Years ago, I had an opportunity to spend some time at the beach.
I was sitting there enjoying
the crashing waves against the shoreline
and watching the sun glisten.
It was just beautiful.
I heard this commotion in the distance.
I looked over and it appears there was a child,
who is screaming a full belt and
then there is someone who appears to be his father,
whacking him full belt.
I was shocked and alarmed.
What was more disturbing was all the people around them
were looking on but not doing anything;
matter of fact, they were moving further away.
I got up from my cozy little position and I walked toward them.
The closer I got, I realized that I have not seen the whole truth.
Yes. It was the father.
And yes, the child was screaming
but the boy was being attacked by a swarm of wasps.
And the father was whacking all the wasps
and occasionally hitting the child but accidentally.
From a distance, it looked like he was just whacking the child.
And that explained why everyone was moving away.
I think that happens to us,
not that particular situation,
but I think sometimes we judge from a distance
with partial truth and we come to a conclusion.
If we take the time to move in close
and see the real context of what is happening in the situation
or even in the lives of others,
we will find more of the truth and
realize that there is more to it than what we see;
and in fact, there is a reason for what is happening.
That happens in our world a lot.
It happens not only politically but religiously.
We tend to judge people from a distance
but if we only moved in close to hear what they had to say,
we will find there is more truth to what we are hearing or seeing.
There is more context.
There is more contour in people’s lives
than we ever give them credit for,
especially in some given circumstances.
It is true in all of our lives and the only way out of it,
is if we are willing to move ourselves and to move closer,
to move in and if you would cross boundaries
and cross borders so that we can see what the truth is.
In the reading today, Jesus is returning back to his hometown.
You can sense his frustration because his own native friends,
his own native town dwellers have stayed away from him
and remained emotionally, spiritually at a distance.
They are not really listening to him.
They are afraid to move in close.
They have expectations that they want him to meet
and he is not meeting them.
That distance that they are keeping from him
is not allowing them to really understand who Jesus is.
We are all called to follow Jesus
but unless we move in close,
we are not really going to be able to fully follow him
because from a distance what Jesus says and asks us to do is crazy.
To love everyone?
To serve those who are most in need?
It doesn’t make any sense until we move in close to Jesus.
And when we move in close to Jesus
and come to know who he is then our hearts are moved.
That requires of us some change.
We have to change our position of where we are
and move towards where Jesus is calling us to be.
And most often, that is uncomfortable,
that movement, because we like to do what we have always done.
We like to be where we have always been.
It is just sort of the nature of us.
But we are called to move closer.
Jeremiah in the first reading is a prophet
and he knows what the Lord is asking him.
He is moving in closer to the Lord
and there is a bigger demand
and he knows well that the consequences are
going to require a lot from him.
And he finds it hard.
He protests it to no avail.
The Lord does not take no for an answer.
He insists that he do what he has asked him to do.
And Paul, the super apostle who has traveled
so many areas on missionary trips has followed The Way.
The Way of Jesus, as it was first known,
because Jesus was The Truth, The Way and the Life.
Paul calls it actually calls it “a more excellent Way.”
He gives it even more emphasis. And why?
Because he is telling the community at Corinth
to stop fighting among themselves that
“The Way, the most excellent Way” is the way of love.
And that no matter where you walk or what you do,
you have got to have love in your life.
This is the way to follow Christ.
This is how we move closer to Christ by loving one another.
And we hear it elsewhere in scripture
that we cannot love God without loving one another.
And most especially those who are the least among us,
those who are the furthest away.
And that is what we are called to do as disciples.
To move in close.
To love others with compassion.
To love Christ with compassion
by getting to know their story and
we can love them and follow the Lord in that way.
There are many ways that we can do this.
This weekend, we launch our Annual Diocesan Appeal
and we talk about the whole diocese;
well, a lot of us do not know much about the diocese.
Many of us don’t know what we have done there
or what they do or say versus us;
or the other parts of the diocese.
We are fine here. We just do great.
But we have to move in close.
We have to be willing to hear their story
and to find out what it is that we can do together,
together in Christ; this idea that we are one Church;
there is one Way that we are called to be.
Today, we ask you to pray about contributing to
our Annual Diocesan Appeal.
But to do so, we will need to move closer to their stories,
to the work they do on behalf of all the Church.
Please look at the ADA movie and
open your heat to the Diocese.
