The Word of God is not chained

Homily: 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

“The word of God is not chained.”  Saint Paul penned these words to his protégé, Timothy, while in prison.  His point: that although the minister may be bound by chains in prison, the word, itself, is not chained and will continue to move freely about the world.  From those first years after Christ’s Ascension into heaven until nearly 1500 years later, Saint Paul’s words rang true: the word of God truly was not chained and it continued to spread throughout the world.

In the early 1500’s, however, the Church—and I speak of it here using broad strokes: it certainly wasn’t like this in every place that the Church was... which was nearly everywhere—the Church was “resting on its laurels”, it seems, and, while the word of God was still not chained, it was not finding its best witness in its ministers.  Men, therefore, rose up seeking reform.  Finding little enthusiasm in response (except in attempts to silence their voices), they broke away from the Church, hoping to reestablish the Church on its Gospel foundations.  This “protestant reformation”, as we now call it, tragic in that it caused further division among Christians (which had already been divided into “East” and “West” at the time), was, nonetheless like an “intervention” for the leaders of the Church.  The response was to propose an internal reformation, capped by the Council of Trent in the middle 1600’s.  Much more concerned about safeguarding the true identity of the Church in contrast to all of the “reform movements” from outside of the Church, the post-conciliar Church became much more insular—very much “us vs. them"—and this is the way it remained (again, speaking in broad strokes) until the middle 1900’s.

Pope John XXIII (now “Saint John XXIII”), responding to a movement of the Holy Spirit in the wake of the global catastrophes that were World War I and World War II, called for a new ecumenical council—the Second Vatican Council—with the expressed purpose of opening the Church more fully to the world once again.  In calling the Council together, he expressed his desire that there would be a “new Pentecost” in the Church, in which the doors to the cenacle (that is, the “upper room” of the first Pentecost) would again be thrown open and Christ’s followers would go out with the missionary mandate to “make disciples of all nations” once again.  Far from being a call to conform the Church to the modern world, it was, rather, a call to take the Church out into the world—to “unchain” the word of God (which, of course, had never really been chained)—so as to convert what is good in it to the purposes of building God’s kingdom, and, thus, to make more disciples of Christ.

We need no better example of the Church doing just that than the pontificate of Pope John Paul II (also now “Saint John Paul II”).  As someone who grew up under the Nazi regime in Poland and suffered under Polish Communist rule (backed, of course, by Russian communists), John Paul II experienced the threat that these ideologies posed not only to the Church, but to humankind.  Did he call the Church to turn in on itself so as to insulate itself from these threatening ideologies?  No!  Rather, he went to the front lines to engage the modern world with all the force of the Gospel.  His influence, backed by the power of the Gospel, led to the downfall of Communism in Poland, and, in a domino effect, to other places where dangerous ideologies had taken hold.  Although it may be hard to believe, next month will mark 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall!  These facts alone are evidence that, following the Second Vatican Council, the word of God had certainly been “unchained” once more.

In our day today, Pope Francis has again renewed this missionary mandate of the Council.  In his encyclical letter “Evangelium Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), he further urges us to take the Gospel out of our churches and into the streets—to those who are on the margins of society—to bring to others the “joy of the Gospel”, proving once again that the “word of God is not chained”.  Our own bishop, Bishop Doherty, chose for his episcopal motto this phrase, proving that he, too, believes in the urgency of this missionary mandate of the Council.

This truth, declared by Saint Paul, was true even before he declared it, however, as we see from our readings for today’s Mass.  In our first reading, we heard how Naaman, a high-ranking official in Syria, came to the Israelite prophet Elisha—in many ways, the only truly faithful person among the Israelites at the time—to seek a miraculous cure for his leprosy.  Generally speaking, he wouldn’t have sought recourse to a foreigner for aid, but one of his servants was a young Israelite girl who, after Naaman exhausted all of the resources in Syria looking for a cure, suggested that Naaman go to Elisha.  “The word of God” was not chained and, thus, came to Naaman through this young girl.  Having responded to it, and having been healed, Naaman was converted.  He abandoned his pagan gods to worship the one true God: the God of the Israelites.

In the Gospel reading, we heard how a group of persons suffering from leprosy call out to Jesus to ask for healing.  What great faith they had in Jesus!  When Jesus commands them to go and “show themselves to the priests”, they all believed that, through his word, they would find healing; and they did!  Only one, however, found true freedom: the Samaritan—the foreigner—who returned to glorify God and give thanks to Jesus, through whom he received healing.  True freedom, because, while the others went on to show themselves to the priests and, thus, remained under the Law, the Samaritan returned to Christ, through whom he could find fulfillment beyond the Law.  When Jesus says to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you,” he speaks the truth that, through faith in Christ, one finds true fulfillment apart from the Law.  Through this one, too, we see that “the word of God was not chained”; but rather went out to bring healing and freedom to those “outside” of the covenant with Israel and to incorporate them into Christ.

Today, this continues to ring true as we continue to welcome men and women from outside of the Church—men and women to whom the word of God has gone out and drawn to us—to become one with us as part of the Mystical Body of Christ.  Tomorrow/Today, we will formally welcome already baptized men and women who seek full communion with us in the Church and accept those who have not been baptized into the Order of Catechumens as they seek the definitive rebirth in Christ through the waters of baptism.  These persons are proof that, even in our modern times, the “word of God is not chained”.  We must, therefore, be grateful for these persons as it is proof that God is still with us and that he desires his Church to grow and blossom.

Nonetheless, we Catholics are called today to recognize that we ourselves were all once outsiders who, by God’s gracious mercy and the ministry of those around us, have now been incorporated into the true freedom of Christ.  In recognizing this, we are, thus, called to turn away from any complacency that might lead us to take this gift for granted: instead, giving ourselves more and more to an “apostolate of martyrdom”, that is, an “apostolate of giving witness”, so that this “unchained word”, might continue to go out and draw in men and women into Christ’s Mystical Body.

            My brothers and sisters, we are the lepers that have been healed by the unchained word of God that has come to us.  We (hopefully) have returned here to this altar to give thanks.  Let us, therefore, never neglect thankfulness.  For, in doing so, the word of God will remain unchained; and the kingdom of heaven—the kingdom of harmony and peace among all peoples—will be known among us.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – October 12^th & 13^th, 2019