WEDNESDAY, HOMILY: 2TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR 1
THEME: Taking Out The Garbage
BY: DEACON BILL FRERE
Gospel – Luke 11:1-4
Synagogue Church, Nazareth
A year ago or so, I was awakened rather rudely very early in the morning (yes, even early for me) by the sound of clashing glass and metal out in our alley. No need for me to get up and see what was going on; I knew from experience. It was my neighbor taking out his trash. He’s been doing it for many years. Now I do not begrudge him taking out the trash, although the timing could certainly be better. What does irritate me is that, when I go and take out my trash, I find that my garbage cans are already full to overflowing. With his bottles and cans and trash!!!! Seriously??
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After all this time, I thought to myself, couldn’t he say something to me? Sorry for using your trash bins? Sorry for all the noise at odd hours? Sorry for taking advantage of your ‘empty’ trash cans! Doesn’t he owe me an explanation? An apology? A word of thanks?
And then I read today’s Gospel – the Lord’s Prayer! Our Father, who art in heaven………… Need I go on? We all know the words; we all pray with those words! We have them memorized in our minds and printed on our hearts. And yet, the Lord’s Prayer we hear today in Luke’s Gospel is not the same as Matthew’s, the one we are most familiar with.
Luke doesn’t use the word “our”. And in a sense, that makes it more personal for me. I am addressing God as ‘my’ Father. Granted, the rest of Luke’s version uses the word “we” but it feels like a prayerful personal conversation between myself and God, one on one as it were.
What strikes me most are the words ‘everyone in debt to us”. Too often I think we interpret those words as referring only to people who do actually owe us something. But I wonder if we are limiting ourselves here. What if it also includes everyone ‘we think’ are in debt to us? What if I am called to not only forgive those in debt to me but also letting go of all the resentment and anger we harbor inside us for what we think others ‘owe’ us! All those perceived slights that we just can’t seem to let go of! Forgive and forget! What a concept! I guess we all have a little ‘garbage’ to let go of in our life!
Ending with a little trivia! Did you know that, in the early Church, the Christian community deliberately withheld the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer until AFTER the person was baptized into the Church? In the midst of the Roman Empire at the time, it was considered treasonous to believe in one God, Father in Heaven, much less profess that the Emperor was not divine. The Lord’s Prayer was/is considered so precious, so vital, to the Faith that it was shared as a ‘pearl of great price” only with the baptized!
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