Father Donald Sawyer Our Lady’s Maronite Catholic Church

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May 29, 2005 Sermon

We’re in the season of Pentecost, and the whole stress right now is on the Holy Spirit.  The Church’s birthday was two Sunday’s ago, and up until September we’ll be talking about how to be disciples of Christ, how to be followers of Christ.  Here we have St. Paul, and reading his epistles is like reading his letters, his journal.  And St. Paul says, “When I came to you, proclaiming the Mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”  So St. Paul has essentially said, “I didn’t come with big philosophies.  I didn’t come with a big show for you.  I just came to talk about Jesus, and that’s it.”  And he was well educated, but he’s like a professor coming to us and not talking on this high level, but in a very humble and personal way. 

He says, “I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling.”  Why do you think St. Paul tells them that?  “I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling.”  Why?  Because, he was originally a persecutor of the Church.  So is he going to be confident in every situation he goes to?  It’s almost like asking a great actor, “Have you ever been nervous?”  They always say, “Even to this day, I get nervous!”  Even the President of the United States may have his positions and speeches all written out, but there’s still that tingling, that tension, that nervousness.  And St. Paul continues, “My message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power”.  He calls the people forth to accept and realize Jesus.

But in the Gospel today, Jesus tells us, “Whoever has My commandments and observes them is the one who loves Me.”  “Whoever has My commandments and observes them is the one who loves Me.”  You know, we don’t hear too much about the 10 commandments.  People don’t think too much anymore about lying and stealing.  It’s like, “That’s nothing”.  Sexual morality is like popcorn, “So what?  Everybody’s doing it”.  We look at jealousy, at false witness, and nowadays they’re looked upon as suggestions, and not commandments.  When’s the last time you’ve seen a set of 10 commandments?  It’s been a while.  He says, “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves Me.”

Jesus did not give us a religion.  Jesus did not give us a religion.  And being Catholic or Christian is not a religion.  Jesus started the Church, but He gave us a way of life.  At times we make our faith into religion, and I use the word “religion” because it’s a set form – “you do this, do this, do this, and bam! You’ve got salvation!”  I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.  How many times do you see people who are supposed to be Catholics, and they may have the Virgin’s statues and an image on the back of their car or even a tattoo.  But it doesn’t make them a Christian.  No, it doesn’t.  These are “expressions” of our faith.  It’s like the guy who was all taken up getting love letters from his girlfriend when he was overseas in the military.  He came back, and he had all the love letters and kept going over them and over them and over them and rereading and rereading them and ignored his girlfriend.  Which was more important, her letters or her?  It’s the same with Catholics.  You can say you have this or that, but are you walking the talk.

We go to church, you know, and make church into our religion.  We go to church, but in our daily lives we miss all the people.  When we see people, we talk about them.  We’re jealous; we talk bad and live immorally.  But hey, “I’m a churchgoer!”  But why do we go to church?  We go to get the energy to learn to live our lives walking in the Lord.  We hear the word of God explained to us, but yet that’s not enough.  As St. Paul says, “I do what I don’t want to do, and I can’t do what I want to do.”  So the energy needed to apply the word of God doesn’t come from ourselves, it has to come from God.  This is where the Eucharist feeds us.  Jesus says in John, chapter 6, “Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in you.”  It’s like trying to sail a boat without wind, driving your car without gas.  Will it go very far?  No.  This is the power of the Holy Spirit.  St. Paul says to “check yourselves and see that you are living your life in faith.”  I think we all need to hear this.  We all need a reconversion.  Are our eyes set on Christ?  It’s like St. Peter on the boat when he saw Jesus in the storm.  He began walking on water as long as he had his eyes on Jesus.  It wasn’t as if he was bad or anything, but he looked down and got scared at his own frailties and started to sink.  We have to be constantly reconverted, without looking back.  It’s like driving.  If you don’t watch where you’re going, you’ll run off the road.  “Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words; yet the word you hear is not Mine, but that of the Father who sent Me.”