Sunday Homily, December 16, 2012, 3rd Advent C

Readings:  Isaiah 55, 6-9; Psalm 145; Philippians 1, 20-27; Matthew 20, 1-16

Isaiah:

• Time: Isaiah himself may have lived ca. 750 B.C.  The book was written and put together from what seems to be 3 sources (chapters 1-39; 40-56; 57-66) after the Babylonian Exile ca. 550 B.C.

• Message: Isaiah criticizes strongly the corruption of the ruling class & wealthy and condemns them for their lack of concern for the poor.

• Today's reading: a somewhat mild criticism of the scoundrel & the wicked.

 

Celebrating the Gift of the Moment

Two stories exemplify the meaning of today's gospel. 

Just a while back I was on the DART train again, headed downtown in the middle of the day.  As usual, I was in car #1 because I love to watch where we are going.  I was on the right side about row 4, on the aisle.

Across from me in the first seat on the aisle was a mother with two little kids, one in a stroller, the other by the window.  Behind her was another mother on the aisle likewise with a little kid sitting next to the window.  Both mothers were young, both kids next to the windows were girls about 5.  The mother & kids in the first seat were white, the mother & daughter in the second seat were black.

As I watched, the girl in the first seat, who was blue eyed, blond pony tailed, and blessed with a terrific little smile, she looked around the left edge of her seat, saw the little black girl, and turned around so she could kneel on her seat and look over the seat top. 

The little girls started talking a little bit at a time.  They continued to talk, the white girl leaning over the back of her seat, the black girl with little pig tails sitting.  The black girl seemed to be doing the majority of the chatting while the white girl would ask a question and smile.

This continued all the way from Forest Lane to the Thanksgiving Square stop where I got off.  As I left, they were still into their conversation. 

I was so touched.  The kids are color blind, I thought.  They just enjoyed talking with each other and their mothers let them go at it.  For me it was a special gift of the moment.

The second story.  Yesterday morning, Saturday, I was walking back home from the Tom Thumb store at Royal & Preston.  I crossed Preston and was passing in front of the corner Starbucks.  It was early, about 6:30, and hardly anybody was moving around, not even at Starbucks. 

In front of Starbucks, however, was one guy in his late fifties or middle sixties, perhaps a little younger than I.  He had a baseball hat on & shorts.  He was facing me as I approached and I caught his eye for a second.  I said, "Morning!"

……  Nothing.  When I spoke he looked away with a face of no affect. 

Well, this type of thing can get me going.  I wanted to go back and turn his table over.  At least, say, "Hey, man, I said 'Morning.'"  Get in the guy's face type of response. 

What I did actually was nothing.  Nothing but think about the event and my response.  Who am I to judge?  Maybe he was just laid off this week, or last year, and last night could not sleep for worrying?  Maybe his wife & he had a falling out?   Whatever the case, this may be as big a gift of the moment as  the two little girls on the DART were.  I could easily see how the girls were a gift.  Maybe the guy gave me a challenge gift of the moment. 

Matthew tells us that all the laborers who worked in the vineyard got paid the same wage by the landowner, whether they had worked 8 hours or 1.  I read that I want to say "injustice!"  How can this parable make any sense.  Three comments.

1. First, we may be comparing the dynamic of the kingdom with that of contemporary labor relations.  In the kingdom we meet a landowner, God, who is universally generous and treasures each of us with magnanimous acceptance.  He does not portion out wages.  Justice is not his criterion.  He invites everyone into the banquet

2. Secondly, we are all the workers of the last hour.  In fact, we are really the non-workers.  We say to ourselves today, well what about that person who was good all his life, that priest who gave it all up, that nun who spent her whole life working with the destitute in Calcutta?  Don't they deserve more?   Question: is virtue its own reward?

3. Thirdly, we are invited into this banquet today, not just at the end of it all.  The Challenge: to accept the the gift of the moment.  The gifts are abundant and the feast is daily. 

I look at the two encounters I had as gifts of the moment.  Granted, the second gift I call a challenge gift, but still special. 

What was your gift of the moment this week, yesterday?

AUDIO:  http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2008-09-21.mp3

 

Readings: 2 Samuel 5, 1-3; Psalm 122, Let us go Rejoicing to the House of the Lord; Colossians 1, 12-20; Luke 23, 35-43. 

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

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."

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

 
 

Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Woods

 

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

                        Robert Frost

                                                                                                   

 

A few weeks ago this past fall Rosemary and I received a special gift.  We were given two tickets to a Notre Dame home football game, a game against Pittsburg. 

This had special meaning for me because when I was 18 I was enrolled in Notre Dame for college.  I had even bought some winter clothes.  Until I changed my mind and joined the Jesuits, to my mother’s rather lengthy irritation. 

Never in the following 50 odd years of my life did I ever get to visit the campus where my life might have been totally different.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I want to give thanks for three things connected with this event.

 

First, I finally had the opportunity to reunite with one of my best old buddies from high school and even grade school, Pete Wacks.   He  has spent almost all of his adult life in Chicago working as an F.B.I agent.

 There is an amusing quality to this.  Here are two kids who seemed to get into trouble together and who spent some evenings in the University Park jail.  One ends up a Jesuit priest & the other works as an F.B.I. agent.

 After 50 years it was like we just picked up where we left off.  Rosemary & I spent the whole weekend with Pete & Margie.  We stayed at their house and they drove us to South Bend and joined us at the game.  One of his buddies even met us when we arrived at the campus and toured us around in a golf cart.  

 I am really grateful for this.

 Secondly, I was grateful for the opportunity to visit what I had heard was one of the beautiful campuses.  I got to meet touchdown Jesus, to witness a game in a fabled stadium, and to walk the campus.  The trees were just changing colors and it was a beautiful, warm fall afternoon.  It was fun and touching to walk around imagining how my life could have been different had I ended up there for 4 years.

 Thirdly, I was grateful that I had chosen the second road the summer of ’58.  It has been a good road.

 

As we look forward this week to Thanksgiving, I invite you to reminisce.  Look back.  Not often in life do we encounter two roads in a wood.  How grateful are you for the roads you have chosen?

 

Picture 1:   Curtis guarding our food drive

Picture 2:   Ryan & his mom, Michelle

Picture 3:   Connie & her family 

Picture 4:   Mark & Isabella & Donuts

Picture 5:   Wendy & Ray

 

 

Ecclesiastes 1:  For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun?

Colossians 3:  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.    When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.

Luke 12:  “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

                     

Cody reading from St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians

 

Thanks…     

Music,   Ben  & Shonda

The Kiss of Peace

 

Outreach: $   130.00

Thanks again, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

 

Steve, back from his travels

 

 

Rosemary's Blessing:

Readings:

Jeremiah 31, 7-9,   Shout for joy, the Lord has delivered his people.

Psalm 126,    The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Hebrews  5, 1-6, Every high priest is taken from among people.

Mark 10, 46-52,  Bartimaeus, a blind man, sat by the road begging.   

 

           Grace says, "Welcome in, Everybody, Good to see you."

 

Jeremiah observations:

Who:  one of the Big 3 Prophets, 52 chapters, the “broken hearted prophet,” because he hated being so unpopular and having to condemn so much. 

Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe seems to be who put down the prophet’s message.   Jeremiah probably died in Egypt.

When: put together before & during the B.C., Babylonian Captivity, say 555 before Christ  (reminder, Babylon is near present day Bagdad, Iraq).

Remember, too, that time before Christ is counting downward or backwards.

 

                And, of course, Genevieve says, "Hi, Everybody."

 

Interesting Side Note: (another reminder) can you guess when the Genesis story of creation in 7 days was composed?  Biblical research reveals that the creation story was put together during the Captivity, this same time, i.e. ca. 555.

Why?  The priests & prophets (e.g., Ezekiel) of the Jews in captivity determined that the people would not be assimilated into the local gene pool as their cousins in the northern kingdom had done when made to live with the Assyrians.  They decided they would establish customs & religious practices that would make the Jews so different they would not intermarry.  Three special laws were established: 1.  male circumcision; 2. dietary laws and laws about not touching menstruating women; and 3. the Sabbath.

 

            There he is, our most proficient camera man, usually just                  inside the entrance, Rick.

 

The priests put together the 7 day creation story to suggest that Yahweh approved of their Sabbath law.  They had Yahweh rest on the 7th day to bolster their demand that all Jews take a day off every 7 days.  Before the Babylonian Captivity there was no legislated Sabbath and no myth of Yahweh creating the world in 7 days with the 7th being a day of rest.  So, now you know when the story was created & by whom, the priests, and why, to keep the Jews united vs the Babylonians.  It worked, even down to today.

Subject of the work: the usual prophet message—condemn, pay, peace.

Today's subject: Beautiful message of peace and consolation.  It is coming.

Sources: Bishop John Shelby Spong, The sins of Scripture; Wikipedia

 

 

     We caught you, Shonda, hugging our pet gorilla.  He loves it.
 

What, Shout for Joy ?

The consoling readings today are summed up in that first line from Jeremiah, ‘Shout for Joy.’  Unless you are blind as Brartamaeus or as I am so often, you can get behind this shouting pretty easily. 

Let me propose 4 reasons why I shout for joy today and see if you can spot some of your own. 

First, the rain.  We just endured 3 months or more of drought.  The ground was dust.  I was sitting on our back porch Thursday night when it started.  At first I thought we were really going to get missed, despite all the weather reports to the contrary.

 

          The Best, Shonda (doing Air Force today), Bethany, & Ray.

 

However, we got 3 ½ inches that night.  Then 3 more on Friday and 3 again on Friday night, total 9 ½.  

The only negative for Rosemary & me was that an old roof leak that comes into our kitchen showed up again, even with the work we put into fixing it in the May rains.  Nevertheless, I shout for joy over the rain.

Secondly, Romeos on Friday.  Actually, a week ago I had a most interesting lunch.  None of the bums showed up.  I was alone.  ‘Out of town,’ they all said.  However this past Friday, wow, Mike and Bill and Ray all showed up.  Don’t tell them, but I was shouting for joy.

 

         The Team says, "We miss you, Georgie (at a swim meet).

 

Thirdly, I see every Sunday a bunch of no fear kids.  I love it when Leo or Emma or Harper walk around up here.  Let these kids know they have a cupcake waiting up here for them, and they come running, or dancing, as in the case of Leo. 

Yes, I’ve been told that when I put on the white alb, the kids think I am God.  My hope is that because I will not get mad at them and will welcome them, they will know that God does not get mad at them and welcomes them.  This was not the message that I and many of you got when we were little kids going to church. 

I shout for joy that these kids are here with us.

 

                                 "Hi, Tori, Keeping busy?"

 

Finally, picking up on the message in Hebrews about the priest, I shout for joy that I have lived the majority of my life as a priest.  I have always felt called to this vocation and I love it.   For me it has not been prestige but opportunity, like to do what we do here with the kids. 

I shout doubly because just when I might have had to put the opportunity on the shelf, you people invited me to carry on, what we have done together now for 11 years this Thanksgiving.

 

                                 Ace candle lighter, Cole.

 

There is so much I love, like doing weddings.  For example, the big, fun Lebanese wedding last Saturday.  It is a privilege to visit people who are sick and to give some peace to people getting ready to move to the other side, like Joan & Rita, Chuck & Curtis, and Fred. 

For this I shout for joy.

 

                                Fall has arrived in Dallas.

 

And You?  If you are not shouting for joy, are you deaf, or blind like Bartamaeus or me? 

For what do you shout for joy?

                  

Readings:                          

Acts  7,  55-60,  They threw Stephen out of the city, and began to stone him.

Psalm 97,  The Lord is king, the most high over all the earth

Revelation 22, 12-14, 16-17, 20,    I, John, heard a voice.

John 17, 20-26,  I pray that they all may be one.

 

Sorry no homily today.

Readings: 

 Exodus 32, 7-11, 13-14,   I see how stiff necked this people is.

Psalm 51,  I will rise and go to my father.

1 Timothy 1, 11-17, I am grateful to him who has strengthened me.

Luke 15, 1-32, The Prodigal Son (The Best).

 

 

Exodus observations :

What : a story, a long parable.  It has 2 parts, the exodus or exit from Egypt
and the years wandering in the desert.

Who: the work is all about Moses, but he
did not compose it.  Rather, it was put
together by a committee during the Babylonian Captivity, 555 before Christ.

Subject: it appears that the purpose of the
work was to encourage the people during the Babylonian Captivity.  It is not history and borrows stories from
other cultures.  For instance, the
parting of the Red Sea comes from a Mesopotamian creation myth and the 10
Commandments resemble the Code of Hammurabi.

Our Subject: The people have been bad, God is
mad at them, and Moses defends the people.

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

 

 

 

The Prodigal Son: A Work of Art

 This story is my favorite parable of the whole Bible.  Note one thing: this is story, not
history.   The author carefully crafts
his work of art to show how much God loves us unconditionally.  Let me give you three observations about the
son, three about the father, and an extra three to show you how astounding this
story is. 

First, the younger son:

 

        1.  He has no right to ask for inheritance.  None. 
By asking he is saying he wishes the father and the older son dead.  A symbolic murder.  Father can kill him for this.

        2.  He works feeding pigs instead of asking for
help from the temple.  This means he
rejects the religious tradition and is considered a traitor not only to the
family, but to the religion.  

    3.  So, as a horrible failure as a son of the
family and a son of the religious tradition, he decides to return.  He makes up his little speech and heads
home.  He is hungry to the point of
dying.  Do this or die.  Many listening Jews would say, Die.  

The Father: he actually commits as many crimes and sins as
the son.

 

    1.    
He runs down the road to
the son when he sees him coming.  A very
undignified action.  Outrageous.  People who emphasize conditional love point
out that the son at least came back. 
Despite this point, all the other elements of the parable point to a
father with unconditional love.

        2.  He embraced and kissed the son.  Huge violation of Jewish religious custom and
law.  By doing this the father positions
himself outside of the religious & cultural community.  He is a reject like the son. 

        3.  He cuts the son’s speech off before he can finish, eliminating the last sentence, “treat me as you would one of your
hired workers.”  And to make it worse, he
orders the servants to bring the finest robe, ring, and sandals. 

 

The robe, the ring, and the sandals:

        1.  The robe: restores the son’s dignity. 

        2.  The ring: gives authority to the son, even
equal to the father and certainly more than before he left.

        3.  The sandals: gives the son freedom.  Slaves were not given sandals so they would
not run away.  The father is doubling the
message he gave when he cut the son’s speech off before he could say the third
part about being treated as a servant.  

 

A word about the older son, because we so often identify
with him.  Two additional and final
points.

        1.  That he tells his father how he feels.  Great. 
In those days, it meant the father can kill him.  Today: communication. 

        2.  What is his challenge: acceptance of his
brother, his father, and himself; focus on gratitude for all he has; move from
trying to be a good boy to loving?  Any
one of these?  Or all?  All.  

I apologize for so much data.  There is even more.  The point is that the story is a carefully
crafted literary work of art that attempts to describe how totally unconditionally
loving our God is.

How does this image of God reflect your image of God? 

 

 

Source: The
Liberating Stories of Jesus, Francis Vanderwall (Dallas’ Open Window will
present Francis Saturday, September 28, for an all day seminar.  Welcome. 
More info below.  Sunday he will
be with us at Vines.  He is an ex-Jesuit
and one of my best old Jesuit buddies.)  
Download Fall 2013 Conference 9-20-13