{"id":5061,"date":"2017-05-21T12:45:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-21T19:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2017-05-20T23:51:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-21T06:51:57","slug":"no-good-deed-homily-for-the-6th-sunday-in-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/no-good-deed-homily-for-the-6th-sunday-in-easter","title":{"rendered":"No Good Deed – Homily for the 6th Sunday in Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a long but important sentence
\nin the First Letter of Peter that we heard earlier:
\n\u201cAlways be ready to give an explanation
\nto anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.\u201d
\nOf all the words in that long sentence, it\u2019s the last one, hope,
\nthat\u2019s the most important.
\nHope is something the world could surely use more of.<\/p>\n

But before the First Letter of Peter gets to that long sentence,
\nthere\u2019s a lot that comes before to help us understand what it means.
\nFirst of all, it\u2019s is addressed to Christians
\nwho are scattered far beyond Jerusalem.
\nThey\u2019re in Asia Minor, they\u2019re in Galatia, they\u2019re in Bithynia,
\nthey\u2019re all over.
\nAnd so they\u2019re living in cultures that don\u2019t understand their beliefs,
\nthat don\u2019t know their moral code.
\nThey\u2019re sojourners, is actually how the letter addresses them.
\nThey are wanderers in foreign lands.<\/p>\n

And so this letter to these sojourners
\nis mean to give them encouragement
\nto stay true to the faith
\neven though they are so far from the community in Jerusalem.
\nIt challenges them to continue living morally upright lives.
\nIt tells them to be sympathetic, compassionate,
\nto have humility, to not return evil for evil or insult for insult.<\/p>\n

And after several sections of telling slaves, husbands, and wives
\nhow to do good and how to be good,
\njust before the passage we read today,
\nthe letter says,
\n\u201cNow who is going to harm you
\nif you are enthusiastic for what is good?\u201d
\nIt\u2019s trying to be encouraging, right?
\nWho would harm you for trying to do good?
\nWouldn’t that be nice if that\u2019s the way the world worked?<\/p>\n

But we know that life isn’t always like that.
\nWe know there are times that we have tried to do good
\nand it\u2019s backfired on us,
\nwhen we were just trying to do the right thing,
\nand it didn’t turn out the way we thought it would.<\/p>\n

There were times when we told the truth,
\nand it was used against us,
\nor when we showed compassion or generosity
\nand got taken advantage of.
\nThere are many times when doing the right thing has left us alone and hurt.<\/p>\n

\"Clare

Clare Boothe Luce<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s a phrase for that,
\na phrase attributed
\nto a woman named Clare Boothe Luce.
\nClare was a prominent author, politician, and ambassador
\nin the mid twentieth century and she had quite the wit.
\nShe was married to Henry Luce
\nthe founder of the magazines Time<\/em>, Fortune<\/em>, and Sports Illustrated<\/em>.
\nClare converted to Catholicism
\nafter getting grief counseling from Bishop Fulton Sheen
\nwhen he was still a priest.
\nClare was a prominent, influential woman,
\nand people often wanted her help.
\nHer secretary recorded in her memoirs
\nthat when she would try to get Clare engaged in helping people,
\nin doing good,
\nClare would say,
\n\u201cNever forget,
\nno good deed goes unpunished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes that\u2019s what it feels like
\nwhen we\u2019ve tried to do something good
\nand it has come back to bite us.
\nIt feels like we are being punished for trying to do the right thing.<\/p>\n

So when this First Letter of Peter asks
\n\u201cWho\u2019s going to harm you if you\u2019re enthusiastic for what is good?\u201d
\nwe might think it a little naive.
\nBut the letter goes on to say,
\n\u201cEven if you should suffer because of righteousness,
\nblessed are you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blessed are you,
\nbecause what happens when we suffer for righteousness,
\nwhen we suffer for the sake of doing good,
\nis that we trust in the savior who did the ultimate good,
\nand yet who suffered for it.<\/p>\n

For Jesus,
\nwho gave sight to blind Bartimaeus,
\nwho forgave the woman caught in adultery,
\nwho healed on the Sabbath,
\nno good deed of his went unpunished.
\nHe was crucified for his good deeds.<\/p>\n

All of his forgiveness, his compassion,
\nhis tolerance, his love,
\nall of his good deeds
\nwere nailed to a cross.<\/p>\n

But these fifty days of Easter
\nare all about looking beyond the cross
\nto the Resurrection.
\nThese fifty days are all about hope.
\nWhen we try to be compassionate,
\nwhen we try to forgive,
\nwhen we don\u2019t return insult for insult,
\nand yet we end up in pain, in suffering,
\nwe end up ridiculed, taken advantage of,
\nit is during those difficult times
\nthat our trust in the Resurrection
\ngives us hope.<\/p>\n

And people notice that.
\nWhen the early Christians were persecuted
\nand yet stayed faithful,
\nthey gave a powerful witness to those who had never heard of Christ.
\nBecause everyone suffers.
\nEveryone faces disappointment, loss, injustice.
\nBut those who suffer in hope stand out.
\nThere is a peace about them, an inner calm,
\nthat makes others curious.<\/p>\n

This is what the First Letter of Peter means by telling us
\nto \u201cAlways be ready to give an explanation
\nto anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

It means be ready
\nwhen people ask us questions like,
\n\u201cHow can you stay so hopeful after being treated so unfairly?\u201d
\n\u201cHow can you be so positive when you are so sick?\u201d<\/p>\n

When people ask us questions like that,
\nScripture tells us today,
\nbe ready to give them an explanation.<\/p>\n

Be ready to tell them,
\n\u201cI\u2019m hopeful because of the cross.
\nI\u2019m hopeful because Jesus Christ walked this earth,
\ndid good, suffered because he did good,
\nand rose from the dead;
\nand since I am baptized into Christ\u2019s suffering, death, and resurrection
\nI know the same thing will happen to me.
\nI will rise,
\nand this suffering will be no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hope of those who suffer is a powerful witness.<\/p>\n

We see this in people we know,
\nand they give us hope.<\/p>\n

Some of you here may remember Jill Gotzian,
\na fifth grade teacher at All Saints
\nwho battled Muscular Dystrophy for years before passing away.
\nWhen I first started working at All Saints she walked with a cane,
\nbut as her disease progressed she had to give up walking
\nuntil eventually she had to use a motorized scooter to get around.
\nHer life was a daily exercise in suffering.
\nAnd yet Jill was always full of hope,
\nalways smiling, always laughing.
\nWhen alumni would come and visit they always went to see Jill.
\nShe was a deeply spiritual woman,
\nand when she taught her students about faith and hope,
\nthey had to take her seriously,
\nbecause if she could have faith and hope in spite of her disease,
\nthen there must be something to it.<\/p>\n

I think of another teacher from All Saints, Mary Feezell,
\na first grade teacher who battled cancer for years.
\nInto remission, out of remission,
\nand she stayed hopeful through it all, a kid at heart,
\nwho loved going to Disneyland.
\nEven close to death she was still talking about God\u2019s love,
\nshe was still full of hope.<\/p>\n

We all know people in our lives who suffer,
\nwho struggle with pain,
\nand yet are still are hopeful.
\nAnd each of us undergoes suffering
\nat various times in our lives.<\/p>\n

Sometimes our suffering is the result of things beyond our control;
\nsometimes we suffer for trying to do the right thing.<\/p>\n

Like Jill and Mary,
\nwe have the ability to be witnesses to hope when we suffer.
\nLike the early Christians in Asia Minor, or Galatia, or Bithynia,
\nwe are sojourners in a culture that often does not understand us.<\/p>\n

If it is true that no good deed goes unpunished,
\nit is also true that no good deed goes unnoticed by God.
\nAnd it is God, and the Son of God that is the source of our hope.
\nIf we are always ready to offer an explanation of hope to those who ask
\nthen we can bring the hope of resurrection in Christ to all the world.<\/p>\n