14th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Jesus
says that his yoke, the burden he imposes is light. Let's review.
Turn the other cheek. Forgive your neighbor not just seven times but
seven times seventy times. Go the extra mile. Love God and neighbor
as you love yourself. Hate your parents, your siblings if you will
follow him. Die for the love of a friend. Eat his flesh and drink his
blood. Be prepared for persecution, torture, and death for spreading
his Good News. Pray for your enemies. Don't worry about tomorrow b/c
God even takes care of the sparrows. Go, and sin no more. We could go
on. But the picture here is perfectly clear. There's nothing easy,
light, or in any way casual about putting on the yoke of Christ. Just
figuring out what some of these commands mean is burdensome enough
w/o trying to actually carry them out. Does he understand the burden
he's putting on us? He says that he will give us rest. He says that
we will learn from him – his meekness and humility. So, when Jesus
invites us to take on his yoke, what is he asking us to do? Is taking
on his burdens worth the time and effort?
In
one of his many sermons,* St. Augustine has this to say about our
gospel passage, “All other burdens oppress and crush you, but
Christ's burden actually lightens your load. All other burdens weigh
you down, but Christ's burden gives you wings. If you cut away a
bird's wings, it might seem as though you are taking off some of its
weight, but the more weight you take off [by removing its wings], the
more you tie the bird down to the earth. There it is lying on the
ground, and you wanted to relieve it of a burden; give it back the
weight of its wings, and you will see how it flies.” The wise and
the learned know that the heavier an object is the more work it takes
to make it fly. Lighter objects need less work to fly. But the little
ones know that a bird cannot fly without the weight of its wings.
Christ’s yoke, his burden on us weighs less than bird bones and
feathers. Nothing he asks of us is foreign to him. Nothing he demands
of us is beyond our strength. Everything he teaches us and preaches
to us is as familiar to him as his own skin. He knows our trials. He
knows our weaknesses. Above all, he knows that we are made strong,
durable, and patient by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Paul,
writing to the Romans, teaches us, “You are not in the flesh; on
the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells
in you…” As baptized and confirmed members of the Body of Christ,
God’s Spirit does dwell within us. And since God’s Spirit abides
in us, “the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to
[our] mortal bodies…” And since our mortal bodies will be given
the life of the resurrection of the dead when our Lord returns for
us, “brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live
according to the flesh…” And so, we are to live as Little Ones –
the poor, the broken, the thrown away, the diseased, those who rush
to Jesus for a word of healing.
Why
must be become so little? Because to be filled with the Spirit we
must first be emptied out as Christ himself was emptied out for us on
the Cross. There is no room for God’s Spirit in a body crowded with
fear, worry, anger, a lust for revenge, a desire to punish; there is
no room for God in a soul stuffed full with the need to worship alien
gods; to kill the innocent; to torture the enemy. Greed, jealousy,
rage, promiscuity, dissent, all elbow sharply at our souls for more
space for themselves but make no room for God. Paul warns us: “…if
you live according to the flesh, you will die…” If we will live,
we must “put to death the deeds of the body…”
Nothing
that you have heard Jesus or Paul say this evening should surprise
you. You know the consequences of sin. Firstly, sin makes you stupid.
Disobedience quenches the fire of the intellect, so that you choose
evil over good. Do this often enough and you become a fool. Secondly,
since sin makes you foolish, you come to believe that you are wise.
If you are also learned, that is, well-educated in the world, you
might even begin to believe that you better than God Himself what is
best for you. Enter all those nervous questions about the nature of
Jesus’ burden and the weight of his revelation on you. Finally,
since sin makes you a wise and learned fool, you may come to believe
that you can do without God altogether, becoming, for all intents and
purposes, your own god, worshiping at the altar of Self. At this
point, you have excluded yourself from God’s love and the company
of the blessed. Welcome to Hell. Maybe the Devil will let you rule a
small corner of your favorite level, but don’t count on it. You
know the consequences of sin. So empty yourself. Make plenty of room
for God’s Spirit and Christ's featherweight burden.
If
we will come among the blessed and thrive in holiness, then we will
take on the light and easy yoke of Jesus and let him teach us the one
thing we must know above all else: He is the Christ sent by the
Father so that we might have eternal life. This is not the end of our
spiritual journey; it is just the beginning. Christ’s warnings
about the wise and learned are not meant to push a kind of
anti-intellectualism, a know-nothing party of prejudice and
blindness. In fact, it is because we are first weighted down with the
feather-light wisdom of Jesus’ yoke that we must then come to
understand our faith, to use our graced minds to explore and
comprehend God’s creation – ourselves and everything else. If we
are emptied of the deeds of the flesh and infused with the Spirit of
God, then our bodies too are graced, and we have nothing to fear from
the mind, nothing to worry about in seeking out knowledge and
understanding. To know God’s creation better is to know God Himself
better, and when we know God better and better, we become smaller and
smaller and more and more ready to receive the only revelation we
need to come to Him, the only burden from Him we must carry: Jesus is
the Christ!
*Sermon 126
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This is the most difficult Gospel passage of all for me. I cannot square this with Jesus' other statements about seeking the narrow path and "if the world hates you, know that it hated Me first." I still don't get it. I understand that life is better when free from sin, but your laundry list at the beginning remain unanswered. How is martyrdom a light burden? Today people face losing their jobs or face boycotts if they or their businesses publicly follow Christ. That is a worthwhile and noble path, but how can someone describe it as "light"? It's like joining the Marines. Good on them, and thank God that someone is defending the country. But you wouldn't use the word "easy" or "light" to describe the life of a Marine.
ReplyDeleteIt's light and easy compared to the same trials experienced w/o Christ and the Spirit among us. B/c Christ did everything first, we follow. . .making the path easy and light. IOW, it's the attitude of meekness and humility that makes the trials less burdensome.
DeleteSounding like the mother of a teenager, here's what I have to say about your homily: I liked what you said but not how you said it. It came off choppy and somewhat disjointed. More like a dry lecture than what I am accustomed to hearing from your homilies. Will you be posting an audio file? I'd like to hear it.
ReplyDeleteHis burden IS light if I accept it from Him and then allow Him to carry it. Which makes no sense, until you actually try it :-).
I'd decided to preach w/o a text. . .then chickened out at the last minute. . .cobbled something together. After my Saturday night, I was doing well to get to Mass at all.
DeleteI still don't get it. If I have a choice between getting sued because I won't go along with the LGBT agenda or holding to my Christian beliefs, it's easier to not get sued no?
ReplyDeletePerhaps you need to put this into a Dominican disputation format :)
In worldly terms, yes, it's easier not to get sued. Remember tho: "Those who acknowledge me, I will acknowledge. . .those who don't. . ." Our eyes are set on an eternal prize not a comfy life here on earth.
DeleteOk thanks. I'm not getting across, but I'll keep praying about it.
Delete"And so, we are to live as Little Ones." Well said! As a Christian, I am yoked with Christ in Baptism. The larger I make myself -- i.e., the more I choose my own temporal interests over the will of God -- the more that yoke rests on my shoulders instead of His, and the more burdensome it is.
ReplyDeleteIs it less burdensome to unhitch yourself from Jesus' yoke altogether? Maybe, for a while. But sooner or later, you'll find that you've chosen a false god instead of the True God, and false gods let their followers bear the full burden achieving beatitude on their own.