It's About the Yes

Fifth Sunday of Easter

It’s a sad reality that talk is often cheap.  This is not universal, but is especially true in our Western culture.  We need a contract for everything.  When planning for my pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I wanted to go with a local group from Palestine.  However, they’re not big on contracts, and as an American that makes me leery.  Because I have been to the Holy Land before, I know that, in the Middle Eastern culture, a person’s word is everything, and if they do not live up to what was agreed, that person can lose everything, including his honor.  But I also know that, as Americans, we like to have things in writing.  So instead of going with a more local group, I went with an American tour company that has pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

St. John reminds us that we are called to love, not only “in word or speech but in deed and truth.”  It’s very easy to say that we follow Jesus, but do our actions back up what our mouths say?  In fact, St. John goes on to say that loving Jesus means keeping His commandments.  If we do this, then the Holy Spirit remains in us.  On the contrary, if we don’t keep Jesus’ commandments, then we lack a reality of the life of Christ.

John could say this because He heard Jesus say what was in our Gospel today, which is also from St. John.  Jesus told us that we need to stay connected to Him, as branches with the vine.  It’s not enough to say that we’re branches, we have to truly remain connected to Jesus.  If we are not connected, we’ll waste away and be good for nothing else then burning.  If, however, we stay connected to Jesus, then we’ll bear fruit that proves that we not only profess faith in Jesus, but also live in the way He shows us.

Words do mean, something, however.  They are cheap if they are not followed up by actions, but they can also be profound if they are connected to action.  For example, a relatively recent Pope wrote about the dangers facing society.  He warned against increased dangers of marital infidelity, and a lowering of moral standards.  He warned about how easy it is for young people to be tempted, and how they need to be taught how to live the moral law.  He also warned of a lack of respect for women, and how men could so easily make them objects of the satisfaction of their desires, rather than an equal partner “whom he should surround with care and affection.”  This pope wrote about these dangers 50 years ago, in 1968.  And in many ways, his prophecy, his words spoken from God, have come true.  It is more and more common for spouses to cheat on each other; I don’t think anyone would argue that morality has decreased over the past 50 years; young people more and more don’t know how to live the moral law, and are exposed to grave evils at younger and younger ages; and women are seen more and more not as people, equal in dignity and respect, but as tools to satisfy lust.  

These words were penned by Pope Bl. Paul VI.  And he wrote this in his very famous, and often derided, Encyclical, Humanae vitae.  This summer we celebrate 50 years since the promulgation of this prophetic document about human life.  I know it is a very contentious document, but Bishop Boyea has asked us to preach about it this weekend.  I think that one reason it is so often seen as negative is because it seems to simply say no to artificial contraception.  In fact, it actually talks about the great value of human life, something that needs to be reinforced, especially in light of the Alfie Evans’ recent.  Many people think that all the Church says is “no.”  But in fact, while the Church does say no, that no means an ability to say yes to other goods.

The Church teaches that all artificial contraception is gravely wrong, not because it can spread out childbirth, which can be a moral decision, but because the marital act between a woman and a man is meant to be a full gift of self, and artificial contraception of any kind means holding back one aspect of the gift of self, the ability to conceive, and makes that moment a lie, because one is not truly giving his or her entire self.  

But again, we can see it as no.  But in fact, sometimes, in order to say yes to a good, we have to say no to other lesser goods.  Think about when a man marries a woman.  That man, in marriage, is saying no to every other woman that has ever or will ever come along.  He is forsaking that special relationship of marriage with any other woman (and vis versa for a woman towards other men).  But I have never met a man who is so focused on the no to other women.  He is focused on the yes to that one woman.  He can’t say yes to that one woman without saying no to all others.  But it doesn’t meant it’s about the no.  It’s about the yes.

And look at what has happened with the ubiquitousness of contraception: we have a lower sense of morality, marriages break apart more and more, and we have recently seen the epidemic of men treating women in a way that is beneath the dignity and respect that they deserve.  Pope Bl. Paul VI’s words have been followed up by actions, a reality that is sad and has caused no small amount of pain in the lives of perhaps most families in America.

Today the Lord challenges us to not simply say that we will follow Him, but to actually do it, including in the ways that we regulate the size of our families.  May we not be focused on all the things we give up by following Jesus in word and deed, but in all the greater yeses that are made possible by following Jesus “in deed and truth.”

"No"

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

While children are cute and innocent, there comes a point in their lives where that cuteness gets clouded a little, and that innocence starts to wear off a little.  And that point in their lives, I think it’s safe to say, comes when they learn how to say a particular short word, and what that word means, and that word is “no.”  All of the sudden childhood changes and it can often become a battle of wills between child and parents.  And perhaps that word is so easily learned because parents are so often saying it to their child, more often than not to keep them safe.

Today our first reading and Gospel focus on the virtue of obedience.  That word is probably a difficult word for some, if not all, of us.  We are Americans!  We are independent!  We do what we want!  The very word obedience may swell within us the very desire to say the word “no!”

But Moses reminds the Israelites, who are near the Promised Land, that God will raise up a prophet like Moses from among them, and they need to listen to that prophet.  “Whoever will not listen to my words,” says the Lord, “which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it.”  This prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus, from the family of Israel, a prophet like Moses (Matthew makes this very clear in explaining Jesus as giving a new law, the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount).  At first they think John the Baptist might be that prophet (the priests and Levites from Jerusalem ask him, ‘Are you the Prophet?’).  But then they think that Jesus is the Prophet.  In John 6 they say, “‘This is truly the Prophet…’”  But the people struggle with the obedience part.  Not long after they acknowledge Jesus as this Prophet that Moses prophesied, Jesus tells them that they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life within them, and most of them walk away.  They do exactly the opposite of what Psalm 95 said today: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

Ironically, though, as our Gospel demonstrates, the demons are obedient to Jesus.  As soon as he comes by, without addressing the demon at all, the man with the demon cries out at Jesus.  Jesus then rebukes him, and commands him to come out of the man, and the demon leaves the man.  There was no arguing, no delaying, just simple obedience.  The creature, in the presence of its Creator, recognizes what it has to do and obeys.

Here’s the scary thought: the demons obey God better than we do, at times at least.  Those whose entire purpose in their existence is to work against God, can often times be more obedient to God than those whose entire purpose in their existence is to be with God.  St. Benedict, the Father of Western Monasticism, begins his rule for monks with obedience.  He writes, “Listen carefully, my child, to your master’s precepts, and incline the ear of your heart…that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.”  Even that first word, “Listen,” is connected to obedience, as the word obedience comes from the Latin ob and audire which means to listen to someone.  We obey when we listen to someone else and make their will our own.

Again, as Americans we pride ourselves on not listening to others, not obeying, but being independent.  And independence is sometimes a good thing (like the Declaration of Independence).  But when we decide not to listen to God, when we decide not to obey at all, independence becomes nothing more than the rule of my will over everyone else’s, and leads to anarchy, chaos, and violence.  

Recently the term Cafeteria Catholics has been coined for those who only obey when it suits them (which means it’s never true obedience).  Cafeteria Catholics pick and choose which teachings of the Church they want to follow.  These Catholics stopped listening, and therefore stopped obeying.  They argue, “But the Church is just made up of old men!”  But they forget the words of Jesus to the Apostles in the Scriptures, “‘Whoever listens to you listens to me.  Whoever rejects you rejects me.’” and “‘Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’”  Certainly we can wrestle with Church teachings, trying to understand, trying to listen for the voice of Jesus in them.  And some things (like celibacy and fasting rules) are Church disciplines which can change over time.  But other teachings (too many to mention here, and more than simply what is contained in the Nicene Creed) are given to us by Jesus through His Church, which we are bound by justice to obey since we are the creature and they come from our Creator.  If we truly believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to protect the Church from teaching anything contrary to what He wants (even though those who lead the Church are still sinful men), then we need not fear to listen to Jesus and conform our wills to His.  That is one of the great gifts of a Catholic education: we can teach children expressly how to listen to the voice of Jesus, and how to obey that voice when we hear it.  But, even if we ourselves generally agree with Church teachings and obey them to the best of our ability, everyone, because we are fallen and live in a fallen world, struggles to listen to God and obey God in the daily moments of our lives.  

So today let us recommit ourselves to obedience to God in all things, not saying “no” like a toddler to his or her parents, but saying with the Blessed Virgin Mary, “‘May it be done to me according to your word.’”