Homily: 6th Sunday of Easter 2016 - "Spiritual or religious"

Have you ever met someone who described themselves as “spiritual, but not religious”? Perhaps, a family member who has stopped going to Church, or a teenager who does want to, says they’re, “spiritual, but not religious”.  Most of the time, the “spiritual, but not religious” are good people—they believe in God, they try to treat their neighbor with respect, they might pray or meditate, but do not hold to a specific doctrinal creed or practice the religious obligations of any particular religious denomination. They worship the Lord in the way they think best.

The difference with a religious person, is that we don’t seek only to worship the Lord according to our own preferences, but according to His. The religious person seeks to worship God according to what God Himself has revealed. If God says, “Forgive your enemy and Love one another as I have Loved you” that’s what we seek to do. If God says, “Do this in remembrance of me” referring to celebrating Eucharist every week, that’s what we seek to do.  If God set up the means to forgive our sins, namely through the sacrament of baptism and the sacrament of confession, these are the means we employ to seek God’s forgiveness.

Jesus came down from heaven to earth to show us the way to love God, not according to our own preferences, but to His.  In a sense, he came from heaven and earth to “upgrade” those who are merely spiritual to religious. He founded a religion—a true religion: not simply man’s best attempt to reach God, but a religion founded by God, taught by God. The religious man is guided not simply by his feelings, but by the very Word of God, who has spoken truly, and definitively.

Jesus emphasizes this distinction between “spiritual and religious” in the Gospel today, when he says, “Whoever loves me will keep my word” and “Whoever does not love me does not keep my word”.  Jesus says, love is not a feeling, love is an action. His followers are to be not just readers or listeners of his word, but “doers of his word” as St. James says in his New Testament Letter.  Jesus expands on this in the same Last Supper discourse when he says, “only if you keep my commandments will you love me”. 

St. John, hearing the teaching of Jesus at the Last Supper, spent the rest of his life reflecting on his words, internalizing them. And in his first New Testament Letter St. John wrote to the Church, “The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live just as he lived.”

Now there are two ways to respond to Jesus’ call to obey God’s commandments.  Again, in this same discourse during the Last supper Jesus says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” We are to obey Jesus, not as a slave, but as a friend. Well, what’s the difference?

A slave obeys basically out of fear of punishment. Unless he does what the master says, he will be punished, perhaps even killed. A friend obeys out of love.  The two might be asked to do the exact same thing: clean a room, prepare a meal, paint a fence, go to Mass, forgive your enemy. But the slave and the friend do these activities for different reasons.  Jesus wants us to keep his word not as a slave, but as a friend—not out of fear that if we disobey we will suffer eternal hellfire, but to be motivated out of love for God.

Compared to any earthly friendship, our friendship with Jesus is unique. Whenever a friend asks us to do something, if we love that friend, we are going to try to do it. But, sometimes our earthly friends don’t always ask us to do the wisest of things.  “Hey, we are all going to go jump off a bridge. Come with us.” I had a buddy growing up, he and I were really into fireworks and explosions, and we probably got in trouble once or twice because of our…lack of prudence (I’m sure our cub scouts, who are here today, NEVER do ANYTHING inappropriate with fire). Sometimes our earthly friendships are not always governed by wisdom or prudence…or purity.  The modern term, “friends with benefits” is used to describe a relationship that has become perverted. 

Our friendship with Jesus, however, is aimed at our greatest good.  Jesus wants us to be filled with life, and joy, and peace…he says today “my peace I give you.”  Jesus wants us to flourish, to become the best version of ourselves, and he gives us the help we need to do that.  So we can be sure that anything Jesus asks of us, anything Jesus teaches us, is for our highest good. 

When we ignore his teaching, or disobey his teaching, we always deprive ourselves of something good.  We are “less” when we do not follow Jesus with our whole hearts. For he is not merely an earthly friend with limited vision, limited wisdom, limited love, but God, who knows us better than even our mothers know us.  God knows our every thought, every desire, every hair on our head, he sees into our hearts even the things we try to hide from ourselves, he knows us perfectly, loves us perfectly, so we can trust him perfectly.

We put into practice all the teachings of Jesus, not with a joyless obedience, but with trust, confident that He truly knows and wants what is best for us.  I remember in seminary, very early on, my first week or two, sitting in class and really diving into theology for the first time, thinking to myself, if ever I have an idea or opinion which is contrary to the teaching of Jesus or the teaching of the Church, I know that I am wrong. The teaching of the Church is not wrong…I am. And that has brought so much freedom and joy, because I can trust the Church, and I can trust that our Catholic faith leads us to heaven and to the perfection of our souls. 

Our religion is true because Our Lord is true, and he loves us, and wants what is best for us, and never deceives us.  So trust in the Church, trust her sacraments, trust her teachings on morality and sexuality, even when they are counter-cultural, even when they are hard, or inconvenient, or demanding. 

For by trusting in them, and obeying them, we obtain the Lord’s promise: a peace, not as the world gives, a peace obtained through an enduring friendship with God, who guides us to everlasting life.

And this is something the world cannot promise, the world cannot give. The worldly philosophies which contradict teachings cannot promise peace. Worldly notions of tolerance and subjective truth, secular understandings of gender and politics and so-called reproductive rights, cannot promise eternal life or even happiness. Secular errors in fact corrupts our ability to obey God and love our neighbor, Christian truth teaches us the things we need to hear, even when they are uncomfortable. 

Spiritual or religious, slave or friend? The merely “spiritual” person shows themselves to be a slave to his own wit, while the Christian shows himself to be true friend of God himself.

Today, in this Eucharistic celebration, Christ comes to us once again in friendship, the highest friendship, in which he lays down his life on the altar of the cross, to free us from slavery, that we may have eternal life. Let us welcome him, and welcome his truth into our minds and hearts without hesitation with perfect trust, that we may be ever more obedient to his teachings and commands for the glory of God and salvation of souls.