A somewhat brief homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 20, 2023
Is 56:1, 6-7, Rom 11:13-15, 29-32, Mt 15:21-28
E.T. has phoned home and the spaceship has returned to Earth to pick him up.
As the cultural touchstone film nears its end, the little alien botanist does two things that turn out to be profoundly theological.
He wags his index finger in mischievous Gertie’s face and says, “Be good,” stretching out the two syllables in that scratchy voice.
He then touches Elliott’s chest over his heart, and in a similarly elongated rasp, says, “I’ll be right here.”
The movie script could have come from today’s passages from Scripture.
Isaiah proclaims:
Thus says the Lord:
Observe what is right, do what is just;
for my salvation is about to come,
my justice, about to be revealed.
To Gertie, and to all of us: Be good.
Matthew chronicles:
Jesus said to [the possessed Canaanite girl’s mother],
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”
To the Canaanite woman, and to all of us who believe and surrender our lives to God: I’ll be right here, here in your heart and soul, making life better.
As always, the Word of God loops back to the Two Great Commandments.
How do we love God? Be good.
How can we love our enemies? Treat them as neighbors. Treat them as we’d treat ourselves. Be there for them, and attend to their needs, even if they’re not people we’d usually associate with, because we don’t necessarily have to like them to love them.
Our Scriptures today are clear: God embraces all of humankind, and, in a special way, all of us who believe. God is immeasurably generous with Divine Love.
God tells us to embrace every sister and brother on this Earth and shower them generously with our love, which came from God in the first place.
Purple, green, black, yellow, white, ROY G. BIV …
Tall, skinny, petite, large, tiny …
Chatty, reticent, profound, salt of the earth …
Everyone.
Everyone, God says, must have a place in our hearts.
Everyone, God says, must be good.
That’s how we all go home.
To God.
No more need be said.
