Homily for June 17, 2007 11th Sunday of the Year, Fathers' Day

I want to begin with just a little education, calling your attention again to that picture there. (Thre is a stained glass window in the Church that I pointed to. It depicts the Gospel scene in Luke 7:36 – 8:3. the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.) How many of you would identify that woman as Mary Magdalene? Good. One or two, because I think many of us grew up with that impression, that the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair was Mary Magdalene. There's no evidence of that at all. In fact, the evidence in the Gospel today is that it was not Mary Magdalene, because Mary Magdalene is mentioned later as one of the women who accompanied Jesus. The image in the Gospel of Luke is that there were many women who traveled in the company of Jesus and the Apostles, and these women must have had resources, because it said they supported them out of their resources. And Mary Magdalene was one of those women.
The story about Mary Magdalene that I like the best is by a German theologian, Elizabeth Jurgen Moltman, who says that Mary Magdalene was an older woman ‑ you can define for yourself what older means ‑ she was an older woman whom Jesus cured of depression, and she promptly became his closest friend. But the male tradition couldn't handle that, so they made her into a prostitute. Actually, the first person to identify her as a prostitute was Pope Leo the Great, so that was only many years later. That's just an educational diversion. I hope you found it interesting.
Today we celebrate Fathers' Day, and, as I say in my letter in the bulletin, somebody pointed out to me recently that I always make a make a bigger deal over Mothers' Day than I do over Fathers' Day, That’s true. It’s probably because I'm overly sensitive to the way that male images of God have so dominated our tradition that I take every opportunity I can to point out female images.
But the male images of God are also very important, as are the masculine and fatherly images of God. In fact, I mention in my letter in the bulletin going to a lecture many years ago on the psychology of atheism. And this was a study conducted by a psychologist who had been raised Catholic, became atheist when he was in college, and then reconnected with Catholicism as an adult. He had several theories about atheism.
First of all, it was a cultural thing. You didn't have to be a brilliant thinker to be an undergraduate at Stanford in the 60's and be an atheist. Everybody else was, too. And he said, secondly, well, you could just do more things if you were an atheist because there weren't as many rules. But, the other thing he said in his study of aesthetic figures, most atheists had either an absent or a wounded relationship with their father. And part of his study was that that relationship we have with our fathers is an integral part of our ability to come to faith in God, and especially to come to a loving faith in God as Father.
When I look at the readings today and ask what challenge and message they might have for us, I'm reminded of a story. It's a story of a man who was an atheist, and he was used to debating all the learned rabbis, and he always won because none of them could prove to him that God existed.
And finally he went to a rabbi who was reputed to be a very holy man. And he sat and he observed the rabbi walking around the room, looking very much wrapped up in prayer. And the rabbi paid no attention to him at all. And finally he stopped and looked at him, and he said, "But perhaps it is true." And that was all he said. And the man was completely unglued, because he had been prepared to debate, but the words "perhaps it is true" entered into him and created a deep doubt.
And the rabbi told him, "You are traveling and arguing and asking people to set on the table before you all the riches of God, and nobody can do that for you. But perhaps, just perhaps, it is true."
Well, the images of God we have in the readings today - first of all, David. I wish we'd have had more of that reading, because the context is after David takes Bathsheba for his wife and kills her husband Uriah the Hittite, the prophet Nathan tells David a parable about a man who has a guest for dinner and takes the prized lamb of his neighbor to slaughter and feed to his guest. And David becomes indignant and he says, "Who is this man? He should die."
And Nathan says, "You're the man." And David is struck to his heart with sorrow and compunction.
In the second reading Paul reminds us it's by faith that we are saved, not by our good works. I think I would want to say to the fathers in our midst, as well as to the mothers, you are not the architects of your children's lives. You're not the builders, you're not the managers. Ultimately their life comes from God and unfolds in relationship to God and the world. And you're called, not to control it or manage it or design it, but just to humbly participate in it with all of its wonder. We are, at best, cheerleaders and maybe coaches as they go about building their lives and unfolding them in relation to God. And that leads me to the Gospel.
There are two images in the Gospel, or three. There's the woman who is filled with sorrow and pours her heart out and is graciously received by Jesus. And there is Simon the Pharisee, who stands off to the side and observes and judges.
Which is a better image of God, the graciousness of Jesus or Simon the Pharisee who stands and judges and observes? You see, something wonderful was happening between Jesus and this woman. And Simon was unable to share in it and to enter into it.
There are times in my life when I've felt like Simon, that I was standing on the outside looking in on wonderful things that were happening in the lives of people, and observing and judging and evaluating and critiquing. There are other times when I've felt more like the woman.
Which is a better image? I think you all know the answer to that up here in the head. But do we know it in our heart, and in the way we live? I don't know about you, but I know there are so many things I know to be true in my head, but I don't know them in my heart. And I can't pray them in my heart, and something in my heart causes me to argue with them. And that's why I thought of that story of the rabbi. Imagine yourself coming today, and imagine God saying to you, "But perhaps it is true that I'm every bit as loving and merciful and gracious as they say I am. Just maybe, perhaps it's true."
And then finally, the image of us as a worshipping community. I guess my dream would be that we would so radiate the joy of being forgiven and of being loved, and be so ready to share that with others, that any stranger who walked into our door and observed us might hear us say, "But perhaps it is true."
Before we pray, I have another story. There was an older Jesuit priest visiting his mother in the nursing home, and she was praying the Rosary day in and day out. And he asked her a very learned spiritual question and said, "Mother, what is it that happens when you say the Rosary?
And she said, "Well, I just talk to the Lord, and you know, he's not as bad as they make him out to be."

Homily for June 10, 2007 Feast of The Body and Blood of Christ

In my letter in the bulletin this week, I throw out a distinction between saying that the Church has a mission and saying the mission has a Church, or saying that we have the Eucharist or saying that the Eucharist has us. I want you to keep that distinction in the back of your mind as I talk.
My ego is very good about deciding some things. I trust it and I need it to decide when I'm going to get up in the morning. It helped me decide what shade of black I would wear when I got dressed today. It helps me organize my schedule, and it helps me make it through the day. But it's not very good at planning the overall direction of my life. For that I need to go someplace much deeper.
In our Church we have our plans, and they're very important. The choir got here at nine and practiced music for an hour before Mass. I'm glad they did and I'm sure you are, too. I had to look up the readings today, the readers got prepared. We have our plans. But the sense of mission and direction comes from someplace deeper.
A word about the readings today. In Luke's Gospel there are, I think, twelve banquets that describe for Luke what Eucharist is all about. The Gospel today is the third of those banquets. The first one was a dinner with tax collectors and sinners, and that spoke to the inclusiveness of God's Kingdom. The second was a dinner in the house of a Pharisee that's portrayed by that window back there, where the woman washed the feet of Jesus with her tears.
The third is the feeding of the five thousand. The fourth is dinner in the home of Martha and Mary. The fifth is dinner with the Pharisees when they question why the disciples didn't wash their hands before dinner. The seventh is a dinner in the home of a Pharisee when He heals. The eighth is dinner with Zaccheus. The ninth and tenth are the Last Supper, and then there are two meals that He takes with His disciples after the resurrection.
All of those say what Eucharist is about. We have two of those meals represented in our readings today. The feeding of the five thousand - that's about mission. You notice what happens in the Gospel. The Apostles are reacting with their ego and they tell Jesus, "Send the people away. Let them go buy food for themselves."
And Jesus says," No, you give them something to eat." Can you imagine their panic? "All we've got is it five loaves and two fish and we don't have enough money to go to the store to buy all of that." But Jesus invites them into His mission, and He feeds the crowd. So you see in that Gospel the mission takes hold of them, and they distribute the food to the people. When I read that Gospel this morning I thought of our activity around Thanksgiving and Christmas when we have our food basket distribution and when people come from all over the city to help us with that. That represents, doesn't it, a moment when we are possessed by the mission. And we might say the mission has a Church.
The second reading describes the Last Supper. And by the way, between the feeding of the five thousand and the Last Supper, Jesus explains to His disciples that the Messiah will suffer and die and rise again and they don't get it. Well, I couldn't help but think of the contrast between our Mass here at Thanksgiving when the church is packed and our Mass at Holy Thursday when there is only a handful of people in church. And I thought, we don't get it yet, either. So, in a sense, the mission has not fully absorbed us and we haven't fully entered into the mission, but in each case the mission has a church. It's not that we begin with our plans and our desires, but we allow God's desire to take hold of us.
We celebrate the Eucharist today, the living presence of Jesus in our midst. There are times when we are together that I really feel that Presence has us and that we enter into it. There are times when, before Mass, it's chaotic and there's noise. And yet occasionally at Mass there are times when I feel a silence come upon us, and I feel that we are gathered into the living presence of Jesus. Do you know what I mean? Have any of you felt that from time to time? We don't always feel it.
One of the Carmelite nuns says our life with Jesus is about 99 percent touching the hem of His garment as He walks away and about one per cent face to face. But there are times when it feels to me like that Presence has us. I remembered as I was thinking of that, of one Sunday after Christmas, many many years ago, here. I had wanted to get away after Christmas and my plans fell through. So I woke up on a Sunday morning after Christmas and I didn't want to be here, and I came to church and I was really not in a good mood. And that happens every now and then, I think, to all of us. But as I was giving out communion I just felt overwhelmed with a sense of God's love for everybody that was coming forward, and that was a moment for me when I felt that the Eucharist had me, not that I had the Eucharist. \
Can you feel the difference between that, between saying, as the Church, that we have the Eucharist - and we do – and saying that the Eucharist has us? It's in our tabernacle, it will be on our altar, it will be in our celebration today - and the living presence of Jesus in His body and blood will be with us. So it's true in a sense to say that the Church has the Eucharist. But I hope also, as we worship today, we can have a feeling, if only an inkling, that the Eucharist has a Church, and that the Eucharist possesses us, and that we can enter in to the living presence of Jesus seeking, as He did with the twelve in the feeding of the crowds, to draw us into His mission and His love for all of creation and for our brothers and sisters.