Lacking much rhetorical invention this week, I thought I’d pull back the curtain in his homily and make it more of a “how-to,” or a homily about a homily or something like that. That is, I thought it interesting (at least for me) to share with you how I go about thinking up and writing a homily on any given Sunday and with any given set of biblical texts.
First thing is, I take a glance at the readings themselves. Most of the time, as you know, I focus almost exclusively on the Gospel, but that’s just because that’s the season I am in as a preacher. But sometimes I’ll focus on one or more of the other readings, and I always reflect on them all when beginning the process of coming up with a homily.
And this week, the first thing I noticed is what I was certainly not going to preach on. And that is, the second reading from Paul, 1 Corinthians 7: “But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife…”[1] No thank you. There might be some 27-year-old celibate out there bold enough to opine on this text, and more power to him. But not me. With all due respect to the apostle, I’m going to sit this one out. It can be related to the other passages, but not immediately; and so, as a homilist, I’m okay not going there. Not today at least.
So, I look at the other passages, those from Deuteronomy and Mark (with respect to the Psalms), and in those passages I find more promise—at least for this preacher and how this preacher is feeling these days and in this time of my life. And that’s because these passages help me think in a pattern and an order that I am accustomed to following as a preacher. And that is, when I look at the Scripture, I wonder first what they say about God and then second what they say about me. I think that’s a good way to engage the Bible—what does it say about God and then what does it say about me. From that line of questioning comes a lot of what I preach.
And so, we come to the passage from Deuteronomy 18, and anybody with any familiarity with the Bible knows how important this passage is. For Peter cites this passage when he begins to preach about Jesus.[2] This passage from Deuteronomy is key to how we understand who Jesus is. Moses says, “A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen.”[3] That’s Jesus. That’s what Peter preached. That’s why in the Gospels Jesus is again and again presented in Moses-like terms: giving a new law (the beatitudes) on a mountain, just like Moses; feeding the multitudes in the wilderness, just like Moses. That’s what this passage from Deuteronomy—at least as Christians have always read it—is saying: The prophet like Moses is Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the Father, God from God, light from light, consubstantial with the Father—you see where this goes—all the way to the Creed we’ll soon recite. This passage from Deuteronomy is telling me something very important about God.
Which helps us read the passage from Mark. This passage is from the beginning of Mark, and it’s from events that happened on the first day of Jesus’s public ministry. He teaches in the synagogue in Capernaum “as one with authority,” and everyone hearing him is “astonished.” But Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus actually says here for some reason, just that whatever he said astonished everybody. And that’s because Mark moves very quickly to another thing that “amazed” everyone—he exorcised a demon (Jesus did a lot of that).[4] Now we could dive deep into interpreting the passage here, but we’re Catholics who don’t tolerate long homilies, and so I simply point out that Mark clearly tells us that people were “amazed” and “astonished” by Jesus not only because of what he said but also because of what he did. Which belongs to the drama of the whole Gospel—of how everyone tried to make sense Jesus. Who is he? Mark’s gospel is about Jesus Christ the “Son of God,” but not everyone gets it, not everyone believes. As Caiaphas would ask him later, “Are you the Christ?”[5] If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.[6] There’s the Psalm; that’s how it fits!
Which is the first question for us. Remember: I always go to the readings asking the question, “What do they say about God?” Well, what they say is that Jesus is the prophet-like-Moses and the “Holy One of God.” So, do you believe that? This is the theological question, the evangelical question put to you. What do you make of Jesus? And all I can say is you need to get that question right. I am shocked sometimes when I come across a Catholic, sometimes a lifelong Catholic, who strangely likes the religion but doesn’t believe in Jesus. Man, that’s a waste of time. If Jesus isn’t what the Bible says he is, then let’s get out of here. I’d be Nietzschean in a second, and a big hater of the Church too, if I didn’t believe in Jesus. What does the Scripture say about God? It very quickly leads to the question: What do you say about God? And that’s an eternally more important question than some may think.
But what do these passages say about me? Well, I go back to Mark where it says that the people were amazed and astonished by Jesus’s words and his actions. And then I recall the simple spiritual fact that I am in Christ; we the baptized are in Christ. And so, how are people astonished by my words; and even more difficult, how are they amazed by my deeds? Am I Christian in what I say and in what I do? When you walk out of here is there anything about you that will give people any clue at all that you’re a believer in Jesus? Or do you hide it? Or are you embarrassed? And do my words lift up or tear down? Do I lend a helping hand? We desperately need more volunteers for St. Vincent de Paul, by the way, if you’re looking for something astonishing to do.
Anyway, I didn’t really have a homily for you today, so I just had to make do by showing you how I think about homilies. I promise to do better next time. Amen.
[1] 1 Corinthians 7:33
[2] Acts 3:22-23
[3] Deuteronomy 18:15
[4] Mark 1:21-27
[5] Mark 14:61
[6] Psalm 95:7-8
© 2024 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
