LIVING THE GOSPEL VALUES COUNTERCULTURALLY

19th Sunday C 9 AM Luke 12:32 It's a classic children's story told time and time again. A little boy is asked by his kindergarten teacher where his heart is. He points to the seat of his pants. "Why do you say that is where your heart is?" asks the kindergarten teacher. "Because," said the little boy, "My grandmother is always patting me there and saying, ˜Bless your little heart.'" There is no more relevant question that we can ask than this one: "Where is your heart?" In our gospel story today Jesus reminds you that ”Wherever your treasure lies there will be your heart. Most of you would say that your heart is with your family. And that's as it should be. Your family is your most precious treasure. Of course, no family is perfect. There is a story of bank robber Dwayne Leroy Bodell who was in prison for bank robbery. Bodell has been in and out of prison since his twenties for various crimes, mostly bank robberies. Bodell was finally released from prison and sent to a halfway house. Two weeks later, he got permission to attend a family reunion. The next weekend, Bodell escaped from the halfway house in a deliberate attempt to get put back into prison. Bodell got his wish Dwayne Leroy Bodell at age 71 was sentenced to ten more years in prison. He just didn’t want to attend another family reunion. Family reunions can be a disaster, but the family does remain the core of our society. We have a major discussion going on in our country concerning what to do about our schools especially school violence. In his book When the Bough Breaks by Chicago sociologist James S. Coleman says that family background matters more in determining student achievement than any other attribute of the formal educational system: "Unless we work together to strengthen the family," says Coleman, "all the rest; the schools and playgrounds, public assistance and private concern, will never be enough to save our children. No matter how elaborate are our family support systems, they will do little to advance children's well-being if parents elect to spend little or no time with their children." As a society, as a church and as responsible individuals we have a moral obligation to do everything we can do to strengthen families. On the other hand, parents must be on guard against blaming themselves if a son or daughter chooses to follow our culture’s anti gospel path through life, a path as easy to traverse as sliding down a snow covered hill on a toboggan. For example, young people drinking and carousing like the Romans in the last days of the Empire’s collapse, or not holding down a job and trying to live off their parents like maggots feeding off a felled animal, or putting their sexual fantasies into bed-hopping fornication or adultery with the brutal consequence of abortion or the fatal disease of AIDS. God has granted each one of you the wondrous gift of free will. Donald Gelpi in his book, Experiencing God, says, a huge study on the charismatic movement, “God created freedom and enhances it therefore he cannot save us without our cooperation.” With your free will, you can choose to follow the anti gospel values of our culture or to live the countercultural values of our gospel. For example, do you follow our culture’s value of war making or our gospel value of being peacemakers? Or for example, do you follow our culture’s value of hoarding possessions as selfish as a miser in a greedy disregard for others? Or do you live our gospel value of generously laying down your life for the benefit of others? It all depends on where you heart is. Freedom means responsibility just as the ocean means waves. Jesus challenges you every day to use your freedom to choose to live the countercultural values of our gospel. Bernard Bush in his book, Belonging, says, To responsibly accept your power in freedom is essential to becoming all God wants you to become. Christian freedom disposes you to accomplish the most magnificent tasks like that of making your family the center of the countercultural living of our gospel values. HUMOR A seven-year-old boy was at the center of a courtroom drama when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible.The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him.Finally the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. The boy chose the Cleveland Browns professional football team because the boy firmly believed the Cleveland Browns are not capable of beating anyone. THOUGHT Always choose to live the countercultural values of our gospel

Paths 8/7/07

Sometimes the way isn’t straight and narrow. Sometimes we veer off the trodden path not into desolation or anxiety or sin, but into different paths of arriving at the same goal like the 72 disciples who moved to heal those on various roads in life. Sometimes our path will lead us into a desert of fasting and temptations. Other times our path will lead us to a mountain side of prayer. Still other times our path will be on stormy waves of a tumultuous sea. Sometimes we climb a mountain where transformation shudders through us. Or we drag ourselves up a hill where the tortures of life nail us to the reality of our helplessness. But all divergent paths lead to a place where we can come aside and rest before hiking to the ends of the earth in the glorious proclamation that paths become path and destinations become destiny where we receive our mantra: “Well done!”