NOT SLAVES BUT SONS
January 1st, 2020:
Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21.
AIM: To help the
hearers see that salvation is a free gift, not a reward.
Few words strike such a sensitive
nerve today as the term “liberation.”
For the last half-century liberation from colonial rule has been the
central concern of almost all Third World
nations. In our country we have been through black liberation. We are still
hearing about women’s liberation. And until recent years there was much talk
about something called “liberation theology.”
Liberation is Paul’s theme in today’s
second reading. The purpose of Jesus’ life, Paul writes, was “to deliver from
the law those who wee subjected to it, so that we might receive our status as adopted
sons.” (If Paul were writing today, he would add, “and daughters.”) Because of
Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, Paul says, “you are no longer a slave
but a son!”
Christ has liberated us from what
Paul called slavery to the law: the Ten Commandments plus the more than six
hundred interpretations of them which the rabbis had developed in Paul’s day.
Paul found this legal system enslaving because it seemed to lay down conditions
which we must first fulfill before God would love him and bless us. And how
could he -- or anyone -- ever be sure he had done enough? Speaking for himself,
Paul said he knew he had not done enough: “The good I want to do I fail
to do. But what I do is the wrong which is against my will” (Rom. 7:19). Which
of us could not say the same?
The heart of the gospel, for Paul, is
the good news that God’s love is not reserved for those who prove they
deserve it by keeping all of God’s law. The idea that God only loves those who
earn his love constituted “slavery” for Paul. Jesus had liberated us from this
slavery, Paul taught, by making us his sisters and brothers, daughters and sons
of his heavenly Father and ours. “You are no longer a slave but a son; and the
fact that you are a son makes you an heir, God, by God’s design.” Sons and
daughters do not have to earn their inheritance. It is theirs by right.
It is good to be reminded of this as
we cross the threshold of a new year. The basis of our relationship with God is
not what we do for him, but what God has already done for us --
not as a reward for services rendered, but simply out of love. This reminder is especially important,
because it cuts clean across the messages society constantly sends us.
Society today tells us that we get
ahead by achievement. In school teachers classify their students as achievers
or non-achievers; later as under-achievers and over-achievers. Society’s
highest rewards -- wealth, power, and fame -- go to super-achievers. The
important thing in life, we are constantly told, is to achieve as much as we
possibly can.
For many this unceasing drive for
achievement is a modern form of the “slavery” that Paul writes about in our
second reading. God alone knows how much tension, and how many breakdowns in
physical and mental health, are caused by people feeling pressured to ever
higher levels of achievement.
How fitting, therefore, that the
Church places before us, as we begin a new year, the figure of a woman who is
known not for what she achieved, but for what she received. “Mary
treasured all these things,” the gospel tells us, “and reflected on them in her
heart.” None of the things she treasured and reflected on in her heart were
things she had done for God. They were all things God had done for her:
-- The visit of the angel with his
overwhelming news.
-- The beautiful words of her cousin,
Elizabeth: “The moment your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby stirred in my
womb for joy.” (Lk 1:44)
-- The visit of the shepherds recounting the
angels’ message to them.
-- And later the arrival of those mysterious
“wise men from the east” with their remarkable tale of following a star. (Mt
2:2)
How much of that was Mary’s
achievement? None of it! It was all God’s gift, sheer gift. Mary stands at the
gate of the New Year as the model of Christian discipleship, the one who was
always totally open to God’s gifts, and to his action in her and through her.
Today’s feast gives us the best of
all New Year’s resolutions: to live as Mary did. Don’t worry or fret about what
you must do for God. Be open instead, as Mary was, to what God wants to do for
you -- and through you for others. Then whatever you do for God will be a response
to him: your attempt to thank our loving heavenly Father who loves us with the
tenderness and passion of a mother, and whose gifts to us always exceed by far
all we can ever deserve or even desire.
As you cross the threshold of this New
Year, keep in your heart, as Mary did, all that God has done for you in your
life up to this day: his unbelievable patience with you; his constant
forgiveness of your sins; the preservation of your life amid so many dangers
(some known to you, others known only to God).
Reflect on all these things, as Mary did.
If you do that -- even if you just try
to do that -- then the year that is just a few hours old right now will be what
deep in our hearts, we all hope and pray it will be: a truly happy New Year.
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