14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 5-6, 2008
"Take My Yoke Upon You"

In the midst of this weekend's parades, photo ops, beaches and fireworks, our church asks us to consider what it means to be a faithful Catholic and a responsible citizen. Yes, I'm going to talk about politics. Now if you are already getting angry, odds are you're a victim of a false understanding of religion that teaches we should check our faith at the door before entering the realm of politics, because of a socially agreed-upon principle of the separation of church and state. Yet this aspect of our Constitution was never meant to be interpreted as a prohibition against applying our faith to our political decisions. Rather, it is a safeguard against any religion using the power of civil government to force its beliefs on others.

Let me tell you a story of where this came in handy once. About twelve years ago, I was at St. James in E-town. It came to the attention of the pastor and I that there was a teacher in the public school, in the high school, I think it was a math or English teacher, that was actually handing out anti-Catholic trash to the students - and telling them that unless they converted from the Babylon horror of Rome, they were going to go to hell. This guy was a minister in some store-front, yell-a-lot kind of church.

Well you can imagine, I was a little upset...and so was Fr. Bill Fichteman, the pastor. So he got on the phone, called the superintendent of the school system, and in short order shut down this minister's proselytizing through the use of his classroom and his students. That's what the separation of church and state is for.

A little addendum to the story, being the young, idealistic associate, the first weekend that came up where I didn't have any preaching responsibilities at St. James or St. Ignatius, I went to that little store-front church thinking let's build bridges. Maybe if he would just sort of meet us it wouldn't be so bad. I didn't wear my collar. I wanted to get in. And I clapped and I waved and I danced. At the end of the service, they have a card that you fill out. I filled it out, and I said, "I'm Fr. Jeff Nicolas, Associate Pastor at St. James," came out, tried to build bridges... I wrote on both sides of it. Turned it in. Monday afternoon, the kids coming back from the high school told me that their teacher said the Catholics sent a spy. But it's situations like that that the separation of church and state law is all about, and properly so.

Yet the false belief that our faith should have nothing to do with our political life lives on. Abdicating our faith from politics remains popular today with any who nostalgically hear our first reading this morning from Zechariah - "see, your king shall come to you, a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ass, a colt, the foal of an ass" - and nostalgically flash back to Christmas lights, Santa Claus, and mounds of presents and parties. If our Catholicism is only about holiday festivities, then by all means, leave the politics out of it.

Abdicating our faith from politics also remains popular today with any who hear Paul's letter to the Romans this morning -- "You are not in the flesh. In the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the spirit of God dwells in you" -- and falsely think this means our faith is just a spiritual feeling that has nothing to do with the physical world. Throughout our two thousand year history, we have fought off the temptation to separate the world from the spirit. We've fought from the gnostic heresy that teaches our soul is just a spirit trapped in the shell of our body, to the polynomerism heresy that teaches that in the incarnation Jesus merely put on our humanity, much like we would put on a coat. Then on the cross, Jesus the Christ merely shed his humanity, like we would take off a coat. The second person of the Trinity, therefore, did not die, only the human Jesus. The temptation to separate our life in this world from our life in the spirit is an old one, a persistent one. If our Catholicism is only about and only meant to be a private, spiritual feeling between me and God, then by all means, leave politics out of it.

But the gospel truth is that our faith should propel us into an active engagement with the world. As salt and light, we should transform the world. This is the yoke of which Jesus speaks today. His yoke, his work is charity, washing feet, and calling people to repentance for the kingdom of God is at hand. And today he tells us, take my yoke upon you. But how?

Let's face it, Jesus is not running for office. How are we, as the visible Body of Christ, suppose to navigate our political landscape? Our church has no easy answers for us. Instead, it reminds us of our core belief - and gospel calling - to be counter-cultural. Our faith challenges us to reject any societal attitude that says life is cheap or people are mere things. In our society, this attitude can manifest itself as seeing the unborn as an imposition, the elderly as a burden, immigrants as a threat, torture as necessary, criminals as animals, or civilian casualties as collateral damage. In short, we believe all life deserves respect, and this core belief of ours should guide our decisions.

Now, if anyone here is not yet angry with me, you're going to have to listen very closely to what I am about to share, or else when you go home angry you'll go home angry for the wrong reasons. Far from giving us any undisputed course of action to take in this November's election, our bishops rather issue us a moral challenge. Listen closely.

On the one hand, a Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as racism or abortion, if the voter's intent is to support that position.

On the other hand, a voter should not use a candidate's opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.

There, that ought to have just about everybody mad at me now. In the end, we are each left with the moral challenge to prayerfully wrestle with all the issues, much like Jacob had to wrestle with the angel. It is in the wrestling that our souls are shaped. It is our engagement in the political debate that will transform our society, and ultimately produce candidates that better embody our Catholic beliefs.