HOMILY 22^ND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH & FURMAN UNIVERSITY

AUGUST 31, 2008  -  8, 10, 12 NOON & 6:30PM

May our Lord Jesus give us His peace.

Violence and outrage, offer me your body, don’t be an obstacle.

Violence and outrage.  Today we hear the prophet Jeremiah acting just like a prophet – reluctant, feeling like a ruse, enraged.  “You duped me O Lord!  “I cry out violence and outrage.” The prophets would come into town shaking and insistent.  They were to be feared.  There were false prophets and prophets of God.  Which one was Jeremiah, all angry and loud?

It becomes confirmed later that Jeremiah is a true prophet.  He is expressing the very anger of God.  He has come to Judah which is in the midst of political convulsions.  He was one of 5 prophets working on righting the politics of that day.  His ministry lasted 40 years, correcting the false causes for the war and false understandings of God’s will.  He often had to shout louder than warring kings.  We hear him on a bad day when it seems the king is not listening and God is not helping.  “Everyone mocks me.”  Ever have one of those days?

Today, if I acted like Jeremiah, I would shout against the lack of respect for a human person once conceived – in fact I prayed aloud about it at a democratic breakfast yesterday.  I would shout about the impossibility of war to make any peace or justice if the republicans call me for breakfast.  I hope they do.  Seems neither party defends human life as God gives it.  Both find one place or another to kill.  ENOUGH!  Hear my cry.  Outrage.

Is the president listening?  Is God helping?  I must continue the prophecy.

Offer me your body.  Well!?  St. Paul asks us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices.  He is sure the dead animal sacrifices are not what God is looking for.  God is looking for justice, and it will take us offering ourselves to get justice to come. 

I think of the students who spent the summer at St. Anthony’s living in the old friary working for the poor, the immigrant, the hospital, the law enforcement efforts of our community.  I think of the people involved in the housing initiative and how they are offering their bodies to build homes.  I think of the volunteers at our office door who hand hungry people food, so hungry they sit on the step and eat it right away.  Offerings beyond the parish grounds by all of us – love at work.  How holy and pleasing to God.  These are body offerings that please God.

Don’t be an obstacle.  If we can’t preach or prophecy, if we can’t offer our bodies and make justice, let’s be sure to not get in the way.  Jesus was to offer His body on the cross.  He was going up to Jerusalem to finish what He started.  Peter hears it’s going to hurt to do the right thing and he says, “God forbid!”  oooooh!  God forbid justice?  God forbid a self offering?  ooooh!  I don’t think so.  You, Peter, are an obstacle right now.

In what ways can I avoid being an obstacle to justice?  Here’s a list so you don’t get called Satan like Peter did.  Register and vote.  Join the effort to secure rights for all human beings to experience inalienable dignity.  Visit a prison, a nursing home, the hospital, the abortion clinic.  Look a young lady in the eyes with deep love as she drives in to make her “choice.”  When we  have more fair expectations of others or ourselves.  When we allow people who still “feel” to speak out.  Maybe we have been numbed by life.  Some haven’t been.  As Fr. Mychal Judge, the 1^st person killed in the World Trade Center prayed, “Lord keep me out of your way.”

If we get it right, it may take US expressing the anger of God, but always in love to correct.  If we offer our bodies, it may mean coming alive for others, bringing change to a waiting world.  But if we get in the way,

God will still bring His justice, with our without us. 

Let’s be known as good stewards of the life God has freely shared with us.