Homily for May 31, 2015

Homily for Trinity Sunday
(Scriptures for today's Mass)

Audio for homily

I wonder how many of us remember

what we were doing one year ago today.

Some of us  might have a hard time remembering

what we were doing a month or a week ago today!

We get better at some things as we grow older

but when it comes to remembering,

most of us find that we get better at forgetfulness!

So we need help in remembering things,

especially in remembering important things.

That’s why we have calendars and date books

and apps on our cell phones: to help us remember.

And in case I forget to look at my calendar to remember

where I should be and what I should be doing --

my cell phone beeps to remind me!

It’s easy to forget things I need to remember – even some big things.

In fact, believe it or not, it’s easy to forget – GOD!

No one and nothing is greater, bigger, broader or deeper than God

but sometimes, even often,  I’m so busy

with all the people and things on my calendar

that I forget that GOD wants to be on my calendar, too.

God who always was, who is and always will be:

God-eternal wants to be part of my life -- every day.

God wants to meet with me, every day, for prayer,

at a time I set apart for God and me to talk.

But it’s so easy for me to think that “I’m too busy to pray.”

Being too busy to pray is the beginning of forgetting God in my life.

And God wants us to set aside some time every week

 (and if you can believe this: he wants it on the week-end,

and we all know how busy weekends are

with so many places to go, people to see and things to do!)

-- still, God asks us to make some time every weekend, about an hour

 (that’s one out of the 168 hours we have each week,

or, annually, that’s 52 hours out of the 8,736 hours we have in a year)

God asks us to gather for an hour with others,

just like we are right now,

to remember some important things 

-- precisely so that we don’t forget them.

And what are those things God doesn’t want us to forget?

• We need to remember, to be reminded,

of how much God loves each one of us.

• And we need to remember, we need to be reminded,

of how much God asks of us and expects of us, every day:

not just an hour on Sunday on Sunday morning.

God has expectations of how we live our lives, every day.

• And we need to remember, we need to be reminded,

of how responsible each of us is for those who have

so much less than we do.

And especially when we get caught up in all that we have

can we be tempted to forget others – and to forget God.

• And we need to remember, we need to be reminded,

that there’s a truth in God’s Word here,

a truth wiser than any truth any one of us might come up with.

• And we need to remember, we need to be reminded,

that sometimes we easily forget the most important things

and let the least important things fascinate us

and shape our lives, our choices and our decisions.

• When we gather together for this one hour on Sunday

we need to remember precisely

what Jesus asked us to remember

when he was at table with his friends.      

To remember how he took bread, blessed it, broke it

and gave it to his friends;

to remember how he took a cup of wine, blessed it

and shared it with his friends

and then said,  “do this in MEMORY of me…”

It’s his way of saying,

“Please, don’t forget me!

I want to be with you and I want you to be with me.”

And every time we come to this table to remember him,

he is present to us in his Word

and in the Bread and Cup of Communion.

There’s no better way to remember Jesus

than the way he himself gave us to remember him:

here at the altar, where the shadow of his Cross

reminds us of just how much God loves every one of us.

Let me speak for a moment more directly

to our graduating seniors.

I don’t know if, a year from now,

you’ll remember where you were today, May 31, 2015.

But I know this.

If between now and then

you set aside some time on your calendar every day

to sit and to speak with God in prayer

and if you set aside an hour every week

to come to the Lord’s Table,

after a while you won’t even have to look at your calendar

or wait for your phone to beep to remember that God is in your life

because God will have become part of your life

in your every day life and your every week life.

You will  begin to remember God

in ways that will shape who you are and who you will become

with a truth, a spirit, a strength, a faith, a hope and a love

that comes only from remembering who God is in our lives.

That’s just what we pray for you graduates today:

that you will not forget God

but that you will remember him every day, every week.

And you can be sure that we will not forget you in our prayers

and we hope that you will remember us in yours.

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