This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day, and it’s hard for me not to think of my own Father. I am blessed with a great Father - a loving, faith-filled, Holy Spirit guided Father - who has really helped me become the man that I am today - the priest that I am today.
Now many of you know that my Father is a deacon, I often refer to him as “Deacon Dad,” and when I do that in his presence he calls me “Father Son.” It might be tempting to think that I went into the “family business” here in the Church, but he was only recently ordained a deacon in 2017, actually I was ordained a deacon about two months before him. The “family business” is actually a Polaris Dealership and tractor repair shop.
My dad went to college to be a diesel mechanic and started out by working on tractors, then he had an opportunity to buy the business in Toledo which he did, and he named it U.S.S. Repair which stood for “Upah Sales, Service, and Repair.”
A few years later he added the Polaris Dealership, which became the biggest part of the business, so at some point he renamed it to U.S.S. Polaris, now our Polaris side is about 75% of the business. We sell Polaris ATV’s and UTV’s, and those newer three wheeled cars that look like Batmobiles… in case you wondered they are very fun and super fast.
Anyway, I grew up working at “the shop.” From a young age I learned how to wash 4-wheelers, take out the trash, and sweep floors - dad taught me to always find work to do to stay busy - he said there was always a floor to sweep so I’m really good at sweeping! As far as actually working on 4-wheelers, I never made it much past fixing tires and changing batteries, I lacked certain “mechanical skills.” Dad said at birth I had a “mechanical bypass.”
However, I did eventually learn how to weld and fabricate all sorts of things - during high school that was my primary job, building, painting and assembling sprayers for the back of 4-wheelers which dad would sell at the shop.
My dad taught me all these things, and despite my lack of mechanical ability, there was always a consideration that I could someday inherit his business, I could take it over, especially from the business management side. Well, clearly that isn’t going to happen for me now, but I think anyone who has a family business has to take this into consideration at some point.
When Jesus came to earth, He was very clear to say He was doing His Father’s business, He was doing the work of the Father. The family business was a wide array, but today the focus was on farming - shepherding sheep and harvesting the crops - which were really just analogies for saving the lost and gathering all the saved into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus, as the only Son, acted as though one with the Father, their wills were united, He was prepared to not only run the business, but to teach and then hand it on to others, which He did by calling the disciples, the Twelve Apostles, and sending them out to be part of the family business as well.
The Gospel said Jesus “summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness… Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.” A couple points about this.
First, we are adopted sons and daughters of God the Father, with Jesus as our brother, and we are all expected to work in the family business. We have a choice of course, we don’t have to, we have free will, but it is kind of an expectation that if we want that inheritance of Heaven, then we will join to be “laborers for his harvest.”
Often this is referred to as just priestly vocations, but I believe that is too narrow of a read, all vocations are important in the proclamation of the Kingdom. I feel like, since you are sitting here at Mass, then you have made your choice, you want to go to Heaven, and you want to take others with you. I see this in you parents especially.
In fact, on Tuesday night I was standing in the parking lot talking to a father who is a parishioner, and he said “If anything happens to me, I feel good about where I stand with God, I am just worried about my children and if they will be saved.”
See, this father is clearly a laborer in the harvest, he knows his identity as a beloved son, and he is now doing his best to help his children understand their identity, receive their inheritance in Heaven, and teach them to work in the family business.
Second, to be a laborer means we need to do the same work that Jesus did. Healing stories make up 38% of the Gospels, that’s a big part of the business! So, yes, being part of the family business means curing the sick and driving out demons. That might seem intimidating, but the reality is that we have that authority by virtue of our baptism. Just as Jesus “gave them authority” to do His work, we also receive this authority at our baptism. This is very important.
When we baptize children here at Nativity, we give all of the kids this little stole. (We have one baptism tonight after Mass, and three more next weekend.) I’ve never seen this before coming here honestly, usually I’ve seen white garments that look more like bibs, but at Nativity we have stoles, and to me it is symbolic of our baptismal identity when we are baptized as priest, prophet and king. There is authority in that identity.
Lest we doubt our identity and our God given authority, I want to remind you of what it says at the end of the Gospel of Mark, before the Ascension Jesus says, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Those who believe, not just ordained priests, it’s all vocations. So as believers, we have this authority to do the work that our Father does. Authority is important in a family business, right? The Boss has authority. The Boss delegates authority as necessary. We have been delegated this authority, we just have to go and use it. I’ve only realized this myself in the last two years, but it has become increasingly a bigger part of my ministry.
Two weekends ago I was helping put on a Healing Mission in Tama at my home parish. We are doing this now with just a group of priests from the diocese, eight of us, and it has been great, but still, lay people are involved, helping pray over people, and we see the Holy Spirit work powerfully, providing healing after healing, and it is beautiful.
And when people experience this, they are drawn deeper into relationship with God, and that is the main thing - it isn’t the healings, although those are great - it is the deepening of the faith. So at these healing missions, one of the first things we stress is people’s identity as beloved Sons and Daughters, and then from there they can realize healing and then live out of the authority granted by God.
Listen again to the end of our first reading, it said, “Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
We are living in the new covenant. We are dearer to God than all other people, even though He created them all and is Father to them all, we are dearer to Him because we listen to Him and keep His covenant. I am a priest in the ministerial sense, but we are all priests in the common sense, we have this authority to do His work, to work in the family business and help heal and save others.
It’s so amazing if you think about it! I am committed to this healing ministry so much that I just hired Serena Feisinger to help me with it - as you might have seen in the bulletin, that will be a big part of her job here. Also my Deacon Dad drives two hours every Wednesday night to pray with people for healing, frequently staying to pray with people more on Thursday mornings.
I believe all Churches should be places where people can find healing - I know that people already are here at Nativity - I pray that everyone here will understand their identity as Sons and Daughters, find healing through their experience of the Holy Spirit, and then will use their authority for the good of our family business.