Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 14, 2016

Homily for Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 14, 2016

The Unpopular Gospel

            You may have read that a certain politician currently running for national office calls himself a “devout Catholic,” yet he has been consistently one of the most pro-abortion legislators in the senate. He styles himself “personally opposed” to abortion, but does not believe that his opinion should become law. How can a man like that believe privately that life is sacred but publically vote to make abortion more accessible?

            It’s very simple – he wants to be accepted by his voters.

            The time has come for us to stop hiding our faith out of fear of “offending someone”. Jesus’ scathing words in the Gospel are a wake-up call: He comes to bring, not peace, but division. In other words, if we’re just keeping quiet, not willing to rock the boat, trying to keep everyone around us happy by denying our Faith, then we betray Him and our Faith. True holiness and virtue has never been popular – and it’s even more unpopular now, since we live in a post-Christian culture. Our culture has rejected any semblance of Christian values – it is now a completely pagan, worldly culture, and anyone who dares to live for Jesus Christ will be seen as unpopular.

            A friend of mine with five kids just shared with me last week that she was in the grocery store with two carts filled to the brim with food. The girl at the checkout counter looked at her and said, (and I quote), “I would kill myself if I ever needed two carts of food for my family!” To which my friend replied, “Oh? Today’s only two carts…you should see when I need three!” My friend had chosen to follow Church teaching and be open to life – and a grocery store worker felt the need to criticize her!

            The reality is, we cannot be Christian and be well-accepted. To be a true Catholic is to be counter-cultural; to go against the tide. This is true on every topic – how we view marriage as something sacred between men and women, how we spend our time on Sunday mornings, what TV shows we watch and movies we take in. We must live differently from the culture if we hope to be faithful to Christ!

            And this is controversial. Today’s first reading features Jeremiah, the prophet who preached repentance to Israel. The nobles were so furious that Jeremiah spoke out against their immoral lifestyle that they tried to kill him by throwing him in a well. More recently, last week a French priest was martyred for his faith – killed for nothing more than being a disciple of Jesus Christ. It is never popular to follow Him, especially in today’s cultural milieu.

            So do not be afraid to be different, to live differently! So what if everyone around you is cursing and taking the Lord’s name in vain – don’t join in! A couple weeks ago a man was telling me that in a recent meeting the man’s boss exclaimed in anger, “Jesus Christ!” The man immediately blurted out “Is Lord!” So what if you’re on vacation with your family and everyone else wants to go out to breakfast instead of going to Sunday Mass – dare to be different, dare to be faithful. If everyone around you is politically correct and believes that putting on a dress makes a man into a woman, we cannot be afraid to point out the unpopular truth about how God created us male and female.

            People will tell you, “Don’t make trouble, just go with the flow”, but the only fish who go with the flow are dead fish – those who are alive swim against the current. We who seek living waters must leave the pollution of this world behind. And that’s precisely the benefit – Christ offers us living water, worldly values offer us pollution. Christ is the True Bread from Heaven; the world offers us poison. Christ shows us what true love is – the world offers us a cheap counterfeit. Jesus shows us that the meaning of our life is Heaven; the world tells us that life is meaningless and we should only live for ourselves. To choose Christ over the world, as difficult as it may be, is to choose life and joy over the emptiness and sadness that the world offers!

            And remember, we are not alone. Our second reading says that “we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses”. St. Paul, St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist – pretty much every single saint had to live differently, at great cost to themselves. We follow in their footsteps when we reject the lies that our culture tells us and follow Jesus Christ.

            Christ tells us that He “comes to cast fire on the earth” – the fire of divine love. The rest of the world may think us insane, but once we have realized that true life is only found in following Jesus, we don’t care what the rest of the world thinks. We’ve found our way, our truth, our life…in Jesus.