Watch this
homily! (begins at 37:44)
Our
sacred scriptures can at times be comforting and at other times they can
be challenging - and sometimes they can be both at the same time. These
past few weeks, as St. Luke has described Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem,
the call to follow him has been particularly challenging, and even
demanding.
If you recall, last week’s passage concluded with
Jesus saying, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,
and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more” (Luke
12:48).
Today’s passage unpacks what that “more” is that will
be demanded of those who have much. Jeremiah, in our first reading, and
Jesus himself in our Gospel, are the models for giving more, because
they are entrusted with more. They are models of a total commitment to
proclaim God’s message regardless of the risks and consequences to
themselves.
Jeremiah spoke truth to power during his ministry
in Judah in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Today’s passage shows the
reaction of those in power to Jeremiah’s warnings. He has made clear
that the alliances they are making were very risky.
But, the
king and his advisors did not want to hear that. So they get rid of him
in order to silence him - throwing him into a muddy cistern. A court
official convinces the king to spare Jeremiah’s life, and he does so.
But, the prophet’s dire warnings become a reality with the brutal
destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
The Church gives
us Jeremiah as the same type of prophetic voice that Jesus is. Just as
Jeremiah was a threat to the rulers of his day, Jesus became a threat to
the civil and religious authorities of his day. Jesus challenged people
to think differently about God, and what God was doing in their lives.
This challenging message got him crucified.
After telling his
followers that much is required of those entrusted with much, he tells
them that he has come to set the earth on fire. Fire is a powerful and
many-faceted image in the Bible. Biblical fire is a fire of judgment, a
fire of purification, and a fire of faith.
It is all of these
fires that Jesus has come to set and, as he says, he wishes “it were
already blazing.” He knows that there is what he calls a “baptism with
which he must be baptized.”
This baptism is a total immersion
into his passion and death. Jesus is eager for this baptism, not because
he desires suffering, but because he knows the purifying effect that his
being fully committed will bring about. He knows that his baptism of
suffering and death will lead to the ultimate peace the Father desires.
But, it is not a cheap peace. He says in today’s passage that
he has not come to establish peace on the earth, but division. His
message indeed causes division among peoples. He’s not seeking division,
but he is acknowledging that to be completely devoted to God’s reign of
love will necessarily make people choose for him or against him. And
those choices will cause division.
The world defines peace as
the absence of violence and conflict. And that is an important kind of
peace. Sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, it is the only peace we
understand. Today we seek this kind of peace among nations and peoples,
in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan and so many other places - and we should
continue to strive for that peace which rids these places of violence.
At the same time, the peace that Jesus offers is founded upon
something much deeper and longer lasting. The peace Jesus brings is a
peace rooted in communion and reconciliation with God, with others and
with all of creation. This is the kind of peace that takes violence off
the table forever. That’s what God’s reign looks like.
Those who
accept Jesus will experience in Him the fulness of the peace He
accomplished through his reconciling death on the cross. This is the
peace we will pray for in this Mass, and that we will exchange with each
other before approaching the altar for Communion.
It is this
peace that sees all of humanity as one family, sharing a common home.
But that vision of peace is not shared by all. And so divisions among
peoples - even among family and friends - is often the result.
My friends, these scriptures are challenging and demanding for those of
us who, by virtue of our Baptism have been entrusted with much -
entrusted with the message of the justice and peace that is the Kingdom
of God.
In Baptism, you and I died with Christ and rose to new
life. We are called to be witnesses to both the comfort and the
challenges this new life brings to the world.
When we stand up
for the dignity of life from conception to natural death; when we
support immigrants and refugees; when we give voice to the pain caused
by senseless violence and demand action instead of just words, we, the
Church, the People of God, can become a source of division in a world
that has become too comfortable with the status quo.
In our
struggle, we who are here today, like the people to whom the Letter to
the Hebrews was written, may “not yet have resisted to the point of
shedding blood.” But many of us have paid a price for standing up for
Kingdom values.
And we should know that God never abandons
those who give themselves over to Him and his reign of justice and
peace. Jeremiah was pulled up out of the cistern, and Jesus was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father. Our Savior was not eager for
the cross, but he endured it “for the sake of joy that lay before him.”
And so, as we gather to be nourished at this Table by our
Savior, let us not “grow weary and lose heart.”
Let us keep our
eyes fixed on him who has entrusted us with so much, willing to face the
challenges but also comforted by knowing that what lies ahead is the joy
of his victory, and the triumph of his everlasting kingdom of justice
and peace.
Father Gary F. Lazzeroni, Pastor
|
|
