Sunday Homily

First Reading: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 23:1-2, 2-3, 5-6
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
Gospel: Matthew 25:31-46

Homily:
Some things in life are just ironic. 

• It’s sort of funny how thrilled we get when a football game goes into overtime, but we complain when a Homily takes more than 5 minutes.
• Funny how hard it is to read one chapter in the Bible, but how easy it is to read 100 pages of a best selling novel.
• Funny how we can’t think of anything to say when we pray, but don’t have a problem talking to our best friends for hours.
• Funny how we believe what the social media says, but question the Bible.

These sorts of ironies aren’t too different from today’s Gospel reading.  Jesus’ crucifixion is almost an unbelievable irony.  After all there was Jesus who was beaten, humiliated, and hung on a cross to die between two common criminals.  Even as Jesus awaited his death on the cross he was made fun of by the soldiers. But Jesus is Christ, no less than the chosen one of God.

But why didn’t Jesus save himself and the others who died that day?  What Jesus did that day was a testament to God’s very nature.  It was very much like an earlier time in Jesus life where he was tempted in the desert by the devil.  In the desert the devil tempted Jesus three times to use his powers in a selfish way.  But to turn a stone into bread, become a powerful dictator, or to impose his will on God isn’t what Christ is about and not the example that He gives us.

Like Jesus we’re tempted in our daily lives with the things of the world.  We want to be comfortable and have no worries.  But Jesus calls us to something quite different.  Jesus calls us to care for people in need.

In Jesus final moments of the cross, Jesus didn’t save himself but gave the thief hanging on the cross at His side the chance for salvation.  To be with Jesus in Paradise. Jesus’ interaction with the thief on the cross gives us an example.  An example of what we should strive to be.  People, who acknowledge our sins, seek to be reconciled in Christ, and strive for the Kingdom of God. 

To be in the Kingdom of God there’re consequences.  The consequences start with how we live our lives and care for people in need.  And the most simple of things, offering and receiving forgiveness. 

The ultimate irony for us as Catholics is that Jesus gave his life for us.  The proof of God’s unconditional love is the fact that we’re here alive today.  The sacrifice that Jesus made was much more than a bloody corpse on a cross.  It was Jesus example of giving is his entire human self for God’s message.  This is the sacrifice that we celebrate at Mass as we come to Christ’s altar to share in the most holy sacrament of Eucharist.

Jesus could have had whatever He wanted, but he made a different choice.  The choice that saved us. Yes Jesus, as it says on the inscription on your cross you are the king a very real way.  The bloody corpse on the cross is the evidence that it cost God something to save us

The thing about Jesus is that he turned the world upside down.  Needy and outcast people become blessed and the heirs of the Kingdom of God.

The feast that we celebrate today is to proclaim Christ as the King. The feast of Christ the King is when the Church begins a change from the end of the Church year to a new beginning in Advent.  This is the season when we look to the coming of a king, a child born in a stable, laid in a manger.  Jesus Christ the King of Kings.