Subjects of the One True King

Homily: 34^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

In anticipation of our celebration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe this weekend, I took the opportunity to speak about this feast with our second and third graders here at Saint Mary’s School during my weekly visit.  I used that to lead into a presentation of various royal saints—that is, men and women royalty (kings and queens) who lived holy lives after the manner of Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe.  The kiddos always have a lot of questions (notice that I didn’t say great questions, because they aren’t always great questions, but they do always have a lot of them!).  I am usually equipped to answer them, but sometimes they’ll stump me, and this was one of those times.  In one of the third-grade classes, a student asked, “How does someone become a king/queen?”  We all knew part of the answer, of course, which is that the person is the son/daughter of a king/queen and so inherits the throne, but we quickly came to the conclusion that we didn’t know how the first person in that heritage becomes royalty.  Much to my credit, I didn’t immediately consult Google.  Much to my discredit, however, I threw their teachers under the bus and said that they can look that up for them and let them know. 😀

I did think about that question over these last few days and realized that, in general, there are two basic ways that one becomes a king/queen: by inheritance (as I’ve already mentioned) and by merit.  Inheritance, of course, we know very well: So-and-so is the son/daughter of King/Queen so-and-so and so will inherit the throne when the king/queen dies.  While the lines of succession can get somewhat complicated, especially when there are many generations of inheritance, this way of becoming a king/queen is still pretty straightforward.  The way of merit to become king/queen is also pretty straightforward: more so, perhaps, than we might initially think.  In this way, someone leads a grouping of people through some great challenge (overcoming and enemy, fighting through a hardship, etc.) so as to establish that people as a people of their own.  The people then turn to make that person the leader—the king/queen—of this newly established people.  This can also happen even if the people already have a king/queen as another may prove him/herself even more worthy than the current ruler.  This latter case is the example we see in our readings today.

In our first reading, we hear of the people choosing David as their king.  For many years after entering the Promised Land, the Israelites did not have a king, but rather managed their lives through recognized elders and the adjudication of priests and prophets.  At one point, however, they became jealous of other nations that had kings and so they demanded a king for their own.  The prophet Samuel was aghast at the idea, since he knew well that it was God who had established this people and so that it was God who was already their king.  The people insisted, however, and, by God’s prompting, Samuel anointed Saul—a great warrior—to be their first king.

Saul displeased God, however, and so was cut down in battle.  His direct heir, Jonathan, was also killed in battle.  That left the Israelites without a direct heir to succeed Saul.  This is when they turned to David.  David was an indirect heir to Saul, as he was married to Saul’s daughter.  Nonetheless, as we heard in today's reading, it wasn’t because of this connection that they asked David to be their king.  Rather, it was because of his merit.  “You led the Israelites out [in battle] and brought them back”, the leaders of the Israelites declared, and so they agreed with David that he would be their king.  In other words, he proved his ability to lead them and so they chose him to be their king.

This, of course, leads us right to Jesus.  Jesus, as we see, is king both by inheritance and by merit.  By inheritance because he is of the lineage of king David (you can go back to the beginning of Matthew’s gospel to read the genealogy of how Jesus came from David’s line).  Still more, Jesus is king because he is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.  This inheritance is a stronger one than the first, since it was truly God the Father who was king of the Israelites all along.  Nonetheless, Jesus also earned the kingship for himself by engaging in the battle against sin and death and overcoming them.  In our Gospel reading today, we hear again the familiar story of the criminal crucified with Jesus acknowledging him as king, in spite of the others there who did nothing but mock him.  This man did not recognize Jesus’ heritage, but rather his merit.  And, in recognizing his merit, the criminal submitted himself to Jesus’ authority and asked that he would be remembered in Jesus’ kingdom.  Jesus not only promised to remember him, but rather to give him a place in that kingdom.

Friends, Jesus is the true king of the universe and we must acknowledge him as such, both because of his inheritance and because of his merit.  As Saint Paul says, “[God the Father] delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  Jesus is King because he is the Son of the King, God the Father, who has given his Son the kingdom and made us members of it.  He is not just a spiritual king, however, but rather a human one, which can make it so much easier for us to acknowledge him as our king.  The Israelites, when they came to David to anoint him king, said, “Here we are, your bone and your flesh.”  In a similar way, we can say the same to Jesus: “Here we are, of the same bone and flesh that, in your divinity, you took on to save us.  And you did save us!  Now we implore you, rule over us: for you know us and have shown us to be worthy of the honor.”  And we must acknowledge and honor him as king if we hope, like the criminal crucified with him, to dwell in his eternal kingdom.

And so, how do we do this?  By submitting ourselves completely to his authority.  This means submitting our minds, wills, and bodies to his will.  This means that, as subjects of our King, we don’t get to pick and choose which teachings of Jesus that we will follow.  Rather, we submit to the reality that, if Jesus has revealed it and if the Church that he established teaches it, then we must submit to it and uphold it.  This means everything!  Especially the teachings on the sanctity of life, marriage, human sexuality, service to and solidarity with the poor, care for the environment, etc.  Simply stated, if Jesus is king, then he must be king of EVERY ASPECT of my life!  To live otherwise is to be a hypocrite.

Friends, as we know from elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus ain’t got no love for hypocrites.  Let us, therefore, examine ourselves to see if there is any area in our lives in which we do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord and King.  Regardless of what we find, let us turn back to him and submit ourselves to him—particularly through the sacrament of confession.  Only Christ has saved us, and only Christ can save us now.  Therefore, let us boldly acclaim him as king in all that we think, say, and do, and thus make our hearts and this place ready to acclaim him when he comes again.  Long live Christ the King!

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – November 23^rd & 24^th, 2019

Hope makes us live differently

Homily: 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Friends, we are now well into the month of November, which for us Catholics also means that we are approaching the end of the Liturgical Year.  Although the readings for Mass have already been hinting at it for the last several weeks, this week our readings shift our focus away from the nuts and bolts of our daily discipleship and toward consideration of “last things”, that is, the things that will come at the end of time.  This week, in particular, the focus of our readings is on the reality of the resurrection from the dead.

In our first reading, we heard the testimony of three of the seven Israelite brothers who, with their mother, were being tortured by the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes in order to make them apostatize—that is, denounce their faith—by eating pork, which they believed God forbade them to eat.  Each of these three courageously handed over their lives to their torturers rather than denounce their faith in God by breaking the Law that he had given them; and it was their hope in the fact that God could and would raise them to life again that gave them that courage.  In other words, they believed in God’s promise of eternal life to those who remained faithful to his Laws and commandments and so they knew that, if they kept themselves pure according to God’s law, even if they should die at the hands of men, God would one day raise them to life again.  And so, we see that our belief in the resurrection means something about how we live our lives before we die: for if there’s no resurrection, then eat pork and enjoy your life, while you have it; if there is a resurrection, however, then we ought to seek to serve the one through whom the resurrection will come (that is, God), so as not to incur his wrath.

In the Gospel reading, in answering the dilemma that the Sadducees put forth, Jesus doesn’t describe for us how we should live our lives in this world, but rather describes a glimpse of how eternal life will look.  He describes life after the resurrection of the dead as one in which those who have been raised to life “can no longer die”, indicating that it will be an immortal life which will extend through all eternity.  Now eternity, I think, can be a very hard thing to imagine.  Fr. Larry Richards, who is a parish priest from Erie, Pennsylvania, and who travels to speak nationally, has one of the best illustrations about the length of time which is eternity and he describes it in this way: he says, “Imagine that, in eternity, every step requires 1,000 years to take and that you have been given the job to take every grain of sand from every beach and on every ocean floor, one at a time, to the top of Mt. Everest.  You can imagine the countless billions of years that it would take to accomplish this task.  Yet once you have finished this task,” he says, “eternity is just beginning.”  He describes it in this way in order to put into sharp contrast the reality that with our infinitesimally short time on earth (in comparison to eternity) we will determine how we will spend eternity (either in heaven or in hell).  Thus, once again, our belief in the resurrection of the dead means something about how we ought to live our lives before we die.

In his encyclical, Spe Salvi (in English, In Hope We Were Saved), Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote, “the one who has hope lives differently.”  Hope, as he speaks about it and in the Christian sense, is not merely “optimism” about the future—that is, good feelings that, in the end, things will come out positive for us.  Rather, it is the grace of a vision of a real, positive outcome that we see is concretely possible for us to attain in the future, even if it is beyond our power.  Thus, we see how it is possible for one who has hope to live differently: for he/she no longer need worry about what can happen in the present time, because one sees the vision of the positive outcome for him/herself in the future.  This is the hope that the Israelite brothers and their mother had which gave them courage to endure horrendous torture and death: hope that provided the vision of the positive outcome for them—that is, the resurrection to an everlasting life.

Last week, at the end of Mass, we heard a testimony from our parishioners describing how being involved in the ministries of Saint Mary’s has made a positive impact on their lives.  Each one of them was a testimony of hope: that what is sacrificed in this present time is of no account in light of the positive outcome that awaits those who are faithful to the Lord.  I pray that you have reflected on these things over this past week and are now ready to make or re-make your commitments of your time and talent to the ministries of Saint Mary’s.  I pray that your reflection has been full of hope (and, thus, gratitude): gratitude for the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ which has made a life beyond this life possible for us, and hope that, through baptism, we will one day enjoy that life.

Therefore, if you are ready to do so, I now invite you to make your commitment by turning over your time and talent commitment card to us.  Hopefully you brought yours with you today.  If not, there are extras in the pew.  I’ll give you a few moments to complete them, if necessary, before inviting the ushers to come forward and collect them.  They will then be brought forward to be placed at the altar and, thus united to the sacrifice that is our hope: the sacrifice of Christ’s Body and Blood for our salvation.  If you are not ready to make your commitment today, don’t worry.  Know that you can make your commitment at any time.

May God bless you all for your openness to serve and may Mary’s prayers strengthen us to bring these good commitments to fulfillment.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – November 9^th & 10^th, 2019

The Importance of Being Earnest

Homily: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          The Oscar Wilde play, The Importance of Being Earnest, takes as its starting point a play on the homonyms “Ernest”, the man’s name, and “earnest”, the adjective meaning: showing sincere or intense conviction.  In the play, two men use an alter-ego named Ernest to woo young ladies to their favor.  Their deception is discovered, of course.  After a few, quite humorous plot twists, through which the men come clean on who they are—and then, in one case, discover that they are more than they thought they were—each of the men end up with their chosen maidens.  Without giving the whole plot away, it turned out to be very important that one of them actually be named Ernest; and, for that to happen, that man had to be earnest (that is, he had to be sincere).  It is a delightful comedy and I recommend that you read the play or watch one of the movie adaptations if you have a chance.

          I bring this up today because of the story of Zacchaeus in our Gospel reading.  It’s a great story and worthy of our reading over and over, thinking about who Zacchaeus is—imagining ourselves as him—and thinking about how Jesus responds to him—and how we would feel if Jesus would respond to us in the same way in that situation—and then how Zacchaeus responds to Jesus—and whether we would be so bold as to respond in the same way.  I encourage us all to make this a prayer exercise that we engage this week.

          Putting all of that aside for right now, here’s what Zacchaeus can teach us today.  Now, Zacchaeus was a bad man.  Not only was he a tax collector, but he was a chief tax collector!  Thus, he was despised by all of his kinsmen for collaborating with the Roman occupiers and for making money on it, to boot.  You could imagine that he could have become complacent and have given up his religious upbringing, seeing how lucrative it was to work for the Romans.  Perhaps, to some extent, he did just that.  Nevertheless, he didn’t give it all up; and we know this because of his reaction to Jesus’ passing through Jericho.

          Instead of ignoring the commotion as an inconvenience to his day, he still felt a fascination with the religion of his upbringing and, therefore, sought to see what the “hubbub” about this preacher from Galilee was all about.  His actions—climbing a tree to see Jesus, rushing down to welcome him into his home, and denouncing any unjust actions from his past and promising to make restitution for them—demonstrate that Zacchaeus was, indeed, earnest.  Because of this, Jesus declared that salvation had come to him and to his household (much to the chagrin of those around him who wanted to see him condemned as a great sinner).

          My friends, a lesson, therefore, for us to take away today is this: While our sins do, indeed, separate us from God and harm others, if we earnestly seek to know Jesus, if we earnestly respond to his invitation to communion, and if we, therefore, earnestly strive to turn away from our sins and make restitution for them, then salvation will be ours.  Because of the weakness of our human natures, we may fail miserably in our efforts to do these things; but if we, nonetheless, do them earnestly (and constantly!), then God will have mercy on us and grant us the salvation that we could not earn for ourselves.
Friends, if this isn’t “good news”, then I don’t know what is.  Let us give thanks, therefore, in this Eucharist for this gracious gift; and let us ask for the grace of earnestness—the earnestness of Zacchaeus—so that we might be ready to greet the Lord when he comes on the last day.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – November 3rd, 2019