Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
May 31-June 1 2008
"It's Not Magic"

Now in order for you all to get the homily today, I have to first prove something to you. I'm going to prove something to you. (Fr. Jeff has a deck of cards and is shuffling them.) Can you help me for a second? Can you volunteer? (Parishioner in front row says "yes.") What I want you to do is pick a card, any card, and don't let me see it. Got it? Okay, show it to everyone around you, as many people as you can. I'm not looking. Colleen, am I looking? (No.) Okay. Everybody see it? Pat, did you stand up to show it? Show it. Okay. Put it back in the deck anywhere. Is it in there? All right, someone here shuffle it for me. Okay, Bobbe, cut it. (Bobbe cuts the deck. Then Fr. Jeff smacks the deck. He holds up a card.) That's your card. No? Well, that proves my point. I don't know how to do magic. I've never done magic tricks successfully my whole life. That's the point.

I must admit that when a week ago last Sunday afternoon I first looked at today's scripture I thought to myself "not that old argument again." I could just see in my imagination some Protestants using our reading from Romans today to charge that our Catholic sacramental life is just so much magic. Just empty rule following. Do whatever you want to do! I hear this all the time. Do whatever you want to do. Go to confession and shazam, you're forgiven. Well, I would then use our gospel reading to charge that their Protestant accepting the Lord Jesus in their heart is just so much magic. Just empty words. Just say, "Lord, Lord," and shazam! You're saved!

Then it hit me through the week that both could be correct in their assessment of the other if a real relationship with Jesus is not involved. If a real relationship with Jesus as the foundation of the ritual, in our case, or the declaration, in their case, is not present, then all that is being done in both cases is a form of wishing – an attempt at magic.

It all comes down to whether you see Jesus, or want to see Jesus, as a genie in the bottle or as a companion. If you want to see Jesus as a genie in the bottle, then wishing is your activity of choice. Magic IS the goal. But if you want Jesus to be a companion, then hoping is your activity and relationship is the goal.

If you want to worship Jesus as a genie in the bottle, then power and control are on the front burner of your minds. If I only had three wishes, boy what could I do. But if you want to worship Jesus as a companion, then service and surrender are on the front burner of your mind. "Take up your cross and follow me," he says.

If my Jesus is a genie, then I want a pill, a magic pill for an instant effect. I want to know the Bible deeper. I can't attend that Bible study. I want my kids to be involved, but they've got to do their studies, they’ve got their jobs, they've got to work for that scholarship. They don't have time to go to that program. I want a pill to take.

But if Jesus is a companion, then it's not a pill for an instant effect we are looking for, but an investment of time for an enduring effect.

If my Jesus is a genie in the bottle, then religion becomes my last resort. When all else fails, stop, drop and pray. But if my Jesus is a companion, then religion is a means of my daily journey – my first resort.

If my Jesus is a genie in the bottle, then I'll use the Bible either as a crystal ball to forecast the future for myself or as a telescope to look back into the past. But if my Jesus that I want to worship is a companion, then the Bible becomes a lens through which I am given the eyes to recognize the movement of that God in my life today.

If there is no relationship with Jesus, then any religion becomes a mere attempt at magic. Jesus becomes a genie in the bottle instead of a companion on the journey.

Everything that we do sacramentally as Catholics is done to build up a relationship with Jesus, a relationship that Jesus teaches us is intricately tied to our relationship with one another as community. There is no separating the two. In Baptism, we are introduced into our relationship with Jesus and joined to the Body of Christ, the church. In Holy Eucharist, our relationship with Jesus is deepened as we encounter Christ in the scriptures and intimately eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus in a communion rite that both signifies and strengthens our unity as the Body of Christ, the church.

In Confirmation, we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit to persevere in our relationship with Jesus, through our relationship with one another as the Body of Christ, the church. In Marriage and Ordination, we position ourselves in a special way for our life journey and frame our relationship with Jesus through this particular worldly relationship with the Body of Christ, the church.

In Reconciliation, our broken relationship with Jesus and his Body, the church, is restored. And in the Anointing of the Sick, the marginalization and isolation from community that illness can create is healed, as our relationship with Jesus heals our spirit and, when necessary for our salvation, our body.

In every instance, the community of the church, the Body of Christ, is not an obstacle to having a relationship with Jesus, nor is it superfluous. It is essential. "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me. Whenever two or three or gathered in my name, there I am. When did I see you hungry, or naked, or in prison, or ill?" The Body of Christ, our faith community is to our relationship with Jesus as our physical body is to our entire experience of the world around us. There is no separating the one from the other.

So as we celebrate our thirty-seventh birthday as a parish this weekend, let's celebrate the gift of our communal life together, for it is through this communal life that we come to know and to serve our God. May the Christ we reveal to one another strengthen our relationship with Jesus, who alone is our hope and our salvation.