Every now and then friends email me some church bulletin bloopers. One read: ‘At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.”
Another: “The sermon topic in the morning will be ‘Jesus walks on water’”; the sermon topic in the evening will be ‘The search for Jesus.’”
And finally: “Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.”
The point of these bloopers is: proof-read carefully what will appear in print.
The word of God today gives us Isaiah, Paul and Jesus. They each lived a purpose-driven life, to use Rick Warren’s title.
In their hearts, people want to live for something greater than themselves that can give ultimate meaning to their lives. This takes different forms in different people: perhaps a commitment to family, health care, education, human rights, a cleaner environment, freedom and safety, to name a few fields. When a person finds something that gives transcendent meaning to his/her life, it awakens new energies. People become true believers, so to speak.
Isaiah, Paul and Jesus had faith in an all-good sovereign God; they heard God's call and responded with a wholehearted yes. They knew who they were, their mission. They realized God committed some work to them. Their lives couldn't fail because they found meaning beyond this transitory world. To quote the letter of John: “This is the victory that overcomes the world: our faith.”
Today's word takes us back in our imaginations to the eighth century before Jesus (the 700s), to a man named Isaiah. Ancient Assyria is on the march against northern Israel. In the middle of this threat, Isaiah speaks about the future: a great light, a king, will illuminate the darkness that envelops the anxious Hebrews. This king will trust completely in God, not in fickle alliances with foreign powers. And he will free the Hebrews from their oppressors.
Isaiah here challenges us to trust always in God’s unconditional love for us despite the problems and disappointments we may face. God is always close to us. God won't give us more than we can handle.
Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Corinth in Greece, deplores the divisions that seem to be tearing the community apart. He begs for unity in the community in light of their common bond: they are God's adopted sons and daughters. They are all one family.
Today, it doesn’t appear as though we are one family. We find dysfunctional relationships everywhere. Paul probably would advise us to keep our temper; share the blame; make the best of the situation since most things in life seldom work out perfectly. Good advice for all of us.
In the Gospel according to Matthew, the author proclaims that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah. He is the anointed one, the Christos, who will bring light into our darkness by proclaiming the good news: God has become one of us in Jesus of Nazareth so that we can become like God. Therefore, Jesus exhorts us, orient our lives to God and the things of God! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!
And then Jesus begins to call some unlikely people, including ordinary fishermen, to discipleship. These folks saw something “transcendent” in Jesus. They experienced, at some privileged moment, an overwhelming sense of the divine in Jesus. They recognized with the eyes of faith what lay beneath and beyond the immediate appearance of Jesus, i.e., the reality of God in Jesus the Christ. And we see that too with our eyes of faith.
So what then is faith?
Our faith, a gift from God, empowers us to relate to God. It answers the fundamental questions of human life: who really am I? What’s my purpose? What on earth am I here for? Faith is richer and deeper than belief. Faith calls us to commit ourselves to Jesus Christ, to follow Him who is our way to eternal life, our truth who sets us free from falsehoods and our light who illuminates the darkness around us as we journey toward our heavenly home. Faith is all about connectedness to a person, Jesus Christ. It’s relational.
Belief, on the other hand, is a profession of the essential truths of our Catholic faith that we proclaim every Sunday, e.g., in the 4th century Nicene Creed.
We say: I believe in one God, despite many folks today who experience not the presence, but the absence of God; despite the many who question the existence of God in the face of such overwhelming evils as disease, senseless violence, war and hunger.
Yes, we say: our God is all mighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. We profess there is someone completely other and completely beyond ourselves; One who is the cause and who is responsible for everything that is: God, Father Almighty.
And yes, we believe in one lord, Jesus Christ. This Lord, Jesus Christ, for us and for our salvation came down from heaven. The eternal word became flesh, one of us, Jesus of Nazareth. Why? To heal the brokenness on this planet. There is hate, lies, injustices, greed, ignorance and violence everywhere. The planet cries out for a healer, a reconciler? And this Jesus who for our sake was crucified, died, was buried and rose again is indeed our healer, our reconciler, our pledge of a life beyond this earthly life.
And yes, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the lord, the giver of life. The power of the Spirit is within us. And enables us to live a life of virtue worthy of our calling as adopted sons and daughters of God our Father.
And we believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic community, the Church to which we belong. We acknowledge one baptism and look toward the resurrection and the life to come.
Yes, the Nicene Creed underscores the essential content of our faith.
May our faith help us to find purpose in life and lead us on …into our heavenly dwelling place. Amen.
