Long gospel!  Long gospel!  But I wanted you to hear both about the Synagogue leader with the dying child and the wealthy woman with the hemorrhage.  When a sickness lingers on, and on, and on (laughter), or we face the possible loss of someone in our family, we are willing to turn anywhere for relief.  Unlike most religious leaders of the time who avoided Jesus or even plotted to kill him; and unlike most well-to-do citizens who would not be caught dead in the company of that itinerant radical preacher called “Jesus”, both of them turned to Him as a last resort.

         Well, as I mark my 50th day of dealing with shingles, I am ready to turn to just about anywhere.  I have been told of many home remedies.  Every one of them absolutely guaranteed a hundred percent to work.  I recently heard of a man in Ireland, in Donegal to be exact, because he is born as the 7th son of a 7th son, he has the gift of healing and his specialty is healing shingles.  I’m already trying to make inquiries and get in touch with him to find out if it has to be in person or could he do it by the phone.  Whether from depression or solid faith we finally find our answer in Jesus and the God Jesus points to and reveals.

         As the Book of Wisdom in today’s first reading reminds us, God is the source of life  and well-being, not of death and destruction, but the source of wholeness and life that really lasts.  Here we are worshiping as a Parish community outside under a tent for the first time since the beginning in the spring of 1951.  We are part of a community that carries our memories and carries us and only asks that we continue to be a people who carry one another and put up with one another.

         Mary McNally was one of the first “tent people” in Christ the King.  She died seven years ago at the age of 86 but she left us this poem, “The Way We Were”.

The Way We Were

We came from near

We came from far

We rode by train

We drove by car

(You’ll notice there’s no mention of BART because BART didn’t exist in those days.)

We pulled off the helmets

We threw down the guns

The weary war was over

The raging battles won

(Many if not most of the first persons of Christ the King were Veterans from the Second World War.)

The grassy slopes of Diablo called

A place to rest and heal

We reached for hammer and handsaw

We built a place to kneel

(Actually at the beginning in those first early masses, the parishioners had to carry their own chairs and when they got here they found that they were up to their knees in weeds.)

A tent we framed in the beginning

To hold our eager prayers

A chapel in a cottage small

To ease our daily cares

(Eventually a wooden deck was added lined with borrowed pews.)

It was many and many years ago

We favored few recall

That Christ the King was born to us

Born to one and all.

         Well, whether we are long time parishioners, recent arrivals, or just occasional visitors we belong to a church and community that stretches over time and space and links us to those who have gone well before and those who walk with us now. 

It’s really a very strange community.  A strange community, indeed, that often leaves us asking: “Why do I belong?”  “Why do I stay?” “Why don’t I just leave?” 

1. ·      We have been saddened and angered by stories of sexual abuse by clergy and mismanagement by Bishops. 
2. ·      We have been troubled and upset by public statements that rather than invite us to link justice with our politics, order us to line up in a narrow partisan way.
3. ·      We have sometimes experienced parish leadership that is neither life-giving nor even welcoming.
4. ·      We are a community that has disagreements.  We have disagreements with one another.  We have disagreements even with our church leaders.  Though official teaching is fairly clear, we have disagreements about sexual ethics, capital punishment, immigration reform, the war in Iraq, and the politics around abortion.

Why do we stay at it?  Why do we keep with it?  Why do we keep coming and celebrating so-called community?  In a recent book called “Practicing Catholics”, James Carroll, a former Priest and practicing Catholic himself, gives a pretty good answer.  He says:  “We maintain our loyalty to the church because we cannot live without it.”  He writes:  “The church gives us a language with which to speak of God, a Meaning that is God.  The Church feeds us in the Eucharist, keeps the story of Jesus alive in the preaching of the word, marks our journey through life with the sacraments, and underwrites our participation in the community that transcends space and time.”

         That community includes the “tent people” from 1951 and the first people to be called Christian and to name themselves as Catholic.  I like that.  I like that a lot!  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rjs