Homily: Saying Yes

Gospel Reading: Matthew 12: 46-50 (Doing God's Will and becoming part of the family)

It all begins with a 'yes,' doesn’t it?

Hopes come true

when we say 'yes' to making them real.

Human life finds expression and fulfillment

when we say 'yes' to living it fully.

Faith becomes meaningful

when we say 'yes' to service and generosity for others.

And it is indeed a 'yes'

that begins a gift of friendship

and the wonder of relationship that it can become.

Today’s Gospel reading calls

attention to our 'yes' to God.

More than an obedient, dutiful 'yes,'

Matthew invites you and me to reflect on

our 'yes' to relationship with God through friendship with Jesus

and through this 'yes,' on our interactions with others.

Matthew records Jesus speaking of this relationship in familial terms:

to listen to God’s will, he teaches,

helps one become his brother, and sister and mother.

The phrase 'to become' invites us to appreciate

that friendship with Jesus is about transformation:

of a self who can reclaim her rightful inheritance

as God’s good and beloved creation,

of social interactions that can indeed express and live

God’s familial love,

of human living as indeed the child-like glee of just communion

with God and one another.

But how does this transformation take place?

We can find a glimpse of an answer, I’d like to suggest,

in the silent but every present image of Mary in today’s Gospel,

whose 'yes' in the Annunciation is to share in God’s saving life.

Mary’s finite fiat opens her finitude

to God’s unconditional, infinite 'yes'

to realizing the wondrous reality humankind is created to become,

imaged in God’s likeness.

Saying 'yes,' then,

is about opening oneself to another

who can help each of us realize our human potential for the divine

Mary’s 'yes' opened her young self

to God’s Spirit who enters and transforms her into Mother of God,

into bearer of God’s Word,

in herself and to the world.

Sharing life in and bearing God’s Word

is Jesus’ call to his disciples then,

and to us this evening.

For us who call ourselves companions of Jesus,

we come to share in and bear God’s Word

more truly in the small, everyday 'yeses'

we make in our lives and community:

to shadows that invite us to conversion,

to lights that guide, strengthen and enliven our lives and faith,

to times and tides that draw us into closer familial bonds with God and the world.

Friendship with Jesus then transforms our relationship with God

and our interactions with others

because it is a communion of continuing perfection

that God began and we are only asked to cooperate with our 'yeses.'

Dear friends, what 'yes' today have you and I made to become more Jesus’ family?

This is a homily I preached at this evening's Eucharist at Xavier Jesuit Community.

photo: together by adsj (yosemite park, california, june 2010)