Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Bishop Peter Muhich
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 9, 2023

“I will praise your name forever, my King and my God.”

Those words put on our lips as the response to the first reading evoke the question, along certainly with the first reading and the Gospel this Sunday, of what it is like to have Jesus as our King? What’s it like to have Jesus as our King? 

That really is the question that in many ways emerges from this Sunday’s readings. Let’s take a look first at the first reading from the Book of the Prophet Zachariah. Jesus knew this Prophet well and modeled his ministry in many ways on Zachariah. In our first reading, we hear that the Prophet is dreaming of the day when the definitive Davidic king comes to his people Israel to usher in a kingdom of peace that will draw all the nations. This beacon of peace, this new way of life, brought by the definitive Davidic king, the heir of David, will draw the nations to Israel. 

There is underneath here, a central theme of the Bible. Adam, the first human being was king over the well-ordered garden of Eden. But then he sinned, and his kingship was corrupted and that allowed disorder to enter the realm. Ever since, God has been looking for those who would once again rule in his name justly, rightly. Carrying out His commands and so, attract the nations. The Prophets began to imagine a new Adam that would restore what was lost by the first Adam. Many of the Prophets share this vision and we know that Nathan sees in his day that David’s line as king would somehow perpetuate itself — would last forever. That David’s line, even though it was interrupted, would be restored by a new Adam, a new David who would gather the nations back to God.

So, we hear the Prophet in our first reading say, “rejoice Zion!” This is his vision, right? “Your King shall come to you. A just savior. He shall proclaim peace to the nations.”

Doesn’t that resonate with all of us. Deep down, we all know the world is disordered and in need of saving. I mean, just watch the news every day. Just pay attention to what’s happening out there. There’s lots of chaos and disorder. Deep down, we all long for a King who will set things right and put an end to injustice. How will this King come according to the scriptures? In peace. Riding, we hear in the Prophet’s vision, on a colt, the foal of a colt. That would be the right mount for an Israelite King coming in peace. I mean if he was coming in war, he’d be riding on a war horse. But the Prophet sees his coming at a colt, the foal of a colt, in humility and peace. 

This king will not fight his way to power. He will banish the weapons of war and come in peace. You see the old cycle that was born of sin is violence, and sin and disorder repeated over  the ages. One violent king supplanting another. The new way of the Prophet envisions breaks that cycle and ushers in a new way of living. Not just more of the same. Every mythology of world cultures has this idea of some sort of great strong military power that would overthrow its enemies. That’s how we look at things in the fallen world.

Zachariah says there’s a new way of looking at things and a new life coming. And so, we see Jesus in the Gospel this Sunday, and we remember back in Holy Week how he enters Jerusalem precisely on a colt, the foal of an ass. He enters the Holy City of David just as Zachariah said he would, as a peaceful King who would banish the weapons of war and usher in a whole new way of ordering things. And of course, we saw that play out during Holy Week when Jesus submits to the Cross, which represents all the dysfunction and disorder of the fallen world: sin, hatred, selfishness, greed. Jesus amazingly submits to it all it takes it upon himself in his Passion and death on a Cross, absorbing all of it and swallowing it up in God’s infinite divine mercy, and then rises triumphant from the dead showing his Lordship, his power over that old order of darkness, sin, and death. Jesus shows that what Zachariah prophesied comes true in him. That’s really the heart of the Gospel. There is a way out of our trouble, our disorder. There is a way to overthrow sin.

We hear Jesus in the Gospel today say, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Who’s he talking to? Well, all of us caught up in that old order of dysfunction inherited from Adam. We live under the burden of the old way. Violence begetting violence. Hatred, hatred. Vengeance and vengeance. Greed begetting greed. We’re all caught up in this. All of us. We’re labored and burdened.

What is the answer? To come to Jesus. To submit to his Kingship. To take his yoke upon our shoulders. A yoke on a beast of burden seems like a very burdensome thing, but in reality, His yoke is easy and his burden light. You see, it’s the old order that’s burdensome and heavy. Not the new way of love. 

So, the question for all of us this Sunday is to remember that Jesus came to set us free and to ask ourselves, have we submitted to his Kingship? We say “I will praise your name forever, my King and my God.” Does that ring true when we say it? Have we really laid our lives in the hands of the one who has come to give us his holy love which has the power to set us free.