Fr. Rick Spicer

Good morning, I am Brian Maddux and this is my wife Patty.

I was asked to share our thoughts about stewardship.

Just to let you know, I am not a public speaker. As a matter of fact, I don’t really want to be standing up here… but we know just how important this is.

I know some of you are waiting for us to talk about money, and how much you should give this year, perhaps show a chart with a formula showing how to compute your gift. A few short years ago, this is what I would have expected, and would have tuned the speaker out or even skipped Mass during stewardship month.

Actually, this is a talk about stewardship, but not necessarily about money. It’s about sharing the love of Christ with our brothers and sisters as disciples. It was a journey of faith that has helped us understand the real meaning of stewardship.

As some of you know, I am a convert. I grew up Methodist and attended a Methodist university. It was here that I met Patty. As early as 1990, I started going to Mass with Patty. In my mind, the Catholic Church was just another Christian denomination. For the next 14 years, Patty patiently waited for the Holy Spirit to move me to become a member of His true church.

We’ve all heard the idea that God creates a specific spouse for each of us. Well, Patty and I each knew we had found our spouse the first day we met.

But it took us 2 years to admit it to each other!

We come from very different backgrounds. I am from a very small family that lived in the country. Patty is from a huge family and lived in the city. I was a Methodist and Patty is a cradle Catholic. Somehow, we both ended up at Ohio Northern University where we met.

That’s not so unusual, as many couple meet in college. What is unusual is how we ended up there.

For me, I was supposed to go to ONU, but it wasn’t my first choice. I actually transferred to ONU after my freshman year because I just wasn’t happy with my first choic3. My admissions counselor predicted it when I decided not to go there originally. She said I’d be back… Oh, and did I mention that I lived on Ohio Northern Drive?

Patty went to ONU which, as I mentioned is a Methodist university, site unseen. Additionally, its not a cheap school and she was paying for college herself. She had the opportunity to attend a Catholic university on a full scholarship. To this day, she can’t tell you why she decided to go to Ohio Northern.

We’ve determined, in hindsight, that there is only one reasonable answer… God had a plan.

While in school, we were active in the ecumenical Christian activities on campus and living as disciples was important to us. However, we did not have a full understanding of what that meant. We claimed our Christianity and thought that was enough.

Finally, we got married, moved from Ohio to Washington, got caught up in our careers and were eventually gifted with children, Michael and Ian.

Finally, after 14 years, I became a Catholic at the Easter Vigil in 2005.

However, because of my Protestant background, I continued to have a rather relaxed view of my new faith. The only absolute was whether Jesus was my personal Lord and Savior.

As we know, the Catholic Church, as founded by Jesus Christ, asks more of us than our Protestant brothers and sisters would claim.

Four years ago, Patty and I attended the Seattle Archdiocese Youth Convention as chaperones. It was at this event that the Holy Spirit, through the speakers and music, opened my eyes to the greater truths of the Church. The reality that Jesus and his Church ask more of us than just claiming the title of Catholic. He has more to offer us than an ordinary life.

As I started researching and learning more, I realized that our Faith is not about the rules, the rituals and the obligations of being a good Catholic. These are important ways of teaching us to live a faithful life, but not the why. Faith is about relationship. Our relationship with Jesus Christ lived out through our relationship with each other.

Let me repeat that, because it is important.

Faith is about relationship. Our relationship with Jesus Christ lived out through our relationship with each other.

Since that convention, we purposefully engaged in a variety of activities, events and ministries within the parish. At first, our reason was to simply make friends with people who share the same thoughts and views. As our faith was ignited and grew, we wanted the fuel to keep the flames burning. As the weeks turned to months, and the months to years, the reasons for our involvement became much deeper. These weren’t simply activities on the calendar, but a way of life. The relationship grew from being a member of the parish, to being a participant in parish life.

We believe that relationship and stewardship go hand in hand, each feeds the other. The more relationship you have, the more stewardship you give. The more stewardship you give, the deeper relationship you have. The deeper relationship you have, the more stewardship you want to give. And it keeps growing.

For us, the best way to explain relationship and stewardship is how we use it in our own family. First, love is the most important thing, but it is not the only thing. We are not just members of a family making our way through life. We are family members who are responsible for each other. Stewardship is what helps us to thrive, grow and achieve our potential as individuals and a family. We make it a point to server each other first, before we serve ourselves. Our family and our relationships require us to give so that we can receive.

As just one example, as a father, I understand that love is crucial for my boys. But they will not come to trust in our Father if they can’t trust me. As they grow, they will come to understand relationship by watching me work towards meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our family. In return, I will have the privilege of seeing them do the same for their families. All around us, we can see evidence of families and relationships crumbling because 1, 2, or all 3 aspects aren’t being met.

Similarly, our parish family needs more than just members to thrive. It needs relationship because it too has physical, emotional and spiritual needs. The baskets need to overflow on Sunday to keep the building and her program running. We can’t settle on filling the basket with what’s left over at the end of the week. The rooms need to be bulging with people during our events and socials so we can continue to build a string community of faith filled people. And all our faith formation and ministry programs need your participation, both as leaders and those searching to know more about their Catholic faith.

Our parish provides, but it also has needs. And through we are a generous parish, we cannot settle for what we are already doing. But we need to strive to reach the potential for all the wonderful work yet to be done.

I challenge you to grow as a disciple and live in stewardship, and help us make St. Huberts the beacon of Christ’s love here on South Whidbey.

In summary, I would like to close with a quote from each of my boys.

Michael says “stewardship is helping others when they need it, even if you don’t want to.”

And Ian says “sharing makes you happy.”

Thank You.
 

Two friends were walking down a crowded city sidewalk in the midst of a typical noisy rush hour. People bustling, horns honking, engines roaring, vehicles of all sizes rumbling, sirens blaring all about them, when suddenly amid the noise, one friend suddenly turned to the other and said, “Listen, a cricket!”

“Come on!” the second friend shot back. “How can you possibly hear a cricket in the midst of all this noise? Are there even crickets here in the city?”

“But I did hear a cricket.” She stopped to listen again, then, with her cynical friend in tow, crossed the busy street to a big cement planter. Gently pushing aside the petunias, she revealed a little brown cricket. “That is amazing!” her friend said. “How could you have possibly heard it?”

“There is no secret,” she explained. “Watch.” Reaching into her purse, she pulled out some loose change and dropped a quarter on the sidewalk. Despite the deafening noise around them, everyone within fifteen feet turned their head to see where the sound of the money was coming from. The woman turned to her doubting friend and said, “”See, it is all a matter of what you are listening for.”

Being hearing impaired all my life, I have at times envied the ability of some people to hear certain sounds like the purr of a cat.  With the help of good hearing aids, I hear the noise, but I often struggle to discern what is being said in noisy places or when I can’t see the face of the person speaking to me.  If I manage to catch the message the first time around, that would prompt my mother to accuse me of selective hearing.

For anyone with normal hearing, this gospel passage may seem irrelevant, but there is a lesson here for all of us, regardless of how well we hear. In the midst of all the noise in our lives, we can easily become “deaf” to the presence of God and even those around us.

Our days are crammed full with too many words and too much talk. We live in the midst of 24/7 cable television news, twitter, facebooks, bluetooths, or texting one another on blackberries.  We keep in touch with one another on our cell phones while shopping, waiting for the ferry, or commuting. Without a doubt, we are much more into communication than we were three decades ago but are we listening to what really matters?

Sadly, many people have grown deaf to the words of Jesus, the thoughts of the Bible and the message of the Church because the loudness and clutter of this world’s noise has made them spiritually deaf.

Jesus said to the deaf man, “Be opened!” Those are words we all need to hear. This encounter between Jesus and the deaf man captures the relationship between God and us. Face it; we are not always open to hearing the word of God, much less listening to what God has to say. The noise of our surroundings, of Madison Avenue, sports and worldly values often muffle and silence the Word that God speak to us through scripture, the teachings and the preaching of our Church.

Think of how many conversations fall short of being just that because one person refuses to listen to what the other person is saying. Instead of listening, that person has any number of rebuttals lined up for dismissing what is being said. The misunderstandings that ensue sometimes are resolved when the message is finally heard, then understood.

How open are we to hearing what Jesus has to say to us through scripture, the teachings of our church and the preaching of its ministers? Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees because we become upset or hung up by something a homilist has said or by a certain teaching or regulation of the Church, failing to be open to the messenger and the message being delivered.

More than once, someone has expressed to me the opinion that politics should not be preached at Mass. I would agree, but when the issue at hand infringes on the moral teachings of the Church, thus the Word of God, then we need to be open to the bigger picture and listen to what God is ultimately saying. A church that is witness to the Word of God must be partial to those bowed down and give voice to the voiceless like the unborn, the inmate on death row, the poor on skid row, and the mentally ill.

Contrary to what some may think, the Church cannot stay out of politics when politics endangers the lives of the innocent or the rights of others to follow their conscience. The Church has the responsibility to speak up when the law of the land runs contrary to God’s law, for the former is not our means to salvation.

Recall the words of our opening prayer. “Lord our God, in you justice and mercy meet. With unparalleled love you have saved us from death and drawn us into the circle of your love.”  From the very beginning, God has endeavored to save us and will always do so, but if God is to succeed, than we must open our ears in this noisy world of ours to what is being said that truly matters in making salvation real.

The words Jesus said to the deaf man are meant for us as well. We must open our hearts to experience God’s compassion in the love of family and friends, to realize God’s presence at all times and places. What we listen for will make a difference in our relationships with one another and with God. Be open and you will experience God in a whole new light.
 

I do not know of a sentence in the Bible that annoys more people than this line in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he urges wives to be subordinate to their husbands. Angered by such chauvinism, many listeners then tune out his message on commitment, the same message we hear in the other readings.

Paul isn’t putting anyone down in his letter nor is he giving husbands the license to degrade, abuse, or control their wives. To the contrary, he is challenging spouses to examine their fidelity and commitment to one another.  There is no room for a domineering spouse in any truly sacramental marriage.

A husband, Paul contends, is to commit himself as totally to his wife as Christ committed himself to the Church. You and I know how far Jesus Christ went for the Church and for us, giving his life on the cross so that we could be freed from sin. Ideally, every husband should be willing to do the same for his wife. She is to be as important to him as his own body. He should love her more than anyone or anything else on earth. The bottom line is that both husbands and wives are to put the other person first. Each spouse has to sacrifice something for that to happen. Giving up some of their personal preferences, the two become one, thus becoming the sacrament of marriage to one another.

From what I have seen and heard over the years, that hasn’t always happened. I ache for spouses who endure domestic violence of any kind from verbal to physical. Alas, both husbands and wives have been known to abuse their spouses. Such a marriage is not what the Church defines as a sacramental union.

The experience of those who are victims in such situations dramatizes the point being made in today’s gospel. There are times in life when we are pushed to the wall. There are times in life when we are ready to quit. There are times in life when we need something to hold on to.  In the gospel, the disciples were being pushed to the wall by what Jesus said earlier about giving his body for them to eat. Notice how they responded.

One group found Jesus’ words too hard to take. “Who can accept it?” Not them, so they parted company with Jesus. The others met his challenge successfully and remained faithful to him.  Why did one group leave and the other stay? The gospel doesn’t answer that question outright, but it gives us a clue.

Peter speaks for us when he said to Jesus, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

When pushed to the wall, so to speak, they kept their eyes focused on Jesus whereas the group that abandoned him had focused on the stumbling block instead.  “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Detracted by the repulsive notion of eating someone’s flesh, they lost sight of the whole picture Jesus was presenting. A commitment to God or another person is never made once and for all, but must be renewed again and again.

When I witness a marriage, I tell the couple to say the words of their vows to each other as though they are the most important words they will ever say. “I take you for my spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part.”

I have known many loving couples who have honored their commitments to each other. When the going gets tough for them, their love grows even stronger, for they keep their eyes focused on Jesus, rather than the problems that surface. They minister God to each other daily. They also know their marriage cannot thrive or even survive if one or both spouses become too self-centered to honor their vows.

When we hear the words, commitment and fidelity, we are apt to think only about the faithfulness of spouses to one another, but the notion of fidelity extends to every commitment we make. Being faithful means honoring the commitments and keeping the promises we have made in our work and business dealings, as well as our relationships with God and others.

Joshua knew what he was committed to. He also knew that many who had followed him for 40 years in their exodus to the Promised Land were now attracted to the many gods of their neighbors. “If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” In reply to his challenge, they said, “We also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

The lesson given in these readings is clear: when we commit ourselves to Christ or to another person, the decision impacts us and the world around us. Our relationship with God cannot be a half-hearted one if we are to grow in faith. “Decide today whom you will serve.” Joshua’s challenge is a choice for us as well.

Centuries later, Jesus essentially posed the same question to his apostles. “Do you also want to leave?” Some disciples had found his message too hard to take or too unrealistic to accept such as what he had said about chastity and fidelity, forgiveness and honesty, so they left. What he had said about the Eucharist as a covenant was too much for them to accept.

Countless fellow Catholics, married and single alike, have demonstrated by their lives their commitment to Christ. Their faith has been a continual inspiration to me. If Jesus were to ask me, “So you also want to leave?” I would respond, “What? Not on your life, Lord. I agree with Peter. You have the words of eternal life. I am convinced you are the Holy One of God.” I hope you could say the same.

More than a century ago, a poor family from a small village in Eastern Europe decided to migrate to America. Their friends and relatives threw a “going away” party for them. They were given several loaves of hard bread and blocks of cheese for the voyage. A week later, the family boarded an Italian ship. Since they had never been out of their village before and no one on board spoke their language, they were overwhelmed by what they saw and heard.

Because the weather was cold and wet, the family immediately went to their third class cabin below deck. There they stayed, eating their provisions of bread and cheese sparingly. On the last day of the trip, the weather cleared up. The oldest boy, who had grown restless, asked his father for permission to explore the ship. When his teenaged son did not return within the hour, the father went looking for him. He found him in a big dining room, sitting at a table, eating from a plate overflowing with vegetables, meat and even desert.

The father’s heart stopped. He had visions of spending his first days in America in jail for there was no way he could pay for all the food that his son had ordered and was eating. When the boy saw how frightened his father looked, he said, “Don’t worry, papa, it’s free. While we’ve been fasting on rations of bred and cheese, everyone else has been feasting on banquets like this. They’re included in the price of the ticket!”

That story fits in well with the message of today’s gospel. The world is filled with people who, like that poor Serbian family, journey through life, totally unaware of the incredible banquet that God spreads before them every day. This banquet, which we call Holy Communion, is the banquet that Jesus is talking about when he told the crowd, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Understandably, those who first listened to what Jesus said were disturbed. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” The notion of eating anyone’s flesh was quite unsettling. Certainly, Jesus was not talking about ordinary bread here.

The difference between the living bread, which Jesus speaks of, and bread that you can buy at the store is beyond comparison. When we eat that kind of bread, it enters our body and changes into us.  When we eat the living bread, however, the opposite happens. The living bread doesn’t change into us; rather, we change into the living bread. When we reverently partake of Holy Communion, we are transformed into the body of Christ. We take on the life of Christ. Jesus told the crowd, “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

Think of the words spoken at the consecration, which sum up what Jesus said at the Last Supper. “This is my body which will be given up for you…this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.”  And this we have done since they were first spoken. The Eucharist is our link with Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. The Eucharist is our tangible reminder of God’s unconditional love for us.

Mindful of Jesus’ profound love for us, we allow the Eucharist to transform us. We are then empowered to heed the command we are given at the end of Mass to love and serve the Lord. Yes, the Eucharist can transform us into people of love.

The first reading speaks about the wisdom of God, who invites us to a dinner. “Come and eat and drink and live forever,” we are told. God gives us the dream of living in peace and happiness for all eternity. That becomes possible when we endeavor to love.

Paul knows how human we are. He speaks of our failings, urging us to understand the will of God. Deep down, we want to be with God, but too often, we ignore God’s wise counsel for getting there, such as allowing the Eucharist to change us.  Many people go through the motions of taking communion but with little appreciation for what they are receiving.  They act as though what they receive is still bread and wine; then they wonder why this sacrament has no impact on them.  They may have the faith and the knowledge all right, but if they are not attentive to what is going on, they cannot receive the fullness of grace that is being offered.

St. Thomas Aquinas observed that a mouse cannot receive Holy Communion if it eats a consecrated host since it lacks knowledge and faith, even though Christ remains present. He went on to argue that a believer who consumes consecrated bread, but believes that it is not consecrated, does not receive Christ either. He also reasoned that the same is true for non-believers who partake of Holy Communion despite what others believe. They receive the Eucharist, Aquinas notes, “not as sacrament, but as simple food.”

What about believers who are inattentive while receiving Holy Communion? We may be receiving Christ but not the fullness of grace that he has to offer, for we can only receive fully what we are fully disposed to receive. Come attentively and reverently to receive the Lord. Sense his presence in your midst. Reverence the encounter. Respond convincingly with the word, “Amen,” as a sign that you savor what is being offered you in the sacrament.

How tragic that the Serbian family made their voyage to America unaware that meals came with their tickets, but what is even more tragic is for us to turn this banquet into a lifeless routine by failing to make this encounter with Jesus a personal prayerful encounter every time we’re given the chance to feast on him. 

Last week, we heard about the miraculous feeding of 5000 men in the gospel. Today and for the next three Sundays we hear John’s discourse on the meaning of that miracle—how it is a sign that Jesus is ultimately our true nourishment.

The readings opened with the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land. In the gospel, the crowds journeyed by boat to Capernaum looking for Jesus.  Whenever we are on a journey, we need directions or we are apt to venture off course and get lost. I recall years ago, a friend calling to tell me that she and her husband had taken the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston to visit me. “Now,” she asked, “ how do we get to Langley from Kingston?”  They knew where they wanted to go, all right, but they needed directions first.  I had to patiently explain that to get to Langley, one had to catch the ferry to Clinton, not Kingston.

Life is much like a journey. When I graduated from college, I never imagined that 38 years later, I would find myself standing here at a pulpit in Langley. (To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of Langley back then!) Like many of my peers then, I was searching for my niche in life, for whatever and whomever would bring me happiness, but I was often more concerned about putting food on the table than pondering my long range goals in life.

I wasn’t much different from the crowds in today’s readings. The Israelites were free from slavery yet they were disenchanted.  Lacking food, they would have preferred to remain in Egypt and eaten their fill of bread, even if that meant being slaves again. As we heard, their needs were soon filled with manna and quail. (What was called bread from heaven can be found even today in the Sinai desert, produced each spring by certain insects feeding on tamarisk trees.)

The crowds in the gospel weren’t much different. They too were primarily interested in satisfying their hunger. Could Jesus continue to feed them as he had the day before? Thus, they jumped into their boats and headed to Capernaum, looking for the man who miraculously feed so many with so little.

The restless hungry crowds left me wondering, “Is life simply the daily pursuit of putting something on the table to eat?” For many people, that is the bottom line. Of course, along with food, comes the quest for shelter, clothing, recreation, relationships and all else that defines our notion of the American dream.

The opening line of the Declaration of Independence asserts that we are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, along with life and liberty, but the founding fathers did not provide us with any directions. Many of us presume that happiness is found in the quest for wealth, status and good health. That may be the American dream, yet, as many of us have discovered sooner or later, such happiness may be as fleeting as a sultry breeze on a stifling humid summer evening like those we have had lately.

Jesus observed that reality. In spite of their fill, having been fed the day before, the crowd was not yet satisfied. To remedy their emptiness, Jesus assures them that lasting happiness can be found in him. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

What assuring words! In a nutshell, Jesus was prodding his listeners to move beyond the pursuit of their daily bread to seeking the bread of eternal life, ultimately seeing Jesus as the object of faith. For us Catholics, we equate what he is saying here to the Eucharist, the core of our faith. We believe that our gifts of bread and wine become for us the real presence of Jesus Christ, not mere symbols, and that the Eucharist keeps us moving in the right direction beyond the Mass through life, by separating us from sin, those deliberately chosen acts which distance us from God, who is the source of lasting happiness.

An obstacle for some toward Jesus’ message here is faith, which they see as an act of the mind, rather than the heart. Since the real presence of Jesus cannot be rationally explained, they opt not to believe, despite what Jesus said at the Last Supper.

In biblical times, faith described the glue which binds one person to another. A good comparison for faith would be the loyalty that fans have for their teams, a passion of the heart. This is what Jesus had in mind when he tells us, “Do not work for food that perishes but for food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  Are we passionate about our faith?

In his book, Diary of a Country Priest, George Bernanos writes, “Faith is not a thing which one ‘loses,’ we merely cease to shape our lives by it.”  Ask yourself, are you allowing your faith to shape your life? If not, consider the advice Paul gives, for ultimately we cannot be Christian unless we put on Christ and allow ourselves to be created anew in God’s way of righteousness and holiness.

Like my misdirected friends, who never made it to Langley that day, we can veer off course on our life journey with the countless daily distractions that surround us, yet the direction for getting us the satisfying happiness we seek in life is simple enough. Simply put, Jesus is urging us to redirect our lives toward God. This means a reordering of expectations and values, a path that becomes evident through the power of daily prayer.  Monika Hellwig, one of America’s best Catholic theologians, summarized the lesson today well when she wrote, “Human yearning is not stilled by self-seeking or self-gratification, but by self-gift to God in trust and to other human beings in meeting their needs. To be nourished and sustained by Jesus means being empowered to live in this way.”