Homily: Year A, 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Here's another unpreached homily...but I was ready, more or less, just in case. That's something I've learned to do over the years: always be ready to preach. Anyway, it focuses on one of my favorite healings, so well described by Matthew, so I decided to share my imperfect thoughts with you all.

____________________

Readings: Is 56:1, 6-7; Ps 67; Rom 11:13-15, 29-32; Mt 15:21-28

__________________ 

It would be easy to overlook this brief encounter depicted in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew. It would be easier still to discount its importance. After all, Jesus cured hundreds, probably thousands, during His public ministry. What makes this one so special?

But this encounter with the Lord was special because it was different…very different. First of all, it took place in the region of Tyre and Sidon, outside the land of Israel. And the woman he meets there is a Canaanite, a non-Jew, a pagan. Jesus, Matthew tells us, is withdrawing from Israel, and she is coming out of her own land, searching for what? It appears they are searching for each other, a meeting the Father has scheduled. And we know that Jesus never misses an encounter at the precise time and place arranged by the Father.

We can also see what the disciples thought of her: "Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us." Yes, the simple word, “Canaan,” evokes everything contrary to Jewish faith and tradition, everything they have been taught to despise.

And yet this pagan woman comes to Jesus, a Jew; and she comes to Him as her Lord and Savior: “Lord, Son of David…” Yes, each has left something behind to fulfill a deep yearning: Jesus yearning to save, and the woman’s to be saved. No power on earth can thwart this encounter.

Are our encounters with Jesus like this? For Jesus is seeking each one of us you just as He sought the Canaanite woman. He will gladly leave the holy places; He will enter into the unholy land of our sinfulness, in search of lost sheep.

But like the woman, we must turn to Him. And turn to Him she does. Yes, her only business that day was to find Him and to express her desperate need in the strongest possible terms. And in doing so she becomes the very embodiment of fervent intercessory prayer.

She screamed out her need, a parent agonizing over the suffering of her child, a daughter possessed by a demon. Without knowing it, this earthly mother appeals to the compassion of the heavenly Father, who understands well the agony of a child’s suffering. Her daughter’s distress is her distress: “Have pity on me,” she begs. “Lord, help me,” she pleads, as if she and her daughter are one, as if her daughter’s distress reverberates through her very being.

She is on a mission; one her daughter cannot complete. She must become her daughter’s voice, her daughter’s hands…just as Jesus became the Father, His hands, His feet, His voice, His Word. Does Jesus recognize in this woman and her attitude a mirror image of His own mission?

And yet, despite all this, Jesus responds with silence…the same silence that often greets our own prayer. Does this mean she should turn away, and just hope for the best? Does it mean she should address Jesus differently? Did she shout too loudly, or not loudly enough?

Should she have realized, as the disciples apparently thought, that Jesus was on a greater mission, a mission to save the world? That He really couldn’t be troubled with one woman’s problems? Was this saving, this healing of His strictly a Jewish thing? Did all this pass through her mind?

We can almost picture her, face flushed, eyes frantic, hands reaching out, pleading, as her mind jumps from one concern to the next…but she too says nothing, her pain muted by Jesus’ seeming indifference.

And yet, God’s silence, His silence in us is one of the choicest works of His grace. Her speculation and worry are no different from that which we experience when faced with God’s silence. But eventually, if we stop speculating, stop worrying, and become silent ourselves, we can come to hear God’s Word in the silence.

The disciples can’t stand it. In effect they tell Jesus, “For crying out loud. This woman’s driving us nuts. Do something, will you?”

But Jesus just says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He dismisses them just as He seems to have dismissed her. But this comment only causes her to plead once more, “Lord, help me.”

Her only solution is to throw herself at Jesus’ feet and cry for mercy. Although she’s probably never heard a single line of Scripture, her entire being is intuitively reduced to the cry of the psalmist: “Let thy mercy come to me and I will have life.” For she realized that day what St. Bernard realized a thousand years later, “The torrents of grace do not flow upward to the heights of pride…but downward into a humble, low-lying heart.”

Jesus now utters what to our ears seems a horrible insult: "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs."

How can He say such a thing?” we ask. Where’s the voice of the Good Shepherd? Where’s the Jesus who consoled the woman of Samaria? Where’s the Savior who died to set all people free?

Well, he's right here, right here in this encounter. He's the teacher goading the student. He's the coach pushing the player to give his all. He's the debater throwing down the verbal gauntlet so the argument can begin, and the truth can be seen by all.

The woman is no fool. She seems to recognize this. She may have no claim on the inheritance of Israel, but she still needs God’s promises to be fulfilled in her. And so, she doesn’t disagree, but in effect declares that Jesus speaks the truth, that she is, indeed, among the least of His creatures, nothing more than a dog in search of its master.

We can almost hear her joy as she plays this trump card on Jesus and realizes what its effect will be. For in her deep faith, and filled with the Spirit, she knew all along that Jesus would answer her prayer. After all, how could the Son of God turn her down?

After all, had she wanted to risk sounding insolent, she could have asked Him what on earth He was doing in pagan territory to begin with if, as He claimed, He had come only to redeem Jews? Why indeed had He come to this place, to encounter those in need, if He intended to do nothing about it?

You see, brothers and sisters, it is this wonderful woman’s genus to have understood the truth, the divine secret, that in order truly to win – that is, to be overtaken and sheltered and saved – she must allow herself to be defeated by Jesus.

She and you and I win only by submitting to God, by adoring God, and by finding that adoration accepted. The whole drama is shot through with an indestructible passion of faith, with her inability to conceive of God in Jesus as anything but an inexhaustible fountain of mercy.

Yes, it’s all about faith. “Kyrie,” [Lord] she cries out four times in this brief encounter.

“If you’re indeed Lord,” she seems to say, “the all-powerful Lord, then you must be the loving Lord of all, of the high and the low, of the sheep of Israel and the dogs of the pagans. I don’t care which I am, only that I am with you. If you’re truly the One Son of the One God, then you’re the Lord of all, then you’re my personal Lord too, and my rejoicing over it will never end.”

Unlike so many who demand that God serve them at their table, she has no problem abiding on the floor under His table. She has no problem with crumbs, glorious crumbs from that table, heavenly crumbs falling from the hands of Jesus Himself.

For she knows that wherever Jesus is, there is abundance; that wherever sin is, God’s compassion ensures that grace is there too, superabundantly. Just as we know that here, at this very altar, at the Eucharistic table, Christ’s mercy will forever be raining those crumbs of life.

"You’ve got great faith, woman," he says, "You’ve got remarkable faith!"

Won't it be wonderful when he says the same thing to you and to me?

Reflection: Divine Mercy Novena - Day 6

 At this time of year, our parish prays the Divine Mercy Novena, led by our deacons and ably aided by our wonderful musicians. I was asked to lead Day 6 and Day 9, and so today I led the first of these. I usually begin with a brief reflection on some aspect of Divine Mercy as revealed to us in St. Faustina's Diary. Here's the text of my reflection:

________________________

Welcome to day 6 of our Divine Mercy Novena.

A few weeks ago, a parishioner came up to me after Mass. He'd just seen an announcement about this Divine Mercy Novena and remarked that Divine Mercy didn't seem to mix well with pandemics and wars.

As you might expect, I vehemently disagreed and suggested that God's mercy and our extension of it was exactly what our world needed. I realize it's been a difficult few years and we're all in a bit of a funk, and not just because of masks, vaccinations, testing, family separation, and all the rest. Far more painful has been the loss of many friends and loved ones. I know I miss them all and the older I get the more frequent these losses. But we take hope in the promise that, soon enough, we'll be with them again.  Yes, indeed, life and death continue, as does God’s love for His people. This, too, sometimes escapes us when we’re affected by grief.

Now, in the midst of the Easter season, we are also reminded of God’s great gift to the world: His Divine Mercy. The other day, reading a few pages of St. Faustina’s Diary, I came across these words of Jesus:

“You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to absolve yourself from it" [Diary, 742].

Meditating on this command from Jesus, I couldn't help but recollect all those times when I have been less than merciful, those times when I looked the other way rather than confronting another's need head-on. Sadly, there were far too many instances, too many to count.

There's nothing new about this command; indeed, if it were new, we would have every right to suspect the validity of the visions and private revelations experienced by St. Faustina. True private revelation can do nothing but confirm and reinforce divine revelation as found in sacred scripture and apostolic tradition.

And, of course, this same plea to mercy is stated explicitly in the Gospel:

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" [Mt 5:7].

When Matthew describes Jesus’ depiction of the final judgment, we will all experience [Mt 25:31-46], we encounter a judgment focused on the mercy we have extended to each other. As I reflected on Jesus' command, and on my own failure to obey it fully, I realized how grateful I am that we have a merciful God, who willingly forgives and forgets the sins of the repentant.

In other words, our personal failure to extend mercy to others can be overcome by God's infinite mercy when we come to Him in true repentance and a willingness to change, to undergo conversion. Without this gift of mercy and forgiveness none of us would be saved.

Today, as we pray together at the foot of the Cross, when we look up at our crucified Lord, do we tear open our very being? Listen to the prophet Joel, who revealed God’s will:

“Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting in punishment.” [Joel 2:13]

Do we rend our hearts exposing all to God’s merciful gaze?

Do we come to Him, ready to die to self and sin?

Praying the chaplet on this 6^th day of our novena, can we abandon ourselves to His Divine Mercy?

Joyce Kilmer, the Catholic poet, another of my favorites, was struck down by a sniper's bullet during World War One. But in the midst of his wartime experience, surrounded by the destruction and devastation and death in the trenches, he wrote a little poem called "Thanksgiving." 

     The roar of the world in my ears.
     Thank God for the roar of the world!
     Thank God for the mighty tide of fears
     Against me always hurled!

     Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife,
     And the sting of His chastening rod!
     Thank God for the stress and the pain of life,
     And Oh, thank God for God!

Brothers and sisters, that's exactly what we must do: just thank God for everything.

Thank God for the joys and the pains of our lives.

How did St. Paul put it?

"We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose" [Rom 8:28].

It’s all a gift, even when it's beyond our understanding.

Yes, thank God for His mercy which makes life itself livable. 

 

Videos of Bible Study Reflections

The videos embedded below are the first four of the COVID-19 reflections I prepared and sent out to our parish's Bible Study participants. Written between April 2 and April 23, they were recorded as videos in late April. 

The purpose of these weekly reflections was to help our Bible Study regulars keep Sacred Scripture in mind until we can once again come together to study the God's Word in community.  As I prepared each reflection I tried to show how Scripture can help us as we face the challenges of this viral pandemic. I hope I have been at least partically successful.

I believe the parish intends to post one of these videos each Monday (beginning May 4) on its YouTube site which you can access via www.sumtercatholic.org, the parish's main website. The idea is to make them available to all parishioners. I decided, however, to include all four here since my Bible Study regulars have already received the texts of each reflection. I saw no reason to make them wait for the video versions.

I haven't yet watched the videos (and probably won't). They were recorded, one after another, during a couple of hours on one morning last month. I expect the quality of my presentation probably deteriorated as the recordings progressed. I wasn't feeling particularly well that morning anyway. It was just a few days before I was diagnosed with shingles. I trust you will understand, and forgive any goofs, etc.

Of course, if you decide to watch all four of these videos during a single sitting, you'd have to spend well over an hour doing so. That's something I wouldn't recommend to anyone. To save you from that, I've also included links to the text versions of each, posted earlier on this blog.

I've written and sent out a fifth reflection -- To Be a Disciple -- but am not sure whether it will be recorded. 

Here is the video of reflection #1, written and published as text on April 2: God's Purpose

Here is the video of reflection #2, written and published as text on April 11: The Book of Job.

Here is the video of reflection #3, written and published as text on April 17: The Divine Gift of Trees.

And, finally, here is the video of reflection #4, written and published as text on April 23: Divine Mercy.

COVID-19 Bible Study Reflection #4: Divine Mercy

Originally written on April 21, the following is the fourth of my weekly COVID-19 updates sent out to the participants in our parish's Bible Study program. 

The other day I was asked to transform these updates into talks and make video recordings of each. Yesterday, with the help of our wonderful A/V folks, we recorded all four. I expect they will soon be posted on the parish website. I'm not certain, but I believe they will be posted individually, perhaps one per week over a series of weeks. I'll post the details here on this blog once I have them.

____________________


As we make our way through this challenging time, it’s easy to become focused solely on the pandemic. All those news conferences, the steady stream of statistics, the hourly statements of physicians, researchers, politicians, and media “experts” have left us numb. Shut up in our homes, inundated by all this virus information, we can forget that life and death, beyond the virus, continue. Let me explain. 

So far, and this will likely change, I have lost no relatives or close friends as a result of this virus. This is not to belittle the many lives that have been lost, or the many others who have become seriously ill. It is simply a fact. 

But in the past few weeks, I have lost several friends whose deaths were completely unrelated to the coronavirus. One succumbed after a long battle with cancer, another died as a result of a massive stroke, and a third from the effects of MS.

David Lyons, Jr.

But then, just yesterday, I read of the murder of a young man, David Lyons, a senior at South Sumter High School. He was gunned down in broad daylight in the streets of Wildwood, just a few blocks from the Wildwood Soup Kitchen where Diane and I have volunteered for 16 years.

It was there, in the soup kitchen, where we met first David a few years ago. He came to volunteer for a while and joined our Thursday team doing whatever was asked of him. A bright and likeable young man, we all thought the world of him. His loss has affected us deeply. We pray for his soul, for his family, and trust that those responsible for his death will be brought to justice.

Yes, indeed, life and death continue, as does God’s love for His people. This, too, sometimes escapes us when we are surrounded by so much tragedy. But now, in the midst of the Easter season, we are also reminded of God’s great gift to the world: His Divine Mercy. 

On April 19, the Second Sunday of Easter, we celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday, and I know many of you have been praying the Divine Mercy chaplet daily. This is a good thing to do, and I encourage you to continue. The other day, reading a few pages of St. Faustina’s Diary, I came across these words of Jesus:

“You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to absolve yourself from it" [Diary, 742].

Meditating on this command from Jesus, I couldn't help but recollect all those times when I have been less than merciful, those times when I looked the other way rather than confronting another's need head-on. Sadly, there were far too many instances, too many to count.

There's nothing new about this command; indeed, if it were new, we would have every right to suspect the validity of the visions and private revelations experienced by St. Faustina. True private revelation can do nothing but confirm and reinforce divine revelation as found in sacred scripture and apostolic tradition. And, of course, this same plea to mercy is stated explicitly in the Gospel: 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" [Mt 5:7].

We encounter this in greater detail when Jesus depicts the final judgment we will all experience [See Mt 25:31-46], a judgment focused on the mercy we have extended to each other.

As I reflected on Jesus' command, and on my own failure to obey it fully, I came to realize how grateful I am that we have a merciful, forgiving God, one who willingly forgives and forgets the sins of the repentant. In other words, our personal failure to extend mercy to others can be overcome by God's infinite mercy when we come to Him in true repentance. Without this gift of mercy and forgiveness none of us would be saved.

Whenever I become discouraged by my own failures, I turn to the Bible where we encounter not only the sins of those especially chosen by God, but also God’s mercy and forgiveness. Indeed, it’s the very humanity of those described in the Bible that convinces us of the truth of what we read. 

The lives of the patriarchs revealed in Genesis, for example, are what separate the Old Testament from the historical and spiritual writings of other ancient peoples. In the writings of other cultures, the failures and sinfulness of their human leaders rarely arise. According to most chronicles, the ancient kings and pharaohs, the priests and sages, were all near-perfect beings. They won every battle, they were always wise and just, and their children were perfect mirror images of themselves.

Among the ancients the only place we'll ever encounter two sons like Jacob and Esau is exactly where we find them, in the Bible: one, along with their mother, conniving and deceitful, and the other arrogant and foolish. And yet Jacob, with all his blemishes and sins, is one of the great patriarchs of our Judeo-Christian tradition.

Perhaps Jacob’s sons offer us one of the best examples of sinfulness in need of mercy and forgiveness, when out of envy they plan the murder of their brother, Joseph, and eventually sell him into slavery [Gen 37]. 

Joseph Sold into Slavery by His Brothers

We encounter this again and again. Consider David, the great king who also happened to be an adulterer and murderer [2 Sam 11]. David’s son, King Solomon, who neglected God's gift of wisdom, became enamored of foreign women (quite a few of them, actually), and turned to idolatry [1 Kgs 11]. And remarkably, these two kings, perhaps along with Hezekiah, Josiah, and a few others, were probably the best of the bunch.

So…What are we to think?

Well, in truth, we should thank God for the gift of the flawed men and women who fill the pages of God's Word; for what a gift they are to us! In these broken, oh-so-human lives we come face to face with God's enduring forgiveness. We come face to face with God's mercy.

If you worry about your family being mildly dysfunctional, just take a closer look at Abraham's, or Isaac's, or Jacob's. Despite all their problems, all their sinfulness, God's mercy just overflows into their lives. And God wants to shower you and those you love with that same outpouring of mercy.

Brothers and sisters, without God's mercy, we would be - what's the best word? ...We would be doomed! 

Without God's mercy our sins would overwhelm us. 

Without God's mercy, there would be no Incarnation, no redemptive sacrifice on the Cross, no Resurrection to offer us the hope of eternal life. 

Without God's mercy there is no salvation; for the Incarnation is the supreme act of mercy, the supreme act of our merciful, loving God.

He becomes one of us, He lives with us, He teaches us, He forgives us, He heals us, He loves us, and He suffers and dies for us. He does all of this for our salvation. He does all of this so we can be healed. That's right. Without God's mercy there can be no healing. And we are all, every single one of us, in need of healing, aren't we?

What about you? 

Are you in pain, physical pain, the kind that can scream at you, causing you to question God's love?

Do you suffer from illness, one of those devastating, fear-laden illnesses that makes prayer so very hard?

Have you been attacked by depression, or another spirit-draining affliction that seems to attack your very humanity?

Perhaps you are faced with a combination of many things, some little, some not so little, that overwhelm you and your ability to deal with them?

Or maybe you are simply afraid, afraid of the future, afraid of the unknown, afraid of death, and need the consolation of the gift of faith.

What kind of healing do you seek?

But what about the healing you actually need?

When we place ourselves at the foot of the Cross, when we look up at our crucified Lord, do we tear open our very being, do we rend our hearts exposing all to His merciful gaze? Do we come to Him, ready to die to self and sin? Looking at Him, do we find ourselves completely overwhelmed by this incomprehensible act of divine merciful love?

You see, brothers and sisters, I don't know the fulness of God’s plan for me, and I certainly don’t know God's plan for you...and neither do you. But I do know what He wants of both you and me.

He wants you, He wants me, He wants every single one of us to come to Him, to abandon ourselves to Him, to allow His will to move within our lives. 

But it's never easy to set aside our own willfulness and abandon ourselves to God's will. When our wills dominate, we end up broken; and yet it's through that brokenness that God call to us. This is another of the paradoxes surrounding God’s love. God knows when our need for His mercy, for His healing touch, is greatest.

At some point, though, we will all be broken physically, broken beyond repair. As St. Paul reminds us, our mortal bodies are just temporary dwellings:

“For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven. For in this tent we groan, longing to be further clothed with our heavenly habitation” [2 Cor 5 :1-2].

But, in the meantime, struggling through the trials of this life, we can easily slide into a kind of despair, thinking we're not deserving of God's mercy. We become like Peter who, when he suddenly comprehended the gulf between his sinfulness and God's greatness, could only say:

"Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man" [Lk 5:8].

But Jesus didn't depart, did He? In fact, it was then, at that very moment, that Jesus called Peter and the others to be Apostles, to be sent into the world, to be fishers of men.

So many, fully aware of their sinfulness, came to Jesus seeking healing; and there were others, sinful and repentant, whom Jesus actually seemed to seek out. 

Consider, for example, the woman caught in adultery whom Jesus saved from the mob of scribes and Pharisees that had planned to stone her to death. Once Jesus had turned the mob away, He said little to the woman. Their conversation was brief:

Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and do not sin again.” [Jn 8:10-11]

Knowing her heart, Jesus sees both her repentance and her thankfulness, and so extends His forgiveness, His mercy. On her part, she is called to change her life by following His command: “…do not sin again.”

Neither do I condemn you...

Here we see Jesus fulfilling the Law through the application of Divine Mercy. The disciples come to understand what Jesus meant when he began His ministry with the words:

“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” [Mk 1:15].

I’ve always liked that seemingly odd Gospel passage from Matthew when the disciples of John the Baptist question Jesus about fasting. It’s a brief passage:

Then the disciples of John approached him and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved” [Mt 9:14-17].

It’s an interesting passage, isn’t it? It’s really not so much about fasting as it is about the New Covenant that Jesus makes with us, “the time of fulfillment.” This New Covenant is not simply a patchwork on the old covenant; it's not old wine poured into old wineskins.

No, Jesus offers us to something wonderfully new, and He demands something new from us. He calls us to “repent” of our sinfulness, to “Go, and do not sin again.”

But there is more, much more. This newness is also the Gospel, the command to love God and to love each other as we love ourselves. That's right, brothers and sisters, we're to look beyond ourselves, to die to self and sin and live for the other. And we're to do all this even in the midst of hurt and grief and illness and pain, even in the midst of a pandemic that has turned our world upside-down.

Just as He called Peter and the Apostles, Jesus calls us in our brokenness. He calls us when illness and fear seem to overwhelm us. And He calls us in our sinfulness when our flaws are most apparent. It's then that our need for His mercy is greatest.

Flannery O'Connor

Among my favorite writers is Flannery O'Connor, who wrote so many wonderful stories of sinfulness and repentance, of forgiveness and mercy, and of redemption. A Georgia girl, she died in her late thirties due to complications resulting from lupus. It was a battle that lasted her entire adult life. While in the midst of all her suffering, she wrote some remarkable words in a letter to a friend:

"I have never been anywhere but sick. In a sense sickness is a place, a very instructive place, and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow. Sickness before death is a very appropriate thing and I think those who don't have it miss one of God's mercies" [The Habit of Being].

Have you ever thought of the afflictions of your life, of your need for healing, as a mercy? I know I never had. With the exception of appendicitis at the age of ten, my only serious illness was in my infancy, so I it’s hard for me to comprehend fully what Flannery O'Connor meant by those words. 


But our Lord certainly understands, for He reminds us always that fear has no place in the Christian's heart. And so, again, when we suffer, when we turn to God in prayer, what are we to do?

Joyce Kilmer

I really believe the first thing we should do is thank Him. 

Joyce Kilmer, the Catholic poet, and another of my favorites, was struck down by a sniper's bullet during World War One. But in the midst of his wartime experience, in the midst of the destruction and devastation and death in the trenches, he wrote a little poem called "Thanksgiving." 

     The roar of the world in my ears.
     Thank God for the roar of the world!
     Thank God for the mighty tide of fears
     Against me always hurled!

     Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife,
     And the sting of His chastening rod!
     Thank God for the stress and the pain of life,
     And Oh, thank God for God!

Brothers and sisters, that's exactly what we must do: just thank God for everything. 

Thank God for the joys and the pains of our lives. They are all gifts, even when they are beyond our understanding. 

Thank God for His Divine Mercy, for without it we would have no hope.

Yes, thank God for life itself. 

Then, today and every day, we can let Him focus on the healing. After all, He's pretty good at it.

Homily: 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C (Audio & Text)

Due to some technical issues, the video of this homily simply offers a view of the sanctuary. You cannot see the ambo or me. This is probably a good thing.

_____________

Readings: Is 66:18-21; Ps 117; Heb 12:5-7,11-13; Lk 13:22-30


When Isaiah proclaimed the remarkable prophecy we just heard in our first reading, the Jews of his time must have been shocked. From the time of Abraham they'd seen themselves as God's Chosen People...and indeed they were. But for what purpose were they chosen? They saw salvation as something only a few would experience, namely them. God's heavenly banquet would be for a select few.

Then they hear Isaiah, a prophet, speaking in God's name and telling them something very different. Isaiah describes a holy gathering where people of every nation of the world enter God's house. God invites all; all are brought into His presence; all worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and to all of them He reveals His glory.

But there's more. God tells Isaiah:

"Some of these I will take as priests and Levites" [Is 66:21].

And so, here in the depths of this Old Testament prophecy, we find Jesus Christ present; for it is Jesus who will institute a new priesthood, derived not from genealogy or inheritance, but from faith. It will be a priesthood that ministers to both Jew and Gentile, that takes the Word of God to the world, a priesthood founded by Christ Himself and made present through the apostles.

Isaiah is preparing God's people to accept the truth that God desires salvation for all - a desire later proclaimed by Jesus when He instructs the apostles to announce the Good News:

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always..." [Mt 28:19-20]

Yes, this is the new heaven and new earth that Isaiah speaks of later in this same prophecy, And how it must have shaken those who heard it, who no doubt asked, if only to themselves, "Is salvation really for all these people?"

Hundreds of years later, this same question is posed to Jesus in today's Gospel passage: 

"Lord, will only a few people be saved?"' [Lk 13:23]

Why did this unnamed person ask it? Is he simply asking, "Hey, Jesus, what are the odds I'll win the salvation lottery?" Or maybe, as a Jew he thought he had an inside track on salvation: he knew the Law, obeyed the rules, did all he was supposed to do as a sign of his justification. 

When you think of it this way, you can almost hear the complacency in the question, can't you? Or perhaps he was complacent because he knew Jesus: that as a disciple he thought he had it made, had walked by Jesus' side as He taught in the streets, had shared meals with Him. Wouldn't this be enough?

Whatever his reasons, I'm sure he was surprised when he didn't get a simple Yes or No answer. But it was really the wrong question. How many will be saved isn't the important thing. The important question, the one you and I should really be concerned about is: "How can we be saved?" And this is the question Jesus answers.

Divine Mercy

Your see, brothers and sisters, salvation is a gift. It's nothing you or I can earn; rather it's the result of Christ's saving sacrifice on the Cross. 

Although everyone is invited to share in God's Kingdom, accepting that invitation means obeying His call to repentance and struggling to do His Will. Thankfully, God's ways are so very different from ours. His judgment and His mercy are perfect. But they are so different that we always question.

Some years ago, at a vigil service for a parishioner who had just died, his wife spoke to me about him.

"He rarely went to Mass," she said. "He fought in two wars, and encountered unspeakable things. He saw a lot of death, some of it he caused himself. I think he spent a lifetime trying unsuccessfully to come to grips with it all. I know he hadn't gone to confession in years." And then she asked me, "How will God judge him?"

It's really the same question, isn't it: "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" It's seems to be a question we never cease asking.

About twenty years ago, I worked for a high-tech firm in New England. One morning a co-worker, one of our young salespeople, knowing I was deacon, asked if we could speak privately.

She began to talk about her older brother. He was her hero, a bright, talented, seemingly happy young man who could do no wrong in her eyes. He had a good job with a major public relations firm, and even talked about starting his own business one day soon. He seemed to be doing so well. 

But then, for reasons she could not understand, he turned to hard drugs. He became addicted. Within months he'd lost his job and had even been arrested in some drug buying sting operation. Then tragically, the week before, he died of an overdose, which they suspect was intentional.

"He was always so bright, so good, so kind, so helpful to everyone," she said. And then she asked, "Will Mark spend eternity in hell?"

Once again we hear it: "Lord, will only a few people be saved?"

How I answered isn't important. How Jesus answers is. Jesus takes this simple question and uses it to teach us about salvation. 

Yes, the door is narrow and we can't pin our hopes on being paid-up church-going people. And those words "depart from me" are a stark and chilling reminder that the stakes are high. 

But God in His mercy calls us...again, and again, and again. Only He knows what's in the human heart. And He shows us the way, if we only listen and respond. Or as we heard in today's 2nd reading from the Letter to the Hebrews: 

"...do not disdain the discipline of the Lord...for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines" [Heb 12:6]. 

It's no coincidence that the words discipline and disciple have the same Latin root: discere, to learn. His discipline is always a learning experience, but an experience delivered in love. 

When we ask that question - "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" - are we willing to accept His answer, His teaching, so we can learn true discipleship?

We don't fully understand this mystery of salvation, a salvation not limited by law, ritual, or our own expectations of who will or won't be saved. There is no formula for salvation.

Again, salvation is a gift from a God whose love is so expansive it includes the entire human family. 

Our God respects our freedom, takes our decisions seriously, and accepts the consequences of our decisions, even when we choose to reject Him. But this same loving God has a heart overflowing with mercy and forgiveness, always offering us His healing grace. 

Yes, we must do our part, but we shouldn't be too quick to condemn ourselves, and we certainly shouldn't condemn others.

Maybe when we're upset about the things we're getting wrong, we can count ourselves among the 'last' of Luke's Gospel and I suppose that's good. We just might be more likely to accept help, help from others, and God's help and forgiveness.

You and I are far from perfect but when the time comes I hope we'll be pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in God's presence, and perhaps also surprised by the others we'll meet there, just as they'll be surprised to see us.

We might well encounter that parishioner, plagued by his memories of those battlefields, who spent a life wrestling with his conscience and with God.

Or the young man who in his last moments turned to His Savior in repentance and thankfulness for the offer of salvation.

Yes, brothers and sisters, the stakes are high, and I know the last thing I want to hear from God is, "Depart from me" [Lk 13:27].

How much better to hear Him say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant...Come, share your master's joy" [Mt 25:23].

So, instead of judging others - those who seem so lost, whose lives are filled with pain - instead of judging them, let's do as Jesus commanded and simply love them, love them to the salvation Jesus wants for them.

And pray for them...for them and for those who have gone before us. When our prayers depart this time-ravaged world and enter God's eternity, their effects are beyond our imagining.