29th Sunday Homily - Love Conquers all Fear

Love conquers all Fears.
A fascinating Gospel passage given to us, isn’t it.  It tells us right away the Pharisees and Herodians are out to trap Jesus.  They want to destroy Jesus.  The coin issue is simply a means to an end.
The real issue here is why they wish to destroy Jesus?
And what does this have to say about our own role as believers of Jesus Christ and of his salvation offered to us?
Now when we read more of Matthew’s Gospel we understand this is part of whole series of conflicts between Jesus and the leadership.  
He critiqued their role of service and religious duty, and has found it lacking.
He revealed a God of compassion, mercy, healing, forgiveness.  
Jesus revealed that the Father is Love

These leaders are scared

They are scared of what Jesus represents.  Jesus is a threat to their way of thinking, their way of life, their power.  Therefore they react out of this fear, they seek to protect themselves, so they seek to destroy Jesus.
This will not be the last time.
Ever heard of Trolls?
Not the fairy tale kind, but the contemporary type.  These are the people who post nasty horrible things on the internet against people they do not like; against people they feel threaten them and their way of thinking.
Unfortunately many of us can react the same same when we feel threatened.  

Unfortunately I see all too often many of us acting as the Pharisees and Herodians; we go on the attack.  Immediately we must tweet, comment, post how offended we are; how wrong the other person is; how evil the other person is; how un-catholic, heretical, blah blah blah.
We react out of Fear!
What is Jesus’ response to this threat, this challenge?
He breaks apart their divisive reality.  
God desires that we grow and mature as people.  

This is call our on-going conversion.  
We are always moving towards perfection and holiness, because 99.9999999999999% of us are not there yet.
God will always break our reality; God will break down how we view all of reality and ourselves, so that we can grow
.
The idea of God using a pagan king in the first reading to help the Jewish people; this would have been a shock!
Our perception of reality will be changed by God...and God, who loves us beyond anything we can imagine, asks us to trust.
See, God does not do so as to hurt us; God wants us to grow.  
God loves us, so fear, though real, does not have to be in control.
When and AS we experience God’s love, it creates safety for us to really discern, to really think about our lives, our values, our choices, and to do so critically.
See, many of our attitudes and beliefs are simply that, our own.  We put so much energy into them, we over identify with them; this creates idolatry.
Therefore anything that is a threat to them, MUST BE DESTROYED!
Look at the divisions in our country, in our politics?
I think it is pure ego based, which leaves little room for dialogue.
It happens in our parishes. 
People, catholics, can be so mean when they do not get their way, or when they feel threatened, when their way of doing things is threatened.
I am willing to bet if any of us think about our own conflicts and who we are trying to attack with our lies, gossip, with our comments and insults...ego based.
We have not really sat down and thought it through.
We who believe in Jesus, we have a special obligation to do better.
We celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.
We believe in his way of peace, his way of trusting in God’s love.
We believe that God’s way of compassion, mercy, forgiveness, humility...these bring true life.
We are called to UNITY and LOVE;  we are called to live it and called to promote it.
Reacting to our fears does not do it.
Love; that brings us unity.  Love brings Freedom, Love is SALVATION.


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