A homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 31, 2022
Ecc 1:2; 2:21-23, Col 3:1-5, 9-11, Lk 12:13-21
Remember when we were young and boisterous and our parents admonished us to use our “inside” voices?
Remember going to a fancy place for a special dinner and being told we were on our best behavior, that we had to use “country club” manners?
Remember having to change clothes from too casual to dressy?
We could never be fully ourselves. Not really fully, not just plain us.
Our lives were sliced up, boxed up, compartmentalized. School life. Play life. Sports life. Home life.
Church life.
Of course, that’s not how life should be. Or can be.
A genuine life is one in which we mesh together every aspect, every figurative piece of colored glass that spins up the kaleidoscope we call our daily lives.
So how do we reconcile this concept of a unified life with the “work for things that are above” theme of this weekend’s Scripture passages? How do we live in this world if we’re supposed to be other-worldly? How do we straddle two worlds?
How about making this world more like Heaven?
Any number of economic studies will demonstrate that the wealth gap is staggeringly huge, and that many of our sisters and brothers are working harder only to get further behind.
That’s not heavenly. We can fix it.
Any number of sociological surveys show that women are dying in childbirth or soon after, that untreated mental diseases are leading people of all ages to harm or kill themselves, that a general lack of adequate health care shortens millions of people’s lives.
That’s not heaven-like. We can fix it.
Floods have stolen lives and homes in Kentucky, not far from where an unseasonable tornado did similar damage. Fires are raging in regions out West designated as recreation areas. Deadly heat waves are rippling across the nation over and over. And those are just the American climate headlines. The situations are worse elsewhere.
I think the Not-Heaven place is described in fiery terms. Nuff said.
Yes, in his letter to the Colossians today, St. Paul does start off by admonishing the people to think of what is above, where Jesus resides. But Paul misses the fact that Jesus is also right here with us, always, everywhere, as close as the person next to you, as the Christ reminds us in Matthew’s Gospel.
So not only can we fix what is not heavenly, we can do it through living a genuine life. Not goody-two-shoes, not ignorant of the modern world, but with an emphasis on the good, on what’s valuable in God’s eyes.
Paul does lend us some hints, albeit in a thou-shalt-not fashion:
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Stop lying to one another…
Thus: Be moral, respectful and fair, and tell the truth.
Just think of everything that will fix.
