Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C

March 6, 2016

John Newton was and Englishman and a sailor in the 1700’s. He was a godless man; a man of ill repute. Among other things he had a filthy mouth. You’ve heard the expression cussing like a sailor; well John took that to a new level.

As a sailor, John was involved in the slave trade. You may remember from history class how slaves from Africa would be packed onto ships like sardines and some estimate that about half of the slaves died in voyages across the Atlantic.

On one voyage, May 10, 1748, John’s ship was caught in a terrible storm. John honestly thought: this is it. I’m going to perish in the storm. Something stirred inside of him or we could say someone grabbed hold of him and John cried out, “Lord have mercy upon us.” The storm abated and John survived. This was a moment of deep conversion. He began treating the slaves in a more humane way and soon got out of the slave trafficking business all-together. To commemorate his conversion, John wrote the song Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

John was lost but had been found. In the parable of the prodigal son that is perhaps my favorite line, “We must celebrate and rejoice; because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.”

Notice in the parable it doesn’t say, “let us rejoice because this son of mine has found his way home!” No, it says, “He was lost and has been found.” What’s the implication to “being found?” It means someone was looking for him. This is the Good News of God’s mercy: When we stray, Jesus the Good Shepherd will go in search of us. The Holy Spirit will seek us out and inspire and prompt us to turn around. So often we think of conversion as my own personal work of changing my life. But this parable reminds us of the primacy of grace. Conversion is a response to God finding me and calling me home. I once was lost but now am found.

George Weigel said, “Spirituality is our search for God, but Christianity is God’s search for us.” As the Church, as Christ’s body on earth, the Lord wants us to participate in seeking out and finding the lost! St. Paul tells us that in the second reading. We are ministers of reconciliation. We are ambassadors for Christ. This is what evangelization is all about – seeking out the lost and proclaiming the Good News of God’s Mercy.

All the recent popes have been talking about the importance of evangelization. Pope Francis is calling us to a new evangelization. He saying we cannot sit around in our churches expecting people to come to us. We have to take to the streets. We have to bring the gospel to our neighborhoods.

In addition to Pope Francis focusing on evangelization, Archbishop Naumann has composed a 10-year vision and one of his top three priorities is evangelization. So, this weekend I’m announcing at all the Masses our new evangelization initiative called, “The Neighborhoods of St. Michael.” The Neighborhoods of St. Michael is all about bringing the gospel to our neighborhoods, seeking out the lost, welcoming people to our parish, and joyfully witnessing to the gospel.

This sounds like a daunting task, so we are going to take baby steps. The first phase of our Neighborhoods of St. Michael is simply to build community, to cultivate hospitality, and to welcome people to our parish. These things are already being done in many ways, but we can always grow and improve.

I’ve heard founding members of the parish reminiscing: remember when the parish first started – we all knew each other and we were all working together to build the school and church. Now we’ve grown into a huge suburban parish. We are now up to 2400 families. Big parishes can start to become impersonal. We can at times feel alone in a sea of people. We might find ourselves thinking – would anyone even recognize if I wasn’t here at Mass?

In a big parish like this it is important to break down the parish into smaller groups. So, we have divided the parish up into 8 neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has a number and a saint’s name. The saints were chosen from the saints in our mural or one of the statues in the church. Now, you might be thinking, “OK what if I live out of bounds?” You are still part of our neighborhood initiative. We just extend the lines of our neighborhoods straight out beyond our parish boundary and you can find which neighborhood you belong to. Also, each neighborhood has a team to help implement this initiative. If you are interested in serving on your neighborhood team stop by the tables in the Narthex after Mass.

The work of evangelization begins by building relationships. That’s the first step we going to take! We want to begin by building community and welcoming people to our parish. To do this we are implementing three initial steps:

First, we have put together welcome baskets for our new members. Inside the basket will be magnet with the Mass times, a save the date postcard for upcoming church tours, an invitation to the new member social at the rectory. We have those about three times a year and they are very successful because people want to see where we live! Also inside will be some baked goodies.

Secondly, we are going to have neighborhood kick-off masses here in our church on the first four Saturdays of April. Two neighborhoods will join together at each of the four Masses. After the Mass we will have a potluck dinner. In the coming weeks each parishioner will receive a postcard in the mail saying, “You’re in neighborhood 4 or 5 or whatever neighborhood you’re in and you are invited to Mass and a potluck dinner after Mass to get to know your neighbors!” Often the only time we receive a mailing from our parish is when we are asking for stewardship renewal. Isn’t it going to be nice to get a piece of mail simply inviting us to Mass and dinner?!

Finally, we are taking Pope Francis quite literally and we are going to take to the streets and have a Mass in each of our 8 neighborhoods. The dates have already been set for the coming months most of them will take place this summer and fall. After the Mass we will have a social. For instance, I know one neighborhood is going to have an ice-cream social after their Mass.

These are just the initial steps to connect people to the parish and build hospitality. In time, we will be offering small group discipleship opportunities to help us grow together in our faith.

The new evangelization begins with us. We must allow ourselves first to be found. We must know God’s love in our own hearts before we can share it with others. There are people who feel alone, who are hurting, waiting to be found in our neighborhoods. We are the body of Christ. We are the hands and feet of Jesus who are called to seek out the lost and proclaim the Good News of the Merciful Father. Please join me in praying for our Neighborhoods of St. Michael initiative.