Urban Hermit at 3156 Doyle Street, Toledo, OH 43608-2006 US - Year B, 14th through 21st
| Year B, 14th through 21st |
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): A Prophet's Reward Ezekiel 2:2-5—Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. But you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God! And whether they heed or resist—for they are a rebellious house—they shall know that a prophet has been among them. Psalm 123: Our eyes are fixed on you, God, pleading for mercy. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10—I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints, for the sake of Christ, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Mark 6:1-6—Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house." So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Strike up a conversation in the church these days, and underneath the civility and loyalty you'll find anger. For many of those who minister, whether inside the institutional church or outside of it, disappointment and frustration seems to be the order of the day. This week's readings reveal that the dynamics of this situation are not new. God sends Ezekiel to the "hard of face and obstinate of heart," where the rebellious house of Israel may either pay attention to what he says or ignore him. All God promises is that he shall receive the prophet's reward—they will know that he has prophesied. Paul describes the rewards for his prophetic announcement of the Way of Jesus: insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints. Jesus himself suffers the prophet's reward; amazed at the lack of faith among his hometown friends, he can only cure a few of the sick. Across the nation Catholics are staying away from Mass in greater and greater numbers. Offertory tallies decrease. More and more priests retire, leaving the remaining pastors with two or three parishes to administer. Yet the organization continues to play sleight-of-hand with financial reports, continues to allow mismanagement and malfunction, and refuses to empower the laity. Sr. Joan Chittister speaks out, a prophetic voice supported by a prophetic community. Call to Action and We Are Church and WOC speak out, prophetic voices supported by a prophetic community. Even more amazing, in ordinary parishes in ordinary towns around the world, ordinary people are calling for justice and truth in the church. Still, this outpouring of prophetic spirit is ignored by too many of the leaders of our institutional church, ordained and not ordained. As the readings of this 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time begin to settle into our consciousness this week, let's listen for the voices of prophets around us. Many of them are the tiny, relatively anonymous voices in the pews, voices of outrage in a call for justice that we would do well to heed. Even though they are not successful right now, they are faithful to the best in our tradition. 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): Go, Prophesy! Amos 7:12-15—Go, prophesy to my people Israel. Psalm 85: God, let us see your kindness and grant us your salvation. Ephesians 1:3-14—In love God destined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. Mark 6:7-13—Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them. Jesus' instructions to the disciples are clear. When people do not welcome you, leave. When people do not listen to the Word of God you bring them, shake the dust off your feet as you exit the place. Clear as it is, this direction is not easy to follow. Committed as Christians to carry the Word to the world, we enter a "place" with high hopes, whether it be our school, our work, our home, our neighborhood, or our family. Sometimes the Word we bear is unwelcome. We may be scorned at school for the way we make life choices. We may be shunned at work for failing to go along with practices we believe are contradictory to the call for justice or stewardship of the environment. We may find conflict with our neighbors over quality-of-life issues or responsibility issues. Even in our families we may find unbelief. They know us well, and they know our history, so they are disinclined to give credence to what we say even when we speak of the Word of God. When we are not welcomed or heeded, though, it is not an easy matter to leave school, work, home, neighborhood, or family. It's easier, sometimes, to "hang in there," hoping for a conversion, praying for a change of heart. Today's readings hold out the promise of fruitfulness when the Word is received: "The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them." But how long are we to stay hoping for good results? If we decide to stay where we are not welcomed, we give up the good that could have been. If we do not shake the dust from our feet and go on, we will not bring about the fruitfulness that comes from spreading the Word of God. As we go about this week, let's look at those "places" in our lives where we should, as it's said, "cut our losses." You may have been there, speaking the prophetic message in word or action, for some time. Maybe it's a small thing, like a church committee that's embroiled in bitterness or gossip. Maybe it's something big, like a grown child who no longer believes the faith lessons you taught. Whatever the place your evangelization efforts fall on deaf ears, this is the time to re-assess. Are people eagerly waiting in other places for the message of Christ that you could be bringing them? 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): Sheep without a Shepherd Jeremiah 23:1-6—None shall be missing. Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want. Ephesians 2:13-18—You who were once far off have become near by the blood of Christ. Mark 6:30-34—His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. Over the years I have had the opportunity to observe the dynamics in several parishes in Ohio and Michigan from various perspectives. When I mull over today's readings, I am reminded of some of those experiences, some good and some not so good. On the good side I recall the many times I've seen pastoral ministers try to get away for a well-deserved and much-needed respite from the day-to-day giving of ministry only to leave late—held up by a parishioner with an urgent need—and to be called back early for a funeral. I've seen pastoral ministers who respond to those emergencies with great charity, and I've seen others who refuse to alter any bit of their vacation plans to accommodate a need in the parish. In addition, I've seen pastoral ministers who used their time away from the parish to tend to the needs of infirm parents or to "vacation" in a mission setting. And then I've seen pastoral ministers who manage to carve out a time away and come back renewed and refreshed for their ministry. The growing shortage of priests in our diocese has resulted in a tendency in parishes to overwork a priest pastor or to broaden the work of what are now being termed "lay ecclesial ministers." Taking a cue from Jesus' delegation of the preaching and teaching to the disciples, some priest pastors are calling on members of the parish community to help them with the burden of pastoral care. People without degrees in counseling or medicine are visiting the sick, homebound, and hospitalized, praying with them and connecting them to the parish community. People without degrees in education are preparing children for First Eucharist and First Reconciliation. People without degrees in ministry are walking the RCIA path with those who seek entrance or re-entrance into the community. The model is clear in Mark's gospel. Jesus teaches the disciples, who go out and spread the good news. They return, report what they have done and taught. Jesus invites them to go aside for a rest from their labors. Good shepherds, they respond to the needs of the people who follow them. We are called to imitate that model. The truth is that evangelization does not require a degree in anything academic; it does, however, require a high "degree" of faith. In the state of the church as we find it today, that faith must not only be faith in God and Christ but faith in the ability of ordinary laypeople to live out the gospel mandates. As we go about this week, let's take a look at the dynamics in our home parish in light of the model in today's gospel. Is there some ministry we are called to? 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): Sinners Welcome! 2 Kings 4:42-44—Thus says the Lord, "They shall eat and there shall be some left over." Psalm 145: Your hand feeds us, O God; you answer all our needs. Ephesians 4:1-6—Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit; one Lord, one faith, one baptism. John 6:1-15—Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. Today's reading from the gospel of John makes it clear that Jesus welcomed everyone who came to him. As the prophet Elisha asserts in the reading from the second book of Kings, there's enough for everyone! There will even be leftovers! Elisha's twenty loaves fill a hundred people; Jesus' five loaves and two fish fill five thousand. The people of God are one body, and God gives all that is needed. An irate pastor once barred me from leadership in his parish and told me I was no longer welcome to worship in "his" church. I recall the being out of communion with my community as a dying. I recall being barred from ministry in my parish as being crippled. Think of those priests unfairly barred from ministry through the zero tolerance policy of our bishops. It is obvious that some have abused their calling and should be removed. On the other hand, Cardinal Bernardin suffered from false accusations for months before his accuser confessed. In our own diocese priests have been removed on the basis of complaints later found to be groundless. Another obviously unfair case is that of a pastor whose transgression was publicly exposed and prosecuted; he served a jail sentence and was suspended from priestly activities for years while he underwent therapy until the bishop was satisfied to return him to pastoral duties. There was never any cover-up in his case; everything was detailed on the front page of the local newspaper. Nevertheless, when the clergy cover-up scandal broke, he was cut off from the community as a result of the zero tolerance policy. Another large group of members of the body of Christ excluded from our communities are those whose marriages contain what the Church has defined as some kind of anomaly, the most common of which are those who have divorced and remarried without obtaining an annulment. In many of our parishes we also ostracize gays and lesbians, women who have had abortions or who bear children outside marriage, and ex-offenders released from prison after serving their sentences. A parish in Washington, DC, displays a banner across its front entrance: "Sinners welcome!" We are all sinners, all in need of reconciliation in the community. When we forget that fact, we run the risk of violating the basic tenets of our tradition. We must ask ourselves if we are following Paul's directives as set forth in the passage we read today from Ephesians. Are we bearing with one another through love? Are we one body and one Spirit? If we claim those virtues, we must never bar anyone from our community.
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): Be Eucharist
Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15—On seeing the manna, the Israelites asked one another, "What is this?" for they did not know what it was. Moses told them, "This is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat."
Psalm 78: The Lord gave them bread from heaven.
Ephesians 4:17, 20-24—Put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth.
John 6:24-35—I am the bread of life.
For several weeks now a major project to restore and renovate the interior of our historic church building has led us to celebrate Sunday Eucharist outdoors. At the end of the Prayer of the Faithful last Sunday, one of the ushers came to me to tell me that the bread had blown away in the quickening wind. As I went inside to the sacristy to get more bread, the usher's words seemed to echo the gospel just proclaimed, in which Jesus tells the disciple to get bread for the crowd. I returned with the fresh bread, and the celebration continued.
The scriptures of the day seem to speak to the needs of the day, or so I've learned over the years. As a result, I have spent some time asking God what meaning there was for me in this experience. God so arranged the breeze and the setting to make me the one to bring the bread for the people on the day that these particular scriptures were being proclaimed. I had to ask myself, in what other ways does God expect me to bring bread to the people? Jesus, according to today's reading from John's gospel, is "the bread of life." How am I expected to bring Jesus to the people? How is my parish community to bring Jesus to the people?
Paul's letter to the Ephesians gives us one clue. Put on the new self, Paul tells us. We are created in the way of righteousness and holiness of truth. It is our call to walk the pathways of our lives in that righteousness and holiness. Though the particulars will vary from person to person, generally in our homes it means love and peace. In our jobs it means service and dedication. In our parishes it means inclusion and outreach. In our world it means sharing and restraint. It's not only "What would Jesus do?" but also "How would Jesus be?" When we put away the old self and put on the new self, we offer ourselves as servants to carry the bread of life to everyone we meet.
As we go about this week, let's pay special attention to those small ways in which we are called to be Jesus to others. We must be renewed, as St. Paul tells us, in the spirit of our minds.
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): We Become What We Eat
1 Kings 19:4-8—Elijah prayed for death… but an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.
Psalm 19: Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Ephesians 4:30-5:2—Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love.
John 6:41-51—I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.
Haven't we all been there, at one time or another, just like Elijah in the desert, praying to die? It's not hard to think of the circumstances that backed us into that corner—the frustrations, the failures, the fears, the failed relationships, the failing health! We had done all we could. We had used up every resource and all our energies. In utter dejection, we cried out to God that we'd had enough. Then, just as God had done with Elijah, the messenger of God came to us in some form, and we got up and ate and found strength to continue the struggle.
For us Catholics, the food through which we gain strength to keep on seeking God is the Eucharist. It is indeed our "bread of life." Sunday after Sunday we gather to share the meal of Christ's body and blood and thereby to become that which we have eaten. We are what we eat, in quite literal terms. Furthermore, as we are promised in the pericope from the gospel of John this week, "whoever eats this bread will live forever." After Elijah ate the food set out by the angel of God, he went on serving until he was taken up into heaven. In the same way, Jesus—the new Elijah—shared the meal with his friends and went on serving until he was taken up into heaven. The model is clear.
Paul, in today's second reading from Ephesians, details the manner in which we are to proceed. Remove all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, malice, and reviling, he writes. Be kind, compassionate, and forgiving. Imitate God and live in love.
As we go about this week, let's lift to God the struggles of our life, asking for the strength to continue with new strength and new hope.
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): Fools for Christ
Proverbs 9:1-6—Come, eat my food and drink my wine!
Psalm 34: 2-3, 10-15—Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Ephesians 5:15-20—Try to discern the will of the Lord; be filled with the Holy Spirit.
John 6:51-58—My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
One evening I was puttering in my front yard when two men walked by, and one of them shouted angrily at me, “You must be touched in the head to plant all that stuff!”
In a way, he’s right: my landscaping is not what most folks would call normal. The front of my house is at least halfway hidden by a cottage garden of perennial and annual flowers, herbs and vegetables—but no grass. This alternative landscaping is a cottage-garden-style profusion of blooms and foliage, an out-front, unmistakable statement about my spirituality. It speaks against the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy who spend money and time tending vast green carpets of flat lawn. It speaks against the frivolous use of non-renewable resources to manufacture and operate lawn mowers. It speaks against the dumping of grass clippings, motor oil, and old mowers in landfills. It speaks against the spreading of hazardous chemicals to kill unwanted vegetation and beneficial insects, to say nothing of the danger to small children and pets.
So, am I foolish, or—as I prefer to believe—am I wise? In the reading from the book of Proverbs the personified Wisdom urges us to “forsake foolishness” that we may live. We are called to “advance in the way of understanding.” Then Paul, in the reading from Ephesians, tells us, “Do not act like fools!” Christians are to “conduct themselves wisely in a world that remains stamped with madness” (Cf. Endnote 1). Both readings describe very practical ways for very ordinary people to be wise.
And in the section of the Bread of Life Discourse that we read today from Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the crowds that he is “the living bread come down from heaven!” They are to eat his flesh and drink his blood! The authorities are scandalized: “How can he give us his flesh to eat?” they ask.
Jesus’ answer is hard to swallow.
If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. If you feed on my flesh and drink my blood, you will have life eternal, and I will raise you up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink. If you feed on my flesh and drink my blood, you remain in me, and I in you.
What does he mean? He is not calling us to cannibalism. And he must mean more than the ordinary bread and the ordinary wine of the meal.
Throughout the Gospels Jesus calls the disciples to a wisdom that is foolish, to a foolishness that is wisdom. He calls for jubilee, the forgiveness of debt and the equalization of property. He lifts up the anawim--the outcasts, the sick, the lame, the blind, the impure, the powerless--and tells us that they, not the wealthy and the powerful, own the kingdom of God.
All that was hard to swallow, and many of his disciples went away. The rich young man could not bring himself to sell his property. The dove sellers at the temple could not bring themselves to stop cheating the poor. It gets harder and harder to swallow. Judas betrays him. Peter denies knowing Jesus and runs away. Jesus suffers and dies.
Years afterwards, after the passion and death and resurrection and ascension, after more than sixty years of thanksgiving—eucharist—in the manner of the supper they shared the night before he died--John’s audience knew what happened.
They knew the mystery of incarnation, the making flesh of God-among-us.
They knew the mystery of redemption, the saving grace of God-for-us.
They knew the mystery of Eucharist, the eternal, living, present sign of God within us.
We think we know, too. Sometimes we become so accustomed to hearing the words, so used to the remembering at Mass, that we think only about the bread and the wine, the sacramental real presence that two thousand years of theological reflection has developed for us.
In all of it, though, the question is whether we have really swallowed it. Have we shared the bread and the wine of the meal the way Jesus did? Have we devoured his words until they are part of us? Do we love those who hate us? Do we forgive those who harm us? Do we seek out the outcasts of our society to heal them with the presence of Christ within us?
If we are indeed doing that, being Christ to the world we live in, then he remains in us and we live in him.
As we go about this week, let’s chew thoughtfully on these words of wisdom from today’s readings. Let’s devour the bread and the flesh and the spirit of the Lord so that we might gain strength to serve the anawim in our own lives.
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ENDNOTES
1. Days of the Lord: The Liturgical Year. Volume 5, Ordinary Time, Year B. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press), 1993. p. 183.
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STORIES
Gerald Fuller, Stories for All Seasons (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications), 1996, pp.80-81.
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21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): Decisions
Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18—Decide today whom you will serve.
Psalm 34: 2-3, 16-23—Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Ephesians 5:21-32—Defer to one another out of reverence for Christ.
John 6:60-69—Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life!
“I had to buy it,” the shopper said; “I didn’t have any choice. It was on sale, and all my neighbors have one; I just had to have it. I deserve it.”
“I had to go along,” the student explained. “I didn’t have any choice; they’re my friends. I just had to go with them.”
“”I had to break the speed limit,” said the driver. “I didn’t have any choice; I was late for work. I just had to get there.”
We hear it all the time: I didn’t have any choice. I just had to. Is that true?
I submit that we do have choices, in everything we do. Sometimes the choices aren’t easy, and sometimes we don’t like them, but we do have choices. Sometimes we don't even take cognizance of the fact that we are making choices.
God made us with what the theologians describe as free will, the ability to decide for ourselves what we will do and how we will be. Today’s reading from the book of Joshua sets forth just one of the recordings in the Hebrew Scriptures where the Israelites are faced with a choice.
Here, in this momentous event, Joshua faces the people. They have traveled long, having first of all chosen to leave Egypt and slavery, having then chosen to continue 40 years across the desert, having chosen to birth and bury an entire generation along the way. They stand at the edge of the Promised Land, ready to choose again.
Earlier, Moses had stood before the Israelites in the same way. In Deuteronomy 30:19, he put the choice to the people in a stark way: I set before you today, Moses told them, death and life. “Choose life!” Moses urged, and the people did.
Joshua stands before this stubborn, stiff-necked people once more. It is a solemn moment. He puts the choice before them again. “Choose God!” he urges. And the people renew their commitment of faithfulness to Yahweh: “We will serve the Lord, who is our God.”
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has, over the centuries, been used to excuse cultural oppression of women. Nevertheless, it still has a message for our culture as we struggle to go beyond treating women and children as property.
“Defer to one another out of reverence for Christ,” Paul writes, and it is for us a reminder that we serve the Lord through one another. In married life spouses serve God through one another. In the single life individuals serve God through the community. Once we choose to serve God we choose to serve God through others.
And we have chosen to serve God. We chose—or our parents chose for us—when we were baptized. We chose when we were sealed with the Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation. We choose again when we come to Mass each weekend. We choose when we join the Eucharistic procession to be fed at the banquet table of the Lord, to drink the cup of salvation with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Sometimes we choose Jesus when it makes no sense, as the apostles did last week. Sometimes we choose Jesus when it causes us loss in the sight of the world. Sometimes we wonder what possible reason we could have for continuing, for persevering in our faith, in the midst of a society that values money and power and sex as objects in themselves rather than as gifts from God and tools to further God’s reign on earth.
Sometimes we wonder. Peter and the apostles wondered, too. Today’s Gospel tells us that many of the disciples chose to leave Jesus. He has just finished the long homily that we call the “Bread of Life Discourse,” detailing the mystic truths of our Eucharistic faith. “This sort of talk is hard to endure,” they complained. “How can anyone take it seriously?” they asked.
Jesus’ response is a question: “Does it shake your faith?” Does it shake our faith to think deeply about this mystery? Would we rather not think about Jesus in God and God in Jesus and God in us—because we then have to treat others with great kindness: God is in them! Would we rather choose to ignore this truth?
Does it shake our faith to think that Jesus is present in the bread and wine of our table here? As parishes throughout the world continue the renewal process stemming from Vatican II, some of them have been arguing for years about the location of the altar or the tabernacle or the communion rail. Some argue about whether to use red wine or white wine, whether to use white flour or whole wheat flour for the wafers, whether to have altar servers dress in robes or surplices or street clothes. Some argue about whether or not to have kneelers, and if they have them, whether or not to kneel during the entire canon of the Mass or just during the Eucharistic prayer or just during the words of institution. And these arguments shake the faith of some believers. They leave, as did those disheartened folks in today’s Gospel, unable to see through the variations in local custom to the great mystery that is Jesus Christ.
Jesus asks us again today the same question he asked Peter 2000 years ago: “Do you want to leave me, too?” Is the question of whether your local assembly kneels more important to you than gathering in my name? Can you not see beyond the altar rail to the people who gather with you to worship God? Can you not accept all your brothers and sisters as Christ-bearers?
“Do you want to leave me, too?” Jesus asks. Do you find it too hard to believe that I am in your brother and sister in the next pew? Do you find it too much to believe that God loves you? Peter had the answer that faith gives, and made the choice that must be ours as we face the same question: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
We choose life. God has given us free will, the ability to choose. We have a choice to hate or to love, to keep or to give, to curse or to bless, to put down or to build up. We have the choice: to follow the ways of the world, or to follow the way of Jesus Christ.
Let’s stand with our ancestors in faith and the assembly of the people of God here today. Let’s choose life. Let’s choose God. Let’s say with Joshua and the Israelites, with Peter and the faithful disciples, “We will serve the Lord who is our God.”
As we go about this week, let’s make a special effort to notice the choices we have, to lift them in prayer to God, and to consciously choose each step of the way to continue to serve the One who gives us life.
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (B): Justice
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8—Hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live!
Psalm 15:2-5—The one who does justice will live in God’s presence.
James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27—Looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself unspotted by the world make for pure worship without stain before our God and Father.
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23—Nothing that enters from outside makes you impure; that which comes out of you, and only that, constitutes impurity.
The religious rulers of Jesus’ time had allowed themselves to be caught up in enforcing every detail of the tiniest part of a rule while they ignored violations of the greatest commandment, to love God and to love one another. In today’s passage from Mark, they criticize Jesus because some of his followers have eaten without purifying their hands in the manner of the Jewish custom.
“This people pays me lip service!” Jesus is outraged. Quoting Isaiah, he calls the Pharisees and the legal experts from Jerusalem hypocrites. They disregard God’s commands and cling to what is human tradition, In short, they put their own purity laws above the law of God’s love.
Over and over in Mark’s Gospel we hear Jesus' outright condemnation of religious self-righteousness, echoing the long tradition of Israel before its God. Our reading from Deuteronomy today sets forth the challenge: Hear, that you may live! Hear, people of God, the word of God, the word of love. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself.
The psalmist picks up the theme. Do justice, and you will live in God’s presence. The way you treat one another earns you your place in heaven. And the list of just actions is a familiar refrain: do justice, think truth in your heart, do no harm to your fellow human being, do not take up against your neighbor, do not take up complaints against your neighbor, fear the Lord.
The scarring experiences of rejection for not following local custom are not far from the surface of our memories. It’s part of our culture to “dress up” for church, for example, and in some places people are still subtly ostracized when they fail to measure up to the local custom. The judgments levied on how people dress do not stem from an absolute standard, either. People in one community will look askance at those who dress casually for Mass, while people in another community will reject those who put on their formal best. God help those who show up in out-of-fashion attire!
It’s not only surface appearances that cause us to reject our neighbors. Sit in the back pew some weekend and watch what happens. The pews will gradually fill after Mass starts and will empty at Communion time. In parish meetings, whether it be liturgy or evangelization or parish planning, these back-sitters and their behavior are discussed. Made to feel unacceptable among the good people of God, they nevertheless continue to fulfill their Sunday obligation. Someone has erroneously told them that they cannot receive Communion as a result of divorce, for example, so they come late—ashamed to be seen by former friends who chastise them—and they leave early—so as to be less obvious when they do not join the procession to the table. Given the way we treat them, the astonishing fact is that they still show up at all!
Today’s readings are a call away from putting our rituals above people, no matter where we are—in our church pews, at family gatherings, in school, at work. Pure worship before God, James says, lies in doing justice—“looking after widows and orphans in their distress and keeping oneself unspotted by the world.”
Pure worship is not great liturgy, though great liturgy is not to be avoided; it’s fun to celebrate God’s goodness in a community of love. Without justice on the way, however, there’s nothing to celebrate. It’s the story of the Good Samaritan, all over again. If we do not love others, our worship is pointless.
As we go about this week, let’s be sensitive to the ways we judge others when they do not follow the customs we set up for them, and let’s invite them into the group with us. Let’s make them feel welcome and learn to cherish the gift they are to us. God has sent them as a reminder to us of what is truly important in our spiritual lives: to do justice, love tenderly, and walk humbly with our God.
