11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 16, 2002

by Rev. Herbert Nichols

Do you really believe what you have just heard? That God wants to lift you up--high enough as if to soar on the wings of an eagle. That God wills to give you the grace to handle every situation in your life? In his compassion, Jesus longs to take away our pain and suffering and fill us with hope.

When he delivered the Israelites out of Egypt , God wanted them to understand that He Himself had carried them out of their misery and hopelessness ''as on the wings of an eagle". He gave them a new sense of identity and ability -- who they are -- and what they could do.

Of course recognizing who we are and what we can do, as a result can sometimes be confusing. The story is often told of the farmer who found a murdered mother eagle and an egg in her nest which he took home, and put in the chicken coop where one of his hens adopted it. Eventually it hatched and the young eagle ended up acting like a chicken.

But whenever it would look to the sky and sea eagles soaring it longed to be able to do that; the other chickens kept insisting; don't be silly. We can't fly. You're a chicken, not an eagle. And for a long time the eaglet believed itself to a chicken until one day it just had to prove itself, lifting its mighty wings and quickly soaring to the sky never to return to the chicken yard.

Who we are and what we do is intimately bound in our relation ship with God. We are his people, no longer His slaves. No longer in bondage as they were in Egypt . The people of ancient Israel came to see themselves as a new nation--a holy nation--a people consecrated and set apart by God to do His work in His Name.

Do we really believe? Perhaps we too quickly dismiss the words of the gospel. That Jesus commissioning is only for the ordained, or those with special charisms.  Jesus says: "It is for all his followers".

You may think that you have no special power or responsibility; the truth of the matter is you have more than you know how to handle. Like the Apostles you have been commissioned to bring the healing touch to a suffering world.

Through compassionate listening and healing you can help the sick to recover. Perhaps not to cure, but to offer hope and encouragement, to offer life to someone whose passion has degenerated from a roaring flame to a sifting ember.

And to all of us is given the power to forgive--to give for one another the freedom from the chains and bondages of resentment. Forgiveness cannot be commanded, demanded, or required of others or of ourselves.

To forgive-to truly forgive involves letting go of all feelings of resentment and the vision of seeing oursleves as poor victims. ObI Poor me.

The experience of being forgiven and reconciled pulls us out of that stagnating mire of self-centered focus on our own pain and pushes us into the not necessarily pure--but at least circulating stream of community and commonality.

This is what Paul is telling us when he says: "We have been made right. We have been reconciled. We can now rejoice in a wonderful new relationship with God.

When we love as Christ loves, we break the demonic bondage of hatred, fear, violence; and all kinds of addictions. All of us are healers by vocation.--By vocation--a call to action

This is not just some pie-in-the sky spirituality. This is a rock solid position of faith based in the Scriptures we have just heard--the Word of God.

It is the essence of what it means to be a new creation in Jesus Christ. That "we have been raised up with Him. God will help us to respond to the needs of those we meet. H~ will lift us and them out of the patterns of sin that have bound us and caused us suffering.

If we truly believe, then as Paul says: "We cannot help but rejoice in what Christ has done for us; then again, if we do not believe or do not find ourselves rejoicing, then perhaps we need to ask ourselves some serious questions like why do I refuse to leave the chicken coop?