A homily for the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 9, 2024
Gn 3:9-15, 2 Cor 4:13—5:1, Mk 3:20-35
The first time I saw someone talking on a cellphone wearing wireless earbuds, I thought the person was … uh … possibly mentally ill. You see, they weren’t merely having what looked like a conversation with their self; they were arguing.
Loudly. Passionately. Did I mention loudly?
With vigorous hand gestures to no one in sight, some of them NSFW.
As were many of the loud words.
The earbuds were so small that I didn’t spot them right away.
So I mistakenly thought this was another unfortunate soul like the ones I’d encountered at the Port Authority Bus Terminal from time to time. And even though it’s my nature to try to help — even more so, to try to fix — I long ago realized their troubles were far beyond my feeble skills. My only other option, therefore, has been to avoid such folks, as uncharitable and un-Christlike as that is.
So when I think back to the earbud encounter, I try to visualize how people reacted when they met Joan of Arc or similar visionaries. History tells us such people were denounced as heretics or demoniacs and were punished, often by cruel executions.
Burn the witch!
History also tells us that many, if not all, were later canonized as prophetic saints who ascertained the will of God. The God who spoke to these so-called crazies who listened clearly and acted. No earbuds required.
And that’s the thing: God does speak to us. All of us. All the time.
Sometimes God shouts. Sometimes God does the whisper-just-outside-the-cave thing, as Elijah experienced.
Sometimes God relies on Creation to awe us. On the Law of Love to guide us. On the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to inspire us.
In these and various other ways, God commands us. God’s will is clear, plain, simple, understandable. When we ascertain God’s will and obey,
[W]hoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother.
What’s also fascinating about Jesus’s statement, as relayed in Mark’s Gospel, is that the will of God is for all people — all people! — to be a family. To strengthen this family. For every one of us to recognize our spiritual and, yes, genetic connections with each other. To see ourselves as part of the human family, to act in unity as members of that family and not as Hatfields and McCoys.
To understand that the only race is the human race.
To celebrate differences as part of the world’s brilliantly colored mosaic or tapestry. To learn from each other and each other’s experiences and ideas. To greet each other as pieces of the grand jigsaw puzzle that has a spot for everyone, and which is incomplete until everyone is a part of the whole.
To do what we can to get people help, if possible, and not cross to the other side of the street, even when they unnerve us.
We are a family when we act to form a family. It’s a No-Duh; it’s an Of Course; it’s a That Makes Sense. Even if it does seem like circular logic.
But still…
God recognizes that, imperfect sinners as we are, we’re not family yet. We may not even qualify as a work in progress. Deadly wars in Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan make the biggest headlines, but unkindness and name-calling in the supermarket checkout line and on the Parkway and the Boardwalk reveal the same figurative concertina wire we’ve wrapped around ourselves as the actual razor-sharp stuff that surrounds borders and camps for internally displaced people.
“Them.”
“Those people.”
“The others.”
They’re weird. Smelly. They’re the wrong colors. They think differently. They love differently. They speak the wrong language. They eat disgusting food.
Ah, yes: them. The human beings God created in his own image and likeness. Just like us.
Family? Really??
Yes.
God wills it.
So God keeps talking to us, with us. God gives us preachers and teachers and Church and Christ within us and Christ in everyone we meet, so we can meet and greet and embrace our family members we’ve known forever or whom we’ve just met. If God can’t get through to us directly because we’re thick-headed, God speaks through them.
And regularly, God will tell us things that make us want to argue. Like Earbud Person, we may want to shout or give a version of the New Jersey Salute or even suggest to the Almighty that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
But that won’t work: Our arms are too short to box with God (thank you, Alex Bradford and Vinnette Carroll). God wins.
And when God wins, when the love of God wins, when we spread the love of God and see family members everywhere, we all win.
Wow: What a great Thanksgiving dinner table that will be.
