Third Sunday in Ordinary
Time
At least three or four times
in our readings praise came to the cross.
Today is holy to the Lord your God, today is holy to Our Lord, today
this scripture passage in fulfilled in your hearing. Not tomorrow.
Not yesterday, but today, tonight, right now God is speaking to you and
to me. And I think perhaps to realize
this as Paul went through that beautiful readings from Corinthians, how we are
the Body of Christ. And I don’t know
about you but there was, as Kim was reading that passage, and my mind can kind
of wander as perhaps yours does too.
Thinking about the body and that one little song, “hip bone connected to
the thigh bone, the thigh bone connected to the” and it just you know that
realization that just as the body is connected you and I are connected. If we are the body of Christ then all the
things that Jesus said in that gospel about proclaiming good news, about doing
justice, about being people of compassion as He did it so you and I are called
to do the same today, not tomorrow, don’t worry about yesterday. But even yet tonight with the time that you
and I have how will we be people of compassion?
How will we do justice? How will
we proclaim good news?
And sometimes too I think
when you go through all these readings and think, Oh Gosh, that was great for
somebody like Mother Theresa, or St. Alphonsus or these other saints. What we do is we put ourselves down
spiritually. I don’t look like a
prophet. I don’t have those kinds of
gifts and talents. The reading talked
about all the different parts of the body, all the different ministries.
There was one time a
symphony conductor who was asked, “What’s the hardest position to try to get
someone to play in the orchestra?” He
said, “Second fiddle. I can get all
kinds of people to play first, but to play second fiddle and to do it with
enthusiasm that’s the hardest position to fill.”
If everybody was a first
tenor like myself it would be boring. We
need first tenors, second tenors. We
need sopranos, we need altos. We need
all the different instruments, we need all the different voices to make
harmony, to make music be what it is. We
need everybody that’s in this church tonight, the young, the old, the bald, the
full-headed, the college students, whatever it might be, everyone of us has a
role to play.
And isn’t it true that it
took all of that analogy of the body.
When you’ve got a toothache you feel miserable all over don’t you? A mother brought her little child to the
doctor because he was complaining how he hurt all over. The doctor said, “Okay, tell me where do you
hurt?” He took his finger and put it
next to his cheek, “It hurts here.” The
doctor nodded. He took his finger and
put it by his knees, “It hurts here.” He
took his finger and put it on his stomach, “It hurts here.” The doctor looked at him and said, “You know,
my diagnosis, you have a broken finger.”
So we are all
connected. How this thing flows
together. Don’t let anybody put themselves
down and say, “I can’t” “I can’t be a
Mother Theresa.” She was a wrinkled up
old woman, look what she did. She didn’t
look like ZaZa Gabor, she didn’t have to.
Pope John XXIII was a fat old man.
Beethoven was blind and deaf, look what he did. So many of these people whom we call to be
saints, people who made a great difference in the world probably didn’t worry
about their self image and what they looked like. They took their gifts and their talents and they
shared and they gave them.
So you and I are called to
do the same, no matter how young and how old, wherever we hurt, we still have
something to give.
When I was home the last
couple of week I went to a good friend of mine who is an occupational
therapist. And I said, “Joe, my knee is
giving me problems. I need some
help.” He said, “Okay.” I walked back and forth for a while and he
said, “Okay. Sit down here.” He started working in my right hip. I said, “Joe, I said my left knee.” He said, “Well we gotta get those hips in
sync because that affects how you walk.”
Again the whole thing.
If something is out of whack
somewhere. If the East side of the
Church isn’t going to sing or participate that’s going to affect the West
side. And if the West side doesn’t smile
and laugh that’s going to affect the people on the South side. And if the choir doesn’t rise to the occasion
that’s going to take something away from us as well. So every person here has a stake in what’s
happening tonight in this Eucharist. And
what you and I give and receive from each other, you and I in turn will take
and go forth tonight. If you’re going to
go to a party, if you’re going to go to a restaurant, if you’re going to go
back home and be with your friends, if you’re going to go and baby-sit, okay
you will bring something of what you receive here tonight and share it and give
it to somebody else.
After Communion we are going
to have our second collection for the Haitian Relief Fund that was announced
last week. If you forgot to bring your
checkbook, okay you can still write a check during the week. If you’ve got some cash fine. But you and I do here tonight will bring help
and relief to people hundreds of miles away.
We are connected. We hurt with
each other but we also enjoy each other.
We are the glory for each other, we are the wounds for each other. We bring healing. We bring hope. We bring compassion because we are the Body of
Christ.