TWENTY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
16 September 2018
Homily
I’m not a big fan of horror flicks, or Si-Fi movies. I don’t go in for spooky stuff, never have.
I’m also not a big believer in alien abduction, or watch “In Search Of.”
So you can imagine my discomfort then onr summer when in the middle of the night,
in the middle of nowhere, I was driving down a dirt road to see the, “mystery light.”
It’s just outside Watersmeet, MI, 4 miles from the casino,
down an old railroad right of way that’s been taken over by the power company
for a high line.
They call the place “Dog Meadow.”
I was with some people who had picked up a brochure about the “mystery light.”
And, they were bound and determined that we should go see it.
So, we’re driving down the dirt road and I’m thinking, “Boy, is this stupid or what?”
And suddenly, I see what appears to be a single headlight ahead of us.
“What the heck is that?” I say.
I am the first to see the “mystery light.”
It glows, it fades, it turns red, it glows again.
Now, here’s the goofy thing. We are not alone in that place.
There are perhaps 20 or so people there all staring at the mystery light.
Here we are, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, staring into the darkness.
Isn’t that goofy?
What would bring us there? What is the allure?
I asked those questions of the people I was with.
No one really had an answer save one who said,
“We all want there to be something more in life than we can see and we keep searching for it.”
I think she was right.
In the gospel today Jesus asks who the people think he is.
He’s a curiosity.
He is what people go out in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere to see.
And what is his response to this supernatural curiosity?
He tells them that God, the purpose of existence, isn’t going to be found in the exotic.
“Take up your cross,” he says.
“Live your daily lives with integrity, compassion, self-discipline, and a love for God”
and that is how you will be saved.
We may have a fascination with the strange.
We may even hope that the strange or exotic will save us,
but in the end we will meet our brother Jesus only in our real lives.