Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
August 15, 2010. Our Lady of Grace 11:30, 6PM. Revelation 11:19a,
12:1-6a, 10ab. I Corinthians 15:20-27. Luke 1:39-56.
I love the new Twins Baseball stadium. There is great power
and excitement in watching the Twins play ball in front of 40,000 people.
If I can’t watch the Twins at the stadium I love to watch on TV. Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer (Cudi-er) – they are the
stars. They are on the field where the action is. What would you do
if a voice came loud and clear over the loud speaker inviting you to come down
onto the field and join the team in playing the game? Would you run down
the steps with great enthusiasm, or would you sneak out the back door of the
stadium and head for home?
This church looks a little bit like a baseball stadium in
the way that it is shaped. Something very important happens up front,
here in the middle, and most of us sit around the edges, watching and
listening. Watching others is the way that going to church often
looks and feels. Besides, God does it all, isn’t that right? We
come to church to listen to God and to thank God and to ask God for what we
want or need. Most of the time we just sit in the pews and let Jesus get
all the attention and do all the work. After all, he is the super star.
Teenagers may even get bored going to church because there doesn’t seem to be
anything for them to do here. But there is!
One day God surprised a young woman named Mary by calling
her out of the crowd watching in the stadium, asking her to come down onto the
field to play a very big role on God’s team. She may have wanted to say:
“Look I am a teenager and teenagers don’t play on major league teams.” She
may even have wanted to say, “God, didn’t you notice that I am a girl and
people usually do not ask girls to change the world.” Mary said none of
these things. She simply listened to the invitation of the angel
announcing that she was to be the mother of the Messiah. She very humbly said
yes to God and got out of her place in the stadium, she walked out of the
crowd, she left the pews and took up the challenge
accepting the gift that God offered her to play on God’s team for the salvation
of the world.
We were made in the image and likeness of God and God has
great reverence for the dignity and the freedom of our human family as a whole
and of every human person. The Book of Genesis says that we are called to
partner with God in having dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the
air, the animals on the land and our planet as a whole. If God created us
to be his partners in caring for and perfecting the world in which we live, why
would he not make us his partners in saving the world and bringing the world to
Jesus Christ? Yes, Jesus is the only redeemer of the human
race. At the same time God has chosen to bring goodness and salvation to
the human race through the Church – that is through people like you and me.
Mary is a living image of the relationship between God and the human
race. Picture this: Just like a young man kneeling before the woman
he wants to be his wife – and waiting eagerly for her response to his proposal
of marriage, God sends the Angel Gabriel to the humble woman of
God chose to wait for Mary’s response. God didn’t need
Mary. God could have given Jesus to the world in some other way – the
fact of the matter is that God waited for Mary to say yes, and God waits for us
to say yes. Mary teaches us that God calls us and for reasons known only
to God – God needs each one of us. God could save us and the world
without us doing anything. Jesus could do it all and leave us sitting in
the stands or in the pews. But God doesn’t work that way.
Jesus invites us out of the pews and into the work that is ours in bringing the
world to God and to justice and peace. Mary is the first and the greatest
among the followers of Jesus. She always teaches us that we are also
called and chosen to bring Christ to others.
Mary was overcome with gratitude and joy when she realized
that God had chosen her to give Christ to the world. When she met
her cousin Elizabeth she broke into a great hymn of praise to God. Please turn
to page 147 in the hymn book.
My soul is filled
with joy as I sing to God my savior:
you
have looked upon your servant, you have visited your people.
(All)
And holy is your
name through all generations!
Everlasting is
your mercy to the people you have chosen,
and
holy is your name.
I am lowly as a
child, but I know from this day forward
that
my name will be remembered, for all will call me blessed.
(refrain)
I proclaim the pow’r of God, you do marvels for
your servants;
though
you scatter the proud-hearted and destroy the might of princes.
This weekend I complete my 8th year as pastor of
Our Lady of Grace. I am very aware that God calls me to be the heart, the
mind, the hands and feet of Jesus the Good Shepherd. Sometimes I do that
well. Sometimes I do not. But called I am – and you are called as well.
Without you I could do nothing. God has also chosen to be dependent upon
us in brining Jesus to the world. Mary is a mother who teaches us to respond to
God with all our hearts as she did. She shows us how to stop watching and to
start playing an active part on God’s team. For Mary’s vocation and ours we
give God thanks and praise.