Homily for 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Two words: Drew Brees! 

All I want to hear now from Drew is: put me in coach I’m ready to play!

Man that was close; maybe we all can get back to the business of life!  All I can say is with that kind of contract, he better do a great job!  Speaking of jobs, three weeks ago I quit mine.  That’s right, after an 18 year career with one bank, I moved on to another bank.  I started my new job this past Monday.  Now despite being in the same type of work for over 30 years, my new employer still insists on weeks of training before I am sent to my office.  I will be sent, but not until I learn as much as I can about the job and my new employer.

We all know what this looks like.  We graduate our young people from high school, and hopefully college, before we send them out into the world.  We prepare our young couples before they enter into marriage.  Even before I could be ordained a deacon, I had to complete many years of training.  We are sent, but we are prepared.

Second point: Between leaving the old job and starting the new, my wife and I ventured off on an 8 day vacation.  We drove up to North Carolina, visited my son, went over to see the Biltmore and spent some time in the Smokies before some time in Alabama.  I still marvel how it seems we spend as much time packing and loading up the car as we spend driving cross country.  Let’s call this stuff baggage.  Don’t we drag a little extra baggage along, not just on vacation, but life’s journey?

As people of faith, we are being sent, and we don’t need to drag our baggage with us.

St. Mark’s Gospel brings us to the 12 Apostles graduation day today.  After much time learning from Jesus and hearing him preach and witnessing His miracles, it’s time to send them out.  It’s time for them to say and do what Jesus has taught them, to spread the good news far and wide.  He gives them very specific instructions and we focus on what he forbids them to take.  We immediately say to ourselves, I would surely need more stuff to take.  The twelve will learn on this mission to trust God to provide.  Apparently He does.  We hear near the end of this Gospel that they preached repentance, drove out demons, and anointing many with oil, curing and healing the sick.

The Scriptures don’t tell us how challenging and difficult their mission was, nor do we know if they ever had to shake the dust off their feet.  We don’t even know if Jesus sent them out all at once, or some required more time under His direction.  Frankly, none of this is really important.  As long as they followed Jesus’ instructions, they appear to have been successful in carrying out their mission.

You know this sending of the twelve is also the sending of you and me.  We are sent.  Now the entire Mass is very important, but so is the dismissal.  I’m concerned that many do not realize this and, even worse, many may never hear this as they leave Mass early.  The dismissal is us being sent.  Since the new translation, I normally use two: Go and announce the Gospel, and Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life!  Yes, we are called to go spread the Gospel.  We can do it in words, if we are so encouraged, and we are called to do so by the witness of our lives.  Each dismissal at Mass sends us out into the world, albeit our world, and asks of us to live out our Christian faith, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, everyday!  But Deacon, I can’t possibly do this.  I’m just not qualified.  I don’t understand what this means.  Look at today’s readings.  We have Amos from our 1^st reading.  He becomes a prophet and delivers God’s message, yet he is simple and ordinary and felling oh so unqualified.  St. Paul gives us an encouraging message in our 2^nd reading and he once persecuted the Church and by trade, is a tent maker.  What about the twelve?  A most unspectacular lot, simple men, no leaders or pillars of the community, yet they went out and spread the Church which has grown to what She is today.  If you are baptized, you are qualified.  If you are baptized you are called.  If you are baptized, you are sent.  Sent to do what?  You are sent to go and announce the Gospel and glorify the Lord by your life.

One more point on today’s Gospel.  We see the beginnings of one of the Church’s seven sacraments; the Anointing of the Sick.  The twelve used oil to anoint and cure.  The Church does so today.  We have a more generous application of this important Sacrament and I would encourage anyone who is ill, facing a surgery or even medical tests, to seek out this Sacrament of healing.  Like Reconciliation, this Sacrament forgives sin; this is why Anointing of the Sick must be done by a Priest; even a Deacon cannot administer this Sacrament.

As we prepare to continue Mass and receive Jesus in Holy Communion can we remember how Jesus is sending us?  We are sent from our pews to receive Him.  Are we properly prepared to do so?  We may be sent to call the office this week and volunteer to be a CCD teacher or work with RCIA.  These are two immediate needs that await those among us who are sent.  Finally, can we as a parish family, respond more generously to our monthly 1^st Friday Adoration and Benediction?  Last month was light, possibly because of the holiday week and family vacations.  But Jesus sends us to witness to Him, to worship Him and as a parish, we can do so much better responding to this important devotion.

In a moment we will all hear the call of Jesus sending us in the dismissal of the Mass.  Can we respond: put me in coach, I’m ready to play!