Homily for Sunday, 19 December 2020– Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C

Readings of the day: Micah 5: 1-4a; Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

The “rags-to-riches” motif is one of the more common ones in storytelling, because it resonates, does it not, with our heartfelt human inclination to encourage the heroic underdog to overcome the odds against her or him. In reality, these kinds of scenarios may be less common than we would like them to be: So many poor, maligned, marginalized people remain poor, maligned, and marginalized in our world. But occasionally some people overcome all odds against them, or at least they become the heroes of their stories or of pivotal moments in the greater history of our world or a society, or they keep other people from suffering the same marginalization as they have.

From the word of God, we hear today from the prophet Micah. Maybe the most memorable verse from Micah, at least for me, is his admonition about what the LORD requires of his people: “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” I especially love this verse from Micah because it does not only exhort the people of Israel (and us) to act with justice, kindness, and humility. The Hebrew words Micah uses, which are notoriously difficult to translate but that we hear in English as justice, kindness (or mercy), and walking humbly, apply attributes of God to the people: Do justice, because God is just; love kindness, because God is kind and merciful; and, maybe most strikingly, “walk humbly with your God,” who walks humbly with us.

This verse, Micah 6:8, portrays God himself, and God’s prophet Micah, as by nature just, kind, merciful, and humble. And Micah is known as just that: A just, kind, merciful and, above all, humble prophet. Micah lived and preached at the same time in Israel’s history as much more famous prophets than he: Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. These other prophets were from Jerusalem (in Isaiah’s case) or small towns. Micah, though, was from the countryside, between the downslope of the Judean mountains away from Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea coast. Other prophets preached to kings; Micah was the prophet of the common people.

And the part of the Book of Micah we hear today, Biblical experts say, may not have been his but an interpolation or insertion of a text from another, even more anonymous prophet. How is that for a humble situation, that of the prophet Micah? And his message today is one of the humble becoming great. Not from big, showy Jerusalem, with its mountains and its temple, but from little Bethlehem, the “house of bread” in Judah, the economic “have not” region of Israel in Micah’s time, would arise a great king in David’s line: “One who is to rule Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.”

We Christians have traditionally understood this prophecy of a great ruler in David’s line from little Bethlehem in light of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. And that is fine. Our Gospels often connect Jesus with the Davidic line of kings of Israel. But Micah looks back into Israel’s history in order to look forward, too. Micah’s references to David today are clear: David was a native of Bethlehem. He was a humble, obscure shepherd before slaying the giant Goliath and inheriting the throne of Israel. The ruler of Micah’s prophecy, like King David, will be a shepherd from Bethlehem. And, Micah says, while the king of whom he prophesies rules, he will return to be on a level ground with the common people; he will rule precisely by shepherding: “And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.”

The Psalmist carries on Micah’s shepherd-king contrast: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.” Here God himself is depicted as a shepherd and, at the same time, a heavenly and mighty ruler. God is mighty in his humility, and humble in his might. If we are to be anything like God, we are called, as Micah once said, to “walk humbly with [our] God,” because our mighty God walks humbly with us.

Our mighty God was born, humbly, to us in Bethlehem yet again, in the person of Jesus. This Jesus, shepherd-ruler of the universe, was born into a stable; a manger where animals eat, in Bethlehem, as a vulnerable human baby. We are less than one week from celebrating the birth of this shepherd-king who has saved this universe, sisters and brothers, by choosing to walk humbly with us and inviting us to walk humbly, justly, kindly with him and among one another.

If God’s humility is shown to us in the Nativity of Jesus, it is shown that much more in Jesus’ giving of his life for us on the cross. When I was in my first parish as a priest, St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Rochester, New York, one of my favourite liturgical elements during this time of Advent and Christmas was the conclusion of the Prayer of the Faithful (or General Intercessions), which reminded us how “the wood of the cradle” was fundamentally connected to “the wood of the cross.” May we always remember this connection, sisters and brothers.

The letter to the Hebrews today reminds us, in a way, of this same connection of the wood of the cradle and the wood of the cross; of Bethlehem to Calvary. Hebrews draws on the Psalms and prophetic writings, especially those of Isaiah, and places them on the tongue of Jesus: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me… See, God, I have come to do your will.”

I admit that Hebrews’ reflection on sacrifice is challenging to me personally: Not only that Jesus made the ultimate, saving sacrifice of himself on the cross, but that doing God’s will, in an ambiguous sense in our reading, somehow replaces or “abolishes” the need and the value of religious acts of sacrifice. Even our Eucharistic celebration is often called “the holy sacrifice of the Mass.” I do not think, then, that Hebrews is saying that what we celebrate here is worthless. By no means! But any religious ritual, including our Eucharist, can only have meaning if it is God’s will for us. And Jesus, at his Last Supper, commanded his disciples, “Take and eat… Take this cup and drink from it… Do this in memory of me.” This is how we know that our Eucharist is God’s will for us. In our Eucharist, we celebrate a historical action by Jesus, his sacrifice of himself through his passion and death on the cross, that is finished and past. We make it perpetually real and present through our memorial of Jesus’ passion and death, Jesus’ once-forever sacrifice, but that sacrifice can never be replicated or outdone.

This is the surpassing humility of God that we remember and celebrate here: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired… See, God, I have come to do your will… Do this in memory of me.” It is the surpassing humility of God that impelled the preaching of Micah about a shepherd-king to arise from little, insignificant Bethlehem; a shepherd-king who would save Israel; humankind; the entire created universe. It is the surpassing humility of God that impelled the song of the Psalmist that called upon the LORD: “Stir up your might, and come to save us.”

And it was the surpassing humility of God, whom the Virgin Mary carried within her in human form, as she “went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country” to visit and care for Elizabeth, also pregnant, with John the Baptist. Luke’s Gospel gives us many sublimely beautiful words and images today. Luke gives us Elizabeth’s greeting, on which part of our “Hail, Mary” is based: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth is described as “filled with the Holy Spirit,” as Mary was from the moment she conceived Jesus at the Annunciation. John leaps with joy in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greets them.

But maybe the most moving moment of today’s Gospel for me is in Elizabeth’s question to Mary: “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me”? Elizabeth was not lacking in humility, by any means. But this event, the Visitation and these last days of preparation for the Nativity of the Lord, are greater than Elizabeth. These events are greater than us. They are greater than a simple lowliness-to-riches scenario. We could ask the same question as Elizabeth does: “Why has this happened to us, that our Lord has chosen to be born as one of us, to come to us through the Virgin Mary, through a humble manger in Bethlehem”?

This event is all about God’s humility: That not only would God send his Son into our world in this way to save us, but that now God regards us, little and insignificant though we are (if we think about it), as fit to do his will: To feed his flock (that is, one another); to act with justice and kind mercy; to “walk humbly with our God,” if only because God has chosen to walk humbly as one of us.

Homily for Sunday, 1 September 2019

Readings of the day: Sirach 3:17-18; Psalm 68:4-5, 6-7, 10-11; Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a; Luke 14:1, 7-14

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

What is humility? Is it possible to be confident yet still humble? In 1980, Mac Davis began his song with the sassy lyrics, “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble.” But none of us (including, I dare say, Mac Davis, despite the second tongue-in-cheek line of his song) have the luxury of being “perfect in every way.” So what exactly is humility?

Our readings today from the Book of Sirach and Luke’s Gospel prize the virtue of humility. What other virtues go together with humility, or could help us to understand what humility is and to practice it? Sirach plays on the apparent paradox between humility and greatness; being “lofty and renowned” yet humble. Even the Lord himself, Sirach says, is mighty, “but by the humble he is glorified.”

Do we often think of God as humble, or glorified especially when we are humble? Sirach goes on to connect humility with intelligence, attentiveness, and wisdom. How are humility, intelligence, attentiveness, and wisdom interconnected? Imagine this: Have we ever consulted an expert on something we knew little about? Have we ever taken time to ask an expert or a teacher questions, and then listen and dialogue for the sheer joy of broadening or deepening our knowledge? How many of us have listened to somebody in a difficult situation in life, or cared for somebody vulnerable or in need in any one of a variety of ways?

I have limited experience with monastic religious orders, but the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict, on which the Rules of many religious orders, in and outside of monasteries, have been based, begins with a very important verb: “Listen.” St. Benedict considered attentive listening, inclination “of the heart,” to be critical to the community life among the monks under his guidance; their rhythm of work and prayer for which Benedictines are known. The abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico reflects on the reading we hear from Sirach today about how wisdom is connected to attentive listening. “Wisdom is not an intellectual activity,” the abbot says. “No, it is the gift of knowing how to live well in every situation while maintaining our deepest values.” And to discern what is most true, what is right, what “our deepest values” should be “in every situation”; to encounter God “in every situation” means to know “how to keep still and keep silence.” The abbot of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert suggests that, “as a practical spiritual exercise, today we might try to be still and silent and just listen to others and see what that listening does to us interiorly.”

How many of us have experienced that, the more attentively we listen or care for another person, interiorly we absorb the needs or concerns of the other person. Our needs, in the moment, often become secondary to those of the other person. It is in these situations when I have been the most at peace in ministry as a priest, when ministry is least about me and most about the other and about encountering God in the other person. These experiences of encounter with God in and through another person are made possible by attentive listening. These experiences also require humility: Ministry; listening attentively is not about me first but about another person, and ultimately about God first.

Humility, then, is the key to “our deepest values”; the key to relationship with our God who is mighty, “but by the humble he is glorified.” So humility has nothing to do with a lack of self-confidence or downplaying our natural talents. Our talents, after all, are from God. But, paradoxically, the more naturally talented or intelligent we are, the wiser we will be the more we can be still and listen, when caring for another person; when we are at prayer, especially for the needs of others. So wisdom, far from “an intellectual activity,” is a virtue, the twin virtue of humility, which is at its greatest when we listen for and attentively seek the Lord’s presence in others, because, again paradoxically, the mightier God is, the humbler God is. And the same is true of God as of us. For God, not God’s greatest might for might’s sake but our best interest, our salvation, is God’s greatest glory.

Jesus’ parable we hear today gives us another image of what humility is about. For Sirach, wisdom and humility are about the encounter with God through attentive listening and care for others. For Jesus, humility is to leave the position of greatest social status to another. The images of humility that Sirach and Jesus, through Luke’s Gospel, offer us today are complementary. Who among us has heard it said that human beings are both sacred and social? Sirach focuses more on the sacred dimension of human nature; Jesus in Luke’s Gospel today focuses more on our social dimension, but these two dimensions of our human nature go together.

Jesus was probably no stranger to being invited to dine with the social elites of his time. Today’s Gospel reading finds Jesus invited “to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath.” Presuming that, at this meal with the leading Pharisee, Jesus was a respected guest (since our Gospel reading does not say otherwise), can we not easily imagine Jesus’ host offering Jesus himself the place of honour at table? How would Jesus act in this situation? Would he not have acted as he teaches in his parable, taking “the lowest place” and waiting for his host to invite him up to a place of higher status?

In any case. Jesus turns social convention on its head with his parable we hear today through Luke. Take “the lowest place” at table and wait to be invited “up higher,” Jesus says. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or rich neighbours,” but first “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” those who cannot repay your act of kindness and humility.

In truth, this would neither be the first nor the last time Jesus would take the place of least status. The meal we hear about today would be the last time in Luke’s Gospel when Jesus would dine in a Pharisee’s home; the last time he would maybe have been offered the place of highest status at table. But Jesus was born into this world in the humblest place, a manger in Bethlehem. And he would again take the humblest, indeed the most humiliating place, on a cross, where he would die for us. This act of utmost humility is our only way to salvation. And, as a sign of this promise to us of salvation, the exalted place with God that awaits us to the extent we humble ourselves, Jesus would be raised from the dead, but he had to die on a cross first.

He had to, many times during his life, turn our social conventions of status and prestige on their head. “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” It will forever be hard for us “to be humble”; humility is a difficult virtue to define, much less to practice. Yet Jesus proposes what the wisdom of people like Sirach did for centuries before him, and what holy people inspired by Jesus have proposed since: Humility, intentionally placing others and ultimately God first, especially those who are the most in need, the most vulnerable, or the least reputed socially; listening attentively to the needs of others, is key to living up to our God-given human nature, both sacred and social.

We have already been created in God’s image and likeness. There can be no place of greater status than this; no greater prestige our world can offer. The measure to which we are humble, inspiring others by our words and actions to know how much dignity they have before God as creatures in God’s image and likeness, is the measure to which we will be exalted. We will know everlasting communion with our God, who is mighty and glorious beyond our comprehension precisely because he is humble. Indeed, our God is the source of the humility by which we will be saved.

Homily for Wednesday, 28 August 2019– Memorial of St. Augustine of Hippo

Readings of the day: 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Psalm 139:7-8, 9-10, 11-12ab; Matthew 23:27-32

Wednesday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time

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

The Psalmist asks God today, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence”? This question in our Psalm today is, of course, rhetorical; there is no way we may flee from the presence of God and God’s all-knowing spirit. But we should have no need to flee from God, either. God knows we are weakened by the effects of sin. Still, God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem and save us, not waiting for us to save ourselves (which is impossible), but encountering us and lifting us from our present state: Good, because after all we are created in God’s image, but corrupted by sin.

There is no point in trying to flee from God, but do we not try to do so from time to time anyway, when we know we have done wrong and are ashamed or afraid of the consequences of our wrongdoing? The saint we celebrate today, Augustine of Hippo, knew something about the futility of trying to flee from God. Before he became one of the most beloved saints and most prolific Christian writers of all time, a bishop and a doctor of the Church (which means that the teaching value of a saint’s writings is especially recognized by our Church), Augustine spent many years trying to flee from God.

In trying to turn himself away from his wild youth, Augustine experimented with philosophical movements that diminished the goodness of the physical human body, understanding it to be the source of the evil, especially sexual evil, within us. But at this point Augustine was still far from God. In his Confessions, Augustine even admits to having prayed during this time in his life, “God, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

So Augustine spent much of his youth running and trying to flee from God. But God, in an especially spectacular way (but not an unprecedented way, since there are many saints like Augustine whom God found and turned from their sin), caught up to Augustine. Again, in his Confessions, Augustine includes the prayer that reflects God’s persistence in bringing him to conversion: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient yet ever new… You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you… You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness… I have tasted you; now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”

As a bishop, Augustine reasoned against the Pelagians, who argued that we could will our own salvation without God’s grace. Augustine taught that the effects of “original” sin, while not negating the goodness of our human nature, created in God’s image and likeness, have made our will, incapable of achieving our salvation without God’s grace. Augustine knew this truth from experience.

There is no point in behaving as hypocrites, in the way the religious leaders of Jesus’ time did and whom Jesus rebukes in our Gospel today. Jesus rebukes the pride and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes, who lorded their social prestige over people they perceived to be inferior; more sinful than they. In fact, this hypocrisy was just another way to try to flee from God.

What Jesus knew and taught because he is God, Augustine had to learn and live by experience: It is futile for us to run from God. God will find us. God will redeem us, and we, like Augustine, will burn for God’s eternal peace.