Do you hope as big as God wants you to?

 + J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for the 5th Sunday of Lent, Year C

 

As I processed in, we said together:

Give me justice, O God, and plead my cause against a nation that is faithless. From the deceitful and cunning rescue me, for you, O God, are my strength.

We call upon the Lord; we seek His justice and mercy. He is our strength. When you turn your mind and heart to the Lord, what do you hope for? Last Sunday we saw that the two sons’ hope fell far short of what the Father desired to give them. The younger son, as he finally began his weary journey home, was only hoping to be fed, while the older son, who had never left, also seems to have looked at his father as an employer, and was fixated on getting his due. Neither of them grasped the depth of their father’s love. Does any of this ring true for you? I know it does for me! We live in a world of supply and demand, a world of contracts and prices, and we very readily allow that to limit our understanding of God. So often we hope for far too little from our Father, when He wants to do wonderful things in us and through us. God wants to transform our lives and our world, and we want Him to help us find our keys!

In our first reading, Isaiah is making reference to the Exodus as he speaks to people coming out of the Exile: in both cases the people of Israel were lost in a foreign land, slaves in Egypt and exiles in Babylon. The prophet wants them to remember the amazing things God had done for them: deliverance from slavery, passing through the midst of the sea. The most fearsome army was simply washed up dead on the shore. And now, says Isaiah, God is doing something new, something hidden that is about to burst forth! The Church gives us this text to prepare us for the coming weeks, the holiest weeks of the year! We are about to pass through, liturgically, the new work that Jesus Christ, Himself God, did for us… it happened long ago, but it is still waiting to burst forth in our lives like the torrents in the southern desert.

Just as the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, and exiles in Babylon, we are all too easily bound by sin and we cast ourselves out of God’s grace; we languish away from the sacraments and the truth of God’s love. We hold ourselves in bondage, and God just wants to set us free! What binds you? Look within your heart: lies you tell yourself or others? Bitter hatred or grudges that you nurse like poison in your heart? Fear or anxiety about this life or the next? The myth of self-sufficiency? Like Pharaoh’s army, God wants to snuff out and quench those burning lies that brand your heart and soul, and bind you far from His love. God calls you to throw down these weapons of self destruction so that you can reap a joyful harvest with hearts and hands open to His love. It is a great deal to hope for, and we often hesitate, and fix our eyes on some trifle that seems to be much nearer, but God has great gifts in mind for us!

This brings us to our Gospel. In the midst of this stand-off between Jesus and his enemies, the poor woman is used as a pawn. She’s been dragged out of the arms of the man with whom she was committing adultery. That man was left stunned, but she’s the one dragged shamefully before the crowd and thrown down at Jesus’ feet. The scribes and Pharisees are not concerned with adultery as such; the woman is just a chance to trap Jesus. If he endorses the stoning her as the Law demands, He abandons His talk of mercy and puts Himself in opposition to the Roman occupation. If Jesus tells them not to stone her, He opposes the Law, and sets Himself against the Jewish tradition. In either case, the scribes and Pharisees are confident that He will be discredited, and if they’re lucky, killed! What a despicable way to treat this woman! They’re hearts are tight shut against Jesus and against her.

Jesus chews on all this in silence, no doubt experiencing some considerable anger and frustration, but most of all strong compassion. He is not focused on His opponents, but on her. After He gets rid of them with one short word, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” he is left alone with her.

She is also embroiled in lies. We don’t know the story; we only know that it was adultery, that the man and the woman lied to each other with their bodies, making a sham gift of themselves that was not blessed by marriage, that very likely wasn’t even fully endorsed by their hearts. Jesus looks at her and sees the bitter lie. If only we could see that gaze, filled with compassion, love, and an invitation. Our world is obsessed with part of what Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you,” but it does not want to hear at any cost how He finished, “Go, and sin no more.” As the story is told, we perhaps hope for the woman to be saved from death. She may only have hoped that it would be quick, but Jesus sees her, and loves her, and desires for her to be healed and converted. He wants her to embrace true love, not the false and bitter dregs of forfeit love. God wants to do something new and surprising, far beyond our expectations.

And so we come to our own condition. What is the Church saying to you and to me with these readings? Where does this lead us on this Fifth Sunday of Lent? In less than two weeks we will enter the Triduum, and we will walk with Jesus. I would propose to you that very many of us, perhaps all of us, approach this with hopes and desires far too small and low, with our eyes fixed on the ground rather than on heaven. Our lives are busy and hectic and stressful. We are often scattered and exhausted, and the Enemy goes to work to keep us from noticing anything beyond each day’s static. The Church, our Mother, invites us to lift our eyes on high, and to dare to imagine for a moment that God really loves us, really heals us, really teaches us the fullness of truth. Can we dare to hope for eternal life, perfect love, deep healing of all our wounds? As the cacophony of voices surround us speaking to us of our faults and failures, or whispering that we don’t really need God, or telling us that sin really isn’t sin at all, will we allow the Lord to send that crowd away and look into our eyes?

In our 2nd reading, Paul describes his own desire, and he is a man radically configured to Christ, a man who hopes great things. “I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” he says. Can we grasp such a hope, such a focus? He knows that he has not already arrived, that the journey, and even the battle, continues on ahead:

Brothers and sisters, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

This is what we are marvelously offered… the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus, the calling that Jesus extended to that mistreated woman who had herself believed any number of lies, and Jesus took her by the hand, and drew her to her feet. This upward calling, this great hope, is offered to us as well. May we expand our hearts and minds to receive this new and great hope as we enter into this Eucharist, as we enter into the holiest weeks of the year which lie ahead.

 + A. M. D. G. +