Homily 5th Sunday of Easter May 7 2023

 Homily    5^th Sunday of Easter    May 7 2023

Stones.   Rocks.   Boulders.  In our second reading this morning St Peter – that is a statue of him holding the keys behind me – Peter calls Christ “a living stone’ a stone rejected by people but chosen and precious in God’s eyes.   Then Peter goes on to say that we, you and me, are “like living stones”.  I confess that on my first time reading this about “living stones” in preparation for my homily, the thought that immediately came to me was the scene in the movie, “everything everywhere all at once” when the mother and daughter become boulders with googly eyes.  Anyone else see that movie?    Well, try to get that image out of your mind now.

Because obviously that is not what St Peter is talking about.  Peter uses this image of living stones to talk about our being built into a temple, or as he says, a “spiritual house”, to be a dwelling place for Jesus in our world today.  We are called, and privileged, to have this special commission to be the location of, or to house, the presence of Jesus active in our world. 

St. Peter states: “You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  

Pretty neat.  Pretty special.  But also, hard work and sometimes difficult and dangerous.  We announce His praises by the way we live.

In the Gospel Jesus says to His disciples (that is, to you and me): “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”   Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Not easy.  There are plenty of things to trouble us.  The United States defaulting on its debt.  The war in Ukraine and the powder keg that is Taiwan.   Global warming and damage to the planet.  The scary prospects of the misuse of artificial intelligence.  The increase in mindless mass shootings here in Texas and Oklahoma and all over. 

The reckless way people drive.  Not to mention your own personal issues of work, health, and meaning. 

Is it any wonder that so many people seek escape in frenetic activity, in pornography and sex, in alcohol, drugs, and even suicide?   Suicide is on the rise in our country.

How can Jesus blithely say “Do not let your hearts be troubled”?   

How do you not let your heart be troubled when you see, and hear of, and experience so many troubling things?    Maybe we need to be like stones.  //

Listen again to what St Peter tells us who we are: “You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness (and there is plenty of darkness today) into his wonderful light.”  

[Today at this Mass we celebrate the Baptism of Liliana Renee,

As Jesus, through the Gift of the Holy Spirit, calls Liliana into the wonderful light of being a member of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own.]

We are to announce the way out of darkness into God’s wonderful light.  We do that by believing and following Jesus, and His way of living and loving.  As Jesus succinctly tells us in the Gospel today:  “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  

          God bless.