My parents are incredibly frugal, fiscally responsible, thrifty, cautious, and prudent. I’m sure providing for 14 hungry children will do that. I continue to be amazed that they raised 14 children on my father’s middle class salary. Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch and that rule certainly rang true in our home. My mom had a whole list of house jobs listed on a series of float charts, grids, and venn diagrams. This outline of domestic duties was displayed on the side of the fridge and occupied a major chunk of real estate. These charts, which would have driven Cinderella to despair, were sub-divided according to weekly and daily tasks, many of which were only slightly less-difficult than what you might find in the labor camps of the Siberian Gulag. Each of us had our rotating jobs which were completed only after Mom had inspected our work and given her seal of approval. I was always amazed at her x-ray vision; she knew every time we took a shortcut, cramming stuff under furniture, in drawers, or in closets. Until her approval, all merrymaking, playing outside and other frivolities were on hold. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel, a reward to the hard labor that reduced my tender, young hands to little more than stubs of worn and weary flesh and bone. After the weekly gauntlet of manual labor, my parents would take us to the corner drugstore in Bridgeton and we would receive our allowance of an entire $.50 to spend on a candy bar. Talk about the working poor!
As you can imagine, this weekly visit to the candy store was quite exciting. For those of us who were steel-willed, we could choose to save several weeks worth of allowance and purchase something more substantial and glorious. I decided to go down this road because I wanted to purchase a box of Cheez-its for myself. Imagine the luxuries of having 16ounces of mature cheddar crackers all to yourself! After a number of weeks, I saved enough for my box of Cheez-its and I had two very difficult choices: 1) I could do the reasonable thing and enjoy a serving of cheese-its several times a day until the box ran out (allowing, of course for the occasional thievery of my marauding siblings) or 2) I could eat the entire box in one sitting and truly enjoy every single one of the cheese-its for myself. Despite the warnings and advice of my parents, I choose the second route and paid dearly for my choice.
The lesson I learned from those cheese-its was very simple and clear: choose the right thing and you will have happiness and more cheese-its for later. Make the wrong choice and you will loose everything you had and more, if you know what I mean.
A similar, more profound lesson is being taught in today’s readings. Listen again to the straightforward message from the Book of Sirach: “If you choose, you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live. Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.” Jesus confirms this wisdom of Sirach and takes it one step further when he says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
You can’t get more simple than this: keep the commandments and you will be saved. Follow the laws of God and the words of Christ and you will be eternal life and happiness. At the heart of our faith, things really are this simple. Obey God and you will enter heaven, disobey God and you will suffer eternal punishment. The choice is completely up to you; God will not force you either way.
But if heaven and hell are really this simple, who in their right mind would ever choose to go anywhere but heaven? Why do we see so many people, including ourselves, choosing to disobey God’s law and break the commandments? Why do we endanger our immortal souls and our eternal happiness if this is so cut and dry?
The answer can be found in the words of Christ, as he explains the ways he has come to fulfill the law. For Jesus and those who follow him, keeping the law is no longer simply avoiding the big sins like murder, adultery, blasphemy, and frivolous divorce. It is no longer good enough to avoid serious sin while constantly giving in to the desires and motives of the heart which lead us to reject the love of God and our fellow man. What Jesus reveals to us is that truly keeping the law is only done when we get to the root of our sins. And if we want to choose to keep the commandments and gain eternal life, we have to be willing to root out all of those things that lead to sin; no matter how small or insignificant they seem.
In other words, it is not enough to want heaven; we have to work towards it minute by minute, day by day, year by year, bit by bit. We can’t be ok with simply avoiding the big sins while falling in lesser ways with indifference. If this is our approach, sooner or later we will fall into those bigger sins anyway. Jesus isn’t satisfied with us being good people when we could be saints. That’s why he tells us in the gospel the shocking news that if a hand leads us to sin, cut it off, if an eye tempts us, pluck it out. Does Jesus mean this literally? No, but he does want us to understand we are engaged in a life or death struggle with sin. Keep the commandments and we live; disobey them and spend eternity in misery, separated from all love and friendship.
The truth is, no one starts out saying “I want to go to hell or I want to be a murderer, an adulterer, or a blasphemer.” We get there by fostering anger against others, by holding grudges, gossiping freely, indulging our desires, telling lies and allowing ourselves to become jealous of other people. These inclinations of the heart are the first seeds of violence against others and if we don’t work on them, they will explode into much more serious sins. The same is true about purity, We have to be willing to give up anything that makes it easier to lust after others. That means we might have to cut off the premium cable which offers impure entertainment around the clock. We may need to change the way we joke with our friends or browse the internet. It means we might have to eliminate certain shows from Netflix or Hulu, even though they entertaining. The same is true for the sin of blasphemy. We have to be willing to protect the name of God, using it only in prayer, not in surprise, anger, carelessness, or exasperation. It may make us feel old fashioned or silly, substituting other words, but it keeps us from becoming comfortable sinning in much more serious ways.
The message of today’s reading is both radically simple and difficult; keep the commandments and you will be given eternal life. But the only way we can do this is to root out those things, those inclinations which lead us to sin. Jesus commands us to get to the bottom of our sinfulness, to the heart of what leads us away from him and to eliminate it completely. Anything less is unacceptable. The good news is that we don’t do this alone. Christ gives us the Church and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation to assist us in this slow and gradual work. So thank God for the many ways He calls us above our sinfulness and weakness and let’s chose to keep the commandments so we might enjoy life and love forever in Heaven!
