(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
The Latin word semper means always; the Latin word ubi means where; the Latin word sub means under. Semper ubi sub ubi translates, for the adolescent new Latin student: “always wear underwear.” It is a bad joke for us here, but it has a point. Underwear is so singularly one’s own that usually nobody wants to wear another’s underwear.
God told Jeremiah to buy some underwear, wear it and then bury it. Later, when God told Jeremiah to retrieve the underwear, Jeremiah found it rotten and useless and so threw it out.
Underwear, by its nature, so clings to a person and the person almost identifies with the underwear. God wears us so intimately close to self that God identifies that self with us. In other words, God has made us to be God’s people, God’s renown, God’s praise and God’s beauty.
We have a choice, to be God’s people, God’s renown, God’s praise and beauty or to be a rotten piece of underwear. We can let our lives sing out praise and glory to God as God’s own people, or we can be a stinky, revolting, rotten piece of underwear. Our God will always remain close to us, closer than underwear, but we have the power to be far away from God, like a useless piece of underwear. We can reject God, but God will always love us.
Always wear underwear, but always be clean underwear for God to use in proclaiming the goodness and mercy of God.