|
Whoever does the will of my father is
my brother, my sister, and my mother.
I must confess, in the set of readings from today,
the temptation is to focus on on the first reading,
the fall of humanity as described in Genesis.
How Adam and Eve failed and
how they listened to the serpent talk about sin;
about the Prince of demons and talk about evil.
But to be honest, I have heard so many sermons and homilies,
if they even could be called that,
over the years in my youth,
that I do not want to hear another sermon about sin.
We are done hearing about sin.
Not that there is not sin,
but I do not think another homily is going to convince you.
I would rather talk about this last part of the gospel
because that is what Jesus focuses on.
See, they are all talking about where he is from
and that he is doing this because of the demon and devils.
But he focuses on one thing.
Whoever does the will of my father,
then he is my brother or my sister or my mother.
In other words, a true child of God,
who listens to God, and not just listens,
but does the will of God.
That is the real work that we are called to do.
We know the ultimate singular commandment
that Jesus gives us over and over again
is to love God with all your heart,
with all your mind, with all your soul,
and to love your neighbor as yourself.
That is the real work that we are called to do,
that is what Jesus is calling us to do.
The question then is, how do we do it?
I want to quote something I am sure you have read over the internet
but it is often misquoted. It is from
a great saint in the fourth century called St. Irenaeus.
He said, “The glory of God is a man fully alive.”
Now, what it does not quote is a second part, which is
“And to be alive consists in beholding God.”
In other words, one who does the will of God.
So the question is then what does that look like?
We are all here around the table this morning, and we say,
“Well, I think I am fully alive.”
That is exactly what we are meant to do.
We are meant to drink in life, in all its fullness and be fully alive.
As we are about to enter into summer,
we should try to have a wonderful summer,
live life to the fullest.
Every one of you drink in all of life
and enjoy it and savor it and give glory to God.
I am not saying to be a hedonist and forget about God.
I want us to focus on the gift of life and to savor it
and hold onto and realize, as St. Paul does, we are nothing but a tent.
A tent is just transitory.
A tent is here tonight, gone tomorrow.
We have no permanent belonging there.
Let us savor what we have for the purpose.
So what does that look like?
Let's just go through the senses for a moment.
That is how we take in life.
When we look around, let's just not look and not see,
but rather look and see the beauty of life.
Look at your spouse with new eyes and treasure them.
Look at them and say,
“Wow blessed I am to have this spouse who I have.
How lucky am I that I have this person in my life
and love them for who they are?”
Look at your children and stare at the beauty of them.
And yes, their weird quirks, too. I get it.
But tell them how beautiful they are.
Do not look at their faults, look at their goodness.
Hold up their greatness and their goodness and treasure it.
Savor them as gifts.
Children, look at your parents and marvel at them.
Marvel at how much they give to you,
how they pour out their life to you, endlessly.
Thank them. Enjoy their presence.
You will have a home one day yourself. Yes.
But for now, you are in their home. Enjoy it.
Treasure the love you share. Savor it.
What about looking at the flowers that are blossoming right now.
Pause and take that in.
And do me a favor, smell the roses.
Smell the plant.
Smell even the the puff of smoke that goes by from a truck and say,
“Ah, the smell of a truck.
How beautiful it is, not because it is beautiful,
but because we can smell.”
Look at the beauty of the landscape
that we are surrounded by hills on both sides.
How could you not marvel at God in beautiful world?
When you go on vacation, and you go to the ocean,
drink it all in, look at it.
Smell it, smell this sea. Look at it.
Take it all in and enjoy every last ounce of it.
Who knows? When will be the last time you will be at the beach.
Take it all in. Savor it.
But the sense that I want us to focus on the most is listening.
Listen to one another.
Not just look, but listen.
Listen to every word that a person says,
not because it is particularly profound,
but because they are here.
Be present to them today in you.
Listen, not with your ears, but with your heart.
When we are listened to, we know we are seen,
that we are noticed, that we matter.
We know how hard it is when we talk
and their eyes are elsewhere,
and we do not even listen for that moment.
It takes effort and I am no better at it than you are,
but we need to try harder and harder to listen and to pay attention.
Father Timothy Lee Radcliffe at the recent synod last year in October,
coached all the bishops and the cardinals
to stop talking and listening to the lay people.
He said, “Listen, attentively.
The true calling and essence of who we are
is not the Caustian thought:
‘I think therefore, I am’
or I speak, therefore, I am.
But I listen, therefore, I am.”
Listening holds a primary way in which we can engage in the world.
To see and notice, listen and notice.
Now look the other senses.
The sense of smell and taste is so underrated.
If you were affected by covid and
you lost your taste for a short period of time,
you know how devastating it is to eat food and not taste it,
or to drink and not taste it.
So let us take every meal and take in the flavors.
Do not just drink glass of wine.
Smell the glass of wine first,
and then drink it and enjoy every swirl of the glass of wine;
that is probably the first time
you ever heard anyone say that over the pulpit!
But go ahead, have a glass of wine and really enjoy it.
That is what I want you to do,
is to enjoy life through smell and taste and touch.
Do you know that since Covid happened,
how little touch we have had?
We have reduced touch so much that it has become an epidemic.
We need to return to touching,
touching by shaking hands,
by touching by hand, on the shoulder,
touching, by holding the faces of your child
and pressing against them and say,
“How much I love you, you little rascal.”
And children, let them touch you.
Let them hold your hand.
I know teenagers out there, I know it is hard.
You think your parents are no longer cool.
They want nothing to do with their parents.
But let them hug you.
Let them kiss you, please.
Teenagers, let your parents have these moments.
They will soon be gone and you will be gone from the house.
But let us return to hugging and kissing and touching, please.
It is a gift that God has given us.
Let us share that gift.
Today, I do not want to focus on the fall of humanity.
I want to focus on the rise of humanity
that will return to being fully human, fully alive,
by seeing with new eyes,
by hearing with new ears,
by tasting and touching and smelling with new vitality
so that we want to drink in the whole world and give glory to God.
If we can do that for ourselves, then we can love others.
And I would submit that we are loving others when we do that.
But one thing we are mostly doing is giving glory to God.
Today, let us give glory to God by being fully alive.
Whoever does the will of my father is
my brother, my sister, and my mother.
| 
