what do you need to let go of?

Homily
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
24 February 2019
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

I am the enemy.  You are the enemy.  We are the enemy.

We have to start here.  Before we begin a conversation about loving our enemies, which we will indeed have in a moment, we have to acknowledge that we are the enemy.  We have sinned against God, whom we should love above all things.  He has forgiven us.  God shows his mercy in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  There can be no question that before Jesus dares to ask us to love our enemies, he has first loved us in this way.  Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.  Talk about a guy that walks the walk.

Each week I try to dare you and myself to be real Christians.  I hate lukewarm Catholicism.  It is so worthless.  I hate it in myself.  So I try to preach to myself and then to you each week, daring us together to be real Christians.

This week the dividing line between real and fake Christians is love of enemies.  The commandment is repeated twice by Jesus.  Jesus asks us to imitate him by giving and forgiving without counting the cost.  Without expecting anything back.  This is the brand promise that we strive for here at St. Lawrence.  There is never a hidden agenda.  We try to give because that is who we are.  We forgive because that is who Jesus is.  What happens next is up to God, and we happily place judgement in his hands.

Believe it or not - but I hope you believe it - the Catholic Church is not here at KU to control your behavior and make you perfect little Catholics, so we can tell everyone how great we are in getting you to go to Church, when nobody expects you to come.  Gee whiz that would be a pathetic goal.  No we are here to give and to forgive, without a hidden agenda, without counting the cost, so that everyone here is known and seen and loved.  We are here to invite you to the freedom and fullness of following Jesus.  That's it. That's our brand promise. Call us out if we don't live up to it.

What does this freedom and fullness look like?  Here's a stab at it.  Listen to Jesus.  'Nobody takes my life from me.  I freely give it.  Can you repeat these words of Jesus honestly in your own life?  'Nobody takes my life from me. I freely give it.'  If you can drink this cup that Christ drinks, I dare say that like Him you are truly free.  I dare say that you are a real Christian.  I dare say that you get in your bones what my hero John Paul II described as the 'law of the gift.' 

It was no surprise when after being shot in an assassination attempt in 1981, John Paul II personally forgave and reconciled with the man who shot him, face to face.  It was a no brainer for a saint like John Paul.   For the Gospel teaches us how to love our enemies, how to throw a pre-emptive strike that robs the ability of anyone to take our life.  'Nobody takes my life from me.  I freely lay it down.'

This is real and powerful Christianity.  To choose what to die for long before death can choose us.  To choose love long before hatred can ever gain a foothold in our heart.  To choose giving long before anyone can take anything from us. To choose mercy long before an enemy can hurt us.  This is the ultimate pre-emptive strike, and the hallmark of a real Christian. 

To be free is to be able to tell anyone who would hurt us that it's too late.  Everything is already given and forgiven. In the law of the gift, all is grace and all is mercy. These gifts from God are never meant to be stifled by hatred or rivalry, but are to freely flow in and out of us.  This is the meaning of true freedom.

iGen or Generation Z - a generation born after 1997 which makes up the largest percentage of you all in the pews today, reports to be the most anxious generation in history.  What the heck are you so anxious about?  I dare say it's because too much is measured.  The Gospel says everything is mercy and grace - all if gift..  Around us though, everything has a price, with strings attached.  .  Without thinking we judge everyone and everything.  We compare without end.  It all leads to terrible anxiety - fear of not being enough or having enough, of running out of love, relationship, time, energy, status, money - the list never ends.  Which is why Jesus' words have to find a way to take hold in this generation, your generation - somehow, someway.  Stop judging, and you will not be judged!

Our pivotal question this week is a good one. What do you need to let go of? I'll kick off the reflection with two answers.  The first is that I need to let go of the fear of running out.  The law of tonight's Gospel is simple but hard to trust.  If we want more of something, then give what we have away.  I need to let go of my fear of really trying this.  Of course we all need to be prudent, but we need more to dare the truth that unless we are generous, we are going to run out - of time, energy, faith, hope, love, relationship, status and money.  It will all run out, unless we let go of our need to control.

The second thing I need to let go of is my grudges.  I bet you have some too.  So I'm going to put it to myself and to you straight tonight.  You ready?  You're going to get hurt badly in life.  You will hurt others badly too.  It is scary what we are capable of.  I dropped a good friend a few years ago cold turkey because I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the relationship.  I stopped giving, and hurt the person really badly.  A couple years later a good friend did the same to me.  I was dropped and betrayed and dumped as a friend.  It sucked and I thought I deserved better.

Guess what?  Jesus feels and is present to all of it.  We can take all of this junk to the cross, where he knows betrayal.  He feels the worst thing we have done and the worst thing that has happened to us. And he says so what - there is something greater.  He says we really do have the power to forgive in advance.  If we are real Christians nobody takes our lives from us.  We freely give them.  Not counting the cost, and expecting nothing in return.  We can do this, because He has done it for us, and wants to do it now through us.

St. John Vianney described this pre-emptive strike in this way.  Jesus forgets how we will hurt him tomorrow so that He can forgive us today.

I invite you now to make a similar consecration to mercy with your life.  Give everything that you have or are or ever will be to Jesus, and give to him anyone that you have harmed or will harm, and everyone who has harmed or will ever harm you. I am asking you for the rest of your life to live this Gospel - give to everyone who asks of you, and love your enemies.

I know I'm asking you for a lot.  But didn't we come tonight to dare a real Christianity?  Didn't we come to become truly free?

What do you need to let go of?

where do you find hope?

Homily
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas
17 February 2019

You were not made for comfort.  You were made for greatness.  This quote from Pope Benedict XVI can't be repeated enough.  At least not for me.  I get so easily seduced by what the world tells me to want.  By the instant gratification that is always at my fingertips.  I get duped by my ability to purchase and be entertained.  I lose my soul in the endless ways that I can make my life easier by getting what I want when I want it.  Yet it's not what I was made for.  I am not made for comfort, but for greatness.

Is your Christian faith exciting?  Has it in any way lost its zip?  It's scary how easily our religion can become dull or dead, simply a checkbox or an insurance plan.  Yet that's not what faith is for.  Faith if it is worth anything is about daring greatness.  It is about taking risks.  It is about going for more.  If being a Christian is anything less than a call to the most compelling kind of life, then the religion is worthless.  Christianity can never be an escape for naive cowards. If it's not the religion that writes the greatest human stories of all time, then to hell with it.

St. Paul reminds us as much, alongside Pope Benedict, in today's second reading.  To be a Christian can never been anything less than a call to a supernatural greatness not confined to the limits of time and space and matter.  If for this world only we have hoped in Christ, he says, then we are the most pitiable people of all.  I don't want to be pitiable.  I want to be great.  Don't you?

Fear and doubt are always creeping in though, trying to turn our religion into something tame and predictable.  Against these, we must dare always two things if we dare to call ourselves Christian.  First, we must dare to love in a way that conquers all things, even death itself - a love that shows its power in the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Second, we must stir up that desire to see God face to face in heaven.

Unless we dare these two things, which are uniquely Christian, and unless we dare them greatly, our story is not a Christian story.  Here at St. Lawrence we are passionate about guiding great stories - your story if you will let us.  Yet it's our equal conviction that our stories can take on a fuller and more dynamic dimension when they are written in conversation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What are the marks of a great Christian story?  Of course there has to be a hero who dares greatly.  Nobody should or would watch our story if the goal is to get comfortable.  The beatitudes from the Gospel of St. Luke today add another critical dimension to story.  The beatitudes say there is no great story unless the hero overcomes great conflict.  Happy is the one, says the Lord, who is poor or hungry or crying or discouraged.  Blessed are they, because only such people are moving in their story from comfort to greatness.

In Christian speak this great pattern of every story is also known as the universal call to holiness.  It's easy to forget this call - we have to be reminded over and over and over.  How easily we forget that our faith only comes alive, and we are only Christians, when each of us and all of us as Catholics together, receive this invitation to become the saints of this generation as only we can.  A hero that dares greatness and dares Christian things is a saint.  It is a call inherent in our baptism.  It is a call that always needs to be stirred up.  Our faith is only compelling insofar as we pursue with great risk and self-abandonment the call to love exactly like Jesus and to become fully alive in God.  Our faith is worthless unless it also honestly embraces the great tragedy our life is if we fail to become a saint.

So again, we are to dare two things.  First, to conquer death through love, and second, to never stop striving to become more like God.  These two supernatural goals do not detract from the hopes and dreams that find their fulfillment in this world.  Yet they ensure that our lives never end in comfort, but in greatness.  The beauty of being a Christian is that there is always something more.  We are made in the image and likeness of God, so our capacity to become like Him admits of no final resting place unless and until we arrive where He has finally invited us - to see Him face to face.

This is why the beatitudes are the commandments for saints.  For as the Lord tells us, if we are full already, we have failed to set our hearts on the greater things that last forever. If we are comfortable now, we have settled or quit in some way that is deeply disappointing for a Christian.

God loves me and believe in me too much to let me settle or quit when I am made for more.  Yet it takes hope to set our hearts on the two things a Christian must dare.  Hope is that supernatural virtue that corresponds to our supernatural end.  Hope confirms that we will persevere in a love that is stronger than death, and we will see God face to face, when we are tempted to settle or quit.

Our pivotal question is this . . where do you find hope?  We all need it.  I can feel when life is inviting me to the couch instead of to the battlefield.  I bet you can too. So where do we find hope to overcome this pull toward comfort and away from greatness? Where do you find it?

Thankfully, this question is easy for me to answer again this week.  Last week, I told you I find strength in those who believe in me, pray for me and sacrifice for me.  This week God fills me with supernatural hope again through the people around me.  I can think of so many people who fit the beatitudes-  who are poor, hungry, crying and discouraged at this time, but who refuse to settle or quit.  Shame on me if I quit when those who have it harder than me are striving toward the greatness for which they are made.

I hope your friends give you as much hope as my friends give me.  If not, get some better friends.

Where do you find hope?