HOMILY - Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (2018)

Soon after college, I worked for a political campaign - thinking that I might want to get into government or politics some day. I was working for George Voinovich’s campaign, and whatever you may think of him as a politician, what struck me was his deep Catholic faith. It was during a campaign event for him, in which I recall helping to celebrate our state motto that was being memorialized on the grounds of state capitol. Its our state motto, With God All Things Are Possible, that is from the Gospel of Matthew and parallels the passage in today’s Gospel: All things are possible for God. I will sometimes think about those days in my 20s and what I thought God was calling me to do, and then to fast forward to today, 20-25 years later, and still find myself wrestling with the same question: what do I want to be when I grow up, or maybe better, what is it that God is calling me to do. What is more clear today for me than it was in my 20s is: God‘s great love for me. Despite the challenges I may experience today, as a father, as a husband, and as a deacon, I am filled with joy in God‘s love, which I know and experience daily. And for this reason, I can say with confidence that I know God‘s love, that I know he has a plan for me, and that I trust in the plan he has for me - even if it seems impossible to me, even when I get discouraged and feel like I am failing. So today’s readings are wonderful boost in the arm. As we just sang in the Psalm: we pray for God to fill us with his love and then we will sing for joy. Simply put: In God’s love we find joy. In God‘s kindness, in his gracious care for us, and in his mercy, we experience joy despite any hardship, loss, pain, embarrassment, we can still experience joy in God’s love for us! Even more, this love is an incredibly intimate love, as today second reading reminds us. It is a love that is living and effective in the Word of God, Jesus Christ. As the letter to the Hebrews says: Jesus’ love for us is sharper than any two edged sword and this love penetrates between soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is a love, on one hand, that leaves us totally exposed and naked because it is close and personal, but also at the same time a love that allows us to freely choose to be in of this love relationship - how wonderful is that! And today’s Gospel tells us even more about this incredible, intimate love relationship God has for us. As we read in today’s gospel, Jesus knew what was on this man’s heart and mind, what was keeping him from truly entering into this love relationship, and what was keeping him from leaving everything to follow him – for him it was his wealth and money. In the same way, Jesus knows, intimately and personally, what keeps us from entering, fully and completely, into this love relationship with Him – while not all of us are called to leave everything and follow Jesus, we are all called to leave behind anything that will keep us from or hold us back from following Jesus. Our wonderful God know what that is, and out of true love, he does not force a decision from us, rather He allows us to freely choose – that is true love.   See, Jesus knows our wants and desires, he knows what uniquely fills us with joy and what motivates us; He also knows the pain in our hearts and our minds, our loneliness and our anger, and He knows our frustration and our pride, AND he knows what keeps us from loving him. I suspect that if we spend some time, anytime, we can quickly discern for ourselves, if we don’t know for already, what keeps us from fully entering into relationship with God, what is keeping us from following Jesus. But this is what is required of us to be in relationship: we must have the awareness of what prevents us from following Jesus. He wants us to be in this relationship, but He will not force or pressure us, he WILL give us the choice. So we can take confidence in the words from today’s second reading: the Word of God, Jesus, in his great love for us gives us the gift to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart – that is, to know what our heart desires (God) to know what it is that keeps us from loving him – whatever that may be for us. This is true now, two thousand years ago when the second reading was written, and true a thousand years before that when King Solomon lived and ruled. He was given the opportunity for anything, anything in the world, and King Solomon chose the gift of prudence – the gift of wisdom to know our true good and to choose the right means for achieving it. Our challenge is to every day use this gift of prudence given to us to know this great love before us and to better understand what is keeping us from the one thing that’ll bring us our greatest joy and our greatest peace now and eternally. Finally, if we are honest with ourselves, to love God will be hard – that was the case for the man in today’s Gospel and it is true for us today. It will require sacrifice, it will be radical and counter- cultural. And, just as Jesus for tells us in today’s gospel, it may require us to give up house and brother or sister or mother or father or children or lands. There will be times when we want to quit - just as the man did when he walked away from Jesus in today’s Gospel. There will be times when it will seem impossible to do. But here my brothers and sisters is the good news: Jesus promises us two things in today’s Gospel. First, as Jesus told his apostles, he says to us: for human beings it is impossible, but not for God, all things are possible for God! See, our God will give us what we need, when we need it – He, through his grace, makes it possible for us to do the everyday things we need to do as well as the extraordinary. We just need to be open to his love, to his plan for us – he will give us what we need! And remember his second promise in today’s gospel: even if we lose everything that we think is important here on earth, we will receive 100 times more; and even if we lose everything and even experience persecution, we will know eternal life. And that my brothers and sisters is our goal and our reward: eternal life - eternal love, eternal peace, eternal joy. May God bless you today and everyday as you seek to grow deeper in love with God.