4th Sunday Lent C - Homily 4

 Homily 4 - 2016

I am very conscious of you, Rebecca and Stacey, as I reflect today on the Readings. But at the same time, I hope that everyone else, too, will be listening. And that includes me, as well.  I love the Second Reading – Paul writing to the new disciples at Corinth, “For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation … It is all God’s work.” [Thanks, Paul!] Stacey and Rebecca, how do you make sense of what is happening to you – the unaccustomed spring in the step? the new sparkle in the eye? Where do they come from? I hope they come from your closer cooperation in God’s dream for you – a quiet sense of God calling you, a deeper realisation of God loving you. “It is all God’s work!” What thrills me is your choice to join this Church at a time when a lot of others are choosing to leave it.  When so many feel bewildered, confused, angry and torn, you feel attracted, aware of its sheer goodness, beauty and the sense it seems to make.  

I believe that one aspect of belonging to the “new creation” is that we begin to see and to think, as it were, like God. God’s firm, non-negotiable entry point into creation is simply love. Let us never take it for granted. Let us not even think we truly understand it. Love will always be mystery, and the more we come to explore it, the more fascinating it becomes. Persons who love begin to think differently – in terms of “both/and”. They can hold extremes together in tension without denying either. Is the Church holy? or sinful? The eyes of many people today are fixated on the Church’s sinfulness. Others, particularly among those who still come to Church, are into denial or avoidance, instinctively defensive of the Church. To the extent that we learn to love, we can see that the Church is both holy and sinful. We are attracted by its goodness, deeply saddened by its sinfulness – at the same time.

We can also learn to see ourselves. We gratefully accept our radical dignity. At the same time, we mourn that we have spoilt that dignity by our sin. We need to hold both experiences together in tension. To ignore our dignity is to live without hope; to ignore our sin leads to hypocrisy and cover-up. God’s unstoppable love takes shape in forgiveness, and calls us beyond forgiveness to mutual intimacy and reconciliation. Indeed, only when we begin to believe God’s forgiveness can we really see and own our sin without being crushed by it. For some reason we easily resist the offer. So did many of the Corinthian disciples, which is why Paul felt compelled to write: “God was reconciling the world to himself, not holding people’s faults against them… and the appeal that we make in Christ’s name is: Be reconciled to God!” It is a cry that we need to hear as individual disciples. It is a cry that the Church as institution needs to hear and seek to respond to.

If today’s Gospel story were real life and not simply parable, I would wonder if either son, younger or older, really discovered the truth of his father. The younger one, the obvious sinner, had the better chance. In the embrace that enveloped him he could perhaps feel the father’s throbbing heart and hear the quiet sobbing. I agree with the observation of a fourteenth century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, “We need to fail … If we never fell, we should never know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves; nor should we fully appreciate the astonishing love of our Maker… We sin grievously in this life: yet despite all this … it makes no difference at all to God’s love, and we are no less precious in God’s sight.”

Rebecca and Stacey, as you continue your journey into the heart of God, my advice is not to seek the smart answers, but the bracing freshness of wonder.