Fr. McQueens Sermon from Sunday 9/7/2014: In today’s passage from the prophet Ezekiel, we hear God saying, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” It’s a promise of forgiveness, a call to the beloved to come home. Sadly, it’s one that sometimes goes unanswered and C.S. Lewis explains why, saying simply, “There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who say to God, ‘thy will be done,’ and those to whom God must say, ‘thy will be done.’” It’s a tragedy whenever this happens, and so in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus is calling the Church to continue echoing the message of Ezekiel and testify to the promise of love that God offers. In order to be the community that reveals the love of the Father for the world our relationships have to look different from those of the world. Now this doesn’t mean that we won’t sin against each other or have conflict. No matter how much we love each other, we’re fallen creatures and it’s inevitable that we will get hurt. Instead, the difference love makes is in what our conflict does, because the Father approaches our sin not based on what must be withheld, but how much more must be offered. You see, when love is absent we withdraw when we get hurt. We can do this physically, by avoiding a person or community. We can do this emotionally, by sweeping the problem under the rug and simply devaluing the relationship or lashing out and creating barriers. Either way it’s an absence of love and it’s the downfall of the relationship and the community. The love of the Father testifies to the fact that reconciliation always requires more love, not less. This is what we see in the Incarnation; where God himself came among us because the love letters sent through the Law and prophets couldn’t heal the pain of separation. We see it on the cross, where Jesus prays to the Father, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We see it with Paul, where Jesus himself comes to him when Stephen’s testimony isn’t enough. To testify to that, we have to see our sins and conflicts as the challenge that spurs our love to grow larger and deeper by seeking healing and reconciliation. When we are able to be restored to our brothers and sisters, we find that our love has grown and the relationships are often stronger than they were before the hurt. Here we find that love is both difficult and beautiful. It’s difficult because the greater our love is, the more of us it requires. But that’s also what makes it beautiful and we see that in the infinite cost God pays to reveal an infinite love for us. But our love must grow larger and deeper because our selfishness won’t let reconciliation happen otherwise and sometimes that’s too difficult for us to do alone. We can’t say that we take no pleasure in the death of the wicked if we’re stuck in self-righteous judgment. We can’t call someone to turn back if we’re preoccupied with how we’ve been hurt. That’s where the community comes in and takes the burden off us to have to love unconditionally. Still, there are times in the course of reconciliation that a relationship has to change. It’s just not love to allow someone to continue to sin against us, individually and collectively. If we’ve removed our own hurts and desires and made as much room for love as possible, we’ll begin to understand the pain of God having to say, “thy will be done.” But it doesn’t leave us without hope and we find that in pondering a simple question: How do we see Jesus interact with Gentiles and tax collectors? As an example, Jesus proactively engages the Gentile woman at the well more and more deeply, seeking to heal her woundedness and restore her to the community. As far as tax collectors go, we see Jesus calling to Zacchaeus and St. Matthew, feasting with them as well as other tax collectors and sinners. So what we’re seeing is that while Jesus has not sought these people out, when he sees an opening he seeks to draw them out from where they are; to bless them and offer the abundance they’re longing for, but haven’t found. What we have to realize then is that this passage is sandwiched between Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep and Peter’s question how many times he had to forgive. He offered 7, which he thought was generous since many rabbis taught that 3 was more than enough. But the joyful message we have is that the kindness and long-suffering love of God is far greater than our own, and so even when our love has seemed to fail, God will never cease to come after.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 20:48:47 +0000
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