Homily for 31 August 2014, the 12th Sunday after Pentecost--Are We Possessed by Our Possessions?

Homily for 31 August 2014:  Are We Possessed by Our Possessions?

12^th Sunday after Pentecost (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)                    (Matthew 19:16-26)

 

When we hear the parable of the rich young man, we often concentrate on the last verses, in which Jesus says it will be “hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven” and that it will be “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”

Maybe this is because everyone is rich, or thinks they’re rich, or dreams of being rich—and they don’t want to be condemned or punished for what they’ve achieved or their success in business or in their professions.

One way to deal with this anxiety is to decide that only people with more money than I have are rich, so this saying of Jesus doesn’t apply to me:  I’m safe!

Or we could actually look carefully at the whole story and discover what Jesus is actually telling us.  Maybe this story isn’t necessarily about how evil rich people are.

A rich young man asks Jesus, “What good works must I do to have eternal life?”  He seems to be sincere, not a show-off trying to trick Jesus.  He seems to understand that salvation to eternal life depends on how you live—on “good works”—not just on obeying the letter of the Law.

Jesus’s first response might strike us as strange:  “Why do you ask me about what is good?  There is only One who is good.”  Is Jesus denying that He is God, the One who is good?  Is He saying that He doesn’t know what is good?

In fact, I think Jesus is telling the young man that he doesn’t even need to ask this question, because God, the One who is all-good, has already provided the answer?:  “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”  At that time, the Jews to whom Jesus was preaching would have been very familiar with the commandments—God’s instructions to God’s people, telling them how to live in a way pleasing to God.

When the young man then asks, “Which commandments?” he’s not being a smart-aleck.  Considering all the different commandments and explanations in the whole Jewish Law, he wants to know which ones are essential.  So Jesus tells him, and sums them up with “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If we do that, we will also obey all the rest.

But the young man still has a sense that there’s something more he needs to know:  “I’ve kept all those commandments; what do I still lack?”  He follows all the rules, but he knows that’s not enough—at least for him.

So Jesus moves the discussion to the next level:  “If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions, give to the poor, then come follow me.”  And the young man goes away sad, because he has many possessions.

Like many of us, the young man feels that he cannot make the ultimate complete commitment to Christ.  We want to be perfect—don’t we?—but then we don’t want to give up everything we have in order to follow Christ.

As the young man somehow realized, it all comes down to what is essential:  1)  What good works are necessary for eternal life?  2)  Which commandments are necessary to follow?  3)  Do you want to be perfect?

So this Gospel lesson isn’t about the evil of being rich; it’s about the potential evil of possessions.  (Being rich isn’t evil in itself—it means that you have more money to give to the church and to help others.)  If we have possessions, we are in control of them; we can sell them or give them away or use them for good works or walk away from them.  They are not essential.

But if, instead, our possessions take possession of us—if we are possessed—then we’re not in control; we can’t get free from them.  They have become essential to our lives.  And if possessions are essential, then God is non-essential.  And it will be exceedingly difficult for us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

If we wish to be perfect, we have to understand that only God is essential.  Only God is truly good—and our goodness comes from doing God’s will.  As St Paul says, “I am what I am by the grace of God.”

If we wish to be perfect, understanding this is a lifelong process.  It is a journey from where we are—sinful, but hopeful—towards the perfection of God’s love and mercy and justice.

If we wish to be perfect, we have to keep the commandments—especially the spirit of the commandments, summed up in “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

And, finally, if we wish to be perfect, we have to clear out all the non-essential things from our lives—all those possessions that threaten to possess us.  And we have to focus on what’s truly important—beyond just doing good works.  As St Paul says, “what is of first importance,” which he handed on after receiving it:  the truth of God’s love expressed in the voluntary death and triumphant resurrection to life of Jesus Christ, our Lord, God, and Savior.

To Him, and to His Almighty Father, and to His All-Holy and Life-giving Spirit,  be thanks and praise and glory, now and ever and unto ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for 24 August 2014, the 11th Sunday after Pentecost--If We Want Forgiveness We Have to Forgive

Homily for 24 August 2014:  If We Want Forgiveness We Have to Forgive

11^th Sunday after Pentecost (1 Corinthians 9:2-12)                    (Matthew 18:23-35)

 

The message of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ in today’s Gospel reading is clear and simple.  It shouldn’t take very many words to talk about it:  if we want God to forgive us for our sins, we must forgive people who sin against us.  If we want forgiveness, we have to forgive.

That’s it.

I would like to stop talking here.  The word of the Lord should be enough.

But I know from personal experience that it is not enough to convince us and change us without a lot of reinforcement.  Forgiving can be very hard.  When someone sins against us—by physically or emotionally hurting us or someone we love or something we value—usually we want to hurt them in return.  And then we expect God to forgive us because we feel that our feelings and actions are justified.

But Jesus’s point in the parable of the unforgiving servant is that we can’t have this kind of double standard that says “I’m OK but you’re not.”  If we want forgiveness, we have to forgive.

We usually try again to justify ourselves.  We say that the person who offended us acted unreasonably, irrationally, selfishly, pridefully—while we acted in a reasonable, thoughtful, objective way.

However, we cannot actually make that judgement.  We don’t know what is going on inside the other person’s brain and heart.  We don’t know all the circumstances of that person’s life that may have caused him or her to act as he or she did.  And if we judge and condemn that person anyway, we are the ones whose pride and love of self has taken control.

Sometimes we also need to remember that cultural differences can make people act in ways that are offensive or unexplainable to us.  We think that all Christians share basic values and so should always understand each other and never hurt each other.  But it is clear from experience that Christian values are influenced bu the cultural values of society at large.

An American Christian once told me that my job as a clergyman was to pray for the defeat of the “enemies” of his political organization.  A Middle-Eastern Christian once told me that Christian values required him to kill his son if that son disgraced the family.  I have a hard time accepting those ideas as Christian values.  But I must understand how they are influenced by cultural values.  And that helps me to forgive.

Ultimately, forgiving is something we must do in faith.  It doesn’t depend on the other person’s being sorry or apologizing or even realizing that he or she did something wrong.  It doesn’t depend on the other person at all.  It’s not a trade.  It simply is what we must do if we love God and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of the world.  Our salvation depends on it.

Unless each one of us forgives our brothers and sisters from our heart, our heavenly Father will not forgive us.  And all of us, without exceptions, need God’s forgiveness.

And so, knowing what we must do and that God will give us the strength to do it, we give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and ever and unto ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for 17 August 2014, the 10th Sunday after Pentecost--Prayer and Fasting

Homily for 17 August 2014:  Prayer and Fasting

10^th Sunday after Pentecost (1 Corinthians 4:9-16)                    (Matthew 17:14-23)

 

The Gospels don’t contain many examples of Jesus’s getting angry, and His outburst in today’s reading seems especially surprising because it’s hard to understand why He suddenly calls his disciples a “faithless and perverse generation” and asks how long He will have to endure them.

It’s as though He suddenly snaps and asks them, “Haven’t you learned anything, following me around?  This poor man asked you to heal his son’s mental illness and you couldn’t even do that!  Do I have to do everything myself?”

Then, after Jesus has driven out the demon that is tormenting the boy, curing his madness, the disciples ask, “Why couldn’t we do that?”

Jesus has calmed down, but He still tells them bluntly, “You couldn’t do it because your faith is too small.”  When He says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain,” Jesus is telling the disciples how tiny and weak their faith is—it’s not even as big as a mustard seed.

Then He tells them, “This kind of demon can be driven out only by prayer and fasting.”  Again, He seems to be saying, “You didn’t succeed because you didn’t have enough faith even to do the most basic things—prayer and fasting.”

How does this apply to us?

First, we are all disciples of Jesus Christ.  Being disciples didn’t end with those few who actually knew and listened to and hung out with Jesus.  We have been baptized into Christ; we have been sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit; we have been nourished by the true Body and Blood of Christ-God; we come to church and sing the Liturgy and listen to the readings from the Holy Bible.  Many of us pray at home and study the Bible at home.  So, like Peter, Andrew, James, John, and the other disciples, we are following Jesus and should be learning from him.

Second, like the original disciples we often fail to heal spiritual and physical problems—our own or those that other people ask us to pray for.

So this must mean that we also don’t have strong enough faith, and that we don’t pray and fast enough.

Of course, in this modern age we realize that mental illness is not literally caused by demons.  But if we think of the suffering that mental illness causes, we can’t help thinking that somehow it is demonic or Satanic.  Maybe prayer alone cannot magically cure it or other diseases and suffering, but prayer can change attitudes, give comfort, and bring strength.  Prayer can help us to overcome pride and stubbornness and fear so that we can ask for and find help.  An atmosphere of calm and love and caring that comes from faith will make any sick person feel better.

What Jesus doesn’t directly say is that our prayer and fasting changes us more than it changes a sick person.  When we have stronger faith and live in love rather than in anger or despair, when we learn to control our passions, when we learn to seek what God wants instead of what we want, then we can help to heal others who are suffering.

So, even if our faith is smaller than a mustard seed (and whose isn’t, compared to Christ’s?), we don’t have to be “faithless and perverse.”  We can simply pray, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  We can fast without complaining, appreciating God’s goodness and being thankful that we have enough so that we can easily give up some of it.  And we can pray for each other, knowing that even if we cannot cure someone’s illness, God will provide what we lack and will provide what we need.

And so we give thanks and praise and glory to the Eternal Father, the Son, and the All-Holy, Good, and Life-giving Spirit, One God, now and ever and unto ages of ages.  Amen.