A Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Lent (March 29, 2009)
Our journey toward the passion of our Lord continues today as we hear once more of our Lord’s commitment to the way of the cross. In our texts for today, we hear of our Lord preparing to offer himself as both priest and victim. Freely and with resolve, He offers himself for the redemption of the world. And what is more, he calls us to walk this path with him, to journey with him to the cross, to lay down our lives on behalf of others.
This is the path of love. But it is not an easy path. Our natural minds fight against it. The instinct for self-preservation is so strong. In order to walk this path with our Lord, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
In our book chapters for this week, we read about people whose natural, instinctual perspectives have been transformed by the light of Christ. Anna, by nature, has a difficult time dealing with her mother-in-law, Irene. But God has shown Anna that Irene is meant to be in her life, that Irene is sent to her in order to assist Anna in overcoming her most deep seated sins. And at the very end of Chapter 11, we find this amazing prayer written by Bishop Nikolai. This Bishop was a fierce opponent of the Nazi’s. He was arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. “Bless my enemies, O Lord,” he wrote. “Even I bless them and do not curse them. Enemies have driven me into your embrace more then friends have.”
Imagine, please, what life would be like if you could see the world in this way. Take a moment and think about the person in your life at this moment who is giving you the most difficulty. Perhaps it is a co-worker or your boss. Perhaps it is your spouse or your child. This is the person for whom you need to give thanks to the Lord. This person is the most skilled tool which God has given you to overcome the sin in your life. The eyes of faith allow us to trust that God has placed this person in our life for a reason, in order to help us to overcome our anger, pride and selfishness. I hope that you will be able to name this person directly during the Prayers of the People today, when we pause to ask God to “bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours”. What is the point of giving thanks only for those who are nice to us? For those we like and who like us? Doesn’t everyone do this? Do not even the Gentiles act in this way? But the way of Christ allows us to pray for, and even to love, our enemies. In Christ, we are different than the world. We see things differently, and we give thanks for those who trouble us.
This is the path of dying to self. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” Jesus demonstrates for us this path of laying down his life for the sake of others. A bit further along in the Gospel of John, our Lord speaks of the greatest love of laying down his life for his friends. But in Romans, St. Paul explains that “while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). While we were enemies of God, our Lord laid down his life to bring us back to the Father. How can we do any less, when we have received so great a salvation?
Damien de Veuster is a Belgian Catholic priest who went to live among the people of a remote peninsula on Molokai in Hawaii. This was 1864, and Father Damien volunteered to serve among 8,000 people who had been banished to this place because they had contacted leprosy during an outbreak in Hawaii during the 1850s. Father Damien led a group who went to the lepers colony in order to serve those who had been outcast by society. He was well aware of the risk that he took, that he too might catch this deadly disease. It is said that Father Damien spent years attempting to connect with the people there, but to no avail. He was not able to led them to respond to the love of God in any meaningful way, and his ministry there did not seem to bear any fruit. Therefore he decided to leave the colony, since he had no symptoms of Hanson’s disease, as leprosy is officially named. However, on the very day when he was scheduled to be picked-up by a boat and carried away, as he stood waiting on the dock, he looked down at his hands and noticed several white spots. He too had become a leper, and now he was forced to stay among the people of Molokai. Father Damien returned to the congregation he had tried to serve for years, but now his work was entirely different. He was an outsider no more; now he was one of them. He stayed there the rest of his life, sharing the love of Christ with thousands, until his death at the early age of 49 years.
Father Damien walked in the path of Christ, willing to lay down his life on behalf of others. “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also.” Damien de Veuster is to be canonized this coming October by the Vatican.
It’s not likely that you and I will be asked to lay down our lives like Father Damien did, but maybe - just maybe - we will. However, what we know with certainty is that God asks us to lay down our live daily, in small ways, on behalf of those around us every single day.
The great Thomas Merton explained this path with great clarity.
It’s so easy for us to be tempted by the big and bold and brilliant. We live in a world of celebrity, after all, and fame seems to be the prize that all people seek today. But we know better. We know that love supersedes fame and fortune, the love that is shown when we choose to reject our anger and bitterness and greed, and instead to live with generosity, humility, patience in our everyday lives. May God continue to transform us, so that when we are tempted to turn and run from the difficulties of our lives, that by the grace of God, we may instead embrace them as blessed opportunities to become more – more filled with the love and the light of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This is the path of love. But it is not an easy path. Our natural minds fight against it. The instinct for self-preservation is so strong. In order to walk this path with our Lord, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
In our book chapters for this week, we read about people whose natural, instinctual perspectives have been transformed by the light of Christ. Anna, by nature, has a difficult time dealing with her mother-in-law, Irene. But God has shown Anna that Irene is meant to be in her life, that Irene is sent to her in order to assist Anna in overcoming her most deep seated sins. And at the very end of Chapter 11, we find this amazing prayer written by Bishop Nikolai. This Bishop was a fierce opponent of the Nazi’s. He was arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. “Bless my enemies, O Lord,” he wrote. “Even I bless them and do not curse them. Enemies have driven me into your embrace more then friends have.”
Imagine, please, what life would be like if you could see the world in this way. Take a moment and think about the person in your life at this moment who is giving you the most difficulty. Perhaps it is a co-worker or your boss. Perhaps it is your spouse or your child. This is the person for whom you need to give thanks to the Lord. This person is the most skilled tool which God has given you to overcome the sin in your life. The eyes of faith allow us to trust that God has placed this person in our life for a reason, in order to help us to overcome our anger, pride and selfishness. I hope that you will be able to name this person directly during the Prayers of the People today, when we pause to ask God to “bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours”. What is the point of giving thanks only for those who are nice to us? For those we like and who like us? Doesn’t everyone do this? Do not even the Gentiles act in this way? But the way of Christ allows us to pray for, and even to love, our enemies. In Christ, we are different than the world. We see things differently, and we give thanks for those who trouble us.
This is the path of dying to self. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” Jesus demonstrates for us this path of laying down his life for the sake of others. A bit further along in the Gospel of John, our Lord speaks of the greatest love of laying down his life for his friends. But in Romans, St. Paul explains that “while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). While we were enemies of God, our Lord laid down his life to bring us back to the Father. How can we do any less, when we have received so great a salvation?
Damien de Veuster is a Belgian Catholic priest who went to live among the people of a remote peninsula on Molokai in Hawaii. This was 1864, and Father Damien volunteered to serve among 8,000 people who had been banished to this place because they had contacted leprosy during an outbreak in Hawaii during the 1850s. Father Damien led a group who went to the lepers colony in order to serve those who had been outcast by society. He was well aware of the risk that he took, that he too might catch this deadly disease. It is said that Father Damien spent years attempting to connect with the people there, but to no avail. He was not able to led them to respond to the love of God in any meaningful way, and his ministry there did not seem to bear any fruit. Therefore he decided to leave the colony, since he had no symptoms of Hanson’s disease, as leprosy is officially named. However, on the very day when he was scheduled to be picked-up by a boat and carried away, as he stood waiting on the dock, he looked down at his hands and noticed several white spots. He too had become a leper, and now he was forced to stay among the people of Molokai. Father Damien returned to the congregation he had tried to serve for years, but now his work was entirely different. He was an outsider no more; now he was one of them. He stayed there the rest of his life, sharing the love of Christ with thousands, until his death at the early age of 49 years.
Father Damien walked in the path of Christ, willing to lay down his life on behalf of others. “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also.” Damien de Veuster is to be canonized this coming October by the Vatican.
It’s not likely that you and I will be asked to lay down our lives like Father Damien did, but maybe - just maybe - we will. However, what we know with certainty is that God asks us to lay down our live daily, in small ways, on behalf of those around us every single day.
The great Thomas Merton explained this path with great clarity.
“The true path of [Christian] asceticism is a path of simplicity and obscurity,
and there is no true Christian self-denial that does not begin first of all with
a whole-hearted acceptance and fulfillment of the ordinary duties of one’s state
in life” (The Ascent to Truth, p. 159).
It’s so easy for us to be tempted by the big and bold and brilliant. We live in a world of celebrity, after all, and fame seems to be the prize that all people seek today. But we know better. We know that love supersedes fame and fortune, the love that is shown when we choose to reject our anger and bitterness and greed, and instead to live with generosity, humility, patience in our everyday lives. May God continue to transform us, so that when we are tempted to turn and run from the difficulties of our lives, that by the grace of God, we may instead embrace them as blessed opportunities to become more – more filled with the love and the light of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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