1^st Sunday of Lent, A (CMA Appeal)             February 10, 2008

Lent is about more than resisting temptation.  In Lent we are specially called to release our attachment to sin.  One such attachment is so widespread and insidious that it can poison our whole lives.  This poison is called “us vs. them” thinking.  And, when you see it in action, it is real stinking thinking.  What, exactly, is “us vs. them” thinking?  It is the way just about everyone thinks who has not yet been converted to the Gospel of Jesus.  “Us vs. them” thinkers divide people into two groups, “us,” those they care about and who are important, and “them,” everybody else, people who don’t matter.

The Bible is full of “us vs. them” thinkers.   One such thinker asked Jesus, “If I’m supposed to love my neighbor as myself, then who is my neighbor?”  He was sure Jesus would answer, “Your neighbor is your fellow Jew, “us.”  You can ignore everybody else, them!  But Jesus told a story that turned that thinking on its head, the story about the Jew who had been beaten and robbed.  Who was neighbor to the robbery victim, Jesus asked?  The answer… the fellow who helped him was his neighbor, the Samaritan foreigner whom he despised was his neighbor, one of them was his neighbor!  So, you see, said Jesus, there is no “them.”  What you think is “them” is a neighbor, one of us!  There is only “us!”  What a concept, there is no “them.”  There is only “us!”  

“Us vs. them” thinking has devastating effects.  For example, it can undermine our almsgiving.

So often, when people tell me they are against giving to a particular charity, they add that “Charity begins at home” as if those words were the most important ones Jesus ever uttered.  Most are unaware they were first spoken by an obscure English writer in 1642.  Sadly, “Charity begins at home,” is most often part of an “us vs. them” mindset and an excuse to avoid reaching out and giving alms to others.

Let’s say I don’t want to help the poor in Ithaca, I spout, “Charity begins at home,” meaning my house and family.  And if I’m trying to avoid helping the poor of Appalachia, I proclaim again, “Charity begins at home.”  But this time home is the poor in Ithaca.  Suppose I want to justify ignoring our sister parish in the DR?  “Charity begins at home,” right here in the USA.  In every instance there’s “them” I don’t want to help and there’s “us” whom it’s OK to help.

An “us vs. them” mindset is most crippling and counter to the Gospel when it divides the Church, the Body of Christ.  How’s that?  Well, for some folks there’s us, St. Catherine’s, and there’s them, the suspicious diocesan bureaucracy up in Rochester.  Woops!  Back to Jesus!  There is no “them.”  There is only “us!”  “We are all one Body, and each of us members of it,” says St. Paul.

It’s very troubling, those who won’t support the diocesan Church.  It’s like the kidneys and the lungs and the feet saying to the head, we want all the blood for us; you don’t deserve any.  How long would the rest of the body survive without the head?  There is no “them” up in Rochester vs. “us” here at St. Catherine’s.  There is only “us,” the one Body of Christ. 

Maybe you don’t care to renounce an “us” vs. “them” mindset.  This is not a minor matter.  Much is at stake.  St. Paul wrote, “Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”  “Discerning the body,” means more than believing that the bread becomes the Body of Christ.  It means recognizing, acknowledging, all those who are part of the Body of Christ with you, that there is no “them,” there is only “us.”  So, may we release our grip on sinful “us vs. them” thinking.  May we love our neighbors, all peoples, after all, they are part of “us”!    

Which brings us to our first parish-wide Lenten almsgiving opportunity.  Today marks the last phase of our participation in this year’s Catholic Ministries Appeal, the way we support our diocesan church and its many vital ministries, a way we support “us.”  Gifts to the Appeal support children’s faith formation, the professional development of parish staff, outreach to the poor, ministry to migrant farm workers and to the Hispanic community, education of our seminarians, support of our retired priests, and many other ministries.

Your grace filled generosity has already produced over $28,000 in pledges.  Another $7,000 will put us over the top.  I have already given, and I would like you to help me give more.  So, I will personally match every new or increased gift of $50 or more.  If you have not yet pledged, please do so now.  If you have already given, you can write, “already given,” on the pledge card in your pew, or you may add to your gift.  Please take some time now to prayerfully fill out a pledge card.  In a few minutes they will be collected.  Thank you very much.