Raise your hand if you consider yourself mature?

According to latest studies, phycologists suggest that a woman’s brain fully matures between the ages of 22-25. For men, their brain does not finish developing until around the age of 30. We look for traits of maturity in people and ourselves: the capacity to be responsible, to regulate emotions, to be independent, to know the limits, to set healthy boundaries, to show empathy. What about spiritual maturity? When and how do you become spiritually mature? Is it when you do your confirmation? What are the signs that we are spiritually mature?

The book of Joshua narrates the important moment when the people of Israel finally enter the promise land after 40 long years. Why did it take them 40 years of wandering in the desert? Because of their spiritual immaturity. They had to wait one whole generation until God considered them ready to responsibly receive the promised land. And now the wait is over, they finally reach the edge of the Jordan river, they have to get across, but to do so God repeats the scene of their deliverance from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea, to remind them of what he had done for them.

Upon reaching the Jordan, God tells Joshua to instruct the priests to carry the Ark of the Covenant and for people to follow behind them as they began to walk across the river. As soon as the feet of the priests entered the river, the water resided and everyone would be able to cross over to the other side on dry land. Once they got to the other side they made camp and the first thing they did was renew their covenant with the Lord. A sign of maturity was their willingness to worship the one true God, to be grateful, and to be willing to let go, sacrifice, for the sake of the community. The covenant renewal had these elements: they celebrated the Passover, they placed memorial stones around the camp to remind them of how God had been with them the whole time, and they circumcised all the boys born during the time in the desert, a form of sacrifice whereby the circumcision of the boy benefited the whole family, claiming them as part of the covenant.

After God sees their mature response, he says what we heard in the first reading: today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you. What does that mean? What is the reproach of Egypt?

It is the mockery of the faith of the Israelites by the Egyptians. During those 40 years, they underwent trials, not only in their own faith and trust in God, but in the insults they received from those in the outside. You say your God is the only true God… that he is good and delivered you from slavery in Egypt… but for what? To wander around in the desert? What foolishness! What a waste of time! How pathetic! But, they persevered, and in the face of these doubts God affirms his faithfulness to the people, shows his power to them, and asked them to renew their commitment to their mission as God’s people.

The reproach of Egypt is still with us today by those who look at the Church and the Christian faith with doubt. You say you pray, but for what? Nothing changes, you are not saved from tragedies, from diseases, from suffering… what a waste of time! You give money to the Church, but for what? She is just as corrupt and money hungry as any other institution. If Christianity is so great and important, if you say you need Jesus to be saved, then why are there so few people attending Mass? Why do only 20-30% of your young people continue going to Church after confirmation? What a joke… you don’t even have men wanting to be priest anymore, or people seeing the importance of getting married in the Church… your religion is losing relevance, no one takes you Catholics seriously anymore, besides you are all just obsessed and hung up on sexual sin.

A spiritually immature person would hear these things and either be discouraged, feel embarrassed, agree with them and abandon the practice of the faith, or be so enraged that they respond with violence. But not you, you are spiritually mature after all, you are the person that Paul calls: an ambassadors for Christ. A mature Christian is an ambassador for Christ.

The parable of the two sons comes to us at the heart of lent to make sure that we have the right mature attitude to be ambassadors for Christ. The two sons represent immature faiths. The younger son sees religion as nothing more than discipline and tradition. He wants to break free of the baggage of these old and irrelevant traditions of his parents. He feels that it is cramping his freedom. He wants to be free to do things his own way. I’m sure we all know someone like that… maybe we were or are right now that son.

It is a type of attitude that naturally emerges in youth, many young people view the church like that today, an irrelevant set of rules and regulations that just makes people less free. But to be mature means you realize you might not know everything, that maybe there is something important about having structure, about this two-thousand-year-old tradition. The son realizes that leaving behind all the structure of his home does not end up being good for him, in fact he needs the wisdom of tradition and without it he gets lost. So, for you young people, you need the wisdom of your elders, your parents and godparents, the teachings of the Church no matter how antiquated or irrelevant they might seem.

No one is going to take you seriously as a human being if you are not grounded on something greater than your ego. No one is going to take you seriously as a Christian if it does not reflect in a committed way of life. Seeking unlimited freedom has never ended up well for anyone. True freedom comes from being able to benefit from the wisdom of tradition so that we don’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel and repeat mistakes, and so that we are free to move ahead with life in a positive way.

Then there is the older son whose immaturity is seeing religion as a way to control sinfulness. He desires more rigid structure, more strict rules that guarantee order that keep people in line. He wants his brother punished for his irresponsible behavior, but his overly structured life has not served him all that well either. He is doing all the right things but has become bitter and unhappy, he never feels totally adequate in anything he does, never good enough, he wants other people to be treated more severely to make himself feel superior. We’ve all known someone like that, the hypocrites, the religious zealots who are anything but nice, who condemn everyone. Maybe that was us at one point, maybe that is where we are right now.

His resentment comes to light at the celebration of his brother’s return home. He lashes out at his father; look all these years I have slaved for you and you’ve never given me anything! He may look spiritual on the surface but inside he is angry with God and resentful of other people.

This spiritual immaturity often happens with adults who get frustrated when things do not go the way they hoped, when the failure they feel is projected onto God, and the only way to cope is by trying to control religion itself. No one is attracted by an image of God as a strict rule maker. They will either rebel against it or they will always feel that they’re not measuring up. They will live in fear of God’s punishment, but they will always want others to be punished. They drill the faith like a military sergeant on their children only to be upset when they cannot control the fact that their children end up leaving the strict faith they shoved down their throats. A spiritually immature Christian teen and young adult desiring the freedom to do what they want with a spiritually immature Christian adult presenting them an overly controlling and angry God… recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, this is not the truth about God. So, if to be a mature Christian is to be an ambassador for Christ, what do you need to know about God so as to present to others who God really is?

Paul gives us three truths truth about God; God does not count our trespasses against us. God is not about making rules and looking for who’s disobeying them. God is like the father in the parable desiring our growth and fulfillment. While the son was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him. God is like that father sitting at the window looking out, hoping, praying that the son is going to come back. The younger son rehearses a whole speech to give to his father to try to convince him not to be so hard on him; father I no longer deserve to be called your son… but he only gets out the first words before his father interrupts him with mercy. The only thing that can keep us from receiving God’s love is our own doubts. This is the truth about God that we are called to bring to those who have come to think that God has rejected them.

The second great truth about God is that for our sake God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Paul reminded us of this on Ash Wednesday. In Christ, God has entered into the very heart of the condition of sin and suffering in order to assure us of God’s constant presence and care for us. That is the truth about God that we are called to bring to those who are weighed down by the pressures of life. Not a God who is distant, but God who understands our weakness and walks with us through the challenges of life. We become mature Christians, ambassadors of Christ, when we do as he said: love one another as he loved us, by willingly accompanying those who suffer.

The third great truth about God; whoever is in Christ is a new creation. A mature faith will inspire others to let God transform their lives, to discover their gifts of the Holy Spirit, to see their place as important in the Church and the world. This is the truth about God that we are called to bring to those who need change in their life. The only thing that will restore the credibility of Christianity and the church is if people really see us living lives of committed love.

Here lies the final and main point I want to make: A life of committed love means we are not free to do whatever we want. In committed love we freely allow our freedom to be limited by the needs of the people we love. In committed love, we freely allow our freedom to be limited by the needs of the people we love.

Family, we are ambassadors for Christ. In the famous words of Saint Teresa of Avila;

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Jesus has given us all we need to be the mature people of God, we are no longer wandering in the desert, we have been given the kingdom of God on earth, the promise land, the Church. It is up to us to give people reasons for hope rather than reasons to mock the faith because they cannot see through us the beauty of Christ. We are Catholic after all. We renew our covenant, our commitment to mission with the only sacrifice that transforms lives and the world. We receive the body and blood of Christ to become the presence of Christ to those who need to know the power of God’s love.

Fr Carlos