Homily – Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (2018)

[4:00 PM – With us this afternoon is the Bishop Watterson’s men’s soccer team. I am grateful and appreciative of Head Coach Ed Mikula – a parishioner and strong Christian man – who works hard to keep faith in Catholic sports and who also sees sports as a means to build disciples – if they can train and compete on the field at the level that they do, then they can certain fearlessly and confidently share God’s love with others. Good luck in your season and God’s blessing on your lives as Christian men.] With this weekend’s readings, we continue our Lectionary detour, if you will. With Mark being the shortest of the three synoptic Gospels, we have this opportunity to pull from the Gospel of John to help fill-out the Sundays of Ordinary Time in Year B. And that’s where we have been for the past couple weeks and where we will be for the next couple of weeks. Specifically, we are reading Jesus’ discourse on the bread of life in Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. It began with the Gospel’s author telling of the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 men, we moved then to Jesus’ discourse with his disciples and Jewish leaders about wisdom and truth and life, and then it will conclude with the topic of what we know now as the Eucharist. Father John has done wonderfully in walking us through this discourse over the past couple weeks. And just last weekend, he stressed Jesus’ point of caution of the futility of most earthly endeavors - a trap I too easily get consumed by! And then he left us with a great cliffhanger to ponder for this Sunday’s Gospel: because Jesus loves us, Father John stated, Jesus wants us to give our hearts to the right thing, and then he said next week you will learn more clearly what that right thing is. Father John had me hooked and I was eager to ponder that over the week and then hear what the right thing was, until I remembered that I was scheduled to preach this weekend and so I became the one murmuring just like we read of the Jews in today’s Gospel! Just kidding. While the cliffhanger that Father John left us with last weekend may not be quite that of the vote tally in the 12th District special election, Father John did leave us with a timeless question to ponder this week. And Jesus does give us that answer in today’s Gospel. Jesus wants us to give our hearts to God. And here is why: First, Jesus states in today’s Gospel that we cannot come to God unless the Father draws us to Him. The good news is that the Father does draw us to Him. In fact, He wants nothing more than for us to come to Him. And how do we know that? Because he made us, he made us his image and likeness, he made is good, and He sent his Son to lead us to him. Which brings me to the second take away from today’s Gospel. Jesus promises us that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. Jesus states that he is the bread of life and whoever eats this bread will live forever. It is by what Jesus taught and even more powerfully by what he did that we may know life. And, we believe that it is in and with and through Jesus that we may know and experience intimately and fully life now and eternally. This, my brothers and sisters, is what Jesus wants us to give our hearts to! I will pass the baton back to Father John to carry us, over the next couple of weeks, through the rest of this discourse by Jesus and to address (arguably) some of the most difficult words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels - how’s that for a cliffhanger! In the meantime, staying with today’s readings, there are several important insights about how we can give our hearts to the right thing, again using Father John’s words. First, we must be open to knowledge and truth. We can sense from Jesus his frustration and even a sadness toward those hearing his words but who are still closed to his message. I love his persistence despite those murmuring at his message and even attacking him personally, and as we will hear in the weeks to come that it was not only Jewish leaders who were murmuring but even his own disciples. But Jesus in his great love for us preservers – how wonderful is that for us! Further, Saint Paul in today's second reading challenges us to be imitators of God as beloved children and to live in love as Christ loved us. Following Christ’s example, truly this is what it means to give our hearts to God. See, God is calling us to do incredible things: to love as God loves, to forgive as God forgives. And as Paul reminds us, we have been given this great gift – the gift of the Holy Spirit – to help us to know where to give our heart; but too often it is something we grieve (using Paul’s words), or dread or even reject. So Paul rightly urges us to remove all bitterness and fury and anger and shouting and all malice from our heart and our mind and in turn to be kind to one another and compassionate, so that we can then be free to give our hearts to God. And it’s for this reason that I am so on fire with the work happening in our parish to build disciples. Whether it’s our Alpha program (and will hear more about that in the coming weeks), or That Man Is You supporting authentic Christian men in our parish, or the wonderful ministry of Walking With Purpose, which is building a strong community of passionate Catholic women who know God‘s love and are sharing that love with others, and through so many others activities and ministries in our parish, we are being equipped and empowered to set our hearts the right thing! And this leads me to my final point. In today’s First Reading, God provided Elijah with the food he needed to be able to have the strength to continue on his journey and his mission. And as we have heard in prior weeks, God gave to Elisha and to the Israelites in their moments of need the food that they needed - not only physical food but spiritual food - to give them the strength and the reassurance that they needed to continue. And how true is that for us now. God will provide for us in our moments of need. To be clear, it may not be what we want but it is what we need. Our God who desires nothing more than to draw us to him, Our God who is the bread of life that leads to eternal life will give us what we need to give our hearts to the right thing – to Him. He gives us the courage, the wisdom, the strength, the fortitude - or whatever it is that we need most, at this moment, at this time – in the midst of uncertainty, loss, pain, fear, doubt – God will give us what we need so that we, in turn, may give our hearts to the right thing. May God bless you.