First Homily for Class

Hooray! I have over 1200 page views!  Really, it's not all that impressive and as much as it is affirming, I'm just happy that I can write out my musings and thoughts.  I thank God for that.  So, I'm taking Homiletics this quarter and we have to write and preach homilies for the upcoming Sunday.  Therefore, I thought that I might as well share them and see what people think.  This may be making a fool of myself, but oh well.  If I don't share my beginner's homilies, I can't grow, right?  Maybe.

Okay, so this homily is from last week, prepared for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (September 30th).  Hope you enjoy, or at least hope you don't hate it.  And if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, let me know.  Thank you very much.

                A question that often comes up is “What do I do when someone comes up to me and asks for money?”  When we ask this question, we don’t normally mean, “What do I do if one of my friends or family members asks me for money” because we know exactly what to do in that situation.  We know the person, we trust them, and we’re pretty sure we can trust the person to do the right thing with that money.  What the question really means is “What do I do when someone I don’t know comes up to me and asks me for money?”  Usually, in our experiences, this happens in train stations, airports, in front of convenience stores, or even on the street.  The person may look grungy, untrustworthy, and someone we think that we really don’t want to know.  We are immediately suspicious and jealous of the person.  “What do they need money for? Drugs, Alcohol, or something I don’t even want to know?” 

                This seems to be the way Joshua felt when Moses was told about the two men prophesying in the camp, when he said “Moses, my lord, stop them.”  Joshua’s reaction is similar to John’s report to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us."  Now, granted, neither Joshua nor John were worried about drugs or alcohol and the people weren’t requesting money.   They were jealous and possessive about God’s gifts though.  Eldad and Medad weren’t in the gathering when God poured His Spirit upon those at the tent and the man the apostles tried to prevent from driving out demons was not traveling with Jesus and the apostles.  They are suspicious and jealous though because those people aren’t “one of us.” 

                There’s one particular time, though it’s happened more than once, that sticks out in my mind.  I was at Union Station in Chicago and I had grabbed a quick bite to eat in between getting off one train and getting on the other.  I sat down and was eating when a homeless woman approached me and asked for money.  I said “I’m sorry, I can’t help” which she accepted and walked away.  I did have money, but I didn’t know what she was going to do with it.  I was also exhausted and in somewhat of a hurry.  She had sat down not too far from where I was and was minding her own business.  Her question and my response started to gnaw at me and continued for a few minutes.  In a way, I couldn’t believe it, I thought I may be saving her from feeding an addiction, what am I feeling guilty for?  After those few minutes, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I finished my food, approached her and said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, here you go” and handed her 4 dollars, the change I had.  She said thank you and God bless you and I walked away to catch my train.  I had been jealous and possessive of the money I had on my person at the time.  I had earned it, it was my money.  It wasn’t much, but it was still mine.  I had come to realize something, though, when I made the decision to give her the money.  That money wasn’t mine, I had custody of it, but it wasn’t actually mine, so why was I being so possessive of it?

                Moses asks a very similar of Joshua "Are you jealous for my sake?  Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets!  Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!"  Moses understands that the gift of prophecy is God’s to give and, it seems, desires that all people would be open to God’s spirit.  Moses knows that God is generous and seeks to be that generous himself.  Jesus himself replies to the apostles Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him.  There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.”  The underlying statement and question seems to be, “God knows who He gives His gifts to, why are you trying to prevent His generosity?” 

When we see God’s generosity, we are called to be generous ourselves, in imitation of Christ.  While there are times we may be on less of a tight schedule, or have gift cards, there are also going to be the times we may be horribly rushed and have no gift cards, but we do have money and are approached for help.  What are you going to do in that situation?  Let us ask God that He will give us the graces to be generous in all that we do.