11 Sunday B #92
Ez 17, 22-24
Ps 92
2 Cor 5, 6-10
Mk 4, 26-34
Peter Maurin Farm
June 17, 2012
June 17, 2012
Deacon Tom Cornell
Happy Fathers’ Day! When a man becomes a father it changes his
life. It changes him. He takes his first look at the little creature reddish and wrinkly at his wife’s breast and he knows, but it takes a while before
the enormity of it all sinks in: life
has changed; he’s no longer the man he
was. Women seem to understand these
things instantly. It takes us men a
little longer. We know we have been given
a mighty gift, to be co-creators with God and our wives, co-creators of a new
human life. We have taken our place on
the ladder of life, passing on what had been passed on to us from all
generations since the beginning of time.
Knowing this gives us a feeling of deep satisfaction, worth, happiness. May that feeling be renewed in all fathers
today and stay with you all.
Jesus taught us to call God “Our Father,” and so
we do. But we know that God is neither male
nor female. He is neither a man nor a
woman. God is spirit, to be worshiped in
spirit and in truth. Our God did not
create and then walk away. God is
involved in His creation. Like an
earthly father, God provides and protects.
He led the People out of slavery in Egypt. He gave the People the Law, and then He gave
his only begotten son over to us that we might have life everlasting through faith
in him. But God has a feminine side
too, nurturing and comforting, like a mother hen who would gather her chicks under
her wings, as Jesus put it of himself.
In Paul’s Second
Letter to the Corinthians today we read, “…we must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ, so that each one might receive recompense according to
what he did in the body, whether good or evil.”
In today’s Gospel we hear Jesus
compare the Kingdom of God to a field of wheat.
The farmer scatters the seed and of its own accord, he doesn’t know how,
it grows until he can harvest another crop.
The seed the farmer scatters is our good deeds, the works of mercy,
feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless, visiting the sick and
imprisoned and counseling the doubtful, forgiving injuries, praying for the
living and the dead and so forth, the corporal and spiritual works of
mercy. We need not know how, we need not
even see the results, ever, but these will build the Kingdom of Heaven until
Jesus comes again to bring it to fulfillment.
But we can’t do them without faith.
And so with the mustard seed.
Faith, as weak as it may be, can be nurtured and grow to sustain great
deeds. Without faith we can do nothing
and faith is a free gift, a grace of God, Paul tells us (Rom 3, 21-26). Pope Benedict in his encyclical, Spe salvi, Saved by Hope, he tells us
the same. By hope he means a confident
expectation, faith. So what is it? Are we saved by faith or by good works as
Paul seems to imply in today’s reading?
Theologians have been teasing this
question for centuries. Good works will
flow from authentic faith firmly held, but faith is itself a gift, a grace
freely given. However we understand the relation
of faith with works, in the end we must neither presume nor despair. These are sins against the Holy Spirit. We presume if we say, “I’m saved. It doesn’t matter what I do, what I have
done. My sins are paid for by Christ’s
blood. I won’t be called to account
because I believe.” That’s wrong! That’s a grave sin. But it would be just as grave a sin to despair: “I’m so bad, I’ve done such horrible things
in my life that not even Christ could forgive me! So I might as well keep being the wretched
creature I am and keep doing the same damned thing. ”
Jesus stands there and knocks at the
door. Do not dare to lock it. He wants to enter and sit down with you at
the table. If you have any doubts about
that, bring them to our new pastor, Father Bassett. His door is open, the deacons’ too. And be glad, rejoice and be glad. We have a Savior and we have an Advocate, the
Holy Spirit of God, and we have a Church community holding each other up. We have the Word in Scripture and we have the
Bread of Life at the altar table. Come
and be filled! W
