Homily: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
“What are you looking for?” This is a common question that we ask one
another whenever someone has that “searching” look on his / her face. When Jesus asks this question, however, we
immediately sense that he means something more than just “Have you lost
something?” When Jesus asks, we realize
that he’s speaking in “ultimate” terms: that is, “What are you really looking for?” And it is a question with which human beings
have been constantly wrestling.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle was a
pagan who lived in the 4th century BC.
Pagan, which meant that he didn't know of, let alone believe in, God as
he has been revealed in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Nonetheless, he was an incredible philosopher
who could observe the world around him and draw astute conclusions about
"the way things are". He was
the world's top scientist when philosophy was the world's science.
One of the core things that Aristotle
taught was that all living things have an end—a telos in Greek—for which they are striving. For example, by his observation, a plant is
striving for the sun. He could see this
by the way that a plant will stretch out its leaves way beyond its roots in an
effort to reach the rays of the sun. We,
of course, know that the plant needs the rays of the sun to hit its leaves for
photosynthesis to happen, in which it converts the energy from the sun’s rays
into nutrients to help it grow, but it doesn’t change the fact that the living
spirit in the plant is striving always towards the sun as if reaching it was
its ultimate purpose.
Now, I think that we can all agree
that we human beings are a little more complex than a plant. Nonetheless, Aristotle still thought that we
have a telos: an end to which we are
striving. When Aristotle observed human
beings in order to determine for what it is that we are striving, he concluded
that the end we are all trying to reach is “happiness”. In other words, when he looked at the reasons
why human beings do anything, he could see that all of them boiled down to one
thing: happiness. Simply stated:
everything that we choose to do, we choose because we think that it will make
us happy (or, at least, will lead us to happiness). We, of course, could be wrong about whether
or not it will make us happy, but the
fact remains that we choose it because we think
that it will make us happy.
Saint Thomas Aquinas lived a little
more than 1500 years after Aristotle, but he was one of the first to synthesize
truly Aristotle’s philosophy into Christian theology. Saint Thomas agreed that human beings have a telos, and that this telos is happiness. Because Thomas was a Christian, however, he
could tell us that the truest and fullest happiness for which we can strive—the
happiness for which we were made—is what Christian Theologians call the
Beatific Vision: that is, standing face to face with God, in perfect communion
with him.
For Aristotle, therefore, the answer
to the question “What are you looking for?” is happiness. For Saint Thomas
Aquinas, the answer is the same: happiness. With him, however, the answer has a second
part: “And what is happiness? The Beatific Vision.” And so, for Saint Thomas, the answer to the
question “What are you looking for?” is God.
Friends, perhaps all of this talk
about “ultimate things” has you a little exasperated. If so, I understand. It’s difficult for us, who are very practical
creatures, to think so abstractly. For
most of us, it can be tough to get past the concerns of the present moment and
the near future. “What are you looking
for?” “Well, I’m looking for my keys… or for a new job… or for this
homily to be over…” I suspect that
it was difficult for Jesus’ first disciples, too. Just look at how they responded to Jesus’
question. “What are you looking for?”,
he asks. Andrew responds, “Where are you
staying?” My guess is that Andrew felt
the weight of the question, but was unprepared to answer it and so he
equivocates. He didn’t respond “Nothing”
but he didn’t give a straight-forward answer, either. His answer reveals that he recognized something
in Jesus—something that he couldn’t yet name, but something in him that might
answer that question for him—and so he wanted to know more. Thus, he asked “Where are you staying?” so
that he could get to know Jesus better and find out for sure.
Friends, this is the same for us. Perhaps we don’t have a clear idea of what it
is that we are looking for. My guess is
that most of you here, at this point, are acknowledging that, at your core,
what you are looking for is happiness. Perhaps a good number of you also recognize
that it is Jesus who can lead you to happiness (that is, to real, lasting
happiness). For others, however, you’re
not so sure. Regardless, for all of us
here today, Jesus is turning to us as we are looking to him and he is asking us
“What are you looking for?” Perhaps we
can answer boldly: “Happiness! And I believe
that you can lead me to it!” Perhaps,
however, the best we can muster is to say, “Jesus, where are you staying?” If so, this is enough. To the first, Jesus will say: “Come and I
will show you your happiness.” To the
second, Jesus will say, “Come and you will see.” As we see in both, He invites us to come to
him: for he will give us what we are looking for if we come to him.
This is our work: to find Jesus, to ask
him where he is staying, and to put ourselves towards following him there. Then, after we’ve heard him and are convinced
that he is the Messiah, we must go and bring others to him, as well. This is our vocation. When we accept it, God will give us grace to
fulfill it. Just as Eli identified the
Lord’s voice for young Samuel so that he could follow it, and just like John
the Baptist pointed his disciples to Jesus, and just like Andrew then brought
his brother Simon Peter to Jesus, so we, too, must continue this long chain of
disciples-begetting-disciples by first coming to know Jesus (helped, as we most
assuredly have been, by others) and then by pointing him out to others and
bringing them to him. If we do this, my
brothers and sisters, we will find what we have been looking for; and the
kingdom of heaven, the kingdom in which our happiness flourishes, the kingdom which
is present to us here in this Eucharist, will expand and grow in our midst. This, my friends, is what you are looking
for.
May this new year be the year that God’s
kingdom grows in a rich and powerful way, both in our hearts and this community.
Given
at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – January 13th & 14th,
2018
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