THERE IS ONLY ONE REWARD FOR SIN. (Homily for Thursday of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time. Year B.)

Bible Study:  Romans 6, 19 to 23. And Luke 12, 49 to 53.

There is a saying that one man’s meat is another man’s poison. This saying applies especially to food. While some people can eat certain foods freely without it affecting their system, others find the same food totally unacceptable to their system such that the mere taste of such foods can land them in the hospital for days. For their health conditions, some persons are told to avoid certain food and they do so very religiously, others are born with certain allergies and no matter how they try, they just can’t afford to take in certain foods into their system without it affecting them seriously so they avoid those foods by all means. When they attend parties or are invited to meals, you find them asking questions about what was used in preparing the meal or they may end up pretending to eat without actually tasting any bit of it.

Now, you may be wondering where does all this talk about food lead to?. The answer is not far-fetched. The best way to define sin is to equate it with a particular food that does not go down well with your system as a person and more still, as a Christian. By virtue of the fact that you belong to Christ, there are certain things that you automatically become allergic to. This is because you just know that if you continue taking in such things, they would instantly lead to your premature death.

The only reward for sin is death. Something invisible and precious dies inside of you each time you commit a sin. Have you ever done something that left you feeling unhappy, regretful, remorseful or ashamed? Do you notice how you feel like making up for it almost immediately but deep within you, you know things are no longer the same? Now, to use another analogy, every human being is born with natural immunity against diseases, our bodies are built to fight by nature but over time, as we continue to fall sick or take in certain harmful things, this natural immunity dies. We may still be alive, we may still be moving about and carrying out our daily activities, but without our immune system in place, we are at best walking-dead.

That is how it is with the things of the spirit. With each sin that we commit, we destroy our natural resistance. Our happiness vanishes and sense of worth is badly affected. Satan then comes around to lie to us that we feel that way because it is the first time, he deceives us into thinking that the more we indulge in the sinful act, we would regain our lost happiness but what happens is that we only feel a momentary relief while our pain grows even deeper and deeper. We just realise that we are not happy and proud of our actions and as time goes on, something else dies inside of us – our conscience. We then find it difficult to accept that there is anything wrong with what we do but still yet, the more we tell ourselves there is nothing wrong in it, the less we find joy emanating from deep within us.

With time, not only does our conscience die, our spirits die as well. We find it difficult to relate with our creator. Prayer becomes very boring and difficult and it seems as though God is not happy having us in his presence. We become very uncomfortable in church and we find ourselves going deeper and deeper into unwholesome activities just to find some sense of satisfaction and meaning in life but the pain remains. We just know that we are lacking something, we try to catch fun but no amount of it fills up the whole inside.

Our responsorial psalm sings of the Blessedness (happiness) of the just man. It says; “He is like a tree that is planted beside flowing waters, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves shall never fade… Not so are the wicked, for they, like winnowed chaff, shall be driven away by the wind.” Sin makes us winnowed chaff, it makes us empty! And we become driven by the wind, we are constantly looking for something, we go for the latest of everything and nothing is ever enough.

For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. Romans 6, 19 to 21.

In our Gospel passage, Jesus says he has come to cast fire on earth, a fire that brings division rather than peace. This sounds very harsh yet, whenever Jesus speaks like this, he means every word and the underlining factor is SIN. If our relationship with brother or sister, father or mother, daughter in law or mother in law would lead to sin, then it would be better that we become divided. This is what Jesus was also talking about when he said: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” Matthew 5, 29 to 30.

If a particular relationship causes you to do things you are not proud of, things you are ashamed of, then cut off that relationship from your life but remaining in it will only lead to your death.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus, give me the wisdom to avoid those things that only lead to death and courage to do only those things that will lead me to eternal life. Amen.

Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you.