Recent Homilies of Father George R. Szews
THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
28 June 2009
Homily
This homily presented by Father George R. Szews, pastor.
I’ve seen this woman before, walking the streets of Eau Claire.
She’s loud, angry sounding really.
She has too much lipstick on and most people avoid looking her in the eye.
We walk past her quickly.
She makes us feel uncomfortable.
Well, for sure she makes me uncomfortable.
What do you do?
On one of the first good days of spring in late May I was on my walk when I saw
her by the Dairy Queen coming out of Carson Park.
She was standing on the sidewalk across from where the trail leads to the river.
On the ground next to her was a fishing pole with a big old bobber on it.
She had been fishing.
She was speaking loudly, yelling at the wind that day.
I watched as people detoured around her.
She was in my path.
I was as uncomfortable.
I too detoured around her.
I thought to myself, “I just don’t know what to do.”
But that wasn’t true.
Just as I passed her, I turned around and pointed to the fishing pole
and then looked her in the eye–and smiled.
For just a moment her ranting ceased.
Some other human being had noticed her.
It wasn’t much, and I’m no hero, but it also wasn’t true I didn’t know what to do.
In the gospel Jesus wades into two very messy situations–
messy because in both of those cases he doesn’t stay away, take a detour around,
he is touched by the unclean woman
and touches the dead girl–both of those things make him unclean–unfit for temple worship.
In some ways the miracle is not the physical healing that comes,
but the spiritual healing that comes in both of those situations when the outcast,
those thought to be outside God’s care,
are met with simple human dignity.
That dignity raises them up.
All of us have situations in which we say we don’t know what to do but we really do.
It won’t take much from us to do them. What is it you can do this week?
TWELFTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
21 June 2009
Homily
This homily presented by Father George R. Szews, pastor.
In 1992 the city of Sarajevo was being torn apart by the ethnic strife of the Bosnian civil war.
On the afternoon of 27 May a bomb was dropped on one of the last functioning bakeries.
Twenty-two people were killed.
Vedran Smailovic saw the bombing from his apartment window.
He was horrified, engraged. But what could he do?
He was not a politician or soldier. He was a musician–a cellist, that’s all he knew.
So that is what he did.
Every evening after that at 4 pm, the time of the explosion,
the 37 year old cellist went to the bombing site and played.
He did it for 22 days, and after that would play each evening, at other sites.
He did it for 18 months and became known as a symbol of peace.
Today Vedran is revered as a hero by the people of Sarajevo.
They’ve erected a statue of a musician sitting on a chair, playing a cello.
Vedran says of the honor: “I am nothing special. I am a musician. I do what I can.”
I often wonder what really happens in this story of Jesus calming the sea.
I wonder because of two things, Jesus apparently sleeping through it,
and because of what the disciples say, “Do you not care we are perishing?”
It seems that Jesus is at peace himself–a deep inner peace that could not be tormented
by the everyday tragedies which come to everyone.
Does he calm the storm on the sea that day,
Or does he calm the storm inside them?
Jesus is so completely confident not that God solves every problem but
That just as he has come from God, so he will return–and that is all that matters.
Jesus may have done nothing at all special that day. He was just a believer,
He did what he could–offered the peace which comes from faith to his disciples.
Each of, women and men of faith, do what we can in the world.
What is music against bombs?
What is it that you can do this week, against bombs, disease, hunger, or the storms
Which rage around and in those whom you know?
FEAST OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
CORPUS CHRISTI
14 June 2009
Homily
This homily presented by Father George R. Szews, pastor.
There has been much talk in the past couple of years about who should be here,
who should be allowed to gather around this table,
who should be allowed to share in this Eucharistic feast.
What are the conditions, if you will, for communing.
Some argue that Jesus never set conditions.
He fed the multitudes and none of them had to pass a litmus test before they were given
from the multiplied loaves and fishes.
He fed his disciples, Judas was there and depending on which version of the story
you want to believe, Jesus didn’t deny him the bread and wine.
Others of course argue that there are laws and if you break the laws,
you should not present yourself.
If you don’t believe everything I or the guy over there, or the guy in Rome believes,
you don’t have a place here.
Others argue for some middle ground.
I would argue that more than conditions for communing,
there are expectations if you do commune, share in this blessed bread and wine.
Those expectations come straight from Jesus,
And, because this is the year we are following Mark’s telling of the Jesus story,
they come in Mark’s gospel.
The expectations for those who would gather to this table, hungry,
but wanting to be nourished for a reason are these.
“Whoever wishes to come after me, must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.”
Mark 8.34.
“Whoever wishes to be first must be the servant of all.”
Mark 10.44
“Love God; love your neighbor as yourself.”
Mark 12.30-31
So, sisters and brothers who are called to this communion,
we come to this table for nourishment to complete our task on earth.
To deny ourselves and follow Christ,
To serve more than our own needs.
To love God above all else, and our neighbor as ourself.
If you come to this table, we will meet doing these things.
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