Reflection for Sunday – November 24, 2019
Readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-3; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23: 35-43
Click here to download a PDF of this homily.
Preacher: Patrick Fox
As we celebrate the close of another year in the life of our Church I am caught in the reflection of the turbulent times through which we travel. Then I bump up against the title of our feast, Jesus Christ King of the Universe. And standing and looking at the universe I am caught in the thought that God’s design is calling me to celebrate—to celebrate that the God of creation is the God of all that is in this universe, of which I am such a small, small part.
In our first reading we hear of the God of all, and that we are bone of bone and flesh of flesh. Paul’s letter to the Colossians reminds us to give thanks for being fit to share in the light. And in Luke’s gospel we hear the voice of God saying to one of the least, “today you will be with me in paradise.”
While we are a wounded Church, God’s good people, we are also so much more. The division of religion and religious denominations are all made of human hands but at the culmination of our year we are reminded that the God we claim, claims not just us but all of the universe. We are all children of God and always will be even when we don’t believe it because a generous God made all that is made.
Maybe the path to healing is a wider gate than we might imagine. Maybe it is not a matter of any one denomination but rather of the godly sense that all that is made is good and seeks the good. God created us all and we are all God’s children and today we celebrate the congregation of God—not just one manifestation of that congregation in a Roman rite, but a true awareness of all that is alive in our universe.
Before we can see ourselves together as “one” we must be in relationship with and value the “other.” Ranier Maria Rilke put it this way:
God speaks to each of us as God makes us
Then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear;
You, sent out beyond your recall,
Go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like new flame
And make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
So I think we are offered this feast to culminate our year, to draw us into the more universal love of God and maybe, just maybe, draw us to the path of healing we need. A healing that is not found by looking in—but indeed is found in looking out to the greater universe of all God’s creation.
Gathering in a space in which our God is king, not in a haughty sense, but a king because as creator God calls us to our origin—which is being good. A space which can only be found when we stop looking in to find answers and start looking out, like a creator seeking the good that is only found all around all of us. Because when we look with those eyes we might find the sacred in ourselves and in others; instead of doing no harm we might begin to create the good that we are and find the good that we seek.
- Reflection for Sunday – February 18, 2024 - February 14, 2024
- Reflection for Sunday – May 21, 2023 - May 17, 2023
- Reflection for Sunday – February 5, 2023 - February 1, 2023
