Homily

We make choices all the time, from morning until night, every day of every week. We are not usually aware of the fact we are making choices all the time because so many of our choices are often guided by choices that we have made in the past that continue to operate and work in the present. At some point in the past a woman decides that she really likes oatmeal for breakfast, so she chooses that for several days in a row. Before long she doesn’t even think about it. She automatically reaches for the oatmeal box every morning. A habit is formed and becomes part of her life.

These habits are not just about breakfast choices, of course. Acting out of habit is a solid part of what we do. Our life in Christ is also formed by many habits, and those good habits help us to grow in faith and virtue. For example, most of you, perhaps even all of you, are here today to worship the Lord because it has become a good habit for you. You generally don’t have to struggle with the question every Sunday, “Should I go to Liturgy or not?” That’s a blessing. And quite literally, because of it, we are blessed. The more good choices we make, the more they tend to become good habits that guide our lives in godly ways.

One of the earliest titles that Christians used to describe themselves, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles, was as the “People of the Way.” In one of the earliest Christian documents, the Didache, it is explained that there are two ways—a way that leads to life, and a way that leads to death. The question is which way will we choose? Which path will we follow? As we walk in our lives which way will we go? The road before us has many, many intersections that come up all the time, and there are many forks in the road, and we have choices to make. One turn, one choice, is putting us, or keeping us on a route that is leading to life, another on a route that is leading to death. As I see it most Christians are on the road that leads to life. Sometimes, when we sin, we stop or we step off that road momentarily, we ask for forgiveness, and then get back on it and keep moving. Other times we may, more seriously, take a turn that is leading to death. But if we repent, we can backtrack and get on the good road once again. The other danger is just standing still, and not doing anything to grow and deepen our faith. Standing still on the road can very easily lead us into indifference…and then we are at risk of losing faith.

Here’s the thing: it’s something I have thought about a number of times over the years, and once again this past week. Being a pastor in the same parish for so many years has allowed me to watch the lives of many people over a long period of time, both inside and outside the parish. When people start to turn down the wrong path it’s a very dangerous thing because those paths are on a downward slope. They seem to appear to be easier and perhaps even better roads to travel. Gravity is working for us on those downward paths. And those paths lead to other downward paths and they can look as though they are even better and easier routes to follow. A person may turn around and look back, but going back would mean climbing uphill, and that would be more difficult. One downward path keeps leading to more and more of the same, and it can start to seem only natural to keep choosing these routes in life. After a while it can become such an accepted habit to keep walking these roads that a person starts to forget that there even was a different direction they could be travelling, and even if they do remember it, they have gone so far downhill that it seems impossible to even climb back up to where they had been. Better to just stick to the way I’m going. My friends, I have seen this many times over the years. One bad choice leading to another, to another, and lives become ruined in so many ways, faith is abandoned, God is forgotten. People don’t usually choose that sad ending as their goal, but step by step, one road easily leads to another, and they end up in a place they had never thought they would be, but now they call it their normal life. Avoiding the teachings of Christ, and indeed, avoiding Christ Himself, they can end up in lives of sadness, misery, and sin. And they never even saw it coming as they pick up bad habits that lead to more bad habits that lead to living in a general state of sin.

But the opposite is true as well. Every time we choose for virtue and holiness it becomes a little easier to do it again. Every time we choose to follow the path that goes upward, we become stronger to go upward again. Every time we choose to follow the path of Christ’s truth, even though we are working against the gravity of our sinful natures, we find it easier to continue to do it, as Christ’s grace gives us the extra strength that we need to continue upward. Every good turn makes it a little easier to make another good turn, and the virtuous choices we make draw us closer and closer to Jesus Christ our life and our hope. We can choose habits that bring us life.

It’s difficult to see the progress we make sometimes, just as it is difficult for those on the wrong path to see how far down they may have gone. But if we look over the long run, we can see how our good choices and God’s grace have lifted our lives up into something greater than we were before. Even though we are still sinners in need of continued repentance, we are also still on the way that leads to life and a heavenly home. I have had the grace to be able to see that in so many of your lives. Let’s be encouraged to continue walking on the way that leads to life, choosing again and again the paths that lead to life, not only for us but for the lives of many others as well. Let us continue to consciously form and strengthen good habits for ourselves. And, as it says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, Who inspires and perfects our faith.”