HOMILY 4^TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH & FURMAN UNIVERSITY

FEBRUARY 1, 2009 – 8, 10, 12NOON & 6:30PM

May our Lord Jesus give us His peace.

He’s a fake!  Divided loyalties,  a real good buzz.

He’s a fake!  The Hebrews are afraid when Moses speaks these words of caution to them.  You think you’ve had enough of the voice and the fire?

Another is coming after me.  He predicts the prophets that will come after him, but more important, the Jews would hear him saying the Messiah is coming.  Moses cautions that some will try to speak for God - but will not.

Say loudly, “He’s a fake!”  Go ahead, get practice calling them out.

You can tell who speaks for God by the resonance with the strings of your heart.  God’s law has been written there.  But we can be fooled.

You will know when the prophet, when the Messiah, when God speaks in odd places and times, through unsuspecting people.  But some things people do are so attractive!  Surely God wants me to enjoy this!

Does God?  Watch out when people around you say, he, she’s a fake!  You don’t want…

Divided loyalties.  Life can be a real hoot sometimes.  It is rarely a choice between love and hate, rarely a choice between good and evil, rarely a choice between something of God and something of earth.

More often our choices are loving two things and being conflicted.  More often we are picking the lesser of 2 evils.  Two competing goods, like a job where you could make a lot of money and do good with the money, or a job where you make little money but do a lot of good.  More often we see God’s call related to an earthly experience – marriage, ecological practices, church ministry, political ideology.  Life is complicated.

It is worrisome, what to do?  What to say?

St. Paul uses the word anxiety 5 times in the one reading from Corinthians.  He makes me anxious about anxiety!  Ugh.  So many choices, so many concerns, so many donuts so little time.  Paul says it would go well for us to be about the things of the Lord, almost exclusively.  Can we?  It MUST BE all Him.  For the sake of propriety, correctness, adhere to the Lord without distraction.  How ugly am I as I show you my divided loyalties.

A real good Buzz.  I must confess that like some of you I am completely fascinated by space, planets, asteroids, the sheer size of it all.  I saw an amazing moon last night – a huge smiley face with only the underside of the moon lit up – like the white belly of a black cat.  When professionals come to town to speak about space - I go.  I listen.

One time I heard Buzz Aldrin was coming to town.  I had a chance to listen to someone who landed on the moon when I was 8.  He then left his spacecraft and walked on the moon.  He walked on the freaking moon.

He’s a real good Buzz.   So is Jesus.  Like Buzz Aldrin talking about the moon, Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of God. 

Jesus came from the freaking Kingdom.  HE speaks differently.  HE speaks with authority.  When it comes to understanding God HE is no professional making a presentation.  HE tells the story in the reality HE speaks about.

Want a good Buzz for yourself?  Consider you also represent the Kingdom.  Consider your choices are of critical importance - for like preparing to walk on the freaking moon, you are preparing to announce a superior way by your presence, and faith, and works.  And everyone is tuned in, they’re watching, don’t think they aren’t.  You could be very anxious about so noble a task, or, you could shake people by the graphic, luminous, sincerity with which you love.  Buzz was only talking about the moon.  You’ll be presenting the maker of the moon.  I promise, watching you, I will be just like when I was 8, and say, wow, that is so cool.