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24th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Fr. Tom Wilson September 16, 2018

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How many of you would like me to take a swing? Raise your hands. All right. I will let you know, those of you sitting in the front of that tent, you’re at the highest risk okay? All right. All right now you know how good a golfer I am. You'll figure out in a minute or so why I've got this club. 
Several years ago I received a call from a couple friends of mine, that their father wanted to see me. And he was getting on in years at that time , he is probably a few months or so from when he eventually died and they said very specifically that their dad wanted to see me. And I knew him reasonably well, at least at a surface level, from our young adult years. And I knew three things about him really that would identify him. First, he was a small business man who worked very hard, was pretty successful in his business; Second, he was very dedicated to his parish and the school at the parish while his kids were growing up; And third, he really liked golf. All right, he really liked golf. 
But he specifically asked for me to visit him near the end of his life and when I went to visit him he went out of his way without prompting to say, you know what father, in all of my years of playing golf and in playing golf a lot on Sundays I never once missed Sunday mass. I never once missed Sunday mass. This is a guy who didn’t just like golf, he is actually very good at it. Unlike like me, he was actually very good, he was a state champion, State amateur Champion back in the 1950s at least once and maybe a couple other times as well. He was really good. So he told me that in all his years of playing golf on Sunday that he never missed Sunday mass. It registered very quickly that he was doing something pretty sacrificial and probably pretty unusual and this was long before, most of this time would have been long before Sunday evening masses were easily accessible for most people. 
And so I looked at him and said why? Why in the world and in an environment in which lots and lots of people casually give themselves a pass from Sunday mass for recreational purposes? Why did you never miss Mass on Sunday? And he looked at me and he just very straightforward he said, because that's what my parents taught me to do. That's what my parents taught me to do. Well he's now in his mid-80s, he's mid-80s and he is still doing what his parents had taught him to do. And I thought, Okay this was an opportunity for us to get into some very very deep conversation about his preparation for death and wanting to see the Lord and his image of what heaven's going to be like and all of that. And I said, so why did you, why did you call me and I'm thinking I'm going to use every bit of education and wisdom and experience that I have,  to give some insight to this guy and he just looks at me and he said, because you can help me get to get to heaven. You can help me get to heaven.  I said well that's true, okay I can let's do it. So I gave him the sacraments, eventually gave him his last Eucharist and prayed the Apostolic Pardon and in prayers for the dying and he died about 3 months later.
And after he died, I know a couple of his kids very, very well and his kids are extremely faithful, have all made very conscious decisions to be part of the life of the church and be faithful Disciples of Jesus and I was talking to him about that conversation. And we talked about his faith, which was in some ways very simple but in some ways very deep and he simply did what he had to do. He just did what he was supposed to do, he did what he was taught to do, continued on doing that for his entire life because his parents taught him to do that. And we came to this conclusion, that their father a very, very faithful man was essentially on a conveyor belt of faith. He got put on that conveyor belt by his parents and continued on that conveyor belt for his entire life. And we talked about and probably the phrase conveyor belt type Christianity probably doesn't sound all that appealing or attractive or complimentary. But the truth is most of us probably, if we're not on it now, we have been at some point in our life in which we got put on a conveyor belt and people who we trust, people who we love, people who maybe had some authority over us said you were going to get on this thing and you're going to do what you have to do. 
And we learn, we learn what we have to do and we're reminded today's in our in our lovely lovely Catholic epistle, St James. Faith without works is dead. Faith without works is dead, go do something. You can't just talk about it, you got to do something. And those words resonate with us as Catholic’s. We do and we don’t need to get into an apologetic conversation with our Protestant brothers and sisters who sometimes do a lot more than we do even if they don't believe the same thing about it as we do. But the truth is we get, we know that we have to do something. We want to do something and often times are doing those things has us on that conveyor belt.  It has us on that conveyer belt and when we get on that conveyor belt a lot of good things can happen. We do the stuff that we need to do and we are able to operate big parishes and do things and get big big things set up so we can have a mass outside. We can run a hospital, we can have schools, we can have all sorts of Institutions that do things to serve people and all of that. People on the conveyor belts are often doing those things. My friend's dad was clearly one of those who help get a lot of things done it his own community.
 But I think today our Gospel reading and frankly our Old Testament reading will see that in a minute, call us to something more. We obviously know from St James that we’re called to do something all right. To not just say and not just believe but to actually act and do. We know that and it's part of our bones. But it's Jesus is in the conversation with his followers it actually goes a little bit deeper than that. First he says who people say that I am? Who do people say that I am? And they respond John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets and you know when He asks that question sort of in a broad sense they get it wrong. They are wrong. They have been walking with Jesus, they ask who He is, He asked who He is and they are wrong.  He's not John the Baptist, He's not Elijah, He's not one of the prophets. And then Peter speaks for the rest and says You are the Christ, You are the Christ. You are God. 
You need to know Jesus, somewhere in there Jesus actually wants us to know Him and we know what know the way Matthew records the story He goes very very deep into the faith of Peter. That becomes a deposit of faith that's handed on. But in Mark it's a little bit different, he skipped over that whole interaction with Peter, other than calling him Satan and goes straight to discipleship. If you want to be my follower pick up your cross and carry it. Take up your cross and carry it. And thereinn I think lies the difference, lies the difference between us being on the conveyor belt and doing what we have to do, doing what we've been taught to do, doing what we know we need to do, but then embracing the life of Christ. Embracing The Life of Christ. 
We can put this Golf Club down all right and we can maybe use it as a symbol. As a symbol of division between a place of knowing Jesus, knowing what He wants and doing what He wants and then getting to that place on the other side in which we actually walk in his footsteps by embracing and picking up the cross. By picking it up and carrying it. And there's a difference and I think we can probably all identify it. There's a place on this side of the Cross, this side of the golf club if you will, in which hopefully we know Jesus. Then we learn what He wants us to do and then we actually do it. And that's great and for a lot of us it's a place of relative comfort in our Christian faith. But then He asks  something more. Don't just know who I am and do what I say, but do what I do and follow in my footsteps by carrying the cross. That becomes an entirely different reality and frankly for an awful lot of people it becomes the place where they truly get to know Jesus. You don't just answer catechism question on it but they know Him intimately because they have walked with Him. 
And we go back to the to the suffering servant in Isaiah. What happens? The suffering servant in Isaiah is taking the punch, he's taking the beating, he's taking the suffering that he does not deserve. It is not owed to him for anything.  He is innocent. He is innocent and yet he is taking that on himself. Of course it's a precursor and image to what what Jesus will do for all of us. But Jesus doesn't say I'm not I'm just doing it myself, He also said you are going to do it with Me. If you want to be My follower you will do this with Me. You’ll pick up your cross and you will carry it. 
And we cross over that division, that place that maybe we're on the conveyor belt and we're doing good things and we're faithful and listening and all of that to the point where we actually walk in the footsteps of Jesus by picking up our cross and carrying it. And it can be heavy and those crosses may not be our burdens personally. They might not be our fault, if you will, but we are still called to walk with Jesus in carrying them. We are in the midst of a very very troubled and trying time within the life of the body of Christ. It is bruised, it is wounded, it is hurting and none of us caused that bruise or hurting or woundedness, none of us does. We are still called as Disciples of Jesus Christ, getting off the conveyor belt and making a conscious faithful, decision that we are going to pick up that cross. We're going to pick up our crosses, we're going to pick up the big cross and walk in the footsteps of Jesus. 
And therein lies the difference ,the conveyor belt Christianity gets us from point A to point B and most of us have probably spent an awful lot of our life on it and it and it helps us. There's no doubt. I do not want to insult it in any way, shape or form, but the truth is at some point, at some point. I’ve had conversations the last few days with people who said. you know what for a long time I did the right things, I knew what I was supposed to do, but then there was a point in my life were I had to begin to pray and truly know who Jesus was and walk with Him. And that's what we’re called to do in this troubled and difficult time. Conveyor belt is great and as I remember my friend’s father as a magnificent man, absolutely positive that in his living this life that is the faith that his parents gave him and doing what his parents said he is absolutely, unequivocally worshipping with us in the communion of saints at this Mass, right here and right now, absolutely convinced of that. But I think the days of easily getting on the conveyor belt and moving along, if they're not gone yet they're close, they’re close and they probably been disappearing for a long time. The lord requires us, asks us to make that conscious, faithful decision. Not just to know who He is, not just to do what He says, not just to receive what He gives but walk with Him. And to carry His cross, to walk in His footsteps and maybe take the punches and the beating that don't belong to us. Take what doesn't belong to us. Today is a great day. It's a great day to look back in gratitude for all those people that got us on the conveyor belt of faith and taught us who Jesus was and what we're supposed to do. It's a great thing. It's also a day to make a conscious decision for discipleship of Jesus and pick up the cross and carry it for ourselves and to carry it together.

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