Ordinary Time 24 - September 17, 2017

Homily for Ordinary Time 24

September 17, 2017

The Freedom of Being a Slave of God

 

            I have always been inspired by people in recovery programs. I’ve been to a couple Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as part of my seminary training and am always amazed at the courage these people have. I think part of what I admire about those in recovery is that many of them are so nonjudgmental about others – they know their profound weakness, and thus they are more apt to forgive the weaknesses of others.

            And isn’t that what makes forgiveness easy - When we realize how much we ourselves have been forgiven for? Let’s dive deeply into this Gospel to see that played out.

            The King, God, calls each of His servants to settle accounts. At the moment of our death, all of us will be judged – we call this the “particular judgment” and it is the moment when our lives will be revealed to us. We will see ourselves as God sees us, and we will see what kind of person we have become – loving or selfish, pure or lustful, greedy or generous. In a sense, we settle accounts with God each time we examine our consciences – we look at who we are, warts and all, and lay them before the mercy of God in confession.

            Then the King, God, finds a servant who owes a huge amount. Let’s be real – all of us owe God a huge amount. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Modern Americans like to think, “Oh, I’m not that bad, I’m a pretty good person.” Perhaps you haven’t committed murder – but have you murdered someone else’s reputation through gossip? Perhaps you haven’t committed adultery, but have you committed adultery by looking at a woman with lust? Perhaps you haven’t committed felonies, but we tell lies, take God’s name in vain, allow ourselves to be distracted in prayer, put money and pleasure and popularity before God…all have sinned, no exceptions! (Except Jesus and Mary, of course!).

            We’d like to think those sins aren’t all that bad, but consider this: God has given each one of us enough grace to become a great saint. Why are we not great saints? What graces have we rejected? Many of us have been blessed to have good parents, good examples of faith in our life, maybe attended Catholic school and come to the Eucharist frequently – but we have wasted many of these graces because we are not committed to truly, ardently, with our whole heart and soul, following the Lord. So we are all in debt to God, in a debt that we cannot pay.

            So the King threatens to sell the man and his family and possessions. But sell them to whom? And why? He threatens to sell him into slavery! This is one of the results of sin – sin causes us to be slaves. Consider: the first time you tell a lie, it’s difficult and you feel guilty. But the second time, it’s a bit easier, and the third time, it’s easier still, until soon we find that it’s actually difficult to tell the truth! All sin is like that – it causes vices (morally bad habits) that are hard to break – slavery! We become a slave to our senses, a slave to our pride, a slave to the devil, a slave to the world.

            So what does the servant do? He begs for mercy, and it is granted. Mercy is freely given, but it always comes at a cost. The mercy we receive, the forgiveness we receive, came at the price of the blood of the Son of God. Jesus died so we could receive mercy. He paid the price we could not pay; He paid back our debt with His life. We must never forget the price He paid!

Consider this: if you were standing in the street and a bus was about to hit you, and then someone jumped in front of the bus and pushed you out of the way but died in your place, would you be grateful? Yes! Would you think about them every day? Yes! Would you try to live a life that honored them? Yes! This is precisely what Jesus Christ did for you, in nailing your sins to the Cross so that you could experience mercy.

So instead of being sold into further slavery, this servant is now the slave of the merciful king. The word used for servant is “doulos” which in Greek is often translated slave. But wait? Didn’t the King free him from slavery?

Here is the paradox: we are only truly free when we are slaves of God. This echoes what St. Paul writes about in the second reading: “Both in life and death we are the Lord’s.” We belong to Him – we are not supposed to use our freedom for pleasure and selfishness, but our freedom is meant to be given away in love for God. This is a paradox that people cannot understand if they do not sincerely love the Lord, because to worldly people it looks like religion is meant to crimp our freedom. I remember once when I was a young seminarian in a parish assignment, I happened to be back in the sacristy (where the priest vests for Mass) with a groom on his wedding day. The bride was late (aren’t they all?), so we started chatting, and he asked me how long it would be until I became a priest. I told him I still had six years to go. He looked at me with pity and said, “Ah, so six more years of fun! You can sow your wild oats, get drunk, and party until you become a priest.” I was like, “Wait, what??” He thought that serving the Lord meant boredom and slavery - when in reality, sin leads to boredom and slavery – serving the Lord is incredible freedom, because in the Lord I am free to become the best version of myself, to truly be fulfilled and joyful. In the Lord, I am not a slave to any of the empty pleasures of this passing world!

To sum up: we recognize that Christ has forgiven us of a debt we could not pay, by nailing it to His Cross. We have received mercy and freedom – as now we are not slaves of this world, but we belong to Christ!

I’ll close with a powerful witness of forgiveness and mercy: St. Rita of Cascia. Born in Italy in the 1300s, Rita was married at the age of 12 to a wealthy but abusive man. She had two sons, but her husband’s bad temper made him a lot of enemies. He was finally murdered by an enemy, but at his funeral, Rita (now a widow with two young sons) publicly forgave his murderers and forgave him for all of the abuse he put her through. Her sons, though, grew up to follow in their father’s footsteps, and as young men they made a plan to revenge their father’s death by killing his murderers. Rita heard of the plan and prayed that God would take her sons before they were able to carry out their revenge. Shortly after, both of her sons got sick with dysentery, reconciled to God, and died. She realized that “both in life and death” her life, her husband’s life, and even her son’s lives belonged to God alone. She knew of Christ’s merciful love for her, so she was able to forgive her husband and his murderers, surrendering her sons to the mercy of God. She is now a saint in the Church!

May we all know that we have been forgiven of so much by the Lord – and with this realization, extend that same forgiveness to others.