Homily for July 19, 2009

In the past three weeks we've been talking about the prophets and their message, especially their message of concern for the poor. I want to put today's readings in the big picture of another theme very important to the prophets.
The prophets condemned leaders who fed themselves rather than the people, who looked after their own needs rather than the needs of the people, who divided the people rather than united them, who scattered them and left them like sheep without a shepherd.
Does that have contemporary relevance? I'm not going to go into specifics on that, but I think that idea of leaders who feed themselves rather than the people and who divide rather than unite strikes a chord in all of us, whatever our views are on the issues. We struggle with that many times and in many ways.
So what is God's response to leaders who feed themselves rather than the people? He rejects them. Then he says, "I myself will shepherd the people, and I myself will feed them." Does he have a plan to do that? What do you think? Are those empty words, or does God have a plan? He has a plan, right? What was his plan?
Give us the Church. Hold that thought for a moment. It's true. I'm not going to deny it, but hold the thought.
God's plan was to send Jesus. Jesus gathered a new people around himself, and he sent them out to preach and to heal. So the reason I ask you to hold "He gave us the Church is this. Let me ask a show of hands. When Mary Pat said, “the Church," how many of you thought the institution? How many didn't? Good.
I know you [Mary Pat] weren't thinking the institution. So what were you thinking when you said, "the Church."
Well, he gave us the sacrament of the Eucharist to feed us.
He gave us the Eucharist to feed us. That’s true. To feed us and to make us the Body of Christ on earth. I guess the answer I want to move toward is, when she said he gave us the church, that's all of you. So what is God's plan to feed those who are like sheep without a shepherd? You are. We are part of that people called to do that. So, hold that thought. That's the big picture. We are called to be part of that people.
Now, in the little picture, I want to get to the Gospel today. The Apostles came back. They talked about what they did and what they said, and Jesus said, "Come away and rest a while." Why do you think he did that? I might be setting you up here, so be careful. Yes?
[INAUDIBLE RESPONSE] For balance. You can't just give and give and give. You've got to refresh yourself, and that's certainly true.
I read one commentary on this, and it's the only one that pointed this out, but I was struck by it. I think maybe when he got them apart by themselves, maybe he wasn't saying to them, "Oh, you've really worked hard, and because you've worked so hard you deserve a rest." But I think maybe he wanted to take them apart so that he could teach them something. Maybe what he wanted to teach them was the question, "What do you think God was doing when you were out there preaching and anointing the sick with oil?"
What the commentator that I liked pointed out is, they came back and they said, "Look what we did, and look what we said."
And Jesus said, "Come away a little bit, and let's rest." Have you ever been there? "Look what we did?" I mean, we do that all the time. I think in church gatherings we do that all the time. We want to say, "Look what we did. Look at our ministries. Look at our activities."
Maybe Jesus would say, "Let's come aside and rest a while. What was God doing while you were doing all that?" So maybe he was trying to back them off a little bit so they wouldn't ruin it. It's a possibility, isn't it, because whose work is it anyway? It's God's work, and we are called to participate in it.
This might sound a little corny, but I'm going to do it anyway. Maureen and I went to a two day workshop on the catechumenate, and a thing they kept doing was saying, "God is busy all the time, all the time God is busy." Will you play along with me a little while and do that?
God is busy, all the time. All the time, God is busy. That might be a little corny, but in my bulletin letter I talk about the planning we're doing at the parish level, where, a couple weeks ago we came together and we looked at what the neighborhood wants for itself; we looked at what we identified as our gifts and resources and asked where do they intersect. Maybe there's a deeper question. What is God doing in our neighborhood? God is busy all the time; all the time, God is busy. What is God doing?
Somebody asked me last week when I had spent a day listening to people all day, "How do you listen to people's problems all day and not get tired and burnt out?"
Well, what I noticed is that if I listen to people and I'm thinking, "What am I going to say? What am I going to do? What am I going to give them," I'm really exhausted at the end of the day. But if I remember that there are three of us there and I begin asking, "What is God trying to do in the life of this person," and if I can listen to that, then it's not draining. It can be very energizing.
Last week’s newspaper had many stories about what the Department of Corrections wants to do with the facility of the Women's Prison and the reaction of people in our neighborhood to it. On my computer there's a long train of emails from different neighborhood groups. I have ambivalent feelings about all those emails, and I've had conversations with many in our parish who are involved with different neighborhood groups.
Sometimes the discussion of neighborhood groups can get very narrow and focused on what impact is this going to have on us and on our property values, and I don't mean to dismiss that, but there's a bigger question, too, and maybe it's very important for us to be involved and to be really involved so that we can be part of that discussion and ask the bigger question: What is in the interest of the women at that facility? What is in the best interest of this big picture of community corrections? What is God seeking to do in the lives of all the people involved?
By the way, I'm always very suspicious of anybody, myself included, who says, "I know what God is wanting to do," because I think that's a communal thing that only comes about as we listen and challenge and talk to one another.
In the big picture of the readings, just keep that in mind. God is tired of leaders who feed themselves, and God wants to feed the people, but all of you are part of that plan.
And keep in mind the discussion isn't about us, what are we going to do and what are we going to say. But the discussion is about God. What is God doing and what does God want to do, and what is our part in that?
And can you be a little corny with me once more.
God is busy, all the time. All the time, God is busy.
Amen.