26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 29 September 2013

Shared Homily Starter


1st  Reading:          Amos 6:1a,4-7
Psalm:                   146:6c-7, 8-9a, 9b-10
2nd Reading:          1 Timothy 6:11-16
Gospel:                  Luke 16:19-31

Today’s readings invite us to think about indifference and to remind us that our actions and interactions with others are an expression of our spiritual selves.  For example, in the first reading, Amos is talking to the elite, who have acquired their wealth and all its trappings and privileges, through exploitation of their underlings, the peasants and the poor.  Even their temple life has become an ostentatious show of wealth rather than worship.  Amos tells us they “sing idle songs to the sound of the harp,… drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!”  If Amos were speaking today, it would go something like this.  “They have finest choirs and musicians, whose hymns are more about entertainment and feeling good than God.  Their church furnishings and altar ware are of the finest gold, yet they are indifferent to the poverty and suffering around them.  Even worse, they make their money by not paying their workers a living wage.  In other words, their outward shows of devotion are just that, shows without substance. 

In the second reading, Paul provides a curative prescription by telling us to pursue justice, “godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Our pursuit of justice is to be rooted in and motivated by faith and love.  We are called to endurance as an antidote for despair.  Our pursuits are to be tempered by gentleness.  These are the armaments of “fighting the good fight”, which would be better described as following in the footsteps of Christ, or working to bring forth the God’s kindom.  Paul says this is what we signed on for when we “made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses”─ and we make this confession every Easter when we renew our baptismal vows.  In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the Gospel warns of the consequences of indifference, of not living our baptismal call. 

Now, biblical literalists might argue that this parable is about the good man going to heaven and the bad man going to hell.  But, I think that when Jesus told parables, it was about how to live right here and right now; to teach us to act with justice, compassion and love.  So with this in mind, let’s revisit today’s Gospel.  The Gospel implies that the rich man ignored the poor man at his gate day after day as he ate his sumptuous meals.  This Gospel is about indifference, where there should have been compassion, charity and love. 

Now think of acts of indifference as a river wearing away the solid ground of our ability to perceive our connection to God and the Godseed within us and within others.  The river gets stronger and grinds deeper with each act of indifference until there is a gulf or chasm between us and All-That-Is, that is as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon.  That gulf is a blindness that inhibits our ability to see another’s pain and the connectedness of all things.

An example of this is the media coverage, or rather, lack of mainstream media coverage for the TRC events.  The only event publicized on Global TV was the Walk for Reconciliation.  This was not only a post TRC event; it was the easy event, where bringing our open hearts was not required, where we didn’t have to witness the pain in the stories of the residential school survivors and their families.

Indifference to residential school situation has been and still is a national blindness.  The media had the potential to help open the eyes of the Canadian public but the big stories on TV news during the TRC were a train/bus crash in Ottawa and a deadly motorcycle accident in Surrey, BC.  The chasm caused by our national indifference is so deep and so wide that the mainstream media was focussed on death rather than giving at least some focus to something that had healing potential for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians alike. 

But, unlike the news media, we are called to be points of light and life in our society and our communities.  Willingness to participate in the work of reconciliation with our Indigenous brothers and sisters is living into that call.  So as God says in today’s Gospel, we have Moses and the prophets─ and as Christians─ we have the Gospel.  One of the Indian residential school Survivors, Geraldine Shingoose, who spoke at the TRC said, “Healing and reconciliation is reconnecting with your spirit.”  Today’s readings are telling us that when our inner and outer lives reflect compassion and love instead of indifference, we reconnect our spirits.  Because of and in spite of our own brokenness, we can become God’s instruments of reconciliation and healing, living into the Kindom of God within us and around us.

These are few of my thoughts on the readings.  I now invite you to share yours.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Homily on Mark 6:14-29 - for July 15, 2012

Image
God’s Voice Will Not Be Silenced Speaking Truth to Power This reading tells me that there are consequences to speaking truth to power, often deadly consequences.   But, God’s voice will not be silenced.    We are told that John spoke against King Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias.   Herodias was not too pleased about this negative publicity.   So she bides her time.   She uses Herod’s hastily spoken promise to her daughter to silence John once and for all. But God’s voice will not be silenced.   We are told in the stories just before this that Jesus was rejected in his own home town of Nazareth.   Jesus left Nazareth but he was not deterred by this rejection.   He sent the twelve out two by two and Jesus and his disciples carried on God’s call to repentance when John no longer could.   Speaking truth to power continues to have devastating consequences.   In 2004, I went on a women’s del...
Read more

7 July 2013 – 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Image
Shared Homily Starter First Reading: Isaiah 66.10-14 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 62 Second Reading: Galatians 6:14-18 Gospel: Luke 10.1-12, [13-16], 17-20 Today’s gospel is about evangelization.   The word, “evangelization” has become, for many of us, a word that sends up red flags.   This is because, unfortunately, for almost two millennia, evangelization has been used more as a weapon than as an invitation to follow Christ’s example of peace and love.   Let’s examine evangelization from Jesus’ perspective.   He knows there are plenty of people out there who would be open to hearing the Good News.   He also knows that there are plenty who don’t want to hear it.   But Jesus sends out his disciples like lambs into a sea of wolves.   We live in a culture of ravenous consumption and accumulation.   We seek to accumulate more and more money, more and more power and more and more ad nauseam.   The more we have, the more we wan...
Read more

24TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Image
15 September 2013 – Shared Homily Starter First Reading: Exodus 32.7-11, 13-14 Second Reading: 1 Timothy 1.12-17 Gospel: Luke 15.1-32 When I pondered this week’s readings, a theme began to emerge.   Before I delve into the theme, I’d like you to consider a quote from Thomas Berry.   He said, “[O]ne of the basic difficulties of the modern West is its division into a secular scientific community, which is concerned with creative energies, and a religious community, which is concerned with redemptive energies.   So concerned are we with redemptive healing that once healed, we look only to be more healed.   We seldom get to our functional role within the creative intentions of the universe” (Berry 1988:25). When I considered this and looked at the readings again, I saw that what we need to be is not only co-creators but co-redemptors.   For example, in our first reading, have God’s promises to Noah and to Abraham been committed to forgetfu...
Read more