Homily for Sunday, 30 July 2023– Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Readings of the day: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Psalm 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

If you were able to ask for and receive anything you wanted, what would you ask for? Have we ever thought this about our prayer: What do we most frequently ask of God in prayer?

This is what happens to King Solomon in today’s reading from 1 Kings. God invites Solomon “in a dream” to ask him for anything he desires: “Ask what I should give you,” God says to Solomon. Imagine if God offered any ruler, public leader, or politician today to give that person anything they desired. What would that leader ask of God?

Here Solomon recognizes the significance of the choice before him. It is far from the first or only time in the Bible when God communicates with somebody important in a dream—think of the two Josephs, one in the Old and one in the New Testament; Jacob’s Ladder vision and the dreams Daniel interprets in the Old Testament. And this is far from the first or only time in the Bible when somebody significant is overwhelmed, like “a little child” before this kind of encounter with God. I think of Jeremiah, who is “only a boy” when God calls him to be a prophet.

These two frequent biblical motifs occur together at the beginning of Solomon’s reign in 1 Kings: First, God speaks to Solomon in a dream. And, second, Solomon, “only a little child” who does “not know how to go out or come in” (a Hebrew expression for complete ignorance), is overwhelmed that God should invite him, “Ask what I should give you.”

What is not so frequent is God inviting somebody, even somebody important, to ask for anything that person desires. More often God tells us what it is acceptable or not to pray for. I think of Jesus’ introduction to the Our Father with, “This is how you are to pray.” Jesus says to his disciples in the Gospels, “Ask, and it will be given to you.” Yet not even Jesus’ prayers are always accepted. In the depths of his passion, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays, “If it be your will, let this cup pass from me.” Yet Jesus will suffer and die on the cross for us anyway.

All this shows how important and well-regarded Solomon is in God’s eyes. Solomon is already wise before he asks God for wisdom, “an understanding mind to govern [God’s] people” Israel. It is as if God has given Solomon his greatest desire, wisdom, before he asks for it. God anticipates Solomon’s desire for understanding, wisdom for good governance, and all Solomon has to do to please God is to meet God halfway, in one sense, on this: Ask God not for “long life or riches,” but the wisdom for which God knows ahead of time Solomon will ask.

Long before the “kingdom of heaven” was ever a reality or even a concept in Scripture, as it is in Jesus’ parables we hear from the Gospel of Matthew today, the kings of ancient Israel knew that God was the true ruler of Israel. Kings like Solomon and his predecessor David knew that they were stand-ins for God, anointed by God to rule according to God’s will for the good of the people of Israel on earth.

Of course, Israel’s kings were sometimes far from perfect in ruling according to God’s will for Israel. Solomon seems to have learned from some of David’s mistakes when God invites him to ask of God anything he wishes. Solomon acknowledges that Israel is “a great people, so numerous that they cannot be numbered or counted.” One of King David’s greatest sins was to have the people of Israel counted in a census. (Censuses are common in many if not most countries and not at all sinful; we should understand David’s action, and Solomon’s reference to it today in 1 Kings, as an attempt to usurp God. Remember that God had promised Abraham that his descendants could not be numbered, so to try to number them would be both futile and sinful in the biblical imagination). Solomon wisely avoids a repeat of this sin of his father.

Solomon desires above all “an understanding mind” to rule Israel. His desire for “an understanding mind” at God’s invitation is really a desire for what he needs to rule, to inherit, to share in the reign of God, the reign or the kingdom that originates in heaven. This is why this is so significant that Solomon should ask for “an understanding mind”—for wisdom toward good governance—over “a long life or riches” or the lives of his enemies. Those other things for which Solomon could have asked God would not have been bad (the lives of his enemies maybe excepted); God would not have been displeased had Solomon asked for them. But Solomon would have been just an ordinary king: He might have been rich, or he might have lived a long life (which he did anyway; he matched the forty-year reign of his father David, the symbolic length of reign of a good king in Israel), but for what?

Solomon desires the kingdom of heaven. And to reign with God, he needs “an understanding and discerning mind.” He needs wisdom, first and foremost.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus encourages us at length to desire God’s kingdom of heaven above all else, much as King Solomon did. Other Gospels and writings in our Bible highlight the kingdom of God (or kingdom of heaven), and include Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God in parables or metaphors: “The kingdom of God is like”… But in Matthew’s Gospel, in Jesus’ teachings, there is an especially intense focus on “the kingdom of heaven” and what it is like, to encourage us to want it above all else.

Today is the third Sunday in a row at Mass in which we have heard from the same part of Matthew’s Gospel—Matthew, chapter 13—which is a long string of Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of heaven. Over these last three Sundays (in case anybody is counting) we have heard seven of Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of heaven from Matthew’s Gospel: The sower, the weeds among the wheat, the mustard seed, the yeast or leaven and, in just today’s Gospel reading, the “treasure hidden in a field,” the “pearl of great value,” and the net with many fish.

I think Jesus wants us to go to heaven, really badly! The question for us is: How intensely do we want to go to heaven, to inherit the kingdom of heaven God promises us in and through Jesus Christ? Do we want heaven, the kingdom of heaven, as much as God wants to offer it to us? A few minutes ago, I asked: If we were able to ask for and receive anything we wanted, what would we ask for? Maybe my questions should have been: Who here wants to go to heaven? And what are we willing to give to inherit a share in God’s reign, the kingdom of heaven?

I will presume wildly that all of us want to go to heaven. After all, we pray for heaven during every Mass and many times outside of Mass, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come.” So I will presume that God’s promise of heaven appeals to us.

And God’s promise of the kingdom of heaven to us is a free gift. It was a free gift to King Solomon: God invited him to ask for whatever he wanted: “Ask what I should give you.” God is inviting us to do the same as Solomon, as Jesus’ first disciples: “Ask what I should give you.”

Yet what are we willing to give for a share in the kingdom of heaven, a share in God’s reign over the universe everything in it? If we are shown a field with a treasure buried in it, will we sell all we have and buy that field? If “a merchant of fine pearls” shows us the pearl of greatest value, will we sell all we have and buy that pearl? Will we go fishing in the sea in which Jesus is telling us that the fish are of excellent quality, with only a few exceptions? That is, will we go out into our world, to our neighbours, to our workplaces, to our places of leisure, to our streets and attract still other people to the reign of heaven Jesus promises us by our joy and acts of kindness? (Because, let us face it, at the best of times fishing is unpredictable and even a little frustrating. So is evangelization, proclaiming and living God’s word, God’s invitation to us toward heaven, in a way that attracts still more disciples). Will we resist the temptation to be gatekeepers of who is worthy or not of heaven? Will we allow God and God’s angels, as our Gospel says today, to do the sorting of the good fish from the bad—and simply concentrate on and enjoy the fishing?

Sisters and brothers, we are here in the great divine showroom of the kingdom of heaven. Over here we have a field with a priceless treasure on sale for a real bargain, considering its worth. Over there we have somebody selling a pearl of unmatched value from an amazing pearl collection. And a little further over there we have somebody selling a once-in-a-lifetime fishing trip, all expenses included. In fact, God is offering us the entire showroom and everything in it: The field with its treasure, the pearl of great value, the great catch of fish. No riches we have now compare with the value of all that, of the kingdom of heaven. So let us make the big purchase. Any “understanding and discerning” mind would.

Homily for Monday, 26 August 2019

Readings of the day: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 8b-10; Psalm 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a, 9b; Matthew 23:13-22

Monday of the 21st week in Ordinary Time

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

Do we not hear quite a contrast between our readings today from 1 Thessalonians and our Psalm, on one hand, and our Gospel from Matthew on the other hand? Do we not find comfort in St. Paul’s first words of his first letter to the Thessalonians: “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers”?

And is our Psalm not similarly comforting: “For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory”? Our Psalm is the 149th of 150 of the Psalms in our Bible. The last three Psalms in the Biblical Book of Psalms, numbers 148, 149, and 150, make up a set known as the “Hillel” Psalms. If we think of a Hebrew word that sounds similar to “Hillel,” maybe we would think of “Hallelujah,” which literally means “Praise be to God.” And so our Psalm today begins, “Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful.”

This sounds a lot like what we do well already. Certainly, those of us who gather for Mass at 8:00 am daily here at St. James do so with a sense of joy. But it takes a particular amount of commitment anyway to gather here every day (for many of us), rain, snow, or shine, for Mass, to offer our praise to God “in the assembly of the faithful.”

So I think St. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians or the words of the Psalmist could very well be addressed to us. But then what should we make of the Gospel reading we hear today. Jesus’ seeming harshness in our Gospel today is startling: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven”!

I suppose we could focus our attention on the more consoling, gracious words of 1 Thessalonians or our Psalm, or interpret Jesus in our Gospel as directing his harshest criticism at the religious leaders of his time. Jesus’ excoriation of the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew is certainly challenging for me to hear as an ordained minister of the Church: Am I serving the Church with purity of heart? For the times when I or any leader in our Church, ordained or non-ordained, allows ego to take priority over leading us, the baptized faithful, to salvation, I ask for our forgiveness. I ask for our prayers for our leaders, in the Church and in public office in our civil society, that by God’s grace we will serve the betterment of the Church and our civil society.

But I do not think that we should simply put aside Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel today as if they were directed at only religious leaders, or all leaders, in Jesus’ time or ours. Please let me say again: I have great confidence that our devotion to our faith and often-daily Eucharist is strong; it is eminently praiseworthy. So I think the words of praise to the faith communities of the Psalmist’s and St. Paul’s time apply to us here at St. James and in so many places all over the world.

Yet what is our ultimate motivation for all our devotions; our prayers; our gathering for Mass nearly every day, many of us? Do we speak and act for justice; toward bringing every one of the baptized faithful closer to God and God’s saving grace? Do we seek to reconcile divisions in our world, within our Church; within our own relationships, and do we pray for this reconciliation? If so, we rightly and with purity of heart may “sing to the LORD a new song,” a song of “praise in the assembly of the faithful” that God will hear and that will help to bring us to salvation.

Homily for Sunday, 22 July 2018

Sunday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 

Have we ever noticed how many Biblical passages are based on images of shepherding? These shepherding images may be easier to identify with in a culture like that of Israel, the Holy Land of Biblical times or of the present day, for that matter, than in a culture like ours, especially in a major city like Edmonton. When was the last time anybody here saw a shepherd or sheep? It has been a long time since I have seen a shepherd or sheep. And yet our Church dedicates one Sunday a year to a kind of celebration of shepherding, Good Shepherd Sunday, which coincides with the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Today, both our first reading, from the prophet Jeremiah, and our Psalm focus heavily on images of shepherding.

If we were to hear no more than our reading from Jeremiah today, and since the Church already celebrates a Good Shepherd Sunday, we might want to call today “Bad Shepherd Sunday.”

When I was in seminary, I took a practicum class on how to preside at Mass and other liturgical occasions like baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The textbook for the class, written in a humorous tone, especially considering the subject matter, by a Jesuit, Fr. Dennis Smolarski, was called How Not to Say Mass. The part of the Book of Jeremiah we hear today might as well have been called, “How Not to Shepherd,” although it would seem that Jeremiah was not in as humorous a mood in writing and preaching to the people of Israel of his time as Fr. Smolarski was in writing How Not to Say Mass.

Speaking through Jeremiah, God denounces the bad shepherds; the bad leaders of Israel of the time: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture”! But what made these shepherds so bad, and why, in our time, do we need a “Bad Shepherd Sunday”? How is Jeremiah’s denunciation of the leaders of Israel of his time relevant to us today?

Even if many of us may not identify as well as people of Biblical times with the shepherding metaphors found throughout the Bible, do we not still have some idea of what qualities a good leader would have, whether that leader is in government, a religious leader, an educator, a leader in the workplace, in society, in local community, or another kind of leader? Maybe we look to our leaders to unite our country; our society; our communities around common causes or a shared sense of what is just and right, socially if not also morally. A good leader leads by kindness, forthrightness, and gentleness, without losing anything of the strength of his or her leadership. In the words of St. Francis de Sales, “there is nothing so strong as gentleness and nothing so gentle as real strength.”

Do we not also have a sense of what characterizes a bad leader: One who divides a country; a society; a community; our world, and then plays on those divisions and the vulnerabilities of the people for personal or political gain? A bad leader can become so self-absorbed that this person no longer understands him or herself as a servant of a greater good, much less of our salvation but, at an extreme, as a kind of god distant and unyielding to the needs of the people he or she is leading.

Today we hear Jeremiah responding prophetically to precisely this kind of self-absorbed, self-righteous, self-deifying but ultimately false and bad leadership by the “shepherds who destroy and scatter,” whether in his time or in ours. Bad shepherding; self-absorbed leadership, Jeremiah and the other Biblical prophets say time and again, is a form of idolatry, of replacing the one true God with oneself or somebody or something else created as a god. For Jeremiah and the other Old Testament prophets, idolatry was the worst sin that could be committed. This is most critical to understanding the Old Testament prophets: They would never chastise the people or their leaders so harshly as we hear Jeremiah do today unless they were committing some form of idolatry, of making themselves equivalent to gods.

In contrast, a good and righteous leader; a godly leader; God himself always puts leadership at the service of unity; at the service of legitimate diversity and free will so that those the leader serves may grow as leaders themselves. For a good leader, leadership is never about them; it is not about me. Any leadership, especially in our Christian way of life, is about another and ultimately about God and leading one another in love toward God; toward salvation.

This is the kind of leader and leadership; the kind of shepherd and shepherding God, through Jeremiah, promises the people: “The days are surely coming… when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

As Christians, we believe that the shepherd, the righteous servant-leader of our salvation whom Jeremiah once promised has already lived among us as Jesus, the Christ. And we believe that Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, will return at the end of time to complete God’s work of our salvation. And yet there has never been a time when the LORD our God, the ultimate good shepherd, has not been with us in history. For God, shepherding has always been for our good. God’s shepherding us has always been, as our Psalm says, for the restoration of our soul. And so we may pray with confidence, even and perhaps especially in times of hardship, “in the presence of [our] enemies”: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Still, our God has chosen not to shepherd us alone and impersonally (although God could have done so), but to give us “shepherds after [his] own heart,” in another of Jeremiah’s great shepherding metaphors, to live among us and to lead us to God, to salvation. Can we not almost hear God saying about his way of shepherding, “It is not about me, but about my beloved people; my beloved created universe.” God has chosen to make each and every one of us, by virtue of our baptism, responsible for one another’s salvation. We are all the sheep of God’s flock, but also in a way all one another’s shepherds.

And so how are we to shepherd, to lead one another toward God; toward our salvation? History has constantly given us examples of good, godly servant-leader shepherds; of saints; of the strong yet gentle Christ-like figures most if not all of us have experienced. And yet history has also provided us many examples of how not to lead; of people for whom leadership is about them and less if at all about God. I am heartbroken whenever I hear of people in positions of power, especially in the Church (often, but not always, ordained people) who have become self-absorbed more than God-absorbed. Emotional, sexual, physical, or other abuse of vulnerable people; legal rigidity to the point where the law, whether of Church or state, becomes like a god and becomes abusive: These are the symptoms of idolatry, left in the wake of bad shepherds. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,” says the LORD! And please allow me to beg forgiveness for the times when I, as an ordained leader of our Church, have put myself in the place of God; when I have failed to serve God’s people and our salvation; when I have sinned; when I have been a bad shepherd.

I, we all, our Church, and our world need from time to time the jarring reminder that Jeremiah and other prophets give us. We need this Bad Shepherd Sunday as much as we need a Good Shepherd Sunday in our Church. We need reminders like our readings give us today in order to lead one another more effectively to the salvation God promises us; in order to seek, reach out to, and welcome the people most vulnerable and most in need of God’s presence; those in need of rest; those in need of firm yet still gentle and kind guidance; those whom Mark’s Gospel describes for us today as “like sheep without a shepherd.” We need reminders like those we hear today to live up to the calling, the responsibility for one another’s salvation that we have received in baptism, to be shepherds; servants; leaders after the saints, and after God’s own heart.