21 st Sunday in Ordinary Time
It has been a while, but I’m back writing again. Sorry for the longer than expected vacation from the blog. Hope you all are doing well. Now onto my thoughts for this weekend:
A parishioner sent me an email this past week that contained an interesting story: a gentleman just bought a new red jaguar car. Coming home from the dealership he entered his neighbor and the street where he lived. He was careful to make sure that he looked around to make sure no car doors were opening or children playing by the street. A second later he heard something hit the passenger door of his new car. He immediately stopped, got out of his car and saw that someone had just thrown a brick at his car and not only damaged, but dented his new car and seriously scratched the paint. He saw a young child just a few yards away and walked right up to him and began o yell and scream. The boy cried and cried and finally the boy brought the man around the other side of the car where his younger brother had fallen out of his wheelchair and was lying hurt in the sidewalk. The boy said, “I’m so sorry sir, but I did not know what else to do. My brother needed help and I could not get anyone to stop and help. Please help me get him back into the wheelchair so I can get him home. He is too heavy and I can’t pick him up on my own.”. Immediately the man felt a lump in his throat as he got a handkerchief out of his pocket to dry the boys tears. Lost for words, the man helped pick the injured brother up of the ground and back into his wheelchair. After a thank you from the boy the man watched the young boy push his brother slowly down the sidewalk and turn the corner towards home. He slowly walked back towards his car, now scratched and dented, but in the days that followed that car door never got repaired. It was always a reminder to the man: don’t go through life so busy that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.
We can only hope that we stop and take notice of the brick that was tossed our way by the gospel. The last line of the gospel should make us sit up and take notice: some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.
While we race through this world with our own standards, views, perceptions and values they are turned upside down when we come face to face with truth itself – Jesus Christ. We can try to build up, create and run our own little worlds, but in the end the Lord has to remind us that it is his standards, views, perceptions and values that really matter.
So often we want the easy way out. We want the four lane highway that makes life easy, comfortable and the cruise control is set at 65.
However, Jesus calls us to take the narrow road or as Robert Frost would call it, “the road less travelled”. So often we sell ourselves short thinking that we could not possibly live out the call of the gospel or accept all the teachings of the church: too difficult, too hard, too stressful. Yet, Jesus reminds us that there is no easy way out or side stepping our responsibilities if we want to be citizens of the kingdom. We have to be willing to put in the hard work, to be dedicated, to make the sacrifice, to live for something and someone that is larger than ourselves.
Are all of our energies spent trying to change the teaching of the church, or do we allow the church to challenge us to grow in holiness and faith?
Are all of our energies spent on trying to change God into our image and likeness or do we allow God to gently and lovingly transform us into his?
Are all of our energies spent trying to run away from the cross or is it about time we embraced it and recognized the true source of our salvation and hope?
Like Isaiah, all nations and all peoples are called to be part of the kingdom, but just like in today’s gospel we have the freedom to remain on the outside if that is what we truly desire.
We can settle for less, but God trusts that we will desire more.
God believes in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves.
The Church calls us to greatness, even when we have settled for second best.
It is time for the road less travelled. It is time for the narrow road that leads to the kingdom. It is time to become once again the people who God knows we can be. It is time to turn our world upside down and choose Christ!
“and I, I took the road less travelled by and that has made all the difference.”
Perhaps we will never look at a scratch or dent in a car door the same way again. Perhaps we will finally stop and take notice.
Thanks you for speaking the words of the Holy Spirit today, Father. You confirmed something that I have been pondering in my heart these past few weeks. Ironically, yesterday I revisited the book “The Road Less Traveled” by Peck. When one stands for the high standard of our Lord in this day and age….you can almost guarantee that you will be many times, alone, mocked and shunned for “truth.” I find joy in the fact that although hard, I pray with the grace of God to stand firm on “truth” of what Jesus, Himself wants for all of His children….freedom.
The world sells you every freedom, like premarital sex, immodesty in dress, birth control, pornography, materialism, addictions, etc….but the TRUTH is that never can one be freer than when immersed in the glory of our Lord Jesus in the Cross. It is our choice to move away from all that and for us to start a journey to travel on the narrow road of freedom. Your sermon, I prayed would reach the hearts of those who may not understand the “higher road” yet, but would perhaps through prayer, try a baby step toward it. ( I myself, do not always understand everything…but practice daily through sacrifices and my own mistakes. May God graciously bless you for your love of God, and especially for your call to the priesthood.
Welcome back….you were missed. Great homily! I might add that as we get older a dent is just a dent so long as the car still runs.