Life that Gives Life
13th Sunday of the Year
This week I have been busy with packing as I prepare to move. While I wish I could tell you that my embrace of gospel simplicity is such that I had few things to pack, this, sadly is not true. Much room for improvement remains as I seek to model way of life on the one who, though rich, became poor.
As I set about boxing up books and pictures and carefully wrapping breakables I would put on a talk or podcast to occupy my mind and to make the most of my time. One of those talks was by the New York Times columnist David Brooks, a recent talk that he gave on the state of our world and its challenges. The picture was bleak but sadly not news: high levels of depression and anxiety, growing gaps between rich and poor, increased polarization and tribalism in politics.
What I admire about Brooks is his willingness to acknowledge the spiritual root causes of these sad realities. The upshot of the talk for me was that a world which is less and less religious, less and less concerned with the things of God, is also a world that is anxious, bitter, divided, and cruel.
But this is not God’s design and this is not God’s desire.
Today we are reminded that our God is a God of life and God who gives life that we might generate life. Contrary to the view of some who see God and the things of God as a limit to human flourishing or a pall on human happiness, a deadly sort of thing, the readings we have today remind us that
God makes us not for death but for life and for abundance.
“God did not make death nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living…he fashioned all things that they might have being…God creates that we might share in his life, he makes us for life.”
Death enters the world as the consequence of sin. Looking around us as the bleak picture I spoke of at the start we see the death, the sadness, that comes from sin, from a world without God, a world the looses sight of its maker, a world unplugged from the source of its vitality. God does not desire death but desires life.
In the Gospel today we see this desire come to life in Jesus’ healing power. The Messiah was sent to gather the nations and the bind up wounds.
The Christ came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. In the Gospel we see a wounded humanity, weighed down by the deadly wages of sin, grasping for the healing touch and presence of Jesus. In the first instance a woman who suffered for years with a hemorrhage in the second a girl whose life was snuffed out far too young. Into the reality of human need and suffering enters a Presence, the Lord of life comes to restore what was lost and to bring about God’s plan: God desires not death but life.
Jesus heals the woman restoring her to the fullness of life and in order that his power over death itself Jesus speaks to this girl words that he likewise says to his children throughout the ages gripped in the death of sin: Talitha Khoum . . . little girl I say to you arise.
But something else is going on here, something that might to strike us at first glance, something that connects these two seemingly unconnected healings.
For the Jews of Jesus’ time, as for many today, the greatest blessing in life was to bring life into the world: to have children.
The gospel speaks of the first woman as being afflicted with a hemorrhage. In this it is likely implied a condition that would have rendered her barren, unable to bear children, adding further tragedy and shame to an already suffering woman, as any who have struggled with fertility know so well in your own experience.
The daughter of Jairus would have been lost before she reached childbearing age, adding to the grief of the family, the tragedy of the situation. Thus Jesus’ healing is not only restoring life, but restoring the capacity to generate life. Christ is the Lord of life, who restores us to life that we might generate life.
So too for each of us. Through his cross and resurrection, Jesus Christ, has conquered the power of sin. In baptism, we come to share in his death that we might share in his life.
This life is given that we might, in turn, share that life that has been given to us. Life promises life. The life that is given is given to be shared that through it more life might be generated.
When we are dead in sin, Jesus offers us the possibility of new life in his mercy. This life is given that life might generate new life in hearts transformed by mercy, hearts that seek to be merciful as our heavenly father is merciful.
In just a few moments we will receive from this altar the bread of life, and that life is given to us, that we might generate life in the world, bringing in our very selves and in the fire of charity which has been enkindled in our hearts, the life of Christ into the world that so often is mired in the darkness of death.
Our God is a God of life, he raises us to life in the Spirit, he shares his life with us, that this life might generate life, that we might share what we have received. I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly. We have been raised to new life so may be generate, by the power of God’s grace at work in us, life that promises life.
Homily preached on Sunday, June 30th at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Fr. Tyler Kline currently shepherds his flock at the parish of St. Andrew by the Bay, Cape St. Claire
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