Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 17, 2010

Church of the Resurrection, Cincinnati

(Based on Exodus 17: 8-13; 2 Timothy 3:14-4.2; Luke 18:1-8)

The readings in today’s liturgy present us with two very engaging pictures. One is the vivid picture of Moses with his arms outstretched, supported by his lieutenants, up on the hill looking down on a fierce battle. The other is a very prosaic picture that could be duplicated by the thousands every day: a poor widow trying vainly to achieve justice before society’s law courts.

It’s clear from the choice of these readings that the church once again wants us to reflect and pray over the nature and state of our faith.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the first reading from Exodus is who is at its center. This is the great Moses. Moses, who is the founding figure in the creation of the Israelite people. Moses, who dared to challenge the mighty Pharaoh to let his people go free from the chains of slavery. Moses, who stiffened the backs of the people when things were bleak during their wandering in the desert. Moses, who dared to ascend into the darkness surrounding Mount Sinai to confront Yahweh face-to-face.

And how do we meet him? We find him weary and unable to sustain the burden of leadership in the face of a long conflict. Even his great energy grows weak. He needs the help of others to continue in his vocation and carry out the mission given to him by God.

He is tired and weary. As is the widow in Luke’s Gospel.

She’s tired of fighting the bureaucracy. She has tried to make her case repeatedly and has been rebuffed time after time. We can almost imagine the kind of thing she must have put up with. ”Oh, you were supposed to have your claim in by July1; you’re too late.” “It was supposed to be in triplicate, and you only submitted two copies; it’s invalid.” “The judge was called away to an important convention; your appeal will have to be postponed.” “Your form was lost; you’ll have to file it again and wait six more months.”

But this woman is persistent. She will not be denied.

We don’t even know whether her cause is just. Jesus describes the judge as ‘dishonest.’ He was probably waiting for a bribe, and even when he concludes that he has to give in in order to get rid of her it looks like he’s doing it without any reference to the law.

But the validity of her claim isn’t the point. The parable is all about the kind of God we have. A God who is moved by our poverty and dependence. She is persistent because she has no other recourse. It’s her doggedness even in the face of her weariness that Jesus uses in order to challenge our life of prayer.

So there are two pictures, two parables from biblical time. To bring the matter down to our time let me offer a third parable, in the form of an amazing story our world witnessed in this past week.

It’s the story of 33 miners, a half mile down in the earth, in that mine that collapsed in Chile.

It goes without saying that we should praise and be thankful to God for the final outcome. But that is not the moment I’d suggest we focus on. There is rich insight and grace offered to us if we pay attention, rather, to the 17 days before we even knew they were still alive down there. The world had basically given up; the story had grown old and there were other things claiming our attention.

What was it like down there during that those days?

We are beginning to hear the answer now in the comments of the miners themselves. We know what began to happen among them as day followed day followed day, with no sign that the outside world even knew they were still alive. They were in utter darkness. As time wore on they began to bicker among themselves. They began to have fights. More and more it was a question of every man for himself.

The utter physical darkness they were experiencing was symbolic of a deeper darkness pervading the human spirit in the absence of any sign of hope. We wouldn’t want to even imagine what would have followed if it had continued until they began to die.

And then it all changes. They hear the first faint sound of life from the outside. That tiny three-inch hole is broken through, with the possibility that they might survive after all. They can have hope.

At that point the whole story takes a radical turn. They are no longer isolated individuals looking out only for themselves; they begin to care for the good of the group. They select a leader and place their trust in his decisions. They receive the food and drink that is now available to them and they ration it so that everyone is cared for equally. They make provision for the weakest men among them. They organize a common life. Their hope is a shared reality.

So what about our faith, our trust?

Sometimes it can seem as if there is nothing on which we can pin our faith and trust. At that point it can be a seductive temptation to crawl into one’s shell and think ‘I can go it alone.’ We can become too proud to ask for help. We can become so frightened at whatever crisis we’re in that we forget our story. We fall into spiritual amnesia—when our only hope is to draw on the memory we share as the Lord’s people.

The reality is that in our case that opening can seem impossibly narrow but it is always there. If we hold onto our memory, our experience.

The core of our story consists in two realities.

The first is that we are a people born of a covenant. Our God has entered into a pact with us. “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Jesus puts it in his own way: “I will not leave you orphans; where I am you will also be.” And the prophet Habakkuk put it in yet another way in the reading we heard a couple of weeks ago: “The vision will not disappoint.” We are the people we are because our whole approach to life is based on a promise.

And that promise has been fulfilled, again and again down through our personal and communal history. That’s the second reality in our story: our God is a faithful God. Our God has always been true to the promise, in our own lives and in the life of the community. For sure, the vision may not come true on our schedule. But we can safely put our trust in the fact that it will. As Martin Luther King put it on the night before he was murdered: “I may not get there with you – but I have been to the mountain and I have seen the other side.” As one of our great songs puts it so well: “We walk by faith and not by sight.”

Then what are we to make of those two men holding up the arms of Moses?

Faith is a gift of God, to be sure. But it comes to each of us through the mediation of a community. Our faith draws its nourishment from the example of our sisters and brothers. It is strengthened by our participation in the communion of saints. That embraces all those holy men and women who have been canonized by our church as people we can look up to, of course. But not only them. The vast bulk of the communion of saints consists of sisters and brothers like the people who sit in the pews next to us. Every Sunday we rub shoulders with giants of faith: people who have borne crosses you and I can scarcely imagine. They have done so with dignity and grace—yes, and with joy. They are God’s sign to us that we can do the same.

They have surely endured bouts of weariness. But they allowed others to help hold up their arms. We walk by faith—but that faith has a history. It’s a story of a great people with arms linked together in a giant circle embracing the centuries.

And Jesus, the great manifestation of that faithful God, is at its center. Ultimately that history’s name is Jesus. Jesus who walks the walk with us.

What is it we sing?

♫ Because he lives

I can face tomorrow.

Because he lives

all fear is gone.

Because I know

he holds the future

And life is worth the living

just because he lives. ♫

Amen?