The Word of God came to our ancestors within a very specific socio-historical, geographic, political and religious context.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus challenges several social norms of his culture…he challenges the negative connotations surrounding humility and social status.

Jesus encourages us to consider “taking a lower seat” at the banquet table rather than seeking a place of honor. He warns that if you seek places of honor, you may well be asked to step down when someone of greater importance shows up to the banquet…implying that there is always someone of higher status than yourself.

No doubt Jesus is calling us to cultivate an attitude of humility. Last week’s Gospel warned us that at the heavenly banquet “some who are first in this world will be last in the Kingdom and some who are last in this world will be first in the Great Banquet.”

True humility is based on understanding and accepting who we really are in the grand scheme of the universe, and not allowing “self-importance” to get in the way of our discipleship of Jesus Christ.

Humility is not born of a lack of self-esteem or rooted in self-loathing, but rather, comes from knowing our true place in the world, and accepting God’s deep and passionate love for each one of us. So, we do not seek to wallow in self-pity or in curating a poor self-image; no, we are called to humbly rejoice in the fact that we are the beloved of God.

And we are called to acknowledge that each of our sisters and brothers are also the beloved of God, regardless of their social status or life conditions. Our sacred scriptures tell us that the humble will be raised up and the mighty will be brought low…clearly it is better to be among the lowly who God will raise up than to be one of the haughty who will be brought low.

It seems that these Gospels over the last two weeks give us a lot to reflect on considering how our current government administration is treating our unhoused and immigrant sisters and brothers! The use of the military to round up homeless and immigrants doesn’t fit the vision of nations that claim to be founded on the ideals of freedom from persecution, due process and equality for all before the law.

In today’s first reading, the author of Sirach says that ourgreatness is found in our humility and in our humblenesswe find favor with God. So then, it is not in arrogance and excessive pride that one finds favor with God, nor lives out one’s discipleship of Jesus Christ. So as disciples of Jesus Christ we must stand up and speak out when our politicians’ arrogance and lack of humility allow them to act in morally corrupt ways that violate the human dignity of all those being harmed by their words, their actions and their in-actions.

How do I understand humility? How does accepting God’s deep and passionate love for me -- and for ALL of my sisters and brothers -- impact how I see others, and to what does it call me?

May God’s most abundant grace be upon you. Amen.
Fr. Tim

This weekend’s readings challenge us to understand “the other” as sister and brother. A negative concept of “otherness” is a reality that allows for discrimination, persecution, racial and ethnic profiling …it is the ground from which grows the hatred of those who are not like me, those who are other from me and “my people”!

When we fail to see our common humanity then we believe that we are “different” from one another and then we see those who are not like us as “other”. And from this “seeing them as other” we can come to believe that we are superior or better than the one who is different from ‘my clan’, those who are like me.

This concept of “other” is the root idea that creates a situation where the one who is “other” is dehumanized and degraded. This is nothing new, it is as old as humanity itself. It is one of the root causes of wars and genocide, of slavery and tribal and ethnic feuds that have torn at the social fabric of nations and entire continents and now at the future of the entire global community.

In the Gospel we hear this weekend that Jesus tells us to be very careful about who we believe is on the inside and who is outside…because we might be the ones who end up on the outside, precisely because if we separated “others” out and made them “outsiders”! If we “othered them” pushed them to the margins of our society, excluded them, deported them from our country, imprisoned them, because they were “other” from us! And Jesus warns us that in doing so we will be the ones excluded from the Great Banquet in the Kingdom of God, and those who we deemed unworthy, those who we dehumanized and shunned, deported and imprisoned, they will recline at table, at the Great Banquet, and we “who othered them”, we will be tossed out into the darkness. Jesus’ vision is a cautionary tale, to call all Christians to reflect deeply on how we see, how we treat and how hold in our hearts those who are different from us.

In Jesus’ telling of this “cautionary tale” of “otherness”, Jesus is seeking to tell us that there is no “other”…that we are all the children of God…including all the migrants and immigrants around the world, like those at our southern border, those living down the street from us and working in our businesses. Jesus is telling us we are all sisters and brothers, beloved children of God!

Regardless of the color of our skin, the place or circumstance of our birth, our physical or mental abilities, or our social
status or our religious or political affiliation or our gender, or who we love, each and every one of us is connected as a
beautiful creation of God -- as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, whatever happens to one of us happens to all of
us!

Imagine if we lived like that…that is what Jesus did for us on the cross! What would our world look like, what would our
political conversation sound like if all Christians lived like that? Would we be banning books in our schools just because they were written by people of color or because they tell stories challenging racism or books that raise up stories of inclusion and representation to our children? These books written in the hopes that they will help our children grow up to build a society where diversity is celebrated and those who are “other” are welcomed and seen and made to feel loved and accepted -- as my sisters and brothers, just as they are, beloved children of God!

As Christians around this nation, if we really believed Jesus’ words, his call to love one another as ourselves, would the
National Guard and Federal Agents have taken over the streets of D.C., intimidating and racially profiling people, many of whom are natural born U.S. citizens? If we really believed what Jesus taught and how he called us to live with each other, to welcome the stranger, to love “the other”, would our national debate be about penalizing institutions and business that uphold and honor DEI policies?

Do I really believe that “we” are all God’s children, loved equally by God…and what does that mean for me and what does that mean for me in how I live my daily life? How does it call me to respond to what is happening right now in my
country and around the world?

May God’s most abundant grace be upon you. Amen.
Fr. Tim

The readings this weekend are filled with challenge and excitement at the same time. It seems like we are revisiting the question of “the cost of discipleship” once again!

In the first reading we have “the reluctant prophet” Jerimiah who, when God calls him to speak a prophetic word to the people, responds with “truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy”. Jerimiah eventually finds his voice, but it almost costs him his life when his prophecy leads to his being thrown into a cistern to die.

Then in the second reading St. Paul reminds us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses but there is a race that lies ahead of us and that running that race may cost us our lives. But we nonetheless are called by our discipleship to “run the race.” That is, to actively live out our discipleship by our daily way of life.

And in the Gospel, Jesus recognizes that not everyone who has heard his word or seen his miracles will believe in him. Jesus also recognizes that faith in him will be the source of division on all levels, both communal and familial. And yet his zeal and excitement for preaching the Reign of God is like a blazing fire already setting the world afire! Jesus knows that discipleship comes at a cost! A cost that he wants his disciples to understand. He wants them to understand just what they may have to pay for their discipleship.

Putting our discipleship into action and standing against unjust political policies that hurt the immigrant, the poor and the marginalized may get us labeled unpatriotic. Questioning the ethics behind a particular practice at our workplace may get us labeled difficult or insubordinate. Standing up to a bully at school on behalf of another may get us labeled all kinds of
nasty things meant to shun us.

Standing up and demanding racial justice and calling for an end to all forms of bigotry, misogyny and an end to the intolerance and rejection of immigrants and refugees, standing with the chronically underemployed, with the unhoused, with Muslims and people of other faiths and with the LGBTQ+ community…standing up for the rights and human dignity of others may get us called unpatriotic or un-American but it is clearly living out the call of the Gospel; living out Jesus’ call to discipleship!

Answering God’s call to be prophets in the midst of a self-centered, cruel and angry world is a tall order, but God does
not ask of us that which we cannot do!

Living our discipleship, following God’s call is no easier for us than it was for Jerimiah or for Paul. We need to remember that we do not run the race alone but that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and filled with the very presence of the Risen Christ. Thus, we are able to set the world ablaze by manifesting the Reign of God by our acts of kindness and mercy towards each other, through our care and concern for the least and most vulnerable amongst us! We manifest the Reign of God by what we say and do! How will I live out my discipleship this week in response to all that is happening in the world around me?

May God’s most abundant grace be upon you. Amen.
​
Fr. Tim

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ parable asks us to consider our wealth and how we use it. It is a cautionary tale for sure. First Century Palestine was a “limited goods” society, which meant that they understood that there was a limited amount of goods to be had by all persons; so, it was believed that when one person amassed great wealth it meant it was at the expense of someone else not having enough.

It was not a capitalist society of consumers in the same way as we are today. The parable is about a rich man who focuses his life on acquiring more and more for himself while ignoring the Reign of God and the needs of others around him.

That man in the parable has ignored what is important to God, and did not focused on the Reign of God, but focused only on himself and on acquiring more and more possessions for himself.

The second reading also warns against greed and calls for us to focus on Christ and the Reign of God. Whereas the first reading cries out that all of life is suffering and empty, and is written through the eyes of someone who lives as if God didn’t matter and they were not cared for or loved by God; the words of someone who has lost all hope!

But Jesus has called us to live with God at the center of our lives. And so, the meaning in our lives is found in God and not in the possessions we accumulate.

Often enough, we hear of people whose lives are burdened under the weight of their possessions, as if they are “owned by what they own”. Our consumeristic society tells us that we need to consume; it tells us we need to buy more and more “stuff” and in and through having more “stuff” we will find meaning and happiness.

But we all know the truth. True meaning and happiness is not found in “stuff” but rather through a loving relationship with God and loving one another as Jesus loves us.

Academic study after study has shown that the accumulation of wealth does not make people happier. On the other hand, it is glaringly clear that poverty and human callousness causes great human suffering. All we need do is turn our eyes to the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza. How would it be different if USAID was still on the ground? How would it be different if the international community moved quicker in recognition of what the Netanyahu led government is really attempting to do to the people of Gaza?

This coming week we remember the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan on Aug. 6 and 9, respectively, 1945, during World War II. It will never be known for sure how many people lost there lives in those two nuclear bombings, somewhere between 110,000 and 210,000. And eighty years later we still hear the threats of the use of nuclear weapons, still not having learned anything from the mass loss of civilian life, and the tragic human aftermath. War…will we never learn its true cost?

A world view where ‘my/our needs are most important and all that really matters and everyone else is expendable or viewed as pawns to be used to a means to our goals and our enrichment,’ is a world view that is completely antithetical to God’s dream of a peace-filled and just world that has been revealed to us in and through sacred scripture and ongoing Divine revelation.

And this is ultimately Jesus’ point about the man in today’s Gospel. Instead of thinking of God (who commanded that the poor, the marginalized and the vulnerable be cared for), instead of thinking of his neighbors and those who labored in his fields, he thought only of himself and amassing great wealth for himself -- that he might eat, drink and be merry. Ultimately it meant nothing as his life was demanded of him and he did not live to use his wealth.

I think these readings call us to ask ourselves to reflect on our world view -- how we see “the other,” as individuals but also as nations, “other peoples”; those who have different social and religious traditions, different political systems, who order their lives in different ways and by different customs. Is national wealth what makes a nation great or is the greatness of a people measured by how they care for each other? How they care for the poor and the marginalized and the most vulnerable amongst them? Is the greatness of a nation measured not in its ability to destroy other nations but rather in its willingness to build up and help other nations in their times of need?

Like the man in Jesus’ parable, what are we “storing up” in our lives and as a nation, and for what…ultimately? How does my discipleship of Jesus shape my relationship with “my neighbor,” near and far…how I see them and how I care for them?

May God’s most abundant grace be upon you. Amen.
​
Fr. Tim