Homily for 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 25, 2023
Jer 20: 10-13
Rom 10: 12-15
Matt 10: 26-33
St. Edmund, Edmonton, Alberta

You all know the saying, “I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.  Which do you want to hear first?”

from the Sistine Chapel

I’ll start with the bad news:  Jeremiah was loathed because he prophesied in God’s name to the unrepentant leaders of Judah, both nobles and priests.  In our 1st reading, he moaned:  “I hear many whispering…:  ‘Denounce him!  Let us denounce him!’” (20:10).  Not only did they denounce him, but they scourged him, put him in the public stocks, threw him into a dry well, and threatened to kill him—all that besides despising him and refusing to listen to the Lord’s words.

The Psalmist voices a similar lament:  “For your sake [God’s sake] I have borne reproach….  I have become a stranger to my kindred … [because] zeal for your house has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me” (69:7-9).

Those texts form something of a parallel to Jesus’ warning to his disciples not to fear those who might attack them and kill their bodies; rather, to fear the Evil One, who can destroy us in the fire of hell (Matt 10:28).  Yes, the followers of Jesus, like Jeremiah and the anonymous Psalmist, are always in danger of persecution from those who hate the Christian message, the Gospel; e.g., that there’s only one God, and him alone are we to serve—not our own egos or passions or even our nation; that all persons, including the unborn, are created in God’s image and therefore have God-given dignity; that God created us male and female, and that’s his plan and purpose for us as humans.  So Christ’s followers have always been persecuted, and they continue to be persecuted in places like China, Nigeria, India, and Nicaragua, and even in supposedly enlightened Western societies.  Jesus encourages us to proclaim his Gospel from the housetops (10:27) and assures us that he’ll acknowledge us before his Father (10:32) when we’re called to give a reckoning of our lives.

And that’s a hint of the good news I alluded to when I began.  The rest of the good news comes from our 2d reading, St. Paul to the Christian community at Rome (5:12-15).  In this passage, St. Paul contrasts the disobedience of Adam in the garden, which brought death into the world for every human being, with the life that Jesus Christ, the new Adam, has brought into the world as a “free gift”—an undeserved gift freely given to us by God—the gift of redemption from the power of death and the grip of the Devil, who would destroy us in hell.  No matter our sins, Christ’s grace is offered to us.  The only price for that gift is that we accept Christ and follow him, without shame and without reservation.