The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2025)
Did you know that there is a sort of architecture—or an internal logic—to the cycle of Readings we hear over the course of the Church Year?
Obviously, during the seasons of Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, the Readings are chosen to fit the themes and feasts of those great seasons. But even in Ordinary Time, the Readings unfold in a way that not only take us deeper into the mystery of who Jesus is, but they also open up for us a deeper sense of what it means to really live a life of faith… what it means to live as the disciples we say that we are. And the liturgy this Sunday take us into a collection of Readings that will unfold over the next seven Sundays.
With one exception, all of the First Readings over the coming weeks are taken from the Wisdom Tradition and Prophets of the Old Testament. This is important, because these readings help provide the shape and focus of our celebrations on these Sundays by offering an array of different symbols and images that all come together to challenge us to shape our lives according the vision of God and the Reign of God that is found in them.
Even more than that, the passages from Luke’s Gospel that we are hearing in these weeks could be folded into the great Wisdom tradition of the Old Testament. We are no longer hearing stories of Jesus’ signs and wonders, those moments of revelation that helped those first followers to understand who he is. Rather, the Readings are asking us to reflect on how we are to follow this Master Teacher in whom we have come to believe. The idea is that we no longer need those stories that are intended to inspire us to come to faith. Now, these gospel passages invite us to reflect on prayer, works of charity and justice, and the attitudes that are the ways that we express what we have come to know to be true.
Like the Wisdom teachings, these readings are leading us to consider the demands and consequences of an enacted faith. Because, at the end of the day, our call to discipleship requires more than simply learning the stories of Jesus and being able to parrot back his teachings. Rather, Divine Wisdom calls us to live what we profess, guided by our faith convictions. And so, we have this Gospel passage outlining for us what it means to really hear, to know, and to act on God’s will.
First, we have to let go of fear, so that we might be able to receive the gift of God’s kingdom. And this is God’s great joy—to find us living without fear and delighting in God’s gift. Blind obedience—or an obedience based on fear of God’s wrath—should have no place in our lives as followers of Jesus. Instead, the obedience that we show to God should be a single-hearted response in faith in the One who loves us completely and who frees us to love in the same way. We see this movement to freedom described in the poetry of the Reading we heard a few minutes ago from the book of Wisdom and in the description of Abraham’s faith in the Letter to the Hebrews.
Our faith-full obedience frees us from being attached all those things that are not of God. Divesting ourselves of possessions that possess us and caring for the poor helps us to free us from grasping at treasures that choke our hearts. And we also need to be attentive and watch intently for the signs of God’s presence and action in our lives and in the world around us. And finally, when the master becomes the servant, we help to make real the Reign of God by dismantling those systems of power where a select few are the masters and everyone else becomes a servant.
Living faith in the way the readings call us to live it demands that we be willing to embrace a vision of the world—a vision of ourselves—that turns everything upside down.
Priorities and power and preferences have to shift if we are to create space for these sacred words to really take root in our lives. But this is what we are called to and this call is both infinitely simple and exquisitely complex…
And all of this requires not just obedient faith, but we’re also being reminded this Sunday that vigilance is also a fundamental part of discipleship. We can’t coast. This is that attentiveness and intentionality I mentioned just a moment ago.
Now, we might think of the call to be vigilant and watchful as part of the work of Advent or the end of the Church Year as we look forward the great celebration of Christ the King. However, the theme of vigilance is placed before us today to remind us that we must always be vigilant. We must always stand ready for the return of the Lord, for we really do not know when he is coming. This is true about waiting for the end of time as well as for the end of our specific time, when we will greet the Lord in death. But there is even more!
We strive to be vigilant because we don’t know when God will open the window or door of our existence and call us into a deeper relationship or a fuller realization of the sacredness of life itself.
We must be vigilant so that we can recognize the Lord in the people with whom we live and work. We are vigilant so that we can recognize the coming of the Lord in the events of the world around us. We must always be ready to respond to the call to discipleship, to serve where there is need.
We must be vigilant because we cannot be sure of the hour of our calling, because, in a sense, every hour is the hour of our calling.
Obedience. Faith. Vigilance.
Stay awake and be ready!
For we do not know on what day our Lord will come. (Gospel Acclamation Verse)
Almighty ever-living God,
whom, taught by the Holy Spirit,
we dare to call our Father,
bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts
the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters,
that we may merit to enter into the inheritance
which you have promised.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homily prepared for Three Holy Women Parish in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
