'Six minutes from Sodom to Heaven' (Sunday homily)

 The title of my homily is, “Six minutes from Sodom to Heaven”:

Some big topics, dealt with briefly: buckle your seatbelts!

Clearly, I could just avoid the elephant in the first reading.

You and I really need 45 minutes, but I’m only taking six.

So, I will be summary and I will not cover everything I should. 

That will likely leave questions, especially if you wonder how you, 

in your own situation, respond to God’s call.

Please do not hesitate to call or email me.

And, parents? I will be delicate.

So, some bullet-points:

 The Church’s teaching on what is right and wrong 

in matters of chastity, including what is appropriate 

between two men or two women, has not changed. 

 This teaching comes from Divine Revelation, 

both Old and New Testament. 

 We also learn from how God designed the human person, 

which helps us know what is right or wrong.

 Notice I am talking about chastity in general, 

which applies to everyone.  

 Despite the slogans we hear,  

“Love” means different things in different contexts:

Parents and children; friends; siblings; and mom and dad.

 The specific intimacy I’m referring to 

belongs only in marriage, male and female, 

and always open to the gift of life.

 Everyone, without exception, faces daily choices – 

and hard choices – about cooperating with God’s Plan.

 Everyone is called by Jesus to take up the Cross.

 If your kids ask, “what is chastity,”

we can obviously say it is God’s plan for a particular form of love, 

but more broadly, it is about becoming truly generous 

and self-giving; saying “no” to me, myself, now, 

so I can more freely say “yes” to others.

 And that generosity gives life – in at least one way, among others. 

And there’s the bridge to the rest of the readings.

To be a life-giver is a vocation for everyone, for every day of our lives. 

Jesus just gave us two examples:

answering another person’s need in the middle of the night;

and the capacity to forgive and move on.

One of the questions I wrestle with, maybe you do too, is: 

Why does God care? With any of the commandments?

A lot of folks seem to assume that God doesn’t care all that much.

He lets us live how we like, and it all sorts out in the end.

Apart from really awful people like Hitler and Stalin, 

everyone goes to heaven, so why sweat the details?

But if that’s true, God could have told Abraham that – but he didn’t.

Jesus could have told us that – but he didn’t.

The inescapable answer is that our choices matter a great deal.

They shape who we ultimately become.

By our choices – including whether we repent and convert –

either you and I grow into a God-like capacity to give ourselves away, 

or else we narrow ourselves, and even twist ourselves, 

around a counterfeit happiness that cannot truly satisfy.

I will be specifically personal here about myself.

My particular shape is not a result of a really bad bee-sting.

I like to eat, more than I should. 

That is a moral failing in me. Gluttony is a sin – not a grace.

Pray for me that I love carbs less, so I can love Christ more.

Each of us faces a path of conversion, personal to ourselves.

Each of us takes up the Cross, beginning in baptism.

Jesus offers everyone the best of gifts, the Holy Spirit,

who gives us clarity to see, and courage to choose: 

my “no” today opens up to thousand “yesses” in this life, 

and even more, eternal life.