27th Sunday Year C - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

As a world community, we don’t seem to have learnt much over the last two and a half millennia. 650 years before Christ, Habakkuk lamented to God: Why do you set injustice before me, why do you look on where there is tyranny? Outrage and violence, this is all I see, all is contention, and discord flourishes. A lot of people in the world today could make the same cry. Closer to home, the situation is not so drastic. Perhaps, in some ways, some have never had it so good.

Yet, as individuals, from time to time, the wrestle with God continues. “Why? Why me? And after all the effort I have made to be good!” The puzzled questioning often arises spontaneously… in the minds of people diagnosed with terminal illness, as well as of those who love them. Apparently, the insistence of the questioning passes with time, but only because other agendas take centre stage. For many the question remains unanswered.

Today we observe International Hospice Care Day. A number of the families of those who were recipients of the gracious caring - and the carers themselves - have joined us for our celebration.

I think that it is important that we respect the deep questions of those confronted with suffering and death – whether it’s their own, or that of those they love or care for. The response Habakkuk received sounds perhaps a bit simplistic: The upright man will live by his faithfulness. (By faithfulness, he meant people’s capacity to trust the inherent goodness of God.)

The same need for faith, for trusting God, surfaced in the Gospel reading: The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

In his letter to the Romans, St Paul wrote: God makes all thing work together for the good of those who love him..”. A wonderful English mystic of the chaotic fourteenth century, Julian of Norwich, wrote: All will be well; all will be well; all manner of thing will be well. That’s OK.But how do you know? More importantly: How can you be at peace with that?

The conclusion is certainly not obvious. But the insight seems to come with growth in maturity, or with a developing intimacy with God. Habakkuk came to recognise it. Paul seems to have learnt it. Julian, the mystic, seemed wonderfully at peace with it. And I would be inclined to think that a lot of you have learnt it, too, perhaps almost without noticing it.

In my limited experience of people dying, most of the ones I have known have finished up dying peacefully. Sometimes their peace may simply have been due to their loss of energy.

Others see the grace of God at work. In my observation, one important factor is the presence around them of those who love them. The experience of being loved, of being respected, of being treated as important, is mysteriously comforting and reassuring, and a real source of acceptance and peace.

We have been so blessed of recent years that the whole Hospice Care project has come into being. We can be grateful not just for its existence but for its quality: its professionalism, and especially the courteous tenderness of the carers. Their service and respect have enabled so many to find peace in themselves, to say “yes” to their own dignity, and to find courage to surrender to the gentle Mystery awaiting them beyond death.