It's not about them, it's about you (Sunday homily)

 These readings are about heaven and hell.

Let’s start with heaven.

In the first reading, Moses asks to know God’s Name. 

He wants to draw closer to God. 

After all, Moses and God’s People had been in slavery 

for over 400 years. 

The stories of what God did in Abraham’s life, 

in the lives of Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, were all distant memories. 

Perhaps even God himself seemed very distant. 

In Hebrew, names are more than just what someone is called.

They express the essence of who someone is.

When God tells Moses he is “I AM WHO AM,” 

he is revealing his true nature, 

that he is the One who truly and fully exists.

By responding this way, God is being very intimate with Moses,

And encouraging Moses’ desire for that intimacy.

Notice that: God WANTS US to know him this way!

This intimate union with God is heaven.

That is what heaven is.

So, whatever else you imagine heaven to be,

First and last, it is complete closeness with the Blessed Trinity.

And please remember: God wants this for us.

You and I don’t talk God into this; he’s talks US into it.

The problem is never God’s want-to, but ours.

You and I never have to change God’s mind. 

It is our mind, our lives, that need to change, 

and God is always at the door our heart, 

you and I only need to invite him in.

At the beginning, I mentioned hell. Where does that fit in?

Well, that’s what Jesus is warning against in the Gospel. 

Unless you and I repent, he says, we will all likewise perish.

He doesn’t mean natural death, but spiritual death.

And, one of the escape routes we choose to avoid a serious question

is to focus on other people – instead of ourselves.

Jesus says: don’t focus on whether those Galileans were sinners.

That’s a way to avoid thinking about the really hard question:

My need to change.

Our Lord Jesus points to a fig tree yielding no fruit.

God is patient – vastly more patient than you and I are.

In fact, this is actually one of the major reasons 

people don’t believe in God; 

because they say God is too slow to act, to bring justice.

“Why does God wait?” people ask. 

Still, don’t presume on God’s patience.

Jesus said it: give the tree some time; but: 

if it doesn’t yield fruit, cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?

There’s nothing fruitful about looking at others and saying,

“Oh yeah, she’s a fruitless tree!”

Ask yourself…about yourself.

The Gospel – the Good News – Jesus brings us 

is what he, as God, told Moses so long ago: 

He is True Life, and he invites each of us to be fully alive with him.

There is always an invitation, as there is right this moment, 

to become that life-bearing, fruit-giving friend of God!

Take advantage of this Lent: of many opportunities for confession;

of the opportunity to turn back to Jesus.