Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church

Homily for March 26, 2006
Liturgical Year B-Cycle II
4th Sunday of Lent
by Fr. John Carney
Topic: Costly Grace
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Reading I
2 Chr 36:14-26, 19-23
In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people  added infidelity to infidelity,  practicing all the abominations of the nations  and polluting the LORD’s temple  which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers,  send his messengers to them,  for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God,  despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets,  until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed  that there was no remedy. Their enemies burnt the house of God, tore down the walls of Jerusalem,  set all its palaces afire,  and destroyed all its precious objects. Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon, where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons until the kingdom of the Persians came to power. All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah:  "Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths,  during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest  while seventy years are fulfilled."

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia,  in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah,  the LORD inspired King Cyrus of Persia  to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom,  both by word of mouth and in writing:  "Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia:  All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me,  and he has also charged me to build him a house  in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people,  let him go up, and may his God be with him!"

Reading II
Eph 2: 4-10
Brothers and sisters:
God, who is rich in mercy,  because of the great love he had for us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions,  brought us to life with Christ -. by grace you have been saved .-,  raised us up with him,  and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,  that in the ages to come  He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith,  and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;  it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works  that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.

Gospel
Jn 3:14-21
Jesus said to Nicodemus:"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.  Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.  But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
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The first reading today makes it very clear that the Hebrew people deserved the wrath of God.  Incidentally, that reading takes place with a situation that occurs just before and during the exile of Babylon.  It was then that the Hebrews became known as the Jews.  Babylon is of course today’s nation of Iraq.  Prior to the Babylonian activity, they were known as Hebrews.  However, in captivity they were from Judea and became known as Jews.  They carried that title with them forever more, the last 2500 years. 
 
The reason they were taken into captivity was that they sinned over, and over, and over again.  In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests and all the people, added infidelity-to-infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nation and polluting the Lord’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.  God sent prophets to them.  They did not heed the prophets and killed many of them until finally Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was destroyed and the people were taken into slavery because of their sins. 
 
Well, if that was true for the Hebrew people, it is true for us today as well.  For we have shown the Lord infidelity after infidelity and we have practiced abomination and desecrated his temple, the temple of the human person.  We are sinners and I think probably like the Hebrew people we have lost our sense of sin.  We have this new definition of sin.  It is whatever you do that is wrong, not whatever I do.  Each person has become almost his or her own god or goddess who determines what is right or wrong. 
 
The great Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, "In the past, Catholics believed our Lady was immaculately conceived, but now we believe we’re all immaculately conceived."  We are without shame.  In Spanish there is a very tough saying, if a person has no shame, no sense of sin, no sense of remorse, they say he or she is "sin verquenza."  Yeah, and it is as nasty as it sounds. 
 
Just a little story, a true story:  This was during the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria.  When one of the royalty died, there was a certain protocol about the entrance of the body into the church.  They were buried, at that time, in a church that was run by Capuchins, which are Franciscan monks who really live their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  Let me read this to you. 

In Vienna, in Austria there is a church in which the former ruling family in Austria, the Hapsburgs, is buried.  When royal funerals used to arrive, the mourners knocked at the door of the church to be allowed in.  A priest inside would ask, "Who is it that desires admission here?"  A guard would call out, "His apostolic majesty, the emperor."  The priest would answer, "I don’t know him."  They would knock a second time, and again the priest would ask who was there.  The funeral guard outside would announce, "The highest emperor."  A second time the priest would say, "I don’t know him."  A third time they would knock on the door and the priest would ask, "Who is it?"  The third time the answer would be, "A poor sinner, your brother."  Then he would be admitted.
 
I told that story to Father Joshua.  We were talking about it.  He said, "Oh my.  If Mr. Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, knocked on the door, we would have to let him in." 
 
Well, that is the starting point.  We are sinners.  Right?  Okay.  If you’re not, you can leave now.  Drop your envelope on the table on your way out.  Not only are we sinners but we know that sin is deadly.  It kills the body and it kills the soul.  It condemns to hell and therefore in our state of being sinners we are doomed – unless we are saved.  So, the question is, "What can save us?"  Paul tells us today, "So He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast."
 
"By grace you have been saved through faith."  But what does that mean?  This has been a subject of debate over the centuries of Christianity.  To some, it means simply to profess Christ as your savior. Doing that simply means, you are saved, if you recognize who He is.  You’ve heard this from people.  They would say, "I was saved on the 23rd of March 1962."  You’ve heard people say that.  We Catholics do not believe that we were saved.  We’re working on it, we can still blow it, and I know I can and I hope you know you can.  We do not see this salvation as a one-time gift when we pronounce that we know that Jesus is Lord.  Satan knows Jesus is Lord.  Just to claim that we know who the Messiah is does not save us.  Those who claim faith alone, oftentimes, do nothing.  They don’t practice it.  They figure they are already saved.  So, they will just get along until they are taken up into heaven. 
 
The other extreme: there are those who believe that their good works save them as if grace is somehow accumulated and when you get enough points, you can come in.  "Deal or no deal."  That’s, of course, a heresy known as Pelagianism.  That kind of idea suggests that we don’t even need God, that we can add up the points ourselves, live righteously and good and somehow be worthy of salvation.  Both of these extremes are wrong and that is why we need the letter of St. James because he helps us.  He connects the dots between this space and salvation. 
 
In his second chapter of his letter James said,
"My brothers, what good is it to profess faith without practicing it?  Such faith has no power to save one, has it?  So it is with the faith that does nothing in practice.  It is thoroughly lifeless.  Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith that underlies my works" [Js 2:14, 17, 18].

James tells us that faith and works are two sides of the same coin of salvation and without both sides of the coin, salvation does not occur.  "Works" -- what does that mean?  Is it just good deeds?  Well, it may include good deeds but I think when we hear works according to James, it means something much larger than that.  I think works means living, acting and doing as Christ lived, acted, and did.  After all, you are called a Christian and that means another Christ.  Discipleship means being one with Him, not for an hour on Sunday or for thirty minutes each day in prayer, but being one with him, doing, acting as he did and acted all day long, everyday of the year.  St. Paul did that.  He said, "It is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me" [Gal 2:20]. 
 
Grace is a participation in the life of God.  Grace is "the stuff" of God.  It’s as good as we can say.  I mean all our words always fall short when we talk about these great mysteries.  However, grace is participation.  It is "the stuff" of divinity, and it is grace that saves us when we have this faith in Christ.  In addition, because of that, it requires our full-time participation in the Christian life.  We don’t sit on the sidelines like the faith alone people do or we don’t busy ourselves collecting "good works" credits as the good works people do but we live through Him, with Him and in Him.  What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that faith, real faith, if you have it and I think you do, I hope so and I hope I do, costs us our lives.  It costs us who we are. 
 
When I was vocation director of the archdiocese I would take an applicant who I wanted to say yes to the priesthood and I would tell him, "We’ll take care of your books, tuition, and room and board.  We’ll take care of your health insurance."  And every once in a while he would say, "Well what’s my requirement?" I said, "Just one thing.  Just give us your life.  That’s all we ask of you."   A lot of them left.  Thank God.
 
It is a costly thing to be a Christian.  You have heard, I’m sure many times, I know a few times from me, these beautiful words from Dietrich Boenhoeffer.  Boenhoeffer was a Lutheran minister.  In anticipation of Hitler’s takeover, he left Germany, went to England where he was quite famous and quite wealthy.  Nevertheless, he felt that he needed to go back to his home country to stand up against the evil of fascism. He did and it cost him his life.  Boenhoeffer said this when talking about grace.  He looked around the world, he looked at Christians, and he saw a lot of what he called cheap grace. Not real grace at all, just make-believe Christianity, make-believe grace, and feel-good grace.  Then he looked at those who were martyrs and those who stood up for Christ.  Of course, this included himself eventually and he referred to that discipleship as costly grace.  Here is what he said:
 "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ."
 
"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it, a man will go and sell all that he has…it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him…It is costly because it costs a man his life…And it is grace because it gives a man the only true life…And above all, it is costly because it costs God the life of his Son…and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us."

Jesus saved us.  Not the Jesus, however, of our own making, of our own creation. Not a Jesus who makes us comfortable and solves our problems.  He is not an on-demand genie.  The Jesus that saves you and me is the Jesus of the cross.  St. Paul says, "We preach Christ and we preach him crucified, and following that Jesus is something that is costly indeed.  Costly but worth it.