Latest / Padre Alberto (Father Albert) / LET GOD BE GOD

Transcript

LET GOD BE GOD · Padre Alberto (Father Albert)

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A wise old man once said life is unfair.
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I lost my car keys at the ball game and I never found them.
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I lost my sunglasses at the beach and I never found them.
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I lost my socks in the washing machine and never found them.
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I lost 5 lbs while I was on a diet and then I found 10 more
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vacation. I ate whatever I wanted.
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Good and evil exist. I'm going to repeat it.
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Good and evil exists. Today's gospel takes us directly
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there. The seed was good, right?
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Don't you remember the book of Genesis?
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God created everything, and he saw that it was everything God
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created was. That's right.
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God made everything good, including the good seed.
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And of course the wheat was coming up.
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And then what happened? There were weeds.
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The first reaction was to say, oh, look, that was bad seed.
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And the person in the parable said, no, no, no, no.
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This was done by an enemy. The fact is good and evil exist.
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And not just to good and evil exist.
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Good and evil coexist. It's part of the reality of our
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world. Jesus invites us through this
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parable to look, to stay alert, not to fear evil that would be
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the wrong reaction, but to seek to do good.
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We can only combat evil with good.
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And you know, what I discovered in my time of prayer reflection
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over this homily this weekend was that we have a similarity in
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Matthew. You know, we're more familiar
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with Matthew 25, right? The last judgement.
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Remember that where Jesus says the King's going to be there and
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they're going to separate the sheep from the goats and the
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goats from the sheep, and the righteous will go with God and
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the others will go to the eternal fire, the condemnation.
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And it's interesting because we don't know this because we don't
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live in an Agricultural Society. But Jesus is preaching to an
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Agricultural Society, and his own people knew from the fields
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of Israel what it was like to have the sheep and the goats.
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They grace together. Isn't that awesome?
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The sheep and the goats, they grazed together during the day,
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but at night the shepherd had to separate them because the needs
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of the sheep and the goats were different.
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And so he had to separate the sheep from the goat.
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And now we have this parable where you have to separate,
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right, the wheat from the weeds. In the midst of this whole
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reflection, we also have to remember something.
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We are All Saints and sinners. We all fall short of being the
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best we can be. And so we struggle even within
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ourselves with the weeds. I've got to tell you, I grew up
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here in South Florida. I grew up in West Kendall.
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My mom still lives in the house where I grew up.
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My first job when I was seven years old was pulling weeds.
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And I used to have a bag, a black bag.
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And it's funny, I learned this at home.
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You know, my mom would say, you know, get rid of the bad weeds.
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And I would go to the yard because those houses, you know,
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were still kind of new. It was horse country.
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And we bought our house only a few months after it was built.
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And there was nothing around my house, just a bunch of weeds.
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That's why we had weeds. That was their home.
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We were taking them out of their home, their habitat.
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But there we have this new lawn, you know, all pretty, and the
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weeds are coming out. And so I discovered very early
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on that the only way you get rid of those la yerbaumala or the
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bad weed is you got to pull it from the roots because the more
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you pull it from the roots, the better it is.
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And I would fill bags with that stuff.
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And then I discovered I can do a business.
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See. Yeah, because I discovered the
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other seven houses on my block also had lots of weeds.
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So I would go with my little plastic black bag and I would
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say, you know, and it was $5, a huge yard.
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Man, I wish I could find someone to the here of Saint Benedict's
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for 5 bucks. We got plenty of weeds, but I
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got to tell you, you got to get it out of the roots.
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So every time I hear this parable, something inside me
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says, I don't like that methodology that Jesus is
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promoting through this parable. Just let the weeds grow.
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Let the weeds grow. My mom won't go for that.
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But it's interesting because the methodology does teach a
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spiritual lesson, and it's the fact that the wheat grows among
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the weeds. The wheat and the weeds grow
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together. Our job is not to determine
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what's weed, what's weed. Our job is to discern what is
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good, to seek what is good, to do what is good.
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Because when we do what is good, then what happens is we're
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combating evil with the best medicine for evil is good.
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Being patient is part of this gospel, something that I'm not
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really good at. God's time is perfect.
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You may think now is the time to act or do or, but got to say,
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hold on a second. God's time is always perfect.
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We rush to fix everything and immediately.
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But often times we make mistakes when we do that because we judge
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too quickly. Let God handle the timing.
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Perhaps one of the lessons we have here is, you know, maybe
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you think it needs fixing right now, but God is saying, wait a
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minute, let's give it time. And perhaps the other thing we
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can learn is that maybe we can focus on our own growth.
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We waste a lot of energy complaining about the evil in
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the world. Too many Christians sound like a
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newscast. I remember at the early Mass
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during the week, one of my parishioners always came in and
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during the prayers of the people, she would tell you all
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the most horrible news. I mean, I read the news, but I
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kind of scanned it over. But she, I mean, she read it in
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detail that she told you how many people were shot, where
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they were shot, how many went to the hospital, how many survived.
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And in the prayers of the people, you could just find out
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all the news. There's no need to read it.
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You find out right there in the prayers of the people in the
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Lady Chapel at Saint Benedict. If there was an earthquake
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somewhere, you found out right away.
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If there was a tragedy, you found out right away.
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Something bad someone did. You found out right away.
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And the reason I say this to you is too many of us sound like
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that. Too many of us are quick to say
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what's wrong with the world, yet we don't really spend enough
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time thinking of the good. But remember, the wheat is what
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grows and provides nourishment, not the weeds.
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The weeds are good to be thrown out, to be pulled up, to be
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burnt. As the gospel says it is the
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wheat that nourishes. The weeds just choke up and
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produce nothing. So we have to make the choice.
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As Christians in this world, what do we do?
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We are called to be that wheat, to do what's best, to feed the
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world in a good way. And I'll tell you the truth,
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every time you go to a funeral, you're going to hear a eulogy or
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some words. There was a beautiful one here
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yesterday for a beautiful grandmother.
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And the grandchildren got up here and was very emotional and
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they spoke. And every time I hear those, I
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think to myself, those are great words.
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They're powerful words. They come from the heart and a
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moment of great pain and grieving.
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And I always think, gosh, I wonder if we identify the good
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in people when they're alive, do we tell them when they're alive
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how good they are? Because we always tell them when
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they're dead. Everyone who dies at All Saints,
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best people ever. But did you tell them when you
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were alive? When when they were alive, how
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much you appreciated them? I always wonder that we have to
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see the good. One of the great things about
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being on vacation is that I was able to watch a bunch of the
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World Cup games, you know, and some of them were in the middle
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of the week at 3:00, which I'd never be home at that time.
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But on vacation you can do that. And one game, which is very
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significant, I looked at the game because it was so close to
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the very end, so close, so close, so close, so close.
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And it was almost tied. And then there was a problem
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with the referee taking away a point and people were upset and
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blah, blah, blah. But I noticed the star of the
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one team look for the star of the other team and you can see
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the cameras following him. And the whole time his you
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could, you could, you could see the honest, you could see that
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the worry, the concern that this player had for the player on the
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other side. And he was just looking through
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the crowds to see where he could find them.
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It reminded me of the story of the prodigal son, you know, the
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father waiting for his son to come back.
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You know, it remind me of the lost sheep, you know, Jesus
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looking to see, you know, the 99 and then looking for the one
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that got lost. And he kept going.
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And then eventually they embraced and, and the, the close
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up was very touching because you could see one consoling the
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other. You could see the love, you
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could see the embrace. You could see the care, the
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empathy, the compassion. And I say that because sometimes
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we're very quick to see what's evil and wrong with the world,
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but we're not so quick to see the good.
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There's a lot of good in our world.
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There's a lot of good in the world.
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I don't prescribe to that ideology that many of my
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friends, the pastors of the big evangelical churches, they, they
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say no world like the world's evil.
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No, we're in the world. We're part of the world.
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We're part of the problem. We're part of the problem
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because we're sinful and broken. We need fixing.
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We're not better than other people because we come to
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church, because we love God, because we're Christians.
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No, we're here because we need God.
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We need God's grace to be better.
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And so part of this thing with the weed and the weed is
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recognizing that, yes, we live in a world where there's good
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and evil, but part of our Christian responsibility is to
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recognize the good. One of the biggest beefs with
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the church, with the institutional Church of every
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denomination is that we spend a lot of time in condemnation.
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And something happens. Oh, there we are, big mother
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church condemning this, condemning that.
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How much time do we spend recognizing the good that exists
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in the world, the good that exists?
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Those of you that are teachers here, and I know we have a lot
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of them, we actually have a brand new one that we're going
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to recognize in a little while. But those of you that are
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teachers here, what works better with a student positive
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affirmation or telling him how wrong he is?
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What works better? The positive.
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As as Christians, we need to emphasize the positive, look for
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the positive, look for what works, what's good, what's
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right. Christianity is not for
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complainers or for whiners. It's for people that are willing
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to recognize the gifts of God's grace and the beauty of God's
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grace. So ultimately the gospel ends,
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which what we say all the time, don't judge.
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We don't judge. You shouldn't judge.
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No, it's more than that. Let God be God.
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Did you hear that in today's gospel?
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Let God be God. Let God do his job.
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You do what is good, you discern what is good, you seek to do
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what is right. And then let God be God.
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Because at the end, God always cleans up the mess.
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Always.