"Do Not Be Afraid - Just Have Faith"

Homily for Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – B

One way to engage with Scripture is to put yourself into the story– to be one of the characters, to see what they are seeing, to feel what they are feeling. Today’s Gospel gives us a wide variety of characters to help us do just that, but I want to focus on the two main characters – Jairus and the woman with a hemorrhage.

On one level, these two characters couldn’t be more dissimilar: Jairus is a man, he is prominent in the community, he is ritually pure since he is a synagogue official, and for the same reason, he is also well off. The woman, on the other hand, is, first, a woman – who were second-class people at best – she was also ritually impure because of her affliction, she was broke from paying all the doctors that didn’t help, and she was an outcast because of her disease.

But even though they are so dissimilar, when I put myself in their place, and I try to picture what they are feeling, the same one word comes to mind – desperation! Both Jairus and the woman are desperate, and to a great extent they share a desperation for something similar – their children. For the woman, it is the desperation for the children that the hemorrhage is preventing her from having, and so keeping her as an outcast. For Jairus, it is a desperation for his daughter’s very life.

Think of what lengths you would go to protect your children. Would you even perhaps break the rules if you had to? That’s what the woman did – she broke social norms and religious prohibitions – she broke the rules in order to get to Jesus, in order to be healed. Jairus, too, this prominent synagogue official, falls down at Jesus’ feet, embarrasses himself and begs Jesus to help – for the sake of his daughter. Their desperation for their children emboldens them to break the rules, to break with norms in order to save their children.

I’ve witnessed that kind of desperation first-hand. I’ve spoken to Syrian refugee fathers who have scooped up their children and taken them to a foreign land –with no plan, no guarantees, no direction – all they know is that they are doing what they have to do to save their children.

I’ve spoken to mothers in El Salvador who have sent their children north, sent them with people they hoped they could trust, just to get them away from the gangs and the violence and the threats to their lives.  “It is sad”, one mother said, “that our children might become our most valuable export”. Other mothers expressed hesitation of ever being able to send their kids on their own, but were convinced that if the threats continued, they would not hesitate to take their children and to head north to save their lives.

These desperate folks land on our borders sometimes. And how do we respond? Do we approve when children are separated from their parents at the border? Do we cheer when children are sent to immigration court alone? Do we applaud when people are turned around and sent away or locked up because they were asking us to protect them from violence and gangs and abuse?  And then we have the audacity to sing our opening song, “All Are Welcome”?

How should we respond? I would ask you to consider three articles that appear in this month’s issue of the WNY Catholic. The first is by Bishop Malone that talks about why we must build bridges instead of walls. The second article is one about our US Bishops’ reaction to the Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border. The third is my column that talks about what the Church teaches about migration.

I think that it’s important that you listen to what the Church has to say about these issues because there are other voices out there – voices that want you to be afraid. They want you to be afraid that these desperate people are going to take your jobs or use up your resources. They want you to be afraid that these people will come and bring murder and rape and drugs and violence. They want you to be afraid that somehow what we give to them will mean less for you – as if we don’t have enough to go around. They want you to be afraid.

Maybe the words that Jesus spoke to Jairus he is speaking to us: “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith”.

WHEN? A Homily for the First Sunday of Lent - February 18, 2018

Moment of silence for the 17 lives lost in the tragic and senseless violence in Parkland Florida last Wednesday.

The irony is not lost on us, I am sure, that Valentine’s Day, the day when we celebrate love, will now only be remembered as a day of hate and violence to those who lost someone they loved.  And the coincidence of this massacre occurring on Ash Wednesday compels us to reflect on how we spend this Lent, this year.

Just about the time that many of us were gathering right here on Wednesday afternoon for our Word Service, the shooter was entering Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And shortly after that, a teacher, two coaches and 14 students had been taken from this life. And while panicked students texted their parents, or fled in terror from the school, I was signing foreheads with ashes and saying, “Repent and believe in the Good News”.

Could our need for repentance be any clearer to us? As long as we see all of the evil in the world as something that happens “over there” or is perpetrated by “others” we will not see our role in it, we will avoid having to ask for forgiveness, we will refuse to see our need to repent.

Jesus’ call to repent means that we have to have a “change of mind”, we have to re-think what we have assumed that we know, we have to earnestly plead to God like the psalmist says, “Teach me your ways, O Lord!”

We need to repent and re-turn to God’s ways and God’s direction. We need to repent of our habit of not paying attention and only seeing what concerns us directly. We need to confront the evil we see and not be afraid – to rely on God’s strength to deal with what we see before us.

Pope Francis once said that, “No evil is infinite, no night is without end, no hatred is stronger than love.” Jesus faced the wilderness and the wild beasts, and came out declaring the time of fulfillment. He heard about JBap’s arrest and knew the consequences for himself, and still declared the reign of God. He faced being tested by Satan, and called for belief in the Good News!

Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote a book on the prophets, and he pointed out that when the prophets spoke of the need for repentance, they spoke to everyone, from the king on down to the lowliest peasant. As Rabbi Heschel pointed out, when the covenant is broken, “few are guilty, but all are responsible”.

We are responsible when we see a tragedy like Parkland and say that it is too complicated to really do anything about it. We are responsible when we shrug our shoulders and chalk it up to how things are in the world. We are responsible when we don’t raise our voices in pain, and in frustration, and even in anger.

The “Good News” is that Christ has won the battle; as the letter from Peter says, he has suffered for sins once…the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God..

Lent is the beginning of a change in the rest of our lives – to make a difference in ourselves that will last way beyond Easter Sunday. Our opportunity to repent this Lent is to open ourselves up to God’s work within us, to stand in Jesus’ name against the power of evil, and to challenge ourselves by asking: WHEN?

When will we not be so indifferent to suffering?

When will we be uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood?

When will be adamantly concerned for the dignity of every person?

When will we choose love over fear?

When will we choose the common good over our own self-interest?

When will we choose life over death?