3rd Sunday Year B - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2009

Today's Second Reading from St Paul's Letter to the Corinthians can seem somewhat off-putting, certainly on first hearing.  Essentially, Paul was asking his readers to keep their lives in perspective - but he based his sense of that perspective on an incorrect assumption.  Paul believed that, as the Second Reading put it, the world as we know it is passing away - our time is growing short.  He expected Christ to return to the world at any moment.  There is nothing like the prospect of imminent death to sort out priorities, and to put a different complexion on the things we value.

Yet, though we don't share Paul's assumption about the return of Christ, there is still a point in reviewing our priorities - and the beginning of a New Year is not a bad time to do so.  Time is short.  We're always complaining that there's not enough time for the things we plan to do or that others expect of us.  And our energies also are limited.  Even if we had the  time, we don't always have the energy to do the things we plan to do or that others expect of us.

How often do we see people, sometimes friends, who get so engrossed in their work or their careers that they don't have  time or energy to nourish their relationships with spouse or children? How often do students get so carried away with boy-friend or girl-friend that their studies are seriously affected? How many people honestly believe that they have neither time nor energy resources to give to meditation or reflection which they need to cultivate their spirit? How many get so caught up having what thy would call “a good time” that they have neither the time nor the energy to exercise and to take due care of their physical health? We could go on...

People can find themselves so pressured that they feel  it impossible even to give the time they  need to examine their lives and get them into perspective.  It was that sort of concern - to keep life in due balance - that was the basic issue behind Paul's comments in today's Reading.  Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a crisis to get people to look at their lives.

In our Judeo-Christian tradition, we have  the wonderful institution of the Sabbath Day - the  weekly opportunity to deliberately build into our lives, once each week, a day of leisure.  The Jews connected the origin of the Sabbath to their founding experience of former slavery.  Once liberated by God, they would never again let themselves be enslaved - especially by themselves.

It's a sad commentary on our modern world that, for all our labour- and time-saving devices, so many people seem to connect their self-esteem - their sense of their own worth - to how busy they are.  As the New Year gets under way, I suggest that we all look hard at ourselves and our life-styles, truly sort out our priorities and bring some adequate, and life-giving, order into our lives.  We all need our Sabbath.