Rev. Kent A. Beausoleil, S. J.
Homily
31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
I once was accused of being sentimental. Now the person who accused me of being sentimental tended to be a rational sort. You know the type – all head no heart. Well, this charge of sentimentality stuck with me for honestly I did not then, nor do I now, view being a person of the heart to be problematic.
In fact, the charge of sentimentality moved my heart to feel an emotion at that time toward my friend and I have to tell you, in my humanness, at the time it wasn’t a feeling of happy, happy, joy, joy. So, in order to feel better about being ‘sentimental’ I turned to my trusty dictionary and looked up the word’s definition, which much to my surprise, conveys in its historical origins a positive rather than negative human quality.
The positive aspect of the definition before my eyes spoke of “having, showing or causing much tender feeling” of “being governed by feeling and sensibility rather than solely reason or thought”. Yes, just like anything though, being sentimental can be perceived as something negative rather than positive, especially in our more rational society where reason reigns and emotions tend to be suspect. So, feeling slightly vindicated by what I read in the dictionary, of these more positive meanings, I can make the confession free and clear, with my heart on my sleeve, so to speak, that I am a sentimental person – and darn proud of it.
I often cry at movies where the main character overcomes some great odds, or some monumental obstacle, to ultimately triumph as in movies like Rudy or Rocky. I stand slack-jawed before a vista so beautiful that it takes my breathe away – like the view of the sun rising over a mountaintop at dawn highlighting the brown, greens and purples in the land below as the shaft of sunlight pierces the fog and makes every tree sparkle like jewels.
My heart swoons as care is given to me, after a dinner party for friends for which I cooked, when these friends exile me from the kitchen, pour me a glass of champagne, and order me to sit and relax from my hard work so that they can clean the dishes. The world is indeed infused with God’s presence in so much beauty, so much love, so much goodness. It is hard not to become filled with sentiment.
And that is why our readings today speak so deeply to my heart and cause my heart to sing. The good news speaks to us today and asks the question – what is so wrong about being filled with feelings of love, joy, and beauty, especially when it concerns our loving God and the real presence of care and concern that the Lord does indeed have for us – a caring love that the Lord desires that we have for one another.
The imagery that begins our reading from Wisdom, of the universe being small as a speck or as a drop of drew, sets up the dynamic that in that smallness God could forget about all of us. Yet, God doesn’t forget us, Wisdom continues, God deeply cares for us. God has mercy on all. God loves all things that are and loathes nothing God has made. Our Psalm continues this theme and reinforces this gracious and merciful God, a creator who is good and compassionate to all.
In Luke, this Zacchaeus with who we identify, for aren’t we all sinners seeking out the Lord, actually finds the Lord seeking him out. Not only is Jesus trying to find Zacchaeus, not only is Jesus searching for us, but Jesus wants to stay and rest with Zacchaeus, wants to dwell with us. The Son of Man has come to seek, the good news declares, to save what was lost.
As people of God, like Zacchaeus, in the presence of the Lord’s care and saving love, how can we not be filled with feelings of joy, and a desire to convert our life to a life filled with love and joy? Our liturgy of the Word today is filled with feeling, feelings of love, of joy and beauty for we have a God who cares, a God who forgives, a Lord who seeks us out and wants to save us and give us all good things. The Lord challenges us to hear this word, to not be so rational about our faith, but to feel it deep in our hearts and then share these feelings with the world. It’s okay to love. It’s okay to care. It’s okay to be filled with joy. So, with lungs filled with ‘the breath of God’, the breath of life that is God’s breath, we scream in joyful love to our God – ‘O Lord and lover of Souls, [we praise you] for your imperishable spirit is in all things’.
So let’s not be like those in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonian’s rationalizing about when the dominion of God will come, suffering for it, and then forgetting what it feels like to have the Spirit of the Lord working in the world now, alive among them as they live and worship, and truly present in their hearts. Let’s not be like the Pharisee imitating crowds in Luke, worrying in their heads over the Lord loving a sinner and forgetting in their heart that the Lord is present now loving them and saving them in their sinfulness as well. Let’s not be like those in Wisdom who know full well of the love and mercy of the Lord yet harden their hearts and continue to return hate for love and wickedness instead of compassion.
As people who feel the depth of the Lord’s love near and dear to us, let us go tell those who rationalize faith away, who worry about things that are not of God, who sin rather than love to go fly a kite – for in our joy, exuberance, and desire to see the Lord more clearly (like Zacchaeus), it is my sentiment that we’ll all be climbing trees.