February 13, 2015
The following is a homily based on the Scripture readings for Sunday, Feb. 15.
Questions frame our lives. As soon as children begin to talk, questions come out: Why is that man crying? Why can’t I go out? With age, the questions get more pressing. Who are my friends? What do I want to be? Where should I go to college? Settle down? I imagine the questions that circulated prior to Valentine’s Day yesterday: Not “Will you be my Valentine?” which is so cheesy; but something, often unspoken, like: “Do you really love me? Will you always be here for me?”
Jesus gets an indirect question, in a rather passive-aggressive form, in the Gospel, and it’s hard to know how he takes it. “If you wish,” the leper says, “you can make me clean.” Talk about putting a hook into someone. Is Jesus supposed to say: “I can, but I won’t”? Is the leper testing not just Jesus willingness but also his power? “I do will it,” Jesus says back. It’s almost as if Jesus is saying that pressing God, pressing God’s love, is the way to discover just how endless that love is.
What are the questions we ask of God? Or, perhaps, the ones we don’t ask because we’ve become timid, matter-of-fact, automatic-pilot in our faith. What do I ask God for? Perhaps we think God will say, “Well, I don’t will it, too bad.” The point of prayer is not whether God gives us this or that; rather, it’s how our need always opens up the inexhaustible love God has for us, which God always shows us, even if it’s not in the exact form we wanted. What does God will for us? Can we see it? Only if we ask with open and receptive hearts … then we see every moment, every thing, is sheer gift of love.
Of course, the drama of the Gospel is in the next section. Jesus tells the cured man not to say anything to anyone. He doesn’t want people creating a stir; rather, he wants to announce himself as the Messiah who comes not in glory, but in service, in sacrifice. Making a stir, making Jesus a star, gets in the way of that. But what’s the man supposed to do? We know from the first reading how isolated diseased people were in ancient society – driven from family and friends. Now he can go back to them, show them his clean skin, adopt a new relationship with all of society. What’s he supposed to do?
Of course, Jesus has already revealed himself to us as the Servant Messiah. He doesn’t tell us to keep our mouths shut. The healing, peace, love, joy, and mystical union we have from God through Jesus is the greatest, most important news in our lives. I buy a PowerBall ticket twice a week: Do you think I’d be quiet if I won $100 million? My godchildren get into their favorite colleges: Do you think they keep that to themselves? No. Good News is meant to be spread, and St. Paul, patron of the Paulist Fathers, tells us how – by the simple love we extend through giving ourselves to others in service. Not by browbeating, being smug, looking down, acting righteous. “Give no one offense,” he says. Imitate me as I imitate Christ.
So maybe that’s the question Jesus asks us: If I have touched and transformed your life, will you show that? When the opportunity comes, will you share that? If you’ve been made whole, will you help others become whole? If I have answered your prayers, will you help me answer the prayers of others? If I have shown you endless love, what love will you show me back?
Indeed, questions do frame our lives.