Homily Collection

It is interesting to take notice of the list of disciples that feature in this story:

Simon Peter, Thomas the Twin, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two m ore of his disciples were together.

This is a Star Trek type list. It’s in the form of a mission from the Starship Enterprise: Captain Kirk, Mr Spock, Dr. “Bones” McCoy, perhaps Lieutenant Uhura, and two others. And on such missions it’s obvious from the start who won’t be making it back in one piece. If this was Star Trek instead of the gospel we wouldn’t give these last two disciples a prayer of making it back from the fishing trip.

The surprising thing about the gospel is that one of these two is in fact a very significant character: one of these two, last-mentioned, unnamed disciples is the disciple that Jesus loved. And although largely a background figure in this episode, he provides an essential background for the main action.

The emphasis in our gospel is on Christian leadership and ministry, on Peter, the first-mentioned and named. Peter, the leader, initiates the fishing expedition. At the centre of our gospel there is the breakfast at which Jesus breaks bread. It is a Eucharistic breakfast, and Peter performs what seems to be a liturgical function. Peter is already on the shore with Jesus as the rest of the disciples come on in the boat dragging the net of fish. Jesus asks for some of the fish and Peter goes to bring the fish to the Jesus and the charcoal fire. It sounds a little bit like an offertory procession at a modern mass with Peter as the priest receiving the gifts and bringing them to the altar. Lastly there is the protracted conversation between Jesus and Peter. There is an emphasis on Peter’s faith and love of the Lord as well as a command to tend and feed the flock of believers.

However, if Peter (ministry and leadership) is in the foreground, we shouldn’t forget the background. Our gospel closes with Jesus commanding Peter to “Follow me.” If we had read on one more line we would have heard this: “Peter turned and saw the disciple Jesus loved following them”. In the background, then, as Jesus asks repeatedly, “Do you love me?” is the disciple that Jesus loved. In the background as Jesus commands Peter to follow is this same disciple, already following.

This last mentioned and unnamed disciple is just anonymously in the crowd that goes fishing and that lugs the offering ashore, and is just among those invited to the Eucharistic breakfast. But it is this unnamed disciple who is the one to name the unrecognised stranger on the shore: “It is the Lord.”

This gospel is about Christian ministry: the necessary role of liturgical ministry and the necessary ministry of leadership. The gospel tells us that ministry must be rooted in a loving relationship with the Lord, hence Jesus three-times-asked question: “Do you love me?”

But all the while the gospel writer is talking about Christian ministry -its necessity and basis in faith- all the while he is talking about Peter the first named, he keeps in view the last mentioned unnamed disciple. For important as Christian ministry is, as much as it need be rooted in faith and a loving relationship with the Lord, the holiness and faith of the Church is not to be located and not to be carried by its ministers and its leaders. The faith of the Church and the holiness of the Church lies in the nameless disciple that Jesus loves, who follows, who recognises the presence of the risen Lord, and who cries out, “It is the Lord!”

A line from the Passion of St. Luke that we read on Palm Sunday, caught my attention. It was the description of Joseph of Arimathaea, a member of the council, an upright and virtuous man, “he lived in hope of seeing the kingdom of God.”

It caught my attention, because at that tragic moment -taking the body down, the hasty burial- it took me back to the beginning of the story. It is just the sort of thing that was said of Simeon: an upright and devout man, he looked forward to Israel’s comforting. It made me think of Zechariah, and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, upright and virtuous, and of the joy that filled their hearts and the joyful, hope-filled songs that they sang: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, he has visited his people and set them free; My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. It made me think of Anna who spoke to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem. In other words it reminded me of how much hope there was at the beginning of the gospel, and we are reminded of all that hope, in the person of Joseph of Arimathaea, just as the lifeless body of Jesus is lowered from the cross.

Another line caught my attention from the same Passion narrative; it was Jesus saying, “And yet, here with me on the table is the hand of the man who betrays me.” Again it made me think back to the beginning of the gospel and the first disciples: the sense of mission of Jesus’ first preaching, bringing good news to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the downtrodden; the miraculous catch of fish, and the rapturous joy in which those disciples left everything to be in Jesus’ new community of the Kingdom. And yet, … and yet … present at the first Eucharist is Judas the betrayer. This climactic moment in the communion that the disciples share with Jesus is also the moment of fracture.

The opening chapters of Luke’s gospel are filled with a joyous hope, excitement at what God is doing. The death of Jesus is the annihilation of that hope. That is why the disappointment at the end of Luke’s gospel is so bitter and so terrible, so all-pervasive. There is Joseph of Arimathaea. There are the two on the road to Emmaus with their downcast faces: “Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free.” There are the disciples our gospel whose grief is so terrible that they reject the message of the women as pure nonsense.

We too, in these days, are a community marked by disappointment. We, too, feel that the hand of the betrayer has been with us at the Eucharistic table. Our hopes in this community to which we have committed our lives, have taken a terrible blow. And that disappointment is not easily or quickly dispelled. Priests have betrayed us. Our leadership has failed us. How can we preach, how can we hear, the message of the Resurrection in this disappointment?

Thankfully our gospel is patient with us. In the gospel there are two distinct reactions. First of all we have the women who find the tomb empty. Angels, like the angels that announced the news of Jesus birth to shepherds, now tell the women of his rebirth in the resurrection. Secondly, there are the disciples who are not yet ready to here the women’s news. Their dashed hopes are not quickly revived. The story seems to them pure nonsense. And in between the women and the disciples stands Peter. He runs to the tomb, he sees, and he comes back amazed.

A lot of hope has been damaged in us. And into this disappointment the dawn of resurrection breaks slowly. Hope returns slowly. It is not my job to rally the troops tonight; to pep you up with some Obama-like rhetoric. How could I? I’m as steeped in disappointment as you. It is not my job because it is the work of the Spirit to bring hope back to broken hearts, to bring the joy of the Resurrection into those hearts.

How do we approach this feast of the Resurrection at this time of disillusionment? Well, we do what Peter does. We come like Peter, we gawp at the cloths and the stone, and we wonder. And then we wait to see if the Spirit will break into our hearts with the light, and the glory and the hope of the Resurrection.

If a Martian landed among us and watched what happens during this hour, he or she – or should that be ‘it’? – might be tempted to conclude that we are all hypocrites… The Gospel reading I’ve just proclaimed is fairly explicit: When you give alms, do not have it trumpeted before you… your almsgiving must be in secret… When you pray, go to your private room… when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that no-one will know that you are fasting except your Father…

Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting – three key disciplines we associate with the season of Lent. And the Lord’s instruction is to do these things in private – with the minimum of fuss and ostentation… no showing off or grand gestures. And, having heard these words…. and endured these reflections of mine… what will we do next? Fr Paul and I will daub great gaudy, messy blobs of ash on your foreheads… And so, any intention you might have had to keep your Lenten discipline private and unshowy will be thwarted as you go out from here, your foreheads mucky from the ashes!

So, what’s going on? Are we really hypocrites who read one thing in the gospel and then, just five minutes later, before we even leave the building, turn around and do the exact opposite?

I sincerely hope not! The only way I can think of reconciling the gospel’s instructions with this very public branding with ashes is to think in terms of motivation. We don’t line up and receive the ashes in order to show our recalcitrant family members, our unbelieving neighbours, or our sceptical or cynical college roommates how seriously we take our Christianity and how proud we are of our Catholicism. We don’t receive the ashes in order to show off, or even in order to bear witness before the world.

No… we receive the ashes in order to remind ourselves of something. These ashes are what was left when we burnt the palms we waved last Holy Week. Signs of triumph and adulation on Palm Sunday, they had since dried up. No longer were they signs of triumph. They are dust… desiccated…reminders of death.

One of the sets of words used when signing with the ashes is Remember, you are dust, and to dust you will return. Even when we use the somewhat less grim formula Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel, it’s hard not to be briefly reminded of our mortality and frailty, as that gritty, messy, smoky thumb makes contact with our foreheads. So… Make no mistake: The signing with ashes isn’t a hypocritical gesture for others to be impressed at… It’s a radically personal and intimate sign for ourselves…

But even that can sound unnecessarily negative… It can sound like the kind of good old-fashioned Catholic guilt that comedians take so much pleasure in sending up – Remember you are dust… Be guilty… Be afraid…But, it seems to me, that that startlingly powerful combination of words, eye contact and touch that occurs when the minister imposes the ashes on your forehead is a call not to terror, scruples, fear, or anxiety…
It is a call to remember what we are… who we are… who made us… in whom is our destiny… It is a call to remember that we are God’s creatures…

It is a call, expressed, so beautifully in the first reading from Joel, to return to him with all our hearts… not with big gestures, but with a change of heart – for he is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, and ready to relent.

Of course that’s a daily call – or at least it should be – but the Church offers us this season of grace to do it in a more concentrated way, and to be conscious of one another while so doing. It is a great and most beautiful paradox, that the Lenten call is a radically personal and individual call to turn more closely towards God… and yet despite being personal and individual, it is something we do together as Christians.

Lent originally developed as a time of intense preparation for those who were preparing for baptism at Easter. It was, and still is, described as a ‘period of purification and enlightenment’ for them. With time, the rest of the Church joined them in this period of examination, conversion, and preparation… seeking to enlarge their own hearts by acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. And we continue to do that. Our RCIA group meets here on Wednesdays, and as the various members of the group prepare either for baptism, or for reception into full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter, we accompany them with our love, our support and our prayers.

The aim of Lent wasn’t – and isn’t – a reduced waistline or a detox of the system. The aim was – and is – a greater knowledge and experience of God – that the celebration of the Easter feasts might be a more fruitful, powerful and joyful one. We fast now that we may feast then. We remind ourselves of our human mortality now that we may revel then in the Eternal Life won for us and pledged to us by the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of the Incarnate Son of God. We refrain from singing alleluia now that we may sing it repeatedly and with abandon then. We come forward for ashes now, that we may splash in the waters of the font then. For, at its heart, Lent is a journey from ashes to the living font…

From ashes to the living font your Church must journey, Lord.
Baptised in grace, in grace renewed, by your most holy word.

Through fasting, prayer, and charity, your voice speaks deep within,
Returning us to ways of truth and turning us from sin.

For thirsting hearts let waters flow, our fainting souls revive;
And at the well your waters give – our everlasting life.

From ashes to the living font your Church must journey still,
Through cross and tomb to Easter joy, in Spirit-fire fulfilled.
(Words © Alan J Hommerding)

Now is the favourable time! This is the day of salvation!