Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Scriptures for today's Mass
Audio
One prophet in today’s
scriptures, Amos, got run out of town.
And in the gospel, Jesus
instructs his followers on what to do
if they find themselves
about to be booted from a place
where their message a call
to repentance,
is rejected and
not welcomed.
They’re to “shake the dust
off their feet.”
That’s an ancient
equivalent of saying,
“I wash my hands of this. I’ve done all I can
and now I’m moving on.
I’m not even taking the
dust of your streets with me.”
Like the prophets in
Israel, these pairs of disciples missioned by Jesus
were sent to preach
repentance, to preach a change of heart.
That’s not a message
everyone wants to hear.
Most folks don’t want to
be told by someone else:
“Hey!
You need a change of heart!”
And, keep in mind
that prophets don’t so much predict the
future
as much as they comment
on and critique the present moment-
reminding their listeners
of what the Lord has spoken to them
and what the Lord expects
of them.
My overall mission as a
preacher is to speak prophetically,
that is, to call of us to
repentance.
So, I’ve been thinking
about some
prophetic words I might
preach in a homily
and I’ve come up with
8 contemporary prophetic statements
calling us to repentance -
and here they are:
1) The planet on which we
live was given to humankind as its first home
and entrusted to our care.
We have a moral obligation
to protect and preserve this gift
and we will be judged on
our having succeeded or failed in doing so.
2) The virtue of justice
is much more than a process
for getting what’s
rightfully ours
or punishing those who
have offended us.
Christian justice is the
work of ensuring a right and just balance
between selfishness and
selflessness.
The scriptures and the
Church call us to exercise
a demonstrable preference
for serving first
those poor and powerless
on the margins of society.
As long as some of us have
more than we need
and others have less
than they need,
we OWE our
neighbors in need
a generous share in the
surplus that is ours.
3) Because human marriage
is intended to be a mirror
of God’s love for his people,
Jesus raised it to the
dignity of a sacrament
which should be entered
only by those
ready to pledge and to
keep a life-long union
promising to be faithful
in good times and in bad,
in sickness and in health,
until death.
4) Without denying
governments the right to legitimate self-defense,
the scriptures and the
Church condemn the horror of war
and summon us to secure a
peace based on justice and love.
5) Whether a pregnancy is
desired and welcomed - or not -
there is no degree of
difference in the reality, sacredness,
nobility and quality of
human life found in any womb.
6) Nothing another person
does or fails to do, no matter how heinous,
nothing excuses us from
the commandment to love our neighbor
and in particular, to love
that person who is the least lovable.
Nothing another person
does or fails to do
gives us license to hate,
demean, curse or condemn that person.
The command to love one’s
neighbor has no exceptions.
7) We should strive to
live as if this life were an introduction,
a proving ground, a
practice session for a life that is yet to come
because that’s exactly
what this life is:
a dress rehearsal for our
life after death.
It’s upon the evidence of
how we lived this life that we will be judged
and given our place,
forever, in the next life.
(If these first 7
prophetic statements have been daunting,
we will all appreciate the
eighth.)
8) The mercy of God is
without limit and is given freely to all:
to all who freely acknowledge
and confess their sins,
who do penance and who
pledge, with God’s grace,
to change their hearts,
turn away from sin,
and be faithful to the
gospel.
Prophetic statements, of
their nature, address matters that are
problematic, personal and
political.
It’s precisely in these
areas where we might need
to be called to
repentance, to a change of heart.
The most demanding,
compelling prophetic word or deed,
even spoken or done, is
found in the person of Jesus
calling us to repent,
calling us to a change of heart,
through the gift of his
life for us on the Cross.
On the night before he
died he offered at the table of the Last Supper
what he would offer the
next day on the altar of the Cross:
the gift of his Body
broken for us, his Blood poured out for us.
May the Eucharist we
celebrate nourish us
with the grace and
strength we need:
to repent, to turn away
from sin,
to be faithful to the
gospel,
to have a change of heart.
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