Homily

It is the strangest thing.

We see it so clearly in other people but we often have a much more difficult time seeing it in ourselves. We wish other people would avoid it, but we find ourselves often having trouble avoiding it. What is it? Sin. Isn’t it true? We can probably recall the sins that we saw in other people yesterday better than the sins we ourselves committed. What were the sins you fell into yesterday? None? Sainthood is not far away from you! Here’s something else I find very interesting. He has done the same bad thing a thousand times, she has said the same hurtful things a thousand times.

And yet, I react to his bad action and her unkind words as though it never happened before, as though I’m seeing and hearing it almost for the first time. And I’ll ask myself, “Doesn’t he always do that? Doesn’t she always do that?” “Well yes, but he did it again!” and yet, when it comes to our own sins we can be very comfortable with repeating them over and over almost as though they are just natural responses to life. We are not shocked or surprised by so many of our own bad actions and words, and certainly not in the same way we are when we see them in others, and we can make excuses for ourselves much more easily than we can for other people.

We live in a time that largely denies the reality of sin. How then do we account for the bad and evil deeds we see in the world? Some people will look to the past and try to find answers there for why Mr. Smith murdered his neighbor. It must be due to some trauma in his childhood and that’s why Mr. Jones is a drug dealer today. Now it is true that the past can have profound influences on present behavior, but the problem with that way of explaining away sin is that it tends to deny that we have free will, and that we can choose to do good or evil, even if there are strong influences from our past.

Another element that denies the reality of sin today relies on the premise that we ought to have the maximum amount of freedom to do what we would like to do. So we have seen, in the past few decades, one sinful behavior after another being accepted as legal and even moral, even to the degree of committing murder in the womb and assisting suicide for the sick. How can we as adults teach our children moral behavior, doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong, when we keep changing our own ideas about what is right and wrong? Is there no moral standard we can rely on?

Many of the so-called freedoms that people want today are not freedom at all, simply permission to do what is wrong or evil. And I’m always disturbed when people say that these so-called new freedoms which are supposed to demonstrate that we are evolved, that we have removed past restrictions and become a better society by discarding the prohibition against actions and behaviors that used to be considered as sins. We have evolved. But where is the evidence of this evolution? Is it found in better marriages, happier families, less mental illness, emptier prisons, fewer addicts, more honest politicians, decrease in poverty, fewer homicides? Where is the fruit of this evolution?

And it is fascinating for me to hear the words “freedom” and “my rights” thrown around so easily as a way of justifying bad and immoral behavior. Just as one example, I don’t see many people worried about the rights of children to be raised in a safe home with a mother and a father and not to have to worry about their parent’s drug use. The so-called rights of adults always come before the welfare of children in our society today, because what adults want to do if the only kind of freedom or rights that need to be considered. Sin is always self-centered and self-serving.

So here is the joy of Christians, as St. Paul says in today’s epistle: “God proves His love for us because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Our sins can be forgiven, not simply legislated away. Our freedom is found in choosing what is good, right, proper and holy and not in legal and social acceptance of things which are motivated by greed, lust, and self-centered desires. Our calling is to server, not to be served, as our Lord Himself set the example. Our goal must be to grow in the love of God and of our neighbor—and that love must be a sacrificial love that does not demand my own rights before the good of others.

Christ died for me, a sinner. I have no right to His love. I have no freedom except that which He has given to me, a freedom to do what is good, noble, loving and holy, not what is degrading or harmful. Not only did Christ die for me a sinner, by His grace my sins and yours can be forgiven and lifted away, leaving room in my life for more virtue and leading me into a more authentic human life.

Yes, I find it hard to pursue holiness, virtue, genuine love and grace. Maybe you do also. But as St. Paul says, He who died for our sins also sacrificed so that we might have the best of all lives, and life everlasting. This is the joy of Christians.