Homily:
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
We all knew “that kid”, right? You know, the “goody two-shoes” who was
always the first one done with any assignment, was the teacher’s pet, and was
quick to tattle when classmates were whispering, passing notes, or telling
inappropriate jokes on the playground (especially when those jokes were about
the teacher). He or she was the one that
always reminded you that you were doing something wrong and that you would get
in trouble for doing it. We knew that
they were right, but we also knew we could get away with it. That is, as long as goody two-shoes didn’t
mess it all up. We all hated that kid,
didn’t we? (Unless, of course, we were
that kid.)
If you were at all a victim of goody two-shoes’ do-goodery,
then perhaps you had thoughts of revenge against him or her. Perhaps, at one point, you and your friends
may have said to each other: “I’m tired of goody two-shoes spoiling our
fun. We should do something to get him
in trouble. We’ll see if the teacher
comes to his rescue!” Your thought being
that if you found some way to get that kid in trouble, then he or she would
stop bothering you. If not that, then at
least he or she would have suffered something for all of the suffering that he
or she caused for you and you would feel better.
This, my friends, is one of the effects of Original Sin
(not the do-goodery part, but the hatred of the do-gooder). You see, when God created us, he hard-wired
us to love what is good and to hate what is evil. Sin, however, damaged our hardware and
short-circuited some of that wiring so that now we love what is evil and hate
what is good. Jesus came and won for us
the equipment that we need to fix the problem (it’s called “grace”), but too
many of us fail to keep up on the required maintenance and so the fix doesn’t
overcome the problem completely.
Goody two-shoes can be pretty obnoxious, though, can’t
she? I mean, we’re just trying to have
some fun (at the expense of others) and she wants to spoil it all the
time. It’s funny, though, that the same
word we’d use to describe goody two-shoes is the word that the author of the
book of Wisdom puts in the mouth of “the wicked” when they describe the “just
one” in our first reading today. Given
the extreme lengths to which the wicked intend to go in order to silence “the
just one”, they must intend the word “obnoxious” to mean more than just
“annoying”.
The word “obnoxious” comes from a Latin phrase ob noxius, which means towards harm. Noxius
is the same word from which we get the word noxious,
which means “harmful” (for example, when we say that a gas is “noxious” we mean
that it is harmful to inhale).
Therefore, the full weight of the term obnoxious is that it describes something that is intending to
harm. Given this, we can see that the
reaction of the wicked in the reading is one of fear; and that their reaction
to the just one is to fight against him so that they can protect their wicked
way of life.
Now, the just one is not intending them harm, of
course. Rather, he is trying to turn
them to the way that is truly good for them.
Because of Original Sin, however, the wicked are unable to recognize
this and, driven as they are by their disordered passions, they feel threatened
by him and so seek to protect themselves by putting him to death; and they even
go so far as to justify their actions, saying that “if he is as good as he says
he is, then God will protect him”, implying that their wrongdoing wouldn’t have
any truly negative effect in the end.
As Christians we see in this an image of Jesus, who came
among his people and called them to conversion in preparation for the coming
kingdom of God. The religious elite,
however, had become numb to the effects of Original Sin within them and so
failed to recognize in Jesus the Messiah for whom they had been waiting. Thus, Jesus was obnoxious to them (in the
fullest sense of the word) and so, like the wicked in the book of Wisdom, they
decided to put Jesus to death: justifying it by saying “if he truly is the Son
of God, then God will save him from this.”
Jesus proved that he truly is the Son of God, however, just
not as the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders expected. Instead of keeping himself from death, he
rose to life again after three days in the tomb, just as he had predicted; thus
proving that he was and is Lord over both life and death. Many of those who were initially against him
turned to him after the resurrection.
Still many others, however, remained obstinate in their resistance and
would not follow him. In fact, they
continued to persecute his followers wherever they found them.
Throughout the centuries and even until this day Christians
continue to be “obnoxious” to those driven by their passions and misconstrued
ideas of what is truly good. The effects
of Original Sin are alive and well in the hearts of men and women today and one
needs only to turn on the television to see the truth in the words of Saint
James: that disorder and every foul practice comes from our jealousy and
selfish ambitions; and that conflicts and wars are born from our disordered
passions. Thus, in this culture, those
who are like the just one—who sets himself against what the wicked ones do and
reproaches them for their sins—will be obnoxious and, thus, targeted for persecution:
even to the point of elimination.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to us, however. In the Gospel Jesus promised us that the
world would hate those who followed him; and throughout the centuries many
saints reminded us of this fact when they were murdered for their faith. For the Christian this should be no cause for
despair, however, because we have proof that God truly is with us: for if God
did not abandon Jesus to death, neither will he abandon us who put our faith in
him.
The real problem for us, however, is that this kind of
hatred happens within our own communities.
In the book of Wisdom, the wicked who set themselves to eliminate the
just one were members of the same community; and, as we know, Jesus was handed
over to death by the leaders of his people; both of which go to show that
sometimes our worst enemies are those who are closest to us.
My brothers and sisters, if jealousy or selfish ambition
has any place among us we must root it out, as Jesus instructed the apostles to
do, by placing ourselves always at the service of our brothers and
sisters. In this way we will safeguard
ourselves from the kind of conflicts that arise from our disordered passions
and overcome the effects of Original Sin.
Then we will truly be a community of “just ones” who are obnoxious to
the world, yet pleasing in God’s eyes; and we will fulfill our mission to bring
Jesus’ gift of salvation to every corner of this world.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – September 20th, 2015
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