Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time · Mass

6:07 And with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord. Chapter 22, verses 15 through 21.

7:09 May you have a seat. So, back in 1870, there was a girl born in Darfur, Sudan. We don't actually know her name. We don't know the name that her family gave her because when she was seven years old, Arab slave traders invaded her village, killed many people, and took her and others into slavery. don't know her name because she was so traumatized by the events that happened when she was seven years old that she literally forgot her own name. She forgot the name of her family. She forgot virtually everything about her. So the Arab slavers, they named her Bakita. Bakita is Arab for lucky or fortunate, which seems cruel in itself that they would name the seven-year-old girl that they took into slavery. They'd call her lucky. But for the next 12 years of her life, She was regularly beaten.

8:09 She was regularly whipped, treated as other people's property. For the entirety of the rest of her life, she carried the scars of those 12 years. And still, it's remarkable. Her entire life was based around what she could do for her masters. And still, even in that, even though she was never told about God, she had this kind of inborn, just religious sense. even looking back she describes it she's even describes as a as a young person she said that she would look up at the sky and she said seeing the sun the moon and the stars I said to myself who could be the master of these beautiful things that she knew that there was she knew that there was some God even though that that her vision of God was through the lens of being a slave because she who could be the master of the sun the moon and the stars and yet there was hope there was hope for her, for this seven-year-old girl.

9:05 even in the midst of all of that pain, there was hope. On another track, one of my favorite comedians is from St. Paul. Originally, he was from St. Paul. His name was Mitch Hedberg. Now, before you look him up, I got to know Mitch Hedberg on YouTube, his stand-up that he did on mainstream TV, which was a lot cleaner. I once recommended Mitch Hedberg to some friends, and they said, wow, he swears a lot. And I said, I did not realize that. So before you look up Mitch Hedberg, he's one of those kind of comedians that he has a lot of one-liners. That's kind of like the idea, thoughtful ones. Like, for example, he says, an escalator can never break. It can only become temporarily stairs. So if you never see a sign that says escalator out of order, it should only say escalator temporarily stairs. We apologize for the convenience. Or another one he says, he says, rice is a great food for when you're hungry and you want to eat 2,000 of something.

10:01 two more he said I'm against picketing I just don't know how to show it and my last one I just think is so funny he said my my fake this is the kind of humor that he would have he said my fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them like that kind of idea so Mitch Hedberg great comedian at 37 years old he died in 2005 from an overdose and I always think about about the life of this man that was he was so funny Thank you. and just see, it was so broken. But there's one of his jokes that has lived with me since I've ever heard of him. And it's this joke that was like this. He says, I get the Reese's candy bar. Okay, Reese's candy bar. He says, get Reese's pieces. He says, if you need to read that name, Reese, he says, there's an apostrophe S. It's Reese apostrophe S on the end of that. That means the candy bar is his.

10:55 And I didn't know that. He said, next time you're eating a Reese's candy bar and a guy named Reese comes up and says, hey, let me have that. You better hand it over. I'm sorry, Reese. I didn't think I'd ever run into you. I love that joke because of this. I love that joke because he highlights the power of the apostrophe S. it's Reese's, Reese's apostrophe S, that means it's his. I pray for Mitch a lot, and I'm grateful for him because that simple joke where he just says, yeah, the apostrophe S, that means it's his, reminds me of Jesus in the gospel today. The Pharisees, the Herodians are trying to trap Jesus. I ask him this question, is it lawful to pay the census tax or not? Now, Now, here's the thing. I would love it if Jesus said, no, don't pay taxes. Taxation is theft. I would love that. He doesn't.

11:45 He doesn't say that because he's better than me. Jesus can't be trapped. He asked the question. He said, okay, give me one of the coins. Whose image is this? Whose inscription is this? And what do they say? They hold up these coins, these coins that they would use back in the Roman Empire. And they say, whose image? Whose inscription? Caesar's. It's Caesar's. That's Caesar apostrophe S. And Jesus says, okay, that means, you know what that means? That means it's his. So let him have it. Just like Mitch Hedberg would say, that means Caesar, apostrophe S. That means it's his. Let him have it. Easy. Like that's the easy way out. That's the easy answer. The truthful answer. Of course, I wish it was that easy when it comes. Yeah, I think there's something happens in our lives where we look at our stuff and we become convinced that it's ours. We look at our lives and we become convinced that our lives are our own. Even though we know this, we know that none of us will ever be able to take any of what we have with us when this life is over. And since we cannot take anything, anything of what we have in this life to the next life, the question we have to ask is, who is it really?

12:52 Of course, a partial answer is, well, it's mine. Yes, yes. In some sense, for now. Like, temporarily it is. But we think about that. It's so funny that it's all temporary. Like, everything you and I would say that that belongs to me or that's mine or that's ours. It's all temporary. And it's only sometimes that we can't avoid realizing it, right? So you have a rental car. You know it's not yours. You have a hotel room. You know it's not yours. You get an airplane seat. Okay, that's my seat. But we never treat it like it's actually ours. We all treat those things like they're temporary. You rent a car and no one changes the oil on a rental car. You see how fast you can accelerate on a rental car and how fast you could break in a rental car. No one moves into a hotel room and then wants to bring in new furniture. No one tries to reupholster their seat on an airplane. Because again, we might still say, what's my seat? That's my car. That's my hotel room.

13:48 But we know it's not true. It belongs to Hertz. It belongs to Holiday Inn. It belongs to Delta. We know this. We have to pay attention to the apostrophe S. There's this preacher and pastor of this megachurch in Atlanta years ago. I remember hearing him talk to, he's talking to a group of middle schoolers about labels, about how that we all have labels that we carry around with us. That's, you know, someone once described us as such and such. And he says, well, who really has a right to label you? Who really actually has a right to tell you who you are? Who has a right to claim you? And he makes this example of like the t-shirt. If you have a t-shirt and you have like a label on the inside of the back of the collar of the t-shirt. He says, who logically and who legally has the right to put their name on the inside of that collar? And he says, there's three entities. He says, the manufacturer, the one who made it, can put their name on the inside of that collar.

14:48 To the purchaser, if you buy it, the one who bought it can put their name on the inside of the back collar. And he says, and the owner, the one who possesses or the one who cares for that thing, they can put their name on that. So only those three entities, the manufacturer, the purchaser, or the owner can actually label, put their name, or even claim that shirt, claim ownership. I was talking with an evolutionary biologist relatively recently, and he had said that he's not a believer, but he really respects religion. And we had a deep conversation about God. At one point, we were talking about like what God is like, and he was coming from his perspective, and he says, the reality, of course, we know is that the true God is absolutely unique. Like the God that reveals himself in scripture, he's one of one. Like Isaiah 45 even says this today, that here's God who says, I am the Lord, there is no other. There is no other God besides me. So that's what we know when God reveals himself. But this guy, he doesn't necessarily believe in the scriptures. And so he's just kind of positing, like, what if God's like this? And it was a great conversation. At one point, though, he said something like, he talks about the idea that maybe God created the universe in order to be, among other things, to be surprised and delighted in how it turned out. Which I thought was, you know, it's kind of a great thought experiment. He said, you know, I mean, who could have anticipated the aardvark? I bet that surprised God. I bet that delighted God, the aardvark. And I thought, or the platypus. Well, it's super fun.

16:26 Like super delightful, super surprising. And I think that, I know his mental exercise had a lot more nuance to this, but I had to push back a little bit. And I'd say, yes, yes, we believe as Christians, we believe that the Lord delights in his creation. But God did not create the universe to escape boredom or to be surprised or to be entertained or because he needed attention. He didn't make us because he felt lonely and he needed attention. He didn't make us because he was bored and he wanted to be surprised. In fact, there's the opening line of the prologue of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says this about God. It says, God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself. He doesn't need anything else.

17:13 So what does he create? It goes on to say, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. so the idea that this guy who's saying maybe he created because again he was bored wanted to be entertained wanted to be surprised wanted to be delighted we'd have to say no he god was never lonely he didn't need or want anything from us he only created this world for us he created us so just like that pastor down in atlanta the one who made us has a claim on us In fact, Scripture even says this. Scripture says, he made us. We are his.

17:57 Even if we don't realize it. Like, we're his, even if we don't realize it. Just like that little girl, Paquita, who's taken from her home and said, there's a God out there. I don't know his name. The first reading today, Isaiah 45, talks about King Cyrus. Now, you might not know this about King Cyrus. Isaiah was written. This whole thing about King Cyrus was written 100 years before King Cyrus was even born. But it talks about this prophecy of this future king who had set the people of Israel free to be able to go back home. So 150 years later, when the Babylonians had already invaded Israel and they had exiled all the Israelites to Babylon, then Persia came to power over Babylon, and then there was a king named Cyrus. and the Hebrew people were up, Jewish people were up to show King Cyrus, oh, you and this work were prophesied before you even knew that God existed.

18:53 That God has a claim on you even if you don't know his name, apostrophe S. And the truth is this, we belong to God even before we realize we belong to God. Why? Because he made us. He has a right to label us. Because he, why? He made us. He also has a right to label us because like the pastor said, he's the one who purchased us. That second reading today, St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, what does he say? He says, brothers and sisters, you are my brothers and sisters loved by God and you have been chosen.

19:26 We know this, that God himself surrendered what was his in order to be able to claim us as his. That the one to whom everything belonged allowed himself to be stripped of all that was his. It's one of the reasons why St. Paul could say, you and I have been purchased at a price. So the one who made you has a claim on you, and the one who purchased you and purchased me has a claim on us.

20:00 He's the one who possesses us and cares for us. He's the owner, and I know that using that term, the owner is not the most positive. It's kind of has, that can strike some negativity, and I get that. But consider the alternative. Consider the alternative. to being able to say that the Lord God is the one who possesses us, the one who cares for us, our owner. Back in seminary, each floor had their own kind of kitchenette in a kind of common area. And so in each kitchenette, there was a common refrigerator. And one of the rules was if you put food in there, then you had to label it. In fact, the little rhyme was no name, fair game. Like you put your food in the fridge, if you did not put your name on it, what you're ultimately saying is this. If you put your food in the fridge without your name on it, you're saying anyone can claim it. You're basically saying, I don't want this.

20:53 He's saying it's unchosen, it's unclaimed, it's unwanted. Imagine the pain of never knowing that you've been chosen. Imagine the pain of never knowing the truth that you are not your own and you're not on your own.

21:19 That's one of the reasons why the gospel is so profound. Jesus says, okay, here's the image on the coin. Whose image is it? It's Caesar's, apostrophe S, it's his. And that's why he says this. Well then, give to Caesar what's Caesar's and give to God what's God's. Go back to Genesis. Genesis, when God creates us, it clearly states that male and female are created in the image of God. that's an apostrophe S. That means it's his. That's one of the reasons why this whole thing right now, this isn't about stewardship, this isn't about taxes, this isn't about even give God your life. This is first a proclamation of this objective reality. No matter who you are or what you've done, you are already God's. No matter who you are or what you've done, you are already his.

22:15 And the Christian life is this. The Christian life is essentially nothing more than learning to live the apostrophe S that's already there. That's our call. Learning to live the apostrophe S that's already there. And this is the last thing. As I mentioned, Paquita was a slave for about 12 years until she was 20 years old.

22:38 From 7 years old to 20 years old, she lived as that slave, as the property of other human beings. But shortly before she was declared free, there was an Italian man, a Catholic man, who basically was interested in her well-being. And at one point, he gave her the gift of a silver crucifix.

23:06 And before he handed it over to her, he took it out, he kissed this image of a man who had been beaten. who had been stripped, had been hung on a cross. He kissed it reverently and he placed it in her hand. And he explained that the man on the cross was Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died for us.

23:30 He pointed out that he had the scars, that he had been beaten, he had been whipped, he had been on a cross, and she saw in that crucifix herself. who had been beaten, who had been whipped, who had the scars, who had been treated as property. And she came to know this truth, that the God who claimed her had allowed himself to be wounded for her.

23:59 She even said, looking back, she said, I remember how, as I looked at the crucifix, I experienced a strange feeling that I could not explain. Shortly after that, Bakita was baptized. Josephine Bakita. She received First Holy Communion, received confirmation, and shortly after that, she entered a religious sister. She became a nun.

24:23 She lived the rest of her life as a daughter of God. In fact, she would often go to that baptismal font, and just like that man, that Italian man, had kissed that crucifix, she'd go up to the baptismal font, and she would kiss the baptismal font, and she would say, she'd tell everybody, she'd say, here I became a daughter of God.

24:46 This woman who had been kidnapped and claimed by slave traders, this woman who had been sold and claimed by raiders, this woman who had been given a name that she had not chosen. It was also the woman who one day a crucifix was placed in the palm of her hands and she discovered something astonishing. That there was a God who did not demand that she suffer for him. It was a God who had already suffered for her. and she belonged to him. It's one of the reasons why toward the end of her life she had said, I am definitively loved. And whatever happens to me, I am awaited by love. And so my life is good. Why?

25:40 Because she's his. And so are you. And so am I. we have been claimed by God. You belong to Christ. You are God's. That's God. Apostrophe. I invite you to stand as we profess our faith.