Do the laws inthe twentieth chapter of the Book of Leviticus still apply? It is an important question in light of events that have happened recently.

 

The list indicates something later highlighted by Saint Paul that certain actions are grave sins, mortal sins: sins that lead to the death of the soul. So the question is not whether or not they are still sins, but whether they are still punishable by physical death handed out by people like you and me. The reason why this question is important is because of recent events. We still may not be among those who violently attack people who commit such sins, but we also need to explain why we don’t to those who stand on Leviticus and can quote it chapter and verse.

 

Now before anyone gets an incorrect idea of what my homily is about or where I am going: let me say that this homily is to explain an important Church teaching in light of today’s Gospel. Further, I am consistently against the death penalty, I am generally against entering a war and as I remind all my liberal friends who disagreed with the second Gulf War that prior to it starting, unlike most of them, I marched against it in Washington, DC. Remember Pope St. John Paul II also warned against entering that war. I am also against the call for pastors to carry guns in church and refuse to carry one myself. Although, I was trained in the use of firearms in the Navy, I have never applied for an FID card. Finally, the homily is not delivered in any act of solidarity with anyone, except with the teachings of the Church.

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In today’s gospel, Jesus and the apostles experience severe persecution by the Samaritans. The Samaritans and the Jews really despised each other and the question was on how God should be worshipped within the Jewish world. The Samaritans were, through no fault of either side, physically separated from the Jews for centuries and their liturgical practices did not follow the same evolutionary pattern as did the Jews. This led them to be grave enemies when they were allowed to rejoin physically.

 

So here the Samaritans persecute, severely, Jesus and his apostles. Look carefully, the apostles understand that they have the power to condemn the Samaritans and demand God’s deathly punishment upon them. They recognize that they have that power. There is an interesting thing that happens. In your Bible verse in front of you, Jesus rebukes the Apostles, but in older versions of the Bible, He is quoted: “You know not of what spirit you are.”

 

So, Jesus clearly disagrees with the apostles’ call for vengeance and even condemns the spirit in which they make it.

 

We can see a deeper look at this response in light of Leviticus in the actions of St. Paul. We all know that when St. Paul was just Saul, he actively engaged in the execution of one of the early Christians, a man we now call St. Stephen, who was one of the first ordained deacons. However, that was when Paul not only was called Saul, he was a zealous Jew. We read his words and his actions in the Acts of the Apostles and in most of the letters of the New Testament. The Christian St. Paul cites those who commit grave sins, but he never calls for their execution. There are death sentences that do emanate from him in one point,

 

Neither do the rest: with one bizarre exception

 

Two people, a husband and wife, Annais and Saphira come forward claiming that they are donating everything they have to the community, but they lie, they secretly are keeping some for themselves. One at a time, and separately, they bring forth their less than complete donation to the church. In both cases, without anyone taking physical action against them, they drop dead when confronted by Peter for their false claim of generosity. But Peter does not kill, they are presumably dispatched by God himself.

 

In other cases, Paul cites serious sins and makes it clear that those who commit those sins will not see the kingdom of Heaven, but again that is God’s judgement, Paul takes no actions in his own hands, except for the call to conversion.

 

In the only other case in which Paul does call for action against a sinner, it is where a man is living with his step-mother. Paul cites this as such a grave aberration that even the pagans do not engage in it. However, his response is for the man to be cast to Satan, that means cast out of the Church.

 

This brings us to understand our way of living in light of the prevalence of certain sins in the world. The time of Leviticus was the time of the Jewish law, but we live under the law of grace and so the punishments at the hands of the community demanded in Leviticus no longer apply. God enacts his judgement, we do not.

 

Not only do we see this in St. Paul but in the history of the Church, the saints often called us to understand that our role is to live the Catholic faith so that our works of mercy challenge others in the way they live their lives. Never has it been our call to take upon ourselves God’s judgement physically, although there are times that others did in fact do that and we see today how wrong they were. I always remind people there has never been a Saint Tomás de Torquemada, who was the grand inquisitor. He was vehemently rejected by the way, by such priests as Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas.

 

St. Francis, a former soldier, rejected the killing Crusades. The saints, including such powerful men like St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom taught that our faithfulness to the call of virtue in the Gospel is our weapon against grave sins not only in our own lives, but also as examples as way the Lord works through us to bring the Gospel to others.

 

Indeed, greater than all the sins listed in Leviticus or even in Paul’s list is the sin of not attending mass, because that sin takes lightly God’s call to us to be His witnesses on the Earth in our worship of Him.

 

What St. Paul teaches and what the saints often taught is that our role is to serve God in holiness, we are to testify against sin and for holiness by our lives. God and not his people carries out any sentence against others. It is never our role to call down God’s wrath upon others and we can say at least it has not been since the time of this Gospel.

 

So, we do not engage in carrying out God’s wrath upon the world. We instead live our Catholic life in a way that we become lights to others and salt to the world, that others’ hearts may change when they ask us why we do what we do. This is why our standard of moral behavior from rejecting artificial contraception, staying faithful to our vows within sacramental marriage, or ordination and of course baptism and confirmation, fasting on certain days, engaging in daily prayer and weekly mass attendance and seeking to live holy lives as well as even taking strong personal stands against such things as vengeance and violence puts us at odds against many in our culture, but that is the way it is supposed to be. Remember, Dorothy Day, cited by Pope Francis in the US Congress, was a pacifist including during World War II.

 

If we engage in any form of violence against another because of their sinful behavior as an agent of God’s judgement, then we commit a grave sin for it is not God’s will for us to enact violence upon others, “vengeance is mine says the Lord” (Romans 12). It is ours to do good to our persecutors St. Paul explains. Our role is to live in a way that people change their behaviors, turn from sin and turn their hearts to Christ. If there is any physical action to be committed to those who sin, it is to ourselves in reasonable forms of mortification and other acts of penance in what we practice in Lent and in most countries what is practiced by Catholics on Fridays.

 

So, if you hear people say that the Bible gives permission to hurt and even kill another because of their sinful behavior, including the false report in the New York Times that says that St. Paul called for the execution of gays, it is your right and duty to teach them otherwise. That is called living the corporal work of mercy: instructing the ignorant.

God bless you,

Fr. Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo  of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MAand is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube.  You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr. Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook