A homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 17, 2022
Gn 18:1-10a, Col 1:24-28, Lk 10:38-42
This is not a rant about people (especially motorists) whose faces are buried in their phones and digital devices nonstop (although it could be).
This is more of an observation about what they’re missing.
We’ve all seen movies or TV shows in which someone is engrossed by whatever’s on their screen and they walk right past something phenomenal or dangerous or hilarious. Sometimes in cartoons, the monster scratches its head and does a double-take in bemusement before devouring the clueless pedestrian.
And, fortunately, most of the time distracted people get away relatively unscathed.
“America’s Funniest Home Videos” is loaded with clips like this (but not cartoon monsters).
But what are they missing?
And to be clear, none of us needs to be distracted by our gizmos to miss great things.
There’s a phenomenon known as the green flash or the green flare that happens in the split second or seconds before sunset. Science meets art when pure green light spreads over the horizon as the atmosphere acts as a prism. It can be seen under perfect conditions — which is to say, rarely — and has been photographed even more rarely.
There’s Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, with lightning storms spider-webbing across the sky nearly 300 nights a year.
There’s a woman whose cancer has gone into remission because of a clinical trial.
There’s a rescued stray cat asleep in your lap after it spent three weeks under your bed trembling.
Miracles.
Our lives are full of them.
Isaac was Abraham and Sarah’s miracle child, and Genesis makes it clear who sent the miracle to them as a reward for their generous hospitality. The Scripture passage downright hits us over the head to show us God’s hand in this gift.
Do we see God’s hand in miracles today? Or are the images of the edge of the universe from the James Webb Space Telescope purely a scientific breakthrough?
God invented science. God wrote the laws of physics and astrophysics and gravity and xyz-ology.
God wrote the Law of Love.
And, miracle of miracles, all these laws work together.
Everything that works, just plain works in this world, is a gift from God.
But when an event is phenomenal, when we are knocked off our horses like St. Paul, when we say “Wow!” out loud, we proclaim it a miracle. Quite often in so many words.
Do we expect to be knocked out of our socks every day by God? Does a miracle need to be humongous to qualify as a miracle?
No. Everyday life can be miraculous.
Visiting someone who needs cheering up over a cup of coffee is a miracle.
Harvesting tomatoes and cucumbers for the food bank is a miracle.
Babysitting for someone undergoing cancer treatment is a miracle.
Every time, we’ve been the hands of God delivering a miracle.
God gave each of us the miraculous gift of life, and with it, the gifts of talent and personality.
God gave us the eyes to see the miracles in our lives. God gave us the eyes and ears to see and hear our sisters and brothers who need miracles in their lives.
Yes, because of the miracles in our lives, all the manifold multiple miracles, God challenges us to be miracles.
Someone somewhere desperately needs one.
