The homily at Sunday Mass was preached by a deacon. His little talk was taken from the Gospel according to — some movie with Samuel L. Jackson as a tough but inspiring high school coach. The religious points that the preacher made, after he finished the plot synopsis, were the following:
(1) As the coach made a contract with the players about their mutual responsibilities, we’re also involved in a contract, a covenant our parents and godparents made for us at our baptism.
(2) We’re all one team, with Jesus at the head.
And that’s it, pretty thin soup: nothing taken from the Scripture readings.
And what readings they were today, and what a figure they present:
…shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king shall come to you;
a just savior is he,
meek, and riding on an ass,
on a colt, the foal of an ass.
He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim,
and the horse from Jerusalem;
the warrior’s bow shall be banished,
and he shall proclaim peace to the nations.
His dominion shall be from sea to sea…
It’s an odd time to hear that reading from Zechariah. There’s a war on out in the world right now, and some big challenges for the future, so the world may not feel like that peaceable kingdom for some time to come. Instead of some promises about peace, I might feel better with a good expression of confidence like this hymn:
I sing the mighty power of God
that made the mountains rise,
that spread the lofty seas abroad
and built the morning skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained
the sun to rule the day:
the moon shines full at his command
and all the stars obey.
Yet the image Zechariah presents isn’t of a display of great power as we usually think of it, but a savior coming with the utmost gentleness, not mounted on a strong horse or accompanied with a swift chariot, but on a humble slow-moving donkey — and not even a full-grown one but a little colt. This peaceable king is not what we expect from a savior.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
Our Lord Jesus keeps up the surprises. He’s not like one of these modern preachers who say: follow me because I’ve learned to be a success. They’re ready to make you one too, if you order their new DVD teaching series and put their life lessons to work. But Jesus isn’t offering a prosperity gospel, he’s saying: be like me because I’m meek and humble, I’m not puffed up; I know who I am and who I come from. He’s not straining to meet the world’s expectations: no wonder he says we’ll find rest for our souls if we follow him and do things his way.
And we can do that. We can know who we are and who we came from: we’re creatures of God, images of God, and the people around us, whether believers or not, all have that great dignity of being made in the image of God. No wonder it behooves us to be meek and humble, just to show everyone else the proper reverence. And ever since our baptism, we have an even greater gift: we are sons of God and brothers of Jesus. Believe me, that change from being mere creatures to being redeemed and sanctified and divinized (as the Eastern Catholics say) is indeed the mighty power of God. When we let our identity that comes from God shape our thoughts and our actions, his yoke is easy and his burden is light.
Our new pastor served up a similar lite snack last week with a homily devoted entirely to a Thanksgiving dinner, an old lady with cancer and a boy who sat next to her. He derived some nice ethical guideline from the story while the Stories we heard in the readings went unnoticed.
Our new associate pastor gave us a homily centered on the readings, as he always does. He won my husband’s heart by his second week when he delivered his second homily and it, like the first, was on the readings. That proved to Bill that the first sermon was not a fluke. And so it has proven not to be.
What I remember most about this week’s sermon was that he told us how a year ago he had found himself in the hospital awaiting surgery to correct a heart problem that might leave him dead in a year’s time if left alone. He was anxious all day and feared he wouldn’t sleep at all the night before surgery. Then he read today’s gospel and pondered Jesus’ words, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-burdened, and I will give you rest.” The words seemed more immediate than they ever had before, they spoke to him. He gave his burden of anxiety over to Jesus, and that was that. He fell into a deep peace, and slept that night like a baby.