9^th Sunday in Ordinary time

Deuteronomy  11:18,26-32  Romans Ch3:21-25,28  Matthew Ch. 7:21-27

1. At the beginning of the New Year, it is customary to make New Year’s resolutions to improve our lives. Usually, we resolve to do more exercise, eat sensibly, improve our intellectual and spiritual resources. It is  also quite common that by the end of January, we forget our resolutions and lapse into former comfortable and less rigorous ways of life. This Wednesday, we will begin our Lenten season and again we make resolutions. The most popular ones are to give up smoking and drinking. These we keep because we know we can last the 40 days of lent. The last ten days can be pretty tough, but we hang on and keep our resolutions.

Deuteronomy, our first reading today, wants us to make resolutions in order to remember the commands of God. The write tells us to write the commands on our wrist bands and head bands. This way, we will not forget God or his commandments. However there is an added incentive to keep the commandments of God. This is proverbial “carrot and the stick” psychology. If you keep the commandments you will get a blessing, if not you will receive a “curse”. In our present day language the blessings and threats are the joys of heaven or the fires of hell.

2. Having said this, the letter to the Romans seems to contradict that reading by telling us that the keeping of the law will not merit us eternal life. That is the literal or surface meaning. Keeping the law and the prophets is important because it prepares us for the Gift that God freely gives to each of us. Keeping the law does not by itself give you an automatic right to heaven. Eternal life is a free gift and cannot be earned, what we can do is to make ourselves ready, make ourselves alert so that when the Lord comes we may go with him into the heavenly banquet.

3. One sacred writer has written, God who saved us without our advice or help, will not give salvation without our cooperation. In a word, God offers us this gift, but God will always respect our will to either choose or reject. So we must act, and in that sense the reading from Deuteronomy is so important.  It is of no value to just desire god, we must put our back into it and get it done. This is the message of the Gospel.

It is common experience that as human beings we fall into the falling general categories.  

a) There are some of us who are basically jawbones.

• The jaw bones are people who know everything and anything about any subject. We have a few examples among the journalists in our daily newspapers.
• They know what is wrong with society and they will TELL us how to fix it.
• They know what is wrong with our tax system. They will TELL us the remedies.
• They know what is wrong with the homeless and street people. They will PROCLAIM the solutions loudly whether you want to hear it or not.

• They will speak about all matters with authority even if the facts are incorrect. But as Jesus says in Matthew 23:4 they will not lift a little finger to do something. They are all jawbones.

b) Then there are the wishbones in our society. They are well meaning and harmless people.

• They wish there will be peace
• They wish there will be justice and no corruption.
• They wish our streets and public places are clean and without litter.
• They wish our politicians would spend money on transit and the infrastructure.

• But all their good intentions are in fantasy land. All their action is in the realm of wishes and day dreams. They will do nothing to settle a quarrel. They will see injustice and walk the other way. You never see them pick up litter and throw it into a garbage container. They will complain about potholes and bumpy roads.

Jesus speaks of these people as building their house on sand. The moment there is one degree of disagreement or hardship involved, they fade away like the morning mist in bright sunshine.

c) Then Jesus speaks of what we would call the backbone in our society .  He speaks of those who have built their house on rock. As their very name suggests, they are not in the limelight nor are they the front and centre of all works and buildings and events. They usually work behind the scenes and they are the ones who get all the work done in secular society or in the church.

They will clean the church,

they will read when the lectors do not show up,

they will act as ministers of hospitality and greet people at the door,

they will turn up with a casserole or some finger food for pot luck parish get togethers.

You do not even have to ask them to do these things. They look, they observe and they just put their backs to it and get it done. These are the silent but reliable machines that cause the government, the church and our neighbourhoods to work smoothly. Their own families are a place of comfort and joy.