Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 1

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Toby Nichols
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1 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 1 The only way out is through. Welcome to the fourth week of our Lenten series, Lost? Lent is a time for us to review and renew: to review where we are with God and to renew our efforts to draw closer; a time where our external practices can move us to make internal changes drawing us closer to the eternal God. We need this time. It s easy to drift from God. Life happens. We get busy. Bit by bit we drift away. Then in the middle of hectic, crazy and difficult times we find ourselves lost, without God close by. Lent is also a time to review and renew our understanding of who we are. We are children of God. Nothing can take that away. God has chosen us, not because we are good but because God is all good. Like Jesus in the desert, then, we must chose to assert that identity, remember and claim that I am God s son, I am God s daughter, God s beloved; we must chose to depend on God, to cry out to God to find and help me. Lent is also a good time to review and renew God is as well. That God is for us and with us.

2 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 2 As Deacon Tyler said so beautifully last week, God is not waiting to beat you up for what you ve done. No. God wants nothing more than to draw you close, nothing more than to bring you home. It may seem hard to believe at times, especially when we struggle or suffer, but God wants to shower you with an abundance of graces, His Spirit living within us. But God loves us too much to force us. Love must be free. God comes running out to seek and to save the lost but we have to be willing to be found. And that s what God s saying again in our first reading today: Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers for I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink, the people whom I formed for myself, The Jews are in exile in Babylon as the Babylonian empire begins to crumble; they re fearful that they might be destroyed along with the Babylonians. Isaiah challenges them to see God s Presence even in this struggle.

3 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 3 Isaiah begins by referencing the Exodus, when God saved Israel from slavery and led them to the Promised Land. The Israelites were struggling as slaves in Egypt, suffering, crying out to the Lord who used Moses as His messenger and vehicle. God demonstrated His Power through Moses in the plagues when Pharaoh had refused to listen. At last, Pharaoh relents and lets Israel leave. But they have not gone very far when Pharaoh second guesses their release. After all, he thinks, I m the most powerful man in the world leading the most powerful army. Their God can t tell me what to do. Pharaoh summons the army and chases Israel to the Red Sea. There, Israel panics, facing almost certain death either by drowning or at the hands of Pharaoh and his men. But God is with them; God has a plan even though the situation seems desperate. God opens the Red Sea and they passed through as if on dry land. When Pharaoh and his vast army tried to follow, God rolled waters back. Pharaoh and his whole army were drowned. Then, further still, God leads Israel through the desert, providing water from the rock and manna from heaven.

4 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 4 Isaiah calls on the Israelites now in exileto remember God s Presence and power that had saved them at the Exodus. At the same time, Isaiah is also issuing an important reminder: the past can teach and illustrate but it must not bind. The Lord always has greater things in store; revealed in the past, yes, but always more than the past revealed. This is who God is and remains without end: a loving God undeterred by opposing circumstances or hostile forces. Isaiah reminds the Israelites that they are God s chosen, that God has formed them as a potter molds a lump of clay into a work of art. The God, who has saved them in the past is at work now. What God did then is paradigmatic of what God always does: the powerful deed done long ago superimposed on the current drama of redemption allowing Israel to share in the power of God s never-ending love. The fall of Babylon is only the first act. Isaiah anticipates a return from the ends of the earth, from all corners of the globe. God will not only save those in exile but gather together all of Israel wherever they are, forming once again His people, just as He had promised Abraham long before. Nothing can stop God, not the Babylonians who took them into exile nor King Cyril who is overcoming Babylon.

5 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 5 The meaning for us is clear: Because of who God is, we can face with confidence the troubles of life - even when we struggle and suffer, when we have turned away and it is our selfishness and sinfulness that causes our misfortune. The pressures of life, even when difficult, can be understood as loving touches of the Craftsman s hand, God perfecting what He has planned, God finding us and leading us home. God always provides a way out and is always guiding us to and along that path. The only way out is through. Jesus makes clear what that path is, the path that leads us from struggle to joy, from suffering to consolation, from confusion, fear and doubt to peace. That path is Jesus Christ. At dawn Jesus appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered round him, and he sat down to teach them. While Jesus was sitting and teaching, the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, brought in an adulteress woman, forcing her to stand before Jesus, the scribes, the Pharisees and the whole group of people listening to Jesus. Her humiliation would have been acute. She had been caught in the very act of adultery, probably ripped right from the bed,

6 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 6 standing there now naked, vulnerable and exposed both literally and figuratively. It s clear that these leaders have little interest in the woman, her salvation or the law. The same law of Moses condemned both parties in the sin of adultery. That they had picked up her alone, referring to such a woman was a sign of their prejudice, their limiting of the law, and, ultimately, of their end game to trick Jesus, trying to force Him either to condemn the woman to death or break the law of Moses. With little sincerity, the scribes and Pharisees addressed Jesus as Teacher, wanting to know whether Jesus agreed with the law of Moses or not. They knew He showed compassion towards sinners, and hoped his compassion might back Him into a corner, lead Him to make a statement contrary to the law. On the other hand, there would also be dangers if He supported the law, because He d be advocating capital punishment, forbidden to the Jews by the Romans. Surprisingly, Jesus doesn t answer. Instead, He bends down and starts to write on the ground with His finger, a sign of his refusal to debate the issue on the terms dictated by the teachers of the law.

7 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 7 When they kept on questioning him, He straightened up and said to them, Let the one without sin cast the first stone. Jesus neither ignores nor contravenes the law, simply instructing, with ONE SMALL STIPULATION, those gathered to begin the execution. But it s this stipulation that challenged the accusers and, indeed, all of those present. None was without sin and therefore in no position to condemn this woman. Again Jesus stoops down and writes on the ground, a further refusal to debate. But His words struck home: At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left. Woman, where are they? Has no-one condemned you? The first time anyone addresses the woman, Jesus speaks to her, engaging her but not about her sin, not judging or belittling her. No one, sir. Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more. Such a response reflects Jesus compassion for sinners, and reinforces what John said at the beginning of his Gospel: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. While Jesus refused to condemn the woman, He also did not condone her sin. Rather, as with the woman at the well, Jesus

8 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 8 invites her to move forward, to leave sin behind and share with Him the love of our Heavenly Father. Jesus is the promise offered by God through Isaiah: Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers for I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland. Jesus Christ is the way. And it s the same instruction and path for us. We are to look not at our past, not at our sinfulness. Rather, we are to ask God s love and mercy and forge ahead, calling on God to transform the wastelands and deserts of our lives. The way out of our sinfulness, the way we recognize God s love and mercy, the way we claim our identity as a child of God is Jesus Christ, by mirroring God s love and mercy for us as shown in Jesus Christ, offering to others what God offered to that woman and to each of us. The way from our struggle, confusion, fear, and doubt is to trust in the God who aides us, enlightens us, comforts us, confirms us in the love of Jesus Christ.

9 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 9 The only way to demonstrate that is show it in our actions: to pick up love, mercy, forgiveness, rather than the stones of judgment, hatred and prejudice. It s so very simple: the way out is through accepting and showing God s love for us. Simple? Yes, elegantly so. But not at all easy. It s not easy to put down the rocks of hatred and anger when we have been hurt, the rocks of judgment and condemnation when we have been attacked, what we think and believe ridiculed and belittled. No, most certainly it s not easy but we cannot claim to be a child of God, we cannot ask for, let alone claim, God s love and mercy for ourselves, if we re throwing at others the stones of hatred, anger, condemnation and judgment. If we want to throw these stones, like those elders, leaders and others only listening to Jesus, then we must walk away from Him and from God s mercy. I don t know about you, but I struggle with this, with even the possibility of having to exercise this radical love and forgiveness for those who have hurt me. Thank God, then that we do not walk the

10 Homily for the 5 th Sunday of Lent Year C Lost? - Week 5 Page 10 path alone. Saint Paul expresses this so beautifully using the image that Christ takes possession of us. Saint Paul makes clear that even HE can t do all that Christ asks but he also reminds us that this is not cause for shame, dismay, or despair. Rather it s a further call to trust God and push ahead as God s son, as God s daughter as God s beloved. I have been taken possession by Jesus Christ so there remains Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God s upward calling, in Christ Jesus. Even as I forge ahead, no matter how haltingly, even as I go about my day to day routine with all of my sins and weaknesses, even as I seek to live my life, however imperfectly, Jesus Christ takes possession of me, claiming me as a child of our loving Father. That s our way out and our way home. That s Jesus Christ; we need only start the journey and Christ will do the rest. No matter where we are, no matter how lost, we can choose to be found because God is willing to come to us and claim us as His own. God does not leave us lost but brings us closer to Him. He finds us and brings us home.

Again he bent down and wrote on the ground And in response they went away one by one (Gospel).

Again he bent down and wrote on the ground And in response they went away one by one (Gospel). 5 th Sunday in Lent, Cycle C March 17 th, 2013 First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21 16 Thus says the Lord, who makes