Saint Paul's Greatest Failure - Homily for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2025

 

Saint Paul’s Greatest Failure as a Preacher

I would like to preach about Saint Paul’s greatest failure as a preacher, how he learned from it, and what the implications are for us today.

About halfway through the Acts of the Apostles, it talks about how Saint Paul went to Athens.  And he is walking around Athens getting ready for his opportunity to address the philosophers in Athens.  Saint Paul sees all these different altars around town just off to the side of the roads.  There was an altar to Zeus, and candles and incense being lit at the altar by devotees of Zeus.  Maybe several hundred yards down the road, there was an altar to Aphrodite, with a statue of Aphrodite on it, and candles and incense being burned to honor her.

Saint Paul, at some point during his walk around Athens comes across an altar, as the inscription says, to “an unknown god” with no statue on it. 

Later that day, then, when Saint Paul gets his chance to speak to the people of Athens, he shares the experience of his walk through town and says “As I walked through your town, I came across an altar to an unknown god.  That is the god that I serve.”  And the people of Athens are completely unimpressed and say “we should like to hear more about this from you some other time” which means exactly what it does 2,000 years later – “we could care less.”

 

The Acts of the Apostles says after this, Saint Paul went to Corinth.

 

And when we read Saint Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, it is clear, right from the very start, that he has learned two HIGHLY valuable lessons from his Athens failure.  In Chapter 1 Saint Paul writes “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified.”

And in Chapter 2 Saint Paul says “When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified”

 

In Athens, Saint Paul did not mention the Name of Jesus, and he did not mention suffering.

 

In our Gospel today, when Jesus sends out the 72, they come back saying “Jesus, at the mention of your NAME, demons tremble.  In the Mass, and everywhere, when we hear the name of Jesus mentioned, we are to bow our heads.  If we hear someone take the name of Jesus in vain, we should charitably correct them, and ask them not to take the name of Jesus in vain.

 

So, getting to our 2^nd reading today, Saint Paul says “may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”

 

The lesson, it seems to me, is clear.  When we are talking to people, we should be mentioning the name of Jesus, and we should be talking about the power of the Cross; the power of suffering and offering our suffering up, and how that helps others and ourselves.  We should be, as Saint Paul says elsewhere, “boasting in our weaknesses” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

 

Let us never fail to mention Jesus’ Name when trying to spread the Good News of the Gospel with Joy, and may others see in us a joy in the midst of the various sufferings, big and small, that we encounter each day.  As St. Paul learns, those are the 2 things that will attract other people to also follow Jesus Christ.