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A large number
of media types have focused their attention during the past couple weeks
upon Miss California 2009, Carrie Prejean. As a contestant
in the final round of the 2009 Miss
USA contest, Ms. Prejean expressed her personal views about what is
euphemistically referred to as “traditional marriage.” (As an aside: just how can marriage be called
“traditional”? Marriage is what it is. It’s not something
“traditional” or “novel.” Words have meaning and changing words can
change their meanings profoundly.)
If her
response wasn’t enough to stir controversy,
a photograph depicting the 21-year-old student at San
Diego Christian College in a provocative pose has been making the rounds on
the Internet the past few days. The
picture has stirred up the storms of even greater controversy because, her critics assert, Carrie Prejean has the audacity to call herself a Christian. “I am a Christian and I am a model,” she
has said. “Models pose for pictures
including lingerie and swimwear photos.”
In a written
statement this past week, Prejean noted: “Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have
been released surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for
my Christian faith. I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be. But these attacks on me and others who speak
in defense of traditional marriage are intolerant and offensive. While we may not agree on every issue, we should
show respect for others’ opinions and not try to silence them through vicious
and mean-spirited attacks.” Explaining
the photograph, Prejean claimed the photograph was strictly intended to be used
as part of a professional modeling portfolio.
Following her
response to the question supporting marriage in the 2009 Miss USA Contest, Carrie Prejean
announced two weeks ago (Thursday, April 30) that she would star in an
anti-gay marriage advertisement sponsored by the National Organization for
Marriage. Then, last Tuesday (May 5),
Prejean reported that her comments defending traditional marriage when she answered a question from one of the Miss USA judges on April 19 “have led to
intimidation tactics that seek to undermine my reputation and somehow silence
me and my beliefs...” But, she said, “I
will continue to support and defend marriage as the honorable institution it
is. I will continue to stand with the
overwhelming majority of the American people and the voters of my home state
of California.”
In response
to her statements, Miss USA Pageant officials have called Carrie Prejean a
disappointing opportunist. This is a delicious
irony in itself in that
the Miss USA Pageant is
owned by a very undisappointing oppoprtunist, no other than Donald Trump!
The Miss USA
Pageant
officials then revealed that the Miss California pageant organization paid
for Prejean to get breast augmentation surgery after telling them she wanted
to undergo the procedure to have larger breasts to enhance her public persona,
so to speak.
There is a
host of contentious moral issues involved in this story, some of which
include but are not limited to:
·
the interest on the part of some of our fellow citizens to
legitimize the homosexual lifestyle as the equivalent of marriage;
·
the pervasive immodesty now characterizing our culture,
yes, immodesty in dress and in language but also immodesty in attitudes and
behavior;
·
the belief that the unique and unrepeatable bodies God has
created for us just aren’t good enough and doing violence to them is justified
because the outcome will make us feel good or make us look more appealing to
others;
·
the continuing exploitation of the female body for
strictly commercial purposes in which allegedly mature and rational men are unwittingly complicit;
and,
·
the justification of anti-Christian bias and nullification
of Christian morality simply because Christians happen to commit sin.
Any one of
these moral issues provides plenty of fodder for just one homily. Yet, more importantly today in light of
Jesus’ teaching about the “vine and branches,” I believe each of these moral
issues shares a common element, namely, it isn’t “cool” or “hip” to root one’s
life in Jesus Christ.
Especially
for young people (let us not forget that Carrie Prejean was seventeen years
old when she allegedly posed for the photographs, just four years ago), this attitude leads otherwise bright and intelligent young men
and women to reject even the basic tenets of Christian morality because they
are more interested
in rooting their lives in what others deem “cool” than in the vine, who is
Jesus Christ. They would rather have
strong and vibrant relationships with those who are “hip” than with God’s
only begotten Son. Sadly, anyone who
has carefully read history knows that what oftentimes is believed to be “cool”
and “hip” today more oftentimes than not fails to bring the happiness tomorrow for which people
are yearning. Why? That happiness can only be experienced by
rooting one’s life in Jesus Christ.
I think we
can all appreciate how all of this presents a major challenge today. Moral issues are typically cast in terms of
what’s “right” and what’s “wrong,” providing simple answers to questions about
matters stripped of their moral, social, and political complexity. I’m sure most of us have heard someone
assert: “What’s wrong with embryonic stem cell research? Look at all that it promises. To stop
using embryonic stem cells would be to turn the clock back on humanity and
progress.” A very simple answer to a very complex
moral, social, and political question. End of discussion or as an
Italian mother of a friend in my youth used to say,
“You shudda’ yo’ mowdt!”
Let us not
forget the goal of those who want to simplify moral discourse: it is to silence the voice of
Christians and the truths revealed by Scripture and Church teaching. The favorite tactic of those who want
Christians silenced? Shame. That is, to expose as hypocrites those who have violated
Christian morality—those who have “sinned”—and are now teaching and preaching
to aothers about how to live their lives. We’ve all seen―and Carrie Prejean
personally knows―what happens to those who
have the courage to express their convictions. They get “nailed” in public so they will
shrink back into anonymity and no
longer faithfully preach and teach God’s word.
You know,
“We want you to shudda’ yo’
mowdt!”
The problem we
have to deal with today is that we do not live in a religious but a secular
culture, our politics are not based upon shared moral beliefs but a panoply
of competing beliefs some of which are immoral, and the resolution to many of
the moral dilemmas we face personally and socially are not easily resolved
because of rampant and pervasive secularism and diversity.
While this poses the problem, the question today’s gospel poses an
answer by raising the question: Where are you going to sink your roots?
As we
contemplate the answer to this question, it is quite likely that, if we are
going to sink our roots in the teachings of Jesus Christ, we will not be viewed
as “cool” or “hip” precisely because what many today view as “cool” and
“hip”—using illegal drugs, engaging in irresponsible sexual relationships,
“sexting,” or being indecent or immodest, for example—fails to accord respect
to our bodies created in God’s image and likeness. This lack of respect for God’s creation does
not breed a “culture of life” but a self-destructive “culture of death.”
While Jesus
likened life in him to branches being rooted in a vine, let’s
momentarily
liken ourselves
to fish in water. The culture in which we live—the water that flows through
our gills and provides us the oxygen we need to live—has
gradually sunk its roots
over the past
century
in what is not of Jesus Christ. Because of this, many people today are
disinterested in or unwilling to inform themselves about the complexities
involved when making moral, social, and political decisions. Instead, all too many people rely upon
caprice and whim—for example,
what public opinion polls or what all of the “cool” and
“hip” people say—to the utter and complete neglect of the
teaching of Jesus Christ.
Carrie
Prejean knows that personally. As a teenager, she
decided to promote her body in an immodest way. Placing what her career aspirations required
ahead of what the virtue of modesty commanded, Ms. Prejean also decided that
the body God had created wasn’t good enough.
To be “successful,” as our culture and society would define that term,
Carrie decided to do violence to her body so that what others would see is not Ms. Prejean but the body
Carrie wants others to see.
Rooting herself in worldly values, Carrie Prejean failed to root
herself in Jesus Christ. Now, having
discovered the teaching of Jesus and rooting herself in it, Ms. Prejean’s
erroneous past decisions are being used by the enemies of Christian moral
teaching in an attempt to silence what she has learned as a result of her
conversion.
“You shudda’ yo’ mowt,
Carrie!”
Should Carrie
Prejean or anyone of us be surprised that, rooting ourselves in what our
culture values rather than its source of truth, we end up in a wilderness
chasing after false idols as we seek illusory goals which never satisfy the
abiding desire present in our souls? I would suggest
this wasteland we have created is where many young people find themselves
today. And I ask: Where are they to discover that
spiritual compass that will enable them to navigate the difficult moral,
social, and political choices facing them today and tomorrow?
The truth be
told, however, this challenge is not confronting only young people. It is a challenge confronting all of
us. Jesus reminds us that we need to
be rooted in him if we are to draw the waters of moral and spiritual courage
we need if our lives are to bear good fruit. As
Jesus taught his disciples:
I am the true
vine, and my Father is the vine grower….Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on
its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain
in me. I am the vine, you are the
branches.
Jesus’ words
remind us that salvation comes simply by rooting ourselves in Jesus. There are no preconditions, only the
courage to allow his teaching to change our hearts.
In the end, it all comes
down to being rooted in Jesus and in his teaching. To make that clear, Jesus uses the image
of the vine and branches. It was a
sensible image for Jesus to invoke since everyone knows that branches are
completely dependent on the vine from which they grow. There would be no branch if there were
no vine in the first place! Further, once the branch grows from the vine
stem, it will never outgrow its need for that stem! Cut a branch from a vine
stem and it remains completely dependent on the nutrients that come only by
being rooted in the stem. There is no such thing as a branch
weaned from its vine stem or an independently minded section of a
vine which shuts itself off from the main stem! The stem is the only part that has roots in
the ground and is every branch’s sole connection to what gives life.
Jesus said:
“Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.” Think about
this teaching: cut a branch off the stem and it will die. To be alive, a
branch must be rooted in the main stem. So too, we die spiritually and become
incapable of producing fruit when we are not rooted to the vine and do not allow
those roots to nourish us. Perhaps
even more importantly, attached to the main stem, the fruit produced—indeed
the prosperity that is a gift from the earth—comes to us naturally, as God’s gift. To be rooted in Jesus Christ is “cool” and
“hip” because it is only through this rootedness that any of us will bear the
good fruit for which God created us.
But, what about those who don’t remain rooted in Jesus?
Jesus describes
those branches as having been “in me.” These branches weren’t “partly”
connected. No, they were organically
united. Soon, this will be dead wood. No small wonder Jesus is fervent that no one
allows this to happen!
Our challenge
is to recognize how that which is truly valuable in life comes from God, not
from those who are “cool” or “hip.”
God is the source of life. God cares for us and loves us
by providing everything we need. We don’t need to change our
bodies or to beat
ourselves up due to past failure. No, what we need to do is what Karrie
Prejean did when she rooted herself in the teaching of Jesus Christ, the vine planted by
God and tended by God. We are to produce fruit naturally…the way God has created all
of us, as we continue to proclaim what Scripture and the Church teach despite
how others may attempt to silence us.
Christ is the
vine. But, let us recall, a vine
without branches cannot produce fruit.
God has created us to produce fruit—the fruit of virtue—which speaks
mightily to others
about their need to be rooted in Jesus Christ.
That is how we—the branches—make the vine a visible and living
presence in the world.
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