Homily for the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Image: BibleLibrary

Walking the Talk on Rock

Scriptures for today's liturgy 
Audio for homily

So, it's fools who would build a house on sand.

May I ask any fools who are present to please stand?

Just as I feared,

I’m the only one standing!

Jesus offers only two choices here: rock or sand.

So it’s very important that we know the difference between the two.

The problem is that we might presume to know the difference

- but be mistaken.

It’s just this possibility that Jesus addresses

before he speaks of building on rock or sand.

He cautions us that it’s not enough to just “talk the talk,”

- we have to “walk the walk.”

Or as he put it,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’

will enter the kingdom of heaven,

but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

This is much more demanding than testing the soil

before pouring the foundation for a new house.

It’s the one who “walks the talk” who’s building on rock

and anything less is the foolishness of building on sand.

Most of us have the “Lord, Lord!” part down pat -but that’s not enough.

• It’s not enough to come to Mass and pray, “Lord, Lord!”

if I don’t live by the Word of God in my thought, word and deed

through the week, at home, with my family,

at work with my co-workers (all of them)

and at school with my classmates (all of them, too).

• It’s not enough to set aside this hour for prayer if I’m too busy,

the rest of the week, to reach out to those who need my help.

• It’s not enough to exchange the sign of peace here

if there are people in my life I don’t speak to.

• It’s not enough to sport a cross on a chain

or a Roman collar around my neck

if I’m not living by the Lord’s Word in the decisions and choices I make

while wearing them.

• It’s not enough to come to church this Wednesday for ashes

if I don’t walk the path of Lent for the next 39 days.

• And, it’s not enough to spend all my time serving the poor

and giving of myself and my resources if I don’t, faithfully,

pause, every day, and pray from my heart, “Lord, Lord!”

The house, the life built on rock,

belongs to those who live the Word they hear,

and pray to the Lord who speaks it.

Lest we be mistaken about the rock or sand

upon which we’re building our lives,

the church offers us, every year,

a season for conducting a kind of “building inspection.”

Lent is a time renewing our prayer life,

learning to be faithful, daily, in calling out, “Lord, Lord!”

Lent is a season for inspecting the foundation of our faith lives,

looking for cracks, weak points, sandy soil

and strengthening that foundation through self-denial.

And Lent is a time for sacrificing our own comfort

and reaching out to those in need:

putting our faith into deeds, walking the talk…

We pray in the shadow of Christ

whose talk and walk were intimately one:

he is the Word, become flesh.

And, not satisfied only to speak his Father’s mercy,

he became that mercy in his sacrifice on the Cross.

And he offers us the blessing of his mercy as food for our souls,

in the supper of this Table, in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

May the Lenten season ahead of us be a time for each and all of us

to strengthen the foundation of our lives

in our words, in our prayer and in our deeds.

 
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