Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent - 2018

How do you react when unexpected visitors show up at your doorstep? Add to that,  you have had a crushingly busy day. The commute home was a bear. You barely had time to scarf down dinner because you were planning on working on your taxes this evening. Ding-dong!

Seems to me this is the kind of day that Jesus was having. He must have been teaching and healing, the Jewish festival with all its preparations was at hand, and there is the looming threat of the civil and religious leaders who are out to silence him.  Ding-dong!

Two Greek visitors arrive unannounced.  They ask: We wish to see Jesus.  Philip goes to Andrew. And Andrew and Philip announce this to Jesus. What is Jesus's response? Jesus says: The hour has come, the jig is up, it's time to act.

Saint John goes on writing his gospel about a seed falling to the ground and dying to give new life.  John points the rest of the story toward the crucified death of Jesus so that Jesus and all follow him will experience new life. John doesn't seem much interested in what Jesus did with the Greeks that came to visit.

I will fill in the blanks.  Based upon what I see Jesus doing in similar circumstances, I would imagine that he said to Philip and Andrew, Sure, bring them in. I would further imagine that they sat down and had a marvelous conversation, perhaps talking about current events, the civil and religious atmosphere surrounding his ministry. But more importantly, I think the conversation would point to hope, new life, all the things that he hoped for for himself and for all creation. In other words Jesus expanded their minds to include wonder and awe and they left there more enlightened than  when they entered his house. What a gift to say to someone the hour has come, yes in the midst of everything I have time for you.

We know these kinds of people in our lives and hopefully we are these kinds of people for others. Stephen Hawking was one such person for me. No, he never visited me and I've never met him at least not in person. Here was a man crucified with ALS who gave his life opening others to the wonder and awe that he experienced. He did this through his research in quantum mechanics, through his books, through his thinking about space time and the theory of relativity. He was, first of all an observer and secondly a ponderer, a thinker, a meditater.

A couple of years ago I was talking about him as a source of wonder and awe and a woman came up and said, "You know he’s an atheist don't you?"  I said,"Of course." She was concerned for my salvation by reading such books. I am sure that any book other than the catechism of the Catholic Church would have caused her concern. Fact is - Hawking was respected and honored at the Vatican Observatory, thanked by four popes for his insights into creation, and was concerned about continuing the dialogue between science and religion.

Hawking didn't believe in a magical God separated from creation and pulling strings effecting people, places, and things, rewarding some and condemning others. I don't believe in a God like that either. Hawking, Einstein, and others like them cannot possibly write and think, taking us to the very edge of mystery, wonder, and awe, without acknowledging some power greater than themselves.  It is, when we live at the edge of mystery that we are most likely to encounter God.  They came time and again to moments when they were brought up to stunned silence.  I call these moments God Moments.  We need a balanced diet and our diet must include feeding our souls, our spirits, with wonder and awe.  This is what allows us to say the hour has come, I have time for you. We never know when or how that wonder and awe will appear.