4th Sunday 2016
Robert VerEecke, S.J.
Strive eagerly for the greater gifts. Great word. Strive. It even sounds like
it’s meaning. It take effort to strive for something. Honestly how often do
you use the word Strive? Of course you know what it means. To make an
extra effort. Put everything you have into something. The place where I see
a whole lot of striving going on is at the sports complex. You look around
and you see folks pumping, pushing, pulling, pressing, running, riding,
rowing, stretching, stepping, straining, sweating, Always striving to …
what? For what purpose? The logo on the machines give you their answer to
the question.
“What we live for”… Life Fitness. Hmm. Is that what you live for? Sure
it’s great to feel the burn. But is it what we live for?
St Paul says there is something else to live for.
He tells us to strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. That is what we
live for. That’s the ultimate purpose of our lives simply to love. But the love
that Paul speaks of takes a great deal of effort. It’s hard work. That’s what’s
perplexing when couples choose this reading for their weddings as if the
love they have for each other as they begin their married life has anything
really to do with the divine love that Paul speaks of. How many times have
you heard someone begin this reading at a wedding and as soon as it starts.
(Heard that before!) So listen again. (reverse language)
Patient is love and kind.
Jealous not!, pompous not!,
Inflated not!, rude not,
Self-seeking, quick-tempered, No! NO! NO!
Brood over injury, rejoice over wrongdoing? Wrong, wrong, wrong>
But, but, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears, believes ,
hopes , endures all things.
The love that Paul speaks of is at its best a divine harmony. When we do
love selflessly the way Paul describes we know we are our best selves. It is
in fact what we live for. It is the ultimate purpose of our existence. At the
end of our lives does it really matter how “fit” we are? Speaking of fitness
and I know this is a real stretch… the harmony of Paul’s reading, the striving
eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts is counterpointed with the strife in the
gospel.
Jesus in the gospel according to Luke doesn’t “fit” the preconceptions of his
neighbors. They can’t conceive that the carpenter’s son could be the chosen
one, the Messiah the one who is to inaugurate God’s reign. He doesn’t have
the right resume. He isn’t qualified in their estimation. You can hear the
muttering “who does he think he is?” The muttering turns to raised voices,
shouting, maybe shoving and a mob scene that is on the verge of violence.
Wow! Luke has such a vivid imagination! Mark tells this story in a much
more low key way. Yes, his neighbors who “know” him as the boy next door
think he’s delusional but the scene doesn’t heat up the way Luke tells it. In
Mark, Jesus walks away “depressed’. Mark says that Jesus was so
disheartened by this rejection that he could do only a few healings”.
At the very beginning of his ministry the dissonant chord of rejection is
sounded by those who initially praised him. And why this rejection?
Because they couldn’t imagine that this Jesus could be the fulfillment of the
deepest desires of God for the world. Jesus just didn’t fit the job description
as they conceived it.
But for us, the reason that we are here is that Jesus does “fit” the job
description. If God is Love, what would be more fitting than the Love
revealed in Jesus to bring about God’s kingdom. For Jesus does reveal a love
that bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Hopefully we are witnesses to the love that Jesus lived for us and for all. So
maybe the logo for this homily today is
Not life fitness but love’s witness: What we live for.