Homily for August 16, 2015 -- 20th Week of Ordinary Time

There was a common saying when I entered the seminary in 1966: "you keep the rule and the rule will keep you." Some in formation for priesthood, even today, don't get beyond this dictum. Some of them have risen to great heights -- bishops and cardinals.It is the dictum for succeeding in the "system" whatever than system may be. I am obviously ding something wrong —- thankfully. Fortunately I found out, early on, that Paulists aren’t good at keeping the rule.We are stretched by the overwhelming influence of the Holy Spirit -- by Wisdom as mentioned in our first reading from Proverbs.The line in our reading from Proverbs that caught my attention is: "Let whoever is simple turn in here." We are not looking fort simple-minded people; but wise people, watchful people, seeking people who want to enrich and deepen their experience of God. In Paul's letter we are asked to "watch carefully how we live" to not be foolish persons but wise ones. Paul wants us to walk as people who are wide awake, making good use of every opportunity -- to be constantly open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It means being open to new and unexpected possibilities.It was the genius of both Paul and Jesus to be able to take old useless rules and regulations and adapt them to be of positive use to the people in front of them. They both got in trouble for this. In the Gospel Jesus confronts the doers of the rule and they simply can't see, can't understand or experience the new life Jesus is offering them. They are so rule bound that there are no options in their lives. Rules, while good can also put us to sleep, make us feel satisfied or bloated with righteous indignation at all the rule breakers. Jesus was seeking them, inviting them to change the way they were leading their lives. Jesus was trying to set them free to experience life at a new depth and quality they simply could not imagine. Jesus is an inconvenient Truth because to welcome Him into our lives means that we have to change the way we live.
 Former Vice-President Al Gore said climate change is an Inconvenient Truth. It is inconvenient because it demands that we change the rules about they way we live our lives. Many fear what they might have to give up be it power, control, comfort, amassing goods; rather than seeing it as an opportunity to connect with others; to live more simply so that others may simply live. The poor and the homeless are also an inconvenient truths. Their needs cry out to us and at times we go to great lengths to not see, to not hear barricading ourselves behind walls imaginary and physical. Wall as indifference, walls of avoidance thinking of them not as individual persons but as some kind of sub-group. They have hopes, dreams and fears just like all of us. At times our families, our friends, co-workers are inconvenient truths. As long as everyone is playing by the rules everything is just dandy; but get a fly in the ointment, like someone comes out as gay, or gets a divorce, has a child outside of marriage or as a teenager we become lost as to what to do. Jesus is calling us, inviting us to embrace the inconvenient truths of our daily lives. We are to embrace and welcome them as our inconvenient truth that invites all to turn and enter here. Here is where we can all be fed, to become what we eat, to become what we pray for, to become inconvenient truths for others in our own right,