Be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for
a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and
reverence.
I Peter 3:15-18
I can remember exactly
what she said! “Why in the hell are you wasting your time in that stupid
church? I finally wised up and got out of that silliness a long time
ago! I can’t believe that anyone as intelligent as you appear to be is still
a Catholic, much less a priest!” I can remember her words almost word for
word. I stood there in freeze-frame as if I had been shot at close range
waiting for the pain to register. I was both shocked and embarrassed!
This situation is not made
up. It actually happened to me many years ago at a reception after my
ordination. The young woman was in her thirties. She was a college
graduate and very aware of all that was going on around her. When she saw
that I did not turn and run, she proceeded to go through her, obviously
well-rehearsed, litany of all that was wrong with churches in general and mine
in particular. She went w-a-a-a-a-y back! She covered the Spanish
Inquisition, the Crusades, Galileo, infallibility of the Pope, sexual
repression of the masses, grade school child abuse, the slavery of women, dull
Masses, trivial sermons, money grubbing TV preachers and Vatican
finances. I think I even got blamed for Tammy Faye’s make-up and
hairdo! I stood there squeezing the life out of my ginger ale, cringing
as if being whipped as she went down her list! My face was beet
red! My knees started to buckle. I wanted to melt into the floor.
After the initial shock, I
realized one day – after several days of worrying about it – that her
tongue-lashing was actually good for me! I was forced to admit that I
hadn’t taken the time to think in depth about why I still believe! I
realized that I really hadn’t thought much about the “hope that is within
me!” I realized that I had not taken the time to really answer that
question: “Why in the hell am I still in this
less-than-perfect old church?”
It was not the only time
I have been seriously challenged for being a Catholic. When I worked in
the home missions of our diocese, down along the Tennessee border, I was often
challenged as the first Catholic priest to live in Wayne County! I was
attacked by name by a preacher on the radio. The whole ministerial
association was asked to leave the church we were meeting in after I showed
up. The host said he could “no longer in conscience” be part of the group
“now that it had a Catholic in it!" He then asked all of us to leave his
church! I had a Sunday morning radio program, but while I was away on
vacation, a group of ministers went to the radio station and had me thrown of
the air! I was once verbally attacked at the Post Office. I was
snubbed a couple of times in grocery stores, ignored in restaurants and
tolerated at meetings simply because I was "one of those Catholics."
Those experiences have
helped me answer that question - “the reason for my hope." Besides
that, some of my friends have been neither church members nor believers. All of
them have asked tough questions. It seems that I have been surrounded by
people asking for an answer. It’s about time, I thought, that I answered
today’s question!
Be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for
a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and
reverence.
Those words from our first
reading today, the First Letter of Peter, are unbelievably appropriate even
today. When they were first written, Christians were a despised
minority. They stood out like sore thumbs in a pagan culture.
Neighbors, friends and even family members had serious questions to ask.
Often those questions were asked in hate and anger.
It took guts to be
different then, just as it does today. The writer of the First Letter of
Peter writes to encourage believers to stand their ground in the face of
ridicule, rejection, persecution, and possible death! “If you are questioned,
give a decent answer,” he says “but give it gently and respectfully.”
“Even if you are defamed, libeled, abused or ignored, do not answer with
hate. If you have to suffer, at least you can say you suffered for being
good.”
That young woman’s words
are as fresh today as they were then. The young woman at the party may
have picked the wrong place, chose the wrong time and asked her question in
bitterness, but her questions are valid. “Why do I stay
in a church with so many problems? Why do I believe when
so many people my age do not? Why am I a Catholic,
instead of a member of some less complicated denomination? Why am I
a priest when so many have left and so few are coming in? When I saw the
second reading today, I said to myself, “OK, today is your opportunity!
Tell the people why you believe, why you
stay, and why you are hopeful!”
Let share with you, then,
my five “reasons for the hope that is within me.”
REASON #1
GOD IS MADLY IN LOVE WITH THE HUMAN RACE
The only reason God broke
into human history in the person of Jesus is that we were not getting the
message – the message that God is madly in love with us. Because we were
not getting the message, God came in person! I cannot believe how many so-called
“religious” people still wonder whether God loves them or not, people who worry
about going to hell over trivialities, people who even cringe in fear at the
name of God. I cannot believe how so many so-called “religious” people
wring their hands in anxiety about how the world is going to end – as if the
outcome is still up for grabs! When Jesus announced the Kingdom, he said
that it would start growing quietly and almost imperceptibly, but it would keep
growing until all evil was crowded out. Jesus said that the battle
between good and evil would meanwhile continue, yes! Jesus said that evil
would win many more battles, yes, but it would not win the war! Jesus
promised that the outcome had already been decided
So, my friends, as we face
our set-backs, disappointments and losses, we must keep this good news in the
back of our minds and remember it when we are discouraged. I did not make
this promise! Jesus did! Because of that, I already know how things
will finally turn out! The victory over evil has already been decided!
REASON #2:
IF GOD HAD WANTED A PERFECT CHURCH, HE WOULDN’T HAVE
PARTNERED WITH THE LIKES OF US!
The church is a gathering
of people – real flesh-and-blood human beings, not angels! Therefore, it
is a mixture of the stupid and the wise, the silly and the serious, the gutless
and the heroic, the vicious and the loving, the sinner and the saint.
There is no “them” and “us.” There is a mixture of good and evil in each
one of us. It’s just a matter of degrees. So, how can we get so
upset about the splinters in our brothers’ and sisters’ eyes, when there is a
plank in our own? It has been that way from the very beginning.
Jesus knew that when he got involved with human beings, he was bound to get in
trouble. He did it anyway. He did it on purpose. He did it
with forethought and deliberation. He chose the weak, the idiot, the
prostitute, the reject and the sinner on which to build his church. He
has been choosing the same types ever since. Remember the words of Jesus,
“Healthy people do not need the doctor, sick people do!”
REASON #3
I TRUST THE TEACHERS OF OUR CHURCH MORE THAN GRADUATES OF SOME TALK-SHOW SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY OR SOME KNOW-IT-ALL ON FACEBOOK
I am happy the church is
not controlled by what is trendy and what most people think. It both
speaks to the modern world and listens to it! For that, it can both stand up to
the world and take some heat from the world! Even when I disagree with
its conclusions sometimes, I am proud of the struggle it is making to renew
itself and deal with a gamut of complicated problems that face the world
today. That renewal is messy, uneven and confusing, but at least it is
not putting its head in the sand! We are not just some new denomination. we
are a universal, world-side, ancient church wrapping around the globe! Because we are a world-wide church, change
takes time and patience if we want to stay unified! No, our church does not
have answers for everything! Yes, it is a mess sometimes! However, I choose to
stay like St. Peter, who asked Jesus when a bunch of his followers walked away,
“To whom else shall we go?”
REASON #4
WE ARE NOT IN THIS ALONE AND BY OURSELVES
Before Jesus left this
earth, he said this to us, his church: “Do not be afraid. I will not leave you
orphaned! I will give you the Holy Spirit as your Helper, to be with you
always! He remains with you and will be within you!”
We, you and I, received that Spirit when we became members of the church.
We still have that Helper always. With that assurance, there is no reason
to lose hope! We are invited to help the Kingdom come, but we are not
responsible alone for making it come! God is! So let us concentrate on
doing our very best, forgiving each other when we don’t and quit worrying as if
it were our responsibility to control the world! With the power of God
within us, there is no reason to lose hope. There is, on the
contrary, every reason to have hope!
REASON #5
OUR ONLY OBSTACLES ARE LACK OF FAITH, LACK OF GUTS,
AND LACK OF IMAGINATION.
The world has many
problems and I believe the only thing that stands in the way of solving them is
our fear and our failure to believe the “Good News,” that “blessed assurance”
that everything ultimately is going to be okay. If we really believe that
God is on our side, that God is madly in love with us and that God has seen to
it that the end will be wildly festive, then the only thing that stands in the
way of dealing with the world as it is, is lack of nerve and a shortage of guts
to stay in the struggle. If we really believe the basic “good news,” we
will hang in there no matter what. If we don’t believe what Jesus
promised, there are a million good reasons to quit and any of them will do!
Much ranting and raving
about the church is done by people who still equate the church solely with its
leaders. When we do that, every problem is the responsibility of somebody “up
there” to fix! We are the church and we will go on no matter how weak and
rigid our leaders might be! The validity of the message has never depended
on the goodness of our leaders! We are individually called to fidelity no
matter how many other so-called believers jump ship!
These are a few of the
reasons I have hope. In the end, the church is a lot like my old
grandma. She had a wart on her nose. She was a little rigid and
cranky. She was not perfect, but I loved her. I didn’t love
her in spite of her short-comings, I loved her because she
had problems. You know, my grandma, my church, and me have one thing in
common. We’re not perfect, but we are certainly "good enough"
for God!
