Homily for Sunday, 4 September 2016

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Wisdom 9:13-18b; Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14-17; Philemon 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14:25-33

This homily was given at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Rochester, NY.

What would we be willing to give up in order to be disciples of Jesus Christ? What should we reasonably expect being disciples of Jesus Christ to cost us?

We might imagine ourselves among the “great crowds” that Luke says “were traveling with Jesus.” At one point, where today’s Gospel reading begins, Jesus stops and speaks to these “great crowds” about the demands of being his disciple; of continuing to follow him. But here Jesus does not speak in terms of what is required to be among his disciples: Do this, go there, take this with you… No, Jesus speaks in terms of “non-starters”; of what any would-be disciple of his would need to give up in order to follow him. First, Jesus says, “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.” Even if we understand “hating” not as an intense dislike toward another person or thing but, in its rightful sense in Jesus’ time, to mean “to turn away or detach one’s self from” somebody or something, this saying of Jesus still sounds harsh. Who here would be willing to leave behind all our loved ones; our friends; our family immediately and forever, even if doing so were the only way to be a true disciple of Jesus? Who here would not hesitate to give up life itself to follow Jesus? 

I suspect that to leave behind the people dearest to us immediately and forever would be difficult for most if not all of us. And, as if giving up our loved ones and even our lives is not enough to be Jesus’ disciples, Jesus says that anybody who “does not carry his own cross and come after [him] cannot be [his] disciple.” Not only does Jesus expect us, in order to be his disciple, to leave behind the people dearest to us and even to give up our lives, but Jesus expects us to be ready to lay down our lives in the most shameful way possible. It is true that Jesus would go on to die this kind of shameful death on a cross, yet even Jesus, God in human flesh, would pray to our Father to “take this cup from” him,  “but not my will but yours be done,” so horrifying was the suffering he would undergo for us. Could Jesus reasonably expect the cross to be a minimal requirement to be his disciple?

Can we not imagine now the “great crowds… traveling with Jesus” beginning to thin?  After all, Jesus’ demands of any would-be disciple go against his earlier teachings on the dignity and value of human relationships;  of life itself.  And yet Jesus continues to speak:  “Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

Already Jesus seems to be softening his message, if only slightly. If we are unable to leave behind the people we love most; if we are not quite ready to give up our lives for Jesus, then at least some of us may be able to part with our material possessions. Then again (I speak for myself and probably everybody who belongs to a religious order), I have not yet been able to detach myself from many material possessions, and I am under a vow of poverty.

And so what does Jesus truly expect of anybody who would be his disciple? Are our efforts to be Jesus’ disciples, those of us who attend Mass faithfully every week if not more often; whose worship so often inspires works of great love, justice, and mercy toward those most in need in our communities, not enough? Fortunately, in among Jesus’ three sayings about those who have not been able to leave behind loved ones,  are unprepared to give up their lives, or are unable to part with their possessions, and so “cannot be” his disciples, Jesus offers us two images of the process of weighing the cost of our discipleship. Jesus offers us the images of the builder of a tower and of the king who wages a battle against another king who has a much larger army.

Both of these images invite us to ponder prayerfully the important questions about our own discipleship of Jesus Christ: What is the cost of being a disciple of Jesus? What cost are we willing to pay? Our process of weighing these great questions is lifelong. And I propose that there are at least three kinds of answers to these questions. There is the premature, individualistic, and foolishly optimistic answer, which usually.  amounts to no more than mistaken pride: “Whatever the cost, I am willing to pay it. I am fully ready to be a disciple of Jesus. I am even ready to die for my faith in Jesus Christ, here and now. No matter the cost of building the tower or going into battle outnumbered, I will start building that tower now; march into battle now.” Besides exceedingly few Christians, let me suggest that most who, in this way, respond without weighing and praying over the cost of their discipleship are setting themselves up to fail.

There is also the pessimistic and even cynical answer: “The cost of discipleship is too high. There is far too much evil in the world for one person to conquer alone. The tower is too expensive to build; the opposing king with twice as many troops too powerful. Why even try”? This answer, I believe, is just as individualistic, proud, and foolish as the excessively optimistic approach to discipleship.

And then there is the patient, prayerful,  trusting answer to what the cost of discipleship is and how much we are willing to pay. This response requires of us the most time, the most effort, and the most prayer. This kind of answer places not ourselves but God first. Discipleship will mean putting God ahead of family, friends, and loved ones, and even my own life. It will mean service; intentional works of justice, love, and mercy. Discipleship will mean building unity; community; communion. Discipleship will mean risking misunderstanding and even ridicule for speaking and acting as Christ would speak and act. But God will make up for what we lack in strength; in courage; in knowledge; in wisdom. Not we, but God, will overcome the evil in our world, because by Christ’s death and resurrection God has already overcome it.

The same calling in our Gospel to patient, prayerful weighing and acceptance of the costs of discipleship with trust in God is present in the Book of Wisdom and in St. Paul’s letter to Philemon, from which we hear today. Wisdom speaks of the limitation of the human mind and body. Without God and God’s spirit within us, we are nothing. But with God’s spirit we become everything; the “paths of those on earth [are] made straight.”

And St. Paul gently calls the slave owner Philemon to accept his runaway slave Onesimus back willingly, “no longer as a slave, but [as] a brother.” St. Paul is aware of the cost to Philemon should he take Onesimus back as a free “brother” in Christ. St. Paul urges Philemon no longer to be a slave to the law that would have allowed him to punish Onesimus severely as a runaway, but to free himself to love; to free himself for following after Christ; for discipleship. And so St. Paul’s letter to Philemon offers us yet another image of weighing and acceptance of the cost of discipleship, trusting more and more fully in God.

Only by placing God first in this way is it possible to ponder rightly and to accept the cost of discipleship, slowly, patiently, and prayerfully, little by little over the course of our lifetimes.  Only then is it possible to give ourselves ever more fully to God; to Christ in loving service to one another. Only then are we made truly free, sisters and brothers and true disciples of Jesus Christ.

Homily for Sunday, 10 July 2016

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Psalm 69:13, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Mercy: Is there a word more popular among Catholics; among Christians today, especially the many of us who admire and attentively follow Pope Francis? Our pope has mercy built into his motto as a bishop, Miserando atque eligendo, which means roughly, “by having mercy and by choosing.” In an interview a few months after his election as pope, Francis showed his deep sense of God’s mercy as essential to his life and ministry: “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon”; chosen by God’s mercy as the Bishop of Rome to lead our Church. Mercy is one of the most common words in Pope Francis’ writings; his speech; his homilies. In April 2015, when Pope Francis proclaimed this Jubilee Year of Mercy we will be celebrating until December, he spoke of mercy as “the beating heart of the Gospel.”

But, as often as we; as Pope Francis speaks of mercy, how well do we actually understand and live out mercy? Is mercy not still one of the most mysterious and even scary words, even to the most faithful Christian? Should it not be?

Today we encounter in Luke’s Gospel a lawyer, literally a scholar of the law. I am not about to make any cheap jokes here about lawyers. I have a few personal friends who are lawyers, and there may be lawyers among us here this morning. Besides, I do not really want to follow Jesus in nearly being thrown off a cliff (as he does near the beginning of his public ministry in this same Gospel of Luke; it was a tough first attempt at preaching for Jesus)! In fact, the lawyer in today’s Gospel reading gets a bad rap, undeservedly at least at first. His motives are right, I think, as he asks Jesus: “Teacher… What must I do to inherit eternal life”? Who among us here does not want eternal life? If anybody here does not, I might question why you are here.

But the lawyer’s question is only a starting point. It takes this question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life,” for Jesus to begin the process of conversion of this lawyer; of us, from experts of religious law to experts of mercy; into people fully able and willing to live out God’s gift of mercy. How, then, does Jesus begin the process of the lawyer’s conversion from expert of law to expert of mercy? Jesus begins by meeting the lawyer where he is; by asking him basic first year law school questions: “What is written in the law? What do you read there”?

And the brilliant lawyer passes the test with flying colours; he even gets all the available bonus marks! He quotes from the heart of the Jewish Law, from a prayer that all observant Jews pray morning and night to this day and that is in our Bible in the Books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus: “Hear, O Israel… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.”

But then the poor lawyer gets scared. Jesus announces with joy to the lawyer that he has just aced the graduate-level law course that sends most every student cowering. “Great work”! Now, “do this and you will live.” Next up is Mercy 101, which will last the rest of your life, not in the class or courtroom but in practice. You will die, unsure of having passed Mercy 101 until you are raised up and received into heaven by God with mercy beyond the comprehension of the best of students and even of the experts.

The lawyer sputters with fear: “And who is my neighbour”? Jesus could and maybe should have failed the lawyer on the spot. Clearly he is not ready for Mercy 101. Instead, Jesus uses this ideal teaching moment; a “mercy moment,” to give us the story of the Good Samaritan.

We all know the story of the Good Samaritan, right? A man on the road “from Jerusalem to Jericho” is beaten and left “half dead.” A priest and then a Levite, people in a position to help the wounded man, instead cross over to “the other side” of the road and continue on their way. A Samaritan becomes the unlikely hero. I say unlikely because the Samaritans were the enemies; the greatest misfits in Israel in Jesus’ time: Too pagan to be Jewish and too Jewish to be pagan. And yet this Samaritan binds up the man’s wounds, cares for him, and then entrusts him to an innkeeper, promising to pay any extra expenses, until the man is healed.

We know the story of the Good Samaritan well. Or do we? What if I were to suggest that the story of the Good Samaritan is taking place here and now? I suggest this not only because in our world, in our nation, within our families, even within our Church there continue to be people excluded; laughingstocks; enemies, although this is, sadly, part of our story. We would not experience Orlando; Istanbul and Baghdad; St. Paul and Baton Rouge; Dallas; countless tragedies met with silence, were the dignity of all human life honoured regardless of race, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, wealth, age, occupation, whether we are born or unborn, and so on… We would not need to wait for unlikely heroes; the Good Samaritans of our time (among them let me propose Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini) to stand with the excluded; those, literally or figuratively, left “half-dead” on the roadside or worse, because there would be nobody excluded; no “other”; no enemy, but each of us a neighbour.

“Do this and you will live,” Jesus says to the lawyer; to us. “Who is my neighbour?” the lawyer asks and then answers his own question; our question: “The one who showed… mercy.”

Mercy: This reason we live, this “beating heart of the Gospel,” perhaps scares us. We cannot fully comprehend mercy before we experience it in heaven. Yet in this world we are given many tastes; many previews of this fullness of mercy. Our world itself, creation, is a work of God’s mercy. Our Church gives us Christ, mercy really present in our Eucharist under the appearance of bread and wine; mercy really present in her other sacraments; mercy really present in one another and waiting to be worked in our world.

Mercy is present; spoken of in the Word of God. Moses speaks today in Deuteronomy: Mercy, God’s greatest law and gift, is neither “too hard” for us nor “too far away”; neither confined to the distant heavens nor “beyond the sea” but “in [our mouths] and in [our hearts] for [us] to observe.” We plead with the Psalmist to our God of “steadfast love… According to your abundant mercy, turn to me.” For “those who love [God’s] name,” Mercy, “will live in it.”

And the great hymn from Colossians speaks of Christ, God’s greatest act of mercy yet, as the one in whom “all things hold together,” from God’s creation of the world of which Christ is “firstborn” to our “peace through the blood of his cross”; from act of mercy to act of mercy.

God’s mercy is so great as to be overwhelming; often scary. Yet we are called to imitate this mercy as neighbours; without exclusion. And who is our neighbour? Who are we but the ones who show mercy?

“Go and do likewise”… “Do this and [we] will live.”
    

Homily for Monday, 23 February 2015‒ Monday of the First Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18; Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 15; Matthew 25:31-46

How many sets of commandments do we know of in the Bible? Most if not all of us know of the Ten Commandments. In fact there are two sets; two very similar versions of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, one in the Book of Exodus and the other in the Book of Deuteronomy.

Are not most if not all of us familiar with Jesus’ distillation of all the Old Testament commandments, the Law and the prophets, down to two commandments: Love God and love neighbor?

Our first reading today from Leviticus presents us with a series of commandments. These commandments in Leviticus are similar in style to the Ten Commandments. We hear them as a series of laws against particular actions: “You shall not…” After every few laws is the divine emphasis: “I am the LORD.” If we love God and believe that God is the beginning and end of these commandments, we will keep these commandments.

Without changing the substance of the many Old Testament commandments or the sense that God is their beginning and end, Jesus simplifies them while framing them in a positive way: “You shall” in place of “you shall not.” We hear this simplification and positive re-framing of commandments in our Gospel reading today.

But let us not be taken off guard by the simplicity; the positive, even inviting, tone of Jesus’ words. Are there not still stark consequences to acting in favor or against what Jesus teaches? Jesus words are still commandments that we are urged to follow. They are every bit as significant as the Old Testament commands of “you shall not.”

Jesus, as in Leviticus (although perhaps more clearly than in our Old Testament reading), bases his teachings on pressing social concerns. Who are the most vulnerable in Jesus’ time; those most in need of protection? They are “the hungry… the thirsty… the stranger… the naked… the ill” and those “in prison.” The manner in which we act toward these most in need is the manner in which we act toward Christ himself.

Who are the most vulnerable; the most in need in our time? Perhaps they are the unborn; small children; the elderly; the poor person; the person working for a minimum wage that does not suffice to feed, clothe, and shelter her or his family members; the sick; the person with disabilities; the homebound.

“Whatever you did for one of these least… of mine, you did for me.” Jesus’ commandment still stands today: Protect those most in need as though they were Christ. Most if not all of us do well at heeding these teachings of Jesus. Some if not all of us have had experiences in which our actions toward those most in need, or at least our intention behind them, are in need of some purification: Am I acting for my own gain, or because I see Christ in the other person, or a bit of both?

Lent is the great time for this kind of purification of both action and intention; of praying for the strength to follow God’s commandments, especially for the benefit of “the least of [our] brothers” and sisters.

Homily for Friday, 24 October 2014– Ferial

Friday of the 29th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ephesians 4:1-6; Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; Luke 12:54-59

How does Jesus call us “to interpret the present time”? In the Gospel reading we hear today, Jesus criticizes “the crowds” of his time, those who follow Jesus from place to place, who hear his message, but do not wish to commit to the radical but ultimately saving demands of his message; his Gospel.

We hear Jesus admonish two particular groups of people: First, those who can predict rain when “a cloud” rises “in the west” and heat when the wind is “from the south” but cannot “interpret the present” signs of the kingdom of God, beginning with Jesus’ presence among them. Second, Jesus speaks against legalistic types who bring petty disputes before higher courts instead of settling them among themselves.

I have no personal slight against lawyers. I know of faithful and honest lawyers here in our parish. But I do have a soft spot in my heart for meteorologists. My father is a retired weather forecaster. Once, during my second stint teaching in Colombia, I was on pilgrimage, riding on the back of a Jeep in the mountains with other Basilian seminarians and people of the coffee and banana farming community we were visiting.  Farmers are interested in the weather, and so I was interested in the discussion they were having on the back of the Jeep. I was even able to predict correctly the storms that would hit or miss us that day. Was I channeling my father’s forecasting skill, or was this sheer luck? I suspect it was the latter.

Jesus’ point in our Gospel reading (perhaps meteorologists like my father and some lawyers may disagree) is that there is something more important than the weather or manipulating the law to resolve disputes in our favor. Most importantly, we are invited “to interpret the present time.” How do we do this?

One Vatican II document that speaks verbatim of discerning “the signs of the times” is the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. This document laments much of the state of the world in 1965, from hunger, widening disparity between rich and poor, challenges of rapid improvements in technology and social communication (well before Facebook and Twitter!), spiritual indifference especially among youth, to the arms race and increasing destructiveness of war. And yet Gaudium et Spes was criticized by some as too optimistic!

The bishops who wrote Gaudium et Spes were optimistic or, better yet, discerned one point with profound accuracy: Despite the world’s problems, there is still a longing for God. Gaudium et Spes begins by acknowledging “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of [people] of this age” as the same “joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the followers of Christ.”

Is this not the most significant sign of “the present time”? Jesus invites us “to interpret the present time”; to discern “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of [people] of this age”; to discern God’s presence in our midst and to build the Kingdom of God, a project brought to the present time through the life and Gospel message of Christ.

Homily for Thursday, 9 October 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 27th week in Ordinary Time 

Optional Memorials of St. Denis and Companions and St. John Leonardi

Readings of the day: Galatians 3:1-5; Responsorial Canticle: Luke 1:69-70, 71-72, 73-75; Luke 11:5-13

Both Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel, and St. Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians, ask us questions centered on the Holy Spirit. Jesus points to the goodness and generosity of God by asking, “If you… know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him”? In his harsh-sounding correction of the Galatians, who had been deceived into thinking that adherence to religious law would earn them salvation, St. Paul asks, “Does… the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you do so from works of the law or from faith in what you heard?”

Perhaps it is easiest to find a connection between these questions; between our difficult-to-understand first reading and Gospel reading today, by interpreting them through the lens of our canticle response. We pray in this response, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.”

We do not pray as if we are still waiting for God to come to his people. God has already come to us through the rich history of the people of Israel in the Old Testament; through kings, prophets, and sages; in God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, who lived as one like us in all but sin and died and rose again that we might be saved. Now, God continues to be present to us in the Holy Spirit, who lives and works in and through us. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.” Blessed be God who continues to come to his people; to us.

This, I believe, is at the heart of Paul’s message to the Galatians and Jesus’ message in Luke’s Gospel: Look to God; trust in God for all that we need, and ultimately for our salvation. Is not God generous, even more so than a parent who gives everything to her or his child to thrive? Is it not God who saves us; who “supplies the Spirit to us”?

The law, even religious law (today we may liken this to the teaching of the Church or Canon Law, the law of our Church), is important insofar as it points us to God, but no law alone saves. God saves. God is good and generous, more than any human being except Jesus has ever been or could ever be. God gives us his own Holy Spirit to enable us to act as God would act. God’s gift of the Holy Spirit makes possible our works of goodness and generosity toward one another.

Indeed, our having received the Holy Spirit makes good works; Godly works an expectation of us as people of God; as Christians. St. Paul and Jesus himself invite us not to settle for anything less; not even observance of law for the law’s own sake. Trust in God who is with us; who saves us. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.”