3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Jan 22, 2022

One of the biggest challenges we face today, is our attempt at living the Gospel in a world that is often so antithetical to it, it almost becomes impossible.
Sometimes that antithesis even invades our own psyche. 
Both personal and social.
Like let’s be honest with one another…. how many times have we pulled up the stop light, to be greeted with the sign flyer and have we not thought to ourselves…?
Well, if they would get a job, they wouldn’t have to be standing out here…. the jobs are all over the place, just go get one.
Right?  We have all thought that….
It is nearly impossible for us to “be anointed to bring the Good News to those who are poor” if our message is and our thought is…well get a job!
Just think if we would just stop and ask ourselves and get our society to ask ourselves…what do these people need in order to not be where they are?
Do they need housing?  Do they need mental health?  Do they need meds? 
Instead of why don’t you have….we end up saying….what do you need?
If we would change the question, we might be able to live the Gospel…yet if we keep asking the same question; we will continuously end up in the same situation.
I could be the most gifted computer programmer in the world, but if I have a felony conviction, landing a well-paying job in that field for which I am gifted and passionate, will be impossible. 
Why do people re-violate their terms of parole or probation? 
Well if I can’t get a job, then I can’t rent an apartment, and I can’t put an address on an application and to top that off, rarely are paper applications accepted anywhere now, I must do it online and I don’t have a computer or access to one then how can I possibly even fill out an application and how can a potential employer respond to me?
It is a vicious cycle of dependence and violence and trauma, and it is eating away at the fabric of our society.
After over 10 years inside the system, I have come to see firsthand why it isn’t working.  Before I worked in prison, I honestly thought prison was the answer the crime…. yet I have learned, we cannot incarcerate our way out of crime. 
We are beginning to realize that Incarceration often only further incarcerates….it rarely “reforms” a person, but rather teaches them how to be better criminals.

1920- less than 175,000
2014- more than 2.3 million

So how do we live this Gospel?  How do we proclaim Good News to the poor?  How do we proclaim liberty to those who are held captive?  How do we recover our sight?
I believe we can live the Gospel….if we make the hard choices to do so.
It is not easy to confront our own biases.  It is not easy to engage with the issue of poverty, classism, racism and privilege, yet if we do, and when we do, we will learn how we can live the Gospel…in big and small ways. 
To that end, I am going to invite us to spend the upcoming Season of Lent, educating, learning and growing in our own understandings of Racism, and going to invite us to a virtual book club…meeting on Weds nights from 7-8:30 beginning the Weds after Ash Weds and together we will read, discuss and ponder the book….The New Jim Crow…you can pick it up at a number of places, Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, or your favorite local bookstore…
More information will be forth coming, yet I am convinced that if we begin to educate ourselves, we can learn the myriad ways that we can announce like Jesus….Today in your hearing, this Scripture passage is fulfilled!”