Homily - Sunday Mass 2014/08/17 Being Different

Homily – Sunday Mass

2014/08/17
Scraps for the Dogs - Being different

Matthew 15:21-28 View Readings
Deacon David Lewis
Saint Charles Catholic Church, Imperial Beach/San Diego, CA

             One of my favorite movies of all time was Forrest Gump. One of the earlier scenes was the young Forrest getting on the school bus for the first time, and after introducing himself to the bus driver so that they were no longer strangers and could now take a ride from her, he proceeded to search for a seat. Seeing Forrest’s braces on his legs, one kid after another, scoots over to make it unwelcoming to Forrest, and some say “Not here” and “Can’t sit here, this seat’s taken.” He makes his way all the way to the back of the bus without being able to find a seat, turns around, and as he begins to make his way forward again, he comes to Jenny’s seat when She says,  “You can sit here if you want. Well you gonna sit down or aren’t you.” It was a beautiful scene of welcoming someone that is different.

             In today’s Gospel, this mother from Cana, she is looked at as different too, kind of like Forrest. As Jesus and his disciples leave Tyre, and Sidon, an area occupied by gentiles or non-Jews, she approaches the group and asks Jesus for help in healing her possessed daughter. And ultimately Jesus ends up healing her daughter. Forrest

            But it wasn’t without some effort on her part. First as a Canaanite, she likely would have been recognized by the disciples and faced discrimination. Going back to Old Testament times, there was tension between the Jews of Israel, and the Canaanite Gentiles. The Canaanites were the corrupt idol worshippers that the Jews hoped to transform, they were looked at as dogs, less than human by the Israelites, who considered themselves the children of God.

            You can tell she was really trying to approach Jesus and his followers in a humble, peaceful non-threatening way, addressing Jesus as “Lord, Son of David.” She certainly knew who Jesus was, and in this small fragment of a sentence, we can see that she has at least some faith in Jesus as the Messiah, as the awaited savior. She must have heard of some of the other instances of Jesus performing miracles of healing.

In her peaceful attempts to call out to Jesus, she was first uncharacteristically ignored by Jesus and then turned away by the disciples. Then Jesus speaks that he was only sent for “the lost sheep of Israel.” He was sent for the chosen race of the Israelites, implying that he was not sent to save the gentiles from Cana, to which the woman replies, Lord help me. Jesus replies again saying that it isn’t right take the food from the children and throw it to the dogs, Jesus said that it is not right for his help to go to the people of Cana: the dogs, instead of the children of God: the Jews. However, seeing that Jesus did not say no, she so wisely replies “Please Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” It is a meaningful response of great faith, and her perseverance is rewarded, by Jesus complying with her request, and offering to heal her daughter if it was the mother’s will.

            Today’s Gospel is not only a great example of Jesus’ miraculous healing, but it is a redefinition of who it is Jesus has come for. As some of you know Jesus didn’t just show up, the Jews were expecting him. Throughout the Old Testament there were prophecies that a savior would come to restore the people of Israel’s relationship with God. So you can imagine, that those Idol worshipping, Pagan people of Cana would not be expected to receive the graces of the Messiah, what Jesus did had great significance in including them.

            And today’s Gospel is also a great story of a woman’s faith, and her perseverance to get her child help. She had a daughter that was sick, and contrary to all that she would have been taught as a child, she recognized Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, as being able to help. She overcame being a Canaanite, she overcame not being a Jew, she overcame the disciples’ rejection, and ultimately with the help of Jesus, she overcame her daughter’s possession by demons. As most parents would do, with her daughters well-being on the line, she gave it her all to get her daughter help.

            And today’s Gospel serves for us to realize that being different does not mean being excluded.  It means that no matter how we view ourselves as unworthy, unfit, incapable, undeserving, or just different. We are worthy of Jesus’ love and healing. That if we walk towards him, when we show our faith in him, he will respond.

But it also means that when we encounter people in our lives that are different than us we shouldn’t cast judgment first. We need to be willing to be welcoming to others that appear different than us. Whether bound to a wheelchair, covered in tumors or scars, or unable to talk, walk, or see. They too are worthy of Jesus’ love, and should be worthy of ours.

            I encourage you, to look at your lives, look for an Uncle or Aunt, brother or sister that has been shunned out of the family, look for a neighbor or old friend that you no longer talk to, look for opportunities to serve a stranger, and exercise mercy like Jesus did, exercise kindness like Jenny did for Forrest. There are many people we turn away from because we are uncomfortable. Exercise kindness and understanding. There are many opportunities to show our perseverance in our faith to show that we believe that Jesus did not come for some, but came for the many who believe in him.

Homily – Saturday Daily Mass 2014/08/16 - Matthew 19:13-15 - Let the Children Come to Me.

Homily – Saturday Daily Mass 

2014/08/16 Saturday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Matthew 19:13-15 View Readings
Deacon David Lewis
Saint Charles Catholic Church, Imperial Beach/San Diego, CA

This last week, as you probably know we lost Robin Williams. The well-known comedian who got his start as Mork from Ork. Among many other movie roles, he played Patch Adams, an adult medical student, who understood the need to heal the emotional as well as the medical, which Patch did through rather unorthodox means. As I recall one scene from the movie, there was Robin Williams as Patch Adams, in a scene set in the children’s cancer ward at a hospital. All the children are lying in their beds, somber and melancholy and then Patch walks in, and begins his visit with one of the girls by cutting a red squeeze ball and attaching it to his nose like a clown. He starts joking with the young patient, and then grabs a couple of swabs and puts them behind his ears like bug antennae and pretends to fly around bouncing off the glass of the window, all the while the children begin to giggle and laugh, and so the healing begins. 

In today’s Gospel, the children were BROUGHT to Jesus, that he might lay his hands on them and pray… they were brought to Jesus, and yet Jesus’ own disciples turned the children away. But Jesus said to "Let them come to me, and do not prevent them; for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

I began to imagine myself there with Jesus, trying to imagine who I was in this reading: Have I brought people to Jesus? Or have I been the one that turned people away that were seeking Jesus? Or have I been a child being led to Jesus?

So… Have I brought people to Jesus… Have I attracted people to come to Jesus, have I personally invited anyone? When I look at the ArchBishop of New York, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, I see joy, happiness, and a love of the faith. When I see Father Jim, I see an attractive peace, calm, Father Sam, a life dedicated to service, all examples that lift me closer to God. You can see in them how Jesus brings peace and joy into their lives, and it makes us want what they have.

But… when we put ourselves above others, putting ourselves before others, when we look down at others, we push people away, when we come off as unwelcoming, when we lives as hypocrites, we drive people from Jesus, we turn them away.

We should really be like the children, going towards Jesus, even when it seems unwelcoming. Have I sought out Jesus, perhaps at times to heal things in my life. Whether it was when I desired to quit smoking, or when a loved one was sick, there have been times in my life when I have needed Jesus. But have I also continued toward Jesus when others were telling me not to.

When we look at the Patch Adams character, one of the conflicts in the movie was that Patch’s techniques were not the straight laced, proven techniques that were dry and ordinary as prescribed by those responsible for his training as a Doctor. Instead he healed with love, giving spiritual strength to the patients, to heal through laughter, and joy. While some people have some trouble with laughing and carrying-on in a Church, and perhaps rightfully so, as the Church should be a place of reverence, and the Mass a time of deep reflection and prayer, but what stops us from being joyful Catholics the other 23 hours a day we are not at Mass?

Shouldn’t we be a bit more childlike in the way children make friends with anyone? Shouldn’t we take ourselves just a little less seriously and embrace our flaws as gifts? Shouldn’t we be willing to stop and look at the sky, and see what creations God has made in the clouds in the sky?

Shouldn’t we be skipping towards God in our lives, inviting everyone on our path to join us, ignoring those that discourage us so that we can be with Jesus, so that we can experience the Kingdom of Heaven?

Homily – Saturday Daily Mass 2014/08/02 - Matthew 14:1-2 - Peace

Homily – Saturday Daily Mass

2014/08/02 Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Matthew 14:1-2 View readings
Deacon David Lewis
Saint Charles Catholic Church, Imperial Beach/San Diego, CA
    

           I remember when I was young, probably about nine or ten, I saw the coolest green huffy bicycle. It was green and had a number plate and a plastic gas tank, fake shocks. It looked just like a racing motorcycle, I could only imagine how fast that bike would be compared to the steel framed rusty yellow bike with its solid rubber tires that was handed down from my older brother. Man I would have done anything to get that bike for my birthday that year. But when we look at today’s Gospel reading, what does Herod’s niece ask for, not a huffy bike, not a doll house, or even a doll, she goes to her mom for advice and comes back to her uncle and says… “I want John the Baptist’s head on a platter.” WHAT!?!?!

            The young girl’s mother, Herrodias, was upset with John the Baptist for calling an attempt at marriage between Herrod and her, his own brother Philip’s wife, unlawful, and she was seeking revenge. It only goes to show the great divide between the people in the government and people of faith at that point in history. Shamefully, two thousand years later, while Malia and Sasha Obama haven’t asked for anyone’s head on a platter, we sure seem to be at a point in American history where those that govern us have turned a deaf ear to the Church on many topics.

            In fact I think it will get worse before it gets better. We have seen the government recently mandate that non-profit ministry organizations fund insurance plans for their employees that include abortive agents like the morning after pill, organizations that clearly are part of the Church, but are not “a church” so they do not fall into the religious exemption, organizations like Catholic Charities, our Catholic schools, Saint Vincent de Paul, and Catholic Hospitals. No longer are the rights outlined in the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America being given priority, but are looked at as secondary to the will of the government by those ruling over us.

            While I don’t want to be an alarmist, we must be realists, and acknowledge that the current administration has done little to acknowledge the concerns brought forth by our Bishops, concerns over so called “gay marriage”, concerns over abortion, and concerns over religious freedom. It seems only a matter of time, if nothing is changed, that our views of marriage, abortion, as well as others will become a reason for persecution of Catholics, and other Christians that hold on to the same beliefs. Worldwide Christians continue to be persecuted, and even martyred, with little reaction from our government. Overall, our world is in a state of turmoil, Russia and Ukraine, Iraq and the ISIS, North Korea and South Korea, Israel and  Palestine, and then there is also the violence in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, just south of Mexico from which we see so many people seeking shelter from and coming towards the United States.

            It is times like this we need to pray for peace. To pray to Jesus, Prince of Peace, for peace throughout the world. To pray that all will come to know Him, and rest their hearts, for nothing is beyond the power of God. But we should start our efforts of peace here, starting with ourselves. We will find inner peace when we find our relationship with Jesus. We will find peace when Christ settles our hearts of those things that cause us anxiety. We will find peace when we accept the limitations in which we have been given to live. We will find peace when we give to others the same love of Christ that he gives us. We will find peace when we live our lives contently, satisfied with the graces God has given us. We will find peace when we humbly accept God as Lord over our lives. We will find peace.

            During the liturgy of the Mass today, and nearly every Mass, we are given an opportunity to share a sign of peace. Let that moment be one of reflecting on Jesus in the upper room just before the turmoil in his life is to hit an all-time high as he faces his Passion and crucifixion, reflect on the moment that Jesus says, “Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives do I give you.” As we offer the Peace of Christ, let us stay peacefully still, offering not a greeting, not a moment of “good morning, good to see you” not a moment of “best wishes to you and the family” but a moment of “May Christ settle all that bothers your heart” a moment of “May you find the peace that only comes from Christ himself” We will find peace in Christ.