What God has prepared for those who love Him: a choice for authentice Christian freedom.

+ J. M. J +

Homily Template for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

This Sunday, we hear of a choice we are invited to make, and we hear of it from various angles! Our first reading, from the Book of Sirach, echoes language used in Deuteronomy… before us we have fire and water, life and death, good and evil! If we keep the commandments, they will save us, if we trust God and choose that which is good, and true, and beautiful, we shall live!

We all know that the choice isn’t quite that simple… our conscience knows imperfectly on its own, it is often persuaded by ignorance or advantage, or comfort. And even when we know clearly what is right, as we often do, it can be devilishly hard to reach for the good, when the evil is so attractive and easy! To choose God, and truth, and right, is a mystery… only God sees perfectly all the labyrinths and layers of our hearts, and yet He still calls us to choose.

What choice, then, brings us joy and freedom? Mysteriously, it is often the same choice that brings us struggle and challenge but also growth. When we choose truth, when we turn from darkness into light, with all that it costs, peace grows on the deepest level of our hearts, and a light dawns in the shadows of this world. Our psalm refrain states something that we know is not completely true in this life, “Blessed are those who follow the law of the Lord.” The Book of Job is the test case… following God and His Law often embroils us in every sort of difficulty, and then we see those who play along to get along, those who go with the flow, those who ignore God’s law… they often seem to flourish. But, then, there is a bigger scale, a bigger horizon… not just this mortal life with its creature comforts, but even eternity. Our Psalm today is Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the bible, and each section begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet… first aleph, the bethel, then gimmel, and so on, all the letters, each in turn, praising God’s law. We just hear a few of them, and I want to read you two verses that immediately precede the final verses we heard:

I cling to your decrees;
Lord God, do not disappoint me.
I run the way of your commandments
since you have set me free. (Jerusalem Bible)

What is freedom? It is not merely the absence of restraints, the absences of limits. Imagine a hockey game without the boards, imagine a basketball game without the rules? You would have nothing, just a mess. What happens if I ignore the instructions of Volkswagen to put only diesel in my diesel engine? What happens to your bread if you decide that you’d rather not add yeast? Every day we encounter the life and structure and growth and creativity that come from limits and boundaries. These aren’t perfect analogies, but they point us to the truth… authentic freedom comes not when we are completely unrestricted, but rather freedom grows and deepens when we choose the good, the true, and the beautiful, and most mysteriously, freedom comes when we follow what Blessed John Paul the Great called “The Mystery of the Gift:” the deepest fulfillment and the fullest freedom come to the human person in the total gift of self. Who is the freest man in history? Jesus Christ, on the Cross, held there only by the bond of love… no nails could have restrained The Second Person of the Trinity! Who is the freest woman in history? Not Eve, who ignored God’s simple command, but rather Mary, our Blessed Mother, who said Yes to God, Fiat Volunta Tua, may it be done to me according to your word! By her free choice to empty her life into the Father’s hands, infinite fullness and joy burst into the world, hidden in the tiny child in her womb!

This brings us to our Gospel… Jesus came to set us free, but because He came to draw us towards true freedom, that doesn’t mean no rules, no law… rather it means the law is brought to fulfillment in us… not only do we avoid outright murder, but even hatred. Not only do we avoid sleeping with someone who is not our husband or wife, but we even fight against lust in our minds and hearts. Rather than carefully following the procedure for divorce, we struggle to be faithful to our vows even unto death. Not only do we avoid formally making false oaths, but we avoid taking the Lord’s name in vain and all vulgarity. This is a daunting teaching to anyone who carefully examines his or her heart, but it is the invitation from the God who wants to set us free… not free from exterior restraint, but free for that which is best, truest, and most beautiful, free for God and His Law, free to follow Christ, free to imitate the Blessed Mother and say yes to God.

The Enemy has lied to us about freedom from the very beginning, and that lie has never been shouted more loudly or gussied up to seem more attractive than in our own time. Every sort of sin is presented as desirable and even necessary, even as a right in many cases. But no matter how many movies glorify and justify and gild hatred and lust and infidelity and lies, they are still death dealing, and they still bear bitter fruit. But, in Christ, with His grace, no matter how challenging, no matter how counter-cultural, no matter how disparaged or ignored, the battle to live true freedom in virtue, in truth, bears rich fruit, and plants the seed of deep peace in our hearts.

We come to this altar, now, and if we’re honest, if we know our own hearts, we know that we ALL come as beggars, that we come desiring and hoping to receive Him who we have not always served, Him who we have not always honored. We began with the penitential rite, remembering our need for God’s mercy, and before we receive we will say with one voice, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” It is true, and yet still the Lord comes to us, and still He offers us healing and mercy in confession, healing and nourishment in the Eucharist, where we begin to taste the joy Paul spoke of in our 2nd reading:

What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,
and what has not entered the human heart,
what God has prepared for those who love him,
this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

May we know our poverty now, may we cry out to God for mercy, may we be filled with hope and courage as we know that He offers us Himself, and with Him in our hearts, we can choose life and live the joy that flows from authentic Christian freedom.

+ A. M. D. G. +