October 5, 2014 - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for October 5, 2014

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Glance at History

 

            Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a step back so we can see the forest for the trees, and look at who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going. Today’s readings give us a pretty darn good chance to do that. So let’s get a bird’s eye view of life and God and everything that brings us together this evening in this church.

            It all started four thousand years ago, with a God who was passionately in love with us and a man who didn’t have any idea of how important he would become. God realized that He wanted humanity to know Him, to love Him, to learn to live according to His teachings, and to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. In order to make Himself and His plan known, God knew that He would have to reveal Himself to us – we couldn’t figure out the Lord on our own. So God broke into human history and invited a man, Abraham, to become his first follower. He took this man on an incredible journey, gave him the promised land, and asked for only one thing in return – that he have faith in the love of the Lord.

            Abraham began to pass on this faith in God to his son Isaac, and soon the clan grew – Jacob, his twelve sons, and finally they multiplied until God had developed a tribe who knew Him and loved Him. But they went down to Egypt seeking food during a famine, and in Egypt they started to follow other gods. So God knew He needed to do something drastic to call them back to Him, so He sent Moses to lead the people out. We all know the story – the ten plagues, the Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea. But even despite the incredible wonders that God did in Egypt, the people were still unfaithful – in the desert, they worshipped a golden calf, and when they got back into their own land, they started to worship the pagan gods of the surrounding nations, especially the god named Baal.

            But God wouldn’t give up on His people. He sent them prophets, He fought with them in battle, He did wonders and miracles in their midst. But as often as God did these amazing deeds, the people continually lived more and more wicked lives, worshipped false gods, and pretty much ignored the Lord Who was their savior.

            God raised up this people, His Chosen People, so that they would witness to the world what a holy life was like. The Lord wanted to reveal Himself, His passionate love, to the world through the Chosen People. But because the Jews were unfaithful, following after false gods and living wicked lives, He was unable to complete His plan with them. Instead of the other nations looking to the Jews and saying, “Ah! Look how holy and wise those people are! Come, let us learn about the Lord!”, it was the Jewish people who looked to the other nations and started to act just like they did.

            So today’s first reading is a parable about how unfaithful these people had been. God compares the Jewish people to a vine – in the first reading, a man planted this beautiful vine, tended it, fertilized it, watered it, but when he came looking for fruit, he found only sour fruit – just like how God guarded, protected, fed, and blessed Israel, but when God wanted to find the good fruit of a holy life from His people, instead He found wickedness and worshipping false gods.

            But God wasn’t done yet. He did one more thing for His people: He sent His beloved Son to the earth in one final, great effort to show the world about His love. But what did they do? They crucified Him – they crucified the perfect reflection of God’s passionate love for the world. They rejected God. And so have we.

            We, as baptized followers of Christ, are the new Chosen People. By baptism we have been set apart for a life of faith in Jesus Christ. But have we produced the fruit of a holy life? Or have we acted just like Israel in rejecting the very God Who has given us everything?

            The basic problem with Israel is that they wanted to be just like the other nations – they wanted to “fit in” – so they worshipped the gods of the other nations. In order for us to fit in, have we worshipped the false gods of our culture: money, sports, political correctness, the god of tolerance? As Christians, we must shape the world in the light of Christ, not become corrupted by the world.

            And since we are the new vine, God has given us abundant graces as well. He has given us the Church to teach us, the Eucharist to feed us, the example of the saints to follow. In giving us these things, the Lord expects us to use them to grow holy. Are we doing that? Are we growing in holiness? Or are we acting just like everybody else when we walk out of these doors, pretending like God doesn’t matter, ignoring Him, living lives of selfishness and wickedness?

            Thousands of years ago, God broke into human history and invited men and women to follow Him in radical love and trust, and their lives were never the same. He now invites us into that same radical love and trust. The response is up to us. Do our lives bear fruit? Are we sincerely trying, with all our hearts, to be holy? If not, what do we need to change to live like the Christians we claim to be?