Homily: The Word of Jesus - and the U.S. Constitution

The useful part

Above you'll find a video of my homily for September 20, based on these readings. Every time this parable comes up in the gospel, I think of when I was a child and my father, after Sunday mass, would quiz my sister and me on that day's gospel and the sermon. Well, many, many, many, many years ago, after having heard this parable in church one week, I remember my father saying, "You know, I would have figured Jesus to be more of a union guy." My father was a Union guy.

How it works

• The message of Jesus may be filtered through changing times and circumstances and expectations.
• On any or all of those grounds, we might be tempted to dismiss this story as being out of date, to dismiss whatever message it may have had over 2,000 years ago when Jesus first told it.
• The problem here is that what Jesus proposes rubs rough against the egalitarian grain of our sense of justice, fairness.

What to take from it

part of his efforts to get us to pay attention while we were at church!

Details worth keeping

At first glance, a parable, like the one we just heard, may seem passé. We would dismiss this parable at our own peril. but remains the word and the message of Jesus.