Proper 22 :: Exodus 20: 1–4, 7–9, 12–20; Psalm 19; Philippians
3: 4b–14; 21: 33–46
This is the homily that was given at St. John’s Church,
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, October 8, 2017 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“ORIGINAL
INNOCENCE”
(Homily texts:
Exodus 20: 1–4, 7–9, 12–20 & Matthew 21: 33–46)
This past week, we observed the Feast of
St. Francis of Assisi (on Wednesday, October 4th), that great and
wonderful saint from the 12th and 13th centuries, who,
even today, shines brightly as an example of the values that God calls His
people to live by.
Not too many years ago, a wonderful movie
was made about Francis, entitled “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”. It reflects – as
movies, novels and other works tend to do – the culture of the time and place
in which it was created (the movie was made in the 1970s).
A line in the dialogue stands out from the
movie: It was delivered by the Pope as Francis stands before him, seeking the
Church’s permission to have the Franciscan Order established. The line goes
this way: “Sometimes we think so much about Original Sin that we forget to
think about Original Innocence.” (This may be – at best – a paraphrase of the
line. I think it captures the sense of the dialogue, however.)
Original Innocence.
I’ve reflected quite a bit on that term
since I heard it on Francis’ feast this past week.
And, as I’ve reflected on it, and on our
Old Testament reading from Exodus and on our Gospel reading from Matthew, I’ve
come to the conclusion that we live in constant tension between Original Sin
and Original Innocence.
Allow me to explain.
The concept of Original Innocence lies at
the heart of the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. (If you need to
refresh your memory about the conditions that they lived in there, please
reread Genesis, chapter two.) There, Adam and Eve had a close, face-to-face
relationship with God and a place to live where there was plenty to eat, where
there were no threats to their welfare and where no threats to that food supply
existed (no thorns and weeds to choke out the plants which provided food).
But, they blew it, stepping beyond the
boundaries of acceptable behavior that God had established, taking and eating
of the fruit from the forbidden tree. (See Genesis, chapter three.) From there
on, their lives are stained by the legacy of their disobedience, something we
call Original Sin. Original Sin maintains that – within each and every human
being – there lies the capacity to do “bad stuff”, sin, in other words. (If you
doubt the reality of this concept, just observe a group of young children at
play…it won’t be long before one child tries to take away a toy that another
one is holding….such a move might even lead to hitting and other harmful
actions.)
And, of course, it’s worth noting that –
for the remainder of the Book of Genesis - there is a discernable downward
trend in the human condition (though Genesis ends on an upward note with the
account of Joseph’s life).
We human beings can remember something of
our past Original Innocence. It is for this reason that we recoil in horror at
the wrong-ness of the mass shooting this past week in Las Vegas. Nearly every
one of us believes that murdering 58 people by firing into a crowd of
concert-goers is morally wrong. Every one, of course, except those who cannot
distinguish between right and wrong, and those who espouse violence as a means
to achieve a political end, people we call terrorists.
Our awareness of our Original Innocence,
however compromised and clouded it might be at times, is enshrined in the Ten
Commandments, whose text forms our Old Testament reading for this morning.
If we look at the Ten Commandments
carefully, we see that the first grouping of them has to do with our
relationship to God, and the remaining ones have to do with the ways in which
we relate to one another. The Ten Commandments seek to restore the conditions
that were present in the Garden of Eden, making it possible for us to relate to
God by righteous and holy living. In the process, we are also able to relate to
one another in peace and harmony, as Adam and Eve were able to do before the
serpent deceived Eve and prompted her to separate from her husband and eat of
the forbidden tree.
As the Old Testament unfolds, its pages
recount the history of God’s people’s relationship to God. Sometimes, that
history is one of failure and of outright disobedience (see, the legacy that
Adam and Eve bequeathed to us was alive and well in those ancient times!). The
pages of the Old Testament bear witness to the sad and troubling experience of
God’s people as they succumb to their baser instincts. But the pages of the Old
Testament also bear witness to God’s mercy and grace, and to the actions of
God’s people that were courageous and righteous and which declare that victory
over the legacy of Original Sin is possible, through God’s help.
This long history – both the good parts and
the bad parts – were given into the hands of the leadership of God’s people in
Jesus’ day. Today’s Gospel text zeroes in on the chief priests and the
Pharisees, whose job it should have been to remind people of the difference
between Original Sin and Original Innocence. Instead of declaring to the people
that “This is what holy living looks like,” by reminding the people of their
history, these leaders chose to concentrate on other values: They valued God’s judgment over God’s mercy.
They valued their own welfare over the welfare of the people they were leading.
They had a sense of holiness that concentrated on specific actions at the
expense of understanding the reasons for the rightness or wrongness of those
actions.
In other words, they blew it.
No wonder Jesus tells these chief priests
and Pharisees that the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and will be
given to others who will faithfully bring that kingdom into being.
The successors to the chief priests and the
Pharisees today are faithful Christians, who are called to remind the world of
the difference between Original Sin and Original Innocence.
We take up this task by reading and
learning from the pages of Holy Scripture, for its sacred pages tell us what
faithful living in relationship to God and to one another looks like. We can
learn much from the failures and successes of God’s people in times past. We
are called to live by the code of the Ten Commandments, for holy living in
relationship to God and to one another is still to be found there. We are
called to declare to the world by what we do and by what we say that there is a
different way to live, the way of Original Innocence, than the ways that the
world often tempts us to live.
The kingdom of God
seeks to re-establish the conditions of Original Innocence, bringing people
into relationship with God and with one another, seeking to establish the
importance of our relationship to God and seeking to establish the value of
each and every human being.
May we, through the power of the Holy
Spirit, be enlightened and empowered to be faithful stewards of God’s kingdom
here on earth, until God’s reign is complete over all the earth. AMEN.
