HOMILY - Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) 2018

I want to invite you to our parish-school’s open house (tomorrow afternoon/this afternoon). Even if you don’t have school-age children or grandchildren, this is our parish-school and I want you to know our wonderful principal and the great teachers and families that are part of our parish-school community, especially because of your generous support - both financially as well as in your prayers for our school and our students. So please visit the school (tomorrow afternoon/this afternoon) and see the great things that are happening there. Well, earlier this week I received an email from a friend. It was one of those emails that you have likely received that has a story with some type of moral point to it. This email had great story that I want share with you - and even if you may have already heard it, worth hearing again. The story is about Charles Plumb who was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience. One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, ' You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down! 'How in the world did you know that?' asked Plumb. 'I packed your parachute,' the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, 'I guess it worked!' Plumb assured him, 'It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today.' What a great story! But, I share the story now for a couple reasons. First, I love that it tells the story of our veterans - those who did incredible feats and also those who supported them. So, on this Veteran’s Day (weekend), I thank the veterans here with us today (including my dad, a Navy veteran, who is with us at this mass) for their service - thank you. Second, I love how this story parallels our readings today and tells us really “how” we are to live as Christians. How we are called to humbly serve others and God; and how we can be inspired by others actions, and then how we can respond with gratitude for what others do. But before we get to the “how,” it is necessary to remember the “why” of our Christian lives. As I always say - and hopefully you’re not too tired of me saying it - the WHY is that we must remember that we are made to be in relationship; we were made to love and to be loved. This is what we do best, this is in what we find our truest and fullest meaning and purpose. It is in this relationship that we find our truest and fullest joy and peace. Because of this relationship our soul, our entire being, gives thanks and praises the Lord, as we just sung. But, because of sin we freely choose to fall out of relationship. By our thoughts and words, by what we’ve done and what we’ve failed to do - as we just confessed - we gradually or dramatically fall out of relationship with God. But my friends the good news is in today second reading. As we just heard: now once for all he [Jesus] has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.” And the reading continues: [Jesus] will appear a second time not to take away sins but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly await him. So the question then is: restored in relationship how do we eagerly await Jesus’ return and our salvation? Today’s gospel gives us the “what to do” and the “what NOT to do.” To state the obvious (I hope), we want to be more like the poor widow, who from her poverty has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood. And we want to be less like the rich people who gave from their surplus wealth. (And to be clear, wealth is not bad - it is what we do with our wealth that matters.) Jesus makes the further point that we want to be even less like the scribes who accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor in the banquets, devouring the wealth of others, and much more - all for attention and self-profit. The scripture scholar William Barclay furthers this teaching by stressing two points. First, like the poor widow, our actions must be the sacrificial. It’s not about the amount or the size, but the sacrifice of your generosity - he says we must give until it hurts. Second, Barclay stresses that real giving has a certain recklessness in it. He makes the point that the poor widow could’ve kept something back for her own needs, but instead she gave everything she had. We can do this only when we are fully in love with God and trust in him. Which leads me to a wonderful promise contained in today’s readings. Our God cares for us just as he did for Elijah and the widow in today’s first reading (who by the way, also gave with sacrifice and even recklessness), and just as we sang in today’s responsorial Psalm - when we love and trust God, He sets us free, feeds us, cures us, protects us, and sustains us. It may not always be what we want (like that $1.6 billion lotto, which I did not win by the way) - but it will always be what we need! We just need trust God and ask for his help! I will conclude with one more insight from today’s Gospel. I love that Jesus knows the hearts and minds of the scribes, of the rich people, and the poor widow. He knows that she gave from her poverty, that she contributed all she had, that she gave her whole livelihood. And the same is true of us. In this intimate love relationship Jesus has for us, he knows us personally, he knows what motivates us, what pains us, and what causes us hurt and rejection and insecurity, and he knows what brings us peace and joy. And this my friends is a good thing. It is not something to fear or to run away from or to be embarrassed about. And, I love that Jesus pointed the Apostles to the poor widow in order to teach the Apostles, knowing their doubts and fears and insecurities, so that they know BOTH how to eagerly await AND how to be inspired by others. Going back to that email story of Charles Plumb, he goes on to state that sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we may fail to say hello, please or thank you - just as he did countless times for the man who folded his parachute. And too often we do this especially for those in our lives who humbly and quietly care for us, who pack our necessary parachutes - our physical parachute, our mental parachute, our emotional parachute, and our spiritual parachute. And so I invited you, as you enter deeper in love with God, to be inspired by these individuals in your life who God has placed here and who love sacrificially and even recklessly. And then also I invite you to be grateful for those same individuals in your life. As you go through this week, I invite you to be inspired by and grateful for and thank these people in your life - your spouse, your children, your parents and grandparents, your friends and coworkers, and yes the stranger you cross paths with every day. May God bless them and you.