Fr. Alan's homily for Sunday February 11th 2007

The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

In two weeks' time it will be Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent will begin. The Collect for Ash Wednesday reads like this: Grant us, Lord, to begin this campaign of Christian service with a holy fast, that as we are to fight against spiritual wickedness, we may be armed with the weapons of self-denial. For those people who think that Christianity is merely about being nice to people, that collect will sound unchristian and warlike. Warlike indeed it is, unchristian is certainly is not.

Lent starts in the Garden of Eden at the moment when our mythical ancestors Adam, the Son of Earth and Eve, the universal Mother, declare independence from their origin and Maker. I say "mythical" because myth is the only way of telling truth. And the truth is sin. Be clear what "sin" is. It's not wrong actions. Sin means separation, putting asunder ("sundering" is the same English root of the word "sin") from God. Wrong actions are the symptoms of a disease and that disease is sin, our declaration of independence from God.

Jesus appears in our midst to bring us back. That reconciliation is first of all in who he is, then in what he accomplishes. Who he is, is the Word made Flesh, he brings together in his person the two who were apart, man and God. What he accomplishes is Easter, the Paschal Mystery, where on the Cross he offers himself as the victim to bear away our sin and as the Risen One, leads us as his body in his Passover into heaven.

We baptised people don't just stand and watch this. Baptism plunges us into the thick of it. Christian spirituality is the way of working out our Baptism in prayer, self-denial and charity. Those are the weapons mentioned in the collect and like all weapons they must be kept in a state of readiness. The maxim is: if you desire peace, be ready for war.

Today's readings remind us of the folly of our materialistic culture. In many ways it has lost the sense of the transcendent mystery that God is. It is as if we have done the Adam and Eve thing again. But we are always doing it and that is the instinct against which we have to take up the weapons of Lent. Self-indulgence is to be fought by self-denial, not to make us slimmer but to make us spiritual. The lack of awareness of God is to be fought by prayer, not to make us "holier than thou" but to make us holy. Charitable works, the works of love for our needy neighbour, are not to make us self righteous, but to make us just.