Homily for the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Scriptures for today's Mass
Welcome to the fourth week of a message
series for the fall
that we’re calling Lost & Found.
This series is about our experiences of
feeling lost in life
and how we can work toward feeling
found.
We all feel lost from time to time.
• Maybe you feel lost in your
family.
You find yourself disagreeing with your
family more and more
or just drifting further and further
away.
Or there’s family drama
and you're smack-dab right in the middle
of it all.
Either way, drifting apart or right in
the thick of things - you feel lost.
• Maybe you feel lost in the need
to make a really big decision.
You’ve got to decide about a job
opportunity, a big move,
a new house or apartment, a new car
-and you can't sort out all your
options.
There are pros and cons on every side,
but the bottom line is: you don’t know where
to land -
and you feel lost.
• Maybe you feel lost in a
particular state of life.
You’re retired! Now what?
You finally got that degree you worked
so hard for
- now how are you going to put it to
use? what's next?
You’ve drifted into a new life phase
and you're having trouble finding your
bearings,
you feel lost.
• Or maybe it’s not something in
particular but rather
just a persistent restlessness.
When you slow down, if you slow down
long enough,
you get this restless feeling,
like someone or something is missing…
restlessness that leaves you feeling uncomfortable,
unsettled lost…
When you feel lost, you tend to respond
in one of a few ways...
• Maybe you go into panic mode -
consumed by fear and worry.
• Maybe you try to escape - you
look for anything
to help you avoid the feeling of being lost.
• Maybe you pretend to others - or
even to yourself
- that you’re not lost at all!
But the bottom line is: when you’re
lost - you don’t want to stay lost.
• No one wants to stay lost.
We have a strong, built-in human desire
to get un-lost:
a desire to be found.
• Over the last three weeks we've
seen that
being lost comes at a cost;
being lost can cost us time, energy,
peace of mind, …
So we started off by counting the cost
of being lost.
• And then we looked at what might
be the first thing to do
when you realize you’re lost: talk to
God about it.
Bring it to God in prayer. Share with God what you’re feeling lost
about.
Even if you’re angry about being lost -
especially if you’re angry.
• And last week we saw that what
often causes us to get lost
is relying on our own wisdom - instead
of God’s wisdom.
So we asked the question:
"What or who am I allowing to
guide me in my life right now?"
- to try to ensure that I not end up
lost!
(And if this is your first week joining
us
or you missed any of the previous weeks
of this series,
you can always find our message videos
on our Web site
to catch up or to share them with a
friend.)
• This week’s readings
serve as a warning to us
about the danger of thinking
we’re found - when we’re really lost.
The rich man in the story is - well,
rich.
He’s successful. He's living the dream!
We don’t know how or from where he got
all his money:
maybe he worked hard for years - or
maybe he inherited the money.
Either way - he's got the bucks! He's living a very comfortable lifestyle.
But he’s blinded to the reality of this
poor man Lazarus
who's camped out right at his own front
door.
• So we have a rich man and a poor man
and their financial realities are
definitely part of the story
but being lost or found isn't all about
losing or finding success,
it's about relationships
and while that certainly includes my
relationship with God -
that's not the whole story.
It's not enough to say, "I'm good
with God so I'm all set."
It's not enough to say, "See, God
and me - we got it all worked out."
• Being found is about my
relationship with God
AND my relationship with others.
There's no way the rich man could
consider himself found
when he's lost any recognition
of poor Lazarus on his doorstep
and of his responsibility for him.
• As we move toward the end of this series,
I want to continue to focus
on how we find and walk the path - toward
being found.
• Let's look, then, at what St. Paul
wrote to Timothy, 2,000 years ago.
Paul
was Timothy's mentor in the faith
and Paul believed in Timothy's
leadership potential so deeply
that he appointed him to head the
church in Ephesus.
Like all church leaders, Timothy faced
some problems
so Paul wrote this letter to inspire
and encourage him
and to help him with some of the
challenges he was facing.
• But the letter wasn't meant
exclusively for Timothy.
It would have been read publicly in the church
at Ephesus
- just as it was read this morning in
our church.
• Paul reminds Timothy that people
sometimes fall away from faith
in pursuit of other things in life,
when they follow their own wisdom.
• So Paul counsels Timothy:
“But you, man of God, pursue
righteousness, devotion, faith,
love, patience, and gentleness.” 1
Timothy 6:11
• It’s as if Paul is grabbing
Timothy by the shoulders, shaking him and
looking him straight in the eye and
giving him this urgent challenge,
a challenge to not pursue the things of
the world around him
but to set his sights on higher values
and greater goods.
"Goods" like devotion and
patience and gentleness.
And then Paul tells Timothy,
“Compete
well for the faith.” 1 Timothy 6:12
Compete well for the faith. What does
that mean?
• Well, here Paul's using a sports
analogy for faith.
Think for a moment about athletes and
how they act.
• Good athletes eat the right food
and they make exercise a part of their
daily routine.
• They get enough rest.
• They discipline themselves and
their bodies
to push themselves to their full
potential.
• They engage - they compete.
You get this if sports are a part of
your life or your kids’ lives
or your grandkids lives - even if you
just watch sports on TV -
you know that athletes try to bring to
their sport
all the discipline, commitment,
intensity and focus that's needed.
• Now, faith isn't a sport
but that doesn't mean that we might not
approach our faith
with the same discipline
we bring to the sports arena.
This is what Paul is urging Timothy to
do.
To train, to practice, to get in shape
- to compete.
• You see, here’s the thing about
being lost:
you don’t get found by being a couch
potato.
• Yes, God is looking for you even when
you’re sacked out on the sofa.
But the desire to be found invites you
-even requires you -
to engage, to work out, to practice -to take part in the effort.
You’ve got to get off your butt and
move!
Or as Paul puts it, you have to "compete!"
• You don’t get found by accident or
simply by growing older.
It doesn't happen by merely showing up
at church on Sunday.
You have to engage - with God and with
others.
• OK, so if it’s some sort of
competition, what are we trying to win?
Good question.
• Here’s how Paul answers that
question:
Tell them to do good, to be rich in
good works,
to be generous, ready to share,
thus accumulating as treasure a good
foundation for the future,
so as to win the life that is
true life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19
Paul says it’s all about winning the
life that is true life.
That's the prize - that's what we
compete for.
• We're tempted, all the time, to
try and find life
in things that aren't truly life,
in things that don't truly satisfy our
hearts or enrich our souls,
in things might look like true life,
things often advertised and sold to us
as life-giving
… but they aren't.
• We often expect power, pleasure,
possessions and prestige
to fill our hearts and enrich our souls,
just like the rich man in the Gospel
story.
But we know from our experience that at
the bottom line,
these things fail to satisfy in any
lasting way.
All kinds of people, all kinds of things,
promise us life
- but they don't, they can't deliver
what they promise.
•And that vague feeling of being lost?
That disquieting, unnerving sense
of restlessness we experience
- sometimes even when most things are
going pretty well?
• That restlessness often comes
from our pursuit of power, pleasure,
money, success, prestige -
and as big as these things may appear
to be,
they're really too small, too meager
to satisfy our hearts' deepest desires in
any substantial way.
• Our hearts will never truly be
satisfied by small things, by lesser things.
They're incapable of giving us the true
life God made us for,
the true life God wants us to have.
• So Paul sets a super-size agenda
of goals for Timothy - and for us!
"Pursue righteousness, devotion,
faith, love, patience, and gentleness.”
Compete well for the faith.
Do good, that you might be rich in good
works,
generous and ready to share,
thus accumulating as treasure a good
foundation for the future,
so as to win the life that is true
life."
• And that "true life" we all
desire is found in God,
in God who is always seeking us out so
that we might be found!
And so Paul counsels Timothy bluntly,
“Lay hold of it. "Lay hold of eternal life, to which you
were called!"
Pursue that life! Train for that life!
Compete for that life! Lay hold of that life!
• If we want the life that God wants
for us,
the life that fills our hearts and truly
enriches us,
if we want to be found,
we've got to pursue that life, compete
for it,
we've got to lay hold of it.
And what does it look like, to compete
well for the faith?
• Maybe start with Paul’s idea of
“being rich in good works.”
• Do something this week that’s
not about
your personal glory or success or good
feeling.
• Do something this week that’s
about something bigger than you.
• Maybe there’s something you feel
God’s calling you to do. Do it.
• Maybe there’s a needy person as
close as your front door,
as close as your neighborhood, your
work place, your school,
someone begging to be served
someone you’ve been too blind or busy
to see. Serve them. Do it!
• Maybe your spouse or your kids
have been begging you to do something
with them or for them
but it hasn’t worked out yet. Do it.
• Maybe there’s an opportunity you
have to serve in an organization
or to serve here at church but you’ve
been hesitating. Do it!
• Make the call. Send the email.
Do it!
• Maybe it's something only you
and God know about: do it!
• All across Belmont today
there are people going for a run, a
bike ride, a kickboxing class.
There are kids playing soccer and
football and going to dance class.
They’re training and competing!
• What if we all left here today
committed to competing well
- not in a sport - but in our faith?
• What if we ran after our pursuit
of God and our pursuit to be found,
our pursuit to be rich in good deeds
and our pursuit of virtues...
• What if we treated that pursuit
with the same discipline and intensity
and focus
with which good athletes train for
their sport?
• God’s writing an amazing story
in the world
and he’s inviting each of us to be part
of it,
but we have to choose to accept that
invitation.
• God’s sending us out, right now,
he’s putting us in for the next play,
the next period,
the next leg of the race.
• If you’re feeling lost in life,
don’t stand still.
Pursue, compete, lay hold of… make a
move
towards the life God offers you - just
do it!
Because when you do, when you make a
move and enter into God’s story,
you make a move towards winning life
that satisfies, life that lasts,
you make your way down the path to
being found.
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