28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) – October 15, 2023

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Isaiah 25:6-10a; Psalm 23:1-6; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

Evander Holyfield: The Biblical Exegete?

Back in 1996, Mike Tyson was on top of the boxing world. With a 45-1 record, 39 knockouts, Tyson was considered nearly unstoppable. But for years, someone was waiting for his chance: Evander Holyfield. After years of trying to make it happen, the fight was “Finally” on. Holyfield started as a 25-1 underdog, but by fight time the odds had narrowed to 5-1. And as he walked out of the tunnel, Holyfield was wearing a purple robe, and on it, stitched in bold white letters, was one simple passage from the Bible: Phil 4:13. Straight from our second reading today, Philippians 4:13—one of the most famous, one of the most quoted passages—“I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” Holyfield begins this fight with this verse in mind: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” And you know what? He did! TKO in the 11th round.

For years, athletes have quoted this, stitched it on jerseys, painted it on their face, tattooed it on themselves—Phil 4:13 “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” But let’s face it: this verse is one of the most misquoted verses ever. You didn’t study for a test, but you think, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me!” It’s kind of our catch-all phrase for, “Just say this line and God will give me the power to do anything!” But then things don’t go as we planned…and all of a sudden God’s the bad guy. “God, I took out a mortgage on a house way too expensive for me, but I trusted that you would help me. What happened?” Again, it becomes our catch-all phrase for, “I’m about to do whatever I want. Sure hope Jesus comes through for me.”

I used to think that I didn’t need to back up how silly this interpretation is—but I’ve been proved wrong. For instance, what happens when two athletes on opposing teams—or let’s make it easier, what happens when both boxers come out with that verse stitched on their robe? When one of them wins, does that mean God gave the strength to one but not the other? See what I mean?

This misunderstanding of Philippians 4:13 comes from that Modern Progressive vision we’ve been talking about for several weeks. In the Modern Progressive vision, life goes poorly when what? When the circumstances around me are not in my favor: I’m the victim! “I lost my job because they outsourced it to China! I gained all this weight because McDonalds is too close to my house! It’s not my fault! I’m the victim!” Right? The circumstances are the problem, they’re controlling my life. So when does life go well? Life goes well when I get off my butt and get stuff done, when I take the bull by the horns. Go watch every talking head on the news and YouTube—people are constantly playing the victim (blaming all the problems on those “other people,” democrats or republicans, white or black, male or female). And the solution? We need to try harder, work harder, take the bull by the horns, be the alpha—and there are no shortage of those voices either! Every influencer online is telling you how to take back control of your life. And then, if you need some “God” in your life…well, Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” But that’s not Paul’s mindset—at all! Paul’s not a Modern Progressive.

So let’s shift gears. Meta Nous! Let’s try to see thing not as the culture and our world has taught us to see our entire life. But to go beyond that mindset and see differently, put on a different mindset.

Joan of Arc

This is going to sound random, but what do you think Mark Twain’s best book was, according to him? Joan of Arc, as in Saint Joan of Arc. Mark Twain said, “I like Joan of Arc best of all of my books: and it is the best…twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation and got none.” Mark Twain didn’t just write a fiction tale about Joan of Arc, he researched this more than any other book. It is so, so historically accurate. And beautiful!

At the beginning of his book, she’s 14 or 15 year old. And again, think: she’s a 14 or 15 year old girl, in 15th century France. She’s dirt-floor poor; she comes from a rural, unimportant town; she can’t read or write. And then she begins to hear voices from God saying, “You are going to save your nation. And I’m going to help you do it.” Again, I know you’re all good historians, but at this time England had wiped out France, and it was brutal—France was hopeless. (France had a reputation even then for not being very good at fighting. I didn’t know that. I was like, “Wow! This goes back centuries!”). Many members of the Church’s hierarchy were corrupt, overtly involved in politics, not standing up for truth or the gospel. The country had little hope, if any; the king—the king was in exile and not even standing up to this! People were just tying to make things work. And in this situation, in these circumstances, this young girl begins to hear voices from God that she is supposed to save the nation.

So what does she do? Here’s the crazy thing: Joan begins to tell people about these visions—and she’s written off as completely nuts. She starts saying, “I need to go to the local governor, and tell him that he needs to send me to see the king (who is living in a castle in exile) so that I can save the country.” She says things like that out loud, and she’s ridiculed by her family, her friends, everyone in her town—and people think she’s nuts. (I mean, it’s like a freshman in high school here starts telling people she needs an appointment with Laura Kelly, so that she can send her to see President Biden—it’s nuts!) But Joan just keeps saying, “It’s the truth. I trust God.”

So she eventually convinced someone to take her to the local county seat—the actual county seat, not a bar. And they won’t see her, they laugh at her! But now she’s getting famous, infamous! She goes back the next year—and finally they agree to see her. And she tells the governor, “You have to send me to see the king.” And he’s like, “Look, I’m not going to do that.” But she keeps saying, “This is God, not me.” And long story short, she convinces him—or convinces him enough that he says, “Sure, you can go.” And he gives her like eight men and some horses—and they go off, making the very dangerous journey through enemy occupied territory to try to see the king.

And even when they miraculously make it to the town where the king is, he isn’t going to see her. And all the people in the royal court are not going to let her see him. But she’s persistent! And she’s getting more and more famous! Here’s this 17 year old girl adamant that she’s on a mission from God, telling everyone what God has told her—and there’s this buzz, this growing excitement. And finally, the king agrees to see her. But even then, they set a trap to embarrass her: they bring her in and she’s walking down the aisle, trumpets and everything blaring, and she walks up to the person on the throne—but he’s not the king. And she had never met or seen the king, but she walks up to him and immediately says, “That’s not the king.” And she turns to a man in the crowd and says, “You’re the king. And I’m here to help you.”

Again, long story short, she convinces the king that she’s the real deal. They even put her on a mini-trial, try to trip her up and trick her, and she still convinces them of what she’s saying. And so the king—give him some credit—the king says, “You—17 year old girl who can’t read or write, who just learned to ride a horse a few weeks ago—you are now in charge of the armies of France, the general of the army.” And she takes charge. And the first thing she does—first thing she does is make them go to Mass twice a day! But then everywhere she goes, she is utterly victorious. She even tells the British, “Please leave. This is God’s will, it’s not going to go well for you.” But everywhere she goes, victory follows.

Our Current Battle Seen Clearly

I tell you this for a specific reason. You’re not a teenager (well, some of you are; not the one’s paying attention)—but you’re not a teenager. And you’re not dirt-floor poor. You can read and write. Your lives aren’t at risk. But our country is in shambles. But not in shambles because of the Democrats or the Republicans, or this president or that, or economically or something trivial like that, no! Like I’ve been talking, things are in shambles because we’ve set up our lives according the Modern Progressive vision. And even though some things appear to be progressing—things are falling apart.

We are in a battle! We don’t always recognize that, but it’s true: we are in a battle. It’s just not the battle that Fox news or CNN or whoever is talking about. Because the battle, the real battle, is not the battle between Republican and Democrat, or Capitalism and Socialism, White and Black, immigrant and citizen, man and woman—none of those (those problems are downstream from the battle). We live in a time when everything is amazing, and nobody is happy; everything has progressed, but everyone seems to be falling apart: anxiety, depression, hopelessness, despair, discouragement, anger, division—all of that is skyrocketing. Why? Because for our whole lives we’ve been living according to the “gospel of Modern Progressivism”—and it’s betrayed us. We’ve chasing the promises of Modern Progressivism—that humans can reach perfection, goodness, justice, peace alone—and those promises are empty.

So what did Joan do in her time, in her battle? She was never despondent, or pessimistic. She was faithful, and she knew that God would come through! So what did she do that was so amazing? I think it comes down to three things: 1) she had faith in God’s promises, 2) she was obedient to the teachings of the Church, 3) and she was courageous in public, in private, and personally. And this is what we’re called to do: to have faith in God (and I’ve talked about this a ton: getting in the wheelbarrow, placing our lives in his hands, entrusting everything in our life to him); to be obedient to the teachings of the Church (in a time when it is so easy and so tempting for us to say, “Can’t you just relax that? Can’t we get with the times on this?” I mean, I get a lot of flack for saying, “This is what the Church teaches”—a lot of flack); and then to have the courage to live it.

To Be A Saint Now

All that said, I’ll ask it this way: Is it easier or more difficult to be a saint now, here in 2023? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But I do know this, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” Do you see that? Do you see what Paul is getting at? In context, this saying from Paul makes a lot of sense. Paul is saying, “No matter what the circumstances, I know—I can continue to follow Christ. I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”

For us, now, here in 2023, in Lyons, America—is it easier or more difficult to be a saint? I don’t know. But I do know that we can do all thing in him who strengthens us. We can be faithful. We can be obedient to the teachings of the Church. And we can be courageous. But a very concrete form of courage! We need that personal courage, courage to live this in our own, personal, daily lives. I’m sure you know how difficult it is to pray every day, or to avoid certain sins; you know how difficult it is when everyone around you (friends, family, even your spouse) is telling you how crazy you are for living your faith, or being obedient to the teachings of the Church—literally even the most basic things: I think of how much pressure there is for you to put your kids in sports, and how because of that you don’t have time for anything else, and even if you don’t have games on Sunday—even on Sundays it’s easy to feel like you don’t have time or energy to come to Mass, because there was just so much the rest of the week! It takes a lot of personal courage to say, “No, even if people call me crazy, even if I’m the local lunatic, I’m going to be faithful, and I’m going to be obedient to the teachings of the Church.” 

It also takes private courage, and by that I mean those private conversations and interactions. It’s easy to blast your views on Facebook, but it’s much more difficult to sit down with your spouse and have a hard conversation, to say, “Hey, I think we need to do things differently. I think we need to follow the teachings of the Church in this or that.” Or to sit down with your kids and say, “Hey, as a family we’re going to do things a little differently than other kids and other families.” It’s that private courage to talk to a friend about the mess they’re getting their life in. It’s the courage to say the right thing to them (in love and charity), even when it’s not popular.

And yes, there is public courage! But public courage does’t mean standing up at the grocery store and shouting your views. It doesn’t mean getting on Facebook and blasting your views—although it’s great to post about your faith. The public courage flows from that personal and private courage—the courage to keep moving in the right direction even when publicly people being to shun you, or ridicule you, discourage you.

You know, they asked Joan, “Aren’t you afraid?” And you know what she said? “I’m not afraid. For God is with me. I was born for this.” Joan’s courage didn’t flow from a self-help course about “taking the bull by the horns” or gaining control of your life. It flowed from the fact that she knew God was with her (her life was in God’s hands, her power didn’t come from being alpha and taking charge, but from God and the strength he gave her)—God was with her. And God had made her not to be the victim of her circumstances, but made her precisely for these circumstances.

In our day and age, we can’t keep casually living our faith. The reason we’ve changed up things here at the parish is because we can’t keep doing things like we’ve always done them. Going to Mass every once in a while, trying to get out of Mass as soon as possible, checking off the Mass box—that’s not going to cut it. In the battle we’re facing, it’s not enough to haphazardly come to Mass, or to drop off a kid for a class about Jesus once a week. To be a saint, it doesn’t happen by accident. And what is needed—it’s courage.

It takes courage to decide to not let the strong current of our world and our culture keep taking us down stream, and instead to paddle against the current. It takes a change in mind, a meta nous, a true change in the way we see things. It takes a real, daily commitment to placing our faith in God, to following the teachings he has given us through his Church. The circumstances aren’t great. The battle is real. But we know the secret: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” And he strengthens us nowhere more than here, at the banquet to which he invites us. The banquet of his own body and blood.