Jesus, of course, is our ultimate insurance policy. And so we can give without fearing loss. Hopefully we can learn to trust him more and more!
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Homily
Two: 33rd Sunday, Ordinary Time, Cycle C
Just days before his installation, the newly appointed
bishop was taking a quiet moment to observe and enjoy the beauty of what would
soon be his cathedral church. It had
been renovated recently and so it seemed that every corner was gleaming with
light and beauty. As he walked slowly
through the nave, a man, somewhat short in stature and advanced in age, well
appointed except for his thin white hair, which was whisped somewhat messily
over to one side, stood near the bishop and said, “You know, the days will come
when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown
down.” Hearing this, the bishop paused
for a moment and glanced over his shoulder to see who had made the
comment. The man, smiling with a foolish
grin, was standing some space behind him but didn’t say a word when they made
eye contact. The bishop assumed that the
man was talking to himself, and so he smiled, nodded his head and then returned
to his slow saunter through the church.
A few moments later, the man spoke up again and said, “You
know, the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone
that will not be thrown down.” Again the
bishop paused and glanced over his shoulder at the man with the foolish grin
standing some space behind him. The
bishop, quite familiar with the Scripture this man was quoting, was struck by
what seemed to be a rather irrational thought: “might this man be some sort of
prophet sent to give me a message?” The
thought made him quite uneasy. Although
he knew better than to ask “when will this happen?” and “what sign will there
be?” he still felt compelled to find out more about this stranger’s
purpose. And so he turned around,
approached the man, and asked him gently, “Do I know you?” “I don’t think so,” replied the man. “Do you know who I am?” the bishop
asked. “Of course,” the man said,
“you’re our new bishop.” Then, somewhat
embarrassedly the bishop leaned in towards the man and asked quietly, “Are you
some sort of prophet?” Amused, the man
replied “Oh, no. I’m no prophet. But I do have something important that I’d
like to talk to you about…” Well, as it
turns out, the man was an insurance salesman who wanted to pitch the new bishop
on a policy for the cathedral. I think
we can all agree that he had a great hook!
The bishop may have breathed a sigh of relief at the man’s
response that day, but Jesus’ followers in the Gospel didn’t get off quite so
easy. “Wars and insurrections, nation
rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom; earthquakes, famines, and
plagues… all of these will happen first!” Jesus says. “But you won’t have to worry about all of
that, because before that happens you will be seized and persecuted, handed
over to synagogues and prisons, and led before kings and governors to give
testimony. Even your parents, brothers,
relatives and friends will turn you in.
And some of you (probably the lucky ones) will even be put to
death. Oh, and I almost forgot, just to
make it a little more complicated, there will be a lot of folks who are going
to try to convince you that they are from me in order to lead you into
apostasy. And, I hate to tell you, but
there’s really no easy way to tell who’s legit and who’s not, so good luck with
that…” Having heard all of that, I don’t
think that any of us would blame these folks for thinking that the prospect of
being Jesus’ follower was pretty scary.
Certainly, we can see many of these prophecies being
fulfilled even in our own day. There is
no shortage of “doomsday” prophets in our midst. Every few years, it seems, a new crop of
prophets arise, claiming to have unlocked the secret to identifying when the
days of destruction will come, and every few years many are convinced and are
led away from the Church. Without much
effort, I’m sure that each of us could name a handful of places at least where
“wars and insurrections” and “nations rising against nations” are occurring
right now. Tribal conflicts continue to
arise in Africa and daily, it seems, the news tells us of religious sectarian
violence that plagues the streets of towns and cities throughout the Middle
East. Speaking of the Middle East,
persecution is a daily reality for Christians there, where their own
countrymen, sometimes even their own relatives, attack them without respect
even for their sacred spaces. We saw
this vividly a couple of months ago when violence erupted in Egypt once again
and protesters took to attacking Christian churches, injuring worshipers and
significantly damaging their ancient worship spaces. I imagine that most of us would find it
pretty easy to sympathize with those in the Gospel today and would ourselves
conclude that the prospect of being Jesus’ follower is pretty scary. Yet Jesus, in spite of his dark prophecy,
helps us to see that the prospect of not
being his follower is scarier still.
The world’s justice, as we know, is merciless. Subject to the world’s justice, we are left
by ourselves and by ourselves, what power do we have against it? God’s justice, however, is infinitely more
powerful than the world’s justice, because it is mercy itself. Subject to
God’s justice, we find that we have an infinitely powerful advocate, Jesus
Christ, who won for us redemption from all of our transgressions.
With this strong assurance, we no longer have any need to
fear the calamities of our world, because we know that “it will not immediately
be the end.” With Christ as our
advocate, we no longer have any need to rely on our own power to overcome our
adversaries, because Christ himself “will give us a wisdom in speaking” and our
adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute it. Subject to God’s justice, we no longer have
any need to fear the hatred of others, even those closest to us, because we
know that mortal death cannot destroy even one hair on our heads and that in
persevering our lives will be secured.
Liberated from our fears, we are then freed to live lives
of abandonment. When we subject
ourselves to God’s justice, God’s
justice, which is mercy, then permeates our entire lives. And so, in big things and in small things, we
can abandon our worldly selves to the mission God has entrusted to us: namely
to live lives of holiness, to preach the Gospel in season and out of season,
and the apostolate of charity. Free and
fearless should we be, because in abandoning ourselves to God’s justice we
will, as Christ tells us, secure our lives.
Now, does this mean that we can throw out our insurance
policies altogether? Of course not. Our world is broken and accidents
happen. Insurance is a tool that equips
us to deal with accidents better. What
it does mean, however, is that we do not need to fear the loss of the things of
this world, and this leaves us free to focus on giving ourselves to the
specific way that God has called each of us to fulfill his mission in the
world. Nourished by this Eucharist, may
we go forward confidently to live the mission God has given to each of us in Christ, freely and without fear.
Given at All Saints Catholic
Church: Logansport, IN – November 17th, 2013
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