Homily for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, February 6, 2022. Readings: Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11; Gospel of St. Luke 5:1-11. Theme: I Surrender!
When we hear the words, “I surrender” or “I give up” we tend to think of the humiliation of defeat, the loss of power or lack of control over our lives. Most of us fight hard against saying these words because we want to avoid being thought of as weak or be seen as incompetent or incapable. And yet, one of the many paradoxes in Christianity, in the teachings of Jesus, is that we can only become spiritually strong when we admit that we are interiorly weak; we can only be lifted up to greatness after we acknowledge the reality of our utter nothingness before God. This is precisely the lesson that all three of the holy men in today's Scriptures teach us. Each one had an up-close-and-personal experience of God which totally transformed their lives. Each one had a life-changing encounter with God that moved them from the heart to surrender their own self-image and ideas in order to become vessels for God’s work and true servants of his people.
In our first reading we drop in on the prophet Isaiah during a profound vision of God in all his glory. Isaiah lived about 700 years before Jesus. He was hesitant to take up the prophet's mission of calling the people to repent of their sins, to turn away from their destructive behaviors. He felt inadequate to the task because he was aware of his own sinfulness and thought, “Who am I to tell others to turn away from sin?” He knew that saying “yes” to God’s call would bring bitter opposition, rejection and ridicule into his life. And so his fear of social rejection made him hesitant to do what needed to be done. But in beholding the Lord’s glory he surrendered to God saying, “Here I am Lord, send me.” And as a result of his surrender, Isaiah became the greatest prophet of the Messiah in the entire Old Testament. And to this day, almost 3,000 years later we still repeat at every Mass the words that he heard sung by the angels around God’s throne, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, heavens and earth are full of your glory…”
Our second reading presents us with a reference to the conversion of St. Paul. Before this life-changing event, he was very much the polar opposite of Isaiah. He was full of himself, cocky, stubborn and arrogant. Paul was convinced that he was God’s agent and answer to the problem of an annoying little branch of Judaism called the Way, whose members believed Jesus of Nazareth to be the promised Messiah. Surrendering was the very last thing he was likely to ever do, so God had to literally knock him to the ground and give him temporary blindness so that he could see exactly who and what he had become. Long story short, Paul did surrender his over-exaggerated sense of self and was transformed, as he points out to us in today's reading, into an apostle of Christ, perhaps the greatest missionary of the Gospel the Church has ever seen.
Lastly, in our Gospel today we read about the initial conversion experience of Simon-Peter. As we know from so many other stories about him Simon was a headstrong, impetuous, self-sufficient, totally “alpha” kind of guy. He knew the family fishing business like no one else and wasn’t about to be told how to do it more effectively by a carpenter from Nazareth. But for some reason, perhaps it was the look in Christ’s eyes or the tone of his voice, or maybe self-sure Simon thought he would teach this carpenter a lesson, he decided to give in, to surrender. And lo and behold! Simon and his partners end up with the biggest catch of fish in their careers! He surrendered with as much passion and gusto as he had at first resisted, saying, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Simon surrenders the strong-man facade he has built around himself and acknowledges who and what he truly is at heart. He leaves everything behind to follow Christ and will go on to become Peter, the first pope, the rock upon which Jesus will build his Church.
It seems to me that all three of these holy men speak to us about our need to get rid of any false self-images and give up any self-serving plans that we have. They call us to open our hearts in humility and step forward with trust in what God has in mind for us. All three were already connected with God but on their own terms. Isaiah had set limits on what he would or would not do for the Lord until he was overcome by God’s glory. Paul considered himself God’s gift to Israel and this pride kept him spiritually blind until physical blindness opened the eyes of his soul. Simon-Peter personally walked and talked with Christ, but he shows us that knowing Jesus is quite different from actually having a personal relationship of trust in him.
So I think today’s liturgy should move each of us to examine our minds and our hearts, to reevaluate our relationship with Christ. Do we truly see that we are weak in spirit and need his grace to lift us up? Can we be humble enough to give up our own ideas and plans about how God should act in our lives, so that he can truly do what he wishes to do with us and for us? The transformation of ourselves into something beautiful for God, so that we can become what he has created us to be, is indeed possible and the Lord wants to do this for each one of us. But it requires that we turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God every day and be ready to surrender, to give up, our even own ideas and plans as did Isaiah, Paul and Simon-Peter.
No comments:
Post a Comment