Homilies – Page 6 – Tony Lusvardi, S.J.

Mercy or Justice? Homily for the twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

Today’s Gospel raises a host of tricky questions—what is justice? What is the relationship between divine justice and human justice? Or between God’s justice and his mercy? What does the apparently unfair situation described by Jesus in the Gospel—no doubt in violation of several labor laws—tell us about salvation? Or conversion? One thing, however, is clear: if I preach for eight hours, or five hours, or three hours, or twelve minutes, I’m going to get paid the same amount anyway. So I’ll leave some of these questions unanswered.

It’s obvious that Jesus is not giving instruction for how to run a business, but is instead trying to teach us something about salvation. He is also reinforcing what the prophet Isaiah says: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” No matter how much advice we give the Lord, he has his own ideas about how to run the universe and he doesn’t always explain them to us. And sometimes he does explain, but we hear only the parts we want to hear.

In its original context, the earliest Christians probably understood today’s parable to be about the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, which was the big controversy in the first century. Even though the Jewish people received divine revelation first, this did not mean that Gentiles who converted to Christianity were in any way less Christian. Still, even then the passage’s broader meaning would have been apparent to everyone: conversion is possible, even for the worst sinner, even a deathbed conversion. Thus, Isaiah says, “Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts.”

Now it sounds very nice to say conversion is possible for even the worst sinners. But Jesus’ parable forces us to confront the difficult question: is that really fair? Or, to put it another way, what does this mean about the relationship between God’s mercy and his justice? Do they contradict each other? We know that God is both merciful and just, but sometimes it’s hard to understand how he can be both. Is he 50% just, 50% merciful? Is he just in the obvious cases, but merciful in the ones that are borderline, sort of willing to round up? In fact, God is 100% merciful and 100% just, and there can be no contradiction between his mercy and his justice. If we’re thinking about divine justice and divine mercy as contradictory, we’re thinking about them wrong.

Letting go of our anger–or hugging it tight: homily for the twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

The giant saguaro, found in southern Arizona and northern Mexico, is the largest cactus in the world, growing up to forty feet tall. Saguaros are covered in spines almost three inches long, spines almost as strong as steel needles, so sharp, in fact, that they have been known to puncture the skull of bighorn sheep that run into the cactus. From this, two conclusions are clear. First, sheep probably do deserve their dim reputation for intelligence, and, second, you really don’t want to hug a saguaro.

Now you may be thinking, “Thank you, Father Obvious, for that really helpful advice.” Probably we don’t need to be told what a bad idea it is to hug a cactus. And yet, in the Book of Sirach we read about people doing something that is potentially just as painful and damaging. “Wrath and anger are hateful things,” Sirach says, “yet the sinner hugs them tight.” And we have probably had the experience of tightly hugging our anger, of nurturing a grudge with more fertilizer than we give to our gardens. The leaves and flowers fall off a grudge very quickly and leave us with nothing else but spikes.

In last Sunday’s Gospel reading Jesus gave us some practical advice for dealing with conflict between Christians, and this Sunday we have readings on the related theme of forgiveness. I think we can identify two levels of meaning when Jesus teaches about forgiveness. The first is practical—how do I do it? Part of the reason forgiveness is such a frequent theme in the Gospel, I suspect, is that it is often so hard to do. Even if we get to the point of forsaking revenge, of no longer trying to hurt someone who has hurt us, even if we say the words “I forgive you,” the gnawing wound sometimes still remains. We can remove the spike, but the sting is inside. How do we let go?

Hope vs. optimism: homily for the twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

Of all the Old Testament prophets, the one whose writings most resemble a hallucination caused by LSD is probably Ezekiel. There’s a psychedelic temple; four-faced creatures that are part man, part lion, part eagle, part ox; apocalyptic battles; a bit of cannibalism; an army of dry bones that rattle back to life; and a few scenes that are definitely rated R. If you’re seeking entertainment, cancel your HBO subscription this month and just read the book of Ezekiel.

Now please don’t go home and tell people, “Father preached this morning about LSD. He was a Jesuit—you know how they are.” In order to appreciate this marvelous book of the Bible, I want to draw a contrast between hallucination, optimism, and the central theme of the book of Ezekiel—hope.

Ezekiel lived through what might be considered the most hopeless moment in the history of the Jewish people. The corruption of the Israelite monarchy had so weakened and divided Israelite society that the nation was easy prey first for the brutal Assyrian empire, which utterly destroyed ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, and then a few decades later for the even more ruthless Babylonians. Ezekiel was a priest, who along with the other educated members of Israelite society was carted off into forced exile in Babylon. It would have appeared to any observer at the time that Israel’s story was over. They had been favored by God; they had been given the Promised Land and a covenant, and they blew it. They broke the covenant, lost their land, and had only slavery and extinction to look forward to.

And at this moment in history, in exile in the heart of enemy territory, in Babylon itself, Ezekiel started receiving visions. Ezekiel’s visions were wild but not hallucinations. They pointed toward a better future but it would be difficult to call Ezekiel—or any of the Hebrew prophets—an optimist. Ezekiel’s vision was something else entirely—it was a vision of hope. What’s the difference, you ask.

Authority and truth in the Church: homily for the twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

How do you feel about authority? I wish I had a little more? I wish those with it would loosen up a bit? I wish they’d clamp down? When you hear the word authority do you feel defensive or safe?

Even if you don’t like the word, even if you like to think of yourself as a freethinker, you still rely on authority. Almost everything we believe, we’ve come to believe on the authority of others. Many of today’s political and social controversies come down to authority—can we trust the media? The experts? Universities? Business? Government? The Church?

Yes, authority is important for the Church because the Church is a human institution. Instituted by God, guided by God, but made up of men and women like you and me. And each of us depends upon authority. Any complex human undertaking—even rowing a boat in unison—requires some degree of authority if the boat is to go anywhere. Learning requires trusting authority as well. If you saw the eclipse last Monday, you probably relied on the authority of the news media, who relied on the calculations of scientists, relying on the observations of centuries of scientists and mathematicians before them. Or maybe you really are a freethinker, and figured it all out yourself with binoculars and a calculator.

Today’s readings put the spotlight on religious authority. In the first reading, one official in the palace of the king of Israel, Shebna, is condemned and replaced by another, Eliakim. Just before the part we read this morning, Isaiah explains that Shebna is being fired for looking after his own personal interests instead of the people’s. Specifically, he seems to have used public funds to construct an elaborate tomb for himself. Eliakim, on the other hand, cares for the people of Jerusalem like a father.

We can observe a few of things from this story of petty corruption. First, authority is different than power. Power can be seized, but authority is given from above and those with authority are answerable to their higher-ups. In this case, Shebna answers to God when he misuses his authority. Second, the religious authority spoken of in this reading is given for the good of others. The type of authority that comes from God is service; Eliakim is given the symbols of authority, robe and sash, because he will serve. And finally, office-holders come and office-holders go. Some are better than others. God remains the same.

When God puts us to the test: homily for the twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Jesus is the Son of God, the savior of the world, the Prince of Peace, King of kings, and Lord of lords. He would also have been a public relations firm’s nightmare. He is constantly saying things that are unpopular and confusing, offending all the important people, alienating even his own relatives, not taking the advice of his inner circle, and in today’s Gospel he gets caught on the record making ethnically insensitive comments. No wonder Fr. Ed left town for this Sunday’s readings!

Today’s Gospel raises two difficult issues I’d like to touch on this morning. The first is the way Jesus gives this woman such a hard time, as if he doesn’t want to help her. Why? The second issue is the role ethnicity plays in today’s readings; the woman speaking to Jesus is a Canaanite—a Gentile, not a Jew. This issue is perhaps especially important given how much talk of racism has been in the news recently.

*Sacrifice of Isaac*, Caravaggio (1603), Uffizi Gallery, Florence

But first, why does Jesus give this woman such a hard time? She comes to him obviously in distress because of a suffering child, the sort of situation we’ve seen Jesus handle with great compassion before, and first he gives her the silent treatment. Then it gets worse. Then he tells her, “We don’t serve your kind here.” If you cringed a little bit when you heard Jesus’ words this morning, you were hearing them correctly: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Does Jesus have an evil twin?

Anguish for those who leave: homily for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

In today’s second reading from the letter to the Romans, St. Paul expresses a heartfelt anguish that I am certain many of us here share. I would wager that there’s not a person in this church who does not have a son or daughter, a brother or sister, perhaps a parent, someone dear to us who has left the Catholic faith. In Romans, Paul speaks of his people, his Jewish brothers and sisters, the majority of whom have not followed Christ, with painful passion, his heart full of “great sorrow and constant anguish.” He goes so far as to say, “I could wish that I myself were accursed and separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers.” So even though it’s not a cheerful topic, the problem of loved ones who have left the faith is one we can’t avoid, one most of us know firsthand. I do too.

St. Peter Walking Upon the Water, circle of Giacinto Brandi (1600s), New Norcia, Australia

First, a caution. Some time ago, I agreed to give a friend a ride to the dentist. He was having major work done and was going to be given some powerful anesthesia and wasn’t allowed to drive. I didn’t know where the office was, but I thought, “No problem, he’ll give me directions.” The problem was he had to take one of the pills the dentist prescribed before the appointment, so when I got there to pick him up he was already floating in blissful never-never land. We got into the car and I asked him where to go, and he said, “I don’t care. You can take me wherever you want. You can take me to a bar.” Eventually, we got to the dentist. But the point is he didn’t feel any pain because he’d taken a happy pill. Now I will be honest: I’m not going to give you a happy pill. There are theological happy pills out there and plenty of priests and theologians who will give them to you. The problem is, they aren’t true. If they were true, Paul wouldn’t feel anguish and sorrow.

The Transfiguration and previews for the main event: homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration

Homily for the Transfiguration of the Lord (A)

At the end of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells Peter, James, and John to keep a secret. A Jesuit friend once wisely observed, “Most people can keep secrets. It’s the people they tell who can’t.”

This is just one of a number of times throughout his public ministry when Jesus asks his disciples not to tell people about the miracles they’ve seen. Since Jesus is constantly urging us to spread the Good News, this seems strange. Why would Jesus not want stories of his miracles to spread?

I suspect that Jesus does not want these miracles to distract from his mission. The miracles that we read about in the Gospels that stick with us and we love so much—the healing of the paralytic, the wedding at Cana, the healing of the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus—show Jesus’ compassion and his power, but they are nothing compared to the transformation that Jesus works through the cross. When, for example, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus will die again. But when Jesus rises after being crucified, he opens for us a new life, a new way of being, that will never end.

The Transfiguration, Raphael (1520), Vatican Museums

The miracles that Jesus performs before his death and resurrection—and I’d include today’s feast, the Transfiguration as one—are like the previews they show in movie theaters before the feature film. Jesus doesn’t want us to get so excited by the pictures of popcorn and soft drinks that we run out to the concession stand and forget about the movie. This is not to say that we should fast forward through first part of the Gospel. But we can’t stop halfway through; we can never be followers of Christ if we stop before the cross.

Fools for love: homily for the seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

Homily for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

When he was a young priest St. Philip Neri shaved off half his beard in order to counteract vanity. St. Simeon the Stylite lived on a small platform on top of a 50-foot tall pillar in Syria for over 30 years. Another St. Simeon (of Emesa), known as the Holy Fool, walked through town with a dead dog tied around his waist. St. Catherine of Siena lived for weeks on nothing more than the hosts she received at communion. Shortly after his conversion, St. Francis stripped naked in front of the bishop of Assisi. St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit, tending plague victims in a hospital found himself holding back out of fear of contracting the disease. (This one’s a little gross.) So he scraped the back of one of the sick men he was tending, gathered up a handful of puss, and put it in his mouth. And St. Maximiliam Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan priest imprisoned in Auschwitz, asked his Nazi guards if he could take the place of a man condemned to die in order to save that man’s life and give up his own instead.

I am not recommending that you try any of these things at home. Instead I want to ask you a question: are these saints foolish or wise? And if they are wise, then what does wisdom really mean?

In our first reading, the young King Solomon is praised by God for asking for the gift of wisdom. But what makes someone wise? Wisdom is not the same as memorizing lots of facts or accumulating knowledge. You could go home and memorize the phonebook, but I’d consider someone who just looked up phone numbers as needed actually to be wiser. We probably know people—perhaps grandparents—who received relatively little formal education but we’d consider wise. And I’ve known a plenty of people with PhDs who were not nearly as smart as they told you they were.

Judgments and Judgmentalism: homily for the sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)

At the end of one of the great 20^th century Catholic novels Brideshead Revisited there’s a dramatic deathbed scene. The novel is about a British Catholic aristocratic family. Early on in the story the patriarch of the family, Lord Marchmain, abandons his wife and goes off to live with an Italian mistress who is younger than his children. Needless to say, he becomes very hostile toward the Church and its teachings. At the end of the novel, sick and dying, he comes back to the family estate in England, and all of his children—and even his Italian mistress—beg him to see a priest and be reconciled before he dies. He refuses. They call the local priest to visit the house several times, and each time Lord Marchmain angrily chases him away.

The story is narrated by a friend of the family, Charles, who is an atheist. Charles, the narrator, gets angry at the family for continuing to call the priest even though Lord Marchmain has chased him away again and again. Finally, when Lord Marchmain really is dying, when he’s still conscious but no longer able to speak, the priest comes again and begins the last rites. And Charles, the narrator, is indignant. The dying man starts to move his hand, and Charles thinks, “Look, he’s trying to swat the priest away one last time.” And the shaking old hand moves up to his forehead, and then down to his stomach and then across his chest. The Sign of the Cross.

Now deathbed conversions are probably more common in literature than in real life, though they happen in real life too. But there’s a reason deathbed conversions, though small in number, are important in our Catholic worldview. This is because the fact that deathbed conversions are even possible tells us something important about God: that his mercy is infinite, that his mercy is patient, that his mercy is more powerful than a lifetime of sin, that his mercy directs us toward a life that only begins in this world.

The parables that Jesus tells today about the wheat and the weeds, about the mustard seed and the yeast, reflect this understanding of God. God’s power is capable of bringing forth a good harvest even from a field that seems choked with weeds, of bringing forth a flowering tree from a tiny mustard seed, of bringing forth nourishing bread from what looks like a handful of dust.

St. Aloysius Gonzaga and giving God your all: homily for St. Aloysius

The readings for our celebration of the life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga tell us to show our love for God by keeping his commandments. Sometimes people talk about love and the commandments as if there were a contradiction between the two, but Jesus teaches us otherwise.

For Jesus, love isn’t a feeling. Don’t confuse love with romance, which can be produced with mood lighting and champagne. For Jesus, love is life-giving. God, the creator, first shows his love for us by giving us life. And Jesus, the Son of God, shows the power and depth of his love by giving up his own life so that we might have eternal life.

But life is a delicate thing. If you plant a garden, you have to know the right amount of water to give the seeds—too much and they’ll rot, too little and they’ll dry up. I’ve killed a few houseplants learning this lesson. If you just leave your garden alone to do whatever it wants, it will soon choke with weeds and die. Keeping plants alive sometimes requires trimming them. Nurturing life requires rules.