Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

 

Acts 9:26-31

1 John 3:18-24

John 15:1-8

Jesus uses the analogy of grapes on a vine to describe the relationship between the believer and Christ, and indeed the believer and Christ's body. Anyone who may grow any kind of fruit on a vine knows that the branches or parts of the vine, if cut off from the vine, will not continue to bear fruit or be part of the vine. The vine may continue to be productive, it may grow new branches that produce new fruit to replace the branches that are cut off.

"A branch cannot bear fruit unless it remains on the vine," Jesus tells us, "neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." Following Jesus Christ is, for each and every one of us, a choice. It is a choice that we make daily, but increasingly in our society following Jesus Christ is being openly rejected by people, including those who should know better. Several times in the New Testament Jesus uses the agricultural understanding that his listeners would have known in his own time, since he lived in an overwhelmingly agricultural society. Jesus uses this understanding as a way to explain to his listeners and to his followers and to his apostles the reality of Heaven and Hell.

This is the reality that Jesus deals with in the parable of the wheat and the tares (cf. Matthew 13:24-30) and we see it again here in the parable of the vine and the branches, the branches that are cut off from the vine will be thrown into a fire and burned, just as in the parable of the wheat and the tares, Jesus explains that the tares and the wheat grow together until the harvest when the tares are separated out and burned while the wheat is gathered in to the Master's barn.

The reality of Hell is not something that we often choose to talk about, but Jesus talked about it a whole lot. Considering how much Jesus discussed the matter, I have to admit that I don't quite understand why it is that some theologians come up with the notion that everyone is going to be saved (something that none of us can possibly know). Jesus made it pretty clear that few people would choose to follow him of their own accord. (cf. Matthew 7:13-14) The reason is because the way of Christ isn't always easy, and we know that it often isn't easy at all. The benefits, however, are truly out of this world.

We also learn something else that's key in this parable of the vine and the branches. The Father is the vine grower and he will take away every branch that does not bear fruit, and he will prune the branches that do bear fruit so that they bear more fruit. This can be particularly critical, because pruning sometimes involves cutting away a non-productive part of the vine, it might even mean that we have to cut off some part of a plant that we might otherwise choose not to, so that the rest of the plant might be productive and bear the best fruit. Pruning isn't always an easy process. But God's way of pruning the vine often means exposing what is wrong with the vine so that it can be cut away from the productive part of the vine of the Church.

In recent days, months, and years, we have seen a series of scandals involving the sinfulness of high ranking clergy and the abuse of children and young adults. This is an addition to other scandals which have often exposed the willingness of many in the clergy to tolerate and even promote social, political, and moral ideas which are completely contrary to the teachings of Holy Mother Church. Many of these public clergy who have promoted or continue to engage in promoting things which are contrary to what the Church teaches in matters of faith and morals have been allowed to continue to pedal their confusion to the masses in the Catholic press, in social media, and in society at large. These realities have led some people to judge that orthodoxy- that is Catholic belief that is right and correct- is often seen as outdated and old fashioned, while those who follow the latest modern ideas about what is morally acceptable are given pride of place in the public square, with some of these folks being promoted by the mainstream media as authentic Catholic voices.

Let us not be deceived. God is not mocked. (cf. Galatians 6:7) The moral teachings of the Church have not changed, and the seven deadly sins are still deadly. If something was wrong a hundred years ago or 70 years ago or 50 years ago, it is still wrong today, it will be wrong next week, next month, next year, and next century. Conversely, if something was good and holy 100 years ago or 70 years ago or 50 years ago, be assured that it remains good and holy today, it'll be good and holy tomorrow, good and holy next week, next month, next year, and next century. The Lord changes not… now there is a difference between dogma, doctrine and discipline. We don't have time to get into all of those differences this morning, but disciplines of the church can change because these disciplines are here to help us carry out the dogmas and the doctrines we believe in, they are not those dogmas and doctrines themselves.

These are important reminders because we are living in an age when many people look at our Church, and it appears that the bad parts of the branches and being allowed to run rampant and the plant has not been pruned. But I would humbly submit to anyone who feels discouraged about the state of the Church that when you hear things which are discouraging about the situation in the Catholic world today, know and understand that God is working his purpose out. So much of what we see and hear in our Church today is really a part of this pruning process which God has set forth to purify His people. As Saint Paul reminds us, the Lord seeks "a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing." (cf. Ephesians 5:25-27) We don't have the ability to make the Church that way, but the Lord does. We need to allow the Lord the opportunity to prune the branches so that we can all bear the very best fruit, and the Church can do what the Lord ordained her to do, preach the Gospel and work for the salvation of many souls.

Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sirach 27:30-28:7

Romans 14:7-9

Matthew 18:21-35

There are great many truths taught by Our Lord or by the Holy Apostles which are difficult for the world to accept. We can sometimes tell which truths these are because they're the ones that people like to avoid discussing whenever the topic of Christianity or Jesus Christ happens to come up. There are a lot of people in this world who will more or less say that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but either in their words or their actions they will deny that Christ is who he claims to be. The world will make that denial because they do not wish to live in the way that we are called to live, because so much of what the world today calls good, God calls evil. So much of what the Lord God calls evil, the world says it's good, even praiseworthy. (cf. Isaiah 5:20, 2 Timothy 3:1-13)

There is perhaps no greater commandment of Christ that is more difficult to live out, however, than the one we find illustrated in the Gospel today, the command that we are to forgive in the same way that we are asking God to forgive us. We want God to forgive us our sins, to pardon our sins, to overlook our sins. In many, if not most cases, the sins we are asking forgiveness for are the sins that will send us straight to Hell because of the choices we have made. Yet Jesus repeatedly tells us that these sins will be forgiven, that we will be received by the Lord if we repent of our sins. The only catch is that we have to forgive others in the same way that we have been forgiven. We get a glimpse of just how unconditional God's love is for us, and we come to understand how difficult it is to give truly unconditional love to others, especially those who would wish us harm or do us harm.

When we think about how difficult that truly is, we realize that living the Christian Life isn't so easy, because we have to be like Christ, and that means to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Jesus's illustration of the servant who asked forgiveness of his master while refusing to extend forgiveness to a fellow servant who owed a much smaller amount shows us the reality that God is willing to forgive us the debt of our sins if we confess our sins, and the weight of our sins is far greater than any debt to be understood in this world. Therefore, Jesus is explaining to us that we should be ready and willing to forgive others, because their offenses to us are far less than anything we may have done in this life to offend God.

In living the life of a Christian we are called to be like Christ. Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, He is God, and so his nature is the nature of God. What are we told is God's ultimate nature? When the Lord God made himself visible to Moses, telling him that he would pass by on Mount Sinai and allow Moses to see the back of Him and He would say His name. When the Lord did say his name to Moses, the name itself is not actually mentioned in most English translations (we say "the LORD"), but it is immediately followed by an important suffix. God makes Himself known to Moses in this way… "the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness."  (Exodus 34:5-6) Mercy and love and fidelity are so important to God's nature that He includes them in His very name. We hear these attributes of God in today's responsorial Psalm, which are verses from Psalm 103.

Our first reading from the book of Sirach invites us to do a very difficult thing for a lot of us (and any of us who have a real temper know how hard it is), and that is to let go of our anger, even forgiving the injustices our neighbor might commit upon us.

In the Gospel parable, the servant was not seen as wicked for asking his master to forgive his debt (something that we should be doing regularly when we ask for our sins to be forgiven in Reconciliation), but it was seen as most evil that he would not forgive a fellow servant a much smaller debt. The Master's reaction when he had heard what the servant had demanded of his fellow servant was to throw the wicked servant in prison until the debt was paid off.

Jesus tells his disciples that God the Father will treat all of us the same way if we do not learn to forgive our enemies from our heart. The big difference will be that if we die in our sins, it is our choice, not the larger society. We can ask forgiveness of God and our neighbor, but if we are not truly willing to forgive others, the faith is hollow within us.

Neither our Lord, nor any of the Apostles or the apostolic Fathers who have preached forgiveness have said that forgiving our neighbors who slight us, or do great injustice to us is easy. Jesus understands very well how very difficult and how very contrary it is to our human nature to extend the hand of forgiveness to those who have done us wrong, or even to those who wish us harm. That kind of forgiveness is completely contrary to our human nature, and God understands that. This is exactly why being able to extend forgiveness in the radical way that Jesus asks of us is something that takes great Grace, and is a sign before the world that the person who can forgive in the radical fashion which Christ asks of us manifests a sign of tremendous holiness of life, and they are showing that they can live out their Christian faith not only in word, but in action.

We are living in a time of tremendous upheaval in our nation. Not only have we been faced in recent months with a global pandemic which has seriously constricted our way of life and cost many their jobs or their livelihoods, but we have also recently seen protests, and in many places riots, over both the real and perceived abuses directed toward African Americans and other minorities by certain members of local police forces around the country. The resulting protests and riots have caused much disorder, they have also forced many Americans to take a hard look at our past as a nation.

One of the real difficulties, however, with the present moment in which we find ourselves is that the one thing you don't hear from all sides in these ongoing debates, discussions, and public disorder is the need for- and the willingness of-all sides to extend forgiveness to one another. Instead, because of the lack of an attitude of forgiveness, we see continuing disorder and riots in many cities, including the desecration of many public monuments. There is an utter unwillingness to forgive our neighbors.

We also would do well to remember that extending forgiveness does not mean forgetting injustices and wrongs done to us by others, forgiveness doesn't always equate to trust, and nowhere does Jesus ask that. But if we can truly learn to forgive, and leave the final judgment of others to God, our community, our country, our world would look a lot more like Jesus intended. As Christ forgives us, let us extend that forgiveness to one another.