Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Mt. 18:20
“For a city as fragmented as ours, Harvey could’ve completely broken us. Instead the opposite happened.”
Bryan Washington, who grew up in Houston and “spent summers biking around the city’s wards,” writes further in a recent Washington Post editorial that “Houston is a city of stupefying inequality, with a widening income gap, and clear lines between those who have and those who don’t.”
And yet, “On Tuesday afternoon in Houston … officials started turning volunteers away …. The response of Houstonians had eclipsed the demand. The people I met at shelters and on boats, and the folks in line waiting to volunteer weren’t asking where the evacuees came from, or who paid what for where. They just wanted to help.”
He concludes: “The city showed up. Our presence was as momentous as the disaster itself.”
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus emphasizes the importance of community. He keeps reminding us that it is through joining together in solidarity with one another that we have the best chance of living lives that are whole and healthy.
Houston understood this.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t actually know very much about living in community. Ours is a society in which rugged individualism reigns supreme. We’re often encouraged to “tough it out on our own,” to “make our own way,” to show how strong we are by demonstrating individual will power.
The reality is:
We need one another. We’re not supposed to just “go it alone.”
Even in our faith life, this is why we come as a community on a regular basis to believe together, to listen to God’s word together, and to eat at his table together.
We need the support of one another, especially when we are in pain.
The community – as Houston demonstrated so powerfully – can help us heal. The community can demonstrate to people struggling with something as powerful and destructive as Harvey that they are not alone, that they are of primary importance to others, and that they can heal by allowing the community to reach out to them and assist them in getting whatever help they need.
The other grace that today’s gospel stresses is the gift of mercy. Pope Francis has made this the cornerstone of his papacy – because he believes strongly that this was also the cornerstone of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth.
He’s trying to tell us that faith is a verb. It’s a “doing” conviction. It isn’t just a private matter between me and God, but a mission statement that pushes me out of myself and into the community of people – especially into the lives of those who are immobilized by life threatening forces.
The Eucharist that we celebrate together as a community each Sunday is not something that is just about our own personal relationship with God. It’s about two other matters as well – the community and the gift of mercy.
The eating of the body of Christ and the drinking of his blood is ultimately about giving each of us the power, the strength, the motivation, the drive, the impetus to leave the church building and join the community of people – especially to join those who have lost hope, those who have almost given up, those whose lives have been radically altered by a force as powerful as a hurricane.
Again, our faith is a verb. It’s an action word. It’s designed to spark within us a desire to be a part of a mission – a mission to bring the grace of God’s mercy to a community awash in deep agony.
Our gospel today, then, is reminding us that there are so many people starving to the point of dying – starving not just for the basics of food and housing, but who are also profoundly hungry for meaning and purpose and a sense that they count, that they are important, that they are deeply loved.
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Our God is not off in the heavens somewhere living in splendor and majesty. Our God is right here in our midst, right here with the broken-hearted, right here with those who have lost hope and meaning, right here with those volunteers who risked their own safety to reach out in any way they could for those who were literally drowning.
Bryan Washington perhaps says it all best when he writes:
“When I was outside of the convention center in Houston a few days ago, a bunch of trucks dropped off groups of volunteers with backpacks. There were teenagers in sweatpants, and uniformed officers, and doctors and lawyers and gas-station clerks, and a pack of high-school-age girls stood among them. They were a diverse little crew, with snapbacks and hijabs and purple hair …. They asked how they could help, and told the officials they need to be here.”
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
11809194.1 9/7/2017
