When I left the Sunday service yesterday, I felt a bit peeved. The homily did not lift my soul. In fact, I found the homily terribly negative, all about the things we shouldn't do, all about the evils we should avoid.
I sat in the pew and thought of the temptation of Jesus in the desert, and wondered what Jesus would preach about this event. And it came to me, Jesus would turn it around. He would tell us that with every "no" we must say, there must also be a corresponding "yes" to something else. To think of life's choices only in terms of things we must say "no" to is to make our life negative, to make ourselves only half alive!
A good example of what I'm saying comes from the gospel of Matthew. Jesus is asked to choose which commandments of Moses is the greatest. Instead, he replies: You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind...You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. (22:36-40)
Just as the people of Jesus time got caught up in the "no" of life, so too can we. Think of Lent. Do we not make it a time of mostly things to say "no" to? What if we turned it around like Jesus did, and instead made it a time to make a list of "yes" choices? We can visit someone who is sick, call someone who is lonely, give time to a good cause. We can forgive an offense, forget an injury, say a kind word. Such actions would be "yes" actions. And an abundance of many "yes" actions would bring so much sunshine into our lives!
