Are You Generous or Are You Greedy? Do You Give or Do You Grab?

Good afternoon.

Before I begin with my homily today, I want to share with you a few brief announcements.

And as usual, I have good news and this news.

And other news, yes?

So which one are you hearing first?

The other news, okay.

Well, the other news, as you have already may have heard this weekend, is Father Zan's last weekend among us as part of our parish.

And tomorrow we will be having a special kind of farewell celebration for him after the 8 a.m.

and after the 10 a.m.

Mass.

And so if you're available for that to wish him a good farewell, please you're most welcome to come.

And if you see him after Mass today, please wish him well on his next uh journey.

His next he's going to St.

Columban Church in Garden Grove.

So that's uh the other news.

Um good news we'll be receiving a new priest, you may have heard his name already, Father Arundas Thomas.

Now, he has told me that if you can't say Arundas, you can call him Thomas.

It's okay.

Um He's coming to us from St.

Mary's Church in Fullerton and is originally from India, so he brings kind of an international perspective for us at St.

Joseph.

He seems like a very humble, hardworking guy, but he's also very smart.

Uh I understand that he has a doctorate in biblical studies, and so he'll be able to bring some of that knowledge and wisdom with us to our community.

Uh lastly, a month ago I shared with you that the diocese made the decision to install me as the pastor of St.

Joseph Church, and I know that I built up the suspense to that moment, right?

I made you guys wait a little bit.

And I said that I would give you the dates for when the installation mass will be, and now we have a date.

The diocese just communicated that to us this past week.

So my installation mass as pastor of St.

Joseph will take place on Sunday, July 26th, and it'll be at 4 p.m.

So we're bumping up the 5 p.m.

Mass time to the 4 p.m.

Mass, and it'll be celebrated by Bishop Tim Fryer, who is the auxiliary bishop of our diocese of Origin.

So you're most welcome to that uh celebration.

Um we're gonna we're gonna party.

Big.

No.

Um and I'm just grateful for this past two years that I've spent with you as your administrator.

I look forward to the next six, which is the term that the diocese is giving to be able to lead and shepherd this community.

And so lots of changes, right?

A lot of things uh going on, and I pray that the Holy Spirit continues to lead and guide us in the years ahead.

Okay, so now going to the theme of the homily today.

As a way of entering into this theme, I want to ask you a question, and I invite you to answer it uh honestly, even if it's just in your heart.

And the question is this Are you generous or greedy?

Do you give or do you grab?

What do you think?

You don't have to answer that out loud, right?

You can answer it in your own heart.

Am I generous or am I greedy?

Do I give or do I grab?

And for me personally, I like to think of myself as a generous person, but I have my moments.

I have my moments, for example, when somebody needs my time and I'm in a rush, uh, like right before confession, like confession, and I have to run to celebrate this Mass, for example.

Um, and I can be a little bit less patient than I need to be.

Or maybe when I need to offer my gifts, but it costs me, maybe I hold back some of my gifts.

Or sometimes I might hold my financial resources a little closer to me than I need to be.

Even though I want to think I'm generous, I have my moments.

Do you have your moments too?

When we are less generous than we could be?

Yeah.

So I invite us to keep that question close to our hearts because the the scriptures are going to answer and speak to this question.

Are we generous or greedy?

Do we give or do we grab?

A couple weeks ago, I, the theme of my homily was, uh, are you a sinner or are you a saint?

Are you a saint or a sinner?

And at the end of the homily, we kind of answer, you know, a little bit of both.

We have a little bit of both in us.

And I'm convinced that saints are people who give, who are generous with themselves, with who they are.

And sin makes us grab, it makes us hoard, it makes us keep things just for ourselves.

Um, you may have heard this phrase before, and you can complete the sentence if you've heard this phrase before.

It's more blessed to give than to receive.

You cheated.

You looked on this.

It's more blessed to give than to receive.

And we heard that in the scripture today, right?

The woman of influence who gave to the prophet Elisha, and she received abundantly from God because of her generosity.

And even Jesus in the gospel says the cost of discipleship is a lot, but the rewards are also great for those who follow me.

When we're generous with God who is generous with us, it opens us up to receive God's blessings.

Now, I want to share with you this image, actually, two images I'd like to share with you.

Uh, how many people here have ever been to the Holy Land before?

Anybody ever been to the Holy Land?

Okay, got a handful of people.

Maybe you've been to the Sea of Galilee or to the Dead Sea.

All right.

Now I want to share with you these couple images to illustrate the point I'm gonna make here.

The first image I'm gonna show with you is the Sea of Galilee.

Beautiful sea, teeming with life in abundance.

And Jesus lived and walked around the Sea of Galilee.

And it receives its waters from the Jordan River.

And it's teeming with life.

It's beautiful, you can see the greenery, it's got the fish.

And the next image I want to show you is the Dead Sea.

Um the Dead Sea is dead.

It's got no life.

Fish can't live in there, plants can't grow around it.

Um it might be good for beauty products, maybe.

I don't know.

Sometimes they have like Dead Sea salt and stuff like that, but it's dead.

Here's the weird thing.

Both seas receive water from the same source, from the Jordan River.

It's the same water that flows into both seas.

One is alive and one is dead.

Uh, who can tell me?

What do you think?

What's the difference?

Why is the Sea of Galilee alive and why is the sea of the Dead Sea dead?

Anyone know?

Salt, okay.

All right, yeah?

Too salty, okay?

Here's the reason.

The Sea of Galilee receives water from the Jordan River and continues giving it downstream.

Okay, it receives and it gives.

And so the water stays fresh.

Life can life can reproduce in there, the plants, the sea.

The Dead Sea receives water from the same source, but does not give it away downstream.

So the water stagnates, it becomes salty, it becomes dead.

And here's the point that I want to make something similar happens in our spiritual life.

When we receive blessings from God in abundance and we continue giving it along to the people that are around us, we become like the Sea of Galilee, full of life.

But when we receive abundant blessings from God and we say, Mine.

I keep it to myself, I'm gonna hoard it to myself, and I'm not gonna give away the blessings that I have, kind of like the Scrooge or the Grinch.

What happens?

We become dead.

This is why in November of last year I shared with you the five habits of a Saint Joseph disciple.

There they are.

These are the five.

Pray with God, right?

Connect with one another, invite people to encounter Jesus, serve using the gifts that we have, and the last one is give.

Give of what we have and give of who we are.

Because when we give, we become like the Sea of Galilee.

I'd like to invite us today to think about giving and generosity, not just in kind of broad terms, but very specifically.

I'm gonna invite you to think.

Is there somebody in your life right now that needs your time?

Maybe you've been thinking about this person in the back of your head.

I haven't dedicated time to this person.

I know I need to.

Could you give your time to that person?

Think about the talents and gifts you have.

Uh, do you guys have talents and gifts?

You don't?

I hope you do.

Everybody has has talents and gifts.

Is there a talent or a gift that you've held a little too close to your heart and that you haven't yet offered to your family, to your community, to your church, to your neighborhood, to wherever?

Would you consider offering that gift, that talent?

Is there a financial gift?

You know, I need to make this gift, but I haven't made it yet.

I'm gonna encourage you to be very specific.

Think about one thing that we can do to be more generous.

To close, I'm gonna uh show with you uh this image here.

In February, I uh shared with you a hominy.

I don't know if you remember the title.

It's the title was Are You Salt or Are You Salty?

Are you salt or are you salty?

Because Jesus says you are the salt of the light of the world, the salt of the earth, right?

And so I said, We don't want to be salty like the Dead Sea.

We want to be salt that gives flavor and life.

So somebody, I don't, I might have showed this to you already, but after that homli, somebody made me a t-shirt.

Alright?

So I gave that homli.

Are you salt or are you salty?

And the person that made me a t-shirt is a father, I thought of your homely and I made this for you.

And it says, I'm not salty.

I'm salt.

And maybe today with this theme of generosity and and giving rather than grabbing, maybe another t-shirt could be made.

That says, you know, I don't grab, I give.

I'm not greedy, I'm generous.

Because when we're generous, when we give, we become salt.

We become saints, and we become like the Sea of Galilee, teeming with life in abundance.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.