topleft05.jpg (18208 bytes)HOMILY
Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)
27 February 11
 


 

The main character in the famous stage play and movie, A Man for All Seasons, raises three of the most important questions that all of us at some point in our lives must answer about ourselves.  St. Thomas More asks:

·      In the end, who are you?

·      What—if anything—defines you?

·      What makes you, you?
 

St. Thomas More didn’t want to hear about jobs, families, hobbies, or interests.  After all, those are hostage to circumstance and subject to change.  Given the right price and circumstances, most people would leave their jobs.  Fate oftentimes intervenes and it’s entirely possible that an entire family can be taken away or that one will leave his family.

Important as all of these things are, in principle, they are all transitory in nature.

So, the question St. Thomas More raises for us to consider today is: Is there anything in you that is not transitory, not hostage to circumstance, and not subject to renegotiation or compromise?  Is there anything, for instance, that you would never, ever bring yourself to do, regardless of the price or whatever pressure might be brought to bear upon you?

If there is nothing like that—if we are infinitely malleable, capable of becoming, given the right price or circumstances—anything at all, then are we really anyone at all?  Do we have an identity, a true and unchangeable self?  Or, are we only a particular configuration at this time under present circumstances?

“When a man takes an oath,” St. Thomas More explains to his daughter, Margaret, “he’s holding his own self in his hands. Like water.”  He then cups his hands and says, “If he opens his fingers then—he needn’t hope to find himself again.  Some men aren’t capable of this, but I’d be loath to think your father one of them.”

In A Man for All Seasons, one of those men is Richard Rich, a superficial young man who wants St. Thomas More to give him a job in the Court.  Knowing Richard Rich’s lack of character, St. Thomas More is determined not to put Richard Rich in a position where he’ll be tempted.  But, Richard Rich begs and pleads, finally professing fervently that he “will be faithful.”  St. Thomas More looks Richard Rich straight in the eye and says deliberately: “Richard, you couldn’t answer for yourself even so far as tonight.”  And that very night Richard Rich proves St. Thomas More correct, leading his daughter, Margaret, to murmur, “Splash!”

Then, as the drama unfolds, St. Thomas More’s integrity leads to waning material fortune, but increasingly heroic virtue.  In contrast, Richard Rich’s lack of integrity causes him to rise rapidly in status and wealth, but he becomes increasingly corrupt.

Compare St. Thomas More’s heroic witness to the culture in which we find ourselves today, especially when “plausible deniability” and “re-inventing” oneself are regarded as basic survival skills.

In the 1990’s, many of us witnessed a brilliant and charismatic lawyer and governor become the nation’s highest-ranking government official.  Then, when he was accused and tried in Congress for a crime, so many citizens did not expect that he would be so concerned about perjury that he would sacrifice his career, income, holdings, freedom, and eventually his life, as St. Thomas More did.  No, most citizens found it far more practical to suppose that, when push would come to shove, the President of the United States would say or do whatever is in his self-interest.

The antidote to this lack of integrity is that we have to want to really commit ourselves; it is absolutely vital that each of us on some point be taken for our word. To be doubted—to be told that our most solemn assurance is empty, that we are incapable of holding firm to our principles—is like being told that we are no one at all, that we have no character, no identity, and no soul.  Just like Richard Rich.

In today’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t deny that we need things.  As disciples, we must take reasonable care of ourselves and of those for whom we are responsible.  However, Jesus forbids making those things the object of anxious care and, in effect, allowing ourselves to become enslaved by them.  “You cannot serve both God and wealth,” Jesus taught.  He then provided a test by which his disciples could determine the degree to which they are enslaved by wealth: the degree to any of them worries about tomorrow.

In this sense, being a “worrywart” is a sin for Jesus’ disciples and, for two reasons. First, worrywarts live in fear of what tomorrow might bring.  Jesus asks, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”  Second, worrywarts don’t trust in God’s Providence.  Jesus said, “Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into bans, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?”

At the United Nations in 1995, Pope John Paul II expressed the idea using these words:

We must not be afraid of the future.  We must not be afraid of man. It is no accident that we are here.  Each and every human person has been created in the “image and likeness” of the One who is the origin of all that is.  We have within us the capacities for wisdom and virtue.  With these gifts, and with the help of God’s grace, we can build…a civilization worthy of the human person, a true culture of freedom. We can and must do so!  And in doing so, we shall see that the tears of [the 20th century] have prepared the ground for a new springtime of the human spirit [in the 21st century].  (Address to the United Nations, October 5, 1995)
 

When Saint Thomas More was arrested, Richard Rich’s lust for power and prestige in the Court led him to testify against St. Thomas More, breaking his oath to tell the whole truth.  Richard Rich’s lack of integrity that day because he was worried about securing his position in the Court for tomorrow, ended up selling his soul that day.

All of us also experience that clash between defining ourselves either by what want or who we are.  The resolution to this clash is evident in the degree to which we worry today about acquiring what we want for tomorrow or we uphold our integrity today in hope of a better tomorrow.  For example, Jesus told the Jewish religious authorities two weeks ago, “When you say ‘No’ mean ‘No,’ and when you say ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes.’”  Then, last week, Jesus told the Jewish religious authorities, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Thus, the degree to which Jesus’ disciples serve God is defined by their personal integrity.  Their word is a solemn bond.  “I will love you, honor you, and obey you all the days of my life” means exactly that.  “Yes” means “Yes” and “No” means “No.”  No one should think otherwise, because Jesus’ disciples don’t believe in “plausible deniability” and they are not interested in “re-defining” themselves.  In short, they are who they are: Jesus’ disciples whose personal integrity is unquestionable.

“Do not worry about tomorrow,” Jesus said, “tomorrow will take care of itself.”

 

 

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