Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time
September 4, 2005


Is minding your own business a sound biblical notion? (Or: Would you have evacuated if you lived along the gulf coast?)

I, like most of you, I think, have had my nose thoroughly grounded in the coverage of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina all along the gulf coast. As I pray and reflect on all that has happened, it seems like there are two convergence points with today’s scriptures.

The first revolves around the question that many people are asking. “Why didn’t more people evacuate?” “Why didn’t they heed the warnings of the forecasters about the danger of this storm?” They had their warning. They knew the personal danger they were in. Yet, they made the choice to stay.

In the first reading, Ezekiel was appointed ‘watchman’ for the house of Israel. A watchman kept vigil around the walled city, looking for danger, looking for peril, looking for anything that might endanger the populace. And when he saw it, he was to warn the people. Ezekiel was appointed watchman, not of the city, but of people’s hearts and lives. It was not a position anyone would necessarily choose. Yet, there was this charge that God put on his heart. Maybe more lives would have been saved, had people been willing to heed our weather watchmen. However, I think we resist that role, because it feels too much like putting our noses into someone else’s business. That is not what Ezekiel, nor Paul in the second reading, nor Jesus in the gospel had in mind.

The role of the watchman is not about being a busybody, but rather living with a wide eyed awareness to what is good and right and life-giving. Watchmen, because they have a sense of what is good, also are able to sense danger. To sense what is hazardous for the individual and for the community. Watchmen can then sound the alarm, sound the call to action, sound the prophetic call to change.

It is not a popular role in our culture today. Nor is it popular on college campuses where we overlook almost everything under the guise of ‘being open to diversity.’ We often hear comments like: “Well, if they want to throw away their life on that worthless man/woman/addiction (you fill in the blank), then that’s their business.” But what Ezekiel and Matthew are trying to teach us today is that it is not ever just their business. Because of our solidarity as human beings and because of our belief in Jesus, what happens to the least as well as the greatest is vital to who we are. Paul says it so succinctly: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another…” Because we love one another, we cannot but speak out. How is God inviting you to be a watchman this week? Pay attention as you live and pray and reflect.

Secondly, as the response of people begins to happen in a good way we find people realizing how connected we are, and how what happens to one happens to all. Matthew speaks about this truth in his advice to people who are at odds with one another. Here is how you honor those connections. Deal with the person first. Then bring another. Then bring in the community. Do your darnedest to keep the connection alive. Because we all matter to each other.

Though it is a terrible price to have to pay to learn this lesson, I am so heartened by the generosity of so many people already. In our Archdiocese, we’ve committed $100,000 from the ACA as well as taking up a second collection NEXT week in all the parishes for the relief effort. Our only Newman collection will be joined to that total. And I know of people who have opened up their homes to relatives and to total strangers. The archdiocesan school board has told us to open up our classrooms for those people who might find their way here. A school family has organized the gathering of some direct supplies, and the money from Friday’s dress out day will be heading to the Red Cross. In our bones, we know that we are connected. I pray that our love for PEOPLE whom we have not met (and probably never will, for the most part) will also translate itself into healthy ways of treating those we do know. If there is an issue, Matthew tells us, YOU be the one to resolve it, to begin the repairing process, to initiate the rebuilding process.

Hurricane Katrina’s effects will be around for a long time, and that is just on the physical side of things. My prayer is that her effects on the spiritual side – calling us to be watchmen, calling us to care for one another in healthy, life giving ways, will also be around for a long, long time.