A homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sept. 6, 2020
Ez 33:7-9, Rom 13:8-10, Mt 18:15-20
Our Gospel passage today concludes with one of the greatest promises Jesus ever made to us:
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Jesus’s promise — to be truly present anytime we gather in remembrance of him — invokes and evokes faith, hope and love. All three.
Faith that the Son of God always keeps his promises … which, of course, he does.
Hope that when we follow The Way, The Way will lead us home to the ultimate joy of seeing God face to face. And more immediately, hope that a brighter day is coming, especially for any of us who are suffering in any way whatsoever because of the pandemic.
Love from God to us, from us to God, and love among all our family — however we define family — because we are all united as the children of our loving Creator.
It’s a powerful promise, one that can let us all sleep peacefully.
And if all we take away from our sacred texts today is a renewed awareness of Christ’s promise to join us at table — especially the table where the Last Supper and Jesus’s passion, death and resurrection are commemorated — then we’ve broken open plenty of The Word for this week and the coming week. For the rest of our lives, truth be told.
All righty, then.
But there’s a deeper thread running through all of today’s Scripture selections, and it ties back to love in general, and love of neighbor in particular. Love, as in responsibility for, our neighbor.
As we recall in the familiar Gospel according to Luke, Jesus uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain how his faithful followers should, first, identify their neighbors and, second, treat them.
Jesus concludes the parable with a question to the scholar of the law who asked him how to identify a neighbor.
Ah, yes: Go and do likewise.
The critical step that follows identifying our neighbors.
First, though, there’s the action of identifying. In the Days of COVID, our neighborhoods have shrunk, perhaps even become virtual only. Obviously, everyone with whom we can connect electronically qualifies as neighbor.
That’s easy. Touchless interactions happen quickly and easily. And they’re over equally as quickly and easily.
Actually seeking out neighbors … that’s always been difficult, and adding the six-foot distance increases the difficulty. But it’s not impossible.
In fact, the pandemic crisis may well have made it far more possible to identify our neighbors, because so many people are legitimately, desperately in need right now. Hard-working people whose jobs disappeared because entire industries shut down. People who have to draw down their retirement savings to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads now, not when they’re older. People dying alone.
People already on the margins of society, now pushed further away from the mainstream because the mainstream has narrowed, for more reasons than we can count. If we pause to think, we know what the reasons are.
Yes, the coronavirus has made it clear who we should be looking for. Are we looking?
(The funny thing is, sometimes neighbors find us. We should welcome being surprised.)
When we find our neighbors — or they find us — the “go and do likewise” part will vary according to our personalities and talents. That’s life; that’s God’s Creation. And that’s OK.
What must be consistent throughout our human family is the knowledge that, because we’re all in this together, because we are linked, what each of us does individually affects everyone universally. So our responsibility to all our neighbors means we must interact with love.
And remember that “love” is a verb, an action verb, as well as a noun.
More and more of our brothers and sisters are struggling in many ways on many levels, so empathy — an acknowledgment that we’re all in this together — is right in line with WWJD.
Our eyes can convey a kind smile even when masks cover our grins.
Words of support are not superspreader events.
Random acts of kindness can be tailored for health and safety.
Food bank hand-ups can be done without exposing anyone to disease.
We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. That’s a fact established at the beginning of time, written in the Book of Genesis and reinforced today by the prophet Ezekiel, St. Paul and Jesus himself.
We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Six feet apart or six light-years apart, we are linked as God’s family.
We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. “To keep” is an action verb meaning commitment. The long haul.
We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. And Love is an action verb that transcends all.
