Eziekiel 37:1-14/Psalm 107/Matthew 22:34-40
Good afternoon. In case I didn’t meet you yet, my name is Fr. Andy and I am the new pastor here, I am very happy to be here with you.
For the last six years I was the Chaplain at Wahlert and Mazzuchelli in Dubuque and I’ve helped a lot at Our Lady of Guadalupe Elementary School for the last three years, and you know, I had to celebrate all of those Masses in a gym, can you imagine? It is so nice to be here in the Church with you all today.
So, I hope you are having a great 1st Day of School. The first day of school is often a lot of rules, right? That’s how I remember it at least. The teachers have to set some rules on the first day, in the first class, just to make sure everyone is on the same page, and set some expectations for the class.
Oftentimes we can think of rules as restrictive, we don’t like to have to follow them, it limits our freedom… but on the other hand, for games we need rules to keep the game fair and to make sure we know who wins.
Since it is still baseball season, and not quite football season, I looked up the Rules of Major League Baseball, the book is 192 pages, that's a pretty big book of rules! (I’m a Cubs fan, are there any other Cubs fans out there? Cardinals fans? White Sox? You’ve gotta be committed to be a White Sox fan this year.)
But anyway you don’t have to read the whole book of rules to get started playing baseball. There are certain rules that are more important than others:
There is a minimum of 9 players on each team.
The pitcher stands 60 feet 6 inches away.
The batter gets 3 strikes and they’re out, 4 balls and they walk to first.
The batting team tries to score runs until they get 3 outs and the teams change from batting to fielding.
And on and on from there… What is the most important rule though?
They’re all important at some level, they all matter, I don’t know what the answer is even. But today in our Gospel reading, Jesus gets asked that same question, what is the most important rule? The Pharisees were trying to test Jesus by saying, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Jesus could have answered with one of the 10 commandments. He could have answered with one of the 613 laws or rules that the Jews had to follow, but He instead said this: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
So Jesus wasn’t able to pick one, He picked two, which summarized all of them at once. Basically He was saying, if you do these two things well, you don’t have to worry about the 613 rules, and you will get to Heaven.
He didn’t say that about Heaven, but that was implied, and that is one thing that helps to understand rules is to think about the goals behind the rules.
Our rules have goals in mind. When making rules, often it starts with our goals:
In Baseball we want to have a fair game and see who is the winner.
In the School we want to learn and we want our neighbors to learn too.
In the Church, we want to grow closer to God and get to heaven, when I was your age that was my big overall goal, get to Heaven. Show of hands, who wants to go to Heaven? (Looks like most everyone.)
So as we begin this year, I just want to encourage you, since most of you have that goal of going to Heaven when you die too, I’d just like to encourage you, that when you come to Mass here each week, that you would just listen to how God is speaking to you.
God loves you, He wants a relationship with you, He wants to speak to you to guide you to Heaven. Here at Mass is the best place for Him to do that.
He might speak to you in the readings.
He might speak to you in prayers.
He might speak to you in songs.
He might even speak to you through me in the Homily.
Mass is the best place to hear God speak, when we pray, and read His word, and call upon the Holy Spirit to make Him present, God is truly here, truly present, we know that for sure, and there are not many other places in the world that we can say that same thing about.
The Bible is a big book and there are lots of rules in it too, but we don’t have to read the whole Bible to start on our way to Heaven, we can just jump into the game, and we do that especially here at Mass.
(And if you want to know a little secret, Heaven starts here on earth, the Kingdom of God is here, so how we love God and each other here just continues and carries on into Heaven. This is why Jesus gave these two rules, this is what really matters here and in Heaven. All the other rules and expectations help us stay on the right track towards loving Him and loving our neighbors.)
God loves you and will speak to you if you listen, especially here, so as we begin the year, it’s not a rule, but just an encouragement, make the most of these weekly opportunities, and just listen for one thing that God wants to say to you during the Mass.
Please know of my prayers for your successful school year and for you to clearly hear God’s voice in your life as He leads you to Heaven.