Disciples respond

This is my homily for this weekend, July 22, 2018, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.  The readings for this Sunday are here.  More information on the fire discussed below is available here.

This past Wednesday, after work, my wife Therese and I drove over to Highland Park to attend a concert at Ravinia.  As we headed toward the lakefront during the evening rush hour, I was interested, and a little apprehensive, to see a column of black smoke rising in the direction we were driving.  Traffic reports on the radio informed us that there was a fire near the intersection of Palatine Rd. and Milwaukee, so I took a route that avoided it.

You’ve probably heard about that fire.  I’ve just described it as an annoyance during a commute, and for thousands of other people trying to get home after work, I am sure that is was it was, but for the residents of that condominium complex in Prospect Heights that went up in flames, the fire was a catastrophe.  I don’t recall another fire that massive during the 28 or so years we’ve lived in this area.  200 firefighters from 50 departments were called in to battle the blaze.   News reports say that hundreds of residents have lost their homes and everything in it.  Many of the displaced residents are immigrants from Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

“They were like sheep without a shepherd”, observed the author of Mark’s Gospel in the passage that was just proclaimed a few minutes ago.  In Jesus’s time and place, large numbers of people were in need, of healing, of forgiveness, of consolation, of spiritual food, of material assistance.  And God heard his people’s cry and sent Jesus to them.  Jesus and his twelve followers had hoped to get away for a little while, to rest and pray.  But people in need have a way of being persistent, of making their voices heard. 

When we hear those voices of people in need we have a choice.  We can treat them as momentary annoyances and potential spoilers of our plans, and avoid or ignore them.  Or we can listen to them, sympathize with them, and offer to help them.  And that is what Jesus did.  He took pity on them.   They were like sheep without a shepherd, so Jesus became their shepherd.  In doing so, he taught his followers an important lesson: when people are in need, followers of Jesus respond.

Of course, we’re his followers today.  And I’m proud to be able to say that there are those among us who have learned that lesson:

The fire was Wednesday evening.  By early Thursday morning, Bill Clark, the leader of our Outreach ministry, was sending emails to the Outreach leadership, asking if there is anything Outreach can do to help the victims of the fire.  The leaders kicked around some ideas in email throughout the day.  An article in the Daily Herald had stated that the Red Cross is leading the relief efforts, and its biggest need right now is money.  We have some money in our Outreach bank account, thanks to the generosity of this faith community, so we talked about Outreach making a donation.  Then Kathy Pelletieri, the vice president of Outreach, asked, Is there anything the parish as a whole can do?  She suggested a second collection this weekend to raise funds.  Someone else wondered if the parish could collect clothing and toiletries for the victims this weekend. 

So that evening, we emailed Fr. Darrio, our new pastor.  He responded early Friday morning that he also had been thinking about ways to respond.  He thought the idea of a second collection this weekend was a good one, and he engaged Laura Kniskern, the parish Operations Manager, and others on the parish staff to get it organized.  They reached out to Phil Bares, the head of our ushers, and Phil got our ushers lined up to take and handle a second collection.  Next week, your donated funds from today’s second collection will go to the local Red Cross or Catholic Charities to help the fire victims. 

Fr. Darrio also liked the idea of collecting clothing, food and toiletries for the victims.  Normally, it would take several weeks to get something like that organized and publicized.  But for this situation, we don’t have the luxury of time – the victims have lost their clothes and their belongings in the fire, and they need help now.  So Laura and the office staff, and the Outreach ministers and some other good people of St. Edna simply did several weeks’ worth of work in a single morning this past Friday.  Laura created a sign for the narthex, she wrote out prayers and announcements for the masses this weekend, she updated the website and got one of our parishioner tech leaders, Bob Falk, to update the Facebook page.  And emails started to go out from parish staff members to parishioners in the various ministries, asking them to cascade the emails to others.  I hope that some of you already have received emails from the parish or from other parishioners, letting you know about the clothing drive this weekend and the second collection.

We’re asking you to bring new or gently used clothing, toiletry items and food for the victims to the parish this weekend, and put them in the food pantry collection bin out there in the narthex.  Label the bags “For the fire victims”.  Gail from our maintenance staff, who is one of the unsung heroes around here, will store your donated items in a secure place, and then a team of Outreach ministers will deliver them on Monday. 

As I say, all this came together on Friday morning.  I spoke with Laura on Friday afternoon, and she told me that donations of clothing already were arriving.  To which I can only say, “God bless you!”

Laura was excited.  I think she was proud of you all for being so ready to respond.  And I am, too.  There are so many good people here at St. Edna’s.  It would be easy to ignore these immigrants in our country who have just lost their homes to a fire.   It would be easy just to drive around the problem, as I did on Wednesday, and get on with our daily lives, and not let the problems of others upset our plans.  But we have people in this parish who take discipleship seriously.  Jesus ascended into heaven, so we’re his hands and feet and ears and eyes now.  Two thousand years ago, God sent Jesus and the Twelve to help his people who were like sheep without a shepherd.  Today, we’re the ones who are sent.  And I am excited, and so grateful, to be part of a faith community that has accepted its commission from our Lord and Savior by helping those in need in our community. 

Thank you in advance for anything you can do to help the victims of Wednesday’s fire.