This was my last weekend in Jeffersonville. But this was just the end of an incredibly busy weekend. On Thursday evening, we had our second Around the World Party at Saint Meinrad, were seminarians prepare different foods from the home cultures (some as close as Louisville and as far as Vietnam). Friday night we enjoyed the performance of The Taming of the Shrew by The National Players (with the subsequent "after party" at the UnStable). I celebrated the ordination of my friend Julio Barrera to the diaconate in Bowling Green, KY on Saturday morning. Then to Jeffersonville where I preached the Saturday evening mass before enjoying the nation's (and possibly the world's) biggest fireworks show, Thunder Over Louisville (and from one of the best spots, on the I-65 bridge going into Louisville). Finally, I preached the masses on Sunday morning, the second of which I also baptized a little girl, Alexandra Grace. Lot's of joy was experienced and a lot of calories were burned! Only three weeks of seminary remain...
Here is my homily from this weekend. In reality, it should be experienced live because the whole idea is that the preaching of it itself is supposed to model the witness that it calls people to give. Hopefully you will find some insight in it, however. Enjoy!
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Homily: 3rd Sunday of Easter – Cycle B
In its most
basic definition, a witness is someone who sees an event take place. Typically, we associate a witness with legal
proceedings. Because of this, we all
generally recognize that being a witness carries with it responsibilities,
specifically the responsibility to recount what it is we have seen or
experienced. Here in the United States, one
can only be demanded to “give witness” in a court of law. Otherwise, we have the “right to remain
silent.” For Christians, however, this
right doesn’t necessarily exist.
Certainly, our freedom to
remain silent can never be taken from us.
Nevertheless, as Christians we believe that an encounter with the risen
Christ demands a kerygmatic response. It is in fact a response commissioned by
Christ when he told his disciples, “You are witnesses….”
Now I know
many of you are probably looking at me and saying, “I was with you right up
until that “K”-word. Right, kerygmatic. First let me tell you that it is not
important that you know how to say this word and it is even less important that
you know how to spell it (if it wasn’t for spell-check, I would get it wrong
every time). Now let me tell you what it
means. It’s a Greek word that means a
convincing proclamation of what one has seen and heard. For Christians, kerygma is a proclamation that the crucified and risen Jesus is
God’s final and definitive act of salvation.
Imagine for a moment that someone would stand up in this assembly and
say: “Brothers and Sisters, you remember this man, Jesus of Nazareth, the
prophet mighty in word and deed, who worked many signs and wonders in our midst
and whom we lauded as our king as he entered this city; this man whom we then
watched as he was condemned wrongfully and led off to be crucified. I stand before you today and tell you that he
has been raised to life and that I have seen him. And not only me, but these other men,
too. We have seen him face to face. We have heard him talk and have seen his
hands and his feet. We have even seen
him eat and so are assured that it is no ghost that we have seen, but a living
man. Truly, we tell you, this Jesus,
whom you have crucified, has been raised to life.” You can imagine that this kind of a witness
would be pretty powerful. This is
exactly the witness that Peter gives in our first reading today.
Taking a
look at that reading again, we see that we are not given the context of Peter’s
speech. Why do you think that is? Why do you think the Church cut out the parts
that give us the context of Peter’s speech? It is because the Church wants us to recognize
that Peter is not only speaking to those people who were present at that
historical point and time, but rather that he is also speaking directly to us
today.
And so when
we read that Peter said that God “has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s
presence…” we can recognize that his plural “you” means all of us and hopefully
we can also recall our experience of Good Friday, when, during the recounting
of the Passion of our Lord, we shouted as the crowds did when Pilate wanted to
release Jesus, “Crucify him! Crucify
him!” And when Peter says “You denied the Holy and Righteous One
and asked that a murderer be released to you” hopefully we will recall how we,
too, chose Barabbas over Jesus. We are
called to feel convicted of our sins, which Peter intends when he says, “The
author of life you put to death…” and
then to feel the power of his next words: “…but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.”
By leaving out
the context, the Church calls us to acknowledge that Peter is announcing the
conviction against us, reminding us that our sins, too, were what nailed Jesus
to the cross. Yet, Peter doesn’t condemn
us, does he? No, he doesn’t. Rather, he speaks words of mercy. First he calls us brothers. In spite of our culpability, he reminds us that
we are still family. Then he speaks
words of consolation. “I know that you
were unaware—that you were ignorant—of what it was you were doing. God used your ignorance to fulfill his great
plan. Now, be ignorant no more. God’s
mercy is available to you. Repent and
the sins of your ignorance will be wiped away.”
In other words, he is saying that God has looked with mercy on our
ignorance, but that he stands before us to tell us that we no longer have that
excuse.
My brothers
and sisters, as sinners, we deserve Peter’s judgment, for it is our sins, too,
that crucified Christ. Yet, as baptized
Christians, we find that we also stand in the Upper Room, where Christ appears
and opens the Scriptures for us and declares to us that we, too, “are witnesses
of these things.” My brothers and
sisters, we are witnesses. We have encountered the risen Christ. In fact, we encounter him every Sunday, here
at this altar. Peter and the other disciples knew that once they had encountered
the risen Christ, they could not remain in the Upper Room, but had to go forth from
there to proclaim what they had seen and heard. And so it is with us. As much as we can no longer claim ignorance of
our sins, no longer can we stand idle, either.
Ite. Missa est. Those old enough will recall that these are
the words of dismissal from the mass as it was celebrated in Latin. Ironically, even though the new English
translation of the mass was intended to more closely emulate the Latin, the
dismissal seems to have somehow escaped that treatment. Literally (and somewhat slavishly)
translated, the Latin phrase means “Go.
It is the dismissal.” However,
the word “dismissal,” in the sense that it is used in Latin, means something
more than “you are free to go” like it does in English. It means, rather, “you are sent forth” and it
is understood that this “sending forth” involves some sort of mission. Missa. Dismissal.
Mission. Those words all sound
related, don’t they?
Every
Sunday we participate anew in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ; we
encounter again the risen Lord in Word and Sacrament. My brothers and sisters, we are witnesses. Therefore,
the dismissal at mass is never the end of our Christian obligation for the
week, but rather it is just the beginning.
The privilege of being a witness—and it is a privilege—brings with it
the responsibility to proclaim what we have seen and heard in every place where
we live. Just listen to our late Holy
Father, Blessed Pope John Paul II, who said at the beginning of his pontificate,
“Do not be afraid to go out into the streets and the public places—like the
first apostles!—to preach Christ and the good news of salvation in the squares
of cities.” If we are to be authentic
witnesses then we must take seriously this “sending forth” that we receive today
and every Sunday.
Does anyone
know what the Greek word for “witness” is?
It’s martyr. May our kerygma,
our witness, of the risen Christ whom we encounter here at this mass earn us so
noble a title.
~ Given at Sacred Heart
and Saint Augustine parishes, Jeffersonville, IN: April 21-22, 2012
