Monday, November 9, 2015

Feeling uncomfortable

Homily: 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
          One of the most moving experiences that I had during my time studying Spanish in Guatemala happened when I tagged along on a trip with two other students and an interpreter to visit a couple of small villages north of the Guatemalan city of Coban.  These villages didn’t have a source of fresh water and one of the students with whom I travelled, Christopher, was an engineer who worked to design simple systems to bring fresh water from a source higher in the mountain down to the village for them to use.  We travelled there so that Christopher could inspect potential sources of water and talk to the leaders in the villages about how to cooperate in bringing fresh water to their village.
          After checking out a potential water source early in the morning, we made our way down to the village to meet with the people and talk with their leaders.  We arrived around lunch time and they had prepared a meal for us.  Everyone gathered in the community hall and we were seated at the head table.  We were then served a simple soup with meat.  Meanwhile, everyone else watched us eat.  It was rather awkward for me and I didn’t really want to eat, but our interpreter leaned over and let me know that meat was something that the people of the village rarely ate because it was so expensive and that they couldn’t have afforded enough to feed everybody.  So, I politely ate while the others watched.
          I was really moved by that gesture of hospitality and when I think of the poor widow of Zarephath I can’t help but be reminded of the hospitality that I received from those poor folks in Guatemala.  And I wasn’t even the important one!  I had just tagged along!  These folks, nonetheless, honored me as their guest like the widow of Zarephath honored Elijah, in spite of what that would mean for herself and for her son.  The widow considered her duty to hospitality first and so did these folks in Guatemala.
          What moved me most, I think, was just how uncomfortable it made me.  Sure, I’ve never liked being the center of attention, but this was different.  My discomfort was in the fact that I had become acutely aware of just how much I had and just how little they had.  I had driven to their village in a rented truck.  These people probably didn’t have a truck to share between them and probably didn’t have the means to put fuel in it to keep it running, even if they did.  I had a hot shower in the morning, but they bathe in rainwater that they collect off of their roofs.  Yet they served me soup with meat in it and then watched me eat it because they couldn’t afford to make enough for everybody!  And I couldn’t even offer them the promise of rain to maintain their water supply!  I remember feeling like the scribes whom Jesus accuses of making themselves important and of “devouring the houses of widows”.
          And it wasn’t just that day, either.  In fact, this Gospel passage always makes me feel uncomfortable.  This is because I know that what I give to support our parish, the greater Church, and the poor comes from my surplus.  I strive to be generous, of course, but it’s still my surplus.  Thus, my conscience challenges me whenever I reflect on passages in the Gospel like this one that we read today.  “You’re not giving to the point of sacrifice” my conscience tells me.  “But it can be a lot of money”, I reason with my conscience: “Does God really want me to give it all?”  And I can’t help but think that this part, at least—the part of deciding how much I should be giving—would be a lot easier if I didn’t have so much.
          Some of us, I know, are giving like the widow.  You are making sacrifices to continue giving to the Church and the poor and you should feel commended for doing so.  I can only imagine how difficult it must be to try and maintain a steady level of giving if you are on a fixed income, if you’re underemployed, or if you’re paying education bills.  If this willful sacrifice comes from your sense of duty to God and to the Church, then you are certainly storing up treasure in heaven.
          Most of us, however, give from our surplus.  Some of us are minimalists: we fear our financial security or we give into self-serving greed (or a little of both) and so we give as little as is necessary so as to feel like we’ve done our duty.  This kind of minimalist sense of “duty” is false piety, however, because it betrays a lack of trust in God.  Many of us, however, give very generously!  And we should be commended if that generous giving truly comes from a sense of duty to God and to the Church.  Yet we’re not, perhaps, at the point of having to sacrifice something so that we can give.
          Now, I’m not saying that we should give to the point of sacrifice just so that we can say that we do and thus feel justified before God.  What I am saying, rather, is that, in giving to the point of sacrifice, we approach a more absolute trust in God.  This kind of trust-based giving is much more pleasing in the eyes of God.  The widow from Zarephath and the widow in the Temple are both great examples of this.  Both gave up their last bit of security to God—and, thus, made themselves completely reliant on him to provide for their needs—and both were rewarded for their faith.
          My brothers and sisters, if we have not yet given to the point of sacrifice, then perhaps today’s Gospel will cause us to feel a little unsettled.  Because to resolve this discomfort, we will have to allow ourselves to be challenged: to ask ourselves hard questions like “How much do I trust in God” and “Am I ready to give him everything if he asks for it?”  Unfortunately, there are no simple answers to these questions, only an example to follow: Jesus on the cross.  Jesus’ total faith in the Father was what made it possible for him to bear the suffering of the cross.  Therefore, as we approach this altar today to receive the fruit of this sacrifice, let us pray that God would give us that same faith so that we, too, might give ourselves completely to him and thus share in the reward won for us by Jesus: eternal life.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – November 8th, 2015

No comments:

Post a Comment