Sermons
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 24, 2016
Martha and Mary – we know this bible passage – and it often causes indignation and resentment be-cause of the apparent injustice Martha has to endure. How can Jesus dare to question her work and effort? Martha means it well with Jesus – just as we mean it well with the persons for whom we care, the persons that are entrusted to us. Martha is so occupied with caring for Jesus, that sheIn today's reading from Luke's Gospel (Luke 11: 1-13), the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. You may have remarked that Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer is shorter and more concise than Mat¬thew's version. Is this a problem? What was there real prayer Jesus taught? Well, what is important to grasp is not the words of the prayer, but the attitude of prayer Jesus teaches. So it does not matter which WORDS he actually used or taught. And here I find one of my favorite topics when it comes to prayer: To pray is not to impose our will on God but to ask God to make us open to his will. In other words, we pray not to change God's mind but for God to change ours. You may remember that I quoted Soren Kierkegaard here with his saying: Prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who prays. We do not manip-ulate God when we pray, we open ourselves to what God calls us to. Authentic prayer, as taught by Jesus and contained in the Lord's Prayer, has three elements: - The first: we acknowledge the goodness and love of God: Jesus teaches us to call God "Father." God is not the cos¬mic tyrant out of whom gifts have to be extracted by imploring him, by sacrificing things and animals, by humiliating ourselves. No! God is the loving eternal Parent, Father or Mother, who delights in providing for the needs of the children. - The second element of authentic prayer is: we should ask that we may do God's will: Prayer worthy of God asks for the grace to do the work God calls us to do. This can be to grant for-giveness, to be open for reconciliation, to do justice; in other words to become the people God calls us to become. We are brothers and sisters under our heavenly Father, our heavenly Mother. - The third element of authentic prayer is that we express our hope in the providence of God: The providence of God… a friend will aid a friend, parents will provide for their children. Yes, we come before God knowing that God will hear our prayers and give us all and more than we need. Just like friends, just like parents. Even if it seems as if our prayers are unanswered, we live with the confident faith that God is always present to us. You may remember my homily about prayers of Jesus that had not been answered. And Jesus did not despair. Today's first reading (Genesis 18:20-32) is a humorous and entertaining example of east-ern bargaining at its best. The good and faithful Abraham barters with God to spare the innocent of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the end, God reveals himself to be a God of limitless forgiveness and mercy. And that is the whole point of this story: God needs not to be bartered with – Got has the limitless forgiveness and mercy. In today's brief second reading (Colossians 2: 12-14), Paul also speaks of the forgiveness of God. And Paul speaks of the promise of the resurrection won for us by Christ on the cross. Res-urrection not in the sense that there will be something better after our death, but resurrection in the sense of “life in abundance” – not only in heaven, but already here on earth. We are gathered here on a Sunday, in a church, we are gathered to celebrate together. Some-times one may have the impression that we have managed to confine God and religious "stuff” to a Sunday morning time slot. Sometimes one may have the impression that we have jealously shield-ed the home, work and play di¬mensions of our lives from any intrusion of the spiritual. Yes, as a religion, we have established socially acceptable vehicles and formulas for "acknowledging" God: for example our Sunday Eucharists. Real prayer, however, transcends those boundaries we have set, transcends those formulas we have committed to memory but not necessarily to practice. These formulas are important, our written prayers and rites and documents and doctrine are neces-sary, this is for sure. But prayer is a constant state of awareness of God's presence in every moment, every chal-lenge, every decision of our lives. Find God in all things – as Ignatius of Loyola said. Find God’s traces everywhere in our lives. The Jesus of the Gospel calls us to become men and women of prayer. Men and women of prayer embrace the “spirit and attitude of prayer” that constantly dis-cerns and celebrates God's presence in all things. In today's Gospel, Jesus gives us more than a prayer text - he teaches us the attitude neces-sary for authentic prayer. In many of our prayers we ask God to come around to doing our will; but true prayer is to discover God's will for us. We often approach prayer as if we are trying to wring gifts from an unwilling God; in fact, we come before a God who knows our needs better than we do ourselves. True prayer is to imitate the compassion of Christ with us, with humankind. True prayer raises our hearts and voices in a cry for forgive¬ness, for reconciliation, for healing. A cry for mer-cy for our world. Prayer, as Teresa of Avila taught her sisters, "is the con¬formity of our will to the will of God." And remember what Kierkegaard said: Prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who prays.
Fr. Wolfgang Felber SJ
Sixteeth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 17, 2016
Martha and Mary – we know this bible passage – and it often causes indignation and resentment be-cause of the apparent injustice Martha has to endure. How can Jesus dare to question her work and effort? Martha means it well with Jesus – just as we mean it well with the persons for whom we care, the persons that are entrusted to us. Martha is so occupied with caring for Jesus, that she does not even think of asking Jesus if he needs her care. She does not ask if what she does corresponds to what Jesus needs. Do we not also take care of others, plan for others, decide for others, act for others without asking them? It is tempting to think you know what others need. This reduces the other to what we assess him or her. In the center of the action is the one who helps, while the other becomes an object of a “good deed”. The other is degraded to an object. This should not be the case. Before doing something for someone, I must perceive the other person and his or her needs. I must perceive this beyond all expectations I have and beyond all selfish interests I have. True love of neighbor does not impose good deeds on someone – good deeds that might be unsuitable or inappropriate. So if we depend upon the appreciation of our work – then something is wrong. If we do a good deed and we wait for a positive reaction – then something is wrong. Because then the good deed only reflects my own needs, and I do not act in order to help others for themselves. Martha is a good example for this: "Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me." For Martha it is absolutely clear: who works a lot is right – and she wants Jesus to confirm this. But Jesus acts differently: He proves the other sister right, Mary who just sits and listens. He says: “There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it-- and I won't take it away from her." So Jesus invites us to look at life from a different perspective. Martha and Mary – aren’t they two sides within all of us? Both are necessary, none of them is more important than the other. Mary without Martha – this would be pious circling around ourselves without see-ing the needs of the world around us. Martha without Mary – this would be actionism: you have to prove yourself by working and by doing and by achieving. Here love of neighbor may easily miss its point of put-ting the other in the center. Maybe in most of us, Martha is better developed – the need to do something you can present is very strong. When we try to be silent, try just to sit, just to listen what God wants to say, what our life wants to say, what others want to say then there is this voice saying: “Wouldn’t it be better to do the most urgent things, to carry out more important things, to take care of this and that? Don’t sit around doing nothing!” We are in summer, most of us have holidays – wouldn’t this be a good time to act a bit like Mary, to sit down, to listen, to see the world around us, to get in touch with ourselves, in touch with those we love? To be silent. Maybe we shall encounter resistance within us, we shall encounter an emptiness, an inner restless-ness… Restlessness and resistances are important. They show that there is so much that comes between us and Jesus. They show that the balance between Martha and Mary within us is not in place. Restlessness and resistances show us that we might change our ways, that we might give our lives a different orientation. And I assure you that you may well enjoy some moments of deep inner calmness and peace. In these moments you may experience the deep truth of our story: It is enough to be before God and to let him look at us. We do not need to do anything to deserve God’s love – God’s love is just there – because God loved us into life.
Fr. Wolfgang Felber SJ
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 10, 2016
I like it when Jesus meets people. In the second part of our Gospel (Luke 9,51-62), Jesus meets three persons – very different persons. Let us have a look at the text: the first one says: “I will follow you wher-ever you go.” This person, a man or a woman, is enthusiastic about Jesus. He or she wanWe all know this story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus invents this story to tell something very profound to his listeners. What is it about? The starting point is the question of the expert in religious law: "Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?" The expert gives an answer that we all know: “You must love the Lord your God and you must love your neighbor as yourself.” To us, this is not surprising, but for the colleagues of this expert in the time of Jesus this was extraordinary. Luke makes the man say that there is a link between love of God and love of neighbor. This was not linked for the pious Jews at that time – love of God and love of neighbor were independent from each other. Luke makes the man say “And who is my neighbor?” so as to show the new point of view of Jesus: the human person is in the center; the human person is the place where you meet God because God himself became one of us. Luke wants us no longer to look into the skies, but to look at our world as it is. Luke says: Jesus wants you to find God not only in the temple, in the cult, but to find God in your neighbor, in other human beings. This is where you find your God! Luke illustrates this somewhat idealistic idea by the story of the man who fell among the robbers. This story is a kind of program for a Christian life as it should be. And it is a pure provocation for the listeners of Luke’s gospel. Luke presents three persons – they all show their attitude towards other human beings. They show their attitude towards people in need by their action. Two of them in a way that makes us shiver – they turn away. The message of Jesus is clear: If you are looking for God honestly, if you want to love God, you can never avoid the human person beside you. For Jesus, the love of neighbor is at least as important as the law-abidance the pious Jews proclaimed. Certainly, we know that Jesus does have clear ideas about the relation to God, what we are supposed to do and to avoid. But the human being always comes first. This is the point of the story of the Good Samaritan. The relation to God for a Christian can only succeed via the human person. And this has marked the Christian culture. This is the measure for our message. Our credibility as the Church of Jesus depends upon it. There must not be any prejudices towards the human beings in this world from the side of the Church. There must not be any fear of contact with the human beings of our world. The Church needs to meet people at eye level. The Church often pretends to know the people of our time thoroughly because the Church pretends to have eternal truths about humanity. This is not enough. Humanity develops, our society develops, our knowledge develops – so the Church needs to be in contact with the world in order to get to know it. The message of Jesus needs to have something to do with the people of our time. The liturgy we celebrate needs to have something to do with the life of the people. I am happy that here in All Saints we have a structure that allows so much participation, that allows all of us to get together and celebrate together – here in the church, but also in the community hall. This is what I read in today’s gospel: Jesus puts the human being in the center of our faith. And: We need to open our eyes to the needs of others; they are the privileged way to God for us.
Fr. Wolfgang Felber SJ