At the heart of our practice of prayer has to be trust in God. We don’t – or shouldn’t – need signs to convince us of God’s love and care for us. But don’t we do that all the time? Aren’t we just like those Galileans looking for a sign? We might be hesitant to take a leap of faith that we know God is calling us to make, but are looking for some kind of miracle to get us off our behinds. We might know that healing in a certain situation will take some time, but we want God to descend, wave a magic wand, and make it all go away.
But just as the royal official trusted that Jesus could cure his son, so we too need to trust that God in his goodness will work the best for us, in his time, in his way. Isaiah tells us today that God is about to create a new heavens and a new earth, where there will always be rejoicing and gladness. But how hard is it for us to wait for that new creative act, isn’t it? We just really want to see that big picture now, please, we want to know what’s on God’s mind and where he’s taking us. But that’s not how God works is it?
It can be hard for us when we look around for blessing and don’t see it happening on our timetable. We forget, sometimes, that a big part of the grace comes in the journey, even when things are really painful. The Psalmist says, “O LORD, you brought me up from the nether world; you preserved me from among those going down into the pit.” Notice how he does not say that God shielded him from going to the nether world. But the nether world was not the end of the Psalmist’s story.
We don’t know where God is taking us today – or any day, for that matter. We have to trust in our God who longs for our good, just like that royal official. And we have to believe in the power of God to raise us up, just as he raised his Son from the dead. We all long to celebrate our Easter Sundays, but our faith tells us that we have to get through our Good Fridays first.
Feel free to remind me of this homily on my next Good Friday.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like today’s Liturgy of the Word starts off by giving us all a slap in the face. And it’s needed. How many of us judge others without even getting to know them? How often do we decide who people are and what they’re like just by a first glance, or where they live, or even who they know? It’s a habit we learned in junior high school, or maybe even earlier, and we never seem to outgrow it. Shame on us for that, because God is clear with Samuel: “Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance, but the LORD looks into the heart.” So we have to stop judging others before we get to know them; we have to learn to see them as God sees them. We need to see with the eyes of God.
Whenever I hear this reading, I think of my dad. He was the typical Irish guy who never met a stranger, and it was frankly a little irritating to go grocery shopping with him. He’d bump in to a couple of people he knew while we were shopping, one or two more in the checkout line, and probably at least one more while the rest of us were loading the groceries in the car! But that was because dad was a man who always seemed to see the best in people. At his wake a few years ago now, we were all overwhelmed by the incredible number of people who came and shared with us how they were inspired by him and encouraged by him, all because Dad saw something special in them. I think dad had some inkling of the vision God wants us to have in this first reading.
So the theme for this week’s liturgy is vision and light. The gospel gets at that pretty quickly, healing the man born blind in the first couple of minutes of what is admittedly a pretty long reading. And that’s a good thing because, honestly, who cares about the man born blind? I know that sounds terrible, but he lived a couple thousand years ago, and he was healed, so you know, good for him, but how does that affect us? I’ll tell you how it affects us: the man born blind is us. We all have affected vision: that’s why the first reading is such a slap in our faces. So we have to decide today if we are the man born blind who is easily and quickly healed, or if we want to be the Pharisees who, at the end of the day, never regain their sight because they just don’t want to.
So maybe you’re asking the same question those Pharisees asked, “surely we are not also blind, are we?” Of course we are. That’s why we have Lent: to realize our brokenness and to accept the healing power of Christ. Lent calls us to remember that we are dust, that we are broken people fallen into sin, but that none of that is any match for the power of Christ risen from the dead, if we just let him put a little clay on our eyes.
Today’s Gospel then is a kind of journey to clearer vision. We are all born blind, in a sense, and it takes the presence of Jesus to clear our vision. Just as the man born blind was sent to the pool of Siloam, we too are sent to the waters of baptism, which clears our eyes and helps us to really see. In baptism, the darkness of life is transformed by the presence of Christ, the Light of the World. During the course of all the questionings that follow, the man’s vision becomes clearer and clearer. At first he doesn’t know who Jesus is or where to find him. Later on he testifies that Jesus is a prophet and finally, with the help of Jesus’ instruction, that Jesus is the Son of Man and worthy of worship. We make this same journey ourselves. From the waters of baptism, we need to continue the conversation and return to Christ again and again to grow in our faith. We grow in the way that we see Jesus through our lives. Our faith when we were young is not the same faith that works for us later in life. At one point Jesus is a friend walking with us on life’s path; later on he might be a rock that helps us in a particularly stormy time of life. Still later, he might be the one calling us to become something new, something better than we think we can attain. Jesus is always the same, but we are different, and Jesus is with us at every point of life’s journey, if we open our eyes to see him.
Traditionally, today is Laetare Sunday – laetare being Latin for “rejoice.” That’s why we’re wearing these rose-colored vestments today. We are now pretty much half way through Lent, and with eyes recreated by our own trips to the pool of Siloam – the waters of baptism – we can begin to catch a glimpse of Easter joy. Laetare Sunday reminds us that even in the penance of Lent, that it’s not penance for penance’s own sake: there is reason for rejoicing. It might be good, then, to ask ourselves, what in the world gives us cause to rejoice today, here and now, in our own lives?
In a few weeks, the Mass of the Easter Vigil will begin by telling us all the reasons we should rejoice. That Mass begins with the sung Easter Proclamation – the Exsultet – which tells the whole story of God’s mercy and sings God’s praises. It is sung in the darkened church, proclaiming that, even in the darkness of our world affected as it is with blindness, the light of God’s mercy still reigns and has power to overcome everything that keeps us from the true Light of the world. It begins: Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels! Exult, all creation around God’s throne! Jesus Christ our King is risen! Sound the trumpet of salvation!
That proclamation of the Exsultet almost seems out of place in our world today. All we have to do is pick up a newspaper to see the darkness that pervades our lives. Wars and terrorism claim so many lives. Crime in its many forms takes its toll on our society. Injustice and oppression still exist in our own nation and abroad. The poor still hunger and thirst for the basic necessities of life. In our own lives, we see sin that has not been confessed. Bad habits that have not been broken. Love and mercy that have been withheld. All of these blind us to the vision Christ wants for us. But to that darkness, the Exsultet sings: Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor, radiant in the brightness of your King! Christ has conquered! Glory fills you! Darkness vanishes for ever!
What’s great about the Exsultet, I think, is the kind of “in your face” attitude it has about joy. Yes, the world can be a dark place, but that darkness is no match for the light that Christ brings to the world. Yes there is sorrow and sin and death, but they are no match for the joy of Eternal Life, the life that comes only from Christ’s triumph over the grave. Of this kind of joy, the Exsultet sings: What good would life have been to us, had Christ not come as our Redeemer? Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave, you gave away your Son.
Today’s Liturgy is a call for all of us to attend to our vision. Do we see others as God sees them? Do we even see ourselves as God sees us? How do we see Christ at work in our lives and in our world? Where we encounter obstacles to the clear vision that we must have in this darkened world, we should set them aside and allow Christ to anoint our eyes so that we can see as God sees, this God who sees into the heart. Then as the darkness that exists in our own lives is transformed to light, maybe our little corner of the world can know compassion amidst sorrow, comfort amidst mourning, mercy against intolerance, love against hatred, and the peace that passes all of our understanding in every place we walk. May we carry the flame of God’s love into our world to brighten every darkness and bring joy to every sorrow. May the Morning Star which never sets find this flame still burning: Christ that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all humankind, your Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
Why is the human heart so much opposed to hearing the truth and acting on it? I remember as a child I used to hate it when my parents would tell me something and turn out to be right. If the truth be told, I probably still struggle with that a little today. Who wants to hear the hard truth and then find out that it’s absolutely right? The pride of our hearts so often prevents the prophet from performing his or her ministry.
The message of Lent, though, is that the prophets – all of them – whether they be Scriptural prophets, or those who spoke the truth to us because they want the best for us – all of these prophets are right. And our task during Lent has to be to give up whatever pride in us refuses to hear the voice of the prophet or refuses to accept the prophetic message, and instead turn to the Lord and rejoice in the truth.
The prophets of our native land – those prophets who are closest to us – are the ones we least want to hear. Because they know the right buttons to push, they know our sinfulness, our weakness, and our brokenness. And we desperately want to avoid being confronted with all that failure. Yet if we would hear them, then maybe just like Naaman, we would come out of the river clean and ready to profess our faith in the only God once again.
Athirst is my soul for the living God – that is what the Psalmist prays today. And that is the true prayer of all of our hearts. All we have to do is get past the obstacles of pride and let those prophets show us the way to him. Then we would never thirst again.
Winter is always rough on people, health-wise. If it’s not the flu, then it’s some sort of virus making its way around. That’s been true this winter for sure. Staff members here at church and people in my family have been coming down with one form or another of seasonal illness, and I was glad I got my flu shot this fall. But this week it was my turn: despite the flu shot, I had a fever, fatigue and some light-headedness that made me think it was a sinus thing cranked up a few notches. It’s been hard to shake it. One thing you learn when you have a fever or something like that is that you should drink a lot of water. But eventually, that becomes tiresome: you get sick of drinking just plain water, no matter how good it may be for you. So this week I supplemented it with tea, of course, and I even gave myself permission to do something I don’t do very often, and that was to drink some soda – 7up or ginger ale mostly. And those drinks tasted better than just plain water, for sure, but because they are sugary, sooner rather than later I’d be thirsty again, and the only thing that really helped was – water. I drank a lot of water this week!
I thought about that experience as I was preparing today’s homily, because this set of readings are all about water. When the Church talks about water, it sees something different than most of the world does. Water is a striking image in the literature of our religion: when we hear of water, maybe we think about the waters swirling around before creation, or the waters of the great flood. During Lent, we might think often about the waters of the Red Sea, through which the Israelites passed as they fled from slavery in Egypt. We might think of the water that flowed from the Temple in Isaiah’s imagery, that gave life to all the world. And of course, as we near Good Friday, we cannot help but remember the water and blood that flowed from the side of Christ, giving life to the Church. And then we could think sacramentally, couldn’t we? Whenever we see this much discussed about water in the Sunday readings, we should always think of a certain sacrament. Guess which one? Right, baptism. And so we’ll talk about that in just a minute, but before we go there, let’s take a minute to get at the subject of thirst. That, after all, is what gets us to water in the first place.
The Israelites were sure thirsty in today’s first reading. After all, they had been wandering around the desert for a while now, and would continue to do so for forty years. At that point, they were thinking about how nice it would be if they had just remained slaves in Egypt so that they wouldn’t have to come all the way out here to the desert just to die of thirst. Better slaves than dead, they thought. The issue was that they didn’t have what they thirsted for, and had not yet learned to trust God to quench that thirst. So Moses takes all the complaining of the people and complains to God, who provides water for them in the desert. Think about that – they had water in the desert! And they had that water for as long as they continued to make that desert journey. Read the whole story of the Exodus – it’s a good Lenten thing to do – they never ran out of water, they didn’t die of thirst, God proves himself trustworthy in a miraculous way. The end of the reading says they named the place Massah and Meribah because they wondered, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?” What a ridiculous question! Obviously, the answer was “yes.”
Which brings us to the rather curious story we have in the Gospel reading. If we think the story was all about a woman coming to get a bucket of water, then we’ve really missed the boat, to misuse another water metaphor! This story asks us what we’re thirsting for, but at a much deeper level. Did Jesus really need a drink of water? Well, maybe, but he clearly thirsted much more for the Samaritan woman’s faith. Did she leave her bucket behind because she would never need to drink water again? No, she probably just forgot it in the excitement, but clearly she had found the source of living water and wanted to share it with everyone.
In the midst of their interaction, Jesus uncovers that the woman has been thirsting for something her whole life long. She was married so many times, and the one she was with now was not her husband. She was worshipping, as the Samaritans did, on the mountain and not in Jerusalem as the Jews did. And every single day, she came to this well to draw water, because her life didn’t mean much more than that. She was constantly looking for water, or something that would quench her unsated thirst. She didn’t even know what she was seeking, and yet she was thirsty all the time.
And all of this would be very sad if she hadn’t just found the answer to her prayers, the source of living water. One of my favorite hymns is a hymn written by Horatio Bonar in 1846 called “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” This hymn is sung all during the year, but I think it may be the quintessential Lenten Hymn. One of the verses speaks beautifully to this wonderful Gospel story:
I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold, I freely give the living water; thirsty one, stoop down and drink, and live.” I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life-giving stream; my thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in him.
Which is exactly what happened to the Samaritan woman, isn’t it? She drank of the stream of Jesus’ life-giving water, and she now lived in him. She couldn’t even contain herself and ran right off to town, leaving the bucket of her past life behind, and told everyone about Jesus. They were moved to check this Jesus out, initially because of her testimony. But once they came to know him as the source of life-giving water, they didn’t even need her testimony to convince them; they too lived in him now.
But remember that I said earlier that, whenever you see this much about water in the readings, the point is always baptism. The readings for this Sunday are particularly chosen for the First Scrutiny in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. So if we had anyone becoming Catholic in our parish, which we don’t this year, we would be reflecting in a particular way on their upcoming baptism. The Catechumens of the Church in these Lenten days are, like the Samaritan woman, coming to know this Jesus who is the source of life-giving water. Since we have no Catechumens in our parish this year, I want us to reflect on two things.
The first thing is to reflect on our own baptisms. Because we too find baptism in our Lenten journey. Lent, as is often pointed out, means “springtime” and during Lent we await a new springtime in our faith. We await new growth, we look for renewed faith, we recommit ourselves to the baptism that is our source of life-giving water. We have what we are thirsting for, and Lent is a time to drink of it more deeply, so that we will be refreshed and renewed to live with vigor the life of faith and the call of the Gospel. As we approach Easter, then, we should reflect on our own baptisms, perhaps received before we could even understand or remember them, but certainly renewed as we have journeyed through life. Those baptisms have called us to a particular way of life, leaving behind the buckets of life in the world and the well that can never really quench our thirst, so that we can embrace Jesus the Lord, our source of life-giving water. He alone gives us water in such a way that we will never thirst again.
The second thing is to commit ourselves as a parish to the task of evangelization. Just because we have no Catechumens this year doesn’t mean that there is nobody unbaptized among us. We all know people who need to know the Lord. Maybe they are unbaptized, maybe they are baptized in another Church, or maybe they are just not practicing any religion. But because we know the source of life-giving water, they we know that everyone should be drinking of that water. We have to bring the message to them. Maybe not by preaching on the street corner, but more by the witness of our lives. We might also need to extend the invitation, bring someone to Mass, encourage them to join us. These Lenten days take us to Easter and beyond with water that we can pour out in every time and place where God takes us. The life we receive in baptism can revive a world grown listless and droopy and make it alive with springs of refreshment that can only come from the one who gives us water beyond our thirsting, that follows us in our desert journeys, that springs up within those who believe.
The Israelites wondered, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?” Surely we cannot be as unbelieving as they were. We see the marvels God does for us, we experience the assurance of our faith in good times and in bad. We see lives changed as they embrace the faith. So how would we answer the question, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?” Absolutely, yes he is, always and forever. Amen.
Today’s Gospel reading is one that gives me pause, to say the least. The whole notion of the measure that we use will be the measure that God uses to measure is more than a little a little scary. Think about it: how often do we fail to give people a break? How often do we forget that the person who just crossed us may be having trouble at home, or might be facing the illness of a loved one, or any number of things. Those mitigating circumstances may not excuse bad behavior, but they may explain a lapse in judgment. God gives us grace when we go through those things; we should do no less.
We confess our sins and long to be forgiven, just like Daniel did in today’s first reading. And our God longs to forgive us those sins. But God’s expectation is that the mercy he has shown us will be the mercy we show to others. We are called to the same perfection that is present in God himself. The crux of that perfection is love and mercy. We know what it looks like, because God has given those to us. We then need to imitate that in our lives.
If we would pray with the Psalmist today, “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins,” then we should be willing to let go of the sins others have committed against us. It’s not easy, but the letting go frees us in much better ways than vengeance ever could.
People often balk at the mere suggestion of being called to personal holiness. Oftentimes, this is wrapped up in a misplaced and false humility, that kind of humility that says that since I’m good for nothing, there is no way I can even come close to being like God. Yet the fact of the matter is that we are made good by our Creator God who designed us to be like himself, perfect in holiness.
And if that seems too lofty to attain, Moses and Jesus spell out the steps to getting there today. Clearly, personal holiness is not simply a matter of saying the right prayers, fasting at the right times, going to Church every Sunday and reading one’s Bible. Those things are a good start and are key activities on the journey to holiness, but using them as a façade betrays a lack of real holiness. Because for both Moses and Jesus, personal holiness, being holy as God is holy, consists of engaging in justice so that hesed – the Hebrew word meaning right relationship and right order – can be restored in the world.
Every single command we receive from Moses and Jesus today turns us outward in our pursuit of holiness. Our neighbor is to be treated justly, and that neighbor is every person in our path. Robbery, false words, grudges, withholding charity, rendering judgment without justice, not granting forgiveness and bearing grudges are all stumbling blocks to personal holiness. All of these keep us from being like God who is holy. And worse yet, all of these things keep us from God, period.
The law of the Lord is perfect, as the Psalmist says, and the essence of that law consists of love and justice to every person. If we would strive for holiness this Lent, we need to look to the one God puts in our path, and restore right relationship with that person.
A lot of people say they aren’t giving up something for Lent, they’re just going to try to do something positive. When it’s that vague, I often think that means they’re doing nothing at all for Lent, which is sad for them. But, I usually tell people it doesn’t just have to be one or the other. Indeed, today’s Liturgy of the Word tells us that it should actually be both.
Fasting is important because it helps us to see how blessed we are. It is important because it helps us to realize that there is nothing that we hunger for that God can’t provide. Fasting teaches us, once again, that God is God and we are not. This is important for all of us independent-minded modern-day Americans. We like to be in charge, in control, and the fact is that whatever control we do have is an illusion. God is in control of all things, even when it seems like we are in chaos. Fasting teaches us that we can do without the things we’ve given up, and that God can provide for us in much richer ways. Fasting is absolutely essential to having an inspiring, life-changing Lent, and I absolutely think that people should give things up for Lent.
But giving something up for Lent does not excuse us from the obligation to love our neighbor. This falls under the general heading of almsgiving, and along with fasting and prayer, it is one of the traditional ways of preparing our hearts for Easter during Lent. We might be more mindful of the poor, contributing to our food pantry or a homeless shelter or relief organization. We might reach out by actually serving in some capacity, like at a soup kitchen, or spending an hour at PADS. We also might give the people closest to us in our lives a larger portion of the love that has been God’s gift to us.
Today’s first reading reminds us that fasting to put on a big show is a sham. Fasting to bring ourselves closer to God includes the obligation of almsgiving and prayer. Together, these three facets of discipleship make us stronger Christians and give us a greater share of the grace that is promised to the sons and daughters of God.
Today’s readings get us to the heart of a very sticky matter. What is it that is most important in terms of our salvation? Is it faith in Jesus Christ? Or is it doing good works? This question has been the lightning rod of the faith for a long time now. Disagreement over the answer contributed to the protestant reformation in the sixteenth century, and it is only recently that Catholics and Lutherans have come to some sort of agreement on it. So let’s see if we can come up with the answer in five minutes!
Ironically, today’s readings present both sides of the issue. On the one hand, there is the teaching found in the first reading from the book of Deuteronomy. Here, Moses tells the people that they have a choice. Live the way they want and turn away from God, or remember all that God has done for them and follow the Law. In the second reading, Saint Paul writes a contradictory opinion to the Romans: a person is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. So hearing that, what are we supposed to do? Do we just have to believe and have faith and let that be our salvation, or do we follow the Law?
So here’s the rule of thumb: in Catholic theology it’s never either one or the other, it’s pretty much always both/and. Jesus, of course, gives the answer in today’s Gospel reading: “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” Yes, we have to believe and have faith, but we also have to act on that faith. Saint James tells us in his letter in the New Testament that faith without works is dead. The essence of it is that if we really believe, then our faith will move us into action.
That’s what the Gospel is all about really. We believe in Christ and have faith because of his great love for us, because of the saving sacrifice of his life on the cross. That’s what brings us to salvation. But if we really do believe in that, then we also have to do what Jesus did. Maybe not in such a radical fashion, but we do have to lay down our lives. We have to forgive when forgiving is hard to do. We have to reach out to the poor and marginalized when we would rather not. We have to live as people of integrity when it would be easier to do what everyone else seems to be doing. That’s living the Gospel. That’s what people of faith do.
We gather here on the precipice of Lent. As we enter that holy season on Wednesday, we are called to take that time to become more authentic people of faith. The Church gives us the traditional ways to do that: fasting, almsgiving and prayer. What do we need to let go of so that we can be closer to God? We should fast from that. How can we give of our time, talent or treasure so that others can live better lives? That’s our almsgiving. And what do we need to do in our prayer and worship life to reconnect with God in ways that we have been lax on during the past year?
A lot of people say that you don’t have to give something up for Lent – that’s so old fashioned; you should just do something good. Well, again, it’s not either/or. You can do both things, and you should. We all need to give something up for Lent: unhealthy relationships, addiction to drink or drugs or food, time-wasting habits – all of those things keep us from God and don’t really make us happy anyway. Give them up at least for Lent!
And who knows, giving them up may just give us energy to do something really good for Lent too. Maybe giving up our Starbuck’s addiction will help us to give those dollars to the poor. Maybe cutting down on our television intake will give us the time to spend with our families in important ways or have more time for prayer or reflection on Scripture. Maybe getting up a little early to attend daily Mass will make our work day more peaceful.
The message for us on the precipice of Lent is that we all need to do something. None of us is in the right place with Jesus right now; we can always grow in faith and get closer to God. This Lent is the gift of time to do just that. So let’s go into it with a plan, and it doesn’t have to be grandiose. Let’s have an idea of fasting, almsgiving and prayer that works for us and helps us to make even one small step forward in our faith.
So Jesus tells us that our faith has to be grounded on belief in him and has to yield good things. We have to take that rock solid foundation of Christ and build a life of faith that reaches out to others in their need and witnesses to others how much our God means to us. We never want to hear those words, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.” And one great way to get there is to make the most of these upcoming forty days.
“The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him…” The gospels tell us in many places that Jesus willingly laid down his life. This was the mission the Father gave him, and this was the mission he had taken up on this earth. In these final days of Holy Week, Jesus lives up to the mission he has freely taken up. Isaiah says of him: “And I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.” There would have been precious little grace had it happened any other way. “For your sake I bear insult,” the Psalmist says, “and shame covers my face.” In what way are we being called to willingly take up our cross today?
The only thing God wants to do is to forgive sinners. Period. That’s what our Gospel reading tells us very plainly today: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” And so, in Jesus Christ, we have absolutely everything that we need for the forgiveness of sins, except one thing. In Jesus Christ, we have our God who became man. We have in Christ the Saving Sacrifice, his life poured out on us to take away the penalty of our sins and nullify the sting of our death. Not only that, but Jesus Christ strengthens us with the gift of his Holy Spirit, who enlivens in us the desire to be close to our God and to put our sins behind us. That Holy Spirit gives us the grace not just to know and confess our sins, but also the grace to avoid the sin ahead of us. In Christ, the way to forgiveness is open. We have all we need – except one thing.
And that one thing is the thing that must come from within us, namely, repentance. Because once we repent of our sins, turn away from them, and confess them, we can then accept God’s grace and mercy, and become a new people, marked by faith hope and love. But repentance is a choice that’s up to us; it’s a habit we have to develop, because it’s not a habit that we see demonstrated much in our world. Our world would rather take mistakes and put a positive “spin” on them so everyone saves face. But that’s not repentance. Our world would rather find someone else to blame for the problems we encounter, so that we can be righteously indignant and accept our own status as victims. But that’s not repentance. Our world would rather encounter an issue by throwing at it money, human resources, military intervention, lawsuits or legislation. But that’s not repentance.
The problem, as our Gospel tells us this evening, is that the world prefers the darkness of sin and ignorance and death over the glorious light of God’s grace and forgiveness, and mercy. It’s insanity, but that’s the sad truth of our world.
So, quite frankly, if we are ever going to learn the habit of repentance, we are going to have to look elsewhere than the evening news. World leaders are no help at all, and even if the media were to see an example of repentance, I’m not sure they’d give it much play. So where are we going to get the inspiration to live as a repentant people? These Lenten days, we might look at the wayward son’s interaction with the Prodigal Father, or perhaps the woman at the well who left her jug behind to live the new life. We might look at the woman caught in adultery or even at the “good thief” crucified with Jesus. All of these got the idea and turned from their sin toward their God and received life in return. This is the habit of repentance that we have been called to develop in ourselves.
Brothers and sisters, sin enslaves us and makes exiles out of us. Sin takes us out of the community and puts us off on our own, in a very empty place. That exile might look something like this:
We ignore the needs of the poor and exile ourselves from the full community;
We judge others and thus draw a dividing line between ourselves and those we judge;
We lie and are no longer trusted by others;
We refuse to forgive, and are trapped in the past, not willing to respond to the present;
We cheat, steal and abuse the rights of others and thus offend the right order of the community;
We act violently in words and actions and thus perpetuate forces that splinter and violate the human community;
We withdraw from their church and diminish the community’s ability to witness to God and serve others.
The exile of sin is heartbreaking, but it doesn’t have to be that way for us. The Liturgy of the Word throughout the Lenten season has been showing us the way back. We have the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit to inspire us with desire for communion with our God. We have the grace and mercy poured out on us through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we have the grace to do that one thing that’s missing; to develop that habit that makes us one with our God – that habit of repentance that brings us back no matter how far we have wandered or how many times we have turned away. Our God can still reach us in exile and he can still bring us back to the community, if we will but let him. The only thing our God wants to do is to forgive sinners. Not just once, not twice, but as many times as we fall and as often as we turn away – so long as we repent and turn back to him.
And that’s why we’re here tonight. God is aching to pour out on us the grace of his forgiveness and to bring us to his peace beyond all of our understanding, and we have chosen to come and receive it. We have chosen to be a people marked by faith, hope and love. We long to develop that habit of repentance which allows us to receive the new life God has always wanted for us. The only thing God wants to do is to forgive sinners. So let us now as a community of faith examine our conscience and repent of our sins.
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