God shows His love in our relationships – Eph 5:21-32

21st Sunday in OT, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to ask for a show of hands on this one. How many of you had today’s second reading at your wedding? In my experience, about 25% of couples choose it (the majority go for “love is patient, love is kind” from 1 Corinthians for their 2^nd reading, but this one from Eph 5 definitely comes in second in popularity; when I had to plan a fake wedding for our liturgical celebration class in seminary, I picked “God is love” from 1 John… if you’re planning a wedding, maybe think about it). You’ve probably noticed that I don’t normally preach on the reading from Paul at Sunday Mass (I most often preach on the Gospel, sometimes on the Old Testament reading; I preach Paul a lot more at daily Mass), but this reading is one of the rare readings that I think you have to preach on if it’s proclaimed, because this language of submission is just kind of, if I’m being honest, uncomfortable. It discomforted me when I began praying with these readings a week ago to prepare myself to preach, and I think I owe it to you wrestle with that out loud for a while and not just leave it hanging. But before I get to that language, I want to look at this reading more broadly.

Announcements at Mass in the wake of the PA grand jury report

I didn't preach this weekend, but included the below at the start and end of the Mass I presided at.

God feeds us heaven for our hard walk on earth – 1 Kings 19:4-8

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

I think we can tell from our first reading that Elijah was distressed, at his wits end. And I want to back up and give you some “previously on 1 Kings…” context for why he felt that way, but first I want to dwell a little with that distress. After he sits down, the first thing we heard about him was that “he prayed to die.” Taking the Hebrew a little more literally, the text says, “He asked to his own soul to die.” It’s not clear to me that he’s exactly praying yet at that point, though it could be “he asked for dying for his soul.” But I’m not sure he’s yet praying to God. He seems to be looking inward at that point, and it may not even be a fully verbalized thought, but a deep inward resignation, when he looks to his soul, his life, and wishes for only death. But, then he speaks. רב! Literally, he cries out, “Much!” We understand: “too much.” “Enough!” That verbalization seems to be enough though, to make him turn to God. “Now, God, take my life, because I (emphatic ‘I’) am no better than my fathers.” That last bit probably means, “No better than the prophets who came before, who couldn’t get Israel to return to covenant living either.” When he speaks these feelings of desperation he’s feeling, that turns him to prayer, that turns him to God, and it certainly doesn’t solve any of his problems, but somehow he gains enough peace to sleep, and that’s the first gift. And there will go on to be more gifts, because when God looks at Elijah’s soul he doesn’t will death, He sees a life worth living, he wills abundant life, just as he does for each of us. And somehow Elijah’s willingness to be brutally honest with God in prayer is the start of opening himself up to more gift.