus.

I was impressed as a fellow bus driver at Jesuit.  Never had I instructed my Jesuit kids on the bus to clean up.  I did that after.  Because of Juanita I realized I could organize a planting of 400 trees, put together a group of friends to visit Yosemite, and accept an invitation to work in East Africa.

Because Juanita was abounding in love, she taught me how to ask help from others.  Therefore I wrote to my Jesuit confreres at Georgetown and asked if they could shuttle two dozen black kids around D.C. for a day.  Not only did they supply about 5 cars and guides, they invited the whole bunch of us to dinner in the Jesuit dining room that evening.  The Jesuits were gracious and merciful

 

You will never guess what I did when I returned to Dallas from Atlantic City.   I accepted Juanita's invitation to move into her little house in South Dallas and help her with the NAACP youth group that summer.  I knew then, Black Lives Do Matter.

 

How do Black Lives matter to you?

 

Ben doing the Magic.

 

 

And a repeat:

Birthdays:  Shonda (last week), Bill Ekes, Alison, Deacon Mike ordained '78

Anniversaries:  McClurgs, 48 years & Diane has a knee replacement this week.

 

Communion for Mike.

 

Community Finances, June 7, 2020

Expenses: $825.00

Outreach:  $500.00  (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)

This week we donated $1,500 to Soul's Harbor.

 

Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

 

 

 Readings:

Matthew 21, 1-11, Jesus enters Jerusalem

Isaiah 50, 4-7,   I gave my back to those who beat me.

Psalm 22,  My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?

Philippians  2, 6-11,  Because of this God greatly exalted him.

Matthew  27,, 11-54,  The passion & death.

 

Sorry, Everybody, because of the extraordinary length of so many readings, especially the Matthew Passion, we don't have a homily.  Tune in for a good one this Sunday, Easter.  Welcome, also.  You might find an Easter Bunny attending.

 

 

Readings: Isaiah 22, 19-23; Psalm 138, Lord, Your Love is eternal; do not forsake the Work of Your Hands; Romans 11, 33-36; Matthew 16, 13-20 

Intro to Readings 

 Our sources for our three readings again this week are Isaiah, Paul to the Romans and Matthew’s Gospel.  John last week talked a little about the Letter to the Romans and I would like to continue with that topic a little further.  This letter to the Romans is different than all of his other letters for several reasons.

 This is Paul’s attempt to tell the folks in Rome, who do not know him, who he is and what he has been preaching!  All of Paul’s other letters were written to communities he had started himself.  He has not yet been to Rome, but there are Christians there.  Paul has enemies who are preaching that he is corrupting the Good News, and so he needs to address that very clearly.  This he does by explaining his own understanding of Jesus.

 

 Paul is also at a cross-roads in his own life.  He is just completing his missionary work in Asia Minor and Greece.  He is about to head back to Jerusalem with “The Collection”, money he has raised from these communities to support the Jerusalem Church – an early Peters Pence collection!  He then plans to head west to Spain and start his mission word there.  He will need a base in Rome to support that work, and so he also wants to make a good impression there.

 Of course, Paul never does get to Spain!  He is arrested after his visit to Jerusalem and does end up in Rome, but in jail, where he is eventually killed by Nero.

 

 Homily

 “Who do men say I am?”  This question is one that all three of the Synoptic Gospel writers have.  It is an interesting question, but one which we can all too easily glide over and see it as only directed at Peter.  I would like to propose that it is a very important question and one that each one of us needs to answer today!  Who is Jesus for me, for you? 

 

 In trying to understand and answer the question it is worth stepping back and approaching it in the following way.  Today, when we are introduced to someone, it is fairly common in the conversation to ask “ and what do you do?”  We tend to try to understand who someone is by what they do.  Their activity or job, helps us get a bit of a handle on who they are.  In the same way when Jesus asks the disciples the question, they tend to fall back on describing who he is by naming people who have done similar things in the past!  We know that the answer “what I do” is not a satisfactory answer, but it seems to be a fairly common approach.  When someone says “oh so you are a salesman” my instinctive reaction is to say yes but I am more than that.  Stick around and get to know me.  Determining who I am by just what I do is very superficial.  So too when it comes to Jesus, what he did is only part of the answer. 

 It seems to me that in order to fully answer the question about Jesus we need to do more than just know what he did.  Yes that will help, but I believe that this getting to know business is a lifetime work.  And reflection is very much a part of that activity. 

 
  

 I think that once we get to know someone really well, we change!  Our knowledge of them changes us as a person.  Think about this.  Reflect on the people who are in your life who really mean something to you.  Are you a different person because of that relationship?  I would have to answer “yes” in my case. My life is different, my attitude is different.  Now to bring it back to Jesus, we can certainly say that Peter’s life was very different after Jesus said, “come follow me”.  We know that Paul’s life was totally different after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus.

 How do we develop and deepen our relationship with Jesus.  It really isn’t enough to just read the New Testament, and read about Jesus, that will just give us information!  We need to do that but then we need to start a dialog with Jesus, and we need to spend time listening to Him.  Not easy, but otherwise we will have a tough time answering the question.  Jesus will be merely an interesting person from long ago, and not someone who has a major say in our daily lives.

 
 

The question for each one of us is the same, “Who is Jesus for me?”

Picutre 1:    Justin with his grandmother, Jean

Picture 2:    Justin & Anthony

Picture 3:    Jon

Picture 4:    Shonda

Picture 5:    Emma

 

 

 Readings:   Jeremiah 31, 31-34, I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; Psalm 51, Create a clean heart in me, O God; Hebrews 5, 7-9, He learned obedience from what he suffered; John 12, 20-33, Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground.  Whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.

Jeremiah:  We have not seen Jeremiah for a long time, since before Thanksgiving.  Remember that he is one of the Big 3 Prophets (because of the size of the work, e.g. 62 chapters in Jeremiah), who are Isaiah, Jeremiah, & Ezekiel.   A review:

 

Author: most of the work is done by Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch.  Jeremiah is described as the broken hearted prophet because of his heart rending life spent warning the people & kings that their behavior was going to be punished.  And so it happened with The Babylonian Captivity.

Time:  ca. 600 BCE, as an easy date to remember.   The Captivity went from around 585-550 BCE.  Jeremiah may have died in Egypt during The Captivity in Babylon.

The Scene:  Remember that the Holy Land had a north & a south, Israel & Judah.  First, the northern kingdom, Israel, was defeated by the Assyrians, 622 BCE.  These Hebrew tribes vanish into the DNA of the region, “The Lost Tribes of Israel.”  Next, the Babylonians & Nebuchadnezzar defeat the Assyrians and threaten the southern kingdom, Judah with the capital Jerusalem.  Jeremiah is watching this and seeing it as Yahweh's punishment.  In 596, more or less, the Babylonians do destroy Jerusalem and cart the Hebrews into slavery.

Today's selection, chapter 31.  Yahweh is promising to make a new covenant or agreement with all the people, and to forgive them, after having shown the people who is master.  Here is the covenant idea mentioned again.  It is a pact or a deal.

Sources: Fr. Reginald Fuller, St. Louis U., Wikipedia; Answers.com; Encyclopedia of Judaism

 

Hate My Life?

I have a story this morning which I have told twice, once at St. Mark's, over 8 years ago and here about 4 years ago.  Pardon me if you've heard it. Some of our best stories we tell over & over, they are so poignant.  The story speaks to my point today.  I had permission for the story.

It happened many years ago when I was working full time as a psychotherapist out of an office at Jesuit.  I think it was the first Monday morning of May.   I know it was a beautiful morning like today.  A boy came to see me who had been in my office on and off for about six years.  He had just graduated from high school and enlisted in the Air Force.  He had struggled since grade school with bouts of depression, and that morning seemed to be in great shape.  We did not even spend more than 30 minutes together, his mood was so up beat and care free.

 

He left.  Maybe two or three hours later a call came in.  The boy had left Jesuit, crossed Inwood to the Lincoln Center complex at LBJ, drove up to the top of the four floor garage, parked his car, headed to the edge of the garage, and walked over the side.  He landed on the cement street four floors below, face down flat.

A passerby saw it, called 911, and in a second the paramedics from just around the corner were on the scene.  He was in Parkland in a flash.  He lived.

It was not for about 3 weeks until I got to visit him.  He apologized.  I admit I was mad.  I loved this kid.  He fooled me.  He said that he had been in a zone, happy because he knew he was out of there, meaning he was ready to go to the other side.  He wanted to escape the pain of life and go to heaven.  He said he had  no fear in walking off that fourth floor, none of the hesitation you feel before you jump off the high diving board the first time. 

 

You may guess why I tell this story.  It exemplifies what happens when you take literally "whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life."  This little piece of advice, taken the wrong way, can be so dangerous. This boy hated his life.

 I would suggest there is a negative and a positive way to hate my life. 

The negative is exemplified by this kid's story.  This is often what is happening when you hear of someone cutting on themselves.  If I hate my life and hate myself, I will want to punish myself.  So I cut myself.  Or I may think that I am such a loser that no one will pay me any attention if I do not do something dramatic like spill my blood. 

 

Even without such dramatic examples, I do not want to encourage someone who hates their body, hates their job, hates their family, hates their school, hates.  Just thinking about this I recoil.   There may be reason for the hatred.  However, "There is a better way," I want to say and I would say it.   I believe in talk therapy.   Feelings are all okay.  I just don’t want some feelings to stay around. 

On the positive side, I would suggest two things.

First, the word hate can be considered as hyperbolic, a big word meaning exaggeration.  It is like Rosemary telling me, "You get me up at 5:00 tomorrow morning for spin class & it is divorce!”   Think she is exaggerating?  I hope. 

 

  

Secondly, I would suggest that this all has to do with being more alive now, in this life. The grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying fits in with this.  For example: look at March Madness.  Many of these player have died to themselves to achieve & to be better players.  How many hours in the gym have they spent practicing free throws?  When they could be hanging out, sleeping in, text messaging?  And they love their lives.  I’ve seen boys do this at Jesuit. 

Goofy, but I hate my life to love my life.  I don't want to get up early.  I could sleep in to 11:00.  However, I, we, Rosemary & I get up and head over to the Jewish Community Center, 6:00 A.M. spin class.  The result even Rosemary loves  life.  And so do I.

The boy who jumped is now okay, amazingly.  It took him years of physical recovery.  Two things did not happen that blessed him.  He did not damage his brain and did not damage his spine.  Every other bone, plus his teeth, were broken.  Once he got strong enough he went to medical technical school, got his certificates, and now has good jobs in various hospitals in the city.  I don't think he hates his life anymore.  In fact, he loves it. 

 

How do you love your life?

Sources:  The Center for Liturgy, St. Louis U.; St. Raymond Catholic Church, Dublin, CA; Carmelite Order Web; Homilias Domincales.