Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota
Sunday, August 7, 2022
For a thousand years, the ancient Israelites longed for the Kingdom of God. They dreamed of the day God will reign as the righteous King of the world and set things right. In the face of trials, injustices, oppression, enslavement and sufferings, Israel yearned for the arrival of the Messiah, the advent of God. As they suffer under corrupt kings, foreign kings, oppressive and repressive kings and reckless emperors, they hoped and prayed for the day Yahweh, the God of Israel himself will arrive to establish his Kingdom, reign as a righteous King, set things right so that justice will ring, and peace attained. During that period of dry season or what prophet Ezekiel called “dry bones,” Israel’s prophets preached and urged them incessantly to keep God’s commandments and to stay faithful. Although ancient Israelites moved from one pole to another, from one direction to another, from serving Yahweh to serving man-made gods, the central message of the prophets was, stay faithful, Israel. Your God will come. The Messiah will come. The reign of God will definitely dawn. In 30 AD, a young man from Nazareth, the Son of Mary and Joseph, emerged at the scene in a most extraordinary way. On the hills of Galilee, he began to preach with unprecedented and unnerving boldness the message of the Kingdom: “the Kingdom of God is at hand,” meaning that kingdom that your ancestors longed for, waited for, died for, prayed for has finally arrived. After announcing the arrival of the Kingdom, he adds, “Repent and believe in the good news.” What is the good news? God is now here! To demonstrate that he is indeed the real deal, that he is the Messiah, the autobasileia— the kingdom in person, that he is not like any other rabbi, or teacher or any other prophet like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Elijah, Amos etc., that he is actually the very incarnation of Yahweh, that in him God has finally come in human flesh to establish his kingdom, he performed great miracles of healing and demonstrated a mastery over the forces of nature. Through extraordinary preaching, extravagant show of mercy, and outreach to those on the margins of the society, he separates himself, sets himself apart and announces with clarity and distinction that Yahweh has indeed come. More to it, he claimed personal authority over the Torah itself, which was the divine law and considered the court of final appeal for every faithful Jew.
In the course of his ministry, he declares “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” To say “I am the Way,” is different from I am a way. To say “I am the Truth” is not the same as I am a truth. And to say “I am the Life” is not the same as I am a life. If someone says he is a way, it means there are other ways. If someone says I am the truth, it means there are other truths and I happen to be one of them. If he says I am a life, it would mean there are other life out there. I just happened to be one of them. What Jesus said is, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” which means, the only Way and access to God, the only Truth that must be known and lived for, and the only life that deserves giving our entire life for. As I said previously, no other religious figure ever focused on himself. Buddha, Mohammad, Confucius never focused on themselves. Buddha said there is a way I discovered and want you to know it. Muhammad said there is a revelation I received and want you to know it. Confucius said there is a path, a way that I discovered and want to show you. Then there is Jesus. He said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. The only person who can say such a thing has to be God himself. If Jesus is not Lord, he would be a liar and a madman, so said, C. S. Lewis.
With this background, let’s look at today’s readings. What’s the central theme in the three readings? Faith! What is faith? New atheists describe faith as naïveté, superstition, unintelligence, acceptance of pre-scientific nonsense etc. They say faith is sub-rational and unworthy of mature people. Before his death in 2011, Christopher Hitchens, a leading proponent of new atheism, delighted in mocking faith and people of faith. He argued that people should stop settling for someone else's point of view or accept strange stories from ancient times. He also said it is time for people of faith to grow up and cast aside their childish preoccupations. But what exposes the lie of those who characterize faith as something meant for the unintelligent is the stubborn fact that some of the great figures of our faith include St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. John Henry Newman, G. K. Chesterton, St. Pope John Paul II etc. You can say what you want about each of them, but one thing you cannot say is that they were unintelligent. Are there unintelligent people of faith? Absolutely! There are many of them around. But to describe faith as unintelligent is a big lie. Faith is not identical to lack of intelligence. In my years of study and in ministry, I have encountered plenty of intelligent people who are believers. For St. John Henry Newman, faith is the reasoning of the religious mind. A religious mind is the one that is preoccupied with God. Faith is the right approach to God because God cannot be placed on the table, torn apart under a bright light of analytical reason. Faith is a searching reason. In this life you cannot see God as an object but all the objects in the universe announce his reality and existence. So faith is the proper response to God.
In the Gospel, Jesus appropriately calls us the “little flock.” But before that, he says, “Do not be afraid any longer.” That means, have faith in God. Have faith in him. Abraham, our father in faith gives us a true example of how to follow God. It is not just a matter of believing in God. That’s just the first step. A lot of people will tell you they believe in God or believe in the existence of God. It is also not a matter of saying I will trust in God. If God makes an impossible demand, what would you do? God told Abraham that even at old age he and his sterile wife, Sarah will have a child. Abraham believed. After the birth of Isaac, their only son, God promised Abraham that through Isaac descendants will bear his name. Abraham believed God. God turned around and demanded that Abraham sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham still believed God. Why? The answer is in the last line of today’s second reading: “He (Abraham) reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead…” He believed that the one who made the promise is trustworthy. He believed him and believed in him. It was the great philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard who said, “Faith is a passion for the impossible.” Faith is hoping against hope. It is trusting even when there is no ground to trust. Faith is radically turning your life over to God. It is an act of surrender to a mystery that we cannot in principle control, to the providential mercy and direction of God. Keep your faith in God alive and thriving. Ignore naysayers and those who mock you and call you stupid. On the last day, you will realize you made the best choice when your crown of glory and victory is given to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment