14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – July 6, 2025

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Isaiah 66:10-14c; Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

The Adventure of Our Life

One of my “Greatest Hits!” was sharing the story of one of my classmates from seminary, Brian Bergkamp. Brian grew up down in Garden Plain, just west of Wichita, on a farm; one of seven kids. He said that he always wanted to be a farmer, to be a priest, and he had a dream of “being a hero and saving someone’s life.” On July 9, 2016, just a few years away from being ordained a priest, Brian was out kayaking with some of his friends. And that morning as they hit some choppy waters, the boats overturned, and one of the girls in the group fell out of her boat without her lifejacket and was in a real dangerous spot. And without hesitation, Brian jumps in, swims to her, gives her his lifejacket, gives her a push toward the shore. And in the process, he gives his life to save hers. Brian became a hero. In these unexpected circumstances, in a way he never expected, he became a hero and saved this girl’s life.

Another “Greatest Hit!” has my obsession with the Lord of the Rings, the books by J.R.R. Tolkien, the movies. But one of my favorite scenes is one I’ve never shared. So again, the premise of the movie is that the main character (Frodo) is going on the great adventure of his life to destroy the Ring, to save the world. And Frodo has wanted to live a life of adventure and excitement! He’s wanted more than the normal, comfortable, routine that he’s always had. But in the middle of this adventure, at one point he’s talking to one of the other main characters (Gandalf), exhausted and exasperated, and Frodo says, “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” Frodo, entrusted with a great and life-changing and all-important task … he begins to shy away from it. He wants to return to home, return to normal, return to the “Shire” which is just an image of comfort and ease and normal. “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” And to this, Gandalf wisely responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Again, the witness of Brian Bergkamp, the insight that Tolkien had into the human experience and how he wove that into his story The Lord of the Rings—there is this tension in us. Like Brian, we want to do normal things in our lives, but also great things in our lives: farmers, priests, but also a hero, saving lives! We want our lives to mean something. We want our lives to matter. We want to experience the great adventure of life! But the tension is then what we see in Frodo. Frodo is literally on a quest to save the world, a life-changing, world-altering adventure! But in the middle of it…he’s tired, it’s not what he expected it would be. And he begins to shy away from it. “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

The Apostolic Age

For us, I think we can easily think that we are all just living a “normal life.” A lot of things have changed since we were kids, things are different, things continue to change, but we live normal lives. But as Pope Francis so eloquently pointed out, “We don’t live in an age of change [where things are just changing a lot], but a change of age.” In other words, the time in which we live, the circumstances around us, it’s not just that things are changing quickly—communication, the internet, politics, the Church—no, we are living in a fundamental change of age. And that happened a while ago, we are just now experiencing the fallout from that. The fallout that I’ve talked about the most is in our faith: we’ve watched our siblings and children and friends and neighbors fall away from the faith, stop practicing the faith. They’re still good people, still very nice, still believe in God—but a real and active and living faith…it’s not there. We also see a rise in despair, a lack of hope. I’ve told you before, the “deaths of despair” continue to skyrocket: drug-related fatalities, cirrhosis of the liver (so alcohol), and suicide. Second leading cause of death for 10-14 year olds is suicide (it’s up 300% since 2000). And if not that, people are just numbing out: binge-watching TV shows on Netflix, the infinite scroll on social media, the infinite rabbit hole on YouTube, twelve hours of football on Sunday. People are numbing out and giving up.

This is the change of age we live in, this is the fruit. Faith is declining, despair is rising. And like Frodo—like Frodo, it would be easy to want to throw in the towel, “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” It’s easy for us to want to retreat to a time that no longer exists, to go back to comfortable times, to easy and “normal.” But what is the response? “Yes, of course. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Laborers for the Harvest

And in today’s Gospel—today we hear Jesus’ call quite clearly, the decision he is asking us to make: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” Now, more than perhaps ever, we are being called to embrace the mission of Jesus Christ, to embrace the mission of the Church, the mission of evangelization. Today’s Gospel is the very famous scene where Jesus sends out the seventy-two disciples, the initial missionaries. These seventy-two boldy and courageously embark on the adventure of their lives. They begin to announce to everyone in the surrounding cities how their lives have been changed by this man from Nazareth, this Jesus.

Now, today, in our day, in this age, it is no different—perhaps, it’s even more urgent. “The harvest is abundant.” So many people in our community, here, in this community—so many are in need of the good news of Jesus Christ, the community of the Church that He established, the Truth when there are so many lies. “The harvest is abundant. But… but the laborers are few.”

Our primary challenge is to embrace our part of this mission, to take seriously the mission Jesus has entrusted to us, us who are members of the Church. The secondary challenge, then, is to embrace our part in this mission in this time and in these circumstances, precisely where we are, with everything we have. This will take courage, this will take fortitude, perseverance, boldness, intentionality. “Behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves,” Jesus said. This is not easy. And like Frodo, we are going to face times where we just want to give up, times when we would rather go back to normal, to the comfortable. We wish that the adventure we’d been given were different, that we could choose a different time, a different age, different circumstances. But, like Brian Bergkamp—like Brian, we embrace whatever is before us, decide what to do with our circumstances. He thought he was going to be a priest, but it turns out that one day the circumstances of his life had other plans, God had other plans. And he gave his whole life.

The Adventure of My Life

I never—I never would have ever thought that the adventure of my life would lead me where it has. I have been all over the world, learned languages, cultures. Even as a priest—I remember being in Derby, settling in, and then I got a call that I was being sent to Lyons and Bushton. And I thought, “Where??”

And when I arrived here, I looked out and all I saw was a crowd, an audience, parishioners. But now, I look out—I look out and I see my family. When I got here I was young and dumb, trying to figure out how to be a pastor. Now, I’m still young, and still pretty dumb, but I’m different. And in ways that I never thought possible. A few weeks ago, one of my high school seniors handed me a graduation announcement—and the envelope just said “Father” on it. And I have gotten around 5,367 envelopes in my life that just say “Father” on them. But when I saw this one… And again, I doubt they meant anything more or extra sincere or sentimental. But it hit me—all of a sudden that hit me. Y’all don’t call me “Pastor” or “Michael.” You call me “Father.” And that has been the greatest privilege of my life. To be with you in the most difficult and the happiest moments of your lives. To be given the privilege to be let in to your lives, to walk with you—there are just no words for how grateful I am to all of you. I am so grateful that the Lord called me to be a priest, that he called me here.

The Call to Mission

St. Paul—Paul wrote letters back to communities where he had been the pastor. And in many, he writes to them thrilled to hear of all the good things they continued to do, the ways they continued to persevere in the faith and in their mission. And that is my hope. My hope is that you continue to embrace the faith, but even more so to embrace the mission that our faith carries, to continue this mission with great enthusiasm.

As St. Joan of Arc said when she was facing the mission of her life, and the people asked her if she was afraid—St. Joan of Arc said, “I am not afraid. For God is with me. I was born for this.” You, this parish—you have been placed in this time, in this place. So do not be afraid. God is with you. This is why you were born. Embrace it. Embrace the adventure of life that God has prepared for you. “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” Do not be afraid.