Homily for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

Dt 6:2-6

Ps 18:2-4, 47, 51

Heb 7:23-28

Mk 12:28-34

 

St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church, Burkburnett, TX

St. Paul Catholic Church, Electra, TX

Christ the King Catholic Church, Iowa Park, TX

 

Quite often, when we read the Gospels and Jesus encounters the Scribes, Pharisees, or the Sadducees, we are tempted to do our best Admiral Ackbar impression and holler out “It’s a trap!” because generally these encounters are precisely that. It seems that on any given day in Jerusalem (and especially in the Temple area) someone with one of these groups attempts to back Our Lord into a corner so they can accuse him of blasphemy or tempt Him into some other charge. But today is not that day.

Rather, this particular Scribe has been watching Jesus for some time. He saw and heard Jesus’ heated discourse with the Pharisees and Sadducees regarding the man who died after having seven wives. “The Scribe was drawn to Jesus because the saw the Lord responding with insight, authority, understanding, and integrity.”[1] This fact provides us with our first lesson today: there are always people watching us, seeing what we say and do. As disciples of Jesus Christ, it is important to always be good witnesses to the Gospel so that others will be inspired by our behavior, demeanor, comments, and actions. Trust is the most fundamental step of discipleship. People will not approach us with sincere questions of faith until they know they can trust us. The Scribe took time to observe Jesus’ actions and to hear Jesus’ teaching before he approached the Lord with his own question of faith. Likewise, our lives lived authentically in discipleship will always attract others. But we will likely not know of their interest until after they have watched us speak and act for some time. Each of us bears the awesome responsibility of being such an authentic witness to our faith that others are drawn to Jesus and His Holy Catholic Church through us.

Naturally, that responsibility raises a few questions we often must ask ourselves. Does my life authentically reflect the Gospel in my words and actions? Every day? Am I a ‘good Christian’ only on Sunday, while I live like a heathen the other six days of the week? Is my faith only for when I am at church, or do the things I say and do and the places I go serve to draw people to Jesus Christ outside of church as well?

The Scribe asked Jesus what the first, the most important commandment of the law was. Jesus responded by quoting from the reading we heard from Deuteronomy: “The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mk 12:29-30) This passage is called the Shema, the great prayer of Israel. It is the central command of the moral law – we are to love God above all else by keeping His commandments. Obedience to God is not just a moral obligation, but for Jews and Christians is also the key to a happy life. Who here purposely refuses to be happy? Show of hands? When Jesus quoted the Shema in the Gospel, He named it the greatest of the commandments and he followed it with the second: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mk 12:31) In other words, we are to manifest our love of God by extending love to our neighbor. And we do not get to pick and choose who our neighbor is, do we? ‘Oh but Father, you have never met MY neighbor…’ Our neighbor is all people in all places. God’s love is universal, therefore the love we show to our neighbor is to be universal as well. This is the Law of the New Covenant – the Law of the Gospel – the Law of Love which contains the entirety of the Moral Law and perfects it.

Learning to live and act as a disciple takes time. It can be intimidating to know people are always listening to what we say and watching how we act. There are three things we can all do to become more comfortable living an authentic discipleship in such as way that people are attracted to Jesus through us. First is bringing our discipleship to prayer – What does God want of me? What do the people around me need? What do I need to give it to them? Second is the Holy Mass – Here we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses, we hear the Word of God calling us to action, and we receive a tremendous outpouring of grace in the Holy Eucharist. So…why not go to Mass one extra time this week? Third is examining our conscience daily – review the day with God and see what went well and thank Him for it. Recognize what went wrong and apologize for it, adding it to our list for our next confession (hint-hint). Finish up by making a resolution to do better tomorrow.

My dear brothers and sisters, if we ask ourselves every day what we will do to better love God and neighbor tomorrow, and work really hard to follow through, pretty soon, we will be transformed into Lumen Christi – the light of Christ – and others will be drawn to Him through us.

St. Joseph, Illustrious Son of David, Pray for Us!

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[1] Daniel H. Mueggenborg, Come Follow Me: Discipleship Reflections on the Sunday Gospel Readings Liturgical Year B, Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing, 2017, 311.