Sunday Homily 6-13-10, 11th Ordinary Time
Readings: 2 Samuel 12, 7-13; Psalm 32, Lord, Forgive the Wrong I have done: Galatians 2, 16, 19-21; Luke 7, 36-8, 3.
Sunday Homily 6-13-10, 11th Ordinary Time
Preliminary observations:
The First reading today is from the Second Book of Samuel and it is about King David. The Jewish people had reached a time in their history when they wanted to be just like their neighbors, who all had kings!!
The prophets viewed it as not a good thing but basically we find Yahweh saying “let them have their king”, and so Saul is the first king and he is followed by David. David is one of those huge figures in the Old Testament, and even gets mentioned frequently in the New Testament since Jesus was from the house of David.
King David was a very interesting character, very human and very much loved by Yahweh. The time frame for this is about the year 1000 BCE. Before we listen to today’s reading I need to set it up. The Book of Samuel, if it were being reviewed today by those who do those things would get an “Adult Only” rating. I don’t want you to let your kids read this book, it is full of sinning and murder and other bad stuff!!
One day David is out walking around on the roof of his palace and he sees Bathseba bathing. He takes a fancy to her, but she is already married. No problem if you are the king. He simply has her husband Uriah sent to the front lines of a battle where he is killed. Getting a woman to be your wife this way is not good, even if you are the king, and God gets a little upset!! Now just before our passage today we have the following piece in the Book of Samuel and I want to read it to you.
“The LORD sent Nathan to David, and when he came to him, he said: "Judge this case for me! In a certain town there were two men, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had flocks and herds in great numbers. But the poor man had nothing at all except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He nourished her, and she grew up with him and his children. She shared the little food he had and drank from his cup and slept in his bosom. She was like a daughter to him.
Now, the rich man received a visitor, but he would not take from his own flocks and herds to prepare a meal for the wayfarer who had come to him. Instead he took the poor man's ewe lamb and made a meal of it for his visitor."
David grew very angry with that man and said to Nathan: "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this merits death! He shall restore the ewe lamb fourfold because he has done this and has had no pity."
Then Nathan said to David: "You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of
Our Second
Paul had come to the opinion, based on his revelation of the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, that baptism was all that was needed. There was a whole lot of friction between Paul and the Church in
Eleventh Sunday – Homily
The message today is primarily about forgiveness, but I want to begin before forgiveness with a session on sin, which I am an expert on!! Because the practice of frequent confession seems to have disappeared there is a danger that we could lull ourselves into thinking that sin too has gone away, and I’m afraid that this would be a big mistake on our part. Lets start with what sin is.
Any action, which damages our relationship, either with God or another person, is sinful. Now that kind of statement is pretty sterile on its own, so lets try to put some flesh on it. Imagine you have someone in your life who loves you very very much. Now you have done something, which hurts them, accidentally or not, it doesn’t ever matter. Imagine how you would feel.
The problem with our sins is that I’m afraid we don’t realize how much we are loved by God, for some reason it just doesn’t really sink in enough, because if it did, then sin would devastate us. It seems to me that woman in our Gospel was very aware of what her sins were doing. For some unexplained reason, maybe listening to Jesus speak somewhere, and it hit her. We clearly see her response.
David has a clear vision of his sin. Paul is taking the position that if Christ is living in us, than we are alright, we are forgiven, and we don’t need to be doing extra things. The hard piece for us to understand is that God’s love for us is so great that we are forgiven, even before we ask for forgiveness. That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for sin. We know there are. David’s son died because of his father’s sin, the woman in the gospel story was an outcast in her society.
The lesson for me in today’s liturgy of the word is how closely am I aware of my sins, and the need to change sinful behavior? Just because I am forgiven thru God’s love doesn’t mean I can just continue to sin. If I truly love someone, would I want to continue hurting them just because they readily forgave me?
Picture 1: Mass Begins, welcome!
Picture 2: Communion, Tony, Richard Baack & Richard Froebe
Picture 3: Communion, Tom Fleming & Teresa Read
Picture 4: Fred & Maureen