Homily
for January 20, 2008
Liturgical Year A - Cycle II
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
Calling Sin "Sin"
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Gospel
: John 1: 29-34
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward
him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world. He is the one of whom I said, 'A man is coming after me who
ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.' I did not know him,
but the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be
made known to Israel." John testified further, saying, "I saw the
Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him. I did not
know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'On
whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who
will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' Now I have seen and testified that
he is the Son of God."
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John the Baptist was the last of the
prophets and the
greatest of the prophets. Today, while
he is performing a ritual baptism, for the forgiveness of sins in the
river
Jordan, he introduces the Messiah to the people. He uses one of
over a hundred titles that
Jesus is known by – the Lamb of God. He
could have introduced Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of
David,
Prince of Peace, King of Kings, Splendor of the Father, the Christ, the
Bread
of Life, the Holy One. Bit he chose “The
Lamb of God.” If there was any question
what that means, he went on to explain it:
“. . . who takes away the sins of the world.” Of all the titles,
of all the places to
introduce Jesus, it is at the Jordan during a ritual baptism ceremony
that had
to do with the forgiveness of sins.
John, the greatest and last of the prophets, uses this title. It
is important. The reason Jesus came was to take away our
sins so that we could be reconciled to God, and that we could be united
into the
life of the Trinity. We cannot be
reconciled to God, and we cannot be united into the life of the
Trinity, as
long as we bear sins. We need a savior –
and that is why Jesus came. However, in order to be saved, in
order for our sins to
be forgiven, we need to cooperate with God’s grace. We need to
consent to this Savior. God respects us too much, we are made in
His
image, He loves us and respects us too much to impose His forgiveness
on
us. We have to cooperate. We have to ask for it, and accept
His
forgiveness. In order to do that, we
have to admit that we are sinners, that we are sorry, and that we need
to
change. This, in all the twenty
centuries of Christianity, is the most challenging time, regarding our
understanding of sin, because we live in an age that is in full flight
from the
very concept of sin. Sin today, in many
quarters, equals “issues” inherited from our family of origin. We
blame everything we do wrong on our
mother, or on our father. Sins are now described as mistakes, or
bad choices. This language has slipped into our
schools. Teachers, of course, can’t
speak the words that have any religious connotations, so they say,
“Johnny, you
made a bad choice.” As if it was just
the wrong answer on a multiple choice test:
“You should: a) steal; b) don’t steal.”
“A?” “No, bad choice.” So, Johnny’s lesson is that he made
a wrong
choice. Well, anyone can do that. “There’s nothing
inherently wrong with me if
I do that.” But the lesson should be,
“Johnny, you sinned. And stop that. Repent.
Accept punishment and move on.” We use euphemisms to describe many
things. I think that if this was 1950, and we
gathered a group of well-educated adults, I would bet you that the
majority of
people in 1950 wouldn’t know what the word euphemism meant. Right?
It’s an old word, but it’s used today because we use euphemisms.
Some examples: Sin is misbehavior. To lie is to juggle the facts
a little
bit. To steal is to misappropriate. I know none of that
happens at LANL. In the Army we used to call it lateral
transfers – from your unit to mine. We
don’t cheat – we fudge the figures. No
one commits adultery – they have extra-marital affairs.
Fornication is out – to make love is in, even
if the two people don’t know each other.
How do you make love to someone you don’t know? We are no longer
selfish or cheap – we’re
frugal or thrifty. People don’t live in
a state of sin – they cohabitate. People
are no longer lazy – they’re unmotivated.
And you don’t kill a baby in the womb – we terminate an unwanted
pregnancy. The names have been changed
to protect the guilty. As a result of this, and I think most
of us would agree
with what I am saying, it has consequences.
The way we talk, the words we use, have consequences. One of the
results of this euphemistic use of
language is a dumbing down of the sense of sin – the reduction of the
awareness
of sin and its effects. There are great
effects of sin, not only spiritually, but also physically, socially,
morally. People who sin, even if they
have no religious formation, or understanding, or belief, they suffer
from
their sins. Sinning is bad for you at
every level of being. As a result of
this, people are living, really, a life of sin with no hope of
redemption
because they don’t know they need it, because we’re telling them
they’re
OK. In addition, this is causing error
and “in your face” sinning. Grandmas are
shacking up. Grandmas! Go back to the 50’s. Can you
imagine? Your grandmother? We’ve come a long way, haven’t
we? In Matthew 12, Jesus talks of the
unpardonable sin, the
sin against the Holy Spirit. That’s not
defined. Theologians have argued and
thought about this for centuries. What
is the unpardonable sin? I think it is
the denial that there is sin, because it can’t be pardoned because it’s
not
accepted. An alcoholic can’t begin to
get better until he says the words, “I am an alcoholic.” A sinner
cannot be forgiven until he says, “I
am a sinner.” The greatest evil then, it
really isn’t sin. And by the way, we’re
not going to do away with sin. Give that
idea up. Try as we will, 2000 years from
now, all those sins are still going to be here.
We’re not going to change. But
that’s not the problem. We have a Savior
who knows us, and who loves us, and who will forgive us. So 2000
years from now, people are going to
be sinning away, and God will be forgiving away. That’s not going
to change. But the awareness of sin is critical in being
saved. A former Jesuit priest, Loius Eberly,
said this, “It is
better to commit a sin than to corrupt a principle. It is better
to sin with sincerity than to
lie to oneself and claim to be virtuous.”
If we are not sinners, then who needs a Savior? 1 John tells us,
“If we say we are without
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say
we have not sinned, we make God a
liar, and His word is not in us.” We have not only dumbed down our sense
of sin, but we
have dumbed down our understanding of God’s mercy. I have heard
all sorts of confessions over the
years. Some on death beds, with great,
great sins. Many times people come to
confession, and they’re forgiven, and they know that, they hear the
words, but
they can’t accept it because they say, “How can it be this easy?”
“How can I have my sins forgiven, sins that
are so terrible, how can it be that easy?”
That’s called mercy, because God is God, and He makes it easy for us to
have our sins forgiven. I often tell
people in confession, “Will you please get the spotlight off yourself.
Quit thinking about your sins. You’re here.
You’ve asked for forgiveness.
You’ve received absolution and penance.
Accept it. And put the spotlight
where it belongs – on God’s mercy.”
That’s what it’s all about – His mercy.
Jesus was crucified between two
thieves who deserved
death, as the scriptures tell us. One of
those thieves denied his sin, and taunted Christ to the end. He
said, “If you’re the Savior, save yourself
and save us.” He didn’t say he deserved
to be saved, that he’s a sinner. The
other thief reprimanded him. We think
the other thief was, tradition with a small “t” says, he was “Dimas” or
“Dismas.” The other thief reprimanded
the other fellow, and said, “We deserve this, after all. We
deserve this punishment. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he looked at Jesus and said, “Remember
me when you enter into your kingdom.”
That was the first confession. Jesus said, “This day you will be with
me
in paradise.” Here is the point.
We are all weak, fragile people.
We are all sinners. I hope
there’s no one here who thinks that he or she isn’t. Even the
great Saint Paul, after he had
encountered Jesus personally, knocked off his horse, after that he
said, “The
good I wish to do I do not do. The evil
(sin) I wish to avoid, I do.” The great
Paul. That gives me great hope. If he kept messing up, as I
do, maybe there’s
hope for me too. That’s the point. We sin.
We need to admit it. We need to
use this sacrament that Jesus Christ instituted for us. The
Sacrament of Confession. During Lent, we are going to have 7
hours a
week of scheduled confession. There will
be time enough for everyone to have his or her confession heard.
We need to admit our sin, and express our
need for a savior. I love this scripture.
“A humble, contrite heart I will not spurn.” No matter what
you’ve done, if you go before
God and say, “I’m sorry,” and you are truly sorry, He says, “a humble
contrite
heart I will not spurn.” We are so
blessed to have this sacrament that is so poorly used. I know I
talk about it a lot. As a matter of fact, I did a search on our
parish website, on the homilies, and I put confession in there.
Got seventy three hits. Yet, the lines are still too short.
Someone, not a Catholic, said this, “I have
committed follies. I have a sensitive
conscience, and I have done certain things in my life that I am unable
to
entirely forget. If I had been fortunate
enough to be Catholic, I could have delivered myself of them in
confession, and
after performing the penance imposed, received absolution and put them
out of
my mind forever.” Can we just be
honest? Can we call sin “sin.” Our own sin, the sin of our
families. Can we correct our children with the right
use of words? Can we lead them to a holy
life? Please pray with me, these words you
know so well:
“I
confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and
sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault. In my thoughts
and in my words, in what I
have done and what I have failed to do.
And I ask Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you
my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.”
May Almighty God have mercy on us,
forgive us our sins,
and bring every one of us to everlasting life.
Amen.