I was invited by the plant
manager after a presentation to 150 employees to stay for lunch. I’m in line
and an employee standing next to me shares that his daughter is in high school
and wants to go into medicine. She wants to be a doctor. I gave him information
where he might want to start his search for subsidies to pay for her college
tuition. When I suggest that he needs a second job, like “Uber” to pay her
college bills, he shared that his mother lives at home with him and she has kidney
disease and needs constant medical care. When he is working, his sister comes
and takes care of their mother. I suggest that she might qualify for home care
and that this would give him time to earn extra money.
He shared that three years
ago he moved up from South Carolina to Buffalo with his girlfriend. She was
diagnosed with cancer and they sought help at Roswell Cancer Center. Sadly, she
died two years ago. I put my arm on his shoulder and told him that he
has been through hell these past three years so where does he get support. He
says that he just keeps plodding along with the messes in his life.
Mary and Joseph, were no
strangers to messes in life. Besides delivering a newborn away from their home
and relatives, now they are literally running for their lives and getting out
of town to a foreign country to escape the evil intentions of a jealous and
evil ruler.
This morning I had a very
strange dream. I imagined a “manure truck” dumping manure on the front steps of
our church. I thought that was outrageous and nasty. But then I recalled that
during this past week manure trucks were out in the fields dumping their loads
getting the fields ready for next season’s planting.
What does all this mean for
us?
The messes that families find
themselves in is no fairy tale, children’s story, or crazy dream, rather life
is serious business. Not solemn, but definitely serious. Scripture
reflects this seriousness. There is both good and bad around us and in us, in
each of us. People are born and die; some soon after birth, others as
children, some as young adults or in middle age, later – some die naturally and
others quite unexpectedly or cruelly or badly.
The good news is that God
has not abandoned God’s families to their fate. God has not created this mess
and then left us to our own devices. The story of the Holy Family tells
us that God surveyed the mess we made of God’s good creation and acted to be
with us and to care for us and to lead us in changing the bad fix that humanity
is in.
Family messes can produce a
harvest of compassion and generosity that can make our faith community grow now
and for future generations. Yes, the church has made a big mess, and many
people have chosen to stay away from our churches because they have lost
respect for the shepherds who failed to protect our children. So like Joseph we
get this crazy dream to move away and stay away from the church so that no one
gets hurt, so Jesus and our children remain safe from predators, But remember,
the angels came back to Joseph in Egypt and in this dream, he is told to get
back home. This time not to Bethlehem but to Nazareth. Interesting in Scripture
it was foretold that the root of salvation would come from Nazareth.
The good news for us today
is that the Messiah came in the person of Jesus, to begin what has been a long
and arduous and sometimes seemingly never-ending rescue operation to pull us
and all humanity back from the brink of our own annihilation.
So that’s why we need to
email, chat, twitter, Facebook, call or meet face to face with folks in your
home, relatives and neighbors and invite them to come back to church. Yes, we
need to admit frankly that the church, and we are the church, have made a mess
of things, but like good farmers we go back into the fields to spread the
manure that will make the soil fertile to plant the seed and produce good fruit
again. Like good farmers, the word that we need to spread is “Good News” that the
Lord’s Jesus thrives in North Java at Holy Family Church.
In the front of our
bulletin it says:
“Whether you are a lifelong
Catholic, a member of a different faith, or new to exploring your spirituality,
you will find a home at Holy Family. We come together each week to worship and
pray, and to celebrate life as we prepare ourselves for the week ahead. We have
great music, sermons, and hospitality to lift our spirits and inspire us for
the work and relationships we have. Our outreach to the community gives us all
a chance to grow and make a difference in the world. We welcome and love one
another as God loves us, with open doors, open minds and open hearts.”
The most important,
question for us on the feast day of Holy Family is this: “Are we ready to join
the Messiah is this work?”
