The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, May 25th: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-58)

THE ‘NEW’ SEVEN DEADLY SINS NOT SO IMPRESSIVE

This week the Church celebrates the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. We commemorate both the awesome sacrifice Jesus made for us—giving up His own body and blood to pay the price for our sins—plus the special sacrament of the Eucharist, where Jesus’ body and blood, soul and divinity, become present for us right here and now.

Although Jesus gave up His life for the salvation of all the world, the entire world is not automatically saved by His shed blood on Calvary. His sacrifice paid the price for sin, yes, but each individual must turn to Christ in faith in order to receive the gift made possible by that sacrifice.

As the old saying goes, God does not have grandchildren. People do not go to Heaven just because their parents were faithful to the Lord. Each person certainly has the opportunity to become a son or daughter of God, but it is up to each individual to make a personal faith commitment. No one else can do it for us. Without an individual, personal faith in the Lord, it does no good to be born into the “right” family, or to live in the “right” country, or to be a member of the “right” church.

When it comes to saving faith, personal responsibility is crucial. Being a member of a particular group—race, gender, nationality, socioeconomic subgroup, etc.—simply doesn’t matter.

I’ve often complained that in our cultural and political realms these days, we’ve shifted away from personal responsibility, and now focus only on group identity. With this view, it doesn’t matter what you do personally as long as you are part of the “correct” group.

I first noticed this back in the ‘90s, when President Clinton’s immoral personal behavior in the Oval Office first came to light. Most political commentators, especially liberal ones, shrugged it off, explaining that Clinton’s personal behavior didn’t matter as long as he held the proper (in their view) political positions: pro-abortion, distain for the military, increased social spending, etc.

On the other hand, people with impeccable personal morality—Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa come to mind—were actually called “evil” because of their social and cultural views.

We see it all the time nowadays: an inner-city thug commits murder, but immediately community activists declare it’s not really his fault because he’s part of a disadvantaged and oppressed minority. Or a college coed claims she was raped, but later it turns out she was lying. Despite the fact an innocent man’s reputation is ruined by the false accusation, her actions are excused because, after all, she is a member of the beleaguered gender, and besides, surely a woman was raped on that particular evening somewhere, so some man deserved to be accused anyway.

Personal responsibility, it appears, has become an old fashioned concept. Being a member of an acceptable group is all that seemingly matters now.

With this in mind, I was quite surprised back in March when the Vatican issued an updated version of the Seven Deadly Sins.

If you’re not familiar with the term, in the 6th century Pope Gregory the Great described what became know as the Seven Deadly Sins: lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy, and pride. These are not so much sins in and of themselves, but more like attitudes and actions that surely will lead to sin.

The new list issued by the Vatican includes: polluting, genetic engineering, being obscenely rich, drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia, and causing social injustice.

Except for abortion, the list sounds like it was written by Hillary, Al Gore, Karl Marx, or the editorial board of the New York Times. (Yes, I realize that listing Karl Marx and the editorial board of the New York Times is redundant.)

Most of the items on this new list are group activities. Personal behavior (and since we’re talking about sin, we really should say personal holiness) is pushed aside.

Are the seven things listed by the Vatican immoral activities? Yes. Should they be avoided? Yes, of course. But here’s the big flaw with the Vatican’s trendy list: it is possible for a person to avoid doing any of the seven new items, and yet on a personal level still engage in all kinds of sin: lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, etc.

However, if a person avoids doing the seven things on the old fashioned, Pope Gregory list, it is impossible to commit any of the things described on the new list.

In other words, if citizens strive to have holy and pure personal behavior, then the cultural issues will take care of themselves. But if our main focus is on cultural issues and personal behavior is ignored and excused, we are destined to have not only impure, immoral individuals, but also an impure and immoral culture.

Individual virtue is the building block of societal virtue. No matter how much we desire a virtuous society, if we let individuals do whatever they feel like doing, then society is sure to be a mess.

So on this special feast day, we should remember that Christ’s atoning death on the cross—His shed blood and His dead body—paid the price for our sins. But we MUST make an individual faith commitment to Him to receive the priceless gift of salvation. No one can do it for us. We have a personal responsibility to love God and then put that love into action by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

We also should remember trendy ideas that emphasize group responsibility, but ignore and excuse personal responsibility, are destined to fail. And the next time the Vatican is looking for inspiration, they should consult the writings of Pope Gregory the Great and refrain from calling the offices of the New York Times.

©2008