4th Sunday of the Apostles - June 29th

Feast of Sts. Peter & Paul

Relationship - Identity - Mission

Invitation - Knowledge of who you are - understanding what to do

In the Gospel of Luke today there is a lot happening. We heard about how Jesus went to pray and then chose the TWELVE who would become His Apostles, we heard some blessings, some woes, we hear judge not and you will not be judged, forgive and you will be forgiven, the blind cannot lead the blind, and we also hear that those with giant wooden logs in their eyes should probably see an ophthalmologist.

So many different things are happening yet as I was praying with these readings, it all seems to come together in three ways: RELATIONSHIP - IDENTITY - MISSION

These three things, in that order, provide us with the opportunity to be as fully alive as we can be. Last week we heard the lawyer ask Jesus what he must do to receive eternal life and the response was to love God and love your neighbor. The greatest commandment. The core of our Christian faith. We were told what to do, and this week it seems like we’re told how.

We have to start with relationship, which helps us receive our identity, and then complete our mission, which is to bring ourselves and others in full union to God.

Relationship - identity - mission; in that order.

If we use a tree as an image of our life, we want to be so rooted in God that the tree is as fully alive as possible and that all the fruit that comes from it is good. God is the source of life, the source of all joy and goodness, so it makes the most sense to be rooted in Him. We will know a tree by its fruits.

In our daily lives, this can often be flipped backwards. If we begin with mission, we form our identity on what we do, and then our relationships with others and God suffers. We will always keep ourselves busy with things to do and people to see. Even in the Church we might spend time serving or volunteering or helping out in every possible way and then we define ourselves by what we’ve accomplished. That leaves very little room for an interior prayer life, a close relationship with God which He wants from all of us. The consequences of living this out backwards are that we can burn out, or become prideful in our works, or become insecure with ourselves because our relationship with God is shallow or distant. Others will see right through us, our good works will lack any credibility or humility.

If we start out of order, and put identity first and mission second and relationship 3rd, or if we focus on mission and identity and forget about relationship altogether, then we define ourselves by our talents, our skills or our role rather than God’s love for us, and pursue good works with a sense of vanity and a fragile identity. Mission then becomes self-serving or a performance. And as soon as people criticize us we fall apart, because our identity doesn’t flow from a good foundation. As I said, people will see right through us. We'll be active without a sense of prayer, serving without a sense of purpose, speaking on God’s behalf without knowing who He is.

Don’t you want to be a tree that bears good fruit? Don’t you want to live a life that brings people and yourself closer to God? If our roots are shallow or not in good soil, aka not close to the source of life, then our fruit or our mission will suffer. If we focus on the fruits more than the roots then our tree will die. We might be able to present ourselves well, but without a deep relationship with Christ our identity is like glass and all it takes is something small to happen to us to shatter it. Our work is in vain. YOU CANNOT BEAR GOOD FRUITS WITHOUT GOOD ROOTS.

Today we celebrate the feasts of Sts. Peter and Paul. Two of the greatest saints we have in our Church. These two only did what they themselves received. They first received an invitation into a relationship both in their own ways, which revealed to them their identity and continued to show them how they must live out their lives. Both of them ending in martyrdom. This cooperates with our own free will. We have the choice to follow or to run away. We make these choices daily.

We are all invited by God to enter into a relationship with Him. God’s voice is gentle and convicting. He does not force Himself upon us, nor does He bribe or trick us. He shows us clearly that the life we live on Earth isn’t always going to give us joy and happiness, but in the end we’ll have stored up treasure in heaven. Jesus doesn’t tell us it’s going to be easy, He offers us blessings and woes. Tells us people are going to insult us, people aren’t going to speak well of us if we take this path He offers.

He also says that a blind man cannot lead another blind man. WE WHO DO NOT HAVE STRONG ROOTS ARE BLIND. Blind to who we are. Blind to the one that wants to give us life. And blind to those we desire to lead. This applies to all of us. I cannot stand up here and preach to you about something without doing it myself first. I need to get rid of the log in my eye before I tell you how to remove the speck in yours. I’m human, I fall sometimes, but Christ is asking us to get rid of the blindness of our hearts. To open our eyes and see with hearts that can offer forgiveness and mercy.

All of this that Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel are guidelines about our relationships with each other and also our relationship with God. He is showing us how to be like Him. I spoke last week about love vs. pride, about how easy it is to love those who love you, but difficult to love those who hurt us or think differently than us.

“Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

I worry for anyone who thinks they don’t need mercy. I pray for those who think there is nothing they need to confess or give over to God. Do you know that the only difference between Judas and Peter was ONE CONFESSION. Do you think Jesus didn’t love Judas? Do you think He wanted Him to run away after he betrayed the Lord who called him? Do you think that Peter wanted to reject the one He loved? No of course not. Peter decided to repent. Judas decided to run.

The closer we get to God, the more we see our weaknesses; AND THAT IS A GOOD THING! We need to show God our weaknesses, and rely on His strength! God spoke these words to St. Paul in the second letter to the Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9:

“MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU, MY POWER IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS”

God’s power is made PERFECT in your weakness. Today, I want to challenge you all to look within your own hearts. Look and see the areas in which you could love more. If you haven’t been to confession in a long time; there is no time like the present. Forgive and you will be forgiven. If you think you have nothing to confess then how much mercy do you think you can offer someone else? I would challenge you to examine your mind and your heart.

The sacrament of confession offers so much grace and in many ways removes the blindness we suffer from. Go through an examination of conscience. Walk through the last week, the last month, the last year or two or five. Ask God to show you your weaknesses and let Him give you His grace.

Maybe its only been a few months, or a few weeks, or even a few days. Look inside your own heart and make an act of contrition which is a way to ask God for forgiveness.

I love the Jesus prayer:

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I pray this prayer hundreds, or thousands of times a day. Not to beat myself up, but to recognize that I am a man who always needs God’s mercy.

But if we choose to run away, if we choose to plant our roots far away from the source of life, we will never fully know who we are meant to be. And because of that, our trees, our lives, will never bear the fruit God desires for us.

But if we decide, from a place of humility, to accept the invitation God gives us to be in a relationship with Him, to love Him above all other things, then we will without a doubt be SURPRISED by what God will show us about ourselves, and even more so about the works we do and the love with which we do them. It will come from Him and flow through us. Amen.