Morality through Relationship

If you’ve ever been to Outback Steakhouse, you would notice several menu items listed as “no rules.”  I’m not really sure what it means – perhaps you can have it however you want it; or perhaps it is so decadent that you must not rules about healthy eating if you order it.

Some people think of Jesus as an “Outback Steakhouse” kind of guy – “no rules” is his motto.  Why worry about all those pesky rules that the Pharisees followed – just love Jesus, believe he is the Son of God, and you are saved!  After all, if we could save ourselves by following rules, why would God find it necessary to send His only Son to take on our mortal nature and suffer and die like the rest of us?

Yet, this morning we hear Jesus tells us that we should not break “the smallest part of the smallest letter of the law” or, heaven forbid, teach others to break the law. (Mt 5:18-19) In other places, he implies that at least part of the law is a gift from God, created solely for our benefit – “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:27).  As a devout Jew, it seems certain that Jesus was also a good follower of the law.  Otherwise, the Pharisees would not have invited him to dine with them, as they were scrupulous about not eating with those whom they considered unclean.

So, how do we reconcile salvation through God’s mercy and the need to follow the law and to encourage others to keep the law?  One clue is to look back at the Ten Commandments, which we just heard at Mass this past Sunday.

Before listing the fundamental moral and ethical rules – rules which guide our behavior and attitudes towards others, we are given the first three commandments that lay out our relationship with God. 

First, God is to be the most important thing in our lives.  Nothing can be more important to us than God, for that thing – which must have been created by God and is therefore inferior to God – must be a false god.  Second, God must not only be number one in our hearts, but he is also number one in our speech.  We should not use his name – for the ancients, the name was the essence of a person – frivolously, for our relationship is too serious and important.  Finally, He should be number one in our actions – so much so that we should be willing to dedicate one day of seven completely to him, putting aside our worldly concerns and duties to spend “quality time” with him.

Locked into this intense relationship with God, the rest of the law – how we are to interact with the all of God’s creation – flows as naturally water under the bridge.

The Ten Commandments – and Jesus – teach us that our morality is not based on a rule book, but on a relationship.  The rules that we follow are simply a consequence of our relationship with the One who created us, the One who loves us without limit or condition, and the one who desires nothing from us by our complete and utter love.  If we live in this relationship, the rules become part of our lives.  We enter a virtuous cycle.  Our love of God encourages and strengthens us to follow Jesus’ rule of love.  This, in turn, deepens our relationship with Jesus, and we are then emboldened to love his creation even more richly.

In contrast, if we ignore the relationship with God, if we separate ourselves from the love inherent to that relationship, the rule of love becomes a heavy burden, and we easily put it aside whenever the going gets too tough.  This is a vicious cycle.  As we deny or ignore the love of God, our love of his creation wanes.  This turns us into ourselves, and we become even less sensitive to the love of God, our only source of strength and courage, further weakening and discouraging our desire to love his creation.

Lent calls us to double down, or perhaps triple down, on our relationship with God – enriching it with our prayer, realizing the emptiness of false gods with our fasting, and remembering his great love and providence through our almsgiving.   Let the virtuous cycle begin.

Obedience

I’ve never had much problem following the Ten Commandments.  Well, I can’t say that I’ve always obeyed each and every one, for if I said that, I’d be breaking one of them right then and there.  But I’ve always known that I should follow them as best I can.  I’ve always felt guilty if I broke one of them and knew that when I did break them, I needed God to forgive me.  What I didn’t know, or knew wrongly, was why this was so.  Why should I obey them at all?

I suppose my first thought was that I was an oldest child.  Many psychologists have theorized that first-born children are compliant, seeking to be seen as upright, responsible mini-adults, someone like their parents who were the only ones in their lives at the most formative stage.  The theory may or not be true, but I was certainly like that.  My mom and dad were good people who obeyed the commandments. I wanted to see to be like them, so I obeyed, too.   So I internalized that my purpose in obeying the commandments was so that people would think I was good; that I was a grown-up.  But this couldn’t be the real purpose.  I’m grown-up now.  Do I still have to obey the commandments?  Isn’t it possible to be grown-up without obeying these ancient rules?

Of course, I soon learned that the Ten Commandments weren’t just my parents’ rules, they were God’s rules.  And Sr. Thecla assured my classmates and me that if we didn’t follow God’s rules, really, really, bad things would happen.  And of course, that’s true.  If I willfully and habitually ignore the commandments, I build walls between me and God.  If those walls get thick enough, I may never even know or believe that God is on the other side.  I may have walled myself into hell.  As I recall, Sr. Thecla had a much more graphic description of that process.

And while this is certainly a good reason to not break the laws, I then made a deadly mistake, though it seemed to make perfect sense.  If by breaking the laws, I damned myself to hell, then my purpose in following the laws was to gain my place in heaven.  The closer I followed the laws, the better I would be and then, the God would reward my obedience with more love and with heaven itself.   Not only would the laws save me from hell, they would save me for heaven.  For most of my life, I used this to justify following the Commandments.  But I was wrong again.  Even more importantly, my mistaken view of the Law’s purpose led me into dangerous spiritual ground.

I became quite proud of my obedience.  I found that I was much better at following the law than many of the people I knew.   That’s what a lifetime of practice would do for you.  Being better at following the law, I believed, made me a better person than many of the other people I knew.  I could even assume that because of my scrupulous obedience, God would love me more than he loved those who ignored his law.  After all, they were going to hell, right?  I was headed in the other direction.

Then came Jesus.  Jesus teaches us throughout the Gospel that salvation comes not through the law, but through relationship with Him, who is in intimate relationship with the Father.  It is only when we love and live in this intimate relationship, that we see the law as God’s gift, given to us to allow us to praise God, to thank God, and to love God as he loves us.  Certainly Jesus insists that we should obey the law, but our obedience does not lead to our salvation.  Rather, our salvation leads to our obedience.

We do not obey out of fear, as a slave obeys his master to avoid a lashing, but rather we obey out of love and gratitude, as a loved child obeys a loving parent, as a husband obeys his wife, and as a wife obeys her husband.

Furthermore, this proper ordering and interplay of grace and works then changes our view of the rest of God’s creation.   As we live in relationship with God and his infinite, unconditional and eternal mercy, we are impelled to go beyond the law – to live the fulfillment of the law which is Jesus himself, the one who laid down his life for me, for you, and for all of creation.  We see those who do not follow the law not as the damned and the lost, those less loved by God and by us, but as those who have not yet realized the grace of their salvation, have not yet experienced or recognized the great bounty of God’s love.

Why should I obey the Ten Commandments?  It is the right and just response to the good news that Jesus, out of God’s great love and mercy, has died to save me from the fires of hell, and desires me to enter into relationship with the one who is all love; the one who is all joy; the one who is all peace.

I obey the Ten Commandments not for my own gain, but as witness to the world of the infinite and unconditional love I have already received as pure gift; a gift offered to one and to all, forever and ever, amen.

The Greatest Gift

This time every year, we remember in special way the precious gift of life which God has given us, as we participate in a march – either in person or in spirit and prayer – to convince our fellow Americans of the sanctity of all human life, born and unborn.

And yet, as precious as this gift is, and as important as it is for us to defend its sanctity, Jesus does not allude to our earthly life as the treasure buried in the field or as the pearl of great price (Mt 13:44-46).  After all, the person who found the treasure and the merchant who found the pearl already had life when they discovered something much, much more valuable, something for which they gave their all to obtain.

In this same way, martyrs like St. Agnes, whom we celebrate today, knew that their lives on earth, as precious as they seemed, are mere dross compared to the gold that is eternal life with Jesus.  Life on earth is certainly good, but life in the kingdom, life with Jesus, life in relationship with the one who offers unconditional love, profound joy, and perpetual peace, is truly priceless.

This is why Jesus insists that we must be “born again, begotten of water and the Spirit.”(Jn 3:3-5)  This is why Jesus says that “whoever loses his life will save it.”  (Lk 9:24) This is why the people in the today’s parables eagerly “sell all that they have” to gain what is worth so much more.  This also explains the rich young man’s reaction to Jesus’ command to give away all his possessions and follow him. (Mk 10:17-22).  He goes away not angry at Jesus’ words.  Rather, he is deeply saddened, for he knows in his heart the great value of what he is turning down, but he cannot find the courage to pay the price. 

The good news of Jesus is that he not only offers us eternity with him in heaven when our earthly lives come to an end, but that life in the kingdom is available to us at this very moment – “the kingdom of God is at hand!” (Mk 1:15)   Jesus invites me – as he invites you and every other human being – to live intimately with him at this very moment and for all eternity.  Oh, and one more thing:  his invitation includes an RSVP.

 

For most of my life, I didn’t get this at all.  Surely, I thanked God that he did not ask me to die a martyr’s death.  I thanked God that my parents brought me to baptism as a young baby and taught me right from wrong.  I thanked God for blessing me with intelligence, the ability to work hard, and the opportunity to earn a very comfortable life.  I especially thanked God for a loving family with whom to share this life. 

But I had no relationship with Jesus or with God.  I had not returned the RSVP.  I saw no need to do so.  I believed Jesus had died for me many years ago and that God had given me tools to succeed, but it was my effort, my belief in Jesus, my dutiful obedience to God’s commandments and to the Church’s laws, and my good works and charity that would ultimately result in a favorable judgment when – presumably many, many years from now – I would be face-to-face with St. Peter at the pearly gates.

Then, one day – it was a Tuesday, as I remember – I realized my mistake.  I was a baby deacon at the time, only ordained a few years, driving to my job at IBM in Armonk, but mostly thinking about a homily I was to give that weekend on Luke 15 – the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son.  It seemed an easy lesson – God will seek us out even if we are silly or stupid enough to wander away, and there will be great rejoicing when we are found.  Not that I felt any personal need for being found – after all, I was the deacon, wasn’t I?

The morning tea wasn’t even cold before my ruminations were rudely cast aside.  An eerie hush fell over the office as we were transfixed in horror at the sights unfolding on our computers, for it was September 11, 2001.  Work became meaningless, and we rushed home to be with our families in our grief.  On the drive home, my grief quickly turned to anger.  I was angry at the injustice of it all, angry that we who were so good, who were so innocent, who worked so hard, could be subjected to such horror and pain.  I was angry with God.  I wondered what we could possibly do to extract justice from such great injustice, to appropriately punish such great evil, to emphatically demonstrate to the world that these despicable acts could not be tolerated.

And then, in a way I had never heard before, God invited me once again, asking me once more for my long-delayed RSVP.  I found myself as the older son in the parable of the prodigal son, indignantly standing outside the kingdom, fuming that I deserved more from my father – certainly much, much more than my wastrel brother received – for “not once have I disobeyed your commands.” (Lk 15:29)  I saw how little I understood that God had always offered me so much more than I could have possibly earned or imagined – “everything I have is yours,” he tells me. (Lk 15:31).

Since that day, I have tried hard to recognize and to treasure this astounding gift, this pearl of great price; to live in intimacy with Jesus, giving away my life of self-reliance, self-righteousness and self-gratification to place all of my trust in him who made the heavens and the earth. 

Every once in a while – and maybe more often than that – I still find myself slipping back and trying to take back a bit of my old life.  But I am encouraged by the ancient martyrs like Agnes and today’s martyrs like James Foley and the martyrs of Syria and Iraq, and most importantly, by Jesus who is constantly at my side, reminding me of the foolishness of trading away the priceless for the mere trifle of my ego and pride.

Please pray for me – as I will always pray for you – that on every day and in every way, we live in intimacy with Jesus, recognizing the pearl that is worth so much more than anything we could possibly earn, so much more than even our very lives. 

The Yoke and the Cross

At the end of Matthew 11, we hear what is perhaps the most personal of Jesus’ metaphors recorded in Scripture – my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

In his day, as it is today in much of the less-developed, agricultural societies, a yoke, whether a single yoke that a person may use to carry a heavy load, or a double yoke that may have joined a team of oxen to plow a field, would have been made of wood, the work of a carpenter.  And if the carpenter was particularly skilled and had custom-fit that yoke precisely to the person or team which was to use it, it would ride easy on their shoulders, it would make their burden light.  Presumably, St. Joseph and Jesus would have made many an easy yoke in the carpentry shop of Nazareth.  It could not have been more natural –and perhaps more personally pleasing to him – for Jesus to use this as a metaphor for the peace he would bring to those who accepted him and his love.

Yet this pleasing prospect – certainly good, even great, news – seems contradicted by a more well-known metaphor.  Throughout his ministry, Jesus insists that we must shoulder not an easy yoke, but a heavy cross, following him to Calvary.   Does the heavy cross also make our burdens light?  How can we reconcile these seemingly contradictory images?

Just over two years ago, we could not have imagined how urgent this question would be for us in Newtown.  This weekend, we will face this conundrum head on. 

We will gather at Mass to remember and to mourn for the great loss we suffered, a hole carved out of our hearts that will never be filled.  We will remember the pain and grief we endured, a pain that still throbs within us to this very day.  

But at the same time, we light the pink candle in our Advent wreath and don the pink vestments, recalling St. Paul’s admonition to rejoice always, for Christ’s coming into the world shows us that Jesus’ yoke is not made of wood, but made of the unconditional, eternal, infinite love of God.  God so loved the world, he gave his only Son. 

When we accept in our hearts that we are loved despite our sins, despite our failings, and despite our weakness; when we wholly enter into relationship with Jesus, who is this very love incarnate, we are filled with profound joy. 

It is a joy which cannot be engendered by a beribboned Lexus, a joy more lasting than the most perfectly-cut diamond, and a joy which the festive tree and its trimmings can only begin to hint at.  In turn, this joy leads to a profound peace, a peace which cannot be won by any army, secured by any treaty, or guaranteed by any constitution.  

This joy and peace becomes a great light within us – the light of Christ’s love which the darkness cannot overcome.  It is a yoke that makes the heaviest cross bearable.

This weekend, we will gather to not only remember our loss, our pain and our grief, but also to recall the thousands of people who mourned with us that weekend and in the months to come; the millions of prayers offered in our support; the countless gifts of consolation showered on us from around the world.   Each person, each prayer, each consolation reminds us to this day of God’s great and powerful love, the love which we chose to be our shield, our light, and our yoke.

It is Jesus’ yoke, and he guarantees us that no matter how heavy the cross, his yoke is easy, his burden light.

We believe.  We choose love.

Fear Not

Fear is a terrible thing.  Of course, it is.  Terrible things, by definition, are those things which terrorize us, which cause us to fear.  One of our greatest fears is fear of loss – the loss of people or possessions we hold dear, the loss of respect and honor, the loss of our life, the loss of love.

In our fear of loss, we desperately cling to what we wish to keep.  We zealously protect it and guard it, lest it be taken away from us.  We anxiously seek more and more, always fearing that some loss is unavoidable.

Our fears make sense in a finite world, where gains and losses are commonplace, where one person’s gain may be another person’s loss, where value is equated with price, where more is always better and less is always worse.

This is the world in which the unfortunate third servant lived. (Lk 19:11-28)  He so feared the loss of his master’s coin – and the subsequent loss of prestige that this would entail – that he could not see his true purpose.

This, also quite unfortunately, is the world in which I often live.  When I assume that my value lies only in that which can be counted, that which can be banked, that which can be summarized on a balance sheet or a list of Facebook friends, I have utterly lost any sense of true purpose, any sense of what I am intended for.

For I, like you, have been created by God and have been created for God.  I have not been created to dwell in the finiteness of this world, but in the divinity, the grace, the eternity, the faithfulness, and the infinity of God.  For this purpose, God has gifted me – as he has gifted you – with infinite and unconditional love.  It is infinite; it cannot be counted.  It is unconditional; it cannot be lost. 

And all that God asks of me – God’s purpose for me – is to give His love away in the same fashion as it was given to me.  For it is giving it away, that I become more aware of its presence.  It is in giving it away, that I live in the economy of grace, where giving multiplies that which is given, where fear of loss is banished and the gratitude of what has been given is plenteous, where more is unnecessary since what has been given – God’s love – is always enough.

Next Thursday, we have set aside a special day to give thanks to God for his great and bountiful gift of love, his gift of life.  Do not fear.  It cannot be lost.  It is enough.  We need nothing more.

A Gilded Heart

When the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D, they expected the Jewish religion to just fade away, but they failed to reckon with the faithfulness of God to his people.  Today, we celebrate the dedication of St. John Lateran, the mother church of our faith, the episcopal seat of the Bishop of Rome.  It is our only archbasilica!  Yet, if some disaster destroyed St. John Lateran, would anyone think the Catholic faith would crumble?

But it made sense for the Romans to think as they did, for it is almost impossible for us to comprehend how important and vital the temple was to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time.

It was the heart and soul of the faith.  It housed the holiest of holies, the Ark of the Covenant, and was where Yahweh chose to dwell with his people.  It was the only place where a Jew could offer sacrifice to Yahweh and properly atone for his sins.  Tens of thousands of Jews descended on Jerusalem on each of the major feast days to worship and sacrifice at the temple.

Ezekiel, writing during the Babylonian exile with Solomon’s temple destroyed, envisions the new temple with streams flowing from it, making the salt water fresh, and giving life to all creatures. (Ez 47:1-12) The vision evokes for us the streams flowing from the Garden of Eden.  (Gn 2:10-14) The temple, in Ezekiel’s vision restores the peace and original justice of the Garden itself.

With Herod’s extensive renovations, the temple in Jesus’ day had surpassed the magnificence of Solomon’s original.  Outside of Rome, it was perhaps the most impressive and imposing building in the Mediterranean world.  Thus, it was also a point of pride for the Jewish people, who were, at best, only bit players on the world stage.

The Jewish prophets often proclaimed the Messiah would restore and perfect the purity of the Temple.   Jesus’ prophetic cleansing of the Temple that we read about this morning (Jn 2:13-22), echoing Jeremiah’s denunciations of the desecration of the Temple in his day, would have addressed this particular mission.  But Jesus knows that the Jerusalem Temple, as all things on earth, could not last.  It was just stones on stones that, one day, would crumble.  Rather, the temple on which his followers will depend is the temple of his body, which even death itself cannot destroy, which he gives to us anew at each and every celebration of the Mass.

St. Paul extends this metaphor to make us aware that, by virtue of our baptisms, God dwells in each of us, and each of our own bodies is now a temple of the Holy Spirit.  Considering my own meager body, that’s a pretty staggering thought!

How can this poor body of mine possibly house the glory of God?  How can I hold this temple of the Holy Spirit – and the temples of all those around me – with the same reverence and awe as the Jewish people had for the temple in Jerusalem.  What can or should I do to make my body and my life holy enough to justify such an honor?  Well, that’s a really long, long talk.  It’s our call to holiness – be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.  Spiritual masters have written thousands of books, billions of words, on this pursuit of holiness. 

But this time of year, I think of one insight that many of these masters have in common.  One wise man said it like this, “God dwells in two places – in heaven and in a grateful heart.”

Do I see everything about me as gift, the fruits of God’s unconditional and infinite love?  Do I live always in a world of gift? 

Or do I jealously cling to all those things I claim as “mine,” the well-earned fruits of my hard work, my pious acts, or even my goodness?

St. Ignatius understood that we all find ourselves in this trap.  He saw that gratitude was an important early step on the road to holiness.  The first stage of the daily examen was to thank God for all that He had done that day, perhaps even reaching back and thanking God for all those times he directed and prodded me, provided for and protected me.  You don’t move forward in the examen until you’ve truly expressed your thanks to God for his unconditional and infinite love and providence.

Each November, before Thanksgiving, or whenever I lapse and believe that I am grateful enough, I re-read Radical Gratitude, by Mary Jo Leddy.  It’s a small book, easy to read and re-read often.  It reminds of the transformational gratitude that should always gild the temple in my heart.  It also reminds me that being happy will not lead to gratitude.  Gratitude makes me happy.

From the temple of a grateful heart, warmed by the appreciation of God’s infinite, unconditional and eternal love and providence, streams of love, streams of compassion, streams of generosity, peace and mercy flow out to the world.  And like streams flowing from the temple in Ezekiel’s vision, like the streams flowing from Jesus’ side on the cross, these streams bring life to the world.

Thanks be to God!

To Vote or Not To Vote

Famously, Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what is God's. (Mt 22:15-21)  Many people have used that passage to justify separating church from state.  For most of my life, I certainly stood with those people.  I felt that this world was Caesar's, the next was God's.  How I lived my secular life was more or less unconnected to how I lived my spiritual life.  They were separate lives.

However, Jesus quickly corrects this interpretation (Mt 22:34-40).  For Jesus offers us a radical change in lifestyle.  Not so much in the laws that he cites.  The Shema, "you shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind" would have drawn no argument from most devout Jews.  As Deuteromomy states, it was drilled into their heads as children, they could easily agree that it held special place in the catalogue of laws.

Yet Jesus doesn't stop there.  He is asked for the single greatest commandment, yet he seems to give us two.  But listen more closely.  For Jesus says the "second is like the first."  They are as one.  We cannot love God without loving our neighbors as well.  And we cannot withhold love of neighbor without also withholding love of God.  Our secular lives, our relationships with each other on earth, are not unconnected at all to our spiritual lives, they are exact reflections of one another.

As we approach this election season, those of us of a certain age or with long political memories are reminded of Ronald Reagan's political home run in 1980.  Then, he asked "are you better off now than you were four years ago?"  As we also may remember, very few of us in 1980 could answer that question positively – and Reagan was swept to victory.  Even today, candidates are still using this line to highlight an incumbent’s failures.

Yet if we take the Jesus’ greatest law seriously, the question is not apt.  The real issue is: "are WE better off now than we were four years ago."  And the “WE” is not just our family, our parish, our town, our political party or even, for that matter, our country.  It is WE as the body of Christ, WE as fellow sons and daughters of God, WE as fellow human beings.

When we desire world peace yet continue to hoard the world’s largest supply of nuclear and chemical weapons, when we continue to be the world's largest merchant of war material and weapons of mass destruction - WE are not better off.

When we claim to be pro-life but stay silent on the daily assaults on God's precious gift of life - euthanasia, capital punishment, abortion, gun violence, poverty - WE are not better off.

When we vote to deny fellow humans access to education, basic health services and nutrition simply because they cannot document their legal existence in our country - WE are not better off.

And when we vote to cling tightly to God's gifts to preserve our own comfortable lives, while denying fellow sons and daughters of God the chance to afford decent housing for their families - WE are not better off.

In a democracy like the United States, voting is a vital part of our civic life.  But for followers of Jesus in the United States, voting is also a vital part of our spiritual life.  If we deny our neighbor in our vote, we deny our God in our hearts.  But if we affirm our neighbor with our votes, we affirm our love of God - and WE are certainly better off for that!