13th Sunday Year C - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2010

Tonight’s Gospel shows a determined Jesus: Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem. He takes on his destiny; and he knows its likely outcome. He is a man with a mission – deeply conscious of being sent by his Father; and, at the same time, equally convinced of and totally dedicated to the “why” of his response.

Both he and the Father shared the one vision, inspired by the one love. He knew the God-given dignity of every person. He respected the God-given dignity of every person. He was fully aware that most people had little sense of their own dignity and worth and, what was equally appalling, little sense of and respect for the dignity and worth of others.

He lived in a world, not unlike our world, where the other was spontaneously seen, not as brother or sister, but as threat, rival or competitor; and where relationships were governed not by care and compassion but by power, by calculation and by violence.

Just check out even the two disciples, James and John: Do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up.

The world could be otherwise. Jesus longed for it to be otherwise – Don’t we all!! I suspect that our being here tonight expresses in some way our own equivalent of the enthusiasm of the men on the road –already on the road of discipleship – of the one who said: I will follow you wherever you go .. though, perhaps, sometimes more like the one who added: Lord. I will follow you, but …

Jesus knew he couldn’t take on the world alone. He also knew, only too clearly, that precisely given the way the world was, given its chronic failure to of recognise human dignity and human possibility, and given its propensity for violence, any effort to call people to change – to genuine change, indeed, to the radical change of heart needed – would be resisted. It would cost him his life – literally.

And for us, disciples also on the road, our own commitment to the way of consistent, and relentless respect and love for our own dignity and for others, does mean continuing, ever deepening, death to the self-made self – the ego, until the true self, Christed at our baptism, can burst free and blossom.

I think that, for most of us, Jesus’ call of: Follow me .. your duty is to go and spread the news of the kingdom of God does not mean doing more. For most of you, your lives are already full, perhaps, for some, toofull.

One way or the other, you’re constantly in contact with family, neighbours, friends, work mates and so on. Spreading the good news of the kingdom of God may mean no more than being present to them, consistently respecting them – especially the ones who differ from you – guided by your sense of Jesus’ values and of Jesus’ approach to life.

And for that? That is where your prayer comes in, your quiet reflection on what you’re doing, your deliberate chewing over the Gospel passages that you hear here in Church week after week or read day after day at home.

May we all go forth from this Mass tonight, empowered and resolute, to spread the news of the kingdom of God.