homily for Lent V 2009

Homily for Lent V Year B Sunday 29 March 2009
Today’s Gospel describes a turning point in John’s account of the ministry of Jesus as the momentum of events gathers pace that will bring him to his death. The important thing here is mentioned right at the start of the passage we have just heard: some Greeks came to find out who Jesus was. Now we can see from the Greek word used by the evangelist that these Greeks are not Greek-speaking Jews, they are not members of the nation of Israel, they are Gentiles. All through his ministry, as described in all the gospels, Our Lord is shown as addressing himself to the Jewish people- as St Paul reminds us in Romans “They are Israelites and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises” and so they have to come first, the message of salvation must be heard by them first, that is their right. Occasionally we see a Gentile trying to get to Jesus for healing, to gatecrash, as it were, the wonderful events that are happening wherever Jesus goes. You remember when Jesus went up into the region of Tyre and Sidon- modern Lebanon- and there was that woman who came and begged him to heal her little daughter- Mark tells us “now the woman was a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by birth”. Our Lord begins by saying to her “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. She wins him over, doesn’t she, by her clever reply:”Yes, lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs”. (Mk 7) This story is making the point that in the time of Jesus’s earthly ministry the Jews must come first- the food of his word is meant for them. If they don’t want it, well, then we’ll see… Of course there is no suggestion that somehow the rest of the world wasn’t going to have their turn, only that the Jewish people must have the first chance. If we were in any doubt about this, Mark follows this story with the Feeding of the Five Thousand- which shows the Jewish crowd fed- it says “and they ate and were satisfied” and then adds that “they took up the broken pieces left over”- the crumbs under the table, in other words- “seven baskets full”. In John’s account (Jn 6) there is even more: the disciples gather up all the crumbs, because Jesus says nothing must be lost, and they fill twelve baskets! The message is: after the Jews have had their fill, there is still an abundance to satisfy the rest of the world. But the point I want to make is, that Jesus is concentrating primarily on the Chosen People in his ministry.
All that is going to change of course, as we know- the Jews reject Our Lord, a great sorrow to him every time he reflects on it and every time their unwillingness to accept him becomes more apparent. The future lies with the Gentiles. And now, as today’s Gospel shows us, this sea change is beginning. A group of Gentiles come, via Philip, to find Jesus. Philip has a Greek name, and comes from Bethsaida, which was a predominantly Gentile area, and was almost certainly a Greek speaker, so it is perhaps inevitable that they should use him as a go-between. Their request is so simple and direct; “we should like to see Jesus”. Their arrival is seen by Jesus as a sign of such importance, that he says “Now the hour has come!” He recognises that things are moving into place, the reluctance of the Jews to believe in him is being replaced by the eagerness of the Gentile world to accept him. Many times in this Gospel Our Lord has spoken about his time, his hour- he has repeatedly told the disciples that the time is not ripe, that the hour is not yet. You remember how at the wedding at Cana, he turned to Our Lady and said “My hour has not yet come” and when he first went to Jerusalem with his disciples, at a time when John tells us that “even his brothers did not believe in him” (Jn 7 v) he said almost as an excuse for nothing happening “My time has not yet come”. The evangelist says a bit later that they tried to arrest him on that occasion “but no one laid hands on him because his hour had not yet come”. (7 xxx) But we are much further on in the story by now, and Jesus has just made his final entry into the city, with all the palms and the hosannas, now the time is right, now things will happen, and happen fast. “Now the hour has come” says Jesus, who knows what path he is now treading, where events will now quickly lead him. He is truly human as well as truly divine, and so we should not be surprised that he has a purely human reaction to the prospect of the death that awaits him, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us in our second reading, praying “aloud and in silent tears” and here he cries out “Now my soul is troubled”. But how can he ask to avoid it- “it was for this very reason that I have come to this hour!”
And so what is the “hour” that we have heard so much about? It is of course the death of Jesus, the crucifixion, that supreme act of self-sacrifice, the “lifting up” that I spoke about last week- “and when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself” Jesus speaks here of his death being like the seed that dies in the ground, the seed that will then bear fruit and “yield a rich harvest”, the dying that will in fact be life-giving, and life-giving for all the peoples of the earth, not just for one. But the crucifixion, if it is the hour of Jesus, is also the hour, the critical moment, for each one of us too- as Jesus says, “Now sentence is being passed on the world”- now we come into court, now is our moment of judgement, of waiting for the sentence of God on us. Our Lord is indeed drawing everyone to him, offering us his open arms of love, whoever we are, wherever we’ve come from, whatever we’ve done- but we must respond! It is on our response that we shall be judged, when “the sentence is being passed on this world”. What was our response to our Lord, to his message? Did we accept him, or was it all too much trouble to take him seriously?
At every Mass we step outside time and come to the Last Supper and to Calvary, to re-enact that sacrifice of love. Now the hour has come, and here we are, like those Greeks of two thousand years ago. We turn to our priest with the same eager longing, the same humble request- “We should like to see Jesus” and at the words of consecration that he will utter, we will, and in that seeing, in that gazing upon his Body, broken for us, may we renew our commitment to follow him. Dear Jesus, give us the crumbs under your table, and when you are lifted up, draw us all to yourself; as “sentence is being passed on this world” “forgive (our) iniquity and never call (our) sin to mind”. Amen.