June 28, 2026. This homily will not be delivered as I am in Oklahoma City

2 Kings 4: 8-11, 14-16 + Psalm 89 + Romans 6: 3-4, 8-11 + Matthew 10: 37-42

Matthew’s Gospel has fewer miracle stories than Luke or Mark because Matthew is more interested in telling us what Jesus said than what he did. At this point, in Chapter 10 we hear the closing words of what some call, “The Missionary Instruction.” I find it interesting that while Matthew takes great care to record the instruction of Jesus to his missionary disciples, unlike Mark and Luke, they are never sent out. Matthew would have us know what Jesus says, not what the disciples do.

At the center of his instructions is the matter of hospitality, something that is a challenge for us all today. With our locks, bolts, gates, and alarm systems, “hospitality” is an ideal that has escaped us. The consequence is a lot of loneliness and a lot of displaced people. Hospitality to a friend is no big deal. There is no risk involved and every likelihood that the favor will be returned. On the other hand, hospitality to a stranger is a great thing. You don’t owe anything to a stranger, and there is risk involved.

Yet, Christ calls us to welcome strangers. Being hospitable does not mean making them like us. It means accepting them as they are. Doing so allows them to shed their strangeness and be included in a community. If Christian people get into ghettos where they secure themselves and their property against anyone considered socially inferior, there is no hope for the world.

Hospitality is not so much about open doors as it is about open hearts. There is always a risk from having an open heart, the risk of being hurt. But to open one’s heart is to begin to live. To close it is to begin to die.

June 21, 2026, at Saint William and Saint Peter Parishes in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 20: 10-13 + Psalm 69 + Romans 5: 12-15 + Matthew 10: 26-33

There is a breathtaking intimacy expressed in these verses of today’s Gospel. To those of us who are too often timid, if not downright afraid, to respond to the challenges of today’s culture and political climate, Jesus reveals a God of sparrows. This is a God who is to be trusted. A God who has not withdrawn from the world but filled it with his gentle and loving spirit to give us courage and hope. Yet, we are so like Saint Peter, who in Pilate’s courtyard cowardly avoided any association with Jesus Christ when it meant some risk. Then the Spirit awakened in him, and there was no way to silence his voice when it came to speaking of Christ and what he had learned from his Savior.

This culture and political climate may not be as physically dangerous as in other times, but there is a persecution still. It is subtle, often expressed in apathy or a roll of eyes that minimizes our faith and what we have learned from our Savior about how to live together in peace, generously, respectfully, and honorably. Religion becomes a private matter banned from discussion as though we had nothing to say that mattered.

Our values matter, and they need to critique the public sphere and shape public policy not in a patrician political way, but in such a way that our values raise questions about what is right and what is wrong. We do not check our values rooted in the Gospel when we leave this church. The compassion of Jesus Christ for the poor, the sick, those in prison, and the vulnerable matters as much today as it did in his own historical time. These vulnerable ones cannot be demonized.

I know people who place conditions on God’s unconditional and extravagant love. They resist a Gospel of Grace and often embrace a Gospel of punishment and retribution calling it “Justice.” I also know people who simply avoid any mention of Jesus Christ and resist what he taught us about the Father. With no more judgement about them than I would judge Peter in Pilate’s courtyard, I wait and pray that the Spirit will awaken them to experience that God of Sparrows who protects, inspires, and waits for us to bear witness to his presence, his Son, Jesus Christ, and all that he taught us. Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Who wouldn’t want that?

June 14, 2026. At Saint William Parish in Naples, FL

Exodus 19: 2-6 + Psalm 100 + Romans 5: 6-11 + Matthew 9: 36 to 10:8

Leadership in first-century Palestine was a precious commodity. In fact, it would be impossible to point to anyone in those times who fulfilled that role. The Roman Emperor was no leader. No one followed him willingly. It was all fear-inspired oppression. Even today, there are precious few examples of true leaders. There are bullies and bosses, tyrants and rulers who threaten and frighten with power and punishment. Into this world comes Jesus who shows us something about leadership, forming and commissioning disciples in a real school of leadership that will eventually threaten the powerful so-called leaders of his day with bad consequences.

What Jesus teaches us by example is that leadership is really ministry. Yet, while many people came together seeking his help, they did not come together as a community. They are simply a crowd driven by their own individual needs. There is no sense of community or solidarity. The truth is, at that time, they were needy, searching for food and healing.

In contrast to this, Matthew shows us a community of disciples that can move beyond its own needs to ministry to others. For Matthew, the church exists to identify with needy people, and this is the key to leadership in the model of Jesus Christ. The faithful leader of a community of believes is like a shepherd, meeting others who are like a crowd of individuals leading them into a compassionate community.

When Jesus laments that there are few laborers, he is not talking about Nuns, Sisters, Brothers or priests. He is talking to and about all of us who are often so focused on our own wants and needs that we fail to see others who are waiting and longing for a companion with far greater needs. Those lost sheep of the house of Israel are, in other words, our immediate neighbors isolated, fearful, alone, and afraid. There is a sickness called helplessness we can cure. There are people dead from loneliness who can be called to life. There are people living in filth out of sight, shunned like lepers who need to be cleansed, and others living with the demon of sadness and hopelessness. That demon needs to go, and a people together, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit can cast out that demon, cure, and call people to real life. This is the leadership to which we are called.

Up to this point in Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples have been watching Jesus at his work. They have seen him in his triumphs and when he is tired. They have listened to his teaching and have heard him being confronted by the establishment. They have sacrificed a home and stability for the opportunity to be a part of a movement that will usher in a new way of being in relationship to God. That movement is all of us together, the Church.

When any of us complain that nothing is happening to make things better, we need to remember what Matthew has put before us today, set aside our own sometimes puny needs, and rise up together to challenge any establishment that is self-preserving, self-serving, and show the kind of leadership to which we are called. No more watching. There are helpless, hopeless people all around us, probably near us in this church. It is easy to shut down, but we are apostles. We have been given authority and permission to be human like our teacher whose humanness is best revealed in his compassion, empathy, and love for us all.

June 7, 2026, at Saint William Parish and the Naples Maronite Mission

Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14-16 + Psalm 147 + 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17 + John 6: 51-58

“How?” the leaders ask themselves. It’s not necessarily a bad question. Abraham asked that question, and young woman in Nazareth asked it as well. There is so much we do not know, and even then, there is even more we do not understand. There was really nothing wrong with the question those leaders asked. Their problem was that they were talking to themselves and not really listening to Jesus. Surely, overhearing their conversation, Jesus pushes his messages and drives it home with graphic words that cannot be watered down or explained away as though it were a metaphor or just symbolic.

It is near Passover time John tells us, and Jesus presents himself as the sacrificial offering, that Lamb whose flesh is eaten, affirming God’s covenant with his people leading to their liberation. These words then are as much about the identity of Jesus and what he perceived was his role and destiny as they are about eating and drinking. Yet, eating the flesh of that lamb and the flesh of Jesus Christ cannot be separated. It’s real flesh to be eaten.

Jesus does not make it easy for those who do not seem to really want to know how. Pushing harder, he hammers it into them by repeating the phrase that makes them back away: “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.” Three times he says it and then adds: “Whoever eats me will live because of me.” John uses that word “flesh” very carefully here. Matthew, Mark, and Luke use the word “body.” If at the last supper John had cared to focus on the meal rather than the washing of feet, Jesus would have said: “Take and eat. This is my flesh. This is my blood.” This how the work of salvation is accomplished in flesh and blood. God takes on flesh and blood in the person of his son to redeem all those who will receive him. To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to welcome and accept God’s saving action into our whole being. When we consume his flesh and blood, we are consumed by him.

For those who wonder, “How,” I always wonder why they can’t get it. If God can create all things out of nothing, God can certainly change bread into flesh and wine into blood. If Jesus could take jugs of water and change them into wine, he can take wine and change it into his blood. What he goes to say is that this is how we are saved. Consume him, eat and live.

I never forget that in 2004 I was really close to death after open heart surgery that didn’t exactly go well. After getting me to CCU, the surgeon went back into surgery for another patient, and I crashed. The nurses called down to surgery, and he told them to pump blood into me until he finished and then bring back. I had nine units of blood that morning, and because someone gave that blood, I’m standing here. It saved my life.

If anyone of you has had any similar experience, it’s probably not hard to understand what Jesus promises, offers, and gives us. There is life in this food that we have because he died surrendering his life, pouring out his blood for the life of the world. What’s the point of asking how. It might be better to ask why, and accept the fact that God thinks we are worth it. Take and eat. This is my flesh given for you.