Over the past few Sundays, our Gospels have focused on what it means to be a disciple and a follower of Jesus. Today we look at the depth of that discipleship in how that relationship works through prayer.

People who claim to have a relationship with God often act as if they discovered it. But the truth is that God found them and led them to their creator.

There are countless Christians who have experienced God’s forgiveness and the reconciliation in Christ’s dying and resurrection. Convicted felons on death row, white-collar executives who have broken trust with their companies, addicts, and just ordinary folk testify to the glorious new life that comes from this relationship.

As disciples of Jesus through our baptism, we are given the outline of how we should pray: the Lord’s Prayer. Many good books and sermons have unpacked this prayer that almost everyone knows by heart. It is prayed in many languages around the world, a continuous offering going up from the hearts of the faithful, and even from those who may not be sure about their faith.

Then Jesus tells his disciples, and us, through Luke, to take the actions expected of this relationship: ask, search, knock. Prayer is more about searching than finding.  The words Jesus gives us in the Lord’s Prayer express exactly the way Jesus lived and prayed: in intimate union with and trust in the Father, in furthering God’s kingdom and in surrender to God’s will which brings life.

Prayer is more about searching for God and divine presence than about finding answers to specific needs.

Asking, searching, and knocking are actions disciples should take every day. We should say the Lord’s Prayer, then get up and begin our day with action. Be a disciple, pray the prayer our Lord taught us to pray, then search for the things God has in mind for you. You will find them, because we worship a God who always keeps promises.

My sister always sits sideways in her chair during meals. Whether the table is surrounded by family members or invited guests, she is poised for action. She jumps up if she’s forgotten something in the kitchen, if someone wants steak sauce rather than the ketchup that is on the table, or if it is time to pass the serving dishes around again. My sister seldom relaxes enough to enjoy the food and conversation.

There is biblical precedent for that instinct and posture in the account of Jesus’ visit to the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha. Martha offers immediate hospitality, welcoming Jesus and then busying herself with meal preparation, while Mary sits down with Jesus. One can imagine how the clatter of dishes in the kitchen grows steadily louder until Martha’s exasperation at working alone is audible to Mary, who is engrossed in what Jesus is saying. Who is to say that passive-aggressive behavior didn’t exist in New Testament households?

Finally Martha can’t bear working alone any more and comes to where Jesus and her sister are talking. Pulled in all directions by a dozen tasks, she can no longer contain her frustration. She confronts the guest himself, challenging his care for her and asking him to send Mary into the kitchen. In an astounding breach of etiquette, Martha embarrasses her sister, and her Lord and no doubt herself as well.

Jesus doesn’t mince words in his response. Calling her by name not just once but twice, in a manner that sounds more like a parent than a friend, he describes the situation. Jesus says: “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it — it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”

Perhaps the words “main course” for “better part”  can help this well-worn story be heard in fresh ways. A woman in the parish where I serve commented that she never likes hearing this text preached because she always comes away with the sense that it’s never possible to get things right. If, like Martha, she works hard, she will be labeled “overfunctioning.” If, like Mary, she sits and listens too long, nothing gets done. Giuseppe Belli’s 19th-century sonnet “Martha and Magdalene” ends with Martha snapping back at Jesus when he tells her that Mary’s choice is more important: “So says you, but I know better. Listen, if I sat around on my salvation the way she does, who’d keep this house together?” (Divine inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry).

Thinking of God’s word as the “main course” in the feast of life, however, doesn’t give that immediate sense that listening is better than doing. Rather, it places these activities in balance. Whereas the world reminds us to keep the “main thing the main thing,” Christians are urged to remember that the main course is just that, the main course. Jesus is the host, not Martha or Mary or anyone of us, and he spreads the word like a banquet to nourish and strengthen us. The word has within it commands both to sit and listen, and to go and do. We “sit on our salvation,” as the sonnet has it, but then scatter into the world and work of daily life.

Living this side of Easter, we know what Mary and Martha could not know: that hearing and doing are finally in the realm not of law, but of gospel — because the host of the banquet has himself become the main course.

The good news is that Jesus the host grants permission for all distracted, frantic people to sit down and eat their fill of word and promise. When we join them and nourish ourselves at the table, we’ll be ready to put hands and feet, hearts and minds to work.

There is an isolated spot on a dangerous road in the Middle East known as “The Bloody Pass.” The road, at the time of this event, was more of a narrow path — a twisting, turning path with cliffs and caves on either side — lots of places for thugs to hide. This particular place, “The Bloody Pass,” got its name because of the violence that commonly occurred there.

Unfortunately, one poor man happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was attacked by bandits and left half-dead, tossed to the side of the road. He was bleeding and certainly would die without help. The bandits even took his clothes.

Recognize this story? It’s one of Jesus’ most well-known parables — the Good Samaritan. In fact, most of us have heard it so many times that we tend to gloss over it, thinking, Yeah, yeah, the Good Samaritan — help people in trouble and stuff… got it.

Notice the setup for the story of the Good Samaritan. What prompted Jesus to tell this story in the first place? Verse 25 says that an “expert in the law” wanted to “test” Jesus. In other words, this man, who knew the Old Testament and Jewish law backward and forward, inside and out, was trying to trip Jesus up.

When the man asked, “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” How did Jesus respond? He said, basically, “Hey, you’re the expert. What does the Law say?” The “Law” Jesus referred to here is the “law of Moses,” or the first five books of the Old Testament.

The expert then recited what Jesus calls in Matthew 22 the greatest and the second greatest commandments: He answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In return, Jesus responded, in essence, “You got it. Do those two things — one, love God with your whole being and, two, love your neighbor as yourself — and you will live.”

“OK, Jesus, tell me this: Who is my neighbor?”

Who is my neighbor? Who is it, exactly, that God calls us to love just as much as we love ourselves? And beyond that, once we know who our neighbor is, what do we do? How do we show that we love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves?

Jesus answers the question in a beautiful story of compassion in action.

Jesus ended His conversation with the lawyer with a powerful command: Go and do likewise. That command — go and do  likewise : the mandate to love our neighbor as ourselves . “Who is our neighbor?” The parable of the Good Samaritan gives us the answer. It’s simple – our neighbor is anyone in need that we are in a position to help – the unselfish attention to a sick child, the vigil kept  at the bedside of a dying relative, the outreach to the poor and oppressed in our neighborhood, our community, the world, making the stranger feel at home among us.

In these ways is Christ’s love made manifest.

In my email this past week was an invitation to attend a webinar: Invitation to Conversion. I was intrigued by its title and so, I registered to attend this talk via the internet. In our digital age, webinars are one way to equip the disciple to share the message of Jesus.

However, the best way to share the message and prepare the disciple is the personal contact and the personal witness of living our life as disciples of Jesus.

Evangelization and witnessing is often a fearful prospect for many Catholics, yet it is the Christian mandate and one of the highest callings we can pursue. This week’s Gospel Reading can help remove that fear by showing us that witnessing for Jesus is simply living and relating to others in such a way that they comprehend that “the Kingdom of God has come near.” For many in this world that is the beginning of hope; the realization that God and his life is accessible to them. .

Evangelization always works best when it is a joint effort of two or more people. A companion in Christ reduces the stress of relating and talking to someone about Jesus and it more than doubles the creativity and wisdom that can be brought to the process of revealing the Kingdom of God to others. Having another with whom we can pray for people’s conversion is very empowering

As a community whose mission is to bring Christ’s love to those we serve, our presence and our common prayer supports our mission and our focus. Living in community and praying together moves us to service and inviting others to know God’s love for them.

Christ desires to reach the world, beginning with your world and your witness. It’s unreasonable that a witness should have to be sent from half-way around the world, or even from across the city, to bring the Gospel to your neighbors or your acquaintances. That is why he has you there.

Anyone involved with youth knows that the question of identity is the question for them. They are trying to find out who they are in terms of talents, career choices, how they relate to others. All of this is a positive step in maturation during which they identify their strengths and weaknesses, consider their gifts and bond with others who help them in this somewhat painful process. When asked about who they are, no one would answer in terms of pain, suffering or death.

In our Gospel today, Jesus asks a similar question about his identity. When Peter answers, the Christ of God, little did he know that implied suffering greatly, being rejected and being killed! This is the way Jesus becomes who he really is – the Risen One.  When we think Jesus’ mission we usually think of his teaching and preaching, his healing and working miracles. Bur underlying these activities is his suffering, death and resurrection. And so it is with us.

We are called to daily take up our cross; to die to ourselves and to care for others. Following Jesus has its cost.  We save our lives by losing them. Self-giving is life-giving.

We bathe others when they are in need. Parents bathe their infants and toddlers because they are not able to do it for themselves. Nurses bathe patients when they are too sick to do it for themselves. Children bathe their parents when their parents are too frail or too forgetful. In all of these, the act of bathing another is a tender, loving and generous act. in addition to cleansing, bathing another deepens a relationship. Bathing another has layers of meaning and nowhere is this clearer than in our Gospel this Sunday.

Jesus is dining with a Pharisee and the Gospel makes it clear that his host had not provided the usual gesture of hospitality. And a “sinful woman in the city”  seemingly without permission and with no fear of recrimination brings a flask of ointment as she approaches Jesus. One clear purposes [to anoint Jesus] apparently leads to an unplanned response!  When she encounters Jesus she is moved to tears and in a humble act, bathes his feet with her tears and wipes his feet dry with her hair.

The Pharisee’s response is indignation. Was he concerned about the woman or embarrassed because he failed to provide the customary act of hospitality?  Jesus, on the other hand, was able to see into the woman’s heart and forgive her. And he looks into the heart of the Pharisee and finds no love.

The deeper lesson here is how we see others, encounter them and respond to their needs with care.

When Jesus looks at the woman he sees her great love, her saving faith. The woman sees Jesus as the One whom she can love and who loves her in return.

What is really central in our Gospel today is an openness to others, accepting them for who they are and seeing into our hearts before we judge the heart of another.

What does Jesus see when he looks at us? What do we see when we look at one another?

Recently, there was a news item of strawberry farmers destroying good plants rather than picking the strawberries for market. It was cheaper to let the berries go to waste than to pick them. There was a public outcry, and rightly so.

Weekly, I receive pamphlets of malnourished, starving citizens which demand a response from me.  I know there is food in abundance and that our starving sisters and brothers across the globe are victims of political action. And I  know that world citizens are starving for more than just food.

Our readings today make it clear that we are to give of our very selves in feeding others. We are called to give the gift that keeps on giving-our very self for the life of others.  As Jesus is God’s nourishment through his self gift, we too, are to be God’s abundant nourishment for others. Perhaps what is amazing about this Gospel is that God willingly chooses us to make known his blessing.

This feast celebrates the superabundance of God’s graciousness to us.  We are invited to share that superabundance. The challenge of our Gospel is for us to be Eucharist for one another, to be attentive to the needs of others. The challenge is to make visible that divine generosity.

What’s your favorite way of talking about the Trinity? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer? Have you ever tried to explain the Trinity? Or even to understand it? God is one and yet we’ve got these three, what? So what is God? Maybe God is a shape-shifter, one minute holy parent, another holy child, another holy spirit. “God in three persons.” Talking about the Trinity is not easy!

The greatest mystery of this feast is not how God can be Three-in-One,  but why does this God choose to be intimately present to us.  Perhaps the mystery is that the triune community of the Trinity wishes to dwell within the community of humanity!

Living and dying the Paschal Mystery means that we are faithful witnesses to the God within. So what do we have to be for one another? The love of God poured out, the truth that guides. This is the glory of God revealed within and among us.

Pentecost! The celebration of… what? Flames on heads? Speaking in tongues? The blessing of the Spirit on individuals?

Although Pentecost was originally a festival celebration of the wheat harvest in ancient Israel, and of the giving of the law which defined Israel as a nation, for Christians it is known as the time when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, and is sometimes called the birthday of the church. In that sense, Pentecost, which can also refer to the entire 50 days between the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, is the celebration of the formation of the church as corporate body. Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to guide his disciples, just before he ascends to heaven, is sealed with the arrival of the Spirit on Pentecost.

The Spirit of God has, of course, been present since the beginning of creation, but the event of Pentecost marks the moment when the Spirit works to mediate the presence of the Risen Christ to the church community.

Pentecost, then, is more about the corporate body of the church than about the spiritual presence of God to individual believers. The Spirit is now available to guide the church in its mission to bring the Gospel to the world.

The effect on the disciples as they receive the Spirit is interesting in this respect. They begin to speak in languages other than their own, with the crowd who gathers hearing the disciples speak in their own language. This is the reversal of what happened with the curse of Babel, which resulted in confusion and lack of understanding between peoples. Rather, at Pentecost, all are made able to understand the message of the Gospel, and are drawn into the church through the power and understanding given by the Spirit.

What should this mean for us today, as a people of the Spirit? By this indwelling of the Spirit, we ourselves become advocates of God’s presence for others.  It maybe as simple as a reassuring touch or a helping hand.  It might be a sacrifice of time  in volunteering for a task that needs to be done for the good of all. In all, we are called to die to ourselves in order to be the true presence of Christ for others.