Good
evening. I’m Ned Berghausen, a permanent
deacon at St. Agnes Catholic Church. Thank
you, Fr. George and Holy Family parishioners, for welcoming me, Fr. Dismas, and
members of the St. X class of 1998 to your Saturday night liturgy. Tonight,
my St. X High School class of is celebrating our 25th anniversary of
graduation. Many of my classmates are
here with their families before heading down to the other end of Poplar Level
to celebrate. This homily will be
addressed to everyone in this assembly.
The Bible is
a strange book. It contains a wild patchwork of genres mashed together. Amidst the narratives, poetry, law codes, and
myths, is one type of text a reader might not expect to encounter in Holy
Scripture: very specific instructions on farming, including rules about what
can and can’t be planted together in one field. After reading these
instructions, we might think of the Bible as an Old Farmer’s Almanac. Maybe a ‘very old’ and ‘holy’ Farmer’s
Almanac for the people of Israel.
Jesus’
parables today, then, would be very surprising to his listeners because as it
turns out Jesus is a very bad farmer.
His instructions on farming directly contradict both the received wisdom
from scripture, and common sense.
It is clear,
however, that Jesus is not really talking about farming. In his parables, the subject is God’s dream
for the world –that is, the coming Kingdom of God, and about how God works. The subject is also us, the
listener. Like the Bible, we are also
strange books, full of a mash up of genres and styles.
We are
fields that are strangely planted. There
are more than two types of crop planted together in a field. A mustard seed is improbably plunked right in
the center, growing wildly. Toxic weeds
are sprouting up amidst the good wheat seed.
Yet the master farmer who is cultivating us knows what he is doing. He knows that something unexpected and
beautiful can grow out of this chaos. Unexpectedly, he also finds a good use
for the weeds—they become a fuel for burning.
What seemed useless and harmful becomes productive in the plan of God. God is
revealed in the messiness of good and bad seed growing up together. We are not expected to be a hypothetical
perfect field where good seed grows in isolation[1].
My St. X
class of 1998 appears to have produced 25 years of good fruit that has grown
from the seeds of our education. Here
are a few of their accolades: one helped discover the Higgs Boson, the
so-called “God particle;” another was a professional baseball player who ended
the longest postseason game in history with a walk-off homeroom, another has
served as a priest in Nicaragua for seven years, another is a Metro Council
member, another is the director of Kentucky Fairness, another was a submariner
on a nuclear submarine, and another the assistant superintendent of JCPS. We are husbands and fathers. High achievers and midcareer
professionals.
Again, these
are incredible accomplishments. I am sure many of our Holy Family parishioners
are also quite accomplished. And yet, Jesus
reminds us that we are not called to achieve according to the standards of the
world. The motto of the Xaverian Brothers who founded
St. X is “in harmony small things grow.”
God is not necessarily calling us to perform great deeds, but to do
small things with great love. St.
Therese of Lisieux called herself a little flower in God’s garden, a sentiment
that could also be applied to the Xaverian motto. We are called to cultivate this harmony, and
to trust in the small, steady work of God’s grace in ourselves and in our
community. As the Xaverians again put it to be constantly
“falling in love with the service of God” and in the service of our
neighbors.
“For it is
only in harmony that you will grow, that your community will grow, that the
love of God will grow in your world and that the reign of God will grow to
completeness (Fundamental Principles).”
A few years
ago, the author David Brooks wrote, that there are “two sets of virtues, the
résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you
bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about
at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you
capable of deep love?”
“We all know
that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé ones. But our
culture and our educational systems spend more time teaching the skills and
strategies you need for career success than the qualities you need to [become
moral human beings]. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career
than on how to build inner character.” I hope that the St. X class of 1998 and
all of here can focus our hearts and our lives on building our inner character
and our eulogy virtues. That is the Gospel message tonight.
Jesus also
reminds us that our own lives and our own very bodies are a kind of seed. We, too, will be planted and at the
resurrection we shall become something new, as different as a wheat seed is
from a grown stalk, fully grown and bearing fruit, ready for the harvest of the
kingdom of God. We remember that as we
pray for the 13 members of the class of 1998 who have died: Shaan, Ruben, Chris,
Ryan, Eric, Robert, Brian, Phil, Johnny, Joe, Stewart, Robert, and Phil.
As Jesus
says later in his explanation of this parable, “the righteous will shine like
the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
May our deceased classmates come to know the joy of the kingdom. And may God bring all that us growing within
us into fulfilment and fruitfulness is the fullness of time. God bless you.
Deceased members of the class of 1998
Mr. Ruben R. Ardery
Mr. Christopher A. Bosley
(Chris)
Mr. Ryan W. Browning
Mr. Eric M. Graeser
Mr. Robert G. Howell, Sr.
Mr. Brian S. Humpich
Mr. Phillip M. Rhodes
(Phil)
Mr. John R. Roth, Jr. (Johnny)
Mr. Robert J. Smithson,
Jr. (Joe)
Mr. Stewart R. Spalding
Mr. R. B. Stich
Mr. Phillip A. Ward (Phil)
Mr. RaShaan R. Willis, Honorary '98 (Shaan)
[1]
Insight from Barbara Reid.
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