YEAR A Homily for 9^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ever heard of counterfeit $100 bills? Yes, a lot. Ever heard of counterfeit toilet paper? No. Why not? Because it is not worth it. The existence of counterfeits indicates how precious a thing is: the more precious it is, the more counterfeit you get. Spirituality is a very precious commodity. The proof is in the amount of counterfeit spiritualities in circulation. Counterfeit spirituality did not begin with us.

Acts 19 reports a curious incident that happened when Paul was preaching in Ephesus. Paul was performing so much miracles in Ephesus that the other religious ministers in the city became envious of him. They were losing their members to Paul. So some of them decided to observe and copy what Paul was doing. Paul was doing mighty works and casting out demons by invoking the name of Jesus. They thought they had discovered his secret formula, and they took off to go and implement it in their own ministry. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest called Sceva, who were professional exorcists tried to use the name of Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” But the evil spirit said to them in reply, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” Then the man with the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them and handled them so badly that they fled out of the house naked and bruised all over. The moral of the story: Who you are comes before what you do or say.

This is what Jesus is trying to teach his followers in today’s gospel story. He gives thumbs down to some people who say words of faith. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matt 7:21). He even gives thumbs down to some people who do works of faith. “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers’” (vv 22-23). By saying “I never knew you,” Jesus indicates that the fundamental and most important thing is him knowing us and we knowing him. In other words, the relationship between Jesus and us is more important than the performance we put up in terms of words and deed. We have to be Christians, people who know Christ, before we can act or speak Christian. We must have a direct, personal relationship with Christ. This is what gives meaning and potency to the words of faith we speak and the works of faith we perform. Otherwise we are no better than the seven sons of Sceva.

The seven sons of Sceva represent all those who try to profess the Christian creed outwardly (saying “Lord, Lord.”) and perform Christian works and projects (doing “many deeds of power” in Christ’s name) but without being Christian on the inside. The seven sons of Sceva did not surrender their lives to Christ; all they wanted was to profit from the amazing grace that is available to Paul, the servant of Christ. They did not love Jesus; they loved something that Jesus gives. It was self-interest through and through. Paul professed Christ because he wanted to know him, love him and serve him. The sons of Sceva professes Christ’s name because they were seeking some personal gain. Herein lies the crucial difference between true and false Christianity. There are many advantages is serving Christ. But when we follow Christ with the primary purpose of personal gain, whether that gain be material or spiritual, we are still suffering from the Sons of Sceva syndrome.

The Sons of Sceva syndrome is, unfortunately, very widespread today. In parts of Africa, religion is now the most flourishing industry. Self-styled prophets who train themselves in the art of mass persuasion “devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers” (Luke 20:47). They achieve this by attributing the ill fortunes of their unsuspecting clients to evil spirits and then promising them deliverance in the name of Jesus, the Jesus that they themselves do not even know, to start with. They are walking in the footsteps of the sons of Sceva. They are using the name of Jesus in vain. Their Christianity is counterfeit and, like counterfeit money, it will be rejected on the Day of Reckoning.

For approximately three years Jesus spent his time traveling and talking to people about the coming of the Kingdom.  I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact of exactly what message it was that Jesus was predominately offering to us. So the Gospels for the last few weeks have dwelt on the Gospel of St. Matthew and are taking us through many of the teachings of Jesus, all centering on the Kingdom of heaven and what it means to us. This has been Matthew’s creation of the Sermon on the Mount, and we conclude it today with a warning to Jesus’ audience on how they ought to be hearing it.

Our readings start off today with  pretty strong writing – God says – I set before you this a day a blessing and a curse, a blessing for obeying and a curse for not obeying. God almost sounds nasty here! What we have to realize though is that God isn’t really blessing or cursing anyone. God gives us a way of life, and if we don’t make a choice for life, then it is as though we have cursed ourselves. God does not curse any one.  God is infinite love!  God is relentless love!  God is endless love!  God does not curse or wish harm or wish any  evil yet when we choose to walk away from God who is symbolically portrayed as light then we will find ourselves in the dark and maybe we will even trip because we cannot see. We have all made decisions that have led us into the dark.  No one forced us to go into the dark, we choose the dark on our own and we pay a price for it.

Moses places before the people the choice of life or death, a blessing or a curse.  If we choose life, we live, if we choose death we die. Life in God is always about making choices.   If we refuse to walk with the living God then all we will have is darkness and death. If we want to worship the living God, we will live in ways we would never have imagined. The Jewish people believed that by following the Law of Moses, they could have life.

In the second reading and Gospel which is the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount, we get into some pretty heavy stuff about the Law and its relationship to good works.  The theological question is will we attain the kingdom of heaven by just following the law or  do we attain it simply by believing in Christ.  St. Paul teaches us that our ability to achieve the kingdom of God now and in the future is because God has granted us that grace or gift. However, in the Gospel we hear Jesus say quite clearly that just believing in him – saying “Lord, Lord” is not enough.  Doing acts in Jesus’ name may not even be enough.  Perhaps we do these good deeds for selfish reasons or to show off. We must hear Jesus’ words and act on them.  So in other words, Jesus made possible the kingdom of heaven for us, but we have to build our houses on earth with firm foundations, acting on the word of God, in order to individually achieve it.

Words are cheap if they are not followed up with actions.  The only way that people can know us is by how we act.  We can spend the day in prayer and meditation but if we cannot be kind then our prayer and meditation is useless.  In the same way we can spend our lives tending the sick or working for the poor but if it was all about us, even though we may have  done these  deeds as ministers of the gospel we are reminded by Jesus, they are empty.  There must be a consistency between who we are as persons and how we act.  There must be a consistency between our spirituality and our actions.  How then does consistent Christian living look? We cannot be different on Monday than who we were on Sunday or we cannot be all holy in church but in the church parking lot we are being nasty with one another. There must be a unity in word and deed.

Basically Jesus is making the same distinction as Moses did between blessings and curses. In dramatic terms, Jesus sets out a contrast that is stark, with no middle ground or gray area. All the teachings and ways of Jesus will lead to solidity, survival, expansion, life. His teachings form a firm foundation as when a person builds a house on rock.

The fate of the fool’s house is the final judgment on all who do not put Jesus’ teaching into practice: they will be “completely ruined.” Those who choose other ways of living will eventually have their shaky footings swept away by their selfish ways of relating with life. The curse is not a judgment of God, but a prediction of what happens when humans think they know always what is good for them.

If left to ourselves, we might always choose the now, the immediate, the attractive, the indulgent, and the predictable. Instead St. Matthew sets forth an understanding of Christianity that, while not denying God’s redemptive act in Christ (that we learned from St. Paul), its effects must be shown forth, not in charismatic achievements or in observance of the minutiae of the rabbinic law, but in works of love and mercy.

Father John Pilch talks about the idea of a patron in Mediterranean society terms.  A patron takes on a client and treats them like family showing great favoritism to them.  If a patron selected you, you would be thrilled, but would also be under obligation to do what that patron wanted you to do and to tell everyone the good things that that patron has done for you. God is our patron. He has chosen us, and Jesus explains that we are under an obligation to do what god wants us to do and to sing God’s praises.

What I want to leave you with today is again a series of questions for you to think about this week. Do we act out Jesus call for love and mercy in our every day dealings with people? What grounds you in your life? What is the solid foundation you have built on? If faith in Christ is your foundation, what happens when hardship comes along: “rain and floods, and buffeting by the wind”? With a solid foundation in Christ’s words, we can withstand anything. Do we see God as our patron, someone who has chosen us and bestows great gifts on us.  If so, what is our response to God’s choosing us.  How can we better thank him for this wondrous love?

The purpose of today’s gospel is not to instil self-doubt and uncertainty into our minds but to challenge us to set our priorities right. Professing the faith by word of mouth is good. Involvement in concrete works of faith is great. But for these to have any meaning for eternal salvation, we must, first and foremost, cultivate a direct and personal relationship with our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

By Rt.Rev.Prof. Kasomo Daniel

Bishop Kasomo is the Bishop of The Society of St. Peter and Paul (SSPP)