Homily
31st Sunday in Ordinary Time B
3 November 2013
Christ the King Topeka
Year of Faith
Readings
God is desperately in love with us. God is desperately in love with you. He is yearning for you. He is searching for you.
God is not desperate because he needs us. He did not make creation because he was lonely. He does not need the entertainment that is the ups and downs of our lives. He did not create our freedom in order to test us. No, he is not desperate in that way. He doesn't need us whatsoever. As the book of Wisdom tells us, before the Lord the whole universe is as a single grain in the balance. The whole universe is virtually nothing compared to the greatness of God, no more than a drop of dew on the grass. The whole universe is negligible compared to the glory of God, let alone a single person within it, you or me. God is not desperate for us because he needs us. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yet God is desperate because he makes himself so. He searches for us because He is love, and that is what love does. The book of Wisdom says that God loathes nothing of what he creates. Therefore, even the smallest grain of wheat or drop of dew is known and loved and willed by God, and so much moreso us, made in his image and likeness. We all know that in the scope of the entire universe, we are nothing, no more than a grain of sand, and there is a humility and holiness in this recognition that we are not big and not the center of the universe, nor can we make ourselves so. Our significance comes then insofar as we are known and seen and loved and willed by God. He gives to every living creature by his love for them a significance and a value and a reason for existing that no one else can give.
So much of our lives is geared around trying to do the right thing. We order our lives around our to do lists. What must I accomplish? Specifically, what must I do to please God. In doing so, we are often entering into the trap of beginning with ourselves, and what we must do to gain significance. Yet it is clear that we cannot make ourselves important. Starting with what we must do is the wrong place to start. Our existence and our personhood are gifts that we receive. It is allowing yourself to be seen and known and loved and willed by another that grounds our being.
99% of life then is allowing ourselves to be visited. Zaccheus had a good day in this regard. As we hear in the Gospel, Zaccheus was a small man, not only in height, but having made himself smaller and smaller by selling his soul. He had tried to make himself important through exalting himself, cheating and politicking his way into the position of chief tax collector. This backfired. Yet there remained in him that divine spark that had yet to be extinguished. He wished to see the person who could change him, who could love him at the point of his sinfulness, who could change his heart.
Zaccheus climbed to where he could see God, but more importantly, he put himself in a position where Jesus could see him. And upon seeing him, Jesus wanted to visit Zaccheus more personally. The Lord of the entire universe made himself desperate, and wanted to stay in the home of this wee little man. Zaccheus could not be more different than Mary, and yet there pattern of holiness is the same. Mary's greatness came through her allowing herself to be visited by Jesus. So too Zaccheus. His conversion came through his being seen and known and loved and willed and visited by Jesus.
The moment before we receive communion each week is thus a key moment in our lives; in many ways, more important than anything else we accomplish all week. When we say Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed, we are doing the one thing that leads to greater conversion in our lives than anything else . . . we are allowing the Lord of the universe, the only one who can change us from the inside out, to visit us. We are allowing him to be desperately in love with us. We are allowing him to find us.
31st Sunday in Ordinary Time B
3 November 2013
Christ the King Topeka
Year of Faith
Readings
God is desperately in love with us. God is desperately in love with you. He is yearning for you. He is searching for you.
God is not desperate because he needs us. He did not make creation because he was lonely. He does not need the entertainment that is the ups and downs of our lives. He did not create our freedom in order to test us. No, he is not desperate in that way. He doesn't need us whatsoever. As the book of Wisdom tells us, before the Lord the whole universe is as a single grain in the balance. The whole universe is virtually nothing compared to the greatness of God, no more than a drop of dew on the grass. The whole universe is negligible compared to the glory of God, let alone a single person within it, you or me. God is not desperate for us because he needs us. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yet God is desperate because he makes himself so. He searches for us because He is love, and that is what love does. The book of Wisdom says that God loathes nothing of what he creates. Therefore, even the smallest grain of wheat or drop of dew is known and loved and willed by God, and so much moreso us, made in his image and likeness. We all know that in the scope of the entire universe, we are nothing, no more than a grain of sand, and there is a humility and holiness in this recognition that we are not big and not the center of the universe, nor can we make ourselves so. Our significance comes then insofar as we are known and seen and loved and willed by God. He gives to every living creature by his love for them a significance and a value and a reason for existing that no one else can give.
So much of our lives is geared around trying to do the right thing. We order our lives around our to do lists. What must I accomplish? Specifically, what must I do to please God. In doing so, we are often entering into the trap of beginning with ourselves, and what we must do to gain significance. Yet it is clear that we cannot make ourselves important. Starting with what we must do is the wrong place to start. Our existence and our personhood are gifts that we receive. It is allowing yourself to be seen and known and loved and willed by another that grounds our being.
99% of life then is allowing ourselves to be visited. Zaccheus had a good day in this regard. As we hear in the Gospel, Zaccheus was a small man, not only in height, but having made himself smaller and smaller by selling his soul. He had tried to make himself important through exalting himself, cheating and politicking his way into the position of chief tax collector. This backfired. Yet there remained in him that divine spark that had yet to be extinguished. He wished to see the person who could change him, who could love him at the point of his sinfulness, who could change his heart.
Zaccheus climbed to where he could see God, but more importantly, he put himself in a position where Jesus could see him. And upon seeing him, Jesus wanted to visit Zaccheus more personally. The Lord of the entire universe made himself desperate, and wanted to stay in the home of this wee little man. Zaccheus could not be more different than Mary, and yet there pattern of holiness is the same. Mary's greatness came through her allowing herself to be visited by Jesus. So too Zaccheus. His conversion came through his being seen and known and loved and willed and visited by Jesus.
The moment before we receive communion each week is thus a key moment in our lives; in many ways, more important than anything else we accomplish all week. When we say Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed, we are doing the one thing that leads to greater conversion in our lives than anything else . . . we are allowing the Lord of the universe, the only one who can change us from the inside out, to visit us. We are allowing him to be desperately in love with us. We are allowing him to find us.
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