I command you to love!

30^th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA

I'm here this morning to check your obedience! Let's see how well you do. I command you to stand. I command you to clap your hands. I command you to say hello to the people around you. I command you to sit. So far, so good. One last command: I command you to love one another. Ah, not so easy, uh? It's a bizarre command! Loving one another is not as simple as standing, clapping, saying hello, and sitting, is it? Surely, loving is a behavior. It is something we can do. I hope, it's something we do everyday. But it doesn’t seem to be that sort of behavior that can be demanded of us. And yet, that's exactly what our Lord is doing: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” You shall love. We seem to get commands that forbid certain behaviors. Do not kill; do not covet or steal; do not commit adultery. Worship no other god but the Lord. These make sense to us as basic commands. But what does it mean for us to love God and to love our neighbor? If the whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments, then I think we had better get this right! 

 

What Jesus is doing here is truly astonishing. Basically, he takes a lawyer's question – which of the 248 observations and 365 prohibitions of the Law is the greatest? – and says that what is absolutely fundamental about the Law and the Prophets is that we love our God like a father and that we love our neighbors like we love ourselves. Jesus fulfills Moses' Law of Stone with the Law of the Heart. He moves the center of our moral lives from legal compliance to loving obedience, from mere procedural observation to perfection in charity. From the Law carved on the tablets to the Law carved into our hearts, Jesus orders our moral lives to the Divine Love of the Father for His Son in the Holy Spirit. As members of the Body of Christ we participate in the Divine Life of the Blessed Trinity, loving Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and with them loving everyone else as we love ourselves and our own. In charity – works of mercy, acts of compassion, labors of love – we show the world the love of the Blessed Trinity for us, for all of His creation, and we bring to perfection, to completion everything that He has made us to be. Not just good boys and girls. Not just morally pure robots. But truly free, truly liberated men and women who celebrate their slavery to God’s will. The virtue of charity – the good habit of loving God and neighbor – makes your will holy, that is, charity divinizes your will, makes your will God’s will and you flourish as a creature growing closer and closer to the Father.

Now I'm channeling Thomas Aquinas! But it is vitally important that we understand that our moral lives are not simply a matter of crossing all our moral “T’s” and dotting all our moral “I’s.” There is more at stake here than being good boys and girls. Certainly, being morally good is important. It's impossible to behave immorally and love God and neighbor at the same time. But do we understand that our moral lives, that is, our lives in Christ, are not given to us by God b/c we behave morally? Your ability, your need to act with charity, to love God and neighbor, to be compassionate to others is God’s gift to you for your use in the service of His greater glory. We are graced with the need to praise, to thank, to bless the Lord!

Jesus says that you are to love God will all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. You are to love God from the very center of your being, with everything that you are. With your heart you will love God intimately, passionately. With your soul you will love God with the breath He breathed into your body at your creation. And with your mind you will love God with His gift to know His Truth, His Goodness, and His Beauty.

None of this is possible without God giving you a share in His Divine Life, a piece of the life of the Blessed Trinity. We have done nothing to deserve it, nothing to merit it. Nor can we. It is a gift. Freely given. That is love. The freely given gift of living with God here and now. You live a truly liberated, truly freed moral life when you act out of this freely given gift of the Divine Life.

And Jesus wants you to understand that you live the Divine Life more perfectly when you love us as you love yourself. Now, what does this mean for you, for us tomorrow morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.? At the very least it means that you do not think of the rest of us as tools for your use, as instruments for your work or toys to play with. You do not act as if we are here merely to benefit you or to serve your needs. It means that you look at us as fellow creatures, images of God, likenesses of the Trinity, and you think of us and treat us as the divinely gifted, much-loved children of the Father that we are. It means that you, all of us must move beyond the relatively easy moral life of stony laws and come to live fully, perfectly in the much more challenging life of love, imitating our Lord in His works of mercy, receiving the Holy Spirit with joy, and becoming models for all believers. That’s moral perfection, that’s a life lived fully in divine love.

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Peace is not the absence of violence

NB. I'm a little late posting this one. . .

Feast of St Luke

Fr Philip Neri Powell, OP

NDS, NOLA

My younger brother, Andy, and I loved to fight. To this day we scare our mom by retelling old battles that she knew nothing about. Bricks to the head. Butcher knife chases. Pro-wrestler moves on the gravel driveway. That either one of us managed to get past high school is a miracle. Sometimes our battles drew parental attention and were ended by a belt and an order to go outside and split some cord wood. And even though we were busy fighting hickory trees with chainsaws and mauls, our hearts and minds were planning the next fight. No, we weren't beating up on one another. . .but we were hardly at peace. Peace is not merely the absence of violence. Nor is it the absence of emotional turmoil or spiritual distress. Peace can be comforting, sure, if peace is just a species of tranquility. But it isn't. At least not the sort of peace that we can expect when we detach ourselves from the things of this world and attach ourselves to Christ.

 

Our Lord says to the Seventy-two: “Go on your way. . .I am sending you like lambs among wolves.” What sort of peace does a lonely lamb experience among a pack of wolves? He adds, “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals . . .” What sort of peace do we experience going out into the world w/o cash, credit cards, shoes, or even a sack of snacks? We're to eat and drink whatever we are given. Is that vegan? Gluten-free? Low-carb? No sodium? Do you have a vegetarian option? What sort of peace reigns when all of our choices are made for us by strangers, and our only task is to heal their sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God? When we say to them, “Peace to this household,” what are we saying? 

 

We are saying, in fact, declaring, that Christ the King rules here. Because you and yours have received us as disciples of Christ, and b/c you and yours have shown us hospitality, we acknowledge in the name of Christ that this household is indeed ruled by Christ. And b/c he rules, you and yours are at peace. Not without some worry. Not wholly lacking some turbulence. But firmly, gratefully subject to the Eternal King, confidently guided and supported by the sacrificial love he demonstrated on the cross. As disciples, we bear Christ's peace to anyone and everyone who is willing and able to receive it. Without vicious attachments to worldly things and worldly passions, we bear Christ's peace in word and deed, demonstrating ourselves his sacrifice of love on the cross.

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ALL of it belongs to God. . .even Caesar

29^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

What belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? Notice that Jesus doesn't say, “Repay Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is yours.” Or “Give to God what is ours.” Or “Give to God what is theirs.” Caesar gets back what is his. God gets all that belongs to Him. So, what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? Whether we know it or not, this is the question that lies under all of our other questions about how we are participate in the affairs of the world. These are daily questions, of course, but they tend to cause us more problems around election time than any other. How can we be both citizens of this world and heirs to the Kingdom? How we think, feel, speak, and act as citizens of the world can determine whether or not we inherit the Kingdom. With our eyes firmly focused on the Kingdom, won't we eventually end up in conflict with Caesar and his rule? Absolutely. And the history of the Church bears this out. And continues to bear it out even now. What belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? For us, members of the Body, the Church, the answer is easy but not uncomplicated: it ALL belongs to God! You, me, mine, yours, theirs, ours. It all belongs to God, including Caesar himself.

Is this the point Jesus is making when he says that we owe Caesar what is his and God what belongs to God? Why not just say, “It all belongs to God”? Remember what Matthew tells us about the Pharisees. They are plotting against Jesus, trying to entrap him with a legal problem. When they ask their question, our Lord “knows their malice,” and asks them in turn: “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” Jesus knows that they aren't interested in a learned opinion on the Law. They aren't genuinely intellectually curious about his response. They're trying to snare him in an impossible political/religious position that they can then use against him. Jesus' brilliant response to their fake question explodes the trap. The coin has Caesar's face and inscription on it. It's his. Give it back to him. Everything else goes to God. The Romans can't fault his reply. The Pharisees can't either. But Jesus knows that everything belongs to the Father. And so do we. So, what do we – in 21^st c. America – do with this bit of teaching? 

 

We all know the standard answer here. We obey just laws. We pay our taxes. We vote in elections. We support our communities. We serve in the military. In other words, we participate in Caesar's state as upstanding, patriotic citizens. There is no contradiction btw being an exemplary citizen and a faithful Catholic. That's the standard answer. And there's nothing wrong with it. However, what happens when we come to understand that everything belongs to God? My life, your life, everything we are and everything we possess first belongs to God. You and I were and are gifted with everything we are and everything we have. Gifted. Given. You might say, “But Father! I worked all my life for my house! Nobody gave it to me!” God gave you life. He gave you the time and talent you needed to work for that house. He's giving you your life now to enjoy your house and your family and friends. At best, we can say that the things we have are borrowed from God, including our very lives. So, what happens when this truth becomes a daily reality for us? What happens when you wake up – alive and well – and note that you are alive and well? Do you give God thanks and then go about your day noticing the abundance of gifts you've been given? I hope so! Because Jesus says that we have to give it all back. At some point, it all returns to the One Who gave it to us in the first place.

The moment it all returns, the moment our borrowed lives and borrowed things go back to God is the moment we spend our short lives preparing for. Jesus says to repay Caesar what is Caesar's. Repay. Nothing more than what is owed. That's what counts as good civil citizenship. But we are also heirs to the Kingdom. On loan to this world for the salvation of the world. When we and all we have are called back, we bring back with us more than we were given. Or, at least, that's the goal. If we have used God's gifts to do His holy work, then we bring back to Him all that we owe plus substantial interest. His love in us has been perfected through our sharing of His love with others. When the Christ the Just Judge looks at you on the day of final judgment, will he see his face and inscription stamped on your soul? Will he be able to lift you up to the Father and say, “This one is mine returned to me in greater love”? Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar while you live. But remember, in the end, it ALL belongs to God.

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