{"id":2306,"date":"2017-10-22T12:11:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T16:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2306"},"modified":"2017-10-22T12:11:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T16:11:33","slug":"29th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a-homily-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/29th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a-homily-2\/","title":{"rendered":"29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

29th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A<\/a>
\nIsaiah 45:1, 4-6
\nPsalm 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10
\n1 Thessalonians 1:1-5
\nMatthew 22:15-21<\/p>\n

Last week we heard Jesus tell a parable about a wedding banquet for the king\u2019s son.\u00a0 There were many who were invited that, for one reason or another, chose not to come or even attacked the servants who invited them to come.<\/p>\n

The Pharisees that we hear about in today\u2019s gospel would be among those who rejected Jesus as the Messiah.\u00a0 They \u201cplotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 They did not accept Jesus as God\u2019s son.\u00a0 Instead they look for ways to denounce him by getting him to say something that would lead others to reject and attack him.<\/p>\n

This is not good.\u00a0 The Pharisees were among those who had extensive education in the Jewish faith and customs.\u00a0 The Jews were a chosen people and the Pharisees were supposed to be the \u201cbest\u201d among them.\u00a0 Yet, they reject Jesus.<\/p>\n

Jesus is not deterred.\u00a0 Last week we heard how, after those who had been invited to the banquet refused, the servants were sent out to invite whomever they found.\u00a0 This is the gospel offered to the Gentiles.<\/p>\n

While the Jews were a chosen people, this is not the first time that God has reached out to the Gentiles.\u00a0 Our first reading refers to Cyrus as \u201chis anointed<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Here, \u201canointed\u201d means that Cyrus has been specifically chosen by God for a particular mission<\/u><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

For Cyrus, God has chosen him to bring the Israelites out of exile in Babylon and to return them to their own land in Israel.\u00a0 God will also give Cyrus the task of seeing to the rebuilding of the temple.<\/p>\n

In the scope of the stories we read in the Bible, this might seem normal.\u00a0 We can read about numerous people in the Bible were chosen by God for a specific mission.\u00a0 Moses was called to lead the people from slavery in Egypt towards the promised land.\u00a0 David was chosen to become king.\u00a0 Peter was chosen as the leader of the Apostles.\u00a0 Paul was chosen to go on missionary journeys to bring the gospel to new people.<\/p>\n

However, there is one big difference between Cyrus and the others I just mentioned.\u00a0 They were all Jews.\u00a0 Cyrus was not a Jew yet he is the one who would answer God\u2019s call at that point in history.<\/p>\n

Cyrus will do great things because God makes it possible even though Cyrus \u201cdid not know the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today we celebrate World Mission Sunday.\u00a0 We will take up a second collection that will go to support young mission dioceses in Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, Latin America, and Europe.\u00a0 Your generosity to the missions as well as your prayers are greatly appreciated.<\/p>\n

We might tend to think of \u201cmissions\u201d as something done in places where the gospel message has not been heard.\u00a0 So, we think of remote parts of the world.\u00a0 400 years ago, the United States was officially considered as \u201cmission territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

If we think of missions as something done in remote lands, it\u2019s pretty easy to think of missions as something done by a few people with a particular calling.\u00a0 Among these are priests and religious but the laity also play an important part in such missions.\u00a0 It begins not with teaching doctrine. \u00a0It begins with caring for the local people in their need.\u00a0 It begins with showing them God\u2019s love and our love. \u00a0Doctrine comes after love.<\/p>\n

Now, I want to back up for a minute.\u00a0 At the end of the list of lands I gave before was Europe.\u00a0 We would hardly think of Europe as remote and the gospel message was taken there in the first centuries after Christ died for our sins.\u00a0 How can it be \u201cmission territory\u201d?<\/p>\n

I also mentioned that 400 years ago, the United States was officially considered mission territory.\u00a0 We can thank people like the North American Martyrs who bought the gospel to the Native Americans in what we now call New York.\u00a0 Since then, the gospel has spread across our nation to a point where the United States (along with Europe) was not considered mission territory.<\/p>\n

However, while the church grew for years, today we are aware of the shrinking numbers in our churches.\u00a0 It\u2019s even worse in Europe.\u00a0 Even fewer people practice their faith there and some are trying to remove Christianity from Europe\u2019s history.\u00a0 I suspect there are some Americans who would like to do the same.<\/p>\n

So once again, our country needs to hear the gospel message.\u00a0 I might sound like a broken record repeating myself because I have spoken about this before.\u00a0 We need to learn more about our faith so we can live it and bring it to others but first we must show them God\u2019s love.\u00a0 This is our Mission, to share what God has given us with our neighbors and the whole world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 Psalm 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 Matthew 22:15-21 Last week we heard Jesus tell a parable about a wedding banquet for the king\u2019s son.\u00a0 There were many who were invited that, for one reason or another, chose not to come or even …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,82],"tags":[356,358,357],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-Bc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2308,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions\/2308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}