3rd Sunday after Easter 15 May 2011 Sermon

3rd Sunday after Easter 15.5.11 Living the Gospel

Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires which war against the soul, having your conversation good among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by the good works which they shall behold in you, glorify God in the day of visitation..

These words (from the epistle) contain quite a challenge to us. It is being put to us that we should behave at such a level of holiness that the people around us should be able to recognize the presence of God acting in us.

To achieve this we would have to be somehow different from the surrounding society.

We might object that this sounds like a very difficult assignment.

Of course we should try to be holy anyway, regardless of whether or not it impresses the neighbours; but realizing that so many people today do not know the Gospel; do not realize the richness of what is available to them - then we can see it as an extra incentive to live the Gospel.

The Church today, beset by scandals, has to work uphill to impress the surrounding society. We are so busy apologizing for the wrongs of this or that person that it makes it very difficult for us to stand up and say, This is the way, follow it.

Logically, the message remains the same and is not made any less true by misbehaviour on our part, but psychologically it is much harder to convince people of the truth of what we profess if we ourselves do not live it.

Can we do better? We have to begin, as always, with ourselves. The impression we make on others we cannot predict, but certainly the more things we get right the more likely we are to make the right impact.

Also we could say that if the Church must lift her overall performance on the world stage, there is no other way to that than individual Christians being more attentive to their duties.

If one person suddenly becomes kinder than usual, for example, that is an improvement for the whole Church.

Each of us has the power to improve the Church’s rating in the world by any simple personal advance.

Think of the impact if thousands of Catholics suddenly decided to pray more, to give more to charity, to be more careful how they talk to others etc etc

Big things come from small.

St Peter is encouraging us to remember our responsibility. We are ambassadors for Christ. If we consider ourselves to be His disciples then we are in a sense on public show every time we go out the door and, for that matter, if we stay at home.

Everything we do or say has some bearing on how clearly Christ is being proclaimed to the world.

What makes this manageable is the power of small changes. This much we can handle. It is like we have been given a particular task and all we have to do is that one task – which is to get right our own individual response to the will of God, to obey Him more readily, to get each thing right as we encounter it.
So whether it is being kind to a beggar in the street, cheerfully undertaking an unpleasant task, not giving way to annoyance at the mannerisms of someone else, a word of encouragement... the possibilities are endless. Every day is a stream of opportunities to get it right for Jesus’ sake. (Of course we must also eliminate any negative witness on our part.)

We hope the neighbours can derive something of the reality of Christ from our behaviour.
We do not seek their approval for any vanity on our part, but only so that they can know Christ better.

While He is absent from sight (Gospel) we must make Him obvious by our behaviour. Only by His grace!