Homily for the fourth Sunday of ordinary time, January 28, 2018

I am very reluctant and therefore I will not ask you to do anything. Our lives are distracted enough. I thought we might  be coming out of a period of time where we thought multitasking was a good idea. We know that most of the time it doesn't work. Multitasking can be lethal if we're doing it while driving.  When cell phones first came out it was difficult to tell who did or who did not have mental challenges people seemingly talking to themselves.  It is still pretty dark when people leave work and go home.  It's amazing to watch people coming up California Street, mostly in darkness at this time of year, with these tiny little screens moving up and down the street. Calling someone, texting someone, maybe even watching a movie. There are some pretty funny videos wandering around the Internet with people falling into fountains while looking at their cell phones. But all this really isn't all that funny because it causes a lot of anxiety in our life; and St. Paul tells us that he doesn't want us to be anxious about anything. And we might respond, are you kidding?

All this stuff that we busy ourselves with is taking a toll. And I think a lot of this distraction is a way of not dealing with the things that bother us. We don't so much want to solve problems as to simply avoid them in the first place. An easy way to solve a problem is to look for a scapegoat, someone else to blame, anything to get ourselves off the hook. It's happening a lot in our attitudes toward Muslims, refugees and immigrants. If we just get rid of this or that group Life will be good again. To this, Jesus says, in the Gospel — a resounding  NO.

All that Jesus wants is our undivided attention. Is that all we may ask? Yes. Jesus was about one thing and one thing only and that was and is to announce the realm of God present among us. In today's Gospel we see how that is played out. It must've been quite a scene. The scribes, the Pharisees must have been really put out by this party crasher, a person with an unclean spirit, how dare he even come near us! At the Word of Jesus the unclean spirit departs and all are amazed. They are amazed because Jesus not only spoke but took action to heal the situation. Something the scribes and Pharisees would never do.  As it says elsewhere in the Gospels they wouldn't even lift a finger to help anyone.

The scribes and the Pharisees were believers, they were very religious, they knew all the rules and regulations and Jesus is constantly telling them that more is needed. Not more rules, not more regulations, not even deeper belief.  What is needed is action, actions that demonstrate the reality of God's realm among us all. It's easy to believe, it's easy to just say prayers, but somewhere along the lines of rubber has to hit the road.  We have to allow the power of Christ's resurrection to transform our lives and and therefore  transform all of our actions into actions, words, and deeds that reveal the realm of God among us.

Jesus wants our undivided attention. This means that our faith is not an add-on to everything we do during the week, for an hour on Sundays, for a few minutes at the beginning and end of each day, but rather that our faith and the power of the risen Jesus dwelling within us transforms all of our actions that set other people free. All of the miracles Jesus performs are done to set other people free. Jesus calls us not to worship him, or adore him, but to follow him and do likewise in our own lives.

All of us here today knows someone who is broken, broken in spirit, broken physically, heart broken. We need not only to pray for them but we need to be