8th Sunday in Ordinary Time : Homily / Sermon

A man’s words flow out of what fills his heart. (Luke 6:45)

We tend to think that the Christian life is all about keeping the rules, and after all we do have plenty of them: the rules of fasting and abstinence, the prayers chosen for the liturgy, the colours of the vestments, the directions for the celebration of mass, not to mention the 10 commandments, the six precepts of the Church, 1,752 Canons of the Code of Canon Law and the 2,865 paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Rules, rules, rules.
And During Lent, no doubt, many of us will take a look at our lives and ask ourselves which rules we have broken … and consult more lists of rules:
Have I missed mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation?
Have I eaten meat on Fridays?
Have I neglected to say my prayers?
Have I used bad language?
… And so on and so forth.

Rules have their place. They are guides to what describes a good life, and looking at ourselves in the light of the rules can never be a bad place to start.

But that is all it is - it is only a start.

But in today’s Gospel, Jesus presents us with a greater challenge.
A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart.
A man’s words flow out of what fills his heart.
It is a sound tree which bears good fruit.

Jesus is not using the language of Rules, which we might keep or break, but instead the language of Growth, which we develop into, step by step, day by day.

This is not the Thou shalt and thou shalt not, the black and white, the heaven and hell, the sin and failure, but of progression, of pruning and flourishing, of evolving and maturing, advancing and prospering.

And Jesus teaches us that to grow, we need a teacher.
The blind can’t lead the blind, Jesus says. The teacher leads the way, corrects and encourages.

And he teaches us that we need vision: not only to know the rules, to know what is right and wrong, but also to see the plank in our own eyes, to know our own failings, and to progress in spite of them.

And he tells us that to bear sound fruit, we need not only to follow the precepts, but also live the faith in our hearts - not simply to obey, coldly and methodically, but to love, with warmth and generosity.

Growing has its pains. There are setbacks and failures, sins and selfishness. But in growth there is also forgiveness, and mercy, and hope.

It is conversion of the heart which is necessary, Jesus says. The sound fruit which the disciple bears, comes from the sound tree:
From a heart which, like the heart of the true Teacher, makes sacrifices, gives its whole self, and holds nothing back.