A happy Labor Day weekend. Labor Day is an invitation to take pride in our work. Whatever our life’s work, do it well! That's really what holiness is all about: doing our life’s work as best we can.
If you're traveling this holiday weekend, drive safely. I read a story about a man and a woman involved in a car accident. Both cars were demolished. After they crawled out of their cars, the woman said, “Wow, our cars are totally demolished, but we’re okay! This must be a sign from God that we should be friends.” Flattered, the man replied, “Yes, I agree. But you’re still at fault … you caused this accident.”The woman continued, “And look—another miracle. This bottle of wine didn’t break. Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune.” She handed him the bottle. The man drank half the bottle and then handed it back to the woman. The woman took the bottle, put the cap back on, and handed it back to the man. The man asked, “Aren’t you having any?” The woman replied, “No. I’ll just wait for the police.” That’s what I call one-upmanship.
The word of God carries us back well over 3,000 years to an address of Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy. Here Moses pleads with the Hebrews to be faithful to their promises. Yes, God entered into a special relationship with them, a covenant, and promises blessings if they keep God’s laws, i. e., worship God and treat their fellow human beings fairly. This word challenges us to be faithful to our promises?
The author of the Letter of James says boldly that there shouldn’t be a discrepancy between faith and action. The author wants action, not words. In other words, do we walk the talk? That's true religion.
In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus distinguishes between external behaviors and internal attitudes. The scribes and Pharisees are hypocrites, Jesus says. The word “hypocrite” etymologically means an actor, one who says one thing but does another. They publicly condemn behavior they do privately. They pay lip service to God but internally they’re thinking immoral thoughts, e. g., greed, dishonesty, lust, envy, pride.
Jesus asks us: are we saying one thing and doing the opposite. Do we try to live a life of integrity?
The three biblical passages, from one viewpoint, indicate that human beings are a bundle of contradictions.
Who really are we? Why were we born? We believe our life is no accident. We have a purpose.
Leo Tolstoy, the 19th century Russian author of such classics as “War and Peace,” wrote a book called “A Confession” in which he describes his own search for purpose in life. Yes, what is my life all about, he asked? Tolstoy discovered that many ordinary people were able to answer this basic question by virtue of their faith in God. They had a relationship with God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit. That friendship with God sustained them throughout the hardships of their lives. Jesus was indeed their way, their truth and their life.
Daniel Levinson’s one-time bestseller “The Seasons of a Man’s Life” is about the cycle of human development: from young adulthood, through middle years, to old age. As we go through this cycle, we will face crises of one kind or another. Now the word “crisis” has a twofold meaning: it can be a moment of disaster or a moment of opportunity. I prefer the latter: opportunity.
We are constantly letting go of our past so that we can move forward. But move forward to where? We of course believe we’re moving toward a life with God forever: that's our true destiny. Time and again, we have to let go of friends, loved ones, perhaps health or job, and ultimately we will have to go of our own earthly life in a leap of faith into the hands of a God who loves us unconditionally.
Like acrobats who trust in the skills of their fellow performers when they let go of a rope in midair, we trust in God’s unconditional love for us: that He will catch us in our final leap of faith into the darkness of death and bear us away within himself.
And so whether we are rich or poor, no matter how great our intellect, no matter how noble our birth pedigree, the purpose of life is to be in relationship with God forever. The Catholic answer to the question “why are we here?” acknowledges the brevity of human life. It also acknowledges our freedom to choose good over evil, right over wrong, the true over the false. Hence all of us are responsible for the way in which we choose to live. Tragically, some people do choose evil over good. And why? Because there’s something not quite right with humankind. The Book of Genesis highlights this brokenness. The Catholic tradition calls this “original sin.”
Yes, human beings cry out for freedom, peace, justice and truth. But they cry out even louder for healing, for redemption, for salvation! Who can heal us, save us?
Some have sought human solutions. They have looked for answers in the world of things, in demogogues, in “isms” of one kind or another.
The Catholic tradition looks beyond that, to a power beyond ourselves. This awesome and overwhelming power beyond ourselves -- God -- is not indifferent to our human situation; for our God is a compassionate God. This compassionate God became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth and is alive by the power of the Spirit in our midst today—alive especially in the community of disciples we call the Church; and alive especially in the sacramental signs of water, bread and wine, oil.
We possess within our fragile selves the incredible treasure of faith in God. But each of us must continue to struggle, as the prophet Micah said many centuries ago, to do the right thing and to love goodness and to walk humbly with God. Yes, do the right thing despite that pull within us to do the opposite.
The Letter of James today encourages us, “keep oneself unstained by the world.” Why? So that the God who transformed the earthly Jesus into a new heavenly reality can also transform us up into the new kind of spiritual embodiment where we will be like God for we shall see God as God is.
The great 16th century Carmelite reformer, Teresa of Avila, got it right, “Let nothing upset you, Let nothing startle you, all things pass; ….. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone is enough.”
