God can bring us to our best end.

          This is my homily for my last weekend at All Saints in Logansport.  Next weekend (June 30-July 1) I begin my assignment as Pastor of the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Immaculate Conception in Lafayette.  Please pray for me, for Fr. Jeff Martin (the new Pastor of All Saints) and for both parishes during this time of transition.

Homily: The Nativity of John the Baptist – Cycle B

          Friends, we are very blessed today to celebrate this great feast of the Birth, or Nativity, of John the Baptist.  Every year, this feast falls on June 24^th, and the Church thinks it so important that we celebrate this feast, that its celebration is not suppressed when it falls on Sunday: which it does every six years or so.  Thus, after only a couple more weeks of “ordinary” Ordinary Time Sundays, we enjoy another special celebration.

          So, why does the Church consider this so important of a celebration?  Well, certainly because John was such a pivotal player in salvation history.  He was the herald (that is, the announcer or proclaimer) of the arrival of the Messiah (the one for whom the Jews were waiting, who would usher in the fullness of God’s kingdom); and so, his birth—and the circumstances surrounding his birth—mark the moment that this crucial “pivot” begins.  I could spend time unpacking for you how all of those circumstances are meaningful (and if you’re interested, you might seek out Bishop Robert Barron’s homily for today on the internet, as he explores this nicely); but I’d rather focus on two points that today’s celebration seems to make for us: 1) the amazing truth that God works through us, not around us; and 2) that it isn’t how one begins one’s life that makes a difference, but rather how one ends it.

          First: God works through us, not around us.  One of the things that gets overlooked in our celebration of saints is that God didn’t need them.  In the book of Genesis, we read that God created everything ex nihilo, that is, out of nothing.  And so the question arises: If God doesn’t need us to accomplish his work, then why does he rely on us?  In answering this question, we come to better understand God’s plan.  God created us, not to be his slaves, or to be some plaything for his entertainment, but so that he could share with us, his creatures, the eternal bliss of his divine life.  By inviting us to cooperate in his work, he is inviting us to be united to him and to help others to be united to him, too.  Still further, our cooperation in his work makes us feel loved and wanted by God; and his interaction in our world demonstrates his love and care for us.  In the end: God works through us not because he needs us to make up for something he lacks, but rather to unite us to him and so fulfill his plan for creation.

          The evidence of this is right there in the Scriptures: in spite of the numerous times in which God’s plan to bring salvation was thwarted by the lack of cooperation from the men and women he called, God continued to call them.  And, by many numerous persons who did cooperate, he moved his plan forward.  Thus, we come to John: the one, in a sense, predestined to be the herald of the Messiah (though nobody really understood that at his birth): one who cooperated with God’s plan and thus helped make the fullness of God’s plan a reality when he announced Jesus as the Messiah.

          This, in a way, brings us to our second point: that it’s not so much how we begin our lives, but how we end them that matters.  You see, while John may have been predestined from birth for this work that God had given to him, he was not predetermined.  In other words, John could have chosen to resist God’s call or even to abandon God altogether.  Yet, he didn’t.  Rather, he cooperated with God’s plan and announced a baptism of repentance—a cleansing—in order to prepare for the coming of the desperately anticipated Messiah.  When the Messiah appeared, he continued to call for repentance: so much so that he was eventually killed by those in power whom he was condemning so as to silence his voice.  It is because of the way that John ended his life—remaining a faithful cooperator in God’s work—that we honor John and, therefore, his birth.  Therefore, like Isaiah, whose voice we heard in the first reading and who faithfully cooperated in God’s work until the end of his life, John has been honored far above his Jewish people and has become a light to all nations.

          Friends, these same things are true for us.  You see, God wants to work through us.  And for God, how he accomplishes his works is just as important as what he accomplishes.  The what is growing his kingdom by uniting more men and women to him.  The how is through our cooperation.  For most of us, this means sanctifying our world and others through day to day actions: such as, living virtuous lives according to the Ten Commandments, loving God in our prayer and worship and through our love for our neighbor, serving both their physical and spiritual needs and supporting their efforts to grow in holiness.  For some, this also means preaching and teaching and leading others.  For all, however, it is to discern how God has called us to cooperate with his work—continuously, in every stage of our lives—and then continuously to give ourselves to it.

          By continuously giving ourselves to the work of cooperating in God’s work in the world, we will then be prepared to end our lives well.  Friends, even if we've lived many years and have never given ourselves to doing God's work, we can still respond.  Many saints lived dissolute lives only to be turned, finally, to God and to cooperate with his work.  Some for only a small percentage of their life span; but it was the most important part, the end: and it is the end of our lives to which most people look to gauge what it was that we valued most.  Therefore, if we turn, even now, to seek God and the work that he has given to us, he will bless our efforts and we will not be disappointed.

          And so, what is the best way to end our lives?  I don’t think we can look for a better example than John the Baptist: who ended his life by pointing towards Jesus.  Again, no matter how we've lived our lives up to this point, if we end our lives having repented and cooperated with God's plan, and pointed away from ourselves and towards Jesus, we will have finished well.  (Which, of course, is what I hope you have seen me do in my time here: to seek repentance and to help others do the same and to point not to myself, but to Christ.)

          You know, not many of us had auspicious beginnings, like John the Baptist did.  All of us, however, can have an ending like his that leads to glory.  And so I encourage you: pray and listen for what God asks of you; then be courageous to step out and do it, even if it means you'll be rejected; and trust that God, working through you, will manifest his kingdom among us.  Friends, this begins here, in this (and in every) Eucharist, when we worship him with our hearts and are nourished by his Word and by his Body and Blood.

          John the Baptist once said, "I must decrease, he must increase."  As I “decrease” from your sight, may Christ and his kingdom continue to increase among you.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – June 23^rd & 24^th, 2018

A chosen race?

Homily: 20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

          The ancient Jews thought that they were a “chosen race”; and this, for good reason.  Throughout the Old Testament in the Bible, we read how, time and again, God called this people and set them apart by making a covenant with them: a sacred contract which united this people to God by an irrevocable bond.  Because of this covenant, God demanded that his people would hold to a higher standard of living.  Now, I’m not talking about the house they live in or the clothes that they wear, but rather about their conduct: both with him and with each other.  They were to treat each other justly and to keep themselves from the defilement of sin—most importantly, the defilement of in any way acknowledging or worshiping the false gods of pagan peoples.

          What this led to, as you might imagine, is that the ancient Jews became very strict about how they interacted with non-Jewish people.  They feared that any interaction with any non-Jew would lead to defilement before God and so they severely restricted the ways in which a Jew could interact with a non-Jew.

          Nevertheless, throughout their history, God revealed to his “chosen people” that one day even non-Jews would be acceptable to him.  In other words, that he would extend the benefits of his covenant even to those who were not direct descendants of one of the sons of Israel.  Our reading from the prophet Isaiah is an example of this.  In it, he states that “foreigners who join themselves to the Lord…” following his statutes and commandments, will be acceptable to him and God will lead them to the place of true worship, the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, where they will offer sacrifice and praise and, thus, receive blessings from him.  Isaiah concludes by saying “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

          For an ancient Jew, who perhaps had gotten quite comfortable with the idea that their race was a race “set apart” from all others and, thus, held a distinct privilege above all others, to hear this prophesy that all peoples will one day be united under God might have upset some of them.  Everyone likes to feel like they are special and that they are part of something special and unique.  Grateful as the ancient Jews may have been for God’s favor, they nonetheless were reluctant to accept that God’s favor could be given to anyone.  They feared that, by allowing other races to enter, they’d lose their distinctiveness as a race and, thus, the particular favor that they enjoyed before God.

          At the time that Jesus walked the earth, those fears were at fever pitch because of the Roman occupation of the holy land that God had given to his chosen people.  The Jews, therefore, were greatly anticipating the Messiah, the one who would liberate them from the oppressive Roman regime and usher in the kingdom of heaven: a new springtime in prosperity for the Jewish people.  As we know, Jesus is the Messiah for whom they were waiting, but he didn’t conform to their expectations.  Instead of closely guarding and reinforcing their racial boundaries, re-isolating the Jewish people from the non-Jewish races, Jesus broke through them: opening the door to fulfill what Isaiah had prophesied centuries before.

          Just look at today’s Gospel reading: Jesus “withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon…”  This was Gentile territory and we aren’t given much of a reason why he went there.  Then we’re told that a Canaanite woman approaches him.  There are many social taboos that are broken here: 1) that she was an unattended woman approaching a man; 2) she is a non-Jew speaking to a Jew; 3) this is all happening in public.  In spite of all of this, she pleads for Jesus to heal her daughter.  At first, Jesus tows the line: ignoring her, and then brushing her off as a non-Jew.  Finally, he accedes and grants her what she asks because of her faith.  In Isaiah, it says “The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him, loving the name of the Lord, and becoming his servants … will be acceptable…”  Jesus, recognizing that the covenant belongs to the Jews, but also that, through the Jews, God desires all peoples to come to himself, finds this woman “joined to the Lord” in faith and so grants her the benefits which belong properly to the people of the covenant.

          Saint Paul, in another place, wrote “There is no longer Jew, nor Greek, man, nor woman, slave, nor free…” in the eyes of the Lord.  Therefore, we know that, with Jesus, all who profess faith, “joining themselves to the Lord, ministering to him and loving the name of the Lord,” are able to receive the benefits that rightly belong to the Jewish people, the people of the covenant.  And so we are here today.

          My brothers and sisters, our Scriptures today ought to make clear to us that it is unacceptable for any of us to think that we are somehow a “chosen race”, privileged above all others (regardless of which race we belong to).  The events of this past week, particularly the ugly events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, ought to reinforce this fact.  Rather, we must be bearers of the Good News that God has made it so that all persons, regardless of race, now have access to his divine life: granted that they meet the strict conditions: that they join themselves to the Lord, minister to him, love the name of the Lord, and become his servants.

          Friends, regardless of whether you were born and raised here or if “you ain’t from around here”, God desires you to be united to him in his Church, here in this place.  If you aren’t on board with this plan then you have chosen not to serve the Lord and you risk separating yourselves from him.  Nobody is saying, of course, that you have to stop being “Berries”, “Kings”, “Panthers”, or “Comets”, or that you have to stop being “Italian”, “German”, “Irish”, “Mexican”, “Guatemalan”, “Salvadorian”, “Honduran”, “Vietnamese”, or “Pilipino”.  It does mean, however, that you have to see in this great diversity your brother, your sister, your co-heir to the kingdom won for us by Jesus; and that you have to accept your mission to go out from your own group to seek out those who still are not joined to us, so that they, too, might share in God’s divine life.

          Brothers and sisters, this Eucharist that we share is not the exclusive reward for one privileged group, but rather God’s divine life, given for all.  As we receive it today, let us be ready to bring our brothers and sisters to this table and thus bring God’s kingdom to fulfillment.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – August 19^th & 20^th, 2017