Loving in ways people don't want to be loved

A Homily for the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
Given at St. Patrick's Church in Wareham
On Sunday, June 24th
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd

Last week in the Gospel we heard about the Kingdom of God Being like a small seed which is tiny when planted, aut spreads out growing roots and branches in all directions.

 In my short homily, I spoke about how like a seed the truth of God’s love for us REQUIRES that our faith which might start out small, MUST GROW, spreading into every aspect of our life, if it is to stay alive.

 Today is the Feast of the birth of St. John the Baptist, and as we continue our reflection on religious freedom, we see how, the seed of faith: the love that God has for us; requires a response: namely that we learn to love God.  And as I have said so often before, LOVE, isn’t a gushy feeling, LOVE is an action. It is doing what is good for the beloved.

 Ironically enough, since God doesn't need anything from us doing what is good for God really means doing what is good for us. As Jesus says, “if you love me you will keep my commandment’s.” You know, the ones that He came to fulfill not abolish!!! Because God loves us and promises us that if we love Him, and keep His commandments we will find true happiness, which is all God desire’s from us—to enjoy His goodness!

Strangely enough, it is sometimes hard to do what is in our own best interest, namely following the commandment’s of God. This is because, as St. Paul tells us, sin is a type of slavery, which enslaves us to doing the things we don’t want to do and failing to do the things that we want to do.

 Let’s think about this in the light of some of the controversial positions that the world wants the Church to be silent about.

The church is pro-life, and challenges every Christian to follow Jesus’ Gospel of Life.

Wow, that’s controversial!!! The Church believes that every life, young and old, strong or weak Is good, and has a purpose in God’s plan. Isn’t this what every body wants to believe? In fact isn't this the basis of a free society based on the rule of law, the belief in the dignity of every human person? No healthy person grows up thinking that I want to harm human life; how many young girls do you think grow up thinking, when I grow up I want to kill my unborn child? No one CHOOSES abortion, rather we are coerced into it, enslaved to the culture of death by countless choices, that are in opposition to God’s will and plan.

Another controversial part of the Gospel is divorce. The Church is pro-marriage and has been since Jesus insisted that this was a central part of God’s plan for our happiness. Again, isn’t that controversial, the idea that divorce is bad and hurts everyone touched by it and so ought to be avoided like the plague! How many little boys grow up thinking: when I grow up I want to abandon my family, and break the hearts of my children and wife? How many people grow up wanting to have their ability to trust, and the ability of all those touched by this tragedy to trust, run over by the monster truck of marital infidelity, separation, and the betray of a life long promise?

Of course at the root of both of these sins, against life and marriage, Is the sin against our human sexuality, but that’s an issue for another homily…

Sin is a slavery that one little choice after another leads us into until we are destroying communities and ruining and perhaps even ending lives. Fundamentally, our faith is about setting people free from this slavery. This freedom is more important, according to the Gospel than freedom from physical bondage. 

Often non-Christian’s criticize this tenant of our faith by pointing to the letter of St. Paul to Philemon, in which Paul writes to a Catholic slave-holder, about a run-away slave who Paul is sending back to slavery. Paul enjoins the slave Onesmus, who by the way Paul says he loves like a son, to be obedient to his master, Philemon as he would be to Christ. Even though slavery in the first century had nothing to do with race many point to this and say that St. Paul is endorsing racial slavery.

Without getting into the intricacies of one of the most interesting and often overlooked letters in the New Testament, it is important to understand that Paul is not endorsing ANYTHING except the idea that we shouldn’t sin even to achieve a just result. Simply put, the ENDs never justify the MEANS. Paul is insisting that slavery to sin, is worse than physical bondage, or illness, or poverty, or any other physical evil… And he has a lot of credibility in saying that, since he was imprisoned several times for preaching the Gospel. This is after all the central message of the cross.

You know when the world see’s the Church preaching Jesus, in our own little corner of the world, they are ok with that. When it hears us preaching His love and therefore encouraging things such as: the education of children, care for the sick, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for widows and orphan’s, comforting the mentally ill, or all those things that for two millennia the Church has pioneered, it says: well isn’t that nice. But if the seed of our faith is this the truth that God loves us and wants us to be Happy not just physically and in this world, but spiritually and in eternal life how can we fail to share this good news with our brothers and sisters? How can stop at just the physical needs of our neighbors and ignore His spiritual needs? Some times people need to be loved in ways they don't want to be loved--they need to be called to conversion.  In fact we have a phrase for it--TOUGH LOVE

Our faith, like the mustard seed, must touch every aspect of our life, even those we might prefer be left alone, and if we love God and our neighbors, we must in turn plant the seed of faith in other people’s lives, even when the ground seems rocky or unwelcoming.

This is the example that St. John the Baptism sets for us. John went into the wilderness not to feed the hungry, or shelter the poor, or cloth the naked, but to teach the ignorant, calling all of us sinner’s back to repentance. In fact, by going into the wilderness where he had nothing, and relying totally on the providence of God, He reminds us that “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God”

St. John show’s us that our Christian faith can’t JUST take on those socially acceptable forms of Charity, that the world wishes that we would stick to St. John couldn’t limit his faith to the wilderness, as many want us to do today, rather he had to bring his message of repentance even to the seats of power. Eventually it cost St. John everything, and you know what, one day it might cost everything too, everything save the most important thing, the love of our God And the eternal paradise that comes with that love.

We MUST challenge the SINNER, not because we hate them, and not because we are judgeing their souls in place of God, but because we want them to repent and believe in the Gospel, and thereby experience the Love and Peace and Happiness promised by our Lord.

Sin, makes us slaves, repentance sets us free! On this Feast of St. John let’s renew our commitment to work for freedom from sin, freedom from sin in our own lives, and freedom from sin in our communities, country, and world.

St. John the Baptist, pray for us!