Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Come to me all you who are labored and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Mt. 11:28

Early in the 1960’s, during my college years, The Kingston Trio singing group became what one critic called “the most envied, imitated, and successful singing group in all of show business.” They were a major part of what was then known as “folk music” – that kind of sing-along music where everyone grabbed a guitar, and hootenannies became all the rage!

And then the Beatles came along – and nothing has been quite the same since!

But I mention The Kingston Trio because one of their biggest hits was a song that began with the Trio repeating this same line: “It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.” (Feel free to sing along!)

It then ended with: “I’m worried now, but I won’t be worried long.” 

Today’s gospel reading reminds me of this song. 

Because the words to “The Worried Man” closely resemble what Jesus is saying about how terribly burdened and anxious we all are, and how passionately Jesus desires to give us rest – or, in the words of the song, how much Jesus wants to show us a way in which “we won’t be worried long.”

Worry. Anxiety. 

We live in a world of so many available choices – seemingly endless ones. So many choices that it could easily be said that no other people since the beginning of time have had so many available to them. 

Worry, then, is that state of mind in which a certain kind of paralysis is created within us, a terrible deep-down-in-the-gut feeling that “I’m scared to death I won’t make the right choice, and then what will I do?”

We Americans are terribly anxious, worried people.

We’re worried about our jobs; worried about our children; worried about our marriages; worried about our finances; worried about our health; worried about our weight; worried about getting all the “stuff” we want to enjoy; worried about our sports teams; worried about … just about everything.

Sadly, we are presently experiencing the added onerous burden of finding a healthy way to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic that has affected the lives of over 500 million people worldwide, not to mention the racial crisis that has forced people around the world to reevaluate their understanding of what it means to be human. 

How do we come to terms with all the division and hatred and wrenching heartache we’re faced with every day? How do we find the “rest” Jesus promises to give us in today’s gospel?

How do we find a way to live from within our own center of connection and communion with God when so many troubles surround us daily?

The answer to these questions is perhaps best told in a story that Richard Rohr, OFM offers in a recent Reflection. It’s a story told by a member of his community:

“I run a food pantry in … Massachusetts. During the pandemic we’re experiencing, the number of families we serve has doubled, and so has the tonnage of food we distribute. At times the task can be daunting. The readings (from the gospel) have shifted my thinking. I no longer think of our work as service, but as an act of solidarity, of becoming one with our neighbors. Service implies a vertical relationship, on above another. Solidarity calls for a horizontal, two-way relationship between equals, one to one. Of course, God is at the center of it all.” 

“Becoming one with our neighbors.” 

Solidarity. 

We can’t achieve the end to racism, the solution to the pandemic, the rending of our society all by ourselves. All of this can only be achieved through solidarity – “the act of becoming one with our neighbors.” And, as the food pantry man insists, with “God at the center of it all.”

The best way to love God, of course, is to love what God loves. 

Racism, for example, is a direct affront to “what God loves.” It is an evil that divides the human family. It implies that God made a mistake in creating people with a different skin color. 

Solidarity is the answer to ending racism and the pandemic and the terrible division we are experiencing in our society today. Solidarity with God. Solidarity with the conviction that all human beings are created in God’s image. Solidarity with the belief that our pandemic will  only be healed when we address it with the combined understanding that our medical community has been repeatedly advising us. 

“Come to me all you who are labored and burdened, and I will give you rest.” 

That invitation is addressed to all of us. It involves at least three things:

First, the re-establishment of our priorities. 

To do that, we need to ask ourselves a series of questions: 

What master am I serving? What values am I embracing? What attitudes are driving the bus of my life?

Are they ones that Jesus embraces throughout the gospels, the ones about reconciliation, about peacemaking, about being merciful and pure of heart and humble, about being in solidarity with those who are anchored in the conviction that we need to not allow greed and ambition, violence, hatred and meanness to turn us against one another?

Second, set aside time each day just to listen. Listen to the people who are dear to you. Listen to God speaking to you through the beauties of Sacred Scripture, music, art, literature, and nature. 

Third, make the community of those who share your values and your dreams the most important people in your life. These people are the ones who make up your “church” family. And then celebrate with them the ultimate family meal, the Eucharist. 

Those are the ones in which you can find solidarity. 

These famous words of St. Francis of Assisi may also help to assure each of us to “not be worried long:” 

“Keep a clear eye toward life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s Creature.

What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more. 

Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing you have received … only what you have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.” 

Jesus offers a way of living that will no longer be a worried one. Instead, it will be one filled with the rest and the peace that Jesus promises when he says: 

“Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” 

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

Vision Prayer: 

Lord of Light,
You have looked upon your creation and affirmed its goodness. Sharpen our vision
So that we may see the world with your eyes. 
With your eyes there will be no stranger
Only the Children of God 
Waiting to be welcomed. 
With your eyes we will not miss the exquisite beauty
Present all around us
That stirs our hearts and gives glory to you.
With your eyes we can see the work you have left for us
Transforming ourselves, our world, and our church
To bring about your dream for us, that all may be one.
Light of Light,
You see all things.
Sharpen our vision
So that we may see the world with your eyes.

Amen.

(from the liturgy from Old St. Pat’s Church in Chicago with thanks to Don Smith for sending this on to me)