March 19, 2015
The following is a homily based on the Scripture readings for Sunday, March 22.
If you give someone a fish, you have helped that one time. If you teach people to fish, then you have empowered them to help themselves.
We acknowledge the truth of this all the time, and we honor those programs that bring training into the process – training homeless people in a skill, training very young mothers in parenting, training seniors through physical therapy to keep them independent and in their own homes.
What kind of training does Jesus offer us? It is clear that we need help.
We can hear it in the first reading, when Jeremiah tells us that God will now help us keep the covenant. We’ve been hearing about covenants all these Sundays of Lent, ways in which God and we make promises. But the promise that the ancient Jews made they did not keep; and, just as true, the promises that we have made to God we barely keep. So Jeremiah tells us: “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” God himself will come to our rescue, writing his law in our hearts, transforming us so we can be true partners with God, so we can keep our commitments to God.
Jesus, clearly, is the covenant that God sends, the law written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, his heart becoming our heart. The Gospel today starts off saying that some Greeks—that is, non-Jews—were looking for Jesus. And Jesus responds by seeming not to answer their question. But the logic is clear: if people think that I am famous, that they come seeking me, I will tell you what my fame is all about. My glory is to give my life in service, to shows God’s unlimited love for all humankind, and to show the promise of salvation God makes in the New Covenant. Jesus says that his hour has come: this is the moment of climax in his life. And his “hour” consists in giving his life, the seed dying in the ground that growth may come. The thunder in the sky is the divine confirmation of Jesus’ glory: heaven itself knows that Jesus’ glory is to live for others.
Jesus says that this is also the point of judgment on the world: if he gives his life, must not the world live in the same kind of love that Jesus shows? In other words, Jesus gives his life to empower his followers so they may generously give their lives in love and service as well. Jesus does not give us a fish; he gives us his Holy Spirit that we may all do as he did, live in generous love for others. He brings us into his New Covenant. His “cries and groans” showed his obedience, his following the path of God: love is for others. Life is not about ourselves but our capacity to give ourselves as Jesus did.
It’s not likely that many of us will be crucified, though certainly in some parts of the world Catholics and Christians are suffering martyrdom. But it is likely that every one of us will be called out of ourselves every day, called to let our ego and preference die, called to let the grain of our service flower into the abundance of a new world, of God’s Kingdom.
Jesus heard and shows us the Father’s generous love. He not only showed us but taught us. And he not only teaches us but reaches into our hearts with his Holy Spirit, filling them with his power and love. The Greeks wanted to see Jesus. So he showed them who he was by what how he lived. Is this the Jesus that we come to meet, to know, to accept?
Jesus listened and showed us the heart of God; he asks if we have come to listen, and learn, in our own lives.