August 22, 2010

Twenty-first Sunday of Year C

Ps. 117:1, 2

Heb 12:5-7, 11-13

Maybe you remember the story Jesus told weeks ago. He told about a man knocking on a friend’s door at midnight to borrow some bread. The friend yelled back, "Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’

Jesus said: “I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence. I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Ah, that was such a good feeling. I feel comfortable and confident knowing that constant prayer will get the door opened for me.

Well, hold your feelings back a while. In today’s gospel we got a similar story. Someone is knocking on the door late at night. The master of the house says, ‘I do not know where you are from.’

The answer from the outside: “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.” In other words, casual acquaintances, if that.

“I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!”

Ouch. What about ask and you shall receive? As if to rub it in, Jesus says,

There will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see the saved ones—
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets—
looking down from heaven while you are being cast out!*

What is going on here? Is Jesus just in a bad mood? We know that he is “making his way to Jerusalem” when he tells this parable, walking straight into the crucifixion, and maybe he is anxious.

But notice that, in the first parable above, even though the owner opens the door just to get the noise stopped, it was being caused by a friend—even if a rude one, who would not stop asking for what he needed. That parable told us to keep asking God, our friend, for what we need, even though God may be a bit grumpy.

Now a sharp contrast. In the parable for this Sunday, the people outside are not friends and in fact they have no relationship at all to the man in the house. The parable says they knew about him only from parties and the streets. They heard him preaching, but did nothing as a result. They did not come to his house at a reasonable time and begin a friendship. No amount of midnight knocking will make up for it.

God keeps the door open long beyond when we would expect, all the way to the end. But if we are too busy partying and dancing, finally there is nothing he can do. He has to accept our decision to stay outside. It is too late.

The message? Get to know God now. Do not delay till you get to heaven’s gates and have nothing to show for yourself.

This makes me think about the intimate relationship Jesus had with the Father. Remember how in the desert, and in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus cries out to the Father, much like the man in the parable story today. The Father hears Jesus, and there is a radical change, a strengthening to endure. Jesus has a relationship, an intimate one, with the Father.

That’s one of the lessons of Gethsemane. It’s only after the loneliness, duty, and helplessness have done their work in Jesus that “an angel from heaven came and ministered to him.”

When we are overwhelmed, we too can have a deeply spiritual experience of God’s presence. When the burden of self- sacrifice prostrates us in weakness and leaves us sweating blood, it’s then that God’s strength can flow into us most deeply. It’s when we hit “rock bottom” and realize that we are not in control, that we are powerless, then God’s grace can touch us. Many people have experienced this in mental illness, in serious personal problems, in battling addictions, in the death of a loved one.

In Gethsemane, right after the angel strengthens Jesus, he gets up and walks with courage to face the ordeal that awaits him. His agony and the strengthening he received in it, readied him for the pain that lay ahead.

At the time of Jesus, the Greek word “agony” had a double meaning. Beyond its obvious meaning, it also referred to the exercise an athlete would do just before entering the stadium. An athlete would ready himself for the contest by working up a certain sweat (agony) with the idea that this exercise and the sweat it produced would concentrate and ready both his energies and muscles for the rigors that lay ahead. No athlete wants to enter the contest unprepared, not ready.

We have this same image of Jesus as he leaves the Garden of Gethsemane: His agony has brought about a certain emotional, physical, and spiritual sweat so that he is now ready, a focused athlete, properly prepared to enter the battle. His agony brings a certain divine energy, he is indeed more ready than any athlete.

“Lost is a place too!” writes one spiritual author, describing a low time in her life. Indeed, biblically, it’s a very important place. It’s where angels come and minister to us. It’s the place that readies us for spiritual battle. When our own strength gives out, when the pain of duty is too much, when we lie prostrate in weakness and cringe before what God is asking of us, when we’ve come to the point where, like Jesus, we can no longer face it alone, we’re finally at that place where angels can minister to us. We’ve finally worked up the spiritual lather that has readied our souls and bodies for the Good Fridays that await us all.

Today we anoint those who are afflicted, perhaps even suffering, from some ailment, disease, illness; or perhaps simply the debilitating effects of growing old. It is, at it were, the ministry of angels to us, in the midst of our affliction.

Two of my teachers, while on sabbatical, will be Ron Rohlheiser, OMI and John Foley, SJ. They are a significant part of the inspiration for this homily.