Homily for 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Belief in the afterlife was a late concept in the context of the Old Testament. The author of our first reading had no idea of heaven or hell. Indeed this hold good for most of the Old Testament writers. They had to experience heaven or hell within the boundaries of birth and death. So they lived their lives as meaningfully as they could.

As you know, the people of the Old Testament, for the most part lived the wandering existence of a nomadic tribe. But most of the Old Testament literature emerged from a settled period of their history. Understandably so of course: it's very difficult to write a book on a bike! Literature requires a relatively stable society. Only a settled, stable people can afford the luxury of exploring life's deeper questions and concerns.

Among the concerns of the Wisdom people were:

A searching for the meaning of life, a meaning informed by experience rather than faith.
An eagerness to explore the unknown and the difficult problems of sickness, suffering, death.
Inequality in society bothered them greatly. Not out of any passion for democracy. But, rather, why was God generous to some and mean to most?
An eagerness to live the moral life. How do you encourage people to lead the 'moral life' without the incentive of an afterlife?

All of that adds up to what we call the wisdom tradition. The Book of Proverbs is a major part of this Wisdom tradition. The writer wants to make people desire wisdom, so he uses many images to make wisdom attractive. In chapter nine, Wisdom is depicted as a wealthy, gracious hostess inviting the reader to a fine banquet. Later on, Folly will make an appearance, offering her guests stale bread and stagnant water! Who, in his right mind, could reject the allure of wisdom?

One of the most difficult tasks followers of God face is to experience God's presence in their everyday lives. But he have become used to dividing the world into the 'sacred' and the 'profane'. A dangerous assumption underlies this division: the sacred is where God is; the profane is where God isn't.

Throughout history, we've created unique environments for the sacred: special places, buildings, people, clothes, rituals and languages. The profane, on the other hand, isn't unique or different. It's filled with the ordinary, with the 'trappings of normality', everyday ordinary stuff. We're expected to behave "religiously" when we come across the sacred, "worldly" when we meet the profane.

Yet, when we return to our Christian beginnings, we quickly discover that our ancestors made no such distinctions. They found God in every situation, person and event they experienced. They did this so consistently that the Roman authorities actually persecuted them because they believed Christians were atheists. Followers of Jesus had no sacred places, persons or rituals. They boasted none of the things "religious" folk revelled in.

Scripture scholars believe the historical Jesus was steeped in the "wisdom tradition" of the Hebrew Scriptures, the tradition from which the first reading (Prov 9: 1-6) comes. The wisdom tradition revolves around the quest to discover God's presence in everything and everyone. This is the same "way" which Paul encourages his community in Ephesus to travel: "Watch carefully how you live," he writes, "making the most of the opportunity....Do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand the will of the Lord."

According to Paul, the authentic follower of Jesus "gives thanks always and for everything" in His name, not just for what he or she experiences in special places, at the hands of special people. The apostle believes we find God and God's will wherever we are, no matter where that wherever is. The message to be found in John's gospel is the same: John's community recognizes the flesh and blood of the Son of Man in the midst of their everyday lives. The food and drink which cause them to live forever is consumed in the same place and circumstances in which they consume ordinary food and drink. It's in the midst of their profane existence that they experience the true food and true drink which Jesus gives. By His dying and rising, Jesus has transformed the profane into the sacred. The Eucharist is our 'daily bread', our everyday bread that leads to everlasting life.