Want to go to prison?

Have you ever wished you were a prisoner, locked up in some small, stuffy cell, not able to come and go as you please? If you have, I recommend you find a good therapist, and find one fast. It's not a normal thing to have the desire to lose our freedom. We all deeply want to be free. In fact, many people have died in order to preserve freedom for their country and for their fellow citizens. Freedom is one of the highest ideals of humankind.

And yet the sad truth is that many of us give up our freedom so easily. We choose paths which are narrow and which squeeze the life out of us. We willingly give up our freedom so that we can gain something that is usually not worth very much at all. We choose the small stuffy cramped cell over the wide world filled with God's love and grace.

Imprisoned By Our Choices

We do this every time we choose not to love our neighbor. Whenever we turn our back on the legitimate needs of another person, we are heading back into our prison cell. It's true that often the short road back to our own personal prisons is a much easier road than the road towards caring for someone else. In fact, that's probably why we go that way in the first place. It's an easier path, but it doesn't lead to a place that gives us genuine life.

We are often under the illusion that if we keep our hearts only for ourselves, if we don't go out in caring towards others, that we will remain free. We will be free of any obligations to others, won't we? But we will also be free of any real love in our lives. When we refuse to give love, then the sad end to the tale is that we also refuse to receive love. We end up in our lonely cells, wondering what went wrong with our lives.

In the letter to the Galatians we heard: For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There it is. We only have to worry about one thing—everything else will eventually fall into place if we only take care of that one thing—loving our neighbor.

Devouring One Another

But St. Paul seemed to know people very well because he also warns us that, even though we are called to love, we can easily destroy one another. "If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." This image is savage and crude. People taking bites out of one another, even to the extent of actually destroying another person. We talk about tearing a person down, or savaging a person's reputation. St. Paul is telling us that we have the power to devour others by our unfounded and unthinking remarks.

It's sad, but probably all of us have had some experience where we saw a person's good name or reputation destroyed by the unthinking and cruel words of someone else. It doesn't take much to create suspicion in the minds of people. Just the slightest hint that you suspect someone might have done something wrong is often all that it takes.

Innocent Gossip?

And once our words are out, we all know how difficult, if not impossible it is, to take those words back. Once released, they seem to have a power of their own—a power to destroy. The judgments we make about others, and the words we use about them, can have an absolutely devastating effect. There is no such thing as innocent gossip.

It's clear that this kind of behavior does not lead to freedom. We become a slave to gossip and slander, thirsting for the next juicy revelation. It's often the case that we engage in this tearing down of one another because we have been hurt in some way and we want to take some revenge on the other person. We feel justified in our behavior. A quick look at our gospel today shows us Jesus refusing to even think about the possibility of taking revenge on the Samaritans.

Revenge

Revenge ties us to the person with whom we are angry. It imprisons us in a way that can often destroy us. How many people have found themselves in prison because they took revenge on another person? We must stop any thoughts of revenge and retaliation before they have the chance to affect us in such a negative way.

The way to freedom is the way of love. It leads us out of the darkness of hate to the path of goodness and kindness and light. May we follow Jesus down the path, which will bring us all together in his love.