A Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sirach 27:30-28:7 Romans 14:7-9 Matthew 18:21-35

He has Great Expectations. Hence the name of Dickens’ famous novel. Although he is an orphan and born into poverty, young Pip learns that he has an anonymous benefactor, someone who has determined that he will be reared as a gentleman. Pip spends most of the novel believing that a spinster recluse, Miss Havisham, has financed his education so that he can marry her beautiful niece. Of course, that is famously not the case.  

St. Paul suggests that we may find ourselves in a similar situation, living our lives never knowing the one who has secretly loved us, provided for us, watched us with great longing from afar. He tells us: 

Brothers and sisters:
None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s (Rom 14:7-8). 

Do we believe that? Do we live as though we belong to another? It is something that lovers say to each other, but Paul says that it is true of us as well. We belong to Christ. He is the one who loves us, provides for us and watches over us with great longing. 

It is possible to be quite religious, even dutiful, and still not believe that Christ claims us as his own, that he desires our days to be passed in his company. For too many, the default religious setting is duty, not relationship. We try to do what we believe we should, what the Lord expects of us, yet we seldom sense or experience his presence.  

Christ can be a concept we accept—like a savings account we have set up for automatic contributions—without letting him enter our days, even our minds, apart from our religious obligations. 

How do we arrive where the saints have led? How do we establish a relationship with a person who desires to enter our lives, live this day with us?

Two ways. 

The first is a commitment to spend time in the presence of the Lord. And, like a young person seeking to master a sport or a skill, the commitment needs to be measured, at least initially, by a clock. We have to say, for the next half hour, the next ten minutes, I belong to him. Whatever my experience, I will sit in silence and wait upon the Lord.  

The Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and so many other spiritual masters, suggested that this must be the first activity of our day. Not knowing the challenges and changes of the coming day, we should start the day in his presence before the opportunity is lost. 

The second practice is a daily Examen, and that should run deeper than asking what we have done wrong today. We should ask when we felt close to the Lord, or distant from him, as we passed through the morning hours, the afternoon and the evening.  

Then we should ask why that happened. What can we learn from the day we have just lived? When did the Lord surprise us? Or how did we spend so much of our day without sensing his presence? 

None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s (Rom 14:7-8). 

Is this only a scrape of Scripture, or does it describe our day? Is Christ the benefactor whom we expect to meet at the end of it all, or do we, like lovers, live our days either enjoying or longing for his presence? Paul seems clear enough. Christ must be more than our great expectation. He must be the love of our lives. 

The Rev. Terrance W. Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.