Jesus embraces us – Mark 9:30-37, James 3:16-4:3

OT Yr B, Wk 25; slight variants preached at two different Masses at Notre Dame this weekend.

There’s a puzzle that British newspapers like to publish called ‘spot the ball.’  They’ll take a photo of a moment in a soccer match, use computer wizardry to render the ball invisible and invite readers to reconstruct where it must be.  It sometimes takes some thought, but it’s an eminently doable puzzle, because all the action really is revolving around the ball; everyone on the pitch treats it as the most important object in the world and focuses their action around it.  It’s the same when someone really important, really valued, really great is walking somewhere.  Maybe we see it on campus on weekends like this, or we’ve all seen media images of a rap star or president walking surrounded by their entourage.  They’re surrounded, in the center, all conversations and interactions are rooted around the great one in their midst.

God gives us goodness – Mark 7:1-23, James 1:17-27

22nd Sunday in OT, Yr B; Walsh Hall, University of Notre Dame.

Many great actors say that they relish playing villains.  Some stories create much of their delight and intrigue by making us root against someone.  If you come out of the movie theater feeling sorry for Scar, or thinking that Darth Vader wasn’t such a bad egg after all, you’ve kind of missed the point of those movies.  But that way of engaging narrative, seeking out the baddies… that can lead us dangerously astray when we apply it to the gospels, or to our day-to-day lives for that matter.  Because if you look at this gospel trying to find the hero, that’s clear and right; we find Jesus.  But if we look for the villains, we’d be tempted to find the Pharisees and scribes.  We’d start to read this thinking that Jesus is out to vanquish them, and miss his will to save them.  And we’d start to think that we need to distance ourselves from them, because they might defile us… too much contact with them might make us impure.  And then the gospel turns its head on us, on the judgments that rise up within us, and Jesus would sadly smile at us and tell us, “No, nothing that comes from outside can defile.”

God enlivens our relationships with love – Eph 5:2a, 25-32

Ordinary Time, Yr B, Wk 21.  Notre Dame, Badin Hall.

I seem to have an odd track record of readings about marriage coming up at Masses I celebrate in very different contexts.  We’re here, about to begin a new school year at Notre Dame, and one comes up.  Just a few months ago, on June 6^th, I presided at 8^th grade graduation Mass at the parish where I was serving before I came here, and the first reading was another marriage reading.  It was from the book of Tobit, a depiction of parental pride at children growing up and marrying.  And it worked pretty well for 8^th grade graduation.  Certainly, there was a lot of parental pride, even though none of these kids had gotten married.  But, praying as I prepared myself to preach at that occasion, I started thinking about what marriage really is.  Marriage is a totally human relationship that is blessed to show the world something of what God’s love for us looks like.  And the kids we were graduating had entered into relationships like that; they’d entered into authentic, maturing friendships.  I’d marveled often as I saw their love, their mutual challenge, and their forgiveness when things went wrong, and genuinely seen God’s love.  And, at their graduation, I felt some pride, marveled in gratitude, thanked them, and encouraged them to keep on loving like that.

God feeds us for the journey – 1 Kings 19:4-8

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time; Mission Appeals at All Saints, Logansport, IN.  (Bilingual)

Elijah was hungry.  He wasn’t just hungry for food: he was hungry for relief from persecution; he was hungry for meaning and purpose in his life; he was hungry for success as a prophet, not for his own sake, but for God’s; he was hungry for the intimacy and acceptance of God that had launched him on this path.  He was hungry.  And so God fed him.  Elijah had fled into the desert, running from the Queen who was out to kill him.  He was fleeing from his call to be a prophet, because it seemed almost hopeless.  He was hungry.  And so God fed him.  God fed him, and God led him.  God have him food for the journey, and leads him to walk His walk to the summit of Mount Horeb, where, in that famous passage, Elijah would encounter God in the still small voice.  A still small voice that re-commissioned him, sent him anew, to return to his people and prophesy, a task that would get no easier, but to which he would return fed, nourished by encounter with God.

God conquers division through intimate embrace – Mark 6:30-34, Eph 2:13-18

OT 16, Yr C; Sacred Heart parish.

Do you ever wonder how the apostles felt?  They’d just come back from their first mission experience without Jesus by their side.  It’d been hard, maybe harder than anything they’d ever known; Jesus has sent them out without provisions, without anything to keep them warm at night if they couldn’t find someone to take them in, shabbily dressed, totally dependent on those they went to serve.  And he’d warned them: they would encounter rejection, being ignored, being turned out of town.  And I’m sure they did.  But we don’t actually read about any of that in Mark’s gospel; he just gives us a short summary of their performance “they preached repentance, drove out many demons, anointed many sick with oil and cured them.”  It had gone great.  They must be coming back at once energized and exuberant with joy at their success, and at the same time completely exhausted.  And emotionally… they’ve probably missed Jesus.  So, when he invites them to come away with him, just the 13 of them, for an intimate time of rest and refreshment… that must be a dream come true!  It’s the two key moments of discipleship back to back: doing the work of Jesus, and enjoying the friendship of Jesus, just wasting time with him.

God heals through our dependency – Mark 6:7-13, Eph 1:3-10, Amos 7:12-17

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Cross parish.

As a Brit living in America, I always find celebrating Independence Day a little odd.  Now, I like burgers and fireworks, so I quickly get over any feelings of oddness and just enjoy myself, but I’ve often wondered what it might look like if a civil celebration of political Independence was somehow paired with a more religious celebration of Dependence: an interior attitude of dependence on God, that’s expressed and formed by actions which make clear to ourselves and to others our total dependence on God’s creation, and the humans who crown that creation.  By Providence, that’s precisely what our gospel today encourages us to do.

God reaches out to us in the mundane – Mark 6:1-6a, 2 Cor 12:7-10, Ezek 2:2-5

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time; St. Adalbert's, South Bend.  (one English Mass; one Spanish).

Jesus was amazed.  Jesus didn’t get amazed all that much, at least not in the scriptural texts we have, and when he did, it was generally being pleasantly amazed at someone’s faith. But here, he’s amazed and the emotions that go along with that might be saddened, mournful, lost, dismayed.  He’d come home, to the place he was most familiar with, the place he might expected comfort, even might look forward to an enthusiastic welcome; but he finds a lack of faith, a dishonor that amazes him, shocks him.