The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, September 6th: Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37)

ARE SOME SINS WORSE THAN OTHERS?

Have you ever wondered if certain sins are worse than other sins? Of course not. You didn’t wonder, because you KNOW certain sins are worse than others. For example, you are certain that robbing a bank is a very bad sin. And if the bank teller gets shot and killed during the robbery, that’s murder, an even worse sin. There’s no question, it’s a clear black and white situation: these are terrible sins and they make God very angry.

On the other hand, certain other behaviors, like surfing Internet porn sites, or smiling and telling someone, “It’s so good to see you!” right after you just spread some nasty gossip about that person, or always rounding the numbers in your favor when doing tax returns (“OK, I’ve got receipts for $512 of charitable contributions, so I’ll round that up to…six grand”), are kind of in the gray area, aren’t they? They may not be the most ethical behaviors in the world—and you’d be somewhat embarrassed if people found out what you were doing—but they’re not like robbery or murder, right? Those behaviors really don’t hurt anyone else, so God doesn’t really consider them sins, right? I mean, He’s a loving God, so He overlooks these petty things and doesn’t get angry, right?

Have you ever wondered which sins caused Jesus to get angry? Of course not. You didn’t wonder, because that would require you to read the Gospels in the Bible and try to understand the mind of Jesus: what He considered good and evil. And if you did that, it might cause you to examine your own behavior to see if you measure up to Jesus’ standards. And who has time for that religious stuff, when there’s over 200 channels to choose from on cable TV, and you have a pile of DVDs you want to watch, not to mention a zillion Web sites you’d like to visit?

Nah, it’s better to leave the spiritual introspection stuff to the priests and preachers and nuns and other religious professionals. For we laypeople, the attitude of  “Bank robbery and murder are sins, but everything I do is really OK” has worked fine for many years, so why rock the boat?

Well, if you do happen to read through the Gospels (maybe during a prolonged power failure, when the cable and Internet are down), you’ll find that Jesus did indeed consider some sins worse than others. Now don’t get me wrong, ALL sins are bad. Every single sin, even a very minor one, causes a separation between God and His beloved human creatures. The only reason He created us in the first place is to be in a loving relationship with Him. Every time we sin, even the little teeny sins, we harm that loving relationship. We create a gulf, a separation, between ourselves and God.

But there is no doubt that even though all sins are bad, certain sins are worse than others. We know this because of the way Jesus reacted to the various sins He encountered. How did He react when they brought an adulterous woman to Him? Was He angry at her for blatantly violating one of the Ten Commandments? No, He had compassion for her and He forgave her. (Please note, He did not condone her behavior, but He gave her a chance to repent and start living a righteous life.)

Did Jesus get angry when Judas betrayed Him, or when Peter denied Him? No, He was just sad. Did Jesus get angry when He was the target of the worst sin ever committed in the history of the world, Deicide, the murder of God? No, He actually prayed for the very people who were killing Him. As He hung on the cross, with the life forces ebbing from His body, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

So when did Jesus get angry? Were there any sins that truly honked Him off? Yes indeed. Jesus got angry whenever He encountered the sins of spiritual pride and hypocrisy. Remember when Jesus trashed the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple? He actually made a whip and violently drove those people away. Onlookers must’ve thought He was an out-of-control madman.

Why did Jesus get so angry? Because the religious officials had turned something holy—the worship of God in the Temple—into a lucrative money-making scheme. They were gouging all the sincere believers who came to Jerusalem to worship. Jesus probably would’ve been less angry if they had simply robbed people at knifepoint. At least they wouldn’t have been pretending to be doing something holy and pious in the process.

And remember when Jesus yelled at the Pharisees, “You brood of vipers! You hypocrites! Woe unto you!!!” This wasn’t a polite roundtable discussion on a PBS show. This was an angry shouting match. Jesus got angry at them because they were filled with spiritual pride. You see, the Pharisees loved being special. They loved all the attention and prestige they received for being the exalted religious leaders in the city. They loved going to all the best banquets and hobnobbing with the rich and powerful people in the community. They loved being seated at the head table and having everyone fawn over them and kiss their arrogant butts all the time. They were almost as bad as U.S. senators.

But this was the exact behavior that made Jesus livid. In the second reading this week, St. James warns against this type of pride: “Show no partiality….For if a man with gold rings and fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing fine clothes and say ‘Sit here, please,’ while you say to the poor one, ‘Stand (over) there,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs?”

This concept came to mind a number of years ago when I read in the paper that the former archbishop in these parts traveled out of state to perform a lavish wedding ceremony for a politically connected, high-profile celebrity couple. At the time, I wondered how often the archbishop made time to travel to run-down parishes and perform weddings for average, middle-class schleps. Well, I guess he’s a busy man. Maybe his calendar just happened to be open that day, and it was simply a coincidence the father of the bride was a former state governor and the bride and groom were well-known TV personalities. Yeah, that’s probably it.

All sin is bad. But certain sins emanate from our fleshly nature, our animal instincts. These sins include some of the biggies: adultery, robbery, violent assault, and even murder. They’re bad, no doubt, but other sins emanate from the one thing that separates us from animals: our spiritual nature, our souls.

The sin of pride and arrogance, the sin of belittling someone else to make ourselves feel more important, the sin of gossiping about someone to tear him down, the sin of making other people kiss our butts before we’ll acknowledge them—these are the sins that really make the Lord angry. And we don’t have to be Pharisees or archbishops or TV celebrities or U.S. senators to commit these sins. Every single one of us gets tempted. Every single one of us has opportunities to puff ourselves up at the expense of someone else.

Please don’t give in to these temptations. Please don’t commit the sins of pride and hypocrisy. Even though we tell ourselves these attitudes and behaviors are nothing more than gray-area non-sins, Jesus makes it clear these attitudes and behaviors are worse than robbery and murder.

©2009