Here is my homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. The readings come from the ordinary readings of the day (rather than the option to use the story of the man born blind for those preparing for Baptism at Easter) and can be found at https://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/032209a.shtml – Many thanks for reading and your feedback. Fr Jim
HOMILY:
“DON”T BE AFRAID” – we hear those words all the time. Whether it’s someone trying to calm us down over something coming up – whether it be an exam, paper or project; or someone trying to relieve our anxiety over some personal issues. One of the first things that our family and friends try to do to calm us down by saying “Do not be afraid.” That’s easier said then done. Especially when the fear is shared by many.
Take one current example: The economy. It seems that’s all we’re talking about these days. With good reason! This recession or bust or whatever it is that they are calling it didn’t “just happen” – but in some ways it seems like it did. For a majority of American people who work hard, try to do the right thing, try to pay their bills and do what’s best for them and their families, it did “just happen.” Without warning, investment accounts seemed to shrink in a matter of days. Jobs were being cut; new jobs harder to find. The housing market is bad. College students are worried can they, or their families afford tuition – or will they be able to get sensible loans. Retired folks are worried about their financial security. The fear is very real.
As is the confusion over the whole mess. We hear these numbers being bounced about – is it millions, billions or trillions of dollars that’s being doled out in these “stimulus bills” or subsidies or whatever those things are being called? The numbers are too astronomical for us to even be able to warp our minds around. And when you can’t relate to someone’s idea of a solution to your fear, you guessed it, that adds to the fear.
What makes things worse are these stories that come up which seem to get us even more emotional. By now, most people have heard that the company AIG, who was a recipient of some of these government monies, subsidies, stimuluses or whatchamacallit… , well, they gave out something like $165 million of those taxpayer funds in bonuses to their executives this past week. People ran a little hot when they heard about that. It’s hard to figure out what happened, who’s to blame, what to do about that and because no one seems to have an answer, people’s fear and anger is growing. What makes it even more difficult to understand is how some of the same politicians screaming about how wrong those bonuses were, they were the ones who actually voted for the bill which gave them those bonuses in the first place. The explanation that they didn’t “read all the fine print” on those bills before they voted for them, yeah, that doesn’t make people feel much better either.
So in this fear-plagued climate, add an emotional story that stokes people’s indignation and what happens? This headline form a story online this week said it all:
“AIG bonus outrage has employees living in fear.”
The article stated that executives, some of whom were pillars of their communities for their charity work outside of work –volunteering at homeless shelters and schools; well now they have become the “face of the economic struggles” the country faces and in a lot of ways a scapegoat. With that, death threats have been pouring in. “People are very, very nervous for their security,” one boss said. Corporate officials advised all of their employees in a memo to avoid wearing the company logo. Workers were also urged to travel in pairs at night and park in well-lit areas.
That’s just one very public example of what can happens when fear takes grip of us. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged. It’s easy to see why people are depressed and stressed out. That’s what fear does. It’s highly contagious. The more afraid we tend to be, the more examples of “darkness” we experience – the more prone to even greater temptation we become. Maybe not in that dramatic and disturbing way of making a death threat. But I wonder how many people hearing that story – about the employees at AIG who got those threats, maybe just a little bit inside themselves – said “well that’s what they deserve…”
Whether we want to admit that or not, that’s bad too, because it contributes to the darkness… because when we harbor or nurse those types of feelings, we chooses to live in darkness rather than light. And just as many examples of fear, or evil or darkness as we can come up with, so are the number of ways we are tempted to give into that fear, to lose all hope to become part of the darkness itself. The lack of trust we feel in our institutions – financial, government, even in some cases our churches adds to a disturbing feeling. And so people become more and more isolated, more alone, and the vicious cycle continues.
With that national, public example of fear, as well as our own fears our own experiences of darkness that we encounter in our lives, with all of that comes this very often quoted passage from the Gospel we just heard. You see the words everywhere JOHN 3:16. At sporting events you might have seen a banner with JOHN 3:16 on it or maybe you saw Tim Tebow, the quarterback for the Florida Gators had them on the eye black under his eyes at the Championship game in January.
Christians know that this is an important verse – Jesus reveals to us the heart of God:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
But we shouldn’t stop there – John 3:17 is just as important:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.
My friends, that is our source of Hope. That is our reason for Joy. When so many are feeling lost, or betrayed or angry – Jesus is still offering to “save us.” When so many are feeling disconnected and isolated, Jesus tells us of a God who has a personal interest in each of us – who wants us to know that he who created us has remained with us – and still loves us – and that His Presence in our lives, His Love for each of us is the antidote to whatever fear we are experiencing in our lives.
That won’t undo the financial crisis. That won’t restore our economy instantly. That won’t instantly banish the source of our anxiety right now. But here’s the point, in the greater scheme of things, all of those things pale in comparison to what Jesus is offering. Perhaps that’s the greatest damage that all of our fears does to us – it makes us forget that.
