26th Sunday Homily United in Christ or divided by ego
How many of you have played the domino game “Mexican Train”? I first learned this game a few years ago taught to me by a family. It was fun. Well, I also knew that Fr. Mike absolutely loves the game. So we gathered a few people and we played. Turns out he plays by different rules. I was confused. I mentioned these to other family and they were also confused by Mike’s rules. So when I play with Mike I play by his rules, with the family by their rules. All that matters is that we have fun, and I win.
How do we live out our lives as good people, as Catholics, as disciples of Jesus? Well, there is really no one exact way; rather there are many different flavors of being Catholic, being Christians. Really, when it comes down to it, the means to living out the faith are of less importance to the end. The end of course being mission, building up the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. This is what we need to keep in mind. We are united in mission, in our Faith in God’s love for us. We unite in doing what is good and just for all people. Unity is key; not uniformity, but unity.
How many of us know that within the Umbrella of the “Catholic” Church, there are more flavors. The vast majority belong to the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church...that is all of you. Yet, there also exists other rites; the Eastern Rites who also are Catholic, but also celebrate Liturgy differently, pray differently, have differing spiritualities, but we all work to the same Goal; we are united. Even within the Latin Rite, we have a rich diversity of approaches. We have differing religious communities, such as the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and many many many more. Dioceses and Parishes often have their own flavors, their own cultures in how they do things.
But nonetheless we remain united in Christ because we serve a greater good.
Not to say we don’t have tensions with this and with parishes and dioceses. What happens is that people’s egos get in the way. We wrap our own identity around our own way of doing things, and we assume that everyone must do it the same way.
Clearly in Jesus’ own time we see this. His disciples were aghast that this “outsider” was doing good things in Jesus’ name, but he was an outsider. Jesus sets them straight. The good was being done, this was the more important aspect. People were being healed, this was the mission.
We forget ourselves as a community, and only think of ourselves as individuals.
This second part of the gospel is strong language from Jesus. We need to exorcise ourselves of these divisions, these egos, these sinful attitudes that do not help people but only cause more suffering and more divisions. And the point of the gospel is that we do not sit there and first blame the other. We don’t accuse them immediately of being in the wrong. The point is that we first sit down and look at ourselves, and ensure that we ourselves are not causing this; that our own egos are in play and not the Spirit of God within us. We hold off on sending out that email, that text…. We pause, pray, think.
We exorcise our egos, our need to be correct, our need to feel as if we know it all. We cut them off when they create division, when they create hurt. When they attack other people… There are more important matters out there than any one of us being in the right, or being correct…
There are people who hurt, people who are sick and ill; people who struggle to find meaning, find community, find connections, to find love and acceptance. Children are sick with Covid, families are sick; people have lost homes due to fires; families lack decent housing because it is just too expensive in this town. These people are more important than any one ego in this parish.
Our mission as disciples of Jesus is to go to them, to offer the healing of Christ; to bring them unity. And when we work together, amazing things do happen. Last week, working together, this parish raised over $10K to help school children in Africa. A couple of weeks ago we raised again over $10k to help people displaced by the fires.
A person feeling lost came to this parish and found acceptance. Youth find a safe place to be in our Youth Ministry. A family experiencing the death of a loved one, through a parish working together finds comfort. Young families find a place to worship with children because we work together. Parents and staff working together educate our children and protect them from this virus.
United we can do so much now. United in Christ, there so much more potential for good
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