Homily for Sunday, 31 July 2016

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23; Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17; Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11; Luke 12:13-21

This homily was given at the Monastery of the Carmel of St. Joseph near Spruce Grove, AB, Canada.

What is the point?

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,” the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes from which we hear our first reading today. “All is vanity”! Is this not a somewhat cynical and sad view of our world and of human labour?

After all, in our Psalm we have just prayed to God, “Prosper for us the work of our hands.” Does this not contradict the view of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, who says of “the work of our hands”: “For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity”?

I am willing to admit that maybe the person who wrote Ecclesiastes may have been having a bad day at work. Maybe he was suffering from a severe case of writer’s block (if so, I can empathize with him, as a priest and graduate student). Maybe the Teacher had a difficult boss… or editor or publisher. Maybe (and by no means do I wish to make light of depression) he was depressed. And yet is there not surely more dignity than vanity in our work and in our world? If not, what is the point of anything we do? To borrow the title of a book from Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, a Dominican priest I had the joy of meeting a couple of years ago at his home at Blackfriars, Oxford, England, What Is the Point of Being a Christian, especially if “all things are vanity”?

I think both the Letter to the Colossians and our Gospel reading today from Luke give us clues toward answering questions like these. St. Paul says to the Colossians, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.” And Jesus reminds the crowd he teaches with the parable of the greedy rich man to seek to be “rich toward God”; to be “rich in what matters to God” and not to stockpile vain, perishable, earthly riches. And so our question shifts from “What is the point of our work; our faith; our worship; anything we do” to “How might we be rich in what matters to God; in what is of heaven and imperishable”?

Our world gives us many countersigns to “things that are above”; to richness “toward God” and “in what matters to God.” Some seek to be rich in money and material wealth. These are not bad in and of themselves, unless we rely on this material wealth in place of God or accumulate this wealth at the expense of other people. Some seek to be rich in military might and weaponry; rich in various forms of violence. Some seek to be rich in security and certainty. These people go so far as to want to build walls against anybody who may threaten their security. They go so far as to barricade their hearts and minds so not to need to respond to people who challenge their certainties (sometimes constructively), instead of defending the truths of God and of our faith, if necessary, with charity, kindness, and openness to better ways of expressing these timeless truths.

The “prosperity gospel”; the gospel of might and violence; the gospel of security; the gospels of greed and pride: These are not the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the Good News of our God. These are countersigns to the Gospel of Jesus Christ; these are false gospels. Yet enough people fall for these countersigns so that we have reached many crisis points in our world: Frayed and broken relationships in families; disregard for human life and dignity, especially of the not-yet-born, the elderly and the sick, and people with disabilities; wars; racism; a growing gap between the world’s wealthiest and poorest, many who lack even sufficient food and safe drinking water; acts of terrorism, most recently the murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel in France while he was celebrating Mass; more Christians and people of other creeds abused and killed than ever out of hatred for their faiths…

“This also is vanity.” This is appalling. And so what is the point, whether of our work, “of being a Christian,” or of being at all? What matters to God, and how might we be “rich toward God”? It can be well and good of us to condemn the “vanities”; the inhuman horrors of our time. It is well and good of us to speak to the truth of our Christian faith. But to condemn what is vain and false and to affirm truth is not enough. Religious faith cannot rest on the affirmation, “Because it is true.” “A religion,” Timothy Radcliffe says in What is the Point of Being a Christian?, “that tries to market itself as useful for some other purpose” than “to point us to God who is the point of everything… cannot be a religion that [we] could take seriously.” Religious faith demands a lived, ethical response. Our faith; our God calls us to live our response to these great questions: What is the point of who we are and what we do? How do we become “rich toward God”; “in what matters to God”?

And so how do we live our response to these questions? When I ask myself this, I think back to one of St. John Paul II’s earliest encyclicals; his teaching letters to the whole Church: Dives in Misericordia, or “Rich in Mercy.” “It is ‘God, who is rich in mercy,” Pope John Paul II begins. Mercy is “what matters to God.” Our God has revealed himself to us as mercy and invites us Christians to continue to reveal God to our world as mercy.

This, without doubt, is a difficult task for us, even before we consider all the countersigns in our world to mercy. Where do we even begin? I am not sure how many of us have been able to follow the news from World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland. This past Friday the Way of the Cross wound through the streets of Krakow. Each station of the Way of the Cross at this World Youth Day, during this Jubilee Year of Mercy, also included a meditation on one of the corporal or spiritual works of mercy. Might I suggest that these corporal and spiritual works of mercy would be great ways for us to reveal to our world our God “who is rich in mercy”?

Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty. Clothe the naked. Shelter the homeless. Visit the sick and the imprisoned. Bury the dead. Instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and admonish sinners, always with love and patience. Bear wrongs patiently. Forgive offenses willingly. Comfort the afflicted. Pray for the living and the dead.

These are all ways in which we, as Christians, reveal Christ; reveal our God to our world as “rich in mercy.” And we show, by doing these works of mercy ourselves and by encouraging one another to do the same, that we are “rich toward God”; “rich in what matters to God”; that we, too, are “rich in mercy.” It is all the better when we show God’s mercy in our world quietly; unassumingly, without regard for our own gain but for “[glorifying] God by our lives.”

This, I dare say, is “the point of being a Christian.” Mercy, with humility, is the antidote to injustice; to greed; to violence; to “vanity.” Mercy points us to God; toward “things that are above.” Mercy makes us “rich toward God” who is “rich in mercy” and who prospers “the work of our hands.”

Homily for Thursday, 19 March 2015– Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings of the day: 2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16; Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29; Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22; Luke 2:41-51a

Who was St. Joseph? He never speaks a word in Scripture. He is traditionally said to be a carpenter. He worked hard at his trade and was a good and holy husband to Mary. He was of the family line of King David, begun with the prophecy of Nathan we hear in our first reading today from 2 Samuel. We know from Scripture that St. Joseph was a man of deep faith. Our second reading today from Romans, on this feast day of St. Joseph, remembers Abraham, whose faith “was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham’s faith was a gift from God.

And the same could be said of Joseph: He held a deep yet humble, even silent faith that was God’s gift to him. Joseph’s faith was the faith of Abraham; God’s gift of “righteousness.” Because of how Joseph lived his faith, God gave him the remarkable, and sometimes terrifying, responsibility along with his wife Mary of raising Jesus, the Son of God made human.

But other than this, do we know much about St. Joseph? The last we hear of St. Joseph in the Bible is in today’s Gospel reading. When Jesus “was twelve years old,” Luke says, he went with Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus becomes separated from Joseph and Mary, who frantically search for him. Imagine the crowds in Jerusalem; having to search for a child in a city of this size during the Passover! Having been to Jerusalem, I can imagine the crowds for the Passover and Joseph’s and Mary’s distress at losing Jesus. Can any of us who have children; who have ever experienced losing a child in a crowd, imagine how terrifying this would have been for Joseph and Mary, even more clearly than I can?

And yet Joseph never says a word. He leaves the speaking to Mary: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Was Joseph so terrified at losing Jesus in Jerusalem? Was he so relieved at finding him in the Temple, or so “astounded” to find Jesus teaching the best teachers of the Jewish faith in the Temple about the Law and the prophets; “listening to them and asking them questions,” that Joseph was speechless? All this is possible, even probable, but we will never fully know.

We cannot know from Scripture fully who St. Joseph was: Was he really a carpenter, or what did he do to earn a living? Did St. Joseph ever take questions about his faith to prayer? Why does St. Joseph never speak in Scripture, and why is he not mentioned after Jesus is found in the Temple?

We know little about who St. Joseph was. Still, we celebrate St. Joseph with today’s feast: Faithful Joseph, husband of Mary; descendant of David; earthly father to Jesus; patron and protector of the family; of fathers; of those who are poor (whom we remember especially with our parish’s St. Joseph Tables!). We celebrate what we know of St. Joseph; what we do not know; what we hold humbly; silently as mysteries of faith.

Homily for Thursday, 25 September 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 25th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ecclesiastes 1:2-11; Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17bc; Luke 9:7-9

Do our lives; does our work have any significance? If we hear only the cynical words of Qoheleth in today’s first reading, the beginning of the Book of Ecclesiastes, it would seem that nothing we do, nor even our lives, have any significance. “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” Qoheleth says. “What profit” have we “from all the labor which [we toil] at under the sun”?

Would not many of us be inclined to agree with Qoheleth? Life is cyclical: birth; growing up; work; taxes; death… Does all this have any meaning? Perhaps atheists of our time would be proud that even Scripture questions whether our existence has any meaning. Would a loving, present, and merciful God allow this kind of meaningless existence?

But wait… Should Qoheleth’s questions be interpreted not literally but rhetorically? Perhaps what Qoheleth is saying is that, indeed, nothing matters, neither our lives nor our work nor even belief in God, if it is self-serving and not oriented toward serving others and God. Toward whom are our lives; our work; our faith; our worship oriented: God and others or ourselves? Are our lives; our work; our faith; our worship maybe oriented toward God and others sometimes and toward ourselves at other times? Our lives; our work; our faith; our worship are meaningless “vanity” if they are “all about me.” Our lives; our work; our faith; our worship are given meaning if they are all about God and about the people and the world we serve and love in God’s name.

On the one hand, our Gospel gives us the example of King Herod, for whom life was all about him. And so he is perplexed by Jesus; neither able to “see him” nor to “hear” accurately the truth about who Jesus is: the Christ; the Son of God.

On the other hand, perhaps many of us could identify with the writer of today’s Psalm. We at least try (if we are not often successful) at making our lives; our work; our faith; our worship all about God and the people we serve. Yet we recognize, as in our Psalm, that we cannot live a life of faith; we cannot worship properly; we cannot have any meaning beyond “vanity of vanities” without relationship with God. And so the writer of our Psalm prays and invites us to pray to God, “Prosper the work of our hands!”

Lord, “prosper the work of our hands for us”! You give meaning to our lives; our work; our service; our faith; our worship, which are not first about “me” but about you, O God, and the people and world we serve and love in your name.

Homily for Wednesday, 20 August 2014– Memorial of St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Wednesday of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 34:1=11; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Matthew 20:1-16

How fair would it be if somebody were to arrive at work on time or early every day without fail, and then if somebody else were to arrive late consistently or not at all many days? What if, on pay day, the employer were to give the same wage and bonuses to both employees? I do not think this would be very fair of the employer.

Now, what if this employer were God? Our God may be exceedingly generous with the late-arriving employee to the vineyard in today’s Gospel, but unless God intends to stir up anger in the workplace, to give the same wage to the late arrival as to the employee who has worked all day is not a very fair employment practice!

“The last will be first, and the first will be last.” Would not the workers in the vineyard who have worked all day be justified in complaining about the late arrivals receiving the same daily wage as they do? And yet does not our Gospel reading today remind us not only of God’s generosity, but first and foremost to ask ourselves: What have we already received from God’s generosity; God’s mercy; God’s grace?

Our competitive social environment does not do well with “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Competition in a society can be positive. Our society glorifies “the last” who rise to be “the first.” We call this “the American dream”: that anyone who works hard, at least ideally, can reap the prosperity of our land. But we do not regard well those who are prosperous seemingly with little effort of their own.

How does this affect our Christian faith? Let us take the example of the person who comes into our faith; our Church late in life, or the person who has lived a dissolute lifestyle who repents late in life? Are these people not to receive the same eternal life as all of us are promised; the same wage as those who have worked in the vineyard all day, to use the metaphor of our Gospel reading today?

“The last will be first, and the first will be last,” precisely because we cannot earn entry into God’s Kingdom. Our God is more generous than we could ever be through our generosity in return. Christ died and rose so that “the first” and “the last” would inherit God’s Kingdom together.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose feast we celebrate today, once said that many people want to be canals of God’s grace when it would be better if we thought of ourselves as reservoirs. Water, like God’s grace, flows through a canal; it is not allowed to build up as in a reservoir. When the reservoir becomes full, it overflows. So it is with God’s saving grace to the world if we let it fill us to overflowing. Once we are full, we cannot lose anything; we remain full while the overflow enriches the world.

God’s generosity; God’s grace saves us; fills us to overflowing if we let ourselves be reservoirs of this generosity; this grace. And so “the last will be first, and the first will be last,” with no distinction among the faithful in God’s vineyard; God’s Kingdom.