Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C) July 27, 2025

July 27, 2025 0 By BLACKCATHOLIC

The following transcript of the homily is in the original formatting that was used for the sake of live delivery with all cues, emphasis, and notes included.

Transcript:

“Then Abraham drew nearer and said: ‘Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?’ The LORD replied, ‘I will spare the whole place for their sake.’” Words from our first reading from the Book of Genesis.
In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Allow me to ask a blunt question.

Have you ever been tempted to wish that something bad would happen to another person that seemingly deserved it?

And that “something bad” may not necessarily be an overly terrible thing but maybe something just enough that the person in question gets their “comeuppance” so to speak – their just desserts.

Or maybe we are, in fact, tempted to wish for something beyond their just desserts.

But in either case, as we are thinking about that person perhaps in that moment Johnny Cash starts singing in our head and he says,

– “Sooner or later God’ll cut you down.”

Now, in that moment, that sentiment may be totally justified, and seemingly biblically fit in some sense because, quoting our first reading:

“The outcry against [him and/or her] is so great and their sin so grave” that God doesn’t even have to come down to see because anyone can see bright as day what they did!

However, allow me to ask another blunt question.

In the same vein as the famous Man in Black,

Aren’t we glad that sooner or later God doesn’t just “cut [US] down”?

You know, Abraham could have stood there with God, and before the LORD declared a judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah for their “sin so grave” and called on divine justice to cut them down.

And I’m sure that our various guardian angels wouldn’t be blamed too harshly if they stood here before God, quit their jobs in protest, and declare a judgment upon US for our grave sins and call on divine justice to cut US down.

But this does not happen to our many souls for the same reason it did not happen those two cities (at least at that particular moment).

And that is because there is something in the mix.

And that something is innocence.

Now, when it comes to Sodom, the issue is that though this city is filled with what is guilty, it is also inhabited by what is innocent.

The selection of our first reading from Genesis does not say in particular what the nature of their “sin so grave” is.

But all we need to know is that it is enough to make the city deserving of destruction.

However, not everyone in the city is guilty of it, and we know this because Abraham starts asking questions.

And not just any old questions, but the right ones for the ones in the wrong,

– the type of questions that keep the bodies of the wicked intact because they happen to have shoulders that rub up against the shoulders of the righteous.

If that city were to have heard Abraham’s questions, the wise in it would have thanked God.

But we should be thanking God, too. Why?

Because we have an Abraham in us that asks the same questions within our souls.

Because just like Sodom, our souls are filled with what is guilty and what is innocent.

And it is the Spirit of God who intercedes in us and asks the Great Judge on our behalf: “‘Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?’

For as long as I dwell in them: “Far be it from you to do such a thing'”

Now, for all that is innocence in us,

– aren’t we glad to have Someone looking out for us like Abraham did for the innocent ones in Sodom?

And for all that is guilty in us

– aren’t we glad that, in spite of that, God loves to give us second chances?

For sin is not just a violation of God’s Eternal Law committed through thought, word, or deed destructive to the individual,

But sin also has a spreading effect insidious to the entire community.

So this is why whole cities like Sodom and Gomorrah were wrapped up in grave offenses that condemned the very land that they sat upon.

And sin went through them like a disease that inhabited the very air they breathed.

Wickedness hung so heavy in the air that the weight of it threatened to let the full measure of God’s justice fall upon them with no escape.

– But except if it wasn’t for the 50, the 45, or the 40 goody-two-shoes still hanging down at the Sam’s Club buying groceries they might all be goners.

And if the last 30, the last 20, or the last 10 honest men and women in the city were all on vacation at the time Abraham was negotiating with God,

then the end might have come sooner than they realized.

But thank God that though justice called for punishment, mercy provided a reprieve for the sake of the innocent.

Because though God’s ultimate justice does not completely overlook righteousness’s triumph over wickedness, His mercy is willing to spare even the wicked for goodness sake.

– So they had better take heed of this chance for conversion bought for them through the repeated intercession of a righteous man named Abraham.

Thus, God showed Sodom a reprieve for the sake of the good still in it because persistence of prayer met the generosity of God, and mercy was born.

Now in our lives we stand in a similar way as the city Abraham was interceding for.

For though we commit crime, we are still baptized.

Though we transgress, we still confess.

Though we are weak, we still entreat His mercy.

Because though there can still be darkness in the heart of the believer,

The Light of God still comes to shine upon that darkness and bring the whole soul back to life again and again.

Though the world, the flesh, and the devil might stone us to death with the rocks of sin, the tables are turned.

Because after that we are “buried with [Christ] in baptism, in which [we are] also raised with him through faith in the power of God.”

And it is power of God that creates righteousness in us that WILL NOT DIE

if we keep near to the Lord of Mercy.

Thus, as God showed Sodom mercy for the sake of the good still in it,

God shows our souls mercy for the sake of the good still in them.