Recognizing and Embracing the Kingdom of God, 32nd Thursday (II), November 12, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Thursday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Josaphat, Martyr
November 12, 2020
Plhm 7-20, Ps 146, Lk 17:20-25

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• The Pharisees in today’s Gospel asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. They were doubtless asking this within messianic expectations, that the kingdom of God would erupt soon and fulfill Jewish hopes to evict the Romans from Israel and reestablish the Davidic throne. The kingdom, for them, was fundamentally a political reality, a Davidic theocracy. In the question, the Pharisees were probably egging Jesus on to see whether he thought he was the Messiah and what his future plans might be. But Jesus, as he is wont to do, transcended the question. He said that the inauguration of the Kingdom wouldn’t be a spectacle to be observed. There wouldn’t be trumpets intoning “Hail to the King!” There wouldn’t be heralds indicating that the kingdom is “here” or “there.” Rather, Jesus says, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.” This means two things. First, that the Kingdom had already come because the King was present; the Kingdom is where the King is and Jesus was already present. Second, the Kingdom had already come because people had already embraced it, entered it and were living in it because they were living with the King. The “among” here in Greek can also mean “within,” and some people interiorly were already very much in the Kingdom. There’s a couplet in the Our Father in which we pray first “Thy kingdom come!” and then repeat it in other words, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is done, whenever one begins to live in relationship with God and his kingdom.
• By both of these applications Jesus was indicating that no one needed to wait to observe the kingdom because the kingdom had already arrived. Rather, they needed to know how to look for it. Throughout the Gospel Jesus was giving us indications about how to recognize the kingdom as well as the conditions for entering it and living in it. He says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are “poor in spirit,” to those who treasure God more than all the treasures of the world. It belongs to those who convert and become like little children, who trust in God and accept it as a gift. It is like a wedding banquet full of joy and those who live in the kingdom are those who are profoundly and serenely joyful. It grows like a mustard seed or yeast, imperceptible to people on the outside but the growth is real. It’s like a buried treasure or a pearl of great price, a net cast into the sea or a field with wheat and weeds. By each of these realities Jesus was indicating qualities of the Kingdom so that we would be able to perceive it. Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, said very powerfully back in 2000 in a talk to catechists from around the world, “The kingdom of God … is ‘not a thing.’ The Kingdom of God is God. The Kingdom of God means: God exists. God is alive. God is present and acts in the world, in our – in my life. God is not a faraway ‘ultimate cause,’ God is not the ‘great architect’ of deism, who created the machine of the world and is no longer part of it – on the contrary: God is the most present and decisive reality in each and every act of my life, in each and every moment of history.” The kingdom has come to a person when God is truly God of each and every act of one’s life. The Kingdom of God is living within the matrix of the incarnate King of Kings.
• When we enter into that kingdom, everything changes and all other kingdoms are relativized. We see that in today’s first reading. St. Paul writes to Philemon whom he had evangelized and brought into the Church in Colossae. He had a slave, Onesimus, who had escaped and come to Rome where he encountered St. Paul, whom doubtless he had at least seen in Colossae. He served St. Paul for a time, but Onesimus was a fugitive, a crime punishable by the death penalty. St. Paul wanted to restore Onesimus’ standing in a way that would help both Onesimus and Philemon. So he sent him back with what became the Letter to Philemon. In this brief letter, St. Paul described how things change when we’re really living in the kingdom. In the Roman empire, Onesimus was simply a slave and because he had escaped Philemon could have him cruelly punished and even executed. But the reality and rules of the kingdom needed to trump Roman law. St. Paul said, “I am sending him, my heart, back to you, … so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me but even more so to you, as a man and in the Lord. … Welcome him as you would me.” In the kingdom, we grasp that there is no longer Jew or Greek, no longer free or slave, but we’re all beloved sons and daughters of God and therefore brothers and sisters of each other (Gal 3). St. Paul was confident that Philemon would live by the values of the kingdom and the fact that we have the letter today is clearly a sign that he did. In a similar way, living in the Kingdom means to change the way we interact, to alter all our human interactions. In the kingdom, we recognize that the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the ill, and the imprisoned need to be treated with the love with which we would treat Christ. We recognize that even notorious sinners are beloved by God who died for them and therefore must have the door of conversion opened to them. We recognize that those whom the world considers nobodies are often given special missions to reduce to humility those who think they’re somebodies. We look at everyone — Liberal or Conservative, Black or White or Brown, Yellow or Red, Male or Female — with love. Today’s Gospel is an occasion for us to ask whether we’re really living in that kingdom, whether God is the “most present and decisive reality in each and every act of my life.” At a practical level, do we look at politics, sports, storms, meals, familial relations, friendships, setbacks — in short, life — differently than others who do not know about nor live in the kingdom?
• At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus says, that before the kingdom of God is manifest as the Son of Man “lights up the sky from one side to another,” he “first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.” The Kingdom of God will be exposed first through violence against the King and then through the burst of light that happened on the resurrection. Rather than “Hail to the King” people will shout “Crucify Him.” And rather than lighting followed by thunder such that everyone would hear, the radiation of the resurrection was able to be seen only by those who did not belong to the darkness but sought to live in the light. This truth points to the reality that to enter the kingdom we must enter into the Son of Man’s great sufferings and rejection so as to become his light illuminating the earth from one side to another. We must enter into his death and resurrection. That’s the full meaning of conversion. The Kingdom of God is meant to be within us in this way, as we are crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live by the Risen Christ living within us.
• Someone who entered into Christ’s sufferings and resurrection, who lived in the kingdom and worked to help others live in the kingdom, is the saint we celebrate today. St. Josaphat was born Orthodox in the Ukraine in 1580. In 1595, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Metropolitan of Kiev and five bishops, representing millions of Ruthenians, came back into communion with Rome after the split in 1054. The teenage Josaphat was among them. Josaphat would eventually become a monk and begin to preach in favor of Christian unity in the midst of tremendous opposition — fundamentally political — against reunion with Rome. He knew, as Jesus taught, that a kingdom divided against itself couldn’t stand and he wanted the kingdom that subsisted in the Church to be as strong as God intended and desired. In 1617, he was ordained Bishop of Vitebsk and soon thereafter appointed Archbishop of Polotsk. There he continued to suffer to heal the scandal of schism and bring about the cause of unity. He had great faith and sought to increase the faith of others. When people were threatening to kill him, he said, “If I am accounted so worthy as to deserve martyrdom, then I am not afraid to die.” When people in the city of Vitebsk were plotting against him, he said, “You people of Vitebsk want to put me to death. You make ambushes for me everywhere, in the streets, on the bridges, on the highways, in the marketplace. I am here among you as your shepherd and you ought to know that I should be happy to give my life for you. I am ready to die for the holy union, for the supremacy of St. Peter and of his successor the Supreme Pontiff.” His enemies got their chance on November 12, 1623. He returned home after prayer to find people attacking those who worked for him. He said to the persecutors, “My children, what are you doing with my servants? If you have anything against me, here I am, but leave them alone.” They began to cry, “Kill the papist!,” and he was pierced by a bullet and brained with a halberd, as he gave his life for the union offered to us in Christ. Through his martyrdom he consummated his own union with Christ and fully entered into the Kingdom that knows no end.
• The Kingdom of God is God and to live in the Kingdom is to unite ourselves with the King. When we come to receive Holy Communion, we allow Christ the Kingdom to establish his throne within us, so that the Kingdom of God may truly be within us. This is what makes possible for us, like Saint Josaphat, like Paul, Onesimus and Philemon, to live a new life, to share Christ’s sufferings, to become his light flashing across the world. The Kingdom is not something that will be announced by pointing here or there, but is ultimately something we are called to bear within. Through the intercession of St. Josaphat, we ask the Lord Jesus for the grace that as we receive him within we may not do so routinely, but in such a way that we may make him the “most present and decisive reality in our life,” as we seek to spread his kingdom, do his will, and bring about true communion just as St. Josaphat did both on earth as he continues to do in heaven.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Gospel lk 17:20-25

Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come,
Jesus said in reply,
“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’
For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”
Then he said to his disciples,
“The days will come when you will long to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.
There will be those who will say to you,
‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’
Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.
For just as lightning flashes
and lights up the sky from one side to the other,
so will the Son of Man be in his day.
But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”

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