Homily:
13th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
One of the more “epic” moments in television in the last
twenty years occurred in 2004 on the Oprah Winfrey show. In many ways, Oprah was at the height of her
popularity at this time and she was using it to great advantage for others. Now, I don’t recall of the background of that
day’s show, but I remember that Oprah started by gifting eleven teachers, who
were reputed to be extremely self-giving and, thus, were in financial trouble,
with a new car. This was an incredible
gesture by itself, but Oprah wasn’t finished.
She then told the audience that she had one more car to give away and
that one of them in the audience would receive it. The staff then brought out identical gift
boxes for each member of the audience and Oprah instructed them that in one of
these boxes was a key to the twelfth car and whoever had that key in their box
would take that car home.
What happened next, of course, is what launched this moment
into “epic” status: when Oprah commanded that the boxes be opened, the audience
members found that each and every one of them had a key in it. No, this wasn’t a trick. Oprah intended to give each audience member a
brand new car. Because there was so much
excitement—screaming and crying—mixed with confusion about whether or not this
could be real, all you see is Oprah screaming over and over again: “You get a
car, you get a car, you get a car… everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!” Now, perhaps none of us were in the audience
that day, but you would have to have a pretty cold and hard heart not to feel a
sense of joy for those audience members who received such an undeserved gift
from someone that they didn’t even know.
I can imagine, too, that every audience for every show
after that day walked in wondering “Will today be another day like that
one? Will I walk out of here with
something I never dreamed of getting?”
None really have since then, of course, which is what makes that moment
in 2004 so epic. Sometimes, however, I
wonder if this isn’t how we approach Jesus, especially here at Mass.
As we read the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, we learn
of how Jesus often healed the sick and even brought back to life those who had
died. Most of us, I’m sure, were already
following him before we came to understand his incredible power to heal: in
other words, we were coming to Mass and trying to follow his teaching. Perhaps one day we came to know that Jesus
worked a healing in someone else’s life.
And perhaps, once we learned of this healing, we began to expect a
healing for ourselves. And so, perhaps, we began to come to Mass hoping
that this time would be one of those times that Jesus would appear before us
and, like Oprah that day, dole out healings to everyone: “You get a healing,
you get a healing, you get a healing… everybody gets a healing!”
Perhaps, however, we aren’t even expecting anything that
dramatic. Perhaps, we are more like the
woman in the Gospel today, who had been afflicted for twelve years with a
hemorrhage. Since a bleeding like that
made her “ritually unclean”, she was excluded and needed to refrain from coming
in contact with others for fear of making them “unclean” also. And so, it’s understandable that she would
approach Jesus in the way that she did.
“I’m embarrassed enough to have this defilement,” I imagine her
thinking, “so instead of approaching Jesus directly, I’ll simply sneak up
behind him and touch his clothes: surely his power to heal will come to
me.” Surely enough, it did.
Having been healed, the woman then tried to slip away; but
Jesus wouldn’t allow it. You see, Jesus
didn’t come just to bring healings: that is, just to spread joy by doling out
healings to anyone who approached him, without concern for who the person was. Rather, he came to bring forth the kingdom of
God, which was a restoration of God’s original plan for each of our lives. Therefore, when the woman was healed—that is,
when the power of healing had “gone out of him”—Jesus took notice and decided
to make this moment a teaching moment.
He wanted people to see this woman—whom they all knew to be the one who
had been afflicted by hemorrhages for twelve years—and to see that she was now
healed by her faith in him and thus restored to her status in the
community. In other words, for Jesus it
wasn’t enough that she was healed; rather, he desired that her life also be
restored; and for that, he needed to address her personally.
This is also true of the young girl whom Jesus brought back
to life. Jairus, the synagogue official,
came in faith to ask Jesus to heal his daughter, who was sick and at the point
of death and Jesus agrees to come. Even
though the delay of addressing the woman healed from hemorrhaging meant that
the child died before he arrived, Jesus remained unperturbed. When he arrived and saw the mourning of those
already in the house, he invited them to see this situation with the “eyes of
the kingdom” when he said “the child is not dead but asleep.” It was a reality that wasn’t visible to them,
but that he would soon make visible to them: for in the “eyes of the kingdom”
worldly death is no longer death, but rather a temporary sleep; and to prove
this, Jesus resuscitates the twelve year old girl.
As incredible as this was, Jesus once again proved that he
didn’t come simply to dole out healings or to resuscitate people after they
died. He came with a concern of
restoring people in the fullness of the kingdom of God. Therefore, Jesus didn’t simply give the
breath of life back to the little girl; rather he then saw that the girl was
hungry and demanded that she be given something to eat. In other words, his healings were never
functional only; but rather they always came with a tenderness—a deep and
abiding concern for the one who was healed: that he or she would not only
experience healing, but also have his or her life restored completely.
This, my brothers and sisters, is God’s plan for us. We heard in the reading from the book of
Wisdom that “God did not make death”; and in the Gospel reading Jesus proves to
us that, even though God did not make death, he certainly isn’t powerless before
it. No, death was never part of God’s
plan for us. Death, rather, entered the
world because of Satan’s envy, which led him to deceive our first parents into
sinning against God. God sent his Son,
though, not just to demonstrate his power by doling out healings to anyone who
asked for it, but rather to restore us to life—that is, to his original plan
for us—by freeing us from eternal
death.
This restoration, however, isn’t automatic. Like Jairus, the synagogue official, and like
the woman afflicted with hemorrhages, we must first come to Jesus in faith to
seek this healing if we ever hope to receive it. This faith, however, must not only be in
Jesus’ power to heal—though that is fundamental—but it must also be faith in
his will: faith, that is, that Jesus’ will is wiser than my will so that, if
his will is that I not be healed at
this time, I might not despair and thus lose all faith, even in his power to
heal.
Ultimately, my brothers and sisters, the choice is
ours. When we choose to place our faith
in Jesus—and in his power to save us—we choose God’s original plan for us:
which the book of Wisdom tells us is a plan “to be imperishable; the image of
God’s own nature…” When we do
otherwise—placing our faith in ourselves or in someone or something else—we
place ourselves in the company of the devil, through whose envy death entered
the world. The book of Wisdom tells us
that to keep company with him makes us susceptible to it: death, that is, in
the “eyes of the kingdom”, which is eternal suffering and sorrow… eternal
separation from God.
You know, Oprah did a great thing that day back in
2004. Her gift, however, was a momentary
thing and could not restore the lives of the people in her audience that day. Through Jesus God offers us so much more than
a one-time gift can give us: he offers us the opportunity to have our lives
restored to his original plan: a plan where death—and the sorrow and suffering
that comes because of it—no longer has any place. Ultimately, we must choose this plan over the
many others that the world offers. We
choose it by saying “Amen” to Jesus when he appears on this altar; and when we
live our lives with the “eyes of the kingdom”, looking beyond our life in this
world to our life in the world to come.
My brothers and sisters, God desires to give us this life, because we
matter to him. Let us choose this life
for ourselves today—and everyday—so that we, too, may go in peace, healed and
ready to proclaim this Good News.
Given at Saint Mary’s
Cathedral Parish: Lafayette, IN - July 1st,
2018
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