5th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Dom/Carmelite Laity/OLR, NOLA
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Dom/Carmelite Laity/OLR, NOLA
Job
is not a happy man right now. He's lost everything. His life is
drudgery. He's a like a slave who works away his days in the sun,
longing for shade. All his nights are troubled. He's soaked in months
of misery. Restlessness while trying to sleep; hopeless while he's
awake. He says, “. . .my life is like the wind; I shall not see
happiness again.” We know all too well why Job is having such a
tough time. He's lost everything. His wealth. His health. His family.
All of it. He might be able to suffer well under his material losses,
but he's lost one thing that all of us need most. He's lost his
purpose. He's lost his end, his reason for living. If he had a
purpose, he could look forward and place his losses within a bigger
plan to reach that goal. But without a goal, Job has no way to give
his suffering meaning. Jesus has a purpose. Paul has a purpose. And
they know happiness in knowing their purpose. What purpose do you
serve? Can you name the happiness that gives all of your suffering a
meaning?
What's
the point of having a pupose? Isn’t it easier getting out of bed in
the morning knowing you have a purpose, knowing you have a goal to
achieve, a To Do List for your life that needs some work? Isn't it
easier making it to work or class or the next thing on the list
knowing that your attention, energy, labor, and time will be focused
on completing a mission, on getting something done? With the time we
have and the talents we're given, don’t we prefer to see
constructive and profitable outcomes? Even when we’re being a bit
lazy, wasting a little time doing much of nothing, we have it in the
back of our mind to get busy, to get going on something, checking
that next thing on the list and moving toward a goal. It’s how we
are made to live in this world. Not merely to live for a daily To Do
List, but to move toward some sort of perfection, some sort of
completion.
For
example, Paul writes to the Corinthians: “If I preach the gospel,
this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation have been
imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!” Paul is given
a goal, a purpose beyond mere survival, beyond merely getting along.
Having been smacked around by the Lord for persecuting the Church,
Paul finds himself ordered to a regime of holiness, a kingdom of
righteousness, that demands more than rule-following, more than
simply showing up and breathing in the temple's atmosphere. Paul must
preach. He must travel city to city, province to province, publicly
witnessing to his repentance, to the power of Christ’s mercy
accomplished on the Cross.
Paul’s
sleep is restful. His work exhausts him. He is a slave whose labor is
never drudgery, never pointless. His end, his purpose is Jesus
Christ; the telling again and again of his story; his bruising
encounter with the man of love. And offering to anyone who will open
their eyes to see and their ears to hear; offering to them the same
restfulness; the same pleasing exhaustion; the same intense,
purposeful focus that the need to proclaim the Good News compels.
Jesus,
exhausted by his purpose, is doing his best to find a little time
away from the crowds. When Simon and other disciples find him and
say, “Everyone is looking for you.” Jesus, pursued, literally, by
his purpose responds responsibly, “Let us go to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.”
Soon he will look out over the vast crowd and, moved by compassion,
teach them many things. Now, exhausted himself, he takes his students
out again to preach and teach the Good News. It is his purpose – to
show those hungry for God that God does indeed rule, that He holds
dominion here, over all creation – heaven and earth, man and the
devil – and that healing flows from faith, light always overcomes
darkness, and that evil, no matter how far ahead in the worldly race,
has already lost.
Job
has lost his purpose and dwells in an anxious darkness. Paul is
driven by his need to witness. Jesus reveals His Father’s
kingdom—healing, driving out demons, preaching. Job recovers his
purpose when the Lord dramatically reminds him who is God and who is
creature, Who Is Purpose Himself and who has a purpose. Paul runs his
preaching into every town he crosses, proclaiming the Word, setting
up houses of prayer, and leaving behind men and women strong in the
faith. Jesus moves inexorably toward the Cross, his work for the Way
along the way reveals again and again the always, already present
victory of Life over Death, freedom over slavery, final success over
endless failure.
What
goals do you serve? Why do you get up in the morning? What meaning
does your work, your play have for you? Who are you in light of what
you have promised to be and do? What makes you happy? Where do you
find joy? Lots of questions! But all of these are really just one
question: what is your purpose?
You
have a given purpose and a chosen purpose. Your given purpose is dyed
into your flesh, pressed through into your bones; it is a God-placed
hook in your heart, a hook that tugs you relentlessly back to Him,
back to His perfecting goodness. Your chosen purpose is how you
choose to live out day-to-day your given purpose, how you have
figured out how to make it back to God. Student, mother, professor,
virgin, priest, monk, artist, poet, engineer, athlete, clerk,
scientist, father, nurse, dentist. When your chosen purpose best
reveals your given purpose, when what you have chosen to do helps who
you are given to be flourish, your anxiety finds trust, your
sleeplessness finds rest, your despair finds joy. And you can say
with Paul: “All this I do for the sake of the gospel,” – heal,
study, pray, minister, write, research, teach, drive, build, all this
I do for the gospel – “so that I too may have a share in it.”
What
Purpose do you serve? I mean, when you work, when you study and teach
and play, toward what end do you reach? What goal seduces you
forward, pulls you to the finish line? Surely for us, all of us here,
that purpose is Jesus Christ. Our goal is his friendship, his love.
And our goal is his witness, our telling of his Good News. We can
waddle around in the darkness of sin, bumping around blind, reaching
for what’s never there. We can wail into the wind like Job, moaning
about the meaninglessness of life, the pointlessness of our daily
striving. We can even refuse happiness, refuse to see that we have a
given purpose. But you will find your release and your license, your
freedom and your choice when you make yourself a slave to all, when
you make yourself all things to all, to help save at least some.
Like
Paul, a trusted steward, a faithful child, preach the gospel. Live it
right where you are. Make it your reason for getting out of bed, for
going to work, for making it to class. Make it who you are, what you
do, and everything you ever will become.
Everyone
is looking for you. For what purpose do you live?
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