HOMILY FOR THE 3RD
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A, 2014
If I were to ask you the question, “to whom do you belong,”
how would you answer? I think we would all answer that question differently,
wouldn’t we? When I was a kid, my answer would have been that I belonged to my
parents. As I grew older into adolescence and growing more independent, the
answer changed to, “I belong to no one but myself.” As Ruthie and I dated, then
got engaged and then married, my answer was “I belong to Ruth.” 
If I asked you to sit down with a pencil and paper and begin
to list all the people and organizations to whom you belong, I’m sure that it
would be quite a list, wouldn’t it? For those of us who are older, we might
find that the list we made out when we were younger has dwindled over the
passing of the years. We have experienced the passing of the age as one by one,
our parents, and relatives, our friends, have passed away, their names
scratched off our list. Some of the groups and organizations to which we may
have belonged have changed so greatly that we may no longer feel a part of them
anymore, or have gotten smaller, or disbanded altogether. Our list gets shorter
and shorter. My grandparents, most of my uncles and aunts, my dad, my sister
have died. Within my diaconal ordination
class I have lost 6 classmates to death, and I came very close to joining that
number 2 years ago. Right now another 6 of my classmates are suffering
debilitating illnesses from cancer, stroke, heart disease and dimentia. When I
was a kid, my dad’s company transferred him from Chicago to St Paul a number of
times. Of all the parishes I felt most at home in during those days of moving,
the one I felt most at home was St Andrew’s in St. Paul. However, with the
mergers that occurred in 2011, St Andrews, along with our own St Benedict, and
St Joseph, were among the many whose doors were closed forever. As this list
gets shorter and shorter, we begin to experience the loss of our dearest loved
ones and friends, our spouses, even our children. All of these people and
places and things to whom we feel a belonging will eventually pass away,
however, there is one to whom we belong who will never pass away, to whom we
will always belong, and that is Jesus Christ. When we made our list, did we
remember to include his name? 
Who do you belong to? is the important question that St Paul is
posing to the Corinthian community today. This ancient Christian community was
a very divided community. It was so divided that the rivalries developed within
the community began to tear it apart and to threaten the very validity of the
sacraments. St Paul goes so far to tell them later in this letter, that the
lack of love within the community was so great that the Mass they celebrated
was invalid. The animosity that was ripping this community apart was murdering
the Body of Christ. So to begin to chip away at this division, St Paul asks
them, “to whom do you belong? Is it Apollos, or Cephas, or me?” He challenges
them, “Was I crucified for you? Were you baptized in my name?” He emphasizes to
them at the beginning of this letter and throughout the letter that the only
one to whom they belong is Jesus Christ.
There is a true story of an elderly nun who was at the
beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. She was very distraught not so much that the
illness was going to rob her of her memory, and her sense of self. She
confessed to her spiritual director that the anguish she felt was that she was
going to forget who Jesus was. Her spiritual director, a very wise woman, told
her not to worry, because even if she were to forget who Jesus was, Jesus would
never forget her. When Jesus is the first and foremost one to whom we belong,
we have nothing to fear.
As St Paul was facing his own execution, he writes his last
letter to the Roman community to reassure them that they have nothing to fear.
He tells them:
If God is for
us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all,
how will he not also give us everything else along with him?
Who will bring a charge against God's chosen ones?
It is God who acquits us.
Who will condemn?
It is Christ Jesus who died, rather, was raised,
who also is at the right hand of God,
who indeed intercedes for us.
What will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will anguish, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things,
nor future things, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This relationship of
belonging started at the time of our baptism. We were signed on the forehead by
our parents, our godparents, and the priest or deacon with the sign of the
cross. This indelible mark that we carry on our foreheads claims us for Christ.
St Cyril of Jerusalem once wrote, “Let us
not be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, but even if someone else conceals it, do
you carry its mark publicly on your forehead, so that the demons, seeing the
royal sign, trembling, may fly far away. … On the cross, Jesus triumphed over
them; and so, when they see it, they remember the crucified: they fear Him Who
crushed the heads of demons.” At the moment of our baptism we were united
into the Body of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus to whom we belong.
On this 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, when Jesus
begins to call Peter and Andrew, James and John, Matthew, Thaddeus, Judas
Iscariot, James the lesser, Thomas, Bartholomew, Philip, and Simon the Zealot
as his disciples, we remember that we belong to that number as disciples of
Jesus, too. As St Paul will tell the Corinthians, it just not enough to be
baptized. We have to embody the love and live the love that Jesus had for us.
That is how we carry on the ministry of the first 12 disciples, and, that is
how we proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to people everywhere. The 2nd
memorial acclamation at Mass is taken from this letter of St Paul to the
Corinthians, and says it all. “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we
proclaim your death Lord Jesus until you come again in glory.” In other words,
we who belong to Jesus, who have been called as disciples of Jesus, must love
God and others as Jesus did, even to the point of dying, until it is no longer
necessary when Jesus returns in glory.
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