Homilies

Urged on by false doctrines and a want to believe that there can be no such thing as eternal punishment for serious wrongs when Jesus is a God of love and kindness, many have thrown hell out the window along with any concern for sin in their lives. After all, if there is no hell, then why would we need to worry about sin?  Yet Jesus spoke more often on the subject of hell than heaven.

 

In today’s gospel, he uses the Gehenna to paint a picture of hell that his listeners could relate to. It was the ever-burning rubbish dump of Jerusalem where the city’s garbage and trash cans were emptied. As you can imagine, it had become a foul, unclean place, which smoked and smoldered at all times like a vast incinerator. In the mind of his listeners, there was no grimmer or more terrible place on earth. 

 

The Church certainly does not view hell as a myth. While we often hear that hell is the destiny for anyone who dies in a state of mortal sin, the Church has never taught that anyone has in fact, died in a state of mortal sin because we never know what manner of contrition may take place if any before a person dies. Hell should not be seen as a place created by God into which God casts sinners. Instead, hell can best be understood as a self-chosen state for those who have chosen to alienate themselves from God, not as a punishment that God inflicts on unrepentant sinners.

 

It is not God who rejects the sinner, but the sinner who rejects God. 

 

Our Catechism points out, “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves…To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of self-exclusion is called ‘hell.’” (1033)

 

Hell is best understood as the state of being utterly alone in self-chosen isolation, not literally a place of fire. Hell is theoretically possible for anyone of us if we end our lives totally rejecting goodness and God.  Has any person ended his or her life in this condition? We do not know. Could anyone do so?  Most definitely. As a product of our free will we could choose to live apart from God in this lifetime and many of us do. We could be so utterly absorbed and trapped in ourselves to the point that we see no need for God’s company, much less his love and mercy.

 

Jesus uses rather graphic language to grab our attention. I doubt any of us would literally follow his advice and mutilate ourselves in any way nor would he want us to but with this descriptive language Jesus is challenging us to realize that eternal life is worth any sacrifice if that takes away the temptations that stand in the way between us and God. Behind his warnings, I hear a call to humility. We shouldn’t be so proud of ourselves that we lose vigilance against our fallen nature or give into the lies of the devil who is constantly trying to convince us that we don’t need God in our lives. 

 

As James implies in his letter, at the root of all pride is a yearning for self-sufficiency at the expense of others, which is so contrary to the message of the gospel. If you recall, that is what drove Adam and Eve to break God’s command in the Garden of Eden; they tried to become like God, which is what a fair number of so-called Christians have done. Having become so able to take care of their earthly needs, they see little need for God in this lifetime, so quite likely they will see no need for God in the next lifetime as well.

 

Life is full of choices. Every day we can expect to find ourselves in situations that demand a choice between right and wrong, but how watchful are we in avoiding sin? How readily do we seek to do God’s will in our daily lives?

 

Sometimes I have disappointed people because I have told them that the choice they made was a grave sin. In reply, one person asserted that God does not demand perfection in exchange for his love and accepts us for who we are. I told her she was right, but I cautioned her not to confuse who you are with what you do.

 

Leaving aside the question of guilt, mortal sin, and hell, every choice we make creates us, forms us, and gives shapes to our souls. Yes, God created us, but we create ourselves as the unique individual persons that we become. By our choices, we define who are. Do the choices we make reflect a personal desire to be with God forever in heaven or not? As his followers, we must be willing to sacrifice even what is most precious to us to enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

Jesus informed his apostles, “Anyone who is not against us is with us.” Are we with him or not? The choices we make each day speak louder than any answer we could vocalize. Hopefully when the moment comes to stand before him, we will allow Jesus to look us in the eye, embrace us lovingly and say, “Welcome to my Father’s house for you are indeed one with us!”

Today’s reading from James asks and answers a timely question. Where do wars and conflicts come from? All around us on the international scene there are wars and even rumors of WW III. Why is peace so elusive? James, the master of wisdom, traces the origins of conflict to jealousy and selfish ambition.  No wonder even close to home, one is bound to find conflicts in our communities, churches and families. The consequences of which can be very damaging as anyone who has experienced a broken home well knows.

 

James offers an antidote, but unfortunately, we ignore his prescription because instead of making any serious efforts at cultivating peace by striving to be righteous, we do covet, we do envy, and we do resent. So long as we do, evil will remain a reality in our midst. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian novelist, once wrote, “If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  He later notes that while it is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, it is possible to constrict evil within each person. To do that, Jesus suggests that we begin by embracing faith in a child-like manner.

 

What he did in the gospel reminds me of a scene from the novel, Clowns of God, by Morris West.  Jesus makes his presence known in the midst of a small French community on Christmas Eve.  A terrified world is bracing for a nuclear holocaust.

 

As a small group of political and church leaders look on, Jesus lifts a mentally handicapped child out of her high chair, kisses her and places her on his knees. He dips a crust of bread in wine and feeds her, morsel by morsel. As he does so, he says:

 

“I know what you are thinking. You need a sign. What better one could I give than to make this little one whole and new? I could do it; but I will not. I am the Lord and not a conjuror. I gave this mite a gift I denied all of you—eternal innocence. To you she looks imperfect—but to me she is flawless, like the bud that dies unopened or the fledgling that falls from the nest to be devoured by ants. She will never offend me, as all of you have done. She will never pervert or destroy the work of my hands. She is necessary to you. She will evoke the kindness that will keep you human. Her infirmity will prompt you to gratitude for your own good fortune…More! She will remind you that every day I am who I am, that my ways are not your ways, and that the smallest dust mote whirled in the darkest space does not fall out of my hand…I have chosen you. You have not chosen me. This little one is my sign to you. Treasure her!”

 

Undoubtedly, the apostles were startled that Jesus used a child to reprimand them for their squabble. He had just told them for the second time of his pending passion and death, but they still didn’t get the message. Still anticipating an earthly kingdom, they had been arguing about who among them was the greatest. In the eyes of Jesus, none of them were. Instead, he implies that a child is.  “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” Children had no status, so that had to have been one eye opening statement for the apostles to hear.

 

The poorest and the neediest, the forgotten and rejected, the “least” and the “lowly,” are represented by the child in this gospel passage.  By embracing a child, Jesus is calling on us to embrace the uncomplicated yet genuine faith of a child that we adults sadly tend to outgrow; to love God and others without condition or expectation. “Child-like” faith never becomes cynical or jaded; it never ceases to be amazed and it is grateful for the many ways God reveals his presence in our lives. The power of such simple faith is its ability to overcome every rationalization, fear, complication and agenda in order to mirror the selflessness nature of Jesus.

 

By embracing child-like kindness, compassion, generosity, and forgiveness, we can attain true greatness in the kingdom of God. In the service we give and the respect we afford others as children of God, we welcome into our midst the very presence of God. Our love for them reminds us of the love of God for us despite our failings, our sins, and our distortion of God’s creation for our own self-centered ends.

 

Welcoming everyone is a sign that we have begun to constrict the evil that can be found lurking in our hearts. That is a big step we can all do personally toward bringing about the peace we yearn for.

 

A great and powerful Chinese statesman once journeyed to the humble hermitage of the wise master. He asked, “Master, what is the deep meaning of Buddhism?”  The mystic replied, “Do nothing evil, only do good.”

 

The statesman exclaimed, “That’s it? That’s all you have to say? Why, even a three year old could say this!” The Master answered, “A three year old may be able to say it, but can an 80 year old adult practice it?”

 

Good question. Can we? Just think, if we all did, wouldn’t the world be a better place?

Ah, even Jesus gave pop quizzes.  In today’s gospel he poses two rather interesting questions to his disciples. First he asked, “Who do people say that I am?” After they offered a few short answers, he then asked, “But who do you say that I am?” Many people have told you who they think Jesus is, but who do you say Jesus is? Our personal answer to that question makes all the difference in the way we approach both Jesus and life.

 

Peter spoke up and said, “You are the Christ.”  To a good number of us, his answer comes as no surprise because we attached an aura of divinity to that title. We call Jesus the Christ because he is the son of God.  But for Peter, Christ was simply a title announcing that Jesus was God’s anointed one; it did not connote any notion of divinity. To the contrary, the disciples still viewed Jesus in earthly terms, seeing him as one who would liberate them from the oppression of the Romans.  Peter anticipated a royal kingdom, much like John and James did when they asked if they could sit one on either side of Jesus when he comes into his glory.

 

Jesus didn’t disagree with Peter but he warned the disciples not to tell anyone about him. He knew that they still didn’t understand his role as the Christ, so he proceeded to tell them that contrary to their expectations, he had to suffer greatly.  What he said scandalized Peter who then tried to rebuke him. Peter meant well, never expecting to be rebuked himself in very strong terms. “Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Jesus had a mission to complete and he wasn’t about to let anyone, including Peter, talk him out of it.

 

Jesus could say the same about most of us since few of us think as God does, which is why we fail to fully appreciate what Jesus is asking us to do as his disciples.  

Instead of telling Peter how to think as God does, Jesus hits him and the crowd broadside with the command, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  That doesn’t sound too enticing, does it? Taking up the cross is some thing few of us care to do, but if we are to experience our own resurrection, Jesus is telling us we must first share in his passion and death. He isn’t offering us an easy way out, but keep in mind, he isn’t asking us to do anything that he hasn’t done first.

 

In a nutshell, picking up our cross means having to make some difficult decisions at times, moral decisions that can be counter-cultural and unpopular amongst our peers. To deny ourselves means that never again will I choose what I want over what God wants of me.  In effect, if we truly follow Jesus as his disciples, listening to him, we will be saved.  There is a name for that kind of surrender; it’s called faith. 

 

Whether we follow Christ or not by picking up our cross, life is difficult but life won’t be as difficult if we accept his advice and be one with him.  That is the paradox of this gospel. In our suffering, we can and will find life and true freedom.  If we were to think like God does, we could see that the cross is the path to happiness.

 

The greatest act of faith that we can make is to say to God, “I don’t know the reason for the cross you sent me, but I will pick it up and carry it anyway, simply because your son, Jesus, said that I should.” Almost anyone can carry a cross if he or she can see the reason for it. But it takes people of great love and faith to carry a cross when they can’t see the reason for it.

 

A rabbi offers this insight for doing just that. He had to make a long journey so he set out with his donkey, an oil lamp and his bible.  The first night, he tried to stay at an inn, but there was no room. He didn’t get angry. Instead, he said, “God knows best, he always has his reasons.” And so he camped under the stars. He tried to light his lamp but the wind kept blowing out the flame. After many attempts, he finally said, “God knows best, he always has his reasons.”

 

Around midnight, he woke up with a start and discovered that a thief had stolen his donkey. Again he said, “God knows best, he always has his reasons.” 

 

The next day the rabbi discovered that during the night a band of barbarians had attacked the village, killing everyone. Had he stayed at the inn, he would have been killed. He also learned that the barbarians came to the stream looking for travelers. He realized that had they seen him reading his bible by his lamp or heard his donkey bray, they would have killed him.  That night when the rabbi knelt to say his prayers, he said, “Lord, you know best; you always have your reasons.”

 

That story teaches us an important lesson; we should look upon everything, even our moments of suffering, with eyes of faith.  As the rabbi said, “God knows best; he always has his reasons.” Taking up the cross may not make sense or be appealing to us at times but God has his reasons.

 

Because they are an integral part of life, we cannot avoid suffering and sorrow, but we can turn them into something that will draw us closer to God instead of driving us farther away. Just as a coin has two sides, we will discover that the reverse side of every cross contains a blessing far greater than the cross itself.  That is the good news Jesus wishes to share with us today.  Have we the faith to believe him?

Unbeknown to my parents, I had a stroke at birth that caused my hearing loss. For the first few years my mother knew something was amiss but not until I was three did she realize I had trouble hearing. With the help of a speech therapist, I learned to talk when I was four years old. The joke in the family was it took me so long to learn to talk but I still have yet to learn when to be quiet.

 

A few years later my parents took me to Lourdes, hoping for a miracle. What they hoped for didn’t happen but at least God gave me enough hearing to survive in the hearing world. As some of you know, without my hearing aids, I do live in a world of silence, so I can well imagine how the deaf man felt when he heard sound for the first time.

 

This miracle stands apart from most of the miracle incidents in the gospels. Taking the deaf man aside and putting his finger in the man’s ears, Jesus groaned and said to him, “Ephphatha!” which in his native language meant, “Be opened!” And as we heard, the man’s ears were opened. Now he could hear and speak plainly.

 

Those who witnessed what happened were astonished.  Even though Jesus told them to keep quiet, they wouldn’t. “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  Who could blame them for proclaiming this miracle to anyone that would listen? Would you keep quiet if I no longer needed my hearing aids?

 

They undoubtedly heard Jesus but were they listening? That reminds me of an incident between Dennis the Menace and Margaret that appeared years ago. In the first panel, Dennis is walking with his dog, Ruff, and Margaret who is jabbering away. Her prattle continues but clearly Dennis has her tuned out. In the next scene, Margaret is pelting Dennis with her doll saying, “Dennis Mitchell! You aren’t listening to me!”  The final panel has Dennis replying, “Margaret, I’m listening to you; it’s just that I’m not paying any attention!”

 

Actually, I would take issue with Dennis on that. There is a difference between hearing and listening. The latter requires attentiveness while the former does not. Dennis was hearing Margaret, but he certainly wasn’t listening to her. 

 

How readily are we listening to Jesus? You heard the gospel but are you open to his message? While I don’t think anyone here is literally deaf, a fair number of Christians act as though they are spiritually deaf. They hear what Jesus has to say all right but for any number of reasons they aren’t really listening to him.

 

Too bad we won’t listen and heed his message. Imagine what a better place the world would be today if all peoples listened to the good news of salvation. For one thing, sin and evil wouldn’t prevail and we wouldn’t be in the midst of a war five years after the tragedy of nine-eleven.

 

Two years before that fateful day, the world mourned the passing of two women who made a difference in the lives of many because they did listen to God. They heard the cry of the poor and responded generously with open arms and voices. Have we forgotten the example of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana? They reached out to the downtrodden, the sick, the homeless, and the dying. They touched the hearts of many by what they did and by what they said, daring others to follow their example.

 

What opened their hearts was the suffering they witnessed. The world is a better place today because these two women listened and dared to make a difference. I cannot help but wonder if the tragedy of nine eleven would have been averted if the seeds of envy that drove some extremists to act as they did would have withered had more Christians followed James’ advice and shown no partiality toward others as Mother Teresa and Princess Diana did.  Alas, we are paying the price for not being listening well to what Jesus has to say.

 

How easily we hear only what we want to hear and no more: just enough to confirm our prejudices and preconceptions before we stop listening altogether. Selective hearing seems to be a common trait, as many parents and their children well know. Yet such limited hearing does not make this a better world for anyone in the end.

 

How closed minded are we to God and to others? If there is any line to be remembered from today’s readings, I would say it is, “Be opened!”  We become isolated from one another when we refuse to listen and speak out, as God would have us do. After all, aren’t most conflicts –between individuals, groups and nations—caused by people not open to what could bring about peace? Thinking back to some of my recent confrontations, I blame myself for not being open- minded to what the other person was trying to say.

 

In the midst of the noise that surrounds us, Jesus wants us to be open to God’s presence when we are overwhelmed by disappointment, jealousy, rejection, envy and anger to see the possibilities we have before us and to realize the joy of bringing God’s peace and forgiveness into our lives and the lives of others. But for that to happen, we must be willing to truly listen to what Jesus keeps trying to say to us about building up the kingdom of God and to see that we too can be healers.  So, my friends, “Be open!” As Mother Teresa said, “We are all pencils in the hand of God.”

A Christian and a Jew were talking about the ways of their respective religions. “You people,” said the Jew, “have been taking things from us for thousands of years. For instnace, the Ten Commandments.” “Well, yes,” admitted the other, “We took them from you all right, but you can’t say that we’ve kept them!”

 

At least that Christian was being honest. We don’t always keep them, which is why we begin the Mass asking for God’s forgiveness. In today’s readings, we are told to carefully observe God’s decrees. We shouldn’t add to them, as the Pharisees did, nor subtract from them as some of us tend to, so that we don’t lose sight of what really matters to God.

 

And what really matters? James gives us a concise answer when he wrote, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” In biblical times, orphans and widows depended on others for their survival. Our response then and now to the less fortunate says much about our relationship with God.

 

What does James mean by keeping ourselves unstained from the world? For starters, we must be honest about the reality of sin in our lives, a subject few of us care to dwell on. Let’s not kid ourselves. Sin is the very reason why our religion even exists. Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins, dying on the cross so that we could be forgiven. CS Lewis once said, “Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness.”

 

In today’s gospel, Jesus confronts one such group. They criticized others for things like not washing hands before eating and improper care of utensils, yet the Pharisees had a way of ignoring their own faults. Jesus provides them with an  examination of conscience as he points out that what defiles a person comes from within, evil thoughts, the lack of chastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, and folly.

 

In short, Jesus calls a spade a spade. We don’t care to hear what he has to say about sin, so we often fudge a bit. For example, cohabitating has become an acceptable lifestyle. Our laws say that abortions are legal, but neither choice is morally right and like any sin, anything morally wrong has the potential to really harm us and others.

 

In giving the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, Moses urged them to “observe them carefully, for thus will you give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations.”

 

To paraphrase James, we should humbly welcome what God has given us and act accordingly.  He is warning us that if all we do is listen, we are deceiving ourselves.  God’s commandments are really meant to serve as blueprints for living life wisely and well, not burden us.  When done, that brings us freedom. Not freedom in the sense of doing what we please at the expense of others, but freedom from what can and will harm us emotionally, spiritually, or physically.

 

God is urging us to set the example for the world around us instead of allowing the world to stain us with its profane examples. Like the Pharisees, some of us can easily lose sight of what matters and be more concerned, for example, with how our rituals are performed than the tragedy of abortion, domestic violence, world hunger and homelessness.  Our catechism points out, “…man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His dignity lies in observing this law, and by it he will be judged.”  That is why I hear Jesus challenging us to be honest with ourselves. 

 

Years ago, I ran across a poem entitled, The Devil’s Beatitudes, which warns that all that is needed for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing.

 

“Blessed are those who are too tired, busy, or disorganized to meet with fellow Christians on Sundays each week. Their hearts are not in it.

“Blessed are those who enjoy noticing the mannerisms of clergy and choir, their hearts are not in it.

“Blessed are those Christians who wait to be asked and expect to be thanked, I can use them.

“Blessed are the touchy. With a bit of luck they may even stop going to church. They are my missionaries.

“Blessed are those who claim to love God at the same time as hating other people, they are mine forever.

“Blessed are the trouble makers. They shall be called my children.

“Blessed are those who have no time to pray. They are easy prey for me.

“Blessed are you when you read this and think it is about other people and not about yourself. I’ve got you!”