July 28, 2024 at St Peter the Apostle in Naples, FL

2 Kings 4: 42-44 + Psalm 145 + Ephesians 4: 1-6 + John 6: 1-15

Every time we pick up any of the four Gospels, we must remember that the Gospels are Theology. They are not history. So, this weekend we begin a series of readings from the Sixth Chapter of John’s Gospel, and we will stay with it until September. For six weeks we are being called to dig deep into John’s theology on the Bread of Life. And so, it begins with a story about food and an incident reported in all four Gospels. In fact, it is so important that Mark and Matthew write about this twice.

John’s Gospel has no miracles. He never uses the word. His Gospel is arranged around a series of signs each of which responds to a human need. Miracle stories are provided as acts that show the of power of Jesus, a power that establishes the kingdom of God against Satan’s power. This action we have today is not about power. It is a sign given to teach us something about Jesus and about the community or the church he is forming through his ministry.

There is concern here about a human need, hunger. There is a sense of hospitality as he has them sit down in the grass, not in the dirt or on the rocks, but in a soft, cool, and comfortable place. The memory of a Shepherd who leads his flock to green pastures is called to mind as well as the memory of Israel being fed in the desert. It all points to the future and the hospitality of the Kingdom to come suggesting that God will treat us as honored guests at the banquet of eternal life.

In John’s Gospel, it is Jesus who raises the question about how the people are to be fed not the disciples. There is no doubt in his mind that they must be fed. The concern is where it will come from. With that, a little mini-hero of the story emerges, a small boy with no name. He has what is needed. It may not look like much, but in the hands of Jesus Christ it becomes way more than enough. With that the theology unfolds both by word and by deed. The words are unmistakable: he takes, he gives thanks, breaks, and distributes. It is a eucharistic message, a eucharistic sign, and in John’s Gospel, it is Jesus who feeds. He does not have someone else do it. Jesus Christ is the one who feeds us, and as the Gospel continues, he will soon declare himself to be the food, “I Am the Bread of Life.”

We should go home today with some thought about that little boy because that detail draws us into this mystery. Like him, what we have to offer may not ever seem like much and hardly enough in the face of this world’s needs. On the human side of things, it is impossible. On the divine side of things, there is no limit to what God can do with what we have. In fact, it is really beyond our imagination.

There is hunger in this world, and God still wants to satisfy human needs. There is hostility everywhere that spoils hospitality as though the Kingdom of God were for the privileged. The theology of this Gospel says otherwise. The hungry and the homeless will be treated with respect and welcomed with a kind of hospitality we should expect in the Kingdom of God. Those who have followed Jesus gather up the fragments left over for one reason, to continue the work of Jesus as a sign that the Kingdom of God has come and we are welcome to live in it if we take up the work of Jesus seeing and responding to people’s needs with gentle, sincere, loving hospitality in our church in our country, and in our hearts. This is when we shall know the Kingdom of God is at hand. John wants us to know that, and he gives us the signs.

July 21, 2024 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 23: 1-6 + Psalm 23 + Ephesians 2: 13-18 + Mark 6: 30-34

I read recently that a leader is a person “who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” This Gospel today could invite us to give some prayerful thoughts about leadership using Mark’s description of Jesus as the model. We could well use Mark’s Jesus as the norm for choosing whose leadership we want to follow when it comes to politics or even entertainment for that matter. When I think about it in the context of this Gospel, I begin to believe that our choice of leaders usually says more about us than about them. It ends up being a matter of what we want or need, so we tend to follow someone who will provide that.

The idea of a leader varies from time to time and place to place. The two-fisted gun-slinging defender of the wronged worked in the old west. A man or woman who makes quick decisions with good command of subordinates works in the business world. A military leader can get others to follow them through all kinds of danger.  Today’s Gospel will delight anyone who thinks popularity is the mark of a leader as those people go chasing around all over the place after Jesus.

Whatever model of leadership it is, to be effective, there must followers, and that’s when the real truth about us gets revealed. The leaders we follow these days reveals just who and what we are. Wanting a life of wealth and celebrity finds us falling in line behind those who can make that promise. Needing affirmation, reassurance, and self-respect leads us to follow someone who will constantly be patting us on the head saying all the nice things we need to hear whether they are true or not. Most of the time, Jesus could look over us and sadly observe that way too often we are sheep without a shepherd.

In Christ Jesus, we have a leader who can lead us but not to wealth and deeper into consumerism if that’s what you want, but to more priceless treasures like compassion, mercy, and reconciliation. The only leader who can take us to pastures of peace and deeper into the life for which we were made is the Word Made Flesh – a God who stays with us, seeks us when we are lost, and puts us in touch with the very reason for which we are on this earth. Christ Jesus is the one who knows the way to the Father, has gone the way, and has shown us the way.

July 14, 2024 at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Indianapolis, Indiana

Amos 7: 12-15 + Psalm 85 + Ephesians 1: 3-14 + Mark 6: 7-13

Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union, and a guy from Memphis named Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Sister George McGoey was teaching 8^th grade at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parochial School, and I was over there in a desk looking out the window at Public School 84. It was 1956. Finally, after 68 years, I find myself standing here where I so often served Mass for Father Sahm. When I look that way or from side to side, everything looks the same, maybe a little smaller. When I look that way nothing is familiar, and I’m glad about that because change is a consistent sign of life. If this place were exactly the way it was in 1956, something would be terribly wrong. We are not here to preserve the past. Yet, it is important to know where you have come from just in case you find yourself there again which means you’re lost. The Kingdom of God is not behind us.

There is great danger in longing for the past. It is easy to sit back in this grand old place built by some of our parents and think that the job is done. The permanence of buildings like this poses a challenge to us all. The permanence of this building allows us to risk thinking that this it, this is the Church. No it isn’t. This place is the starting line. It was for me, and hope it is the same for you. This is the place where the mission begins. This is the place we come to listen for the voice of God. If you’re here, you are chosen. What we learn from this Gospel today is that Jesus does not invite or ask disciples if they will do something. They are sent, commissioned. What they are to do is not optional or a choice they make. It is about who they are, and what they do because of it.

It is obvious to anyone who learns from the Gospel that God is not interested in the best or the perfect. That group of twelve we just heard about were not really good at anything except ambition, confusion, and a remarkable ability to miss the point of nearly everything they heard. I’ve often suspected that some of them were not particularly good at fishing. If they were, they may not have left it all so easily. Nonetheless, they get sent out with all the power found in the name of Jesus Christ to do what he does. That number Mark deliberately gives us is an important detail. Mark says: “Jesus called the Twelve.” For those to whom Mark is writing at first, that number means everyone. They would think of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and know what it means. Everyone!

If there is a reason behind the long delay for the Kingdom of God to be lived and made real, if there is a reason for people to still experience isolation, loneliness, and feel cast out or abandoned, if there is a reason for lingering racism, sexism, or hostility toward those who are different from us, it is because we have not realized the implication of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. There are no spectators among disciples. Action and mission are their identity. They are never heard to say: “Someone should do something about that.” They know who should do something.

We might also note that the mission we are given is not just spiritual. They preach repentance and they heal. Along with the spiritual, there is a social dimension to the mission we are given. Praying for the poor and homeless is fine, but that’s not all there is. Something must be done about it in order to fulfill the command we are given.

We, the Church, are by our very nature missionary. Even though the Church possesses some permanence made obvious by this grand building, we are, nonetheless, always on pilgrimage moving forward without too much baggage, excited about the promise the future holds for this world entrusted to us when we remember who we are.

July 7, 2024 At St. Peter the Apostle Churches in Naples, FL

Ezekiel 2: 2-5 + Psalm 123 + 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 + Mark 6: 1-6

They took offence at him and some still do. I was ordained in 1968 by a Bishop who knew that “separate but equal was not.” He integrated the Catholic Schools of the Diocese. He defended priests who were jailed at sit-ins, and who marched over a bridge in Selma. He paid a high price for that. His home was not safe, he was rudely shouted at and picketers marched everywhere he went for months. He was attacked in fake Catholic publications, and I think he died of a broken heart. These days, some take offence at our Holy Father. They twist his words and meaning, they call for his resignation, they defy his authority to lead, to teach, and the call us to holiness.

This whole irrational thinking gets put before us today with an opportunity to grow, to learn, to listen, and to wonder why it is easier to be negative than positive, to look for the flaws and sins of others. That crowd in Nazareth took offense for two reasons. He was a mere worker who fixed doors and windows, built houses and made plows. What could he possibly know about anything other than saws, hammers and wood? Then they took offence because they knew Mary, his mother. It may well have been an insult, a way of calling him illegitimate. 

Whatever, they made a bad choice that day because it’s always easier to be negative than positive, or be destructive rather than creative. Just what was so offensive about Jesus, about Bishop Reed, a kind and gracious gentleman? What is so offensive about a Bishop from Argentina called by the Holy Spirit who suggests that we should not judge and reminds us that the Church should be like the Kingdom of God, a refuge for sinners, and place of hope for the lost.

A young anonymous student, a young poet proposed a way to avoid and rise above those who choose evil rather than good. He said:

I will do more than belong. I will participate.

I will do more than care, I will help

I will do more than believe. I will practice.

I will do more than be fair. I will be kind.

I will do more than live. I will grow.

I will do more than be friendly. I will be a friend.

We are called by our faith to participate in building the Kingdom and help those who show us the way. We are called to practice faith, not just mouth the words, and it means much more than going to Mass. We are reminded that kindness surpasses fairness, and that being a friend is better than just being nice, and that the only way to be alive is to grow.There is nothing kind or friendly in negative and destructive people. There is nothing Godly about them at all. They are hardly even alive because they resist a prophetic call to grow, to change, to listen to the Word of God who was then and still is in our midst. Every one of us in this place is called to be God’s prophet, and the healing, forgiving, merciful Gospel must be preached until the end of time, even to those who are unwilling to listen.