Homily Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time November 8, 2020

 Homily   Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time      November 8, 2020

           What time is it?  What day is it?   Anyone else feeling kind of discombobulated with the recent election?   Feeling disoriented by the pandemic, the weird election, the absence of anything “normal”?   

          In the Gospel Jesus tells us: “for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  While the Lord’s warning is always appropriate, now it seems especially pertinent.  “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  

          “Stay awake” the Lord tells, no rather commands, us.  This is not about insomnia, but rather about awareness.   Are you aware?  Are you “woke”?   According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “woke” means “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”.   Are you “woke”?

          Stay awake Jesus tells us.  I think that certainly contains the concerns of woke for social justice and racial justice.   In that sense Jesus was way ahead of His time.

          But Jesus’ injunction to us to “stay awake” involves even more.  When Jesus says to stay awake I think He means to be present to all that God is doing in your life.  To not be so caught up in all the activities and busyness and concerns of the present moment as to miss what is really happening:  happening on the interpersonal level, on the interior level deep in yourself, and what is God is doing in your life.

          To stay awake means being aware of other people not as objects but as brothers and sisters: to be aware of the depths of my own heart; and to be aware of what God is doing in my life and the life of my community and world.  Stay awake!

          The great enemies of being awake are busyness and indifference.  To be awake means to actively look for, listen for, seek the subtle signals of transcendence in our lives.  To be awake means being able to disengage from the busyness to stop and listen to another person, giving them attention and respect.   To be awake means attending to concerns that are not just about my situation but that seriously affect other people: like racial justice, just immigration policy, protection of the environment that we all rely on.

          To be awake means to be receptive to the nudges, the thoughts, the feelings, the intuitions that come from God and that lift us up out of the rat-race of constant frenetic activity.

          How do you do this?  How do you stay awake?  Simply put, it is prayer.  Not reciting prayers as rather entering into a prayerful stance.  And in that stance to listen.  To confess.  To praise.  To ask.  But mostly to listen. 

          Being awake is NOT about activity.  It is about awareness.  Especially awareness of God’s love for me, for every other person, for all of creation. 

          Therefore, stay awake!