Sermons
February 26, 2017
Let us concentrate on the few lines of our first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. The people of Israel were in exile. They had every reason to feel abandoned by their God. Their dream was to go back to their home country. This is where our passage starts: “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me”. Here comes the very beautiful idea of Isaiah – he has God answer this lamentation. God answers with a question: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?” Of course, no mother can do this. And Isaiah lets God continue, saying: “Even should she forget, I will never forget you”. And the next verse, which is not included in today’s reading, says: “See, I have written your name on my hand, you are ever before me”. Isn’t this wonderful and consoling knowledge: even in times of despair, of feeling abandoned, of feeling harassed and mobbed, there is someone who does not forget me, who has my name written on his hand, who has my face always before him. Someone – and not something! This is one of the most tender passages of the whole Bible. The bond between God and human beings is like the bond between a mother and her child. God is compared to a mother. God reassures his people that even if a mother could forget her own child, God will never forget any of his creation. Those who believe in God's word also believe in God's love. One of the greatest hurts a person can suffer is to be forgotten and ignored by his own community. Isaiah tells the people how God remembers them, protects them, supports them and takes care of them. This assertion is especially significant in the Old Testament. In the Book of Isaiah, it is presented in the form of a “parent-child relationship” between God and Israel. The Bible is full of words and scenes like this one – words of tenderness and love and intimacy. Words and scenes that build up a person, that make people stand up. Jesus is good at doing this. Let us think of Zacchaeus, the tax collector. For Jesus, he is not only a tax collector and a collaborator of the Roman occupation forces, but for Jesus he has a name, he is a son of Abraham – and Jesus invites himself to the house of Zacchaeus. It is this point of view, this regard of Jesus that changes the life of Zacchaeus to the better. Up to now, the hands of Zacchaeus had been grabbing money, now they open to spend it and share. Jesus was good at making people stand upright – but speaking words of comfort, words that make people stand up, that build up are not a privilege or a task of God or of Jesus. We are invited to speak these words to one another. And I am sure we have had the experience that words that build up are stronger than words that destroy. And there are so many chances to say words that build up – in the family, in our work places, with our friends - or to ourselves. To speak encouraging words that inspire trust in oneself should be a reflex action, should be an attitude we always have. Destroying words that make others feel bad should be erased from our vocabulary. Encouraging words are words that inspire trust in oneself, but also words that show appreciation, that endorse others, that show our respect for the other person. Why not say more often: “Well done”, “I liked it”, “I enjoyed it”? And of course, this can end in saying: “I like what you do”, “I like you” or even “I love you”. A well-known saying, at least in German, is: "Das Wort, das du brauchst, kannst du dir nicht selber sagen." – “The word you need you cannot say to yourself”. It must be said to you by someone else – by God, if we are believers, and by any other person. Let us become messengers of these good, encouraging, life-giving words: “The word you need you cannot say to yourself, the word we need we cannot say to ourselves”.
Fr Wolfgang Felber, SJ
February 12, 2017
It is scouts Sunday – so I would like to center my homily around the fact that as scouts you have to make choices: the choice to become a scout, the choice to act like a scout. Christian faith is a relation to Jesus, to the person of Jesus, not to a building, a temple, a statue, laws – no: a relation to a human person. And real people are always subject to change. Both in Jesus and Yahweh, we are called to follow someone who puts people at the center of their existence. And as you know, in a friendship we try to be near to someone, try to keep the friendship alive, we try to be trustworthy in this relation to a friend. And if we want to be loyal to someone, this is our free choice. Freedom – most of our actions have nothing to do with freedom: they are habits, or we do things because we fear the negative consequences if we do the opposite, or we do something because it corresponds to the image we have of ourselves or it corresponds to the image we want to give others of ourselves. We rarely do anything which is totally free. The author of Sirach already reminded his readers that their Jewish faith revolves around making free choices. “God has set before us,” he writes, “fire and water ...life and death, good and evil, whatever we choose shall be given us.” We have at least some control over our lives. Concerning this topic, Paul reminds this Christian community that it is not the easiest thing in the world to find out what God really wants us to do. Obviously not everyone who claims to know God’s mind actually knows it – neither religious nor political leaders. According to the Apostle, the “rulers of this age” often have no clue, have no idea of God’s will. Unlike the risen Jesus, these leaders are often leading us away from God’s “mysterious, hidden wisdom.” That’s why it is essential for us as friends of Jesus to be open to his Spirit. Matthew is dealing with a community of Jewish origin, they believed that they understood God’s mind long before they came in contact with Jesus. But that encounter with Jesus turned everything upside down. For the former Jews, the relation to the law of Moses was of utmost importance. That seems to be behind Jesus’ assurance, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill the law and the prophets.” There was nothing wrong with what the community members did before they encountered Jesus, before they became friends of Jesus; Jesus is simply taking them to a new level. Jesus is concerned not with the afterlife, but with the here and now of entering “the kingdom of heaven”, With experiencing God working effectively in their daily, maybe boring and unexciting lives. To achieve this, they have to freely choose to go beyond the 613 Laws of Moses. Modern moral theologians often remind us that God will eventually judge us only on the things we freely chose to do. Whatever we did out of force or fear – like going to Mass on Sunday because our parents gave us no other choice – will play no role in our eternal future. The historical Jesus, and the risen Jesus certainly wants us to make free choices. Choices which will not only get us into heaven one day, but will even now enable us to experience the heaven that is already around us. We just have to open our eyes and ears. It is scouts’ Sunday – when I read your Scout Law, I see so many things a scout should do: among other things, a scout should be helpful, friendly, courteous and kind. I am convinced that Jesus would count you among his friends, because as scouts you also put people at the center of your activities like Jesus did. You, the scouts and guides here in this Church, you may be young, but you are never too young to make a positive impact in the world. Remember to keep your spirit directed to the good and to always be courteous and friendly to others. In doing this out of your free will, you will find plenty of opportunities, as boy scouts and girl scouts, to make this world a better place. cf: www.dignityusa.org/bots
Fr Wolfgang Felber, SJ
February 5, 2017
We distinguish people according to the color of their skin, according to their age, their sex, their for-mation, their social position, their achievements, their political opinion: people come in very different ways. From time to time we may encounter someone who impresses us, not because he or she is white or young or male or female, because he or she is wealthy or sportive or hasThe gospel reading today is continuation of the teaching of the Beatitudes. Jesus uses the now familiar metaphors of salt and light, and a city set on a mountain, to describe the life of discipleship, that is to say the characteristics that should be found in the lives of his followers. I will concentrate on the metaphor of salt in today's gospel. In ancient times, lack of salt could drastically affect the health of entire populations. Trade in salt was very important, and salt was as valuable as gold, enough to be used as currency in some areas. Our word salary comes from it. Salt is a biological necessity of human life. Most of our food already has salt added, but if you are in the habit of baking your own bread, or cooking your own food, it's immediately and disastrously obvious if you forget to add salt. Salt was used in Jesus' time for flavoring, as a preservative, and as a healing agent. In calling us salt of the earth, He offers us a challenge and consolation not less timely in our day than in Jesus’ own. Let's us consider just three qualities of salt that may open our eyes to why He called us the salt of the earth. The first is simply that salt is salt. It has a unique identity. And if salt is to add any savor to the world, it must retain its own properties. As salt of the earth, it seems that we are called to mix with the world, but never to be assimilated to it. One of the problems of Christianity in modern times is the problem of identity. It is like Jesus telling Christians to be Christians. That sounds like tautology, but it is to say do not lose your unique Identity as Christians in the world. This does not mean isolation from the world but a proper and balanced engagement with the world without losing your unique identity as Christians. Retaining our unique identity does not mean to retreat from an engagement with the culture, as if it taints us by our very association with it. Authentic Christian life, or authentic discipleship is not one disengaged from the “concrete milieu” of the times. No! it rather means active engagement, in a way that the Good News which Christianity proclaims permeates into all the strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new. The second quality is that salt gives taste. This salt power is a hidden power. It seems that Christ proposes the image of salt precisely because of the disproportion between its appearance and its effect. to the sense of sight, salt hardly even registers, it dissolves almost instantly in routine kitchen use. To the sense of taste however, salt makes all the difference. Salt belongs to that family of images with which Jesus reminds us that the true measure of spiritual progress is often hidden from our eyes. The Kingdom of God is like the salt, not the meal; like the leaven, not the loaf; like the mustard seed, not the tree in which the birds make their nests. The third and final quality of salt is that it causes hunger and thirst. The Church used to draw attention to this feature of salt in the rite of baptism used before Vatican II. There, the priest would pinch salt in the mouth of the baby to be baptized. He would then pray, after this first taste of salt, let his [or her] hunger for heavenly nourishment not be prolonged but soon be satisfied. This “heavenly nourishment” was an allusion, of course, to the Eucharist, to the true food and true drink that Christ wants to give us all. This should give us pause. Am I salt of the earth in this sense too? Does my life and witness make others hunger and thirst for God? We exhibit the preservative quality of salt when we stand by the truth and refuse to compromise our faith in moral questions, when we refuse to submit to the dictatorship of moral relativism. We are the salt of the earth when we refuse to pursue short sighted and selfish motives at the cost of common good and the truth. We are salt of the earth when we show commitment to social justice. Some of the activities that this commitment leads us to are given more concrete expression as the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. When we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, console those who mourn, and so on. When we do these things as a community of faith then we are indeed acting not only as salt but as light to the world, when our light of faith glows in this form we are then as a city set on a mountain that cannot be hidden..
Fr Sylvester Ajunwa, PhD