St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church :. Homilies

To know what you are looking for you have to know what you need. The other day I walked into the parish office. I stopped just inside the door, and I stood there trying to remember why I was standing there. I could not remember what I was looking for. So I went back to my office, and the door was locked. My keys were inside. When I realized what I needed, I knew what to look for, keys!  In the Gospel today, Luke raises a question about what the disciples are looking for. From their answer it would appear they were not looking for what they needed. While they may have wanted a Messiah who would restore the past, the power, the influence, presteige, and the glory of Israel past; this was not what they needed. This was not who Jesus was and it was not the will of the Father who provides what we need, not what we want. The Jewish people at the time were persecuted, powerless, humiliated, and defeated by the power of Roman and its occupying army. What they needed was the presence of God in the midst of their suffering: a presence that would sustain them, comfort and console them; a presence that would assure them that they were not abandoned or alone. Once they acknowledged and embraced their need, they would find what they were looking for. Not until those apostles suffered the collapse of all their dreams and silly ambitions, not until one of them betrayed the master, not until they experienced doubt, fear, and hopelessness did they find what they were looking for. Hope! Hope is what they needed not some grand all powerful Messiah who would do what they were unwilling and unable to do on their own or sweep down and clear up the mess they were in. Hope is what they found in Jesus Christ. Hope is what they received by the power of the Spirit, and the gifts to complete what was needed to experience the reign of God. Many in this world are still running all round looking without any sense of what they need. They think they need a better job. They think they need a bigger house. They think they need to look better, drive a better car, or have more friends. In the meantime, they live empty and painful lives hopeless and confused, doubtful and fearful.  Right in the middle of all that is our God who provides what is needed: no escape from trouble and worry, from pain, sickness, suffering, and lonliness. The message coming from Luke today is a message of hope for anyone who needs it. The message is the image of a broken, betrayed, crucified messiah who, rather than sweeping it all away, picks up all the suffering and says: “Let’s go. Pick up your cross and we’ll go forward together. Come after me.” It is not possible to take up the cross if you do not put something else down. It is not possible to live in the Kingdom of God and the the puny Kingdoms of this earth at the same time. It is not possible find life until you find death. It is not possible to know Christ Jesus until you know and embrace all the suffering of his passion. When you do, then  there is hope that does not disappoint. There is hope that lifts up those bowed down, and dries the tears of those who weep. When he says: “Deny your self.” he means stop thinking all the time about what you want. Stop thinking that all creation revolves around the “Ego”, ME! Denail of self turns one toward the common good, the good of all. Self denial is a denial of self interest, of self-serving ideas, schemes, and idiologies that alway assume that what is good for me is good for you. No it isn’t. Before we keep on insisting that it is, we might do well to begin to examine the consequences of having our own way and pretending that it is the right way and the only way. When Jesus looked around, he saw a need for hope. By denying himself, by taking up his cross (which was not in his self interest) he entered finally and completly into the helplessness of the human condition. In that obedient surrender, he gave us life by loosing it. He gave us his place as a child of God, and best of all he gave us hope.

Dcn. Byron Jacobson

They are coming out of the villiage and Jesus is going in. They are going in opposite directions. Death meets life; and then what? Don't you suppose that the death march turned around? Just that image itself tells the story Luke leaves us immediately before disciples of John come asking if Jesus is the one they are waiting for. From just this story, we know the answer. Funeral processions are not the sort of gathering that would invite or attract anyone. Here in Oklahoma we have an fine old custom of pulling over, or stopping our cars when we come upon a funeral procession; but we don't turn around and follow it. No one sees a funeral and joins the crowd unless they are part of the grieving family or friends. But it isn't that way with Jesus. He should have ignored that funeral procession. In fact, he approached it at some risk, becasue he could have been defiled. He was running the risk of becoming unclean, but he is drawn to this woman. He sees her need. She never asks for anything. She never says a word. He is wounded by her pain. It is not the death of the young man that moves Jesus to act, but the plight of this woman who in that time and age just as well be dead herself when as a widow she looses her only son. This is really a funeral procession for two. With no man, she has no home, no identity, no future. We can see through and in this story how culture and society abandons a woman without a man. There is as much social critique here as there is miracle. The miracle and the story unmasks the social condition that turns people into the poor and the vunerable. That is a homily for another day. Setting aside the awe and wonder of a miracle, we are left with unmistakable evidence of a God who goes after the vulnerable, the sad, the grieving, and helpless. Whether you are a mother whose only child has died, or a family who have lost everything in an Oklahoma spring storm, there is one unmistakable fact: God will be found there. I can't help but be struck by the two parallel readings today in which the sons are returned to their mothers. It's as though these children do not belong to death but they belong to the one who gives them life. So it is with us all. We belong not to this world, but to the one who gives us life. The work of Jesus is to lift us up, to call us from death to life, to turn us around and lead us back into the city, the new Jerusalem. It is just a little over 11 years ago that I stood here for the first time and told you that after speaking with the other priests who had moved that time around, I was convinced that I had won, and I have never doubted it since then. It is not that Saint Mark Parish is better than the Cathedral, or St Thomas More, St Joseph in Union City, Mt St Mary High School or the Old Cathedral, all places I have served in the last 45 years. It is simply that it took me so long to get it right and understand and believe what the priesthood is all about and what it means to be the shepherd who teaches, leads, and sanctifies; who proclaims the Kingdom of God and stands at the sacred altar praying for the people who asssemble with him, giving thanks and glory to the God who calls us his own and reveales himself to us in so many ways. In truth, the parish of Saint Mark owes a lot to those other communities who taught me so much, tollerated and forgave my mistakes and immaturity. Laughed with me and at me, forgave me, and let me learn from their joys and sorrows how to be priest. One day when riding in the car with my father I told him I thought I would be a priest, he said: "Be a Jesuit." I said: "Why?" He said to me: "Because they're the best." I said, "What if I just become a parish priest and do the best I can." He just looked at me and kept on driving. We never spoke of it again, but he was the first person in line for communion at the Mass of my Ordination. I had never seen him take communion before. As some of you know, one moment in Salvatin History, the Annunciation, holds my imagination more than any other. That young woman in Nazareth said "Yes" to God and what she understood was God's plan and will for her life. Because she said "Yes" we are here today, and this world is full of hope becasue our lives are full of faith. She knew when to say "Yes" and I think she knew when to say "No." How else could she have been free from sin? Forty-five years ago, I said, "Yes" and then laid down on the floor in the old church of Saint John the Baptist in Edmond, Oklahoma while the assembly sang the Litany of the Saints. An outrageous April thunderstorm was taking place which my classmates, who were present, considered to be a sign from God. At the end of the litany, Charlie Meiser, the master of ceremonies said: "Rise" just like Jesus said in the Gospel today. I still want to say "Yes" to God. Forty-five years ago, I had no clue about what was ahead of me, where I would live, what my life would be like, and what was going to happen. I feel the same way right now. I have no clue about what lies ahead, what God wants, or what the rest of my life will be about. In April 1968 I felt as though the seminary had done the best it could to get me ready. I did not have a lot of confidence. I just had lot of hope. Now in June of 2013 I feel as though you have done the best you can to get me ready for whatever is next. I have no more confidence now than I did then, but I have a lot more hope. Look at these young men and women. For the past 11 years, they and others who could not be here today have made the journey down that aisle with cross, candles, incense, and the Gospel Book. You, young people, are the very heart and the very reason for this parish, for this church, and for my life. You are the very reason for Jesus Christ, His birth, His life, His death and His Resurrection. We are here for one reason: to pass on to you what we have received from those who have gone before us. We want to pass on to you our love for Jesus Christ, His Word, and the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. I want to tell you one more time: don't you dare betray or abandon what your parents and their parents have given you. It is the best, and leaving it for anything less is foolish. Don't be going out of the village when Christ is going in. I want you to remember one thing from our time together. Remember that what he said to those apostles he still says to you: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." There are a couple of more weeks for us to gather here before I get some rest and continue deciding when to say "Yes" and when to say "No." It seems odd to be having this joyful celebration of Thanksgiving when I am still gong to hang around till the end of the month; yet it does give me time and more occasions to say Thank you again and again and again. No matter where any of us are in the months and years to come, let's keep walking down an aisle somewhere toward an altar where in the mystery of God's providence we shall always be one in Communion, and for as long as we can, keep remembering one another gratefully and prayerfully.

They say: “Send them away.”He says: “Feed them yourselves.”With that, the great conflict begins: the conflict between; “There’s not enough” and “There’s more than enough.” Where we stand in this conflict will make all the difference when the master comes and calls for an accounting of what we have done with the gifts entrusted to us for awhile.The resolution of that conflict within us Catholics should not be too difficult if and when we finally deeply understand, believe, and act like the Eucharistic people we have been invited to become. In the plan and wisdom of God revealed for us through Jesus Christ, we are chosen and called into a profound union with Jesus Christ. Through the gift of himself in bread and wine, two things happen because this is communion, not just food. Other food, when eaten, becomes a part of our body and that’s all. We eat a pear and it becomes part of us. That’s all. We do not become a pear. Some may observe that I am beginning to look like one, but I can assure you. It’s not happening!When we consume the Body and Blood of Christ something more happens. In our usual way of thinking it’s always about us, we like to believe that Christ enters into our flesh and blood and into our being which is all very true; but that is only half of the mystery. Around this altar of the Eucharist, we remember his dying, we celebdrate his life and we enter into the mystery of God’s love. Those eat His flesh and drink His blood are assimilated into Jesus and become a part of him. What is important to understand, accept, and believe, you see, is the reverse of my example with the pear. This is the difference between taking communion and becoming communion. We have been stuck far too long in the idea that communion is something we get, take, or for that matter receive. It is way more than that, and failing to grasp that truth has left us profoundly impoverished, hungry, and helpless. As a consequence this wonderful, beautiful, world that should reflect the face of its creator everywhere looks broken, hungry, sad, and empty even in places where there is more than enough to eat.We cannot take for granted so profound a union. It is more than Christ in us, we in communion are in Christ. But the fact is, we have become a lot like the Israelites in the desert who grew weary of the manna and quail and started longing for the food they had in Egypt. Having failed to cultivate a hunger in our hearts and souls, a hunger that comes from the need for communion, a hunger prompted by prayer and sacrifice, we settle for pizza and beer, a coke and a hamburger only to be hungry again a few hours later. In the meantime, having failed to enter into communion, an overweight nation is caught in the conflit over sending them away or feedng them.Sometime in the fifth century the Patriarch of Alexandria, Cyril, spoke these words in a homily: “Come then let us hasten to the mystical supper. This day Christ receives us as his guests. This day Christ waits upon us....The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is slain...The life-giving chalice is mingled. God the Word incarnate enterains us. Wisdom, who has built herself a house, distributes his body and her  bread and gives us his blood as wine to drink. Life bestows itself on mortals as food and drink. You have taseted the fruits of disobedience. Taste now the food of obedience. Eat of me who is life: Eat of life which never ends.”The whole church this day, with Francis, the Bishop of Rome and successor of Peter, is at prayer at this hour and everytime we assemble around this altar; so that we may become more and more the the very Christ we consume, so that finally having been gathered in communion and grafted onto this vine, no one will be hungry, no one will go away thirsty from this well of divine life, and all creation where ever we are found will in glory reflect the creator whose life is our privilege to share and whose gifts bring the duty to give. The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is the Church in Communion from which no one should be sent away.

God is good! (All the time!) Say that again like you mean it! Now this has been quite a week to remember. I think today it is important to pick out what it is we want to remember and how we want to remember it because we are a lot like the disciples of Jesus on those days after his death clinging desperately to the shreds of their hope, shaken by the things that have happened and wondering what it all means.Since this week has been so out of the ordinary, so shall this homily be a bit out of the ordinary because: God is good! (all the time). Pick up your hymnal please and stand up. Open that hymnal to page number XXX. In light of the week we have just passed in central Oklahoma, there is only one response possible from people of faith to the power of this disaster. It is the greater power of faith. (Sing: My life goes on in endless song above earth’s lamentations, I hear the real though far off hymn that hails the new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging. Since love is Lord if heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing.)Storms, wind, and rain are a part of life just like diseases and accidents. We live in a world full of dangers and risk, and it is fair and perhaps important to ask where is God in this? You can’t blame God for a tornado if you don’t give God credit for a teacher who shields a child with her own body or a man who crawls under a collapsing wall to pull a stranger to safety. We see the most awesome people and hear stories of selflessness and sacrifice. Then we see looters and theives snatching up the last bits of precious memories from people who now have nothing left. We are a people of dignity and depravity. Times like these bring out the best and the worst of our nature, and the storms of last Sunady and Monday blew away more than roofs and entire homes. They blew away the mask from the nature of human kind. What we can see, learn, and understand this week is not the power of Mother Nature, but the truth of human nature. When the storms of life blow in, our true nature is revealed. The storms of life, all of them remind us of what is important again. No one who survived last Sunday and Monday has been seen yelling about the loss of their 50” flat screen TV or their golf clubs. We mourn for people who were lost and rejoice for people who are found. That is who we are and what we are as children of God and disciples of God’s Son: a people who can morun for the right reasons and rejoice becasue God is Good!Something about people huddled in a storm cellar fearful and anxious keeps reminding me of a crowd of people huddled in an upper room fearful and anxious, uncertain about what was happening outside and what the next day was going to be like. But they had been told and they believed that they would be robed in glory and experience power from on high. Confused about what that glory would look like, all they could remember was the sight of the Son of Man dirty, bloody, and broken hanging on a cross. What kind of glory was that? Yet, they held to their hope, remained together, encouraged one another, and clung to the rock of their faith, and somehow, slowly for some and in an instant for others, that broken, bloody, friend who loved them all rose up robed in glory.His victory is the hope we share. His glory is ours rising above the storms of life. His strength is what we find in our unity as a family in faith. His joy is what we know when we see one another again after one more storm of life fully aware that there will be more storms again, and we shall keep on singing.This feast of the Holy Trinity is a really good day to remember what we just heard Paul proclaim to the Romans: “Affliction produces endurance, and endurance proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, becasue the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”As John’s Gospel assures us: God will take from Christ what is his and declare it us. With that good news, we can keep on singing because we know and we believe that God is Good. ALL THE TIME!

All the Old Testament signs of God’s presence are there: a thundering noise like the one heard at Sinai; a whirlwind like the one from which God  spoke to Job; flames of fire like Moses saw at Mount Horeb, and then there is that breath bringing them back. Their leader, teacher, and friend is gone; and with him all their hopes and dreams, vision and expectations about what could be. Dead is their courage and joy. The power that called Lazarus to life, gave sight to the blind, lifted the lame, sought the lost, included those left out of life, and spoke of peace has gone. Then comes that noise, the wind, the fire, and his breath was suddenly in them, in that room, and then everywhere they went.As always it is easy to sit with the story of Pentecost and look backward thinking as though it was something that happened on the 50th day after the resurrection, something that happened to a group of followers sitting around and waiting for something because he told them to. If that is the best we can do with this Gospel, we should have all stayed home.This is not a story from the past. This is a revelation of the church. It is our belief and our understanding of who we are and what we are. It speaks best and maybe only to people who have broken hearts, who have been blind to the presence of Christ in others, who have been shamefully ambitious, selfish, and people who have experienced the death of hope or the death of someone they relied on, loved, and trusted. That is who was in that room, and that is the people in this room.Because we are here and because of God’s promise, those who remain here will have life breathed into them. The key to this messsage, the key that unlocks it’s power and revelation is that word and that experience of remaining. It is the unity. It is the communion. It is the bond of faith and hope that makes a dwelling place for the Spirit. Like those people in John’s gospel, we are in another period of the Lord’s absence: the time between the Lord’s Ascension and his final coming in glory. During this time, we remain as he asked, and while we remain the Holy Spirit is our advocate, comforter, ally, guide, and inspiration. This is no time for fear, disappointment, or sadness. We are not a people without hope and a vision of what is to come. The Spirit he has sent is our advisor in times of decision and our comfort in times of illness and tragedy. The Spirit he has sent is our guide leading us to forgiveness, justice, love and peace. The Spirit is fuel that feeds the fire of our passion for service, the salve that heals. The Spirit is the reason for victorious living rather than defeated life.Yet, the times in which we live are spirit starved times. Impatient and unwilling to remain too many have gone off on their own and rather than wait for the glory of God’s Kingdom to be revealed. They are satisfied, but only for a moment, with the glory of a passing world. Everywhere we see the unity for which Christ prayed collapsing into the fog of individualism and privitized lives. “One nation under God” has become “whoever has the most wins.” Ideological warfare is breaking us into factions. Remaining in love is too hard. It’s easier to quit rather than work at healing and forgiving. “On demand” entertainment has driven us further apart even in our leasure. Families and friends who once sat together to watch a game or some favorite show now stare at screeens alone watching “on demand”. The technology even affects us as a church. Mass “on demand”, Mass when I want it, or when it fits into my schedule arranged around the things that really matter means no parish unity, identity or loyalty. It’s all private, and it’s all mine.In John’s Gospel today, Christ breathes on those who remained in that room infusing them with his Spirit. He unleashes in them the power of the Spirit, who alone can bring peace and joy in the wake of terrifying woundedness. He asks them to open themselves to the gift of the Spirit that allows them to receive and give forgiveness which is the only thing that can clear the air from the smoke of hatred and violence so that all can breathe in peace for which we long and which the risen One desires to give. Let me suggest to you that this breath means an intimacy with God that is as close as our every breath taken deeply into our lungs thousands of times a day. Just as breath must be exhaled, and cannot be kept within, so to does the Spirit’s power direct us outward to mission, exuding the love, peace, and forgiveness we have inhaled from the Living One.

Fr. Tom Boyer

Pease was a dangerous idea and goal for the early Christians living in the Roman Empire. It still is, even though the Roman Empire is gone, and lots of other Empires with and after it. There was a time called the “Pax Romana”; the Roman Peace; but that kind of peace was maintained by occupational forces that raped, looted, taxed, and enslaved all opposition. It was sustained by crucifying rebels, and worshiping Roman gods. That kind of peace was not a good fit for the gift of Christ and mission of his disciples. Those disciples followed a man who preached that peace came from healing, forgiving, and serving others especially those in need and marginalized by others. To make it worse, these followers worshiped a God who opposed violence: a God whose Son said: “Put up your sword. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”Times change, but it seems that empires do not, but neither does the heart and the soul of those who follow Jesus of Nazareth. Impatience with diplomacy is all to obvious. Readiness to choose military solutions to complex global problems is everywhere. Those who advocate the wisdom of talk and patience are looked upon as weak, indecisive, or naive. From playgrounds to neighborhoods, from Board Rooms to Bedrooms many seek peace by ignoring conflict, and some think they can have peace by shouting down people who disagree with them. It’s an odd kind of peace. Just as odd as the Pax Romana was an odd and very temporary kind of peace that was not peace at all.More than the absence of overt conflict, the peace that Christ proclaims, the peace that binds together and motivates the Christian community is a living relationship rooted in love and the passionate desire for the good of all resting upon justice, respect, forgiveness, and patience. The willingness, readiness, and desire for true justice is the first step to Peace. This justice has nothing to do with punishment or revenge. In fact, there is little liklihood of justice being done when any hint of anger or revenge or desire to punish is involved. The justice modeled by Jesus and motivating his disciples is never about rights. It is always about the duty that comes from having rights. The true Christian understanding of Justice is not some abstract thing concerned with weighing arguments and enforcing legislative decisions. It is action directed toward the well-being of the other and the common good. It is never about power. It is always about service.The exercise of Justice rests upon respect, a respect that begins with respect for life itself and the sourse of all life. It is a respect that sees in every human face the face of God. When this virtue takes hold of us, there is no longer an enemy there is only someone to love, for in doing so, as I said last week, we come to love God and know God’s love for us which is the consequence of our love for one another.For me after 45 years of listening to this Gospel and digging deeper and deeper into it, I am beginning to realize that this Peace which Jesus would leave us begins to blossom when we respond rather than react, when we are willing to listen rather than talk, when we choose to whisper rather than shout, when we are willing to wait and to hope, to forgive and forget, to laugh at ourselves and dry the tears of another, and most of all to wait and to watch, to welcome without fear, and to wonder in awe at the diversity and beauty of God’s creation. As we begin to do so, I think we are suddenly going to find ourselves back where we started in paradise, in the Kingdom of God, a heavenly peace.

There is one thing important to understand in these verses from John’s Gospel that escapes the quick reader and the shallow interpretation. Love is not just the commandment. It is the result of keeping the commandment.  In other words, you get what you give. Or, you can’t have love until you give love. What Jesus reveals to us by his life and what John passes on to us in his account of the life of Jesus is that there is only one source of love; God. Anything else is a cheap imitation, and like all other cheap imitations, it will not hold up to the test of time and trial.You buy a cheap imitation watch, and it will fall apart before you know it. You buy the real thing, and it will long outlast your expectations. Any love that does not in some way connect us to God’s love is suspicious and doubtful. Over 45 years I’ve sat with countless engaged couples with starry eyes gazing with affection upon each other. I’ve seen teen agers helplessly clinging to another totally swept away by the power of emotion and infatuation convinced that they were captured by love and ready surrender every shred of human dignity to prove it. And so, every time I get the chance I ask them, “Has this experience led you closer to God or revealed anything of God to you?” When they say, “Yes” and I see them in prayer and more faithful to the church, I suspect that they truly have experienced love. When a relationship leads someone away from God, away from the community of faith, away from goodness and leads them to sin, it is a fraud. It is a cheap imitation of love. When they say, “No” I know It isn’t going to last. It is not going to hold up to the test of time or the test of pain, loss, suffering, or sacrifice.Injustice and violence leave deep scars on the soul that justice itself cannot heal. People who seek and demand the death penalty believing that it will bring justice and heal the pain when they have suffered at the hands of some evildoer know that revenge heals nothing. Justice can create order and punish those who do wrong, but justice alone cannot restore a soul to love. Only love can heal the wounds of injustice. Paul, Barnabas, and those early Christians discovered in the midst of their hardships was that the only way to love is to experience it.Sin and evil are irrational. Poverty and Violence make angry people, and we all know from our own irratonal moments that anger makes us do crazy things. This world is full of poverty and violence, and consequently there are angry people everywhere doing crazy things. Sin and evil leave behind them hatred, anger, and a desire for revenge. We are helpless in the face of this unless we grasp truth of this Gospel and reach deeply into the wisdom of Jesus Christ. Only love in the flesh, Jesus Christ can “wipe away every tear from their eyes.” We are the presence and the flesh of that Christ today.Love is the very core of God’s very being. Love is the heart of Christ’s incarnation. Love is the comfort of the Holy Spirit and the only purpose of Christian life for disciples of Jesus.When the Book of Revelation says: “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.” The power of evil, anger, and the insanity of violence is broken. The new order God has established is love, and that is the only tool with which we may combat the old order. Revenge and violence are useless. They only produce more of the same. When love motivates us to change what is unjust, and love lifts people from the helplessness of poverty restoring their dignity, the insane behavior of those driven mad by their anger will be overcome. We shall not possess and know God’s love until we have begun to love one another without condtions or exclusions since that is the way of God’s love. Then all things will be made new.

That powerful and imaginitive view of heaven that springs out of John’s Book of Revelation almost overshadows the quiet and gentle three verses of John’s Gospel we just heard. The reading from Acts of the Apostles describes the growth and diversity of the young church which Paul and Barnabas moved into the realm of the Gentiles where many converts were made. Bringing those gentiles into the embrace of the community of believers was not easy and it brought many challenges and opposition. Some of the Jews resented the success of Paul and Barnabas and their resentment became a difficlty for these apostles. Yet these two were not distracted from their goal. It probably only made them more focused and determined. The result was the spread of the gospel and an increase in the membership of the Christian community.As I said, the Book of Revelation teases our imagination and proposes an image of this community growing in diversity among its membership. That multitude from every nation, race, people, and tongue is us still living with the same challenge and with some opposition just as before. It is not just the overt and “in your face” kind of racism we hear and feel with the present arguments over immigration. It more subtle and more diguised as we see our society more and more segragating itself. Marketing experts have been the first to recognize it developing stratagies for advertisement focused on the little special interest groups in which we find ourselves. It is clearly obvious that we are rapidly arranging and chosing our housing in order to live with people who think like we do, talk like we do, sharing the same political, cultural, economic and religious values we hold. Even in the work place it is becoming increasingly difficult to find places where this is any diversity of thought.  Unity in Diversity has become nothing but a cliche and cheap slogan as the difficulty of holding that blance is just too much trouble for many who are unwilling to bend, listen, compromise, and discover in someone different anything that is good, valuable, and helpful. This can only produce a new low level of ignorance and intolerance, that is already evident at the highest levels of governance. Blind and deaf to any voice but our own, we are left to talk to ourselves and exclude anyone who does not look like us, think like us, and talk like us. This kind of world bears no resemblance at all to the community that Paul and Baranabas embraced and John could envision in the Book of Revelation. What we Catholics can teach the society in which we live is that the genuine and very real differences among us mark us as unique not as seperaations that push us apart. The differences actually add to the color and the texture of the communitiy of believers rather than alienate and marginalize us. We are all God’s people, the flock he tends, there are no dominant or superior groups within us. I always like to think of like music. Two, Three, Four, or Five part harmony is always a lot richer and more fun than unison singing; and when the choir blends the parts into one, the consequence is a harmony that is very pleasing to the ear and soothing to the spirit.So today, still in Easter Season, the risen Lord is before us again both as the Shepherd and as the Lamb that was slain. He is the Good Shepherd precisely because he is the victorious Lamb who paid for the undiputed right to lead by the shedding of his blood for the flock. If we hear his voice and follow him, he will lead us to springs of living water and wipe away every tear from our eyes. If we hear his voice, we shall certainly be among the white robed multitude that have been washed in the blood of this Lamb. White robes! Get the image. White is the result of the perfect combination of all the colors of light in perfect balance. The truth and the reality is that we are all indeed, a diverse and great multitude all sheep of the same good shepherd. The very thought of it ought to draw us even closer to each other and to the shepherd. It ought to motivate us to protect each other and respect each other more than we might ever consider until we look around as see what we have become through the blood of the Lamb. It ought to give us every good reason to stand and sing, shout and proclaim: “ Alleluia! This is the day the Lord has made. (let us rejoice and be glad.)”

Dcn. Byron Jacobson

Fr. Paul Gallatin

Sadly, the world in which we live does not believe in miracles. The way we live today and the way we examine and process information is for the most part completely closed. I am here. You are there. God is somewhere else. Everything has a place. Science can and must explain everything. If it does not, it will, sooner or later, given enough research explain everything to our satisfaction. This kind of thinking raises lots of problems with the New Testament, and especially with the miracle stories. Those stories, all of them, too often find us wondering: “How did he do that?” or “What really happened?” Then some begin wondering about the people who reported those miracles. You know how that thinking goes. They were simple people living primitive lives a long time ago. Lacking the technology of our sophisticated times, they were easily impressed by magic tricks. Think how they would have been astonished over a lightbulb! They would have called that miraculous!Nowhere in this thinking is there any place for God. Our compartmentalized lives have isolated God to heaven, and left us very much in charge of things, and this makes openness to the meaning of miracles a challenge. The miracles performed by Jesus Christ, and in his name by his disciples were not magic tricks to attract and entertain a crowd of simple people who did not have the entertainment opportunities we enjoy. They did not experience these miracles and report them as just ordinary events that happened all the time. They were astonished. They were stunned enough to drag the sick out into the streets hoping that Peter’s shadow might pass over them. They knew something that we in all our sophistication can’t quite seem to grasp. Something is different here with these disciples of that man Jesus. Something has happened in this life on this earth. Something has changed.Now this is what we see in the story of Thomas. Something kept him from believing. I think he could not believe because he could not imagine that God would act this way: that in the death of Jesus Christ God could accomplish something. Thomas wanted evidence. It was not enough that the boundaries or the distinction between matter and spirit were broken as Jesus passed again and again through locked doors. Thomas had to have more proof. He wanted scientific proof: touch. But he didn’t touch. It never says that he did. He was invited to do more than touch. He was invited to believe. He was invited to believe that God could do more than Thomas could imagine. The limits that Thomas had placed on what God could do as well as where God was had to go before Thomas could believe.This all started with a young girl who said “Yes” to a messenger who invited her to believe that God could do something unheard of and unimagined. That incident, called the Incarnation, challenges to this day minds closed to God’s intervention, involvement, and presence in this physical and real world. The Incarnation is the first miracle, the first unmistakable evidence that something new is breaking into humanity. To think of it shakes open closed minds and hearts that live in the absence of God or indifferent to God’s presence and action.Miracles are signs of God’s care for us. That is what they mean, and that is why the stories of them have been passed down to us for so long. What happened to Thomas that day when he spoke those memorable words: “My Lord and My God” was that the boundaries of his limited expectations of how God works and where God is to be found broke open. God was present in that nail-pierced man with an opening in his side. God was acting and saving, raising up, and healing in a way no one ever thought of. The old expectations of how God would save his people collapsed in a moment. Old ideas about those categories of spirit and matter, heaven and earth, could no longer be sustained, because something new has happened and something new has begun.Easter is still a challenge to boundaries we imagine and the expectations we have about how God works and where God is to be found. Easter is also a challenge to our ideas about life and death, power and weakness, suffering and strength. Easter can also awaken our expectations about miracles, and stir again some honest astonishment over things science does explain which for those who are invited to believe suddenly become once again signs of God’s love for us.The final word from these readings today is that God is still expressing God’s love for us in the forgiving and healing ways of real disciples, and believers are still astonished at the discovery of God’s presence and action in the most unexpected and unimagined ways.

I don’t believe there is anyone in this church who does not understand and has not experienced part of what Luke is describing in this Gospel. Everyone of us has had our faith in Jesus Christ shaken. Those two men walking along were leaving Jerusalem. I believe they had given up. They were turning their back on that place where their hopes had been raised. They left the apostles behind. They were walking away from Jesus Christ turning their backs to him.How could God let this happen? How could God have abandoned Jesus leaving him to die at the hands of those fanatics? How could all that he had promised and the hope he raised be so quickly destroyed? We’ve all been there. How could God let me lose my job with a family to feed and shelter? How could my child, so full of life and promise be so sick and die so young? How could that doctor tell me there is no hope? I’ve always been so faithful to prayer, and now this happens.This world is full of people who have struggled against evil and sadness, disappointment and broken promises. Some of you are here today barely hanging on, and some have already turned their backs in disappointment and discouragement. Some of us bear the scars and memories of our own trouble but have managed to hang on just a little while longer.These two men in Luke’s Gospel are all of us, and their story is ours. The whole story: we all know the first part really well, but today we must hear the second part which can stir our hope and soften our hearts. This is a message of hope. We don’t need to hear the story of Christ’s resurrection today. We know it very well. We do not need to hear about the women coming first and then Peter and John on the run to look in wonder and dare to believe.What you have just heard proclaimed today is also a resurrection story. It is also the story of life’s victory over death, of hope’s triumph over disappointment. This story reaches into our experience. We’ve never seen an empty tomb. We’ve never heard angels talking or seen men dressed in white announcing that “He is not here.” At least I hope you haven’t . That would complicate things. But we have known our share of disappointments when probably more than once things in our lives have not turned out the way we expected.Yet for many people like the men of this story, and those in John’s Gospel, Matthew’s or Mark’s, there is the promise made by Christ to all who follow him and listen to his word: the promise that he would not leave us, that he would remain with us, and all the healing, the forgiveness, the new life he granted to lepers, the blind, the lame, and the possessed in the Gospels would be ours as well. It is a promise that people of faith celebrate week after week, year after year. Those who have tragedies, disappointment, and brokenness without turning their back on Christ or running away from their fellow believers stand as witness to the resurrection: their own.We live in the hope that Christ will find us, walk with us, and be revealed to us in the unity we share as Church. We rejoice in the resurrection today for more than Christ’s resurrection. I rejoice when I look at so many of you whose lives are a story of the resurrection, whose lives haves not turned out the way you thought they might, who had hoped that one thing or another would have been different. I rejoice because you have found the grace, the courage, and the spirit to rise up and be made new. To dry the tears of others who weep, and to strengthen the faith of those whose faith may be shaken from time to time and make them want to run away.We do not run. We do not turn our back on Jerusalem, Luke’s symbol of the church. We continue to break open the Word of God, and let that word open our hearts and eyes to see the presence of Christ in the faces of those around us. We cling to these great truths because we know them to be true. We have risen again from every little death that would put us down. All our lives are in this story. We are either running toward Emmaus or we are running back to Jerusalem. Where ever you are in this story today here in this church, take hope, risk believing, you are never alone, we are, all of us rising again and again proclaiming with Joy that THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE. This is the day of our salvation.

“And they remembered his words” Luke writes. At that moment everything changed; the fear was gone, downcast faces lifted to the light, an empty tomb made sense, the death was understood, their purpose and role in this puzzling mess made sense. They ran to the others and announced all these things to the eleven and the others. They are the first, these women, the first evangelists, and all that set this in motion, all that took away their fear, lifted their downcast hearts, was that they remembered.It struck me in sitting with this Gospel a few weeks back that there are two sets of “others”: the “others” who are with the eleven and the “others” who are with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. Who are these “others” except you, me, and the others in the rest of this world?We must be the ones who remember, and tonight, my dear friends who are so newly welcomed into communion with Christ and His church, you must always remember. Remember this night. Remember the Joy, the excitment, the sence of oneness, and the peace we hope you find in this church and in our company. In remembering, you will be like those women whose fear vanished, whose confusion and doubt is wiped away by the news we have shared with you. No longer should you be in darkness. No longer should you doubt where you belong and who it is that has calleld you to this place. There is nothing else you need to seek but the fellowship of this table where you will discover week after week the risen Lord in the breaking of bread.There are others in this world, like those “others” who were hiding in that upper room. To them you must go. With them you must share what you have found in this darkned empty church tonight: the Light of Christ! With us now you can lift up your hearts. With us now you can give thanks. You who have this night been anointed with the Spirit standing before the rest of us reminding us, and helping us remember what a gift we have, what privilege it is to be here one with a church that is ever new because you are here and ever old founded and rooted on the faith of those first witnesses who found not an empty tomb, but the risen Christ who called them by name, filled them with a measure of his spirit, and sent them out to baptize, to heal, to forgive, and to exend the mercy of God and the love of God to those no one else would love.“Peace be with you” is the first greeting of Christ to those who were coming to believe what he had promised. “Peace be with you” is what we say to you tonight and everytime we gather in this holy place so that you may bear the peace of Christ where ever it is needed, to whomever is troubled and alone wanting and hoping to believe. Remember, my friends. This is the day the Lord has made!