Saturday, October 3, 2015

Homily for 4 Oct 2015

4 Oct 2015
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

“You can be anything you want to be; you have a lot of potential.”  And that’s something we can hear a lot when we’re younger—especially when we’re in high school and looking beyond toward college or perhaps entering the workforce.  But it’s also something God says to us every day of our lives, whether we’re younger or middle-aged or older: “You can be anything you want to be; you have a lot of potential.”  And the idea of “potential” is a major idea that runs through Scripture today. 

God sees humanity.  He says, “I love you; I embrace you ‘without shame’ as my ‘brothers and sisters.” But he also says, “Let me raise you up to be even more.”  And that’s basically what it means to be relationship with Jesus: He happily and warmly accepts us as we are, and at the same time, is pushing us to be more.  God is always trying to elevate us, to heighten our awareness of who we are, and what we’re made to be as his beloved sons and daughters.

And so, God really is the most perfect Friend we could have: He loves us unconditionally and whispers into our heart: “You have a lot of potential.  Don’t settle for less.”
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When the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce, he replied simply: “In the beginning,” it was not so.  In the beginning (the way God created us) there was no divorce; there was only unity and love.  And, of course, that’s the ideal; that’s the potential every married couple has in mind on their wedding day.  They don’t get married with the intention of getting divorced; they get married so that can live out what was “in the beginning:” an image of love and lifelong companionship.

But, as we know, sometimes divorce happens—for good reasons, and not-so-good reasons.  You know, spousal abuse and infidelity are good reasons.  But getting divorced because somebody just “falls out of love” is not a good reason.  And it’s not good because Jesus is saying: “You have the potential to be more than you are . . . if only you’d live up to your vows.”  He’s saying: “Don’t give in to your own boredom with this relationship; don’t concede to the struggles your marriage presents.”  In the beginning, there was no divorce, only unity and love.  Again, that’s the ideal—the potential—we shoot for.

Of course, sometimes a marriage is so harmful, it’s so toxic and dehumanizing than a husband or wife can’t possibly live up to their potential as a child of God.  And we see in those cases there wasn’t any marriage to begin with.  And the Lord says, “Get on a better track in life—you weren’t made to be abused; you were made to love and to be loved.”
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Or we look at abortion.  This is an area where human society has really slipped into the nether regions.  What could be a more perfect image of our human potential than a child developing and growing in the womb?  It’s a perfect image of the fact that God makes us to be something: to grow, to become, to live and love.  But abortion stops that potential dead in its tracks—not only for the child in the womb, but also for those who think that abortion is okay. 

If there’s one way for human society to kill its own God-given potential, it’s through abortion.  How are we possibly living up to our human potential if we think that destroying human life is okay?  Jesus sees the bloody holocaust of innocent children, and he looks up and says—with bloodshot eyes from weeping: “You are better than this.  I love you, my brothers and sisters, but I know you are better than . . . this.”
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God is trying to elevate us.  He’s trying to help us “live up to our potential”—not only in a moral way, but even more fundamentally in a spiritual, emotional, and relational sort of way, too.  You know, every morning we wake up and we have the whole day ahead of us—a beautiful gift from God.  And the day is charged with potential.

And, as we know, children (especially) take that potential and they run with it.  When I was growing up, it’s like every day was a day of exploration, or new ideas, or playing around.  I remember, once, sitting on the curb and trying to get a magnifying glass to harness the sun’s rays and melt the tar on the road.  And that was neat—I was growing in my potential as a thinker.

Or I remember spending years and years practicing the piano or the trumpet or the organ because God gave me that potential to be a musician.  And I remember being in high school and college and thinking, “What am I supposed to be?  What can I be?  What do I want to be?”  And I enjoyed studying Anthropology and practicing my hand at being a creative writer.  When I studied music in college, it was great to be around other musicians; and when I was in seminary studying for priesthood, it was great to be around other people who were serious about their faith, and serious about their relationship with the Lord.

Day after day, year after year, decade after decade, Jesus is calling us to “live up to our potential.”  He put the little child in front of his disciples and said, “Here, be like this one.  Be like this child who has not conceded to the notion that life is dull and limited.  Be like this child who has not given in to the idea that faith and God are irrelevant and pointless.  Be like this child who’s going through life with eyes wide-open, and is having the time of their life becoming who and what God has made them to be.

And it doesn’t matter how young or old we are, God is always pushing us to live up to our potential.  Even on our death-bed, there’s still potential within us—the potential to pass into the arms of God definitely and eternally.

Jesus is always trying to elevate us, to open up the gift of life and love for us.  He says: “You can be anything you want to be; you have a lot of potential.”  All that’s left is to trust that he’s right: that we have a lot of potential . . . and to see where that God-given potential takes us.

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