The Sermon on the Mount: Radical Inclusion for Radical Conversion

 This is my homily at St. John's Seminary on Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time February 13, 2023

“If you trust in God, you too shall live.”  

Before Jesus delivered his magnificent Sermon on the Mount, St. Matthew tells us that Jesus first saw the crowds. Then he climbed the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him and then he began to teach them. As we read through this sermon—which takes up three entire chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel—we should always keep in mind how it began. Jesus saw the crowd. He saw them truly. He saw the complications of their lives, their sins, their struggles. He saw their fears. He saw their hearts. He saw all of this, and so He climbed the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. 

They came to him. They all came to him. This is what you might call the radical inclusivity of Jesus. He invites everyone to live a new life. He invites everyone to ascend the mountain and to experience radical conversion. He is radically inclusive because no one is excluded from the possibility of radical conversion. The radical inclusivity of Jesus is always ordered to the Universal Call to Holiness. 

Jesus invites everyone up into a world previously unimaginable. He invites us into a life of beatitude. The radical inclusion of Jesus is that the life of grace can reach and can transform every situation, every vice, every sin, no matter how deeply rooted or impossible the situation might seem. When Jesus saw the crowd, he saw everyone. Jesus excludes no one from the opportunity to have a radical conversion because he wills all men to be saved. 

A perpetual danger to the Christian life is the attempt to reduce it through, what St. Paul calls today, “the wisdom of this age;” a worldly wisdom that would empty the Cross of its power. Worldly wisdom—the wisdom of this age—reduces Christianity to a club instead of a new way of life. The Sermon on the Mount invites us—invites everyone—to become part of something new. The Sermon on the Mount invites us to “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” Worldly wisdom—the wisdom of this age—will always reject and dismiss as impossible, such a noble calling. It will see the Sermon on the Mount as too demanding, too impossible, and too cruel. Worldly wisdom—in its version of total inclusivity—will always wind up excluding some from ascending the mountain with Jesus.  

Worldly wisdom will conclude that one person’s anger or another person’s lust runs too deep for them to be converted. Worldly wisdom concludes that some situations are too complicated for grace to work. Worldly wisdom will teach that depending solely upon God is too risky a proposition. The radical inclusion of worldly wisdom only invites people to be more worldly, more distant from God, and, ultimately, more excluded. The radical inclusion of the Gospel is that of radical conversion. To be converted from the old world of sin and death into the new world of beatitude. 

If we read through the Sermon of the Mount from beginning to end (which I recommend we all do regularly), we will immediately think of complicated pastoral situations. What about the divorced and remarried? What about the person living an unchaste life? What about the person deeply wounded by someone—how can she possibly forgive? How am I not going to be anxious about tomorrow, or seek first the Kingdom of God? 

These complicated situations—and there have always been complicated situations—can seem like insurmountable objections to the Sermon on the Mount. How will a new generation of priests preach the Gospel into these situations? It seems that two pitfalls should be avoided. They both arise from a deadly worldly wisdom.  

The first would be to underestimate the life of grace. The priest of our time must be convinced of the transforming power of grace. No situation is so complicated, no temptation so strong, no sin so deeply implanted that grace cannot radically transform it. This, of course, begins with the priest himself becoming more and more radically transformed by grace.  

The second pitfall would be to live our preaching as though it were merely a sort of trench warfare, a debate about issues, but detached from any sort of love for the people to whom we are sent. This kind of preaching makes us sound as though we are concerned only with winning debates rather than winning souls; with showing people how clever we are rather than showing them something beautiful to love. When Jesus saw the crowds, he climbed the mountain. He drew people up to show them something better. He drew them up to show them what is possible. Priestly preaching shows others that there is a better way; shows others that the life of beatitude is open to them. Priestly preaching helps others to discover the splendor of truth and helps them to be set free by that truth. Priests must have hearts like the Good Shepherd. When our Good Shepherd saw the crowds, he went up the mountain to show them something beautiful so that they could be radically converted by what they saw and heard.  

The priest must always have that same joyful, patient, confident, and tranquil trust in the Truth. There is nothing confronting us today that Jesus did not see on the day he saw that crowd. In any battle, the advantage belongs to the one who holds the high ground. Therefore, we should always draw people up to the lofty heights of the Sermon on the Mount. 

Recently, as I read through the Sermon on the Mount, something I never noticed before struck me. At the conclusion of the sermon, Matthew tells us that Jesus came back down the mountain. Immediately, a leper approached Jesus. If anyone felt excluded in society, it would have been this man. But somehow, he is moved to go to Jesus. The man says to Jesus, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” And, as we all know, Jesus says, “I do will it. Be made clean.” And immediately, the man was cured. 

This man becomes like a key to understanding the entire Sermon on the Mount. No matter what our affliction, no matter what our sin, no matter what complicated situations we find ourselves in, Jesus can be trusted. If we go to him, he will change our life for the better. He will include us . . . by changing us. He will heal. He will forgive. He will give what is needed for a totally new way of life. All we need to do is trust him. The man with leprosy approached Jesus with confidence, and he was given new life. No one is excluded from the invitation to the life of beatitude. And the life of beatitude is found only in Jesus Christ. There is no beatitude apart from Jesus Christ. 

The greatest challenge confronting the Church at this particular moment in time is not about one particular moral issue or about particular pastoral approaches. The great challenge is lack of faith. Is Jesus Christ trustworthy? The great challenge is whether we trust him enough to build our house upon the rock of his word or whether we will build on the changing sands of worldly wisdom. Do we trust him? Do we believe him? Do we? 

Beatitude is bestowed upon those who trust Jesus. The Eucharist is given to those who trust Jesus. New life is given to those who trust Jesus. The leper’s situation seemed impossible. His condition seemed beyond healing. He seemed destined to isolation, shame, and death. But he trusted Jesus and was saved. The priest must be a man who looks with sympathy on every person—and through his preaching and teaching—leads them up the mountain so that they can see beautiful things, be converted, and become blessed. The world needs priests who can look with love at the crowds and announce to them the same good news that the leper discovered.  A good news that is so simple, beautiful, and filled with grace. A good news that is good news for all the people.  A good news that—when accepted—brings about radical conversion and new life. All we have to do is trust it. This good news is the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And as Sirach concisely put it: “If you trust God, you [too] shall live.” “Put your trust in Jesus Christ.” That is what the whole world—everyone included—needs to hear. And that is what her future priests need to preach.  

Priests Who Live and Who Make Present the Memory of Christ

 I don't blog much these days, but sometimes when I write out a homily, I still post it.  Here is my homily from today--Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time--delivered at St. John's Seminary.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, a priest arrived in a major city in Belarus, looking to serve Catholics there. After seven decades of communist rule, however, nobody really understood what he was talking about. Eventually, someone mentioned to him a nearby village where he might locate people who were still Catholic. He discovered a Catholic community there. Seventy years earlier, the priests of that village were all executed. For seventy years, the people would baptize their children, meet nightly for the Rosary, and gather on Sundays in different homes, taking turns reading the Mass from the Missal, but silently omitting the Words of Institution which they knew only the priest could speak. During those years, whenever they would sin in some grievous way, they would go out to the cemetery and whisper their sins over the graves of the priests who had long ago been executed. They hoped that somehow, God would still use their priesthood to absolve them.  

The people there kept the memory of Christianity, the memory of Christ alive in the midst of a religious desert. For seventy years, they remembered Christ. They remembered the Mass. They remembered who the priest is. Those of us who are or who will be priests in this current age, need to be men who live and who make present the memory of Christ. The world is forgetting Christ. Even people close to us—families and friends, are forgetting Christ. In front of this, we are called to remember Christ, to live the memory of Christ. 

It is so easy to forget Him. We are always at risk of forgetting him. The disciples forgot him! They forgot to bring bread, but they forgot so much more than this! They forgot how Jesus fed the 5000 in the Jewish territory and how there were 12 baskets leftover. They forgot how he fed the 4000 in the Gentile territory and how there were 7 baskets leftover. They forgot how even the Syrophoenician woman was able to receive crumbs from the table and be satisfied.  

We too live constantly in danger of forgetting. We forget Christ. We move on to the next thing, without pondering and carrying in our hearts what Christ has done. Christ becomes a vague notion to us rather than a real presence. We forget that he is sufficient. We forget all that he has done for us. And when we forget these things, we seek our sufficiency elsewhere. We seek our sufficiency in our own projects, ideas, and plans.  

The priest is a man who remembers, and who makes the memory of Christ present. He does that firstly by his very being. He prolongs the presence of Christ the Good Shepherd in the midst of the flock. Like the disciples who had only a little bread, the priest, with only a little water and a few words, introduces people into the life of the Blessed Trinity. With a little oil and a few words, he brings healing to the infirm. With only a few words from his lips, the worst sins are absolved. With a few crumbs of bread and a few drops of wine, he offers the sacrifice that saves the world. Every day, he remembers and makes present the saving Passion, wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven of Christ.  

The priest is not only configured to Christ, but he is also called to be conformed to Christ. To make the memory of Christ present through his own way of life, through his celibacy, his obedience, his simplicity of life, his praying of the Divine Office. The world has forgotten Christ. People are wandering about, unaware that God loves them; unaware that God sent His Son to save them. Even in the Church, even among his disciples, there is always the risk of forgetting. There is always the risk of trying to live Christianity without Christ; to live in moralism. We are always at risk of forgetting Christ.  

Our life together here in the seminary is a life of living the memory of Christ together, a life of reminding one another about the presence of Christ. The world needs priests who are faithful to the memory of Christ, priests who live the memory of Christ. Priests who are forever remembering what Christ has done. Remembering that Christ is everything, that Christ is the answer to the hunger of every human person. Remembering that Christ is sufficient. Remembering that Christ comes to feed the crowds, and—like he did for the Syrophoenician woman—he comes to feed each person. 

Every day, we look up at that central window and see a basket of bread there. It is as though the Lord is saying to us, “Never forget. I have fed you. I am feeding you. I will always feed you. I will feed whoever comes to me. I am sufficient for you. I am sufficient for all the people you will encounter in your ministry. Never forget!” 

Every day, Christ looks at us and commands us, “Do this in memory of me.” None of us knows what our future ministry will look like or what will be asked of us tomorrow. But we know how to prepare for it. We prepare for it now. We prepare for it today by faithfully living the memory of Christ. Whatever we do today . . . let us do it . . . in memory of him.