Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Ezekiel 12:1-12, Matthew 18:21-19:1)
Exile is a terrible experience. We only have to review the situations of the hostages in Darfur or of the other thirty-odd million refugees and displaced persons in the world today to see what horrors people in exile live. The foreign cultures they inhabit lack familiar institutions that might provide some solace. They have trouble finding jobs which leads to their exploitation as slave labor. They are also exceptionally vulnerable to new diseases and to swindlers’ deceptions.
In the reading from Ezekiel today God wants the prophet to show the Jerusalemites that they are headed on a course of exile. Ezekiel is to act as a person uprooted from his native place to awaken the people that their sins are bringing them to ruin. The hope is that the people will reform their lives so God might spare them the trauma of exilic life. Sadly, however, they will refuse to repent.
We see Jesus as bringing us out of the exile that sin has caused. Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden was the prototype of exile from which Jesus has rescued us. He brought us to the Kingdom of God (or “of heaven” as Matthew’s gospel consistently calls it). This state is not so much a physical place as it is a renewed relationship with God in which we experience the fullness of peace. Acquiring the relationship, we will forgive others their offenses against us, as the gospel today recommends, because we realize how gracious God has been to us.
Showing posts with label refugees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label refugees. Show all posts
Homilette for Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Tuesday, II Week of Advent
(Isaiah 40:1-11, Matthew 18:12-14)
When God calls the prophet to comfort His people, He is referring to the many exiled Jews in Babylonia. After the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah, they carried off a portion of the population to what is now eastern Iraq. There the people languished many years until God sent a liberator in the person of Cyrus of Persia.
Like the Jews in Babylon, forty-five million people today live outside their native areas because of violence or threats of violence, according to the United Nations. Fourteen million of these are bona fide refugees residing outside their native lands and twenty-one million are internally displaced persons dwelling away from their homes but still in their countries of origin. We may know refugee families in our neighborhoods who have a house and access to social services. Most displaced people are not so fortunate. Many reside in camps which provide little opportunity for productive lives.
Perhaps we know another kind of refugee. In wealthy countries like the United States many men, women and children live on the streets. Perhaps drugs alienated some of them from their families. Maybe not having grown up in a conducive environment allowed many of them minimal education so that many are virtually unemployable. These people too are included in God’s call of comfort.
Jesus answers God’s call when he brings comfort to the nations living under the captivity of sin. In the gospel today he instructs his disciples to search out still another kind of displaced person. He wants them to bring back Christians who have strayed from the practice of the faith. We too should assist former Catholics return to church by our example, prayer, and encouragement. Just as important we could support relief efforts to the many refugees and displaced persons in the world. And we should not neglect the street people in our communities often struggling to survive.
(Isaiah 40:1-11, Matthew 18:12-14)
When God calls the prophet to comfort His people, He is referring to the many exiled Jews in Babylonia. After the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah, they carried off a portion of the population to what is now eastern Iraq. There the people languished many years until God sent a liberator in the person of Cyrus of Persia.
Like the Jews in Babylon, forty-five million people today live outside their native areas because of violence or threats of violence, according to the United Nations. Fourteen million of these are bona fide refugees residing outside their native lands and twenty-one million are internally displaced persons dwelling away from their homes but still in their countries of origin. We may know refugee families in our neighborhoods who have a house and access to social services. Most displaced people are not so fortunate. Many reside in camps which provide little opportunity for productive lives.
Perhaps we know another kind of refugee. In wealthy countries like the United States many men, women and children live on the streets. Perhaps drugs alienated some of them from their families. Maybe not having grown up in a conducive environment allowed many of them minimal education so that many are virtually unemployable. These people too are included in God’s call of comfort.
Jesus answers God’s call when he brings comfort to the nations living under the captivity of sin. In the gospel today he instructs his disciples to search out still another kind of displaced person. He wants them to bring back Christians who have strayed from the practice of the faith. We too should assist former Catholics return to church by our example, prayer, and encouragement. Just as important we could support relief efforts to the many refugees and displaced persons in the world. And we should not neglect the street people in our communities often struggling to survive.
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