Journey's Weekly Homilies
26th Sunday, Ordinary Time A
9/29/02 Homily:
Nancy
Ez.18:25-28
Phil.2:1-11
I wish you could meet my cousin, Norman, who lives in Georgia. Norman is a character, a man with a doctoral degree in education, who was mayor of his small town, but one who has kept the ability to tell it like it is when the truth is needed. When Norman had a heart attack and bypass surgery, he was confined to his bed at home. People from the parish came to see him. After their visit, they said, "We will pray for you." Norman replied, "I can do my own praying. But, if you really want to help, you can take out the garbage and do the dishes, and there’s some laundry, too." Christians, Norman the teacher would advise, should be an audio-visual aid to teach other people how to live.
Jesus the Teacher
used a marvelous method for teaching us about these things:
he used parables. Today's
parable was one of three parables that Christ spoke in the last
days of his life. They are known in history as the Parables of
Rejection. They are parables about how it is that the leaders of
God’s chosen people had rejected the Good News, rejected the New
Law. This day's
Gospel was the first and shortest of the set of three. Next week you’ll hear from Jim about the tenant farmers who
wrecked havoc, and then Laurie will open up the wedding feast
story, about who is invited to the wedding.
They are tough parables. Jesus delivered
them right from the shoulder. There were no holds barred.
According to the synoptic tradition, Jesus has just entered
Jerusalem for the first time as an adult…and the scene is
painted for us as triumphal.
In Matthew, at the beginning of this same chapter, we hear
the prophecy from Isaiah repeated, with ‘Hosanna to the Son of
David’ sung by people greeting him…this is our Palm Sunday
story, we know it well. But the chapter goes on, and next he goes to the Temple, and
drives out the money-changers.
The Hosannas from the crowds and the cleansing of the
Temple make indignation rise up from the chief priests and
scribes. The next day
Jesus comes back to the Temple, and the confrontations with the
authorities continue.
Put yourself in his sandals. He may have only had hours to live, and we can’t know for sure, but he may have known what was coming. Matthew tells us at the end of this chapter, “When they heard his parables, the chief priests and the scribes realized he was speaking about them, but though they would have liked to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds, who looked on him as a prophet.” In this atmosphere, would you too not tell it like it is? +
Today's four verse
parable has been called by an author the Parable of the Better of
Two Bad Sons. The original meaning of the parable is
crystal clear. Number 1 son who says “Yes” to the father but
does not actually go do the work, was a thinly veiled sign of the
religious authorities to whom Jesus was speaking…people who were
long on words but short on deeds. When the Son of God came among
them, as a Teacher, these pious folks were anxious to be rid of
him.
Number 2 son, in the parable,
who said “No” to his father but who then went and did what his
dad wanted him to do, represented the world-class sinners that
they all knew. These
were the folks whom their world thought were bad, were hopeless
(like tax collectors and harlots).
When these folks ran into the man from Nazareth, the
Teacher, they changed.
They dropped everything, changed their lives and threw
their lot in with this Teacher. Matthew, today's author, the one
who was known as Levi in his former life, was just such a person,
and so was writing from first hand experience.
The setting is in the Temple, and so the meaning becomes
even more clear: The
nature of true religion, of a true-believer, is at stake.
It is not enough to just say “yes” to God, we must DO
what God asks of us.
Our brother, Jesus the Teacher, tells these leaders that
this is a lesson they can learn…from tax collectors and harlots.
These Pharisees and Sadducees knew the scripture from
Ezekiel which we heard today.
They were learned people who knew the prophet Ezekiel
words, and how it is in their own tradition that a person will be
judged by the new life to which he or she has turned, not by his
or her previous life. This parable is filled with the Good
News…it’s a proclamation of God’s mercy for all of us.
We always say “when push comes to shove,” and if you think about it, it’s a wise insight. At what moment do we stop shoving all the questions away, and out of our consciousness? At what moment do we begin, instead, to push ourselves or someone else we love, to do what we know is right. When push comes to shove it is only by deeds that we really prove what we are. Every Sunday the scriptures keep pushing us towards action, but today the parable shoves us into action!!! It is only by actions that we establish whether we are lovers or frauds.
In the first days, in the days in which Matthew’s community was being expelled from the Temple because of their belief in sharing the faith with Gentiles, the Church was called "the new way." (Act 9:2) If you followed the Teacher, the prophet from Nazareth, you were part of the new way. It was never simply a question of memorizing the catechism answers or mouthing the Ten Commandments. Rather, your way of life would establish whether you lived in solidarity with your brothers and sisters on the Way. In the new law, proclaimed by Jesus, the words from your mouth can never be a substitute for doing what is right.
Perhaps the greatest handicap to the message
of Jesus the Christ is the muddy lives of all the Christians. Each
of us, the baptized, is not only an audio-visual aid, but a neon
sign advertisement for the church. If our lives echo what our
mouths are saying in our prayers, the word is out and Christian
life is the answer. But
if, in fact we just talk and end up doing nothing…, the Teacher,
the one we represent, has lost, and the reign of God gets further
and further from reality.
In the ancient world, rulers used to send statues and pictures of
themselves to areas where they could not visit.
They sent their image, and their representatives, in order
to make their presence known.
We, who follow Christ, continue in our time with this same
idea. We are
commissioned to be Jesus’ presence wherever we find ourselves.
A Baptist preacher I
know asked his congregation, "When people meet you and then
get to know you, do they want, then, to learn about Christ?"
A difficult question that but an essential one!
I am a person trying to live a life of faith
today because of my grandfather.
I am a Catholic person today because of someone else I met.
I studied under Dr. Griffin, I watched him make music so
whole-heartedly, and deal with people in such an accepting and
love-filled way, and I kept asking, “What does he know that I
don’t know? I asked
him. He said he had the scriptures and the church.
And so I went looking to see what it was that made him the
kind of human being I might want to be.
It was the scriptures and the church.
And here I am still… searching the scriptures and living
in church with you. Are
you a person of faith because of someone YOU met?
Who is that person? What
was true of them that was undeniable and hooked into you and would
not let go? I invite
you to share your own story with someone tonight, during the
hospitality after Mass…tell someone else here WHO it was that
lived a life of love so strongly that it changed your life.
Perhaps in the telling you can begin to rediscover the
motivation as to why you should act, and not just talk about it.
People who live every day according to
what they SAY they believe are our hope for the future.
It changed everything for us sometime in the past, and it
is still true…words are not enough.
We are called to give ourselves, to forgive 70 times 7, to
share everything we have, to bring patience, acceptance, and NO
judgement to every human encounter.
And we know ourselves, we know how inconstant we can be.
We know how many times we have failed, or fallen short.
Norman’s friend said he didn’t go to church anymore
because there were nothing but hypocrites in there.
Norman told him, “Well there’s always room for one
more.”
We have free will. God allows us to do as we wish, without comment, without pressure, and without blame. We are the “lowly people” who hold a treasure within us. The choice is ours, and it’s simple. A life with open hearts and minds and souls to God’s invitation, or a life of shoving away the questions, worrying about image, appearances and lifestyle, like the people to whom Jesus was telling the parables so long ago. It’s what we DO that becomes the measure.