Homily - 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time - A Call Story

Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8

1Corinthians 15:1-11

Luke5:1-11

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I love a good “Call” story.  And this weekend we get to hear three of the best stories of God “calling” someone to serve His Kingdom.

Isaiah and his amazing visions of heaven.  Paul’s retelling of how Jesus dramatically broke into his life.  And Peter who feels so unworthy, yet would become the foundational bedrock of our Catholic Church.

The beautiful thing to keep in mind as we let these readings soak in is this important point:  Jesus takes us just as we are -- flaws and all.   God makes imperfect people perfect when He calls us to serve His Kingdom.

I am reminded of something I saw on Facebook recently from a friend who works in ministry for the Salvation Army.   He posted:  “I'm just a nobody trying to tell everybody about a somebody.”

          Isn’t that true of Isaiah, Paul and Peter.  And these nobodies became towering giants with God at their sides.

            I want to share with you a modern day “call” story of another nobody:  Stanley Francis Rother was a humble farm boy from Okarche, Oklahoma.  He was not a very good student, but he knew his way around the farm.  And he could do just about anything involving manual labor.

            But God had other plans for his life. 

            Jesus broke into Stan’s life and called him to the priesthood. 

But he failed miserably at seminary, flunking out after being defeated by Latin.  The language of the Church never stuck.  And he was booted because of it.

            But this was the early 1960s and a change was coming to the Catholic Church. Vatican II would gift all Catholics with the ability to hear scripture and the entire Mass in our native tongues. 

            A supportive Bishop gave Stan a second chance and off he went to a seminary in Maryland where Latin was not an emphasis.

            During his time there, Stan was best known for organizing students to improve a grotto than for his scholarly work.  But graduate he did, and in 1963, Fr. Stan Rother was ordained and assigned to a parish in his home state of Oklahoma. 

            After a few years, his Bishop asked Fr. Stan if he would accept assignment in a sister parish adopted by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma.

            So, Fr. Stan packed his Chevy and drove two-thousand miles to the mountainous lake region of Atitlan, Guatemala, landing in the largest community Santiago Atitlan.

            Remember, this is a man who struggled with languages.  Now he had to learn Spanish and eventually the Tzutuhill Mayan language.

            When God hops into our boat we know we are headed for deep waters, but it’s usually a place where we catch many fish.

When Fr. Rother arrived in 1968, the assignment was peaceful enough.  He would serve with several other priests and a couple of nuns.

In his first few years, he learned Spanish, experimented with crops on the parish farm lands, installed new stained glass windows, refurbished the altar, and became beloved for being the only Gringo priest to visit the modest homes of parishioners, sit on their dirt floors and break bread over a meal of wild greens and tortillas.

            Eventually, he would be handed the parish to run on his own. 

            And remember his struggles with Latin?  Fr. Stan became fluent in Spanish and Tzutuhill Mayan and eventually would translate the Gospel into the Mayan language and began to do Mass in their native tongue, too.

            The people who tended the fields admired the priest “who was as comfortable atop a tractor as he was at the altar."

            He was beloved.  He found heaven on earth.  He became known not as Fr. Stan, but Padre "A'plas," a Tzutuhill translation of his middle name Francis.  This was a sign of love and affection to be honored with a Mayan name.

            Every Mass, the little hands of the Mayan children would lead Fr. Stan to and from the altar as he would celebrate Mass.  It was a beautiful life.

            But his dream was about to turn into a nightmare.

In 1980, a clash was brewing between natives emboldened by the Gospel’s message of Liberation and a government with its sights set on wiping out the native population.

            While many priests and catechists were preaching Liberation Theology, Fr. Stan wanted no part of efforts to criticize the government.   He was no radical.  He refused to preach rebellion.

            He just wanted to tend his flock in peace and harmony.

            But in the fall of 1980, the military moved into the mountainous Atitlan area to stamp out a growing native rights movement. 

Everybody got labeled a “Communist troublemaker” if they stood up for or behind the Mayan natives.

            Then the disappearances started and word of murder and torture spread.

            One of Fr. Stan’s brightest catechists was kidnapped before his very eyes one night, screaming to Fr. Stan,“Ayuda me,” “Help me.” 

            It was a plea that would haunt Fr. Stan for the rest of his life. 

For weeks, he wandered the rural countryside looking for his friend.  But no one knew where he was.  He would stop in police stations pleading for help.  But his pleas fell on deaf ears.  The young man would never be found.

            Fr. Stan would soon be on a military hit list.

            In conversations with family and friends, he knew what the future held, but said, “A shepherd cannot run from his flock.”

            Shortly after Christmas 1980, the heat on Fr. Stan grew too hot.  So, he fled Atitlan for Guatemala City and lived briefly at the same Maryknoll Retreat House we stayed in on our recent pilgrimage.

            He eventually would return home to the family farm in Okarche, Oklahoma. 

            While in the states a priest friend invited him to speak at an Oklahoma parish. 

Now remember, this was early 1981, President Reagan was just inaugurated, and communism, especially in Central America, was enemy number-one.

            Fr. Stan preached saying, “Don’t believe everything your government tells you.”  He had a unique perspective, seeing this as less a battle pitting communism vs. capitalism, but over human rights. 

But his remarks upset a couple of patriotic people sitting in the pews who wrote the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington D.C. saying, “I feel obliged to warn your nation’s government of the Church involvement within the leftist organizations attempting to establish a socialist (or Marxist) government in Guatemala.”

            The letters were a death sentence in the hands of Guatemalan officials.

            Something Fr. Stan heard about two nuns who fled Central America when the fighting got bad would stick with him.  When the nuns returned to Central America, the people asked, “Where were you when we needed you?” 

            Father Stan said, “I don’t want that to happen to me.”

            He felt lost not standing with his people.  So, just before Holy Week began in 1981, he returned to Santiago Atitlan, against the many wishes of family and friends.

            A few months later, on a hot July evening, a military death squad broke into the rectory and found Fr. Rother.  They tortured him as he screamed, “Kill me here!”  He most feared being taken away and tortured and his body never to be found. 

The gunman shot him twice.  

            I saw the bullet hole in the floor of the former library now special prayer space. I spent the night in Santiago Atitlan no more than 50-feet from the room in the same rectory.

            An American nun who lived nearby, Sister Linda Wanner, lovingly cleaned up the blood the night of Fr. Rother’s death.  “She saw his life poured out on (the) tiles.  She sensed that his faith and his courage had seeped into the very carpet.  (She said) ‘I (now know) what the blood of the martyrs really means.’”

            Fr. Stan’s family wanted his body returned to Oklahoma.  But not before his physical heart was left in Santiago Atitlan.

            “In death, as in life, Stan was of Oklahoma, but his heart resided in the Mayan church.”

            

           I had the honor to be joined on pilgrimage by Fr. Stan’s seminarian classmate Fr. Tom Connery of New York and witnessed him praying over the Church memorial housing his friend's heart and the bullet hole where his friend's life ended in the rectory library. 

Fr. Tom’s presence on the trip and the many stories about his friend Stan really brought the experience home for all of us.     

            Think martyrdom is something that only happened in the early days of the Christian Church?  I am sad to report more Christians were martyred in the 20^th Century than in all previous centuries combined since the time of Christ.

            Jesus asks that we give our all for the Kingdom.  Sometimes our all means our very life.

            Fr. Stanley Francis Rother, the man who struggled with his school work and especially Latin, the humble man from a farm in Oklahoma, is now officially recognized by the Catholic Church as a martyr.  An effort is underway to make him a saint.

            “He was an ordinary man who found extraordinary courage in his faith.”

            As we celebrated Mass with Fr. Stan’s Tzutuhill Mayan people three weeks ago (I’m wearing this stole made by his people), I witnessed a miracle.  

A Church packed with joy-filled, devoted Catholics at all six Masses that weekend.  Six thousand people celebrating on one weekend in modest church in a tiny little town in the mountains of Guatemala.  

The nets Jesus Christ had Fr. Stan lower into the waters gathered an abundance of fish even 32-years after his death.       

            Father Stan’s presence is still felt by his people today.

            And as our group of priests and deacons came to celebrate Mass, the hands of the Mayan children grabbed the hands of the priests and the bishop and led them to the altar.  

          Just like Isaiah, Paul, Peter, and Fr. Stan, Christ calls humble, less than perfect people into His ministry and turns them into giants.

            What is God calling you to do for His Kingdom?

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Homily -- "Those People"

Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10

1 Corinthians 12:12-30

Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

I love that we get to peer inside the strange and wonderful world of the Luke the Evangelist this year.  This is the Year of Luke in our Catholic lectionary.

A unique characteristic and central theme of Luke’s Gospel is Jesus’ ministry to the oppressed and those excluded from society.

Isn’t that the point of what he tells the people in the synagogue in today’s reading?

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is always lifting up oppressed groups (the poor, the captives, the blind, the lame, the deaf, lepers, Samaritans, prostitutes, tax collectors).  The reviled in society.  “Those people.”

Another one of Luke’s Gospel themes is salvation is for everyone.   From the very beginning of the Gospel, Gentiles are included in Jesus’ plan to save the world.   Not just the Jews. 

We have much to be thankful to Luke’s Gospel for opening the door for all of us to enter the Body of Christ.   

It’s also interesting to note something in the beginning of today’s Gospel reading. 

The very opening to Luke’s Gospel refers to “most excellent Theophilus” in launching the story of Christ.

For years, scholars thought Theophilus was some wealthy benefactor who paid for Luke’s Gospel. 

Many scholars now challenge that thinking by pointing to Mary’s Magnificat in Luke’s Gospel where Mary says,”He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.”

Eliminating the cultural divide between rich and poor is such a strong message in Luke.

The name Theophilus actually translates from Greek to mean “all the friends of God.” 

Perhaps Luke was using a literary technique to get everyone’s attention and show we are all friends of God equal to one another.

Many scholars say Luke was trying to bridge the gap between Israelites, followers of Jesus and the Romans with his writings in both the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles.    

A bridge-builder perhaps.  But his words at times were designed to provoke, make people mad, get people riled up.  Or at least get people to look deep inside their hearts and see a reality that is far beyond their own prejudices.

Luke and St. Paul are both showing us a radical equality in their scripture messages today.  Not everybody likes that idea.

On Friday evening, I returned from a two-week Maryknoll trip with priests and brother deacons, to see the sites of the Catholic martyrs in Guatemala and El Salvador.  The Stoll I’m wearing was given to me by the Tzutuhill Mayan people for serving at their Mass last Sunday in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.

I used to see Catholics promoting social justice in Central America as “Socialists” or maybe even “Communists.”  I used to ridicule “those people” for their actions.

One thing as Catholics we are all called to do is look at the world through the eyes of Christ by using the lens of the Gospels. 

The Gospel that always speaks the loudest to me is Luke -- because it challenges me not to buy into my own human thinking, but to buy into the divine thinking of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Archbishop Oscar Romero was feared by the liberal left when he was appointed Archbishop in El Salvador.  He was considered too conservative.  He would maintain the status quo power of rich families of El Salvador.  He would refuse to rock the boat on dangerous waters where the divide between rich and poor was far greater than here in the United States.  Far more deadly.

But after opening his eyes to the plight of the poorest of the poor in his country, and especially after the assassination of a close priest friend Rotilio Grande who fought for the poor and was the first priest assassinated before the Civil War started, Archbishop Romero became a hero to the poor, his “most excellent friends of God.”

For doing this, Archbishop Romero was accused of being a “Communist” by the military Junta running El Salvador and became a target. 

One day, while serving Mass in San Salvador, a military sharpshooter put a bullet into the heart of Archbishop Oscar Romero through the open doorway of a hospital chapel steps from his rectory home.

Romero had just finished his homily and was preparing the altar for the Eucharistic sacrifice when he became the sacrifice at that altar.

One day earlier, in his Sunday homily, he called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God’s higher order -- to stop carrying out the government’s efforts to repress the people, to stop terrorizing them with murder and torture, to stop violating their basic human rights.

Archbishop Romero’s only real crime:  he believed deeply in Luke’s gospel.  He bought into Mary’s Magnificat.  He shared the Good News to the oppressed, the captives, the poor.

He lived the life of Jesus Christ.

And for his actions, he was assassinated on March 24^th, 1980.

In a Civil War that lasted 12 years, 1 Archbishop, 19 priests, 4 religious women were assassinated in El Salvador.

75-thousand of the poor peasants, “those people,” were killed and 5-thousand went missing.

I’ve asked God for forgiveness for uttering the words “those people” in the past while praying over the graves of Archbishop Oscar Romero and others. I actually stood on the exact spot where Romero died while I was serving at Mass 10-days ago.

That’s a phrase we hear far too often in our own society today: “Those people.”

It’s a phrase that should be forever banished from our vocabulary if we truly are followers of Christ. 

 “Those people” is code for a stereotype that is about to be conveyed by the speaker of the words, “Those people.”

“Those people” are usually those considered “below” or unequal to the speaker.   

I know.  I’ve uttered those words way too often in my lifetime.

I hear “those people” from friends on one side or the other of the political divide when commenting on the behaviors or beliefs of those on the opposite side of the divide.

I might hear my conservative friends talk down about “those people” when referring to liberal thinkers in our community. 

­Or hear my liberal friends talk down about “those people” when referring to conservative thinkers in our community.

Sadly, this division and this strife are tearing apart our nation.

“Those people” many times refer to the poor and marginalized in our human societies.  The people Luke’s Gospel raises up. 

I have heard some in our own parish community use the words, “those people” to refer to the occasional street people who come join us at this Mass weekly, parishioners who roll their eyes when they see them take seats at our Eucharistic celebration.

In our English-speaking culture in Everett, Washington, “those people” usually targets cultural minorities.

I most often hear “those people” in our church community from people inside our English-speaking community when describing the people in the Spanish or Vietnamese speaking communities of our parish.

But I also hear the words “those people” in a Hispanic community just as divided -- usually by the land of their national birth.

When I hear these words, it makes me sad and mad. 

To God we are all one human family.  Being “those people” is a human concept.  Not a divine concept.

As Disciples of Christ we are called to be better than that.  

As Disciples of Christ we are called to raise up, not put down our sisters and brothers no matter our differences. 

As Disciples of Christ we are called to promote the human dignity of all just as Christ did during his earthly ministry.

As St. Paul makes abundantly clear in today’s second reading from Corinthians, “we are many parts, but we are all one body” to paraphrase the passage by using a popular hymn.

We may not see eye to eye with each other, we may not understand our cultural differences; we may not be able to look beyond our own private prejudices.

But Christ calls us to do just that.

Maybe these words are provoking to you.  Perhaps you’re thinking, “Who is he to be saying such things?   In many ways, I would agree. 

I’m not casting the first stone, because I myself am not without sin.

But my “most Excellent friends of God,” I feel deeply called by Jesus Christ to share this important message today and challenge our human thinking.  To raise our thinking and speaking to a divine level.

 

          I heard a beautiful quote by Catholic spiritualist Thomas Merton while on my trip to Central America.  It was shared by an 82-year-old Maryknoll Brother named Marty Shea who has spent most of his life serving the Mayan people in the remote jungles of Guatemala. 

They are “those people” in Guatemala and in the years of civil unrest 250-thousand were slaughtered and 50-thousand “disappeared” in a government-backed genocide.  In other words, 300-thousand of “those people” were systematically eliminated.

Here’s the quote of Thomas Merton Brother Shea used:

“I am one with them.  They are not “they.”  But my own self.  There are no strangers.”

Please let us commit to banish from our mouths the words:  “Those people.”  Let’s commit ourselves as a parish community to never speak those words again.

Let’s replace them with better words, living words, words that promote dignity and respect and call others to join us as followers of Christ. 

Let’s replace the words “those people” with the words “My most excellent friends of God.” 

For in doing so, we will do our part to bring about the Kingdom of God here on earth.

The Faces of the Tzutuhill Mayan People in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala

This girl sat next to me at Mass on Sunday and was quite curious about the pictures and videos I was taking on my phone.

So, I turned the camera around a snapped this shot of her. When I showed it to her she broke into a big grin.

It was a blessed moment on a day of many blessed moments.