Homily

The crowds cheer Jesus today as He enters the city of Jerusalem, waving branches and crying out "Hosanna to the One Who comes in the name of the Lord." But even as this enthusiastic crowd sings the praises of Jesus, there are other people, who are not a part of the celebration. They are working on a plan to have Jesus put to death. The cheerful crowd will soon disperse and go off to their homes, but the enemies of Jesus continue to work on a way to have Him executed.

This is the way the Gospels basically paint the picture for us. There are those who love Jesus, support Him, believe in His message and stay true to Him even if they temporarily deny Him, as did Peter, or are unsure what to say or do when He is arrested. On the other hand there are Jesus' enemies who have been looking for ways to bring Him down for some time. These two groups are rather easy to write about, those who are for Him, and those who are against Him. I stop to think about how Jesus might possibly have thought about these two groups.

For his apostles, disciples and other followers it would easy for us to imagine the Lord's love and care for them, these ones who heard Him, believed in Him and accepted His message. It's not difficult for us to understand His closeness to these people. But imagine what it must have been like to have to deal with your enemies, those who have opposed you for years, those who can't wait to see you crucified. What must it have been like to deal with people such as these? You speak of love, they only hate. You speak the Truth of God and back it up with miracles of healing and even bringing some from the dead back to life, and they accuse you of blasphemy and acting under the power of Satan. You accept all who come to you, but they will never ever accept you because even as they proclaim that they uphold the Law and live in pious attention to God, their minds, their hearts and their ears are closed and shut against the Son of God.

Despite their hatred we know that Jesus loved these ones too, that He would die for these ones too, and that His prayer would be that their hearts would be converted, if not today then perhaps later and they would repent, and believe and be saved.

So we have the disciples of Jesus and the enemies of Jesus. But I propose there is a third group of people who are neither supporters nor enemies, and they are not spoken of in the Gospels because it would be difficult to do so and it's not at the heart of the matter, so we don't hear about this group. But I suggest that the third group of people were also on Jesus' mind during His public preaching and even on his mind during this last week of His natural earthly life. That group would be those who were indifferent to Jesus, the people who really didn't care one way or another about Him. They were neither friend, nor foe, they just had no opinion or thought or care about the Nazarene.

Now part of this group were likely indifferent to Jesus because they didn't know Him, or know much if anything about Him or His message. It's understandable these kinds of people would be indifferent. But there were others, surely, who did know, who had heard and seen, who could tell you something about Jesus. And yet, they just didn't care. They had more important things to worry about—their families, their jobs, their health, putting in a new lawn at the house they just bought and planning for their upcoming cruise to Lebanon, a vacation they had been looking forward to for months. They were busy people who had a lot to do because "life ain't easy and if you don't take care of the business things can go wrong very quickly. And if you do take care of the business you deserve some time to relax and take it easy and have a little fun, don't you? Life is short so you'd be wise to make it as good as you can because you won't get a second chance, will you? Sure, Jesus is okay and all of that but who has time for it? Both the wife and I are working and the kids have school and sports and we want to get the kitchen remodeled before summer. That's a lot to do. We don't have a lot of time for religious stuff now, do we?"

So, I wonder which weighed more heavily on our Lord's heart: was it the hatred of His enemies, or the indifference of those who didn't care? He came to bring pardon for sins. He came to share divine life with those who were in desperate need. He came to offer eternal life in Paradise with His Father and the Holy Spirit. He came not only to teach what genuine love is all about, but to share that love with all those who were willing to receive it.

So I wonder which caused Jesus more grief, more sorrow, a deeper sadness—was it the opposition of His enemies, or was it the indifference of those who just really did not care, those who had other business to attend to and didn't have any interest in what He had to offer?

We're not the enemies of Jesus, and we're certainly not full-fledged members of the group that is indifferent to the Lord. But does that make up fully engaged disciples whose lives are completely in love and service to Christ and our neighbor? Maybe we, too, suffer from a certain amount of indifference to the Lord. Maybe we, too, avoid standing at the foot of the cross. Maybe we, too, have allowed a certain complacency to gain hold in our lives, and we have grown cold in our love for the Lord, or we've allowed our faith to weaken because of other people, or events, or temporary pleasures or simply because we have not nourished it and professed it. Maybe we do not care for Christ as we should.

If we think we still need Jesus, and if wish to share more deeply in what He desires to offer us, then let us use this week as a most effective tool and aid and guide to shake off any complacency that we may be wearing on our shoulders, so that instead, we who have been baptized in Christ may truly put on Christ.