Rev. Mr. Aaron Foshee
Homily – 25th Sunday Ordinary Time (9/21/14).
One of the most important things I can tell you about myself is not my age, or my profession, or my family background, but rather it is the fact that I have been baptized.
And while most of you might be saying to yourself
“You're a deacon , of course your baptized!”
I say that because it was at that point in my life
– and in the lives of all here who have also been baptized –
when we became, in a very real way, members of the Body of Christ.
Through this sacrament, we put on the white garment of Christ and died to sin, rising to new life in the Holy Spirit.
We were forgiven of our sins, especially ofOriginal Sin, which we inherit because of Adam and Eve’s Fall from grace;
and we were joined to a family of believers infellowship
– a fellowship that is marked by joy and pain,gain and loss, life and death, because it is afellowship that has its roots in Christ:
in his own joys, pains, gains, losses, life, and death… and resurrection.
This may sounded like really high theology
i-- very lofty and “high-brow” even to speak of our baptisms in such a way,
but it all means nothing if we have not allowed the experience of our sacramental faith to evangelize our own spirits.
Baptism, or any sacrament, really, opens for us a way of seeing into the love of God himself, not because its “pretty” or “cute,” or “expected because we’re Catholic, and that's what we do”
– but because of what we witness in them;
because of what we experience with our eyesand ears, our touch and smell.
It is this encounter – this “hands-on” elementthat speaks more to us than words alone can do.
But even experience is not enough:
we must also be “servants in the vineyard” (see Mt. 20)) of the Lord, working to bring the harvest of salvationto our brothers and sisters who have not accepted his love and mercy.
Our pride can often make this hard for us to do though.
Like the Gospel reading for today, we are met with a problem when Christ tells us that “the last will be first and the first will be last.” (Mt. 20:16)
We, considering ourselves to be “good and faithful servants”
– who have labored throughout the day and who have “bore [our faith’s] burden” of (see Mt. 20) walking the walk and the “heat” of persecution, or neglect, orpersonal sacrifice –
we may feel that this idea --of the first being last --is unfair.
And we’d be right., just not in the way we’d expect.
You see, while we may have been chosen as servants;
And while we may bear the rewards and the consequences of the name “Christian”,
we are only called servants and bearers of Christ because the first among us –Christ Jesus –became last and least.
Even though he was God, Christ chose to become like us
– slaves in comparison to the limitless glory that is his right to claim –
and so suffered the death of a criminal to set us free. (See Phil. 2)
As our first reading tells us today: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.”(Is. 55:9)
His ways are, as the psalmist says are "unsearchable” (ps. 145) that is, unlimited –
unlimited by pride, or malice, or jealousy, orhatred.
His ways transcend evil; overcome vengefulness;
and give –
give so completely that no power “in the heavens, on the earth or under the earth” (Phil. 2:10) can stop them.
Our Lord’s ways we experience in the Sacraments;
Our Lord’s love we feel in the embrace of our brothers and sisters who surround us in thisfamily of believers;
and our Lord’s mercy we know
because we gaze upon it in His Body and Blood, broken and poured out to nourish us, and to save us.
And so, I’d like to pose a question to us all here:
Are we willing to share the joys, the gains, and the life of our faith to the world?
Are we willing to lay down our jealousy andbitterness so as to welcome, with open armsthose
who are among us
because the call of the Lord brought them here?
If we can find a way to do this, we will be pleased to find that we have co-workers in the harvest:
to share the load of pains, losses, and even death that will come our way.
We will find that our baptismal garments are still white as snow, washed in the blood of the Lamb that was shed for love us.
And then, when our day is done and the toils of this life are ended,
we may hope to hear our Lord say to us:
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”(Mt. 25:21)
Well done.
Amen
Amen
