Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24; Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11, 12, 13; 2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mk 5:21-43
What do you share from your abundance?
At the end of the gospel reading, in which Jesus cured the woman bleeding for twelve years and raised from the dead the twelve year old daughter of the synagogue official, we hear Jesus give “strict orders that no one should know this.” We read this often in the bible after Jesus has performed some miracle.
Why does Jesus say this? Why does he instruct them to not tell others?
I believe it is because He has not yet died and risen from the dead, and without that knowledge, they are unable to fully understand what just happened, just how much Jesus loves them. But we live after Jesus’ death and resurrection, we know the whole story. We are called to share it.
In the reading from Wisdom, we hear “For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.” What is the nature of God in which we are formed?
Each of us has a desire to be loved and to love, it is a part of our nature, just as it is a part of God’s nature. It is how God created us. We want others to show us affection and be concerned for us, just as we have a strong sense of affection and concern for others in our lives.
For most of us, our first experience of love occurs in our families. Whether we understand it or not, whether we say it or not, we love our parents and our siblings. We love them even though we may fight and argue with them, even though we may even tell them we hate them. But if someone attacks a member of our family, our initial reaction is to defend them, to protect them, to stick up for them. Or when a member of our family is hurting for any reason, we want to comfort them, to find a way to help them.
As we mature, so does our love mature. We may start dating in search of a spouse, to maybe one day expand our immediate family to include others. And as those we consider family grows, so does the number of people who love us, and whom we love. And because we live after the resurrection, and we know the whole story, we understand that Jesus loves everyone, and was willing to do anything for us, including die for us, so we can be imperishable like the Father. And because of this gift, we are called to love everyone.
But loving everyone is not always easy. There are people in our lives that have hurt us. It is hard to love them. But that is what we are called to do. One way to learn to love like Jesus loves, the way God created us to love, is to pray for those that have hurt us. Through prayer, God will soften our hearts so one day we can ask God to help us to forgive them, to love them, as God loves them.
Being a Christian, loving as God loves, doesn’t end there. We have to take concrete actions. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he tells them “your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, so that their abundance may also supply your needs.” Here, Paul is specifically seeking funds from the Corinthians to support the church in Jerusalem, which is struggling. Paul ask them to do this out of love, the same way Christ was willing to give up his life because of his love for us. We might call this “paying it forward.”
A parent may help a child make a loan payment when they are struggling, and the child in turn, may help the parent in the future when they are struggling. But this isn’t limited to just helping those we consider family. It can and should include anyone that needs our help, when we have abundances. And we all do have abundances at times throughout our lives.
To help us on this journey to loving as God loves, and to share our abundances, we need to see everything we have as a gift from God. When we understand that, seeing the abundances we have, sharing those abundances we’ve been given, is easier to do. We will discover a joy in our lives which we cannot experience any other way.
While finances are one thing we can and should, and for many of us, do share with others, there are other ways also. We can share the abundance of our gardens. We can share the abundant gift of our faith with those we encounter, at faith formation, at ministries such as Returning Catholics and Jail Ministry. We can help feed the hungry by helping serve a meal at the Cornerstone Rescue Mission and helping with the food pantry. And we can pray for others. There are so many ways we can share the abundant gifts God has given us. We can even share the gift of our gratitude and appreciation when we are in need, and others share their abundances with us.
By learning to love as God abundantly loves us, by learning to share as God abundantly shares with us, by accepting the gifts others share from their abundance, by seeing everything we have as a gift, we will become more loving, we will become more sharing, we will experience joy.
We will become what God created us to be.
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