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.
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