28th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

One of the problems about giving homilies is that you can never be sure that what people hear and what you think you have said are the same thing. I remember one old lady in Kilmarnock. She made the tea in the staffroom at St Joseph’s Academy, and often during conversations with the teachers she would say things like, ‘Father was just saying on Sunday..’ and proceed to tell them something which either had nothing whatsoever to do with what I thought I had said or was the exact opposite. I remember another angry woman who phoned up one evening and went on about how, several weeks previously, I had said that Jesus was a woman. I knew I had never said any such thing, but could not figure out what it was she had heard. Thanks to the wonder of computers, however, we were able to trace it back, to discover that what I had said was that God was not a man and that, when she had heard this, she had thought I was talking about Jesus. I had not said Jesus was a woman, but if he was not a man, what else could he be? And then there are the people who, no matter how often you say something, never hear it. One man came to see me recently who, despite the fact that he had sat through many years of my homilies, was adamant that he had never heard me explain the difference between religion and faith. To some extent, of course, we all hear what we want to hear and there are things we hear many times without really hearing them, until one day something changes and it’s as if we are hearing them for the very first time. And so, although I have done so before, I would like to address a question connected with what I said last week.

And it’s a problem which arises every time I speak about the unconditional nature of God’s love. Someone always asks the question, and sure enough, it happened again last week. “But if God loves us unconditionally; if there is nothing we can do which would make God love us any more or any less; if we cannot earn or gain the kingdom by our own efforts; then, what’s the point? What’s the point in being good? What’s the point in going to Mass? What’s the point in trying, if, in the end God loves everybody the same; and, ultimately, for many people who deep down have always envied those who can lie in their beds on a Sunday morning instead of getting up and going Mass, what’s the point in being a Catholic?” These are important questions, but only those who inhabit the world of religion rather than faith could ask them. And I will try to explain why that is.

Dig down as far as you can to the very roots of religion and what you will find there is fear. Our ancient ancestors lived in constant fear of the unpredictable violent forces which governed the world they lived in and, as we have seen before, religion in its simple and most primitive form was a way of dealing with and alleviating those fears. If they could control the gods and win their favour, then maybe the worst would not happen. Maybe by performing religious actions and offering sacrifices they could get the gods on their side and persuade them to do what they wanted. And deep within our churches that same primitive way of thinking is alive and active. How many people over the years have gone to Mass out of fear of what might happen if they didn’t, especially if, as happened to me, it was drummed into you at school what would happen if we committed a mortal sin and died without going to confession. And how much harm has been done to people who have lived their whole lives fearful of a God who was watching them, keeping a record of every wrong thing they ever did – extending to even their most secret thoughts - and just waiting to trip them up and punish them at every opportunity? Such non-existent gods have caused havoc over the years, limiting people’s capacity to be enjoy their lives and contributing to all kinds of mental health problems like depression and scruples. They even lie at the root of the Reformation. Not only was fear of damnation at the heart of the problem of indulgences, but Martin Luther himself was a man tormented by the fear we speak of. Driven by his fears, he went to confession many times every day and ultimately only found relief from his scruples in the whole notion of justification by faith alone, a struggle which has had long-term consequences for the whole Church.

But for those who have begun to move from the world of religion rooted in fear into the world of faith, a whole new dynamic opens up. In this new world it is not fear which lies at the root of how we live, but gratitude. And here, of course, we have the link with the story of the leper in today’s gospel story. Religion is about doing things for God. Faith is about what God longs to do for us. And as the truth of all that God has done and longs to do in us and for us begins to dawn, deep, overwhelming gratitude is the only possible response. And as it grows in us through the power of the Spirit, our whole reason for doing what we do as Christians is transformed and moved onto a totally different plane. We start coming to Mass, not out of fear of what will happen if we don’t, but to give joyful thanks to God for all that he is doing in us. Christian morality becomes, not a list of ‘thou shalt nots’ which put restrictions on what otherwise we might want to do, but a whole new, rich vision of where human happiness and human fulfilment really lie. The sacrament of penance, which, thanks to the fear we speak of, few people use these days, and which grown men and women still live in fear of, becomes what it was always meant to be, a joyful gratitude-filled encounter with the Jesus who loves humanity in its weakness and longs to lead us beyond the sinful and destructive parts of ourselves which cause so much pain and damage to ourselves and others.

But even in the single year I have been here, I have said these things over and over again. But have you heard them? Only you can answer that question, but my own prayer is that there will be at least one person here this weekend who really hears them for the very first time.


BIDDING PRAYERS


Leprosy in Jesus’ day was a metaphor for sin, and Jesus’ healing of the man in today’s gospel, like all the other healing stories in the gospel, is really about the forgiveness of sin. And so we ask God today to stir in us today a deep sense of the reality of sin in the world and of our need for healing and forgiveness both as individuals and as a society if we are to overcome the selfish, destructive part of ourselves, move beyond narrow self-interest and build a more just future for the whole of humanity......Lord hear us

There is nothing in the whole of life more radical than the Word of God which we hear each week. It challenges us to the very roots of our being, calling us to profoundly new ways of living based on the teaching of Jesus. It invites us to embrace the values of the kingdom rather than those of the consumer-driven society we live in and this is not at all easy. But we pray that, with God’s help, we will come here each week open to the challenge and willing to go wherever the Spirit leads........Lord hear us

The tendency to have selective hearing and hear what we want to hear, blocking out the things we don’t agree with, or simply do not want to hear, is deep in all of us. We use it as a way of keeping Jesus at a safe distance, enabling us to avoid the radical nature of his teaching. We reduce the gospels to something we can understand and accept, something that makes sense on our terms, and so rob it of its power. And so we ask God for the insight and wisdom we need to see how we do this.......Lord hear us

The fear which has lain at the root of religion from primitive times has done immense harm to millions of human beings over the years. It can be the cause of scruples, with all the anxiety they cause in the lives of those who suffer from them. For others, it can be a contributory factor in depression and other mental health problems. And so we pray for all whose lives are blighted by a deep rooted fear of God that they will come to know something of the sheer depth of God’s love for them........Lord hear us

For millions of others, this deep-rooted fear of God has other harmful consequences. Deep inside many religious people, it whispers the lie that to enjoy the things which give us pleasure in life is somehow not quite right, leaving us feeling guilty about things there is nothing to feel guilty about. As a result, many outside the church believe that getting involved with God would mean the end of all fun and enjoyment. And so we pray that, by living joyful lives, we will show the world that this is not true............Lord hear us

Few people in the Church today celebrate the sacrament we call Confession. For millions whose early childhood experience in this area was one of fear and dread, the thought of going to Confession is not unlike the way we feel about a visit to the dentist. And yet it does not have to be like this. Confession at its best is an a joyful encounter with the Jesus who healed the leper in today’s Gospel and we pray for the coming of the day when we will all re-discover this and feel again something of the gratitude he felt.....Lord hear us