Homily: Step Right Up

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (Feast)

Readings: Ezekiel 47.1-2,8-9,12 / Psalm 46 (R/v 5) / 1 Corinthians 3.9c-11, 16-17 / John  2.13-22

You’ve seen him, that man at the fair or the bazaar calling out, “Step right up, step right up.” Calling us to dare try a throw to win a prize. Calling us not to be part of the crowd but to come forward and try something new. Step right up.

Yes, step right up now and try your hand at this question about today’s feast:

Is the Lateran Basilica: (a) The Pope’s church as the Bishop of Rome?; or (b) The main cathedral of the diocese of Rome?; or (c) the Mother cathedral of the Universal Church?  By show of hands, how many say (a)?  (b)?   (c)? 

And the answer is: all of the above.

The Basilica we remember today is named after a Roman palace, the Lateran, which the converted Emperor Constantine gifted for Christian worship. His gesture marked Christianity becoming the official religion in his Empire. This basilica is sometimes called St John because it is dedicated to St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. In 324 AD, it became the Cathedral of Rome. It remained the pope’s residence until 1308. Yes, a short lesson in Church history.

“But why are we celebrating a church building?” you may ask. What’s the significance of this church, or any temple of God as the Church is imaged in our readings? Why should we care about a church building? Because our readings should disturb us about how we understand "Church." This is exactly what Jesus did when he bothered the moneychangers and merchants doing commerce in God’s temple in today’s gospel.

Today’s readings should disturb us with this question: “What’s our attitude towards Church? Towards this holy place where God invites us to meet God, this place which is never our possession, nor our entitlement but God’s? The quality of our zeal for God is really what Jesus is challenging us to consider this morning. His challenge should bother us because how we respond will determine the quality of our participation in Church.

Today’s readings can help us think about our answers to this question. Ezekiel describes the temple as life-giving in the first reading: water flows out of this place of God and makes the “salt waters” fresh.  Paul describes the church in Corinth as “God’s building” in the second reading: this Christian community is “the temple of God” and “holy.” And in today’s gospel reading, Jesus refers to his body as the temple that cannot die: it is ordained to be the risen body through whom God’s saving glory shines forth on us all.

Our readings offer two themes for reflection. First, that the temple of God, the Church, is meant to give life, and life that flourishes. Second, that we, the Church, the Body of Christ, cannot be kept down.

But what does any of this have to do with us who celebrate the dedication of the Lateran Basilica?

Consider how our readings encourage us to live like the first Roman Christians who started worshipping in this building. Their life and love for one another in Jesus finally moved Christianity out of the shadows and into the light of the world. Their lives transformed Christianity. From a religion on the periphery, a religion hidden behind household doors to a religion at the heart of the world, a religion practiced publicly amidst the world. This is how Jesus’ disciples enfleshed his instruction, become the light of the world.

These early Christians could do this because they cooperated with God’s Spirit dwelling in them. This is the truth Paul proclaims today. God’s Spirit empowered these disciples to share God’s life with one another in community and to evangelize about the good life in the God of Jesus Christ to the world.

You and I are also filled with God’s Spirit. Our readings call us once again to let God’s Spirit lead us onward. More significantly, following Paul, we are to let God’s Spirit flow out of us. Then, we can become, as Ezekiel envisions, life-giving water to nourish another, to enliven others, to raise up the downtrodden, the lesser and the forgotten in our midst.

But there is one more message our readings suggest as we reflect on the Lateran Basilica. This has to do with improving our participation in Church and as Church. This is summed up in these two phrases: stepping up and standing up.

The Lateran Basilica has had its ups and downs: it has experienced fires, wars, earthquakes, and even bad popes. It has had to be renovated and restored. But it still stands. And as an embodiment of Church, it continues standing up for the Good News: that in Jesus, God redeems all of us, saint or sinner alike, into his own house forever. Like the Church, you and I are called to step up and stand up for the Good News; this is the Christian way to transform the world anew.

This is why it is our Christian duty to step up and stand up to remind others about faith and to offer hope to them. This is what we can offer others when life seems dark and despairing at times, or when things in our parish or school or work place, even in our Church and nation don’t seem to be going as God’s reign should look like. This is why our Christian mission as God’s temples is to be the Christ-like source of renewing the world.  This is why stepping up and standing up are non-negotiable if we want our Christian lives to matter and to be salvific.

So, if something is not the way it should be in the world, why not step up and stand up?

If we worry about the widening economic gap and don’t think the poor are cared for well enough, then why not step up to do something about it, rather than wait for the government or an NGO to act?

If we think that the Church is confused and divided after the Synod on the Family because traditionalists are policing those who cannot receive communion while progressives are welcoming all to communion, then why not stand up for God's mercy that unites all in God's love?

If we feel that world is saturated with too much violence, hate and prejudice, then why not step up, stand up and get involved in the lives of those suffering in the world?

Whatever the issues we face, individually and collectively as Church, I believe Jesus calls us to step up, stand up and be His presence in the world.  He calls us to take our worship of him inside this building, into the world, to go outside of this building and make God's love alive in the world!

This is what we really celebrate today: God’s ongoing invitation to us to let God’s Spirit flow out from us into the world as Christ’s life-giving presence.

Isn’t it time then for us to not just come to Mass and be passive spectators or passive worshippers, but to let God bless and break us as his daily bread that he will sent forth from this building to the hungry and the thirsty, the hurt and the broken, the discarded and the lost?

If you agree with me that God will transform us here into the Body of Christ so that God can send us forth to renew and lift up the world, can you and I just be quiet for a bit in the next few moments….quiet enough to hear him, this Jesus calling out to you and me right here, right now: “Step right up, step right up; step up and come stand up with me"?

Yes, will you, will I, will we together step right up to Jesus and stand up with him now to love the world as he does?

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore

photo: internet (planetware.com)