September 28, 2025 As I am away for some vacation, this homily will not be delivered.

Amos 6: 1, 4-7 + Psalm 146 + 1 Timothy 6: 11-16 + Luke 16: 19-31

We hear a powerful and what should be a deeply troubling Parable/story this weekend. In Luke’s Gospel, repentance and amendment of life among the rich occur only rarely, but they can happen. There are several people of means who do become disciples. Yet, this parable, spoken to us today, is a great challenge for us about how we use our resources. To make sure that we do not think this Gospel story is about someone else, that rich man has no name. This is a common way for Gospel writers to make sure we cannot and do not shift the message toward others. While the rich man has no name, the poor man does, and it helps our reflection to know that his name is a form of Elazar, meaning “God has helped.” It is, in a way, a prophesy that is fulfilled when he dies and is taken by angels to a place of honor.

The “Good News” of this Gospel is only for the poor and suffering, as it illustrates what Pope Leo has recently spoken of, the vast gap between the rich and the poor. There is no way to overlook the clear call for justice and compassion by claiming that this is just an imagined exaggeration. It is real. It does not reflect something from the past. It describes life in this world today as executives and CEOs reap huge profits from the people who are denied the right to organize and share in the profits gained from their labor.

There is something about knowledge that can change the actions of those who control the world’s wealth and power. It can compel people to action, and all of us know that from our own experience. Yet, there is always the danger of rationalization for not acting or helping. Often the excuse is ignorance when in fact, deliberate denial or blame is often the case. We cannot pretend that ignorance, denial, or resistance to the truth of injustice is anything but immoral. We cannot say that we didn’t know the truth.

What that rich man fails to admit is that he is partly to blame for the suffering of Lazarus. Not once does it dawn on him to speak to Lazarus directly as a human being. It does not happen when they are alive, and it does not happen when they are in another world. He will not speak to Lazarus! He operates on the assumption that Lazarus is beneath him, a mooch sprawled on his doorstep covered in sores. Even when he sees Lazarus now in the comfort of Abraham he still does not understand. There is no way he could have come and gone from his comfortable home without stepping over Lazarus. He knew Lazarus was there.

There is great temptation these days from the preachers of the “Prosperity Gospel” that promises material wealth for those who have the right beliefs or obey certain rules of living. That rich man’s house is a gated community where outside there are growing numbers of the homeless and hungry who too often end up looting and stealing to stay alive. We have Moses and the Prophets. We even have Jesus Christ, someone risen from the dead. We have this Gospel to remind us all about our responsibility toward them, and they are waiting.

September 21, 2025 at Saint Agnes, Saint William, & Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Amos 8: 4-7 + Psalm 113 + Timothy 2 1-8 + Luke 16: 1-13

Jesus was a master at undermining systems. He saw people who benefited from a system that rewarded some at the expense of others. He saw that people in debt were caught in a vicious circle of increasing interest. He saw widows losing a chance to survive with dignity, the blind and lame being blamed for disabilities over which they had no control. It grieved him and his Father.  Today’s episode digs in as a response to what he saw. This parable is one of the most complex and sometimes troubling of all the parables in the Gospels. Saint Augustine is said to have remarked: “I can’t believe this story came from the lips of our Lord.” This parable is only found in Luke, and some scholars believe that even Luke had trouble with it because of those final verses added at the end. Luke’s Gospel, more than the others speaks about money and the trouble it causes. It is Luke who quotes Jesus saying that we cannot love both God and money. I was in a discussion group years ago with a group of Protestant Pastors, and this text came up in our study together. One of the older men said: “When this text comes up, peach about something else or you may end up getting fired.” I’m not worried about that very much.

What Luke describes here is the saturation of a rich man whose life-style is made possible by the income from his estate run by tenant farmers. They have to buy what they need from the company store with whatever is left over after they pay exorbitant rent to that rich man. The harvest is never enough to pay the rent and buy what they need. So, they just get deeper and deeper in debt. That steward knows just to enough realize that something is wrong, and it gets him in trouble. What he does about it is wrong, and so we have characters here. Both of them do wrong leaving us to wonder what it is we might get from this parable.

Remembering Luke’s overall critique of the wealthy who are only interested in their own welfare, we might begin to see that this saying is about more than money even though wealth is clearly at issue. Jesus is speaking to us about our values and ultimate loyalties. This parable is primarily about one’s approach to wealth and about how one uses it and to what end.

The steward or “manager” enjoys special praise not exactly for what he does, but for why he does it. This steward is praised because rather than accumulating wealth for himself, he invests in good and lasting relationships. He sees that ultimately wealth and security are not really provided by money, but rather by friendships and relationships.  In the end, when the two men are compared, we might just want to see which one did the most good for others. The Gospel seems to suggest that real prudence values relationships more than anything else.

September 14, 2025 at Saint Agnes, Saint William & Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Numbers 21 4-9 + Psalm 78 + Philippians 2: 6-11+ John 3: 13-17

As we celebrate today this sign of our hope and salvation, we drawn into the entire plan of God to discover the very nature of God and see what happens when there is obedience to God’s will. There is no way to celebrate the Holy Cross without once again celebrating the Incarnation. The Son of God first poured out and surrendered his glory and his place at the right hand of the Father by taking on human flesh loving what God loves, all creation. Born of a woman, he had to grow, learn, fall and get back up. He used human eyes to see God’s creation, human ears to hear people’s cries, and a human heart to know and share God’s love. He used human touch to heal and his own will to fulfill the Father’s will that we may all flourish and fulfill our vocation to give glory and praise to God in all things.

Saint Paul calls him a slave, someone dedicated completely to the service of another. But this slave was not sold or bought. He chose to be a slave for the sole purpose of doing the will of God. He chose to empty himself in order to make room for God’s mysterious love and power. Doing so demanded hope beyond measure that can only be called: “self-emptying.”

Having emptied himself, he is filled with divine life. This man who had known heaven, chose to reveal heaven to earth. As John tells it today, he compared himself to that serpent on the staff of Moses so that he could be lifted up saving humanity from fear and the death that the serpent had caused. Without that fear of death, we are saved for love, for life, and for glory.

The death of Christ Jesus symbolized by this cross we hold high announces that evil is now as dead as its works. The death of Christ is the beginning of life, a new life lived with the assurance that evil and death will not ever have the last word for God’s love is everlasting and therefor what God loves is everlasting.

When we choose to believe this and raise high the cross, we are choosing to live by faith in the God of life and the God of love. It means that the image of God from the past, a God of anger, vengeance, and terrible punishment is no more. Because that was never the God who loved this creation into existence, and Jesus comes to restore that one true God of mercy and compassion who is revealed in the flesh and blood of his only Son. Believing this means that we bet our lives on God’s undying love. It means that like Jesus Christ, even though we may experience unspeakable pain or sorrow, we have nothing to fear because ultimately evil is nothing more than “chaff driven by the wind.”

Today we rejoice in the wonder of salvation renewed and encouraged to live with and under the sign of the cross by which we have been claimed for Christ our Savior. 

September 7, 2025 at Saint Peter and Saint William Catholic Churches in Naples, FL

Wisdom 9: 13-18 + Psalm 90 + Philemon 9-10, 12-17 + Luke 14: 25-33

Hyperbole was, and in some rabbinical schools still is, a way of teaching and making a point. It is a bold exaggeration used for dramatic effect and shock value to jump start some thinking. We can’t just ignore what Jesus says today thinking: “Oh, he didn’t really mean that” and just turn the page. We have to ask the crucial question, “What does he mean?” And, “How should my life be changed by this teaching?” The point is not how we relate to members of our families, but how we respond to the call of God. Think of it this way. In the face of merciless behavior by someone in our family what are we to do, shrug it off and say to the victim, “What can I do? After all, blood is thicker than water.” This is what challenges that attitude, “My country right or wrong.” The issue is loyalty, and that is where Jesus is going with this. Loyalty to God comes first. When my country or my employer, or my family does or says something contrary to what God expects, we do not shrug it off. We stand up and we speak up. It might be costly.

Jesus is not trying to scare people away from following him. But, he is afraid that we may spend our lives avoiding challenges, looking for easy ways and easy answers, playing around in the shallows of life while the real adventure is in the deep end.

I watched a mother not long ago at our community pool teaching her son how to swim. With his arms and legs in motion, she stood in front him. He was really doing quite well until he began to near that rope with markers floating. Every time he got near that marker, his eyes got wide, his face got red, and you see the panic as his head came up braking the smooth motions of arms and legs. She kept backing up though and I heard her say: “Don’t be afraid. I’m still here. Swimming in the deep water is just the same. Trust me.” All Jesus asks of us is trust because he will not abandon us. With him, we can quit playing the shallows and risk the deep and the unknown.

We all know what it’s like and what it takes to go deeper. I left the seminary without a clue about what was next. Most of you said, “Yes” to someone who offered you a ring and the promise to stay with you. With no clue about what it would take, how long, and what it might cost, you did it anyway. For many of us, it has not been easy either. There were bad times, disappointment, hurts, and even sometimes broken promises and betrayals. Loyalty or commitment means sacrifice, change, and sometimes loss. Everything we believe in fully or long for comes with a cost. Think about how your lives changed when you became parents and what it cost you. Even for someone you love, there is sacrifice, and sometimes it does not turn out well. If you knew ahead of time the challenge that children can be without the great joy they can bring this world would be childless.

Probably if we knew the whole story about anything ahead of time we might hesitate before we jump into things, and this is what Jesus is talking about today. This is a message of reassurance to anyone who will set out into the deep, take risks in faith, and remain loyal to God and the mission of his son entrusted to us. No matter how tough it gets, he is still with us calling us to trust and have no fear in the face of violence and injustice or anything else that keeps anyone from their place in the Kingdom of God.