|
COLLABORATION
IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH
20 October 2002 Homily
Fr. George Smiga
Matthew
22:15-22
Heaven and hell are different places, but they might not be
as different as you suppose. We of course have no revealed
description about either place, but I recently ran across
a description from a spiritual writer that I think is worth
sharing.
She said, "Hell is a large room in which thousands of
people are seated around tables covered with the most delicious
food imaginable. The aroma in that room is tantalizing, and
everyone is hungry, but no one is eating. This is because
every person has immovably attached to their arms utensils
by which to eat, but those utensils are four feet long. As
a result, although people are able to pick up the food with
the utensils, there is no way that they can get the food into
their mouths. Therefore, people are starving in the midst
of a great banquet." That is hell.
"Heaven is a large room with thousands of people sitting
around tables covered with the most delicious food imaginable.
And these people too have attached to their arms, four foot
long utensils. But in heaven, everybody is happy and well
fed. Because in heaven, instead of trying to feed themselves,
people use those utensils to reach across the table and feed
others on the other side."
Of course, the point of this little exercise in imagination
is to emphasize that the difference between heaven and hell
is simple. In hell, everyone is thinking only about themselves,
but in heaven, people are attentive to others. Heaven is about
shared life. It is a place of collaboration.
Now this same theme of collaboration can be traced in today's
gospel. People try to trick Jesus in his speech by offering
him an either/or choice: "Should you pay the taxes or
not?" If Jesus chooses to pay the taxes, he will be showing
deference to a corrupt political power that is occupying Israel.
If he refuses to pay the tax, he will run into trouble with
the authorities. But Jesus refuses to answer the question
as posed. To an either/or question, Jesus gives a both/and
answer: "Give to the emperor the things that are the
emperor's and to God the things that are God's." Jesus
is saying there is a way in which these two powers can work
together. Instead of stark alternatives, Jesus offers a compromise.
Instead of entrenched positions with people guarding their
own turf, Jesus invites dialogue. In today's gospel Jesus
comes across as an agent of collaboration.
Now this theme of collaboration is appropriate for us this
weekend for two reasons. The first is that today we celebrate
our patronal feast, the Feast of St. Noel. On this day we
celebrate our gift as a community. We recognize what we have
been able to accomplish with God's help by working together.
We stand as Christian believers, but we know that we need
one another so that we might share faith with one another,
and together build God's kingdom. Today we rightly celebrate
the gift of one another, the way that we have benefited from
our collaboration in faith.
The second reason that collaboration is an important theme
this weekend is because this weekend our parish begins the
implementation of a new initiative from our bishop, which
is called "Vibrant Parish Life". What Bishop Pilla
is asking every parish of our diocese to do is to begin a
process by which we can find ways of collaborating between
parishes. Now this process will take several years, but at
the end we as a parish expect to identify a neighboring parish
with whom we can collaborate in ministry and shared life.
Why is the bishop asking at this time for this kind of collaboration?
Two reasons are central.
The first is that parishes are constantly multiplying ministries.
The days are gone when a parish could be seen as vibrant simply
by having weekend liturgies and a parish school. Here at St.
Noel we have ministries for bereavement, for divorced and
separated, for those who have been alienated from the church.
We have Stephen ministry, bible study, and many more ministries
which I will not enumerate. Like so many other parishes, we
are trying to respond to the needs of the people in our community.
And the question that Bishop Pilla is asking is, "Does
it make sense for each individual parish to develop these
ministries on its own, or are there ways in which we can be
more effective and more vital by collaborating one parish
with another?".
The second reason that the bishop calls for collaboration
is because of the lessening number of priests and religious.
Last year we ordained three new priests for our diocese. We
lost twenty-one priests by death, retirement, or resignation
from ministry. (This does not factoring in the priests who
are presently on leave because of the sexual abuse crisis.)
With fewer priests and religious, we need to develop new ways
to do ministry, more people need to become involved. The bishop
is rightly asking as we explore these new ways to be church,
"should we not be talking one with another, and collaborating
parish to parish?".
At this time, none of us know what parish we might be collaborating
with, or what kind of ministries we might be working together
on. But the first step toward this collaboration is for us
to remember who we are, and what are the gifts that God has
given to us. This is why, starting next weekend, we are going
to begin a process of historicizing, recapturing the history
that is St. Noel and that has brought us to this point. Starting
next week, there will be in our Narthex a number of large
posters on which we encourage any member of the parish to
record events which are significant for you and are associated
with St. Noel. By this accumulation of events, we hope to
try to reconstruct, at least in part, the particular ways
that God has blessed us. For it is only by knowing who we
are, and how we have been blessed, that we will know what
we have to contribute in any effort of collaboration.
So I ask you in the upcoming months and years to open your
minds and hearts to this process of "Vibrant Parish Life."
It is an important endeavor for our diocese, and a way of
facing the future realistically. After all, collaboration
is no minor point of the gospel. We exist as a parish through
collaboration, we discover its importance in the words of
Jesus, and certainly we prepare someday to collaborate with
others in heaven.
|
