4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Previous Years: [None]
Preached at St. Martin de Porres in Prosper, TX
Recording
https://moorejesus.podbean.com/e/american-values-1675031996/
Transcript
Thank you to T.W. for editing this transcript.
I’m curious and I promise this is the only interactive part of this homily. But I’m curious. Raise your hands if you were born in the state of Texas. Okay, note that. Now raise your hands if you moved to the state of Texas in the last five years. Yeah, it’s almost twice as much. It’s crazy. Well, I’m from one of those places that a lot of folks are moving away from right now. I hear from people in my own archdiocese. They’re moving to Idaho, or they’re moving to Texas, or they’re moving to Florida. There are reasons for that. One of them is economic opportunity. You can buy a whole lot more house in Texas than you can in Washington for the same US dollars. No judgment there. Absolutely. Jump on that. The other reason people are moving is a cultural reason. So, the town that I’m assigned to, Bellingham, Washington, you drive around my neighborhood, the place that I serve, you’ll see five or maybe even ten times as many pride flags as you do American flags. It’s just a very different place and a very different culture. My impression of Texas is that it still retains a Christian identity. If you go around and you ask people, they’ll tell you what church they go to. Whereas my state, 32% of people won’t claim any religion at all. That’s not even fallen-away Catholics who will still check the box. That’s people who won’t even claim a religion, 32% of people.
I am in your midst as a prophet of the future, lest you become complacent, because I assure you, the difference between your state and my state is exactly that number of people who claim Christianity. We share the same American values, underlying American values, but they lead to the stuff I’m dealing with when they are separated from Christ. What do I mean? Well, the underlying value of the United States is something called liberalism. That has nothing to do with the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It’s an older idea than both of those parties. It’s an idea from the Enlightenment based on the primacy of the individual. Somehow, by making sure the individual has as much liberty as possible, justice will be served. In the United States, we live that out in two ways. One is democracy. Our governmental system is based on the primacy of the individual to make decisions for his or her own life. The second way we do that is a commitment to capitalism. The idea that the individual can enter into all financial transactions freely. That they can build up the wealth for themselves. Now, these are both very good things we’ve seen the United States. They serve human dignity. They raise up the dignity of the human person, either by giving them agency in their life or by allowing for economic opportunity, which allows for greater dignity. But as Americans, Washingtonians and Texans, as Americans, we have to be very careful because neither of those values are inherently Christian values.
Jesus doesn’t talk about individual liberty. He talks about radical relationship. He talks about being in relationship with our neighbor. Somehow, depending on each other. He creates a church not of individual one-on-one relationships with God, but as a communal expression of the Christian life. We have to live Christianity together. We are bound to each other. The fourth commandment requires that we honor our father and mother, whether we like them or not. The Lord sees us as families and societies first, before he sees us as individuals. And with capitalism again, as much as it serves human dignity, the Lord never valorized wealth. He never said, blessed are those in my kingdom who have the most money. It can serve our families well, and it can serve our society well, but, like I said at the beginning, these have to be tempered by Christianity. They have to be rooted in the values of Jesus otherwise they go off the rails and you deal with the things I’m dealing with in Washington state. So, what are the Christian values? What are the values we have to put first before these American values that have served us well enough? Well, I would suggest that we should use the Beatitudes as an examination of conscience of Christian values.
In this Gospel the word “blessed” is one possible interpretation of the Greek word, but it can also be translated equally well into English as happy. So, “‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,’” (Mt 5:3), but also happy are the poor in spirit. What the Lord is telling us is not just his command or what he’s teaching us, but he’s telling us about human nature itself. Where is human happiness to be found? He tells us, happy are the poor in spirit. Happy are the meek. National surveys today of young people tell us that when they’re asked what they want to be when they grow up the leading answer, by far, is that they want to be famous. And that comes in a lot of different phrases. You can say, I want to be a celebrity, or a famous singer, or a famous athlete, or I want to be an influencer of all things. Okay, well, this is an examination of conscience. We should not be happy that that’s the answer our young people are giving. Somehow our society is teaching them that the most important thing in their life is to be worshipped by other people. To have everybody know your name; to have your face on every billboard. Long gone are the days where young people are taught to grow up; to enter into a service industry where they valorize being firemen or policemen or somebody else who is giving their life in service to their neighbor. I want to be worshipped, not I want to serve. Well, that’s not poor in spirit. That’s not meekness. And this is particularly important for the Christian, because when we are in the world, we are bringing the presence of Jesus with us. If we want to be a Christian in the world, we have to be poor in spirit enough that at some point we fade into the background so that the Lord Jesus can take over. We make friends and we attract colleagues through our personality—the things we bring to the table. That’s fine. Be yourself. Have your personality. You don’t have to give up and be stale, white bread. It’s fine. But but at some point, the Lord Jesus needs to be more important than yourself. And if the Lord Jesus is more important than you, then as you make friends and take care of people and enter into these relationships in the world, he will begin to shine forth, and you, in poorness of spirit and meekness, will be happy to take the back seat to allow people to see you and then through you to see Jesus.
We priests have to be particularly careful of this. We’re up front preaching. It’s very easy for our personality to get in the way. But the Church tells us something horrific and terrifying, which is that the priest celebrates the mass in the place of Christ, who is standing at the head of his Church. If we’re not careful, you’re going to see Father Moore or Father Hauck at this altar rather than Jesus Christ. We have to foster that poorness of spirit and that meekness, so that at some point we can fade into the liturgy and into the ministry so that Jesus will shine forth. But it’s not just for priests, it’s for all Christians. All of you are in the place of Christ through your baptism. All of you carry Christ with you. Can we get rid of this ego, this desire to be famous, this societal value of making sure we’re on billboards so that we can put Jesus in the front?
The Lord tells us, “‘Blessed are those who mourn,’ (Mt 5:4). Again, examination of conscience. How many times have you seen American society celebrate suffering or celebrate death? A professor of mine in seminary said, if you want to know what a society values, look at the largest building in their city. It used to be cathedrals, right? God was right at the center, tallest building, all of the architects, all of the money. Then it became banks. In most American cities today, the financial district has the tallest and most impressive buildings. But in my town, with150,000 people, the biggest building is the hospital. And even in downtown Seattle, the hospitals are taking up more and more land. Why? Well, medical technology is advancing. That’s fine, that’s wonderful, that’s elevating human dignity. But a lot of it is because we can’t stand the idea of suffering or death. We have to hide it all away and pretend that somehow doctors can solve the human experience. That somehow, as I grow older, I’m not going to have aches and pains. That somehow, I can escape death, and I don’t have to constantly be memento mori—remembering that I will die someday. The Lord tells us, happy are those who mourn. Which is to say, happy are those who don’t shuffle under the rug all of the difficulties of human life. Happy are those who can confront our humanity, who can see that we live in a world that has suffering, and it has death. Happy are those who can bring it forth so that they can call Jesus into that experience. If we pretend like it doesn’t exist, the Lord can’t speak to us about it. He wants to be there with us. We’re not afraid to put Jesus on the cross in our churches, because we’re not afraid of the fact that he died before he rose. We can’t live a life where we just put on a smile all the time, even when we’re sad, where we pretend like every day is a good day when it’s not. We think that’s how we’re supposed to live. We think happy are those who pretend always that everything is great. It’s not the words of Jesus. Happy are those who mourn.
He tells us, “‘[Happy] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,’” (Mt 5:6). Examination of conscience. We see in American society an acquisitiveness, not inquisitiveness. Inquisitiveness is learning, that’s fine. Acquisitiveness the desire to always acquire. We might call this consumerism. I’m always offended every November or December, particularly after the financial collapse in 2008, where we’d hear on the news: unless people buy $10 million more in this state this winter, our economy is going to collapse. The whole economy is based on making sure people buy things that they don’t need. It’s not good because all of us have a hunger in the center of our hearts. We hunger for the Lord Jesus, and we hunger for righteousness. Righteousness is standing before the Lord knowing that we are redeemed, living a life of virtue. We hunger for that. But if we’re not careful, there are plenty of charlatans and liars who will fill that hunger with things that we don’t need: experiences, pleasures, items, objects. I know I am always tempted by the newest electronic gadget. I have to be careful of this myself. It’s shiny, it’s fun. Maybe there’s a software update, whatever. But I tell you, it never will satisfy. The Lord says, “‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,’” (Mt 5:6). If we hunger for God, for love of God, and love of neighbor, then what’s the reward Jesus promises us? For they will be satisfied. If you find that you are not satisfied, it’s because you are not hungering for the right things.
The Lord tells us, “‘Blessed [happy] are those who are merciful…Blessed are the peacemakers’” (Mt 5:6-9). Second Vatican Council is famous for the phrase that peace is more than just the absence of war. It’s something that we have to work for actively all the time. Hence, not blessed are the peaceful so it’s a passive idea, but blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who go outside of themselves to create peace. The same is true with mercy. It requires an active effort on our part. It is very natural for human beings when we are hurt to want to hurt people back. It’s vengeance. It’s very natural because we are fallen. It’s natural to our sin. But it’s not how God thinks. God thinks in terms of mercy and peace. The Christian is called to lay down our hurts, to bury our hatchets, to actively try to make peace, even when they themselves have been hurt. Our society valorizes vengeance. I am ashamed to admit it from the pulpit but have previously been a huge Taylor Swift fan and now also Olivia Rodrigo. But these two women, some of their best albums (I listened to Reputation so many times and soured so many times) are based in vengeance. I have been hurt and so now I have to hurt them back—publicly. I appreciate the deep emotions that are in these songs, that’s why I keep listening to them. But it’s emotion that’s not based on Christian values. I need to hurt you because you hurt me. What did the Lord do? He allowed us humanity, the ones he came to save. He allowed us to nail him to a cross. And from that cross he prayed, “‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’” (Lk 23:34). Can we do that? Can we pray that for people when they’ve hurt us? Can we instead respond with peace, respond with mercy? Can we go into those situations and make that peace? What horrible things we say to each other on the internet just to win an argument. What would it look like if Christians were present on the internet being peacemakers? Well, we might be happy.
“‘Blessed are the pure of heart,’” (Mt 5:8). Again, examination of conscience. How many times do we become numb to the crassness of society? Again, I’m guilty of this. I like popular music, and I like popular shows. They put a lot of things in front of me that are sacred such as using the name of God in vain. God is sacred. Why would we use him as a curse word? But we’re so used to it; we hear it all the time. Or in the popular shows, something as beautiful as marital love just paraded around for all to see when it’s sacred and should be kept sacred. I’m not saying we shouldn’t listen to the music or watch the shows, but the Lord talks about the purity of our hearts. When we do that, are we allowing our hearts to become numb? Are we allowing our hearts to just accept it and say, oh, this is normal? To normalize the crassness and the muck. We can’t do that. When I have been thinking too much like the world, I find I can’t pray. I can’t focus on God. My zeal is diminished. Well, what does the Lord say about the clean of heart? They will see God. If we allow our hearts to remain pure and clean, not infected by the muck, we will see God in this world not just in the next.
Finally, the Lord tells us, “‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness…Blessed are you when they insult you, persecute you, and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me.’” (Mt 5:10-11). We are born into a world of sin and death. This world is passing away, as Saint Paul tells us. But we are recreated through our baptism in the new world of resurrection and life. By uniting ourselves to the Lord Jesus, we begin to live like the Lord Jesus and have the life of the Lord Jesus in us. But that means that we will always be a sign of contradiction. If we live like the Lord, who conquered sin and death in a world marked by sin and death, then we are always going to be in conflict with this world. We will always, as Christians, be a sign of contradiction. And so “‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness…[and] Blessed are those who are [persecuted for the sake of the name],’” (Mt 5:10-11) because it means that you are living your faith right? It means that you are that sign of contradiction, that you are bringing the presence of the Lord into the world that he conquered. I know what it looks like to be a sign of contradiction amongst my people in Bellingham, Washington. I don’t know what it looks like to be a sign of contradiction here in Prosper, Texas. I have no idea. You know your peers better than I do. You know your society better. But I can tell you this, if you are blending in, if you look like everybody else, and there’s no reason to think that you have anything different about you than people who are just living their lives apart from Christ, then you’re not going to be happy. We think that we have to hide ourselves, not speak up, not say anything, because to be persecuted, exiled, or ostracized would be the worst thing that can happen to us. But the Lord tells us, happy are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness and for the sake of the name. If you have any fear, lay it down. How many times does the Lord say in the scriptures, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of persecution. Do not be afraid of speaking up for the Lord. Do not be afraid of speaking up for the faith. The Church is the Church of Truth, and when you speak the truth, you will be persecuted, but you will be happy. You will be blessed. Nobody can threaten you because you have the Lord Jesus.
My friends, I am a proud American. I don’t give us this examination of conscience because I hate our country. But I believe the Lord Jesus. I believe what he tells us. And I also know the voice of the father of lies. It is a lie that you will be happy with maximal freedom and that your happiness is found when nobody can tell you what to do. And it is a lie that you will be happy with economic prosperity and that the more you own, the happier you will be. Those are lies that will tear you down and that will tear this country down. Instead, we have to listen to the voice of truth which tells us happy are the poor in spirit. Happy are those who mourn. Happy are the meek. Happy are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Happy are the merciful. Happier the clean of heart. Happy are the peacemakers. Happy are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. Happy are you when they insult you and persecute you, and utter every kind of evil against you falsely, because of the Lord Jesus.
Fr. Moore 