September 19: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me,” said Jesus in today’s gospel. The biblical scholar Chet Meyers writes in Binding the Strongman, “Children represented the bottom of the social and economic scale in terms of status and rights in the ancient Mediterranean world.” Does that mean we are to receive in Jesus’ name those at the bottom of our society’s economic scale? Would they be school children whose homes are without wifi, where both parents are working and so were unable to assist in online learning last year? Would they be Donna and Tom’s girls who have to have dinner with no parent as both parents work through dinner time? Would they be Nadine and Nick’s sons who get themselves ready for school each morning as both their parents work during early morning hours? Oh yes, they’ve tried to get work hours that meshed with the needs of their children but thus far have not succeeded. They all earn minimum wage even though some of them are essential workers.  

How about children separated from their parents on our southern border? All those children seem to fit the bill for who Jesus wants us to receive. Sisters Janet Korn, Phyllis Tierney, and Donna Del Santo and lay women, Penny and Ellen volunteered at the border, working with families who they found to be amazingly hopeful and resilient. These families were not separated; they were in touch with family members planning to sponsor them; they have homes to go to and employers who need their inexpensive labor. These dear people, all at the bottom of our economic scale and all made in the image of Christ, were ministered to by some of our local women of faith and fervor. Those women received the children and in receiving them received Jesus and the One who sent him.  

Today’s gospel also tells of some of the first followers of Jesus who tried to convince one another that surely one was better than the other. And the excerpt we have today from the letter to James speaks of jealousy and selfish ambition. Instead, we are to cultivate peace, and be gentle, compliant, full of mercy and sincere.  

As I pray with our first reading today from Wisdom I recall Sister Maura Clark leading thirty of us in a World Awareness workshop a few months before she, like the just one who was tortured in today’s excerpt from Wisdom, was martyred for her faith. Sisters Maura Clark, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kasel, and lay woman, Jean Donavan, a twenty-six-year-old from Cleveland, Ohio, were killed in El Salvador for doing the work of the gospel, helping poor people. They died in 1980. To think I spent about twelve hours with a woman who became a martyr not long after is one of the most wondrous experiences of my life. She was radiant, profoundly compassionate, deeply prayerful, keenly interested in each one of us and taught us more than we ever expected. And we keep unpacking our learnings from being with the gentle, knowledgeable Sr Maura. 

~Dr. Deni Mack, Pastoral Associate Emerita