Homily for Monday, 23 July 2018– Ferial

Monday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time


Optional Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden

Readings of the day: Micah 6:1-4, 6-8; Psalm 50:5-6, 8-9, 16bc-17, 21, 23; Matthew 8:18-22

This homily was given at the Kateri House Women's Residence Chapel at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

What is the minimal requirement for something, anything?

I am now into my third summer here at St. Joseph’s College as a sessional instructor. A significant part of any course outline I prepare details the minimal requirements for the course: Which courses students must complete, if any, before taking my course, the assignments required in the course and what percentage of the final grade each assignment is worth, and so forth.

Today, the prophet Micah imagines the people of Israel complaining to God that they do not know what God expects of them. Micah structures this section of his book as a trial speech or dialogue, in which God is the defendant and the people of Israel are the plaintiffs. The people of Israel, in Micah’s time, are being overrun by more powerful nations surrounding Israel and, as Micah and other prophets warn Israel, are about to be overtaken completely and taken into exile in Babylon.

But Israel protests to God through Micah: You say we must change our ways; that our sacrifices of “burnt offerings, with calves a year old” are not enough to stave off conquest and exile. What, then, God, do you require of us? What is required to pass this course, and how much is the final exam worth?

In these kinds of trial speeches, which are fairly common in the prophetic books of the Bible, an important feature is that, when the plaintiff begins by presenting the case against the defendant, in this case God, immediately the defendant has a chance to defend himself. In our reading today from Micah, God does just that against the charge of being unclear to the people of Israel as to God’s ethical expectations of them in order not to be exiled to Babylon.

We hear God say essentially through Micah that he has done everything to uphold and save the people of Israel in their worst moments in history, and now the onus is on Israel to behave ethically, especially by defending the dignity of the most vulnerable and in need of this land, Israel, God has given them. “I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam,” God pleads with the people of Israel. What more could Israel want from God?

As an instructor, if I were challenged on clarity of requirements in my course, I might be tempted to say to a student: “The requirements for the course are in the syllabus. Please download and read it”! Might we imagine God saying, “The ethical requirements to avoid exile have been made clear by the example of my relationship, called a covenant, with you in history.”

And yet, as in many prophetic trial speeches and like a good instructor in class, God patiently and repeatedly answers the people’s questions as to what is required of them: “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” God is our living example of justice, kindness, and humility; of doing more than what is minimally required of us. God is just, kind, and humble (which is always poignant to me, because how often do we think of God as humble?). God’s lived example to us of how to behave ethically is better than any course outline on paper could ever be.

Homily for Sunday, 16 February 2014

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Sirach 15:15-20; Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37

A “Peanuts” cartoon by Charles Schultz shows Charlie Brown waiting in front of a pretty girl in line at the school cafeteria. Charlie Brown asks the girl if she wants to go ahead of him in line. She politely says no. Charlie confides in her: “I’m always sort of nervous around pretty girls.”

The girl responds, “But you must never feel that way. Pretty girls are human, too,” to which Charlie, astounded, exclaims, “You are?!”

Yes, of course, pretty girls are human. All of us are human. But what does it mean to be most fully human? Our readings today speak to us about what it means to be most fully human.

How many of us are thinking or have thought: Yes, Jesus Christ is fully human as well as fully divine? The easy answer to how we are most fully human is to be most like Jesus Christ, but this answer still leaves us with further questions: How is Jesus most fully human, and how are we to emulate him if we, too, are to realize our humanity to its fullest?

Many of us may have heard this: To be human is to be both sacred and social.

Our readings presume that to be human is to be sacred; to be of God and for God. Sirach says in today’s first reading, “If you choose you can keep the commandments… If you trust in God, you too shall live.” Our Responsorial Psalm is a beautiful hymn of praise for God’s law: “Blessed are they who follow the law of the LORD.” St. Paul writes to the Corinthians about a mysterious “wisdom” of God that God has “revealed to us through the Spirit” because God loves us so deeply. Jesus does not “abolish the law or the prophets” that are for our good, but teaches us how “the law and the prophets” are to be interpreted in a way worthy of our sacredness as human beings.

God would not call us to obedience to and reverence for God’s law if we, as human beings, were not sacred; were not created by God; were not loved by God; were not created to love one another; were not created to be with God forever. And yet let us also remember that we are also social beings. If this were not true, God’s commandments and God’s wisdom would mean little to us. We, as human, are social; meant to live in community with one another and in communion with God.

Matthew’s Gospel, and especially the Sermon on the Mount from which our Gospel reading today is drawn, is particularly concerned with what strengthens community; the social aspect of being human. Jesus’ sayings that we hear today‒ “You have heard it said… but I say…”‒ would have resonated only if Jesus’ hearers already had (and have) a strong sense of community; of the human being as social.

To break God’s commandments or to teach that they are unimportant breaks down human community, and so Jesus reminds us that the commandments that God has given to us are to be preserved and obeyed in their integrity. But there is more to living in community than merely keeping commandments and laws to the letter.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus expands on and intensifies the laws of the Old Testament that are most beneficial to building human community; to our development toward the fullness of our humanity, both sacred and social. Why, though, would Jesus expand on and intensify those laws of which we hear today? Could he not have chosen to teach on less controversial subjects?

I think of what Jesus is doing as promoting moral, spiritual, and social exercise; an exercise of individual and social conscience. The Olympics in Sochi are just underway, for those of us who are interested, so perhaps it is appropriate to speak of exercise. Just as an Olympic athlete enters into competition with her or his natural talents, but trains often to the point of at least physical discomfort to improve upon these skills she or he already has, so Jesus asks us to exercise our natural human inclination to build strong community.

As sacred and social beings, we know innately the wisdom of God’s commandments and that they are for our good: “You shall not kill… You shall not commit adultery… Do not take a false oath.” But how many of us or of people we know, with full intent or not, make occasional exceptions to these laws or minimize their significance?

“You shall not kill.” But if I am extremely angry with another, is it not defensible to let slip a clever insult or curse, or not to forgive that person immediately, or not to communicate with that person for a time, or maybe to be passive-aggressive toward the person with whom we are angry? Surely these actions will not damage human community, will they? The truth is that they do, even if slowly.

“You shall not commit adultery.” This week, the Church in the U.S. has celebrated the Week of Marriage. Do we join in celebrating the dignity of marriage? How often have you and I seen marriage trivialized instead of revered in our society? How often are the pretty girl, or handsome guy, in the cafeteria line, in our social places, or at Mass; our wives or husbands or fiancé(e)s, or our children regarded as human beings to be loved and not things to be used? The former attitude builds human community; the latter destroys it.

“Do not take a false oath.” While this commandment’s meaning might seem obvious, how often have we made exceptions to speaking only the truth; to letting our “‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and [our] ‘no’ mean ‘no’”?

In a strong human community as we are and of which I have the joy of being a part here at St. Kateri, we heed these and other commandments for the good of our community quite well, I say. But we all need the moral, spiritual, and social exercise that Jesus offers us. The continued strengthening of our human community depends on it. If we accept Jesus’ invitation to exercise, even occasionally to the point of discomfort, we will become more fully human; more like Christ himself.