This World Mission Sunday, many people wonder where the world is going. A story about Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes came to my mind. The busy judge boarded a train but couldn’t find his ticket. The conductor reassured him, saying “You can send us the ticket after you reach your destination.” Holmes replied, “The problem is not ‘where’s my ticket?’ but ‘where am I going?’”
With so many global conflicts and so much disarray in congress, I am calling on the serenity prayer more often: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference…trusting that God will make all things right.”
The word of God describes the sixth century before Jesus, when the King of Persia (Iran today) set the Jews free, so they could return to their homeland and rebuild. The author proclaims that there is no God comparable to the God of Israel, who works even through Cyrus of Persia.
The author here may be asking us: do we recognize the presence of God even in the least likely people and places? The Spirit of God breathes wherever it wills.
Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians in Greece prays that God will continue to grace them because of their fidelity to the gospel way of life. Christ lives and breathes in the community by the power of the Spirit and strengthens them in their faith, hope and love.
Paul's prayer is ours: that Christ grace us so that we may be ever faithful.
In the Gospel, the Jews are prisoners again. They had to pay tax to their oppressors and to use coinage bearing the image of the Roman emperor and ascribimg divine status to him—blasphemy.
The opponents of Jesus pose a tricky question: should they pay the tax or not? If Jesus says, “Yes,” he'll anger his Jewish followers; if he says, “No,” he'll be liable to death for treason. But Jesus, recognizing his opponents' hypocrisy, answers in a carefully nuanced fashion: if you benefit from Caesar, you ought to pay for the benefits; however, you should give to God what is God's by right. The religious leaders knew what Jesus meant: we are made in God's image, and we are to give ourselves completely to God.
A proverb from India says that every person is like a house with four rooms – a physical room, a mental room, an emotional room, and a spiritual room. There’s also an intriguing memoir titled A House with Four Rooms: a great kitchen; a library with the best books; a studio for crafts; and a high-tech room.
Imagine being so focused on one room that it becomes the only room we live in: so immersed in cooking that we never read; so plugged into toys that we never enjoy a dinner; or so engrossed in work that we don’t really connect with people close to us.
God asks us to allow God’s presence to permeate every dimension of life: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Masters of Christian spirituality say that practicing this is an art. Where better to develop it than in the liturgy.
Yes, the living Christ is present as we gather in his name. He dwells in each of us, through Baptism and a life of discipleship. Moreover, we are connected through the mystical body of Christ.
The living Christ invites us to worship our heavenly Father in the songs we sing, the prayers we pray and the sacrament we celebrate. We experience Christ’s presence in the word of God. Yes, listen with open ears and open hearts, because Christ has a word, perhaps a single word, that is meant for each of us, a word that hits home.
Christ reveals his presence sacramentally in his body and blood. Yes, he offers himself as nourishment: a personal and yet a communal moment in which we are united with Christ through his mystical body worldwide.
If we experience the presence of the living Christ as we gather to worship, as we listen attentively to the word of God, and as we partake in a communion uniting us to Christ, then we will be able to practice the presence of God more fruitfully in the various “rooms” of our life.
I conclude with a story about parents tucking their children in at night and asking: “Where did you meet God today?” The children reply: a teacher helped me; I held the door for someone; I saw a garden with lots of flowers. The parents say where they met God too. The stuff of the day becomes the substance of family prayer.
May we be ever more open to the presence of God and may God's presence permeate every dimension of our lives.
