The Time Has Come; Believe the Good News

I am posting this on March 3 the Feast of St. Aelred, the last day of the Novena in honor of St. Aelred.

Homily for MCC Quezon City
March 1, 2009
(Pastor Ceejay Agbayani was out of town for his grandmother’s funeral)
Fr. Richard R. Mickley, OSAe., Ph.D.

A good starting point is Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel reading, “The time has come, and the Reign of God is near! Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News.”

Today is the first Sunday of Lent in the church calendar. That means Easter is a few weeks away, and now is a time a time of preparation, a time of reflection on Jesus’ message to us.

Where do we get that message? From the Gospel, of course.

Today, yesterday, tomorrow and forever, the message is the same. “The time has come, and the reign of God is near!”

My friends, the time has come to know, love, and embrace the true message of Jesus. Unfortunately there are many false messages pulling at us, messages distorted by perhaps well-meaning people, but people misguided, guided away from the true message of Jesus.

But, my friends, it is time to embrace the true message of Jesus which is addressed to every person created, redeemed, and loved by our God. To be exact, Jesus addressed the Good News, reaching out in love, to you and me, and did not leave out any of us. I have a group of 19-year old neighbors, and I hear them (unkindly) calling one of their group Neanderthal. My friends, I tell you today, that our God even loves Neanderthal.

It will take us too long here today to tell the story of all those who have corrupted the message of Jesus and made it false, even trying to make us believe that God does not love Neanderthal — and certain other kinds of people, which might include you and me.

Instead of the ones who are wrong, let us talk about two great followers of Jesus who did not corrupt the message of Jesus, who gave it to us, just like Jesus gave it to us.

St. Aelred of Rievaulx

The first one we can talk about today is St. Aelred of Rievaulx in England. He came about half-way in the centuries between Jesus and us. He came with the message of love and friendship that Jesus came into this world to teach. Jesus came to show us what God is like. Because of Jesus we learn that God is Love, and wherever love is, God is, and whoever lives in Love lives in God, and God lives in them.

St. Aelred, a universal church saint whose feast day is day after tomorrow, was the abbot, the spiritual father, of 500 monks, priests, brothers, helpers, and his teachings to them were about the love and friendship which Jesus taught and lived. St. Aelred wrote books about love and friendship for his monks. He encouraged his monks to love one another, and he gave the example by loving all, but especially his one special beloved. Read more about his life and loves and message of God’s love by visiting my blog where the St. Aelred novena is currently running. (http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com/)

The Rev. Troy Perry

The other person who came into our lives in a special and magnificent way with the message of the love of Jesus was the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of MCC.

Both Aelred and Troy lived in a world where they were surrounded by homophobia. St. Aelred lived in time (sadly little different from today) when the sexual theology of St. Augustine prevailed. It sounded like this, “Sex is bad except for a married couple, once a year, under the blankets, with your clothes on; get in there fast; make the baby fast; get out of there fast; and don’t enjoy it.”

St. Aelred and Troy Perry did not get bogged down with such sex-negative thinking. They emphasized that God is Love. St. Aelred said that means “If God is love, God is Friendship.”

And so, if we want to be like Jesus (who showed us what God is like) we will live in love and friendship.

Furthermore, St. Aelred said, if you think the love of one man for another is strange, look at the Gospel where we find eight times the “Beloved of Jesus.” Eight times the Gospel tells us about the one who had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus, was called the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.

I admire St. Aelred through the pages of history and from studying his life and writings.

I admire Troy Perry because I worked with him, in his office, prayed with him, worshipped with him, traveled with him, wrote for him, loved him as a dear dear personal friend.

Troy came triumphantly into our world 800 years after St. Aelred died. He came proclaiming the message: “Now is the time. We can be Christians, too.” He made it clear that nobody can take that away from us. You know, and I know what they said about the early Christians, “See how they love one another.” And we believe that too. To an unbelieving world, Troy preached the true message of love of Jesus, adding, “Jesus came to take away our sins, not to take away our sexuality.”

That all started in 1968 with Troy speaking the message to 12 people in the living room of his home in Los Angeles. And here we are, half-way around the world, in an upper room in Quezon City, 41 years later, rejoicing and thriving on the same message of love and friendship.

St. Aelred had to courageously uphold the humanistic value of God’s love against the sex-negative theology of St. Augustine. Troy preached the message literally around the world, proclaiming, as only he can proclaim, God’s unconditional love for LGBT people. He was heard by a world hungry for the true message of Jesus.

Today we all live and love and preach the real Gospel Good News, yes, all of us, in a sex negative land – a land that is the only country in the world without divorce, and that tells a very strong negative story already. We live in a land where the bishops, catholic and protestant, control every move of the congress and government who sometimes actually do attempt to provide the people a more Jesus-like approach to love, marriage, sex, and baby making. The result of the bishops’ control is negative and destructive of millions of lives including many of the eight million LGBT people in the country, and the millions more of mothers and fathers who are told it is a sin to use condoms when their six kids are starving without ulam and baon (food and school money).

In the meantime, with Jesus, St. Aelred, and Troy Perry we live in love.

And, yes, we do not neglect the message in today’s gospel, “Turn away from our sins.” Thanks to Jesus, St.Aelred, Troy Perry, common sense, and hundreds of sex positive theologians, we know there is such a thing as sin — and sin is hurting people, being unkind, cheating people, and failing to love. And we now know that masturbation, condoms, and sex are not automatically sin; and, most of all, we know that loving is not sinning where there is no harm, no abuse, no force.

And we know this for sure, for “God is love, and where love is, God is, and those who live in love live is God, and God lives in them.”

The time has come. Let us turn away from our sins, believe the Good News — and love.