32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - November 6, 2021

“TO BE GRATEFUL for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness.”
― Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God

I want to apologize for what I believe is the greatest sin of the leadership of the Church for centuries…that sin is the shadow of doubt that has been cast over the human race by Church leaders that has made trusting in God’s unbounded, unearned and radical, ruthless love, unimaginable!
In an effort to secure a need for the church and its leaders, the Church began to teach that only the leadership could mediate salvation. 
My friends, there is no “but” in God’s love! 
And yet as a Church for centuries we have promoted an understanding of God that says…God loves you, but…..


God loves you, but…..
…….You are a sinner
………..You need absolution
…………..You need forgiveness
……………..You need to repent
……………….You need to…
You see the minute we introduce any qualification on God’s radical and ruthless love, we immediately begin to make trust in God nearly impossible.

Trust (Peithó) is complete confidence or an assured reliance on the character, ability, reliability, strength, or truth of someone or something.  

We face the challenge of trust every day of our lives, because our lived experience often proves that such a quality is rarely ever found.
So when it comes to a trust in God we are already running an uphill challenge.
How do we trust something, someone, some entity we cannot see, physically touch or personally interact with?
That is precisely the point at which I believe “faith” comes into play in our lives.
Faith is not some pie in the sky idea about some unknown, unseen deity that resides outside of space and time….
Faith is the verbalized and realized experience of a people who have encountered God, in the mud, the dirt, the joy, and the ecstasy of our lives.
Faith is the point at which we say to one another, by our words and our actions….there is a God, and I have encountered that God. 
Faith is the point at which we say to one another, by our words and our actions….There is a God, and I know it…beyond any doubt.
That is “faith”….the understanding that we know…first hand we have encountered a power greater than ourselves who resides with us.

Jane Marczweski, better known as Nightbirde, a young woman living her final days with extreme grace and dignity said this: 
I don’t think it is meaningless, the story that say God sculpted us from clay. 
I don’t think it’s meaningless that the first time humanity looked up at the eyes of God, God’s hands were dirty and God was close.

The widow in our Gospel tonight, the widow at Zarapeth in the first reading as well…I don’t believe those are stories about giving away our last remaining remnants of survival….
They are stories about giving away our distrust in a God who has proven that love,  that God’s love, is without cost.
I have an incarcerated individual with whom I work, who is serving multiple consecutive life sentences….who will never ever walk in the freedom of our world or society ever again, but who walks every day in prison, with a smile, a warmth, a joy, a beam of hope….I had the opportunity to ask him how he does it….
How does he walk around with such an amazing presence, in the midst of what so many would deem to be absolute hopelessness.
He said:  Chap…after 45 years of being locked up, I finally came to realize that God loves me, all of me, my sinfulness and my holiness.
Chap he continued…I have come to realize…there is no “but” in God….
I know others don’t believe that.
I know others want me to be punished until the day I die.
Yet I have come to know, that God loves me, even if others can’t!

“On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars.”
―  Brennan Manning,  Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God