Homily for the Week of January 19, 2014

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2014

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6, Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10, 1 Corinthians 1:1-3, John 1:29-34        

         Each time that you come to weekend Mass you hear three readings from the Bible. One of these is always from the Old Testament or the Jewish Bible, and the other two are from the New Testament for about the life of Jesus and all of us who call ourselves Christians. These readings are always at the beginning of the Mass and are intended to prepare ourselves spiritually for Holy Communion. These three readings are always in the Missalette in front of you in the pew. If you get here a little early you can read them and then might wonder what you would say if you were here in the pulpit.

         One of Bible’s amazing insights revolves around the message that God simply expects us to commit to carrying out God's will in our lives, even if we seem to fail in the process. God's definition of success and failure is always different from our definition. When we do what God asks, the results are out of our control. But instead of letting us mope and fret over our failures, our God is constantly leading us further down the road of faith, always pointing out the open doors lying far beyond the closed doors we have already passed. No matter what kind of week we have had, no matter whether it  has been filled with joy or sadness, God always has a suggestion for us of how to deal with it. But first we must go to God and trust him.

         Our second reading today gives us an example of this.  It is from a letter written by St. Paul to the Catholics who lived in a city in Greece call Corinth. Paul is forced to deal with problems he didn't foresee while he was preaching to this Greek community. Though he seems to have left the people  in fairly good shape months before, it's now split into factions. They have forgotten or ignored some of the most basic Christian truths, they disrespect the body of Christ and are using its gifts of the Spirit for selfish purposes instead of for the common good. Some of its members are even convinced that they're never going to rise from the dead.

         So what does Paul  do? Paul starts from the beginning. He tells the people that they have been called to be holy. The Bible word "holy" has nothing to do with being pious. It can simply be translated as "other" or different and unique. Though they don't necessarily look different, Christian holy people have a unique value system, a way of looking at people and things that are at right angles to how the majority of people look at those same people and things. Because of their holy viewpoint, holy people are expected to do holy things, actions that apparently end in failure. It seems that Paul failed at creating a holy Corinthian community.

         As you listened to the Gospel you may have also thought that a man by the name of John the Baptist was also a failure. After he had finished baptizing his cousin Jesus in the river Jordan he had decided to bring people together to prepare the way for Jesus as the light of the world. Jesus started preaching.  Many did follow him,  But he annoyed a lot of the Jewish and Roman rulers who finally got Jesus killed. Very few people changed their lives because of his preaching.  His success was only known after he had died. If we fast forward to ourselves in 2014 we might find some similarities with these Bible readings.

         Our life is very much conditioned on how we have been raised as kids.  It is difficult for us to feel free to do something other than what we have observed as little children.  If we are brought up in a family where violence, abuse, bad language, poor example, lack of religion is an every day event,  we may well become an adult whose life is the same.  If we are brought up in a family where respect for self and others, where daily prayer and participating in Church every week is expected, we will accept this as part of our life.  Little children can often be pawns in the life of their parents.

         Because of this it is easy for children, and later as adults, to think that we live in two worlds -- in the spiritual and secular world.  These two worlds are completely different, but we can easily cross from one to the other. As Catholics we should live our life in the spiritual world while being in the secular world.  Our spiritual life lives itself out in the physical world.  God expects us to manage that world.  It is the world of our shopping, our work, our school, our vacations,  but we must manage it according to our religious faith.

         For example some may think that our Baptism, First Communion and Confirmation are once in a lifetime events like items on a list of things to do, like vaccinations.  And because of this, some may never come back to church after they have received these sacraments thinking that they have made their spiritual graduation. 

         A few minutes ago we were invited to respond:  Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.  Today’s psalm responses gives us words to respond to God’s called offered in Jesus. We are told today that John the Baptist and other disciples were near Jesus when he was baptized.  In one way or the other they repeated: Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.  Here I am may sound like an ordinary response of those who believe in God.   But even those close to Jesus had a hard time saying it.