Finally, It Is A Matter Of Love

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 31, 2021

In the Judaism of Jesus’ time, there were hundreds of commandments, laws, rules, regulations governing almost every aspect of life. So, it was a common practice among the rabbis to inquire from one another what is the greatest, what is the central commandment, what is the organizing principle of the law. Sometimes to ensure clarity and succinctness, a rabbi was compelled to offer this summary while standing on one foot. So, in accord with this custom, Jesus, in today’s Gospel (Mark 12:28-34) is asked by one of the scribes, a teacher himself, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” The scribe is seeking Jesus’ opinion about what matters the most to God, about what is God’s greatest or most fundamental commandment. What does Jesus do? He takes one of the laws of Moses from Deuteronomy and one of the laws of Moses from Leviticus, puts them together as the first and greatest of all the commandments. He recites the Shema, “Hear O Israel! The LORD our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” After that, he adds to it a second commandment that ties loving God to loving one’s neighbor as oneself (Leviticus 19:18). Then, to intensify the inseparability of these two loves, Jesus proclaims, “There is no other commandment greater than these.”  Why does Jesus do this? By the first century AD, there is already in Judaism a recognition that these two commandments— (love of God and love of neighbor) summarized the two tablets of the Decalogue—the Ten Commandment. If you look at the first three commandments inscribed on the first tablet: prohibition of idolatry, prohibition against taking the Lord’s name in vain, and keeping the Sabbath holy, they are all commandments orientated towards the love of God. In the second tablet of the Ten Commandments— honor your father and mother, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, and not coveting neighbors possessions or wife, these commandments are orientated towards love of neighbor. So, what Jesus is essentially doing is condensing the Ten Commandments down to their essence and to their core, and then linking those cores to the two passages of the Scripture: Deuteronomy 6 (love of God) and then Leviticus 19:18 (love of neighbor) which is not part of liturgical prayer, the Shema. 

Sisters and brothers, in this Gospel passage, Jesus announces that everything else in Jewish life, everything else in the life of his followers is subordinate to those two great commandments. That is the essence of the law. Finally, it is about love, because love is what God is. It is a matter of love, and the love of God and neighbor are tightly intertwined. If you follow every dot of the law, but has not loved, it means nothing. If you claim to love God but hate your neighbor, it worths nothing. Your love of God is in fact phony and hypocritical. The great theologian, St. Augustine once said to his students, “If you want to know the principle by which you should interpret the whole of scripture, use the commandment to love as the interpretive guide.” The entire Bible is meant to bring us to the point where we love God, and because we love God, we love our neighbor. After that, everything else is commentary. 

But why are the two commandments so tightly linked in Christianity? There are different ways to answer that question, but the best and simplest response is: Because of who Jesus is. Our Lord is not simply a human being, and he is not simply God; rather he is the God-man, the one in whose person divinity and humanity meet. So, it is conclusively and definitively impossible to love him as God without loving the humanity that he has, in his own person, embraced. Who stands at the heart of our faith? Christ who is the God-man. Christ who is in his own person both divine and human. Therefore, it becomes impossible for a Christian to love God without loving humanity.

What does this intertwined love of God and neighbor look like? To answer this question, we have to turn to the saints— St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. Oscar Romero, servants of God, Sister Thea Bowman and Dorothy Day and on and on and on. From each of these saints, we learn what it means in practical sense to love God and neighbor.

As for people who wonder and are confused about how to give themselves to a reality, God, that they cannot see, this is where the second command of Jesus comes into play. The first commandment is to love God unreservedly, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. There is a strict logic at work here. When you really love someone, you tend to love, as well, what they love. What does God love? He loves everything and everyone that he has created. So, if you want to love God, and you find the project hard because God seems so distant, love everyone you come across for the sake of God. 

God bless you!

Greater Than Scepter And Throne

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Our first reading taken from the Book of Wisdom 7:7-11 and the Gospel Mark 10:17-30 are meant to be read in tandem. They are meant to be read together, for they articulate an important principle called spiritual physics. If you are interested in spiritual life, I strongly suggest you attend to these readings. Read them, meditate upon them, and pray with them. In the first reading, Solomon said, “I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her.” No king in Israel had wealth, riches and power more than Solomon. In the Bible, he is presented as the greatest of the kings of Israel. He had every worldly goods you can ever imagined. Yet, when he prayed and wisdom came to him, he preferred her more important and greater than scepter and throne. He considered wisdom more vital, more rewarding, and far greater than all the power he had. 

But what’s Solomon talking about when he says wisdom? By wisdom he just doesn’t mean scientific knowledge, although it is part of it. Wisdom in the Bible means seeing life from the perspective of God. It means intimacy with God that enables us to see the world from the perspective of God and then live our life accordingly. That’s what Solomon considered as the highest value and greater than any goods in the world. 

The great French Catholic philosopher, Blaise Paschal made a distinction between the goods of the body, the goods of the mind, and the goods of the heart. The goods of the body are those things that wealth can buy— all the pleasures of the world, nice place to live, nice car to drive, nice clothes to wear and a good and healthy food to eat. They are good in themselves, but we are not meant to be stuck at that level. We must move towards the goods of the mind that transcend any of the goods of the body. When you fall in love with philosophy, metaphysics, mathematics, and higher sciences, they bring you to a more refined world. But Paschal said that beyond all those are the goods of the heart. The goods of the heart are those values, those things associated with God. That’s the wisdom Solomon is talking about. The moment Solomon was brought into this world of value that is associated with God, he realized that everything else, all the power, and even the goods of the mind, are nothing compared to the highest good— wisdom. 

Why is wisdom so important? Why is she so indispensable? When you have wisdom, when you see things from God’s vantage point, you will know what to do with the wealth and worldly power that you have. Power or wealth should come together with wisdom. They make sense together. It should not be a matter of either or. It is only when you move into the realm of wisdom that you will know what to do with the power entrusted to you and with the goods of the world. 

With this in mind, we now come to the Gospel, to the narrative of the wealthy young man. He has all the goods of the world. He has the goods of the body and the goods of the mind. The Gospel says he runs to Jesus, kneels before him and asks, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” This young man, though has all the goods of the world, he implicitly knows they are not enough. If not, why would he bother an itinerant preacher simply to ask him about eternal life? He must have known that the goods of the world, no matter how great they are, are not eternal. They don’t satisfy the deepest longing of the heart. How does Jesus respond to his question? He takes him to the commandments. The first step to wisdom, to eternal life is to eliminate from our life sins that stand in the way, that prevent us from attaining the higher level. If wisdom is intimacy with God, then we have to get rid of those violations of love, for God is nothing but love. That means we can’t kill. We can’t defraud. We can’t steal. We can’t commit adultery or bear false witness or dishonor our parents. These are fundamental violations of love. So, getting rid of those sins is the first fundamental step. The rich young man replies Jesus, “All these I have observed from my youth.” He has covered the basis; he has eliminated the fundamental violations of love. There is a sign he is spiritually serious. Reading his heart, the Lord senses he is being honest and Jesus says, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have. Give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.” This is the pivotal moment of this story. The young man is a good man. He has good instinct. He is not stuck at the level of the goods of the body. He is asking of eternal life. He has done a lot of the basis, and Jesus knows it. And Jesus is now saying to him, if you are ready to obtain the high spiritual life, for real wisdom, for real communion with God, sell what you have, give it to the poor, and come after me. Now is the time for a radical choice, for a radical movement. 

What is Jesus sensing in this young rich man? Though his instincts are right, Jesus knows he is still too drawn, too attached to the goods of the world. He still has the tendency to get stuck in the goods of the world— power, pleasure, and riches. So, Jesus invites him to set those things aside and follow him to the height. Unfortunately, one of the saddest lines in the whole Bible is found in the response of the young man to the invitation of Jesus. It is so rare in the Gospel that Jesus calls someone and the person doesn’t respond. When Jesus called Matthew, Matthew got up and followed him. When he called the sons of Zebedee, James and John to follow him, they left everything including their father and followed him. When Peter said to Jesus, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man,” Jesus objected and invited him to become a fisher of men. As for the young rich man, when he heard Jesus say, “come, and follow me,” “his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” The rich man has the goods of the body, but he’s being drawn upward. He is actually looking for it. That’s why he’s keeping the commandments. That’s what brought him to Jesus. He is seeking eternal life from Jesus. But at a decisive moment, he balks. He’s like the ancient Israelites. Having escaped from Egypt, they began to long for the fleshpots of Egypt. They began to complain and lament how they ate beef-stew, and longed for the old life. At a decisive moment, the rich man is summoned by Jesus to the height, but he still finds himself drawn back to the place of safety and comfort. 

Shocked by the rich man’s refusal to follow him, Jesus says, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.” Now, don’t take this as a blanket condemnation of wealthy people, but it is an honest assessment of the dynamics of spiritual physics. It is hard breaking free of the allurement of the body in order to move to the next level of the mind. It is hard to break free from that level and get to the level of the heart, which is, total surrender to God. Solomon considers wisdom greater than scepter and throne, however, the first Book of Kings tells us that even Solomon himself, the wisest king of Israel, eventually falls back into the goods of the body and goods of the world. This is where most of us are. We come to Jesus. We want eternal life. We know the basis. We know the commandments of God have to be followed. But the voice of Jesus is urging us to detach from the goods of the world, come and follow him, and we will have treasure in heaven. What’s your attachment? What are you willing to let go and to follow Jesus? 

Master, I Want To See!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Most people who encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry are not named. The rich young man who says to Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark. 10:17) is not named. The Syrophoenician woman who persistently begs Jesus to heal her daughter of demon possession (Mark 7:24-30) is not named. The deaf man with a speech impediment that Jesus heals in Decapolis is also not named. The lone leper who approaches Jesus and says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” (Luke 5:12 is not named either. There are so many who encountered Jesus that are not named. But in today’s Gospel (Mark 10:46-52), Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus is clearly named. The use of his proper name is a strong indication of the historical authenticity of the event. Bartimaeus himself might have been alive to confirm the story when the first Gospel was written. St. Mark’s account of this story is a great icon, a symbolic journey of the spiritual life. So, let’s look at it in great detail. 

The locus of the story is Jericho. The mention of Jericho will definitely generate some thoughts in the mind of a first century Jew. As Israelites prepare to enter the Promised Land, they had to deal with Jericho, an enemy city. Under the leadership of Joshua, they liturgically marched around the Walls of Jericho with the Ark of Covenant. As they marched, they also prayed and blew the trumpet. Eventually, the Walls of Jericho came down and Israel was able to conquer the dark power of the world. So, the mention of Jericho will make people think about it as a sin city, a city standing in opposition to God’s purpose for the ancient Israel. Today, we can also say that Jericho stands for the culture that poisons the mind and heart. It stands for the culture that produces spiritual blindness—the inability to see the deepest truth of things. In our increasingly secularized society, secularism is a kind of blindness. The secular eyes see the world in different dimensions, but don’t see the depth dimension, the dimension of the first cause, the spiritual and transcendent dimension. So, the blind Bartimaeus sitting by the Walls of Jericho is a symbol of all of us submerged in a blindness caused by the world and culture we have today. 

Now, the first great virtue of Bartimaeus is that he begged. He hears that Jesus is passing by and he begins to shout and beg, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me” (Mark 10:47). Today, we live in a culture of self-affirmation and self-assertion. Christina Aguilera, in one of her songs titled, “Beautiful,” sings, “I’m beautiful in every single way…. words can’t bring me down.” But Bartimaeus knows he is not handsome in every single way. He knows he is blind. He also knows there is nothing he can do to solve his own problem. So, he reaches out. During Advent and Christmas when we sing, “Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,” we are not saying, “I’m okay!” “You’re okay!” or “I’m beautiful in every single way.” We are saying, “We are helpless.” We commence the Mass with a clear awareness of our blindness and our incapacity to save ourselves. That’s why we sing, Kyrie Eleison (Lord, have mercy). So, rather than spend our time ignoring our dysfunctions, pretending all is well with us, affirming and asserting ourselves, let us call upon the Lord for help. If you are okay, and I am okay, why then did God the Father send his Son Jesus Christ into the world? In spiritual life, the most important moment is the moment we realize our own helplessness in the face of our sin. In a 12 steps program designed for those struggling with addiction, the first step after hitting bottom is to realize there is nothing you can do to solve your problem. The solution is to turn your life over to a higher power. In the struggle to overcome sin, the right biblical approach is to pray and say, Jesus, Son of the living God, have pity on me. As Bartimaeus beckons, many rebuke him and tell him to be silent. In this secularized society, don’t think the majority of people will support you when you turn to Christ. Don’t think people will applaud you when you start begging and praying to a higher spiritual power. Some will see you as weird. Others will see your action as medieval and embarrassing. A few may even say to you, “Come on, man, help yourself. Grow up.” But what does Bartimaeus do in the face of opposition? He keeps calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” 

The second great virtue of Bartimaeus is persistence. The Bible speaks about perseverance in prayer. According to the great St. Augustine, this persistence causes the heart to expand, so as to receive what God wants to give. If God immediately answers all our prayers, we may not be ready to receive what God wants to give us. Because of Bartimaeus’ persistence, Jesus stops and says, “Call him.” Throughout the Gospels, Jesus calls people. In the New Testament, the term for “church” is “ekklesia.” Ekklesia is derived from the word “Kaleo” which means “to call.” The church therefore is the assembly of those who have been called by Jesus Christ into intimacy with him. Bartimaeus stands for those who  are aware of their own sin, blindness, and incapacity, who are calling out to Jesus saying, “Lord, help me,” and are hearing the invitation of Jesus to come into the church, into “ekklesia.” Jericho, the world and its ways have blinded us. Church, therefore, is the new community where our vision is restored.

Having been told that Jesus is calling him, Bartimaeus throws his cloak aside, springs up and comes to Jesus. Throwing aside his cloak is reference to baptism. In the ancient church, when someone approaches the font for baptism, they throw off their old garment, which is a symbolic gesture of throwing off their old life, their old form of life. After stripping off their street cloak, they will be plunged down into the water of baptism and clothed in a white garment. That’s what happened to Bartimaeus. When Bartimaeus approaches Jesus, the Lord asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” This is one of the handful of times when Jesus directly asks someone this kind of question. Bartimaeus’ answer is magnificent: “Master, I want to see.” At the physical level, Bartimaeus wants to see. He is clinically blind. At the spiritual level, he wants what we all want: to know the deepest truth of things, to know where he is going. A lot of us are drifting along without purposeful movement. Bartimaeus wants to see. Jesus then tells him, “Your faith has saved you.” That means, your trust and confidence in God has healed you.  After he regains his sight, he follows Jesus on the way. That’s confident discipleship. He’s gone through different stages, from physical/spiritual blindness to openness to Christ, from resisting the crowd to being called. From answering the Lord’s question in the right way to recovering his sight. Now within the life of the Church, he now knows where he is going. In this Gospel, we can see the whole spiritual life. So, sisters and brothers, take the place of Bartimaeus. See yourself kneeling down before the good Lord Jesus, and listens to him as he says to you, “What do you want me to do for you?” What would you say to the Lord? Right now, Jesus is in front of you and he is asking, “What do you want me to do for you?” 

On Jesus’ Terms

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 17, 2021

In today’s Gospel (Mark 10:35-45) James and John, two brothers and sons of Zebedee approach Jesus and say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” James and John are in a very bad spiritual space because they are saying that their ego is the criterion, their ego determines what is good or bad. When you start telling God what he needs to do for you, you are in a very bad spiritual place too. The proper biblical attitude to prayer is always: “Speak Lord, I am listening.” It is always, “Not my will, but your will be done.” The right spiritual prayer surrenders ego unto God. It is not about us, rather about God. So, the next time you find yourself telling God, “Please, give me what I want,” try and change it to, “Please Lord, give me what you want for me.”. 

After James and John make their request, Jesus indulges them, “What do you wish me to do for you?” They say, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Within the Jewish framework, their request makes some sense. At this point, they are convinced that Jesus is the Messiah. And the Messiah is meant to be the king who is going to reign over the twelve tribes of Israel, and by extension, he is going to be the Lord of all nations. That’s the expectation of every Jew, and it is also the expectation of these two brothers. Simply put, James and John want to be Jesus’ prime ministers when he begins to reign as the king of Israel. They want power and honor. 

Are power and honor in themselves bad things? No! We say that God is all powerful. So, power cannot be in itself a bad thing. Think about anyone in human history who had accomplished something impressive for the common good. They are people who in some degree have the reign of power. Power means the capacity to make things happen. Think about Abraham Lincoln. He used his presidential power to free the slaves and protect the union. Without power, all he could have done was to wish, to pray and to dream. Winston Churchill used the reigns of power in British political system in key moments in human history to hold off the Nazi tyranny and saved the western civilization. In a more spiritual order, Mother Teresa of Calcutta knew she had power and knew how to use it. She didn’t hesitate to use her spiritual power to convince Cardinals, Archbishops, and Popes to get things done. Think about Saint Pope John Paul II. He didn’t have tanks and armies, but he had power. When he came to Poland in 1979 and gave that famous speech in Victory Square and inspired the people to chant, “We want God! We want God! for fifteen minutes, he knew what he was doing. He was using his power to effect greater good. The fall of Soviet Union and the break up of the Communist empire in that part of the world without shots being fired was because of this very spiritually powerful man. So, power in itself is not a very bad thing. Even asking God for power is not bad in itself but it must be asked for the right  reasons.

James and John are also looking for honor. The deep desire of the human heart is to be honored, to be thought highly of, and to have titles and good positions. Is honor in itself a bad thing? No! We say that God is honored. We honor the saints, we honor especially the Blessed Mother. Saint Thomas Aquinas said that honor is the flag of virtue. When we see something good, something virtuous, we put a flag on it as a way of drawing people’s attention to it. There is nothing bad about this. But what is the problem? When we ask for honor in the wrong way and according to the wrong spirit, we wreak havoc. The problem with James and John here is not so much what they are asking for, but the spirit in which they are asking for it. They are asking for honor and power so that their egos might be aggrandized, might be puffed up. If this is the reason why some people want and aspire for power and honor, then we have serious problems. Look up and down the centuries, look through the history books, look through the Greek literature and what you find is loads and loads of examples of people who sought power and honor in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. In a very short order, they produced chaos around themselves. Such people exercise power not out of love, not for the sake of the good, not on the standpoint of wisdom, rather from the standpoint of ego and for the sake of ego. Think about figures like Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Stalin etc. The havoc these figures caused around themselves from the abuse of power is enormous. In the literature, Macbeth, the man Macbeth desperately wanted power and honor due to the prediction of witches. The three witches told him he would become king and from that very moment, all that Macbeth did was to acquire that power. Imagine the havoc he caused in that play. The destruction of his own soul and the lives of the people around him was immense. The hunger for honor can be destructive if unchecked. 

Sisters and brothers, all of us fall into this temptation: “Oh! If I get that position… if I get that title…” that kind of hunger, if unchecked can destroy us, can destroy organizations, and mess up people’s lives. Seek honor for the sake of God. Seek honor for the greater glory of God. Seek for power in order to effect God’s will in the world. Don’t come to Jesus and say, “Lord, we want you to give us whatever we want.” If you do, you are in a very bad spiritual space. What is the supreme irony of this story? James and John wanted to sit on both sides of Jesus when he comes into his glory. When does Jesus come into his glory? On the cross where he wears the crown of thorns! And over his head is placed a sign: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” That’s what James and John were anticipating, and it came true. He was indeed the King of the Jews. But he was reigning from the instrument of torture. And the crown he wore wasn’t the crown of gold but the crown of thorns. And who was at his right and at his left when he came into his glory?  The two criminals crucified with him. Do you want power and honor? Ask for them as long as you want them on Jesus’ terms, and not yours. The kind of power and honor that Jesus is going to give you can be seen not from worldly figures, but from those thieves crucified along with Jesus when he came into his glory. What’s the cure for the hunger for power and honor? Become like a child, as Jesus says. Be ready to be guided and be led by God. 

On Gospel of Luke 11:37-41

In many parts of Nigeria, people are particularly sensitive to food related hygiene. It is a standard practice to wash your hands before a meal. The reason for this is because many Nigerians would prefer to eat with their fingers. Now, this practice is not unique to Nigerians; it is also common in many other parts of the world as well. So, if you are invited to eat with a family where eating with the fingers is the practice, one of the things you are expected to do is to wash your hands before eating. But if you don’t, you are likely going to see frown faces. Your hosts would most likely roll their eyes, shake their heads in disbelief and conclude that you are a dirty person. 

In today’s Gospel, a Pharisee invites Jesus to dine at his home. The moment Jesus enters the house, he takes his seat and begins to eat without observing the required hand-washing before the meal. Of course, this mystifies his host. Jews are required to pour water over each hand at least two times and say a blessing before eating any meal that includes bread. But why did Jesus skip the ritual(known as netilat yadayim)? Is he so hungry that he does not have time to observe the norm? Doesn’t he have a sense of hygiene? Well, I believe Jesus does have a sense of hygiene. One of the principal marks of his teaching and ministry is the overturning of social conventions that just didn’t make sense. The Pharisees didn’t wash their hands to get them clean. There was no soap or scrubbing involved. It was just a ceremonial thing which involved pouring (dribbling) some water down the hands. It didn’t really serve any practical or spiritual purpose. It was done merely for the sake of appearance. And that’s one of the major problems the Pharisees had. Practically everything they did was for the sake of appearances. And this can also be our problem too. If it doesn’t matter to me that my life is not consistent with who I am called to be, not consistent with the Gospel that I preach, then it is all about appearance, a show. If what matters to us is to put up good performances in order to make others think we are leading holy lives, then we are hypocrites. The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek word, “hypokrisis,” which means “play-acting,” or “acting out.” So, it is pretty much an accurate description of what we do.  

But this play-acting can be quite tedious and exhausting as anyone who has tried to keep up appearances for any period of time can testify. So, what’s the solution? Take a look on the inside. Listen to the aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul. Get the interior right! If we get the interior right, the exterior will eventually reflect that. Getting the interior right is getting the heart right. For biblical people, the heart also includes the mind. The heart means a person’s whole being. Therefore, pay attention to the contents of your heart and mind. Jesus himself says, “Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God, (Matt. 5:8)” and I love to add, “in everybody.” And once we are able to achieve this with God’s grace which is readily available to us especially through the sacraments, then we can be bold and courageous to preach the Gospel in words and deeds, for it is God’s power to save everyone who believes.

Consider this: if your heart is like a room, if the condition of your heart and mind is like a room, would you like to live in it? If the answer is no, you know what to do. 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

For Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Give It All Away And Follow Jesus

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 10, 2021

One of the finest Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, Paul Tillich, made a distinction between heteronomy, autonomy, and what he called “theonomy.” He said that a lot of us, in our own individual development and in a grand historical sense, tend to swing back and forth between heteronomy and autonomy. Heteronomy (Heteros+ nomos in Greek) literally means law from another. Autonomy (auto+nomos in Greek) means law from oneself. Obeying someone outside of oneself is heteronomy, and making law for oneself is autonomy. Paul Tillich thinks that as individuals and as societies, many of us tend to swing back and forth between these two extremes. From heteronomy viewpoint, law (nomos) is something imposed on us from the outside, from parents, from government, and from religion. Now, most sensible people accept the legitimacy of law, at least, as a kind of necessary evil. We need laws to govern our society and ourselves. Yet, even after accepting the indispensability of laws, deep down we kind of resent it. Let’s face it, no one is particularly happy about being told what to do. From a child to a mature adult, most of us resist laws being imposed on us from the outside. So, when heteronomy gets oppressive, there is a resistance, a clamor for autonomy (self-rule) that manifests itself in expressions like, “Don’t tread on me!” “Don’t tell me what to do.” Deep down each of us, we value autonomy. The abiding philosophy of our culture is autonomy. That’s why there is emphasis and sometimes overemphasis on freedom. Freedom is just another word for autonomy.

Here now is the problem. Both heteronomy and autonomy have shadow sides. The shadow side of heteronomy is tyranny. There is a tendency for the one who tells another what to do to become tyrannical, to become bossy. As for autonomy, its shadow side is chaos and relativism. To suggest that I am the law unto myself is dangerous. If everyone has the right to determine what to do, disorder will rapidly follow from autonomy. Paul Tillich argued that because heteronomy and autonomy have shadow sides, we tend to swing back and forth from one to the other. When autonomy gets a little bit crazy, someone will come along and impose order. But when the imposition of order becomes tyrannical, there is a pushback in the direction of autonomy. So, this causes us to kind of go back and forth. 

Is there a solution to this dilemma? Paul Tillich said, YES! There is a way out. There is a solution, which he calls “theonomy,” the law of God. What does he mean and why is this the solution to the problem? Isn’t God other to us? Of course, God is totally other to us. God is transcendent. God is not the same as my soul. So, there is something like heteronomy (law from another) even in theonomy. But God is not competitive with us. God is not other in the ordinary sense. Rather, God lives within the depths of each one of us and God’s closeness to each of us awakens what is the most beautiful and radiant in us. So, theonomy, which is the rule or law of God has the best of both heteronomy and autonomy. True freedom comes from discovering oneself and surrendering to God. 

Now, these sound pretty heady and abstract. But when you look at it through this familiar story of Jesus and a certain rich man, you will see this dynamics on very clear display. By his own admission, the rich man has been a faithful follower of heteronomy. By every standard, he has kept the law from another— law from the Torah. Dutifully, he has kept the commandments which says, “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.” He has kept and applied the divine law but in a very heteronomous way. He sees God as the other who is imposing his will on a reluctant subject. How do we know this? His attitude! He hasn’t found joy and deep fulfillment in keeping the divine law. For as soon as Jesus instructs him to go and sell what he has, give the money to the poor, then come and follow him so that he will have treasure in heaven, the rich man balks and walks away sad. Why? Because he is a man of many possessions and his many possessions have possessed him. The Bible says that in his riches, man lacks wisdom, that is, the wisdom to discover the true self and surrender to God. The rich man is offered the opportunity to end oscillating from heteronomy to autonomy, to avoid the tensions often generated by both and to simply accept theonomy and live under the rule and law of God, but he refuses.

God is not a tyrannical master for whom we slave for. God is a wonderful Father who invites us into a relationship with him, a relationship in which everything the Father has belongs to us. To the rich man, Jesus says, “…come, follow me” and be free from the shadow sides of heteronomy and autonomy. Be free from the grudging observation of the law. Don’t think of yourself as a slave, rather consider the surrender to God’s will as the key to your own deepest joy. But why did the rich man turn down Jesus’ invitation? Because he is stuck at the same level as the pharisees who believe in auto-salvation (self-salvation) by the strict observance of the law. Discipleship, the Lord teaches, is more than a mere keeping of rules. It entails following him, not valuing and working for what most people do and also seeking for that which lasts beyond the grave. Jesus invites us to follow him. He invites us into theonomy, into allowing God to become the law, the norm of our lives. What does that look like? It looks like life and life to the full. That’s what Jesus offers to the rich man when he says to him, “…come, follow me.” You, me and everyone tend to move between these two extremes. We move into heteronomy desert and autonomy desert. But today, Jesus, the wonderful Savior and Lord invites us to surrender to the theonomy that gives life, life in its fullness.