Love God. Live the Eucharist.

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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 8, 2018, by Fr. Kevin Anderson

Back when I was in 9th grade.  I played basketball for the Elk River Elks.  I wasn’t any good, but I had fun.  Well, one big game was against the Princeton Tigers and the game was played in the gym of the old High School, which is now the gym for the Fitness/Health Center in Princeton.  Now back then we didn’t have home and travel jerseys.  Like most teams, we had just one . . . so the red jersey Elks were playing the orange jersey Tigers.

 

I didn’t start and at one point the coach puts me in.  OK, I go in.  I get a pass and I just stood there holding the basketball [demonstrate with a basketball], for with all the running back and forth and waving of arms, I didn’t know who to throw it to.  The coach calls time out.  The ref blows the whistle.  We all go into a huddle.  The coach says, “Anderson, what are you doing?”

“Uh, I can’t tell who to throw it to.”  “What?”  “Those two particular shades of red and orange look the same to me.  I’m color blind.” “Sit down.” 

 

And with that my secret was exposed.  I am color blind.  I am red-green deficient.  Which means that I get lots of my reds, greens, browns . . . and apparently orange mixed up.  It’s a recessive gene from my Mom’s Dad.  And most of my brothers are also colorblind.

 

It’s just a fact.  But I feel like St. Paul from the second reading when he says that he has a “thorn in his side?”  We don’t know what it was.  Maybe he was color-blind?  Maybe he had a temper, an ego, an addictive personality?  Maybe it was a physical weakness, an obsession for control or a sexual longer.  We don’t know. 

 

What I do know is that every one of us has “a thing.” A thing that keeps us thinking that we are not good enough, not worthy enough, not perfect. If people knew this about me, they wouldn’t like me. A thorn in our side . . . like Paul.  And actually most people would say, “That’s it?  That’s nothing.” 

 

Did you catch the setting of the gospel?  For the last couple of weeks, we’ve heard how Jesus has been doing this wonderful things all over . . . healing people, calming the sea, sharing great ideas about the kingdom of God.  So in the gospel, he goes home (Nazareth, which is on the coast of the Lake of Galilee. They call it a sea, but by MN standards . . . it’s just a lake).  Anyway, he comes back and neighbors are gossiping, “And who does he think he is?”  The reading said, “they took offense at him.”  He comes for a little R&R and he gets put down, “How dare you talk to us? We know your family.  You’re nothing.”

 

Poor Jesus, but that’s got to make you feel better . . . for even the King of Kings, the Son of God faced failure.  The reading said that he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, except for curing a few of the sick people.  Other than that . . . here’s the big [sing: Jesus Christ Superstar] . . . and in his hometown . . . nothing. 

 

What’s important is that not only did this happen, but the followers of Jesus remembered it and the Church chose to use it on this 14th Sunday of the year.  They could have skipped it.

It’s tells us . . . don’t give up.  Like Paul, we all have something wrong.  Oh well.  And you can pretend it is NOT part of your story, like me pretending that I wasn’t color-blind.  Or your failures or your thorn in your side . . . brings you back to God. Because it is THROUGH him, and WITH him, and IN him (that’s what I sing at the end of the Eucharist Prayer), it is through, with and in Christ that we get meaning.

 

When you think of it, Jesus entire last days were one series of failures . . . he wanted to show God’s love (he got killed for it), he wanted the disciples to be at his side (they ran away), his best buddy, Peter,  even denied knowing him, when he needed him the most. 

 

And that’s where faith comes in. The story doesn’t end on the cross, and your story doesn’t end with your shame, or humiliation, or your flaw!  For like Paul, when we are weak, we are actually strong . . .  because it is the power of Christ, the power of hope, the power of transformation . . . that tells us, “My grace is enough for you.”  As we just heard from Paul. 

 

So we come to the table to receive grace.  The Eucharist is hope for the journey ahead.  Your power bar that tells you . . . you don’t have to have it all together. You don’t have to pretend you don’t have that flaw.  The Eucharist we eat says  . . . you’re OK, you’ll get through this, you are

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