July 2, 2005 Sermon

If you look at our first reading, Paul is telling the Corinthians, “Brothers and Sisters: Since we have such hope, we act very boldly and not like Moses.” What he’s saying is that we have confidence, that we are connected with Christ, that we have been reconciled, what they yearned for in the Old Testament. Remember when Moses came down from the mountain after 40 days and his face was glowing like he had been under a 300 watt light bulb. This was literally from being so close to God Who gave off so much light. There’s always this image of light. Remember St. Charbel when he died, lights came out of his grave. Mother Theresa, just seeing her, you could feel the light. So it was when Moses came down after those 40 days near the Lord. He was like an iron in the fire. Of course, it diminished the longer he was down from the mountain. So we act “boldly” because even Moses yearned to be reconnected with God, the Messiah. When Christ died and was resurrected, He reconnected us. So we’re acting “boldly.” I think about the many times I see Christians act mealy-mouthed and weak and how they’re afraid to offend anybody. To be a Christian means to be strong. If you’re a weak person, you’re not living a Christian life.

Paul goes on to talk about Moses and the Israelites. He says, “Their thoughts were rendered dull, for to this day the same veil remains unlifted when they read the old covenant, because through Christ it is taken away.” In other words, not just the Jews, but if you’re not connected with Christ, you have a veil over you, your dull-witted. You may be super intelligent, but you haven’t woken up to the light. “To this day, in fact, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed.” That’s a very consoling thing. God removes it; once we see Him, all is connected.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord Who is the Spirit.” I look at this, and I think about nowadays, to be a Christian means to be counter-cultural. To be a Christian, you can’t love mammon and love God at the same time. You love One, or you love the other. I think about how in our society we always want to be fashionable. The Church has to use the Gospel to change society, not have society change the Church. When’s the last time you’ve seen a set of 10 Commandments, besides on T.V. because of the court cases? These are our guidelines of living life. If you start reviewing them, you see respecting God, keeping the Sabbath, not taking His name in vain, honoring your parents, not being jealous, not killing, not hating or stealing, being truthful, walking upright. Not heeding these commandments, whether through fornication or idolatry or drugs, this is the beginning of it all spiraling downward. We’re called to a better life, but we short circuit God’s plans for us by taking it into our own hands. But as a society, we have to listen. This has to be our guide, not TV, not movies, to be connected with the Lord.

Our Lord says, “I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” This world is not a nice place, and I think if you’re going to survive in this world, you have to be shrewd, basing your faith in the Lord and yet being shrewd as to what’s going on. He prophecies, “Beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say.” The Holy Spirit will tell you. Brothers and sisters, you have witnessed Christ, and I think everyday you are challenged to witness Him. Whether it’s speaking out about what’s right, telling people no, chasing after that other man’s wife is wrong, abortion is wrong, no to all the sin and adultery that is around us, it’s unpopular. “Behold, I am sending you like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.”

Tomorrow we celebrate the 4^th of July, and though it’s a national holiday, perhaps we treat it as a religious holiday. I remember listening to one of my professors, a Presbyterian minister from Scotland. He was a small guy, with a Scottish brogue, but he hesitatingly shared with the class – I was the token Catholic, there were Presbyterians, Methodists, Church of Christ, etc. – he says, “You Americans treat your government like a religion.” And we were all taken aback. He says, “You have your saints, just like at church, George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Jefferson … And you have your holy days and July 4^th is one of them. You have your Vatican in Washington, your pope is the president, you have your curia in congress, and you treat them as all so holy. You treat your constitution as your Bible.” One gentleman I knew came from Mexico, years ago he came to Austin. He got off the train and he looked around and he saw a big building with a dome. He said “Wow, that’s the church!” Fascinated, he went up the street and came to the huge church. He walked in and the first thing he saw was these statues, and he thought to himself, “The saints are carrying guns?” Of course, he had gone to the Capitol. He thought that the largest, most gorgeous building would be the church.

So, too, with us. I think about how we love our country and we’re all patriotic here, but we have to realize our country is not perfect. Realize that this was a country dominated by land owners and only white males could vote. You women had to wait until what, the early 1900’s to vote? Realize that this is a country that this is a country that not only killed off the natives, but enslaved them and waged war against them, taking their land. It’s also a country that needed cheap labor, so it imported people from another continent and justified it by saying that these people do not have souls. This is a country that in the 1840’s, Catholics were leaving Philadelphia in droves. They were fleeing the city because there had been a pogrom against Catholics. The mayor said to the Bishop there, “Don’t have Mass, I can’t guarantee that your cathedral won’t burn down.” The Bishop told him, “If the Cathedral burns, all of Philadelphia will burn.” He threw the threat back at him. And he had the Midnight Mass, but he had stationed sandbags all around him, and people with pitchforks and shovels, anything they had to protect themselves. If it wasn’t for that Bishop, Catholics in this country would have been driven to the sea. You wouldn’t find any Catholics in this country that was first discovered by Catholics. This is a country that when the Holy Father sent a stone to be incorporated into the Washington monument, it was stolen overnight and thrown into the Potomac, where it still sits. Why do we have Catholic schools? Because the public schools were Protestant schools. Why do we have Catholic hospitals? Mainly because Catholics could not be treated equally in a city hospital. We could go on. It was not just blacks, not just Hispanics, but Catholics also who have been discriminated against. It was Catholics who were targeted by Margaret Sanger. She saw the solution to having too many Catholics, too many blacks, too many Hispanics. She said, “We should have abortion free for everyone.” This is a free country yet 60 million abortions to date. These were Jews, these were blacks... but of course they’re not human beings. They’re just tissue, right?

I don’t know if you’ve seen the news lately but I saw a vocal Catholic, Irish. I don’t know if I should be even telling you that I saw Ted Kennedy on TV, but he was saying to you and to me that he would ensure our “right to abortion.” He’ll protect that right for you and me; is that Catholic? I’m insulted by him. This country is a great country. We love it. I think it’s the best in the world, but it still has not lived up to it’s true calling given to us by the fathers of the Constitution, not when the innocent and weak are not protected.

Brothers and sisters, I see this country and the great people we have, and our brother Christians whether they are fundamentalist, Baptist, Assembly of God, what have you, we as Christians are a giant that has to wake. This is our country and we all need to be involved. You know what right the Constitution gives you? The right only to do right. Keep that in mind.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.