Who can you count on? Homily for June 6, 2024

Who will you count on? It's interesting that in life we tend to look for someone on this earth to save us, sometimes even from ourselves. We want someone who's going to take care of everything for us and make things better and good and right. But the first reading today tells us something very important, that it matters to whom we look for salvation. It matters.

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A political candidate, or Jesus? Whom do you follow?

Who can you count on?

I have to say that I’m not terribly excited about the next five months. That’s how far away we are from the election. Because it’s not going to be pretty, it’s going to be ugly, we’re going to yell at each other, we’re going to be angry, we’re going to be frustrated. All of those things are going to happen.

It’s interesting that in life we tend to look for someone on this earth to save us, sometimes even from ourselves. We want someone who’s going to take care of everything for us and make things better and good and right. But the first reading today tells us something very important, that it matters to whom we look for salvation. It matters.

And Peter is trying in the first reading to remind people about the fidelity of God even when we are not faithful. That we have to be aware that God is always with us, always loves us, and is always faithful, even when we are not. And this great insight comes from the quote that’s made from the book of Deuteronomy, the great Shema of Israel. The most important thing, it’s what they actually put on a piece of paper or whatever and put it on an article of jewelry and wore it around their foreheads or on their wrist or, and it was on the doorposts of their home.

Their whole lives were supposed to be ordered around these two great commandments. The Lord our God is Lord alone and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, saying those two commandments, touching them, thinking about them is one thing. Doing them, on the other hand, can sometimes be quite another.

It’s not always easy to love God, especially if we’re concerned that God might ask something of us that we do not want to do. Moreover, it can be easy, as Jesus tells us in the gospel, to love those who love us. But the real test of loving our neighbor is to love those who are not terribly easy to love.

Jesus then rewards this scribe in the gospel for an insight. He asks what the two greatest commandments are. And the answer he’s given recognizes a deeper insight that loving God and loving neighbor is worth more than any number of sacrifices. Now today, our sacrifice is, in fact, priceless. It’s not like the Old Testament where they sacrificed the blood of bulls and goats and lambs. Our sacrifice is the Lord himself. It is Jesus Christ, the one who died for our sins so that we could live forever. If we’re looking to attach ourselves to anyone, let us make sure that that person is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

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