Homily for the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Where are you? 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, June 9, 2024

In ordinary life, we are very familiar with actions and consequences, with cause and effect. In the family, parents tell their children the consequences of not learning the ethics, morals and virtues being communicated to them at home. In schools at every level, teachers and professors tell their students the heavy cost of ignoring their books.  At work, managers and supervisors tell other employees the price of not following rules. In the society at large, the law and law enforcements constantly remind us of the lacerating repercussions of not following the laws of the land. In the Bible, cause and effect is also not left out. In fact, what we see in our first reading for this weekend is the immediate consequences of Original Sin, that is, the Fall and its implications. 

After Adam disobeyed God’s command to not eat the forbidden fruit, God comes to Adam and asks a question, a question that is more profound and terrifying than it appears: “Where are you?” Now, don’t read this to mean that God cannot see Adam and cannot see us. God sees everything and everyone. Again, don’t read this to mean that God does not know the whereabouts of Adam and Eve. God knows everything about everything. The Book of Psalm 139 speaks clearly and eloquently of God’s omnipresence and omniscience: that God knows when I sit and stand, that I cannot possibly hide myself from God, that if I go to the heavens, God is there. If I lie down in Sheol, underworld, God is there. If I go to the sea and live beyond its depth, even there God can see me. And if I ask darkness to hide me, even the darkest night cannot hide me from God. Because of the aforementioned reasons, God’s question, “Where are you?” cannot mean that God is unaware of Adam’s whereabouts. God never loses sight of us. But what does the question mean? It is a powerful symbolic expression of the stubborn fact that sin always involves alienation from God. God is asking Adam, Eve and everyone of us: Now that you have removed yourself from my presence, now that you have left the relationship of faith, trust and obedience, now that you have declared your independence from me, where are you? Now that I am no longer at the center of your life, now that you’ve got what you want, where are you now? How’s that independence working out for you? Now that you have abandoned the theo-drama, the drama that I your God is writing, producing, and directing and followed your ego-drama, the drama that you are writing, producing, directing, and starring in, where are you now? And how is it working out for you? 

What’s Adam’s response to God’s question? “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” I tell you, I can spend my entire homily on “I was afraid,” “I was naked,” “I hid myself.” Why is Adam afraid? Before the Original Sin, he was not afraid of God at all. He had a friendly association with God. And this friendly association, this easy walking with God is what God always wants. God wants us to walk in rhythm with him. But when sin gets in the way, it awakens in us the sense that God is angry, that God has changed. But God doesn’t change, we change. In alienation, we feel that God is angry with us and we are afraid of him consequently. But God is love. God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrew 13:8). God never changes. Because Adam changed, God’s smile appeared like a frown of anger and wrath. In human relationships, the moment you sensed rightly or wrongly that someone has changed, even the person’s smile would appear to be anger or an expression of mockery.  Have you not said or heard people say something like “I don’t believe his smile.” “I don’t believe her smile.” “He's mocking me.” “She’s mocking me.” 

After expressing his fear, Adam confesses: “I was naked.” Prior to sin, Adam wasn’t aware of his nakedness. He was like a child at home easily walking around the house completely naked and unaware of it. What does sin do to us? It makes us spiritually naked. It strips us of our original innocence and brings about shame. The moment Adam spoke about his nakedness, God asked him, “Who told you that you were naked?Adam replied, “The woman whom you put here with me— she gave me the fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” And when God inquired from the woman, she played the same blame game, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.” One of the most fundamental functions of sin is blaming, finger-pointing, scapegoating, accusing. Did you watch TV this week, especially the conviction of the former president in New York? What did you mostly hear? Blame-game! I am not saying there is no objective analysis of why bad things happen either economically, socially, morally etc. I am talking about blaming, accusing, shaming, scapegoating etc. Do you know the two famous names of the devil in the Bible? Accuser and Scatterer! Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent. Pay attention to Adam’s words, “the woman that you put here with me…” and you will see a subtle blaming of God in the account. Adam is saying that it is not only Eve’s fault, but also God’s fault. For it is God who put Eve with him. We all do this. We are always looking for someone to blame for our actions and choices. 

Having now lost his innocence and incurred shame, Adam “hides” from God. Of course, he didn’t really succeed in his effort to hide. God can see why he sat or stood. But why did Adam hide? It’s the nature of sin and disobedience. Sin always wants to hide from light. Sin prefers darkness. In John’s Gospel, Jesus gives a verdict, “…the light has come into the world, but people prefer darkness to light, because their deeds are evil” (John 3:19). We all fear darkness. If we are out partying or attending official events, once it’s getting dark, there’s this natural urge to want to go home. But if we are planning to do something sinful or criminal, we naturally prefer darkness to light. We need the darkness to hide our sin. But we can’t possibly hide it from God. We can hide it from others, but we cannot hide it from God’s shining light.

What does God do now? Immediately God starts the process that will take all of human history to complete— namely, our rescue operation. In our Gospel for today (Mark 3:20-35) and in fact everywhere in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus functions as an exorcist, as a deliverer and Savior, as someone who comes to save us and lead us out of the garden of sorrow, distress and despair. The great good news of Christianity is that though God knows we have gone off-kilter, he doesn’t give up on us. Rather, what we see throughout the Bible is that he is seeking us out. Even when we feel a million miles from God, there’s still that strange voice that convinces us we are not where we are meant to be. There is still that voice asking you, where are you? That voice is the voice of conscience. The conscience is the aboriginal vicar of Christ; it is in that sanctuary that God speaks to everyone. If we listen to that voice and do its bidding, our reward is joy and peace that the world cannot give.  

God bless you!