Is life just a potluck dinner?

Homily

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time B1

St. Ann Church - Prairie Village

31 August 2025

AMDG

Is life really just a potluck dinner?

The more I pray over the dinner stories in the Gospels, the more I think the answer is yes.  

What did Jesus do all the time?  Well, lots of things, but He was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard, hanging out with tax collectors and sinners.  In today's Gospel, He's at a fancy dinner again, and observing things carefully.

What do priests do all day?  Well, we're just like the rest of you.  We live hand to mouth.  We gotta eat.  We survive meal to meal.  It's the one thing we all have to do.  How we do it, and with who, makes all the difference.  All of life and all of reality pass through dinner.  It's how heaven is described.  If you're paying attention, it's how Jesus set it up.  All of life and all of reality pass through this wedding banquet right here.

How do we do it?  Jesus says make sure you have the right four food groups.  Did you catch them?  Make sure you have the poor, the blind, the crippled and the lame.  Remember it's not only what's for dinner, it's who for dinner.  Make sure you're eating with people who can't pay you back.  Invite people who are broke, and sick, and stuck, and lost.  It shouldn't be that hard.

Life is just a potluck dinner, when you never know what you're going to get.  Jesus teaches us that we worry way too much about our rank and place at the table, seeking security in people who have the same status as us.  To hell with that, says Jesus.  Dinner is much more exciting when there is risk, vulnerability, and unpredictability.  

That's true for Mass too.  There has to be something at stake, some risk in it.  Ironically, the more dangerous it is to go to Mass in history, the more people come to Mass.  The more comfortable we are, the less we value Mass.  

That is not to say that we should be reckless or throw out all precautions for Mass.  Far from it.  We have entered a time when we will probably always be adding security to Mass.  I don't know if we can ever go back to the way things used to be.  

But if we let fear scatter us, then evil wins and has the last say. That can't be so.  There has to be some risk, and vulnerability and unpredictability to Mass, or it's not worth coming to.  

All of life and all of reality pass through this wedding banquet, and this sacred meal. Jesus set it up that way.  And in the end, He really just wants it to be a potluck dinner.

+mj  

Am I the underdog?

Homily

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time B1

24 August 2025

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

AMDG

When it comes to salvation, am I the underdog?  Is anybody here tonight really comfortable with the question, are you saved?  If you died today do you know where you would spend eternity?  

On the one hand, the question should not make us uncomfortable at all.   Jesus has already answered it!  When asked if many or a few will get into heaven, a question everyone always wants to know, Jesus doesn't answer it!  So when I am asked the question, am I saved, I am free to answer as Jesus does.  It's the wrong question!  He simply answers with a verb - strive!  Strive to enter through the narrow gate!  It's the easiest answer, and you can't be wrong, because it's Jesus answer!

On the other hand, though, the question should always make me uncomfortable!  For Jesus says clearly that when it comes to salvation, I am the underdog.  Who could possibly boast that they have already become what heaven is - perfect, consistent, sacrificial, unselfish, merciful, and heroic love that strong as death?  Certainly not me!  Jesus says to never presume on salvation - always act as the underdog!

This does not mean of course that the opposite response of presumption - despair - is the right response to the question.  What can I be certain of?  That God desires my salvation, that I become even now what heaven is, fully alive through perfect love.  For God, 1 person lost is too many and 99 saved is too few!  I am certain that He desires my salvation and all the means are there, for nothing is impossible for God.  The pattern for my salvation is that of the Blessed Virgin, who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled!

I can be certain of God's desire that I be saved, but not that I have fully cooperated in this desire!  Even as I have accepted the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation, and the only sacrifice infinitely pleasing to the Father, still my life has to be fully processed within this mystery, this passion of Jesus.  Strive! Strive!  Strive, Jesus says, taking nothing for granted ever!  Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

To put it another way, the process of my salvation is the same as Jesus.  His passion, and my being incorporated into his body through baptism, initiate me into the process, but like Him I am in anguish until it is accomplished!  God desires all people to be saved, but is in anguish until and unless it is accomplished.  Such is my attitude!

While enjoying great protection and the many great things God has done for me, still the Gospel is clear that my entire being must also be processed and reformed through the passion, the paschal mystery, and the heart of Jesus.  Nothing less than heaven gets into heaven, and God is too loving to save me without myself, without my being capable of experiencing what heaven really is!

So Catholics, even and especially as we endure suffering that is unfair and beyond our understanding, and what we least want, always embrace the discipline of the Lord as a key part of the process of working out salvation with fear and trembling.  Training, teaching, suffering, adversity, consequences and punishment, are all part of the necessary way in which love is purified, and made ready to participate in the kingdom of Heaven.

Nothing less than heaven gets into heaven.  That's why we're underdogs, and the only story of salvation is the story of us beating all the odds and allowing our entire being to be processed in the paschal mystery of Jesus.

Am I saved?  Answer it the way Jesus does, as an underdog.  Strive to enter through the narrow gate.

+mj  

 

When's the best time to risk it all?

Homily

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time C1

10 August 2025

St. Ann Church - Prairie Village, Kansas

AMDG

When's the best time to bet it all?

You know from the urgency demanded in the Gospel what the answer is. Don't pretend you don't.

August 10th is the Memorial of St. Lawrence, who knew when to bet it all.  Martyrs are always ready for the moment.  Lawrence witnessed the martyrdom of the Pope and several of his brother deacons under the 3rd Century persecution of the Roman emperor Valerian.  Lawrence's life was spared so that he could gather all the treasure of the Church and hand it over to the Roman authorities.  You may remember what Lawrence did.  He gave anything the Church had to the poor and then presented the poor little ones to the Emperor as the Church's greatest treasure.  For this Lawrence was grilled at the stake, but with his life already given away through supernatural love, courage, faith and hope, he famously said to his persecutors - I'm done on this side, you can turn me over now!  He is the patron saint of barbecue - so feel free to honor him by having some today. 

Lawrence knew when to bet it all?  Do you?  Do I?

The biggest risk I've ever made was deciding to go to seminary.  I was set to go to medical school, and had someone I wanted to marry and have a family with.  I gave those up to go to seminary, and gave them up for good when I promised obedience and celibacy, to conform my life more closely to the one whom I represent in personal Christi capitis.  Not nearly as dramatically as Abraham giving up Isaac, did I sacrifice the chance for my own kids, as a sign of faith in God's ability to raise even from the dead.  It's a test of faith that the Church invites of her priests even today. 

I was asked in my final year of seminary if I thought celibacy would be hard.  It was a trick question, and I failed it miserably.  I thought it wouldn't be that hard, that the risk of faith was more behind me than in front of me.  Most of my classmates answered correctly, that it's a risk of faith that only gets more dramatic over time.  Harder, and yes better, but no less dramatic.  

When's the best time to bet it all?  I think you know the answer. Do I?

This week I faced the question at least 100 times - Father, are you ready for school to start?  I hate the question.  I bet you do too. So why do we keep asking it?  It's because readiness and urgency are proper to one who is good at life.  Are you ready is a favorite question for one who knows the best time to bet it all is right now, in the dramatic moment that is right before us.  Procrastination costs us everything, even the kingdom of heaven.  Life is not to be lived in regret or fantasy, but by faith.

Faith is that readiness to respond to what is being made possible right now.  New and greater things are always opening up before us.  Faith is the exploration of the more that attains to the fullness of life and the kingdom of heaven.  Faith is a readiness to respond to the faith that God has first placed in you. Through the gift of Jesus God has bet it all on you.  God got to Mass before you tonight, ready to serve you at that banquet of charity, believing in the love you are capable of.

Since becoming pastor here you all have challenged me not to be afraid of what is possible, and definitely not to settle for what I can manage or control.  Now is the time for me to bet it all on you, in a more dramatic and compelling way than I have ever risked before.  Now is the time for me to believe that each one of you is made for this moment in time, and to believe that you will all respond to the chance before you to attempt the impossible, suffer and die for what you believe, to believe in the fullness of life available in Christ Jesus, and to play your critical part in His redemptive mission.

When is the time to bet it all in faith?  If you haven't guessed it yet, you better answer now.  It's not in the past.  It's not in the future.  The time is always now.

+mj