Learn to say "no" to make your "yes" really "yes"

Matthew 5:33-37

Politicians seem to have a bad reputation for not doing what they say. They are known for making promises they cannot keep and for saying things just to please people.  We need to make sure that we do not fall into the same trap.

It is very important that we be trustworthy and sincere.  People should believe what we say.  An extreme example of someone who was not trustworthy is the boy from the story The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  This boy repeatedly tried to trick the villagers into thinking that a wolf was attacking his flock when in reality there was no wolf.  Eventually the villagers caught on that he was not being truthful.  When a wolf really did attack the flock and the boy sought help, no one believed him and so no one came to his aid.  What the boy said was no longer worth anything.  Sometimes when people realize that those around them no longer believe what they say, they try to swear by some higher authority in order to lend credence to their words. People “swear to God” that they are telling the truth.  We are called to be trustworthy in what we say.  We should not have to appeal to some higher authority for people to believe us.  In this way we imitate God.  God is always truthful; He does what He says he will.  We find a great example in the creation story in the Book of Genesis.  There God says “let there be light” and there was light.  He means what He says and He does what He says.  When we are trustworthy and sincere we imitate God.

Sometimes we end up saying things we do not mean or making promises we cannot keep because we do not want to offend others.  Sometimes we fall into the trap of insincerity because we do not want to hurt the feelings of others.  Something that comes to mind immediately is that when people ask us for their help it can be very difficult to say “no” to them.  We have this desire to make everyone happy and we do not want the other person to feel hurt.  Because of this we often agree to do something we cannot do or really do not want to do.  This can often happen to me at the parish.  People will ask if I can help with something and before I even think if I really can, I hear myself saying “yes”. Sometimes I realize later that I have double-booked myself or have committed to doing something I cannot really do.  I am then forced to go back on my word.  My “yes” becomes a “no”.  People can then feel more offended and hurt than if I had just said “no” in the first place.  Learning to say “no” to people is a difficult task, but if we want to be people who are sincere and trustworthy, it is something that we must do sometimes.  We have to avoid falling into the trap of saying things we do not mean or making promises we cannot keep because we do not want to offend others.

Jesus calls us to be people of our word.  We should mean what we say and do what we mean.  Today let us take a look at the way we speak to see if our “yes” really means “yes” and our “no” really “no”.  In particular let see that we do not fall into the trap of saying things we do not mean or agreeing to do things we cannot do just because we do not want to hurt someone’s feelings.

Love makes us more human, lust dehumanizes

Matthew 5: 27-32

In today’s gospel, Jesus is using some incredibly serious language in order to warn us from succumbing to lust.  “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out” – this is very severe language.  Why is lust such a dangerous sin?  Lust is so dangerous because it is in the opposite of love.  Lust has the opposite effect on us as individuals when compared to love.  Love humanizes whereas lust dehumanizes us and those around us.

When we love, we are focused on the person we love.  True loves draws you outside of yourself and leads you to make yourself a gift to the one you love.  When you love someone you want to look out for the good of that person. We can think of many examples.  A mother naturally desires to care for her child and sacrifices herself in order to do this.  Love is what makes a mother wake up in the middle of the night to care for her crying child.  A father wants to protect, provide for and nurture his children regardless of the costs to himself.  Because of the love a teacher has for her students, she will sacrifice many hours to help them learn and to become all they have been called to be.  When we love, we imitate Jesus who laid down His life out of love for us.  Imitating Christ, the perfect human being, makes us more human.  Therefore the more we love the more human we become.  Love leads us to make ourselves a gift to those we love.

In lust we are focused on ourselves.  When we lust after somebody, we are not concerned with what is best for the other person, rather we are only concerned with gratifying ourselves.  Unlike love which draws us out of ourselves to focus on others, lust turns us in on ourselves. Lusting after someone turns them into a thing that we must possess.  When we lust we become like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  Gollum was totally preoccupied with the ring.  It consumed him.  He had to have it.  Gollum’s desire for the ring destroyed his life.  Likewise when we lust after someone we dehumanize both them and ourselves.  The person we lust after becomes our “ring” and we, like Gollum, become totally turned in on ourselves, unable to focus on anything else in the world.  Lust destroys us, as Gollum’s desire for the ring destroyed him.  When we lust we become less human.  Lust is the opposite of love because it turns us in on ourselves.

Today’s gospel presents us challenge for us to examine and evaluate our relationships with others.  We can look at our relationships today and ask ourselves the simple question: in this relationship, am I more concerned with what I can give or with what I can receive from the other person?

Anger: good or bad?

Matthew 5: 20-26

Youcat #396

When I was young I used to play a game called “Don’t get angry”.  For many of us it seems like the name of this game describes our motto for how we approach the issue of anger.  We believe that we simply cannot get angry.  Is this really true though?  Is it bad to be angry?  When does anger become a sin?

It is important to understand that the emotion of anger is not a sin.  At first I had a hard time appreciating this until someone asked me once, “did Jesus ever get angry”?  I had to concede that in fact Jesus did get angry, for example when He cleansed the temple.  The emotion of anger is normal.  We should feel angry sometimes.  Anger is the natural reaction to a perceived injustice.  When we see injustice in the world, such as Jesus did when He saw how people were treating the Temple, the house of God, we should feel angry.  There are moments in our life when it is important to feel angry and we should not suppress this emotion.  In fact, if we went through life never feeling angry, then something would probably be wrong.  To feel angry at times can be a good thing and is not necessarily sinful.

The emotion of anger becomes problematic when it leads to hatred.  There is an appropriate way to deal with anger.  First we want to be sure that what we are angry about is truly an injustice.  If it is not, then perhaps we need to adjust our attitude.  If there is truly an injustice, the correct thing to do is to work to rectify the injustice.  Often, however, we deal with our anger in a destructive way, transforming it into hate.  When this happens, this normal and healthy emotion is transformed into a serious sin against charity.  In today’s gospel Jesus is speaking strongly against this.  Often we become angry at someone and we call them names, we speak badly about them or we are unforgiving.  When we respond to anger in this way, it is harmful and sinful.  Such uncontrolled anger, especially when it leads to desires for revenge, destroys peace.  When we deal with anger inappropriately, it leads us away from God and is sinful.

Today’s Gospel is invites us to reflect on how we respond to feelings of anger.  We need to find a balance.  Thinking that we should never get angry is not a Christian attitude.  The emotion of anger should lead us to take positive action to rectify injustice.   Is this the case in our life?  Let us look at our life and see if there are particular relationships are circumstances in which our emotions of anger lead us to hate or seek revenge.