--------------------------------------------------
Homily:
28th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C
Not long before I entered the seminary, just a few months
before I would leave my job as an engineer, I was on a business trip in south
Texas. At that time, I was in the throes
of discerning how God was leading me to follow his call to be a priest and so I
was praying and fasting a lot, asking mostly that I would be humble enough to
know what God was asking me to do and to be courageous enough to do it. It happened to be the middle of March and I
was about a thirty minute drive from South Padre Island, where hundreds of
thousands of college students were celebrating their Spring Break.
I was there over a weekend and didn’t have to work on
Sunday, so I decided to head over to South Padre to spend some time relaxing on the beach. Now, before any of you get the idea that I
was going there to party, remember that I had already discerned that God was
calling me to be a priest and that I was trying to discern how he was leading
me to follow that call. Thus, I went
with the idea that I might evangelize some of the Spring Breakers, not party
with them.
When I got to the beach, however, I quickly understood why
Jesus sent his disciples out two-by-two.
Although the beach wasn’t crowded, I quickly felt overwhelmed by the
task and, with no one to support me, I gave in to the idea that my impact on
the beach that day would be minimal, at best.
And so, armed as I was with some pamphlets that invite people to
consider God’s great love for them, I decided to enjoy the beach and pray,
hoping that God would send someone my way who needed to be touched by his love.
Not long after I took my bible out of my backpack and began
to pray, I was approached by two men looking for some money for food. One of them, the man who addressed me, was
obviously inebriated. As has become
almost instinctual for us these days, I immediately said to myself “I’m not
going to give him money, he’ll just spend it on alcohol.” Even still, I did see this as an opportunity
to share one of my pamphlets with someone and to pray with them, and so I
offered this to them instead. The
inebriated man declined my offer, however, and the two of them moved on.
As they walked away, I was immediately convicted that I
should have offered them more. “I should
have offered to take them somewhere to eat”, I thought to myself. Thus convicted, I sat back down and promised
God with all sincerity in my heart that if I saw them again that day that I
would offer to take them somewhere to eat.
I spent a little longer on the beach praying and enjoying
being near the water and then got up to return to my car. As I was leaving the beach and heading towards
the parking lot, there were these two men sitting on a bench. When I recognized them I immediately thought
“Thank you God for giving me a chance to make good on my promise.” I walked towards them and asked them if they
were still hungry. They, of course,
replied “yes” and I invited them to go get some food.
The second man, who said nothing to me the first time we
met, asked why it was that I had changed my mind. When I explained how I felt after they left
and the promise I made to God, he began to cry.
He explained that this was not the first time that God had intervened to
help him. He began to thank me
profusely, even to the point of asking me not to do this kind gesture for him,
so deeply he felt undeserving of my kindness.
The other man, it seemed, thanked me as a formality and was soon focused
on getting back to the beach, perhaps to continue begging for money. His companion, however, continued to thank me
and asked if I would pray for him, which I did right there, and then they went
on their way.
These men were of obviously different ethnic backgrounds
and the thankful man was definitely of a minority ethnic group. I imagine that, coupled with being
impoverished and needing to beg for food meant that he often felt ignored and
unacknowledged. Yet that day, by the
grace of God, I saw him, acknowledged his need (both material and spiritual),
and tried to meet it. Perhaps that was
the first time in a really long time that he felt acknowledged and for that he
was moved to gratitude.
In the Gospel reading today, ten lepers cry out to Jesus
asking him for mercy. They all had faith
in Jesus’ power to heal, which moved them to cry out. All of them responded to that faith by
immediately following Jesus’ instructions, even though they weren’t immediately
healed. Yet only one returned to give
thanks to the one through whom the healing had come. That one was a Samaritan: a person of an
ethnicity that was looked down upon by Jews.
He was not used to being acknowledged, but that day Jesus saw him and
acknowledged his need (both physical and spiritual) and he met it. And for that he was moved to gratitude.
The question for us, my brothers and sisters, is not
whether or not we can see and respond to the beggars and the lepers in our
midst like Jesus did (although we are called to do that, of course). Rather, the question for us is whether or not
we can recognize that we ourselves are beggars and lepers in need of God’s
mercy. What would it be like if we wore
our sin on our skin, like a leprosy that we couldn’t hide from anyone? Would we, then, know rejection like the lepers
did? And do you think that Jesus would
still acknowledge us?
The truth, my brothers and sisters, is that when Jesus
looks at us he sees our sin as clearly as if it were a skin disease. Even so, he still acknowledges us when we
call out to him for mercy. He does not
pass us by. Rather, he says to us, “Go
show yourselves to the priest.” And what
else can that mean except “Go to Confession.”
And in following his command we realize that we have already been
forgiven; we have already been healed. And
thus who wouldn’t want to return to give thanks to the one who looked so
lovingly on us, even in the ugliness of our sin? Yes, the one who is truly grateful for having been seen by him returns,
glorifying God for his mercy and giving thanks.
And how do we do that? Well, we
do that every time that we return here to celebrate this Holy Eucharist with
joy and gratitude in our hearts.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – October 12th & 13th, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment