Pagans, Saints, and the Cross of Christ

Homily: 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

          As we know, Saint Paul lived in the first century AD, when the dominant religions were all pagan.  Pagan religions were based on a belief that gods were fickle beings who, while wielding great power, could, nonetheless, be swayed to use that power for a person’s benefit if they made a pleasing offering to them.  Thus, these pagan religions emphasized and relied on the power of external rituals.  These rituals sometimes consisted of sacrifices in which animals were slaughtered, grain was burned, or wine was poured out.  They also sometimes consisted of ritual dances, prayers, songs, or similar actions.  In every case, however, the power of the worship, and its (supposed) ability to convince the false god to send blessings on the worshipper, depended on the exact performance of the ritual.  It was kind of like a gymnastics routine in the Olympics: if the ritual wasn't performed with perfect precision, the worshipper would get a bad score, and the gods would either ignore the prayer or, worse, get angry.

          This pagan focus on external rituals had also seeped into Jewish practices at the time.  Throughout his writings, therefore, Saint Paul is constantly warning the early Christians against falling into an excessive focus on the externals, or, what we might call, ritualism.  Paul sought to train the early Church to have a close personal relationship with God: not a cold, distant one, made up entirely with empty formalities.  This is why he writes to the Romans, as we just heard, "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship."  In other words, he was teaching them that the Christian's relationship with God isn't reducible to a few rituals and prayers; rather, everything he/she does is meant to be worship.  One’s actions, words, and decisions—the way one lives his/her daily life—all these things are ways for one to show that he/she loves Christ and wants to follow him.  This was a radical new concept of religion—a religion built on a personal friendship with the one true God who became man in Jesus Christ—and it required, as Saint Paul wrote, that Christians "be transformed by the renewal of their mind."

          This “new-at-the-time” concept of religion helps us to understand so much of our religious tradition.  In particular, it helps explain one of our Catholic traditions that a lot of non-Catholic Christians have trouble understanding: namely, our devotion to the saints.  You see, some non-Catholics think that the statues of saints in our churches are there because we worship them, as pagans used to do, who would worship a sacred statue (like that of an animal) or an image of an ancestor as if they (the animal or the ancestor) were divine.  Devotion to the saints, however, is different.  We use images of saints for the same reason that we use family photographs: to remind us of some of the great members of our Christian family who have gone before us.  The example of their faith, courage, and holiness, of which the image reminds us, is meant to inspire us to strive for holiness, too.  So, no, we don't worship statues; and, no, we don't worship the saints either.

          We know the saints; and we know that they were normal, everyday people just like us, and that they aren’t gods.  They had personality flaws, family problems, and plenty of headaches, but they allowed God's grace to touch those things, and to sanctify them.  They recognized that God's offer of friendship in Christ was able to make them not only better church-goers and pray-ers, but also better husbands and wives, generals and lawyers, carpenters and nurses, scholars and artists.  These men and women followed Saint Paul's advice, trying to make every activity of their day—whether folding laundry or writing theological treatises—into a "living sacrifice" of "spiritual worship."  That's why we have named patron saints for almost everything and everyone, like Saint Barbara, the patron saint of mathematicians, and Saint Brigid, the patron saint of midwives, and Saint Wolfgang, the patron saint of those suffering from paralysis, and Saint Martin de Porres, the patron saint of public schools.  For those connected to any one of those situations, these saints provide an example of how to make their lives into a “living sacrifice” of “spiritual worship”.

          Friends, we aren't superstitious, nor do we believe in good luck charms, but we do recognize that, when God comes into a life, he has the power to fill every little nook and cranny of it with everlasting meaning, if we let him; and our devotion to the saints helps to remind us of this by reminding us of how he has already done this in the lives of countless men and women before us.

          No, my brothers and sisters, we do not worship our ancestors or pray to multiple gods for multiple many things—and our relationship with the one God who we worship is not based on external rituals alone—rather, it's based on an internal identity, often expressed externally.  I believe that this truth can help us to understand one of life's great mysteries: that is, the mystery of suffering and the cross.

          In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus said to his disciples (and, so, he says to us): "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."  Jesus doesn’t promise that following him will lead to a problem-free life, even though that's what all the pagan religions claimed to offer.  We know that such a promise is empty, because we know that, in this fallen world, no one can avoid suffering and loss.  What Jesus does promise is that, at the end of history, he will "wipe away every tear" and put an end to evil, suffering, and death for those who have endured such things patiently on account of him.  He demands this of his disciples not because he is some fickle god, looking for external proofs of their commitment to him, but rather because he knows of suffering’s redemptive power: power that he activated when he, himself, took up the cross.

          Just before telling his apostles “whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”, we hear that Jesus showed his disciples that “he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly … and be killed and on the third day be raised”.  Jesus did not make himself immune to what his disciples would suffer; but rather embraced it, in obedience to the Father’s will, as the means of salvation for humanity.  And so, when we unite our inevitable sufferings to his through faith and prayer, we tap into this means of salvation.  This gives our crosses internal meaning, even though externally they remain painful.  Our crosses then become part of the "living sacrifice" and "spiritual worship" that please God, reverse sin, and spread God's grace.

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus has redeemed the world and has turned our sorrows into paths of salvation, just as in a few minutes he will turn our offerings of bread and wine into his own grace-filled body and blood.  If we are at all feeling down and defeated because of the crosses that being a Christian demands that we bear, let’s look to our friends, the saints, for inspiration to persevere in carrying them, and to this Eucharist—which re-presents to us the saving sacrifice of Jesus on the cross—to find the strength we need to bear their weight until our Lord returns in glory.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – September 2^nd & 3^rd, 2017

An island big enough for everyone

Homily: 25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          There certainly is a wealth of lessons to be learned and insight to be gained from our Scriptures today.  There always is, of course, but today there just seems to be more to “sink our teeth into” than normal.  Obviously I can’t cover it all in one homily, so I’ll have to choose something.  I think that this year, in particular because it is an election year, it would be good if we focused in on the reading from Saint Paul’s letter to Timothy.  First, a little background on these letters.

          Three of Saint Paul's fourteen New Testament Letters are called his "Pastoral Letters". Two of these were written to Saint Timothy and one to Saint Titus.  Both Timothy and Titus were disciples of Paul. Timothy's mother was Jewish and he had become a Christian through the influence of his grandmother, Lois. Titus had no Jewish background at all; he was a Greek convert from paganism. Timothy and Titus each accompanied Saint Paul on some of his missionary journeys around the Mediterranean and they also served as Paul’s messengers to churches that he was trying to guide from a distance. At the time when the New Testament Letters to Timothy and Titus were written, the two disciples had stopped traveling with Paul and each had been made an overseer, or "bishop", of a local church. The Letters contain advice and instruction from Saint Paul on how to lead their respective communities. In the passage we just heard, located near the beginning of Saint Paul's First Letter to Timothy, many themes emerge: themes that are as important for us today as they were for our Christian brothers and sisters in the first century. Today, however, we’ll just focus two of them.

          The first has to do with the Church's relationship with the world around it. In the first century, the civilized world in which Christianity was taking root was still pagan. The different cultures around the Mediterranean Sea had been forcefully united under the Roman Empire. The Empire's fabulous wealth opened the door to a pleasure-loving lifestyle among the rich and powerful. It also required the spread of slave labor and the injustice and misery that went along with it. Furthermore, it allowed for the spread and interaction of the many different pagan religions native to each culture. At that time, in the midst of this sea of paganism, Christianity was still only a tiny island.

          In his instructions to Timothy, Saint Paul lists as the first responsibility of those living on that “island” to pray for the pagan “sea” all around them—especially for the "kings and for all in authority"—the Emperor, the governors, and the other civil leaders… many of whom had already begun to persecute the Christians. You see, in Paul's mind, the Church was not only a boat journeying to heaven—or an island of refuge in the midst of a hostile sea—but it was also God's chosen instrument for the spread of a stable and prosperous society here on earth, in which everyone could live a "quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity." And the primary way for the Church to do that, Paul instructs, was through prayer.

          Today, once again, the Church is an island in a sea of paganism. The island is bigger now, but the surrounding culture is still hostile to Christian values. So today it is still our responsibility as God's ambassadors to pray for peace, justice, and prosperity in society: which means, of course, to pray also for our leaders. God wants our culture to be healthy and our society to be stable and he chooses to use our prayers as channels for his grace to achieve this end.

          The second theme has to do with the extension of Christ's saving mission. Jesus Christ came as the Savior, but who exactly did he come to save? Did he intend to save only some members of the fallen human race? This is what some traditions of separated Christianity have taught and still teach. John Calvin, for example, one of the most influential figures in the Protestant Reformation back in the 16th century, taught a doctrine called "double predestination". This doctrine stated that from the moment when God creates a human soul, he destines that person either to heaven or to hell, and nothing that the person does can change that destiny. But that, of course, is not true. As Saint Paul wrote to Timothy, "God our savior... wills everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

          When Christ offered his own life as a sacrifice for our sins, he offered it as a sacrifice to atone for ALL our sins, for the sins of every human being who ever lived and who ever will live. This is what Saint Paul means when he writes to Timothy saying that, "Christ Jesus... gave himself as ransom for all." God doesn't play favorites and he doesn’t exclude. He offers the gift of salvation to every single person and he wants every single person to accept salvation by believing in and following Christ. But he won't force anyone to accept the gift: because then it wouldn't be a gift at all. This is why it is not a contradiction to say both that God wills the salvation of all people, but that all people will not necessarily be saved.

          And so, do you see now how important it is that we pray for “kings and for all those in authority”?  If we decide that some people don’t deserve our prayers because we don’t think that they should receive the gift of eternal life from God, then we have set ourselves against God’s will; and if we are against God’s will then we ourselves are in danger of losing the gift of salvation that comes to us from Jesus Christ!  And besides, are we any better than that dishonest steward about whom Jesus speaks in the Gospel if we try to hoard the treasure of salvation for ourselves, instead of praying that everyone would share in it?  No, we’re not!

          And so, in the Gospel reading, when Jesus seems to agree with the master’s commendation of the dishonest steward’s actions, it isn’t because he agrees with the steward’s actions, but rather it is to make a point: that the dishonest are better and more committed to being dishonest than the good are at being and being committed to being honest!  And he makes this point to make a further point: that is, that in order for the Gospel message to be received as authentic, then Christians must live the faith authentically.  My friends, this begins with charity; and today Saint Paul teaches us that an essential part of charity is to pray for everyone, without discrimination.

          My brothers and sisters, our faith is a vast treasure house of truth and light: a treasure that our world so desperately needs today! And so today, as Christ comes once again to nourish our souls in Holy Communion, let's thank him for this priceless gift of our Catholic faith, let's pray for the salvation of the entire world, as Saint Paul encourages us to do, especially for the politicians and government officials that seem to be lost, and let's renew our determination to follow Christ faithfully this week, so that we might be authentic witnesses to the Gospel that lead all those around us to the joy of eternal life.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – September 18^th, 2016