I usually end my reflection with questions but today I want to start with a question: When was the last time someone told you that everything you need is already here, that you don't have to earn it, that it is yours without price and without condition? Because that is exactly what God says to us today through the prophet Isaiah. "All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat!" No waiting list. No application. Just come, as you are!

That is the daring generosity at the heart of today's Word, and I think we need to sit with it for a moment before we rush past it, because we live in a world that tells us exactly the opposite.

Our world says: you get what you earn, you deserve what you pay for, and if you don't have enough, that is probably your own fault. The market decides who eats and who goes hungry, who has shelter and who sleeps outside, who belongs and who gets sent away. And the truth is that logic has seeped into our politics, into our public life, and sometimes even into our Church conversations, in ways that should unsettle us, deeply.

We are living through a moment of real strain in this country. You feel it. I feel it. The political divisions are deep and they are bitter. Policies are being debated and enacted that directly affect the most vulnerable among us: the working poor who cannot make rent, the immigrant families living in fear, women whose dignity and full humanity are still contested in law and in culture, people of color who carry the exhausting weight of systemic racism, refugees who fled violence only to be met with suspicion and rejection at our borders. These are not abstract policy questions. These are our sisters and brothers. Many of them sit in this very church.

And into all of that, God speaks through Isaiah with something that sounds almost reckless: "Why spend your money for what is not bread? Your wages for what fails to satisfy?" In other word, you are pouring your energy into systems and ideologies that are leaving people empty. Come to something that actually nourishes you. Come to me!

Then we get to the Gospel, and Jesus puts flesh on that invitation in the most concrete way imaginable.

Jesus has just learned that his cousin John has been killed. He is grieving. He gets in a boat to find some solitude, some quiet, some space to breathe. And when he gets to shore, there is a crowd already gathered to greet him. Thousands of them. And Matthew tells us something important about what Jesus did in that moment. It says his heart was moved with pity. In the Greek, the word is something closer to being moved in your gut, a visceral, physical compassion that you feel before you think it.

Jesus sees the crowd and he does not see a problem to be managed. He sees people, human beings. And he heals them, and
he feeds them, and he refuses to send them away. He encounters them as they are.

Notice what the disciples say when evening comes. "This is a deserted place and it is already late. Dismiss the crowds." Isn't that a familiar response? This is too big, it is too complicated, it is too late in the day. Let them figure it out themselves. Send them away.

And Jesus says, no. "There is no need for them to go. Give them some food yourselves."

Give them some food yourselves! That line should stop us cold. Because we are the disciples. We are the ones standing there with five loaves and two fish looking at a problem that seems impossibly large. The hunger in our county and nation. The fear in our immigrant communities. The poverty that never quite makes the agenda. The exhaustion of those who are never really counted, those who are never really included. And it is tempting to say, Lord, we only have five loaves and two fish. This is not enough. We cannot possibly fix this.

In 2020, when the number of families coming to our parish food pantry blew up from 250 to 750, virtually overnight, believe me when I say we said, “Lord we only have five loves and two fish” we can’t do this…and we didn’t, all of you did…you stepped in, the local community stepped in!

Jesus doesn’t ask us to fix it on our own. He asks us to bring what we have to him…bring it here to me. And then watch what happens.

Because here is the good news…the genuinely joyful news that I want you to carry out of here today: the way of God is not scarcity. The way of God is abundance. When we place what we have, however little it feels, into the hands of Jesus, something happens that we cannot manufacture by ourselves. People get fed. Everyone is satisfied... and there are twelve baskets left over!

That is not a fairy tale. It is a description of what happens when communities of faith take seriously their call to share. We have seen it here in this parish. We see it in our partnerships with organizations like SEEC. We see it in the quiet generosity of this parish week after week. When we stop calculating whether we have enough and start trusting that God will multiply what we offer, the math changes.

St. Paul understood this. That is why he could write from prison, with such incredible confidence: "What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?" He lists everything that the world throws at the most vulnerable, and then he says: none of it. None of it separates us. We are not promised an easy road. But we are promised that the road does not run away from God. It runs toward God. And nothing, not political chaos, not systemic injustice, not the cruelty of the powerful, not even death itself, can cut us off from God’s love.

So here is where I want to land…we live in a hard moment. The problems are real and the suffering is real and the anger and fear is real. And it is okay to name that. But we are not a people of despair. We are a people of hope who believe that five loaves and two fish, placed in the right hands, can feed a multitude. We are a people who believe that the hand of the Lord, as the psalm says, is open, and that it satisfies the desire of every living thing. Every living thing. Not just the comfortable. Not just the documented. Not just the powerful. Every single living thing.

Our job is not to solve everything by lunchtime. Our job is to show up, bring what we have, and to let our hearts be moved the way Jesus' heart was moved, and to trust that God is ultimately in control, and that God deeply and passionately loves you just as you are!

Amen.

Blessings,
Fr Tim

In today's Gospel, Jesus compares the Reign of God to a treasure buried in a field...a pearl of great price. Who among us has not dreamt of finding a great treasure? Who hasn't imagined, if only for a moment, what it would be like to stumble across something so valuable that it changed everything?

Imagine the impact it would have upon your life. How would you use it? What would you do differently within your life with this newfound wealth? Would you share it with family and friends, or would you keep it quiet, afraid of what might change if others knew you were suddenly wealthy? Would you use it to help the poor and the less fortunate? Would it make you generous... or would it make you afraid of losing it?

These are the questions we ask ourselves when we imagine finding gold, or a pearl beyond price. But Jesus isn't talking about gold. Jesus isn't talking about a pearl, not really. The great treasure we've stumbled across is not a buried chest of coins, not a jewel pulled from the sea, but rather the promise of eternal life... the Reign of God, breaking into our midst, here, now, today.

This is exactly what Jesus is challenging us to do: to imagine how different our lives would be if we actually “lived” in the Reign of God. Not just on Sunday. Not just while we're here at Mass, dressed for the occasion, minds half on the homily and half on lunch. But every day. All the time. In the checkout line, in the midst of rush hour traffic, in the middle of a difficult conversation with a family member, or a loved one or a good friend, or in the quiet moment when no one is watching and we choose, or don't choose, to love.

Usually when we think of finding a treasure, we think immediately of financial gain, how it would change our lives, our children's futures, our retirement, our security. But in this case, we are challenged to think about an entirely different kind of change; how our lives would look if measured not by what we've accumulated or what we have or own, but rather by how we love one another, how we care for each other. Measured by how we live the Gospel in the ordinary, unglamorous hours of the day…not the hour we set aside for God, but all the hours of our days. How we impact the lives of the people around us... for  the better, or, if we're honest with ourselves, sometimes for the worse.

Finding the Reign of God, and falling in love with it, is the whole point of the parables we hear today. Not admiring it from a distance. Not respecting it as a nice idea, rather, falling in love with it…the way you fall in love with a person, so that it reorders everything else in your life around them.

There's a quote often attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, though it was actually written by Fr. Joseph P. Whelan, SJ, a former provincial superior for the Jesuits of Maryland, in a reflection he gave on vocations and discernment. I think it's worth us hearing:

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything…That's not sentimental language. I believe that is the most practical sentence you'll hear all week because it names the truth that whatever has seized our imagination is already deciding everything, whether we've noticed or not.

The question the Gospel puts to us today is simply: what has seized your imagination?

If I were utterly, totally, and completely in love with God above all else... if building up the Reign of God came first, before career, before comfort, before every other claim on my time and attention... would my life look any different than it did when I woke up this morning?

What is at the center of my life? What motivates what I read, what gets me out of bed, what breaks my heart in the world I meet each day, and what amazes me with joy and gratitude in that same world? Let’s fall in love all over again, with God, who so deeply and passionately loves you just as you are!
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Blessings,
Fr Tim

Once again, this week Jesus speaks to us in parables…multifaceted gems that once tumbled around in our hearts and when ruminated upon, yield unbelievable insights into the Reign of God. While the disciples certainly preferred straightforward answers, Jesus obviously preferred parables.

Of the comparisons of the reign of God to a field, a mustard seed and the leaven in bread, I have always liked the comparison of the mustard seed to the Reign of God. This tiny, tiny little seed grows into a great bush…so large that the birds of the air make their nests in it.

If you take the parable at its face value it all seems quite lovely. However there is a dark side that farmers know well: the mustard bush is an invasive plant, it grows wildly and rapidly, quickly overtaking a garden…ruining the plants that had been planted with care…reducing their yield, if not completely choking them out.

Mustard bushes can be uncontrollable and rapidly spread across a farm if not quickly uprooted before going to seed. Surely this reality was not lost on Jesus…nor on those who heard him tell the parable. It seems that perhaps Jesus is presenting an image of the expansion of the Reign of God as something uncontrollable, invasive and fast growing!
But the reality of the mustard seed is that while it can be an invasive plant, it can also be a desired plant. One that is planted with purpose and care, that yields a valuable spice used in the seasoning of foods around the world.

Looking through the lenses of these images…the Reign of God is not something that can be domesticated or controlled…by its very nature it grows uncontrollably and bursts forth offering refuge and flavor to the world. I believe that many of us though would prefer something that we could contain and control… and domesticate!

But the truth is that the Reign of God is just that…“God’s Reign” …not ours. We are part of it by our baptism and we are called to help water it so that it continues to grow and “invade” every crevice and furrow of this planet, to give “flavor” to the world… but we don’t get to tame it and shape it to our designs, our tastes or desires.

Two thousand years ago Jesus’ vision of the bursting forth of the Reign of God was nothing less than radical….and it still is today. We are called to be part of that radical vision: to feed the hungry, to welcome the stranger, to shelter the homeless, to visit the sick and imprisoned…to love God with our whole being and to love one another as Christ loves us and to reach out and to care for “the other.”

Part of the Reign of God is the proclamation of the deep and passionate love of God for all peoples! And wasn’t it just this radical vision of the reign of God that Jesus preached that got him crucified… as his disciple, just how radical of a life am I willing to live? In a world that proclaims a “gospel of personal prosperity” -- tax cuts for the rich at the cost of healthcare cuts for the poor -- to what lengths am I willing to go in building up this radical vision of the Reign of God that Jesus preached? What concrete action can I take today to “water” the Reign of God and fight back against “fake Christianity”? Where and how do I see the Reign of God bursting forth in imaginative and radical ways in the world around me that support the poor and the marginalized and raise people up to the hope and vision that Jesus preached in the Gospel?
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Blessings,
Fr Tim

In today’s Gospel Jesus once again instructs the crowds with a parable, a parable about a sower and the seed. But this parable raises as many questions as it seems to answer. One such question might be: who sows costly seeds among the weeds and the thorns, and why?

The good farmer, the successful farmer, sows seeds on good rich soil that has been prepared, fertilized and tilled and yields a rich and abundant harvest! So why does Jesus tell the parable of a farmer who scatters seeds on bad soil, indiscriminately throwing them among the weeds and the thorns and the rocky soil…why sow it in these places? What is his point?

Parables are meant to get us thinking…just when we think we understand the point of the story, upon further reflection, another layer is revealed. I like to compare parables to finely cut and polished gemstones. As we mull over a parable and turn it around in our minds, we discover more and more facets of the gemstone…of the story that, at first glance, may not have been so obvious. That is the amazing quality of a parable.

In this parable, some interpret the sower as God and the indiscriminate sowing of the seeds as an example of God’s all- inclusive love for all peoples. They understand the seed sown is “the Word” offered to everyone, regardless of whether or not they will accept it and allow it to grow within them. Perhaps God sees possibilities of growth and abundant harvest amongst the thorns and rocky soil that we cannot even yet imagine!

It seems to me that “the Word” being sown is “the Word of Justice” sown in the thorns and rocky ground of racism and bigotry. And “the Word” is crying out for racial justice in the midst of unjust structures that systematically favor one race over another…white privilege. And God’s “Word” will take root and grow, as we have seen it do in the hundreds of thousands who marched during the Black Lives Matter protests across this country and around the globe…pointing out systemic racism around the world. For Isaiah told us that God said, “so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.” That “end” is justice and equality for all God’s children!

What is the “thorny and rocky” soil of our nation and our world today? I would say, our current administration’s blatant disregard for the wellbeing and care of the most vulnerable of our sisters and brothers…sadly more than disregard, a clear disdain, and active mistreatment with intent to harm! And more than just a refusal to welcome the stranger, as Jesus commanded, a clear desire and demonstrable glee, in uprooting the lives of immigrants and their families, and in some instances seeking to destroy their futures by deporting them to foreign countries, where they have no family, no hope of a future…only pain, loss and ruin.

Those who see this as just or even acceptable cannot call themselves Christian or in anyway followers of Jesus Christ or People of The Book! For it is clear that the God of Who lead the people out of Egypt commanded them that they must welcome the foreigner/the stranger in their midst, and Jesus commanded his followers that they must do the same, and that in the final judgement, they will be judged on whether or not they did so! It has never been a suggestion; it has always been the way in which God has called us to live with one another on the earth.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to measure our words and actions to make sure that they measure up to the standards that Jesus set forth in the Gospel. And as disciples we are called to work for justice, equality, and peace in the world. That means, working, voting, and speaking out on behalf of issues that deny people justice, equality and peace…and we all know what that looks like! Christian Nationalism is NOT Christian, it is racism and bigotry wrapped up in a fake, mistranslated and seriously distorted version of Christianity.

We know what discrimination, inequality and denial of justice looks like, so there is no excuse to not speak up and do our true Christian duty, one rooted in the words and call of Jesus Christ, a call clearly stated in Matthew 25, (Matt. 25: 31-46)!
As we continue to reflect on this Gospel this week, let us ask ourselves: what are the “thorny or rocky ground” parts of my life where the seeds of the Gospel could yield a more abundant harvest? Where in the world is the rocky soil on which God has sown seed from which is springing new growth at this moment that both surprises and delights me? Where am I being called “to tend to the Word” that needs to be cultivated and nurtured in the thorny and rocky round of the world around me?
​
Blessings,
Fr Tim

Today's Gospel invites us to "rest in Jesus"…to turn our burdens over to Jesus and allow the power of the Holy Spirit, dwelling within us, to empower us to push on, ever forward, knowing that we do so not alone, but filled with the presence of the very one who created us and loved us into being.

Jesus does not dismiss the burdens of life. On the contrary, Jesus recognizes just how heavy they are and, in the midst of the struggles of our lives, he assures us to be with us and help us.

We are not asked to set our burdens down at the door of the church as we enter…but rather we are invited to bring them to the altar and place them side by side with the bread and wine which we offer to be blessed and broken, transformed and shared.

This Jesus, the Christ, knows firsthand of our human burdens and understands our suffering. We need not fear that our God does not understand, or does not care. The message of all of Jesus' preaching and teaching was the exact opposite: our God knows us and loves us deeply and passionately and walks with us in the midst of our sufferings. Our God weeps with us when we weep and suffers with us when we suffer.

And as the Body of Christ, we are invited to reach out to others whose burdens and pain overwhelm them…to be the living compassion of Christ to them…to help carry their burdens and to walk with them in the midst of their suffering. As Pope Francis said, to "be a sign of mercy."…a living sign of mercy.

​Welcoming the stranger, the immigrant, the one who is "other," is an authentic living out of our discipleship…it incarnates the Gospel in the midst of our community. For so many among us and around us right now, that welcome is not an notion or an abstraction. It is the difference between a family that can bring its burden to the altar in peace, and a family that carries its burden alone, in fear, afraid even to be seen. Our own bishops have said as much in recent months, reminding us that whatever a person's circumstance, the thought of families held and separated and detained in fear "should challenge the conscience of every American." That is not a political statement…it is a Gospel statement!

Ironically in our reaching out to others, often our burdens are lightened, our wounds begin to heal and we become more and more the living Body of Christ. We become the face of the mercy of God.

Let us ask ourselves…do I have burdens or old wounds that I am holding on to and not giving over to Jesus, that getting rid of might allow me to be more available to my sisters and brothers in need? Whose burden or pain am I being called to help carry, and how might I do that? Is there someone among us right now -- an immigrant neighbor, or a family stripped of support and safety by recent government cuts to public aid programs like “SNAP” whose fear and hunger I have not noticed? How might I become the face of mercy, in a concrete way, to those who are suffering, and thus live out more fully my discipleship of Jesus Christ?
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Blessings,
Fr Tim