Fifth Sunday of Lent April 3, 2022

The Fifth Sunday of Lent, 3 April 2022

Peace be with you on this, our celebration of the Mass for the 5 ^th Sunday of Lent, 2022. So, just in case you didn’t know, the longest continuous narrative in the Gospel of John is Jesus’ Passion narrative. When everyone comes to Mass on Good Friday, we’ll get to hear it. Well, it just so happens, the second longest narrative is the raising of Lazarus. Now I just read the abridged shorter version however, for a couple of reasons, and one of them is NOT to get you out of Church earlier. First, everything I needed for my homily was covered in the shorter version. And second, in my many, many public speaking classes I’ve been taught, at about 9 to 10 minutes max, I’ll start losing people’s attention, unless I have visual aids. Maybe that’s why guys like Joel Osteen have those big jumbo-tron screens instead of a crucifix behind them. Oops, can I say that? Sorry Joel. Of course, at times as I look out there, I think I start losing some folks in about 10 seconds. Regardless, here I go. Wake up everybody for about 7 more minutes.

OK, so, there is a bit of Biblical trivia in this reading we just heard today, that is very important. Everyone should go home and mark John 11:35 in your personal Bibles. Why? Because it is not only important in what it says, but it is the shortest verse in the whole big Bible. “And Jesus wept.” In many translations it’s only two words, simply, “Jesus wept.” We’re going to talk more about the shortest verse in the Bible but first let’s lay out some background.

Today’s Gospel is a crescendo, so to speak, of the readings from the last two Sunday’s. Even though we’re technically in the Year C cycle we have the option of using Year A readings during the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent. Some scholars consider these three specific readings the best in the whole liturgical year. The story of the Samaritan woman at the well, the story of healing the man blind from birth, and now the raising of Lazarus. These are all stories that can be viewed as metaphors for God’s loving willingness to heal all our own spiritual disfunctions. Living water for our spiritually thirsty souls, light for our spiritually blind eyes, and ultimately, resurrection and life for the spiritually dead. There is a catch to all of God’s wonderful mercy and healing portrayed in these stories however, and it is a catch many so called Christians in our modern society either consciencely or unconsciously just can’t get past. We must push our big, inflated egos aside and embrace the real cornerstone of true Christian spirituality. In this modern world where it’s all about me, mine, and self, we must admit to our own spiritual helplessness. Friends, the cornerstone of true Christian spirituality is this, I am incapable of saving myself. I need a savior.

In today’s Gospel reading we see our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ at His most human. “Jesus wept.” Then, suddenly, we see Him at his most divine. By His own power as the second person of the Blessed Trinity, He raises the long dead, stinking, rotting Lazarus from the tomb. Anyone have a King James Bible at home? Go read verse 39. I love it. It tells us, “He stinketh.” John makes it perfectly clear. This was not just a resuscitation; this was a resurrection. And this is the greatest sign of who Jesus is. The most undeniable proof of His Divine Sonship until He rises from the dead himself on Easter morning. There is a big difference between Lazarus’ resurrection and Jesus’, however. The Lord is raised to eternal life; Lazarus is raised to earthly life. Lazarus will die once more on earth, but the Lord Jesus Christ will never die.

Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb, and we read that Lazarus comes out, bound hand and foot. Well now, this begs a simple question; if he were bound hand and foot, how exactly did he come out? According to Saint Bernard, Lazarus just floated out. Then the Lord says these simple words: “Untie him and let him go free.” With this in mind, what exactly is the Lord Jesus saying to us today? Saint Augustine uses this scene as a symbol for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The same Jesus Christ, who is fully human and fully divine is calling to us, beckoning us to come out and let Him untie us and let us go free from sin. Let’s ask ourselves, what is tying us up and refusing to let us go spiritually free? I’d venture to guess it is sin. Jesus wants us to be free from sin, so He offers us the beauty of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

My sisters and brothers, in today’s Gospel we have one of the most concise definitions Christ gives of himself in the Bible. “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Oh, it is so very, very easy to read these words and simply say, “I believe” but in saying those words we must also reflect. Don’t forget that cornerstone of Christian spirituality I gave earlier. I am absolutely incapable of saving myself. I need a savior. We cannot sincerely embrace this attitude without surrendering to our Savior and turning loose of ego.

Let me suggest a simple meditative exercise. First, as much as it might hurt, recognize that sin, is spiritually turning away from God’s eternal desire for our friendship. Then remember verse 35, “Jesus wept.” This is Jesus Christ, both human and divine, at his most human, weeping because of a friend’s death. This is literally God weeping. Now imagine God weeping in sorrow because of all sin and death. God is weeping in sorrow over our sinfulness because sin always has a spiritual dimension and spiritually sin is freely turning away from friendship with God. So, I say to myself Paul, next time I feel trivial about some “little” sin I’ve committed, I’m going to imagine God weeping over my “little” sin. Wow, that hurts.

Friends, everybody is to some degree spiritually dead. Today we see however, Jesus can and will call us back. It doesn’t matter how spiritually dead we may feel. So, put your own name in the place of Lazarus. Then hear Jesus say “Bonny, or Fred, or Mary,,, or Paul, come out – untie him and let him go free.”

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Paul T. Keil, 18-19 July 2026 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Season A Peace be with you and welcome to our celebration of the Mass for the 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time. OK, some of you may remember I’ve said before, in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 comprise the whole Sermon on the Mount, but did you know Chapter 13, where we are today, is often called the Sermon of the Parables. In this single chapter Matthew strings together seven separate parables from Jesus. Today we just heard numbers two, three, and four. Last weekend we heard the first one with the Parable of the Sower and what happens to the seeds scattered in different places. Next weekend you’ll hear the final three parables from Chapter 13 so, be sure to come back. So, what is Jesus saying in these readings. Last week we heard the parable about seeds as an allegory for Jesus’s words falling on a path and being eaten by birds, falling on rocky ground and withering with no roots, falling into thorns and being choked by life’s anxieties, and falling on fertile soil to bear fruit. Today we have Jesus giving us another parable about planting seeds and again, just like last week, Jesus’ disciples ask him to explain the parable. And since He stops to explain both parables about planting, he just might be trying to emphasize something important here for his disciples, and for us. One thing is clear in these parables however, God’s Kingdom will always coexist in this physical world with forces opposing it, like the wheat and the weeds growing together. Now many religious people struggle with this condition. Some see it as predestination. A weed in the wheat field or a seed in the rocks must represent people predestined to go to hell. That’s what it literally says, right? Still others ask in frustration; this is God we’re talking about, why does God’s Kingdom have to struggle with opposing forces at all? Why doesn’t God just get rid of the evil? Well, our old friend, St Thomas Aquinas wrote quite a bit about good and evil coexisting in our fallen world. He said sometimes the two are so tightly interwoven that you couldn’t have certain types of good without certain types of evil. For example, he said simply, “there would be no virtue of the martyr without the cruelty of the tyrant.” Friends, God delights in our freedom, our intelligence, and our cooperation when we freely make the decision to accept God’s love. Without free will we cannot choose to love. Jesus’ explanation of the wheat and weed parable certainly helps when he says; “The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels” and in the next verse he says; “The Son of Man will send his angels.” There is a very important take-away here every single Christian should remember. Eternal judgment belongs to God alone, not to anyone else – period. This is a consistent message Jesus gives us in all four Gospels but unfortunately, there are those who sometimes forget this simple divine fact about humanity’s relationship with the unlimited creator of the universe. We may perceive an individual as being bad or even intrinsically evil but judgment for their immortal souls belongs exclusively to God. I always like an old adage that goes like this, “if I ever get to heaven, I may be surprised by who I see there, and they may be even more surprised to see me.” I’ll admit, over the years for a long time, as I’ve meditated on this parable about weeds and wheat or last week’s parable about seeds, especially the ones falling into thorns choked by worldly anxiety, there was something always bothering me. You see, if we’re not careful both parables can make life, heaven, and hell sound kind of random or worse yet, they can make God’s love sound like it is exclusively reserved for preselected people. I know now however, there is nothing further from the truth. If you’ve lived life for a while and think back to times when you were say maybe,,, struggling in school, or first dating, or trying to make ends meet while raising a family, or competing for promotions at work, or trying to buy that first house, you realize there may have been times when your life wasn’t very spiritually fruitful. In fact, I now realize there were times in my own past when thoughts of God, salvation, or prayer were nowhere in my daily routine. I even wonder; was there a period in my life when I was one of those weeds or a seed in the thorns? Thankfully, with reflection on the whole of Scripture, guidance from the Church, and maybe some help from the Holy Spirit I realize now these parables are not “either / or” propositions. God doesn’t intentionally create some people as weeds and some people as wheat nor does God throw souls into the wind to randomly fall in the thorns, or on stony ground, or in fertile soil. If you’re not careful, you can come to those conclusions, however. You can read the Bible too narrowly and pick out verses here and there that help support your personal image of what you want God to be. Those tend to be the same people who like to do God’s judgment work for him. Here’s the thing; some of us here today may have actually spent some time as those ugly weeds but at some point, with God’s help, we decided to change and now we’re wheat growing in that good old fertile soil. My sisters and brothers, sin must never be viewed as a permanent state. Like we heard from the Book of Wisdom today, “you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.” This is the greatest gift of our Christian faith; God loves us all so much, even great sinners, God is always ready to forgive. So, here’s a challenge and homework for us all today. Most of us know people out there from all age groups, but especially some of our youth, who may be temporarily living life like the weeds in our parable today or maybe tangled in those thorns of life’s tribulations. First and foremost, we must be confident, sin is not a permanent state of life, second, we don’t judge, third, pray for them no matter how nasty they may seem. And finally, if we’re really, really brave, we offer them a hand to pull them up and out of the weeds, rocks, or thorns into God’s fertile soil.