Shine on

A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 15, 2023

Is 49:3, 5-6, 1 Cor 1:1-3, Jn 1:29-34

I’ve written and spoken before about my “unchurched” years in college and thereafter, about how I was not being nourished spiritually at the parish of my youth when all I could take away from my weekly 50 minutes in the pew was the knowledge that Group No. 2 was working bingo that Wednesday.

Incessant reminders about seat collections, collections for the parish administration and overdue grammar school tuition drove me away from organized religion after high school at Christian Brothers Academy.

What kept me away was the very thing some people were convinced attracted people to Christianity.

Proselytizing.

A group of students at my college banded together as a fundamentalist mini-church, choosing a prayer leader from among themselves and surrendering nearly every decision in their lives to direct intervention by God or, otherwise, to their prayer leader’s interpretation of divine inspiration through Scripture.

Let’s just say it was not my style, to avoid a grittier description of how creeped out I was.

The group’s prayer leader determined who God had decided was a good mate for whom. The members of the group even held a prayer circle in the dining hall one Saturday noon for guidance on whether to choose the canned ravioli or the mystery meat as their lunch.

They asked me frequently to join them, probably sensing that I still had a deep spirituality despite my grouchiness about institutions. But as often as they asked, I declined, because of their intensity.

Their intensity in how they invited me.

Their intensity in how they said the name of our Messiah.

Jay-EEEEE-zuss, with the accent on an elongated E.

Proselytizing, à la televangelists.

Now, Isaiah makes it clear that God does want us to be a light to the nations, to invite everyone we encounter to follow the Law of Love. We all are called, as Paul was, to be disciples from tip to toe, 24/7/365.

The challenge, especially in these ever-more-secular times, is how. How can we be disciples? How can we spread the Good News? How can we reach our sisters and brothers who need Jesus in their lives without sending them running in the opposite direction, as my college acquaintances did with me?

Be beacons.

Be patient beacons.

In their heyday, lighthouses did not somehow lasso sailing vessels and haul them to shore. Lighthouse beacons invited ships to arrive in port, invited them to safe harbors and fair havens. It was up to the boats’ captains whether this was the beacon to follow.

Whether this was the invitation to accept.

And regardless of what any particular ship’s captain decided, the lighthouse beacon continued to shine forth, night after night, with the same message beacon: You are invited to this safe harbor.

God is that safe harbor. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. The source and essence of love. Of mercy. Of forgiveness. Of patience, because, as we believe, God has all the time in the universe. Or better yet, because God transcends time.

One of the most quoted — or paraphrased — lines from the New Testament and from early doctors of the Church is, “See how these Christians love one another.” People weren’t talking about Woodstock 69 AD or a First Century version of “The Bachelor.”

They were describing how followers of the Christ shared their earthly possessions, shared their time, shared their joys and sorrows, and trusted each other to be respectful and kind.

Their light shone as beacons, inviting everyone around them to live in a Christlike fashion.

The light of love they shone by living their lives as Jesus commanded — love God with your whole heart, your whole mind and your whole soul, and love your neighbor as yourself — that Christian lifestyle invited far more disciples than anyone shouting in the village square.

I’ve never been a fan of people who wear their religion on their sleeves, who wave pamphlets at me and ask if I’ve been born again to a new life with my Personal Lord and Savior™. I’ll treat those folks with respect because they are indeed my sisters and brothers in Christ, but I try to end any such encounters politely and swiftly.

That’s just me. Other people may, and probably do, welcome the energy and enthusiasm of modern missionaries who evangelize, or proselytize, this way.

Instead, I pray that my imperfect attempt to live as Jesus taught me will shine enough light that someone may ask me whom I follow. And if they ask, I will say my Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth.

If they ask. If they invite me to share what I believe and why I do the things I do. Only if they ask.

I will say my Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth calmly and clearly, and talk only as long as they want to hear. I pray they will want to learn all about him and the Law of Love.

I pray they will see God’s beacon and sail to the safest harbor in the universe.