33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) — November 19

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; Psalm 128:1-5; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30

Just A Stole

I want to tell you about one more person. And perhaps you can guess who it is. This man, before he was born, his big sister died. Growing up as a little boy, he loved his momma—duh, just like any boy does! But when he was eight, his mom died. It was just him, his dad, and his big brother. Four years after his mom died, his big brother died. In sixth and seventh grade, he was described as “withdrawn” and “quiet.” But it was just him and his dad—his dad was everything to him. He grew up in Poland, and when he was nineteen, Nazi’s took over his country. And at twenty, his dad, the only one he had left—he died. And later this man said, “By twenty, I had lost all of those I had loved. Even those I might have loved” (because he lost his older sister). How do you think this kid turned out? What came from that terrible upbringing with the deck stacked again him?

Well, Karol Wojtyla went on to be a man whose faith—it changed the world, turned it upside down. Karol Wojtyla went on to be Fr. Wojtyla, then Bishop then Archbishop then Cardinal Wojtyla. And on a mild October evening in 1978, became Pope John Paul II. John Paul II is by far one of my favorite saints. His story—you want to talk about someone whose faith turned the world upside down!—John Paul II is the one to look to.

During the first year of his pontificate, John Paul II began a custom. On Holy Thursday, every Holy Thursday—which is when we as Catholics celebrate the institution of the priesthood—every Holy Thursday, John Paul II would write a letter to all of the priests of the world. And in his very first one—it’s very beautiful—there’s a place toward the end of the letter where, where he talks, he addresses priests who are weary, who are experiencing burnout, who are wondering if it’s worth it, who, he says, have kept their hand to the plow and have endured the heat of the day. And he says, “When you feel worn down, when you feel like you’d like to throw in the towel, remember that there are places all over this world where there is not a priest, and so there is not the Eucharist—no one to say the words, ‘I absolve you from your sins…’ And in such places, from time to time, they’ll gather in an old abandoned church. And they’ll take a stole, which they’ve kept and treasured, and they’ll put it on the altar. And they’ll gather together and they’ll say all of the prayers of the Mass. Until they come to the time of transubstantiation, those words of institution. And then they’ll stop. And silence will pierce the assembly. A silence with a sob here and there, people weeping, crying out, because what they desire so much—because of the absence of the priest they are incapable of having.” And then Pope John Paul II, the Holy Father, said, “My brothers, such places are not rare in this world.”

When I first read that, it cut me to the core. Because in that simple statement, John Paul II made both an incredibly moving encouragement to those weary priests, and the most powerful call to mission that I’ve ever heard. And not just for priests! But to each of us. 

Imagine: how would this community change if there were no priest? That each Sunday you came here…and the music started, but no one ever walked down that aisle. You came to the confessional…just to sit in an empty room.

And yet—what our readings are getting at, especially the Gospel and the second reading—what they’re getting at is that it’s happening all of the time. Not so much just with a shortage or absence of priests—although yes! we need to pray, and pray deeply, for more vocations to the priesthood—but not just a shortage of priests, but a shortage of people, baptized people, willing to lay down their lives for Christ, people to bear heroic witness to Christ, people whose response of faith turns the world upside down. People are walking around this world lost, confused, in need—and even though they don’t know it, they’re looking for a Christian, one who bears the presence of Christ—looking for a place, a community that can offer them something this world cannot! The number of families, of communities, of towns without such heroic witnesses, with a shortage of heroic witnesses, “Such places are not rare in this world.”

The Parable

You know, this parable we read in our Gospel today is so well known. But in this parable we’re told that the Master “entrusted his possessions to [his servants].” And not just his spare change, one, two, five talents! A talent is a unit of money, 6,000 days wages. In other words, sixteen years worth of salary. So we’re not talking a couple hundred bucks! The master gave them 16, 32, 80 years worth of salary. In modern terms, hundreds of thousands of dollars, several million dollars. But the money is just a metaphor. I’ll spare you my boring lectures on the original Greek today—but what this line is really saying is that he entrusted, handed over His very self to them, He gave them everything! (It’s like we heard with St. Paul and the Thessalonians a few weeks ago: Paul didn’t just give the people the cold, hard facts of the Gospel, but his very self.)

And what’s the Master’s game-plan? Why does he do this? What’s he after? All He asks—as he entrust everything to these servants, risks everything on these servants—all he asks is that they risk everything in return. Everything that these servants have, all of this money—it’s not theirs, it came from him. And all he asks is that they use it, not waste what they’ve been given. He risked everything, all his possession, himself. And two of the servants risked it all, one didn’t; two were offered to share in the joy of the Master, one wasn’t. And what was the master upset about? That the servant failed? That he was lousy? No. That he didn’t even try.

Jesus risks everything on us, hands over his life to us, gives us life. All that we have comes from him. Our life, our breath, everything—what do you have that was not first given to you? Jesus doesn’t ask us to be successful, he asks us to be faithful, to hand over our lives as well, hand over our lives to him as well. The rubber has to meet the road somewhere. For me, I felt this very powerfully when I was a freshman in high school. I felt the Lord giving me a very clear direction for my life. The Lord gave me everything—absolutely everything! And he then asked me to respond to that in faith. And not to respond by showing up to Church on Sunday, or praying, or anything like that. He asked me to respond—just as he had given everything to me, given me “his very self,” he was asking me to respond in the same way: with everything. I had a lot of plans and hope and dreams for my life. I said, “I’ll just go to Church and be a good person.” But the Lord didn’t want my butt in a pew, he wanted my life. In my concrete circumstances, he wanted my life as a priest.

For some of the young men here, he wants that for you as well—and you need to pray very much about that. But this isn’t just for priests or nuns! It is for each of us! Every single baptized person is called to do this in their concrete circumstances. And right now, there is a shortage of people laying down their lives for Christ. Your family, this community, this town, this county, this world—it is in desperate need of people, disciples who are heroic witnesses to their faith in Christ. This is a beautiful community, but I don’t think I need to make a huge argument that it is a community in need of Christ. And don’t feel bad, “Such places are not rare in this world.”

The Lie: Your Life Doesn’t Matter

This is a hard thing for us to hear. We’ve been told by our world, and our culture, and our own parents (typically): “You can do whatever you want. You can be whatever you want.” And I know people say this with good intentions, but it is a strange thing to say, because it’s a lie. And it’s a lie because what you’re implicitly saying is, “Your life doesn’t really matter.” “Do whatever you want. Be whatever you want to be.” That’s our culture’s propaganda. But it’s insidious. Why? Because it’s just another way of saying, “Your life doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. So yeah, do whatever you want, be whoever and whatever you want to be.”

That’s what Paul’s getting at in the letter to the Thessalonians. “People are saying, ‘Peace and security’” (1 Thess 5:3). “Peace and security” was a piece of Roman propaganda, propaganda from Caesar, from the culture that surrounded the Thessalonians. And it was a lie! There was not peace, there was not security. The culture was telling them a lie, but many people were going along with it. So Paul tells them, “Don’t be like them! You are not children of the darkness, but of the light, of the day. Don’t fall for that lie.”

And it’s the same for us: we can’t fall into the propaganda that is being fed to us. “Do whatever you want. Be whatever you want to be”—it’s a lie. The truth? St. Catherine of Sienna said it best, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” Another way to say that, “Be who God meant you to be and you will turn the world upside down.”

The Truth: Your Life Matters

John Paul II said it best when he went back to Poland for the first time as pope. And at that time, his people were being crushed by a communist government, communist propaganda. And a central theme of what he told them that day was this: “You are not who they say you are. Let me remind you of who you are.” And he proceeded to preach our identity in Christ. Fourteen months later, the Solidarity movement was born, and nine years after that Poland became an independent and free nation again. Historians agree: it was John Paul II’s words, his heroic witness that sparked that movement, that turned the world, Poland upside down. What did John Paul II do? He merely reminded them of the truth: your life matters. And when people were reminded of that, and responded—everything changed.

Like we’ve been talking for weeks now, the Church needs heroic witnesses. She needs your heroic witness—now more than ever! She doesn’t need people who just know what she teaches and can regurgitate facts. She needs you, your life, your faith. The Church doesn’t need people to just go to church on Sundays, she needs you to respond in faith and bear heroic witness to that faith. 

To sum up the last four weeks, it all boils down to this: There is an urgency, an urgent need for each one of us to give our lives (not just our brains or our “good thoughts”)—to give ourselves, our lives in service to our Lord and to his Church, in order to turn the world upside down, to shake this world awake.

The Church doesn’t just need more priests—although yes, we need priests. The Church doesn’t just need more butts in pews—although yes, we want more butts in pews, people striving to know Christ, people to be embraced by his love. What the Church needs—the Church needs more faithful and intentional disciples, martyrs, heroic witnesses—people that have entrusted their entire lives to Jesus Christ, that are willing to die for that. People that have gone all in on him. Why? Because there are people here, in Lyons, Rice County, America, that are in desperate need of it. “Such places are not rare in this world.” The Church needs you.

All of these stories that I tell—Joan of Arc, Fr. Kapaun, Brian Bergkamp, John Paul II—you could be the next story I tell. The story of your heroic witness. But it begins here. It begins by saying “yes.” And who knows, perhaps your “yes” to Christ will be the next “yes” to turn the world upside down.