Sunday Sermon: Our Responsibility in the New Covenant

The sermon that I heard delivered at church this morning included an interesting line. It was delivered by Rev. Dennis O'Donnell, who said that "many Catholics today are actually very good Jews."

What he was referring to, as he went on to explain, is that in his experiences in talking to many Catholics, it seems to be their opinion is that all they need to do is to follow the Ten Commandments.

You know the Ten Commandments: Keep Holy the Sabbath, Thou Shalt Not Kill, Honor Your Father and Mother, and all the rest? Ten rules given by God to Moses, the "Old Covenant", written down clearly on stone tablets, passed on to the Chosen People, and then to all of us down through the millenia.

Keep the Ten Commandments, and go to heaven when you die. So what's the problem? The problem is that makes you a good Jew. Nothing wrong with that at all...if you are Jewish.

But if you are a Catholic, which makes you a Christian, then more is expected of you. You see, Christians are expected to follow and as best as possible emulate the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As Paul explained in 2 Corinthians, Christ's message is written "not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."

At What Price Your Soul?

We're all human. We're all weak. We all yield to sins of the flesh at one time or another in our lives. We all misplace our priorities from time to time.

Some of us live in a perpetual state of yielding to temptation. There are many among us who willingly commit sins, often the same ones over and over, and who believe that we have time to overcome these. We'll stop. We'll make amends. We'll confess, and do penance, and pray, and convert our lives. Just not yet. Not today. Not this moment. I need one more.

When we willfully and repeatedly engage in the same sin, over and over, in full knowledge that this is exactly what we are doing, then we have given over a portion of our lives to the devil. We may as well have sat down across a table from Satan and shook his hand over the deal.

There are many who call themselves Christians who on this very day are living a life of sin. They are carrying on an extra-marital affair, either cheating on their own spouse, or engaging in a relationship with someone who is married, or both. They are stealing from a business, social organization, charity, maybe even a church. They are selling drugs, or taking illicit drugs.

I don't think that I am over-stating things at all if I make the unverifiable claim that there are literally millions of alleged "Christians" across the globe committing these sins, and many others, on a regular basis. Maybe you have been in the past, maybe you are right at this moment, one of them.

If we do indeed truly believe that Jesus Christ is our personal savior, that he willingly gave up his life on a cross for the very sins that we are committing, then how long can we keep doing so without our conscience overwhelming us and giving us pause?

A Heart That Plots Wicked Schemes

On this Sunday morning we continue the discussion of Proverbs 6:16-19 in the Bible which lists those things which the Lord hates.

The fourth item in the list journeys deep into our hearts. Not our physical hearts, but those things which can be found at our very inner core - for each of us, the heart of the matter in all things that we consider in our lives.

Those whom the Lord hates in this item are plotters and schemers of sin. Those who plan to do someone else ill. Those who plan to take what is not theirs. Those who intentionally and with malice aforethought actually take the time to sit down and think about their sin and how to make it happen.

The man who sees a way to deceive his business partners of money, and then goes about the planning and execution of his embezzelment. A woman who feels the desire and sees an opportunity to steal the body and possibly even the heart of a man who is already married to another, and then begins to lay the bait for her seduction.

The first human schemes occurred way back in the beginning of man himself. Eve used her seductiveness to get Adam to take a bite of the apple, the very act of defiance of God's will that drove man from paradise. She knew they were different, man and woman, for God had made them that way on purpose in order that they might procreate and populate the earth.

Eve had been led into this plot by the whisperings of the great deceiver Satan, who had lied and manipulated her as only he can to pull man away from God. Eve knew that her feminine charms would be enough to coax Adam into the bite, and went about the task of using them for that very purpose.

God Doesn't Want You to Go to Church

Well, perhaps I should say that God doesn't only want you to go to church. More importantly, God wants you to want to go to church. Just a moment spent contemplating those two ideas will reveal just how different they are in actuality.

In my occasional series on The Ten Commandments, I have already covered the third: Keep Holy the Sabbath, the Lord's Day. In a seven day week there are 168 hours for us to fill. Assuming that we sleep for approximately 49 of those, or seven hours of sleep per day, that leaves 119 for us to fill.

Say we work at a full-time job, requiring 40 hours there each week, and another hour per day in travel to and from work. That knocks us down to 72 hours for ourselves. Free from the need to sleep, free from the necessity of work, we have approximately 72 hours that are ours to spend as we choose.

Those with children know how much of that time is spent feeding, clothing, teaching, chaufering, entertaining the kiddies.

But even with all that, and knowing that we do not all have small children, we have dozens of hours in each week that go to ourselves. Television, computers, schooling, music, hobbies, working out, visiting friends and relatives, shopping. There are many ways that we fill these hours.

The fact is, God is only asking one hour per week from you. One little, tiny, short hour for you to spend in his house.

The One True God is to be Adored

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation out there in the world among other religions regarding the presence of statues in church and in the homes of Catholics. They have the false idea that we 'worship' these objects.

Some have the idea that we actually ask for those designated as Saints to answer our prayers. They believe that we raise these objects and people to a place intended only for God Himself, and so we are basically a bunch of 'idol worshipers' who give our attention to 'false gods'.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Catholic Church interpretation of the First Commandment goes something like this: 'Being the one true God, He alone is to be adored. All rendering to creatures of the worship which belongs to Him falls under the ban of His displeasure.'

In the Church, the making of 'graven things' is condemned. Not all pictures, drawings, photos, paintings, statues, and other works of art, but instead those that are intended to be adored and served.

Idolatry, or the worshiping of idols such as statues or paintings as being divine, is forbidden in the Church. In the Church, this idea has been extended to the worship of anyone or anything but the one true God. It even extends to worshiping the one true God in the wrong ways.

I Want Yours

The Catholic Church refers to the Ten Commandments as the precepts which bear upon the fundamental obligations of religion and morality relating to man's duty to God, as well as to his fellow man.

Written by the very finger of God, expressing His will, and handed over to Moses on two stone tablets at Mount Sinai thousands of years ago.

Jesus Christ revealed them as binding, clarified the spirit behind many of their basic principles, and even added to them with his edict to love your neighbor as you love God.

The 10th Commandment serves to rebuke us and restrain us from overly desiring what is the property of another man, popularly expressed as: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods."

This commandment is meant to protect men's natural property rights against the injustice of his fellow men, against 'covetousness', which is said to be an unreasonable desire for that which we do not possess.

The Church could be said to break down this command into two primary ideas: 'property', and men's 'rights' to same. Your 'property' is anything for which you are the person who would enjoy the full right to dispose of it in any manner not forbidden by law.

Keep Holy the Sabbath Day

For Catholics it is traditionally known as the Third Commandment from God (in some churches it is listed as the fourth). It is the command from God to "Keep Holy the Sabbath", to formally set aside one period of time each week to rest from our work, and to celebrate and thank Him for all that He has given us.

For some, the sabbath observance comes on Fridays or Saturdays. For Catholics and many others, this day comes on Sunday.

For police officers, the chance to attend Mass (or to observe Shabbat in Judaism) should be something that we look forward to each week. It is our opportunity to be rested and refreshed in and with the Lord.

The work schedule of a police officer, who does the necessary work of protecting and serving the public, is such that we cannot frequently take a Saturday or Sunday completely away from the workplace.

Catholics are heartened by the fact that almost all churches now offer both a Saturday evening "Vigil Mass" along with the usual Sunday services. Thus, no Catholic officer should use work as an excuse to miss the weekly Mass obligation.

In Exodus chapter 20, Moses has climbed Mount Sinai. The people waited down below, since God had previously warned them to "set limits around the mountain to make it sacred".

As Moses stood in the presence of God Himself, the people trembled at the experience. The mountain was enveloped by thunder and lightening. The mountain itself appeared to be smoking, and a great trumpet blast was heard from the heavens. Here in the presence of the Almighty, Moses was given the basic laws of God by which man was to live.