Reflection for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Listen, Obey, Witness

And you taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are just must be kind; and you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.

Thank you for joining today as we continue our Ordinary Time journey focused on listening to, obeying, and witnessing to Jesus.

We are in God’s field, once again with Jesus, as He teaches through another farming parable – this time the farmer and the enemy.

The farmer and his workers sow good, top-quality seed. They go to sleep, tired after a long day of work. The enemy comes and sows in weeds in an attempt at destroying the crop.

Last week we spoke about preparing ourselves to be the good soil, ready to receive Jesus. There are things we need to fix in our personal garden of life. There are thorns to be removed and rocks and sones to be taken away. Preparing ourselves takes focus, dedication, humility, and hard work. We are required to place Jesus above all in our daily work on ourselves.

If we do this, we are prepared to truly receive God’s good seed and become His Kingdom children. Jesus tells us: “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.”

Jesus is reiterating the fact that in the world there are those willing to be good ground for His Gospel. The willing, those who have given their lives to Christ, receive Him readily and with joy. Guess what, that’s everyone here and those viewing from afar. We are people who want to live the Kingdom life, to be changed inwardly and outwardly.

He also tells us that there are those unwilling. They are those that will pursue anything and everything, or even those in the body of Christ who will not soften their hearts. The children of the evil one prefer to hate others, to fill their lives with whatever will block out the Holy Spirit’s constant knocking at their door.

But, Wisdom advises us of God’s leniency, clemency, and most particularly patience in permitting repentance. If we are falling short in the Kingdom life, let us repent and get back to work.

There are two key phrases in all this I would ask we all reflect on.

…those who are just must be kind and While everyone was asleep his enemy came

God requires us to be kind – to reflect Him most particularly in our leniency, clemency, and patience. That is what Kingdom people are – a reflection of Jesus, the likeness and light of God in the world.

Similarly, we must be careful in not falling asleep. Of course, this does not mean physical sleep, but rather spiritual sleep and drowsiness. The state where we just let it all go and roll off the side of the Kingdom train. We are called to be the living and kind crop that produces good fruit in the kingdom.

Reflection for the 1st Sunday in Lent 2019

Our Lenten Journey
with Dismas – Part 1

What does Scripture say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart —that is, the word of faith that we preach—for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For the Scripture says, No one who believes in him will be put to shame. For there is no distinction 

If you attended Holy Mass on Ash Wednesday, you had a preview of our Lenten homily series. We are spending Lent with St. Dismas. For those who do not know, Dismas was the “good thief,” crucified alongside Jesus. In Greek, the name Dismas, means sunset or death. There are many stores about St. Dismas, but they are not our concern. Rather, we will delve into Dismas as a person, much like ourselves. He took many wrong turns in his life, much like we do. Perhaps, none of our turns was as extreme as Dismas’ turns; yet we have much in common  with him when we turn from God.

Dismas’ turns were dark. The Roman Jewish historian Josephus noted Dismas was a brigand – a thief and abuser. He is much like the robbers the poor man in the story of the Good Samaritan encountered. Brigands lived in the hills, watching for and robbing travelers. They left their victims beaten, robbed, stripped, and helpless along highways and byways. Unless helped, those robbed typically died.

Other works note Dismas as a terrorist or as a fratricidal murderer. As I said, his turns were dark. What was most important however was his last-minute turn to Jesus. Jesus,remember me, when You come into Your kingdom.

Who was this Dismas, really? What brought him to the life he led? None of us can really answer that question. We can speculate. Was he a man, perhaps abused or neglected by his family? Was his family somehow killed by violence or disease, leaving him to fend for himself? Was he a person of little skill who could not find work? Hopelessness can drive a man or woman to extremes. As in our very neighborhood, young men and women join gangs because of hopelessness.

The question we must ask ourselves in our inner Lenten examinations is: ‘Why did I turn from God when I did? What temptation won?’ Again, perhaps not as darkly as Dismas, but nonetheless, away from God. What hopelessness drew me into sin? How might I repent/turn back and in doing so show unity with God’s heart by relieving another person’s hopelessness? Disciples ask these questions and use them to grow into images of Jesus.

Reflection for Septuagesima Sunday 2015

quarantine

Picking at
scabs.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “If someone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch which appears to be the sore of leprosy, he shall be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of the priests among his descendants. If the man is leprous and unclean, the priest shall declare him unclean by reason of the sore on his head. The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.”

We don’t often hear of quarantines anymore. Quarantines are used to separate and restrict the movement of people; it is enforced isolation. Quarantines were used quite a bit in the past in connection to disease and illness, especially communicable disease. Quarantines were used during the plague, to prevent the spread of leprosy, yellow fever, cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, and smallpox. More recently for Ebola and influenza.

The text we read from Leviticus serves two purposes.

The Law was meant to protect the people of Israel against the disease of leprosy at its most practical level. People who were sick had specific rules to follow so others wouldn’t get sick.

The text symbolically points out that the things that are unclean and sinful, including sinful people, should be kept apart from God’s people. God’s people were set apart as pure and holy and as such needed to avoid the infection of sin.

This symbolic meaning is quite depressing, not because its fun to hang out with those who would lead us down the wrong road, but because they were left alone. They could sit there and pick at their scabs-sins, sin again, contemplate their sin, but never get clean. They would dwell apart forever – apart from the community, apart from God. Their fate was painful and hopeless. With that sort of hopelessness there was not reason to repent, to turn away from sin, and no possibility of being welcomed back.

This is our hope, the abundance that we have been given. A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

Jesus came to call us to repentance. He tells us to stop picking at our scabs in isolation, quarantined away, and reaches out to heal us. He makes us clean and new. As we enter the season of Pre-Lent we are given the opportunity to reflect on the scabs we have been picking, and to begin the walk back to Jesus who will heal and free us.