-------------------------------------
Homily:
Palm Sunday – Cycle A
Many of you, I suppose, have seen the movie “Son of God”
that was in theaters a little more than a month ago. I’m not a film critic by any stretch of the
imagination, but I appreciate films that strive to take a story and then present
it in an authentically human way. In
other words, I like it when, after the film, I can walk away thinking: “Yeah, I
can imagine that being the way it happened” (if it was a film based on
historical events) or “Yeah, I can imagine it happening that way in real life”
(if it was a purely fictional story).
After viewing “Son of God”, I felt like I could say that; and I
particularly noticed that in the depiction of the Apostles.
One scene, in particular, in which I noticed this
“authentic” portrayal was the “Entrance to Jerusalem” scene. As Jesus was riding into Jerusalem to shouts
of “Hosanna”, my eye was drawn to the reactions of the Apostles. All of them seemed somewhat astounded. They looked around in joy-filled amazement at
the reception that Jesus was receiving as he came into the city; and you could
tell that they knew that they were part of something “big” and that they were
proud to be followers of Jesus at that moment; which is something that the
Gospel reading doesn’t quite illustrate for us.
We, of course, shared in that sense of joy-filled amazement
as we made our solemn entrance into the Church for Mass today. We are, in fact, part of something
“big”. It doesn’t take long, though,
does it, for that sense of joy-filled amazement to convert to something much
more somber as we read through the account of our Lord’s Passion. This quick turn-around is also a reminder for
us of how fickle we can be as followers of Jesus: of how one day we can feel
energetic and enthusiastic about following him and the next we feel dejected
and as if we’ve turned completely away from him.
Neither did it take long to see that sharp change in Jesus,
did it? From Jesus’ very animated, kind
of “full of life” moments as he enters Jerusalem, we turn to the account of his
Passion and find Jesus seemingly empty and passive. Jesus “emptied himself”, Paul says in his
letter to the Philippians, and he took “the form of a slave.” Now a slave is someone who is typically very
passive and he will often speak as if he has no voice of his own. Thus, we heard multiple times in this account
how Jesus replied to Judas, Caiaphas, and Pilate with the phrase “You have said
so” instead of countering their statements with his own. In fact, pretty much everything about this
Passion narrative is showing us how Jesus completely emptied himself, making
himself a slave and becoming obedient even to the point of the most shameful
kind of death: death on a cross.
As we enter into this most holy of weeks of the year, we,
too, are being called to empty ourselves.
For five weeks we have been fasting and praying and seeking more
generously to help our neighbor—in other words, emptying ourselves—in order to
prepare ourselves for the celebration of Easter; and now we enter Holy Week, a
week in which we are called to engage this preparation even more intensely.
And so let us strive to put away our own pursuits this week
so as to spend more time reflecting on how Jesus emptied himself for us; thus
preparing ourselves to be filled from the renewal of baptismal grace that we
will receive at Easter—a grace whose foretaste we receive even now from this altar:
the sacrifice of Jesus’ Body and Blood that saved us from our sins.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – April, 13th, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment