Sept. 16, 2012: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

When’s the last time you were asked to go door-to-door in an unfamiliar neighborhood to sell something? Those of you who sell Girl Scout cookies know how nerve wracking it is to knock on a door and deliver a sales pitch.  A college roommate of mine shared with me his experience of going door-to-door as a Mormon missionary. When he was 19 years old, he was in a neighborhood with a bicycle as his primary mode of transportation. He said it was tough being rejected at many homes, but that experience strengthened what he believed to be his Mormon faith. He said to me, “You know, Christ himself was rejected by so many.”

Our confirmation class students also faced fears of the unknown as they were dropped off at a neighborhood in the flood-damaged city of Laplace with the instruction to go door-to-door. They had with them the Walmart cards that our Donaldsonville community had collected to assist the community of Laplace. The students asked their confirmation coordinator, “What do we say to them?”  She responded, “Ask them how they are doing, and ask what happened to them.” In other words, she told the students to, “Listen to them, and love them. Be Christ to them.” At one house they visited, the woman they spoke with burst into tears and said, “I’m Catholic too, but I’ve never seen Catholics walking in the streets and doing this.” A person in another house asked if the there was an incentive for the students to participate.  He asked, “Do you guys get service hours for this?” The students replied, “No.” One of the most moving encounters the students had was a lady who said she put God in “time out.” She said that she was a generous person who did many things for God, and even donated her kidney to her friend.  She told them, ‘now look what God did to my home.’ She was so upset by the flood damage that she decided to have nothing to do with God; she didn’t know when she was going to pull God out of “time out.” The students told her, “We are so sorry this happened to you; we are here to bring God back!” The lady burst into tears and thanked the students. The people who received the cards from the students said that it was not the amount of money that touched them, but it was the students’ presence.

St. James in our Second Reading challenges us with these provocative questions:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well, " but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Put in another way, “Faith without love-in-action, is dead.”

In the Gospel, Jesus also asks us a provocative question: Who do you say that I am? Our answer to his question will determine how we live out our faith. If I answer, “Jesus you are kind, loving, and compassionate,” then Jesus will ask us, “If you profess that you are my disciple, are you kind, loving and compassionate as I?” If our answer is no, Jesus has this more provocative directive for us: "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. This is a hard saying to us. We may say to someone, “Yes, I am Catholic.” But what does it mean? I may say to someone, “Yes, I am a Catholic priest.” But what does it mean? It means that I must love as Jesus loves. I must have compassion and be gentle as Jesus. Yet I must say to Jesus, “Jesus, although I was ordained by you as a priest and anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit, I still fail you by being unkind, impatient, and prideful.” Being Catholic means--whether as a priest or laity--a person whose life embodies the life of Jesus: His love-in-action. It is disconcerting for us to hear another Catholic person say to the confirmation students, “I’ve never seen Catholics do something like this.” Our community has demonstrated in a real way that our faith is alive by our love-in-action for the people of Laplace. The challenge for all of us is to make love-in-action our habit for life.