When God Is Homeless

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

October 3, 2021

Today, God speaks to us about the origin of the sacrament we call marriage or matrimony, about the sacredness of marriage, about the need to preserve marriage, about the unlawfulness of divorce and the need to welcome the fruits of marriage— children. The first reading (Gen. 2:18-24), presents us the theological view of why there are men and women and why they marry:  “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” Adam is lonely. Unfortunately, he does not know what to do to deal with his loneliness. So, God steps in. But is Adam truly alone in the Garden of Eden? Not really! All the animals that God created are all around him. He is  the one that gives each its name. Sadly, none is able to offer a suitable companionship to him. Even with their presence, Adam is still lonely and sad. So, God puts him to sleep. As he sleeps, God takes one of his ribs and builds something beautiful. Then God brings his newest work of art to Adam. The moment Adam sees God’s latest design, he smiles and says, “…At last, this one is the bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman’” (Gen. 2:23). If you are still wondering why it takes a woman to bring out the best in a man, I hope you’ve found your answer. The right woman brings out the best in the right man. It’s the reason why a man will leave his father and mother and clings to his wife. Together with his wife, they become not two bodies but one flesh and one body (Gen. 2:24). They become soulmates. 

Our Gospel (Mark 10:2-16) has two related parts. The first part (10:1-12) is about the prohibition of divorce by Jesus: “From the beginning God made them male and female….Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” What’s the Lord indicating here? He is announcing that marriage is not a mere legal contract, a human phenomenon, rather a divine event. God is interested in marriage. God is involved in marriage. God is the creator of marriage. Marriage was not invented by humans but by God.  As such, no human being can rightly assume God’s authority to destroy a union that God has joined together. Although there are times when the Church, the Bride of Jesus Christ, will dissolve and annul some marriages on Christ’s behalf, but those are marriages that shouldn’t have taken place in the first place. When the Church tribunal annuls a marriage, it declares that a marriage thought to be valid according to Church law actually fell short of at least one of the essential elements required for a binding union. The second part of the Gospel (10:13-16) is about the fruits of marriage— children. People are bringing children to Jesus so that he might touch them, but his overzealous disciples try to prevent the children from coming to Jesus. When Jesus realizes it, he chastises his disciples and says to them, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Mark 10:14). What’s another way to echo the words of the Lord? Allow children to be born. Do not abort them. Do not stop them. Give them the chance to live and experience me. 

Now, with the coming together of a man and a woman in holy matrimony, what do we have? A family! Check this out! God came to us through a family. God dwells among us through a family. The family is an institution, a school where the mother, father and their children are the students. They are majoring in the field of Living Together. So, they take courses like theology of love, theology of understanding, spirituality of forgiveness, theology of prayer, theology of service, theology of family, spirituality of listening and communication, theology of obedience and respect.  In this school, no one is less important and no one is more important. Everyone is important. In this school, there is no perfect person. Occasionally, this imperfection will cause one person to injure another. When that becomes the case, only the medicine of forgiveness can bring healing. Forgiveness must be asked and be given. Forgiveness is the ointment of healing. It soothes the mind and heart and brings healing to both the injurer and the injured. Pope Francis says that, “Without forgiveness, the family becomes a theater of conflict and a bastion of grievances. Without forgiveness, the family becomes sick.” If the sickness persists, the family will die. And when a family dies, God groans. God is made homeless. 

Sisters and brothers, if there is one place in the world that God is certainly present, it is in your marriage. Yes, God is present everywhere. He can be encountered anywhere. But he is uniquely present in your marriage. Do you know why? Because marriage reflects the intimate love of God. A godly and functional family reflects the Trinity. Whenever a new family is formed through the sacrament of matrimony, God takes his rightful place. When a man leaves his father and mother and clings unto his wife, God clings unto them. Marriage is the foremost and the oldest sacrament. What you are into was ordained by God from the beginning of creation. So, do not let the pressure of work, the occasional disagreement and misunderstanding, destroy your marriage and render God homeless. In the midst of all the struggles, God is present with you. Like the Holy Family, build your family on God. Make Jesus the cornerstone, the foundation and the center of your family. God lives in the family. God wants to live in the family. The family is the domestic church. When any family crumbles and dies, God becomes homeless. And in his homelessness, God also groans.  

Salvation Is Free, But Not Cheap!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, September 26, 2021

From our youth to our death, we are likely going to struggle with our ego. We want to be in control. When things have boundaries, we like it because we feel we can manipulate them and use them as we see fit according to our reasons. But today’s Gospel presents us something quite different. John and other disciples of Jesus come across a man who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. And immediately they are disturbed. Why? Because they are confronted with something that is out of the norm. The man casting out demons is not one of them. He is not part of their group and without delay they want the unattached exorcist to cease and desist his activity. But Jesus tells them not to forbid the man for whoever is not against us is for us. Jesus does not want them to have a narrow view of the new life he brings into this world. He wants them and everyone of us to understand that the Kingdom of God has dimensions of God himself. So, they must give the Spirit free range to act and operate. It is not for them to control who should be delivered from demons. It is not for them to call down fire from heaven to consume people, which we know they asked later in the Gospel. They must let God act as God wants. It’s a sad thing they are more concerned about controlling this man than they are filled with joy over the fact that men and women are being freed from oppression from the devil, simply because it does not come from their hands. 

After that, Jesus goes on to tell them that the love of God must find expression in a limitless fashion that nothing is more important than God, that everything in their life centers around God and is subordinate to their love of God. So, if there is anything in this world that prevents them from giving themselves over to God fully, from serving others fully, from growing in holiness, then it must ruthlessly be cut out from their lives. With incredible bluntness, Jesus speaks about cutting off one’s hand and foot and plucking out one’s eye: If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God maimed and deformed than to enter into hell with all your organs in tact. Is Jesus promoting self-mutilation? Of course not! He is asking us to cut off all the NOUNS—persons, places and things that can potentially fracture our relationship with God. And if we allow such to happen, it is a fatal liability. For some of us, consumption of alcohol is our demon, our occasion of sin. For others, it is the TV, the internet, the social media etc. 

The hand is the organ we use to reach out and grab and grasp things. As St. Augustine tells us, our souls are wired for God. Our hearts are restless until they finally rest in God. But we have occasionally reached out to creatures, to finite things of the world and grasp them with all the energies we can muster. The foot is the organ we use to set ourselves on a definite path. As disciples of Christ, we are called to walk on the path that is Christ. But do we always do this? In our quest for the four false substitutes for God— wealth, honor, power and pleasure, we’ve abandoned the light. As for the eyes, they are the organs that enable us to see. We are fashioned to seek after and look for God. But have we actually been looking for God sincerely? Haven’t we spent a lot of our times and lives looking for God in the wrong places? Are we willing to pluck out our eyes spiritually, and to abandon many of the behaviors that have given us sinful pleasures? As the deer yearns for running streams so should our souls long for God (Psalm 42:1).

Within each of us, there’s a battle going on. It is a battle for the life of each of us. At the end of this battle, we will either hear Jesus say, “You are mine!” or hear Satan say, “You are mine!” Salvation is free, but not cheap. It must cost you something— self-denial and total abandonment to God our loving Father and Creator. 

Serve If You Want To Be Great

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Our world is made of two rooms: in one room, people do things for themselves, in the other, people need others to do things for them. In one room, people give and never get tired of giving. In the other, people simply take and sometimes offer no gratitude. In one room, people humbly and joyfully serve others, in the other, people basically wait to be served and attended to. In today’s Gospel (Mark 9:30-37), Jesus baffles his disciples who are discussing among themselves on the way who is the greatest by telling them that the greatest is actually the one who serves. In our human way of thinking, the greatest among us is the one who is served, who gives orders and wields a lot of power. But for Jesus, the greatest is the one who gives his or her time in the service of others. In the calculation of the world, great people are those who sit in positions of authority and rule according to their whims and caprices, but not so for the Lord. The greatest among us are people who find delight in attending to the needs of others. Who are these people? When we have parish events, who usually are the last to leave? The ones who serve. When we were sanitizing the church after each Mass who made that possible? The ones that serve. When a large family gathers for a family reunion, who are usually the last to leave the event? The ones who serve. At every Mass, who are most likely to come to Mass early and be the last to leave? Those who serve. Each time volunteers are needed in the parish to help organize and carry out some events, who step forward to help? Those who serve. These servant-Christians are those who join ministries in the parish like choir, lector, altar server, children liturgy, faith formation, youth ministry and others. Although they are busy, their plate is full like everyone, nevertheless they make out time for God and what pertains to God. Some of us may not value their services, but Jesus said they are the greatest. 

For the rest of us who have become consumerist Christians, we come to church expecting to be served. We come to church to consume. During Mass, we expect the lectors to read audibly with clarity and distinction. We expect the choir to sing well and to sing our favorite songs. We expect the priest to preach well and to talk about the issues we care about. We expect ushers to receive us well and to find seats for us. We expect others to get things done and done well, but we are not ready to lift a finger to volunteer and help. When there is a call at Mass for people to join the choir, we give excuses: “I can’t sing.” “Oh, you don’t wanna hear me sing; I have a terrible voice.” When Lectors try to recruit us, we make excuses: “I have an accent.” “I can’t stand up there and read. I have a stage-fright problem.” When the ushers try to recruit us, we give another excuse: “I work so hard that whenever I come to Mass, all I want to do is to sit. I get so tired that I don’t have the strength to be moving around.” When Extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion invite us to join them, we deliver another excuse: “I am not worthy; I am so sinful to touch the Lord. I am sorry, I can’t do it.” If we are invited to join a ministry in the church, we give excuses yet again: “I don’t have time. My job is too demanding.” There is every excuse for every group we are invited to join and for everything we are asked to do. In the end, we reduce ourselves as Catholics who only come to Mass simply to consume and to be served. We are not involved in the life and ministry of our church. From year to year, we only come to Mass and leave once it is over. Yet, we wonder why no one knows us in our parish. 

Sisters and brothers, we cannot change our community simply by coming to church, but being church. If coming to Mass and be served and attended to is all you do, then you are making church all about you. If all you do is simply come to Mass, consume, come again and consume more—coming and consuming, coming and consuming, we make ourselves irrelevant. If we are not giving enough of our time, talent and treasure in the service of God and the Church, then we are not being relevant. Service makes us relevant and great. And guess what? You don’t need a bachelor’s degree to serve. You don’t need a master’s degree to serve. You don’t need a PhD to serve. What is required is a willing, humble and gracious heart. Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that whoever wants to be the greatest must be the last and the servant of all. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.”

To illustrate the ministry of service to his Apostles, Jesus brought before them a child and said, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” Children belong to the room of those who need others to do things for them.  The unnamed child in the Gospel stands for all God’s children who need others to do things for them. The child stands for the most vulnerable in our midst, the poorest of the poor, those who have nothing to give to us except their problems, and those who depend on us for their sustenance. The child stands for grandma and grandpa who due to old age and sickness rely on the rest of the family and society to cater for them. Jesus tells us that they need love and care. And whoever treats them well, treats the Father and Jesus well. The greatest among us is not the most powerful. The greatest among us is not the wealthiest. The greatest among us is not the person who wields more power and authority. The greatest among us are individuals who serve others and look out for little guys. History always remembers those who served, who gave their lives for others, who used everything they have in the service of God and humanity. If you want to be considered great by Jesus, just serve. And when we serve, we receive something that money cannot buy. 

Together With Jesus Say “Get Behind Me, Satan!”

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR 

Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Today, Jesus and his disciples are on their way to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was a mixture of Greek and Roman style and persuasion known for its worship of foreign gods. Along the way Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” What Jesus gets by way of response is, first, a public opinion survey “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” Seemingly not satisfied with the answers given, Jesus turns his attention to his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?”  They are silent, afraid, unwilling to speak. Finally Peter breaks the silence, “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29). Matthew’s version is broader, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). 

After that, Jesus shocks his disciples by telling them that the Christ, God’s Anointed One who is supposed to cleanse the Temple, restore proper worship of Yahweh, defeat the enemies of Israel, gather the tribes of Israel and through them the tribes of the world will be killed. The disciples’ shock is captured by Peter’s reaction. Peter takes Jesus aside from others and begins to rebuke him. It seems he did not hear what Jesus said would happen to him after his death— the resurrection part. After Peter’s rebuke of discouragement, what is Jesus’ response to him? A counter rebuke! Jesus turns around, looks at his disciples— he wants to make sure everyone is paying attention, and then fires his own counter attack rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” And to set the record straight and correct any wrong notion of discipleship, Jesus invites the traveling crowd to join the conversation and then says, “Whoever wishes to come after  me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” Boom! 

Now, did you notice that Jesus doesn’t ask what people are saying about his preaching or his miracle-working or the impact he is making on the culture? He asks who they say he is. The Gospel of John begins, not with the teaching of the Lord, rather his being: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us.” In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul writes, “Even though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at,” thereby indicating an ontological identity between Jesus and the God of Israel. Jesus and the God of Israel have the same being and nature. Peter’s confession: “You are the Christ” is the mystical faith that stands at the heart of Christianity. To believe with all heart and mind this Petrine faith is to be a Christian; to deny it is to be a non-Christian. 

But why is the identity of Jesus so important? Because it is deeply unreasonable and quite bewildering to resist following Jesus after realizing he is the Christ and Savior. No one truly acknowledges him as the Christ and Savior without taking him seriously, without following him at least in someway. So, up and down the centuries, the Catholic Church insists that Jesus is God; that in an entirely unique way, divine life has become available to the world through merciful intervention of God. 

So, if there’s anyone in your life that is trying to discourage you from following Jesus,  the Author of our life and the Finisher of our faith, that is frustrating you from giving yourself totally to him, rebuke the person and say, “Get behind me, Satan.” If any condition or situation is preventing you from being a reliable disciple, from keeping your eyes firmly fixed on Jesus, the time has come for you to stand up to it and with a rebuking voice say, “Get behind me, Satan.” To that inner voice that is frequently urging you to hate, resent, and discriminate, today is the day to finally say to it, “Get behind me, Satan.” Are you struggling with a habitual sin of pornography, masturbation, marital infidelity, and other forms of the abuse of the internet? Today, you can finally stand up and say, “Get behind me, Satan.” Are you bogged down by worry, by fear, by substance abuse? You can say today, “Get behind me, Satan.” Is anyone telling you that forgiveness is weakness, that humility is timidity? Today is the right day to say to them, “Get behind me, Satan.” If anything or anyone has become the obstacle that is hampering you from using your time, talent, and treasure in the house of God, speak with Jesus and say, “Get behind me, Satan.” If you are one of those who are too busy to pray, too busy to go to church, to busy to attend to their families, too busy to pay attention to their spiritual life, and you have been thinking about doing something to change course, today is the day to utter the words of Jesus and say, “Get behind me, Satan.” Check your life, if you are not pleased with it, if you are not accomplishing God’s mission, God’s goals, God’s plans for you, I think you should speak clearly and confidently, “Get behind me, Satan.” 

The human race’s most formidable enemy is Satan. He is working round the clock to prevent, hijack and destroy God’s plan for us. Satan is our greatest enemy. His singular task is to derail our movement and journey towards God. He accomplishes this by luring us into his net of false pleasure, cheap crown, short-cut, reckless living, vain glory and power. If we accept his offer, he will destroy God’s plan for us. So, today, let us speak with one voice and say, “Get behind me, Satan.” 

Ephphatha: Be Opened!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, September 5, 2021

Our Gospel today (Mark 7:31-37) is about Jesus healing a deaf man who also has a speech impediment. As the narrative says, Jesus is making his way into the district of Decapolis, which means Ten Cities in Greek. The region is located on the Southeast side of the Sea of Galilee. The cities were a mixture of Greek and Jewish style and persuasion. As Jesus gets there, people bring to him a deaf man with speech impediment. Jesus is a physical healer. One of the major reasons why people originally paid attention to him and followed him was his reputation as a healer. But as St. Augustine said, since Jesus is the Word made flesh, every one of his actions is also a word. It means we should look at the surface and the depth of every one of Jesus’ actions in order to uncover a deeper spiritual meaning.

Throughout the Bible, we hear the great metaphor of God’s speech. God says “Let there be light and there was light.” God says, “Let the earth come forth, and the earth comes forth.” God’s Word creates. Furthermore, the Book of Psalm says we can hear the word of God as we look around creation. We can hear the word of God as we look at the orderliness of the universe. But God also speaks in a pointed way to the patriarchs, to the prophets, and to all the great figures in the Scripture. In the presence of God’s Word, what do we need to be? Hearers of the Word! We need to be listeners of God’s Word. Now, by listeners I also mEean doers. When I was growing up, my mom would sometimes say to any of her children that failed to do an assignment or did it poorly, “You don’t listen!” By that she meant that even though we heard her instruction, we decided to do it our way. So, there is a close connection between listening and acting. What is our problem spiritually? Deafness! But the right attitude of a believer, a saint is, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” St. Paul says that “Faith comes from hearing the Word of God.”  

Now, who does this deaf man stand for? All of us! You and me! The deaf man stands for everyone, up and down the centuries who did not hear God’s word. He stands for all of us who have grown deaf to it, who are oblivious to it, and who have lost the capacity to discern it. But how come we don’t hear it? There are so many voices! There are so many sounds competing for our attention. The media, the radio talk show, the TV talk show, the commercials, the MTV, the movies, the music, the politicians at the local,, state, national and international levels etc. are competing for our attention. How can we finally hear the Word of God? Remember prophet Elijah who went to the mountain to see God. There was a powerful wind, but God was not in the wind. After the wind, there was earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then there was fire, but God was not in the fire. After the fire came a gentle whispering voice (1 Kings 19:11-12). So, to hear God, we must bracket-out all those noises that compete with God’s Word. Again, many of us are staying away from participating at Mass on a regular basis. As a culture, we are increasingly growing ignorant of the Bible. However, the Bible is God’s Word. Deafness to the Word of God, ignorance of the Word of God is ignorance of Christ as St. Jerome taught. 

What’s the result of deafness? At the physical level, it is a speech impediment. If you can’t hear sounds of articulate speech, you can’t reproduce them. A deaf person can’t speak clearly. At the spiritual level, if you don’t hear the Word of God clearly, then you can’t speak it clearly. Spiritually, you will have a speech impediment. How many Catholics can actually speak the Word of God with clarity and confidence? If you are questioned by a passionate protestant about your faith, are you able to answer confidently or will you become tongue-tied? Sadly, when it comes to retelling Bible stories, many Catholics are simply clueless.

In this story, what did Jesus do? “He took him off by himself away from the crowd.”What is the spiritual significance of this move? One reason we can’t hear is we spent too much time in the crowd. The myriads and cacophony of voices of so many, the conventional wisdom that surrounds us, the voices of advertisement, the loud voices of political and social activism, the persistent voices of secularism etc make us deaf to God’s word. So, to be able to hear God’s voice, we have to be introduced into a new environment where we are able to hear the Word of God clearly, a place of silence and communion and contemplation. Jesus is leading the deaf man and us away from the crowd of distraction, the crowd of secularism, the crowd of power tussle, the crowd of materialism, the crowd of consumerism, the crowd of commercialism, the crowd of the corrosive internet into the Church, into the Christian assembly. After taking the man away from the distractive crowd, he puts his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue. Scholars said that the detail of spitting on the man’s tongue is a common gesture for a healer in Jesus’ time especially for a rabbi respected as a healer. After that Jesus looks up to heaven from where our help comes from and said to the deaf man, “Ephphatha!” That is, “Be opened!” What is Jesus doing? He is setting up a kind of electrical current. By looking up to heaven, Jesus links himself to the Father. After that, Jesus plus himself into the deaf man, thereby establishing a current that will run from the Father through the Son to the deaf man. Then he said, “Ephphatha!” Be opened to the Word. You have spent your life closed. You have spent your life listening to your own voice and listening to the wrong voices of persons that agree with you, listening to the voices of the culture that is increasingly becoming less and less godly and violent. You have spent your entire life reading and listening to people who are angry like you, who are destructive like you, who are rebellious like you, who are aggressive, bitter and violent like you. Now the time has come in Christ to be opened to the Word of God. Jesus is talking about the Church, about the liturgy, the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, about the proclamation of the Word and all those ways we become plugged in to Christ and through Christ to the Father. After that, we hear that the man’s speech impediment was removed. If you want to hear clearly God’s Word and become an evangelist, be plugged into Jesus Christ and through him to the Father. Remember, it is through the Bible, through the liturgy, through the Sacraments that you begin to hear God’s speech and speak it clearly and articulately and confidently. So, stay plugged in to Jesus!