Worthy. Worker. Worshiper. (2022-08-21, Sunday - 21st)

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2022-08-21 –21^st Sunday  &   

Title:  Being Worthy. Being a Worker, Being a Worshiper

● ●  Isaiah 66:18-21   ● ● Psalm 117  ●●  Hebrews 12:5-7,11-13  ●● Luke 13:22-30 ● ●

[__01__]         I’d like to reflect on this Gospel with these 3 ideas:

1.     Being Worthy

2.     Being a Worker

3.     Being a Worshiper

[__02__]  [WORTHY.]   I’m not talking about James Worthy the great L.A. Lakers basketball player but our own hope of true “greatness” and salvation. Being worthy.

      Recently I learned a true-life biography of  a man who spent more than a year – 400+ days - on the ocean by himself. This was not his GPS navigation plan!   The book title – “438 Days”.

This fisherman set out to fish one day with his motorboat engines, started his engines on the western coast of Mexico, on the Pacific. Though he was an experienced boat captain and fisherman and had been through many storms, and knew what to do and how to survive, he met a storm with wind and waves that prevented him from returning to his point of origin or returning anywhere near the west coast of Mexico.

His engines failed him, he had very little communication or emergency equipment.  Unlike many sailboats that are a “hybrid” of wind and diesel energy, he did not have sails. All he could do was float with the current and then float some more and pray.

On such a long journey for him (400 + days) – or in any crisis we may face -- it is natural to ask the question implied by the Gospel today “will I be saved?”.

The person approaching Jesus wants a number or a percentile or profile the “saved” of the “worthy”, but the real question for him, for you, for me – “will I be saved?”

This man – starting out in a boat in Mexico – and didn't talk to anybody on land or touch land for more than a year. After such a long time in his fishing boat, he really came to identify with the boat itself.

He even renamed the boat. He was very proud that his vessel his craft had survived the initial storm that it was “seaworthy”.  Thus, he renamed his boat, the Titanic.  And, he was determined because his Titanic was better than that Hollywood Titanic, which was not just a movie, but a real event. And his Titanic makes it his Titanic is worthy.

His Titanic is saved. But along the way, there are many struggles, he has to catch fish to survive. He has to catch rainwater in thunderstorms. He's always worried about running out of water. He knows – as you and I know – ocean / saltwater is not for drinking.

I'd like to relate his story on the boat to our own struggle to reach salvation, and also to know God both now and in the future, in terms of three ideas,

·       being worthy,

·       being a worker,

·       being a worshiper.

[__03__]  [1^st BEING WORTHY.]   Do you ever wonder if you are worthy or valuable or good enough, we all have doubts at times about ourselves or the choices we have made. our Catholic faith reminds us that we are made good we are made in God's image. We are all works in progress. We pray at Holy Communion:  “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,  but only say the word and my soul shall be healed”.

Are we not tempted (I certainly am) to measure worthiness or value based on what other people say or or how they act? (N.b., I am not a mind-reader; I may “care” what people think, but I can only go by what they say or how they act).

One lesson of the 400+ days-floating- fisherman floating was that he could worry about what people said or did out in the middle of the ocean.

And that popularity or perception does not determine our worthiness or our salvation, it didn't determine his it's not going to determine yours.

[__04__]  [2^nd BEING A WORKER.]  

The floating man had to expend effort to survive, to work and also to be smart. It seemed that every chapter was filled with his knowledge – and fear – that the sharks were always near with their predatory ways and big teeth. Dangerous. So he had to work but he also had to stay in near his boat.

At times he was tempted to go out for a swim in the calm water or to do swim out and retrieve floating coconuts which were very valuable for nutrition and hydration. But, he couldn't afford to swim out for the coconuts because the sharks were there.

Yes, we are all called to work to go out and get what we can. But we also all have a calling to a place or to a family to a boat. This calling is not just going to be a duty it's going to be your salvation. It's going to be the reason you survive.

Peter the apostle is an example of this.   Peter showed a desire to get out of the boat, to walk on water, but he didn't have the faith to walk on water. He had to get back in the boat. He needed to stay in the boat, the boat was his salvation.

Whatever calling you have right now, to marriage, to family, to your own work. This is your salvation as hard as that might be sometimes to recognize. So stay in the boat.

 [__05__]  [3^rd BEING A WORSHIPER.]  

What do you do when you “worship“ ?  You bend your knee, you kneel or sit quietly, you say prayers …. You come to church. Worhsip means all of this and more. it also means to put our trust in Almighty God.

For example, to confess our sins to God, that's a form of worship. We are worshiping God when we confess our sins and receive His forgiveness, trusting in God. In this way, we know that God will recognize us at the end of our lives.

And this is Jesus’s message in the Gospel today, to ask us to reveal ourselves to God to go in His direction, now so that we will be recognized when we die.

Sometimes, we want to go in a different direction.There comes a point in all of our lives when we cannot do everything we want anymore. This could be due to a crisis, it could be due to age, due to income, it could be due to setbacks, due to illness. 

But this is why our worship is important to recognize that we don't determine our own worthiness. You don't determine your own worthiness, I don't determine my own worthiness.

[__06_-CONCLUSION_]

During his 1+ year floating, this man thought many times about the family he had started, but actually abandoned. He hadn't seen his daughter for than 10 years, and his daughter was a teenager, he knew that she might not know him or welcome him. But he prayed that she would the possibility of a reunion, over which he had no control, gave him purpose.

His “productivity” on the boat was not what enabled him to survive. It was his purpose. Purpose gives meaning and motivation.

Near the end of the story, he figures that his only hope is that he will serve but learn to survive by having to fish again. That was when he gets to land, he'll just have to get a job wherever he is, because …. Who knows where he's going to be? … he will find work “wherever” and go back to the ocean go back to the sea, since he had no identity or proof of where he was, he figured he might just be forgotten.

His salvation is not based on his worthiness to work again. He is not sent out to work again. I don't want to give away the end of the story.

We also do not come to the door to find Jesus simply as his worker. We don't come because we are worthy become because we have worshipped and turned ourselves in his direction.  [__END__]