Readings for June 9th The Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Hosea 6: 3-6 Romans 4: 18-25 Matthew 9: 9-13
A wise old priest once told me that people usually end up on their knees in life. Either they go to their knees in prayer or they go in despair. Today’s first reading is a perfect of example of people going to their knees in despair. Hosea tells us “In their affliction, people will say “Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord” so “He will come to us like the rain”. Why is it that people have to go through despair and affliction before they realize the importance of God in life? How many times has our prayer been just like that of the Israelites? We all have said the words. Oh God, if you just (fill in the blank), I swear things will be different in our relationship. I will start to (fill in the blank) and things will be better than ever. Prayer becomes a type of spiritual “Let’s Make a Deal”. It’s funny that all of our relationships with God are based on getting what we want, on our timetable. We wring our hands. We pray with such fervor. We make vows. But in the long run what happens? God gets stuck in the end. Either what we want doesn’t happen and it’s God’s fault or it does happen and we quickly lose our fervor. As the Scripture says, “Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that passes away”. What kind of friends, let alone children of God, can we be when all we are in the relationship for is the inheritance?
Have I made you feel like a negligent sinner yet? I hope I have. Because only then can I begin to talk about the really good news of Jesus. In today’s gospel he tells us that ‘I did not come to call the righteous but sinners”. Like Abraham, I will hope against hope and take Jesus at his word. What a magnificent act of love! Jesus loves me because I am a sinner. As God blessed Sarah whose inability to conceive was a given. God has continued to love me even though I have not responded in kind. The scripture call us to respond to this outpouring of unconditional love. Here are a couple of suggestions. As you read this we are in the midst of national potato salad month, the time of year for graduations, first communions, picnics and cookouts. It is a good time of year to experience community but I seem to remember the “lazy, hazy days of summer” were a bit lazier in years gone by. Then again, maybe it’s me. My first suggestion involves finding times of solitude. Being alone is much different than being lonely. It is through being alone with God that our relationship can be renewed or deepened. Nenri Nouwen called solitude the “furnace of transformation” If we are serious we will find time and not wait to be transformed by a crisis. As young people will tell you, the time to make friends is before you need them. The next suggestion is to show up every day. The gospel describes Matthew’s response when Jesus said, “Follow me”. It is a story of call and response. But I can’t help think that Matthew had to renew that response each day. If the truth were known, he had to renew it several times a day. The third suggestion is to persevere. I wonder what went through Abraham’s mind as he continued to hope against hope even when he could not see the results? I shudder to think of the words that were spoken about Sarah when she could not conceive. Or Matthew as he watched the man he had given up everything to follow being crucified? Yet they continued to believe. May the God of Abraham, Sarah and Matthew continue to grant us, sinners that we are, peace.