Homily on Kerygma, March 16

2^ND SUNDAY OF LENT READINGS AND HOMILY

FIRST READING  GENESIS 15  The Lord God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.           PSALM 27  The Lord is my light and my salvation. Hear, O LORD, the sound of my call; have pity on me, and answer me. Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks. Your presence, O LORD, I seek. Hide not your face from me; do not in anger repel your servant. You are my helper: cast me not off.                                                                                  GOSPEL  Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. Peter and his companions…fully awake saw His glory and the two men standing with Him… Then from the cloud came a voice that said,
“This is my chosen Son; listen to Him.”

Homily on Kerygma  March 16

What is “kerygma?” Is it a Keurig machine just for moms? [Kuerig Ma?!] Nope. Is it a medication for the heart? Nope [That’s Coreg—but coreg could be given to your ma, if needed– “They’re getting you some coreg, ma!”]  Nice tries, but kerygma is a Greek theological word translated as “proclamation,” as in proclaiming the core gospel message of Christianity.

Kerygma is the four essential stages in the proclamation of the gospel. I’d like to lead you through them, tying some into the Scriptures of our Mass today.

1. The Goodness of Creation: This is the first part or stage of Keryma. It proclaims a healthy and true view of God and His infinite goodness, His natural revelation in our creation, and our notice how humankind is made in God’s image and likeness and loved beyond all measure. This message must be proclaimed by us of God’s Church.           God’s love and original plan of goodness is where I must start anew. I take the big picture in of all there is revealed and of a great Big God behind it all. Sometimes it starts by our just looking up at the stars. In today’s 27^th Psalm it proclaims a God Who knows all those stars above by name, as the creator of them each. He knows you by name, too. He wants relationship with you, to show you all His goodness and love. You are created in God’s image and likeness, after all. He wants good connection with you.

In In the Genesis reading, it says how our faithful fore-father Abraham took in God’s plan, and got the big picture as he looked heavenward at all the stars in the night sky. God noted Abraham’s faith, and said: I love your faith and trust and notice of Me, Abraham. I will see you to have descendants of faith like you who will number as the stars above and more. They shall shine in God’s light, as His re-claimed, redeemed people.

That is stage one. Creation. Now onto stage two, which is: Captured!

1. The Consequences of the sins of humankind brought us into a separation from God and to an enslavement to powers in which I cannot compete against. We have been captured by the enemy. On my own, there is no way to break free from his hold. We were foolish to believe the lies of satan, and fallen people, rather than trust in the promises of God. Captured in this fallen realm, this sin we are in leads to death. “The wages of sin is death’ states Rom.6:23.

Heaven is a place without sin—Grace is a state of not being bound by sin.  Yet Paradise got lost by us. The situation of our fall in sin is grievous and grave. We fell into suffering and death. It is worse than we might seem to know. The lies of the world steers us to be friends with sin, to make it no big thing. But a moment of grace wakes us up to the stark reality; I need not be as enemy to God but as a friend and follower of His. Abram left the sinful situation of Ur and moved to Jerusalem to live a life of faith. He stayed steadfast in that faith, even while others in Sodom and Gomorrah did not. God recognized Abram’s turn from sin to live as friends with God. Today’s first reading is about the covenant God made with Abraham—for this man’s choice away from sin.

Psalm 27 today (from our sung proclamation in Mass) is a prayer of a similar man of God who hopes that his obvious life of sin won’t have him apart from God. He prays: Hear, O LORD…have pity on me, and answer me. Of you my heart speaks…Your presence, I seek. Hide not your face from me; do not in anger repel your servant. You are my helper: cast me not off.

Stage Two of Kerygma says that we must acknowledge our sin, repent, and turn to God. We cry out in helplessness, but for the help of God.  God is ready to aid the lost sinner. His merciful love and His kingdom living is what God offers in redemption to the sinner. I cry: I must get into God’s reign!   Now we are at Stage Three of Kerygma.

1. Stage Three is God’s Response to Sin:  God becomes man in Christ Jesus to invade one kingdom by a stronger kingdom. Christ is stronger than all the evil and sin. He comes to undue our slavery. A parable by Jesus describes Him as the Overpowering Attacker. “When a strong man fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are secure. But when Someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, HE takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder. Indeed, no one can enter a strong man’s house to steal his possessions unless He first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house.” Luke 11:21-22 proclaims that Jesus Christ did this. His sneak attack is successful as the devil doesn’t consider incarnation as a possibility, nor comprehend the humility and the unconditional, sacrificial love of God in Christ. The devil is ambushed. God is stronger. Jesus will be the God-hero for us, if we consent to the rescue. The result of this Response of God to sin will offer a person a deliverance from the tyrant you could not compete against. Jesus atones for our sins and makes it possible for each of us to reach the destiny for which He created us. The sinner needs to make his victory prayer: The devil be rebuked!–and the world in its rebellious error I do turn from!“  Hurrah! God gives to us, by our choosing to accept it in repentance, a metanoia, a life of turning back to God and to His care. Jesus said: “I came to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 17:10.)  The Church calls out: “believe upon Jesus Christ and be saved,” (Acts 16:31).Jesus said:”The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”(Mk 1:15)  A fundamental choice for God, and ongoing choice for God is urgent.
2. We now God to Stage Four of Kerygma.  It is of taking deeply these above three stages and making a response to God with our lives.

My Response: Realizing the Works of God for me, and the lengths Jesus has gone for me—I entrust myself to the One who has demonstrated His love and His power for me personally. I respond to Him as in communal thanks and praise and service with others He has called and whom He has set apart into new life.

As I am called to respond, I think of today’s gospel of three main disciples brought up Mt. Tabor.  God unveils Himself, as the Son Incarnate, the Spirit as cloud, and the Father as the Voice, speaking: This is My Beloved Son, Listen to Him.  Or, in modern terms, this is My Son Jesus, the God/man, the Christ: Listen to Him.  That means for us to respond deeply.

“Listen” is the verb in the Father’s command to Peter, James and John.  The Greek word for “listen” or “to hear” in the New Testament is ἀκούω (akouo), often translated as “to hear, to listen, to understand–as to obey the Word and to do something in response.”

• What is our present response to God’s Son or of being in His Spirit now? Are we in a manner and setting for listening to the Father about Him? Jesus spoke of the ears of the heart. “Anyone who has ears to hear, let them hear.” (Matthew 11:15) The kerygma’s four parts all lead to this last one to respond to God. Hear and act upon what you hear. In Matthew 11, the context is that Jesus tells of the woes coming to those unbelievers and unresponders to His ministry, such as to people in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, who will face God’s judgment in the end. Yet Jesus is pleased also that the hidden things of the Kingdom of Heaven have been discovered now as unveiled to the little children—that is, to the disciples of Christ. He says that the Son reveals Himself as the One to come to—Matthew 11, verse 28 has Him say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest for your souls, and you shall be yoked or joined to Me in mission.”  Of His mother and disciple Mary, Jesus would praise her response, “Blessed is she who heard the Word of God and lived it forth.” (Lk.1:45)
• We are now all being called to hear, and respond: The word to the 7 churches of St. John from the Reigning Jesus has these four five special words: “Listen, I am coming soon!” (Revelation 3:22) 

Which brings us back to the Transfiguration Gospel in Lent. What does it tell us? It says: I need Jesus to bring me aside to have an unveiling of just how wondrous He really is—that I might know He is the God who saves. Today’s gospel has a moment when “Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray.  We need in Lent such a moment to let Jesus minister to us in a special way. How is His ongoing work to continue in us, and what’s ahead on the horizon?