Homily

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

January 28, 2007

by Rev. Deacon Lawrence A. St. Onge

      Today’s second reading taken from St. Paul’s 1^st letter to the Corinthians is a continuation of last week’s 2^nd reading, and is found quite often as one of the readings at weddings, because it most eloquently and beautifully speaks about love. However, the love Paul speaks about is not the emotional and fussy kind of feeling that is part of the relationship between a husband and wife, no matter however deeply founded or passionate.  Rather, it is a decision of the will. It is a matter of caring for others in all circumstances. It is a deliberate act of practical service toward others and to that patient and selfless attitude that perseveres in such service regardless of the response one receives in return. It is meant to be the Christian’s way of living and life.

      St. Paul knew the Old Testament very well, and he knew Jesus who was crucified. In today’s verses it all seems to come together as we get an insight into God’s love and our own. “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated. It is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrong-doing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

      Interestingly, Paul uses only two adjectives to describe what love is, but then uses eight to describe what it is not. The two words that Paul uses to describe what love is – “patient” and “kind” – are probably not the ones we would think of first. But for St. Paul, it is God’s love for creation and the love that brought Jesus to suffering and death, that best described the love that he found there. By the same token, it was easier for him to say what he did not find in such love. Jealous? No. Pompous? Never. Inflated, rude, self-seeking, quick-tempered, brooding over injuries, rejoicing in anything that does harm? No. No. No. And what is his answer to those all-so-natural ways, in which we frequently behave? It is: to practice a love that bears all things, believes and hopes all things, endures all things.

      In today’s first reading about the call of Jeremiah the prophet, we hear a part of the love story of God and God’s people. God tells Jeremiah that he will have to be like a pillar of iron, a wall of brass, because the rulers and the owners and the police and the media aren’t going to like what he’s has to say. They will bring in other prophets with sweet and encouraging things to say. Jeremiah will be beaten, dumped into a well, and, worst of all, will be laughed at. But, God says, “They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you.”

      Today’s gospel is a continuation of last week’s gospel wherein Jesus goes to the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and reads from the scroll of Isaiah, who spoke of bringing good news to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. Jesus then says the people, “Today this scripture passage is  fulfilled in your hearing.”

      Initially, the people’s response to Jesus is a favorable one. However, when Jesus then makes it clear that he hasn’t come home with a bunch of miracles for his hometown, and, in fact, seems to say to them that the bonds of blood and language and ancestry aren’t really what matters, when God’s love is what we’re after. He then reminds his listeners of two biblical stories with which they were very familiar. One was about Elijah the prophet, who upon God’s command, brings down a drought on the people because they had grown careless of the Commandments of God. Then, when so many of his own were suffering, God sent Elijah outside the borders of  the country, beyond those who belonged to the “in group,” into another country to help a widow’s family to survive the drought and famine.

      Jesus related the second story about Elisha the prophet who healed Naaman the Syrian of leprosy. Although there were many lepers in Israel, Elisha healed only one person, who was not a member of the clan, not one of the descendents of Abraham, but an outsider, a foreigner, an alien.

      Jesus’ listeners got the point and were so furious that they tried to kill him. Most of us, like them, depend on some clear borders in our living and life. We need lines drawn so we can tell who’s inside and who’s outside. Love may be patient and kind, but it has its limits, doesn’t it? Otherwise, who’s to know what’s what and who’s who. It exists for us today. Some would have us draw lines around the political entity called the United States. Other would have us draw lines around the institutional entity called the Roman Catholic Church. Race, class, gender, nationality, how much money you earn, or don’t earn, sexual orientation, – there are so many lines that are drawn! All to make the world into “us” and “them.” Some of the lines are up front and in your face, but others are so subtle we carry them inside us and never notice.

      The love that Paul speaks of in today’s reading, which he struggled to describe, was the love he found in the stories about Elijah and the widow who was of another people and about Elisha of Israel curing Naaman of Syria, a foreigner.

      Paul must have seen that if we are to take our baptism seriously, then the boundaries cannot and will not hold. The walls will come down. The neat and safe categories will fall apart. Maybe Paul should have had an addendum: Love is patient, love is kind, love is dangerous.

      However, we are endlessly inventive and people who are endlessly afraid. So Christians have tried throughout the years to draw new lines to make a safe world of insiders. But there is one simple thing that we do that gives us the best practice possible to live lives outside the borders, beyond the borders built by people. It is to take a loaf of bread, a loaf made of many grains, and we break it and we all eat of it, all alike, and the one loaf feeds us all. And we take a cup of wine, a wine made of many grapes, and we all drink, all alike, the one cup for the thirst of each one of us. And so through the years of life we practice at dining at a common table, all alike, no boundaries.

      So, at the gathering at the table for Eucharist and Holy Communion, we rehearse the kind of love St. Paul was trying to articulate when he wrote to the church at Corinth, and also to us. And so, we come here to church, Sunday by Sunday, and we practice how to love.