Homily:
3rd Sunday of Lent – Cycle B
Familiarity breeds
contempt… at least that’s what the modern proverb says. What this saying is, well, saying is that, as
we come to know someone more deeply, we realize just how much we actually don’t
like that person; that is, that with familiarity comes knowledge not just of
the person’s attractive traits, but also of their uglier ones (and we all have
them, don’t we?). I think, in a certain
sense, we can all see some truth in this saying. But there’s another aspect of this saying that
also carries some truth: that is, that familiarity also breeds complacency.
We can see this in our daily routines. Most of you have lived in Logansport or the
surrounding area for some time; and the landmarks that you used to notice as
you went about your daily tasks—such as taking the kids to school, or making a
run to the grocery store, or even just driving to work—after a while just kind
of fade into the landscape, don’t they?
After years of living in this one place, you often find that the
features of your neighborhood no longer seem to register in your consciousness.
This can happen with people, too. Our co-workers, classmates, close friends,
brothers and sisters, and even our spouses become so familiar to us and part of
our daily routine, that the appreciation of how special they are to our lives
is not something that enters our daily consciousness. And so, while this familiarity doesn’t
necessarily breed contempt, it does often breed complacency.
In the first reading today, we heard the recounting of the Ten
Commandments. For many of us, I suspect
that listening to these being read is kind of like making our daily drive to
work or school: we were conscious that we began the trip, but when we got to
our destination we weren’t quite sure how we got there. In other words, the Ten Commandments are
perhaps so familiar to us that they’ve become “part of the landscape” and no
longer impact our daily consciousness.
And this is nothing new.
The ancient Jews also fell into this trap. They had the Law for many years and most people
were very familiar with it and its demands.
Thus, following the precepts of the Law had become for them like our
daily routine: nothing more than part of the daily landscape through which they
had to navigate. And this to the extent
that they turned what is called the “Temple Cult”—that is, the sacrifices
offered in the Temple both in homage of God and as an atonement for sins—into a
business for profit.
That’s when Jesus breaks into the scene and disrupts the
familiar. He saw the way that Satan had
distorted the truth that the Law represented—that is, that it was a way for
God’s chosen people to remain in “right relationship” with Him—and turned it
into a Law of cold demands and business transactions. Jesus saw that this had become so familiar to
the people that they simply accepted it as the conditions for living as the
People of God. By turning over the tables of the familiar, Jesus was hoping to
reawaken in them an awareness of the true relationship to which God had called
them.
The zeal with which Jesus desired that the Temple—his
Father’s house—be free from defilement is the same zeal that he has for our
hearts. He wants to turn over the tables
of the familiar in our hearts and drive out any distorted images of self, of
others, of God, and of what God asks of us so that we can once again see the
beauty of the relationship to which he has called us: both collectively as the
People of God and individually as adopted sons and daughters. ///
Yet, unlike the Temple, Christ cannot just burst into our
hearts and start turning things over.
God created us for freedom and for him to do so would violate that
dignity. And so this Lent—as he does
throughout the year, but particularly in this holy season—Jesus calls us once
again to open our hearts to him and to give him permission to shed light on
anything in them that is unholy, that is untrue, and thus to drive them out, so
as to purify his “temples of the Holy Spirit.”
My brothers and sisters, if all we have done this Lent is
take up our old familiar practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, then we
have little more to hope for when we arrive at Easter Sunday than a feeling of
relief for not having to maintain these disciplines any longer. The challenge we have before us today is to
make this Lent different by “opening wide the doors to Christ,” which was the
clarion call of Saint Pope John Paul II.
We do this by turning our gaze away from ourselves and towards others.
In prayer, we ask God to show us ways that we can overcome
our sinful habits by turning towards our neighbor and offering a word of
encouragement, a gentle correction when they need it, a helping hand in their
difficulties, and a humble acknowledgement of how we’ve hurt them in the past that
is accompanied by a sincere desire for forgiveness. Then we return to God, offering him our
successes and our failures and asking again for the grace to recognize our
weaknesses and to trust in his help to overcome them.
This work, of course, is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable because we have to give
up our control to Christ and make ourselves vulnerable to him and to
others. But that’s ok, because, as our retired
Holy Father, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says, “the world offers you comfort,
but you were not made for comfort; rather you were made for greatness.”
My brothers and sisters, this Lent cannot be just about “sticking
it out” to the end, but rather it must be about achieving the greatness for
which we were made. And so, let Christ—the
Christ we encounter here in the sacrifice we offer and in the meal we
share—turn over the familiar in your hearts.
If you do so, then you will be truly ready to encounter anew the joy of
Easter.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – March 4th, 2018
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