Abbot Homily Sunday 5th May 2013

Homily: Abbot Mark   (1 Cor 13, Mt. 25)

                         Divine Service (Knights Templar)   

 Sunday, 5 May 2013

The Christian vocation is strikingly summed up for us in St Matthew’s gospel when Jesus told the parable of the Last Judgement.  (Mt 25.34-40)

How we are welcomed then will depend on how we live now.  There is no beating about the bush as regards how we should behave in our lives.  In true parable style, Jesus’ message is given in strikingly black and white terms.  We need to be told, so Jesus does not pull his punches.  We also know that God is love, that he is gentle and full of compassion, that he does not break the broken reed.  As we grow in love we come to know our selfish tendencies as well.

In the first reading from chapter 13 of the first letter to the Corinthians, we see St Paul spelling out some of the warmer but still difficult messages that come from our Lord’s own life and teaching.  It could be said that the passages for Matthew and Paul are two sides of the one coin.  This coin will gain us entry through the pearly gates of heaven.

We may use all the fine words of eloquence and create a wonderful impression on our hearers, as St Paul himself says in this letter to the Corinthians, but if we do not live what we say then our lives will be empty and meaningless.  If we do use them as a pattern for our lives then the world will be a wonderful place to be in.  Our relationships will be happy ones and our friendships will be rich and rewarding.

It’s not surprising that this chapter from I Corinthians is often used at Weddings.  Its words are warm and inspiring, direct and practical and speak in everyday language.  When the newly married are still in the first flush of their love for each other, the magic of love flows equally from one to the other.  It is in the later periods when their personalities are developing that life can become difficult.  If one or other of them does not recognise the changing landscape of their relationship, there will be many crises.  It may fall on one of them to keep up the loving because the other is finding it hard to cope.  This is when love is tested.  Christ himself encountered much misunderstanding and even hostility in his life.  But it was through suffering that he himself learnt obedience as Scripture itself tells us.  He grew in his own understanding of his life and vocation.  He remained faithful to God’s will for him.  He died but then rose to a new life.  In a committed married life that is also what happens.  The vocation of married life is a mirror for all our lives as we go to God.  Like Christ’s own life, ours is tried and tested so that it may become stronger and reveal the greater depths that lie within us.  When we are the weak partners in a marriage, or in any friendship, we are the ones who need the love and support of our partners or friends.

The love of the family is the source and bedrock of society.  Love within the family will grow when it goes out to help and support the extended family and beyond that again to society at large.  Even in needy parts of the world this is a recognised phenomenon.  Our world has become a village in which the concerns and needs of others become ours.  There is a native proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child.  In today’s world wide communications everyone becomes our near neighbour.

Many have commented that in today’s world there is a growing selfishness, where there is little or no place for sympathy for others.  We are in a recession and wealth is concentrated in the hands of the well off.  The Christian conscience makes love a force that turns from an initial inward-looking love to an outgoing force that helps the needy.

When we love others their lives grow.  When we cast our love into the waters of life, it spreads like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a lake.  When others do the same many small miracles happen which help to change our world.

The message Christ gives us is that we must learn to die to our self –to our selfishness – in order that we may rise up to a new and better life.  That life is Christ’s risen from the dead.  It remains risen when we maintain our spirit of compassion for one another in our sorrows and our joys.

When we do approach the pearly gates it won’t be to join a long queue to have our records checked. Those who have lived in the spirit of the gospel will walk through without realising that the gates are there.  They will be going simply where their hearts are leading them.