HOMILY 16^TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CATHOLIC CHURCH

JULY 20, 2008 – 8, 10, 12 NOON MASSES

May our Lord Jesus give us His peace.

Power at will,  the searcher of hearts,  weed seeds.

Power at will.  We describe God from the bible and from experience as Almighty.  We describe God as powerful, an authority, omnipotent.  Just watch a flood carry a house down river, observe as gravity makes everybody sag in time, we have an all out fight to resist ear and nose hair and zits.  We can’t express the miracle of birth, and marvel at the capacity of human beings to cause huge suffering or dramatic relief.  Powerful!  Take away blood pressure and WHAM! You hit the floor.  Power at will.

God could use His power to destroy us.  So many times we have been ridiculous, but God hasn’t destroyed us, at least not lately.  When God uses power, it’s not like we might use it.  Revenge, tricking people, cheating, getting jealous and hurting people, stealing to get ahead.

No, God instead uses His power to show kindness, to rescue us from despair, shows us clemency and mercifully permits repentance.  God lets us live and learn, and is slow to anger.  This is real power.  It builds.

God uses His power from love.  What good is it to kill what you love?

“If you love someone, set them free.  If they don’t come back to you, hunt them down and kill them.” Feels good, but makes no sense.  So God waits.

The searcher of hearts.  I have been with you many times when you have groaned over the hospitalization, imprisonment, leaving, or death of a loved one.  I shake and hurt with you.  Sometimes we groan out loud.  Other times, we pray that classic silence of hoping and trusting.  When I heard that the Shaw baby died yesterday my heart sank inside.  The Spirit of God prays for us when we can’t.  God hears.  The Spirit consoles us. 

I felt the Spirit when I had nothing more to give after the death of my best friend’s baby, I felt it when my mother fell recently, intoxicated again, and broker her shoulder.  I feel it each time someone in this church loses a job, suffers a loss, gets desperate self-doubt or begins to lose hope.  The searcher of hearts hears the Spirit in me groan and comes to my aid. 

Kitty Oliver has a prayer she frequently says, “For all the prayers we hold in our hearts that we find to hard to say out loud…”  Paul says to the Romans, God intercedes for His holy ones, knowing their hearts, according to His will.  We can trust and allow it or wallow in pain.

Weed seeds.  We read in the Gospel of Matthew that God permits the weeds to grow with the good seed.  I was having lunch with Fr. David in Georgia Friday and he spoke of a time he experienced weeds and wheat.  He spoke of a woman who was fussing while being served in a clothing shop.  The woman asked if “there was anyone else who could help her?”  The attendant asked what was wrong and the woman replied, “I don’t want your black hands touching me or my things.”  Fr. Dave still hurting.

It reminded me of the time we were at Gene’s downtown on Buncombe St. and a cashier, after cashing out a black family, said to me and the 3 friars dressed in street clothes, “Good thing they didn’t stay long, nearly drove my customers out.”  It was us, the black family and a white trucker.

Weeds and wheat.  It’ll all grow together until harvest time.  That time I am told by Jesus, is anytime, probably when we least expect it, like over breakfast at Gene’s, or shopping for clothes.  He comes, diner, clothier.

It’s probably more weedy things each of us say or do, than a person being an all out weed.  But some come close.  I figure we ought to get pretty good at seeing which plants bear fruit around us, and learn from them.

We’re not asked to be Round-Up weed killer, we’re not asked to express every prayer in our hearts, God knows.  But to show up with kindness, slow to anger, using power God’s way, now that is a harvest worthy of heaven.  And God knows, He can use us as signs to point the way.