The Fish Homily...

As implausible as it may seem, someone wondered if they could get the text of my fish homily. So, since I normally post them on my Facebook page anyways, I figured I'd put up some homilies here as well.  I don't think they're going to get any better the second time!

Homily for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

            I think if we’re willing to hear the Word today, this Gospel will strike us close to home.  The rich man in the parable isn’t named, but traditionally he’s called “Dives,” which is Latin for “rich.”  What is Dives’ problem?  He has so many good things, and he ends up in torment, in flames.

The pike in question...

            These past days that I’ve been away, I had the privilege to go on a canoe trip with my dad, my Uncle Tim, and 3 other guys on a canoe trip in the Quetico, the park in Canada just north of the Boundary Waters.  We traveled about 150 miles in 11 days, paddling, portaging, cooking over an open fire. It was a beautiful trip, especially to be able to share it with my dad and my uncle.  One of the guys, Scott, was a pretty accomplished fisherman, and along with my dad and one other guy, kept us supplied with fresh northern pike.  One of the first pike Scott caught was about 25”.  To our surprise, when he gutted it, he noticed the stomach was very full.  He opened the stomach, and found inside an entire, intact, red squirrel!  The pike had swallowed whole a squirrel about a third as long as he was!  Not only that, but while full of this squirrel, he had still struck at the lure afterwards!  I suspect you see the connection.  Having bitten off more than he could chew, he kept grabbing for more, which ended him up in our frying pan!

            In our first reading, the Prophet Amos speaks of the rich and complacent, stretched comfortably on their couches.  “Improvising to the music of the harp, like David, they devise their own accompaniment.”  Do we see the spiritual danger that wealth and comfort so easily present?  We become content with ourselves, with our comfort, with our possessions. We devise our own accompaniment; we make our own plans.  Our hearts draw back from God’s mysterious plans, and we chart our own course.  Paradoxically, at the same time, we desire more.  We want more comfort, a bigger house, more and bigger cars.  Closer to my own heart, we begin to imagine a fleet of fine canoes, a nice over/under 20 gauge shotgun, or a pack of purebred beagles.  Each of these things is good in and of itself.  God created the material world and called it good.  Then He created us, and called it VERY GOOD.   In particular, it is a good and noble thing for parents to provide for their families, for their children. BUT, so easily, wants become non-negotiable needs, and soon our possessions own us.

            I presume that you have been warned before of the dangers of wealth, comfort.  I imagine that this is not the first time you have wondered if perhaps you have allowed what you have to have you.  There is a broader message here – we are called to freedom.  The Gospel calls us to have pure, undivided hearts, and it calls us to true and authentic freedom, which is always found in the complete and pure and entire gift of self, the laying down of our lives in love.  This is why wealth and comfort can be dangerous – they draw us from freedom into slavery.

            Freedom is a tricky category in the United States of America, it is bound up in our national history – the Land of the Free, Liberty, and Justice for all!  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Unfortunately, in recent generations, Freedom has often been stripped of its full meaning and become simply the absence of restraint.  When someone says, “hey, it’s a free country,” they’re not normally defending virtue!  Liberty has often become libertinism.  Freedom is not merely the absence of constraint, the absence of coercion.  In fact, oftentimes those who have lived the most freely have been prisoners, martyrs, beggars.  Freedom always has a direction, towards God, towards the good, the true, and the beautiful.  Whenever we chose away from God, we do not exercise our freedom, we abuse and degrade our freedom.

            This is where having good things becomes dangerous.  The more we have, sometimes, the more we want, and the harder it is to give what we have and what we are.  Dives could EASILY have spared Lazarus food and clothing, even friendship.  But, he grasped what he had, he took it for himself.  He was a man of means, but he was a slave to them.  The means he had became an end in themselves, rather than a means for doing good, for loving, for being free.

            Listen to Paul’s worlds in our 2^nd reading, words originally written to Timothy, a young bishop: “But you, man of God, pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.  Compete well for the faith.  Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.”  May each of us hear these words addressed to us personally: People of St. Michael’s Parish, People of Marquette, pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. Compete well for the faith.  Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called in the noble confession of baptism and confirmation.

            This is the path to true freedom! This is the path to eternal life, this is the path where we will be filled by grace and light, buoyed up by the Lord’s presence and guidance.  This is the path where we will won’t imitate that pike, this is the path whereby we avoid ending up in someone’s frying pan!