I read an article on a terrific blog this week: it's headed "Seven Reasons Your Sermons Are Boring."
That's a bit mean. Surely three reasons would be more than enough?
But I humbly plowed through all seven--though if I talked about them all this morning my homily would be boring. So we'll take a look at only two of the criticisms that can help us think about our readings today.
The first says "you're answering questions no-one is asking." And the second is "you haven't described a gripping problem people want to solve."
I plead guilty to both charges. But today let's work together to get me off the hook.
This Sunday's Gospel, and the first reading from the prophet Isaiah that helps us understand what Jesus is teaching, is about the Kingdom of God. And in my 33 years of priesthood, no-one has ever asked me a question about the Kingdom of God.
So maybe I shouldn't preach about the Kingdom of God, for fear of boring you--or even for fear of boring myself, because the Kingdom of God is not exactly the first thing I think about in the morning. (Another one of the seven reasons sermons are boring is that the preacher himself is bored with the message.)
It wouldn't be hard to dodge the Kingdom of God this Sunday; after all, it's just three words from the Gospel, and Isaiah doesn't even use them in our first reading.
But what a mistake that would be! Because in Matthew's Gospel Jesus says this: "strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
We know his words also in the famous King James version: "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
Can we be bored with what Jesus says should be our first priority?
If we are, perhaps it's connected to the second criticism I quoted: perhaps I haven't "described a gripping problem people want to solve." So let me do that now.
The gripping problem is how to answer these questions: what's the point of Christian life? What's the point of the Church? Where am I heading in life and, eventually, in death?
To all these the answer is "the Kingdom of God." And to make it a little easier, we can say "the Kingdom of Heaven," because that's what Matthew's Gospel calls it.
When I was writing this homily, I was struck by how close "a gripping problem" is to "a griping problem." Most of the time our lives are more concerned with griping about problems than wrestling with gripping ones.
But what can be more gripping than entering the Kingdom of Heaven?
What's more important than joining the procession of people from every time and place that is streaming to the holy mountain where God will reveal his glory?
And flipping that thought, what's worse than finding ourselves thrown out of the Kingdom while others enter it?
This is not boring. This is crucial. If we find it boring or secondary, it's just because of the human tendency to neglect the important for the urgent. So much harm comes from putting secondary things first. Exercise, diet, prayer, financial planning, quitting smoking-- these things are almost never urgent. But they're terribly important.
Entering the Kingdom of Heaven requires a series of choices. St. Ignatius has a famous meditation in his Spiritual Exercises where the Christian imagines himself standing in front of two vast armies, both flying a battle flag.
One of the two flags belongs to the army commanded by Christ; the other is Satan's. Both commanders invite the soul to gather beneath his flag.
Rarely, of course, is our choice so stark. But we take our side in the battle--and march towards or away from the Kingdom--with countless small choices, by many daily decisions to put first things first.
The starting point is simple: ask the questions. Try to understand the gripping problem of where you're going to spend the rest of your life and then eternity.
As one Jesuit has written about St. Ignatius's famous meditation, "All disciples have to choose where we are going to stand—with Jesus or with the world. No matter what life the Spirit has drawn us to, once we are baptized and confirmed we are called to stand in Jesus’ company under his flag."
And there's nothing boring about that.
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