Homily for February 12

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Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Scriptures for today's Mass)

Audio for homily
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posting an audio widget at this time 

So, Sirach tells us God sets before us: 

 “good and evil, life and death…”

and that we’re to stretch forth our hands, we’re to reach for

good over evil and life over death.

Those are pretty heavy categories to contend with!

Sometimes, some of us do actually face off with “good and evil”

and sometimes we have to make real “life or death decisions.”

More often,  however, we face smaller challenges

but even these fall under the headings of good and evil

and ultimately lead us in the direction of life - or death.

What kind of challenges am I talking about?

The kind we meet day in and day out.

Who among us isn’t familiar

with almost daily choices to be made

between telling the truth and lying,

between selfishness and self-sacrifice,

between greed and generosity,

between fair play and cutting corners,

between good thoughts and lusty fantasies,

between foolishness and wisdom,

between justice and fraud,

between welcoming others in or shutting others out of our life,

between fidelity and cheating,

between healthy entertainment and junk food for the mind,

between speaking a cruel or a kind word,                                                                                                                       

between gossip and minding one’s own business,

between laziness an reaching out to others,

between wasting time and using it well…

And these are just some of the many choices

that fall under the categories of good and evil,  of life and death.

When faced with these options,

to which do we “stretch forth our hands”?

what do we reach for?

what do we try to grasp and hope to hold in our hearts?

Not every choice or decision is a “life or death” choice or decision.

But everything we think and say and do does fall somewhere

along the spectrum between what’s right and what’s wrong.

Everything we think and say and do

leads us, ultimately, to either a deeper life and love of God

or a lesser life that weakens and drains

our potential for goodness, for greatness,

for becoming the person God made and called each of us to be.

It’s very easy, isn’t it,

for any of us to point to choices and decisions others make,

and to criticize them for making what we deem to be

wrong decisions and immoral choices.

But the scriptures today call us to look at ourselves first

to see if we have, if we exercise what St. Paul calls wisdom,

a wisdom much wiser that that of his age

or our own time, some 2,000 years later.

This is the wisdom that bids us seek the truth

and to live by the truth once we find it.

This is the wisdom of a studied and well-formed conscience.

This is the wisdom of those with courage enough

to speak up and act when the truth demands it

and to hold our tongue when silence is called for.

This is the wisdom of common sense,

a wisdom that survives the ages,

even when common sense is periodically

corrupted and misshapen by the fads and trends of the day.

This is the wisdom that counsels us, 

as does Jesus, 

to say, Yes when we mean Yes

and to say No when we mean No.

This is the wisdom we need

to be honest, loyal, and faithful to the truth

in all that we say and do.

This is the wisdom that’s nourished and nurtured in us

every time we come to this table

to receive the gift of God’s Wisdom,

God’s Word, become flesh for us,

the wisdom of Jesus, laid down for us on the Cross

and offered to us in the Bread and Cup of the Eucharist.

Every day, God sets before each of us

good and evil, life and death.

Pray that we stretch forth our hands, that we reach for,

that we find and prize

that goodness that serves God and neighbor

and anything and everything that deepens our life in God

who is our greatest and our only true Wisdom.

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