Homily for Sunday 7 June 2015--Second Sunday after Pentecost

God Shows No Partiality

Homily for Second Sunday after Pentecost (7 June 2015, 14 June 2009)

Romans 2:10-16…………….Matthew 4:18-23

 

In the Epistle reading for today, St Paul writes, “God shows no partiality,”

This is a surprising statement to everyone who thinks “my religion is the best.”  St Paul tells us instead, “Glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good.”  He means that all people have to live holy and righteous lives, obeying God according to the way God teaches different people.  God shows no partiality; God judges different peoples according to the relationships He has established with them.

In the Old Testament, God made His Covenant with the Jews, saying, “I will be your God, and you will be my people,” and giving them the Law through Moses.  The Law governed how God’s chosen people should relate to God and to one another.  It didn’t make the Jews better than other people; it just set up a special relationship between God and them; it made them responsible to God in a specific way.  This is what St Paul means by saying, “All who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.”

In the New Testament, God makes a New Covenant with people, through Jesus Christ, the True Word of God who became human to gain salvation for the human race.  Jesus brings a new way of relating to God:  conscience, not Law.  St Paul says that “the Law is written on [our] hearts” and is witnessed by our consciences.  And it is the life and teachings of Jesus that form our consciences.

So the absence or non-applicability of the Law of Moses doesn’t mean that we can do anything we like, claiming that our conscience told us it was OK.  A properly formed and developed conscience will always reflect what Jesus our Lord has commanded us:  we will do by instinct what the Law requires.  And, though we will not be judged according to the Law, we will be judged according to our secret thoughts by God, through Jesus Christ.

So, just as the Jews will be judged according to their Covenant with God, we Christians will also be judged according to our Covenant with God.

Being Christians imposes responsibilities and obligations on us.  Becoming followers of Christ transforms our lives, just as it completely changed the lives of Andrew and Peter, James and John when, Jesus said to them, “Come, follow Me.  Now you are fishermen, but I will make you fishers of men,” as we heard in today’s Gospel reading.

St Paul says that it isn’t those who “hear the Law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the Law who will be justified.”  This is why we can’t simply claim to be Christian as if it were a race or nationality or birthright.

If we don’t live our Christianity through prayer and worship, through observing the fasts and the feasts of the Church year, and through acts of charity for all of our sisters and brothers, we’re not really Christians.

If we get married in the church but don’t participate in the life of the church, and if we baptize our children and fail to bring them to church and teach them the faith, we’re not really Christians.

If we refuse to love and forgive our enemies, if we refuse to help the poor and sick and hungry and jobless and homeless, we’re not really Christians.

Like Andrew and Peter, James and John, we have to answer Jesus’ call to follow Him.  We have to let Jesus transform our lives.  We have to form our consciences according to Jesus’ teaching, not just follow the letter of the Law.  And we have to live in a conscious and deliberately Christian way, doing good because the Law has been written in our hearts by God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.