Homily
for the
3d
Sunday of Lent
March
7, 2021
Ex
20: 1-17
Holy
Name of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.
“In those
days, God delivered all these commandments:
‘I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
that place of slavery. You shall not
have other gods besides me’” (Ex 20: 1-3).
“In those days”: The Hebrews left Egypt, miraculously crossed the Red Sea, saw their enemies annihilated in the sea, and came to Mt. Sinai.
It was at that
mountain that God had revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush, calling
him to return to Egypt and lead his people to freedom. It was there that God revealed to Moses his
personal name, YHWH, which most Bible translations render as “Lord,” and in,
“I, the Lord, am your God.” (Some people
read the Hebrew as Jehovah.) This
God YHWH commissioned Moses and empowered him to liberate the Hebrews, and now
he speaks to all of them at that same sacred mountain.
These
commandments are the core element of the covenant YHWH God is making with the
Hebrews. According to this covenant, God
takes care of his people, liberating them and protecting them. They honor him, him alone, with their worship
and allegiance. They’ve left behind the
many gods the Egyptians worshiped, but they’ll encounter more gods—like Baal
and Astarte—in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land.
Two of the 10
commandments receive extended comment.
In the 1st, God reinforces that the Hebrews must worship only him after
he has set them free from their slavery.
Mankind is always tempted to idolatry, to false gods—in our time not
usually images carved in wood, stone, or metal, but gods of pride and
self-regard, gods of wealth and power, gods of pleasure. When we worship these, we leave God out of
our lives. We upend the covenant
relationship that he desires with us. We
risk the loss of his protection; we risk the loss of our freedom—the freedom of
our will and our character, the freedom to choose good and not evil in our
lives. We risk bondage to our sinful
tendencies and the misery they bring.
We risk the
loss of even our political freedom, which depends upon our collective pursuit
of goodness and social virtue. Not for
nothing does our Declaration of Independence state: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Take away the Creator, and we’re left with
inequality, rule by the strongest and the richest, and our rights, even our
lives, are in doubt, as in Hong Kong and Burma in these days, and anywhere that
jihadism and dictatorship take root.
The 2d commandment that receives
extended treatment is “Remember to keep holy the sabbath day” (20:8). God has charged humanity to rule the earth,
all that he created, as his co-workers in creation. But God “rested on the 7th day” (20:11). We are his co-workers, not his
competitors. We imitate the One in whose
image we were created (Gen 1:27).
Christians, you know, don’t observed
the 7th day, Saturday, as the sabbath day, except for some idiosyncratic
groups. That’s because the resurrection
of Jesus Christ established a new creation and made the 1st day of the week,
the day on which he rose, the new Lord’s day, the day of new and eternal life.
But what does it mean to keep the
Lord’s day holy? The Catechism of the
Catholic Church states, “The Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and
leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives” (n.
2184). The Catechism continues by saying
that we “are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the
worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the
works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body” (n. 2185). Thus observing the sabbath rest is linked to
the 1st commandment about honoring the Lord our God and to freedom from the
slavery of work.
The Catechism also tells us that
“family needs or important social service” may legitimately excuse us from
Sunday rest; e.g., people may be traveling or tending someone who’s sick, or have
vital work obligations like nurses or first responders. But the obligation to worship remains in
place, as best we can do that. That’s
the main reason why the Church has extended Sunday worship to include Saturday
evening, to give us more freedom in honoring God. We remain strongly encouraged to spend time
with family and to undertake leisure activity that we can’t fit into our
frenetic weekday lives, such as gardening, hiking, a family movie or games,
reading the Bible; and, as the Catechism said, to do works of mercy, such as
visiting the sick or elders (when the pandemic eases off), teaching catechism,
doing youth ministry, taking part in a public service project like a park
clean-up or serving in a soup kitchen.
And there’s always time for a good nap, isn’t there?
Stressing the 1st and 3d
commandments, of course, doesn’t mean that the others are less important. Altogether they testify to God’s care for us
and our honor to him. When a young man
came to Jesus and asked what he had to do to earn eternal life, Jesus’ 1st
answer was, “Keep the commandments” (Matt 19:17). True still—provided only that we see them as
our loving response, and not some form of servitude, to the God who freed us
from our sins and wants to keep us free so that we may come to eternal life with
him.
No comments:
Post a Comment