Are we equipped to face the challenges ahead?

Homily for the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

13th November 2022

The readings today, in many ways, seem quite bleak. Malachi talks about evildoers being burnt up like stubble in a furnace. Luke’s Gospel reminds us of the wars and revolutions we see going on all around us. Promoted every day on our news, and in our social media. It can seem hard to get away from it all. We can feel despondent, asking what is the point?

But Jesus tells us not to be deceived. To refuse to join in with those who promote these ideas, trying to scare us into following them. Following a false narrative. We may consider that we are not equipped to face the challenges ahead and need more education to help us deal with the problems. Yet, Jesus tells us that we do not need to be prepared to defend ourselves because he will give the eloquence we need and the wisdom beyond what those who are against us are able to muster. Even if people hate us for what we believe not a single hair on our heads will be lost. Our endurance will win us our lives.

Many of us are so distracted by what is going on around us that we tend to forget so much. We forget what we are capable of, and what we have to offer others. All of us have talents, many of them can be hidden from us and we may not realise what we are capable of doing or being.

At times, our lives may seem to be full of difficulties. We may worry that those difficulties are beyond our capabilities of coping. Yet often they are simply challenges for us to explore new ways of looking at the life we have been given. It is not all about sorrow, but it can be joyful.

We may have to find work that will allow us to pay our bills but we also need to seek out opportunities in which we can have time to explore new hobbies, things that don’t have to earn us money but can earn us friendships. Can earn us respect for demonstrating the talents we have.

We may think that God is not talking to us. Yet stories in the Bible tell us that he does speak to people in their dreams. He told Joseph to marry Mary after he discovered she was pregnant with Jesus. He told another Joseph how to interpret the dreams of the cupbearer and the chief baker who were in prison with him and what would happen to them. One died and the other was promoted but forgot about Joseph, until several years later, when Pharaoh needed his dreams interpreted. The cupbearer then remembered Joseph. Through being in the right place at the right time Joseph was able to help these people. He may have thought his life was a disaster, simply because of his jealous brothers selling him into slavery. But when famine came some years later, Joseph was put into a high position where he was able to help 70 members of his family and rescue them. In turn, many years after Joseph’s death, Moses was able to lead the massive tribe of Israel out of Egypt towards the promised land.

Everything was set in place for a specific purpose and time. We often forget this.

God is with us all the time. He is within each and everyone of us. He had not simple made us and then left us to our own devices, he has a plan for us. There is a purpose for us being here, we simply have to find out what it is. This can be achieved through trial and error. Yes, error. We all learn by making mistakes, but we have every opportunity to make corrections and see different outcomes. New opportunities will then arise that we had not expected, and would not have been able to see if we had not taken the actions that led us to the point we find ourselves in the present. At this moment.

Nothing goes to waste. We can try things out and if we do not like how things turn out we can make changes. If we worry too much about what might happen, we may never know what possibilities there are. If we let fear take hold of us we can become paralysed. This is not what God wants for us. God is the God of the living, not the dead. If we are paralysed, we have stopped living and life can become hell. Through God, all is possible, especially through working for what we need, even if this means slaving away and straining. We will eventually be rewarded, nothing is lost, not even a single hair on our head, if we continue to endure and put our faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

With everything we must practice and not give up. Then there will come a time when you do not have to think about what you are doing, it will have become second nature. This is when we have to thank God for helping us through the trials endured to learn those skills. That can also be applied to building relationships with others, friends, siblings, and lovers. No one should be taken for granted.

So do not let the fear of disaster the world wishes to stress us with. Turn away from such news or influences and choose God to lead you in a direction that, though hard at first, will bring you the rewards that will bring confidence and freedom that only Our Lord Jesus Christ can bring to you.