Honesty

(The following is a homily given on Monday of the Third Week in Advent, 12/15/14)

Reading 1 nm 24:2-7, 15-17a

Responsorial Psalm ps 25:4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9

Gospel mt 21:23-27

 

As I was prepping for Mass this morning, my nephew came up to me, really proud of this Lego contraption that he told me was a dragon – which I’ll take his word for.  It reminded me of the inherent ingenuity we have a humans beings of building things.  We build things for different reasons, but always for a reason – for my nephew, it was for fun.  For some people like architects, it is for improving living standards; for artists, it is for expression. 

The thing that we are all good at building are walls.  But these walls are not brick and mortar; they are not physical things that we can point to and admire.  Actually, they are meant to be subtle; in fact, they’re meant to be covert.  They are the walls we erect like ramparts around our hearts. 

We tell ourselves that it is for protection:  they keep people from knowing too much about us, in case they’d use that knowledge against us.  They keep others at a distance, allowing them to only see what we want them to see. 

The longer these walls are up, they begin to look more real than what we have shut out.  We begin to believe them and the lies they project, namely that we aren’t connected to our fellow brothers and sisters; that we really can’t to be in relationship – true, honest and vulnerable relationship – with anyone but ourselves. They begin to take away our ability to be honest – with ourselves, with others, and even with God. 

In the Gospel, Christ tells the chief priests and elders that if they are honest with him, He will give the answer they seek.  But because they cannot bring themselves to reveal the little bit of truth they have, Christ finds them unable to receive the fullness of truth that he offers.

The words of the Old Testament prophet Balaam show us the importance of being honest with God.  When we are honest, the barriers between us and the Almighty fall away, allowing us to be united with Him.  It is only then that our “eyes are true,” because we will “hear what God says, and know what the Most High knows;” we will “see what the Almighty sees, enraptured, and with eyes unveiled.” (Num. 24:15).  Because we are honest and vulnerable before our God.

Today the Lord asks us if we can have the courage to be honest with him; honest with our joys and sufferings; our virtues and our sins.  Will we take up the tools He gives us today in His Body and Blood to begin the process of tearing down our spiritual walls?  Will we acknowledge His authority to work the miracles in our lives that we so desperately need?

We can; we must; our salvation depends upon it.