Deacon Michael’s Homily for 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time - August 6-7, 2022

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time - August 6-7, 2022

The readings on which this homily is based can be found HERE

One of my favorite songs of all time is Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up In Blue”. 

It’s a very evocative poetic song about a man reflecting on a love that he has lost and wondering if he'll get back there someday. 

A reviewer once wrote that

… “What Picasso did for painting, “Tangled Up in Blue” does for songwriting. It changes from first to third person narration, twists from the present to a memory to the future, throwing in references and metaphor all while never deviating from the thrills of a good yarn.”

It struck me that this is similar to how the Sunday readings often present themselves to us.

The mixture of narrative voices, evoking different times and places and people, moving from the past to the present into the future, using references and metaphor to tell us the big story

…the story of salvation history

…the ultimate love story.

Take today’s readings.

The first, from the Book of Wisdom, pulls the past into the present for Israelites of 2,000 years ago. 

It reflects on the past saving act of God in the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage,

…as they are faithfully offering the “divine institution”, the Passover ritual, which the Israeiltes were to keep down to their day that God might save them in their present as well.

Pulling the future into the present, the second reading from Hebrews meditates on the nature of faith, as the “realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen”

…or as the New Revised Standard Version puts it “ and the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.

Abraham is offered as an example of living faith, being called by God out on a journey, out into the future,

…“not knowing where he was to go” we are told,

…but doing so in deep trust in God arising out of this conviction.

And as a result this heretofore childless man’s spiritual descendants came to be as “numerous as the stars in the sky, and as countless as the sands on the seashore”

…we ourselves numbering among them.

Finally, today’s Gospel highlights the importance of the present, through reflecting on the end of the age itself. 

In New Testament times, the notion of the end of times, the end of the world and coming of the Messiah permeated Israel

…not viewed as something in the far away future but something that could be anticipated in their lifetime.

Blessed are those servants who in faith anticipate this return and are about the Master’s business

…living for this return as the Master had shown and taught.

As to the hour of that coming, it will be when we least expect it. 

Elsewhere Jesus strongly emphasizes that we can never know the day or the hour of this coming

…and so worrying about it and predicting it, is fruitless

…we need to be living as if it could happen now, today.

Before long Christians came to understand that their own death

…rather than the second coming

…just might be the day and the hour that they should be most concerned about.

Would that day of encounter with the Lord face-to-face as it were, find them ready?

How would their lives faithfully and vigilantly reflect all the dimensions of love that he had commanded, shown and taught them?

Would their conscience be clear?

These can be wake-up call kind of questions.

One who posed such questions was the late Archbishop John Whealon.

I can remember being in the kitchen of our condo in Brookwood Village back around 1990

…listening to the Archbishop’s radio program, a short talk that he offered each afternoon.

That day he was talking about this very point.

He was stressing that no one knows that day or the hour of their own death, the day so to speak when the accounting of our life will be summed up.   

He offered that we should always strive to live in the present the way the Lord had called us, so as to always be prepared, vigilant, and faithful about the Lord’s business.

The image he used was that of the believer living his life with one foot on either side of the grave

…one who was grateful and happy in this world,

…but ready to move on to the next.

Happy to be here, good to go.

Ironically enough Archbishop Whealon’s life itself was a lesson in this.

At age 70 he entered Saint Francis Hospital for a routine surgical procedure

…and died unexpectedly on the operating table after having survived five previous cancer operations.

Unlike Abraham, and the voice in Dylan’s song, the Archbishop knew the destination of the journey he was on, and I suspect he was ready and prepared.

May the Lord find us vigilant and faithful servants on the road, making our lives count and trusting in His mercy.

May the Lord bless us, protect us from evil and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.