Homily from the Parish Priest for Creation Sunday and the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Creation Sunday United Service Reflection
Natural disasters; conflict and war; the pandemic and all it brought us - we know all about the ravages of creation and the reality of evil and yet God our creator is all good and our creation then must be all good, beautiful, a work of art
But we have a call: we are the image of God on this earth, his stewards: and so we are called to do all we can to guard our created universe and preserve it for future generations
The call to do this is not an optional extra. It is part of our faith if we believe God is good and we are made in his image. That’s why both our Churches and all Christians must promote and provide ways to help us be good stewards. That’s why Pope Francis among others is coming to COP 26 along with other leaders from both our Churches. That’s why we have Creation Sunday. That’s why we’re here today. United as Christians at a time we need to be united more than ever in a mixed up world of conflict, false information and division.
May our desires be fruitful and give glory to the all provident good God we worship together.
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mass Readings: Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37
It must have been quite extraordinary being in the crowd on that day we’ve just heard about in the Gospel. If you’ve been in a large crowd, perhaps at a demonstration or pop concert or sporting event for example you’ll know the kind of thing. The crowds begin to swell as Jesus goes through the region of Decapolis around Tyre and Sidon, modern day southern Lebanon, trying to get sight of him, and probably so many looking to be cured of all sorts of diseases, troubles, worries. In the crowd there would have been all sorts of people: sick, able-bodied, already converted disciples, enquirers, doubters. If you’ve ever been in the midst of a large crowd at a big public event – a pop concert in Hyde Park, a Papal Mass, a big sporting event – well, you might just be able to put yourself in this scene. And what a racket it must have been.
And in the midst of all this something extraordinary happens. A man who was deaf and who could hardly speak was brought to the Lord. And the Lord took a detour away from the crowd and went to a quiet place away from the baying, the curious, the conflicted masses, and there performed this extraordinary miracle, returning this man’s hearing and his full power of speech.
There’s a lot we could say about this Gospel – about the crowd’s attitude itself – once again, as in so many places in the miracle stories, they can’t keep quiet about it as the Lord appeals them to. That’s because they don’t realise yet who he is, that he has to suffer at the end of this long journey in Jerusalem (watch out next week because Jesus will confront them on this and we have Peter on the part of all the apostles profess his faith again that Jesus is the Messiah).
But we can leave the crowd for the moment – they will look after themselves; let’s turn rather to what goes on in this quiet place away from the melee and put ourselves there with Jesus in the silence of this moment of healing. What must have it felt like to meet Jesus and to be healed, to be taken away in the middle of this crowd on this long journey of hope? And to hear again those around him who had jostled him. It’s unlikely we’ll have that physical experience itself but this Gospel healing account invites us into something much deeper than physical healing. Because when this man’s ears are opened and his tongue loosened it is not so much the fact that that his physical senses are returned which really matters. Rather it is who and what is revealed to him. For he hears now in a new light: he hears that word in Aramaic “Ephphatha” – “be opened” – a word which is spoken to us usually as infants at our baptism – which, through the sacramental action of Christ in the Church he founds, commands us to live a new life, to put aside the sin of pride, to acknowledge him as the Lord and Master of all that is, and to begin a journey within the communion of the Church, a journey which will lead us where Christ is going, on to Jerusalem the heavenly city, where he will become the servant of all and show us in his cross how we are called to follow him in giving ourselves too for others.
So what does the man who has been healed hear? Maybe he hears now fellow disciples journeying through life with him and whom he knows he needs to support him. Maybe he hears not drudgery up ahead but a road which will inevitably embrace suffering but which surely leads to new life transformed: a heavenly Jerusalem. Above all he hears his Master, his Lord Jesus, come to take him on this strange journey of life with all its struggles, its inability to communicate, yet with all its joys and moments of clarity.
Certainly a miracle had occurred that day on that road in the midst of that community, a community rather like the Church, full of faith and generous service but also of doubters and waverers and indeed of those who need our care, our welcome, who need us to co-operate in the Lord’s plan to bring the weakest, those with no ability to speak, who don’t have the rights, the stability in our troubled world of conflict and violence, to be part of society. The Lord can work his healing in each one of us too through how we bring the message of Christ’s welcome, of freedom, of salvation through us who in many ways are more fortunate. Through his Presence in fellow disciples who recognise faith when they see it and can help us to carry our cross with theirs.
And that surely invites us to recognise those in our midst who need us to journey with them, to help them, to welcome them, to accompany them. How can we not be affected by the events in Afghanistan these recent weeks which has brought to a head the humanitarian disaster – a disaster which is about human beings, about basic humanity, about the desperate need for welcome, for a haven of civilisation where voices are heard and people can speak and their rights be respected. The world looks on this tragic situation, looking for a miracle, as governments and international aid agencies attempt mission impossible. Looking indeed for a miracle. But a miracle which can be made real if we allow God’s mercy and hospitality to work through human means, to journey alongside, to do all we can to bring welcome, salvation, to those who have almost lost hope.
Where are we today as we watch on the side of the road? How can we bring the message of healing which Jesus embodies in himself to the weakest around us? How can we be more generous, more Christlike? How will we help our fellow travellers to see the human face of God amid the melee of a hostile crowd?
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ