God's Plan for the Beautiful Letdown

Homily for the 3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
25 January 2015

       A wise man once said: God has a plan for you . . . but so does someone else!

       Our Gospel today reminds us of this fact by telling the story, once again, of the call of Andrew, Peter, James and John. This call is, of course, a call that is extended to us today, just as it was to the first disciples two thousand years ago. It is a reminder of the invitation to “come and see” that Jesus extended in last week’s Gospel.

       Yet, Jesus was calling these men to something more than just simply to “follow Him.” If we take a look at the first part of the Gospel, and set it in the context together with our First Reading and Responsorial Psalm, then we come to understand that the call of Andrew, Peter, James and John was just not simply to follow Jesus along journeys of becoming faithful disciples of this Man from Nazareth. Rather, Jesus walked along the shoreline and invited these men to follow Him so that they would witness firsthand the mercy of God; Jesus called these fishermen to life of continual conversion.

       Yes, it’s true that God had a plan for these men. Yes, it’s true that God has a plan for each of us! Yet, someone else also had a plan for the disciples, just as someone else has a plan for us.

       My brothers and sisters, the Devil is real. Satan DOES exist, despite what our society may believe and preach. And Satan has a plan for each of us.

       God presents to us every day the opportunities to follow His plan. However, God also presents to us each day the gift of free will, which allows us to freely choose His plan or another. We can freely choose His grace, or we can struggle in our own humanity. We can also freely choose to recognize the struggle as a means to trust more on God, or we can freely choose to allow the struggle to overwhelm us, and we cave in to the emotions of frustration, anger and despair. We can freely choose to revel in the beauty of the struggle, or give in to the overwhelming sensation of apathy. Remember, though: The Devil won’t strike us in the middle of the struggle, but wait until we’re overwhelmed, apathetic and lukewarm in our faith.

       Yes, just as much as God has a plan for us, so does Satan.

       And as much as God had a plan for Andrew, Peter, James and John, so did Satan.

       Nevertheless, following Jesus, the disciples came to know the very essence of His message: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

       This is the very message we’re confronted with today.

       Satan doesn’t want us to repent. Satan doesn’t want us to believe in the Gospel. He wants us to remain apathetic in our struggle; he wants us to remain lukewarm in our faith.

       God, on the other hand, desires our repentance. God desires our belief in His Son and in His Gospel. God desires us to trust Him amidst the struggles of our lives; He desires us to be on fire with the Faith.

       Again, God gives us the opportunity to choose whose plan we’ll follow: His or Satan’s.

       If we follow Satan’s plan for our lives, then we remain in the lukewarmness of our faith. We refuse to hear the call to conversion, to believe in the Gospel, and we wallow in the self-defeating apathy of our prideful and selfish choices. Satan continually whispers in our ear that we are a letdown to God, to our neighbor, and to ourselves – that we have let down because we’re not good enough, nor will we ever be.

       This is a lie that the disciples had to come to grips with, even as they accompanied Jesus during the years of His public ministry. Though our Lord continually preached the mercy of the Father, He also preached that we have to choose that mercy. And we know, from knowing the story in Scripture, that Peter learned this lesson the hard way; that Peter and Judas both had the opportunity to repent, to answer the call for the conversion of their hearts, and to recognize and receive the mercy of God. Peter, even in the midst of the struggle, continued to seek repentance and conversion; Judas allowed the apathy to overwhelm him. The other ten Apostles witnessed – firsthand – the duality of hearing Satan’s lie that one can be a letdown to God, neighbor and self, with one friend seeking repentance and the plan of God, and another friend overwhelmed by Satan’s lie and forgoing the call to conversion and accepting Satan’s plan, instead.

       Even to this day, we have the choice to believe Satan when he reminds us that we are a letdown to God, neighbor and self; or we have the opportunity to stand before God, seeking conversion of heart, knowing that we have let down those whom we love the most.

       Seeking conversion, then, is not just following Jesus or trying to become a better person. Seeking conversion and believing in the Gospel is allowing ourselves to be open to the call to strive for holiness in our lives. Seeking conversion is recognizing that we are a beautiful letdown.

       Yes, I said that we ARE a beautiful letdown.

       “The Beautiful Letdown”, by the band Switchfoot, is the title of one of my all-time favorite songs. It recognizes that struggle within the journey of life and of faith. This song recognizes the brokenness that is ours, and how that is okay. The opening lines of the third verse really reflect well what we’re speaking of today:

We are a beautiful letdown
Painfully uncool
The church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners,
the failures, and the fools

       Yes, we ARE “the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools.”

       But that truly is a beautiful thing.

       Our Lord, as exampled by today’s Gospel, chose men and women to follow Him who were, by the world’s standards (as well as their own), dropouts, losers, sinners, failures and fools. Peter, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude were men who were broken. Mary Magdalene, Martha and Mary were women who were broken.

       But they were found to be beautiful letdowns by the Lord because, in their brokenness, they sought repentance and conversion of heart.

       They chose to believe in the Gospel.

       They chose God’s plan over Satan’s.

       So must we understand that when we, in our brokenness and pain, turn to the Lord, we, too, are beautiful letdowns. For our belief in the Gospel allows us to recognize that God came to gather the nations into the peace of His Kingdom; that He comes in Word and Sacrament to strengthen us in holiness; that He will come again in glory with salvation for all His people.

       For us, then, to rejoice in our brokenness, we seek the conversion of our hearts. For us, then, to recognize that we are the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures and the fools, we allow ourselves to be those beautiful letdowns who accept God’s plan over Satan’s.

       We, then, need to seek the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. For it is in this Sacrament do we come face-to-face with our own brokenness, our struggles, our acceptance of Satan’s plan over God’s and allow ourselves to repent and believe in the Gospel. Just as the people of Nineveh repented at the words of Jonah, and just as the followers of Jesus repented at hearing the Gospel message, so, we, too, must come before the Lord – especially and explicitly in the sacramental realm – to receive His mercy and grace.

       This is how we become that beautiful letdown.

       This is how we answer the call to conversion.

       This is how we accept God’s plan over Satan’s.

       Don’t wait for Lent to get to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Beat the lines and go now. Start Lent off on the right foot. Continue the journey of Ordinary Time refreshed and renewed by the grace of God. Accept God’s plan by being transformed in His mercy and grace. Answer the call to conversion so that you may truly know the peace, love and joy of God when the priest says, “I absolve you of your sins.” Acknowledge the fact that we are the Church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools – and that Jesus Christ continues to call us to follow Him knowing of that “painfully uncool” fact of humanity.

       Remember: Even though we are a beautiful letdown, God has a plan for each of us. But so does Satan. Heed, then, the call to conversion, repent and believe in the Gospel.

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Enjoy the journey . . .