FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
7 May 2017
Homily
I have a friend who moved into a “gentrified” neighborhood in St. Paul.
It was one of those areas of the city which had basically fallen apart,
the government came in and claimed the houses for back taxes and then sold them cheaply.
One catch. You had to live in them.
My friend who is a college professor bought one of these homes.
It was still a “bad” neighborhood when she moved in and started fixing up her home.
It was an attractive place when she got through with it.
And it was the perfect place for her to display the art she had collected all her life.
I went to visit her one day and as I walked around I got a funny feeling:
“What’s missing in this picture?” I couldn’t put my finger on it though.
Finally I said: “Something is missing from your home. I just don’t know what it is.”
She laughed. And then said, “You figured it out. I can tell you what’s missing.
My TV, my stereo, my microwave, my VCR, my vacuum cleaner, Just about everything electric.
My home has been broken into six times since I moved in two years ago.
There’s nothing electric left. They’ve taken everything.
The only thing they never stole was my art–which was the most valuable stuff I own.
Ironic isn’t it? They didn’t know what was really valuable.”
In the gospel Jesus talks about thieves and marauders.
And we do have many in our lives.
We fear the thieves which can take our possessions,
We fear the thieves which can take our health,
We fear the thieves which can take so much of what is valuable to us.
But the Lord promises that which is most valuable about us, to us, he will protect.
And it’s not the stuff the world thinks is valuable–but that which is ultimately valuable.
The question is do we know what is ultimately valuable about our lives–
or are we like the thieves who took everything from my friend except what was really
Valuable.