"Depart from Me, O Lord"

(18th Sunday after Pentecost) (Luke 5:1-11)

“Well, when I get to heaven, I’ll explain it to God, and He’ll understand, and I will be forgiven.”

Maybe you know someone who has said something like that – or maybe you have said something like that. It’s probably a comforting thought to many; but, if you ask me, I think that, when we are summoned into the presence of God to give an account of our lives, we will find ourselves unable to speak, confronted as we will be with the fullness of the glory and majesty and righteousness of God. If we can say anything at all, it will probably be along the lines of what St. Peter says to our Lord after witnessing the miraculous catch of fish: “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

St. Paul, in his epistle to the Church in Rome, wrote to say that all of us have sinned, and so we have fallen short of the glory of God. Christ alone is without sin; the only human being to have lived without sinning. Now, you might say, “Well, His human nature was joined to Him in His divinity – so of course He did not sin!” That’s another way of saying, “Well, it was easy for Him!” That’s not true, of course. He was tempted as we are tempted; He knew every human weakness, every human desire – and overcame them. How? I’m sure that the absolute holiness and righteousness that God possesses by nature was part of the source of power our Lord Jesus used to live without sinning. But the greatest part of His power came through His obedience to the commandment He also gave to us: to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength; and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Above all, it was His love for God the Father that allowed our Lord to overcome sin.

What does this mean for us? It means that we have a path we can follow, if we will choose to do the same. Think about it. It is true that we did not come down from heaven and become incarnate, so we do not have a divine nature by the natural order of things. We are not holy and righteous by nature. However, we have been given grace to accomplish what is not ours by birth; we have been given the life of Christ in our Baptism, and the power of the Holy Spirit in chrismation. And we have the commandment to love God, and to love our neighbor. This means that the only thing that keeps us from fulfilling what has been established in us is our love for the pleasures of this world, and the desires of our flesh. We love ourselves more than we love God; because if the reverse were true, it would mean more for us to choose the way of holiness than the way of sin. We love ourselves more than we love our neighbor; because if the reverse were true, we would not murder them, or steal from them, or desire what they have; we would not speak harshly to them, or about them; we would consider ourselves to be better, more worthy, or more entitled to fame and power and prestige than they are. And so all we can say, in the light of truth, is that we are sinners – and that the Lord would do well to depart from us.

But there’s good news. God, holy and righteous, has not departed from us, nor turned His back on us. Rather, He has come into our midst, and desires us to come to Him. It is His love for us that brings Him to us. It is His love for us that forgives our sins, and blesses us with the grace by which our lives are changed. It is His love for us that transforms us more and more into the likeness of His Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters: Let us consider the holiness of God, and how far we fall from showing His likeness. Let us, with St. Peter, confess ourselves to be sinners. Let us remember the love of God that saves us; and let us walk in His ways as an offering of ourselves in love to Him – to the glory of God, and the salvation of ou