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	1st Reading
	Psalm
	2nd Reading
	Gospel
	Written Transcript of Homily
	Footnotes

I’m.. I’m very big on the parts of the mass... you may have noticed for quite a while we’ve just been singing the same old boring melody..

We don’t sing as many hymns as we use to...

There is a movie, a great movie, and I don’t know if I can recommend because it’s kind of violent actually..

But with the exception of a few parts, it’s “The Color Purple”.. Its just a very moving flim.

And very long.

Make sure you gots lots of popcorn.

It’s a story of a woman who’s a daughter of a, I believe, a black Penticostical minister in the south who has a wonderful voice and sings in the church choir, and she goes off...

Now you wouldn’t think that’s bad, well, there’s a couple stories going on.

But this is the sub plot in it.

She goes off and becomes an alcoholic, and finally comes back home in this little southern district...

Broken and was taken in by an old boyfriend.. And his wife.

And it’s a... she begins to recover.. And they set up, what they use to call it, “juke-joint”, which is a sort of nightclub.

It’s out in the country.

Well, they set this bar up, and she sings in it..

One Sunday morning, her father’s church right down the road, they’re trying to conduct and worship, and he’s trying to lead his sermon.. And the music from the taburn, the juke-joint, where his daughter... his lost daughter is singing.. Now of course, they won’t even speak to each other, they are.. Just not on speaking-terms.

Well.. .the music from the juke-joint is so loud that he can’t preach, and he just throws his arms up and waves to the choir, who begin to sing.

And they sin a hymn “Sinner, can’t you – can you hear God is trying to tell you”.

And the music of the hymn overpowers the music in the taburn, and this yong woman is cut to the heart, and she.. It’s a very moving scene..

She leaves the taburn, and everybody who’s in the taburn, who were all raised in the Church anyway, they come down the street.. And she comes into the Church... and is reconciled to her father.

It is a very moving scene.

Again, it’s for a mature-audience.

It isn’t an indecent movie.. But it has violence, and I wouldn’t recommend it for kids.

But... “The Color Purple”... and this is kind of the high point of the movie... sinner can’t you te– can’t you see, God is trying to tel you something.

And to me.. Every word in scripture is precious.

Precious you know?

We come to church a lot of times..

“I like this, I don’t like that”

Well...

It’s early, I don’t wanna upset anybody, but who cares what you want?

Who cares what I want.

And that’s what the readings today are kind of about.

Who cares what you want?

Of course God cares, Saint Peter says, cast your cares upon Him.

Cast your worries upon Him.

He cares for you.       

Remember.. Take everything I say as a grain of salt.

But... Seriously though..

Every word in scripture is important..
Now the scripture we sing... in the... the old latin Church .. It’s in English right there for you.

Lord you are just.

The judgements you make are right.

You know... so often in our prayer... we tell God “you’re wrong”.

“You haven’t been fair to me.”

“You haven’t been.. You haven’t been fair to me Lord.”

“If you loved me... when don’t you do what I want?”

“If you loved me, you would.”

We say that to God.

How come my life... isn’t the way I think it should be.
Amen.

Lord, you are just and your judgements are right.

Show mercy, when you judge me, your servant..

That’s the first thing that God is trying to tell me today.

In the readings of the scripture.

You’re just, your judgements are right.

Then it goes on, the word we just sang..

“God was reconciling the world to Himself  in Christ.”

“And in trusting to us the message of reconciliation.. God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ.”

And in trusting to us the message of reconciliation...

We would rather He was in trusting us with something other than the message of reconcilation.

In other words... God has a job for you to do.

And I think that’s what the readings are about today.

We read that Ezical says “You appointed me watchmen for the house of Israel. And this Is not a good job..”

And then in the second reading, we are commanded to owe no one anything, except to love one another.

       
God.... has given us the work of reconciliation.

It’s frankly a job I rather not have.

And then the gospel goes on... and as the section, oh... as a pastor, if only everybody would hear this, “Jesus said to his disciples, if your brother sins against him, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens, you won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established. On two or three witnesses. And if he refuses to them... Tell the Church.”

I cannot count the times in my life in ministry the people who have come up to me and said to me “Father, would you go and tell this person to stop doing that in Church?”

Well.. Have you talked to them?

“Well no, I haven’t talked to them, I don’t even know their name.”

You want me to go talk to them?

How often have I heard stories... about something that I said or did...that have come through four or five people?

When Jesus said this... He meant it.

I remember.... when I was at St. Thomas....

A person who was astrange from his brother....

Called us and wanted us to go tell his brother that their mother was dying.

His brother was in the hospital...

And.. He wanted us to go down to the hospital, go down to his brother, whom he hasn’t spoken to in 10 years, that their mother was dying.

And of course he lived a few blocks away.

And there was no priest in the house at that time.. It was secutary who answered this...

This man was furious.

He was about to call his cousin who was a priest at the chancery office..

It was just very bazaar... he didn’t want any family contact with this person, but he wanted him to know that their mother was dying.

I have known people who on their death bed, expressed an anchor, their anger, as they were about to meet their maker.

People who.. Who said they couldn’t come to their funeral.

I think that nothing in all of our life, indicates the depth of original sin, as much as this idea.

That we are so alienated from one another.. That frequently we will not speak the truth to each other.

I will speak to people about you, and you will speak to people about me.
                                           
But we haven’t got the nerve... to actually go to the person to whom we’re speaking and tell them the truth.

And... we forget... that this is not only what we’re suppose to do, this is our ministry.

God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ.

And in trusting in us the message of reconciliation.

When I pray... I’m busy telling God what I want or need.

Why should God hear my prayers?

Why should bother to listen to my prayers? When I do not answer God’s prayer..

What?
God prays?

Oh yes. God prays.

Jesus’ life was full of prayer.

And was He not God?

But just as God is the object of our prayer.

We are the object of God’s prayer.

And what does God pray for?

He prays that we will be reconcile to each other..

The last prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper “Father, may they be one. As you and I are one.”

We have the power to answer God’s prayer.

God was reconciling the world in himself in Christ.

And in trusting us the message of reconciliation.

God is in trusting something to you...

His own spirit... the spirit of reconciliation..

And mostly what I think about in my prayers is what I need, what I want.

You’ve heard the paraphrase, and I’m sure,

When Samuel heard the voice of God in the night, he said, “Speak, Lord, your servant listens.”

Most of us end up saying “Listen, Lord, your servant is speaking.”

Well.. Jesus says, “Amen, amen I say to you, if you agree on earth, any two fo you, about anything for which you are to pray, it shall be granted by my Heavenly father. For what two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of you.”

Well, I dunno, if you ever tried to pray with anyone..

And I remember back in the prayer meetings.. We would, when we wanted something from God, we’d agree on prayer on something, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Well, we thought if two or three were together, it’d work.

Well... there’s a clause here.

Where two or three are gahtered in my name.

What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus?

To gather in the name of Jesus?

Well, it’s simple, “If I come to you in the name of the FBI” you’d open the door and be cooperative.

I can do that for only so long..   

And unless I’m an FBI agent with a search warrant, I”m going to get into terrible trouble.

In other words, when I”m saying, “In the name of” I’m saying “in the authority of”

When we pray, I’ve shared this before, when we pray and say “In the name of Jesus” Or “through Christ our Lord, amen”

I believe those prayers can be very dangerous.

Seriously.

I believe when you pray “In the name of Jesus” or end your prayer with “Through Christ, our Lord” can be very dangerous.. Because I believe it gives the devil the right to ask the question, “Did Jesus tell you pray that prayer? ‘I’m gonna win the lottery, in the name of Jesus.’ Did, did Jesus authorize you to pray that prayer? Is that prayer prayed with the authority with Christ?”

Do you understand what that phrase means now?

When two or three are gathered in my name.. By my authority, to pray in the name of Jesus, to say, I pray this prayer, because it is Jesus, because I believe it is Jesus who prompted me to pray this prayer.

Now...I can pray in my own name, and God who is generous and loving, if it is helpful to my salvation, well, grant what I’ve asked for.

But to pray in the name of Jesus means to pray by His authority.

And what ministry has Jesus given you?

The ministry of reconciliation...       

This is why we come together in Church.. Why it is not good enough to pray alone... certainly we pray alone..private prayer is essential to the Christian life... but when we pray in the name of Jesus... we come two and three, and two hundred and three hundred together, because the ministry He has given us is the ministry of reconciliation..
 

It is God’s desire that we should love one another as brothers and sisters.

And He really means it.

He really means it..

So much so...

That Jesus was humiliated.

He took humiliation on Himself for the sake of reconciliation.

So if say into yourself, “why is it that God doesn’t seem to hear my prayers?”

I suspect the answer is very simple.

Because you and I do not hear God’s hear prayers.

He does not hear us.

Because we do not hear Him.

It is our duty... and our God-given calling.. To look for opportunities for reconciliation.

Reconciliation.

What does that mean?

It’s a simple word.

It means to talk together again.

When you are reconciled with people.

The word means ... to be on speaking terms once again.

God was reconciled to the world in Christ.

In other words.. The conversation between man and God began again with Jesus.

And he gives us that work.

So... to whom are you not speaking?

To whom are you angry?

And how will you be reconciled to them?

That God’s prayers might be answered in God’s life.

To pray in the name of Jesus... is a very powerful thing, and it can only be accomplished if we are about the task He gives us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.