2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Previous Years: 2020 || 2017
Preached at the Church of the Assumption in Bellingham, WA
Recording
https://moorejesus.podbean.com/e/it-is-too-little/
Transcript
Thank you to T.W. for editing this transcript.
Our second reading today is silly, and I need to tell you why it’s silly. But to understand it, you need to understand the Sunday Lectionary. The Sunday Lectionary has a three-year cycle of readings. The way it works on Sunday is we pick a Gospel depending on the year, and we go through that Gospel in order. This is the year of Saint Matthew. We will be going through Saint Matthew’s Gospel. We’re starting with a little excerpt of Saint John, because John doesn’t have his own year. We sort of just fit him in, in certain years, depending on where we want to talk about him. He also gets exclusively featured in Lent. But generally, we’re going to go through Matthew in order this year. Then we pick a first reading that mirrors the Gospel. Somehow there’s always a connection between the first reading and the Gospel during Ordinary Time. So, if you want to understand the readings, read those two together and ask yourself, Why would the Church put these two together?
The second reading is completely unrelated to all of that. We pick a second reading from one of the letters of the New Testament, or the Acts of the Apostles, or the Book of Revelation (although those are usually in favored seasons), and we just go through those letters in order. So, for the next few weeks, we’re going through First Corinthians, and we have here the beginning of Saint Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
The reason this reading is silly is because the beginning of all ancient letters is essentially the envelope. It just tells you who it’s from and who it’s to, and that’s it. In this letter, we have “Paul and Sosthenes to the Church in Corinth.” That’s basically it. We’re just reading the envelope. It’s like “Church of the Assumption, 2116 Cornwall Avenue, Bellingham, Washington 98225.” That’s the whole reading. It’s just the envelope. Now in ancient letters they will add things to that address to explain why they’re writing to you or who they think you are. So, Paul does add a couple of things in Corinthians but, of all his letters, this one carries some of the least information in the greeting. Again, like the envelope, it would be kind of like writing a letter that says, “Church of the Assumption, full of awesome people, 2116 Cornwall Avenue.” That’s what we’re doing. What does he add to the beginning of Corinthians? He says two things. He says, “To the Church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy” (1Cor 1:2). He’s addressing people who have been sanctified by Jesus and who have a call to continual holiness. That’s it. That’s the second reading. I hope it’s edifying for you. When I think about those things, I think about how we have the same characteristics as the Corinthians.
We are sanctified by Christ Jesus and called to be holy. When I think about our community’s call to holiness, I think about what I’ve been trying to do at Assumption for the last three and a half years. Which is not to say this did not happen before I showed up. I am not the arbiter and bringer of all holiness, but I knew when I showed up that before I did anything else I needed to make sure our foundation was solid—specifically with our relationships with Jesus Christ. I needed to make sure that everything we did needed to be focused on the person of Jesus. Because it’s very easy for parishes (and especially parishes like ours that have good people, a good community, and a lot of people willing to be involved) to get distracted by a lot of stuff: by moral issues, by political issues, and by all sorts of different types of service. While all of these are important expressions of our faith, they don’t make sense without the person of Jesus. If we’re out doing advocacy or if we’re involved in all sorts of different activities, but we don’t know Jesus Christ as a person, as an individual, nothing we do matters. It’s all built on a foundation of sand. So, it’s been essential to me since I got here that we focus on the person of Jesus, and that we focus our people in on what it looks like to have a relationship with Jesus.
In November, I handed out the annual discipleship commitment with three sections given to us by the Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan. The first section essentially is “Know Jesus” and in it is go to Mass on Sunday. Go to confession regularly. Make sure you have a habit of prayer 15 minutes a day. Try to grow in your faith and learn about your faith. Those are essential things. Without those, nothing below it makes sense. Well as I was praying about this and our community and how we’re doing this month, I kind of came to the conclusion that, honestly, we’re doing pretty well. I’m happy with the level of relationship with Jesus that I see in our people. I think our people are doing pretty well right now with mass attendance, with prayer, and with confession. There are still people that need to work on dedication to attending Sunday Mass every Sunday. Not just attending when it’s convenient, not just when we have an event or a reason but attending every Sunday including when we travel. We definitely have people who are still struggling with those 15 minutes of prayer a day and making it a habit that doesn’t fall away when we have a weird day. We certainly have people who are still afraid of the confessional, and people in our pews I have not seen in confession yet. But on the whole, I think we’re pretty solid as a community.
I’m seeing a lot of grace and a lot of fruit in our community from increasing practices of prayer and devotion. As I was praying about this this month, I asked the Lord, What’s the next step? What are we supposed to do next? If we’ve got a good system helping people be holy, what’s the next thing we need to put in place? And I just went back to the pastoral plan, that annual discipleship commitment. After we know Jesus as a person, the next thing is to realize that it’s not just me and Jesus. It’s we and Jesus. Christianity is a communal effort, and we need to make sure our faith is lived together. We don’t just have one on one prayer, but we have prayer in community where we are talking to each other about our faith. We are sharing with each other what it means to have a relationship with Jesus. We’re talking about the different blessings that we’re experiencing. We’re going to people and saying, Look, I had a moment with the Lord this week, and I just want to tell you about it because I’m so excited about it. Or to be there for our friends so that when they have those experiences, we can be there to receive and to hear and to listen. All of that is essential to our faith. It’s communitarian. It is communal. It is not just individual.
That’s why I’m so sad that I messed up Coffee and Doughnuts this week. Because I’ve seen this communitarian nature of the faith really flower. I’ve seen it really flower at Coffee and Donuts. People will go and they’ll meet new parishioners, new people. They will talk to each other about their lives and their faith, and it’s beautiful, and there are fruits from it. It’s weird how central Coffee and Donuts is to my pastoral vision of the parish. Without it, I can’t achieve the vision that I have, and yet I messed it up and here we are. But if you’ve never been, go and learn what it’s like to be in relationship with your fellow parishioners. Develop those relationships.
Thinking along these lines, we should look at our first reading. The first section from this part of Isaiah says, “Now the Lord has spoken, who formed me as a servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him;” (Is 49:5). The first thing the Lord does is gather people to himself. That’s what this individual prayer looks like. That’s what it looks like for us to have a habit of devotion and prayer. He’s gathering us to himself. He is making sure that we are healed, and we are loved, and we have that foundation in the person of Jesus. Our relationship is first and foremost with Jesus Christ before any of the other details of the faith.
But then he says, “It is too little, the Lord says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob,” (Is 49:6). It’s too little, this prayer, this devotion that we’re developing together. It’s too little. Which is not to say it’s not important. It’s foundational. But we need to remember it’s the starting point, not the ending point. We need to get to a place where we’re praying 15-20 minutes a day, we’re going to Mass on Sunday, we’re going to confession, and we’re learning about our faith. That’s essential. We need to get there. But that’s not where we end. Because once we’ve developed that, once we’re there, once we have that one on one with Jesus, once we’re really focused in on his person, then the Lord says, “It’s too little for you to be my servant…I will make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Is 49:6).
When we receive the Lord, he fills us with his grace and with his presence. In the Gospel of John, it’s described as living waters filling us. Well, if the Lord is filling us with water like a cup or like a vessel, at some point that vessel is going to pour over. That’s the goal. That’s what we want. The graces that the Lord is pouring out on our community, the graces that I’ve seen as people grow in faith, prayer and devotion, those graces are intended for you, but not just for you. Those graces are given to you for you and for others. When you think about water that stays in one place it becomes stagnant and gross. But if water flows, it’s clear and refreshing and life-giving. The graces and the blessings that you have received from the Lord are intended to go somewhere. Through you, they’re intended to bless you. You are absolutely going to receive graces and love having those graces, but they go through you to others. “It’s too little for you to be my servant…I will make you a light to the nations,” (Is 49:6). The beginning of this reading begins, “The Lord said to me, you are my servant Israel, through whom I show my glory” (Is 49:3). As the Lord blesses you, his glory will shine forth through you, and you will become a light to the nations. When we think about this course of discipleship, it begins with that individual relationship, but it continues in a communal relationship. It continues by inviting your neighbors and your friends and your family to come to mass to get to know the Lord. Maybe mass is too complicated so, just inviting them over for a Bible study, or just to have a conversation or if they are going in for surgery and saying, “Hey, could I pray with you briefly?” The Lord is blessing you for a purpose. He’s blessing you for yourselves, but not just for yourselves. “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Is 49:6). If you have been blessed by the Lord, if you have experienced his grace, why wouldn’t you want other people to also receive those blessings and that grace? It’s not an imposition. It’s not proselytization. It’s an invitation into a better life. To say, I have been so blessed and fulfilled by my relationship with Jesus. I want everybody to be able to share that. I want everybody to have those blessings and everybody to have that living water flowing up in them. That’s a beautiful gift to offer someone. It’s not an imposition. There is still plenty of work to be done. I say that our community is doing well with our relationship with Jesus, and that’s true for the people who are here. But I can tell you in my heart breaks daily. I can tell you there are a ton of people that I got to know before COVID that I have not seen back to church. Maybe at Christmas, maybe once between Christmas and Easter. There are so many people that are missing. You know who they are because you sat next to them for many years. You know who they are because you maintain relationships with them. It’s time to invite them back. It’s time to say that it’s time to be here and to bring them again the fruit of your relationship with the Lord. To say, I have been blessed. I have been graced. My life is better because I’m praying and going to mass and going to confession. It’s time to invite them back into that life is so essential. There are people in our pews who are still struggling with the Sunday mass, or struggling with prayer, or struggling with confession. That’s fine. Stay in the struggle. The struggle matters. Getting that foundation built matters. And if that’s where you’re at, don’t worry about it. Just keep working on it. Don’t worry about the second phase. But if you feel good about where you’re at, if you feel like your relationship with Jesus is locked in, your prayer is good, your mass is good, your confessions are good, that your faith is growing, and you’ve been blessed, know that the next step is to realize it’s too little. The Lord wants to grace you even more. He wants to grace you with a heart for evangelization, a heart for inviting people into relationship with him. “I will make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Is 49:6).
Fr. Moore 