"The Law"

Sermon for 22nd Sunday of the Year, cycle B, August 30, 1997

by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Presiding Bishop, United Catholic Church

Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-8

Psalm 15: 2-5

James 1: 17-18, 21-22, 27

Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

I’d like to tell you a true story about two young men. Both came from good families. But both ran around with disreputable characters. They both showed contempt for the religious and social standards of society and were continually in trouble with the authorities. They wore long hair. Both were criminals, spent time in prison, and died with nail-holes in their hands and feet. They were Jesus of Nazareth and Francis of Assisi.

Last night I saw the TNT special on George Wallace. It was very good. Most of it was a dramatization, but it contained some real footage of the clashes in Selma and Alabama, where the police used fire hoses and dogs on civil rights marchers. It’s pretty sobering. These people paid dearly, some of them with their lives, for what they believed. The same can be said for people like Phil Berrigan and his friends in the Plowshares movement demonstrating against nuclear weapons. And Maryknoll Father Roy Beourgois who is trying to close the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia. He’s out of prison again, but not for long. These people, like St. Francis of Assisi are Christians. Something else they have in common with Francis and with Jesus of Nazareth is that they are all criminals. They have all broken the law.

Today’s readings are all about the law. In Deuteronomy, Moses gives God’s law to the Israelites as they prepare to cross the Jordan into the promised land. In the epistle, James exhorts his readers to be doers of the word, not hearers only — to do what is right. And in Mark’s gospel, Jesus responds to accusations from the temple lawyers that his disciples broke the laws of purification. Jesus himself was often accused of breaking the law — conversing with women in public, healing on the Sabbath, you name it.

Have any of you ever broken the law? Well, I have. As a matter of fact, I broke the law driving over here. I went about five miles over the speed limit all the way across Valkaria Road. Now that’s not something to be proud of. I wasn’t standing up for my beliefs. but neither is it something I’m particularly ashamed of. It’s not like I was breaking one of the ten commandments. But, of course, I’ve done that, too — all too often. And that’s something I’m not proud of at all. There’s a big difference between breaking the laws of man ... and breaking the laws of God.

Moses tried to tell the people that. Don’t subtract anything from these laws, he said, but don’t add anything either. Unfortunately and predictably, people added lots of stuff. And that’s what Jesus was complaining about to the Pharisees. "This people pays me lip service, but their heart is far from me. Empty is the reverence they do me because they teach as dogmas mere human precepts. You disregard God’s commandment and cling to what is human tradition."

That was the heart of Jesus’ teachings. Forget all the legalism and man-made rules. Just follow God’s law — love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. James put it in a different way: "Take care of widows and orphans and keep yourself untainted by the world; that is true religion."

At first, the followers of Jesus kept to the way; they kept it simple. but over the years, just as with the Jews before them, the Christians explained, amplified, and codified the law. They disregarded Moses and started adding to it. By the time St. Francis came along, the Christian religion was almost unrecognizable. He tried to return to the simple living of the gospel. but few in the church listened, and the middle ages saw a multiplication of new laws and rules.

The whole purpose of the United Catholic Church is to try, once more, to get away from the man-made rules and recover the simple gospel of the early church, the gospel of Jesus and James and Francis.

It’s very simple. We are to follow Jesus in all things, trying to perfectly follow God’s laws — love God and love your neighbor. Period. End of list. All the rest is explanation, commentary, and legalism. But as simple as that is, it isn’t easy, it’s impossible. We can’t live up to that, and God knows it. Fortunately, we don’t have to. Jesus did it for us. That is the gospel, the good news. Because of our faith in him, God offers us mercy, forgiveness, and his Holy Spirit. All we have to do is accept it.

This afternoon, we baptized Anastasia Romain. Because of the faith of her parents and the rest of us here, God gave her the free, unmerited gift of his grace and adopted her as his child. And now, God offers the same free, unmerited gift to all the rest of us. We have all sinned. We acknowledge that before God. Now I am going to give general absolution. By the power of God, you are absolved from every sin and offense, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Each of us is now as pure and sinless as Anastasia. We are all worthy to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Now, as Paul said in Romans chapter 8, "Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Amen.

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