"Without a Vision, the People Perish." - Fr. John Riccardo.

[Music] Maps a relatively recent phenomenon at least in my estimation and what God might be trying to say to you and to me and to our parish family especially these last couple weeks those are the three things that I keep coming back to in my prayers I've been reflecting on what it is that was shared with us first five father Prentiss and then last week by Deacon Dave but first but let me just give up a context if I can and try to situate this conversation again I said a couple of weeks ago that at least in my estimation vision drives everything my favorite scripture passage comes from Proverbs without a vision the people perish so let's just ask this question this afternoon what's God's vision what's his agenda if you will the archbishop answers that question this way he says God's vision is to get his world back or more intimately to get his family back but at least for me that begs the question what happened to his family or his world that he has to go get it back or more colloquially we could ask why are things so messed up and the answer to that according to the Word of God is strikingly simple things are messed up because our race sold itself into slavery when it fell for the deception of our enemy the devil and rebelled against God way back at the beginning in that event that we call the fall ever since that moment our race has been stuck under powers and dominions against which you and I are power less the power of sin written with a capital S the power of death written with a capital D the power of hell and our enemy himself Satan now you might sit there and go what's the proof of that here's the way I would answer that has anybody here ever had the experience of not wanting to do something but you did it anyway even though you knew you shouldn't have done it anybody here ever known there's something that you should do and you didn't do it never wonder why because of this because of the power of sin against which you and I cannot win on our own so it was to deliver us from these powers that God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ to go to war against those foes which go to war against us and by his passion and his glorious resurrection from the dead he destroyed the powers of sin and death made it possible for you and me to actually win now and then he sent his Holy Spirit upon the disciples and they were sent out to tell others of what it was that they had seen and encountered in the person of Jesus which is all initiated in Baptism which is what we hear in the first reading when Peter goes into Cornelius house that's the context but God could get his world back without us he doesn't need us and yet for some reason he wants to use you and me as agents or instruments in his hands or soldiers to go and get his family back which is what brings me back to the three things I keep thinking about maps an unusual recent phenomenon and what God might be saying to us so first maps here's a map of the Roman Empire in the year 117 that's the height of the empire hard to see maybe from where you are that's the British Isles all of Europe North Africa and all the Middle East what's in white is water the Roman Empire was massive and if you've never been to Rome then just know that Rome's a most unlikely place to become the center of an empire there's nothing all that significant about Rome it's a dumpy little town on the Tiber River the weather is not that great it's amazingly humid and arthritic it's known from malaria there's no natural resources there to speak of and yet this tiny little village of huts becomes the center of the strongest Empire in the world how and why well there's a set of reasons as to how it became that but primarily one reason these guys the Roman legion the most powerful army in the world in other words the Roman Empire grew by violence and grew by force he grew by war and conquest and why lust lust for power lust for land lust for slaves lust for natural resources that's the Roman Empire here's a second map this is a map of the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem in the 30s not the 1930s with the 30s up until the beginning of the 7th century now if you've never been to Jerusalem Jerusalem's an even more unlikely place for the center of a worldwide movement there is nothing significant about Jerusalem it's a dumpy little hill town and yet from this dumpy little hill town in the middle of a desert grows the church which consumes everything that made up the Roman Empire how did it grow and why how did it grow despite the fact that from the years sixty-four roughly October of the year 64 until 312 Christianity was an illegal superstition in the ruminant Roman Empire there was a law on the books of Rome that said a Christian had no right to exist as an example that say 258 the emperor valerian issued a decree that said bishops priests and deacons whenever they were seen or found wherever they were seen or found were to be killed on sight gatherings like this were forbidden if they were walked in on they ended in bloodshed and in death and yet the church grew how and why well a grew first because Christians were compelled by the power of the Holy Spirit to leave Jerusalem and to go out and tell people about Jesus who had been crucified who was bodily risen from the dead now just pause right there for a moment because I don't think we really grasp how unique that is because before this moment nobody had ever done mission work no pagan religions ever did mission work there are no missionaries for Zeus there's no missionaries for Isis or Apollo or anybody but Christians went why would they go at the risk of their lives to foreign lands learn new languages to people they'd never met laying down their lives and tell people revisionist history will tell us that they went to colonial eyes and tragically that might have happened at different times in history but the early Christians were colonial izing anybody they were a tiny little minority and they were persecuted so what was their agenda why do they do this this was their agenda liberation freedom mercy love that's why they went they were eager to tell everybody that they met that the world's shipwreck was at an end that somebody had done something about death from which you and I cannot escape that somebody had done something about sin which holds us bound they had met this person they did encountered him and they were eager to tell everybody else that they encountered and even people and lands that they'd never heard of about the one who done this but didn't just grow because of their words in fact it primarily grew not because of their words but because of the witness of their lives the Roman world was a brutal violent despairing culture and the Christian life is remarkably radically different from that and so into this culture riddled with despair comes a movement proclaiming a message of hope and of joy and of a revolutionary and a remarkable kind of love and it doesn't just talk about it it was seen in people's actions which leads me to the second thing that's been on my mind this rather relatively recent phenomenon which I see especially although not exclusively among younger people our school recently was doing a series of debates which I can't applaud enough I'm of the mind that many of the last few decades and education no offense to any teachers I'm sure nobody here does this have been focused more on memorization for the purpose of getting good test scores as opposed to actually learning how to critic think and we desperately need to learn how to critically think perhaps most especially about things like religion one of the topics that was getting debated about had to do with Jesus and that stirred up a whole set of questions and a lot of kids and some parents and I had a chance to sit down recently with one of those young persons in our school who had a whole set of questions all of which in reality boiled down to one and so he came in sat down and this was this question what reasons do you have to think and to believe that Jesus is the Son of God that's a great question and you and I better have answers you and I better be able to give and offer explanations that are intelligible to people most especially explanations for why the only historically plausible explanation for the spread of Christianity is because Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and who died and was buried was seen bodily risen from the dead by a host of people on a host of occasions including people who hated him most especially a man named Saul and we can do that but the more I think about this young man that I talked to and the more I reflect upon what I'm seeing in the culture around us that's the more it's got me thinking about something that I see lots of people right now are trying to reason their way into Christianity the intellect is extremely important but you don't think your way into faith you can it's not enough Christianity is not a matter of intellectual debate the church grew and it continues to grow when people see the witness of Christians living different lives in such a way that it touches every aspect of culture and makes culture more human that's how the church grows the church grows when to use that line that father Prentiss drew on several weeks ago from axe Christians turned the world upside down that's how the early church grew by radically transforming culture perhaps you and I know that and perhaps we don't my guess is most of us don't I would suggest we desperately need to relearn our family history as the church not only so that we can learn what it was that God did a long time ago but so that we can learn what it is that God wants to do in and through you and me right now so let me just give you three quick examples first the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and what we hear in this first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles these people hated each other and yet they became brothers and sisters the first three words of the first reading are stunning but we fly through them without a thought what are the first three words when Peter entered engine where entered Cornelius's house who's Cornelius he's a Gentile it is almost certain that before this moment Peter has never once in his life stepped foot in or even thought of stepping foot into the house of a non Jew in fact writings that are contemporary with Peter for the Jewish people say this separate yourselves from the Gentiles this is to the Jews do not eat with them and do not perform deeds like theirs do not become associates of theirs because their deeds are defiled and all their ways are contaminated and despicable and abominable and yet Peter compelled by Jesus's command to love mindful of God's agenda to get his family back even and especially the other steps into Cornelius's house sharing with him the liberating message of the gospel and Jesus has triumph over the power of sin and death second example three times in Paul's writings he talks about a collection that's being taken up a collection that's being taken up by the Gentile Christians mostly in kind of the Greece region for the Jewish Christians who live in Jerusalem now this I'm sure flies over our heads and we have a collection at every mass for crying out loud sometimes too but know this no foreigners before this ever took up a collection for other foreigners who lived in another place who were unrelated to them it's unthinkable Jewish Christians struggling in Jerusalem stinks to be you doesn't it too bad and so suddenly the message of the gospel changes that relationship and the Gentile Christians recognize those are our brothers and sisters is over there and so at great cost to themselves they give to people who are not related to them and who just a few years ago were considered to be enemies third example I wonder if we all know what most sociologists would consider to be the single most significant factor for the growth of the church in the first three centuries know what it is women yep women flocked to the church that's not exactly a narrative we hear in the modern world today is it women in the Roman Empire were considered good for one thing produce citizens and soldiers children that's it women more or less in the ancient world were considered intellectually and physically inferior Roman husbands shared their wives with other men children were regularly exposed and aborted at the command of the man who was known as the paterfamilias until the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ shattered that because the gospel proclaims that both men and women are created in the image and likeness of God that both men and women are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus and that men and women are absolutely equal in dignity even though we're clearly very different no one had ever taught that which leads me to the third and I think most significant thing that's been going through my head what is it that God might be trying to say to us as a parish in these days and I'm thinking back as I pray with what it is that father Prentiss shared with us and what it is that Deacon Dave built on this past week and I don't claim to have the answer to that but I have an answer a thought actually maybe more a sense that I feel like the Lord's given to us perhaps it's simply this perhaps he's trying to get you and me to turn our world starting in this community out there upside down this parish by God's grace is known across the Archdiocese of Detroit and quite honestly across the country as a place where hundreds and hundreds of people have had an encounter with Jesus which has changed their lives and it's led people in the Archdiocese and across the country to want the same this parish is known in this archdiocese and across the country as a place where those same people have grown in a hunger to become more serious disciples of Jesus those two words encounter and grow are two-thirds of the Triad that our Archbishop is constantly holding up in front of us with regards to his prayer and his hope for the Archdiocese of Detroit but there's a third word and the third word I would suggest is the word that God is trying to get your and my attention on right now the third word is witness reasons for things like the resurrection of Jesus bodily from the dead are not lacking for our modern world there's only one thing lacking the witness of our life here's how Saint John Paul the great put it today's world is one that is constantly bombarded with words and information for this reason and possibly more than at any time in recent history the things Christians do speak louder than the things they say a loving witness he says of the Christian life will always remain the first an irreplaceable form of mission perhaps the Lord is gently trying to ask us if you and I are making the difference that we were baptized and confirmed to make perhaps he's gently trying to ask us whether or not we just blend in with the culture around us perhaps he's trying to ask us whether or not we're just content to sit inside these walls and to learn I had a chance a couple weeks ago to sit down with our junior high kids who make up the respect life Club at our parish school in the course of that conversation a man named William Wilberforce came up some of you might know who William Wilberforce is some of you might not this is the man who's responsible after years of hard work for ending the slave trade in Great Britain and in the British Empire he worked long and tirelessly to end this because of his Christian convictions I asked them what I'll ask you who will be the William Wilberforce that ends abortion in our country or human trafficking or poverty in our inner cities or the crisis in education or takes upon himself or herself in attempt to end and to heal the tensions between blacks and whites in our land or any other social ill in our country that is waiting and longing for the Church of Jesus Christ to wake up and to touch it with the power of the gospel how is God asking you and me to turn our world upside down with the gospel and the revolutionary and radical love of Jesus I think that's what God's trying to say to us you

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Keywords: OLGC, Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, Catholic Church, Plymouth Michigan, riccardo, ricardo, homily

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Length: 24min 24sec (1464 seconds)

Published: Mon May 07 2018