17th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Justice AND Mercy

Catholicism is a faith that's all about the word "and." 

Our faith joins together ideas and values that the world sees as incompatible.

• So the Church can be pro-life AND serious about protecting the environment.

• The Church can point out the evils of communism AND warn about the dangers of greedy capitalism.

• We can have saints who spent their lives serving the sick and poor AND saints who spent their lives praying in monasteries and convents.

• We can have Pope Benedict AND Pope Francis. Two different men with different perspectives who are both seeking the same goal.

Part of the richness of our faith is just how much fits under the umbrella of "Catholic."

In today's readings we come up against a union of ideas that goes to the heart of our faith: God's justice AND God's mercy.

That first reading is a tough one: Abraham is pleading with the Lord to spare the lives of the innocent people in Sodom and Gomorrah - two cities that have fallen so far into sin that the Lord is planning on destroying them. For Abraham, this is personal: his nephew Lot and Lot's family are living in Sodom.

Abraham bargains with God and, eventually, God agrees that if there are even only ten innocent people in the city, He will spare it for the sake of those ten.

This reading tells us two important things:

First, God is just. He desires for good to thrive, not evil; and, not only that, evil deserves to be, and will be, punished - maybe not right now in front of our eyes, but, in the end, our actions have consequences.

It shouldn't be a surprise to you when I say that everyone in this room sins - the priest included. And when we sin, we aren't just breaking a rule - we're choosing to reject God and His love, just as much as Adam and Eve did in the garden with the first sin.

Sin has a consequence and that consequence is Hell. That's the ultimate result of rejecting God. If we choose to reject Him throughout our life, God will let us have what we want. He won't force us to love Him.

But don't think I'm going to leave you with that depressing point. There is Good News.

The second lesson of the that reading is that God is always offering us his mercy. He would rather show mercy if people are willing to accept it. Abraham can confidently bargain with God because he knows that the Lord wants to be merciful. The Son of God dying on the cross is the everlasting symbol of God's great mercy.

And so we come up against that strange truth: Justice AND mercy.

God's justice should make us think seriously about the choices we make; but His mercy should inspire us to run to Him, seeking forgiveness for our sins.

As St. Paul said in the second reading, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He raised us to life by forgiving our sins. He will forgive us if we ask for it - but we do have to ask for it.

God's mercy requires a response from us; and I'm not talking about saying, "Oh, sorry God!" and then going back to whatever we were doing. It's about entering into a relationship of love. If we love God, we're going to try to make our wills conform to his.

When we pray, "Thy will be done," in the Our Father, we're not saying, "I hope everything turns out the way you want it, God," we're saying, "Let your will be my will. Let what You want be what I want."

Accepting God's mercy is an act of conversion - giving everything we are over to Him. He'll change us if we let Him. He will make us saints if we let Him.

In the end, what else is more important - our pleasure? Our pride? Getting our own way?

Or finding hope and love in the One who made us, and living with Him in that love forever.