Homily for December 7, 2008
The Gospel I read today is the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. We'll read it throughout the coming year. I want to say just a brief word about it.
In the opening line, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” Mark tells you right up front who Jesus is. As the story unfolds, everybody in the story is clueless about who he is. You, the reader, know who he is. Mark says up front, "This is the good news of the Son of God," and the only one that gets it is the one at the end, the centurion who crucifies him and says, "Truly, this was the Son of God."
As the story unfolds, every idea you have about good news, every idea you have about what it means to be the Messiah, and every idea you have about the Son of God, is going to be completely turned upside down. That will come.
You know what this is, don't you? The Bible. Now, some people think it's a weapon, something you beat people over the head with it when they disagree with you. For some people it's a prayer book. For some it's the story of God's dwelling with people.
How many of us really know what's in the Bible? I hear fundamentalist Christians saying, "I believe in the Bible, and, therefore, I'm against..." I won't mention what they're against. You all know the hot button issues, right?
Well, do you know, some of those hot button issues are mentioned only six or seven times in the whole Bible, and if you cut out the passages referring to those hot button issues, you'd have to read a long time before you even missed them and before you even noticed that they were gone.
Have you ever heard anybody say, "I believe in the Bible, so I'm opposed to high interest rates?” Have you ever heard that? You ever heard anybody say, "I believe in the Bible, so I'm opposed to predatory lending?" You ever heard anybody say, "I believe in the Bible, so I'm opposed to tax breaks for the wealthy?" Do you ever hear anybody say, "I believe in the Bible and I want to support our troops, so I'm appalled at the homelessness and the drug abuse and the mental illness among our veterans who return from war /" You ever heard anybody say that?
Well, you know, if you went through the Bible and cut out the passages talking about the way we should treat the poor, if you cut out the passages about economic justice, if you cut out the passages about how you treat aliens and immigrants, if you cut out those passages, you wouldn't have anything left. You wouldn't have anything but just little strips of paper with big spaces in between, because that's what the Bible talks about.
In the first reading today, we have -- by the way, I feel comfortable saying all this because the election is over, and I can't be accused of favoring anybody -- Isaiah the prophet saying "Give comfort to my people." Those are the first lines of Handel's Messiah. How many of you are familiar with that?
Do you know where that was first performed? At a benefit for the poor in Dublin. Its second performance was at a foundling home, a home for orphaned children in London. It begins with an absolute sense of despair. That's the prophetic message in the Bible. Despair over the mess we have made of things when we abandon God.
By the way, God never abandons us. We abandon God. God never punishes us by way of doing mean things to us or bad things to us. God just lets us abandon him and stew in the mess we have made, by our own sinfulness and our own selfishness and our own greed and our own lack of consideration for each other.
So the prophets tell us, "Things are bad because you have abandoned God. But be of good cheer, because God has not abandoned you. God says to his heavenly court, 'Comfort, give comfort to my people. Prepare a highway through the desert. Every mountain will be brought low, and every valley will be filled in, and your heart will see the salvation of our God.'”
But, as I asked at the beginning of Mass, how do we prepare the way of the Lord? In Isaiah it says a highway will be built through the desert. Well, do we build the highway, and then God will come? Or do we prepare our hearts to receive God, and God builds the highway? What do you think?
I'll just leave that as a question. In the Scriptures the way we prepare the way of God is to acknowledge our sinfulness, to acknowledge that we have abandoned God, and to turn back to God.
I may be treading on thin ice here. I don't have a clue whether all these bailouts are good or bad. I'm not smart enough, I don't know enough economics. Time will tell. But what bothers me and I think it bothers other people is that I don't see any signs of repentance. Do you? I mean, I see people saying, "We've got this mess and you need to fix it for us." But I don't see anybody saying, "We have created this mess by our own greed, by our own lack of self regulation, by our own lack of restraint."
Do you see anybody saying that? Do you see anybody repenting of the way we've handled our economy, or the way we've handled the environment, or the way we've treated the poor, or the homeless? I just wonder, is there any hope for any program without repentance and without the willingness to acknowledge that maybe we are in the messes we are because we have abandoned God and God's way of living? Just a thought. Maybe it applies, as well, in our own life.
I was reflecting this morning. I know a lot of people who struggle with addictions to various things, and as they fail and relapse, the deepest ones, when they repent, repent not because they relapsed. Relapses happen. They repent because they relied on themselves rather than on God. They repent because they relied on their own strength, their own wisdom, their own way of doing things rather than trusting God.
Maybe as we prepare for Christmas, maybe we can hear that call to repent in whatever way it is important to us. I'm not going to take anybody else's inventory, and I'm not going to share mine with you. But we all need to ask ourselves as does the opening prayer at Mass today, “Remove the things that hinder us from receiving Christ with joy.” And what is it in your life, what is it in our collective life, that would hinder us from receiving Christ with joy?
In the opening line, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” Mark tells you right up front who Jesus is. As the story unfolds, everybody in the story is clueless about who he is. You, the reader, know who he is. Mark says up front, "This is the good news of the Son of God," and the only one that gets it is the one at the end, the centurion who crucifies him and says, "Truly, this was the Son of God."
As the story unfolds, every idea you have about good news, every idea you have about what it means to be the Messiah, and every idea you have about the Son of God, is going to be completely turned upside down. That will come.
You know what this is, don't you? The Bible. Now, some people think it's a weapon, something you beat people over the head with it when they disagree with you. For some people it's a prayer book. For some it's the story of God's dwelling with people.
How many of us really know what's in the Bible? I hear fundamentalist Christians saying, "I believe in the Bible, and, therefore, I'm against..." I won't mention what they're against. You all know the hot button issues, right?
Well, do you know, some of those hot button issues are mentioned only six or seven times in the whole Bible, and if you cut out the passages referring to those hot button issues, you'd have to read a long time before you even missed them and before you even noticed that they were gone.
Have you ever heard anybody say, "I believe in the Bible, so I'm opposed to high interest rates?” Have you ever heard that? You ever heard anybody say, "I believe in the Bible, so I'm opposed to predatory lending?" You ever heard anybody say, "I believe in the Bible, so I'm opposed to tax breaks for the wealthy?" Do you ever hear anybody say, "I believe in the Bible and I want to support our troops, so I'm appalled at the homelessness and the drug abuse and the mental illness among our veterans who return from war /" You ever heard anybody say that?
Well, you know, if you went through the Bible and cut out the passages talking about the way we should treat the poor, if you cut out the passages about economic justice, if you cut out the passages about how you treat aliens and immigrants, if you cut out those passages, you wouldn't have anything left. You wouldn't have anything but just little strips of paper with big spaces in between, because that's what the Bible talks about.
In the first reading today, we have -- by the way, I feel comfortable saying all this because the election is over, and I can't be accused of favoring anybody -- Isaiah the prophet saying "Give comfort to my people." Those are the first lines of Handel's Messiah. How many of you are familiar with that?
Do you know where that was first performed? At a benefit for the poor in Dublin. Its second performance was at a foundling home, a home for orphaned children in London. It begins with an absolute sense of despair. That's the prophetic message in the Bible. Despair over the mess we have made of things when we abandon God.
By the way, God never abandons us. We abandon God. God never punishes us by way of doing mean things to us or bad things to us. God just lets us abandon him and stew in the mess we have made, by our own sinfulness and our own selfishness and our own greed and our own lack of consideration for each other.
So the prophets tell us, "Things are bad because you have abandoned God. But be of good cheer, because God has not abandoned you. God says to his heavenly court, 'Comfort, give comfort to my people. Prepare a highway through the desert. Every mountain will be brought low, and every valley will be filled in, and your heart will see the salvation of our God.'”
But, as I asked at the beginning of Mass, how do we prepare the way of the Lord? In Isaiah it says a highway will be built through the desert. Well, do we build the highway, and then God will come? Or do we prepare our hearts to receive God, and God builds the highway? What do you think?
I'll just leave that as a question. In the Scriptures the way we prepare the way of God is to acknowledge our sinfulness, to acknowledge that we have abandoned God, and to turn back to God.
I may be treading on thin ice here. I don't have a clue whether all these bailouts are good or bad. I'm not smart enough, I don't know enough economics. Time will tell. But what bothers me and I think it bothers other people is that I don't see any signs of repentance. Do you? I mean, I see people saying, "We've got this mess and you need to fix it for us." But I don't see anybody saying, "We have created this mess by our own greed, by our own lack of self regulation, by our own lack of restraint."
Do you see anybody saying that? Do you see anybody repenting of the way we've handled our economy, or the way we've handled the environment, or the way we've treated the poor, or the homeless? I just wonder, is there any hope for any program without repentance and without the willingness to acknowledge that maybe we are in the messes we are because we have abandoned God and God's way of living? Just a thought. Maybe it applies, as well, in our own life.
I was reflecting this morning. I know a lot of people who struggle with addictions to various things, and as they fail and relapse, the deepest ones, when they repent, repent not because they relapsed. Relapses happen. They repent because they relied on themselves rather than on God. They repent because they relied on their own strength, their own wisdom, their own way of doing things rather than trusting God.
Maybe as we prepare for Christmas, maybe we can hear that call to repent in whatever way it is important to us. I'm not going to take anybody else's inventory, and I'm not going to share mine with you. But we all need to ask ourselves as does the opening prayer at Mass today, “Remove the things that hinder us from receiving Christ with joy.” And what is it in your life, what is it in our collective life, that would hinder us from receiving Christ with joy?
Labels: Homilies
posted by Fr. Larry Voelker at
4:27 PM
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