Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
If Jesus were in advertising, Madison Avenue experts would judge his approach to be a dud. Today’s Gospel is especially clear about this, but it’s a trend that you can find throughout Jesus’ life. His first spokesman is John the Baptist, a wild-man dressed in camel’s hair, eating bugs and honey, yelling about sin and repentance and the coming judgment. Where are the perfect teeth, the groomed hair, the tailor-made suits and slick pitch – all the things you look for in a spokesman? Jesus himself isn’t much better. All his talk about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, his constant harping about turning away from sin, and now, today, his talk of rejection and crosses and death. Any half-decent focus group would never sanction Jesus’ advertising campaign. ‘Why can’t you focus on the rewards of exclusive membership rather than the cost of complete discipleship? And what is this business about being seen with lepers, tax collectors, and people possessed by demons? What demographic are you going for with all of this?’ But as always, Jesus thinks as God thinks, not as we do.
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
In today’s Gospel, Jesus welcomes back the twelve Apostles. He had sent them out two-by-two to preach repentance, to drive out demons, and cure the sick, and now they have returned, full of stories of their successes, anxious to tell Jesus all they have done. Jesus has missed his friends. He wants to have a reunion with them, just himself and his closest companions. He says to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” Jesus is looking forward to a pleasant evening of eating and laughing and storytelling with his friends
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
The Holy Spirit is the power of forgiveness. Recall the appearance of the risen Lord to the apostles recorded in the Gospel of John: Jesus said to them, “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’” To deny the Holy Spirit is to cut ourselves off from forgiveness. The Church has received this power from the risen Lord, and each of us has received this power in baptism.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year B
Actions are important, but our experience teaches us that words are, too. Every adult here today can think of words you would pay hard cash to buy back: Words hurled in anger, cruel gossip, a stupid joke, a schoolyard taunt that left a classmate in tears, a lie told to a trusting friend. And what of all those unspoken words you would bleed to have the chance to say? Words of apology to lost friends, words of gratitude to dead parents, words of forgiveness to a child, words of love to a spouse. Regret for what we failed to say often far outweighs grief over what we said.
