Living on the Plane of Faith

Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Deacon Douglas McManaman

The gospel for today, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, compares the kingdom of God to a king who gives a wedding banquet for his son, a feast of rich foods and choice wines. And so we can believe that heaven is going to be one great eternal party. However, the kingdom of God, Christ tells us, is within you (Lk 17, 21). It is here, it has been established in Christ’s death and resurrection, a kingdom that grows and develops throughout history, and so the party is meant to begin now. And we know it is a party that serves wine, because Christ’s first miracle was at the wedding of Cana where they ran out of wine, so Jesus changed gallons of dirty water into the finest wine, which, according to the twenty fifth chapter of Isaiah, is really an announcement that the Messiah has come and is here to achieve a complete victory over death. 

But wine is a symbol of joy; for Psalm 104 tells us that “God created wine to cheer the heart of man”. And so although heaven is going to be an eternal state of unimaginable joy, the very fact that the kingdom of heaven is “within you” means that this life is meant to be the beginnings of that state of supernatural joy. 

Everyone is invited to this feast, the good and the bad alike–not just the good. The invitation, therefore, does not depend on being a person of great moral nobility. The worst of the worst are invited. The problem, of course, is that not everyone accepts the invitation. Some people are just not interested. They make light of it. They have better things to do, matters of business, establishing the economic conditions for a successful and pleasant life, etc. In the first century, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, represent those who refuse the invitation, while the tax collectors, prostitutes, the rejects, the liturgically unclean, sinners, etc., represent those who were brought in–the latter accepted the invitation to the joyful celebration; the former did not. In other words, the ragamuffins believed Jesus, while the religious elite refused to do so. But this is precisely the will of his Father. Jesus said: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (Jn 6, 40).

But the question is this: “What did Jesus do that required faith?” The answer is that he forgave sins–which in many ways is a claim to divinity. If you recall the paralytic who was lowered through the roof on a stretcher. Jesus said to him: “Child, your sins are forgiven”. But the scribes reacted. They said: “He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?” And it is indeed true, only God can forgive sins. But Jesus also forgave the woman caught in adultery, as well as the woman in Simon the Pharisee’s house who anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment. And of course, his death on the cross is a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. St. Paul said: “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us”. What did the woman caught in adultery do to merit forgiveness? Nothing. What did Lazarus or the twelve year old girl do to merit being raised from the dead. Nothing. 

In other words, our redemption, our invitation to the eternal wedding banquet, did not come after we got our act together. No, Christ’s death and resurrection took place while we were still a mess. And the world is still a mess. Our lives are still a mess. But the good news is that “cleaning up our act” is not a condition for our presence at the party. What all this points to is the utter generosity of divine grace. Our debt has been cancelled. Why? Not on account of anything we did. The only requirement on our part is a trusting faith. 

The good news of the gospel brings joy, not sadness. It is not a heavy burden. It is light and easy, as Christ said: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light”. We know the gospel has been corrupted when it becomes heavy and burdensome. Life itself is often heavily burdensome, and although the gospel may not remove such burdens, it does bring light, life and strength to our lives so that we may be victorious over those burdens and difficulties. As a volunteer chaplain in a hospital, I will tell you that there is a profoundly significant difference between those who have faith in Christ and those who do not. When I encounter patients with genuine faith, they are joyful, even in the midst of their suffering. They smile, they are grateful, they don’t complain, they are gracious, kind, and thoughtful, which is already a witness to victory over their sickness. Sickness has not defeated them. But those who lack that faith, a light has gone out, and their eyes do not radiate joy. 

But imagine this: Imagine committing a very serious felony, and you’ve been charged, and you are most certainly going to be convicted and sent to prison for the rest of your life, because you cannot by any means pay the debt that your crime has created. And you’ve been waiting a long time behind bars for your trial date. Then one day you receive a visit from the Prosecutor. All charges have been dropped. The prison bars are now open. You are free to go.  

And somehow, in a way that you cannot yet understand, the harm your crime caused others has been transformed such that your victims come out victorious, fully restored and of radiant beauty. You don’t understand how that’s possible, but you are assured that is the case. Think of the joy that would be yours, after living in deep darkness caused by anxiety and dread. It would very much be comparable to opening a bottle of the best wine and drinking till your hearts content. 

Those who refuse the invitation can be compared to a felon who refuses to believe the charges have been dropped and the prison bars have been opened, and so he stays put, sits right there in the prison cell and doesn’t move. He does not celebrate, because he doesn’t believe he’s been freed. In fact, it is probably more true to say that he doesn’t really believe he’s a prisoner; he doesn’t know how miserable his life is now and much better it could be. He certainly does not believe he’s won the lottery. In his mind the gospel is a fairytale.

But that’s our situation. We have been liberated and an inexhaustible treasure is ours for the taking. To believe that, however, is one of the most difficult things for human beings to believe. Accepting the reality of such a crazy deal is not easy at all. It just seems too good to be true.

Now, it was Jewish custom in the first century for a wealthy host to provide festal garments for the guests invited to the feast. Because the invitation went out to everyone on the streets, good and bad alike, no one was expected to own a royal wedding garment. Therefore, the man in this parable who was without a royal garment did not lack resources. He simply rejected the king’s provided clothing in favor of his own. Now the clue to what this means is in the sixty fourth chapter of Isaiah: “We have all become like something unclean, all our just deeds are like polluted rags”. In other words, the man without a festal garment represents the person who relies on his own works, which are like polluted rags. But as St. Paul says: we are not saved by our works, we are saved by grace through faith: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast” (Eph 2, 8 ff).

However, faith does give rise to genuinely good works. Paul continues: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

There are works that come from grace through faith, and works that don’t come through a living faith, but come from ourselves. This is the person who refuses to wear the garment of grace offered by the king. Instead, he does things his way and for his sake. He relies on his own works to achieve all that he has set out to achieve in his life. This is a life lived not in a spirit of trust in God, but a life that is lived only on the basis of oneself.  

There is a serious difference between a life lived in the spirit of faith and trust that I have been loved and forgiven by God, not spurned and forgotten. When I know through faith that I have been forgiven by God and that Christ died for me, my actions from that point onwards are acts of gratitude and they are rooted in the real desire to love him back. But without that faith, without receiving and wearing the wedding garment of Christ’s supernatural grace, my works are not the expression of gratitude nor are they rooted in a longing to love him back for his generosity to me. The result is that my life is lived completely on a horizontal plane–there is no vertical element in my life. I am not moved to pray, nor do I see the world from God’s point of view.  

But it is a living faith that allows me to believe I am loved by God and freed from the prison bars of death, and that renders you and me able to love Christ; for those who are forgiven much, love much, as Jesus said to Simon the Pharisee. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little. And then I begin to see the world differently. I will begin to see Christ in everything, like Irish poet John Donne who could say that “I see his blood upon the rose and his face in every flower, his crown of thorns in every thorn, and his cross is every tree”.* Above all, however, we see the face of Christ in the suffering faces of our neighbor. 

And that’s what evangelization is primarily. We know that unless we love others, pay attention to them, visit them, feed and clothe them, they are not going to know that they are loved and that they have importance, but that is what we want above all when we are genuinely transformed by the love that God has for us personally. That’s how we proclaim the good news of our salvation. 

So our faith is not about having the right answers. It’s not about apologetics, defending the faith, rather, it’s about “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” What these verses reveal is that the hungry, the poor, the sick, and imprisoned–hence, even the guilty–have someone joined to them, such that when I relate to them I relate to that someone, and of course that someone is God the Son. In his Incarnation, he has joined himself to every human person, good and bad alike. 

Proclaiming the good news, or evangelization, is really about making the world aware of that mysterious and hidden presence in each one, and we do that only if we can first see and then respond to that hidden presence in each person. 

 

*I See His Blood Upon the Rose
by Joseph Mary Plunkett

 

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;

The thunder and the singing of the birds

Are but his voice—and carven by his power

Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,

His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

His cross is every tree.