Here is the text of the homily I shared with the gathered community this weekend: a call to bear witness, even in difficult or challenging times.
An opportunity to testify
We
have almost come to the end of the Liturgical Year. In just two weeks’ time, we will begin the
Season of Advent, the beginning of a new Church Year. The readings provided for the liturgies
during these final weeks of the year paint increasingly stark images. Today, the prophet Malachi foretells a time of
intense burning which will leave neither
root nor branch. Saint Luke also
uses images of war, earthquakes, famines, plagues and signs in the
heavens. All of this would make for a blockbuster
movie, yet I doubt whether God wants to use scare tactics in order to compel us
to follow him. The scriptures have
always spoken of the great promise and hope that is entrusted to God’s people,
and of the day when we will once again be one with Him in heaven. These passages from scripture too are filled
with this promise.
Listen
again to the first words of the gospel: When
some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones
and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, ‘As for these things that you see, the
days will come when not one stone will be left upon another. The temple in Jerusalem was a masterpiece
of engineering and artistry. King Herod himself had
had it built in magnificent glory, but like all physical buildings, it was but
a shadow of the true glory of God, and because it was made of stones and
mortar, it was subject to decay.
Eventually, even the beautiful temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in
70AD, yet even today, its ruins represent a holy place, a place of prayer, a place
where hope for the future is still alive.
Jesus encouraged his disciples, as he encourages us today to cling not
to a false sense of security, found in physical structures, but in hope of the
eternal life that is yet to come.
People
who were listening to Jesus asked him questions about the kingdom, and about
how they would recognize the time when it was about to appear. Jesus answered by warning them not to be
misled by false prophets. In fact, at
another time when he was asked similar questions, he answered, About the day or hour, no one knows, neither
the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Anyone else who claims to know the
answers to these questions is lying, and we should not go after them. In fact the only one who knows, the only one we
can trust is Jesus himself; since he is the way,
the truth and the life, we can always believe in his words.
How
then should the disciples of Jesus live our lives? Saint Paul says that we should do our work quietly and earn our own living. Instead of allowing every sign in the heavens
to scare us, we should strive every day to be people of faith, people who trust
in the promise of life, people who place our confidence in the living God. In the meanwhile, be on the lookout for signs
that confirm the arrival of the kingdom.
One of the most telling signs is persecution. Even Jesus warns that they will arrest you and persecute you. The first three centuries of the Church’s
existence were marked with great suffering and persecution on the part of the
early Christians. During the
Reformation, many in England suffered rejection and ridicule; in more recent
times, during the French and Russian Revolutions, and even in our times, many
Christians continue to suffer, yet their faith seems almost miraculously to be
strengthened by their trials.
Like
the disciples of every age, we too are being given an opportunity to testify to
our time. Ours is in invitation to allow
our faith to guide our decisions and our understandings about life. In the face of natural disasters, like the
Typhoon that has ravaged the Philippines, ours is a call to bear witness to
hope. In the face of controversial questions about when life
begins or when it should end, ours is a call to believe that there is only one
God, and we are not Him. In the face of
pressure to choose responses based on political correctness, ours is a call to
recognize that unpopular choices are often a sign of something new that is
coming to birth. Like the pain
experienced during childbirth, let us not be afraid to bear the pain of
witnessing to our faith, and of trusting that not a hair on our heads will perish, indeed that something new,
something wonderful is still to come.
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