Deacon Mike Meyer / Sunday, March 10, 2024 / Categories: Blog, Homilies The Keys to the Kingdom Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B Parishioners of a certain age may remember Otis Campbell from The Andy Griffith Show, a television program aired on CBS from 1960-1968. Otis was a good man; he worked hard from Monday to Friday as a glue dipper at a furniture factory, whatever that is. On weekends, however, Otis drank—too much. He was arrested a few times for disorderly conduct, but most of the time, he just turned himself in. After a Saturday night binge, an inebriated Otis would take the keys that hung on the wall next to the jail cell, unlock the cell door, walk in, lock the door behind him, and hang the keys back on the wall by reaching through the bars. Once sober on Sunday morning, he’d reach through the bars, grab the keys, let himself out, and head to straight Church, where he sang in the choir. Otis held the keys to his imprisonment and freedom in his own hands. Our readings tell us that we do, too. Today is Laetare Sunday, the day we take a break from the subdued nature of Lent to rejoice in the hope of the resurrection we’ll celebrate in just a few weeks at Easter. Yet, today’s readings start on a gloomy note, with our first reading and Psalm speaking of a tough time in Jewish History – the Babylonian Captivity. In our passage from Chronicles, we hear how the people of Judah sinned against God, adding “infidelity upon infidelity” and enflaming God’s anger. Seeing no other remedy, God allowed the Babylonians to conquer the city, destroy the temple, and deport the Judeans into an exile in Babylon that lasted some seventy years. Our Psalm speaks poignantly of the tears the Jewish people shed in captivity as they remembered and longed for their beloved Jerusalem. Then, our readings seem to take an abrupt shift. In our passage from Ephesians, Saint Paul “begins by announcing that God ‘is rich in mercy’ and abundantly loving toward us,” making this assertion based on all that God has done for us through Jesus Christ.[1] Our Gospel makes clear precisely what God did, proclaiming the 27 most widely-known and beloved words of Christian Scripture: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). So how did we get from a seemingly angry God to a merciful, loving God? God’s actions in our first reading and Psalm may appear rash or vindictive, and many interpret them that way. They see an angry God, one whose wrath pours down upon the people whenever they stray from his commandments, whose loving kindness ebbs and flows with the faithfulness of his people. While some of the language used by the ancient authors contributes to that view, a deeper reading of Scripture proves otherwise. Recall from our first reading that God sent messengers and prophets “early and often” to warn the people of the consequences of their actions before the Babylonians conquered them. He also inspired King Cyrus to release them from captivity and allow them to return to Jerusalem once they had purged themselves of their sinful ways. God’s actions aren’t vindictive or rash; they’re compassionate and merciful; they’re loving. The first move of today’s readings is God’s attempt to save his chosen people from themselves. It’s a call to repentance and conversion, with God ever ready to offer compassion and mercy.[2] The Jews held their fate in their own hands. They could heed God’s warnings, change their ways, and receive God’s merciful forgiveness, or face the consequences of their sinful acts. It was their choice because they had free will. God gives us free will because love can only be given freely. If God wants us to love him and our neighbor, we need the free will to choose to do so on our own. God never forces us to love or obey him. God doesn’t grind us into submission; he woos us and wins us over with love.[3] So every divine response to human behavior is an act of love, even allowing us to suffer the consequences of our bad choices so we can figure out for ourselves that we need to choose God. What does this mean for us? It means that we hold the keys to our imprisonment and our liberation from sin. Christ conquered sin and death and opened the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven for all, but we have to unlock the prison cell of sin we freely entered, the self-imposed exile that bars us from the City of God. How do we get to heaven? We choose it by confessing our sins and conforming our lives to Christ’s. God always stands ready to offer us loving-kindness, mercy, and forgiveness because God is love, and God never changes. God can’t not love us because “the mainspring of God’s being is love.”[4] So God never stops loving us, never leaves us, and never stops trying to reconcile us to himself. If you need proof, you’ll find it in the gifts of Jesus’ abiding presence in the Eucharist and God’s merciful forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Whether we accept these gifts is up to us. If we do, we’ll change for the better, like Otis did. Otis Campbell disappeared from the Andy Griffith Show in the last two years of its run when its sponsors became uncomfortable with the portrayal of excessive drinking. Sheriff Taylor explained that Otis moved his drinking to Mt. Pilot since Mayberry was a dry county, but that wasn’t the end of Otis. The writers reintroduced him as a changed man in the the1986 television movie Return to Mayberry. The resurrected Otis had seen the errors of his ways, quit drinking, and returned to his beloved Mayberry driving an ice cream truck. Otis chose to clean up his act, and he changed for the better, and so can we. Through regular reception of the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we grow closer to God through Jesus, learn to accept his ways, and conform our lives to his. We free ourselves from the prison cell of sin and find that the keys to the Kingdom have been in our hands all along. Readings: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23; Psalm 137; Ephesians 2: 4-10; John 3: 14-21 [1] Maria Enid Barga et al., Workbook for Lectors, Gospel Readers, and Proclaimers of the Word: 2024, Year B (Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 2023), 85. [2] Ibid. [3] William Barclay, The Gospel of John, vol. 1, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 161. Ibid., 160. Imitate Christ The Model to Follow Print 774 Tags:Homily Deacon Mike Meyer Preaching Deacon Michael A. Meyer Year B Love Fourth Sunday of Lent Laetare Sunday Reconcilation Mercy Please login or register to post comments.