Sunday word, 04 Aug 19

Eighteenth Sunday of the Year B (04 Aug 2019)

Eccl 1.2, 2. 21-23; Ps 90; Col 3. 1-5, 9-11; Lk 12. 13-21

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., 8-day directed retreat

Two Implications

St. Paul wrote faith communities he had established. They shaped his messages. They enfleshed the good news of risen Christ Jesus: the baptized participated in the new life of the Risen One; living that life reshaped relationships with all humans and with the God of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Miriam and all the prophets before Prophet Jesus. Baptized living still seeks to deepen the absolutely new life of Christ Jesus in us and all we do.

Today’s scriptures suggest two implications about deepening this new life and fostering our friendship¹ for Christ Jesus we share by our baptisms. Implication one is: we live for others. To the Colossians St. Paul suggested no private rigorism to seek divine life. He recommended the community, the common union of our shared humanity. Nationality, gender, status or insider-outsider divisions do not measure Christian life.  St. Paul listed pairs of divisions contemporary to him and the Colossians: Jew/Greek; slave/free; circumcised/uncircumcised. Ours are: addicted/free; male/female; established/migrating; labor/capital; employed/jobless;  traditional/new age; healthy/ill—supply yours.

Private heroics or rigorism tempt us to shape our lives by our measure. The faith community—not private heroics or rigorism—is both shaper and goal of seeking what is of God, who is most real: being honest in word and deed; making every effort to build up others; and being open handed as well as open hearted. Seeking what is truly real, being honest with one another and not living solely for self benefit the faith community, the global, human com-munity and all creation.

Living with no reference to others dooms us to a lonely, meaningless existence. This second implication the Book of Ecclesiastes laid bare. Vanity of vanities was the Jewish Preacher’s way to say that wretched is life lived with no reference to others. That Preacher lived amid advances to humans as well as age-old inclinations to make self the center of things. Those inclinations continue to register as pride, honor and riches, to use Ignatian shorthand. The Preacher courageously witnessed: God is the horizon toward which we lean; the mystery embracing daily routines as well as astonishing wonders and searing traumas.

Jesus taught that, too, in his time of greater ad-vances in travel, communication, urban planning—only three networks the Roman Empire markedly improved. It’s the point of his parable of the rich fool. His folly was not his bounty of barns of barley and other produce; his folly was thinking he completely controlled his life. Not only were his harvest and its market value gifts of the Creator; so was his very self. Had he come to think he controlled the rains, which allowed him to store so much in his barns?

When we live with no reference to God; when we refuse to allow God to be the mystery embracing daily routines as well as astonishing wonders and traumas that sear us, we feel trapped in the futility of it all and lost in ourselves. When we allow God to be our horizon and the mystery embracing us, we live for others with energetic freedom: the freedom of faith. Faith is nothing less than Jesus’ human response to God, God who is also with us, ever inviting and blessing our response. Jesus’ faith is our gift of baptism.

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1. St. Paul conveyed a more humane activity than mentally connecting ideas. The Greek word in Colossians 3.2 we translate as think had richer connotations from what we heard: Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. Other versions offer: Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth [Revised Standard Version]; Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth [King James Version].

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Wiki-images by: Jean-Pol GRANDMONT Renier de Huy JPG02.jpg. CC BY 2.5; Interacting galaxies PD-US