Fr. Jeff’s Weekly Homily

3rd Sunday of Lent
March 19, 2006

READING 1: Exodus 20:1-17
“I, the Lord, am you God, who brought you out of Egypt , that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me.”

Psalm 19: 8-11
Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

READING 2: 1 Corinthians 1: 22-25
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

GOSPEL: John 2: 13-25
Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem . He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me. At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken. While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.

A very special welcome to everyone who is here for the Gatornationals and for Arkansas in this week’s Baseball games at UF. And a special welcome home to our own college students home on spring break.

One of my friends in the seminary has been a pastor at a small parish downstate. He is being reassigned to pastor at a bigger community. When he told the people of his current parish they were upset. After Mass one of the women came to him and said, “This is terrible news!” He told me that inside, he had to admit, it made him feel good to hear this; but he said to the woman, “Don’t worry, you will probably love you new pastor.” She said, “No, Father, I won’t. I’ve been in this parish 40 years and I have seen five pastors come and go and each one has been worse than the one before him.”

Our church is where we come together as a community love and praise God. It is the holy place where we gather strength to support one another in the task of living the gospel. It is the place where we come privately to enter into intimate conversation with God. In this beautiful building many prodigal sons and daughters have encountered the merciful Lord in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In this building tears have been shed by those in pain and grief. Look around your church this morning and treasure it. Look up and see the names of every member of this community who were here in July of 2001 as we completed this structure. When you pass the church, stop in and make a brief visit. Our friends visiting this weekend for the Gator nationals or the Arkansas baseball games know that they brought their church with them. We Catholics travel with our faith. Yes, to Mass wherever we go but also in our hearts.

A woman was looking for a parking space. She prayed. “God, please help me, my feet are so sore and I need a parking place close to the door. It is so crowded and I am running out of time. I promise that if You will help me find a good parking place I’ll pay my grandchildren’s Catholic school tuition and still tithe. I’ll abstain from fish on Fridays even though at my age I don’t have to. I’ll go to daily Mass and ...oh there’s a car backing out of the first spot next to the handicapped parking…never mind, God, I found a spot.” Is that like us? Do we pray and promise and then not keep our promises to God? Don’t worry, God is used to it! But giving our lives to a promise is a good thing.

Who or what would you give your life for? Our lives are on the line every day and in countless big and small choices we make. We move so fast—we hardly give it a thought. We give our energy, our time and our talent to something whether we think about it or not. In today’s first reading, we hear God speak: “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of Egypt , that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me.” God gives us life and every good gift in this life. We are never more in God’s image than when we are giving.

Husbands and wives promise their lives for each other. Husbands agree to defend their wives against any and all threats. Wives sacrifice their egos for the life of the husband. Those of us who have good parents have no doubt that, if it came to protecting us, our parents would step in front of a truck and take the hit for us. Priests and religious Sisters give their lives in service to the Faith community. These are good things we do with our lives.

People say money snakes its way through everything. Certainly our energy and our time and our talents are exchanged for money. As we hear about Jesus and the money changers we might want to ask ourselves what do we exchange for money and what do we exchange the money for. If our actions around money are totally automatic so that spending is just robotic behavior, who has the power in our lives? Who or what is in control? We need to keep track of what we are doing with money because it has a lot to do with what we are doing for the world and the world we will leave for the next generation. We can lift the earth toward God, but we aren’t going to do it if we are slaves. God frees us from the slavery. What or who do we give our lives for?

We want to look at our lives and our daily choices and see what or who we are giving our lives to. The psalm today says: “Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.” Paul tells us in the second reading that God’s wisdom is greater than human wisdom and God’s strength is greater than human strength. We want to tap into that wisdom and that strength. There is only one God who can answer our prayers. When we go to weddings we are hoping to be witnessing a man and woman who will give their lives for each other. When we celebrate births, we are hoping we are celebrating parents who will protect and prepare their children. When we see the ordination of a priest, we are hoping the man will give his life to serve the community. When we look at that crucifix we are reminded that the one who asks us if our promises are for real is the one who really kept his promises. That’s our Good News!

Just a timely aside: when you think about it, what is the one word we have heard about our Florida Gator’s Basketball team from their unranked days, through their undefeated days, through the tough three game losing streak and the SEC championship games to the Sweet Sixteen? It seems to me the word Billy has used all the way is: “unselfish.” We might add fearless after Brewer’s ankle and Noah’s tooth. When we are unselfish and fearless, we can expect to be winners!

Fr. Jeff McGowan
Queen of Peace Catholic Community
Gainesville, Florida