Homily for Sunday, July 31, 2016
Salvation. When you hear that word, what first
comes to mind? For Christians in
general, do you think the most basic understanding of salvation is that of
being saved from our sins, through our faith in Jesus Christ? For this reason, we speak of Jesus
Christ as our Saviour. We abide in
the hope that if we are faithful Christians, our sins will be forgiven and we
will be rewarded by an afterlife in heaven. May I please ask you to consider a larger frame of reference
for the concept of salvation?
The disciples who
followed Jesus, as Peter pronounced, believed him to be the Messiah, “the Son
of the Living God.” As religious Jews, Peter and his companions would have
believed these things about the long-awaited Messiah: That he would be
descended from King David. That he would come to unify the tribes of Israel.
That he would come to save them from their oppressors. That he would usher in
an age of global universal peace. On this list of Messianic attributes, the
word save is used only in reference to the Messiah saving his people
from their oppressors. How did we get to our current understanding that the
Saviour came to save us from our sins?
In Joseph’s dream about the baby Mary carries, the angel appears to him
and says, “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save
his people from their sins.” Does our gospel lesson for today give us a way to
connect the angel’s message about Jesus—that his role would be to save sinners—to
the Hebrew prophecy of the Messiah’s charge to save his people from their oppressors? Maybe the two ideas are not mutually
exclusive.
Consider today’s
lesson from the Gospel of Luke. Listen to what Jesus says to the crowd in this
parable about the rich man and his barns: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.
And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my
crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build
larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say
to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat,
drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your
life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich
toward God.”
Wealth—and being
“rich toward God”: how do we balance those two contrary things? This parable and the one about a rich
man having as hard a time getting into heaven as a camel would have passing
through the eye of a needle may give pause to those of us who live relatively
wealthy and comfortable lives simply by virtue of being American. (I think that means all of us!) How are we supposed to be “rich toward
God”?
One other thing
believed by Jews about their Messiah—he would be the king of God’s kingdom on
earth. Jesus acknowledges this aspect of his Lordship when, on many occasions,
he says, “The kingdom is at hand” or “the kingdom has come near.” All people
come within the wide embrace of his kingdom—God’s kingdom on earth. As Jesus
preaches so forcefully in Matthew 25, “And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I
tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my
family, you did it to me.” Being
rich toward God means being rich toward God’s people. When the rich man planned to build larger barns so he would
have enough room to store the excess of his crops and his goods, he hoarded
what he could have shared. He
chose to live outside God’s kingdom on earth—a kingdom of love and shared
blessings.
Yes, Jesus the
Messiah came to save us from our oppressors. What oppresses us more personally
than our very own sinfulness? As we see in the example of the rich man and his
hoarding, selfishness and self-centered pride may very well be the original sin
underlying all others. Jesus has
shown us how to live in such a way that we can be relieved of the sinful burden
of self-centeredness. Trying to be well-behaved when we are ready to behave is not
something we do in expectation of a life to come, as the rich man hoped. Even St. Augustine, before his full
conversion, prayed, “Lord, let me be pure—but not yet.” The rich man gambled his
soul so that he could continue to “eat, drink, and be merry” as long as he had
the means to do so. Living in the kingdom means being part of a loving family right
now, following God’s way as we provide water for our neighbors who are
thirsty and food for those who are hungry; clothing for the naked and healing
care for the sick; mercy and justice for those in prison. These are the ones
some may consider the least in God’s kingdom—but Jesus puts them first.
Remember the
verses that we have come to know as the beatitudes? Jesus welcomes those who most need his love and mercy into a
kingdom of heaven that exists right here, right now. “Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn;
blessed are the meek; blessed are the merciful; blessed are the pure in heart;
blessed are the peacemakers.” By
way of humility, kindness, generosity, and love, we are expected to bring God’s
kingdom of universal peace to the world we now inhabit. Having followed his Way
in the present kingdom, we will have no trouble making the transition to the
larger Kingdom that awaits us.
Salvation, then,
is not so much meant to be something we seek for ourselves, but rather
something we share with our neighbors.
Every human being is created in the image of God, and we are called to
seek and serve the Lord in each other. As Jesus asked the rich man, and as he
asks us, “And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?” Clearly, the answer Jesus expects is
“Someone other than myself.”
Eight centuries
before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah pondered the role of the Messiah. He gave us these beautiful words, as
from the mouth of God the Father, to express the wideness of the coming
kingdom:
“It is too light a thing that you should be
my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the
end of the earth.”
Yes, it is too
light a thing to think we were created just for our own individual purposes. Susan
Dente, a Franciscan nun, said, “Because we are made in God’s image, each of us
is another promise to the universe that God will continue to love and care for
it.”
We pray that we can
do our part in service to this planet and all its inhabitants, fulfilling the
promise of Creation. And as we find our salvation in serving others, may we
help to establish the Savior’s kingdom of light, love, generosity, kindness and
peace. AMEN.
