Homily for Friday, 31 August 2018– Ferial

Friday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time


Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 1:17-25; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 10-11; Matthew 25:1-13

This homily was given at St. James Church, Vernon, BC, Canada.

We pray today in our Psalm response, “The earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.” And, at least deep down, do we not know this to be true? We know the truth of the presence of the Lord in the goodness of his creation, of the earth and the universe, well enough that this truth is in some way what draws us here to worship as Church, many of us daily.

For many of us, is this truth, the goodness of God present in the world, not maybe more present in our everyday experience than for others? From the beginning of St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, from which we hear today, we might get the sense that St. Paul’s experience of the world and God’s presence in it is not the same as that of the earliest Christian community in Corinth. St. Paul addresses a prosperous Corinthian community that believes itself to be self-sufficient. The Corinthians are hostile to the apparently foolish message of St. Paul of allowing the power of the cross of Christ to speak for itself.

But the gospel the Corinthians of St. Paul’s time wanted to hear and many still want to hear today, is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel St. Paul preaches, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is ridiculous to the Corinthians of his time and today’s proponents of the so-called “prosperity gospel,” a gospel wherein the rich and self-sufficient are blessed and the poor cursed.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not cynically deny that, as our Psalm says, truly “the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.” But the Gospel of Jesus Christ, most often best preached not by the most eloquent or showy, but by everyday unheralded people (and I do not doubt many of us saints), is a Gospel of God’s goodness and presence in the world that transforms the world.

Neither does the Gospel of Jesus Christ deny the evil in the world; the evil perpetrated by members of the Church and even of its leadership. No, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news, at its heart, that even the worst possible evil will not have the last word. God will have the last word.

This emboldens St. Paul to preach the raw power of “the cross of Christ” to the Corinthians. “The cross of Christ” stands as the worst evil this world has ever known, the Son of God put to death as a criminal. But the cross of Christ also stands as the greatest witness to how full the world is of God’s goodness.

If this paradox—the world’s greatest evil is also the greatest-ever witness to God’s goodness—sounds ridiculous, it is. But, for many of us perhaps, this paradox resonates with our experience. Despite the violence in our world, the wars, the people forced from their homelands, the abuse of vulnerable people, we still believe and hope enough in God’s goodness to be here to worship our God.

This looks like foolishness to much of the world. We gather here, and I speak here now, with no special eloquence or wisdom. We gather here because we believe in a Gospel of Jesus Christ that includes and yet overcomes the cross. We believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which alone transforms the greatest evil into the good that saves us, “the goodness of the LORD” that has always filled the world.

Homily for Thursday, 12 March 2015‒ Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 7:23-28; Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Luke 11:14-23

Have any of us ever been so frustrated with somebody else’s poor choices or bad habits that we have been close to giving up on this person?

We hear through Jeremiah in our first reading of a God who is perhaps on the cusp of giving up on God’s people; the people of Israel. Instead of following God’s commandments, “From the day that [their] fathers left the land of Egypt… they… stiffened their necks and [did] worse than their fathers.” God also says to Jeremiah that the people of Israel are so mired in evil that “they will not listen to you either.” God has all but given up on Israel. They will be left to the consequences of their evil; left under the power of other nations.

The same could be said of Jesus toward the crowds in our Gospel reading today who had seen him cast out a demon. Jesus appears to have all but given up on those who say, “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Jesus leaves them to the consequences of their divisive, evil attitude: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

I think the key words are “all but”: God all but gives up on the people of Israel in Jeremiah; Jesus all but gives up on the stubborn crowds who accuse him of channeling Satan’s power. God may all but give up on some especially wicked people in our own time, but we are promised that, as frustrated as God may become with human evil, God will never give up on us. And we are urged to act as God acts; not to give up on one another, as frustrating as another’s poor choices or habits, or even the state of our world, so full of violence and a lack of mercy, may become to us.

How can we be so confident that God never gives up on us? We can be confident in this if we listen attentively to our readings today. God has the prophet Jeremiah rebuke the people of Israel as “the nation that does not listen to the voice of the LORD, its God.” Even so, God has sent these people Jeremiah. And God will send still more prophets to them after Jeremiah. God never gives up on the people of Israel, no matter how wicked and hard-hearted they have become.

Finally, God has sent us Jesus. No matter how wicked we become (this is certainly no excuse to test God; we understand this); no matter how many times we have sinned, God sent us his only Son to live as one of us in all but sin, to die for us; to rise and to ascend to heaven for us; to save us. God will never give up on us.

God invites us, then, not to give up on one another. God invites us not to give up on ourselves and on God; not to think any of our sins are so great as to be beyond God’s mercy. Instead, God calls us to respond with hearts open to mercy; to forgiveness toward one another, toward ourselves, and toward our world.

Homily for Tuesday, 3 March 2015‒ Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Isaiah 1:10, 16-20; Psalm 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21, 23; Matthew 23:1-12

Is there any way to soften the harshness of our readings today? Perhaps this is the wrong question to ask. And yet today our Liturgy of the Word presents us with two of the most scathing criticisms of people supposedly of faith, of religious authorities especially, in the entire Bible. Are not our readings today difficult for us to hear? They are shocking and also challenging to me as a priest!

Our first reading, from Isaiah, is a tale of two nations, or the same nation present and future. The nation present, Israel of Isaiah’s time, is prosperous but has forgotten the prime importance of justice toward the least well-off: the poor, “the wronged… the orphan” and “the widow.” Could I say that, without trivializing the problem of addiction and substance abuse in our own society, the people of Israel of Isaiah’s time had become addicted to injustice? Isaiah forewarns his people that they, like an addict, will hit rock bottom if they persist in evil, oppression, and injustice toward those most in need.

But Isaiah’s message is unsuccessful at first; Israel hits rock bottom. Only then will the people, the nation future, possibly be willing to listen to Isaiah. And so we hear the second half of our reading: “Come now; let us set things right.” Sins that were once “like scarlet” and “crimson red” may now become “white as snow” or “as wool.” God waits with open arms and heart of mercy to lift the sinner, the addict to evil habits, oppression, and injustice, up from rock bottom. Do we accept God’s mercy when we have sinned; misused our prosperity; not acted justly toward the least well off: The working poor; the migrant or refugee; the unemployed; the homeless person? Or do we allow ourselves to hit rock bottom? Do we allow “the sword to consume” us?

And Jesus is just as scathing as Isaiah before him toward “the scribes and the Pharisees” of his time. They have become prosperous and proud of their teaching position, seated “on the chair of Moses”; guardians of religious law. They have taken fancy titles, “places of honor at banquets” and in places of worship. They wear garments that draw attention to themselves instead of toward God as these “tassels” and “phylacteries,” which contained short passages of Scripture for prayer and meditation, were intended. The “scribes and Pharisees” will not help others to observe the religious law, and in fact make the law more difficult for all to observe.

Are not the same temptations present in our world and even in our Church? I am challenged to pray constantly that I do not succumb to any prestige of the priesthood, of ordained leadership in our Church.

I ask all of us: Pray for me. I ask us to pray for our society’s leaders; for one another. Prosperity, prestige, wealth, power: These are not in and of themselves bad. But without recourse to God’s grace and mercy, these can pave the way to rock bottom; to addiction to injustice; to consumption by “the sword” in Isaiah’s words. With God’s grace and mercy, these can be used justly; rightly; to benefit especially those in most need.