Homily
for October 26, 2008
Liturgical Year A- Cycle II
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
What is love
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Gospel Reading
Matthew 22: 34-40 When the Pharisees heard that
he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them
[a
scholar of the law] tested him by asking, "Teacher, which
commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You
shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul,
and
with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The
second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The
whole
law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a simple question, “Which commandment in the law is the
greatest”. The problem was there were so many commandments. In addition
to the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, the Jews had 613 of which they
called Mitzvot or “other
laws” that were extracted from the Torah from the first five books of
the Bible. There were over 600 commandments, all-important, all from
God. The question, “Which is the greatest commandment?” is a simple
question, but a difficult answer. However, Jesus makes it simple. He
always makes it simple for us. The word simple means lacking parts. One
of God’s attributes is He is all simple. God has no parts; nothing to
break there. Therefore, Jesus answers to love God, He answers with
Deuteronomy 6, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
mind, soul, and strength”. Then He connects it, very importantly He
said the second commandment is like it, “To love your neighbor as
yourself”. That was in the Torah as well. He connects the two. In fact,
this is Mathew’s Gospel but in Luke’s Gospel, Luke does not have Jesus
saying, “and the second.” He just says that the great commandment is to
love God and your neighbor. The Jews were familiar with these two
commandments but they weren’t familiar with them being so intimately
linked. Jesus is telling us you cannot love God if you don’t love your
neighbor. As for whose my neighbor, well that’s for another sermon.
That’s the good Samaritan lesson. However, for now He links these two.
The
first one, to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and
strength, is known as the Shema.
Religious Jews all know the Shema.
The word shema means hear. In
the first verse it begins, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is God! The Lord
is One! You shall love the Lord your God.” If you’re from back East
like I am, you grew up with a lot of Jewish people. We were very
familiar with these words because at the door of every Jewish home they
had a mezuzah. And the mezuzah had the Shema: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is
God! The Lord is One!” It would be words from Deuteronomy 6. I was a
paper boy and delivered papers to apartments and I always liked to see
a mezuzah because the Jews
always gave the biggest tips. It’s funny but that’s the truth. That’s
true. I was especially nice to them around Hanukkah. Once I tried to
tell them I was Jewish but they took one look at this Irish face and
they didn’t believe it.
What
is love? Here is the deal. If we want to love God, then the only
way we can do that is to love each other. First John says, “You cannot
love the God you do not see, if you do not love the brother that you do
see.” But what is love? That’s a great question and not such an easy
answer. We use that word a lot and we misuse it a lot. “I love ice
cream.” “I love God.” How in the world do we use the same word to
describe our love of ice cream and our love of God? But we do. People
are confused about what it means “to love.” Many teenagers go through
that stage of their lives and they fall in love and they’re a little
confused about what that word means. That’s why a lot of times people
end up looking for love in all the “wrong places”. You’ve done that
too, haven’t you? I know.
The
Hebrew and Greek are more sophisticated and those are the languages
of the Bible, of course. They have lots of different words. They don’t
say, “I love money.” They had a word for that. It was philarguria. Eros was sexual desire. They didn’t
call that love. It can be associated with love if things are right but eros is sexual desire. Ahabah is Hebrew for romantic love.
Chabab was the love of
affection, kindness. Philadelphos
we know is the love of a brother, brotherly love, that is where we have
the city of Philadelphia, which I think has the second highest murder
rate in the United States. The two words from Hebrew and Greek that
come closest to what we’re trying to get at with this love of God is in
Hebrew hesed. It means
steadfast love, day in and day out, nonnegotiable, permanent. In Greek
you’ve heard the word agape
which means indestructible good will. That’s good.
What
is love? Love can involve feelings, emotions, desires but in its
essence love is a verb. It means doing something. It means making a
commitment and staying with it. I like the definition that Scott Peck
gave us. Many of you have read his most famous book, The Road Less
Traveled. Dr. Peck died several years ago. Although that book is
not a Christian book, Peck was very much a Christian man and he wrote
from his perspective as a Christian. He described love as the
willingness to extend yourself for benefit of another, spiritually or
physically. The willingness to extend yourself for another. Look at the
crucifix. Christ does that. He extended Himself for our benefit. Peter
denied Christ three times and three times Christ asked him, he said,
“Do you love me Peter?” “Yes Lord, You know I love You.” He said, “Feed
my sheep.” “Do you love me Peter?” He said, “Yes Lord. You know all
things. You know that I love You.” He said, “Tend My lambs.” “Do You
Love me Peter?,” for a third time. “Yes, Lord.” He was hurt now, Peter
was. And then Jesus says for the third time, again He says, “Feed My
sheep.” If you love me, take care of people. Love them. Be committed to
them. Help them. Love is a verb. It means doing something.
The
essence of love is self-giving. Again, look at the crucifix. That’s
the essence of love. The great symbol of love should not be the heart,
but the cross. That is self-giving. The Son of God Himself poured out
His very life because He loved us and wanted to wash away our sins in
His blood. Especially when love means suffering and sacrifice, it is
genuine.
You
know, for most, love begins at home. As a matter of fact, we can
talk about loving the world, saving the world but if we don’t begin at
home, we’re not going to get very far. As a matter of fact, sometimes
people who are into every cause in the world have a very unhappy home
life. Many a spouse has said to his or her spouse, “You care about
everything in the world but me”. So we need to begin at home and what
that means for most of us is marriage. Love begins with your spouse.
Children learn to love from their parents. They really don’t learn,
they catch it from their parents. On Father’s Day, I mentioned we had a
funeral a year ago or so and the man who died had eight children and
each came up and gave a eulogy. When I heard that there would be eight
eulogies, I said “Oh my goodness”. But they were really well done. And
it was a delight to listen to the words of the children in praise of
their father. They loved him very much. Child after child (child,
they’re almost 50) but each of the siblings came up and said what they
loved about their father. It was moving. He was obviously a good man.
The youngest, I think they gave their testimony in order of age, and
the youngest was their daughter. She came up and she had the briefest
of the eulogies. She said, “Everything that was said about my dad is
true. That’s not the reason I loved him. I loved my dad because of the
way he loved my mom.” And she sat down. Perfect words. I loved my dad
because of the way he loved my mother.
I
was talking about growing up in New York with some of the Jewish
people. One of my favorite stories, I’m sure yours as well and I know
it’s Deacon Don’s as well, is Fiddler on the
Roof. I looked it up the other day and Fiddler on the Roof was
written in 1895. It was written in Yiddish. Now I learned some Yiddish
as a child. Most of it, I can’t use it in church. You know some
Yiddish, though. Like if someone is very disheveled, he’s a schlep. You know chutzpah. The definition of chutzpah is someone who kills his
parents, and then pleads mercy from the judge because he is an orphan.
Yiddish,
it’s interesting, is from the High German language that’s
nonterritorial. The Jews throughout Europe kind of invented it and used
it. Yiddish was written in Hebrew. Although it was a German language,
it was written using Hebrew script. Originally, Fiddler on the
Roof was entitled Tevye.
Tevye, of course, was the star of the show. Tevye had a difficult life
because he had five daughters. Deacon Don has five daughters. There’s
one there and there’s another. So you know the story of Fiddler on the
Roof, it was an arranged marriage. Tevye married Golda and they
had these five daughters. The daughters were falling away from their
Jewish heritage and Tevye was always worried about everything and they
were always commiserating. Those were back in the days you never said
“I love you.” In fact, many of us remember that. My parents never said
I love you. Myself and my sister taught that to our parents.
I
wanted to tell you this story because I think it brings home the point
that love involves action. It involves commitment. It involves not just
feeling and emotions but it involves dedication and steadfast respect
and commitment. So the story goes and I’ll use my Yiddish accent if I
could.
Tevye says,
“Golda, do you love me?” And his
wife says, “Do I what?” “Do you
love me?” “Do I
love you? With our daughters getting married, and this trouble in the
town, you’re upset. You’re worn out. Go inside. Go lie down. Maybe it’s
indigestion.”
“Golda,
I’m asking you a question. Do you love me?”
“You’re
a fool.”
“I
know. But do you love me?”
“Do I
love you? For twenty five years, I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your
meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow. After
twenty five years, why talk about love right now?”
“Golda,
the first time I met you was on our wedding day. I was scared.”
“I was
shy.”
“I was
nervous.”
“So was
I.”
“But my
father and my mother said we’d learn to love each other. And now I’m
asking you Golda, do you love me?”
“I’m
your wife.”
“I
know. But do you love me?”
“Do I
love him? For twenty five years I’ve lived with him, fought with him,
starved with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his. If that’s not love,
what is.”
“Then
you love me?” “I
suppose I do.”
“And I
suppose I love you too.”
Then together they
sing, “It doesn’t change a thing, but even so. After twenty-five years,
it’s nice to know.”
That’s what love is. Not some nebulous feeling or emotion but a
steadfast loyalty and indestructible good will for the other. It means
sacrifice, giving of self, and it means the cross. That’s the way God
loves us and that’s the way God calls us to love each other.