THE IN-BETWEENS

 A SERMON FOR THE 15TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

You’ve probably noticed, if you’ve thought about it at all, that there are three types of people in this world—the saints, the incorrigible sinners, and then the people in between.  The point of today’s Epistle is to encourage us to question where we stand in this mix, and of course to remind us of the result of our choice.  Last week we spoke about making that choice between God and mammon.  This Sunday, we are taken past the choice itself in order to think about the consequences of what we choose.  The punch line, of course, is that “whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.”  So if we want to reap good things for all eternity, we had better choose the eternal good, which is God, over the temporal pleasures of this life, which is mammon.

So let’s ask ourselves when we get a private moment… am I a holy person, one that successfully fights his temptations, who is always of a kind, charitable, truthful disposition, displaying heroic virtue on a daily basis, voluntarily doing penance for my own faults and for the sins of the world?  Or am I so despicable that I don’t even bother struggling against my inclinations to self-indulgence, treating other people with contempt, hatred, neglect, while I seek nothing more out of life than to enjoy my bad habits and godless lifestyle, whatever the cost?  If we’re honest, we’ll probably come to the conclusion that we fall into that category of the “in-betweens”, neither all good nor all bad, but a mixture of both.  That’s actually where just about everybody in the world is.  Only our blessed Mother has ever been completely sinless, and if we look carefully even at the most evil of dictators, serial killers, psychopaths and Democrats, we’ll usually find that there are one or two relatively nice things about them.  So realizing you’re an in-between should not come as a huge shock.

The point is, it isn’t so much where you are on the ladder of perfection that’s important.  It’s whether you’re climbing up it or sliding down it that matters.  We’re all a work in progress, so we need to figure out which way we’re progressing.  Obviously, if you conclude that you used to be a better person yesterday than you are today, then it’s time to take stock and change direction.  And if you can honestly say you’re improving, then don’t let yourself get discouraged, keep up the hard work and continue climbing ever upward—“Excelsior!”—it’s the state motto of New York, and one we should all adopt.

But then there are the“in-betweens” who are neither moving up that ladder of perfection, nor sliding down it.  They’re stuck, not so much on a rung as in a rut.  This is a dangerous place to be, and where some kind of action is absolutely essential.  Because we aren’t going to remain stuck on that one rung for very long.  Eventually we’ll get tired.  And the more tired we get, the harder it is to take that next step up it.  If we just allow nature to take its course, then we’ll become a victim of that fallen human nature.  We’ll fall.  The nature of gravity is that it pulls us down.  The nature of the human being does exactly the same thing. It’s so much easier to stop climbing and gradually head on back down.  Worse yet, we might even fall off the ladder completely, and then God help us!  “Let us not be weary in well doing,” exhorts St. Paul, “for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

There’s a name for these people who remain stuck on the ladder, neither aspiring to the heights of holiness nor abandoning themselves entirely to a life of sin.  They’re called “mediocre.”  And let’s face it, the majority of the human race fall into this category of mediocrity.  We lead mediocre lives.  We live out our days in a never-ending series of reactions to our feelings and emotions.  To be sure, we have some sense of the powerful effects our choices can have on our life.  We read something or we hear something that inspires us for a moment, but we aren’t quite sure we believe it.  Or, if we do believe it, we can’t be bothered to act on it because we know it will make us change the way we act, and change requires too much work, work which we just aren’t willing to do, time and energy we aren’t prepared to invest, nice things or relationships we’re not prepared to abandon.  Instead, we choose to live our days content with being mediocre.  We’re content to climb a few steps up the ladder and then slide back down it as soon as temptations come, never really getting any higher.  We live life hoping for the best but resigning ourselves to what we are, and lacking the fortitude to go beyond that hope and actually act. 

What’s the opposite of “Ever Upward”, Excelsior?  Our first thought would probably be that it’s “Ever downward,” but let’s face it, very rarely would people go so far as to adopt that motto, The most dangerous motto you can give yourself is this: “I am what I am.”  First, we content ourselves with what we are, eventually, if you can believe it, we end up justifying it, and then actually taking pride in it.  “Look at me, with my nose ring and my blue hair, flying my rainbow flag—nobody’s going to dictate to me how to lead my life.  I do what I want!  Anyone who tells me I’m wrong—parent, teacher, priest—is being (and here’s the most disparaging word they can come up with) ‘judgmental.’  Nope, I am what I am.”  And it all starts the day we lose our determination to climb that ladder of perfection.  But we will harvest only in proportion to our aspirations and the effort we put into realizing them.  We will reap what we sow.

We’re in the month of September now.  The weather’s starting to change, we’ve entered into the last quarter of the Church’s liturgical year, and we’ve begun to think about the four last things—death, judgment, heaven and hell.  Saints, sinners and the in-betweens…  The saints go quickly, some even instantly, to heaven when they die.  The incorrigible sinners will go equally quickly to their own destination.  And the mediocre?  The In-Betweens?  We lie in the balance, and the danger is always there.  I hate to be the messenger in this regard, but let’s remember that the regret we’ll experience in Purgatory for not having done better could be long and will be painful, far worse than anything we have ever experienced in this life.  We don’t like to think too hard or often about Purgatory, except to make our prayers for the Holy Souls there.  The thought that we are going to actually be one of those Holy Souls, is not something we like to focus on, the idea that we’re going to suffer an anguish never imagined, an agonizing regret at the wasted opportunities of our mediocre lives, when we allowed ourselves to wallow in our banal attachments to the fleeting pleasures and comforts of our daily routine.  “What was I thinking?”  “Why didn’t I realize I was going to reap what I sowed?”  Well, today, let’s realize it once and for all, and do what it takes to make sure our stay in Purgatory is shortened as much as humanly possible.  Let’s resolve with utter determination to progress ever upward, so that when we die, we hear the voice of our blessed Lord fulfilling our quest in the words of today’s Gospel, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.”