Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48 & James 5:1-6
Should we really put virtue ahead of bodily well being, cut off our hand rather than use it to sin? Well, yes, actually…
[automatically transcribed]
If your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I hope you can all hear me now. I am sorry I forgot to turn on the microphone when I came in.
I wonder, do you find it easy to be a Christian? Don’t you find that your faith is often incomprehensible or positively disliked by many otherwise perfectly reasonable people? Do you struggle to live in accordance with the Commandments to be patient, to refrain from talking about others behind their backs? I find that one difficult. To control your appetite for food and drink, not to be envious.
I know. I find all those difficult. I find being a Christian hard, and I fail every single day. To use what has become an unfashionable word. I sin.
Now we can get into a bit of a tangle about sin in all sorts of different ways. One of them is to reduce our religion to a set of rules and to give priority to minute legalistic compliance. I have a 1955 manual of moral theology by a German Franciscan called Heribert Jone anybody who’s read at Graham Green’s lovely book, Monsignor Quixote. Well, remember that there are references to this book as a thread that runs right through the narrative and they are used to great a comic effect at times.
Let me give you an example. This is the beginning of his chapter on lying. Concept. A lie is a word sign or action by which one expresses the contrary of what he thinks or wills, usually in order to deceive others. It is also a lie to say what is true if one believes it to be false, but it is not a lie to say what is false if one thinks it to be true.
A lie is called hypocrisy if it is expressed in actions. Divisions Lies divided into malicious, officious and jocose lies. A malicious lie is one that is injurious to another. Officious lies or lies of necessity or excuse are told for one’s own or another’s advantage. A jocose lie is told for the sake of amusement or diversion.
It is not a lie, however, if one jestingly tell such evident untruths that every reasonable person will readily discover the jest. And so on for several hundred pages and it’s all rather strange to the 21st century ear because a more typical modern error is to downplay or to deny sin to say we’re all too hung up on sin. In old fashioned Christianity, everybody’s a sinner and all that guilt unhealthy if it feels right and it doesn’t harm anybody else. What’s the problem? In other words, to apply the reasoning of secular liberalism to Christian living and a related mistake very common in the Church is to take a very broad brush approach to sin and morality, the signal that that’s being done is that instead of sin or morality, the speaker tends to talk about ethics.
The moral theology course at College where I studied was called Christian Faith and Ethical Living, and the approach was to work from general principles. Words like love and equality and justice were thrown around, the thought being that we should seek to live ethically by assessing our conduct with reference to these ideals. And it’s a very attractive approach. It treats us as adults, as people able to act rationally to judge our own conduct, and to choose to do the right thing without a strict and imposed structure of rules and laws.
But there is a problem. Think of how Saint James in this morning’s Epistle identifies the pitfalls and the potential injustice in prosperity, prosperity, which is something that is attractive and congenial to us all. We are fallen creatures with a disposition to sin which we are unable to conquer by our own unaided efforts. Worse, we are Masters of self deception.
It is easy to persuade ourselves with what we want to do is what it is right to do. Our unaided conscience is fallible.
Why does it matter? It matters because sin is the ultimate expression of ingratitude. God is our Creator, whose love for us is total perfect, unconditional. What does he demand of us? Nothing.
What do we owe Him? Everything. So when we sin, we turn away from Him and we reject His love. And the more we sin, the more we blind ourselves to His love and reject the Grace he bestows. We weigh ourselves down and we make it harder and harder to conform ourselves to Christ and to live and love as we were created to do.
Now, the words of this gospel passage sound to us tough and harsh. Should we really put virtue ahead of bodily well being, cut off our hand rather than use it to sin?
Well, yes, actually, Saint John Henry Newman wrote this. The Church holds that it were better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the Earth to fail, and for all the many millions who were upon it to die of starvation in extremist agony. So far as temporal affliction goes, then that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one or steal one poor farthing without excuse.
That’s a big ask isn’t it.
But there’s another level of meaning here. Sin is not just a matter of personal individual responsibility, though it is that. It is also an issue for the community of the Church. One who openely and unrepentantly sends is a cause of scandal, a poor example to all the faithful. Isn’t it easy to excuse our own sins if we can look around ourselves and see others who seem to behaving much worse? And while the Holy Sacrament is not a reward for good behaviour, neither is it to be approached and received when we have deliberately turned our backs on God.
The Church is empowered to exclude an unrepentant sinner from the sacraments over his or her own good and for the good of the whole community so figuratively to cut off the disease limb. It is in that context that the Catholic Church in the United States has discussed whether abortion supporting politicians should be excluded from Communion. That is what that debate is all about.
Well, I’ve been quite strict, but don’t be down hearted. God is merciful and endlessly forgiving not indifferent, not tolerant.
Remember that Jesus, having saved the woman taken in adultery from being stoned by her fellow sinners, then told her to go and sin no more.
So, not tolerant, but merciful. When we sincerely repent and intend amendment of life. Every time we try and fail and repent, he will forgive us. Now. I know I probably don’t need to say this in this Parish because I have a look at the website a couple of days ago and I saw that Father Matthew every Tuesday evening is available to hear your confessions, and also will do so by appointment.
Those who avail themselves of that well done carry on. This next bit is intended for those who don’t. In his great mercy God has given as a channel of Grace and a means of unloading the weight of sin, the help we need to overcome our sinfulness in the Sacrament of reconciliation, pennance, confession we approach Christ in the person of a priest, and we accuse ourselves of the sins we have committed in a spirit of repentance, and we are advised and we are blessed and we are forgiven.
And it is a good habit to develop because in preparation we have to make a structured examination of conscience which reminds us of our obligations in an ordered way without falling into FatherJones rather technical legalism, we are forced to examine our conduct against the proper behaviour of a Christian. And when we’ve done that, we offload it in complete confidence.
Priests have gone to prison or to their deaths rather than break the seal of the confessional. And we walk out unburdened and turned again to God. It is a wonderful feeling of liberation. I urge you, if you don’t already do so to accept this gift, this way of lightening your burden and by the action of this Sacrament to cut off all that separates you from loving and obeying God.
Amen.
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