4th Sunday of Lent B
See commentary on John 3:14-21 in John 3:1-15 & John 3:16-21.
Homily 1 - 2006
The second Reading and the Gospel today are both wonderful readings, but I want to focus instead on today’s first Reading, dealing with the fate of Israel back in the early sixth century before Christ. A little historical background might help. Israel’s problem was that it lay on a highway – between Egypt in the South and Babylon and Persia to the North-east. It was in constant danger of invasion and conquest, because its control was important to the enormously greater powers on both of its borders.
At the time of Jeremiah, mentioned in the first reading, Babylon (present day Iraq) cast its gaze towards Judea and Jerusalem, where Jeremiah was at work. Jerusalem’s king and cabinet turned to Egypt, hoping that Egypt would help them. Jeremiah told the king in Jerusalem not to rely on Egypt and not to resist Babylon either, but to rely on God. His option, not to resist, would have meant loss of some freedoms and a crippling burden of tribute. Trusting God doesn’t rule that out. The king did not listen to Jeremiah. He wasn’t interested in listening to any prophet, especially one who contradicted him. National security was his portfolio, and Egypt looked a safer ally.
Jeremiah got deeply involved in politics because to him every decision, every action, personal or political, reflected people’s sense of God and response to God. As things turned out, Babylon defeated Egypt, then turned on Jerusalem, destroyed it, and deported its leading citizens to Babylon, where their fate was enormously worse. In fact, it might well have meant the end for the Jewish nation, had not Cyrus, a Persian, about fifty years later, defeated Babylon and allowed the remnant of the Jews there in captivity to return to Jerusalem, reoccupy it and rebuild it.
Well, wars still go on. For centuries, with warfare the way it was [armies fighting mainly armies, with limited collateral damage or civilian involvement], the Church developed a theory called the Just War Theory. It held that, under certain clear conditions, war might be justified. Of recent years, particularly during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the Church has moved in the direction that, given the way that modern warfare has developed, the possibility of just wars has become questionable. You know, for example, how John Paul strongly argued against the legitimacy of the invasion of Iraq.
The second Vatican Council forty years ago, held back then from outright condemnation of war, but clearly condemned the use of nuclear weapons. Despite that, a number of powers have developed nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, Israel possibly, along with India and Pakistan. Iran is now seeking to join the club. Thank God Australia has no desire to develop a nuclear weapon, but it is implicated in the issue since it is a major world supplier of uranium.
What might Jeremiah say to us today? For Jeremiah, God’s covenant with Israel was crucial. That covenant continues with us today. Every consecration of the wine at every Eucharist we celebrate reminds us that we are the inheritors of the new covenant. I think Jeremiah would say: "Keep your heads clear and your knowledge of principles unambiguous. Don’t do anything immoral, as individuals or as nations, even for economic or political advantage. Watch your alliances if they apply pressure on you to compromise morally - even if you are left militarily vulnerable."
What is totally non-negotiable, whatever the cost, is : You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength. That does not leave much room to sell our souls, our consciences, our moral judgement, to any ideology, political persuasion or national interest. It translates into: Never do anything unjust, even for praiseworthy ends, because the end does not justify the means. The outcomes of such an attitude may mean suffering, misunderstanding, even ostracism as individuals, and God knows what for nations. But Jesus expected suffering to be the experience of anyone who chose his way in a world that doesn’t. That’s what trusting God is all about – not immediate consequences but eventual outcomes.
Homily 2 - 2009
Today's reading from St John's Gospel started off with a reference to an enigmatic story in Israel's early history. The Hebrew slaves had managed to escape from Egypt. But crossing the Sinai desert and then conquering the current occupants of the Holy Land presented formidable problems. They were blocked in for years, there in the Sinai peninsula. In their frustration and impatience they complained bitterly. They even said they would have been better off to stay enslaved in Egypt - at least there they were fed. They weren't prepared to pay the price of freedom.
Apparently, after one of these episodes of complaining and moaning, they camped near an oasis that was infested with snakes. A lot of them were bitten, and many of them died. The story says that God told Moses to cast a bronze model of a snake and to display it high on a pole. According to the story, those who looked at the bronze snake recovered. Jesus used the episode to say that he, too, would be lifted up on a pole, and everyone who believed in him would more than recover from snake bite - they would in fact have eternal life.
What's going on? Perhaps, with the Israelites in the desert, the real problem was not the snakes, but their own complaining, their own failure to appreciate their freedom, and their failure to trust Moses, and, effectively, to trust God. But, without the snakes, they may never have faced their real problem, and may never have admitted that their real problem lay with themselves. It was too easy just to blame their bad luck, to blame the snakes. By casting the bronze serpent, and getting them to look at, and reflect on, the consequences of their lack of co-operation with their liberating God, they slowly came to see the reality of their own sin, and to repent.
What about Jesus, lifted up? What bedevils our world is, among other things, our hostility to each other, our radical competitiveness, our instinctively judgmental assessments of each other - as individuals and as communities. When things go wrong, we instinctively blame the other. We are not good at recognising our own faults. We will look for every possible excuse to avoid our own guilt.
We need the stark image of the crucified Jesus to recognise the extent to which we will go to scapegoat the other, rather than to reform ourselves. Jesus is the one totally innocent human being. He is the one totally and consistently loving human being. And we degraded him, dehumanised him, called him the sinner, and killed him - because it looked the most responsible thing to do to preserve the status quo. The enormity of our action, if only we will look at the crucified one, shocks us, and confronts us with our entrenched sinfulness. If we look at the crucified one, our unrecognised, habitual, taken for granted sinful attitudes are revealed.
We are the ones with the problem. We don't need scapegoats, to blame everyone, or everything, else for the state of our world. Recognising and admitting our sin is the beginning of salvation. The risen Jesus forgave his killers, and all those complicit in one way or another in his death - and that is all of us. We are all caught up in the pervasive sin of the world. To open to his forgiveness, to be saved, all we need is to be guilty, and to recognise it, and to let him forgive us – unconditionally. But, we'll do anything to avoid confronting our own guilt.
At the moment, the world-wide financial meltdown is in full swing. Whom can we blame? the bankers, the CEOs.? Perhaps, but is that all? Who went along with things before the bubble burst? Might we all be guilty, in our different ways, complicit in greed, in thoughtless consumerism, in instant gratification, in exhausting the world's limited resources to sustainor to improve our wasteful standard of living?
The bronze serpent invited the Israelites to see themselves as the problem. The crucified Christ invites us to see ourselves as the problem. Once we own our problem, certain forgiveness can empower us to change. We just have to believe Jesus' unconditional love and forgiveness of the guilty, and let it be, and let it change us - and we begin to experience eternal life, and our world begins to change for the better, and to be saved.
Homily 3 - 2012
Did you notice today's Responsorial Psalm – a beautiful expression of feelings that were anything but beautiful – feelings of profound sadness and loss, feelings of deep depression? The Psalm expressed the desolation of the Hebrew people, enslaved and deported to Babylon. Yet it was from that seedbed of virtual despair that wonderful discoveries came. There, the deported Hebrew people undertook the long, slow journey towards wisdom.
The First Reading captured one of the dawning insights: The Hebrew people’s fate was not a failure on God's part but was their own fault, an inevitable consequence of their deafness to the patient, nurturing, anxiously warning call of God. The God of their ancestors tirelessly sent them messenger after messenger since he wished to spare his people. The author's insight, though a real advance, reflected only a faint step towards the truth. He still saw the nation's eventual destruction and humiliation as an expression of what he believed was the wrath of God - who, though he did not abandon his people, seemed nevertheless to have punished them. So many people, even many Christian people, still see God as a God who punishes violently.
We see such a contrast to that punishing God in the two other Readings we have heard today. Both the Epistle and the Gospel give us profound insights into how God sees us and reaches out to us. As the Epistle puts it: God is generous in mercy, infinitely rich in grace. Perhaps we're too used to the word grace to be alert to its beauty. Grace is graciousness, gratuitous graciousness, sheer giving. God loves us when we are not worth loving, not for anything of our own, not for anything we have done – Even when dead through our sins, God loves us and overwhelms and floods us with life.
The translator gets carried away by enthusiasm, and calls us God's work of art. The original Greek word is "poema" [from which our English word for poem comes]. We are God's poem/God's work of art. I am. You are. It's true. We need to sit with the truth in silence, in silent wonder – especially in those moments or moods when we feel ourselves to be anything but God's work of art.
Then the Gospel takes up a similar message, assuring us that God so loved the world – the world darkened by sin, murderous, blind, vindictive, simmering with hostility. God so loved the world that he sent his Son - right into the middle of it all. And in sending his Son, God virtually handed over himself. He sent his Son not to condemn the world but to save it – to save it from its ingrained hostility and destructiveness and the fearful mess they create.
If you sometimes hear an inner voice condemning you, telling you that you are no good, bad news, brutally hostile to you, it is not the voice of God. [The Hebrew word for Accuser is Satan]. Condemning paralyses; it sucks out energy. Condemning is withdrawing love. When we refuse to follow Jesus' way of love; when we persist in our often unnoticed hostility, we condemn ourselves; we condemn others; we lock into the way of non-love.
The Gospel continued: On these grounds is sentence pronounced – [not by God, but by us!] that, though the light has come into the world, people have shown they prefer darkness to the light. We killed him. But that's not the last word. Back to the Epistle, where Paul was writing to the little Christian community in Ephesus, who were trying to live by the truth, coming out into the light, opting for the way of love: God brought us to life with Christ, and raised us up with him, and gave us a place in heaven, in Christ Jesus.
That is what we say Amen to in every Eucharist, in today's Eucharist: Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honour and glory is yours, for ever and ever.
Homily 4 - 2015
Allowing for exceptions, of course, I would suspect that most of us here are familiar with the comic strip, Peanuts, and its chief character, Charlie Brown. We might even remember Charlie’s remark, “I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand!” Whatever about Charlie, what about God? “God loved the world”, as the Gospel spelt out so clearly. But could it be that there are some people God can’t stand? And could it be at times that I might be one of them?
The catch is that we tend to think that love depends to some extent on how good we are; and we realise that there are times when we know that our behaviour has not been good. I would guess that most of us are not quite sure that God will love us – at least without confession, or some other means to gain God’s pardon. I am not sure that we even like the idea that God loves us, as Paul claims, “not by anything of our own”, “not by anything we have done”. Salvation, forgiveness, is always gift – sheer grace. “Nobody can claim the credit”. I think we might feel safer, more comfortable, if we could have some say in it at least. Otherwise, why bother trying?
Trying what? Why bother trying to win or to deserve God’s love? To judge from what St Paul said, to judge indeed from what today’s Gospel claimed, trying to win God’s love makes no sense. To put it rather beautifully, we are, each of us, already one of “God’s works of art”. That raises another possibility. What about trying simply to enjoy God’s love? That could be eminent sense. Jesus in fact assured us that believing him, believing his love, is “eternal life” [not will be, but already is].
I am not sure which is harder – to believe that God really does love me, or to believe that God loves the world, that is, everyone else, just as much as me, even those who have not tried anywhere nearly as hard as I have. Do I even want God to love them? not just to tolerate them perhaps, but to love them?
God loves the sinful world, the sinners. Just as well, because there is no one who is not. Now God’s loving us means that every person has a God-given dignity – whether we/they realise it or not, whether we/they act from it or not. It is that inviolable dignity of every human person that is the basis of the Church’s teaching about social justice. From the point of view of our human dignity, we are all equal. No one is more significant, more valuable, than another. We may never violate or compromise the human dignity of one individual or social group for the sake of another. The ramifications are immense.
We may not directly kill another for some other worthy cause. We may not kill a child in the womb for the sake of another’s lifestyle or convenience. We may not directly kill another human person in the hope of deterring the activities of drug smugglers, even though their actions may have contributed to the death of innumerable others. We may not sacrifice the dignity of some, hoping to deter others from awkwardly claiming asylum.
It is one thing to proclaim the inviolable human dignity of the person, of every human person. It is another thing to act accordingly, to do something about it. As I look at myself, I ask myself, despite all I say, do I really believe it? Perhaps the answer is not Yes or No. It may be more a question of how much. Where do I start, or improve? I think I need to keep convincing myself of my own dignity – totally unmerited, but real. I am personally loved by God, as I am. If I cannot believe that, really, I will not believe the dignity of others. Which may be why the world is such a distressing mess, two thousand years after Jesus came among us.
Homily 5 - 2021
I find today’s Second Reading from St Paul, and today’s Gospel passage from St John, so wonderful that, instead of giving a homily, I simply want to read them again, slowly and thoughtfully, to give myself and you an opportunity to let their message sink in deeply to our hearts.
I shall start with the Gospel reading from St John. You are familiar with John’s technique: He starts with an incident from Jesus’ life; he then has Jesus engage in conversation with one of the characters in the incident; sometimes has Jesus dialogue cryptically with the character; and then finishes with a longer reflection for the benefit mainly of the Gospel’s readers.
Today’s passage starts with Jesus speaking to Nicodemus:
The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. We shall come back to this in a moment... The passage immediately moves into the reflection for the benefit of the readers [That is us!]. Yes, God loved the world so much... The “world” as it was then, and as it is now - this sinful world that we live in...that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life... “Eternal life” is more than mere immortality — life without end. In John’s Gospel eternal life is our human sharing in God’s life. And when “believing” is mentioned, it means trusting — our trusting in the person and message of Jesus, our entrusting ourselves to Jesus.
For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. God thinks big: God intends to save this "world". No one who believes in him will be condemned: God also thinks in terms of individuals... but those who refuse to believe are condemned already, because they have refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son... Holding back from trusting Jesus and from his way of love is the opposite of eternal life — as is only too clear from the mess we make of our world. The choice is ours, certainly not God’s choice. But can we keep it up in eternity? Who knows.
It was Jesus’ determined choice to love the world, to love us, to the bitter end, even to tortured crucifixion, that gives us the motivation to trust him and his way. At the same time it demonstrates the possibilities of human love. Which brings us back to where the passage started: The Son of Man must be lifted up … [the reference is to the cross] as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
It is wonderful now to listen to what Paul made of God’s love, and particularly of its sheer gratuity... God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ — It has already happened. We need no longer be among the “walking dead”. Somehow we live with the human life of the risen Christ, Jesus... it is through grace that you have been saved — Grace is simply the gracious God loving us gratuitously... and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.
“Heaven” is the experience of personal relationship with God and with all the redeemed — as we are drawn into deep relationship with the risen human Jesus... This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, how infinitely rich he is in grace. Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; As mentioned earlier, faith is simply our entrusting ourselves into the personal relationship that Jesus offers us, and saying “yes” to his way of chosen, deliberate love... not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.
What a way to finish! You are, I am, each of us is, a work of art — “God’s work of art”. If only we would take time to allow the truth, the wonder, to sink in.
Homily 6 - 2024
Today’s Second Reading was relatively short — but packed quite a punch. In its few lines it presented a succinct look at the spirituality of St Paul, at what sourced his energy to work tirelessly in spreading the faith, and eventually to give his life in martyrdom for the cause of the God who loved him, and with him the whole world.
The passage started; “God loved the world so much” — a simple statement, but challenging. I sometimes wonder how much most of us really believe that, how much it affects our spontaneous sense of ourselves. How secure do we feel, for example, under the all-seeing gaze of God? Do we feel God’s knowledge of who we are a bit disconcerting? Paul endeavoured to make his point quite clear: “God loved the world so much that he was generous with his mercy”. This is a secure God, not a touchy God, defensive of his dignity. God knows all about sin. Sin does not faze God. God sees sin, not so much as an offence of himself, as an attitude that undermines our own happiness and with it the happiness of others. Sin leads us into war, into exploitation of our world, its resources and its beauty.
Paul made this point clear, too, going so far as to say: “… when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ”. God sees and names our situation as we sadly are — the ‘walking dead’. We don’t go through life, most of us, bursting with joy. It is God who takes us seriously, God who “raised us up with [Christ] and gave us a place with him in heaven”. Paul saw this as our present reality, not just a possibility for the future. It is hard to get our heads around this. “Life with Christ”, “Heaven” can be a ‘now’ reality.
Why does God do this to us? Because God loves doing it. In the abundance of that love [that is God], God is “generous with his mercy”; and it is all gift — “through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, [God] is infinitely rich in grace”. “Grace” may be a word that we hear and use often without thinking what it means. It is helpful to see grace simply as the ‘practical, specific shape that God’s love takes whenever God reaches out to us’.
In the effort really to convince us that the initiative in the realisation of our salvation is always God’s, Paul insisted: “… it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.”
Hidden within that joyful outpouring of words was the word “faith”: “…by grace that you have been saved, through faith”. “Faith” is also God’s gift. But within God’s generous loving, God also respects the human freedom with which he has graced us all. God’s gratuitous offer of life and salvation needs to be freely accepted by us. It is God’s grace that enables our free acceptance — but we do need to cooperate, explicitly or implicitly. The depth of our trust of Jesus, of our faith in him, will be factors of our personal, cultivated friendship. The sad fact is that too many of us do not make the effort.
As Jesus expressed it all himself: “The kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” “Believe the good news”. Paul did. And to the extent that we do likewise, we also begin to experience “the good life” that God, in his wonderfully generous love, created us for.
A smile lights up our faces.