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All posts for the month April, 2002

Posted by Father Tom Boyer on April 28, 2002

Posted in: Uncategorized.

(FIRST COMMUNION MASS HOMILY) April 28, 2002 Acts 6:1-7 + 1 Peter 2:4-9 + John 14: 1 12

How many of you have heard of Moses? He was a great leader and prophet.In fact, a leader and a prophet is really the same person.He was born at a time when the People of Israel were slaves in Egypt, and God called him to lead them out of Egypt to a new land where they would be free and faithful to God.To get to that new land, they had to go a long way through the desert, and it took so long that they couldn’t take enough food to last the journey, so every morning, God would give them something to eat to keep them going on the journey Some people have called that food. “Way Bread.”-    like bread to eat on the way.

Now later on the People of Israel got themselves practically back in slavery again when the Romans came to their country,and that’s about the time Jesus was born. So, a lot of them began to think of Jesus as though they had a new Moses who was going to lead them to a new land again-    the land of heaven.

That’s a good way to think about Jesus this week as you came here with your family from hometo join your family of faith.It’s a good way to think about Jesus because we’re all on our waywith Jesus as leader and prophet. It’s a long journey It takes a whole lifetime to get to the freedom that Jesus has promised us with His Father,and it takes a lot of food to keep up your strength.It’s just like the first time when Moses led the people in the desert. So, God feeds us, just life before.God gives us food for the journey-    “Way Bread” comes again,but this time it’s Holy Communion – Food for the Journey, the Body of Christ.

This is what Jesus gave to his disciples to keep them going, to keep them faithful, to keep them together on the journey· His Body and Blood in Holy Communion.

(Turning toward and Addressing the parents) Now my dear friends,you’ve done well since the first time you brought these children before us and introduced them into the family of faith.You have taught them to pray, to listen to God’s Word,and to forgive.You have taught them rituals or forgiveness as we celebrate in this family of faith.And now you bring them to the Lord’s Table to share with them the Bread of Life.

On that day when you first brought them before us, you gave evidence of your faith in the creed.I know ask your children to give this first witness to their faith on their own before you and this entire assembly. It is the faith into which they have been baptized,and the faith that will lead them safely home to the Father’s House.

(Turning back to the children, renew the Baptismal Promises)

Now, boys and girls, Jesus has gone before us to get things ready.Before he left, he told his disciples that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life.During the journey, Jesus expects us to be the Way for others. not a dead end and not a detour.You have to be the Way that leads others to GodHe expects us to the Truth for others: not a lie, or a fake, but the real thing that people can trust and believe.He expects us to be Life: to preserve life, and never take it or treat it badlyThis is what it means for us to be church and to life in the family of faith. to be the Way, to be the Truth, and to be the Life.If you’re ready to do that, then you should take Holy Communion today, and begin to pray that Jesus will save a place for you in His Father’s House.

Posted by Father Tom Boyer on April 21, 2002

Posted in: Homily.

April 21, 2002 Adcts 2:14,36-41 + 1 Peter 2:20-25 + John 10:1 10

Called by name and hears my voice are two features of this Gospel from which we cannot escape. Complex and complicated as John’s tenth Gospel may be, with powerful implications about the identity of Jesus and his place in Jewish tradition, the scene is set at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple. We can go no deeper into its meaning until we recognize that it is spoken to us, not someone else. The temptation to listen to and study the Gospel as a piece of historical or ..ancient” writing from another age and about another age is dangerous. It robs the Word of it’s Life, and cheats us of our chance to have that Life.

There is an old-time description of Baptism that we still sometimes hear, probably because it isn’t all wrong. It calls the rite: “Christening”   I am sure that at it origin, the word springs from the anointing part of the rite wherein the candidate is anointed with “Chrism” Yet I suspect that the term stuck because through that anointing the candidate became Christ’s own taking upon themselves the name and the identity of Christian. In other words, by those symbols and rites, a person could say, as Jesus so often says: ..I am.  . .a Christian.”

A people called by that name are no longer outside of this Gospel. They do not read nor hear it as though it were about someone else at another time. They read and hear it as their own. Once called by name in this way, we are like the sheep John describes, able to hear the voice of the one who calls us; but not only hear it, we can recognize it above and among all other voices and calls.

The Pharisees of this Gospel are still among us because they are still within us. It is not that John points to some people, but that he points to some behavior that is common to all who do not understand what he is trying to tell them. This voice is replacing all other voices. This voice is the only one we follow. This voice is the only one that can lead us to salvation and the Kingdom of God.

From the moment we are called by name, we are no longer Americans or Mexicans; white or black; Democrats, Republicans, nor Independents, for that matter, -we not necessarily Jews, Baptists, Catholics, nor Muslims. If he has ..sheep of other flocks”  as he says, we are His, and His alone. Our identity is first established by whose voice we hear, and we use that voice to critique and identify all the other voices that are calling to us at all times. The “prophet” in the Old Testament mind was not a figure of the past, but an ever present reality. Hearing the voice of Christ is not listening to the past. This is not “The History Channel.” It is timeless and present.

The Pharisee in us wants privilege without responsibility, wants to eat from the tree of knowledge and seize the authority to determine right and wrong, and set standards by political fashion and social values. The Pharisee in us listens not to the voice of Jesus but to one’s own inner desire for approval and identity granted by the greedy, “thieves and robbers”, as Jesus calls them.

The issues that confront those called by name, “Christian” are issues of this day that those who first heard these words could never have imagined, but the power of this Living Word still speaks with clarity and vision. By our very identity, our very name, we are a people who care for the poor and do justice. These two guides are always the foundation of decision making for us. Many would think that listening to the Scriptures is listening to the voice of Jesus who walked in Galilee two thousand years ago, but we proclaim this Gospel with purpose on Easter’s fourth Sunday because it is a living Jesus in this time and age that we proclaim and whose voice we hear He leads us into the issues and crises of this day, calling us to truth, holiness, and wisdom: a truth that is not relative and is accessible to all, a holiness resting upon integrity and wholeness, and wisdom that is not something we ourselves can claim, butsomething that embraces us from without.

Called and Claimed as God’s own, Open and Attentive, we are a people in this season who listen for the voice of our shepherd knowing a multitude of ways to hear that voice in scripture, in tradition, in study, in prayer, in dialogue, in silent reflection and in teaching, but always by listening, not talking, preaching, shouting, or demanding. Then we become a people who can follow that voice in unity and charity, joyfully moving into the new Jerusalem where all shall have life and have it abundantly.

Easter 3

Posted by Father Tom Boyer on April 14, 2002

Posted in: Homily.

April 14, 2002 Acts 2: 14,23-33 + 1 Peter 1 17-29 + John 24: 13-35

We are looking during these Easter Sundays at the various people whose testimony is so essential to our faith. Without them, we would stuck on the death of Jesus. Without them and the accounts of their experience, we would be stopped dead at Good Friday First we had Mary Magdalene, then Thomas, and now these two. They’re good, these disciples. They’ve got it all down. They know what has happened, but they don’t know what it means, and that’s the trouble. They veiy nearly miss making the connection between Jesus of Nazareth and the God for whom they have such a thirst.

They’ve got all the details down: the death, the empty tomb reported and confirmed, but they fail to recognize the meaning, just as they fail to recognize the person of Jesus Christ. They call him a prophet, but they fail to recognize him as the one who redeems. Luke is clever with this. In the first chapter of his Gospel, Old Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit announces that “God has visited his people and set themfree.” In the second chapter, old Anna in the Temple saw the child and spoke of him as the one who would “set Jerusalemfree.” The word Luke uses for this deliverance is used only in the first and second chapters, and then he does not use it again until this final chapter when these two struggle in their disappointment because they had hoped that Jesus would be the one to set themfree.

This becomes a stoiy of recognition, and they almost miss it. He is about to go on when they suddenly discover that for which they have longed. a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As they look around that table, they recognize more than Jesus in that room. They recognize themselves, and they recognize what has happened to them in the breaking of the bread. They have been set free. What was promised at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel has been fulfilled, and all that remains now is for them to recognize what that means.

In their suddenly recognized freedom, they leave that room and hasten back to Jerusalem, free from the sadness, free from the disappointment that kept them from recognizing what had really been going on in Jerusalem those earlier days. It wasn’t just about Jesus, it was about them too. It was about their deliverance from all  that would keep them joy, from all that would keep them recognizing Christ in their midst, and claiming the relationship with God for which they longed. It was about their future and the burning hearts as they now lived with what they knew but could not prove.

What seems like the end of this Gospel is just the beginning. What seems like the end of Christ’s life is also the real beginning, and so it is with us as well. What sometimes seems like the end is just the beginning: when we think we’re done in, crushed, beaten down one last time, we are simply failing to recognize what has happened during those days in Jerusalem. It was not the end.

They knew it, but they couldn’t prove it right then. It took the rest of their lives to give the final witness, and they must have done a good job of it, because we have the story to tell and the faith with which to pass it on. My friends, we have some bread to break here and a blessing to share, and every one of us knows someone who is walking through this day of their life sadly and ftlled with disappointment. Some of us know people who think they’re at the end. Our hearts ought to be burning right now as we think of them and plan to join them and stay with them until they can recognize the God who has come to set them free.

Easter 3

Posted by Father Tom Boyer on April 14, 2002

Posted in: Homily.

April 14, 2002 Acts 2: 14,23-33 + 1 Peter 1 17-29 + John 24: 13-35

We are looking during these Easter Sundays at the various people whose testimony is so essential to our faith. Without them, we would stuck on the death of Jesus. Without them and the accounts of their experience, we would be stopped dead at Good Friday First we had Mary Magdalene, then Thomas, and now these two. They’re good, these disciples. They’ve got it all down. They know what has happened, but they don’t know what it means, and that’s the trouble. They veiy nearly miss making the connection between Jesus of Nazareth and the God for whom they have such a thirst.

They’ve got all the details down: the death, the empty tomb reported and confirmed, but they fail to recognize the meaning, just as they fail to recognize the person of Jesus Christ. They call him a prophet, but they fail to recognize him as the one who redeems. Luke is clever with this. In the first chapter of his Gospel, Old Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit announces that “God has visited his people and set themfree.” In the second chapter, old Anna in the Temple saw the child and spoke of him as the one who would “set Jerusalemfree.” The word Luke uses for this deliverance is used only in the first and second chapters, and then he does not use it again until this final chapter when these two struggle in their disappointment because they had hoped that Jesus would be the one to set themfree.

This becomes a stoiy of recognition, and they almost miss it. He is about to go on when they suddenly discover that for which they have longed. a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As they look around that table, they recognize more than Jesus in that room. They recognize themselves, and they recognize what has happened to them in the breaking of the bread. They have been set free. What was promised at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel has been fulfilled, and all that remains now is for them to recognize what that means.

In their suddenly recognized freedom, they leave that room and hasten back to Jerusalem, free from the sadness, free from the disappointment that kept them from recognizing what had really been going on in Jerusalem those earlier days. It wasn’t just about Jesus, it was about them too. It was about their deliverance from all  that would keep them joy, from all that would keep them recognizing Christ in their midst, and claiming the relationship with God for which they longed. It was about their future and the burning hearts as they now lived with what they knew but could not prove.

What seems like the end of this Gospel is just the beginning. What seems like the end of Christ’s life is also the real beginning, and so it is with us as well. What sometimes seems like the end is just the beginning: when we think we’re done in, crushed, beaten down one last time, we are simply failing to recognize what has happened during those days in Jerusalem. It was not the end.

They knew it, but they couldn’t prove it right then. It took the rest of their lives to give the final witness, and they must have done a good job of it, because we have the story to tell and the faith with which to pass it on. My friends, we have some bread to break here and a blessing to share, and every one of us knows someone who is walking through this day of their life sadly and ftlled with disappointment. Some of us know people who think they’re at the end. Our hearts ought to be burning right now as we think of them and plan to join them and stay with them until they can recognize the God who has come to set them free.

Easter 2

Posted by Father Tom Boyer on April 7, 2002

Posted in: Homily.

April 7, 2002 Acts 2:42-47 + 1 Peter 1:3-9 + John 20:19-31

One of the greatest scholars on John’s Gospel suggests that the fourth Gospel is a “Gospel of Encounters.” It’s a wonderful idea if you think about it, stories of encounters. the encounter with John the Baptist; with Macy, his mother, at Cana, with Nicodemus; the woman at the well, a Roman official with a sick child, a sick man at Bethesda’s pool, a man born blind, Martha, Macy, and Lazarus, Macy Magdaline; and Thomas in an upper room. All are stories of people encountering Jesus Christ. One after another, they make their way onto the stage of John’s great drama, and through them, we learn more and more about Jesus, and each encounter is a story of faith and a confrontation with obstacles to faith. Those obstacles are what define SIN in John’s theology.

In some way or another, unique to each situation, Sin comes a kind of refusal, or blind spot, with regard to the presence and truth of Christ’s identity, and Faith comes from hearing the Word spoken by Jesus with a willingness to act on that word. Light must comes to that blindness, acceptance or understanding must gives way to refusal to change. It all begins with John the Baptist who points out Jesus Christ to the others, who surely must have looked and laughed. It’s a wonder it didn’t cost John his following. He talked of Messiah and pointed to a boy from Nazareth! It was the farthest thing from anyone’s mind. Then it concludes with Thomas whose expectations of a messianic age are crushed by a cross, who looks for a savior and sees nothing but a broken and wounded man recently given up for dead.

It leads us to wonder what it must have been like in the other stories of sin and faith that continue to be retold in our tradition? What was it like to face the truth in the age of crusades when Christian people, the Body of Christ were being slaughtered by other believers under the banner of the cross?What it was like in the age of the Inquisition when power and politics ruled moral judgement and the Body of Christ was burned at the stake as easily as books and ideas?What it was like in an age when Popes led armies as Tempera! Rulers and remained silent while the Body of Christ was oppressed for the sake of their security and ease?People of faith in those days had to look at their church, the Body of Christ, their brothers and sisters, and see a broken, wounded  It leads us to wonder what it must have been like in the other stories of sin and faith that continue to be retold in our tradition? What was it like to face the truth in the age of crusades when Christian people, the Body of Christ were being slaughtered by other believers under the banner of the cross?What it was like in the age of the Inquisition when power and politics ruled moral judgement and the Body of Christ was burned at the stake as easily as books and ideas?What it was like in an age when Popes led armies as Tempera! Rulers and remained silent while the Body of Christ was oppressed for the sake of their security and ease?People of faith in those days had to look at their church, the Body of Christ, their brothers and sisters, and see a broken, wounded

The challenge faced by Thomas in that upper room is much like their challenge and ours today We look at a broken and wounded Christ, broken and wounded by his own, not really by someone else. We see wounds caused by sin, and feel shame and sadness. We look at a church, our church, wounded and shamed as Christ was wounded, abandoned, and shamed, and we feel what Thomas must have felt in that upper room as he was called to risk faith in this one who is so unlike what he expected. What were his choices? Cut and run, or stay in there with the others and find out what God would do with them and this battered Body of Christ.

Thomas has been in my thoughts a lot this year as, like you, I look at Christ in His Church and see wounds instead of glory, feel disappointment as much as hope, and ponder what fear and sin have done again. Do we cut and run or stay with others and be transformed by what we see into greater believers who like those apostles break out of a locked up room and are born again by the power of the Spirit. It is a tough time to belong to this church. It was then too, and there have been tough times in the past. For me, it is a tough time to be a priest, and later this month I shall begin my thirty-fourth year in this sacred ministry, in a life I wouldn’t trade for anything, but admitting that this year is the hardest of them all. We see what Thomas saw. We feel what Thomas felt. We can still encounter the Christ he met in that upper room with the others, but we’ll have to be there to do it.

That Christ who met John the Baptist, Nicodemus, the Woman at the well, Mary Magdalen, and all the others did look quite the way they expected, but he spoke them all of forgiveness and healing, and called them to look beyond what they could see to what they could believe. They had to let go of a lot of things that kept them believing, and most of all, of fear that kept them hiding behind doors and walls. Listen and watch Thomas as he encounters the Lord and faces his own fears, sadness, shame, disappointment, and doubts.He has something to say to us this year like never before, something he may have said in previous generations who shared his feelings, something to teach us about reaching out in trust when there is no reason, and waiting for the Spirit to transform all of this mess into a reason to rejoice.

Christ. They must have been hurt, angry, disappointed, shamed, and disgusted.

The challenge faced by Thomas in that upper room is much like their challenge and ours today. We look at a broken and wounded Christ, broken and wounded by his own, not really by someone else. We see wounds caused by sin, and feel shame and sadness. We look at a church, our church, wounded and shamed as Christ was wounded, abandoned, and shamed, and we feel what Thomas must have felt in that upper room as he was called to risk faith in this one who is so unlike what he expected. What were his choices? Cut and run, or stay in there with the others and fmd out what God woulddo with them and this battered Body of Christ.

Thomas has been in my thoughts a lot this year as, like you, I look at Christ in His Church and see wounds instead of glory, feel disappointment as much as hope, and ponder what fear and sin have done again. Do we cut and run or stay with others and be transformed by what we see into greater believers who like those apostles break out of a locked up room and are born again by the power of the Spirit. It is a tough time to belong to this church. It was then too, and there have been tough times in the past. For me, it is a tough time to be a priest, and later this month I shall begin my thirty-fourth year in this sacred ministry, in a life I wouldn’t trade for anything, but admitting that this year is the hardest of them all.We see what Thomas saw. We feel what Thomas felt. We can stillencounter the Christ he met in that upper room with the others, but we’ll have to be there to do it.

That Christ who met John the Baptist, Nicodemus, the Woman at the well, Mary Magdalen, and all the others did look quite the way they expected, but he spoke them all of forgiveness and healing, and called them to look beyond what they could see to what they could believe. They had to let go of a lot of things that kept them believing, and most of all, of fear that kept them hiding behind doors and walls. Listen and watch Thomas as he encounters the Lord and faces his own fears, sadness, shame, disappointment, and doubts.He has something to say to us this year like never before, something he may have said in previous generations who shared his feelings, something to teach us about reaching out in trust when there is no reason, and waiting for the Spirit to transform all of this mess into a reason to rejoice.

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