Homily for Sunday, August 4, 2024

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time |

[Father Paul]

Part 2 of the series on doubt.

I am in the second week of a four-part sermon series on doubt and faith entitled "Tell Me Why." This is my second sermon on doubt. I'll be away next week, but I will continue with two more sermons on faith when I return. As I said last week, and if you remember nothing else from this series of sermons, I want to share with you the joy and the peace that I have experienced being a follower of Jesus. It is so different than those periods of doubt that I felt - as natural and perhaps even necessary as they were. This is a peace that the world cannot give.

But there are many reasons to doubt, some better than others. We may doubt because of the behaviour of some Catholics, or we may doubt because of a mistaken understanding of our faith, thinking that we are naively superstitious or mindlessly obedient to a harshly dogmatic institution. None of that is true; the catholic church is rational, and its theology is inherited and developed from Greek philosophy. Read St. Augustine's Confessions or tap into the rich complexity (and difficulty) of St. Thomas' Summa Theologia. GK Chesterton once said: "It's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it's that it's been found difficult and never tried."

But today, I'd like to discuss a different kind of doubt. The kind of doubt I'm thinking of here is the same kind of doubt we find in scripture. It's Thomas doubting the resurrection of Jesus. It's the leaders beginning to doubt the reality of the bread of life, which we will see next week. What's happening in today's scripture is that Jesus has just fed to 5000, but they start asking him what to do to perform the works of God. That is a great question. They're not doubting the miracle of the loaves and fishes at all. They are doubting Him. How do I find meaning in my life? How do I behave and why? Why am I here? What happens after I die? These are universal questions that we are all asking today, all the time. And Jesus' answer is simple: believe in me. And that's when they start doubting. Now you're asking too much - "Give me a sign." Then he refers to the miracle of Moses - remember, he just performed the same miracle. And Jesus says this is still ordinary bread, even though there's enough to feed 5000. "The bread I give is different; it is the bread of life. And it's me, it's belief in me. I am the bread of life."

Well, that's a lot to ask. For all appearances, he looks and talks like a normal human being, at least to the leaders of the day who were becoming more and more jealous. Hold that thought for a moment.

Here's the problem, and here's where doubt looms dangerously large. The reason we, as Catholics, think differently about Jesus is because of the resurrection. There's no halfway. Either it's true, or it's false. So here are the questions that I began to ask myself my whole life, but at a certain point about 15 years ago, that answer became no:

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Does it matter?

Are you living your life as if it mattered?

So what happened to me was that about 15 years ago I decided to take an administrative leave from the priesthood. To be clear, I have no regrets at all. At the time, taking an administrative leave was an excellent idea. I was burning out anyway and needed to get away. I was getting hurt. I was hurting myself. I just needed the space, as we all do sometimes. Indeed, it was a benefit; I have come back much more robust and capable as a pastor. So, the reason I did that at the time was more to do with just burning out than any deep theological doubt. But the deep theological doubt came shortly after, and it was frightening to me as it might be to you. And the most frightening thing to me was that it was not frightening at all, I was, in fact, quite at peace about the whole thing.

But looking back, here's what was really happening: I rejected Jesus's resurrection not because I was denying an event recounted 2000 years ago but because I didn't want to encounter him today. I didn't want to be held accountable for my life, possibly even leaving the priesthood, a call that was so clear to me decades earlier. I was running away from him, this time not because of the sinfulness of the church but because of my own sinfulness, my own humanity.

So I totally rejected the resurrection - can't happen, didn't happen. but watch this: my rejection of the resurrection was an excuse. What I was rejecting was myself. I was refusing to confront my humanity; I was refusing to acknowledge the frightening mysteries that were all around me. I was like the Pharisees: What must I do to do the works of God? I was refusing to accept the answer.

If you find that you are rejecting the resurrection of God, you may want to ask yourself what you are really rejecting.

Interestingly enough, once I returned to believing in Jesus as God, the resurrection became less of a problem—in fact, it was no problem at all. What was much louder and clearer and a lot more fun was my belief in life, in the source of that life. Right now, I can't do anything but what I'm doing; it's what God has called me to do.

Suppose you also experience doubt about things like the resurrection, the divinity of Christ, or the real presence of the Eucharist. Then, let that be a starting point for what you do believe in: in life, in love, in peace, and in hope. Let this lead you to faith in a living God who holds you in the palm of his hand. Then, the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, your calling, and His resurrection become obvious.

It's not about a miracle that happened 2000 years ago, it's about a miracle that is happening today, as our church, with all its humanity and its failings, is being transformed into the body of Christ.

"I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."