There’s a tried-and-true formula for a good homily—taught in just about every seminary and preaching program: make three points.
In the case of Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, it’s: tell three stories—one to make you laugh, one to make you think, and one to move your heart. “It’s always three—never two, never one,” he says. Especially when preaching to young people who are stressed, traumatized or incarcerated, he’s learned: If you’re not telling stories, they’re not listening.
This year, we invited Greg to be our featured preacher on “Preach” for Easter Sunday. I had the joy of speaking with him about how he chooses the stories he tells in his books and homilies, carefully balancing the grit of his personal experiences with pastoral wisdom and care.
We talked about how vulnerability—openness to our own wounds and those of others—and deep compassion shape his life, his theology and his ministry, and how they find their way into his preaching, carrying their weight behind prison walls and far beyond.
Here’s an edited transcript of that conversation, condensed for length and clarity. You can read Greg’s full homily here.
Ricardo da Silva, S.J.: How is your ministry at Homeboy Industries reflected in your preaching?
Greg Boyle, S.J.: I primarily preach in detention facilities all over Los Angeles County. In the early days, there were 25 of them that I would go to on a rotating basis, but there are fewer now, and that’s probably a good thing—they’re trying to find alternatives to incarceration. But I still go to jails, juvenile halls and probation camps. So that’s where I’ve been preaching for 40 years, mainly. That’s my bread and butter.
Is that who you have in mind today for the homily that you’ve prepared for Easter Day?
This homily is not particularly and exclusively directed at somebody who’s incarcerated. You know, I think there’s obviously basic human elements to it that would have a broader appeal than just somebody who’s locked up. That would be the hope, at least.
But I always tell three stories in my homilies because if you’re not telling a story, then you’re gonna lose the audience. But particularly young people who are stressed out, traumatized and incarcerated, they’re really not gonna listen to you unless you’re telling stories. So that’s been sort of the key thing. I always tell a story that’ll make them laugh, a story that will make them think or move beyond the mind they have, which is what the definition of repent is, and then a story that will move them, perhaps even to tears. So it’s kind of in that order. It’s always, always three. It’s never two, it’s never one. It’s always three.
I was struck by how, though you shared lighter stories, you ended with a pretty grave ending for Easter Sunday. If we might talk, maybe strategically or in terms of technique, why is it that you decided to do that?
Well, because I’m always talking to kids who are traumatized and who are barricaded behind a wall of shame and disgrace. And the only thing that can scale that wall is tenderness. So you want to somehow penetrate the wall. You’re using a kind of language and story that they can connect to, with homies being playful and funny. To this day, I don’t know if that kid Anthony was serious or if he was playing with me. But they get the humor.
Even people outside the context of gang life and kids who are incarcerated, everybody has their wounds. And embracing the wounds is a way to ensure that you never despise the wounded, which is a way of living the risen life here and now. It becomes this way of mystical activism. It’s a way of seeing as God does.
I’m always preaching to a room full of usually gang members who are locked up. You also have other people there, volunteers, staff guards. And so you’re also connecting to them because everybody has wounds. And everybody feels less than, and everybody has a hard time acknowledging that they’re exactly right. So that’s just human. But because they’re stories, people are listening because you made them laugh, people are leaning in. And then you tell the hard story that maybe is difficult to hear, frankly, by some hugely traumatized people. But you hope to come out the other side. You’re always walking in their door and then hoping to walk them out a door where people can see and believe, as the Gospel says.
It’s amazing, this connection that you make to trauma, but then also a certain healing moment.
How do you capture these stories? How do you remember them?
Well, I try to remember them. I write them down. I put in a little piece of paper and I throw it in the back of my calendar book. And then at a certain time, I’ll go back and reach, and I’ll recall: “Oh, that’s right. That happened.” And then maybe sometimes, especially if I’m writing a book, I’ll write it out. But usually I’m adding it to a homily or to a talk that I give.
Nothing needs to be a full-blown story with a beginning, middle, and end. It’s just sometimes it’s a vignette—where you get a glimpse of something.
So I go: “O.K., the readings are Holy Thursday, the reading is Palm Sunday, what’s the content? What’s the message? O.K., here are three stories that illustrate that message.” And because over 40 years I’ve preached, I remember. And I try to mix and match because all these places I used to go to detention facilities, it would be once a month. And because of that, I would use the same stories for the month of April or whatever. So I had to force those three stories into every Gospel passage for the entire month. And it’s not that hard, you know, because you’re always gonna find the message that people need to hear.
It's kind of a system, but it keeps it fresh. You have a different audience for the entire month. So you’re at juvenile hall here, you’re at a probation camp there, you’re men’s central jail. And those are all different audiences, but they’re hearing the same three stories, stories with different repetitive content lines that you hope that they’ll remember.
Do you ask for permission to tell those stories generally speaking? Or do you gauge that for yourself?
Sometimes I change stories, like in my books, I do.
Sometimes if a story is too painful and too revealing, I’ll change the name. But I don’t really. Sometimes I ask permission. Sometimes I say: “Hey, I have a book coming out and you’re in it. And I, and I’m telling this story,” but I mean, homies are always [saying], “Oh my God, are you kidding? I’m honored.” No matter how thorny the story is, you know?
Let’s turn to that last story. In that last story where you spoke about “I welcome my wounds.” This is something difficult for people. You’ve referred to trauma—it’s difficult for all of us, and yet it is the story of the Resurrection, right? Even the risen Jesus has his wounds. How, as preachers, but also maybe just simply as human beings, can we find that hope of the resurrection—in spite of our wounds?
I think part of the moral of that story is that if you don’t welcome your own wounds, you will be tempted to despise the wounded. And that’s kind of where we are in our country at the moment. Why would people despise gang members, the homeless, the mentally ill, immigrants? The roots of despising the wounded really and truly are found in your unwillingness to make friends with your own woundedness. My wounds are my friends because otherwise, how can I help the wounded if I don’t welcome my own wounds?
Well, that’s kind of an insight that may or may not be readily available to us. But if you think about it, people don’t despise the wounded because they’re bad people. It’s because they’re strangers to themselves. They haven’t yet welcomed their own wounds. Once they do, watch what happens.
So we want to flee from our wounds. But in that last story, he was suggesting, “Well, what if you were to lean into the wounds?” which is very much Jesus. It’s really about acknowledging that the one with the wounds is telling us not to be afraid. The one with the wounds is saying, “It’s O.K.” The one with the wounds is leading us to be a beneficial, loving, compassionate presence to the wounded. And that’s a powerful thing. And complex. And it’s kind of the whole mystery, but you’re always wanting to have it be other-centered so it can be loving-centered, eventually.
When I’m preaching, I’m not shaking my fist at the congregation. “Do good and avoid evil” or “What’s wrong with you?” or “Are you working for peace and justice?” No. It goes from the inside-out, where people are feeling: “Wow. Yeah. That’s where the joy is, that I’m being invited to joy and, and that’s where I want to go.” But it’s other-centered, as opposed “How can we reinforce your private relationship with God?” God has no interest in that. You know? Today I will surrender into the arms of God and then choose to be those arms in the world. That’s the whole Law and the Prophets right there.
What does it mean for you and for each of us to have a personal encounter with the risen Christ?
I always say that we’re only saved in the present moment—I always say we’re invited to stay in the living room, which is where the risen Lord is. Otherwise, we’re lamenting yesterday and we’re in the restroom, or we’re anxious about tomorrow, and we’re in the kitchen. No, stay in the living room. It’s happening right now. Then all of a sudden, your lenses are about the risen Lord here and now in the struggle, in the loss, in the grieving, in the delighting, in people sharing their lives with each other. It’s happening right now. And so that’s the attention that we’re invited to give to the present moment as opposed to, well, here’s what I theoretically think the resurrection is about.
You don’t want to have time for that. You want to be able to say, I’m right here and I’m right now, and I’m breathing in the spirit that delights in my being, and now I’m breathing that out into the world because the world could use it. And there’s the person right in front of me.
This is hard to do. It is not hard to cherish people, but it’s really hard to remember to cherish people.
Just to give a real quick example. A good friend of mine who’s older than me got mugged and assaulted the other day by a homeless man, and hit over the head and knocked out with a concussion. And he told me that when he woke up lying on the ground in the street, he looked up and he could see the homeless man sitting on a step not far from him. And he said, I realized that he was just as scared as I was. And then he kind of corrected himself. He goes: “Did I say just as scared? I meant to say, just as sacred as I am.” And I thought, that’s exactly it. That’s the mystical view that seeing as God sees; that’s really hard to do. But I was so moved by that because I thought it was so fully truthful, equally: “Scared. What I really mean is sacred.” And, those are the kinds of things that happen in life daily.
If we’re attentive, we can really see others as God does and allow it to work on us.
