1^st Sunday of Advent

           

As an example of what goes around comes around, 3-D movies are becoming popular again.  My children tell me there are several movies shown in 3-D and that 3-D glasses are readily available.  Has anyone here ever been to a 3-D movie? 

Okay, you know then that when we put on those glasses, we see things in a way we couldn’t before.  There is a whole new dimension that opens up and grabs our attention.

            In Luke’s Gospel when Jesus says:  “Be vigilant at all times” I think he’s really asking us to put on our 3-D glasses.  God wants us to notice things we might just overlook if we don’t have them on.  Somehow we need to see with the eyes of our heart.  This vigilance or inner attentiveness has been in our Christian tradition a long time.  St. Basil, from the 4^th Century, said to “watch over our hearts with all vigilance… so the Christian directs every action small and great according to the will of God.”  In contemporary times Joan Chittister in her book In the Heart of the Temple talks of Thomas Merton’s river of enlightenment; for Merton an enlightened heart takes us beyond our narrowness to see the presence of God everywhere and in everyone.  In the Hebrew scriptures, too, we are called to see as God’s heart sees; that’s why Moses couldn’t see God’s face—only God’s back—so that he could see from God’s view.  The Islamic tradition also emphasizes the heart—an inner attentiveness to our heart’s feelings and being a compassionate presence.

            Advent is a season of the heart, one where we prepare for Christmas—the celebration of Christ’s birth, family gatherings, gift exchanges, and good meals.  But there’s something more God is inviting us to in this season.

            What is God asking us to be vigilant about and how do we heighten our vigilance or awareness?

            I think God is asking us to look for Christ’s presence in the ordinary moments of our lives and respond to that presence with love.

            ? When we see young children running down the street or climbing a tree, do we only see

               that or can we see deeper to a freedom and playfulness that reveals the heart of God?

            ? When confronted with illness or death, can we own the pain and grief yet look beneath

                it to find it teaching us about life?

            ? As our children grow into adulthood, do we only see them getting older and leaving

               home or can we see a new life of possibilities opening up to them?

            ? As the trees surrender their leaves, do we see barrenness and the approaching winter

               blahs or can we look deeper and see God teaching us to let go of some worries or

               activities and rest in God with a naked heart?

            With the quick pace of life it’s easy to miss these God-moments.  So maybe there’s a 2-fold invitation here:

1.      Slow down.  Take 5—or better yet take 10—to sit and reflect on the experiences

of the day. 

      How was God revealed to me in this conversation or email?

                               through the concert or sporting event?

                              in a moment of quiet or

                              in some other experience?

Being intentional can help heighten our awareness, our vigilance.

2.      Open our heart to what God is revealing, both in the good and the bad.

It’s a lot easier to find God in the good moments, but in the difficult ones, can

we sift through the muck and find a gem? 

            When we see what God is revealing, can we also respond to the invitation to act on this—to live it in our daily life?

            A few weeks ago I was at a conference given by Joyce Rupp.  She told a story of a blind man who was asking for money, but no one was giving him anything until a marketing man came by and changed the sign next to the money holder.  Then the passersby stopped and gave the blind man something.  The businessman had changed the sign to read:  “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it.”  A slight shift in the wording allowed people to put on their 3-D glasses, to see with the eyes of their heart—to see the invitation to help and then to respond.

            I would like to share 2 experiences in my life that 3-D glasses brought me to see differently.

            The first was the discussion we had as a community last week after Mass.  What began as a discussion about money was really about something deeper than that.  As I listened to what each person shared, what surfaced for me was the need to understand, define, and journey with our vision of community.  But even deeper than that, what God revealed to me was

            *the respect each one here had for the diverse viewpoints expressed

            *a comfort level among us so each person could say honestly what they thought

            *and real listening to what the other shared.

I experienced among us an attitude of vigilance about our vision of community and a sense of justice.  For me through this open dialogue the gift of our community came into sharper focus, and I thank you for that.

            The 2^nd experience is from my family.  When our daughter Tahra was in high school, she suffered a serious eye injury.  When she was playing badminton at a band lock-in, the badminton birdie flew right into her eye and she lost her vision.  Immediately she went to the teachers, who called us.  We took her to Delaware Co. ER and then to Wills Eye.  So down Chestnut St. we went at 3 in the morning.  By the time they evaluated her, her vision was returning.  But over the next few days each doctor she saw revealed in their own way just how serious this injury was.  Fortunately she completely recovered her eyesight.  All this is what happened on the surface.  As I reflected more, I came to see that something deeper had occurred.  I saw that each person was vigilant in doing what they needed to do without overstepping their role or professional expertise.  I saw how connected we are and came to more deeply appreciate how interdependent we are.  I came to believe God worked through the vigilance of each one to restore her eyesight. 

            The experiences of our community and my family taught me the importance of vigilance—of noticing and going deeper to gain insight.

            During Advent, I invite you to try on your 3-D glasses, to sit with God and ask:

            *What is it, God, that you’re inviting me to see here, be vigilant about and what

                response of love are you asking?

Put on those 3-Ds of the heart—ride that river of enlightenment—and have a wonderful Advent.

1^st Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33: 14-16

1 Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2

Luke 21: 25-28a, 34-36

 

 

April, 2009
He was cast into the darkness outside where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Many are invited but few are chosen.

Hum. Didn’t we read a couple of weeks ago that tax collectors and prostitutes would be among the first to enter the kingdom of God? Didn’t we talk about how God doesn’t cut people off, human beings do? Don’t we talk about God’s mercy and unlimited forgiveness?  What happened here ?

Well, two versions of today’s gospel were offered on the USCCB website. The second selection omitted the part about guest without the proper attire getting thrown out of the banquet amidst the wailing and gnashing of teeth. But I thought it would be chicken hearted of me not to discuss the sad fate of the improperly attired guest. So, I thought we should talk about it.

I just want to begin with a bit of history. The thing to remember is that Matthew’s gospel, in fact, all of the gospels, were written after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which occurred in 70 AD. I think we discussed this before, but pre-Christian Judaism could only be practiced in and with the temple.   This is why the rebuilding of the temple after the Babylonian Captivity remained such a big deal in the First Testament. Those who were held captive by the waters of Bablyon could not even bear to sing the songs of Zion without their temple. After the final destruction of the temple in 70 CE, the rabbinical movement ultimately saved Judaism.   

The destruction of the second temple was an unmitigated catastrophe for the Jews. Matthew, like all observant Jews, would have been completely appalled and dispirited. What were they going to do?  How could this happen again?  There had to be an explanation for such a disaster. Someone/thing was to blame. If you look back at the First Testament, you will find the answer.  The words of the prophets place the blame for Israel’s many lost political/national battles upon their unfaithfulness to the God. This last, calamitous loss was, to Matthew, the final sign of Israel’s unfaithfulness.

Hence, we read the story of the people who reject the invitation to the banquet. This gospel piggybacks onto last week’s, where the tenants in the vineyard murdered the owner’s son. Matthew was making a point, a big one, so he hit really hard. He felt that Jesus was the natural outcome of a temple-less Judaism. He believed that Judaism had lost its focus when it refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. Of course, other, equally faithful and devoted Jews felt otherwise. This doesn’t make them wrong. It means that they had a different opinion.  Belatedly, we know that their opinion needed to be honored and respected since it was most probably made in good faith. As we discussed last week, human beings are the ones who punish other people and themselves for sin. God doesn’t.  As psalm 129 says, “If you laid bare our guilt, O Lord, who could endure it?”

But the rub here in this gospel is the guest sans wedding garment. Why would the king expect the hastily invited guests to wear proper party attire, especially since the king’s servants went out to the highways and byways to find guests where they were probably laying bricks or something? I daresay that most of the people we might encounter on the street on any given day would not have a wedding garment in their backpacks. If I had swept up in this festive action yesterday, for instance, my wedding garment would have been sweat pants and a tee shirt.  Surely, the king in the story knew that.  It sure sounds like a trick, a mean one. We get pulled off the street from our everyday lives and then get blamed for not wearing a tux or a gown? Could the kingdom of God possibly hinge on a dress code, especially when Jesus walked the streets of the Holy Land in tired old sandals and one sweaty robe?

The answer is, of course, “no.”  Only human beings would turn away people from a banquet for not having the proper credentials.

 But why was the guest without the wedding garment tossed out?

Rosemary made a great point a couple of weeks ago when she said that when most of us read the story of the owner who paid his/her workers the same salary whether they worked one hour or 8 hours, that we most often see ourselves as the person who worked all eight hours.  We compare our hard work with the guy who only worked for an hour and complain, “It’s not fair.”  Rosemary suggested that perhaps we only thought we worked for eight hours, when in reality, we only worked for one hour.

Perhaps we are looking with the same self- congratulatory eyes at the guest without the proper attire.  We, of course, have all the right stuff and would not think of showing up without wearing our best. Not us. Of course, not us.  We are so very perfect.  That guest was so tacky! H/she deserved to be tossed out.

Matthew was obviously upset about the lack of support for Jesus among the community at large as per the first part of the story. He was probably also upset by those who allegedly did follow Jesus and sat at the table as a welcome guest anyway, without doing much of anything but looking and acting sloppy. Was the invitation to the banquet a carte blanche?  Was just sitting there enough? Or was there more?

When we were baptized, we wore a white robe which symbolized the sinless nature of our newborn souls.  But Paul tells us quite emphatically to “put on Christ,” along with the new clothes, for we have become a new creation. Paul suggests putting on Christ means taking on far more than a wardrobe change or a dress up for dinner.

 I don’t know about you, but sometimes I leave the Christ part of my wardrobe at home on purpose. Yes, I might wear a crucifix around my neck. I might end my voice mail message with “God Bless You.” I might even be the most scrupulous adherent of the law and have faith strong enough to move mountains. But many times, my Jesus clothes don’t match anything I have, so I stick him in the back of my closet.  Or, I roll him up and push him way back behind the stuff in my drawer. I try to drown out his voice with amens and hallelujahs. I pretend that he’s somebody else or that he was really trying to say something else, or he wants me to do something else. He, the One who told me to love everyone the way he loved me, well, I really don’t want to follow the letter of that law. It’s just easier to show up with the crucifix, the credo, or the hallelujahs and announce, “Here I am, Lord, I’m yours, the chosen one.”

Matthew warns us today not to presume that the credos  are enough.  Presumption, we memorizers of the Baltimore Catechism know, is a sin against the cardinal virtue of hope.

The gospel verse ends with the line, “Many are called but few are chosen.”  Such scary words! Such presumption!  Such self-consciousness! To think that God would choose certain people over others and extend certain privileges to certain people based upon human defined criteria! What God offers us is available to all people as grace, pressed down and overflowing into our laps. It is human beings who choose good or evil, death or life, happiness or misery, not God!  It is human beings who drive the stake of division into the hearts of a nation or a church. We create the wailing and the gnashing of teeth. We bind people up with our misjudgments and prejudices and throw them out into the darkness. We might have our reasons, reasons tinged with all sorts of human prejudices to do the things we do, but they are not God’s reasons.

Can the God who tenderly wipes away our tears that we read about in our first reading be the same God who throws us out in the cold darkness for a wardrobe malfunction? No, it is God, as our first reading says, who will point us in the right direction. God’s hand rests upon this mountain, and if we are quiet enough, we can feel it. God can destroy the veil that makes us view our siblings as less than us and ourselves as “the chosen.” Once that veil is destroyed, then all people will be able to partake of the rich food that Isaiah described, a food that the vast majority of the world can only imagine.

I thought that I would conclude with a description of what putting on Christ might have looked like to Paul. Others might have other ideas. This description is from chapter 6 of Ephesians. I don’t think I have ever heard these verses read during mass, but the clothes Paul described are certainly available to all. Perhaps that is why it is never read.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of the Lord’s power. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, so that you might be able to withstand on an evil day, and having done all, stand firm.  Stand, therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist and put on the breastplate of righteousness.  As shoes for your feet, put on anything that will help you proclaim the gospel of peace.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

Regardless of what happens, have faith that God will be there. Above all, do not fear.  Do not be swayed by arguments that do not follow the rule of love. Be peaceful in your words and deeds, even in the midst of trial. Hold firmly to and boldly preach the Word of God, the two great commandments upon which everything else rests. And while you do all this, rejoice and be glad,  and know that you, like every other person on earth, are one of God’s invited guests.

Homily, 4th Sunday of Easter

The community that formed around the gospel of John knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in.  Written about 60-70 years after the death of Jesus, it reflected the in-house disturbances that began dividing the Body of Christ almost from the beginning.  The first generation of eyewitnesses had died, bequeathing their experiences to subsequent generations, many of whom developed different interpretations of Jesus. Hence, the existence of the four canonical gospels and the large numbers of non-canonical gospels that were never validated.

If you compare John’s gospel to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is very different. It is the only gospel that describes Jesus as the pre-existent Word of God.  We can imagine the early Christians gathering and talking or arguing about what Jesus meant for the world, or not talking and pulling rank, much as subsequent generations of church rulers have done. The members of John’s community got the short end of the stick. They were persecuted not only by their Jewish brethren but also by their fellow Christians.  They were thrown out. Like many other once marginalized groups, they went on to do their own share of throwing people out. But that’s a story you can read in the three epistles of John.

The story of the Good Shepherd was written to explain how people who were abandoned by their religious communities dealt with their loss. The people of John’s community loved God and followed the commandments, even if they disagreed with the prevailing view of the religious authorities. They knew instinctively that God loved them and would never abandon them.  So they rephrased the words of the fourteenth psalm. Not only was the Lord their shepherd, the Lord, unlike humans, would never abandon them. In fact, the Lord would actually abandon the status quo and go searching for THEM.

Although there are those who would like us all to think that what became the church was written in stone from the beginning, ,John’s gospel – the one that almost didn’t make it into the New Testament-  highlights the tendency of a minority position to morph into the majority position.  The church has inherited the high Christology of the gospel of John rather than the low Christology of Mark. And the question of who Jesus was and what he meant to the world was not really settled, if indeed we can use that word, until the 4th century after knock down, dragged out fights, excommunications, and banishments.


There have been many stones rejected by those in power who thought that they were building an edifice that would last for all eternity.  The strongest, of course, is the construct of male power and superiority.  What woman being led to the stake by her inquisitors in the 16th century could ever imagine that her descendants would not only attend the university, but also vote and become ordained priests!

Other ideas that were once fringe movements – civil rights, religious freedom, separation of church and state, and the equality of all people before God and before the law- once unimaginable, in spite of scripture which states that all people are created equal- are now enshrined in western law.

But there remain kinks in both religious and civil law.  Although we have the example of the Good Shepherd who searches high and low for those outside the pale, it is often those who are most observant of the law who persists in driving their sisters and brothers out.  So we have God fearing Christians building a wall to keep out their fellow Christians immigrating from Mexico. We have Christian agents of the law ripping apart families to the point of tearing nursing babies from their mother’s breast.  

We have our gay sisters and brother labeled “disordered,” which gives church people permission to discriminate and persecute. And we have a group of 100 women and some men in Roman Catholic Womenpriests who have been repeatedly excommunicated by men who actually consider themselves to be shepherds.

So one must ask, where is God in all this? What kind of God do we believe in? That big old mean white man god didn’t work for me. He was too scary. He did too much soul damage.  I couldn’t love him. He reminded me too much of people I didn’t like or respect. He certainly didn’t make the kingdom any closer than it was 2,000 years ago.

I’ll take the Good Shepherd any day.  Or the image of God as the woman who turns her house upside down looking for the lost coin. Or the Mother most high who shelters her children under her wings. Or Emmanuel who gave his life so that his friends might live.

Today’s gospel is probably the greatest story ever told.  It sets up an almost impossible paradigm – that no one is to be left out or behind.  Jesus tells us that whenever we want or try to set human defined limits, God lets us know that it is precisely those in the outer limits who belong in the fold. God has no borders. We’re all in.  God will literally breach any fence, knock it down, or extend life- lines to pull the excluded back over.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is the very first one to go and find those who were rejected and despised and acquainted with grief as he was.  There is to be no silencing of the lambs.

God knows us better than any other human being. And God has our back. This is the love that God has bestowed upon us. As our second reading said, “When it is revealed, we shall be like him.” All of us, all for one and one for all.

Mother’s Day Homily, 2009

The words, “This is my body; this is my blood” are holy words.  We need these words in order to become the Body of Christ.  The People of God are made holy by these words. They are fed and strengthened in order to do the hard work of building up the Body in the world.

Several years ago, I read about these holy words in the Jesuit magazine, “America.”  A young mother wrote of trying unsuccessfully to calm her crying infant during mass. While carrying the baby out of the church, she heard the priest say the words, “This is my body, given up for you.” She looked down at her child and understood that she had given up her body for her baby.

Like the Eucharist, life and death are intermingled in birth.  Many of us who were born prior to 1960 recall stories about relatives and neighbors who died while giving birth.  With our current low rates of maternal mortality in the western world, it is almost unimaginable to think that in some places at some times, more mothers died than lived while giving birth.

Before the advent of asepsis, becoming pregnant in some parts of the world was a death sentence.  Doctors would go from doing autopsies to attending women in childbirth without washing their hands. The women these doctors touched died within days of overwhelming infection.  Mary Wollstonecraft, author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Women, died of this infection which was euphemistically but appropriately called “Childbed Fever.”  This was her body, given up for her child.

Only in recent history could childbirth practitioners manage anything beyond he most minor deviations in labor and delivery without harming mother or child or both.  Many other women died in childbirth because they had too many children in too short a time and had to work too hard to keep them all alive.

I never did learn why my great Aunt Helen died in September of 1924 while delivering twin girls who also died.  My grandmother, also pregnant at the time, told me of how Helen fearlessly approached childbirth while my grandmother feared for her life.  My grandmother delivered my aunt, a ten pounder, a week after Aunt Helen’s funeral. Sixty-five years of living did not erase the picture of seventeen –year- old Helen lying in a coffin, her dead infant girls cradled in each arm.  This was her body, given up for her children.

When women volunteer to have their child’s birth televised on “Good Morning America” while wearing eye shadow and mascara, we tend to lose sight of the very serious business that is childbirth.  We forget that every pregnant woman gives up her body for her child as the growing fetus harnesses every organ system of the mother’s body in order to sustain its growth. If any organ system is not up to the task, both mother and child can die.

Some women never recover completely from childbirth. They never lose the weight they gained during pregnancy. Others might develop varicose veins, diabetes, or high blood pressure. Some develop permanent urinary tract or bowel problems from injuries sustained during childbirth.  These are our young bodies, which we have offered up for our children.

Each time a woman goes into labor, she travels into the valley of the shadow of death, a place one cannot imagine if one has not given birth.  One of my neighbors who gave birth was appalled by the fact that I didn’t use anesthesia during the births of my children.  I told her I was more stupid than brave and truly believed that I was giving my children the best possible start in life by not using drugs.  This was comfort for my body, which I was willing to give up for them.

Childbirth is always accompanied by a certain amount of blood. The shedding of blood during childbirth used to render a woman, “unclean,” a verdict Christianity inherited from Judaism.  Until Vatican II, a post partum woman was supposed to be “churched,” a ceremony which “purified” the mother of childbirth, so that she could return to communion.  However, without the shedding of the mother’s blood, there can be no birth and no life. Even Jesus, born of Mary came into this world purple, wet, and slippery, covered with his mother’s blood. Mary gave her holy body and blood to Jesus. This was her body and blood, given up for him.

Two women I know almost hemorrhaged to death after giving birth.  After birth, the uterus is supposed to contract and clamp off all of the blood vessels that supplied the placenta and nourished the baby during pregnancy.  If the uterus fails to contract, the blood vessels remain wide open and blood gushes out of the woman with each beat of her heart.  Both women described lying in a state of suspended animation as their blood poured onto the floor, knowing what was happening to them, but too weak to rouse themselves to call for help.

One looks at blood, at the bright red bewilderment of it, with awe, for it is life itself.  How many of our foremothers saw this blood, felt it leave their bodies, and understood what it meant to shed every last drop of blood in order to give life to another human being!

On this Mother’s Day, I invite you to image God, who is truly beyond whatever paltry picture we might imagine, as Mother God.  Imagine God our Creator as the Mother clothed in the sun, wearing star in Her hair, groaning in hard labor as She tries to give birth to a new heavens and a new earth where all mothers are forever freed of the sins of patriarchal misconceptions and misogyny.

Today on Mother’s Day, remember your mother. Honor all mothers in whom unborn babies once lived and moved and developed their very beings.

This is our body; this is our blood, given for the life of the world.


May 17, 2009 Guest Homily by Jerry Devine

I  ask blessing on this gathering, all who are here, all who are connected to all those here.  May the God Spirit of Love in each of us shine forth and be the source of these blessings.

Three words kept coming to me in these readings:        

                Dissension, Love and Surrender

The reading from Acts describes an incident where there was a great deal of dissension.  Who are worthy to receive the Word of God?

The gifts of the Holy Spirit being expressed ends the tension and argument.  How can we argue with the Spirit?

Dissension is a continuing part of our lives, within ourselves, in our families, in our cities, towns, nation, world.  Even those who present themselves as our spiritual leaders can be the source of dissension.  Religious leaders are often seen more as political leaders, and not focused on the growth of the Lord’s spirit in our world.  But Peter is able to focus on the critical issue at that moment, speaking of those who received the Holy Spirit as we have.  Differences fall away.  Peter focuses on the spirit in each, rather than the external self where differences become most important.


        Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation.

“It is a great mistake to confuse the person (the spiritual and hidden self, united with God) and the ego, the exterior, empirical self, the psychological individuality who forms a kind of mask for the inner and hidden self.  This outer self is nothing but an evanescent shadow.  Its biography and its existence both end together at death.  Of the inmost self there is neither biography nor end.  The outward self can “have” much, “enjoy” much, “accomplish” much, but in the end all its possessions, joys and accomplishments are nothing, and the outer self is, itself, nothing: a shadow, a garment that is cast off and consumed by decay.”


How much time is spent with our hidden, authentic self out in the world?  What percentage of ourselves and how we operate is this hidden self?  5%?  10%  It is difficult to be much more than that because our lives are so complex and the pressures we face are always present.


But What if this person, the spiritual self united with God, was 51% what we brought to the world?  What would the world look like?  If this is an idea that excites us, it is because the spiritual person inside us is saying this is why we are here.  The moment we entered into God fully, there is no sin, no desire, nothing ever happened and time does not exist.

How do we claim this hidden self, build in in ourselves, help build it in each other so that we are following Jesus and His Path?

I have learned that for me it’s combining prayer with meditation.  To do this the word that comes to mind for me in the Gospel about love is Surrender.

In our country surrender is probably up there with a lot of words that we do not find often in anyone’s vocabulary.  To surrender is to die, to be dishonored, to have shame heaped upon me.  But Jesus is speaking of giving up that part of me that maintains the separation, that part of me, that mask I put on each morning to go out and face another day.  But what if I chose to instead build up that spirit self, the Jesus in me.  Giving up my life for my friends is not surrender in the world’s sense.  It is the greatest sign of Love.  Jesus says He has told us all He has learned from God.

Which Jesus boils down to one Commandment:  Love One Another.


THE MIRACLE OF SHARING  Guest Homily  by Joseph L. Butler, Sr.  July 26, 2009


In today’s readings from Kings and John, we hear wondrous stories of many being fed from sparse resources.  And both stories remind us of the miracle of generosity.

From a present-day perspective, we don’t have to figure out how 5,000 people got across the Sea of Galilee.  Somehow they did.  They gathered on that grassy plain to see another healing. 

Then Jesus asks, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”  The first point that hits home is the typical male response: “We can’t afford to feed them.  Where are we going to get the money?”  At one time or another, everyone here has dealt with that lament.  Despite our world’s abundant resources, we daily see rampant hunger and starvation, and we feel impotent.  We bemoan the fact that we can’t solve the problem.  We get discouraged.  We need a miracle.

Which raises the second point:  the simple heart of a young boy who shyly steps forward to say, “I have some barley loaves and a couple of fish.  You can have them.” Jesus smiles at the boy’s generosity, and accepts this small gift of food.  What happens next brings to mind “a little child shall lead them.”  Isn’t the boy’s good will and kindness infectious?  Do others reach into their pockets to help?  It certainly seems likely. 

The third point is the invisible women.  The gospel says “the men reclined.”  But I suspect if food were being shared, women were orchestrating the whole thing.  Certainly no picnic, no dinner, no celebration of life (baptisms, first communions, weddings) and no healings seem to happen without women’s contributions.  For centuries, the women were the first to ask, “What can I bring?  How can I help?  And what about the children?”  So this is a gospel for our day.

We Christians of this generation are no further removed from the ministry of Jesus than this gathering of followers 2000 years ago.  We feed others in many ways:  we make casseroles, we invite a friend to dinner, we make a phone call, or offer a kind word to those in distress.  We bring the story of Jesus of Nazareth to today’s world when we are neighbor, when we are caring, when we are kind.  Each of us is called to listen to our own inner voice, and to give that voice expression. 

When we receive the Eucharist today, we are called to become the body of Christ.  Like the disciples who eventually came around to Jesus’ way of thinking, we will share the food and gather the fragments at the meal’s end.  We too come to recognize that “generosity of spirit” is Jesus’ message, and the on-going miracle.

There is a beautiful prayer adapted from the Hebrew book of blessings, The Berakoth, which is a fitting close.  Let us pray today with all those assembled on that distant hill: