3rd Sunday - Call to a new Life

People can use words or phrases that can scare us, intentionally or unintentionally. I am not talking words like spiders, or pineapple on pizza, as scary as those may be. Apocalypse is one such word or its adjective, apocalyptic. We hear it and we think violence, chaos, death, destruction and the like. Apocalypse scares us. There is some truth to that, but it is not the whole truth. The book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature; and we can read it on the surface and find all kinds of violence and death but that would be to read it improperly.

Apocalypse does not signify the literal end of the world and its destruction. Apocalypse is about how our world, as we live it and experience it, changes. I attended and presided over an apocalyptic moment on Saturday. A woman and man’s lives were radically changed. They married each other. It was not violent, nor too chaotic, and it was beautiful; but it was apocalyptic. They willingly changed the trajectory of their lives. They chose to live life differently, committed now to each other. How many of you have also made that decision?

Then there are other apocalyptic moments; the first child, leaving home for school; losing someone we loved. There can be others, but these moments can change how we live our lives.

Where is God in all of this?

When the trajectory of our lives does not lead us to wholeness, to holiness, to fullness of life, God calls us to repent, to change the direction of our lives. God calls us to a sort of apocalypse. So many examples of this in Scripture: Abram called to leave his homeland to receive a new home; Hebrew people called out of slavery into the desert to trust in God; the prophets continually calling the people back into that covenantal relationship; and a prophet going to Gentiles, the Ninevites, calling them to a new life and they responded. The ultimate in calling and leading us to a new life: Jesus.

This is an apocalyptic moment for those disciples: Jesus calls out to them to leave behind one way of life to find another. They respond. They will learn to live differently, more fully. Jesus will do this for others too, offering a different, better way to live.

When a couple marry they leave behind single life to enter into the reality that they belong now in a different way to a new family they have formed. They are responsible for and to another person in a way that they have never had to live before. In this new reality, they are to walk with each other and grow together; to be open to new life. This is quite the statement to our more self-centered, narcissistic culture that pervades.

We will all get hurt by others; there will be anger and disappointment. We can walk a path of playing a victim or nurturing our anger so that it turns to poison. Jesus calls us to a different life, a different path: forgiveness.

Grief will happen; we will lose those we love to death, the break-ups, to distance. We can wallow in our self-pity, stay in that darkness of sadness and loss. Jesus calls us to a different way to live; to trust and have hope that love remains.

I have seen people so frustrated, so angry because nobody does what they want them to do; they vent about their spouses, their children, their parents, Popes, Presidents and Governors, people driving on I-580. Jesus offers to us the way of humility, to understand so much is beyond our control.

And sometimes we have to wrestle with even believing in Jesus. People struggle with how we believe in Jesus too; thinking there is only one way, yet there are many ways to believe and walk as Jesus’ disciple.

Even now our world has choices to make: we see a reality of climate change, war, divisions in our country, our world and our church, homelessness and poverty here and abroad.

I believe that we as Catholics have learned in Christ ways to choose differently. We as disciples know we are connected to all others and to this world; so we can choose to treat this world with kindness. We as disciples know that God so loves us and all; so we can choose to call and to work for an end to these divisions, that to bomb and murder others is the same to bomb and murder our own.

We believe as disciples God calls out to others to consider forgiveness and to find a future for all; not to dwell always on the past.

All signified through our Eucharistic Feast; bread and wine changed into a new reality; the Son of God given to us as sinners, but given to call us to change and be changed. We eat and drink an apocalypse if you think about it; one that came from a violent death on a cross, but was given and is given in forgiveness and mercy. Given in love so that we can change the direction of our lives, and our world.

It is there for us, when we humble ourselves enough to hear that call and follow that call.