Homily: 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Friends, as we journey through
these weeks of Ordinary Time, we are challenged to grow in our discipleship of
Jesus. In previous weeks, we have been encouraged
to behold Jesus, the Lamb of God, in the different moments and encounters of
our daily lives, to see in the Word of God both a record of God’s promises to
us and the evidence of their fulfillment, and to be lowly and pure so that we
might be blessed to recognize God’s presence among us. This week, I believe that the Mass moves us
to remember that we have been given a mission to evangelize, and what that evangelization
looks like. And so, let’s dive in to see
how it reveals this to us.
Bishop Robert Barron, a great
evangelizer himself, often speaks of the difficulties of trying to proclaim
Jesus in a world that has lost much of its religious sense. What he means by that is this: that since, in
western culture, people have lost a sense of who God is—or that God even exists—to
approach them with a proclamation of Jesus is ineffective, since they wouldn’t
have a context in which to place him and thus accept him. To counter this, Bishop Barron often proposes
introducing people to what are called the “transcendentals”: that is, truth,
beauty, and goodness. These, he argues,
are things, not specifically religious, that anyone can experience, and which
can lead them to acknowledge realities that are beyond themselves (that is,
realities that “transcend” their own). When
someone is able to do this, Bishop Barron argues, then they can be introduced
to the idea of God and of our need for a savior, who is Jesus. Okay, that said, let’s look at these transcendentals.
Truth, Bishop Barron argues,
is a difficult one to begin with. This
is because our culture is so rife with relativism—that is, the idea that truth
is relative to the person who perceives it—that even when presented with a
universal truth, a person might not be open to experiencing its transcendent
quality. Beauty, he says, is a similarly
challenging mode of evangelizing. This
for a couple of reasons: first because to truly encounter beauty one has to
“raise his/her eyes” above the world. In
western culture, so rife with images that speak to our passions and our primal
urges, it’s hard to pull our eyes away to see something that is truly beautiful
in and of itself. Second, because the
idea of beauty has also been subject to relativism. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” the saying
goes. But this is not true. Transcendent beauty is something that has an
objective quality. You might say that our
cathedral in Lafayette does not appeal to your taste in regard to style, but
you’d be wrong if you said that it wasn’t beautiful.
This leaves us with
goodness. This, Bishop Barron argues, is
where we have the most opportunity. This
is because many in western culture still believe that we have a responsibility
to care for those who are less fortunate than us. Therefore, when folks see Christians serving
the poor—especially if it is poor Christians serving the poor—they more readily
recognize that there is something valuable in goodness and, thus, will be open
to knowing what it is that motivates us to service; which, then, is our chance
to share the Gospel. This third
transcendental as a means of evangelization is exactly what our scriptures
point towards today.
In the first reading from the
prophet Isaiah, we hear the Lord telling the Israelites how it is that they will
be restored to God’s good graces and begin again to fulfill their purpose as
God’s people, which is to be a light drawing people from every nation towards
God. And what does he say? He says, “share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and
don’t turn your back on your own.” Still
further he says, “remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and
malicious speech... bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted...” In other words, “Do good and avoid evil and
the light that you have been given will shine brightly in the world, drawing
people into my kingdom.” Friends, if you
read through the Old Testament, you’ll see that every time that the Israelites
get in trouble with God it is because they have failed to be the light of God’s
goodness in the world, thus turning people away from God, instead of towards
him.
Then in the Gospel reading we
hear Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount sharing with us the metaphors of salt and
light. “You are the salt of the earth”,
he says to his disciples, meaning that they are meant to take what is good in
the world and enhance it. “You are the
light of the world”, he also tells them, echoing the purpose that God gave to
the Israelite people to be a light to all peoples so that they might turn to
God. He continues, saying, “Just so,
your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly
Father.” There it is, once again: by
displaying goodness to others, others will, in turn, discover and glorify God.
///
Not included with today’s
first reading, but implied by our Lord in his sermon, are the consequences for
not evangelizing. The result of
evangelizing, of course, is that things get better: for the kingdom of God will
grow and the brotherhood of mankind, united to God through Jesus, will bring
peace and harmony to the world. The
consequence of not evangelizing, however, is not that things stay the same, but
rather that they get worse. As Jesus
says, salt that loses its taste is good for nothing but to be thrown out. When it is thrown out and trampled underfoot,
it makes the ground sterile: that is, unable to support plant growth. A burning flame (which is what Jesus means
when he says, “light”, by the way) that is hidden by a basket will not keep
burning, but rather will burn out after it consumes all of the oxygen under the
basket. In both instances, when the
thing is not used for its good end, it doesn’t keep things status quo, but rather make things worse.
And so, my friends, it does,
indeed, seem that our Mass today is encouraging us to consider our mission as
disciples to evangelize and to do so through goodness: that is, by doing good
so as to enhance the inherent goodness in the world and to be a light that
draws men and women to know God, who is goodness himself, and, thus, to glorify
him. We do this in a myriad of ways here
in this parish. As a part of a Catholic
diocese, our reach extends far beyond the boundaries of our parish to touch the
lives of many here in north-central Indiana and beyond. As you heard Fr. Chris say last week, these
extended ministries are funded by the Catholic Ministries Appeal, Bishop
Doherty’s annual appeal to support the evangelizing pastoral and administrative
ministries of our diocese. As someone
who benefits directly from these resources in my ministries to priests,
deacons, and seminarians, please let me say “thank you” for your generosity and
invite you to unite yourself with us again in this great evangelizing work by
making your gift or pledge today to the 2023 Catholic Ministries Appeal.
As we do, let us also commit
ourselves to spend time this week considering the ways that God is calling us
to evangelize through good deeds in our daily lives and to seek out the ways
that are still available to us to do more good (like, perhaps, removing
“malicious speech” from our lives). All so
that we might become more fervent disciples of Christ, and so that God’s
kingdom of harmony and peace might be realized here and now.
Given at Saint Joseph Parish: Delphi, IN – February 4th,
2023
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