No Slave is Greater than His Master

How much do I really want to be like my master? How far am I really willing to go with him? To be like him? Tonight, we encounter our Lord in the greatest of his human actions, his passion and his death, and we ponder anew what his suffering means for us.

Looking back through Lent, Jesus says many things to challenge us. Perhaps you have taken some of them to heart, and are now wrestling with what he is saying to you. Faced with the challenges, you wonder if you can even meet them successfully. Maybe you began Lent with great resolve to overcome your sins and weaknesses, to dig deeper than you did in previous years, but as each week went by, you lost a little more of your strength and commitment. Do not give up and do not be discouraged.

From all eternity, knowing what we would do to damage the relationship we had with him, God in his wisdom planned to provide the ultimate remedy for us, for every form of injustice, every form of poverty, every sin and weakness, every manner of suffering, and, having fully prepared the human race through long ages, he planted that remedy at the epicenter of history as the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

So great and vast is it's power that God has woven this single event into the fabric of human experience, such that there is no moment or any fraction of a moment which does not contain its thread or feel the shockwave of its grace pouring forth from the earth of Calvary into which it was thrust.

As we read in Hebrews: "Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him." This suffering is not limited to his passion, but applies to everything he surrendered to become human. The obedience he learned and the perfection he gained must be understood in relation to his human nature, for in his divine nature, there would no need to learn obedience or gain perfection.

The entire human experience of Christ, and especially what he endured on this day, was a satisfactory offering to God the Father, not solely because God willed, but because Jesus in his human nature also willed to redeem that human nature for the sake of each and every human person, so that no one can say with any veracity, or truth, "God does not love me." - "I am unworthy of love." - "I am unlovable." or "I cannot love."

Last night, Father explained this great gift of the Eucharist, Christ’s Real Presence among us, the actual re-presentation of his sacrifice on the cross for all time. Dare we doubt the love and power of God in the face of so great a life as his and so great a mystery as the one presented to us on this altar, one by which we share in the divine life of God?

And if we share His divine life and we truly possess His love, then do we allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that we cannot keep His commands, that we are without His help, that we cannot become like Him? We deceive ourselves if we partake of the sacraments believing that we cannot carry our own crosses to the point of losing our entire lives, even our entire selves to Him and that we would not be better off if we do; for the power and love flowing from His cross, the grace of perseverance, the grace each of us needs to imitate our master is available to us without doubt!

Yes, we can always do better. We can give up more, not just for Lent, but every day. For example, some may be surprised to hear that we, as Catholics, are obliged to observe every Friday as a day of penance. Every Friday in memory of this Friday is meant to be a day on which we either abstain from meat or perform some other acts of penance and charity. Beyond our Friday obligations, we can offer more of our prayers, joys, triumphs, sufferings, and thanksgivings to God every day of the year. After all, Lent, although a season, is not meant to have a temporary effect. After this weekend, we ought not think that we are to return to our old ways. Will we continue to be slaves to our appetites, consuming all that we want while our neighbors do not have even their most basic needs? If we can fast today, can we choose to fast once a month or once a week?
For, if God the Son would not stand by and watch us remain in our miserable state, but every day of his human life surrendered all to which he had claim for the sake of our greatest needs, then will we continue to fill our lives with what we do not need and stand by as our brothers and sisters throughout the world suffer poverty, hunger, nakedness, war, imprisonment, loneliness, mistreatment, and infirmity?

In our culture, we may be deceived into thinking that the way of the cross leads only to sadness and pain. In reality, it leads to freedom and joy. We must remember that the crucifixion of the body was only the beginning, but a necessary beginning. Without this death, there could not be resurrection and ultimate freedom from sin and death for all of us. In the same way, we too must first embrace the crucifixion of our own flesh through self-control, self-denial, and self-sacrifice. Only by being stripped of all that hinders us will we clearly see how much we need the Lord and how much we can offer others, especially our most needy brothers and sisters. Stripped of our own opinions and prideful ideals, we are able to receive His truth and know the full joy, freedom, and happiness that He experiences in the resurrection as we overcome sin and weakness. When we bring our souls to the point of being naked at the foot of the cross, our truest self remains open to the scrutiny of Christ, our master and teacher, who was also stripped of everything. He is then most able to fill us and clothe us with His righteousness and use us to accomplish His will.

As we heard two Sundays ago, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Tonight, Christ lost his life for our sake. Do we really believe we can bear fruit without dying to our own disordered desires? Do we bury our lives under all the cares of this materialistic and entertainment-bound society instead of planting our hearts in the pierced heart of Christ? Do we suffocate the new life of baptism with a life of vanity? Have we been buried by the worldly ideals of bigger homes, fancier cars, more mobile devices, more fashionable clothes, the desire for popularity and celebrity? Do we value our degrees over our lives of faith? Do we value our TV shows, movies, and novels over and against a moral, modest, and chaste lifestyle? Do we do all these things and still call Christ our master and teacher? These are the very kinds of things he rejected and forsook so that we might live free and abundant lives of real and lasting joy and peace.

Do not be like the young lawyer who was so attached to his possessions that he could not follow Christ when he was asked to give them up. As we heard last night at the mass of the Lord’s Supper, “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” And in the next passage we read, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.” Are we greater than he that we should live more opulent lives? Are we greater to the extent that we cannot endure patiently the wounds inflicted by those who hurt us and then forgive them? Are we greater to the extent that our own opinions matter more than his teachings handed on to us by the hand of His Bride, His Holy Church?

Let us not jeopardize our opportunity for eternal life by being so unnaturally wedded to the the temporal and fleeting pleasures of this life. Tonight, take hold of the power of this cross, receive his love and resolve to join Him in his passion and death. Claim his grace and offer everything you lay claim to, everything he has handed to you, in an act of love for the salvation of the whole world.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - A

Lately, I have taken an interest in one of the masterworks of the famous and prolific English writer and Catholic convert, G.K. Chesterton: a book entitled, The Everlasting Man. Another well-known, English writer, C. S. Lewis credited The Everlasting Man with "baptising" his intellect, calling it "the [very] best popular defence of the full Christian position I know”. Lewis also cited it in a list of 10 books that "most shaped his vocational attitude and philosophy of life". In this book, Chesterton states: “The world owes God to the Jews.” The uniqueness of the declaration made me pause. “The world owes God to the Jews.” I continued reading and realized how evident and accurate this conclusion was; how profound and simple it was at the same time.

Popular theories on the development of worship would have us believe that monotheism, or belief in one true God, was a late development in humanity only after centuries of the worship of many Gods, known as polytheism. To the contrary, we believe that the human understanding of God was originally monotheistic and that from the beginning, we were created in a relationship with the One True God. Over time, and as a consequence of our fallen human nature, faith in this God was abandoned for the worship of created things. From this disordered type of worship, elaborate forms of polytheism grew and prevailed throughout human civilization everywhere, except in one place and among one people: in Israel, among the Jews.

Yet, Faith in the One True God did not originate with the Jews. Beginning with Abraham, God chose a people to be His People in order to preserve what was once lost among a mass of confused mythology. The Jews were given the Laws of God at the hand of the prophet Moses. By these laws, God charged His people to stand out among the other nations. To be holy and set apart for him alone and not to profane their religion by mingling their faith with the pagan practices of their neighbors; so that, through their obedience, the other nations would come to know who God was. And, though you and I might think parts of the Mosaic law are strict and strange, we can see that, at the very least, these laws set them apart from the polytheistic cultures that surrounded them. They served to remind the Jews that they were to be a sign, an emblem, a contrast that was significant enough to preserve the Faith in the One God, creator of heaven and earth in a world that had long ago abandoned it.

They would obey this law even to the point of death, because of the obedience of faith to which God called them. And so, for centuries, the Jews carried Faith in One God amidst the threats of polytheism, leading Chesterton to the conclusion that “the world owes God to the Jews.”

Turning to today’s Gospel reading from chapter 15 of Matthew, we meet Jesus at a particular time of in the history of the Jewish religion. As usual, we see Jesus challenging the understanding of the Jews of Jesus’ day; for the Jews had developed their religion to the point of hating their non-Jewish neighbors, whom they called “Gentiles”. Today, Jesus reminds the Jews that their separation from the Gentiles was not to develop into hatred and that the law was never meant to lead to the mistreatment of the stranger; that their obedience to the law was intended to lead the Gentiles to know God and to desire a relationship with God.

In the account of the Canaanite woman, Jesus is also testing the faith of the Canaanite woman. I would even say he is eager to play the role of the typical Jew so that his disciples can see how great a hunger the Gentiles have to know the one True God and to demonstrate how great a Gentile’s faith can be in contrast to many Jews. Why else would he have led them into the Gentile territory of Tyre and Sidon? It would be absurd to conclude that he was simply offending a Canaanite woman.

Jesus is telling the truth when he says that “[He] was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” At least, this was his first and primary mission, because this is what God promised the Jews, but Jesus is always listening to the Father, who also promised to the Gentiles what we read from Isaiah:

The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, becoming his servants-
all who keep the sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant,
them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer;
a house of prayer for all peoples.

In context, the purpose of the Father becomes clear: At the end of this chapter, we read about the feeding of the 4000 IN GENTILE Territory. Just one chapter before this, Jesus was feeding 5000 in Jewish territory. Clearly, Matthew marks a turning point and a teaching point in Jesus ministry.

Saint Paul attempts to capture the significance of Jesus actions in our second reading from the book of Romans, chapter 11. He speaks of the disobedience of the Jews which allowed the Gentiles to be united to the believing Jews, through faith in Jesus Christ, into one body, the Church. In some verses of this chapter which we did not read, he explains that “some of the branches were broken off [meaning the disobedient Jews], and you, a wild olive shoot [the Gentiles], were grafted in their place and have come to share in the rich root of the olive tree [Israel]…. They were broken off because of unbelief, but you are there because of faith.”

The teachings of the apostle are clear: The Church is the new Israel, and we have an obligation to continue what God began with the Israelites. In our modern times, we face something not unlike the situation of the ancient Jews, but instead of polytheism, the new Israel is threatened by any number of competing philosophies demanding equal validity with the gospel of our Lord.

Our modern culture suffers from the delusion that all philosophies (worldviews, beliefs) are equally valid because every person is of equal dignity. Now, although we can agree that every human person has equal dignity, we cannot agree that all philosophies are of equal worth, nor can we conclude that they are equally correct, especially if they are contradictory. Doing so would be contrary to reason.

Others may argue that we are all equally fallen in regard to our human nature, and so we can only conclude that all human philosophies are equally invalid, meaning that no one has any claim on the truth. This conclusion is equally unreasonable and ultimately leads to despair.

The only hopeful answer is the one we started with: that God chose to reveal Divine Truth to his people despite their sinful, fallen nature, in order that all may know Him and have a foundation for determining what is right and wrong, what will bring ultimate fulfillment and happiness. All of God’s people, having been baptized into Jesus Christ, have an obligation to live in the obedience of faith, just as the Jews did, so that all might come into a relationship with God leading to eternal salvation. Therefore, just as the Old Testament Faith did not originate with the Jews, the New Testament Faith does not originate with us.

We were baptized into Christ, not ourselves, and not unto ourselves, but unto God to be more conformed to his likeness in how we think and what we desire. For our sake, the Lord gave the keys to the kingdom to Saint Peter and his Successors in Rome, NOT to any of US. For centuries it has been their duty to protect the gospel and determine what teachings were essential to it.
When confronted with a behavior, practice, belief or philosophy in our modern world which contradicts the Gospel, we cannot treat the Faith as one opinion among equals. God has appointed the Church to guide us in these matters. We must pursue God like the Canaanite woman pursued Christ. We must also persevere in Faith like the Jews. As they were to reject the influence of the cultures around them, rejecting any other gods, so we must reject the erroneous thinking prevalent in our age. We should not profane the teachings of the Church by mingling them with teaching contrary to the Gospel entrusted to our leaders.

In this way all nations will come to know the one True God, through you and me – through our obedience of faith – a heritage entrusted to us by the Lord himself. Today, if you are a Jewish Catholic, rejoice that you are of the original olive tree. I you are a Gentile Catholic, rejoice that you have been grafted in, but let us together be on guard lest we once again be cut off.