Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 1 Welcome to the fourth chapter of the Story of Your Life. We ve been talking these past few weeks about our lives as stories, with a beginning, a middle and an end, that we did not write our beginnings, that God did that for us, that in this middle part, we are called to make a fundamental choice : whether to live in our own little story (which breeds fear, worry, and anxiety which eventually lead to sin) or to live in God s larger story, an epic adventure, which, while it may not seem that way at first, leads to joy and blessing. That sharing our stories with others in small groups can help us to understand how God is at work and how we can share in His larger story. Today s chapter is about that part of our story we don t like to think about or talk about, but a part that s essential to living a better story. To share in God s epic adventure we need to acknowledge this part of our story, who we are and then embrace it rather than run away from it because it s difficult. We re going to look at a passage from the little known book of Nehemiah found in the Old Testament.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 2 His is a great story in and of itself, an account of the real life challenges faced by Nehemiah in the 5 th century before Christ. Nehemiah is a Jew, but he lives in Persia, because the Jews were in exile. They had messed up in a major way in their relationship with God, turned away from God, refused God s help making themselves vulnerable before their enemies. As a result, Judah was overrun, Jerusalem destroyed, and many of the people were exiled. Nehemiah, however, was in a pretty good position. He served as cupbearer to the king of Persia, when Persia was the most powerful nation in the world. As cupbearer, Nehemiah had a privileged position, one of the king s inside advisors. Nehemiah is living in the artificial world of palace luxury when he learns the real story of his native land. Jerusalem has fallen into disrepair, her walls ruined, destroyed years earlier and never rebuilt. Now, this is not a good time for us in this country to be talking about walls. We live in a day and an age where we have greater understanding, ability and resources for protection. Two and a half millennia of progress must mean something.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 3 But in the days of Nehemiah walls were needed for protection, the city vulnerable without them. Nehemiah hears this and it really bothers him, moves him so much the king notices a change in his personality. So one day, Nehemiah takes a great risk and asks the king if he can have a leave of absence to lead a rebuilding effort of those walls in his native city. Then, going for broke, Nehemiah also asks for resources: supplies and military to protect him. The king says yes to all of it, appointing Nehemiah governor of Judah to make it official. Eventually Nehemiah rallies the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the walls, and, despite all kinds of obstacles and adverse conditions, despite critics and the threat of conflict, they get the job done in less than two months. At the end of the rebuilding project, the people gather for a celebration. They read God s word and then worship: Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men, women, and all who were old enough to understand Ezra opened the book and praised the Lord, the great God; all the people lifted their hands and responded, Amen! Amen! Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 4 Ezra is the Jewish priest and he begins reading from the Bible, specifically the first five books of the Bible which are called the Law of Moses. The people had probably never heard the word of God before because it had been forgotten and neglected, like the city walls. As Ezra read, the people began to weep. As people heard the law of God, they realized in their ignorance they had broken so much of it. They began to recognize this huge gap between their lives and God s standard. They realized that they had abandoned their faith and walked away from God. This recognition fills them with regret. The beauty and truth of God s word just seeps into their hearts and changes those hearts. They come to appreciate how God had wanted them to live and the beauty of his commands. They had never realized the good news of the great life God wanted for them. And they re genuinely sorry for that. But, that s not the end of the story.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 5 Then Nehemiah said, Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. In other words, let s have a party.??what s the occasion, you ask? Well, Nehemiah tells them This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not be sad and do not weep for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah urges the people not to dwell in their regret. God understands your regret, Nehemiah encourages, And God wants you to move beyond it, even to celebrate what God is doing in your life now. All our stories include regret, which is a consciousness of as fault or failing, a sadness and sorrow for something wrong. If you don t have anything you regret, you don t know you re story very well or you re not being very honest about it. No one gets it right all the time; inevitably we get something, somehow, somewhere wrong, face something regrettable, something that leads us, or at least should lead, us to regret. You may look at your time in high school or college that way. You didn t study, and had way too much fun. Or you studied too much and missed out on all kinds of life experiences and opportunities.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 6 Maybe your regret is about a lost friendship. You allowed a close friendship to fall apart and you regret you didn t work harder at it and give more to it. Maybe it s a marriage that fell apart. You regret you didn t fight for it. Or you regret that you were unfaithful in the marriage and you allowed your heart to drift or your eyes to wander. Maybe you regret choices you made as a parent. Your adult children have problems and you feel this twinge of regret that maybe it was something you did as a parent. Maybe it s work. At one point, you felt like you should have taken a stand, knowing without question something was wrong, but you quietly took the path of least resistance, saying nothing, getting along. Or maybe there was someone you could have helped and didn t, and as a result, things went badly for them. There was this semester, or season, a Spring Break, a rash comment, a dumb decision; a bad deal, a little tiny lie, a lazy season, healthy conflict avoided, nasty confrontation sought, the need to be right, the refusal to be wrong, process over person, means over the end.and the result??? Regret.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 7 Here s a regret I have. I regret that I let a lot of people who were critical of me drive my behavior and color my perspective on life. I m not talking about constructive criticism but those people who tear down, whether they re threatened or hurt or scared, or just plain mean. Constructive criticism is necessary and helpful, even when it s difficult to hear. But some people were just plain toxic. Instead of focusing on the mission we re called to and the people who supported that, I focused, obsessed really, on people who were only disparaging and derogatory only finding fault with what we re doing. And that wasn t good for the people around me and it certainly wasn t good for me. And that, in turn led to anger and depression, which, for a season of my life, ruled my life and unfortunately determined a lot of my decisions and choices, with very sad, unfortunate, and also sinful consequences. I regret the attitude I formed as well as some of the choices I made, during that period of my life. Things that I am ashamed of and sorry for, actions I did, words I spoke.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 8 When we come to the places of regret in our story, here s the temptation. We d like to pretend they never happened. Certainly, that s understandable, but it s also not helpful. For one thing, those regrets are part of your story, they are what make you human and real. Denying them, trying to forget them is mixing up your story But there s another, more important reason not to deny our regrets. Here s the deal about our regrets. Our regrets are actually the very things God wants to redeem. Our failures and mistakes, those things we regret are exactly where we can come to know God personally, as MY Savior, MY Redeemer. Your relationship with God grows immeasurably when you face those regrets and bring them to God. And then you ll grow immeasurably too. It s what Jesus tells us in the Gospel today, that He comes precisely for those who are suffering, and proclaims God s favor to them, God s desire to bring healing and wholeness.
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 9 If you face your regrets head on, if you embrace them by recognizing them and then inviting God specifically into those areas of your life, God gives you a chance, an opportunity to redeem those regrets and use them for good. God can take regret over bad financial choices to strengthen you to make better decisions and rebuild your financial health. God can take your regret in marriage,, God can use it to help you rebuild your marriage. God can use your regrets about parenting decisions to help you see mistakes and consequences and rebuild your relationships with your kids. Maybe you have regret about your faith, perhaps a shallow commitment or half-hearted approach. God can rejuvenate your faith and rebuild your relationship. God can take any of our regrets and rebuild, just like Nehemiah built the city walls from the ruins of the past mistakes of the people. God can take any regret and rebuild, using even our regrets for greater purposes, but, first, we have to face those regrets. We have to recognize that part of our story and bring it all to God, saying:
Homily for the 3 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C The Story of Your Life - Week 4 Page 10 God, I m sorry. I apologize for that part of my story. And I thank you for redeeming my regrets. Better yet, go to confession and say it there so you can hear God s words of forgiveness. The sacrament of Reconciliation is far more about God s redeeming love than our sinfulness, more about God the Father of Mercies, than my sinfulness. The people we meet in Nehemiah feel regret and we know that such feelings are necessary. But notice also the exhortation of Nehemiah: Do not be sad for the joy of your Lord is your strength. Nehemiah is saying, OK, you ve acknowledged your regret and you ve apologized. Now, focus on God. Find your strength in God. And, so very important, find your joy in that strength!! Easy? No, not always but the only way truly to get beyond our regrets. Don t live in the sadness of your regrets. Live in the joy of God s strength. Whoever you are, whatever station or state of life you re in, whatever you story has been, you can write, even joyfully, a different story. With God s help, with God s love, with God s grace, mercy and forgiveness, with God s strength, you can write a better story and be part of God s epic adventure.