Homily: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

I have embedded a video of my homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C). The full text of the homily follows:

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Readings: Wis 9:13-18; Ps 90; Phmn 9-10,12-17; Lk 14:25-33
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For several weeks now, Jesus has given us some hard teachings. He certainly hasn't minced words has he? 

Perhaps before we attempt to grasp what Jesus is telling us in today's Gospel passage from Luke, we should consider the opening words of our first reading from the Book of Wisdom:

"For what man can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what the Lord wills? For the reasoning of mortals is worthless, and our designs are likely to fail" [Wis 9:13-14].  

In effect we're told that without God's help, without His revelation, we cannot understand His will for us, His plan for our salvation. We must, then, set aside our own human judgments, our own worldly concerns, and listen to what God is telling us. Too often we filter the words of Jesus through the lens of our humanity, forgetting that God's ways are very different from the ways of our world. 

Of course, this is nothing new. Remember how Our Lord rebuked Peter when the apostle tried to lead Jesus away from the Cross? How did Jesus respond?

"Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men" [Mt 16:23].

Believe me, like Peter, you and I can get caught up in our world, a world that colors so much of our thinking. It's hard to avoid it, especially today, so pervasive, so intrusive is the world in our lives. The great crowds surrounding Jesus might not have had the Internet, but they were plagued by their own set of worldly influences.

Interestingly, the fact that Jesus drew such crowds really bothered some folks, especially the self-important folks. That, too, hasn't changed much. Pope St. John Paul II visited 129 countries during his papacy, and drew huge crowds everywhere. I once heard a grumpy bishop say, "This pope probably travels too much. It might be better if he stayed in Rome and paid more attention to the Church."

St. John Paul, of course, knew that the Church isn't a collection of Vatican buildings and the people who occupy them. No, the Church is far more expansive; it fills the earth because Jesus called us to "Make disciples of all nations..." [Mt 28:19]. Like Jesus, St. John Paul traveled on his road, calling us all to discipleship.

But I wonder what that Galilean crowd thought when they heard these words of Jesus?

"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" [Lk 14:26].

Maybe a more important question is, what do you and I think when we hear these words? 

Most people are troubled by the use of the word "hate" which seems to violate the very heart of Christian teaching. But we shouldn't get too bothered by the effects of translations. It's actually more accurate to understand hate in this sense as meaning "love less." This becomes clear when we read Matthew's account of this same teaching by Jesus:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me." [Mt 10:37-38]

Here we seem to find words we can accept...but, in truth, we really don't accept them, do we? Or perhaps I should say, how we live our lives doesn't always reflect an acceptance of Jesus' teaching.

Jesus is actually telling His budding disciples what their discipleship is all about. He'd just called His twelve apostles and they were together on the road, making their way through the towns and villages of Galilee. But, as Luke tells us, they were joined by great crowds, who followed Jesus. 

It was to all of these that Jesus revealed something of God's will, the divine intention, and He did so through a pair of brief parables. On the surface the parables seem to address the construction of farm buildings and the tactics of waging war, but like every parable their true meaning is much deeper. 

Jesus was really describing the cost of discipleship, that if we hope to follow Him we'd better first calculate that cost. Are you willing, He asks the disciples, to accept the cost of placing God first in your life?

This wasn't new to believing Jews since it was proclaimed in the Shema' - the very foundation of Jewish faith, introduced by Moses with the words:

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength" [Dt 6:4].

The problem is, you and I and that crowd of Galileans are so wrapped up in the realities of this world, so close to them, it's easy for us sinners to put these created realities first, to put them ahead of God. No! the Shema' tells us: God, the Creator of all that is good, must be first.

And now, speaking to the crowds, Jesus applied this revealed truth to Himself - that to be God's disciple is to be His disciple. Once more He reveals His divinity, providing more ammunition to the Pharisees. But Jesus is focused on the people.

The Cost of Discipleship

Are you willing, He asks them and us, to place your love for me above the love you have for those in the world who are most precious to you?

Do you understand that loving God must be a sacrificial love, that other loves in your life must never come first?

To follow Jesus isn't simply to tag along behind Him. To follow Him is to become a living image of Jesus...but even more than that, it means being wherever Jesus is, serving Him by doing whatever Jesus happens to be doing. It means being like Mary, whose birthday we celebrate today, being the perfect disciple, always looking to Jesus.

To do what Jesus does: to bring comfort and healing to the sick, to feed the hungry, to forgive those who have hurt you, to see God's presence in every person you encounter.

To love beyond your family and friends, beyond those you're expected to love. To love less your own life and love more the lives of others.

It's not about me bringing Jesus into my life, but the exact opposite: it's about letting Jesus rule me. St. Paul said it best: 

"I live no longer I, but Christ who lives in me" [Gal 2:20].

Jesus calls us to understand what He is asking of us before we commit our lives to Him. He wants disciples who know and accept the cost, disciples who follow full-heartedly. The half-hearted, the lukewarm, need not apply.

Embrace the Gospel, He calls to us, embrace it without compromise; and this can be frightening. It demands we set aside our own plans, that we abandon ourselves in trust to the will of God.

Yes, it can be frightening, and overcome by fear or by false pride many turn away from God. Others, motivated by a false humility, do the same, unable to accept the unconditional love of God. 

Once again Simon Peter provides an example. On the day He first perceived, if only vaguely, the Lord's divinity, he fell down in that boat, fell before Jesus and said:

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

Depart from me, Lord

To love God in His perfection is also to recognize our own imperfections, our own sinfulness. Peter had gone this far, but hadn't yet tasted God's mercy. Soon enough, though, Peter witnessed God's forgiveness, and personally experienced the Divine Mercy Jesus showers on the repentant. 

Discipleship is not easy; indeed, it's so difficult we can't do it alone. Jesus knows this and promises to walk the road with us, just as He walked with the twelve along the hard roads of Galilee on His way to Jerusalem, on His way to the Cross and our salvation.

He wants to walk by our side, brothers and sisters, to be your strength and my strength.

He wants to make the impossible possible.

Homily: 9th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Dt 11:18,26-28,32; Ps 31; Rom 3:21-25,28; Mt 7:21-27

Words, words, words...The readings we just heard are really all about words…well, about words and the Word. Today we’re inundated with words – words in print, broadcast words, televised words, internet words, words of telemarketers, robo calls, emails, voice mails, text messages, tweets – words pouring down on us from every direction.

We blog, we tweet, we befriend complete strangers on Facebook, we share our photos on Flickr, our videos on YouTube…all of it encased in words. We carry phones in our pockets and purses, or attached to our belts.  Bluetooth receivers hang from our ears, constantly collecting words from everyone we know.

At home we have phones and TVs and PCs in every room, even the bathroom. Our homes and cars and offices and briefcases and backpacks all have their own laptops or netbooks or iPads. And we walk through our lives with the words of our favorite music streaming through little earbuds stuck in our ears, blocking other words and worlds from disturbing us. And words, as they expand and multiply, are much like any other commodity; they become increasingly valueless.

Lovers utter words of binding love, words of commitment at the foot of the altar, and then follow them with the big words, the legal words of separation and divorce that try to break what cannot be broken.

Politicians love words too. They want our trust, hoping we’ll trust in the untrustworthy, asking us to believe they’ll always strive for the good even when they don’t. And how many of us offer them our trust, shifting our allegiance, our faith, from God to man?

Others change words, distorting them, substituting them, all the while hoping we won’t notice. To kill the most innocent becomes a choice. To murder the old and the ill becomes dignity. And in all of this, as we drown in this flood of words and distortions, of the words of this world, we cease listening to The Word.

Moses realized this over 3,000 years ago. That’s why, in our first reading from Deuteronomy, he told the people: “Take these words of mine into your heart and soul. Bind them at your wrist as a sign, and let them be a pendant on your forehead.” Yes, Moses pleads with God’s people: Don’t forget these words, this Word of God Himself.

What were these words of Moses, this Word of God that is so important? They’re the words of the Shemá, the words pious Jews pray when they wake and as they go to sleep, the first prayer a Jew learns as a child, and the last prayer he utters as he dies:

”Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One, and you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.”

Moses lays out a choice, a real choice before the people: choose a blessing or a curse, a way of faith or a way of disobedience, a way of love and life or a way of death. This Word, this choice, still applies, for all of us; because Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, enshrined it as the greatest of commandments. But Jesus doesn’t leave it there, for He doesn’t just repeat the Law; He fulfills it. Jesus, the Word, opens God’s Word for us, showing us the will of the Father.

It can be a bit unnerving, can’t it? No matter how hard we try, the words, the Word, won’t just go away. It’s there before us in its stark reality. And here, today, in this Gospel passage before us, it’s a word of judgment. It tells us that our words, the words of the world, really aren’t all that important: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,”

It’s not the words, is it? It’s not the saying of words. Well, then what is it?  “…but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

Does the will of my Father…It’s the doing. But, even then, it’s not all the doing. “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’”

And as I hear these words, I certainly don’t condemn you, brothers and sisters. No, I turn my glance and my thoughts inward, trying to measure myself against God’s Word. Lord, Lord, did I not preach in your name? Did I not heal, and teach, and bury, and baptize…all in your name?

But that’s not the doing our Lord wants from me or from you…at least not all. He wants more, much more. He wants the doing of the Father’s will, the fulfillment of His commandment to love.

Warning us against self-deception, he wants us to turn inward in our understanding of self. Warning against a distorted self-love, he calls us to turn outward in expressing our love for God and one another. We must listen to these warnings, because Jesus is the judge, the decider, the one who will welcome or deny. And there are words none of us wants to hear: “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.”

Jesus, you see, knows His disciples and they know Him. Does He know you? Does He know me? And do we really know Him?

Yes, as Paul tells us in the 2nd reading today, it is through the gratuitous gifts of faith and God’s grace that we are justified. But God’s grace doesn’t free us from obedience; no, it is Christ’s fulfillment of the Law, the New Law, that lives within us, His disciples. And it is the Holy Spirit that moves within us, bringing us to knowledge of Father and Son. It is Christ’s presence working with us, through the Holy Spirit, that forms the firm foundation of which Jesus speaks, the foundation that protects us from life’s storms.

Ssalvation is a gift, but you and I can reject God’s gifts. We can reject His love. For God respects our freedom. He allows us to choose, to make the same choice Moses placed before the children of Israel: a choice of blessing or curse. Eternal loss, then, is certainly possible.

The life Christ wants for each of us here and now is nothing less than a challenge: How do I receive the gift? How do I let Jesus Christ into my life? How can I know the way to salvation?

You and I must be like a small child who’s been given a wondrous toy, who clutches it against his breast, holding it tightly for fear it will be taken away – this is how, childlike, we should treasure the gift of Jesus Christ. For as Jesus told Thomas at the Last Supper:

“Where I am going you know the way...I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

What is the way? Nothing less than our Christian faith and the struggle to put that faith into practice by loving God and our neighbor. We can’t do it on our own, and so through the grace of the sacraments God gives us mercy, and Spirit, and forgiveness, and healing, and the very gift of Himself in the Eucharist.

And the truth? Why, it’s the Good News of Jesus Christ! It’s the truth of Jesus’ promise, borne out and proven by His resurrection.

And the life? Oh, the life is eternal life, the fruit of Jesus’ promise. It’s the understanding that we’re here for a purpose: to do the Father’s will so that we may spend an eternal life of happiness with Him.

And so don’t let God’s Word, the mystery of His love, be drowned out by the words of the world. Lent begins only a few days from now. Don’t let it slip by unnoticed. Take some time every day to hide yourself from the noise of the world, from the cacophony of meaningless words, and listen to God’s Word working within you.

As God spoke to us through the words of the psalmist:

“Be still and know that I am God.”