When we talk about sin, we very easily fall into three errors: (1) treating it just like a list of rules and regulations, (2) believing that our actions don't matter because everyone will be saved, and (3) believing we can save ourselves by our own effort. Homily for Sunday 12 February 2023 on Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sirach) 15:16-21 and Matthew 5:17-37.
The other day I was celebrating a funeral here in St Thomas’ – and after the funeral service we took the coffin up to Quennevais cemetery for the burial. When I left the Church, the sky was a threatening grey colour, but by the time we reached the graveyard the wind was howling, it was chucking it down with rain, and the ground was very muddy and very wet! As the coffin bearers made their way towards the grave, along the mud and in the wind and rain, one of them slipped and came very close to falling into the open grave. When we talk about Sin, it’s a lot like carrying a coffin through a muddy graveyard while being battered by wind and by rain. Each of us is carrying our own burden of sin, our own coffin, and being blasting from side to side by so many contradictory voices and different opinions trying to knock us into a grave like a powerful wind.
Some people will tell you that sinning or not sinning is simply a matter of rules and laws: “do this” and “don’t do that” and you will be saved. Other people will tell you not to worry about sin at all: everyone’s saved anyway so there’s nothing to worry about because God will just forgive you anyway! If we fall for either of these, we may not fall into a literal grave, but we will fall into grave errors that the devil is trying to trip us into.
But today’s readings tell us something different. You see, the old law, the Law of Moses was a set of rules. It was a legal code to teach the people of Israel what was right and what was wrong, and to set boundaries that could be enforced. But the New Law isn't like that, the new law goes even further. Jesus doesn't just present us with a list of do's and don’ts, instead he teaches us a law of holiness. The Spirit of the old Law, Jesus says, is ‘To love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind, and all your soul, and to love your neighbour as yourself.’ Being holy, is about living this spirit, not just about following rules. This is why he goes further than the Law – it looks at the intentions of our hearts and teaches us to love. It isn’t enough just to avoid murder, adultery, and theft, if murder, adultery, and theft are in our hearts.
He goes even further. Jesus says;
If your right eye should cause you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of you than to have your whole body thrown into hell.
Not only do we have to avoid Sinning in what we do, and say, and think; we also have to avoid the things and even the people who cause us or tempt us to sin. Even if that is as painful as tearing out an eye or cutting off a hand.
The choice we are presented isn’t a matter of rules, defined arbitrarily by God, but a matter of holiness and unholiness, of love and the opposites of love. The first reading today makes this clear to us, it says;
He has set fire and water before you; put out your hand to whichever you prefer, man has life and death before him; whichever a man likes better will be given him.
He isn’t telling us ‘do this because I say so’ – His law is fundamentally about the health of our souls. He is showing us what is good for us and what is bad for us and He is inviting us to choose between them.
Now, some people will try to tell you that there is nothing really to worry about. They will tell you the rigid rule-followers want to focus too much on good and evil, and on sin, and on what we do. They will tell you that all that matters is love, however you define love, and that God loves us so much that even if we fail we’ll be saved anyway. All this talk of choosing life or death is silliness! Some of them might say we have to at least want to do what’s right, but that describes every human being who isn’t a psychopath, so it’s a pretty low bar.
If the error of rules obsession can lead us to abandon the spirit of the law for it’s letter, this second error Universalism, abandons both the spirit and the letter of the law and replaces the truth with an unsatisfying hash and makes our lives here on earth utterly meaningless. If they were right, and our actions mean nothing at all, then there is no point to any of this. No point coming to Church, no point receiving sacraments, no point in living and going about our lives because they all end in heaven anyway. The earth just gets reduced to a great big waiting room for heaven and we’re all just marking time until we get there.
This of course, is not what Jesus is teaching us, in fact he explicitly tells us in today’s Gospel “unless your virtue goes deeper than that of the scribes and pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.” Our actions and our choices matter. Whether we grow in holiness matters. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth. They are, in fact, lying.
The choice we must make is a very simple one: Do I want to be saved or do I think I don’t need saving? Once we make that choice, once we ask Jesus to be our saviour, he gives us some powerful gifts to help us grow towards holiness.
First, He gives the gift of the Holy Spirit; the great helper, the healer, the teacher, and the guide that each one of us needs if we are to avoid Sin and grow in holiness. The Spirit, dwelling inside of us, prods our consciences and moves us to make the right decisions. He does this when we pray for his guidance and when we listen to the words of the Holy Spirit revealed in the Bible and the Tradition of the Church.
Second, He gives us the gifts of the Sacraments. We receive the Eucharist as food for the journey, to strengthen us, to build up the life of his Spirit in us, to help us to grow in holiness. We receive the body of Christ so that we can become the body of Christ more and more each day. We go to Confession; the Sacrament of penance, to meet Jesus and ask to be forgiven and to have our slate wiped clean. To undo the damage we have done to our souls by choosing to Sin. The Church requires us to go to Confession at least once a year, ideally before Easter, but encourages us to go as often as possible, as often as we need.
We can’t save ourselves. But we do have to make this minimum effort:
To listen to the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Church and the Scriptures, as He tries to move us towards Holiness
To Go to Confession regularly, to seek forgiveness when we fall back into sinful behaviours.
To receive the Eucharist worthily, in a state of Grace, as food for the journey
Only Jesus saves us; he saved us on the cross and gave us the Spirit to help us grow in holiness. But he saves us by co-operation – by working with us. That means we must choose Him. And choosing him, we have to make it mean something. If we say we have faith, but do not let that faith move us to holiness every day of our lives, then we really have no faith at all.
So today, and this week, examine your consciences and ask yourself: is there anything I need forgiveness for? If there is, listen to the Lord in today’s Gospel, make it right before you come to the altar to make your offering and to receive Communion, reconcile with the people you have harmed and reconcile with God in Confession.
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