Saturday, November 25, 2017

Homily for 26 Nov 2017

26 Nov 2017
Solemnity of Christ the King

The Catholic Church in the United States donates about 30 billion dollars annually to charity.  That includes: parishes, collections for the poor, Catholic Charities, Knights of Columbus, in addition to the ministries of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, food pantries, homeless shelters, assisted living, adult day care for dementia sufferers, hospice programs, and so on, and so on.  The Catholic Church invests a lot of time, money, and love in trying to meet the needs of those who have needs.

And so it would be awful thing, after all this charitable work, if the Church were to hear the Lord say, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”  And, of course, our natural response would be: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?...I thought we were doing good work, Lord, following your example.”

Now, of course, I don’t know if the Lord would put us in with the goats for doing good.  But, from our gospel reading, it sounds like it could happen.  And this is what has always troubled me about this particular passage. 

We have here a group of people who are intentionally doing good, meeting the needs of those who have needs…and they’re cast aside because of it.  And then there’s the other group of people who, apparently, have no idea what they’re doing; they’re not at all intentional about helping the needy…but they end up being the inheritors of the kingdom.  It doesn’t make sense. 

It seems like the King we celebrate today has the potential to make some questionable judgments.  Of course, that’s incorrect; we’re the ones who can make the wrong judgments; because Jesus didn’t cast them aside for doing good works.  That would be silly.  He did it for another reason.  Jesus sees way beyond outward appearances.  He sees into the heart and mind.  He sees what our motivations are; he sees where our focus is. 

As we know, Jesus said very clearly to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  It’s one of the Great Commandments.  And so it’s something we have to be attentive to.  But he also said the “first and greatest commandment” is to “love God with all your heart, will all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your being.”  Love of God comes first.  That’s the motivation, that’s the focus Jesus is looking for in our hearts and minds.

Now, in the gospel, it’s not really clear how these two groups of people were helping the poor and the needy.  But it is clear that the first group—the inheritors of the kingdom, weren’t focused at all on doing that good work; apparently, it was just something that happened in the course of their day.  Their focus was simply on God, and following him.  They were just a bunch of sheep, living a good life, following the Shepherd.

But with the second group, it’s clear that they were very focused on helping the needy; they put a lot of thought behind it.  But perhaps that was the problem.

Jesus didn’t cast them aside for doing good works; they were cast aside because they’d lost sight of God.  They had neglected “the first and greatest commandment.”  God hadn’t been the source and the motivation behind the good they were doing…they themselves were the source of the good they were doing.  They didn’t need God, apparently.  And so God let them go.

But this judgment by Jesus shouldn’t sound all that shocking; we’ve heard it before.  He’s the one who said, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25).  “In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:33).

We’ve heard it before—many, many times before—and we’ll hear it again and again until the day we pass from this life: “Love God first, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  And we’ll keep hearing it because it’s such a hard thing for humans to do: loving God, putting God…first.  And that’s the central idea, perhaps, behind today’s solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe: putting ourselves in God’s hands, letting him take first place in our lives.

You know, the difference between a king and a president is that a president isn’t at the center of our lives; regardless of who the president is, that person is not at the center of my life.  But a king is.  A shepherd is, a judge is.  For a flock of sheep, the voice of the shepherd is everything; he’s the one who protects and provides, who guides and nurtures.  For someone standing in front of a judge, that judge has the power to determine the course of life; that judge’s voice and his or her decisions are life-altering.

And, for a nation of subjects, the king (or queen) is central to life; that’s the one who protects and directs, who nurtures and provides.  And that’s what we remember today: Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, and also Judge and Shepherd, and King.  He’s all of those things (and more) rolled into one.  As much as Jesus is our Friend—and he certainly is—he is first our Lord, Judge, Shepherd, and King.

And, in fact, it’s because he is all those things to us that he is our faithful Friend.  Remember what he says: “You are my friends, if you do what I command” (John 15:14).  That’s Jesus the Lord and Shepherd speaking.  And then he says, “I have called you friends, for everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).  That’s Jesus the King speaking.

Jesus issues his commandments, and we’re his “friends” if we listen and follow.  Jesus also opens up the treasuries of his wisdom and love, and we’re his “friends” if we accept his graciousness.  In fact, Jesus lives his Kingship and Friendship with us so perfectly, that’s where his authority comes from. 

It’s why we genuflect and bow.  They’re signs of respect and awe of him.  They’re signs of reverence; they’re signs that we see (in our Catholic imagination) what Doubting Thomas saw: “My Lord and my God!”  And we genuflect and bow.  They’re actions we do with our body to express what’s in our hearts; a sentiment that says, “You, Jesus are my King, my Shepherd; I depend on you, and I love you and I need you—my Lord and my God.”

And the ultimate reason we have such respect for him is because of the Cross.  Of course, he did many wonderful things: healing people, casting out demons, preaching, and so on.  But we revere him most of all because of his fidelity to the Father. 

On the Cross, everything comes together.  There on the Cross is Jesus the Shepherd saying, “This is the way, the Cross is the way, follow me.  Remain faithful to God, no matter what.”  There on the Cross is Jesus the Judge issuing his judgments: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”  He’s also issuing the judgment we hear at every Mass: that we “have been found worthy to be in his presence and minister” to him. 

There on the Cross is Jesus the King giving his life to protect his brothers and sisters, pouring out all the gifts of his life for our benefit, sharing with us what the Father shares with him: selfless love.  There on the Cross the “glory of the Lord” is reveal.  The glory—the essence of what he’s all about—is revealed right there on the Cross.  The Cross is his throne of glory on earth. 

And it’s from the Cross that Jesus’ authority comes.  And we have that “throne of glory” right here: it’s the altar.  The glory of our King and Friend is revealed to us right here—broken and shared, poured out and given, freely and happily for us.

It’s why we come to the altar of God and, right off the bat, we “acknowledge our sins and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.”  Compared to the glory of God, we have a ways to go…and that’s okay.  Actually, the most glorious and perfect thing we can do to start Mass is to bow before God and say, “Lord, I have sinned, and you know it.  I need your mercy and your forgiveness.”  It’s a spectacular show of our dependence on God—as long as it’s sincere.

It’s also a reminder to him and us that we’re trying to keep him first in our life.  It’s a reminder that we’re trying to let him be the inspiration behind all the good we do, and not us.  In many ways, it’s a gesture of our own subjection to him.  As much as God has made us to be free, we aren’t free on our own.  The “first and greatest commandment” is always in effect. We’re always subjects of the heavenly King, putting him first.

And that doesn’t always rub us the right way—the idea of being a subjected to, or under-neath, someone else.  It’s one of the reasons why so often people will have a problem with Ephesians 5:22, when Saint Paul says: “Wives, be submissive to your husbands.”  We don’t like to be under somebody else’s thumb.  But, of course, the other half of what St. Paul says here is, “Husbands, love your wives.”

Saint Paul isn’t saying, “Submit yourself to a tyrant, to an uncaring, cold, manipulative troll.”  He’s saying, “Submit yourself to one—and only to one, who loves you unconditionally, with his or her whole heart, mind, body and soul.  Submit yourself to that one—wives and husbands—it goes both ways.”  And that’s an echo of what Jesus our King and Shepherd says, too: “Submit yourself to me, love me first…because I am the one who loves you unconditionally.  Submit yourself to my love.” 

And so, we bow, we genuflect.  We receive the Body and Blood of Christ with open hands.  We worship him because he’s the inspiration and the goal of this adventure we call “life.”  Every week we have a chance to come here and put our life in order again: God first. 

It’s a wonderful thing to just be led by him, and to “go with the flow” of the Holy Spirit.  And that’s because the Christian life isn’t so much about doing, as it is about being: being a friend of Christ, being a subject of our King, a trusting sheep in the flock of the Shepherd.  Everything else we do beyond that—including love of neighbor—just sort of happens. 

A heart in love with God overflows into a life of love in general.  If we want to love and be loved, then we want to submit ourselves to Christ our Friend and King.  If he is our focus, then those who need to be loved will be; we needn’t worry about that.  His love will reach them, through us.

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