Friends
Peace be with you.
I remember hearing a homily Archbishop Jackels gave a few years ago to a group of deacons he was ordaining about how their mission in the church was changing from being primarily doers to being orderers. It was a good reminder for me, who tends to be most comfortable doing things, that I have a larger mission of ordering. Part of the rationale for this has to do with the fact that there are big projects that need to get done and they can’t fall on one person’s shoulders. But there’s a larger, more important reality that also distinguishes the way the church should view ordering the holy versus the way the world tends to view collaboration when it uses phrases like, “many hands make light work”.
Let’s begin with the second reading and work out from there. In it, St. Paul is deconstructing some of the more problematic phrases ordering life in Corinthian society. A person from Corinth was taught that all things are moral for the individual, that food is meant for the stomach and the stomach is meant for food, and that every sin a person commits is outside the body. Even though St. Paul identifies these phrases with the people of his time in this particular town, I think they are equally applicable to people in our own time in the United States of America. Corinth was a very advanced town with a diverse, wealthy population which may be why these phrases can resonate with us. For the people of Corinth, the most important thing is that they are free because freedom encourages spontaneity and rejects controlling laws and rules. The only rule was that the individual should be free to be happy and do whatever it takes to be happy. Isn’t this the point of the sexual revolution as well? It’s important to point out that the word that gets translated as “immorality” in today’s second reading is the Greek word “porneia” which is where we get the word “pornography”. It’s sexual immorality that St. Paul is addressing in particular here because it was as much of a problem in his time as it is today. He tells his listeners that we are going to live by a better rule than all things are moral for the individual. He says the body was made for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. God raised the Lord and will raise us by his passion. In other words, we shouldn’t think of the other person as simply a servant of our passions, as something meant to bring us pleasure but as the Lord himself, which should elevate that person and, in the process, elevate us.
That’s why, in the gospel, when the followers of John the Baptist start to follow Jesus, his first question isn’t what they can do for him but what they are seeking. He isn’t interested in making sure that he can get work done but in showing them the way to the Father. Notice, too, that immediately John’s disciples go and find others and lead them to Jesus, in the case of Andrew it was his brother Simon. Again, they aren’t doing so because they need another fisherman but because Andrew knew the fisherman would only get to heaven by following Jesus and he wanted that for him. He knew that the best way to order the holy for Simon Peter was to get him to follow Jesus.
In the back of church, we have sign-up sheets for adoration and the fish fry and I hope you’ll sign up. However, I’d also hope that you see, in both of these opportunities, not merely the church or myself looking at you as though you are a commodity to be used. If so, please don’t sign up. However, if you can see in them an opportunity to grow closer to the Lord with others in this parish and maybe even the possibility of inviting a person distant from the church to return, either by spending time with you and the Lord in adoration or by working with you at the fish fry to serve hungry people, please do sign up.
Our daily actions must be marked by bringing our neighbor to the Lord who is, likewise, searching for us. How are we recognizing Jesus in others and helping them to see Jesus in us?
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