Monday, October 24, 2011

30th Sunday of Ordinary Time: What God has joined no human being must separate


The Pharisee’s were always trying to trip up Jesus. In the Gospel today, they ask him, “which is the greatest commandment?” Of course at the time of Jesus, there were more than 600 prescriptions of the law including the 10 Commandments. Jesus answered the Pharisees by splicing together two passages from the Torah, the first from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord you God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind” and the second from Leviticus 19:18 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
I’m reminded of another time the Pharisees tried to trick him and Jesus did something similar. Once they asked him if it was lawful for a husband to divorce his wife. Jesus answered by quoting from the book of Genesis: from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ But then he added something curious. Jesus said, “What God has joined men must not divide.” Every time I officiate at a wedding, after the couple exchanges vows, I say these very words, “What God has joined men must not divide.”
These words have an immediate context within the debate concerning divorce, but I think they have a deeper, more spiritual meaning. Jesus answered the question about the greatest commandment by joining together two commandments: love God and love your neighbor. What God has joined we must not divide. In other words, you cannot love God if you don’t love your neighbor. St. John says in one of his letters, “the man who says he loves God but despises his neighbor is a liar and does not have the love of God in him.” Likewise, you cannot love your neighbor if you don’t love God.
The problem with the Pharisees was they had separated what God had joined. They tried to love God without loving their neighbor. And because of that, their claim to love God was suspect. By not loving their neighbor, the Pharisees demonstrated that really their observance of the law was not an act of true worship but rather of self-promotion. Instead of leading them to love of neighbor, their observance of the law led them to scorn others who failed to live up to their standards. Because they separated what God had joined, they failed in both.
Now today, there are some people who, like the Pharisees, suffer from self-righteousness and do not love their neighbor as Christ has instructed. But by and large, I don’t think this is the greatest fault. People are generally quite charitable. I see young people involved in many service projects. The Dempsey Challenge raised over 1 million dollars this year. And whether you agree with them or not, the fact that many people are involved in the Occupy Wall Street protest is a sign that people are concerned for justice and equality. It seems to me the problem today isn’t so much love of neighbor as it is love of God. If you separate what God has joined, you fail in both. Even with the best intentions.
Saturday October 22nd is the memorial feast of Blessed Pope John Paul II. I was privileged to attend the 2002 World Youth Day in Toronto Canada. The Pope made a comment that I have always remembered. To the youth of the world, He said:

“Dear friends, Christ alone is the cornerstone on which it is possible solidly to build one’s existence. … The twentieth century often tried to do without that cornerstone, and attempted to build the city of man without reference to Him. It ended by actually building that city against man! Christians know that it is not possible to reject or ignore God without demeaning man.
The aspiration that humanity nurtures, amid countless injustices and sufferings, is the hope of a new civilization marked by freedom and peace. But for such an undertaking, a new generation of builders is needed. Moved not by fear or violence but by the urgency of genuine love, they must learn to build, brick by brick, the city of God within the city of man.
Allow me, dear young people, to consign this hope of mine to you: you must be those "builders"! You are the men and women of tomorrow. The future is in your hearts and in your hands. God is entrusting to you the task, at once difficult and uplifting, of working with him in the building of the civilization of love.”

My brothers and sisters, Pope John Paul II reminded us that the “spirit of the world” offers many false illusions and parodies of happiness and that the greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibilities. Let us not separate what God has joined. Let us neither exclude God or our neighbor from our lives. Let us seek the justice and good we long for by loving the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul and mind and let us love our neighbor as ourselves. Blessed John Paul II, pray for us.

Monday, October 17, 2011

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Give to God what Belongs to God



( Listen to the recorded version. )

 What gives money its value? A $100 bill isn’t printed on a hundred dollars worth of paper. If I went to Home Depot and bought a washer the size of quarter it might cost me more than 25c. So what gives currency it’s value? In the Gospel, Jesus asks “Who’s image is on it?” The value comes from the one who mints it. The value comes from the one who backs it, who guarantees its value. A $100 bill is worth $100 because the State back it, secures it, and guarantees it- not because it is printed on $100 worth of paper.
In the Gospel today, Jesus is approached by the Pharisees and Herodians, the equivalents of the Democratic and Republican parties; Jesus is neither party. Both parties seek to trap him. But Jesus deftly maneuvers the political question of his day: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar?” Jesus’ answer, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; give to God what belongs to God.” He teaches two things. First, that as Christians we must not avoid civic responsibility. We must be involved in society. Second, more importantly, and this is the major point of the Gospel which is often lost, we need to give to God what belongs to God. We can’t avoid our religious obligations either.
So what does this mean for us today? We must give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; and to God what belongs to God. I don’t know if you’ve been following a lot of the political goings on recently, if you have been aware of the arguments being heard by the supreme court, or the recent mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services with its extremely narrow religious exemption clause, but let me frame the challenge this way: Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God, means don’t give Caesar what doesn’t belong to him. Don’t give to Caesar what belongs to God.
In the book of Genesis, it says God created man and woman in his own image and likeness. At the very beginning, mankind was created, minted, stamped with the very image and likeness of God. Like a quarter or $100, God’s image is stamped on us. And it is God who guarantee’s our value. He says “you are my beloved” and in Jesus, God shows us that he would rather die than risk loosing us for eternity. We are worth a lot to God. It is He who sets our value. God is the foundation of our human rights.
Human rights by nature are universal and eternal. They must be, because they come from God. And we expect them to be. We expect rights to be for everybody, and we expect them not to change or be capable of change, else they are not rights. Rights come from God. They come from our common human nature, created in the image of God. Rights are not the property of the State. The State does not have the “right” to issue rights. Only God can do that. The State’s responsibility is to recognize people’s God given dignity and to protect and promote human rights.
The problem is, if you take God out of the equation, human rights lose their foundation, they lose their guarantee. That’s why in the 20th century we’ve seen some of the greatest abuses occur in secular and atheistic societies. If there is “no God” or people pretend that God doesn’t exist, than its easy for the State to overstep it’s bounds . In Nazi Germany, the State defined an entire class of people “non-human”. It denied the dignity of the Jewish people, failed to recognize the image of God impressed on their souls, and instead stamped their own image on them, tattooed their arms and marched them off to death camps.
The question of give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God is the central issue today. It is what lies behind all the other issues: like health care rights, abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage. For instance, the problem with same-sex marriage isn’t really homosexuality. Our opposition to same-sex marriage has very little to do with homosexuality. It has more to do with marriage and the role of the State. Whereas the Church believes the State has a responsibility to recognize and defend the dignity of all homosexual persons, we do not believe the State has the right to redefine marriage. The right to marriage comes from our human nature, from our being created in the image and likeness of God. Marriage does not belong to the State. And we should not give to Caesar what doesn’t belong to Caesar. Otherwise it is very difficult to get it back. It may seem good now, and some people may benefit from the State’s interference in the short-term, but what’s to stop the State at in the future from asserting the authority we’ve ceded to it to deny people the right to marry because of their race or the color of their skin? What’s to stop the State from dissolving your marriage? Or telling you who you must marry.
Ok. I’m not a politician. I am your pastor. I will not tell you how to vote. But I will tell you what the Gospel says. The Gospel says that you cannot avoid being part of society. That you have a moral obligation to be involved. You must inform your conscience. You must know your faith. And you must participate in our civic society. Not too long ago your parents and grandparents were denied a voice in American society simply because they were Catholic. They worked hard and made many sacrifices to change that. We should not be politically apathetic.
Second, you must give to God what belongs to God. The only reason we are debating things like same-sex marriage and abortion today is because long ago Christians stopped giving to God what belongs to God. And that’s the challenge. The burden is not on others. The burden of responsibility is on us. We have to give to God what belongs to God: Life belongs to God. Marriage belongs to God. The problem is that too many Christians have give life and marriage to other things and embraced a culture of contraception and divorce.
You have a moral obligation to participate in society. For some of you that will mean becoming lawyers and lawmakers. But for most of us, it will mean getting very serious about giving God our life and our marriage. The only way we will be able to defend the right to life and the institution of marriage is if we are living our Catholic faith at work, at home, in the marketplace, in the public square. If you want to make a difference in this world, give God your life, give God your marriage. Give to God what belongs to God.