Fr. Brian Soliven Sermons

Everything Jesus does is on purpose. Keep a close eye on his actions, from the biggest to the smallest gesture. He is always trying to teach us something very important about ourselves and more alluringly, about the nature of God himself. This Sunday’s Gospel passage is no different. It begins by Jesus summoning “the Twelve (disciples) and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in their belts.” Why does he command them to not take any money with them? After all, don’t they need money to buy food or water on their journey? Don’’t they need money to pay for a room to sleep in? An emergency might happen. Why does our Lord insist on taking no money with them? Let’s take a few steps back a moment and look at the human heart. If we are honest with ourselves, we can love money and material possessions too much and the power that it makes me feel. We can even love it so much that we sacrifice our own family relationships upon the altar of greed in the relentless pursuit of more more more.  The famous early 20th century American oil businessman John D. Rockefeller, who was one of the most influential and wealthiest men in the world, amassing over 1.3 billion dollars by the time he died in 1937. That’s equivalent to 24 billion dollars today. When asked how much money is enough, Rockefeller simply said, “one more dollar.” The lust of money is never satisfied. 

In my own ministry as a priest, I’ve seen money destroy families. Brother against brother. Sister against sister. Many years ago, I was asked to do a burial service for a prominent political family from San Francisco. When I arrived at the cemetery parking lot, it was filled with the nicest, most expensive cars you could imagine. Everyone was dressed with the nicest dresses and designer suits. But immediately I could sense a heavy coldness in the air, despite the warm summer sun. I turned to the woman next to me and asked what was wrong. She simply said, “There is tension in the family over the inheritance.” I simply nodded my head in exasperation. I’ve seen this over and over again. Someone dies and suddenly, you can have some members of the family immediately start jockeying for the best position for “one more dollar.” 

1 Timothy 6:10 puts it more bluntly, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” How terribly true this is about our broken human nature. Jesus knows this about us. Nothing is new under the sun. He wants to heal this disease for ever “more” by getting to the root of this sickness. The lust of money is ultimately rooted in our lack of trust in God. We do not truly believe that our Heavenly Father will provide for our needs; ergo we must do it ourselves. This seed of doubt is an echo of the Serpent’s slithery lie from the Book of Genesis “Did God actually say, you shall not eat of the trees in the Garden?” (Genesis 3:1). We now hear that as, “Will God actually provide for me?” Jesus wants his followers to rely on God’s providence as he sends them out into the world. Trust in him first and foremost. Is God a good father or not? That is the question before each of us today. 

When someone asked billionaire John D. Rockefeller, how much money was enough? He famously said, "one more dollar." For us Christians, if someone asked how much Jesus is enough, our reply should always be similar, "More Jesus!" More Jesus will always satisfy the human heart more than "one more dollar." 

Jesus Christ reveals the Father's heart for you and I. That is why he sends his son into the world, to seek and gather the lost. That's the drama of Christianity, pure and simple. 

Expecting miracles is part of our Christian DNA. Story after story in Scripture, we see the disciples of Jesus Christ acting boldly, reckless in faith, to the point of looking ridiculous. Yet, this should not surprise us. God has come down to his people and empowered them with his creative, healing Holy Spirit. We must act accordingly. 

When I was in junior high, I started to despise going to Sunday Mass. When I heard my parents footsteps walking towards my room in the morning to wake me up, I would pretend I was in a deep sleep, “Brian it’s time to get ready for church.” I didn’t answer. Fifteen minutes later, my mom would knock on my door again, “Are you still sleeping? Get up!” Still no answer. Ten minutes later, my dad would come in, “GET UP NOW!” That’s when I knew the battle was lost. This routine would go on for months, as I tested the strength of my parents' resolve until I finally won. I simply did not want to go to Mass; end of story. If you were to ask me why, I would have told you simply, “Because Mass is boring!” 

Many of us can easily fall into the same mindset well beyond junior high. We don’t like the Mass for one reason or another. I don’t like the music. I don’t like the people. Father’s homily goes too long or too short. He spoke too much about politics; he spoke too little about politics. I don’t like his vestments. It’s too warm in the church or too cold (yes it’s common to get both complaints at the same Mass!). Whatever the reason, it can be my ego at the center. We can easily forget who should be our laser focal point, namely Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist. Regardless of how I subjectively feel that day or how justified my complaint can be, we can easily be distracted from the mind boggling gift that is offered to us. Strip everything else away, Jesus comes to us at every single celebration of the Mass in that little piece of “bread” and the sip of “wine.”

In the Gospel, we are told the sad story of Jesus' homecoming. He returns to the town he grew up in. These were his neighbors, his friends, the same people that knew him personally by name. He tried to teach them the ways of God but they scoffed in his face “and they took offense at him.” They refused to accept him because their egos simply would not allow them to see the beautiful truth. God had come down in their midst, walking literally among them. “Imposible!” they thought. The Gospel concludes, “(Jesus) was not able to perform any mighty deed there, on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.” (Cf. Mark 6:6). To have faith requires me to look deeper than what my eyes can penetrate. The Christian must gaze with more than their physical eyes which are easily susceptible to distraction and my own preconceived notions of what reality should be. Faith is ultimately rooted in trust, not in our own powers but in God’s Word. “I am the bread of life.” He tells us in John’s Gospel. “Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” If that happens at every single Mass, then that is simply enough for me. Regardless of the music, the topic of the homily, the temperature of the room, or anything else, just give me Jesus in the Eucharist. 

People who say religion is a "crutch" that we use to feel better about ourselves, like a warm bottle of milk or a bedtime story, have no idea what they're talking about. Following Christ on the narrow road always involves risk. It commands sacrifice of the highest degree and the dethronement of my will. To put it simply, Christianity asks of me to die. 

From the papacy to the Eucharist, to the Sacrament of Confession to the resurrection itself, the scandalous disagreements between Christian denominations can boiled down to our minuscule preconceived notions of God. In other words, we like to put God in a box. 

It may be strange to say this but we were never meant to die. In fact, death is unnatural. We have grown so accustomed to thinking that dying is a part of what it means to be a human being, as if it's part of our nature, like breathing oxygen. Not for us Christians. We have an entirely different way of approaching the “end.” “God did not make death”, says the author in the Book of Wisdom. He reveals that this death that strikes fear in the hearts of men was not originally part of God’s plan for us. Could this be why funerals are so painful? We intrinsically desire to be with our loved ones forever. We can even say an echo of eternity burns in each of us, made incarnate in the person that we love. As proof of this, look in awe as a parent holds their newborn child in their arms for the very first time. You can catch a glimpse of this eternity in their eyes. They long to pause this moment, long into perpetuity, perpetually, and preciously. Yet man must frustratingly surrender, sooner or later. He must throw up his arms in defeat, knowing that death will always catch up, regardless of how many fruits and vegetables I eat. Death wins. Or does it?

Why does God allow our suffering? It’s a question that every single one of us will eventually grapple with sooner or later, if we have not already. Whenever someone makes an appointment with me in my office, I always prepare myself for a heavy conversation. Rarely does anyone come in to tell me about how everything is going great in their lives. On the contrary, my office can be a house of tears. It’s similar to the confessional room in the church, where confessions are heard each week (Tuesdays from 5pm to 6:30pm and Saturdays 3:30pm to 5:00pm). Tears flow in that place as easily as breezy air. It’s a common sight to see a long line of our fellow brothers and sisters with broken hearts and even broken lives waiting patiently for their turn. As I listen to their pain, I can’t help but beg Jesus under my breath, “Lord, help them. Please take away their suffering. They need you.” 

When suffering overwhelms us, we can feel like Jesus’ disciples in the boat that we heard about in this Sunday’s Gospel reading. The story begins with them crossing the treacherous Sea of Galilee. It is known, even to our modern day, to have unpredictable swells. Strong, driving winds can whip up huge waves in an instance, causing the boat to capsize into the cold dark waters. In fear for their lives, the disciples cry out to Jesus for help, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” (Cf. Mark 4:38-40). Stop here. Notice the conclusion they have made about Jesus. In the midst of the “violent swell”, they wrongfully believe that God has left them; he does not care. How many of us have thought the same thing when life knocks the wind out of our chest? Have we all not cried out in our deepest pain to God and yet heard nothing but devastating silence? It’s precisely here that many of us make decisive mistake like the disciples and think God abandoned us. Nothing can be further from the truth. 

Let us return to the Gospel story; Jesus is now roused awake from his nap. He looks at the storm and commands it, “Quiet! Be still!” To their shock, the winds immediately subside and the waves cease. Their mouths dropping in awe. One second ago they thought they would die and now they live. He turns to them and says, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” When the suffering of our lives becomes overwhelming, we must remember this famous account. Jesus is trying to tell us a valuable lesson about his providential plan for us. We may not fully grasp why he allows these storms of our lives to happen or why he allows us to suffer, but the one thing is for certain – He is with us in the boat. He has not forgotten us. In fact, even more mysteriously so, He is suffering with us.

When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus quoted the famous verse from Deuteronomy 6, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." The second is like it, "Love your neighbor." Since the dawn of the Church, we Christians have been striven to live this high calling, albeit clumsily. Despite our failings, our vast network of hospitals, schools, universities, and orphanages, that we've built over the last two millemina is a testament to living this call of love.