December 8, 2006
Genesis 3:9-15, 20 + Ephesians 1:3-6, 11, 2 + Luke 1:26-38
No one has ever asked me to reassign the scriptures
we proclaim for Feats and Seasons,
but if they do, I’m going right to this day and strike the Gospel text, saving it for another occasion.
First: because it contributes to confusion about what this feast celebrates.
Second: because it is repeated on plenty of other feasts.
Now, I am not certain what I might choose to replace it,
but I can wait till they ask me to work on that.
The point here is to explore what it means “to be without sin”,
and I am not sure we get that point very universally.
The consequence of not getting that point is that
Mary Immaculate become Mary the Distant,
Mary the so perfect forget about trying to imitate her,
or Mary the pure who has nothing in common with us.
When we get to that point, it’s a tragedy which neither the church
nor Mary herself could accept.
The point is: what does it mean to be without sin?
We can’t imagine, let alone desire to be without sin if we do not
continue to consider what it is and face its consequences.
As both a repentant sinner and a confessor, I can assure you,
identifying sin, naming it, and avoiding it is serious, tough business.
It has little if anything to do for that matter
with little spots or big spots on our soul.
It trivializes the greatness of being without sin
to think it means she didn’t gossip, use bad language in traffic,
cheat on a test, tell a lie, or skip her night prayers because she was tired.
Genesis gives some good thinking about this matter
and a good clue when it describes Adam and Eve in their sin.
They hid from God!
They turned away from God preferring earthly things to the divine.
They talked to a snake: preferring that conversation
to conversation with God.
That and its consequences is what sin is all about,
and we are invited to consider on this Feast
why we have not and do not choose to be more like our mother,
for that is exactly how we are invited to see her
by putting the image of Eve,
mother of mankind before us in the first reading.
There is a new Eve now:
a new mother of a race that is called to sinlessness.
She is not to be put on such a distant pedestal with such perfections
that we are hopeless to think we might imitate her.
Her gift is that she was open to God in all things and at all times.
Her sinlessness is found in her willingness to change her plans,
to embrace the uncertain, to suffer fear, the doubt, the confusion
of seeking the Will of God above her own will.
For her being sinless means she was never closed to God.
She never turned away from God nor led anyone else to do so.
She did not hide from God, blame anyone, nor refuse anything God asked of her. That is sinlessness.
Put simply, Sin is what gets between us and God.
Laziness, Self-indulgence, Greed, Sex, Pride, all that stuff.
If it gets between us a God, it’s sin.
But she did not turn away from God or let anything else get between her and God. That is sinlessness.
This is not impossible: being without sin.
because we too are full of grace,
redeemed, and purified by the Blood of the Lamb.
Without sin, we do not hide.
Without sin, we can be filled with the Spirit.
Without sin, we receive gifts and wonder first how to use them for the glory of God and for others without wondering how to keep them.
Without sin, the Word of God is conceived in us
and all creation so that every human life is sacred.
This feast invites us to imagine what it means to be without sin
and so discover what it is that has come between us and God.