Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ …Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.” (Luke 10: 5, 8-12, NAB)
The overriding focus of the readings for this weekend is “The Kingdom of God” or “The Reign of God” is NOW! Secondly, all disciples of Jesus are responsible for sowing the Kingdom of God in our world.
The first reading from Isaiah paints how the Kingdom of God is experienced when it is established in the world. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he informs the Galatians that the Kingdom of God comes at a price. It was Christ’s act of love, dying for all of creation on the cross, that God’s Reign was firmly established in our world. The only thing for which humankind can boast is the cross of Jesus, and those who call themselves must embrace that same cross in order to carry on the mission of Jesus. This segues into the message of the Gospel in which Jesus instructs his disciples that he cannot do this all by himself. Jesus initiates or breaks open the earth for the Kingdom of God to be sown. However, we, his disciples must be responsible for sowing the seeds of God’s Reign everywhere we go.
In order to be sowers of God’s Reign, we must:
- Internalize the peace of God within our lives. We have to face our own dark side and allow the light of Christ to penetrate our own internal darkness. This will be a lifelong endeavor.
- When we encounter others, the first words out of our mouths must be an expression of God’s peace. If they are open to receive God’s peace, then it will be reflected in the hospitality and healing that will take place within that community.
- However, Jesus also acknowledges that that not all will be receptive to God’s Reign in their lives. No matter how much we may want to sow God’s Reign in that community, the soil of their hearts is so hard, that it will not be sown. It will be repelled. At that point, Jesus tells us to quit wasting our time with that community. The comedian, W.C. Fields had an interesting way of expressing this. Fields is quoted saying, “When at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
- Lastly, Jesus says to his disciples shake the dust of the place from our feet. We need not curse them, for in denying the Reign of God to be sown in their community, the community has chosen to be damned.
This Gospel reminds me of my assignment in 2004 to what once was St Stephen’s Catholic Church in the Whittier neighborhood of South Minneapolis. To the outsider, this parish seemed to be comprised of those who were the outcasts of our society and the Church. Among the parishioners were those who were former clergy and religious, former lay ministers of the Church, ex-offenders, many LGBTQ men and women, men and women who were developmentally disabled, the homeless, prostitutes, a Latino community, among whom were many who were documented and undocumented immigrants, and many others who felt disenfranchised from their former faith communities.
The soil of this very diverse parish was broken and receptive to the Reign of God because the soil of many of the lives of the parishioners were broken. The Divine paradox which the Gospels reveal is that God’s Reign takes root far better in the soil of the lives of broken people than it does in the hard soil of the self-righteous. The parish taught me that just being a member of the clergy does not mean that my own soil is receptive to God’s Reign. For me to participate in and assist in leading this community, I needed to break up the soil of my own life, confronting and acknowledging my own brokenness in order for the Reign of God to take root.
When I once asked a parishioner of St Stephen’s why he was a parishioner of St Stephen’s. He told me that when he first came to St Stephen’s, his self-esteem was so low he was contemplating suicide. He said, “When I came to St Stephen’s I discovered Jesus welcoming me, loving me, and embracing me just as I am, a gay man.”
The self-righteous would look upon those gathered at St Stephen’s celebrating Mass as the antithesis of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. There was one such self-righteous group, many from St Agnes parish (a parish known for its Latin Masses and very rigid ecclesiology), called “The Rosary for Truth” who would gather at St Stephen’s prior to the 11 am Mass to pray the rosary for all “the damned souls of St Stephen’s”. Many other communities would have been insulted and would have expelled this group. I was surprised at the reaction of the parishioners from St Stephen’s. They welcomed them instead and prayed the rosary with them prior to Mass. The unwritten mission statement of St Stephen’s at that time was “The Church is a big circus tent, and all are welcome, except those who think someone should not be here.” After some time had passed, I had to expell the Rosary for Truth group from the parish for disrupting the worship of my parish at the 11 am Mass. St Stephen parishioners had been willing to be “in communio” , in communion with the Rosary for Truth. The Rosary for Truth was adamant about NOT being in communion with the parishioners of St Stephen’s.
Why such a dramatic difference between two parish communities? St Stephen’s embraced the Social Justice teachings of Jesus and used those teachings as their way to be parish. St Stephen’s focused much of its resources in providing services to the poor in the Whittier neighborhood, which included a parish run homeless shelter in which 40 men sleep every night, assisting the poor with a food shelf, free store, helping the poor to find jobs, housing and many more other services. This eventually led to the creation of the non-profit, St Stephen Human Services who has continued all these services to the present day.
In contrast, The Rosary for Truth, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, rooted their lives in a rigid Pharisaic living out of the rules and regulations of the Church, ignoring the Social Justice doctrine of the Church. Their home parish, St Agnes, is located in a multi-cultural, poor neighborhood in the inner city of St Paul. At that time, the money raised by the parish was lavishly focused on the opulently decorated Baroque church building of the parish and its Latin Tridentine liturgies. To my knowledge, very little of the parish’s resources goes to serving the poor of its neighborhood. This reminds me of this verse from the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah:
“What do I care for the multitude of your sacrifices? says
the LORD. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the
blood of calves, lambs, and goats I find no pleasure. When you come to appear
before me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! To bring
offerings is useless; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath,
calling assemblies— festive convocations with wickedness— these I cannot bear. Your
new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When
you spread out your hands, I will close my eyes to you; Though you pray the
more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean!
Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good.
Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the
widow. Come now, let us set things right.” (Isaiah 1: 11-18, NAB)
I ask you, in which of these two communities would the disciples of Jesus find welcome? Which of these two community would experience the disciples of Jesus shaking the dust of their community from their feet? To this very day, it remains very clear to me that of the two parish communities, St Stephen’s was far more open to the Reign of God. The likelihood of the dust of the Rosary for Truth group being shaken off the feet of Jesus’ disciples was far greater.
In conclusion, the Reign of God is now and we all must be sowers of God’s reign. Having prepared the broken soil of our lives and internalizing the peace of Christ, we must bring his healing message to all the places in our world, knowing full well, that Christ’s peace will be welcome in some places and rejected in others.
The wonderful liturgical musician and composer, Marty Haugen, expressed this so well in the fourth verse of his hymn, “Gather Us In.” “Not in the dark of buildings confining. Not is some heaven light years away. But here in this place the new light is shining. Now is the Kingdom. Now is the day. Gather us in and hold us forever. Gather us in and make us your own. Gather us in all peoples together, fire of love in our flesh and our bone.” (© 1982, GIA Publications Inc. All rights reserved.)
Postscript: In 2008, the parish community of St Stephen’s was expelled from its church home by the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis because it could not follow the strict liturgical norms of the Catholic Church. The community chose to become an Independent Catholic Community. Though independent of the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis, the Spirit of St Stephen’s maintains its Catholic culture and tradition. Over time, the parish moved to its present home, the former home of First Christian Church, where it continues its mission of Catholic social justice.
