Ordinary 22

The Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8; Psalm 15; James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

All good gifts around usAre sent from Heaven aboveSo thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord for all his love… [Stephen Schwartz]

The musical ‘Godspell’, 1971.

2021. We are a year and a half into an unforeseen pandemic with no end in sight. I expect many of us thought this would be long over with by now. It is a period of distance, separation and perpetual wariness; grief for what could have been. The situation is not getting better but worse. Medical personnel are emotionally depleted. Businesses and jobs are being lost. People are dying. Some people continue to believe it is a hoax. Positions in regard to vaccinations, masking and truth continue to harden. Frustration and anger run high.

In the midst of all this, do you feel a sense of gratitude?

So thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord for all his love…

“All good giving and every perfect gift is from above”. The Letter of James, as Scripture so often does, cuts against the grain catching us today unawares, maybe angering us …surely challenging us. I have always felt that the pandemic has been a time being used by God to offer us opportunities. But like all opportunities they can be missed and may not come around again for a long time, if ever. I am reminded of the Latin dictum, ‘Carpe diem’ – ‘Seize the day!’ For you will never see this day again.

We Americans are an impatient people. We do not like being told what to do. We are used to getting our way and not always by the best of means. Like every nation and people we tell stories that support what we want to believe is true about ourselves. We do that personally as well.

Thus the dissonance between God’s Word and our reality. Thanks versus frustration. Openness versus anger. Solitude versus momentum. So I can understand that gratitude may not be first on our agenda.

But it is what God wants us to reflect on today. Why? Because as has been shown us so often in Scripture, God can bring forth many blessings from hardship and times of want, loneliness and devastation. Stories of famines, betrayals, exiles and death abound throughout Scripture. Experiences that God uses for the good of his people; in fact, all people.

Being the home of two colleges we are not always as welcoming or appreciative of the students in our midst. That in itself may be a missed opportunity. Generations can learn from and teach each other if we give each other a chance and take off our blinders and look beyond the stereotypes.

All good gifts around usAre sent from Heaven above…

Yes, the college students are a good gift sent from heaven and they can teach us that God can bring forth many blessings from hardship.

A New York Times article entitled, “In a Dark Year on Campus, Some Surprising Glimmers of Light” [published 16 May 2021] gave voice to our student teachers.

Madison Alvarado of Duke University is grateful for an invaluable lesson in dealing with how unpredictable life can be. “I was a person with a plan, a preset track. The pandemic put that in stop mode. It’s made me realize that not knowing the next step doesn’t mean my world is going to crumble”.  What a wonderful spiritual lesson. We need to ask ourselves, where are we going? Is it a path God desires for me? Being forced to slow down can be as healthy spiritually as well as physically.

For Steven Grullon of the City College of New York, what he lost in connectedness he gained in focus. A time of self-discovery. A liberation from getting the approval of others. An awareness that getting ahead no longer seems urgent. The spiritual life is not academia but are we as focused on our relationship with Jesus as college students are on their studies as some people are on their work? Do we desire, not Jesus’ approval, but are we aware of his compassion and care for us?

Dominic Lanza of Temple began holding a “family dinner night” every week with the five men he roomed with – an intimate circle of friends. The dinners impressed on him how precious personal connections were. Isn’t that what the gathering for Eucharist every week is about – an intimate circle of friends, no live–streaming here!

Many students were freed from their obsession with getting good grades. Yet how many Christians still strive to gain God’s love?

The students call it a gap year. Some took a year off rather than face the uncertainty of college in a pandemic. For some the gap year saved their lives paralyzed by perfectionism and anxieties. And for some of them, the timing was just right. The Greeks called it, ‘kairos’ – ‘God’s time’. I personally understand having had to postpone my own sabbatical two years in advance into next year. My gap year is a bit wider. What have you had to postpone? How are you reacting to that decision? What might God be doing for you in your gap year?

Raina Lee of the University of North Carolina called the pandemic “a portal” to other concerns, like racial justice and inequality. What other pathways has the past year opened for you? What other talents and interests have you explored? Have you explored other forms of prayer? Has your spiritual life and relationship with Jesus been deepened?

Have you considered that one of the great gifts of the pandemic is to remind us that life is more than what we do? Many people have realized how lonely they were before the pandemic and how few people they can really turn to in need. Family members are scattered across the country. We don’t have the social network we thought we did. Is not life about whom we spend non-screen time with? We cannot hug a career or a screen, laugh with a promotion or an emoji, or share a meal with a pay raise or new job title. We are made for friendship, love and community. These insights are borne out by the student stories.

The Letter of James declares that good giving and every perfect gift is from the Father of lights. I find it intriguing then that the title of the NYTimes article is, “…Some Surprising Glimmers of Light”. Without diminishing the burdens and pain of many people during this past year, what are the glimmers of light that you can be grateful for from our Father of lights?

The pandemic is paradoxical. Life is paradoxical. It’s been a good shake–up. Maybe it’s just what the world and our church need: a simpler lifestyle forced by circumstances beyond our control. In such situations we have to learn or relearn our dependence upon God and each other. For God always brings us to where we should be. Because it’s not about where we need to be, or would want to be, but about where we should be. A good gift? Only if we recognize it as such from which flourishes gratitude even in the midst of a pandemic!

All good gifts around usAre sent from Heaven aboveSo thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord for all his love…