Is God Unfair? – 4th Sunday of Easter – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; April 21, 2024

Healing and salvation: today’s 1^st reading presents us with a formerly crippled man who had been healed in the name of Jesus and the declaration of St. Peter that there is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.

Salvation is greater, more complete, more definitive than mere healing; any healing in this life, whether physical or emotional, needs to be subject to and ordered to eternal salvation. Through the healing of the crippled man, many came to believe in Jesus Christ and those, including the man who was healed, who subsequently persevered in the life of faith, reached eternal life.

Often, we are looking not for salvation but for healing. Sometimes there are people who suffer emotional wounds – indeed we live in the midst of a battlefield with the wounded and traumatized all around us – that might seem to impede their freedom to pursue the path of salvation; sometimes the first thing needed is simple healing. Just as the crippled man could not walk until he was healed, so there are often many impediments that keep a person from walking in the way of salvation, following Christ. Sometimes, though what is regarded as an impediment is, or becomes, an excuse.

We can also consider the experience of St. Paul who suffered an unnamed thorn in the flesh, which he begged the Lord to remove from him; he begged for healing, though he never used the “thorn” as an excuse. Finally, the Lord told him, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor 12:8)

There was a medieval Portuguese saint, St. Theotonius, to whom St. Peter appeared shortly before his death announcing that he would soon be healed, healed of interior wounds that he never regarded as an excuse. The healing that we do not receive in this life we will attain together with our eternal salvation.  

In this life, it is in the midst of our wounds, physical and emotional, that we truly encounter Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, in whom we attain our salvation. By his wounds we are healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

There is no other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.

Now these days many think that it is terribly unfair that salvation is only to be had in the name of Jesus Christ and through faith in him. I mean, doesn’t everyone have a right to be happy?

What a strange world we live in. It really seems that many people think that way. The supposed right to happiness seems to underlie all manner of present evils, like cohabitation, divorce and remarriage, abortion (a woman’s right to happiness should not be impeded by the accident of a baby), same-sex marriage (they have a right to be happy too), and transgenderism, never mind that the mutilating surgeries don’t seem to slow down the suicides. Indeed, failure in happiness has led to the right to suicide – death with dignity has become the new name for self-murder.

One might well wonder where this right to happiness comes from. After all, even our American “Declaration of Independence” spoke only of a right to pursue happiness not a right to be happy. We all know that a cop might pursue a criminal and fail to catch him, or a man might pursue a woman and fail to win her, so a man might also pursue happiness and fail to attain it. Sad, but it happens all the time.

The failure to attain happiness is reflected in the suicide rate, which in this country has increased by more than 30% since 2000. I think it would be safe to say that all us have known or known of people who have committed suicide. When are we going to realize that we have been looking for happiness in all the wrong places and it is leading to widespread destruction and misery.

Now, our “Declaration of Independence” proclaims a right to “pursue happiness” but it leaves unanswered some all-important questions: In what direction does happiness lie? In what does happiness consist? Does happiness consist in the same thing for all men? Is it chocolate ice-cream for one man, a peach for another, and a motorcycle for a third?

There is no other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.

I think that also means that there is no other way to happiness.

Yes, some rare people, who do not even believe in God, seem to manage a sort of happiness in this life, but that sort of happiness requires quite a combination of felicitous circumstances of birth, upbringing, health, personal endowments, and prosperity, all untouched by any number of possible dire accidents and misfortunes that frequently beset human life. If you meet someone who has reached old age, living a happy life in this world, without belief in God, you have met a lucky man; all that he did right in life still had to be accompanied by a high degree of luck. If you want to talk about unfair, such luck would be unfair. Yet, in the end, no amount of luck can help a man escape death.

St. Augustine, reflecting on happiness, argued that true happiness must be lasting. That means that death makes a mockery of any happiness that is limited to this life.

Does that mean, then, that God is obliged to bestow happiness upon everyone in the next life? That seems to be the underlying thought behind the widespread denial of hell and widespread belief in universal salvation. If God does not make everyone happy, then he is not a truly loving God; that seems to be the argument.

We might wonder why it is that if the loving God must make people happy he would then require his Son to die on the Cross? If all he needs to do is wave his magic wand when a person dies and “poof” he is happy, why the Cross? Indeed, why did the Son of God even become man? It all seems rather pointless.

St. Paul writes, If justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose. (Gal 2:21) Even more, if justification is automatic, Christ died to no purpose.

Now let us consider our 2^nd reading today: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God. And so we are. To whom is St. John writing? He is writing to Christians, to those who have believed in Jesus Christ and been baptized. He is writing about a gift of the Father’s love that is given exclusively to the faithful. It is a gift available to all, but conditionally, it is necessary to believe in Christ and act upon that belief. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. (Mk 16:16) To which should be added, He who perseveres to the end shall be saved. (Mt 24:13)

Is this unfair? Well, do we have a right to be God’s children, a right not just to a name bandied about indiscriminately, as is so often the case today, but to the reality – and so we are. What does it mean to be a child of God if not to partake in his very life and nature.

In the words of St. Peter: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us … to become partakers of the divine nature. (2 Pe 1:3,4)

Can any created, finite being possibly have the right to share in the life and nature of the infinite, uncreated God?

By no means. That, indeed, is why we call this partaking in the divine nature “grace” and we call it “sanctifying grace” because it is sharing in the nature of the thrice holy God.

Yet, still we are only speaking of a gift given in this life, a gift in which we can already share. St. John continues, Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.

We can scarcely grasp the greatness of the present gift, the reality of being a child of God, much less can we grasp what it means to see God as he is. Yet, we can at least sense that in such a vision will be found perfect and unending happiness, a happiness that is great far beyond anything we could expect or hope for, had God himself not revealed it to us and promised it to his faithful. If he sets as a condition faith in his Son, Jesus Christ, who for our salvation became man, died and rose again from the dead, how could that possibly be “unfair”?

If Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. How could that be unfair, unless somehow we had an unconditional “right” to access to the Father?

Let’s take a look at today’s Gospel. In the background is the image of sheep and wolves. Life is dangerous for sheep; they might be devoured by the wolves and that is the end of it. If we move this image into human life, it means human life is dangerous, there are human “sheep” and there are demonic and human wolves, who are all too ready to devour the innocent sheep. Being a “sheep” has a rather bad name these days, and sometimes for good reason, but there is one sort of sheep that we should want to be, one of Christ’s sheep. That is why we pray, “Command that we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those you have chosen.”

The wolves want us to believe that everyone is saved, which means that really we do not need to believe in Christ, nor follow him, nor finally do we need salvation; then they can devour us the more readily.

Human life is dangerous, dangerous in an ultimate sort of way, because our eternal salvation is at stake. In this dangerous life, we are weak and vulnerable. We certainly can’t outsmart the demonic wolves. We need a shepherd, a good shepherd. God has given us one, his very own Son.

Consider what he does for us. He lays down his life and takes it up again. Now we might wonder what good that does.

If a shepherd out in the mountains goes to defend his sheep from the wolves and gets killed by them, it will not do the sheep a whole lot of good – their protector has been taken out of the way and the wolves can now freely devour the sheep.

Now, we might admire such a shepherd in a way like we admire a tragic hero. He did his duty; he did not flee in the face of danger; he sought to protect the sheep; but alas, he failed and the flock has been destroyed. Many these days speak of Christ’s death in such terms: he fought for justice, but the bad people were able to lay hold of him, submit him to a show trial, and kill him. Such a tragedy.

That is not what happened to Christ. He lays down his life, freely; he takes it up, by his own power.

Still, how does this help us? How does this protect us from the wolves?

Because when Jesus lays down his life, he is offering a sacrifice that reconciles us to the Father, that makes us to become his sheep. This reconciliation to God was needed because through his sin Adam had lost the gift of grace for himself and all his descendants. Only Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross restores us to the grace of God, making us now to be Christ’s sheep. Further, by the same sacrifice, which is offered anew in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, he protects us and preserves us in his grace. He lays down his life and by his death removes the obstacle of sin, and he takes up his life again, and by his incorruptible life, bestowed on us in holy communion, gives us to share in his life, the life of the only Son of God, who always beholds the face of the Father, through whom we can come to see the Father.

Everyone who thus hopes in him makes himself pure as he is pure. (1 Jn 3:3)