Homily Sunday, February 3, 2007 (7:00 p.m.)

Readings: Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13; 1 Corinthians 26-31; Matthew 5:1-12a

Events can happen in life that turn our world upside down. I have had many such events, events that led me to question, to challenge, to deepen my faith, and to make my life and my world about love and compassion rather than power, control and evil. It is 1968 and I am 5 years old. Back then my best friend Mark and I loved to go down to this news stand which was down the block from our house. We would go there, buy candy, peruse the toys they had there, and read the comic books and the game magazines.

Unbeknownst to us at the time there was a section in the back of the news-stand, that featured magazines of a more adult variety. Mark and I were approached by this elderly gentlemen and he asked Mark and I if we had a quarter. We replied that we had and then he asked us to take that quarter to the apartment building kitty- corner (or in Cincinnati is it pronounced katty-corner) and knock on apartment 3b for there was a man in there that desperately needed money.

Naive and innocent as we were, we left and walked into the apartment building (security was not as prevalent in 1968 apartment buildings). As we entered the door I looked out the side window of the front door to the complex and saw the man rush from the news-stand to the apartment building. I yelled to Mark let's get out of here this does not feel right. We raced out the back exit and home and told my mother the story who called the cops and they questioned these two men and arrested them.

I am forever grateful for my mother for warning me about strangers, for her teaching me about a world that at times was not so nice, and for the voice of God calling Mark and I to flee. Mark and my life were spared that day. Yet, it was truly my first encounter with the reality of the world being not so nice, of a certain loss of innocence. The world as it presented itself was not the world as it should be and perhaps this incident (along with other encounters with evil, injustice, and control) moved my to minister to a different possibility a different world.

The world we live in, the world of our heart, the world of our culture, the world of our faith frequently is founded on power and control rather than what is of God, of justice, of peace, of beatitudes. Reading between the lines of Zephaniah we see a call to turn the world and a faith that 'is' upside down and transform it to a world and faith that could be. Zephaniah's prophetic call for the observance of 'God's' law is to challenge the law that was in name only God's law but truly ended up for the ancient Israelites the law of control, of legalistic observance and following externa prescribed command.

Zephaniah says no to the reality of this world and says God's law is the one that should be written on our hearts, a law that is really about love rather than control, mercy and forgiveness, rather than condemnation and judgment. The law of God is a law of true humility of seeing ourselves and our sisters and brothers not through the eyes of an arrogance of power but in a letting go of control and a giving and a receiving of love.

So a sacramental community, one that is based not on any legalistic control but founded on the merciful and compassionate love of God, will indeed upset the apple cart so to speak and turn the world as it is upside down. A world such as this will never experience lies, falsehood deceit or evil but only justice based on mercy and compassion based on humble care and respect for all.

The beatitudes as well challenge us to convert our hearts, our communities, and our faith from the real present order which denies a need for the spirit of transformation, which refuses to mourn and so show a desire to shut out compassion, of leaders who aren't meek but brokers of power, of people who have no need for justice, mercy, or a clean true heart, of those who bring not peace but war, who persecute rather than heal, who would rather lie and be part of this world of unhappiness than speak the truth of the of Jesus Christ as the light of God's love revealed in the world.

This world we live in indeed at times needs to shaken, torn down, and turned upside down. If the world of our heart is filled with self hatred and addiction let's tear it down. If the world of our community is filled with injustice, oppression, abuse racism, and poverty, let's tear it down, if our world promotes war over peace, violence over sanctity, lets tear it down.

In the beatitudes Jesus says true authority does not come from vain glory and striving for power at all costs. Rather, true power comes from love, mercy, and justice in service to one another in compassion and healing. Offering merciful healing to one another and allowing God's loving-kindness and mercy to heal us is what true love and service is about and what our world should be about. Jesus came offering God's love and the promise of salvation and was persecuted for these were not the way of the world. He witnessed to it and so must we and in witnessing to love we too will find persecution.

Yet, our afflictions, our persecutions, and our sufferings, if we are to learn anything from them, are there to help us to love one another. They are there to help us heal each other. They are there to help us to suffer with one another and be compassionate. And that is why, the world as it is, this world of control, of injustice, of evil, that shames those that offer love, mercy and compassion, and justice by calling us weak, foolish, lowly, despised, and good for nothing – will be, as Saint Paul claims, shamed and reduced to nothing by our love, born of Christ, and written on our hearts by God.

One of the humbling graces of being with you these past eight months now is witnessing to the power of loving-kindness and mercy that is truly displayed within our community. Not only are we there for one another in times of celebration, (in Baptisms, Weddings, Eucharist), but we are healing balm and compassionate witness to one another in the loss, sufferings, and pain found as well in our community.

We reach out to those less fortunate than ourselves and truly try to make the world a place of blessing, of beatitudes. Here, at Bellarmine, this compassion for one another in service and love is our hope and our salvation – it is our living out covenantally the beatitudes. It is this love and compassion for one another present here in our hearts and in these pews that speak the clear promise of heaven in a world that is made home by our love for one another as children of God.