Richard Bollman, S.J.

ON THE SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 66:10-14; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-20

Today’s Gospel is one of two sendings, missionings,

with instructions to proceed in great courage and faith,

and to trust the people you meet to help you with food and lodging.

The mission is to announce the coming of Jesus,

and to draw people to faith in God’s healing power in Jesus.

Like I say, this requires courage and faith because

some parts of Jesus’ world were hostile to the message;

so you have to proceed in trust.

This story is part of the second half of Luke’s Gospel

all of which takes place on a journey to Jerusalem.

Luke sees Jerusalem as the destination of Jesus

and the beginning of the mission from there to Rome and then all the world.

So you see, one element of the Gospel is that the revelation of Christ

is supposed to be on the move, and to include people everywhere.

The first reading tonight from Isaiah

is a celebration of Jerusalem as the living center of life,

as the mother of the people.

Meanwhile, we end the letter of Paul to the Galatians.

Our passage is the literal close, and so it sums up the main theme:

that Christ sets us free from the old law.

Therefore, don’t be persuaded by the circumcision party,

that you have to become Jewish first;

and on the other hand, don’t use your freedom

as an excuse to become a pagan.

HOMILY. 14^th Sunday, C, 2004

What we have here is a way of looking at the world around us,

seeing it as a ripe, full of life, a harvest to be brought in.

It’s like Jesus taking us to the door and looking out:

the harvest is plentiful: right out there in Evanston, North Avondale.

Even reaching downtown: Over-the-Rhine, lower Price Hill.

You talk to people who have lived there awhile

and you find life in them: history, ripeness,

whether in children or grandparents: it’s not all discouragement or danger.

Maybe that’s what it is to put on the mind of Christ,

to feel the world in this way.

To see life around you even when it might be hard to find at first.

Those of you who work in schools, or counseling offices,

or non-profit agencies, you have to see potential,

you have to see some success at the human level, face to face,

one person at a time. Or how can you keep on.

And yet that’s a vision you have, a faith vision, that ripeness is there.

One person getting healthy, choosing something better.

Missionary Baptist pastors and their teams take this on

as the meaning of Church, going out and calling people to Christ.

Down in OTR, at New Prospect, the motto on the building outside

is to draw people to Christ one at a time,

and the quotation there is the familiar one about

God sending Jesus so that everyone who believes in him

may have eternal life.

I would think this requires courage and faith and simplicity of approach.

However it works, one house at a time, one person at a time I’m sure.

And it comes from the vision that there is a harvest to bring in.

So think of your own street or corner of town.

Let the Lord look at it with you: see the harvest there. Something ready.

And maybe there are some harvesters, on your street,

people who recognize wheat when it’s ready

and who cherish the life, the kernels, the fruit of the tree,

the rows of beans and zucchini.

Harvesters have a zest for life: they hail you in from the porch,

they walk into a playground or a café

and at first it might be a lot of strangers, but within it all,

the harvester is able to say: this is great,

people are alive here, there’s something good about it.

I’m not quite like that myself,

and I’ve never just gone right out to look for people

to bring them to Jesus or to wake them up to anything,

but on the other hand, if I’m sent to do something, that helps.

These folks were sent by Jesus, and they believed that,

and that gives you grace, something to work with.

When you’re sent you feel: okay I’m supposed to be here,

I can make a difference. Have you felt that?

Every new situation for me, where I was sent,

as a teacher or preacher or hospital worker,

at first you look around and see nothing, you don’t know much,

and then you see problems,

because people have told you there are problems,

and people like to come on with their complaints,

and then you find it in yourself to make contact,

and when you do you see living spirit, and potential, and hope in people.

I remember my first job in administration,

at Jesuit Renewal Center in Milford,

where a couple of the staff were going through burn-out

and the financial needs were constant, and the program needed a boost.

To this day I can remember a moment leaving our house

to go over to the retreat center, and I was there hardly a week,

and I just said it out loud, you know, I can do this,

there’s a lot going on, we can work with this.

A religious moment. You’ve probably had similar ones.

I think what I’ve learned to trust, bottom line,

is that God is already doing something in people.

That’s what ripeness is:

life that we didn’t create, but it’s happening,

and what it needs is for somebody to identify, you’re ready, we’re ready.

It’s coaching, it’s teaching, it’s working for just wages,

there may be moments of danger even,

but you live it by courage and faith. You’re meeting Christ.

God is bursting out of the situation.

With courage and faith: right there, you’re meeting Christ

And just to add this, I think we’re talking here about the mission of Laity especially, in other words the church that is everywhere,

not just the professionals in pulpits or offices.

The seventy, the seven hundred, sent out to be harvesters.

To see the possibilities for God all around.

The church as it lives in the home, the workplace,

the voting booth, the streets and corporate board rooms,

trusting the love of Christ there, and the stirrings in people.

Naming it, calling it out.

Thanks for being there. Thanks for being here.