The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, June 3rd: Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15)

PROFOUND TRUTH FOUND IN SIMPLE LESSON

A few weeks ago I quoted the old Baltimore Catechism. One of the questions asked, “Why did God make you?” The correct answer was, “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

Millions of Americans who attended parochial schools in the 1940s and ‘50s memorized this answer and could spout it out on demand. For most of these youngsters, the answer was memorized not so much because of the profound theological truths contained therein, but out of fear that a stumbling or incorrect reply would produce a swift reprimand from the wooden ruler of Sister Mary Margaret Knuckle Whacker.

Nonetheless, the correct answer does contain profound theological truths—truths our present-day generation, decades removed from sound doctrinal instruction, desperately needs to comprehend. (I like to refer to the current post-Vatican II era as the “Feelings are more important than facts” era, an approach that has severely wounded the idea of sound doctrinal instruction.)

This week, on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, when we celebrate the mystery of one God in three Persons, let’s look at the three key verbs the Baltimore Catechism says we must do regarding God: know Him, love Him, and serve Him.

KNOW HIM
The very idea that we can know the eternal, Almighty Creator of the Universe, when you really think about it, is kind of mind-boggling. Throughout much of recorded history, mankind has considered the Divine Creator to be too powerful and too mysterious and too distant to be known.

The fact is, unless God actively reveals Himself to us, our understand of Him will be at best very general and vague. At the heart of Christianity is the idea of divine revelation. Although God is indeed too powerful and too mysterious for us to comprehend fully, He is not too distant. He reveals Himself to mankind. God speaks to us through the prophets; through the Law; through the Sacred Scriptures; through Sacred Tradition; through the Incarnation of the 2nd Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ; and through our consciences, as the 3rd Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, guides our thinking. (In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will “guide [us] to all truth.”)

Although most of us cannot honestly say that we’ve heard God’s audible voice speaking to us individually, when you take a panoramic view of the history of revealed faith, God is a regular Chatty Cathy. He communicates with mankind repeatedly. He reveals to us the mysteries of who He is, what He is like, why He created us, and what He expects from us.

Despite all this, a very popular form of spirituality these days is modeled on the old Deist worldview. This is the idea that the Creator God is distant and indifferent and silent, and therefore the only things we can know for sure about religious faith are what we are able to deduce using human reason and logic alone.

Not true. God does not want us to be in the dark. He wants us to know the truth about Him. God wants us to know Him, and He has made sure that we can know Him.

LOVE HIM
We humans already know that we are capable of love. Most of us have loving relationships with our family members and our friends. (Yes, it’s true that some people have been wounded emotionally and find love very difficult. And others misdirect their love, becoming emotionally attached to the wrong things, such as sex, food, shopping, or a certain baseball team from Boston.) To love God means that He also must be capable of entering into loving relationships. In fact, He can. This is because God is a Person. He has a personality, just as we do.

When Scripture says that God created mankind in His image, it does not refer to physical characteristics: two arms, two legs, two eyes, a nose, a receding hairline, and a beer belly. No, the “image” of God that we bear is the one thing animals do not have: personality. In other words: self-awareness, abstract reasoning, an internal moral compass, free will, and the ability to enter into loving relationships.

Unlike what some people believe these days, God is not an impersonal force. (This is the pantheistic worldview, held by diverse groups such as Hindus, New Agers, and Star Wars fanatics.) If God were no more personal than, say, electricity or the laws of physics, as some claim, then He could not enter into loving relationships with people. In this week’s gospel reading, in the span of three sentences Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit six times as “He.” The Holy Spirit, along with the Father and the Son, are not impersonal forces, they are Persons.

As with all true love, however, free will is vital. Loving relationships must be entered into freely. There must be freedom of choice. Otherwise, it is not love, it is merely coercion. That is why God does not force His love on us. He offers it, and we are free to accept or reject it. Many people in effect reject God’s love because they don’t even realize He is offering it to them.

SERVE HIM
Based on the simple facts of the situation—God is God and we’re not—we have a duty to serve Him. After all, He is the one who gave us life. He is the Creator; we are the created beings. He is the Master; we are, by definition, the servants. Despite what we often think, we are not in charge. When we understand this, the most logical and rational conclusion is that we are obligated to serve God, whether we like it or not.

And nowadays most people do not like it at all. Modern Americans hate the idea of serving someone else. “What do I look like, a waitress in a diner?” we declare. “I ain’t gonna bust my hump serving other people! They oughta serve me!”

What a shame it is that we have such a selfish, “It’s all about me” attitude these days. Serving someone else is a key component of a truly loving relationship. Take a minute to think of a married couple that you would describe as “happily married.” Most likely each spouse takes time to serve the other. Each spouse is less concerned about his or her own needs and more concerned about the needs of the other spouse. When each spouse cares more about the needs of the other, and they mutually serve each other, it is absolute bliss. It is the epitome of love and joy. And each spouse does not consider serving the other to be a dreary obligation.

Serving God is the exact same thing—only better. It is not a dreary obligation. It is a joyous opportunity. What we have here is another typical Christian paradox: When we serve God, He serves us. When we set aside our selfish will, and instead focus on doing His will, He blesses us, and fills us with peace and joy. When we give, that is when we receive the most.

Although the Baltimore Catechism has been all but forgotten these days (along with most other forms of sound doctrinal instruction), we can learn a lot from this simple and yet profound lesson. God made us to KNOW Him, to LOVE Him, and to SERVE Him. These three actions are indeed possible. There is no threat of the wooden ruler anymore, just the opportunity to understand why we exist, and what we need do to fulfill the fantastic plan God has for our lives.

©2007