Homily: Holiness During Dark Times

President Deacon Christopher Roberts homily from the vigil Mass for the 25th Sunday in ordinary time, year A

Isaiah 55:6-9

Psalm 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18

Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a

Matthew 20:1-16a

I love the Poconos. I take my daughters up there a couple times a year for camping, hiking, and biking. We especially love rafting on the Lehigh River.

Apparently though, there is trouble in paradise. The other day I read in the news that because sea levels are rising, more salt water is flowing upstream in the Delaware River. That’s a problem, because most of Philadelphia’s drinking water comes from the Delaware. In response, the Army Corps of Engineers is looking at ways of channeling more fresh water to the Delaware. That, in turn, means altering the way water is released from a certain dam up in the Poconos, on the Lehigh.

And, if they change the way the Lehigh flows, the unintended side effect will be to ruin or at least profoundly change things for all the fishermen, boaters, and businesses that depend on the way the river is now. 

When I saw all this on the news, I was upset, discouraged. Something precious to our family – regular retreats into the wilderness – was being put in jeopardy by big things, things happening to the whole planet, changes so big that no matter how hard I try, I’m basically powerless. I said out loud, both to my wife and to God, I said “Really? After all the other crazy things happening in 2020, this too? The pandemic, the election, the racism, the riots: can’t anything be simple?”

But as soon as I said that out loud, one of my favorite Bible verses came into my mind. It’s from the Old Testament book of Habakkuk, chapter three, and it goes like this: 

For though the fig tree blossom not,

nor fruit be on the vines…

Though the yield of the olive fail

and the terraces produce no nourishment…

Though the flocks disappear from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls…

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord

and exult in my saving God.

That verse is also precious to me, because it reminds me that people who wrote the Bible knew all about famine, drought, plague, bandits, lawlessness, and oppression – they knew about those problems far more directly than me. And yet…they praised God anyway. God’s covenant with Israel and the incarnation of Jesus Christ - everything in the Bible happened in a context even more dangerous and unpredictable than America in 2020. 

How can we be like that? How can we become, like our ancestors in faith, people who loved the Lord, who walked with him through thick and thin?

I believe that God loves us. I trust Jesus when he says that God counts every hair on our heads. But I also believe it would be a great mistake to confuse our material prosperity with God’s spiritual care. Sometimes God might bless or console us by sending peace and prosperity, but those things are only means to an end, not the main point. As it says in our first reading, God’s ways are not our ways. God’s point is for us to grow in holiness, to grow in intimacy with him.Today’s parable tells us we don’t earn salvation. God is generous with what we need for holiness. It’s not about what we think we earn, it’s not about making us comfortable, it’s not about what we think we deserve.

Here’s what it’s about: God desires to expand our hearts so that we can love with his love. In the sacraments and the life of the Church, God is elevating us, drawing us to himself, not accommodating to our limits, but raising us up so we can know him. Everything God does is to move us from sin into holiness, so we can share in his inner life. Our basic posture towards God is receptive, letting him work on us, letting him bring us into communion with him.

Suffering – in small ways or big ways – does not have to be an obstacle. Indeed, suffering can be a help for communion. We’re sinners, we like our comforts and prerogatives, but God is patient. He wants to grow us, to prepare us, so that we can offer our lives back to him, the same offering that Jesus made on Good Friday. Redemption happens. Reconciliation with all that is holy, and unity with all that is good – these things are possible. But: we get there by means of the cross. That’s what we sign up for with baptism and confirmation, when we confess that we need God’s mercy, when we show up at the Eucharist and present ourselves at this altar.

So, none of us know how much crazier this year can get. Is the pandemic winding down, or is it just getting started? Who’s going to win the election, and what’s that going to mean? Will there be racial reconciliation, or are the tensions going to get worse? How about the economy? What is the future of our parish, our school, our archdiocese? If you’ve got a crystal ball, let the rest of us know.

In the meantime, we’re going to pray and praise the Lord. We’ve got families to love, a young new school to build, our own hearts to reconfigure. Starting with this Eucharist. The fig tree might not blossom, the fruit might not be on the vine, the olive trees may fail, and the flock may disappear…but we will praise the Lord.