My First Sunday Homily as a Pastor... An Invitation

Homily Outline for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is a great joy and privilege to be among you for the first time as your pastor! I hope I know how little I have earned or deserve such a title, and yet in God’s providence here I am with you. In that light, the readings this Sunday are not a little daunting! God said to Ezekiel: “Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. But you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD! And whether they heed or resist--for they are a rebellious house--they shall know that a prophet has been among them.” Yikes! What is God saying to us here!? Then, even more ominous, Jesus preaches in His hometown, and is able to do almost nothing because they have little faith and their hearts are hardened against him. Now, this certainly isn’t my hometown, but having spent the last year down in Chicago finishing my thesis, coming back to the U.P. certainly feels to me like coming home! Is God warning me? Is He warning you?

Fortunately, I don’t think these readings foretell your rejection of me, but nonetheless, I do believe they speak right to the heart of our shared situation. We are God’s people—He created us in love and lovingly sustains each one of us in existence at each moment. He redeemed us on the Cross and through our baptism, by which each one of us is priest, prophet, and king. As such, we are called to holiness, and nourished and empowered by the Word and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. By baptism we are members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and members of His family.

All of this is a gift, graces freely offered to us, if we will but accept them. But… THERE’S the rub… WILL we accept such gifts? Adam and Eve rejected them. The People of Israel, from Abraham on down, often failed to respond to God’s call and mercy. Most of Jesus’ countrymen and women, whether in Galilee or Jerusalem, rejected Him and turned away, to the point that He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Are we any different? If we look around our country, if we look around our Church, if we look around our community… we can certainly see a lot of people who say they’re Christians mixed up in a whole lot of stuff that certainly isn’t holy. Far more to the point… what do I see when I look into my own heart? What do you see when you look into your own soul? Is it possible that at times we haven’t always responded to God’s gifts with joy?—the gentle nudge to help someone in need? The Lord’s invitation to forgive or seek forgiveness? Is it possible that before the Lord we have been “hard of face and obstinate of heart,” as the Lord said to Ezekiel? I know for myself that these words strike uncomfortably close to home, inviting me not so much to harsh judgment of a very broken world, but rather inviting me to re-evaluate my own choices, and to seek the Lord.

In our 2nd reading, St. Paul dramatically describes his own journey into a deeper relationship with Christ, a journey that reached its deepest and most intimate point when he came face to face with his own  weakness.  We don’t know what the “thorn in his flesh” was, but it must have been terrible. St. Paul wanted it to go away: “Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’” God’s great gift to St. Paul was to reveal to him his total and utter reliance on God’s grace. This same invitation is made to you and me—will we turn a hard face and an obstinate heart to the grace offered us by the Lord? Will we turn away rather than face deeper conversion and healing, rather than embrace a call to greater generosity and service? Will we follow the crowd and go with flow of our sad and broken world, seeking ephemeral fame or prosperity or comfort rather than the Lord? It’s certainly not impossible! In fact, it seems to be more and more the majority preference… but that path is not God’s path, it is not the path of the Gospel, it is not the path of a Christian. You are called, and I am called…we are called together to holiness, to higher things, to a deeper joy, even in the midst of struggle and failure.

So, my friends… where do we turn for courage when we fail? Where do we turn for grace as we become more and more aware of how much we need God’s help? Listen again to the words of the psalmist: “To you I lift up my eyes who are enthroned in heaven -- / As the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters. / As the eyes of a maid are on the hands of her mistress, / So are our eyes on the LORD, our God, till he have pity on us.”

At this altar we will stand in the presence of Jesus Christ Himself, just as surely as the people of His hometown did on that day when He preached to them despite their hardened hearts. In the Eucharist we will encounter Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. No one here will approach this altar worthy to receive this gift, and yet in His infinite mercy the Lord will offer Himself to us. May we receive him with joy, deeply aware of our desperate need for His infinite grace and mercy.

"For God so loved the world..."