HOMILY FOR SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (A)

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. As you know, each week I write a homily based on the Sunday readings. Sometimes, I look back into my files and read the homily I prepared on the same readings three years ago (the liturgical year is a three-year cycle). Almost always, the homily prepared three years ago is not suitable for today. The Word of God spoke to a different context then. The Word of God speaks to a new context now. New wine, new wineskins.

At the end of today’s Gospel that is full of parables and stories, Jesus says that ‘every scribe who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out from his storeroom things both old and new’. What did Jesus mean by this? Here, the Lord is telling us is that the gift of genuine faith has two essential qualities about it. The first is its newness, freshness and the capacity to influence the present. The second is its connection with generations who held the same faith of the past - people like Saints Peter, Paul, Patrick, Brigid, Therese and Mother Theresa. We are part of a living faith Tradition that goes right back to the Apostles.

First a little about the quality of newness. Jesus’ teaching was different and fresh. It generated excitement, danger and promise. Jesus’ teaching caused riots and started a revolution. Here was a Word that spoke to the time and changed people. For us as a people called on mission, we are invited to experience this newness and freshness of our faith in Christ everyday. The gift of his love is not stale. It gives itself away today and effects its power now. His Word of truth and love is not boring or dated but is given to us for the moment it is needed.

The impression so many have of the Church is that it is old fashioned and out of touch. This impression is certainly created when we leaders fail to offer the Word of God in vibrant and compelling ways for today, choosing instead a lazy way of repeating old and tired formulae. But it is also true that the Church is out of touch and thank God for that – if being in touch means conforming to modern mindsets that ignore or blur the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong. The Church must never lose her prophetic edge for what is much more important than thinking and doing the same as everyone else, is to be faithful to what is true and doing the good.

This is what King Solomon was commended for by God in the First Reading today – asking for the wisdom that knows the difference between right and wrong. He could have asked for riches, power or pleasure. God would have granted them to him but without the wisdom and prudence to distinguish good and evil, it would have destroyed him.

The same is true for today. People are encouraged to get what they want and do what they please. But without a sense of right and wrong, without a sense of good and evil, the way we use our freedom might destroy us and harm others. So, be careful for what we wish for. If a society and a culture loses its moral compass then it heads for disaster. Listen again to the words of St Thomas More: ‘When Statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of public duties, they lead their country a short route to chaos’.

In a message to young people, the late Pope Francis summons their great hopes and dreams with a teaching that is new. He says to the youth: ‘Everyone is born as an original, but many people end up dying as photocopies. Don’t let that happen to you!’ (Christ is Alive!) With these words, Pope Francis urged the youth and all of us to become new and renewed in our spirits and lives.

Similarly with Pope Leo XIV, who teaches us that God’s gift of love within us ‘must not only be protected but also nourished by a daily relationship with God in order to grow and bear fruit” (Message for World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 2026).

Finally, our faith is drawn from a storeroom that is over 2,000 years old. Ours is the faith of the Apostles, the prophets, the martyrs and the saints. Over two millennia, the Church has acquired a wisdom that has been distilled through the Scriptures and over centuries of human experience. Here is a vast reservoir of inspiration that we have received and that we draw from in order to live and understand God’s Word creatively and powerfully today. In the words of the letter to the Hebrews: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever’ (Heb. 13:8). The Christ that the Apostles proclaimed is the same Christ we believe in now.

Friends, today the Lord Jesus is teaching us wisely. He is telling us that his Word and his teaching are in continuity with the past but that his Word has an energy and a power that speaks to us today and to all those who are looking for new reasons to believe. Let us not be afraid to offer fresh food to a hungry world.