23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Cycle A 22-23

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 33:7-9 | Romans 13:8-10 | Matthew 18:15-20

Oh God, by whom we are redeemed and received adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.

Religion evolves. Human beings evolve. The world evolves. We are not who we were many, many years ago, and one of the shadows of religion is that it tends to feel that it is the one thing that never changes, that always holds the same truths. And it may be that they hold the same truths, but how those truths are interpreted by those of us who listen to them could be radically different than someone in the Old Testament, because they were different. And so it’s not that the rules or laws ⎯ as far as what they basically are based on has never changed, but how we interpret them is very different. And I find myself in such a strange place after being a priest for over 55 years. I have felt more animosity toward my church, from my church members, brothers, Catholics, who are upset with the direction that she’s going in, or at least ⎯ either that, or they’re really disappointed. When they go there, they’re not fed and nurtured. And it seems so strange to me, because I was so enthusiastic about the Vatican Council and how it would change everything. And at the heart of that change, was so clear to me, that the church would be no longer seen as this hierarchical of officials running our lives, but the church was as it is in the gospel. When people gather together and pray for God’s will, that will has been empowered to change people. Just knowing it isn’t the same as longing for it, wanting it, asking God to give it to us. What we long for is what the opening prayer prays for, true freedom ⎯ freedom.

So let’s look at the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, because preaching for the last 50 years on both has been really exciting. Before that, it was only the New Testament that Catholics heard on Sunday. But here’s the difference I see so clearly: the Old Testament is based in law, the power of law over someone else’s desires or wills. It fundamentally tells us what we’re supposed to do, so it’s based on authority, and then therefore, it’s demanding that we follow that. But then the interesting thing in the New Testament is the very thing that the law is there to change, people’s hearts so they’re not so destructive. The law simply gave people the right to destroy people who weren’t following the law. In other words, it’s about power over people, and when they don’t do what you are told, they’re destroyed. At least in the beginning of the Old Testament, it’s clear. When God saw a city filled with sin, he would just say, “I’m going to destroy them all.” And he would, and he did. So you have power over people. The goal, if they don’t do what they’re told, and that obedience is the goal, then they get the very thing they’re told not to do to people. Stop violating each other. Stop hurting each other. Stop destroying each other. It’s like the evil is there, and the church is using the same tactic as evil does practically by saying you have to basically be a person who is acceptable or being condemned.

So then you look at the New Testament. What’s the difference? Radical difference, it’s no longer focused on action so much but on who we are. So when I see the New Testament, what Jesus came to establish is this incredible, wonderful community of like-minded people who realize that they are called to evolve into something more than they are and that they’re invited to live in a world that does not return evil for evil, but instead of condemning those that are wrong, it accepts them, forgives them, and seeks to open their eyes. What a difference? If it’s really about becoming someone instead of doing what you’re told, I see this incredible sense of freedom coming into it, and I believe that’s exactly what God wants us to understand about religion. It’s communal, and the communal aspect of it is not everybody blindly following the same rules and regulations. I remember growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s in Catholic cities, like Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis. We all did the thing we were doing, because we ⎯ we all did it, so we never questioned it. We couldn’t eat meat on Friday. We couldn’t do other things at Lent, the discipline of Lent by giving up things, which is all fine and good, but I never questioned any of it. I just did what I was told, and everybody else did. So it was a communal nature religion where it becomes a culture, and when you’re in the culture, you don’t question anything. And if somebody questions it, they’re dangerous, but it’s important, today more than ever, to really look at whatever religion we are a part of, or if we’re not a part of any religion, to look at what it is that we’re challenged to do, to become. What’s our spirituality? And I see so much that spirituality being described in a way in the gospel of a place where people gather together, likeminded people wanting the same thing, not wanting to be controlled, not wanting to be told what to do, not wanting to have someone in the place of authority that impedes your ability to live the life that you know, deep inside of you, is an authentic true life. What a wonderful idea. What a wonderful image, I think, of what the church could really be, or maybe I should say what it really is, because when you belong to a community that feeds you with all kinds of fear and anger about the way the world is and wanting somehow for all those people to be somehow punished and destroyed, when we attack them instead of longing to change them, we’re in this false, deadly, dark, unhealthy religion. But if we can look at it as Jesus describes it and feel the freedom that comes to a human being who knows that, in their heart, their major reason for being here is not to be selfish, as the Old Testament so clearly focuses on self-centeredness ⎯ do the law, or you die. What’s your motive? My well-being, my future, all about me. New Testament, how can I respond to the call of religion? What is my response to it, my responsibility? To free people, to give them a sense of their own value, their own dignity, their own worth, to free them from excessive, fear, shame and anger that comes with a rigorous legal system that you have to surrender to.

What a gift, to be able to live in this day, this time where not only are we reexamining every institution ⎯ who do you trust? Every institution seems to be ruled by people who have some self-centered motive. They serve the company rather than the customers. They do everything they can, and even lie, to be able to sell their product or do what they claim they will do, and they don’t ever perform up to what they’re supposed to be. All of that, we see it everywhere. So it’s obviously going to be seen in religion, but the thought that that same kind of self-centeredness lives in religion is a little bit frightening, and it shouldn’t, in any way, shape or from give us a feeling that religion is intrinsically the wrong route, the wrong journey, the wrong thing to surrender to. No, listen to the religion that is described by the one who came to move religion out of an unhealthy den of thieves, as Jesus would call the men of the temple, into this glorious kingdom of freedom and acknowledgement of beauty in ourselves. And when it’s not there, we gather together, tell each other what we see in each other that isn’t what we think that is really our nature, believes in us by telling us what we could be, and they believe in us. It’s so different than being cut out and condemned. It’s a great time for the church. Great decisions are going to be made, and I pray my church, Catholic Church, every religion understands fully the mystery of this great, great tradition, bounded not in the Old Testament but founded on the New Testament by love and not law.

Father, your Son came into the world to do something for all of us. We call it redemption, forgiveness of our sins, but Lord, you know that it’s more than that. It’s a transformation of our very essence and opening us up to the beauty of what it means to be a community member that’s loving and changing and growing together. Bless us with that kind of experience of religion, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.