Lent starts this week! If you haven't started planning your Lent yet then get on it! Nobody starts a training program without first having a plan. Remember, it's about taking your relationship with God to the next level. Put yourself out there and God will not disappoint!
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Homily: 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C
If you’ve ever had the experience of being “blindsided”, then you’ll know that it’s an experience that you’re never likely to forget. Now I’m not talking about being physically blindsided, like in your car or something (though I don’t doubt that such an experience would be just as hard to forget); rather, I’m talking about the experience of being blindsided in life.Many of us, perhaps, have had the experience where we’ve been “cruising” along in life and everything seems to be going pretty well. Then one day someone or something breaks into our lives and drops the proverbial “bomb” on us that, seemingly in an instant, changes everything.
I had such an experience about seven years ago, which led to my entering into the seminary. I had spent a couple of years discerning on and off (mostly off, I should admit) about entering the seminary when I met a really great young woman named Bridget and we started dating. Aside from one little glitch in the first few weeks of our relationship things were going really well between us and I was feeling happy and as if this was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Bridget’s mom didn’t live in Indiana and so it wasn’t until about five months into our relationship that I actually had the opportunity to meet her. That really didn’t go so well for me. Bridget’s mom (and this is to say nothing negative about her, but rather just to report the facts) saw some things that she didn’t like about me and, like any good mom would, she passed those observations onto her daughter. These things blindsided Bridget to the point that it made her start to re-think our relationship, which, of course, then blindsided me. In the end, after much prayer and discernment, Bridget and I realized that we were both missing something; that, in fact, I was missing something… and something big: God’s call to the priesthood.
Being “blindsided” by something in life always functions as kind of a wake-up call. While it is almost never a pleasant experience, it almost always opens our eyes to something that we’ve been missing. Sometimes that thing is clear right away—like when a friend tells you that the way you treated them last week really hurt them, even though in all honesty you were oblivious to the fact. As soon as you hear this from your friend, you see right away what you had been missing. Other times, however (like in my story above), it takes a little while to see clearly what exactly it is that we have been missing. In either case, it is always a sobering and humbling experience that often times demands some course of action from us.
In our readings today, we see multiple examples of this. Isaiah, the humble prophet from Israel, has a vision in which he was standing before the throne of God. When the Seraphim cried “Holy” and the house shook, Isaiah suddenly realized how unworthy he was to be in God’s presence: that he was unclean in the sight of perfect purity. When the Seraphim brought the coal and purified him by touching it to his lips, Isaiah realized that he had been missing something. The vision had “blindsided” him and he now knew that he was being called by God for something. Thus, when God called out for a messenger Isaiah responded without hesitation: “Here I am, send me!”
Saint Paul thought that he was acting righteously the more that he zealously persecuted Christians. Of course we all know the story of how God “knocked him off of his horse” (which is a great image for us, even though the accounts in Scriptures never mention that Paul was riding a horse). God blindsided him so hard that it literally made Saint Paul blind. After he made his way to Damascus and met with Ananias his eyes were opened and he could see exactly what he was missing. As a result (and as we heard today), he turned back and began to preach the very things that he had been persecuting Christians for preaching: that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he rose again, all in accord with the Scriptures.
Finally, Saint Peter’s experience is probably the most relatable of all. As the Gospel recounts it, Peter was just going about his daily business when this teacher shows up and asks if he would take him out off of the shore a little bit so as to teach the people better. When this teacher then suggested he cast out his nets into the deep waters, Peter found something he wasn’t expecting. As he pulled in the super-abundant catch, his eyes were opened and he saw what he was missing about this teacher. Like Isaiah, he immediately recognized his unworthiness. Also like Isaiah, he was immediately purified and given his mission.
Perhaps more than a few of us have had the experience of being blindsided by God. My guess is that even though they were probably distressing, disorientating, and frustrating experiences that in the end they turned out to very positive experiences, leading those of you who have had them to a deeper and more fulfilling experience of life.
My brothers and sisters, if you’ve never had the experience of being “blindsided” by God; or if you’ve never seriously consulted God about decisions you’ve made or directions you’ve taken in your lives, then I guarantee you that you are missing out on something in your life that is part of God’s plan for your happiness and it’s high time for you to give God a chance to show you what it is.
Therefore, I’m going to ask you all to do something a little bit dangerous. Actually, this is great because Lent is right around the corner and this would be a perfect addition to your prayer routine for that season. What I want you to do is, during your regular prayer time (and if you don’t have a regular prayer time, I want you to make a regular prayer time), ask God to show you what it is that you are missing about his will for your life. Then (and this is the dangerous part), I want you to promise him that whatever it is you’ll do it.
My brothers and sisters, if you do these two things—coupled with a healthy dose of fasting and abstinence so as to build your fortitude to actually carry out what God reveals to you—I promise you that on Easter your life will look different and in a very good way. And so as we come here today to give thanks to God for all of his gifts, let us show him our thanks by placing our trust in him, as Christ placed his trust in the Father in the garden of Gethsemane, so that we, too, might receive the same gift of glory that Christ received, the glory that he now shares with us in this holy meal.
Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – February 10th, 2013
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