Sunday, July 12, 2015

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:
  1. Jeremiah 23: 1-6
  2. Psalms 23: 1-3, 3-4, 5, 6
  3. Ephesians 2: 13-18
  4. Mark 6: 30-34
  1. The sheep have been fleeced
    • I'm taking a catechetical formation class which has quite a diversity of ages amongst the students.  One 16 year old told me that he looked to me as a spiritual grandfather after the class had been meeting for a few weeks.  Do you think that you might be a leader/shepherd to someone and not even know it?
    • If so, how are we responsible to such people?
    • To what extent do they need to know our inner struggles so that they know the "real us"?
    • How would we even convey that transparency to a community that we're not even aware of?
    • Do you think Jesus might be a blogger if He were alive today?
  2. What about this is verdant?
    • Do you feel that you have needs that are not getting met?
    • Does that mean that maybe God isn't your shepherd, or there are parts of your life that are not as well shepherded as others?
    • Or, does that speak to the nature of your needs?
    • How do you tell what you really need at a given moment anyway?
  3. You've been named in the will
    • One retreat exercise that I participated in with the Confirmation kids was that we had a prayer table with candles on it, and everyone was asked to sit in the room close to the prayer table if you felt that you were pretty close to Jesus, and out at the fringes of the room if you felt that your relationship with Jesus was distant in some way or another.  What they didn't tell us was to ignore where everyone else was sitting.
    • Do you think that getting close to Jesus automatically means getting closer to everyone else who's close to Jesus?
    • What does it mean if two people, both ostensibly ardent disciples of Christ, disagree on some point, maybe how to handle a social injustice, what color to paint the inside of the church, or how to respond to the recent supreme court ruling on gay marriage?
  4. If you want to make God laugh, tell Him you have plans
    • I'm always fascinated by this passage because, for all the world, it looks as though Jesus was caught by surprise.  You can almost hear Him say to his assistant "Uh oh, looks like we're going to have to cancel that spa appointment for today, too many needy people on the horizon."
    • How important is your prayer life to your overall well-being and balance?
    • There's literally no end to people in need, no matter where you go, so how do you know when to let someone else take over?
    • Do you think that there is a work/life balance needed in our spiritual lives?
Preparation for Reconciliation:
  1. Am I willing to hold the shepherds, at whatever level, accountable for the way that they lead us?
  2. How strong is my trust in Jesus to meet my needs?
  3. Am I a peacemaker?
  4. How flexible am I with regards to how I serve God day to day?
I don't know my hands anymore
Watching the Master lay His hands on others was always awe inspiring.
He always knew just what to say, when to say it, what to do.
People always left Him better than they were before,
Sometimes better in ways they had never anticipated.

We always wondered how He did it, and in the backs of our minds,
We wondered what was going to happen when He inevitably left us,
And we had to carry on without Him.  But that was a long ways off.
Or so we kept telling ourselves.

Once, I tried to imagine what that would be like,
All of us trying to remember.  It might sound something like:
Andrew, you're not doing it right,
I'm sure that He always healed with his right hand.

Or, maybe each of us would have a particular specialty,
One of us would handle the demoniac, another the lame,
Someone else would specialize in those with wounded hearts,
After all, only God can do everything that Jesus did.

But then He sent us out, just two of us together,
And we had to handle all of the needs that shambled toward us.
I look at my hands, and see the roughened flesh
From hauling lines, and mending nets,

I used to know what I was capable of, what my calling was,
It was written large in these familiar hands of mine.
But now I stare at them as a strangers,
And I no longer know what I'm capable of.

Shalom!

No comments:

Post a Comment