Homily for the 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/060808.shtml

Hosea the prophet in today's first reading criticizes those who push the panic button and expect God to save them in the time of affliction. In a time of affliction, it seems that many people are willing to 'bargain with God - to make promises and to offer sacrifices so that a bad outcome might be avoided. Hosea likens such piety, however, to a morning cloud, or to the dew which is there in the morning but that quickly passes away in the heat of day. Hosea reminds us that most anyone can begin to 'bargain' with God when they are faced with difficulties. Rare, however is the person who realizes that God does not desire our last minute bargains, for there is nothing that we can offer Him that He does not already have. He desires only that we know Him and love Him, readily and consistently, so that we might have the abundant life that comes from sharing in His mind, in His heart and in His life.

Abraham and Matthew, though very distinct characters, to be sure, turn out to be in today's scriptures the ones whom Hosea would recognize as knowing and loving God. Abraham, being our father in faith, is wise enough to know that with God, all things are possible. Abraham was not naive in his faith. He knew as well as anyone that the laws of nature made it unlikely for him at 100+ years of age and his barren wife Sarah to have a child, yet he hoped against hope that God would be true to the promise He had made to make Abraham the father of many nations. By describing Abraham as one who hoped against hope, St. Paul distinguishes the natural virtue of hope in things that are theoretically possible, such as the Royals winning the World Series this year, from the supernatural virtue of hope, which trusts in God's ability, since He is more necessary than the universe, to change the laws of the universe anytime He chooses. The story of the birth of Isaac shows that for one who has faith like Abraham, it is never unreasonable to have confidence in the Lord's promises, no matter if the Lord is promising to give a son to Abraham and Sarah or if the Lord Jesus Himself is promising to rise from the dead after three days in the tomb. As great of a miracle as the birth of Isaac was, we know that this miracle, and all those performed in human history to make faith in God more reasonable, are but precursors to the greatest miracle there ever was and ever will be, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Abraham's faith in God's promise to him was credited to him as righteousness, and he enjoyed many blessings from God and became the father of many nations. But Abraham himself, from his place in heaven, would tell us all I think, that his faith that he would be given a son despite all odds pales to the faith that is required of each one of us who attends this Mass tonight. We are to believe not simply that God will bless us abundantly in this life, we are to hope against hope that the bread and wine we place on the altar will be changed right before us into the body and blood of Christ. We are to believe that whoever eats this flesh and drinks this blood, will never die, but will live forever, for the Lord's flesh is true food, and His blood is true drink, that wells up to eternal life. We are called to hope against hope that through this sacred exchange, we will become one flesh with our Lord, inseparably united to Him who once was dead, but who now lives forever. We are to have faith that through tonight's celebration, we participate in the greatest miracle the world has ever known or will ever know, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Abraham, our father in faith, would be the first to tell us that compared to faith in the Eucharist, the greatest gift God has given to the world, faith in the gift of a son in his old age was small.

Matthew emerges as a character in today's Gospel who can help us if our faith is not up to the challenge that I just described. Remarkably, Matthew's sinful behavior did not damage his hope or his faith like it does for most of us. Most of us buy into the equation that the more we sin, the less we can expect God to love us and to call us to do something beautiful for Him. Most of us would consider ourselves less righteous and less worthy than Abraham, and so we expect to have less faith in God and less love for Him than Abraham did. It should shock us then, that Jesus chooses a man like Matthew to shame us into realizing that being a sinner does not have to destroy our faith or our readiness to respond to God's call in a generous way. Most of us living decent lives would consider ourselves more righteous that Matthew, a public sinner and a tax collector, and so we would assume that we have more faith in God and more love of God than did Matthew. But Matthew's response shows a remarkable thing - his sinful behavior did not destroy his hope that God could love Him at the point of his greatest sin, and what is more, his sinful past did not destroy his hope that God could call Him to be an apostle. When Jesus called, Matthew responded as simply as did the Virgin Mary, who was sinless. Though different in their sins, the Virgin Mary and Matthew both immediately said yes to their vocations. Matthew got up and followed Jesus.

It is Matthew, then, who can help us in a most profound way this evening as we approach the Holy Eucharist. Of course we should avoid sin with every ounce of energy that we have, for sin can and does destroy God's life within us. We should hate our sins with a perfect hate, and go to confession as often as we can in order to break any momentum that sin has in our lives. Yet Matthew shows us that we are wrong to assume that we must first become perfect through our own power before we can respond to the call of Jesus in our lives. We do not have to lower our expectations of what God desires from us, nor do we have to disqualify ourselves from God's love because of this sin or that sin. Matthew shows us that the worst thing is not being a sinner - the worst thing is keeping Jesus at arm's length until we think we are more ready or more worthy for His love. I'm afraid that our deeply rooted assumptions that Jesus must love us like everyone else does, for our great qualities first and then for our sins only because He has to, keep us from fully entering into the miracle of the Eucharist that is set before us tonight. Jesus chooses Matthew not in spite of his weakeness, but because of it, because He wants to show all of us that His love for us is unique. He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners - this means, of course, that Jesus' love for us is unique because it is divine, and it is a love that goes far beyond reason, beginning to love a person at His most unlovable point. It is because Jesus begins loving us as sinners before He loves us as saints that He can say to His Father that He has not lost one of those whom the Father gave Him. Through the calling of Matthew, Jesus discourages all of us from pursuing a piety that would have us thinking ourselves more righteous than sinners, a piety that would make us compare ourselves more to Abraham than to Matthew. As great as the miracle shown to Abraham was because of his faith, the miracle shown to a sinner, Matthew, was much greater. Jesus worries most of all that we might misunderstand his love and so fail to understand why it was necessary for him to eat with tax collectors and sinners.

By placing ourselves in the situation of Matthew, we are ready to believe in the unique love that our Savior has for us sinners. Through the experience of such rich mercy, we can perhaps be more ready to say, as Matthew did on the day He was called, that Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.