Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent (C)
St. Joseph’s Neier March 3, 2013
Rev. Kevin Schmittgens
Central Idea: God calls us out of reluctance and disinclination to lead others to freedom.
This week my students participated in a contest in which they could have won $1000. It was an essay contest for the Serra Club, a group that promotes vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Students were given a quote from Pope John Paul II and were asked to write an essay, a paragraph really, about how that quote made them think about possibly entering into the priesthood or religious life. Sounds easy, right?
Well, my students are honest if not downright frank and candid. More than a few of them wrote something along these lines: This does not encourage me to think about a vocation. I don’t think I could do that. I don’t think that life is for me.
Uh, kids, you are not going to win a $1000 with that attitude.
I have a lot of faith in these students nonetheless because they are actually part of a fascinating line of characters, Biblical and historical, who were initially reluctant to go and serve God. Today in our first reading Moses is Exhibit A.
Whenever we think of Moses, we think of a Charlton Heston kind of guy, with a deep white beard, steely eyes, arms outstretched ripping open the Red Sea with strength and power. And yet, in our first reading, Moses appears timid, hesitant and tentative. God recruits him to go down to Egypt and demand that the Israelites are freed from their bondage, freed from the servitude, freed from their oppression. Let my people go!
But Moses, like my students, understandably, is reluctant. Let me get this straight, you want me to walk right into the center of power in the world, a place where I am a wanted fugitive, and simply ask that they give a vital part of their economic growth liberty and autonomy. Sure, whatever your name is, I will get right on that. NOT!
Moses’ reluctance is two-fold. First he questions himself and his own talents and gifts. Apparently, Moses had some sort of speech impediment, possibly a stutter. How would that look? Hey Pharaoh, let me pppppeepppple ggggggooo. We understand Moses’ reluctance.
But Moses also questions God. We suppose that all the Biblical characters we read about in Scriptures have no problems, zero issues, know exactly what the score is. Unfortunately, the people who think that, have really never read the Bible. What we discover, especially today is that these folks are remarkably like us. They question not just God’s existence, but his power. Moses does not just jump up and run to Egypt and bring the folks out. It is never as simple as that.
So the question we are faced with this morning is how did Moses change, how did he find the courage and the fortitude to confront Pharaoh. The quick answer is that God enters into an intimate relationship with him, He gives him His name. It is a name that we even stopped saying back in 2008 in our liturgy. It is the tetragrammatron. It is replaced the more generic name for god elohim and is variously translated. I like the translation: I am always to you who I am always to you. Other translate it as the one who brings all things into being.
Whatever you call it, or don’t, by revealing a deep love for his people, God convinces Moses lead the people to freedom and that made all the difference in the world.
By virtue of your baptism and confirmation all of you are called to share the life of God, the Lord. It may not be as a priest or religious, although I think a lot of you, especially the young need to give it some thought. But if you are like Moses, if you are like my students, if you are like me you are reluctant. Do I have the gifts, do I have the talents? The answer is, of course, probably not, but that has never stopped anyone in the past, and it didn’t surely stop Fr. Kevin.
The next uncertainty is about God himself. and that is why we are called to a deeper relationship with Him, a deeper communion with him this Lent.
I am always to you, who I am always to you. Trust in that. Believe in that. Hope in that. Why? Not because you could win a $1000, but that someone’s freedom, from bondage, from oppression, from slavery depends on it.