19 th Sunday OT (Year C) August 2, 2016 WIS 18:6-9; PS 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22; HEB 11:1-2, 8-19; LK 12:32-48

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1 19 th Sunday OT (Year C) August 2, 2016 WIS 18:6-9; PS 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22; HEB 11:1-2, 8-19; LK 12:32-48 I once asked a person the question, If you were to die today, would you go to heaven? When the person with seemingly very little concern or forethought answered, Probably not, I was stunned. In part because, as a priest, I think of the salvation of souls my own, and those entrusted to my care every single day. It was shocking to discover that there are many people, like this particular person, who give very little, if any thought to where their soul is headed based on the way they re living their life. I think this particular person s answer is probably far less common, however, than that of those who answer the same question this way: Yes, of course I ll go to heaven. I m a good person. Now, let s think this through. If going to heaven were simply a matter of being a good person, would it really have been necessary for God the Father to sacrifice Jesus the perfect person his own Son on the Cross? If we think sin is really no big deal that we can continue to offend God and still think we re good then how do we make sense of the fact that, not only a good person, but, in fact, the best person who ever walked the planet Jesus had to die such a horrible death in order to save us from sin? How can we not take sin seriously if God the Father took it so seriously that the only satisfactory remedy for our sin was the death of his perfect Son? Here s a true statement: You don t have to go to Church to be good person. Which leads to one of two conclusions. Either... 1) I can just be a good person (by my own definition of good person of course) and, since I don t have to go to Church to be a good person, now I have my Sundays free to do something other than spending that hour in Church! Either that s true...or... 2) The purpose of Church is about something other than...something more than...just being a good person. 1

2 Well, in fact, the second conclusion is true. We don t come to Church to become a good person or because we re already good. We come to Church so that we can be forgiven for the mess we ve made of ourselves, and our world, through our sin, so that God can remake us into what he made us for in the first place to spend eternity in love and friendship with him, in his kingdom which, by the way, is what a Saint is. Notice that it is God s work to make us good not something we do. Now let s consider what sin is. Here s the dictionary definition of sin: An immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law. A common synonym for immoral is bad which, obviously, is the opposite of good. Now, here s another fact. We re all sinners. St. Paul himself wrote:...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom 3:23) Remember how Jesus responded in the Gospels when the rich man came up to him and called him good teacher? He said: Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. (Mk 10:18) Well, then, this is a game-changer, because Jesus obviously has a standard of good that is unreachable by merely human effort. If only God is truly good...if all have sinned and deprived ourselves of the glory of God...and we have!...then we really do have to reconsider this idea of what being a good person really means and whether or not our definition of good person matches God s definition. Jesus rejected the mere human standards of good precisely because we fallen human beings are motivated to define good person in such a way that we always just happen to qualify as good, even when we do things that we know are displeasing to God. In other words, we re a mess. We really do need a Savior! Now, let s consider what our Savior Jesus said in the parable in today s Gospel: Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. (Lk 12:37) 2

3 Now, just as we gained some greater clarity on this idea of what a good person is, by taking a more realistic look at the meaning of the word good from God s perspective and not just from our let myself off the hook easily perspective, it s important to consider one particular word in Jesus statement: the word vigilant. Here s what vigilant means: Keeping careful watch for possible danger or difficulties. What kinds of danger or difficulties is Jesus concerned with? Those which jeopardize our relationship with him and, by extension, our readiness to stand before him on our own Day of Judgment. The fact is that, when we let our guard down when we fail to be vigilant we actually, ultimately, lose sight of who we are. It s rather easy to see this on a societal level. As Christians in America, we have let our guard down ; failed to be vigilant; failed to keep careful watch for possible dangers to our relationship with Jesus and to our souls, by succumbing to secular pressure to keep our Christian faith out of our public life to deny Jesus so as not to offend others. And when we do this, the damaging effects spread far beyond the individual to the larger society. The reason that the world seems so godless these days is because it is. And it is that way because we let our guard down...by not being vigilant. When we abandon our faith...we abandon Jesus. When we abandon Jesus, we abandon truth. When we abandon truth, we abandon common sense. And when we abandon common sense, we no longer know who we are, and we no longer recognize what we have in common with others because we ve abandoned the very thing that makes us like others the fact that every person is created in the image and likeness of God. Instead, we create ourselves in the image the identity of our choice...our preference...our feeling at this given moment, even if it s ridiculously obvious when that re-created identity contradicts reality. St. Augustine had this to say about being vigilant about being watchful: Watch with the heart, watch with faith, watch with love, watch with charity, watch with good works... St. Augustine (Navarre, Gospels, p. 189) 3

4 Notice the first thing St. Augustine suggests: watch with the heart. It should not surprise us that Jesus also speaks to us of the heart in today s Gospel, when he said: Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. (Lk 12:32-34) Here, Jesus does not refer to the physical organ in our chest. He refers to the very center, the very essence of who we are. So, where we invest our time and energy, what we concern ourselves with, what we worry about, what we treasure, has a profound effect on who and what we become. To break this open a bit more, let s consider the verses from Luke s Gospel that immediately precede our Gospel passage today: [Jesus] said to [his] disciples, Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Notice the ravens: they do not sow or reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds! Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your lifespan? If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest? Notice how the flowers grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass in the field that grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? As for you, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not worry anymore. All the nations of the world seek for these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides. (Lk 12:22-31) If we seek God s the Father s kingdom, believing in him, investing ourselves here and now in our relationship with his Son Jesus he will not only provide everything we really need in this life, but he will also give us a kingdom...his kingdom. Like so many things in our Christian life in our relationship with Christ we re told what s important. Pray! Have faith! We know what we re supposed to do, but we may not know how. When Jesus told his own disciples to pray and have faith, remember what they said: 4

5 Lord, teach us to pray. (cf. Lk 11:1) Lord, increase our faith. (Lk 17:5) Jesus not only commands, but he also teaches us how to fulfill his commands...if we only ask. So, how do we learn to be vigilant to keep our guard up to keep watch? As expected, we listen to Jesus, who asked an important question of his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, and who asks us the same question today: So, could you not watch with me one hour? (cf. Mt 26:40) Now think about this. Sunday Mass: one hour. Weekly Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in our Perpetual Adoration Chapel: one hour. We need Jesus to teach us to pray, to increase our faith, so that we can be vigilant, so that we can keep watch. Jesus ever faithful gives us every opportunity. But, how does this actually work? Well, when we deliberately put ourselves attentively in Jesus Real Presence in the Eucharist at Mass and in Adoration Jesus trains us to be more sensitive to the movements of his Holy Spirit in our soul. And the more sensitive we become to the movement of his Holy Spirit in our souls, the more sensitive we also become in recognizing movements in our soul that do not come from the Holy Spirit, but from evil spirits temptations and other threats to our relationship with Jesus. In short, Jesus teaches us to see with his eyes. When we look to Jesus, he teaches us to see like him. If we commit to Jesus in those Eucharistic Hours he provides for us at Mass and in Adoration if we seek first the things of God and live our life from that foundation...from that relationship...he not only promises to teach us how to keep watch. He promises us his kingdom. 5