If someone asked you what Jesus’s story of the prodigal son was all about, you’d probably say that it was about forgiveness, that it’s about God’s willingness to welcome almost anyone back to his heart no matter how far they had left God behind. And of course if you gave that answer you wouldn’t be at all wrong. If we take anything away from this story it’s that image of a son on the way home from far away, and the father running out to welcome him before he even got there. That is the way God is, always more eager to embrace us than we have any reason to…
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In the gospel of Luke, meals are important. In fact, Jesus’ life in that gospel is punctuated with at least ten different meals. But they are more than just scenes in a play, a good way to bring people together and have them interact. Because all these meals, to Luke, are also an image of the future. Here’s something important to take away from this gospel. Luke believes not only that the eucharist is a meal, but that our whole life, eternal life with God, is like a meal. It is his vision of the future that awaits us. Whatever heaven is, what it’s most going to be like is…
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This is one of those difficult gospel readings that has a way of catching us by surprise here on a quiet summer weekend, when out of nowhere, probably when we are hoping for some lighter content, we hear from a frustrated Jesus that we barely recognize. Jesus is clearly upset today that people around him are not hearing what he is really saying, maybe even his closest disciples don’t get it, he is telling them that his message is stronger medicine than everyone seems to think. And as a result we get Jesus saying some things that just don’t fit with the way we like to picture him. The man…
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We are all immediately attracted to a story where it looks like there is a clear hero and a clear loser, someone who gets it and someone who doesn’t. There are plenty of great gospel stories that fit into that pattern, starting with the story of the good Samaritan we heard last week coming to the aid of the stranger at the side of the road. That wouldn’t be as good a story if we didn’t first see the priest and the levite walk right by not noticing and not caring, and then the Samaritan, the only one whose eyes and heart are actually open. It’s very tempting to see…
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You all may or may not be aware of this, but our church in the United States is beginning today on this feast of Corpus Christi a period of several years when our bishops are hoping that we will focus on Christ’s presence in the eucharist. And there’s a story behind why they want to do this. It all started a few years ago when a survey was conducted among American Catholics that suggested that most Catholics don’t believe that Christ is truly present in the eucharist, that it is “just a symbol” of his presence with us. And not only don’t most Catholics say they believe it, the survey…
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Jesus’s ascension is a very hard scene for us to picture. It’s a moment of spectacular special effects, maybe, or a religious vision that most of us have never experienced anything like. But however it happened and however you picture it, this ascension is something Jesus told the disciples would happen, that after his resurrection his physical presence would only be with them for a while, and then their world would be turned upside down yet again. It must have been hard for them. On that first Easter they all found it hard to believe the story of the women, they all found it hard to accept that he was…
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There is a story from the early church that the author of this gospel of John lived to be an old, old man, so old that he had to be carried around from place to place, and he said very little, and when he did speak, what he did was just repeat to the Christians around him today’s gospel passage, my little children, love one another. And he repeated it so much that it frustrated people, they wanted more than that, they asked him why he just kept repeating it, and he said that if we do this one thing, it is sufficient. It sounds simple, one commandment, but then…
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We often hear it said that human beings were created in God’s image. And most days, we have no idea how that could possibly be true. Because after all God must be perfect, while here on earth, the rest of us behave in ways that don’t seem very perfect, and there are places where evil and death have their way, sometimes on a horrifying scale. How could we possibly be made in God’s image, when all of us seem so far from being anything like God? But on Good Friday, our task here today is to see God’s image differently and to see our own image differently too. Because it…
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This is much more than the usual healing story from the gospels. We know that Jesus healed people who came to him, or sometimes even people who didn’t seem to be seeking him out. But this is a long story that seems to have a much bigger message for us, about what following Jesus really involves. It’s actually a story about what it means to be a holy and grace-filled human being and how you get there. Let’s start by noticing all the talk about sin and uncleanness in this gospel. As a blind person of course this man who was healed was an outcast, but it seems like he…
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I have checked the records, and over my years here at St. David the King, I’ve given more than 400 different homilies. I put in the word “different” just because I realize that to many of you, some of those 400 homilies probably ended up sounding kind of similar. But really, they were at least intended to be different. And in all those years, I’ve never, I think, had anyone walk out or get angry because of a homily. I have seen a few people rush out during a homily carrying a child, so I assume it was the child who needed to leave, but it may have been an…