Above you'll find the audio for my homily this Sunday, based on these scriptures. (If the widget doesn't appear, click here!) And here's the text of my homily:
How often have you heard someone say,
“Well, it doesn't really matter what God you believe in… or how you name God… It doesn't really matter what you believe in - as long as you believe in something. See, I'm really spiritual, not religious.”
Ever heard people talk like that?
Well, all three scriptures today do highlight the universality of God. And of God's love and grace.
• Isaiah reminded us that the Lord's house will be a house of prayer for all peoples.
• St. Paul is clear that although his own people, the Jews have yet to accept the gospel - God's covenant with them, his chosen, is irrevocable.
• And in the gospel, we find Jesus reaching beyond his own mission, his mission to the house of Israel, reaching out to a pagan woman whose plea is inspired, perhaps not so much by faith, as by personal desperation.
As ancient as these scriptures may be, they still speak to us today. In our own times, the universality of God's love and grace is accepted by many religions, faiths and denominations. In fact (and in addition) it's under the umbrella of the universality of God's love for us that many people gather - as they reject organized religion and its structures, its practices, its faith, beliefs, and demands.
How about us, about Catholics?
Some Catholics may be surprised to learn that while our Church claims to be the one true Church, we also firmly believe - and the catechism of the Catholic Church teaches this:
• that God creates every person out of pure goodness, and he reaches out in all times and all places to those he loves.
• And that the human heart naturally desires God, because every human being is created by God and for God.
• And that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was offered for the entirety of the human race.
• And that since Christ died for all (and since all are, in fact, called to one and the same destiny, which is divine) we Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of becoming partakers - in a way known to God -partakers in the mystery of Jesus.
I didn't make up any of that! It's all from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It's official teaching!
So, does it not matter, does it make no difference who or what we believe in - as long as we believe in someone or something - is that so?
Well, to answer that question, we need to approach it from two vantage points. First (and this isn't always easy either) we need to try to see things from God's point of view. How does God see things?
• God is the creator of every human being and knows every human person, every human soul, intimately - even those who don't know or acknowledge God.
• God has known every human being since before all time, and God has loved every human being ever born, or to be born, regardless of what they believe or don't believe - God loves them.
• And God's love for each of us and for every one of us is eternally greater than whatever we believe - or don't believe.
• God is love.
And God's love for each of us is pure gift. A gift given out of God's desire to engage us, to engage you and me, to engage each one of us in a relationship of love. God wants to be, for each of us: our BFF.
It's precisely this movement of love on God's part - at God's initiation at God's invitation - it's this movement that even those who don't believe in God - they sense and intuit, because, as the Catechism says, the human heart naturally desires God's love because the human heart was created, made, by God, and for God.
It's God's love inviting each of us that draws us either: to believe in God -or- to gather under that umbrella with those who name themselves “spiritual but not religious.”
And it's that same gift of God's love - showered on and sensed and intuited by all - that moves us all, prompts us all, nudges us all, impels us all - to love one another. To be kind, caring, just, honest, forgiving, and generous to our neighbor. That comes naturally to us - because we were made by and for God. It's the universal gift of God's love that draws and leads humankind (and again, even naturally so) to build and structure a society founded on the expectations, the responsibilities, and the demands that rise from love of neighbor.
In fact, we Christians, we Catholics, say that such love is the law by which we are called to live. And with that statement, I've crossed over to the other vantage point from which we need to try to understand the universality of God's love and grace: he vantage point of the believer's perspective.
There are thousands of religions, spiritualities, faiths, and beliefs in the world. But I'm a Christian, and I'm speaking to other Christians.
So what do I believe?
• I believe in one God, the creator of all things and all people - all things visible and invisible, seen and unseen.
• I believe that God created me, that God created you, that God created us out of love and for love.
• That God made us to know, to share, to experience, and to find joy in his love for us. And to share that love with one another, as generously and as selflessly, as all that is divine has shared itself with all that is human.
• And I believe that to pierce through and to heal all the ways our hearts are deaf, blind, and insensitive to God's love, God spoke a word, of love - his word of love - and he spoke it so powerfully that it became flesh, took our flesh and blood - in Jesus - precisely so that all might see and hear and touch that love that is seeking us always - the love of God.
• So I believe, we believe, in Jesus, God's word of love made flesh… Jesus who preached the gospel of his father's merciful love… Jesus who suffered and died for us - on account of our failure to love each other… Jesus who rose from the dead so that we might have life, and love, and have it to the full, and have it forever.
The life of Jesus - the life message, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus - the life of Jesus is God's gift to the world. It's the gift of his love. And in that gift, and with that gift, come revelations, invitations, and expectations.
• Revelations of who God is, and of God's love for us.
• Invitations to share in that love, to bathe in the mercy God's love offers us.
• And expectations of how we, God's chosen and beloved, are to love God - by loving one another and the world in which we live.
In just a few moments, you'll be joining me in professing all this - these very same beliefs - when we pray, the Nicene Creed. And in the Creed, we're going to say, We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. That's the Church born of the love, the gospel, the sacrifice, the heart, the desire, of Jesus.
While we believe that God's love is universal, that no human being lives outside or beyond God's loving and universal embrace - we also believe that in a unique, historical, physical, personal, and unrepeatable way, God revealed himself to the world in the mystery of Jesus - who calls us to live in a community of faith… in a communion of grace… in the people of the Church… loving each other as generously and selflessly as he loved us on the Cross.
We Catholic Christians believe all of this is God's gift to us in Jesus who lives even now among us in the presence and the power of his Spirit. And that gift, the gift of knowing, sharing in, experiencing, finding joy, and naming God's love in Jesus, is a gift beyond compare, an unparalleled gift from God, who desires to reveal himself to us, who desires to be one with us in love.
It's in the light of what we've been given, what we've heard, and what we've received - that we who follow Jesus in the community of the Church can never say, can never say: It doesn't matter who you believe in. It doesn't matter what you believe in. It doesn't matter how you name your god.
It does matter if you're religious as well as spiritual.
We who know Jesus cannot say that - so much more than that is our belief.
• I'm talking about the belief that you turn to for help when you're in trouble. In grief. You're suffering loss and despair.
• The belief in which you find mercy, forgiveness, joy, and peace.
• The belief that moves your hearts on Christmas Eve and Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, and even on some occasional Saturday afternoons.
• The belief that gathered us here together today.
• The belief for which many of our brothers and sisters, to this day, are being persecuted and even martyred around the world.
• The belief that leads us to hunger for, and to find at this table, the bread and cup of the last supper - the presence of Jesus among us in the Eucharist.
This is the mystery of faith. This is the mystery of our faith. And so for us, it does truly matter who we believe in, what we believe in - and how we name our God who loves us and who calls and invites us - and the whole of humanity - to partake in the love of Jesus: the word of God, spoken in love, made flesh - in whom we are saved and redeemed.
