Mass readings for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Sirach 15.15-20 Psalm 119.1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34 1 Corinthians 2.6-10 Matthew 5.17-37
The gospel we just heard, well, it rarely get’s any tougher than that. I know for some these words are “problematic” – they are not in keeping with the preferred welcoming message of unconditional love and acceptance; and while not many will deny what is said, but like a lot of us, one gets caught up in today’s emotional zeitgeist: there is this idea, or really it’s less than an idea, the sensibility that we shouldn’t mention things that are upsetting even when they are true.
What Jesus has said is hard to hear; and the call to perfection, that’s something that can only discourage. Discourage, of course, if this is all we ever heard from Jesus – disheartening, if we take it in isolation from the rest of the Gospel.
Now, just because I say truthfully that we should not hear these words apart from the rest of the gospel, this doesn’t mean that the list of sins that we heard can be put aside through some clever discussion of understanding them in terms of its “historical context.” No, these are sins, and serious ones; and the call to spiritual perfection is not hyperbole – it’s actual. We are caught in our sins. Nonetheless, we must aspire to perfection, because only in that perfection are we worthy of communion with God, only in that purity of soul are we fit for redemption, salvation and eternal life.
Frankly, were I acting as an attorney for humanity and we were contemplating our court date, I’d have to tell us all, “it doesn’t look good.”
However, the message of the gospel is one that tells us to recognize our predicament, acknowledge our sin, and then to reach out to God, the God who saves through Christ; the God who grants mercy and then brings us to perfection in Christ.
The nub of it all is in that choice of reaching out, in our response to God that opens us to grace that gives us just enough courage and strength to say “yes” to God, and “no” to sin and death. The “yes” doesn’t mean we won’t sin; it will not keep us from the grave in this life. But the “yes” does mean we have recognized our need for God, and He will respond to us; and that the grave cannot hold us, death will not win.
This challenge to make that answer recurs over and over again in the history of salvation with the making and remaking of covenants; between God and Noah, then God and Abraham, then God and the Israelites with Moses, then God and Israel with David, and so on in the Old Testament, continuing into the New and then on into the history of last two thousand years; this simple choice, the act of faith, and the resolve to follow through without condition. And, of course, what unravels each covenant, including the one we each make in our own baptismal commitment, is this making of conditions, of applying worldly sophistication to parsing our promises so as to nullify our obligations while holding God to His.
However, as Jesus puts it, anything other than a “yes” or “no” comes of evil. The simplicity of our vow should inform the way we live – no excuses, just get down to the hard work done in humility (and to reference the words of Saint Paul, with a good measure of “fear and trembling”) – that is, in contrast to the sensibilities of our schizophrenic culture.
On the one hand we have the message of the “self-esteem” movement, you know: “I’m okay, you’re okay” – that we deserve the realization of our desires, both material and spiritual, failure to get them makes us victims. This is opposed by those who live according to that harsh notion that we get what we deserve, and the answer to our problems is hard work and that will earn us a success that is our own to boast of. If you’re in a bad place, it’s time to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
The gospel tells us there should be a lot humility in estimating our own character – we have lots of stories of apostles presuming a little too much about their status because “Hey, I know Jesus.” Honesty about ourselves will lead us to sympathy and generosity towards others who struggle with their own failings and sins as they cope with the tragedies of life that can overwhelm even the best of us.
I love that line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “if we all got what we deserve, none of us would escape a whipping.” And, again, that’s all of us. However, I’m inclined to balance that picture of us all as guilty sinners with the idea that we are all equally afflicted by sin, and longing to be cured of it. I’ve used this quote from G.K. Chesterton before, “we are all in the same boat, and we are all seasick.”
It’s not a complicated life we’re called to live, it’s just really difficult, especially as we face a world that dissuades us from making the good answer and of sticking to our commitment. As I mentioned last week, we are a target. Jesus said we are a city on a hill that cannot be hid. And I told you that the light within you, sparked at baptism, breathed into flame in confirmation, fed in the receiving of the Eucharist, that just doesn’t attract those drawn to by its heat, light and the hope it brings – it also brings the forces of darkness that hate it.
Those dark forces might be harder to resist if they came in the form of outright persecution, but they really do come to us more like the serpent who seduced Eve – with a message of doubt about God, his goodness, or that he even exists; but also, the offer of easy answers for what ails us. In my own story of conversion, and you’ve heard bits and pieces before, my problem as a young man came in that way.
Having been raised a Christian, knowing the commandments, and not in a legalistic, “Pharisee” kind of way, but with a sense that I was to be kind, to be helpful, to not be judgmental; I nonetheless failed in that essential element of Christian life which is to put my faith in God and not myself. I did not have, and I don’t have the spiritual strength to affect my salvation. So, as a young man, as I repeatedly failed, as I sinned against God and fellow human beings, I couldn’t grasp that my need for forgiveness and redemption could be answered by God, I looked for remedies for my guilt and shame elsewhere. I wanted love, acceptance, even admiration, for who I was; or rather, who I imagined I was.
The world will appear to offer us what we need, if we give ourselves to the world, but the deal is that then we must say “no” to God and his covenant in favour of the world’s compact in sin and death. Then the world, far from filling our need, will then make our excuses for us – that we are victims, be it of circumstance, of the evil of others, that we are more sinned against than sinning, and so are pardoned; or as in today’s secular atheistic culture, we are simply excused because sin is just a fiction; a tool of oppression from which we must be liberated.
And if you watched the Grammies recently, the awards handed out by the American music industry, you would have seen a celebration of that liberation – and for once, an honest expression of what that looks like. Now, the good news in that is that hardly anyone is watching anymore as people are turning away in disgust (the ratings for all these pop culture awards are crashing) but its equally good that they are showing themselves for what they are, demonic, satanic – the feature performance of the broadcast was a song entitled “Unholy” with performers costumed as demons and devils. The even better part of it all, is that far from being shocking, it all looked quite ridiculous; it’s not even worth watching for laughs. Metaphorically speaking, we can see the serpent slithering through the grass; but can we crush him?
God knows what you need. That is why Christ has entered the world. He is God’s wisdom made flesh that stands against the so-called “wisdom of this age.” Christ comes to crush the lies under his heel. Today, through our worship and our communion, let’s renew that “yes” to what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him. Amen.