Freedom without Consequence

First Sunday of Lent

            This weekend is not just the first weekend of Lent, but also is the opening weekend for the movie “300: Rise of an Empire.”  I had seen the last “300” movie, and given it’s importance at Michigan State University (if I yelled out, “Spartans, what is your profession?” I know I would get a particular response), I thought I would see the sequel which deals with the battle between the rest of the Greeks and the Persians.  It was very bloody, and earned the R rating that it received.  However, at one point, and I don’t think this gives anything away, the Greek general is speaking with the leader of the Persian navy, who says to the Greek: “I can offer you freedom without consequence, without responsibility.”

           

That is the seductive lie that our first parents were told, and which they swallowed hook, line, and sinker.  Adam and Eve had paradise in the Garden of Eden.  They were truly free.  They wanted for nothing, and everything responded to their will, because they responded to the will of God.  Their only responsibility was to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But the serpent, the Devil, the Father of Lies, seduced Adam and Eve into believing that they could be God’s equal.  Satan convinced them that they could have freedom without responsibility or consequence, that they would be answerable to no one.  And so they ate.  And by Adam’s act of disobedience, death entered the world as the order that God planned for the world was disrupted.  Because Adam had disobeyed God, the plants and animals would no longer obey Adam and Eve; Adam and Eve’s body would no longer be subject to their mind and soul; and Adam and Eve would both work to dominate each other, rather than work in a loving partnership.  Adam and Even thought that they could have freedom without responsibility or consequence, and so sin and death entered the world.

            This is what St. Paul reminds us in our first reading when he says, “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.”  One man represented all of humanity.  And in his exercise of freedom, we all received the consequences.  This is what the church calls original sin: not that we are born with a personal sin, but we receive the consequences of the disobedience of our first parents with the perpetual desire on earth to misuse freedom; to pretend that we can have freedom without responsibility, without consequence.  Who here has not experienced that desire, that temptation?  Who here has never wanted to do whatever he or she wanted and not have to worry about what would happen later?  We are born under the illusion that such a reality is possible, that there are actions that never affect anyone else.

            And because Jesus shared our human nature in all things but sin, Satan wanted to try to get the Son of God to fall.  Satan wanted to seduce Jesus into believing that He could use His power any way He wanted to, without any responsibility or consequence.  “Command that these stones becomes loaves of bread”; “throw yourself down”; “prostrate yourself and worship me”; in other words: “do whatever you want to do.”  But Jesus, as the new head of the human race, the new Adam, succeeds where Adam failed.  Because He is the author of freedom, He knows that freedom always has responsibility, always has consequences, and that freedom truly comes not from doing whatever we want, but from doing what is right.  He knows that to do whatever we want only makes us slaves to our passions and to the Evil One, whereas controlling our passions and resisting sin allows us to have true freedom by living according to the order God originally created for us. 

And so He rebukes Satan and the temptations he offers, and not only begins to undue the shackles of slavery which had formerly bound us (the shackles which will be definitively broken by Jesus freely submitting to the consequence of sin, though He did not know sin, and dying on the cross), but also, as our preface will say, “by overturning the snares of the ancient serpent, taught us to cast out the leaven of malice, so that, celebrating worthily the Paschal Mystery, we might pass over at last to the eternal paschal feast.”   He teaches us that we can use our freedom well and not be seduced by a false view of freedom.

Each day we are faced with countless opportunities to use our freedom that God has given to us.  We can use our freedom poorly, thinking that freedom does not involve responsibility or consequences and means that we can do whatever we want.  And when we do that, we lock the shackles of slavery around our necks, wrists, and ankles, and hand the key over to the ancient serpent.  Or we can use our freedom well, and claim “the abundance of grace and…the gift of justification,” so that we are not slaves to our passions and sins, but can “reign in life through…Jesus Christ.”  May our penitential practices this Lent purify our understanding of freedom so that we may share in the eternal freedom of the children of God in heaven.

***************DURING THE RITE OF SENDING ONLY***************

My dear Catechumens, I want to address you now, in a specific way.  You have been preparing, coming to know Jesus and accept the invitation that He extends to all people: to receive the benefits of His freedom and be cleansed from original sin through baptism; to be strengthened to profess His Name to all people through confirmation; and to come into full union with Him through the reception of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

My dear candidates, I also want to address you.  You are already one with us in baptism, which is no small thing, because you have been claimed for Christ already and washed clean of the stain of original sin.  You have also been preparing to know Jesus more deeply, and have been preparing to join the one Church of Christ, to receive that gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation by which you can spread the faith, and to come into full union with Jesus through the reception of His Body and Blood.

Catechumens and candidates, you are a witness to us of how Christ continues to call people into His Church, into the fullness of truth, and how to live freely.  You are a witness to the world that the lie that freedom is doing whatever you want is just that, a lie, and that true freedom only comes from life in Christ.  Thank you for your witness.  May you be upheld in that witness during this time of final preparation for the Easter mysteries and receive what Christ intends for each of you as you begin your new pilgrimage with us as full members of the Catholic Church.