Marriage Sermons
Loving With The Heart And Voice of A Prophet
Sermon by Father Roger J. Landry
Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts
1) There is a shocking turnaround in today's Gospel. The people
with whom Jesus grew up were assembled in the Nazareth
synagogue. After they heard him read Sacred Scripture and give a
one sentence homily -- 'today this Scripture has been fulfilled
in your hearing" -- St. Luke tells us that "all spoke well of
him and were AMAZED at the gracious words that came from his
mouth." But that amazement soon turned into doubt and then into
fury. "Isn't this Joseph's son," they asked, probably thinking
themselves wiser than Joseph and smarter than any of the
carpenter's supposed progeny. At the same time in their hearts,
they were wanting him to put on a show, to do in his hometown
the types of miracles they heard he worked in Capernaum. But
they were not ready to accept him for who he was, the
fulfillment in their hearing of all God had foretold through
Isaiah and the prophets, and Jesus told them as much: "No
prophet is accepted in his hometown." When they heard the
examples Jesus gave to back up this statement, they were "filled
with rage, -- got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to
the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they
might hurl him off the cliff." In a span of a few minutes, they
went from praying in the synagogue to expelling and trying to
murder Jesus.
2) This wouldn't be the last time the people turned on the Lord
so quickly. About two years later in Jerusalem, the people,
after having heard his tremendous preaching, after having
witnessed his miracles, five days after having shouted to him
with palm branches, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the
Lord!," cried out in cacophony, "Crucify Him!" and "give us,
Barabbas," a murderer and a thief. The Nazarenes tried to run
him out of town. The residents of Jerusalem allowed him to drag
his bloody, exhausted frame and heavy Cross outside the city
gates by himself. The Nazarenes tried to toss him over the hill.
The people of Jerusalem crucified him on a hill. In both
circumstances, however, the question is WHY? Why would they turn
on him? Why would they pass so quickly from thoughts of
amazement to those of homicide?
3) The reason is because Jesus challenged them to real faith, to
live according to the whole truth God had sent his prophets and
finally his Son to reveal, and the people said, "no!" But Jesus
spoke and acted with an authority that didn't allow just a
simple refusal. His message would reverberate in their
consciences. The only way to eliminate the message was to
eliminate the messenger.
4) Almost two-thousand years later, we might be tempted to
think, "How could the people of Nazareth and Jerusalem be so
STUPID?" "How could they be so evil as to try to kill Truth
itself, Life itself, Love personified? But before we yield to
that temptation, we should first ask ourselves, "Where would
Jesus? hometown be today?" Where does Jesus dwell? Where has
Jesus grown up with his people? We could make a case that our
Commonwealth of Massachusetts has historically been a hometown
for Jesus. Fifty-percent of our residents are Catholics, who
have grown up with Jesus since their baptism. The vast majority
of the other 50% are our Protestant brothers and sisters, who,
like us, have grown up and around the Lord. This is a state
where Christ and his message should be welcome, but it's one
where Christ and his message have been getting increasingly
expelled.
a) Earlier this month, the last vestige of our "Blue Laws,"
created in order to allow us to worship God fully and not have
to work on the Lord's day, was expunged, as now even liquor
stores are open for business on Sunday. Many Catholics --
especially younger teenagers -- now must now make a choice
between worshiping the Lord on the Lord's day or keeping a job,
and many choose the latter. Many others, sadly, spend more time
shopping on Sunday than they do praying.
b) Massachusetts should be a place in which Jesus? words,
"whoever receives a little child in my name, receives me,"
should be widely put into action, but, sadly, it has one of the
highest per capita abortion rates in the US. Christ said,
"Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do
to me," and about every 20 seconds in our state, Christ will be
put to death in the person of one of his smallest brothers and
sisters in the womb.
c) Now our Commonwealth faces the fact that some are trying to
run Christ and his teaching on marriage out of our state. It
started when four justices of the Supreme Judicial Court took it
upon themselves to try to toss out thousands of years of
tradition and human wisdom by saying that marriage, incredibly,
has nothing to do essentially with the union of a man and a
woman. All of us face now the decision about whether we?re going
to allow these justices to get away with it. Now is the time
when the 90+ percent of Christian residents of our state need to
ask whether they?ll allow Jesus and his teachings to be cast
outside state boundaries or whether they?ll stand up in defense
of Christ and his truth.
5) Christ's teaching on marriage is very clear. I know I've
mentioned this before, but it is worth repeating until every
last Christian understands its implications. He who is the Truth
and cannot lie told us clearly what marriage is. He who created
us IN love FOR love knows what will lead to love and what will
not and we need to heed his voice. When he was asked by a lawyer
what true marriage was, Jesus said, "In the beginning, God "made
them MALE AND FEMALE.? -- "For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his WIFE, and the two shall
become one flesh?? So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Mt
19:4-6). We can see at least four things very relevant to our
debate over marriage and why two men and two women cannot be
joined in marriage:
a) God made us male and female (and not male and male). Since
God does not do anything by chance, there is great meaning to
our masculinity and femininity. To ignore it is to ignore who we
are. b) God's plan is not that a man leave his parents and cling
to whomever he wishes, but to a wife. c) In marriage, two people
are meant by God to become one flesh. This points to a reality
that goes beyond the short-lived physical union of bodies that
occurs in the act of making love. It is geared toward an
enduring union that occurs when man and woman, through making
love, actually procreate a child who is the lasting marriage or
union of the flesh. It is obvious that man and man, and woman
and woman, cannot become one flesh in this way. d) Finally, man
must not divide what God has joined. God has joined man and
woman in marriage and when we try to put that asunder, we will
do so at our own and all of society's expense.
6) Faced with the Lord's teaching, each and every Christian in
our state has a choice to make: Are we going to let Christ and
his teaching be run out of town, out of our common-wealth (for
marriage is a true common treasure of our state), or are we
going to take Him and his message into the city squares, into
the newspapers, onto Beacon Hill? What God wants from us, I
think, should be pretty clear. He wants us to be His voice, to
pass own his words. In the first reading, we see that the Lord
consecrated Jeremiah from his mother's womb to be a prophet to
the nations. When he was still a young boy of about 20, the Lord
sent him out with his message: "Gird your loins; stand up and
tell them everything that I command you." No matter how old we
are the Lord reminds us that from our rebirth in the womb of the
Church (the baptismal font), He has consecrated us with a
mission, to be his witnesses, his messengers, in the world. On
the day of our baptism, the priest or deacon blessed our ears
and our mouths and said, "Be opened! The Lord Jesus made the
deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to
receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the
praise and glory of God the Father." He opened our mouths so
that we would speak his word. He knew from all eternity that we
would be alive at this time and in this state and he says to us,
just like he said to Jeremiah, "Get your clothes on; stand up
and tell them everything I command you." We may be scared before
the task; Jeremiah certainly was. But the Lord said to him, "I
for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron
pillar, and a bronze wall?. They will fight against you; but
they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you." The same
Lord who strengthened Jeremiah will strengthen us. The same Lord
who was with him will be with you and with me.
7) In order for us to do this as the Lord wants us to do, we
have to understand first WHY he sent Jeremiah with his message to
the people of Jerusalem, even though Jeremiah would suffer so
much for doing us. Why did He send his Son to be rejected by his
creatures, run out of town and killed? The reason is because God
LOVED US and knew that without his truth, we were gonners.
Before Pontius Pilate, Jesus said, "For this I was born, and for
this I came into the world: to testify to the truth." Truth and
love go together. Jesus taught us the truth about real love
during the Last Supper and then put it into action supremely the
next afternoon: "No one has greater love than to lay down his
life for his friends" (Jn 15:13). The Son of God made man loved
us enough that he was willing to die so that we might come to
LIVE IN THE TRUTH and be set free to love others as he loved us.
Real love, as Jesus shows us, is a GIFT OF SELF for others, a
willingness to sacrifice for the good of another, even to the
point of death.
8) This is the type of love St. Paul wrote about so beautifully
to the Corinthians in today's second reading. He said that if he
was able to speak in the tongues of angels, but didn't have that
type of love, he was nothing more than a noisy gong. If he had
the powers of prophecy -- and he did! -- but didn't have love,
he was NOTHING. If he had the faith to move mountains -- and he
had great faith, such that he was able to work tremendous
miracles -- but didn't have love, he was nada, niente, rien,
zero. If he gave away all his possessions and handed his body
over to the torturers -- and he did, several times -- but didn't
have love, he would gain NOTHING. His point is clear. In order
for us to be SOMETHING, we need to have Jesus? type of love.
Without it, we are nothing and have nothing, even if we are as
rich as Bill Gates, as popular as Bill Cosby, as charming as
Bill Clinton, and as respected as Bill Belichick. In the final
analysis, before God, all of those things and traits are worth
nothing if we don't have real love.
9) The crucial question is how do we enter into and live this
type of real love, revealed by Christ and experienced and
praised by St. Paul? It starts by allowing ourselves to be fully
loved by God. "In this is love," St. John writes, "not that we
loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the
atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1John 4:10). It starts by
allowing Christ to take away our sins and to "live on in his
love," which Jesus says we will do "if we keep [his]
commandments" (Jn 15:9-10). And the most comprehensive and
challenging commandment Jesus gave us is "Love one another as I
have loved you" (Jn 15:12). He wants us to give of ourselves, to
lay down our lives, for the good of others, to bring them to the
Truth, to do whatever we can to bring them to the Savior who is
love personified. We?re called to live this love with those in
our family, with those with whom we work or go to school, with
all those with whom we come into regular contact. But we?re also
called to live it with respect to the pressing issue at hand
concerning the possibility of gay "marriage" in our state. If
Christ were here today and were to translate for us how his love
needs to be shown during this crucial moment in the history of
our Commonwealth, what would he say? How would he love, and
therefore want us to love?
10) The first thing the Lord would doubtless say is that he died
out of love for those with same-sex attractions and loves them
still. He would remind us that any violence or hatred toward
them would be directed personally against Him, "for as often as
you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it
to me." He would remind us that we are called to love our gay
brothers and sisters, but add that this true love is concerned
above all with their SALVATION. Jesus says that love is not
TOLERANCE of evil, but in fact is the opposite. He calls us to
love those with same-sex attractions, but to HATE whatever could
harm them in this life and in the next. And "gay marriage" or
even "civil unions" WILL HARM them, because it will
institutionalize and attempt to stabilize a relationship built
around sexual activity that revelation has always condemned as
sinful, because it is not in accord with the way God made us and
his gift of sexuality from the beginning. Christ would call us
to hate homosexual sexual activity because, as his Church has
always taught, if it is participated in with knowledge and
deliberate consent, it is a mortal sin and those who commit it
and fail to repent of it and receive God's forgiveness will go
to Hell. (Christ's teaching through the Church has never changed
in this regard, even if some preachers, for whatever reason,
have stopped talking about it.) If we truly love someone, we
would never easily tolerate their engaging in behavior that
would lead them away from God in this life and in the next. The
same thing goes for individual gay men and women. It is possible
for them to love each other, but such love, if it is real, must
be concerned with what is best for the one they love. The
absolutely worst thing they could do for one they love is to
participate in sin with that person. The best thing they could
do for one they love is to help that person come to the Lord, to
live according to his truth, to base their lives and their
relationship entirely on what he taught and continues to teach
through the Church he founded. Real love for another means even
a willingness to sacrifice one's own relationship with a person,
if that relationship would harm another's relationship with God.
Anything short of this is not real love.
11) Real love, as St. Paul tells us in the second reading, "does
not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth." We should
be PROUD of the truth Christ entrusted to us about marriage and
rejoice in it. It is one of the greatest blessings God has given
us. But this gift has a clear structure, one with which God
created it "in the beginning" from the first man and first
woman, and God calls on us to rejoice in that gift and defend
it. All of us are faced with a choice, much like the choice that
faced the those in ancient Nazareth and Jerusalem. If we
wouldn't have stood by when the Nazarenes were trying to toss
Jesus out of the synagogue and over the cliff to his death, then
we shouldn't remain silent now. If we would not have been
paralyzed when the mob in Jerusalem was shouting "Crucify Him!"
and "Give us Barabbas!," then we should use the voices he gave
us to speak in defense of Him and the truth of what He revealed
to us about marriage now. Jesus came to live, to die and to rise
again in witness to the truth. Jeremiah dedicated his life in
witness to the truth God had revealed to him. St. Paul did the
same. Now it's our turn. The Lord has called each of us and
consecrated each of us for this mission, one in which he will be
with us, just like he was Paul and Jeremiah. The question for us
is whether we love him enough and love others enough to get
involved. Even if we have everything else in the world, if we
don't love Christ and love like Christ, in the circumstances he
has given us, we have and are nothing. As we prepare to receive
Love Incarnate in the Eucharist, in which Jesus says to us,
'this is my body given for you," we beg Him to give us all the
help He knows we need so that we may say in return, out of love
for Him and for others here in our state, 'this is MY body, this
is my life, given for YOU!" |