First reading: Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm: Ps 95:1-2,6-9
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Gospel: Mark 1:21-28

I am telling you this for your own benefit,
not to impose a restraint upon you,
but for the sake of propriety
and adherence to the Lord without distraction.

The Lord imposes no restraint

When people hear faith, religion, church, God, Jesus, or anything similar, in many instances the reaction is — reaction. Oh, umm, religion, church, not so much for me. I live my life, am a good person, love others, I don’t need anyone telling me how I should live.

The passage in 1 Corinthians 7:35 reflected in today’s readings uses the word —propriety.— Other translations render the passage differently. The RSV renders it:

I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Propriety or the promotion of good order. One of the antiquated definitions of propriety is ones —true nature.—

Whatever the word, we are to understand Paul as saying that the Lord and His Holy Church have not been given for the sake of restriction, restraint, or an absence of freedom, but rather to call us to good order, to our true nature.

The Lord grants freedom

Truly, the Lord grants us freedom, not restraint.

What is freedom exactly? It is life in accordance with God’s will. It is our call to live as God designed, a design that is integral to us. Living rightly and properly is part of who we are. It is the calling we find in our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies; a call that permeates our lives. Freedom is our call to return to the life we were meant to live, to our true nature. St. Paul refers to this as being undivided, being undistracted.

Of course humanity lives in rebellion, division, and distraction. That part of us is the part which is bound to the way of the world, to sin. Sin is separation from our true nature. Certainly, at first glance, sin can be enticing, whether it be the road to gratuitous fulfillment, or to quick riches. We may think that we can find fulfillment in sin, in self-justification, but we can’t. Every time we choose to walk in that direction we walk away from who we are, we leave our humanity behind, humanity created by and modeled after God.

When we do wrong, whether it be small or large, we feel the breakage that occurs. We find ourselves in the midst of division and distration. Sometimes, we Christians think we are the only ones who feel distress at sin, that the rest of humanity is immune to guilt, to sorrow over sin, over the damage, small and large, that occurs every day.

We are not alone! We are all human, churched and unchurched person. We are as human as the person who doesn’t know God, or who thinks that God is an anachronism, an old fashioned myth.

All of us, all of humanity is called to live in accord with our true nature, possessing the happiness and peace only truth can bring. Every person is called to a destiny that attains to goodness. That is as certain as our adoption as children of God.

When a person accepts Jesus Christ’s revelation, when they are regenerated, they find the path to the fulness of truth. That fulness can only be found by faith.

Faith, belief, the Holy Church and Her teaching grant a better, a fuller understanding of the truth. Life in the Christian community guides us. The Church is given us as mentor and teacher. That is the exact reason Jesus granted the Church His Holy Spirit, His Word, and His body. In attaching himself to Her mankind finds the surest path to redemption, to healing, to unity, to being one with our true nature. Our union with Her provides the means to completeness. In Her we find the way, the truth, and the life — which is Jesus Christ.

True freedom is the fruit of the full truth

To be truly free, to be ourselves we need the whole truth. I don’t know about you, but I consider myself wholly inadequate in my ability to heal brokenness, to reform my life, to live rightly, to discipline myself so that every unworthy passion and desire in me is destroyed. I couldn’t find my way to my true nature with a map, a GPS, and a boatload of good intentions. I need the full truth, the fullness of freedom found in following the path God Himself set for us. He shows me the way. He tells me that my potential, my latent perfection, will grow as I fall into His arms. His Word is my map, my GPS and His Holy Church is the storehouse of prayer and grace — the good intentions I really need.

How silly really, to live in unbelief, to discount God, and the witness of His followers, to rely on oneself. Let us consider our lives. Where would truth come from if not from God? Where is the path of freedom, enlightenment, and righteousness? Does it lie in manmade systems, new age spirituality, politics, trends, sexual licentiousness, in riches, or in worldly power? If there is any truth out there, in the ways of man, its seed is from God – the Father of truth.

The truth and goodness found in each and every person is the call and entryway to the path of truth, the full truth, real freedom, our claim to our true nature. Whatever is apart from this call and entryway is false and apart from our true nature. Those things that are apart from our true nature, the things that are sin, may feel good for a moment, at least until we open up the closet and uncover the bodies, disclose the skeletons, and realize that we are short of perfection and have missed the point.

In accepting the truth of God, His revealed truth, which He delivered to us in person, we embark on the path to the full truth, to complete freedom, and to the perfection found in unity with God.

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?—¨”

The answer to evil is yes, He came to destroy you.

Truth shuts out and destroys evil. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, crushed evil’s representative. What He did for the man with an unclean spirit, He does for us. He sets us free from bondage to our evil inclinations, our distractedness and division. By setting us free He sets, or re-sets us, on the path to our true nature.

‘Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God,
nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’
And the LORD said to me, ‘This was well said.
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin,
and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him.

The great fire is in the Word

Israel was afraid. They gathered at the foot of the mountain. A line was set, that they weren’t to cross. The people were in fear at the Lord’s coming:

Now when all the people perceived the thunderings and the lightnings and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled; and they stood afar off,
and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.”

The people were afraid and would not approach God. God came in fire and cloud, speaking to Moses. Now God has come in the manner revealed to Moses. He comes as the new fire and His fire is His Word, the Word that shows us the path to our true nature.

By the fire of the Word we are strengthened and renewed

God’s Word is the fire that clears away falsehood, division, and distraction. In accepting His Word, letting it enter our hearts, allowing the Word to permeate our lives, we become strengthened and renewed. Moreover we renew the world by demonstrating lives lived in accord with humanity’s true nature. Our renewal, our acceptance of God’s fire, burns away all that stands in the way of perfection. The fire of God’s grace changes everything, from the way we cook, clean, cut the grass, and shovel the snow, to the way we work with colleagues and relate to our spouses, parents, children, friends, and strangers.

When the stranger comes to us he sees a people living in holiness and peace. The stranger finds us undivided and undistracted, focused on being the body of Christ, a body that welcomes, loves, cares for, and respects him. The stranger, all those we meet, finds Christ present through us, in our touch, our work, our charity, and ultimately in our ability to treat them as a fellow members of the body of Christ.

on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught

He enters this temple and teaches us. Jesus is here, in His Holy Church. He is here, not to limit, not to restrain, but to set us free. In Him we are freed of sin, we are walking the path that is true to our nature. In Him all are free.—¨ We are undivided and undistracted — focused on adherence to the Lord — Jesus Christ — our freedom. Amen.