Homily 21st Sunday--Faith challenge

There are people who when they learn something new, they are all in. They learn skiing, then they are buying the latest equipment, taking lessons, pushing themselves to ski black diamonds, double black diamonds, and more...travelling

Or fishing, they get the best rods and fly lines, travel to New Zealand or other parts of the world….

Cooking, get all the best cookbooks, the best pots and pans, redo the kitchen and produce very tasty dinners.

Their zeal takes off. Setbacks become opportunities to grow.

Those setbacks, those moments when life is turned upside down, they do happen.
We look at what seems to be the craziness of our country these days.
The apparent craziness of our world and our church.

People fighting over what looks to be silly things, and yet, our world groans with bigger issues: people are starving and being killed; the rainforest in Brazil burns away; our young persons hurt themselves.
We have families who are mourning the loss of parents and children.

Way back when I was a seminarian, I spent a summer at Stanford Medical Center as a chaplain. I was called to a room one day, and there was a mother with her teen daughter. The mom clearly upset. The daughter was ill, and the mother was trying to wrap her mind around this. In our conversation turns out they were both newly baptized Christians, and their preacher had promised them nothing bad would happen to them after baptism.

A couple of weeks ago we remember locally the story of the young girl who was killed when the bounce house she was in got lifted up and hit electric lines. They were St. Albert’s parishioners. It was a tragedy.

I was talking with someone, inquiring about how the family was coping. This person told me they were strong, the mother had sad that the faith they had in God were getting them through.

Jesus never promised an easy life if we believed in him. What he did promise was salvation.
Salvation, the freedom to be engaged in living.
Salvation, the freedom to love and love others.
Salvation, the freedom to have hope.
                                        

Yet this is not something that merely comes with a superficial faith, merely a verbal assent to the Faith.
It needs our total buy in: new equipment, development of skills, progress.

It requires us to be actively engaged in our faith; asking ourselves questions and letting ourselves be questioned.
It requires reflection and contemplation.
It requires trust and taking risks.


Bunny slopes for skiing are fine at first, but after a while it will get boring.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are easy eating, but there are much better foods awaiting to be made and consumed.

Lets face it, all of us will be confronted in our lives with challenges and potential setbacks.
Most of them are human induced; either by ourselves or others.
Our hearts will be broken. We will lose jobs, homes, friends. Kids will grow up and leave. We will have conflict with our children and our parents.
We will always confront death and loss.
Illnesses too.


A deep faith gives us the ability to go through these challenges; to mourn, to be angry, to be scared, but…. To not let these challenges overwhelm us.
If not overwhelmed, then we can truly be alive; alive to love and let others love us.
Therefore we can help reduce the suffering in this world

If open to love, then we reduce the apparent craziness; we can actually help others as we work through our own challenges.

                                                    

Jesus preached forgiveness, compassion, mercy, justice.

He practiced them too, demonstrated them, and when confronted by the sins of humanity, he accepted it, died from them, but was raised above them.
He had faith, trust that the Father loved him, no matter what.
He did not see the crucifixion as the Father testing his faith. It was rather to show the world the power of the Father’s kingdom.

I think a challenge for all of us; laity and clergy is to not become complacent.
It is not enough to merely mouth the words I believe, it must go deeper.

                                            

Even with our Eucharist, we can say we believe in the real presence of the Son of God, but where is that faith in our minds and hearts; where is it being lived in our lives on a daily basis?

The celebration of the Eucharist, this whole mass, calls us to grow.
It becomes a challenge to us to enter into our faith more deeply.

We can come with our doubts, our weaknesses, and bring them to the altar; and allow for the Spirit to transform them, transform us, into God’s children.

With the strength to embrace those challenges of life.
And see God’s presence throughout.
We can find the faith to truly believe