Homily for Sunday, 14 February 2021– Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Readings of the day: Leviticus 13:1-2, 45-46; Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11; 1 Corinthians 10:32-11:1; Mark 1:40-45

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

Is the exchange between the “man with leprosy” and Jesus in Mark’s Gospel today not remarkable?

“If you choose, you can make me clean,” the man with leprosy pleads with Jesus. “I do choose. Be made clean,” Jesus says to the man.

Our reading today from the Book of Leviticus gives us the context in Jewish Law of the conversation between the man with leprosy and Jesus in today’s Gospel. The religious law about leprosy and all kinds of skin diseases is outlined in great detail in Leviticus. If anybody had a disease like leprosy, not only did they have to contend with the disfigurement brought on by these diseases and the lack of knowledge and effective treatments for them but, Leviticus says, they were to tear their clothes, “let the hair of their head be dishevelled… cover their upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’” A person with one of these diseases was to isolate him or herself from other people and “live alone with their dwelling outside the camp.”

Now, before we judge the laws in Leviticus that required people with leprosy and similar skin diseases to isolate themselves from other people too harshly, might we place ourselves in the context of the people of Israel of the time? A disease like leprosy, especially when it was seen to be contagious, would have caused fear among the people. The spread of disease could be difficult to control, especially in a nomadic people like Leviticus describes. The most ancient people of Israel tended to live in tents in small groups or camps that moved often. More permanent settlements, as in cities or towns, tended to be small. And without effective medicines and doctors as we know them today, the religious elites—the priests—were the most educated people in these ancient societies. The people turned to them for the best advice not only on religious matters but for practical knowledge, too, like treating disease.

Still, can we not put ourselves in the place of a person in ancient Israel who was affected by one of these diseases, who had to isolate from society, even from loved ones, and “live alone… outside the camp”? For about a year now, we have been in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic. Many people, maybe many of us, know somebody who has had to self-isolate, either because she or he was sick, or was in contact with somebody who was sick, or returned from international travel. Governments and media (rightly, I think) report the latest numbers of people infected with COVID, numbers of deaths, rates of transmission and positive tests, and so on. But do we find maybe that the mental health toll of this pandemic goes more unnoticed than the rates of physical illness? Even if this is necessary for disease control, people are isolated; restricted from seeing family and loved ones. Others suffer and die alone. Like no other disease in memory for most or all of us, COVID has caused widespread fear and anxiety. And we have the science and medical expertise and treatments that the people of ancient Israel did not.

With this in mind, let us return to the conversation between Jesus and the man with leprosy in today’s Gospel: “If you choose”… “I do choose. Be made clean.” When we hear Jesus’ healing of this man with leprosy, or other actions of Jesus that challenge rules or taboos, how many of us think that this is awfully bold of Jesus to do so? I think we are right to think this; Jesus is bold, in this and other instances, to challenge rules or taboos or, more precisely, to orient us toward the heart of any good law or social or moral practice, which is to uphold human dignity and a common good.

But may I say that the man with leprosy in today’s Gospel is just as bold in challenging the established rules or taboos as Jesus is in the encounter between them in today’s Gospel? This man is bold enough to kneel before Jesus and ask him, before Jesus says a word, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Did this man know Jesus before this encounter, or did he know of Jesus’ reputation as a great preacher and healer? Was he simply desperate to be healed and reintegrated into the community? It is hard to say. Would the man not have known that, by approaching Jesus for healing, he himself was acting against the Jewish Law, the Law of Leviticus, which demanded he be isolated?

And the man with leprosy surely knew that Jesus owed him nothing; Jesus was as bound by the Law to keep distance from people with diseases like leprosy as the man with leprosy was. Yet the man asks Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Would the man with leprosy have been just as surprised as anybody—as we may be to hear these words in our Gospel reading—to hear Jesus reply the way he did: “I do choose. Be made clean”?

The man’s bold but unassuming request of Jesus, “If you choose” can only be met by Jesus’ just-as-bold response, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Jesus does not pause and count the cost of his choice to heal the man with leprosy. In fact, Mark’s Gospel says, “Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” My sisters and brothers, “moved with pity” is a rough translation of the Greek, which means something closer to (literally) “moved to his very depths.” The same Greek verb would be used to refer to the state of one’s gut when eating food that didn’t agree with us!

How many of us have heard of, or ever had, a “gut feeling,” as in, “I just knew in my gut that this was the right thing to do.” How often have we heard of people hailed as heroes for saving somebody’s life or acting in a situation dangerous to themselves, who say something like, “I was just trusting my gut. I’m no hero”?

By touching the man with leprosy, Jesus may have realized that he risked entering the same state of the man he touched to heal: He, too, could have been considered “unclean” and been shunned from the community. Yet what begins with Jesus’ “gut feeling” ends with a conscious choice: “I do choose. Be made clean.” Something in the letter of the Law is less important than this man’s health; this man’s dignity as a child of God; this man’s belonging to a social and faith community; this man’s wholeness.

But if we follow Jesus through our Gospels, this move from “gut feeling” to conscious choice for another’s good is a typical pattern of action for Jesus. His healing of the man with leprosy is only one instance of this greater pattern. Have we ever noticed, when we pray the Eucharistic Prayer we will pray in a few moments that, when we commemorate Jesus’ Passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, we remember what Jesus did to save us as a willing action of God: “Look, we pray, upon the oblation of your Church and, recognizing the sacrificial Victim by whose death you willed to reconcile us to yourself, grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ.”

The former Master of the Dominican order, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, in his book on the Mass called “Why Go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist,” reflects on how Jesus willed to save us: Jesus “willed to reconcile us to” God by taking the place of the man with leprosy; taking our place; taking the place of everybody who has ever had to make their dwelling “outside the camp,” as Leviticus puts it. In fact, Jesus went so far, in his willingness to save us, that he would choose to die for us, says Fr. Radcliffe, “outside the camp”; outside the city walls of Jerusalem, on Golgotha, on a cross. And we remember this as the very reason for this Eucharistic celebration, every time we celebrate Mass.

Who, then, are the people to whom this willing act for our salvation by our Lord is calling to us to reach out? Who are the ostracized; the isolated; those “outside the camp”; the serious sinners; those outside the good graces of the Church, for whatever reason, in fact or because they simply feel unwelcome; the sick, physically but also mentally and spiritually, of our time and our experience? Have we ever had a “gut feeling”; been “moved with pity”? If this has been or will ever be our experience, to what extent have we or will we allow our “gut feeling” of what is right become bold action, putting ourselves at risk of being sent “outside the camp” ourselves? To what extent are we willing to echo those first words of Jesus to the man with leprosy: I do choose?

Homily for Sunday, 14 July 2019

Readings of the day: Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Psalm 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34. 36, 37 or 19:8, 9, 10, 11; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Sherwood Park, AB, Canada.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life”? The question the lawyer asks of Jesus in our Gospel, from Luke, today sounds perfectly legitimate, right? After all, would everybody here, and at least all Christians or people of faith, not share some kind of desire to “inherit eternal life”? If anybody is here who does not hope to “inherit eternal life,” I would sincerely like to speak with you after Mass, because I cannot understand why anybody would gather to worship God in this Eucharistic celebration if we did not hope to “inherit eternal life.”

In response to the lawyer in today’s Gospel—in fact the lawyer at first answers his own question correctly—Jesus says how he, and we, might “inherit eternal life”: “Do this and you will live.” “Do this”: Act in the way the lawyer in Luke’s Gospel knows all too well, and answers correctly, that will gain him, and us, eternal life: “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.”

“Do this.” Again, this sounds like a simple enough commandment by which to live; by which we are to “inherit eternal life,” right? The lawyer’s answer to Jesus’ question—“What is written in the Law? What do you read there”?—should be no surprise to us. His answer, “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,” is the combination of the two laws regarded by Jews of Jesus’ time and even to this day as the most important in the Torah. Devout Jews still pray, morning and night, a variation of the first part of Jesus’ command and the lawyer’s answer: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God; the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This prayer, the Shema, is named after its opening exhortation, “Hear, O Israel,” or “Shema, Yisrael.” It is found in our Bible, in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. The second part of the lawyer’s answer is taken from the Book of Leviticus [19:18]: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.”

So should the first part of this command, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God; the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might,” not be easy enough to observe, especially if we take this foremost commandment of God’s Law to heart and to prayer? Today we hear a similar commandment to “turn to the LORD [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul” in another part of Deuteronomy today (a near-repetition of Deuteronomy 6:4-5). This commandment to love or to “turn to” our God wholly is not “too far away.” “It is not in heaven… neither is it beyond the sea,” but “it is very near to us.” It is accessible to us, “in [our] mouth and in [our] heart,” so that we might observe it easily, at least in theory.

“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”: This command; this invitation to go from command to prayer to action is easy to memorize by rote, but is it so easy for us to put into practice? In one sense, I think it is. Just as I do not believe we would be here to celebrate this Eucharist if we did not, in some way, want to go to heaven, to “inherit eternal life,” I do not believe (even if you are a child or a teenager to whom your parents or somebody had to insist a bit that you be at Mass today!) that any of us would be here if we did not, in some way, love God and recognize this celebration in this place as a way of expressing our love for God.

But how accessible or practical is the second part of Jesus’ commandment, spoken by the lawyer in today’s Gospel and derived from Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”? Again, in one sense, this commandment to “love our neighbour as” ourselves is very accessible and practical to us. When I am in this place to preside at Mass, I see how this commandment to “love [our] neighbour as” ourselves is lived out in many, diverse holy and fruitful ways. Many of us are ministers within our Church, as servers, ministers of holy communion, musicians, hospitality ministers, and so on. Many of us show our love of neighbour and our love of our Church through works of community service and social justice. Many of us show our love of neighbour with a simple smile or acts of kindness one or several times every day.

Love of neighbour presumes that we love ourselves; that we acknowledge ourselves and live in some way as created in God’s image and likeness. Yet how many of us here or in our world suffer with mental illnesses, including addictions, or know somebody who does? Mental illnesses, like physical or spiritual ones, do not necessarily inhibit us from loving our neighbour as Jesus invites us. The late Dutch priest and contemplative Henri Nouwen developed the term “wounded healer,” coined by the psychologist Carl Jung, to describe people who show great love of neighbour in word and action despite (or maybe because of) their own mental, physical, and spiritual afflictions, which strengthen empathy for other people in similar situations. Similarly, Pope Francis offers us the image of the Church as a “field hospital”: The ill, afflicted, and suffering so often helping the ill, afflicted, and suffering by genuine and purposeful love of neighbour, leading one another to “inherit eternal life.”

How many of us, though, suffer through difficulties with our own body image? How many of us suffer from mental (or physical or spiritual) illnesses, diagnosed or not? How many of us suffer from addictions or know somebody who does: Addictions to alcohol, drugs, pornography, and so on? To some extent, our inabilities to love ourselves as creatures in God’s image and likeness (intentional or, in many cases, not so intentional) will inhibit our ability to love our neighbour, and our inabilities to love our neighbour will eventually inhibit our ability to love God.

Besides difficulties with body image; with mental, physical, or spiritual health; with addictions, these possible barriers to loving ourselves as befits the creatures in God’s image and likeness we are, other difficulties arise with respect to love of neighbour, and ultimately love of God, which make the lawyer’s question to Jesus, his attempt “to justify himself,” all the more real and personal to us.

The lawyer, having answered Jesus’ first question correctly as to the most essential commandment of God’s Law; the most essential commandment for us to “inherit eternal life,” then asks Jesus: “And who is my neighbour”? Before we scoff at the lawyer in today’s Gospel, let us ask ourselves the lawyer’s question: “Who is my neighbour”? Is my neighbour among the poor and disadvantaged? Is my neighbour an unborn child, or somebody in a crisis pregnancy situation? Is my neighbour an immigrant, a refugee, or a trafficked person, especially an undocumented migrant? Is my neighbour somebody of a non-Christian religion? Is my neighbour somebody with a mental, physical, or spiritual illness or addiction? Is my neighbour an acquaintance, a co-worker, somebody in the Church, a friend, or a family member with whom we have fallen out of regular and healthy relationship or even speaking terms? Is my neighbour an elderly person; somebody with a terminal illness or with an illness like dementia; somebody who perceives life itself to have become almost unbearable; somebody who has lost hope; somebody in great pain? Is my neighbour that Samaritan (a synonym in our Gospel today for our worst enemy conceivable) who encounters me when I am in my greatest need, at least figuratively-speaking, “half dead” on the side of the road? Is my neighbour the “half dead” person I encounter on the road?

Of course, our neighbour is all these people. Will we show neighbourly, life-giving mercy to our neighbour in all these and other vulnerable forms, then, or will we pass by her or him “on the other side” of the road? Will we or will we not choose to encounter Christ, the incarnate, fully human, visible “image of the invisible God,” in our neighbour? In his book The Holy Longing, the Oblate priest Ronald Rolheiser says that “the God of the incarnation tells us that anyone who says he or she loves an invisible God in heaven and is unwilling to deal with a visible neighbour on earth is a liar.”

“Who is my neighbour,” then? Our neighbour is anybody Jesus invites us to treat with the loving mercy befitting one created in God’s image and likeness. “Do this and [we] will live.”

Homily for Thursday, 13 August 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 19th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of Sts. Hippolytus and Pontian

Readings of the day: Joshua 3:7-10a, 11, 13-17;  Psalm 114:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Matthew 18:21-19:1

“How often must I forgive”? Jesus answers this memorable question from St. Peter: “Not seven times but seventy-seven times.” In other words, show unlimited forgiveness toward other people when they sin. But is this not easier said than done? What becomes of moral accountability when we forgive another person even when this person commits the same sin against us multiple times?

If we struggle with these questions, I think we can take comfort that even popes have had the same struggles. We begin with St. Peter, by tradition the first Bishop of Rome, who asks the question of Jesus that perhaps many of us have thought at some point: “Lord, if my [sister or] brother sins against me, how often must I forgive [this person]? As many  as seven times”?

Today we also celebrate the feast of two obscure saints, Hippolytus of Rome and Pontian, who were martyred in Rome in the early 200s. A fascinating detail about Hippolytus and Pontian is that for many years they were angry with each other; could not forgive each other until they were imprisoned and killed together by the Roman Emperor Maximus. Pontian had been pope. He and the two popes before him, Callixtus and Urban I, allowed people who had committed adultery and other serious sins back into the Church without, in Hippolytus’ eyes, a long and rigorous enough time of penance. Hippolytus was so outspoken against Popes Callixtus, Urban, and Pontius that he accepted election as an antipope (a rival claimant to the papacy of Rome). This got Hippolytus excommunicated. Thankfully, Hippolytus reconciled with the Church, probably under Pope Pontius while both were in prison, before he was martyred.

Hippolytus and Pontius were canonized together and share today as a feast day. Might we call this a great feast day of forgiveness, “not seven times but seventy-seven times”? Today is the feast day of a pope and the first antipope, who both were named saints and are examples to us of (eventual) forgiveness.

But how late is too late to forgive? How long before we become like the servant in our Gospel reading who is forgiven his debt but then refuses to forgive his fellow servant’s debt? Jesus invites us to be free and not to delay in forgiving one another. If we wait to forgive, we may not have the fortune of Hippolytus!

Who are the people in our lives whom we have most difficulty forgiving? Occasionally I hear people who are angry and have difficulty forgiving somebody in leadership: A president, a bishop, even a pope! But most often are not the people we have most difficulty forgiving those dearest to us: Close friends and family members?

I have seen over the last few days a saying on Facebook I find rings true. It says that to hold a grudge is to let somebody live rent-free in your head. The Church does not need to say this; psychologists will say this first. Jesus invites us to forgive. If we wait to become martyrs like Hippolytus before we forgive, it will become too late. And so make the demons of lack of forgiveness and unchecked anger in our heads and hearts pay the rent! This is all about accountability for our own mental and spiritual health.