Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Title

Signs of the Kingdom

Outline

When I first visited Our Lady of Walsingham I was impressed

The architecture was, of course, impressive, as was the liturgy (first Evensong, later Ordinariate Mass), but viewing the people from behind was more impressive: there were wealthy people well-dressed without ostentation and next to them sat a poorer person in clean work clothes, but obviously work clothes. There were people of European white ancestry, and also people who seemed to be of Hispanic ancestry. There were also a number of people with disabilities, several sitting on electric scooters. It was as if the divisions of society were being healed, for all were there with one focus, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That is what it should look like when God comes close, when we hear the cry, “Here is your God, he comes with vindication.” The disabled who often could not be part of the community were enabled to be part of the community.

That is how people who saw Jesus knew he was divine

Our Gospel gives us only one healing but it comes after many accounts of healing. Jesus has come from the Mediterranean coast to the eastern border lands that had vacillated between Aram and Isreal. They bring him a man who could neither understand his teaching or ask for help. It was a mixed area, so we do not know if he was Jew or Gentile. Jesus, using signs that the man could understand restores him wholeness. But he does not want to be known as a wonder-worker, for he is more than that. It is not just that “He has done all things well,” but that the things he does well fulfill Isaiah, for God has come to vindicate.

Now that helps us understand James

“Show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.”

Partiality is just what the world does. We rank people by the signs of income or the lack of that. James gives two extremes, “shining clothes” and “filthy clothes.” We also rank people by their physical abilities, the deaf or bedridden being the most cut off. Of course, the demonized are often out of society.

But as society in general and we in particular make “distinctions among yourselves [we] become judges with evil designs (or thoughts).”

To show how wrong this is, how unChristian, James cites one teaching of Jesus, “Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?”

Sisters, this is practical life

First, the healing signs of the kingdom are not for church services or rallies for those who can afford to go, but for the world. They are that the world can see that God has come and his name is Jesus. Yes, he does heal believers as James notes, but in James it is private and quiet. The main function is to reveal Jesus to the world, to outsiders.

Second, the great saints cared for the outsider, the poor, the immigrant, the sick, and the dying. They did not discriminate. I think of Philip Neri or Fr Dameon or St Francis or so many others, including those whose causes are still open, such as Dorothy Day. Blessed are we if we imitate them, for we will show the presence of Jesus in us. I think of my wife who as a teacher loved all her students, but was most focused on the difficult ones, on somehow reaching them.

Likewise I think of the privilege it was in one situation to consistently have a deacon who had cerebral palsy. His being there with me at the altar was a sign of the kingdom.

Finally, make sure we do not make distinctions among our fellow Christians. Within Sisters it will not be the quality of clothing that is off-putting, but in the world that may be so. That person may be a gift to you so that you can live that God has come and that you can receive as a gift what God teach you in that person. At least he is teaching you that God has visited his people and his name is Jesus.

And may God bless you.