(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
Since the coronavirus has arrived, I have had to change my routine. For one, since I cannot celebrate daily Mass at the Hospital chapel, I write these blog homilies. Second, since I cannot mentor the students I mentor at West Central Juvenile Rehab Center, I send short notes twice a week to them. I try to keep the notes general and upbeat. If I briefly write about an issue, it probably means that I am responding to a concrete situation.
We have a reading form the letter to the Ephesians for this feast day of St Matthew the Gospel writer. Why did Paul write about patience and unity? He probably did so because he thought they needed to hear about these. Paul was responding to a concrete situation.
I can imagine the scene. Paul walks into the house, like a parent when all the kids are having a free-for-all, with nosebleeds, back eyes and bruises. “Quiet down!” he yells, “You are supposed to love one another. There is only one Lord, one God, one Christian life. Stop fighting.”
Christians can be petty, argumentative, and stubborn. Look at the present presidential election. Except for a short meeting at Ground Zero, September 13, the campaign has been heated. To believe all the materials people have sent me, I should conclude that each major candidate is worse that the devil and I should vote for the devil rather than for either of them.
Are not both candidates baptized into the one Lord Jesus, into the one hope of eternal reward in heaven? What ever happened to humility and gentleness and patience?
Yes, we do have differing gifts, but the gifts are for the building up of the Church, not for the ego of the candidates. The candidates can only run for office in 2020. They cannot run as George Washington. They cannot run as an apostle such as Matthew. They can run now, in 2020, but only in order to use the gifts they have for the good of all.
St Paul reminded the Ephesians that the gifts they had were for building up of the Body of Christ, not their own egos. We should remind our politicians that their gifts are for the good of the whole, not for their egos. We need to remind ourselves that the gifts we each have received are for the good of the whole, not for our own egos.
Paul wrote to the Ephesians about their needs. We need to hear his words as a message addressed to us and, through us, to all others, including politicians. Our politicians tend to reflect us citizens. What Paul wrote for the Ephesians, he wrote also for us.