We are witnesses of all that he did

Homily for Easter – 1st Sunday Year C 2016

Acts 10:34a,36-43; 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8; John 20:1-18

INTRODUCTION

Do you remember the 1985 movie, Witness?  In this movie, Harrison Ford plays a detective, who goes into Amish country, to protect a young boy.  This boy had seen a murder taking place and was the sole witness.  Without the boy's testimony, the police and courts could not bring the murderer to justice. 

As we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, one might ask us: "Where is your evidence?  Who are your witnesses to testify to this great event of salvation?"

SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY

Four times in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter speaks of himself and others as being witnesses.

1.    After describing the great works of Jesus, Peter declares: "We are witnesses of all that he did."

2.    And then Peter goes on to describe the death and resurrection of the Lord; after which he again declares that he and the apostles were "the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead."  He is saying, trust us, who saw him with our own eyes.

3.    The third time, Peter does not use the word "witness."  But he says that Jesus commissioned the apostles "to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead."  In other words, the Lord asked them to be witnesses to his resurrection.

4.    Finally Peter goes back to the Old Testament to say that even the prophets had prophesied and thus borne witness to Jesus' life and work of salvation.

But how reliable are the disciples as witnesses? In another movie, My Cousin Vinny, an eye-witnesses wrongly identified the two boys as murderers, because she had poor eyesight.  Thankfully for us, the disciples are reliable witnesses.

We just heard John's gospel speak of three eye-witnesses: Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the other disciple, John himself.

·        Mary is the one who goes to the tomb very early on Sunday morning and finds the stone removed.  Remember in the Passion story we read on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, we heard that the stone had been placed there to stop the disciples from removing the body and claiming that Jesus had risen.  But now the stone was gone; something miraculous must have happened.  That's why Mary ran to the disciples to tell them what she saw.

·        Wanting to find out the truth, Peter and John ran over there.  John was younger and probably faster, so he got there first.  But knowing that age should always come before beauty, he waited for his older colleague to arrive and enter the tomb first.  They found an empty tomb and empty burial cloths.  Faced with this evidence, they saw and they believed.

But they did not keep that evidence to themselves.  They shared what they had seen with anyone who cared to listen.  In fact, Peter's speech in today's first reading is one example of this witnessing, this testifying to the Good News.  Like the murderer in the movie tried to kill the little Amish boy and stop him from testifying, the authorities also tried to stop the disciples from testifying.  But testify they still did, something that was carried on from one generation to another, until today.  That is how we today know that the Lord is indeed Risen and is alive.

CHRISTIAN LIFE

Since then, every Christian must also be a witness to the resurrection and testify to it.  Some might argue that we are only hearsay witnesses, not eye-witnesses, and so not admissible in a court of law.  But because our hear-say witness goes back to the very beginning, to the first eye-witnesses, what we know is reliable and is certainly admissible in the court of the spiritual life.  We have now joined the club of witnesses; and testify we must.  That is why St. Paul tells the Corinthians and us, "Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?"  Indeed we try to raise dough with our testimony in three main ways: whenever we preach the resurrection, celebrate the resurrection, and live out resurrection.

Unless we preach, the chain of transmission of the Good News will not continue. If you are like me, you heard the Good News of the resurrection from the words and example of your grandmother and grandfather, from your mother and father, from your teachers and catechists.

But do we grandparents, parents and teachers of today have the same courage to witness, to pass the baton of faith on to the next generation?  It seems that quite a few of us fear to impose the Good News on our children, family members and friends.  But witnessing and testifying is not imposing; it is simply presenting the Good News and giving the other person a chance to choose.  In a few hours, for example, some of us will be having Easter dinner with family and friends.  What a wonderful opportunity, to the share the Good News of Easter, by directing conversation away from prejudice to life-giving truth, by gently pointing out especially to the young, behaviour that gives life not death.  How will our children choose the Risen Lord's way of life, if they never heard about it in the first place?  Unless we give our testimony, the jury will decide against the Lord.

Our second witness comes from celebrating the resurrection in worship.  Did you know that the day when most people go to Church in this country is Easter Sunday, followed by Christmas and Mother's Day being the third?  It is fitting that we come to Church and celebrate Mass on Easter Sunday, the day of the Lord's resurrection.  After all, the real reason we have Mass is to celebrate the Lord's death and resurrection.  Let me repeat that, the real reason we have Mass, any Mass, is to celebrate the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

Right after consecration, in the memorial acclamation we say: "We proclaim your death or Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again."   The other option says: "Save us, Saviour of the Word; for by your death and resurrection, you have set us free."  That is why Sunday is like a small Easter and we come to Mass to stand in the witness box and testify to what happened on the first Easter: that the Lord Jesus died, but rose again on the third day.  Sunday after Sunday we hear this Good News proclaimed in the readings, and made present again in the bells, yells, and smells, in the signs and symbols, but especially in the Body and Blood of Christ, crucified but raised from the dead, for our salvation.

Finally, after preaching and celebrating, we must live like resurrection people.  That is why St. Paul tells us to "celebrate the feast not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."  Easter does not end here in Church; Easter should inspire everything we do.  Resurrection people love their God and their neighbour; resurrection people obey the ten commandments; resurrection people carry out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  We live out the resurrection in our lives because we must show others mercy that the Lord's resurrection has so graciously given us.

CONCLUSION

And so on this great feast of Easter, we each must look back on our lives and see what kind of witness I am in my preaching, celebrating and living.

·        Hopefully I am not a hostile witness, who is unwilling to testify, because of fear or indifference, testifying only if served with a sub poena.

·        Hopefully I am not an untruthful witness, who testifies willingly, but does not tell the whole truth and or any truth at all, thus committing perjury!

·        I hope that I am a cooperating and truthful witness, sharing not only what I have heard, but sharing how the Lord's death and resurrection has so changed my life, that now I have life in this world and the world to come.

Triumph over tragedy

Homily for Palm Sunday Lent Year C 2016

Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 22:14-23:56

Introduction

New Orleans is known for its parades: the Mardi Gras parades, the Irish-Italian parades around the feasts of St. Joseph and St. Patrick as well as the Jazz funerals and second line parades. Is  Palm Sunday, the celebration of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem just another parade?

Scripture and Tradition

Of course the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem has similarities with the parades of New Orleans.  Like them, the entry of Jesus was accompanied by joy, victory, triumph, celebration.

·        That is why, like the King of Rex or Zulu rides a float, Jesus rode on a donkey which the people had adorned with their clothes.

·        That is why, like we decorate the parade routs with all kinds of things, a very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road for Jesus.

·        That is why, like we usually shout out: “throw me something mister,”  the crowds preceding and following Jesus also shouted out something, “Hosanna to the Son of David" a word which means "Lord, save us."

But there are some differences too.

·        Jesus rode a humble donkey, not an expensive float that the King of Endymion rides.  The victory which Jesus represents is a humble victory, as represented by the humble donkey, rather than the horse.

·        But the greater difference is that the victory, triumph and joy that the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem represents is not simply fun and pleasure, but is a victory over sin and death, the victory of salvation, life with God.

·        The greatest difference is the means of achieving this victory.  The joy we celebrate during the parades costs no more than a couple of beads, coconuts and other trinkets.  The victory of Jesus comes at great cost.  That is why as we celebrate Palm Sunday with palms to represent celebration, but also with the long gospel passage of the Passion, which tells us about the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the closest example of a parade with the same meaning as Palm Sunday is the parade you sometimes see in small towns or in movies, held for soldiers coming back home.  Their family, friends and fellow citizens celebrate the return home from war for one of their sons or daughters.  The mood is often joyous, but also sombre, recognizing that this victory has come at great cost, especially when the returning soldier has been injured in a serious way.

Similarly, Palm Sunday joins together, what we will celebrate separately on Good Friday and Easter.  Palm Sunday joins the pain of the cross and the victory of the resurrection.  We are reminded that the two go together, because without the Cross the victory is hollow, like some of our parades.  But without Victory our crosses have no hope, like some the despair felt by many today who do not know Jesus Christ.

Christian Application

As we begin Holy Week, which is really one continuous celebration of God’s love for us, let us not lose sight of what it is all about.

Let us take advantage of the special services of this week, which in a very dramatic way remind us of the central mysteries of our faith: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.

Let us go to confession, to prepare our souls for Easter.

Conclusion

Let us allow God, through this Holy Week, to make us holy too, to bring us closer to him and to each other.

Both compassion and conversion

Homily for 5^th Sunday of Lent Year C 2016

Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

Introduction

When I first came to this country many years ago, I was invited to a fancy wedding dinner.  The RSVP card required a choice of entrée, between chicken or steak.  Now you have to understand that at weddings in Uganda, we usually have a buffet, and you get a bit of this and a bit of that.  So I thought, I will have both, and I checked off both chicken and steak.  As you can imagine, because of this faux pas, I was never invited to another wedding by that family.

Scripture and Theology

Aside from wedding invitations, the “both . . . and” rather than “either . . . or” mentality is a good way of looking at things, as we see in today's gospel story.

We heard that the Pharisees and scribes set a trap for Jesus, by bringing him a woman, who is clearly guilty of the serious sin of adultery.  After reminding him that the Law of Moses prescribed the death penalty for this crime, they ask him: "So what do you say?”

This seems like a no-win situation for Jesus:

·        If on the one hand, he says that she should not be stoned, he would be going against the Law of Moses and he would appear weak on sin.

·        But on the other hand, if Jesus agrees that she should be stoned, he would then be contradicting his teaching elsewhere about the mercy of God. 

So, Jesus is between the proverbial rock and a hard place. What does he do?

We are told that Jesus begins to write on the ground with his finger.  But what was Jesus writing?  St. Augustine suggests that Jesus was writing down the sins of the accusers.  Others suggest that he was simply doodling, as a strategy to give the accusers time to think about their own sinfulness.  Whatever it was, it does not seem to work, for the men urge him to stop dilly-dallying and take a stand on the matter at hand.

This is where Jesus goes to the heart of the matter and asks them: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And as he continues writing on the ground, they begin to leave one by one, starting with the oldest.  Having lived the longest, the older men probably had tonnes of sins.

Anyway, the gospel story finishes by telling us that in the end Jesus is left alone with the woman.  After establishing that nobody had condemned her, he tells her: “Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

With these words Jesus resolves the apparent dilemma, without taking one side or the other on the case.  He teaches that God is neither a carefree clown nor a merciless tyrant; he is both a God of compassion and a God of righteousness.  The compassionate side tells her “Go, I have forgiven you for your serious sin; I am not going to condemn."  And the righteous side of the same God tells her: "But do not sin again; I challenge you to live an upright life from now on.”

With these words, "Go, and from now do not sin any more" Jesus is telling us that the gospel message of salvation is not "either [this] . . . or [that]" but is "both . . . and."  We see this "both . . . and" mentality elsewhere in the gospels:

·        In the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus both forgives her for her serial marriages and also challenges her to set her life right with God.

·        As for the lepers, Jesus both heals them and then sends them off to the priests, to fulfil the requirements of the Law.

·        And when he invites himself to dinner at the house of Zachaeus as a sign forgiving him, Zachaeus anticipates the Lord's challenge to conversion, by deciding to make restitution for his sins.

And so, today's gospel and the whole gospel, set the example, of how we are to deal with sin in ourselves and others.  We must approach sinners with a double-barrelled approach of both compassion and commitment, forgiveness and righteousness, mercy and justice.  It is not a black or white world.

Christian Life

Let me offer three ways in which we can apply this message to our lives: educating children, discussing public policy, nourishing our spiritual lives.

When I look back in my own life, I see how I have grown as a person, as a Christian and as a priest, only because of this tough-love approach.

·        I can think of the coach in soccer, who worked us like a drill sergeant, but also consoled us when we lost a game.

·        I can think of my ninth grade teacher, who caught me reading a novel in class, and had me write 200 times, "I will always pay attention in class;" but when I took the work to him, he forgave me and offered me a treat.

·        I can think of my mother patting me on the back when I brought home my report card and at the same time urging me to do better.

Beyond the family and school, this double-barrelled approach can help us our public policy.  That is why the Catholic Bishops of the United States support:

·        An immigration policy that is concerned both with security of the nation and care for the needy stranger.

·        A criminal-justice policy that both punishes the criminal and also gives him an opportunity to turn his life around.

·        An economic policy that both encourages industry, hard work, and responsibility, and also cares for the truly needy members of society.

A Christian society like ours, must be both just and merciful, not one or the other.

But it is in our spiritual life, that this mentality of "both . . . and" bears most fruit.  Those of us who are older perhaps remember a time when our Church was all doom and gloom.  We focused so much on the cross that we forgot about the joy of the resurrection of the Lord.  Like the men in the gospel story, we considered sinners as unredeemable and having no place in the Church.  But in doing this, we chose to focus only on the part where Jesus says to the woman “Do not sin again;” we forgot the part where he actually forgives her.

But in the last 50 years, we seem to have swung the pendulum to the other extreme.  We have replaced an obviously flawed approach of fire and brimstone, with an equally defective approach of anything-goes, I-am-okay-you-are-okay. We want to throw out all the rules and commandments, stop talking about sin and repentance.  After all the isn't Lord  kind and merciful?  But in this way, we have focused only on the part of where Jesus forgives the woman and ignored his challenge that she avoid sin.  We must focus both on mercy and right-living.

Conclusion

And so, today's gospel, coming as it does towards the end of the Lenten season, tells us: "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more."

·        When we are like the merciless Pharisees and scribes that brought the woman, Jesus tells us: “be merciful just as your heavenly father is merciful.”

·        And when we are caught up in sin like the woman, Jesus says to us: “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”

I hope that, when I die and show up at the gate of heaven and St. Peter asks to see my invitation card, I can show him that throughout my life, I have always checked off on RSVP section for myself, God's mercy and God's call to righteousness; and that for others in my life, I have showed both compassion as well as calling them to conversion.

Learning God's fatherhood, our sonship and our brotherhood

Homily for 4^th Sunday of Lent Year C 2016

Joshua 5:9a,10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3,11-32

Introduction

Two little schoolgirls, let's call them Monica and Ashley, were practicing their math skills by asking each other test questions.

Monica asked: “Ashley, when you have five dollars and you ask your dad for five dollars, how much money do you have?”

“Five dollars,” replied Ashley.

“That is wrong!” Monica yelled out.  “Five plus five equals ten.  Ashley, you don’t know your math!”

But Ashley replied, “Monica, you don’t know my father!"

We might ask ourselves a similar question: "Do we really know God our Father?”

Scripture and Theology

Thankfully, today's gospel parable tells us something about who God our Father is.  The story also suggests what kind of sons and daughters we should be to our father, and what kind of brothers and sisters we can be to each other.

From the parable we learn that ours is a merciful and loving father, in at least two ways.  First, God is the kind of father who respects the freedom of his children.  Unlike some fathers, the father in the gospel story does not use the inheritance to hold the younger son hostage; he lets him go.  He knows that every child reaches an age when he wants to be his own man, make his way in life, even make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.  Of course by doing this the father risks being forgotten forever; but still he does not stop his son from exercising his free will. 

Secondly, God is a forgiving father, who anxiously waits for his sinful children to return. And when they do, he rushes out to meet them and bring them back.

·        We heard that when the younger son, after squandering his money on loose living, realized the error of his ways and returned to the father.  But "While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him."  The Father decked him out in the finest clothing and jewellery, and ordered a festival in his honour, with the main dish being the fattened calf set aside for very special occasions.

·        And with the older son, the one who refuses to come in and join the feast, the father went out there to seek him and plead with him.  He tells him: "My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours."  He never forced him to come into the house and the story does not tell us if he did.  but it was not for lack of trying on the father's part.

And so, God our Father, like the father in the story, has both respect for our free will and mercy for our conversion, when we choose to exercise either.

Christian Life

When you have such a father, the natural response is to be a good son or daughter to him, as well as a good brother or sister to your siblings.  We can learn both from the two imperfect sons in the parable.

From the younger son, we learn to avoid entitlement and to practice conversion.

1.    Rather than always demanding: "Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me," we allow God to give us freely what he thinks we really need.  In our prayer, we can request, but must we leave it to God, whether he wants to add us five more dollars or not.  We cannot demand, bribe or grab. That was the sin of Adam and Eve who ate of the fruit of the tree, so that they could get for themselves knowledge apart from God.  That can be our sin today, when we take, take, from God, but never give, give at all.  And of course this entitlement is the root cause of materialism, consumerism and all the other sins that come from misusing what God has given us.

2.    But from this same younger son, we also learn what to do, especially when we sin.  As a Jewish man, being reduced to feeding pigs, unclean animals in for that religion, was the lowest one could get.  As the saying goes, he had scraped the bottom of the barrel.  That is when he realized that going back to his father, not as a son but as servant, would still be much better than being at the bottom of that barrel.  And so he went and said: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son."  But the Father received him back.

Don't we too sometimes find ourselves at the bottom of the barrel, struggling with sins of purity, with our marriage, with our work situations, or even prayer? Like the younger son, we too should examine ourselves, become contrite and return to the Father in confession to seek his mercy. In fact, during confession, we use virtually the same words of this parable when in the act of contrition we say: "O my God, I heartily sorry for having sinned against you."

Even the older son can teach us something to imitate and a few things to avoid.

1.    Starting with his good qualities, clearly he was a committed son.  When the younger son went off and abandoned the dad, who perhaps had just been diagnosed with cancer, he stuck around.  He is diligent and obedient, like he says himself: "Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders."  Every day, he works hard: he can be counted on to deliver the calf at 2.00 in the morning, milk the cows at dawn and take the oxen out to plough in the hot sun.  In fact, it seems that he was yet even taken a penny of the inheritance, for he tells his father: “you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.”  Would we not like to have a child like him?

How many of us can claim this level of diligence, obedience and commitment to our earthly parents and perhaps even more importantly to our heavenly Father?  At least I know I certainly can learn something from this older son.

2.    At the same time, this older son has some vices that we must avoid:

As a son, he thinks of himself as a slave to his father, rather than as a beloved child.  He wants to buy his father's love by hard work and blind obedience.  But as  Jesus puts, "I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father" (Jn. 15:15).  God wants us to be sons and daughters who love him for him, not simply out of fear of him.

As a brother, the older son harbours jealousy and envy towards his brother.  I am a jealous person when I want to keep others from getting what I have, and I am envious when I want what the other person has for myself alone.

·        This older son is jealous because he wants to keep the father's love for himself alone.  We too can be like him when we deny that God could love other people, of a different religion, nationality, race, or even sinners.

·        The older son is also envious, because he does not want the younger son to have the father's forgiveness.  Don't we also sometimes think that God and the Church are too merciful, reaching out to sinners, prisoners, immigrants, the poor, people who don't deserve compassion?  That's why Jesus told this parable, because the Pharisees were grumbling that “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Conclusion

As we continue reflecting on this parable, let us answer these three questions:

(1) What kind of father is God to me?

(2) What kind of son or daughter am I to him?

(3) And especially, what kind of brother or sister am I to God's other children?