Sunday Homily, July 30, 2017,17th Ordinary Time A
Readings:
1 Kings 3:5, 7-12, Give your servant an understanding heart.
Psalm 119, Lord, I love your commands.
Romans 8, 28-30, We know that all things work for good for those who love God…
Matthew 13, 44-52, Kingdom Parables
Kevin and John ready to start Mass.
Homily:
We heard of Solomon’s call to be king of people of God
We heard in Paul’s Letter our call to be “conformed to the image of Jesus”
And we heard in Matthew the parables about putting the treasure buried in a field and the pearl of great price ahead of everything else we could have.
The Offertory helpers, Bill, Paul and Carrie.
Our word for today is asking how we hear our call and how do we answer our call?
I remember the answer I was given growing up (long long ago), hearing it in sermons and in weekend retreats at Grand Coteau, Louisiana. We were told that we are called to be holy and holiness was presented as perfection— You know the quote from Matthew: “Be you perfect as your heavenly father is perfect”. According to Matthew Fox, in his book Original Blessing, the quote from Matthew’s Gospel, “Be you perfect…”, does not refer to moral perfection and does not have here the later Greek meaning of being totally free of imperfection. The word ‘teleioi’, translated as “be you perfect”, actually meant “to be full-grown, to be complete or whole”.
Our musicians, Celeste, Shonda and Ben.
Remember also how we were given the lives of the saints, in which they were portrayed as achieving perfection and we were taught to imitate those perfect people. The lives of the saints inspired me, but there was no way I could live up to the idealized stories of their lives of perfection. Going to seminary at age 18 and to a monastery at age 22 was how I chased after the ideal of holiness as perfection.
Remember also how we were taught to make an examination of conscience, detailing everything we thought or did wrong–not about what we thought or did that was good or generous or loving or courageous or compassionate, not how we were becoming more full-grown or complete. The implication was that we were lacking and in sin almost all the time; that was scary folks. We were told we were imperfect, not holy, and I took that to mean I didn’t measure up, I wasn’t good enough. We were taught that there was a time, in the beginning when our original parents were in a paradise and were good/perfect, and connected to God. But that in Adam we sinned and were separated from God.
Georgie and Mom, Michelle.
What if we came to learn in the last 400 years, like Matthew Fox did, that there was never a state of perfection in our world, that creation in our universe has been going on for 20 billion years and that our universe has been expanding all that time, and is this moment expanding at unimaginable speed. It’s not really about being perfect.
In all creation beauty and imperfection go together. Every tree is beautiful, but if you get up close you will see that every tree is imperfect. The same is true of the human body. Every human body is beautiful, but every human body is imperfect. In creation, in nature, imperfection is not a sign of the absence of God. It’s a sign that the ongoing creation we are part of is no easy thing. We bear scars from the living process, and we can and must celebrate those scars, those imperfections.
Georgie's sister, Zoe.
My take on updating the idea of holiness includes thinking about how we accept imperfection, including our own, and about how we are growing, not to be perfect, but to be more complete, more whole, more caring for ourselves and others and more caring for mother nature and our place in the universe.
Yesterday I was visiting a friend who, when I said I was doing the Mass today, asked what my homily would be about and I said holiness. My friend said, I just finished watching a Ted Talk by Ann Lamont, a favorite author of mine. She said “Laughter is carbonated holiness.”
Question: How do you think of ‘holiness’ in our time?
Georgie's sister, Tori.
And Georgie's brother, Buddy.