Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Prophets And Saints In A Secularized World

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. John Vianney Catholic Church, St. Paul, MN

Sunday, January 30, 2022

In our today’s first reading from prophet Jeremiah, God warns Jeremiah that he, like all true prophets, will be hated and opposed. What’s the reason why true prophets are always opposed and sometimes killed? Because they are countercultural. In an often combative manner, they oppose their society’s fashionable sins. Although not all countercultural people are true prophets, but all true prophets are countercultural. Neo-Nazis, Islamic extremists and terrorists are countercultural too, but they are deluded, not prophets. But why does God send prophets? God sends prophets to us because we are not yet living in the fullness of God’s kingdom. God sends prophets because everything is not okay. I am not okay; and you are not okay. God sends prophets when we normalize, rationalize, justify, and glorify our sins. When we accept and promote the way we are, God sends prophets. Accepting the way we are means that if I am prideful I accept that’s just the way I am. If I can’t control my impulses, tendencies, and inordinate desires, I accept that’s just the way I am. If I am unable to deal with my anger, bitterness and resentment, I conclude it is just the way I am. If I cannot hold down my inordinate desires for wealth, power, pleasure and honor, I resign to my fate and accept it is okay to be that. In conditions like that, God sends prophets to wake us up and to remind us it is not okay to be all that. Prophets speak God’s word and tell us what God expects from us. The saints never accepted the way they were, only tyrants do. Caesar Augustus, Herod the great, Nero etc. had no problems accepting they were drunk with power. Hitler had no problems accepting he was an egotistic and self-serving human being. As for the saints, you will always see them at the confessional booths acknowledging they are sinners, not sinners that think they are saints.

In our Gospel for today, God’s warning to Jeremiah that “they will fight against you…” becomes true for Jesus. Jesus is in his hometown, Nazareth. He is precisely in the synagogue on the sabbath day. Nazarenes have heard of his exploits in other towns. After hearing his sermon, they were deeply impressed by the gracious words that came from his mouth. Nevertheless, they wondered how the son of a carpenter, Joseph, could possess such knowledge: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” Jesus read their minds and realized they did not believe in him because of his background. His “sin” was his origin. What’s Jesus’ response to his rejection by his town’s people? Violence? No! Aggression? No! Forceful conversion? No! Threat of death? No! That’s what tyrants do. Jesus simply tells them he knows that “no prophet is accepted in his own native place.” He also tells them that such a way of looking at a native prophet is the reason why Elijah the prophet, during the three and half years of severe famine in the land, was not sent to any widow in Israel, but to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon; and that Elisha was not sent to the many lepers in Israel, but only to Naaman, the Syrian. Upon hearing those words, which suggests that God is reaching out to the Gentiles, Jesus’ hometown became upset and attempted to kill him right away. There’s not much earthly profit in being a prophet. Most of them get killed. Why? Because they always say the truth, and truth always hurts.

Now, if the overriding theme of the first reading and the Gospel is the consequence being a prophet, why does the Church insert between them what is indisputably one of the finest letters of St. Paul— the passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13? The reason is because 1 Corinthians 13 is countercultural just as prophets are countercultural. The love that 1 Corinthians 13 speaks about is not the kind of love that our culture or any secular culture understands or lives by. It is the kind of love that Jesus speaks about when he says, when you love one another, all will know that you are my disciples (John 13:35). The love of 1 Corinthians 13 is radically different, so distinctive that even the unbelieving world would notice. Those who converted the intransigent Roman world were not professors, administrators, theologians, warriors or politicians, but the saints. In the arena of politics, academia, business, military might etc, you can argue, fight and sometimes win if you have the wherewithal. But no argument or power can defeat love. Love always wins. 

Saints are controversial. Prophets are controversial, so also is Pauline love. How come? You remember St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta? She practiced that kind of love in the streets of Calcutta and also practiced it when she offended her audience at her Harvard commencement speech when she said, “America is not a rich country. America is a poor country. Any country that slaughters its own unborn children is a desperately poor country.” She practiced that kind of love when she said, “There are always two victims of an abortion: the baby’s body and the mother’s conscience.” Mother Teresa loved Jesus who is present in those whose lives were threatened outside the womb and whose lives were threatened inside the womb. She loved both with the same love. She was countercultural, not because she tried to be or set out to be one, but because she set out to be Christian. Her love was rooted in Jesus who is countercultural too. Jesus’ love was countercultural because he loved the Jews and non-Jews, sinners and saints, insiders and outsiders, the somebody’s and nobody’s. He didn’t ration his love, that’s why the saints don’t ration their love. 

Sisters and brothers, remember that the day you were baptized is the day you were grafted onto Christ in such a way that you are expected to live as a priest, prophet and king. As a prophet you are called to speak the word of God and allow the word of God to guide your private and public life. Your prophetic life should be countercultural, just like Jesus, the prophets, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Like our Lord, we must love both saints and sinners, insiders and outsiders, those who are up, and those who are down. Like Mother Teresa Calcutta, we are to love and care for those whose lives are threatened outside the womb and inside the womb. We shouldn’t choose one and ignore the other. If you are passionate about ending the killing in the womb, be as much passionate about ending the killings that goes on outside the womb. We cannot choose one and ignore the other. We must care about both. As disciples of the Lord, we are not called simply to be nice people. We are called to be saints. Saints are controversial. They are countercultural. Why? Because like X-rays which reveals diseases, saints tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 

— Fr. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR