A Homily for My First Mass as Priest
On Sodom and caring for the poor
Hello friends,
To give you some context for this homily, I should share a quick bit of news:
I’m a priest now.
It has been a long time coming. My various degrees were, unwittingly, preparing me for this step. Same for my year-and-a-half training as a hospital Chaplain. In addition, I went through a significant discernment process with my parish and my priest. I then completed a year of hands-on training we call a “Supervised Year in Ministry.”
I never thought I would become a priest. (I never actually thought I’d become a Catholic.)
Even at the beginning of the discernment process, I was unsure. But through much encouragement from folks in my parish and many conversations with friends, I discovered that God had called me to the priesthood. It is, it seems, the perfect path for me to carry out what God has made me to do.
I am now operating as an academic priest. I serve as curate in my clerical Society and my parish, filling in liturgically where needed. And I’m continuing my academic work for the sake of the church, yet now through this prism of the priesthood.
So anyway, here I am. An ordained priest in the Inclusive Catholic tradition.
I said my first mass a couple weeks ago, and below is the homily I shared.
Our parish is an inclusive one, where many LGBTQ+ folks attend. Given that context, when I saw that one of the readings for the day was a passage on Sodom, I felt like I should address it. With the many ways that section of scripture has been wrongly and painfully used against them, ignoring it felt wrong.
It also felt appropriate for this to be my first homily as priest—as my heart behind it, and my priesthood itself, are products of this community’s faith and hospitality.
So here it is. I hope it is helpful to you.
Humbly,
Joshua
Genesis 18:20-32
Colossians 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13
One of my core theological convictions is that the Bible is truly the Word of God—a rich and beautiful collection of sacred writings, useful even to us today. I firmly believe it is a font of grace, meant to help transform us into the people God created us to be.
Yet…
It will only transform us if we allow it. It will only transform us if we are willing to wrestle with it. Willing to challenge and be challenged by it—to struggle with the words we encounter in its pages.
We are not meant to read it with our brains turned off. To do that is to not really engage with it at all—as we are thinking, questioning, experiencing creatures. To be transformed by the Word of God we must approach it with our whole selves, willing to be made uncomfortable, toward the end of making us more like Christ.
With that in mind, while I typically like to preach on the Gospel passage for the day, I would like to spend some time on the more controversial one we have just been presented.
Given the demographic makeup of our parish, I would not be surprised if, as Kyle read the passage from Genesis today, many of you clinched up a little. Got a little (or a lot) anxious. It is a controversial passage from a controversial section of scripture. One that has been used (quite out of context) to demonize the queer community.
What I would like to take a moment to do, though, is explain what I think God is actually trying to tell us in this, and its surrounding, passage of Scripture. I don’t just want to put a safe spin on it, or tritely explain away difficult aspects. But I do really believe that when we encounter Scripture in its own context and see it for what it is, we find Christ. We find hope. We find a God with more love and grace than we could ever imagine.
So, with that gigantic preface out of the way, let’s get into the passage a bit.
—
We can discover a lot about this Scripture just by taking a close look at the first line. It begins with God saying to Abraham that there has been an “outcry” against Sodom and Gomorrah.
Our head lector, Simon, sent a note when preparing for today, pointing out that the medieval Jewish scholar Rashi argued the outcry of Sodom was the cry of a woman—a certain young woman whom they put to death in an unnatural manner because she had given food to a poor person.
Whatever was going on that led to this outcry, we know that this word, “outcry" or “tsa’aq” in Hebrew, is often associated in the Prophets and Psalms with the shrieks of torment from the oppressed.
In the section of Genesis immediately following our reading today, we get the story many have used to argue that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality. But what we actually find is that the sin of sodom was injustice; it was violence; it was disregard for the poor and the stranger. We even have another section of Scripture telling us as much. And telling us in a quite straightforward manner. Ezekiel 16:49 says, “Now this was the sin of Sodom: They were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”
The point is, when we read in our passage today about God’s wrath poured out on Sodom, it helps to know why God was so fed up with them.
He was fed up because they were overfed and unconcerned. And that, unfortunately, sounds a lot like the world we live in today.
This section of Scripture, though, is not merely a condemnation. It also presents a way forward, in the hero of this story—Abraham.
We see throughout this section of Scripture a figure in Abraham dedicated to advocating for humanity, no matter who they were. In last Sunday’s passage, we saw him showing true hospitality to two strangers, welcoming them into his home at great cost to himself. And here he advocates, arguing with God, for the sake of the people of Sodom, even though he knew they were sinful.
The message of this passage is that, in the face of a world filled with injustice, the only way forward is a people committed to hospitality. A people committed to advocating for their neighbor.
There is a reason the Eucharist is the center of our faith, the source and the summit. Because here God’s sets the example, inviting all to the table. And in this meal, we are not only called to a new and better life where all are fed and welcome, but we enact that very life.
God is speaking to us in these pages, calling us to intercede for our world. To pray, to work, to care. He wants us to, with his help, bring about the world we long for.
The beatitudes tell us, “blessed are those who thirst for justice.” That is the example of Abraham, and that is the call of Christ in the Gospel parable we read today.
The words from the Our Father open that Gospel passage. Because in it, this is what we pray for. “May your kingdom come.” May that world of peace, of hope, of love be made a reality in this world. May it be made a reality through God’s provision (of "daily bread”) and through our acts of reconciliation (“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”).
God’s ultimate care is for the oppressed, the marginalized, the outcast, the immigrant. He want us, like Abraham, to feel the injustice of our world and to rail against it.
Given the many injustices we encounter in our world today—from the cruel treatment of migrants in the US, to the attempted erasure of the trans experience, to the destruction and starvation perpetrated upon Gaza, and the list goes on and on and on—it is appropriate for us to ask, are we truly concerned? Or are we merely perpetuating the sin of Sodom, heaping violence onto violence, eating and drinking without concern for our neighbor?
When this concern begins to grow, it is appropriate to ask God, in the spirit of Abraham, Why would you allow this? Why is this even a possibility in the world you created?
Not only is it appropriate, but it is what God wants from us. He wants us to feel the injustice, to cry out against it, and to beg for its end. It is only then, when you feel it, when you understand its absurdity, that you begin to work with him to end it.
Justice requires that we participate, that we work to bring about the reign of God. The reign of justice, of peace, of hope, of love, of care.
May we, with God’s help, bring about this reign in our world, and in our own hearts.