HOMILY – 15TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH
GREENVILLE, SC – JULY 16, 2006 8 & 11AM
May our Lord give us His peace.
Three moods of God…
I’m not going to mince words, I love you more than myself, and take little with you.
Mood 1. I’m not going to mince words. The prophet Amos speaks for God and the message is hard. The people Amos is speaking to have material and attitudinal superiority. But they are hollow, and have become known for selfish injustice.
Prophets come in not mincing words. “You have fixed your scales to cheat, you sit in judgment unfairly, you eat excessively while others hunger, you prize the esteem of backward people and you forget the God who delivered you.” Amos then lists the punishments, unbelievable. Pests, famines, leaders die, children, spirits, die.
That is where we pick up the 1st reading today. Amos says, “Hey these are not my words! I am a tree pruner! “You best listen and change.” They kick him out.
The message went out, God proclaimed His justice through Amos. I’m not going to mince words. Change your ways says the Lord. Let them fall where they may.
Mood 2. I love you more than myself. If there was another hand, God can be said to have that in it. “I love you more than myself.” This is dramatically revealed in the number of covenants God made with His people after they broke every one of them, and in Jesus, the new and eternal covenant. God keeps His promise to be God and spares the sinner. Good news. But does the 2nd reading cancel the 1st reading? If God has decided to take us all back despite our sin, why stop sinning?
Jesus, the great washing machine, with stain crystals! But doesn’t that degrade us?
God is hoping instead that we become grateful for the huge list of gifts in the second reading – Christ, spiritual blessings, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, grace, all things in heaven and on earth St. Paul says! God is hoping we receive the gifts as God loving us more than Himself. We receive the 1st installment of our inheritance – the Spirit, to love God and neighbor. He loves us more than Himself and we love others more than ourselves. Will they grow grateful enough to become givers also? That gives God a sense that we understand, and makes heaven closer.
Take little with you. These words captivated Francis of Assisi so much he stripped naked in front of his Father and the bishop. I want only to obey my Father in heaven, he said. I need simple uncomplicated availability. There is work to do.
You and I are not touched in the same way Francis was. Francis himself said “God showed me what I was to do, may God show you what you are to do.” As a friar follower of St. Francis I am trying to figure how to live so God’s wishes come true.
For crying out loud, why take little? Why live simply? So that others may simply live. I know how pithy that sounds in a homily, but not when it frees you from other pursuits to spend an hour with someone in jail, the hospital, a retirement village, a child, someone who mourns, teaching, healing, liberating from things not fair. THEN, it makes sense to take less. God’s work needs more of me. I occupy myself with less, to be more for you. Take few things with you, but many people.
So we are back to the start… avoiding self-orientation, fueling from a love that sounds like this, “I love you more than myself.” And it looks pretty darned simple. Unless you are the recipient. Then you wonder how the person with so much takes time to care about you. In that moment, we are sacrament. Visible from invisible.