Homily:
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
The 1993 Stephen Spielberg film Schindler’s List provided the world with a glimpse into the story
of Oskar Schindler whose heroic acts during World War II in Nazi Germany would
save the lives of over one-thousand Jews.
Nevertheless, he was a very unlikely hero. His biography notes that he was a member of
the Nazi party who was a spy for Germany.
He was a businessman whose was always looking for an angle—ethical or
otherwise—to gain an advantage and to maximize his profits. And he was a husband known for being
unfaithful and for drinking in excess.
As he was confronted with the horrors of the Holocaust, however, he was
transformed from a Nazi war profiteer to a protector of Jews.
Thankfully, many Jews overcame their fear of trusting
Germans to accept work in his factories, in which he often falsified documents
so as to protect them from being sent to concentration camps. I wonder how many others could not overcome
their fear, however, perhaps in spite of having seen the good works he had
already been doing, and thus missed a chance to find some semblance of
protection from the Nazi oppressors, all because Oskar Schindler didn’t fit
what they imagined their savior would be?
Nearly three thousand, three hundred and fifty years
earlier, the ancient Israelite people stood on the cusp of entering the land
that God had promised to give them when he led them out of the Egypt. Moses, then about one-hundred and twenty
years old, who had led them in their dramatic exodus, and in the forty years of
desert wandering that followed, would not cross into the promised land with
them, for he was about to die. Knowing
this, he gave his last testimony to God’s chosen people, which is recorded for
us in the book of Deuteronomy. In it, he
tells the people of God’s promise to raise up for them another prophet, like himself—a
man mighty in word and deed—to lead them once again. Although in the ensuing years many a prophet
had arisen from among God’s chosen people, none of them seemed to completely
conform to the prophet promised by God through Moses.
Just over fourteen-hundred years later, a man named Jesus, the
son of a carpenter from Nazareth, appeared on the scene in Galilee and began to
teach in a new way. He had come out of
nowhere, it seemed, as he had not been a student of any of the great Jewish
teachers of the day. Nonetheless, he
taught the people as one having authority.
This means that, instead of teaching according to the generally accepted
experts of the Scriptures, claiming their
authority, he taught claiming his own
authority over them (for example, when he said “You have heard it said… but I say to you…” he was claiming his own
authority to interpret the Scriptures). To
back this up, he also commanded evil spirits: thus proving that his word had
definitive authority.
The people who witnessed this were amazed and many began to
wonder whether or not Jesus was the prophet promised to them by God through
Moses so many years ago. Nonetheless,
many doubted as Jesus did not seem to fit the image of the Messiah who was to
come to save God’s people: the image of a warrior prince who would topple all
of Israel’s enemies; an image that had been imprinted in the minds of the
Jewish people ever since they returned from the Babylonian exile. Therefore, many refused to follow him and, as
we know from the Gospels, some even turned against him. Perhaps it was fear that led them to
this. Perhaps, however, they weren’t
ready to let go of what they had—the security of their livelihoods or, perhaps,
their favorite sins—so as to follow him.
In our own time, we see that we are in a time of serious
trouble: and one doesn’t need to be but half-serious about being Christian to
see that. (And, by the way, if you
aren’t troubled by what you see happening in the world—even here in our own
town—then I would seriously question your commitment to being a
Christian!) And so, perhaps we, too, are
looking for a hero, a prophet, who
will come and save us from this mess.
Pope Francis, of course, is doing everything in his power to fit this
bill, speaking frankly about the evils of our time and challenging all peoples,
himself first and foremost, to take an active role in reversing this tide. Our own bishop, Bishop Doherty, is the prophet
of our Local Church who also strives to speak grace into our modern lives and
to challenge us to take up our part in this mission. Fr. Mike and myself are extensions of the
bishop’s ministry right here in Cass County.
Ultimately, of course, it’s Jesus—mediated through us, his human
instruments—that we are looking for, regardless of whether or not we recognize
it.
Yet how often do we turn away from these prophets, because
our priest, or the bishop, or the Pope, doesn’t fit the image of a true prophet/hero
that we have created for ourselves?
Better yet, how often do we fail to seek them out because we are afraid
that they will challenge us to leave off our sin—you know, our favorite sin,
the one we hope no one will ever make us feel guilty for—and so choose to
remain oppressed by these evil spirits instead of approaching these prophets,
and pleading for their help so that these spirits might be cast out?
My brothers and sisters, it is clear to me—and hopefully to
all of us here—that the world is full of evil spirits who are wreaking havoc on
our lives. It is also clear to me,
however, that most of us spend far too much time pleading with God that the
spirits oppressing others—you know, the ones that offend us the most—would be
cast out, when we should be pleading with God—and with the prophets that God
has sent to us—that he would cast out the evil spirits within us.
This, my brothers and sisters, is the work of a true disciple: to
acknowledge one’s own sin—and the havoc that it has caused—and to plead for
God’s mercy to be liberated from it; and it is a work that the disciple must
take up every day. ///
I imagine that the man oppressed by the unclean spirit, who
nonetheless came to the synagogue in Capernaum of Galilee that day, was
probably afraid to approach Jesus. We
read, too, that the spirit who was oppressing him was even more afraid. Had the man turned away from this carpenter
from Nazareth, he would have remained oppressed by this spirit and Jesus’ power
would not have been made manifest. The
man approached, however, and Jesus showed his power. Let us, then, come to the Lord Jesus—both
here, at this altar, and there, in the confessional—even if we are full of
fear, so that we, too, might experience his power and begin to see our world
set free.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – January 31st & February 1st, 2015
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