Homily for 15 Apr 2016

15 Apr 2016

God challenges his people to look outside the box.  Of course, that tends to upset the apple cart.  We hear the confusion from the Jews: “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”  We see it in St Paul’s conversion when he’s knocked off his path and blinded by the Light.  And we feel it in ourselves when something from Scripture knocks us over the head, or when some preacher jars us out of our way of thinking.

God challenges his people to look outside the box.  And, in that he’s trying to open us up to a Way of life that’s far richer, far more complex, far more mythical and mystical than we imagine.  There’s so much talk in the Church about evangelization, and that’s great.  But what are we evangelizing others (and ourselves) into?  A life of social activity and outreach?  A life of parish meetings and committees?  A life of prayer and devotions?

God challenges his people to look outside the box, and to see that all our efforts should lead the world to Jesus . . . not Jesus in a painting, or Jesus in a statue, or Jesus in a book.  But Jesus, the Son of the Living God; Jesus the mystical Second Person of the Holy Trinity; Jesus the mythically ever-living God of all creation who scandalizes us by coming in something so ordinary as human Flesh and Blood.

God challenges his people to look outside the box.  He challenges his people to embrace the mystical, the mythical, the unbelievable, the extraordinary, and the ordinary.  There, outside the box of our own assumptions of how life works and what’s important, we’ll find Jesus.