The Church of Saint Matthew - Saint Paul’s West Side

02.13.2021 Homily

Once again, in today's gospel passage, Jesus heals. He banishes suffering and pain. He repairs what is broken. He revives what is dead. This is the manner that strongly characterizes his entire ministry, his direct and immediate connection with human beings. He seems to connect more with those who are in trouble, than with those who have it all put together.
Have you ever wondered where all that pain and all that suffering went? When healing took place, where did the illness go? When crutches were thrown away, did Jesus limp down after the running cripple? Were Jesus' eyes made dim when Bartimaeus saw? Did life ebb in him when it flowed in Lazarus? When the leper leapt in new flesh, did scales appear on the back of Jesus' hands?
The gospel tells us that Jesus felt power going out from him. And yet the gospels failed to remind us or tell us where that pain went. Did the son of God take upon himself the ungrowing legs and the dead eyes of those who were ill? The leper's self image is that he is beyond human and divine concern, his uncleanliness means that neither God nor the people will remain close to him. Jesus' inner compassion for this isolated human being moves him to reach out and to touch him. And so welcome him back into the circle of human life. This cleansing reveals God's outreach to the outcast, which is more important in Jesus' mission than celebrating the divine power to cure a physical malady.
Jesus remains close. He remains intimate with those who have trouble, who are in pain and who suffer. He takes upon himself their suffering. Just as Paul says he took upon himself the burden of our sin, so he takes upon himself the burden of our illness, our malady, our suffering, our loss.
As we come together today and as we pray, we pray in gratitude to a Lord who is so close to us and so involved with us that there is literally nothing about what we experience that does not move into him.

02.13.2021 Gospel Mark Chapter 1

There was a leper who came to Jesus and kneeling down before him, he begged him, "If you wish you can make me clean." Jesus said to him, "I do will it be made clean." And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. And then Jesus sternly warned him and dismissed him. He said to him, "Go and tell no one about what has happened. Show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed. And that will be proof enough for them."
The man went off and he began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was now impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. So he remained outside in deserted places. And yet the people kept coming to him from every quarter.

02.06.2021 Homily

When people are cured, they're returned physically to the way they were before the disease. But when people are healed, there is something much deeper that happens to them that transforms their inner life. Sometimes people say that their illness was really a great gift, that in that illness, they discovered more deeply what life was all about. I know a hospice minister who said, "I would pay a great deal of attention to the inner healing that I would hope might happen if I were diagnosed with cancer. I would give careful thought to the meaning of my life, and what I had to let go of, and what I wanted to hold on to." Some patients report a greater sense of being alive and of being in communion with others very deeply at the time of their illness.
Now in the gospel, the people are meant to interpret the cures that Jesus does as a response to human need. And this interpretation is meant to change their minds and their hearts, that in seeing the work of Jesus, something has to happen within them. The proper response to cures and healings of that kind is a change of mind and behavior. And just being bedazzled by the miracle is not sufficient.
Now, this short few verses about Peter's mother-in-law gives an indication that both the cure and the healing took place. She had a fever. She was in bed. They told Jesus about her. Jesus went to her, grasps her by the hand, and lifted her up. His touch became, if you will, a transfusion. His life flowed into hers. He loved the person who was at the center of the sickness. He lifted her up. And then we're told that immediately the fever left her, and she began to serve them. So God's service to her becomes the occasion of her service to others.
 
Healing really reconnects ourselves to the very depth of who we are. The whole gospel attests that service is the hallmark of the new humanity that Jesus comes to establish. He says, "The Son of Man comes not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as ransom for many."
The gospel path begins with cures, and these cures may actually lead to healing, and that those who witness this, are meant themselves to be transformed, that their lives are meant to be turned upside down, that they just aren't fans who stand and who marvel at the wonders of this miracle worker, but that those actions of Jesus were meant to in some way reinform their lives.
You see, that's why Jesus didn't want those people who were cured to go and tell anything about it, because he was afraid that people would see him just as the magician who cures people. And he wasn't really out about curing people. He was out about healing people. Remember in St. Luke's gospel, the story of the 10 lepers, and he sends all of them to the priest to offer sacrifice for their cure. And then we're told one of those 10 realized that he had been healed. All of them knew they were cured, but one of them realized that he had also been healed, that something had taken place within him that transformed his life. And that's what caused him to run back and to give thanks. And Jesus said, "What about the other nine? Weren't they cured as well?" And the answer is yes, they were, but they weren't open to being healed. They were satisfied with just being physically okay.
Well, I would suggest that what you and I have experienced over the past year in some ways is akin to an illness, that this pandemic and the effect that it has had upon our lives is a corporate kind of illness. And that would suggest that the vaccine is the cure. It's not the healing. The vaccine is what cures us, but the healing has to do with what's inside. What has occurred during the past year inside for me? What has this strange experience done to me? How am I different today because I have passed through that? How have I been healed? How has the pandemic been a gift to me?

02.06.2021 Gospel Mark Chapter 1

On leaving the synagogue, Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew. He took James and John along with him. Simon's mother-in-law was sick with a fever, and they immediately told him about her. Jesus approached her. He grasped her by the hand, he lifted her up, and the fever left her and she began to wait on them. Now, when it was evening, after the sun went down, people brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole town gathered outside the front door. Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew who he was.
Then rising very early the next day before dawn, he left, and he went off to a deserted place and prayed. Simon and those were with him tracked him down and said, "Do you not know that everyone is looking for you?"
Jesus said to them, "We must go from here to the neighboring towns and villages so that I might preach there also. This is why I have come into the world." So they went off and he preached in their synagogues. He cured those who were sick and he cast out demons.

01.30.2021 Homily

This gospel passage is about creating and crossing barriers. The passage begins depicting Jesus. Jesus is entering a holy place, the synagogue, and he's doing that on a holy time, the Sabbath. And then it is there that he teaches. Now, the scripture doesn't tell us what he's teaching, nor how it is that that teaching is authoritative. And yet Jesus' action with the man possessed with the spirit explains his teaching and describes how it is authoritative.
The teaching of Jesus today in that text has to do with what was known as the purity code. The people of Israel believed that if they were to be like God, they would have to be uncontaminated. And they were to be holy, they were to be pure according to the distance they kept from what was unclean. So to remain pure, to remain holy meant to do exclude, to exclude certain actions or to exclude certain foods or certain people.
Now the possessed man was regarded as unclean. He was contagious. And to be in his presence, to have anything to do with him, was to make oneself unclean. This thinking is rooted in fear. Jesus does not respect the holiness boundaries. He crosses them. The new teaching about which the people speak is really not what he says as much as what he does. And what he does, he does with a power, he does with authority. He does as no other teacher would do.
They are amazed because they see another way for dealing with fear. Jesus teaches them not to avoid it, but that they have the power to overcome it. The spirit of God who descended upon Jesus in the waters of baptism leads his mission and does not allow those who are close to God to be harmed.
Now, you and I create barriers to clarify responsibilities. It's an important way in which a society can operate, so we know how to proceed. We know whose responsibility is what? We know who can be accounted for what? And yet often, we create boundaries as well. We build walls, and we build fences to protect ourselves. Sometimes we establish boundaries out of fear.
Now people cross boundaries for a whole variety of reasons. In the gospel reading, Jesus crosses the boundary between clean and unclean. And this boundary has led to exclusion. And in Jesus' hand, he reaches out to those who in the name of holiness have been pushed away and excluded. He crosses the boundary, and he reaches out to those whom no one would reach out to. You see, it is the path of love and reconciliation in a deeply divided society that brings about unity and peace. The path of reconciliation is found in crossing boundaries. It's found in taking risks. It's found in stepping out from the limits. It's found in climbing the wall, in violating the convention, in daring to reach out in love as a witness to the truth that God excludes no one of his children, the truth that all of us are sisters and brothers.
People lament over and over and over again the polarization that exists not only within our society, but within the world, how lines have been drawn in the sand and how walls have been built and how exclusion is the norm and not inclusion. And there's a lot of verbiage spoken and written about bridging, about building bridges in the face of that separation. And it's not so much in the speaking or the writing as it is in the doing.
The fracturedness of a society, of a church, of a community, of a family, that can only be healed, that can only be breached, by someone crossing a boundary, by someone going some place where no one else goes or being seen with someone that no one else is willing to be seen with, or to enter into a partnership with someone who is regarded as untrustworthy and not to be engaged with.
It is only in taking the risk to go beyond the boundary. Jesus' disciples are called to do that. They're called to be those who reject the boundary, who tear down the wall, who bridge the chasm. And they do it not by talking. They do it not by writing. They do it not by fine speech. But they do it with courageous action. They do it by putting themselves at risk. They do it by willing to suffer in order to build that unity and that peace.

01.30.2021 Gospel Mark Chapter 1

Then they came into Capernaum and on the Sabbath day, Jesus entered the synagogue and there he taught them. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them with authority and not as the scribes did. Now in the synagogue on that day, there was a man possessed with an unclean spirit. The spirit cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the holy one of God."
Jesus rebuked the spirit. He said, "Quiet. Come out of the man." And the unclean spirit convulsed the man and with a loud cry came out of him. And all those who observed this were amazed, and they asked one another, "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him." And so Jesus' fame spread throughout the whole region of Galilee.

01.23.2021 Homily

In the gospel reading we find Jesus in Saint Mark's gospel, beginning his public ministry by going into the region of Galilee and announcing the coming of the kingdom of God. It's the same announcement that John the Baptist made earlier in the story. The kingdom of God is at hand, repent, receive the good news of God's love. That's the fundamental teaching that Jesus gives consistently. The kingdom of God is among you, change the way you think, change the way you view the world, change the way you live life and follow me.
In the first reading that that Becky did for us from the prophet, Jonah, we hear about God sending Jonah into the city of Nineveh to call those people to a newness of life, to call those people from a way of presently living, presently thinking, presently acting to a new way of being that brings them into union with or into right relationship with God and with each other. He calls them to reconciliation. That's at the very heart of the gospel message. We reconciled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe.
Well, a week from tomorrow, a week from Sunday, the last Sunday of the month, we begin here, the practice of celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation on the last Sunday of every month at two o'clock in the afternoon and celebrating it according to the general absolution, the general confession norm. Now that we are in the midst of the pandemic, the word from Pope Francis is that we need to provide opportunities for reconciliation that do not bring people into immediate contact with each other, but that would allow for social distancing. The form of the sacrament with general absolution allows for that. Beginning next Sunday afternoon at two o'clock is when we carry out the first one of those. Then every last Sunday of the month at two o'clock, again, we'll celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation.
 
Now, why is it important that this form of the sacrament be celebrated? It's important because there are many, many, many people who find it very difficult, if not impossible, to approach the sacrament one-on-one for a whole variety of reasons. There are many, many, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of Catholics who have been harmed in the sacrament. They've been belittled. They've been put down, they've been shamed. They've been hurt in the sacrament. They make the decision that they're not going to go back there, they're not going to subject themselves to the possibility of that happening to them again. What they do is year after year, after year, they stay away from the sacrament. They carry within themselves, very often, a burden of guilt and a burden of shame that they aren't able to get rid of. There are those who just can't bring themselves to say to another human being, what it is that they've done, that they're too ashamed to do that. They're too afraid to do that and so they stay away from the sacrament of reconciliation.
There are all kinds of reasons why people will find a difficult to approach the sacrament one-on-one, face-to-face, individually. This sacrament celebrated in the communal form, provides an opportunity for us to come together, to acknowledge our sinfulness, to confess our sins to the Lord, God, in our own hearts, where we don't have to say it to anyone else. As we stand together as sinful people seeking God's mercy, then we pray that the mercy of God truly be given to us. The prayer of absolution is prayed, by which our sins are forgiven. It becomes an avenue for all of us in one way or another, but especially for some people for whom the other forms of the sacrament are impossible.
I invite you to participate in the celebration of the sacrament on next Sunday at two o'clock, but more than that, I invite you to invite those who may be members of your family or friends who have not approached the sacrament for a long time, for very, very good reason, for very good reason. This provides them an opportunity to come to the sacrament, to celebrate the mercy and the forgiveness, the graciousness of God in a way that is respectful to them, and in a way that allows them to be safe. Allows them to not have to put themselves in a situation that they would prefer not to do.
The mercy of God is present for all of us. It's a mercy that God seeks to pour out upon us. It's a mercy that each and every one of us calls for each, every one of us seeks. All of us are very well aware of our own weaknesses, our own failure, our own sin. We're also well aware of God's desire to reunite with us, to draw us closer and more deeply in union with him. The sacrament of reconciliation is an opportunity for that to occur.

01.23.2021 Gospel Mark Chapter 1

After John had been arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the kingdom of God. He said, "The time is now fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the good news." As he passed by the sea of Galilee, he saw Peter and his brother, Andrew. They were in a boat casting nets for they were fishermen. He said to them, "Come follow me and I will make you fishers of people." Immediately, they got up and they left their nets, and they followed him. A little bit later, he passed and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother, John. They were in the boat mending nets. He said to them, "Follow me." Immediately, they got up and they left father Zebedee and the hired men, and they followed Jesus.

01.16.2021 Homily

In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is Peter who is first called as a disciple of Jesus. Peter doesn't play much of a part in the gospel of John. Andrew plays a bigger role. Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist. And some would say that there's evidence that Jesus too had been part of a group that had followed with John. But John had said to the people, "I'm going to disappear so that someone else can appear. Someone is coming after me whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to untie."
So these two disciples, one of them Andrew, standing next to John and John points out Jesus. And immediately the two of them leave. And immediately the two of them follow and Jesus sees them and he turns to them and he asks them, "What is it that you want?" This is the basic question that is present before every single human being, "What is it that you want? Who is it that you seek?" Those are the first words out of Jesus's mouth in John's gospel. And those words will be repeated again in the garden of Gethsemane when they come to arrest him, he says, "Who do you seek? Who do you look for?" And the morning of the resurrection when Mary Magdalene is present in the garden and is grieving because she can't find him. He says to her, "Who is it for whom you look? Who do you look for?"
It's really the question that goes through all of St John's gospel and the pages of that gospel ask again and again, of you and me, the reader, "Who do you look for? What do you want?" Those two disciples, Andrew and the other, by the way, the other one is never named because in John's writing, the other one is you and me. We're the other disciple of John who is trying to follow Jesus. That ploy is used also in St. Luke's gospel and the evening of their resurrection. Two disciples with great sadness, they leave Jerusalem and they go a few miles to another town called Emmaus. And as they're going on the road, they're commiserating with each other and Jesus comes and he walks with them, although they don't see him. And we learned in the story that one of them's name is Cleophas, but we're never told what the other name is because the other name is you and me. We're part of the story.
So Andrew and the other disciple go into the house and they stayed with Jesus all the rest of the day. And we're not told anything about what happened, what they talked about or what they did, but something dramatically happened. Something that shook the very foundation of Andrew's life. Because the next morning he runs to his younger brother, Simon. And he says, "I have found the Messiah. I have found the Christ. I have found the one for whom we are waiting." Somehow in the course of that late afternoon and through the night in the interaction between Jesus and those two disciples.
At some point they came, Andrew came to a realization of who Jesus was. He could answer Jesus's question. "Who are you looking for?" He didn't know the answer in a day earlier, but now he knew the answer and he could go and he could invite his younger brother to come and to be introduced to Jesus. You see, this is the way the story works. John, the Baptist introduces Andrew and the other to Jesus. "Behold the lamb of God." Andrew then goes to his brother Simon and he introduces Simon to Jesus. And we find it later in that same chapter, that Philip goes to Nathaniel and then takes Nathaniel by the hand and introduces him Jesus.
And later on the gospel at the time of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, it's Andrew who takes this young boy, who's got a few fish and a few loaves of bread, and he brings him to Jesus. And just before the end of Jesus's ministry, the beginning of his passion, we're told in John's gospel, that Greeks are coming and they want to talk to him and they come to Philip and they say, "We want to see the master." And Philip takes them and introduces them to Andrew and Andrew takes them by the hand and he brings them to Jesus.
And that's the way the story goes on day after day, year after year, century after century, one introduces another to Jesus. Who introduced you to Jesus? Who opened that opportunity for you? Who invited you to walk in that journey of faith? Could be a parent, a teacher, a friend, a godparent, a neighbor, a colleague, a grandparent. There is a tradition among Middle Eastern people about how important the godparent is because the role of the godparent is to introduce the godchild to Jesus. And what is it believed is that when that child grows to adulthood and dies, the first persons that child meets are his godparents and his godparents take them by the hand and introduce them to Jesus.
Who have you introduced to Jesus? And how did that happen? How was it that you knew this was the time for you to do that? Well, as we pray today, I want you to pray with two intentions. First of all, I want you to pray in gratitude for those who opened the door for you, invited you in, who introduced you to Jesus, pray for them. I'm sure that for the vast majority of us, that person is long deceased, but pray in gratitude and thanksgiving for the gift that that person was to your life. And secondly, pray for those to whom you have introduced Jesus. Pray for those who by your word, by your example, by your encouragement, were able to follow, who stay with Jesus. To come away having known Him.

01.16.2021 Gospel John Chapter 1

John was standing with two of his disciples when he saw Jesus passing by. He said, "Behold, the Lamb of God." When the disciples heard John, they left him immediately and they began to follow Jesus. Jesus turned and he saw them following him and so he asked them, "What are you looking for?" And they said to him, "Where are you staying?" And he said, "Come, and you will see." And so they went with Jesus and they stayed with him the rest of the day. It was already late in the afternoon.
One of those disciples' name was Andrew. He was the older brother of Simon. The next morning, he ran quickly to his brother Simon and he said, "I have found the Messiah." And he brought Simon to Jesus. And Jesus looked at Simon and he said, "You are Simon, the son of John. From this time on, you will be called Cephas." A name translated as Peter.