God with us in our thirst

Homily: 3^rd Sunday of Lent – Cycle A

          In the summer of 2009 I was in Guatemala studying Spanish and immersing myself in Hispanic culture.  There were students from many walks of life studying Spanish alongside me at the school.  A couple of students were, literally, a couple: a husband and wife pair named Kris and DiDi.  Kris worked for Lipscomb University in Tennessee as a teacher in Engineering Technology and every year, he would arrange a trip for his students to Central America so that they could apply their studies to a practical problem: in this case, capturing fresh water from mountain springs and transporting it to villages so that the people would have clean water with which to drink and cook.

          Kris and DiDi were not on one of these trips that summer, but were studying Spanish to make it easier for Kris to make these trips in the future.  Nonetheless, Kris was taking the opportunity to explore potential project sites for the future.  I expressed an interest in visiting one of these sites with them and they were gracious enough to invite me along on one of their trips.  This particular trip was to the northcentral part of Guatemala, near the city of Coban.

          While there, our local guide, Gabriel, explained some of the challenges in securing project sites.  He said that there were a couple of potential springs that were on a property that we weren’t able to access.  We would have to pass through certain pieces of property and the owners wouldn’t give us permission to do so.  He said that there were often fights between the owners and the surrounding villagers as the owner would often cut-off access to the road by locking a gate and would hire an armed guard to keep people out.  I remember clearly how Gabriel remarked that, when faced with such adversity, people’s ugliest side tended to show.

          But it’s true, isn’t it?  That when we are most stressed (and what is more stressful than worrying about whether you will have food, shelter, or clean water to drink?) we tend to get very defensive and we begin to treat those around us more like our enemies than our neighbors.  All of our good upbringing can sometimes go out the window, it seems, when adversity sets in and our basic needs are threatened.

          This fact was on display in today’s first reading.  In spite of all that God had done for the Israelites—in spite of all of the powerful signs he had worked while they were slaves in Egypt and when he led them out of Egypt—as soon as they run out of a certain necessity on their way to the land in which God promised to settle them, they begin to grumble against God.  No, the powerful miracles that God worked did not solidify in them an unbreakable trust in God.  Rather, when faced with adversity, instead of trusting in God’s care and making acts of faith that God would provide for them in their need, they gave into their fear and began to verbally attack Moses, accusing him of leading them out into the desert to die.
          Moses, on his part, gives in to fear, as well.  Instead of assuring the people that God would provide and then turning and asking God for a sign, Moses immediately turns and cries out to God to be saved from their violent threats against him.  God, of course, provided a miraculous flow of water to satisfy their worldly thirst, but the damage had been done.  So much so that they named the place, not for the miraculous flow of water, but for the doubting and testing of God that took place there.  The Scriptures even record the question that was on their lips in this time of adversity: “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”  Adversity, it seems, caused them to forget even the most powerful works of God and in their fear, they turned against him.

          A few millennia later, we can look back and ask, “After all that God had done for them, how could they fall into fear like that?”  The reality is, however, that we often do the same.  Even though we enjoy so many advantages in our lives—advantages for which, perhaps, we regularly take time to give thanks to God—when adversity hits, we suddenly forget how God has provided for us and we assume, rather, that he has abandoned us.  Perhaps we lose our job (or maybe our house… or maybe both), or a relationship disintegrates, or a tragedy takes the life of one of our loved ones, or maybe even a combination of these things… All of these things threaten our most basic necessities and so cause us to experience great anxiety and stress.  And instead of turning to God and making acts of faith that the one who has always provided for us will continue to provide for us, we rather turn against God: perhaps even asking ourselves “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”  Adversity, it seems, causes us, too, to forget even the most powerful works of God.

          In our Gospel reading, however, God gives us a definitive answer to our question in adversity.  The Samaritan woman comes to the well.  Why?  Because she’s thirsty of course.  There, at an obscure time of the day when she didn’t think that she’d encounter anyone, she meets our Lord and he makes a simple request: “Give me a drink.”  Over the centuries many a scholar and many a preacher has taken these words of the Lord and interpreted them to mean that our Lord was really expressing his thirst for her salvation; and this is a beautiful interpretation that I wouldn’t dare deny to be true.  But today I want us to hear these words in the context of accompaniment—as an answer, that is, to our question in adversity: “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”  In this exchange with the Samaritan woman, our Lord reveals himself as the Christ; but he first reveals himself to her as one who thirsts with her.  In this way, when he reveals himself as the Christ, he then also reveals himself as Emmanuel—that is, God with us: thus, definitively answering the question “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” with “Yes.  Here I am.”  As we heard, from this revelation, the woman no longer sought to fill her jar, but rather left it to go tell all of her fellow townspeople this incredibly good news.

          In our own lives, how often do we overlook our Lord in our midst because, instead of looking for him in our adversity with us, we are trying to find him outside of it?  We’ve stumbled and fallen into a deep well and the whole time we are looking up and crying out “Lord, why aren’t you here to help me?”, when often all we need to do is look to our right or our left to see that he is right there at the bottom of the well with us.  We think that, because we fell in the well that he was not with us and we forget that he has always revealed himself to be Emmanuel—God with us.  We think, “He couldn’t possibly be here in this mess with me”, completely forgetting that this is exactly what he decided to do when he became one of us, in the flesh.

          My brothers and sisters, God does not stand far off from us while we are suffering adversity.  No, he is with us in our adversity and, perhaps, much to our chagrin, he is not always with us to take the adversity away!  Rather, he is with us to remind us that none of us have been abandoned by him, even when, by all appearances and according to worldly standards, it appears to be so.  This is because faith was never meant to be a force field to shield us from adversity, but rather an inner strength to trust that God—the all-powerful God who, in one word, could wipe the whole universe from existence—has come to us, is in our midst, and remains with us, and that, therefore, we have nothing to fear: not even the complete loss of our most basic necessities.

          Back in 2009, among the many things that struck me about the adversity with which the people in those small villages lived, I remember noticing that in every house into which I walked, there was a little altar to God: a reminder that, in their adversity, the Lord was in their midst.  By our presence and, I expect, by the work that Kris would eventually accomplish in their villages, I pray that they also knew that God’s merciful love was leading them through it.

          My brothers and sisters, as we continue this Lenten journey towards Easter, let us remember that, in so many ways, our Lord Jesus is truly in our midst—not only thirsting with us, but also longing to slake our thirst with the living waters that flow from his heart—so that, turning away from sin, we may be renewed and ready to rejoice whole-heartedly when Easter comes: a joy that we taste even now here in this Holy Eucharist.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 19^th, 2017

The obedience that conquers fear

Homily: 4^th Sunday of Advent – Cycle A

          Fear is a powerful thing, and rightly so.  Fear is one of the essential tools that all animals use for survival.  When we find ourselves in a dangerous situation, fear of dying causes us either to fight what is in front of us or to run away from it in order to preserve our lives.  For example, if I’m walking through a neighborhood and am confronted by an unfriendly looking dog, I have a decision to make: either I’m going to stand my ground and try to fight him off if he attacks me, or I’m going to run away, hoping that he doesn’t catch me.  Without fear, however, I might be a “sitting duck” to the dog’s attack.  We fear things that threaten us.

          We also fear things that we don’t trust.  In other words, the possibility that what is in front of us might harm us makes us guarded and unwilling to engage with it for fear of what might happen to us.  For example, I might be asked to climb a ladder to hang a decoration or to clean out the gutters, but one look at the ladder might tell me that it might collapse under my weight and so fear of injury makes me say “no” to the request.  Perhaps even my fear of heights—which is not really a fear of heights, but rather a fear of falling from those heights—would cause me not to trust the ladder, even if it was the sturdiest ladder ever made.  This also applies to people, of course, as a lack of trust in an individual—the pilot on your airline flight, for example—could cause you to skip your flight.  Fear, indeed, is powerful: it has the power to decide what actions you take in life.

          For this reason, fear can be inimical to faith.  We need look no farther than today’s Scriptures to see an example of this.  Ahaz is the king of the southern kingdom of Judah.  His kingdom has been surrounded on all sides by his enemies and he is trying to figure out what to do: should he try to fight them (invoking the assistance of the Egyptians to the south), or should he run, or should he just give up?  The prophet Isaiah comes to speak the Lord’s message to him.  He tells him: “Surrender to your enemies.  Do not fear that this will be the end of the kingdom, because God has not forgotten his promise.  In fact, God wills to give you a sign that he will not abandon you.  You tell him what that sign shall be.”  Ahaz, however, didn’t trust God and so, in a sign of false piety, he refused to ask for a sign.  He allowed his fear to overcome his faith.

          Both Mary and Joseph had the opportunity to respond like Ahaz to the revelation of God.  At the revelation of the angel, however, Mary trusted God, even given the fearful uncertainty of what this would mean for her life; and so she conceived Jesus in her womb.  Joseph, too, fearful for being found unrighteous according to the Law, trusted the revelation of the angel and so gave Jesus a patrimony—Son of the House of David—so that the prophecy of Isaiah would be fulfilled.  Both were instructed by the angel, “Do not be afraid”, and both listened.  Thus, God’s great promises to his people were finally fulfilled when two poor Jews from Galilee conquered the power of their fears and put their faith in God: submitting themselves to his will.

          These are examples for us of the “obedience of faith” that Saint Paul spoke about in the beginning of his letter to the Romans.  Obedience of this type is not blind servitude that we think of when we think of slavery as it was often practiced in the early years of this country; rather, it is loving adherence to the will of one, who has authority over you, yes, but who also has responsibility for your well-being.  The obedience of faith, therefore, is the obedience that can say “yes” in spite of a fearful unknown, because the one who asks is trustworthy.  The obedience of faith can say “yes” even in the face of a certain danger, because the one who asks has promised to carry you through.  More than all these, however, the obedience of faith is a readiness to respond in love to the one who has already poured out his love on you, which is exactly what God did when he sent his Son to become one with us and to die for us.  In fact, because of this, the obedience of faith is something we owe God, which is why Saint Paul saw it as his apostolic responsibility “to bring about the obedience of faith.”

          My brothers and sisters, this obedience of faith is that to which we are being called to return during this Advent season.  Our remembrance that Our Lord came to us as a little child to then go forth to suffer and to die so that we might be saved from sin and death forever, and that he reigns now in heaven as King of the Universe until the appointed time when he will return to bring about the fullness of his kingdom, is meant to remind us of our need to examine our lives and to ensure that we are truly prepared to receive him when he comes.  This is the work that we should have been doing for the past three weeks.  And if we haven’t been doing it, then it is the work we are being called to take up in this last week of Advent (and thanks be to God that there is a whole week left!).

          Our Father in heaven knows us well, however.  And so he know that, if we have been struggling to trust him and to overcome our fear of the unknown—or of the certain danger—that might come from our obedience, there is nothing more fear-conquering than a little child who needs to be welcomed into a warm home.  This is why the Church ends this great season of expectation with the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child: it’s easier to make a place for him.  In this final week before Christmas, my brothers and sisters, may we each finish well this good work that we have begun to overcome our fears and to give God the obedience of faith that we owe him once again.  Thus will our hearts be prepared to receive him and to acknowledge him for who he is: Emmanuel, God with us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 17^th & 18^th, 2016